I love discovering remarkable women in the mists of medieval and Renaissance European history. All too often, though, a tantalizing mention in a footnote or a female name in a notarial register is nothing more than a single flash of light.
Chasing that luminous glow, I stumble through the dark caverns of history, searching for elusive female painters, scribes, business owners, merchants . . . and the trail grows darker and darker until it ends at a blank, cold stone wall.
Once in a while, the trail stays brightly lit. I follow it with growing excitement, thrilled to find multiple resources shedding light on a particular woman. I feel lucky to be witness to a multilayered story, and I can’t wait to dig up more details, build a satisfying portrait of the woman in my mind. Then I create a character inspired by that person, a world inspired by her world, and I craft a fictional story in her honor.
So it went with The Pirate’s Physician. (Purchase here). I created Giuliana Rinaldi, the heroine of this companion novella to my Sea and Stone Chronicles series, back in 2020. A few years previously, I’d read the Mistress of the Art of Death series by Ariana Franklin (the pen name of the late writer Diana Norman). I’d been captivated by her fiery medieval physician character, Adelia, who was a physician trained at the illustrious medical school of Salerno, Italy.
Poking around in history, I realized that Adelia was likely inspired by a real-life woman physician named Trotula of Salerno (she’s also known as Trota). I had already done a lot of research on medieval medicine in the Eastern Mediterranean (my novels for that series are set in and around the islands of Rhodes and Cyprus). I’d learned that Arabic medicine was very advanced compared to most Western European medical practices, as were Jewish medical traditions.
I was fascinated to discover that at least in its first few centuries of operation (probably beginning around the 10th century) the medical school of Salerno welcomed women and practitioners of all traditions. Trotula of Salerno was not only a practicing physician in the 11th or 12th century (exact dates from this time period are fuzzy). She also wrote and published treatises on women’s health that became famous throughout Europe.
The Italian city of Salerno on the Amalfi Coast with Arechi Castle in the foreground. Photo courtesy of Deposit Photos.
I am grateful to scholar Monica H. Green for all the work she’s done to dig up the truth about Trotula, because there has been a lot of misinformation circulating about her over the centuries. For more information about Trotula’s life and work, please see my previous blog post, Trotula of Salerno: Medieval Physician and Trailblazer.)
Though I usually focus on women artists in my novels, I was so thrilled to find a trailblazing woman physician of the medieval era that I decided to honor her memory with a character in my series. Like Trotula and the fictional Adelia, my Giuliana also studied at the Schola Medica Salernitana. In the novels of the Sea and Stone Chronicles collection, she is a minor character doling out medical care and advice to the women of Rhodes, Greece.
Giuliana was gracious about being relegated to minor character status, but she tugged at my mind all the same, insisting she had a story I needed to tell. After several years of this, I agreed with Giuliana. Her tale was too good to keep under wraps.
But The Pirate’s Physician isn’t just about Giuliana Rinaldi. Her Basque love interest, a sometime pirate named Captain Eneko, was inspired by my interest in Basque culture. My first historical mystery series, The Miramonde Series, was set in the Pyrenees and features several Basque characters. I’ve also written magazine features about Basque country and recently completed a walking tour in Spanish Basque country with my husband. You could say I’m a little obsessed with all things Basque.
Traditional Basque homestead in the Baztan Valley of northern Spain. Photo by Amy Maroney
When I was there last fall, I told a local man about my books and he asked me why I care so much about Basque history. I told him there were some captivating things about his culture that made me want to write about it. For instance, the Basques have always allowed women to inherit. Unlike in most European cultures, where men traditionally received most of the wealth of their families no matter the birth order, Basque women who were firstborns inherited the family homestead.
During the medieval era, the Basque shepherding communities of the Pyrenees made “fueros” or agreements with neighboring regions. Using these agreements, the communities allocated grazing and water-sharing rights. They also established their own justice systems. They were not under the thumb of noble families; even the kings and queens of Spain left them alone. I found this amazing because most agrarian communities in Europe during this time did not have autonomy. Life was pretty miserable in feudal societies, especially for women.
Also, because early Basque culture revolved around the sea and fishing, men were gone for long periods at sea. Women were in leadership positions during these long absences, and took on positions of power during church rituals. (This did not go over well when the Catholic Church penetrated the Basque region later in the medieval era).
The Basque fishing village of Pasai Donibane on the Atlantic coast. Photo by Amy Maroney
This brings me back to Captain Eneko. He was inspired by all the research I’d done and my visits to Basque country—and by a single line in an academic paper on piracy in the Eastern Mediterranean.
According to legal records from the city of Famagusta in Cyprus during the fifteenth century, Catalan pirates used the city as a base for their operations. In protest, citizens of Famagusta made legal complaints against the city for allowing pirates to circulate freely there. One man complained that sometimes more than a hundred pirates from the Bay of Biscay (off the coast of Spain’s Basque country) would appear in the city streets. The ships they used were Atlantic whaling vessels called balenas.
This stunned me because I’d assumed the Basques just kept to themselves in the Atlantic Ocean, whaling and codfishing, but no. They were also adventurers seeking their fortunes in the Eastern Mediterranean.
(I’m grateful to Nicholas Coureas and Andreas G. Orphanides for sharing this and many other details of life in the medieval Mediterranean. Their work helped me create dazzling lost worlds in my Sea and Stone Chronicles novels.)
Those who have read Island of Gold, Sea of Shadows, and The Queen’s Scribe (the three novels of the Sea and Stone Chronicles) might recall a Basque ship that periodically appears in the harbors of Rhodes and Cyprus. I knew while I was writing these books that Basque pirates would somehow figure into the fictional world I was creating. But it wasn’t until I began plotting out The Pirate’s Physician that I figured out how to give them their moment in the spotlight.
Captain Eneko has quite a dramatic backstory of his own, but in The Pirate’s Physician, we only learn a few tantalizing details about his personal history. Unsurprisingly, he’s already whispering in my ear, goading me to get on with writing his story.
Eventually, I’m pretty sure, he’ll get what he wants.
Purchase The Pirate’s Physician here.
