author
Eileen Power
1889–1940
A lively medieval historian who helped bring economic and social history to a wider audience, she wrote with unusual warmth about everyday people in the past. Her books and broadcasts made the Middle Ages feel vivid, human, and surprisingly close.
2 Audiobooks
Medieval People
by Eileen Power
Medieval English Nunneries c. 1275 to 1535
by Eileen Power
About the author
Born in 1889, Eileen Power became one of Britain’s best-known medieval historians and an influential scholar of economic history. She studied history at Girton College, Cambridge, later spent time in Paris at the École des Chartes, and went on to teach at both Cambridge and the London School of Economics.
Her work stood out for its interest in ordinary lives rather than only kings and battles. In books such as Medieval People and Medieval Women, she explored merchants, peasants, nuns, and travelers with clarity and energy, helping to open up subjects that later became central to social and women’s history.
Power was also a gifted public communicator. Alongside her academic career, she gave radio talks and wrote for general readers, bringing serious history to a broad audience without making it feel heavy. She died in 1940, but her writing still feels fresh because of its curiosity, intelligence, and deep interest in how people actually lived.