Matrix, based loosely on Marie de France, a poet-nun known to have been connected to Eleanor, is a gripping story about female power and ambition at a time women were supposed to have no power nor ambition. Vying for Eleanor’s approval becomes the engine of her ambition in turning around the fortunes of the abbey.
Back at court, living the life is Cecily, Marie’s ex-lover, and Eleanor, for whom Marie harbours a deep, unrequited love. ‘Three heads taller than any woman should be, crown brushing beams, bony as a heron’ what Marie lacks in beauty, she more than makes up for in intelligence, shrewdness and enterprise. Marie says thank you but that she needs no bath, that she bathed in November, and the abbess laughs and says that cleaning the body is also a form of prayer and at the abbey all the nuns bathe every month…Įight hours of prayers: Matins in the deep night, Lauds at dawn, followed by Prime, Terce, Sext, chapter, None, Vespers, collation, Compline, bed. It’s time for Marie’s bath, she says gently. Life in the Middle Ages left much to be desired… We can feel the damp cold, the smell of unwashed bodies and unbrushed teeth, the misty, muddy English countryside. The question is: how does Eleanor feel about that? And, anyway, are women really meant to achieve this much? If a story about nuns in a 12 th century abbey sounds dull to you, think again Matrix by Lauren Groff is an absolutely riveting read.įrom the first page, we’re transported to the darkest Middle Ages. There’s far more to Marie than meets the eye, however, and soon enough, she has turned the poverty-stricken abbey into a powerhouse. Deemed too ugly to marry, Marie, an orphaned ‘bastard’ with royal blood, is stowed away for life.
At seventeen, Marie is kicked out of Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine’s court in France and exiled to a godforsaken abbey in the English countryside.
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