Rebel Women: writing the Paston women back into history

The National Heritage Lottery funded Paston Footprint project, a partnership between the UEA and the Paston Heritage Society, aims to empower people to experience and connect with the Paston story and legacy. The Pastons were one of Norfolk’s most prominent families in the Late Middle Ages and had a remarkable rags to riches story. They demonstrated an extraordinary resilience to the turbulent times they lived in, especially the women whose courage and fortitude played a key role in their success. They were, in many ways, the first modern family. Their story is captured in the earliest surviving family letter collection in the world dating back to 1374 - the 'Paston Letters'. Utilising their existing social media presence across key social media sites, I devised a strategy and plan to raise awareness of the Pastons, tell their story and promote deeper engagement. Key to this was devising content themes that represent what is unique about the Paston family but that would resonate with a modern audience. One of these themes was 'rebel women' ; without the courage and fortitude of the Paston women there wouldn’t be such an extraordinary story to tell. However, beyond a couple of key characters the voices of these important women were largely unheard. On International Women’s Day we launched a ‘Rebel Women’ social media campaign to celebrate their achievements and help un-silence their voices. The rebel women content drove some of the highest levels of engagement to date and helped engage and convene some prominent female academics to write biographies of the Paston women for a new website - many of these biographies being the first written for the first time. It also led to a collaboration with local guerrilla art project Rosie's Plaques and Norfolk Heritage Centre youth groups who came together to write and make a series of alternative blue plaques to commemorate the contribution of the Paston women. The Margaret Paston plaque can be seen outside St Peter Hungate church in Norwich. Margaret was one of the key authors of the now famous Paston Letters; the most complete set of medieval family correspondence to have survived, which are now mainly kept in the British Library. Through the Rebel Women campaign we gave the Paston women a webpage of their own and a place to tell their story. We secured them a physical landmark in a city that's history is illuminated by the letters they wrote. We were able to elevate the Paston women to people of historic significance in their own right rather that in simply someones wife or daughter.