I'm reading Noah Gordon's The Physician and am blown away by the scholarship that goes into a good historical novel, even when the period of history is sparsely documented and the author has to make a lot of stuff up. It'll take me five to ten years of study to feel that I can do a novel about a medieval herbalist who successfully negotiates the narrow path between, on one side, forced thralldom under the boot of a representative of patriarchy (father, husband, priest, brother, son), and on the other side, death, the social and/or physical death meted out to lone women during the consolidation of one of the several vast patriarchal (no other gods allowed nevermind goddesses) power grabs of which we now see the harvest as we slog into the 21st century.
MONOTHEISM KILLS!!!

"...the little borgo of Castiglione, in that lively storm centre, the Val d'Orcia, looked with unconcealed hatred upon the monastery of Vivo because of a dispute about the use of certain meadows. In 1328 the Castiglionesi to the number of two hundred suddenly fell on the monastery, raised their banner over its campanile, pricked with their swords and lances, evidently in the spirit of rude horse-play, Frate Ranieri, who was celebrating the Mass, robbed the furniture and cattle, devastated the fields, in short, conducted themselves in a manner entirely worthy of their aristocratic exemplars."

F. Schevill
Siena The History of a Medieval Commune


1328 is the date given for Simone Martini's fresco of the condottiere (mercenary soldier) Guido Riccio da Fogliano at Siena's Palazzo Publico. Sometime between 1320 and 25, the artist painted a Madonna and Child in Castiglione d'Orcia.