Catherine Called Birdy

In a medieval village, a skilled weaver teaches her daughter. She doesn’t hand her a finished tapestry and command her to copy it. Instead, she gives her a loom, a basket of rough, undyed wool, and a few simple instructions on how to spin it into thread. The daughter’s first attempts are lumpy and uneven. When she tries to dye the thread with onion skins and berries, the colors are blotchy. But with each mistake, she learns the feel of the fibers, the tension of the loom, the alchemy of the dye pot. Her mother doesn’t shield her from the frustration; she knows the struggle is what builds the skill. The goal is for the apprentice to find her own patterns, her own colors, her own voice, thread by messy thread.

This process of learning through direct, unfiltered experience is exactly what author Karen Cushman wanted to capture. As a historian specializing in medieval life, she was frustrated by textbooks that presented the era as a dry collection of kings, battles, and dates. She knew the past was populated by real people with muddy shoes, itchy clothes, and complicated feelings. She wanted to give young readers a way to feel the texture of that life. So, she created a character—a sharp, stubborn, and hilarious thirteen-year-old girl named Catherine—and set her loose in the year 1290. Cushman didn’t just write about medieval life; she built a loom for the reader, handed them the raw materials of history, and invited them to weave their own understanding of a world that was at once impossibly distant and startlingly familiar.

Module 1: The Cage of Noble Womanhood

The central tension of the book is the suffocating reality of being a high-born medieval girl. Birdy’s life is a paradox. She lives in a manor, a position of privilege. Yet she feels more trapped than the villagers she watches from her window. Her world is the solar, a private chamber where she’s forced into "lady-tasks." These are endless hours of spinning, weaving, and embroidery. She describes it as a mind-numbing torture. For Birdy, these tasks are a physical cage.

This leads to her first major act of defiance. To reclaim agency, you must first reject the roles society assigns you. Birdy doesn't just complain about her duties. She actively rebels against them. She intentionally messes up her embroidery, forcing her mother to make her unpick hours of work. She fantasizes about being a crusader, a monk, or even the pig boy—anyone whose life involves action and the outdoors. Her diary becomes her primary weapon. In it, she declares, "the words are my own." It’s her private space to mock, complain, and dream. This is where she builds the foundation of her own identity, separate from the one her family wants to impose.

From this foundation, Birdy moves from passive resistance to active sabotage. Her father, a greedy and brutish man she calls "the beast," decides it's time to marry her off. He sees her as an asset. A commodity to be traded for land or silver. He inspects her like livestock, checking her teeth and health. Birdy’s response is brilliant. When faced with an impossible system, use its own rules against it. She knows the marriage market is about appearances and value. So she makes herself worthless. For one suitor, a wealthy but foolish merchant, she blackens her teeth with soot, dresses her hair with mouse bones, and wiggles her ears. She turns herself into a grotesque caricature, successfully repelling him. For another, she spreads outrageous rumors about her own family's immense wealth, knowing her father's greed will lead him to reject a less-than-princely offer. She can't refuse the marriage outright, but she can manipulate the process from within.

But it doesn't stop there. Birdy understands that true freedom is about what you build. She finds a powerful lesson from Madame Joanna, a visitor who tells her that she has "wings" but must "learn to master them." This is a critical pivot. It shifts Birdy from frantic, chaotic rebellion to a more strategic understanding of her own power. True autonomy is learning to fly within the confines of the cage. Birdy realizes she can’t escape her world. But she can carve out spaces for herself within it. She starts compiling her own book of herbal remedies, a domain of knowledge she can own. She finds joy in small, defiant acts, like skipping in the yard on a solemn holy day. She learns that her power lies in changing how she navigates her circumstances. It's a lesson in finding freedom where none seems to exist.