In the late 14th century, Agnes Hotot (born circa 1378) of the House of Dudley fought a lance duel on behalf of her father, who was too ill to attend; and won. She is depicted on the Dudley coat of arms.




Agnes Hotot, (A.D. 1378? - ?). The coat of arms of the House of Dudley shows a woman in war helmet, dishelved hair hanging out, and her breasts exposed, commemorating a female champion. In the fourteenth century A.D., Agnes Hotot's father, of the House of Dudley, quarreled with another man and agreed to a lance fight to settle the affair. Upon the appointed hour, Agnes's father fell seriously ill. Agnes put on a helmet and disguised her sex, mounted her father's horse and set out for the tourney grounds. 'After a stubborn encounter,' Agnes dismounted her father's foe. When he lay on the ground, 'she loosened the stay of her helmet, let down her hair and disclosed her bussom,' so that he would know he had been conquered by a woman.
"It can never be known how commonly women fought in the tournaments we are all so familiar with from tales of knights and damsels. One thing is certain, the damsels were sometimes the knights, and Agnes was not the lonesome example. Tourney exercise would seem to have been essential or women such as Adelaide Ponthiey could never have gained the required expertise for her succes in the Crusades. Hunting with hound or hawk and equestrian arts were encouraged in the aristocratic lady of the Middle Ages; it is not a far leap from there to the tourneys."
A 1348 British chronicle tells of women 'free from matrimonial restraints' whose behavior startled the public: When the tournaments were held, in every place a company of ladies appeared in the the diverse and marvelous dress of a man, to the number sometimes of about forty, sometimes fifty, ladies from the more handsome and more beautiful, but not the better ones of the entire kingdom; in divided tunics, with small hoods, even having across their stomachs, below the middle, knives which they vulgarly called daggers placed in pouches from above. Thus they came on excellent chargers or other horses splendidly adorned, to the place of tournament. And in such manner they spent and wasted their riches and injured their bodies with abuses with ludicrous wantoness.' " http://www.lothene.demon.co.uk/others/women14.html" (information given by Geoff Cook - geoff.cook@btinternet.com)

Unable to locate any verification concerning Agnes, or any other female figure, in the Dudley heraldry/coat of arms. Tthe Dudley Family website with pictorial presentation of the Dudley coat of arms, as well as Family Crests shows no female representations. Google search contains several mentions indicating that the real existance of Agnes as a person is verifiable, thus indicating the alledged contest of arms did take place at best, and at worst it is a local legend several hundreds of years old. "http://www.dudleyfamilypages.20m.com/

Today we know the identities of only two female gladiators, who lived during the 1st or 2nd century A.D. The fight between Achillea and Amazonia was immortalized on a civic monument found at Halicarnassus (today’s Bodrum) in Turkey. That region of the Eastern Empire had seen war with local tribes, so the two may have been captives. Some promoter may have cooked up the match to re-enact that old Iliad story of Achilles and the Amazons. The monument shows us two stocky women armed with the gladius and shields. They fought bare-headed – their flying hair added to the drama. The crowd must have gone wild as they fought each other to a draw. Both women were spared – missae sunt, according to the monument. So Amazonia and Achillea walked out of the arena alive, with their money. "http://www.outsports.com/history/gayswithblades.htm"