The author of the critically acclaimed The Anchoress came across the story of St Margaret of Antioch, the patron saint of childbirth, who was swallowed by a dragon and burst out its back proclaiming herself a hero.

“She was determined to remain a virgin and a christian and I was struck by that story,” Cadwallader says.

“She was a woman with real agency, and her power came from her purity.”

Her research of St Margaret became her PhD thesis, published as Three Methods for Reading the Thirteenth-Century Seinte Marherete, by Mellen Press – “it’s academic writing, about female virginity and agency, and is actually more interesting than the title might suggest,” she says.

The more she read about St Margaret she realised her power was connected to her purity.

“The female body was considered to be such a sinful, inferior thing because of a woman's weakness and lustfulness. The only way a woman could be pure and powerful was to deny her body, deny her womanhood.”

During her thesis research she read that copies of the story were given to a group of “anchoresses” in the 13th century and she wondered what they were.

When she discovered they were young women who effectively locked themselves away in a tiny stone cell for life she was at once horrified and fascinated and she knew she had to tell a story.

And now she has penned another one, also mired deep in the Middle Ages. It’s not a sequel but at the end of The Anchoress, a young girl finds a burnt manuscript after a fire.  Her new book, Book of Colours, is the story of that manuscript.

It’s London, 1321, and a group of illuminators, or limners, the painters who decorated manuscripts, with intricate doodles, if you like, in the margins of important texts, have come together for a special commission.

The story switches back and forth between two timelines, the actual illustration of the book, and the reactions of the owner, Mathilda, as she looks back with hindsight over the period of its creation.

“I wanted to the bring together both the creator and reader,” Cadwallader says.

“I think pictures tell stories we don’t first see.

“In the Middle Ages that was very much the case, religious paintings were about telling stories.”

She had access to actual 14th-century manuscripts during a research stint at the British Library and couldn’t believe how intricate the illustrations were.

“There’d be all sorts of creatures and beautiful flowers and vines but a lot of funny stuff as well, hybrid creatures, pictures of people doing all sorts of stuff you wouldn’t expect, a lot of sexual drawings.

“They weren't just there to look at, there were symbols and ideas in them that you had to find.”

In that sense, there are more stories hidden away in Book of Colours as well.

Cadwallader, who lives in the village of Murrumbateman outside Canberra, wasn’t ready to let go of her discussion of a woman’s place in the Middle Ages and beyond.

“I'm really interested in the fact that women did so much real work during the Middle Ages, not just helping out, but real work, and they weren't given positions or recognised for what they did.”

A character in the book, Gemma, covers for her husband, one of the master illuminators, but goes unrecognised by those outside the small room in which they work.

Mathilda, a woman of high-standing, is left without little agency once her husband dies.

“The problems women faced back then are not dissimilar to a lot of today's problems,” she says.

“We struggle with women not getting equal pay and not being on boards and I was just reading the other day about Julia Gillard starting up the new centre in London and the figures there and I'm thinking yep, we haven't resolved a whole lot of things since the Middle Ages.”

Book of Colours, by Robyn Cadwallader. Fourth Estate, $32.99.

Robyn Cadwallader will be in conversation with Catherine Milne for an ANU/The Canberra Times event at the Australian National University on Thursday April 26, 2018. Register now at anu.edu.au