You’ll often meet them here (there are so many more than you might have thought), but this time I’m talking medieval Japan, specifically the six women who between them were ruling Japan eight times between 592 and 770: Suiko, Kogyoku/Saimei, Jito, Abe, Gemmei and Gensho.
A piece (PDF) just posted on Medievalists.net tells their story.
Its thesis is that while traditionally they have been regarded as simply keeping the seat warm for male relatives, in fact most of them were powerful, active sovereigns in their own right.
Also just up there is a nice piece on 13th-century noble English widows (PDF), who seem to have also been a notably strong-minded lot.
About