Sibillia d'Orange

Brief Biography
Sibillia d'Orange is a widow in her late 20s in the papal state of Avignon. She currently lives with her father, a member of faculty at the University, and her brother's family. The two siblings supplement the family income by renting pecia of books to students, buying, proofing, and selling books.

Previously married to the only child of a wealthy miller in Orange for 10 years, her family in Orange died two years ago from a fever, leaving her the only inheritor of the estate. She returned to Avignon after selling most of her husband's assets and ensuring that his illegitimate child had a small amount of money to make her way in the world. Her stepmother had recently passed and her father required additional care in his old age. Sibilla used the assets from the sale of the mill to bolster the family business. She currently travels with her father as an assistant, caretaker, and representative of the business.

Family
Sibillia is the middle child of five. Her older brothers are Jean and Martin and she has two younger step-siblings, Marie and Francis.

Her father, Adalbert, is a professor of secular and canon law at the University of Avignon. He originally grew up in Savoy and moved to Avignon as a student to study the law. Wise matchmaking on his part for himself and his children, as well as cultivating patrons who required knowledge of the law, greatly helped the family fortunes.

Childhood
Sibillia was named for her paternal grandmother.

While adequately able to demonstrate some of the more lady like arts and skills, Sibilla's mother passed away when she was three, and her father did not marry again for another 3 years. Due to the perpetual distraction of her father. she spent most of those three years with her elder brothers, who taught her some of the skills they were learning, namely reading, writing, sword fighting, logic, wrestling, rhetoric, and math.

When her step-mother joined the family, Sibillia was immediately put on a course of improvement which included sewing, cooking, housekeeping, cleaning, dance, spinning, child care and doing the household accounts. With the assistance of her very patient step-mother, she learned how to be a proper housewife.