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Changes in the role of women during Europe
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When people think about Medieval Scandinavia they usually think about a cold northern region inhabited by a warrior people who spend all of their time sailing around in Viking warships and plundering from one another or going to war with their neighbors. While our archaeological evidence from this period may be rather scarce, many cite the Scandinavian pagan religions as a evidence of this warrior society due to the fact that men were encouraged to fight in order to be chosen by the gods to live in Valhalla, the pagan equivalent, loosely equivalent, of heaven. However, this only accounts for the men of the society, and no society can continue if it consists only of men. Were the women as concerned with war as their male comrades? Recent research into Scandinavian women suggests that they were a far more powerful force in Medieval Scandinavia than the previously voiceless onlookers they were believed to have been. Due to high rates of infanticide - particularly female infanticide, women’s role in creation of the realm’s currency, and even the pagan religion that so many cite as evidence of a male-centric war society gives us evidence of the many women who were able to attain both societal and familial power in Scandinavia. Female infanticide was a common practice throughout the medieval world and while on one hand this is evidence of misogyny, on the other hand it is empowering to those females who do manage to make it to adulthood. The commonality of infanticide created a scarcity of women in Scandinavia and allowed these women to cut across both social and economic ranks. Women were also the primary weavers of homespun cloth, which before the use of fish in the fourteenth century, was the Scandinavian realm’s common currency. Thi...
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...niversity Press, 1990.
Dahmus, Joseph. Seven Medieval Queens. Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, INC., 1972.
Damsholt, Nanna. "The Role of Icelandic Women in the Sagas and in the Production of Homespun Cloth." Scandinavian Journal of HIstory 9, no. 2 (1984): 75-90.
Hill, Mary. Margaret of Denmark. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1898.
Jochens, Jenny. Women in Old Norse Society. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1995.
Sawyer, Birgit and Peter. Medieval Scandinavia: From Conversion to Reformation, Circa 800-1500. The Nordic Series. Vol. 17. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1992.
Sturluson, Snorri. The Prose Edda: Norse Mythology. Translated by Jesse L. Byock. Penguin Books, 2005.
Sturluson, Snorri. King Harald's Saga: Harald Hardradi of Norway. Translated by Magnusson, Magnus and Palsson, Hermann. England: Penguin Books, 1966.
The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki, translated by Jesse L. Byock. New York: Penguin Books, 1998.
Upon first encountering one another, the vikings and the natives of Scotland often experienced violent confrontation. However, through the passage of time they contributed in shaping each other in equal and sometimes opposite measure. There are several hypotheses that describe the details of the first viking-indigenous interactions.1 Out of the many propositions, two theories appear most often. The first asserts that the vikings set up an earldom and thenceforth ruled over the native Scottish population. Sometimes this earldom is portrayed as peaceful, at other times more violent. The second proposition asserts that a genocide took place in which the vikings eliminated and replaced the native people.2 The evidence for either model is contradictory and variably justifiable. The best explanation therefore is a syntheses of both hypotheses. Namely, that both earldom and genocide took place in different circumstances. Bands of viking ships were often federations, and as such individual rulers within the federation must have had some measure of latitude. In some areas viking captains completely exterminated the indigenous people they found. In other instances, the leaders simply subjugated the people they encountered. In areas where the local population were left alive they influenced the Scandinavian settlers in terms of religion and material culture to different degrees. Conversely, the viking presence in Scotland forced the native inhabitants to become more militant and politically united.3 Furthermore, the natives eventually adopted parts of Scandinavian language, material culture, and custom as well.
As the poems of Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight show, women have always had power, yet not as overt a power as wielded by their masculine counterparts. The only dynamic of women’s power that has changed in the later centuries is that the confines and conditions in which women have wielded their power has become more lax, thus yielding to women more freedom in the expression of their power. The structure, imagery, and theme in the excerpts from Beowulf (lines 744-71) and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (lines 2309-30) support the concept of more power in the later centuries, by contrasting the restriction of Wealhtheow and the power she practices in Beowulf with the Lady’s more direct assertion of power in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight five centuries later.
Baumgarten, Elisheva, Oxford Handbook of Women and Gender in Medieval Europe (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013)
“Beowulf” is a 10th century epic that portrays trust, bondage, and appreciation by the giving of gifts. These gifts include many things, such as a torque or horse. Due to the success of Beowulf on the battlefield, his fame and fortune rise to immeasurable levels. Although Beowulf receives these gifts, the model he portrays is honest and responsible. The people of Scandinavian culture show appreciation, respect, and bondage through gift
Tolkien, J. R. R., and Douglas A. Anderson. The Lord of the Rings. Boston: Houghton Mifflin,
Pearson, A. G. (2005). Envisioning gender in Burgundian devotional art, 1350-1530: Experience, authority, resistance. Aldershot: Ashgate Pub.
Foster, Mary H., and Mabel H. Cummings. Asgard Stories: Tales from Norse Mythology. New York: Silver, Burdett and Company, 1901. Kindle file.
Fell, Christine. Women in Anglo-Saxon England and the Impact of 1066. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984.
Beowulf is an epic tale written over twelve hundred years ago. In the poem, several different female characters are introduced, and each woman possesses detailed and unique characteristics. The women in Beowulf are portrayed as strong individuals, each of whom has a specific role within the poem. Some women are cast as the cup-bearers and gracious hostesses of the mead halls, such as Wealhtheow and Hygd, while others, Grendel's mother, fulfill the role of a monstrous uninvited guest. The woman's role of the time period, author's attitude, and societal expectations for women are evidenced throughout the poem.
Tolkien, J. R. R. The Hobbit, Or, There and Back Again. New York: Ballantine, 1982. Print
Shawna Herzog, History 101-1, Class Lecture: 11.2 Society in the Middle Ages, 27 March 2014.
Tolkien, J.R.R. Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. New York, New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1954. Print.
Women in different societies around the world, during the Middle Ages, experienced different hardships and roles. These hardships and roles helped shape how they were viewed in their society. Some women were treated better and more equal than others. In Rome, Medieval England, and Viking society, women’s legal status, education, marriage and family roles were considered diverse, but also similar. In certain nation’s women have more or less power than women in other nations, but none equal to the power that women have in America today.
On the surface, the poem Beowulf seems to be a simple tale of a brave hero who triumphs over three monsters and who engages in several other battles in order to preserve what is just and right. A more thorough reading, however, reveals that the epic poem is filled with events that symbolize historical and social conditions that prevailed during the European reign of the Scandinavians in the seventh century to around the ninth century, following the Danish invasion of England (Sisson 1996).