The Roles of Women in Medieval Scandinavia

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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