by Adams, Max;
A wide warp warns of slaughter; blood rains from the beam’s cloud…12
Here we must imagine fine red-dyed warp thread hanging from the beam of the loom, while the weft is a ‘spear-grey fabric’, the battle ranks of the antagonists.
We wind and we wind the web of spears, which the young king [Sigtrygg] has carried on before. Let us go forth amongst the fighters when our dear ones deal out blows…
We wind and we wind the web of spears, there where the banners of bold men go forth; we must not let his life be lost – valkyries decide who dies or lives…
And the Irish will endure an evil time which will never lessen as long as men live. Now the web is woven and the war-place reddened; the lands will learn of the loss of men.
The explicit use of the loom as a means of generating both prophecy and battle memorial, and its otherworldly female mistresses both watching the fray as from above and as puppeteers controlling the action, conjures a marvellous image of a battle narrative literally woven into the warp and weft of a tapestry, mirroring the embroidered battle-cloth of Bayeux later in the same century.
The saga-poet ends his story like a stage manager dismantling the flats of a theatrical set after a last-night show…
The women then pulled down the cloth and tore it to pieces, and each of them kept the piece she was holding in her hand. Dorrud then went away from the window and back home, and the women climbed on their horses and rode away, six to the south and six to the north.
A female Viking warrior’s grave?
It seems only natural that in the tribal European mind, where women incited conflict or noble martial deeds, men and women might also indulge in fantasies about female warriors, despite Adamnán’s proscription against their involvement in battle.** The aggression shown by Freydis in Vinland suggests that the saga poets did; but is there any evidence that women in reality engaged in physical combat? An article published in August 2017 entitled ‘A female Viking warrior confirmed by genomics’ has caused quite a stir for those hoping to find the material evidence of women at war. Its authors report on their reanalysis of a skeleton excavated in the 1880s from the Swedish Viking-period trading settlement at Birka, west of Stockholm. A contemporary drawing of the grave shows a skeleton lying on its side, knees flexed, in a rectangular chamber, accompanied by sword, axe, spear, armour-piercing arrows, two shields, a full set of gaming pieces, a pair of stirrups and the remains of two horses, a mare and a stallion. By all convention, this grave was identified as that of a high-ranking warrior. The skeleton from grave Bj581, as it is known, was recorded as a male.
Modern archaeologists like to confirm the sex of their skeletons by independent osteological analysis;†† they know that making assumptions about gender roles in the past is risky, and they know that the structured deposition of human remains in a grave carries all sorts of coded messages, some of them indecipherably complex or beyond our ken. In today’s cemetery studies, grave goods and skeletons undergo separate, independent analysis to ensure that we are not projecting our assumptions onto reality. Just because someone is buried with an artefact, or set of artefacts, it does not necessarily mean that we should read them as a biography or portrait of the deceased.
Like good detectives, archaeologists are wary of prejudging their evidence. Some males buried with warrior gear, for example, look very much as though they had never been anywhere near the field of combat. Grave goods are symbols, even if they are also personal possessions, and they are placed not by the deceased but by the living, who may have their own statements to make about those who have gone. When archaeologists excavate skeletal material whose sex cannot be assigned because of poor preservation, there is a natural temptation to use gender-associated grave goods – spindle whorls and jewellery or weaponry, for example – to apply a biological sex to a skeleton; but these are dangerous waters.
Doubts about the sex of Bj581 were first raised in a 2013 conference report of a re-examination of the skeletal material, which suggested that the bones were, in fact, those of a woman. The new analysis, led by the Swedish archaeologist Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonson, confirmed that the skeletal material contained no Y-chromosomic (male) trace and that the skeleton must, therefore, be that of a female.
If the individual interred here between the ninth and tenth centuries was a warrior she was unique, so far as Viking Age burial archaeology is concerned. Scandinavian myth, like Irish myth, was peopled with marvellous women: evil hags, impossibly beautiful maidens, sirens, creatures of the deep and other fantasy figures – most obviously the Valkyries. In the pantheon of Norse superheroes and gods, these were the mistresses of Valhalla, Odin’s hall, where great warriors passed their days after being killed in battle. These long-gowned females, of whom there are several depictions on a tapestry from the Oseberg ship burial, scoured the field of battle and chose those worthy of admission to the hall, where Valkyries served them limitless food and drink.
Scientific proof of the existence of a Viking warrior woman, buried with all her martial gear, is impressive confirmation that such women existed in reality and that, in death, they were honoured. In some respects, I think, the assemblage and the context of Bj581 share affinities with La Señora de Cao, a shaman.‡‡ The wielding of a sword and axe and of a seeress’s wand – or, for that matter, of the Valkyries’ weaving battens and pin beaters – are twin projections in the minds of men of women’s mysterious power over their fates.
Offering readers a closer contextual parallel, albeit poetic, the journal article ends with the following, taken from the ‘Greenlandic Lay of Atli’ in the collection called the Poetic Edda:
Then the high-born lady saw them play the wounding game
She resolved on a hard course and flung off her cloak;
She took a naked sword and fought for her kinsman’s lives.
She was easy fighting, wherever she turned her hand.13
Case closed? Not according to Professor Judith Jesch, whose 1991 book Women in the Viking Age addressed the textual and archaeological evidence that then existed for, among other things, female warriors. In an internet blog post in September 2017,14 Jesch questions some of the conclusions of the genomics study. That the biological sex of the remains is female is no longer in doubt: the skeleton from Bj581 is that of a woman. But there are serious concerns about the interpretation and context of the burial. First, the possibility that the remains as catalogued have been mis-associated with grave Bj581. Without a detailed look at the original archive of the 1880s it is impossible to say, although any modern professional burial archaeologist would be able to make a judgement on that if they saw the original field notes and the records of curation of the remains and associated grave goods in the 130-odd years since. Jesch’s complaint is, rather, that the matter has not been addressed sufficiently in the context of such an important claim.
Jesch raises a second objection: that the remains of the woman might have accompanied another, male skeleton, which had decayed to the point where it was invisible. In my experience, that is unlikely: you encounter widely differing preservation of bones within and between graves, but when both are contemporary such a discrepancy would be very surprising. We must rely here on the original plans: the site drawing clearly indicates a single individual.
Assuming, then, that the bones do belong to the right grave, and that no other remains have been missed or mixed up, this female was buried with the full paraphernalia of a warrior. Does that make her a warrior? The authors of the article argue that if the skeleton had been a male there would be little hesitation in describing him as a warrior. Jesch argues that this is specious. Archaeologists have in the past, it is true, been guilty of the sin of simplistically assigning ‘professions’ to people on the basis of their grave goods: after all, no one questions that the Oseberg ship burial grave goods belonged to at least one of the women interred there or that she was of the highest social rank. In the case of Bj581, we might well conclude that the goods and horses buried with the wom
an were her professional equipment. But one must also allow the possibility that they were the possessions of a widow, whose warrior husband was either buried elsewhere or whose remains had never been recovered from battle, shipwreck or some other fate far from home. She might, then, like the widows of twentieth-century wars, have displayed her husband’s military regalia with pride in life and in death.
To question the conclusions of the genomic study is, as Jesch is keen to point out, not to reject the idea that Viking women might fight as warriors. We know of real women who led military forces into battle: one was Æthelflæd, the tenth-century ‘Lady of the Mercians’;§§ another was St Olga of the Kievan Rus,## who died in 969; and the Cáin Adomnáin∫∫ implies that women were combatants in early Ireland. The argument is about the care and rigour with which claims that are bound to provoke widespread public discussion are handled. The jury is still out, and archaeologists will argue that convincing evidence for female combatants in the Early Medieval period will only come from the graves of women showing clear pathologies of weapons training and traumatic weapon injuries; evidence that is, so far, lacking. One thing is certain: no female warrior from this age of tribal warfare, piracy and conquest left behind the written testimony of her own career.
* But perhaps already the home of some adventurous Irish monks.
† Scholars believe this must have been the area in the province of New Brunswick now called Miramichi Bay, on the southwest side of the Gulf of St Lawrence.
‡ See the story of the Mochica stirrup vessel, likely to have been employed in childbirth practice: page 114.
§ Discovered in 1985 in a manuscript in Madrid, by John F. Benton.
# It is hard to know exactly what this means: a postnatal air embolism, perhaps.
∫ Trota has a place at Judy Chicago’s Dinner Party artwork.
Ω La Señora de Cao, in chapter 2, was a Mochica shaman (see page 51).
≈ The outstanding example belongs in the Staatliches Museum für Völkerkunde, Berlin.
∂ See page 43.
π See page 7.
∆ She recurs as a motif: see page 228: Three faces of Artemisia Gentileschi.
** See page 54.
†† See page 15.
‡‡ See page 51.
§§ See page 78.
## She was regent for her son, Svyatoslav. She put down an uprising of the Drevlians, who had killed her husband, King Igor, and was the first ruler of the Rus to convert to Christianity.
∫∫ See page 56.
Chapter Five
Hard times
✥
CHRISTINA OF MARKYATE ~ OF BAYEUX AND DOMESDAY ~ CHAMBRES DES DAMES –WOMEN’S WORKSHOPS ~ HÉLOÏSE AND ABÉLARD ~ TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS ~ WOMEN IN VIRTUAL LANDSCAPES
Medieval women are so much the butt of modern misconceptions that a realistic appreciation of their experience requires us to scrub off a thick patina of prejudice. The generalised view that women were oppressed, exploited, ignored, abused and undervalued seems unarguable. On the other hand, the assumption that women lacked what modern critiques call ‘agency’ – opportunities to act, influence, engage and express themselves through a variety of media – or that they are entirely invisible in the historical record, is not sustainable. Poor, unfree women still stand close to or beyond the limits of our ability to reach them; but, as the centuries passed, even their experiences began to be recorded by the state – for good or ill. Women in professions; widows; those married to decent, thoughtful men and some of those who rebelled against all convention left evidence of lives full of interest.
Christina of Markyate
A number of contemporary works by and about medieval religious women survive. Hildegarde of Bingen (1098–1179), the writer, composer, natural historian, artist and mystic visionary, and the anchorite and theologian Julian of Norwich (1342–c.1416), author of The Revelation of Divine Love, are outstanding examples of holy women whose lives have attracted modern readership, and both are well known; in this first story, however, I want to explore the life of a much more obscure figure: obscure, but absolutely tangible.
The shattering effects of the Battle of Hastings in 1066, its long, brutal aftermath and its profound political and social legacies are the outstanding landmark in British history. Chronicles tell of failed rebellion and the savage wasting of the countryside; the Domesday survey records widespread depositions of landowners and the loss of rights of those dependent on them;* misty-eyed historians look back fondly on the Anglo-Saxon period as if at a green field across a moat. Under the new regime of William I of Normandy, men of native noble houses lost their possessions and rank, served new lords and sometimes did well out of it. High-born women were encouraged by their parents to make themselves available to the barons of the new Norman state, to preserve the family’s rank and fortunes. Occasionally they resisted. Heroes were martyred; legends of English resistance were born.
Saints’ lives, the hagiographies, are difficult to read, especially for the cynical modern mind accustomed to rational explanations for apparent miracles and prophetic visions. On one level, they must be taken at face value: these were genuine people undergoing deep spiritual experiences and fully convinced of divine providence as literal truth. Some events are literally incredible; but from the pages of the manuscripts material lives emerge nonetheless. There is no doubting that the woman known as Christina of Markyate (c.1096–c.1155) led an extraordinary life, that she was subjected to extreme abuse, suffering and privation; that she was both feared and honoured; that she was at once a mystic, a woman of great sexual and spiritual energy and a pragmatic, compassionate mentor to many who sought her wisdom. Her life was lived against a vivid backdrop of power politics, social tensions and ecclesiastical landscapes.
Christina’s family were wealthy burghers of Huntingdon, a town founded by Scandinavian warrior lords in the tenth century at a crossing point on the River Great Ouse, close to the Roman Ermine Street. Her father was called Auti (a Danish name); her mother was Beatrix (Norman French). Christina seems to have been given the birth name Theodora, while her maternal aunt was called Ælfgifu – a solidly elitist Anglo-Saxon name. A family sensitive to the politics of culture, then.
As the eldest daughter, Theodora constituted political capital for her family, and they raised her accordingly. She accompanied them on visits to the long-venerated shrine of St Alban, two days’ travel to the south, where the grandest of Norman churches had recently been completed; she bore the mead cup and played hostess at Guild feasts; she learned to weave, sew and embroider and she was expected to marry a suitable man of her family’s choice. It was her aunt who first caused the pious young girl trouble. Ælfgifu was the mistress of a powerful Norman prelate, Ranulf Flambard, at that time a senior minister in the court of King William II (reigned 1087–1100), and later Bishop of Durham. His failure to seduce Theodora – who escaped from the chamber where he had cornered her with her aunt’s connivance, and bolted the door on him – set him against her. He seems to have been complicit in plans to have her betrothed to a man called Beorhtred.
Theodora, inspired by the life of devotion and contemplation she had seen at St Albans and by the example of the monastic community in her home town, which she could see from her window, refused the marriage and instead took a vow of chastity. At first her parents lavished gifts on her, promised her a handsome dowry and exposed her to the admiration of secular society. When flattery failed, they threatened and bullied her. Theodora acquiesced and consented to the betrothal, but quickly regretted it. Twelfth-century marriage was a complicated affair and it is not clear that she submitted to any formal ceremony – but it is certain that she refused the act of consummation. Emotional blackmail failed to move her; confinement and beatings failed, too. Her father, despairing, submitted her to the authority of the Bishop of Lincoln who, at first, took her side. According to the anonymous Life – seemingly the work of an intimate associate or friend of hers – Theodora’s father gave in, with bitter
words of reproach:
‘Well, we have peace today since you are made mistress over me. By his praises the bishop has exalted you above us all and pronounced you freer than ever. So come and go as I do and live your life as you please, but do not expect any comfort or help from me.’1
Theodora, perhaps by now calling herself Christina – in itself an act of rebellion against her family – at least won support from her chaplain and from a canon called Sueno who had befriended her, not without his own ulterior motives. They persuaded Beorhtred to release her from her betrothal. Virtue seemed to have won its reward; but a collective change of heart and a hefty bribe to the bishop saw Christina once more a prisoner in her own household. She was stripped; her mother thrashed her and sought the services of local crones, who tried spells and potions on her, to no avail. Sustained by holy visions and by the support of her few friends, she maintained her virtue.