Could Medieval Women Be Military Leaders?

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Welcome to today's episode of Gone Medieval. I'm Dr. Kat Jarman and today's guest is going to be talking to me about something I'm really interested in, namely the question of whether women could be military leaders in the early Middle Ages. The publication of an ancient DNA study from the Viking Age cemetery of Birka in Sweden a few years ago caused an international sensation.

That was because the inhabitant of a lavishly furnished grave full of weapons and military equipment located next to the warrior's garrison turned out to be genetically female. This, of course, caused quite a stir and didn't really fit with many people's notions of the roles available to women in the 10th century. And that's exactly what we're going to be talking about today, because we do have several examples from round about the same time.

across Europe of women holding political and military power in some way. To tell me more about it, I've invited the brilliant historian Dr Claire Downand to come to Con Medieval today. Claire is from the Institute of Irish Studies at the University of Liverpool and specialises in medieval Europe more broadly. Thank you for coming along to the podcast today, Claire. It's a real pleasure. Thank you very much.

Now we're going to go straight into it now today I think and I wanted to talk a little bit about the Bicker Grove briefly first of all. I know it's been discussed pretty widely, but for those of our audience who might have missed it, could you just briefly explain what exactly the discovery was?

Okay, so the grave was excavated actually a long time ago in 1878 in Berke in Sweden. And it was a grave that contained quite a large amount of military items. There's two shields, a sword, an axe, two lances. 25 arrows, a fighting knife, two sacrificed horses and gaming pieces. And it was quite a sensational discovery when it was made in the late 19th century. And it was considered to be the archetypal grave of...

a Viking warrior. But what was really interesting was when DNA analysis was done on the bones from the grave more recently, it was discovered through DNA study that the individual in the grave was a woman. And this was published in an article in 2017 by Charlotte Hedinstein-Jonsson and others. And it was quite sensational. It really kind of challenged people's stereotypes about the roles that women could have.

in Viking society. And it provoked a huge amount of online debates as well. Quite a lot of people just simply could not believe that this was true and either challenged the science behind the analysis. or challenged the presence of the woman in the grave, suggesting, oh, well, she was maybe a sacrifice for a man who wasn't in the grave, or that maybe there was a man there originally and they couldn't find him. And it was just very interesting that...

When nothing was challenged, when it was thought to be a man, when it was demonstrated scientifically to be a woman, then that became very controversial. And I think, you know, it encourages us to look more broadly. at the roles of women in 10th century society to evaluate, well, were there others at the time? Is this something that is incredible? Or are there other examples that could lead us to think that maybe it was possible for women? And I think this is something I kind of feel.

passionate about more broadly actually is that generally women's history it seems to be kind of almost very one-dimensional for example if I set essays for students on the roles of women in the middle ages I tend to get an essay that there are these traditional roles of women

where they stay at home and they cook and they raise children. And it was always like that until the late 19th century when suddenly women started doing other things. And one thing I hope that this grave will encourage us to consider...

is that the history of women is as varied and as interesting as the history of men. It isn't just something that's completely simple and unchanging until recent times, but the roles of women have changed through history. And I think this is something that... this grade really encourages us to consider.

I think that's a really important point and one that I completely agree with. It's important that we really think about. And I think part of the problem here when we look at the Viking Age and early medieval Europe is that the archaeology is a little bit limited in what it can tell us.

about that really all we have is looking at things like grave goods and we have to interpret quite a lot out of things like that and that's where it gets quite challenging and I mean of course you're a historian rather than archaeologist so you work with it written. records and do we have a lot to work with in this time period sort of 10th century-ish to try and enlighten our understanding of women's roles?

There is material out there, but essentially this period in Europe in the Middle Ages, we are still dealing with a patriarchal society. So there is a clear orientation of our text to tell us. about the roles of leading men. But what's surprising is that we might assume our women, you know, they're not really talked about. But once you actually look more deeply into the evidence and you have that lens.

through which you're viewing the material to seek out the role of women, then there is material there. And it's really interesting that quite a lot of it we've just kind of skipped over because people have been sort of usually mining text to know what the political deeds of kings were. And they never really thought, oh, well, let's...

try and read these texts for the political deeds of women. And once you ask those questions, then you will start to find answers. The material is there. It just requires just that extra little layer of investigation to go in and find stuff. So I was quite interested. prompted by the discovery of the burial at Birka being a woman to then look at other work that's been done on 10th century women and was actually quite surprised by the evidence almost hidden in plain sight.

So let's go straight to that then and maybe if we start here in England where we both are now and possibly the best known example of a woman born in the late 9th century. Tell me about her. So this is Aethelflaed, who was the daughter of Alfred the Great, a very famous king who really kind of lays the foundations, I guess, for the later kingdom of England. Alfred is famous for, you know, winning battles against Vikings and starting. to turn the tide.

of political history in England to almost sow the seeds of a unified England. And Aethelflaed was his daughter. Now, one thing that's quite interesting, if you read Asser's biography of Alfred the Great, is that he does tell us a little bit... about the role of women in Wessex, suggesting that they are starting to be given more prominence in royal society, that Alfred...

also educated his children together. So he raised his daughters to be literate. That was very important to him. And that almost gives us a sense of the family background in which... Aethelflaed was raised, that she would have learnt... about court life. She would have learned about the military strategies. She would have seen her father at work as a king, and that would be an important training ground. But also, she was educated by her father. She was literate. She would have read...

the same text that her brothers did. And so she was educated. Not physically in arms like her brothers would have been, but in terms of her liberal arts education, she would have been highly educated by the standards of her time. And not unusually for women in this period, her marriage would be... dictated by political interests. And she was married to Athelred, who was the Lord of Mercia, a kingdom which was north of Wessex, at some point in her mid or late teens.

Now, what's quite interesting about Aethelflaed is that... Her husband suffers quite a lot of illness during his reign. And as he becomes weaker, she takes over more of the governmental roles of her husband. And there's a very interesting text surviving from Ireland, the Fragmentary Annals of Ireland. which actually...

credits Aethelflaed with taking a leading role in the defence of Chester against a Viking attack around the year 907, when her husband is too ill. And it's interesting reading the text as well, because there's almost an implication that because the... enemies knew that her husband was weak, that's when they decided to attack. So there's almost an assumption that, okay, the leader's weak, the wife's not going to be doing much of a good job on defence, let's go and attack.

But she more than proves her worth and is able to successfully defend Chester. And then a few years later, when her husband dies, she takes sole government of Mercia into her own hands. Now, politically, this is probably because they didn't have any adult children. There was no son to succeed at that point. So she continued.

to rule Mercia, but obviously to do so, she had to have the support of the Thames and the leading individuals of the kingdom at the time. And she's a very successful ruler. She sets up a series of fortified settlements. including Runcorn in the year 914, Stafford, which is really an extension of the policies of her father. and her older brother Edward, who established a series of fortified settlements in the southern part of England. And it says the year...

which is sadly the year when she died, she was really at the height of her powers. It's said that the Vikings of Northumbria were happy to recognise her as their leader, and she had also brokered a series of alliances with neighbouring kingdoms. So she seems to be a very effective ruler and, again, challenges some of our stereotypes about what the role of a royal wife might have been like in the 10th century.

So this is hugely interesting, isn't it? And I think it shows a couple of things. One is that she was able to have that background. She said she had the education, she was able to observe. She wasn't packed away into a nunnery or done something else, I suppose.

other women might have been, but also the fact that others were happy to accept her in that role. And presumably that in itself says quite a lot about the society, that this wasn't a sort of huge shock that a woman would take on this role. Yeah.

Absolutely. So in the year 917, she orchestrated an attack and capture of Derby, which was under Viking control at the time. And the source which records the events, the Mercy and Register, which is a text which has been incorporated into some versions of... the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reports that four of her thanes who were dear to her were killed at the gate. I find that very interesting because it shows this sort of bonds of loyalty.

and affection between her as a leader and the military leaders under her command. So there's clearly a sense of respect there, which I think is very interesting. It shows that, you know, a woman could succeed in what was a man's world at the time.

And do any of the records comment on this being unusual or do they just report it almost objectively? I feel that the reporting is fairly objective. I mean, what's quite... interesting and maybe a little sad from our point of view is that when Aethelflaed dies, power actually passes to her daughter. Didn't have any other children, Ethelred, who achieved adulthood. So power passes to Elfwin. Now, this is incredibly unusual.

in a medieval context for power to pass from mother to daughter. And again, that suggests that Elfwin had been accepted by the nobility of Mercia, that they wanted the line of Aethelflaed and Aethelred to succeed. But she only held power for a few months before her uncle.

comes in and takes over the reign of government. And what that suggests is that maybe female power wasn't so fully accepted, or maybe she was seen as a weaker ruler, that the idea is that this female-to-female succession is not seen as sustained. and Edward the Elder steps in and takes over control. Now, what's also interesting is that history doesn't tell us what Elfwind's fate is.

Was she packed off to a nunnery? Was she disposed of politically? We just don't know. And that in itself is quite telling, that her fate isn't actually recorded. As soon as she's off the political scene, she's not almost considered relevant enough to... be recorded any further. She's just such a fascinating character and I think one that's important that we know about.

I know that you've also looked at some others. So if we move away from England now and over to continental Europe and going to specifically to Saxony or Germany at the same time, there's another woman who made a sort of similar mark, isn't there? Definitely. So there's a great book about 10th century continental queens by Simon Maclean. So if anybody's interested, I do recommend them to have a look at that. So there are a series of powerful 10th century continental...

queens. But one example that I think is quite outstanding is Gerberga of Saxony, who was sister of Otto I of Germany. And the early part of her life is fairly conventional. She was married to the Duke of Lorraine, whom she has a succession of children with, and then Louis IV of France. But when her second husband was captured by Vikings in 945, Goberger acts in his capacity. She organises the defence of Lyon.

Once her husband is released from the Viking control, she seems to have a stronger presence in government thereafter. We sort of see her name on documents more and as though she'd kind of earned her position in the royal court that she was accorded a position of more respect. influence. And when her husband dies about nine years later, she acts as regent for her son Lothar.

And her career trajectory at that point is also quite interesting. Again, whether it would have been the politics of the time or whether she was seen perhaps to be in a slightly compromised position, a woman filling in for the role of a man, she does have to engage. in military activity. And sometimes she's acting on her own behalf, and sometimes she's acting for the interests of her brother.

Otto of Germany. So, for example, the Count of Hainault, Reginar, revolts against Otto in 956 and takes lands in Lotharingia and also lands which Gerberga... claimed to possess herself. And we've got this wonderful account recorded by the historian Ricker of Reims. And he tells us how Gerberga regains control of her lands. And according to this narrative, she arranges for spies to be sent to

original stronghold disguised as stonemasons because the walls were being fortified at the time because of the war that was taking place. And after scoping out the settlement for a few days, they returned to Gerberga and gave her all the information about the stronghold.

And then Gerberga is able to commission a small force to seize the fortress using that intelligence. And they kidnap Reginald's wife and children. And she then uses these hostages to sue for peace. Now, it's possible that this... has been elaborated by Ricca of Reims. But even if it has, it was credible for a 10th century audience. And I think that's why literature is quite interesting, you know, because it tells us about the image of women and the roles that they...

could be seen to fulfil. And there's a nice kind of postscript to the story. A silk banner was recovered in Cologne Cathedral in the late 19th century, which shows a man in a submissive position at the feet of Christ and the saints and the label. on the banner says Counts Reginar, and an embroidered capture at the bottom reads...

Geberga Mae Fekert, so Geberga made this. So one possible interpretation is that, you know, after war, Geberga went back to that stereotypical female activity of embroidery, that she made a silk banner commemorating her defeat over Red. which is, you know, almost to me quite an amusing kind of postscript to the story that she commemorated this defeat.

To go back to Ethelflaed, actually, one thing I wouldn't mind mentioning is if we think about women in literature in the 10th century, it's quite interesting that there's also some 10th century texts that give women a prominent or leading role in their narratives. And I almost liken that.

to sort of films nowadays. And you think of things like the popularity of the Wonder Woman kind of image and these strong female superheroes. That's reflecting something about the emancipation and roles of women in our own time. If we go back to the 10th century and we think of old English literature, we've got two 10th century poems with striking female leads. So one is about Helena, the mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine, the finder.

of the True Cross, which is a 10th century poem which has survived. And in there, there's a description of Eleanor. described as a battle queen bedecked in gold, and that she's not some kind of passive receptacle for God's divine grace to discover the true cross of Christ, but she has this active leading role in the narrative.

And another example of 10th century literature which does this is the old English poem about Judith, the Old Testament heroine. And again, there's some wonderful descriptions of Judith who beheads Holospinus, who is the leader of the Assyrians. who plans to seduce her, and she leads her people to victory. But again, the descriptions of Judith in the text are her verse...

a very admirable leading figure. She's described as wise in her thought, a woman who is elf brilliant in her mind. And I feel that that's quite an interesting reflection of perhaps the attitudes to female leadership at the time that is not seen as... something that's inappropriate it's not seen as something that's immoral or against the will of god but these female

religious heroines in literature are given these kind of powerful leading roles. And I feel that might be something that tells us about the sort of zeitgeist at the time in relation to women in positions of power.

that's an extremely important point actually because one of the criticisms i know especially from archaeologists to the historical record is that it is so biased and they're just presenting what they want to present but if you can tap into as you say precisely the reception of it and the interest in hearing about it then actually you're getting sort of one step further aren't you and it's that idea of was it surprising this birka

discovery was so surprising to many people in the 21st century because they weren't expecting it but perhaps in that 10th century context perhaps it wasn't quite so surprising This episode is brought to you by Royal Kingdom, the latest puzzle game from the creators of Royal Match.

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We're going to go on to one more person. We're going to move further east and one of my personal favourites which is Olga of Kiev from the Kingdom of the Rus and she... also has quite a lot of stories which may or not be entirely true, but again, which tells us something quite significant. So who was Olga? She was the wife of the Igor of Kiev.

As with some of other women leaders, she steps into a role of prominence after her husband has died. He was slain in year 945. And she becomes regent for her young son. not got a lot of contemporary evidence from the 10th century from Russia itself. We've got some Byzantine records in relation to Olga, which records her as a convert to Christianity, who has a prominent place in narratives about the conversion of the Rus to Christianity.

The main source is really the Russian Primary Chronicle, which was written later on. And it does sort of romanticise the role of Olga somewhat. And there's almost a fictional quality to the narratives about her and what that may be. is that, yes, Olga was a prominent leader in the 10th century, but by the 11th and 12th century, she had almost become a magnet for legends. And we see that quite often about powerful leaders in the Middle Ages that stories tend to gather.

around them later, the tales become more exaggerated. And according to the Russian primary chronicle, Olga uses trickery to gain revenge for the death of her husband. First, she receives an embassy. So it's the Derevlian nobility who are responsible for his death. So she invites a group of them. over, ostensibly to make peace after the death of her husband. And she also expresses interest in remarrying their king, which would be advantageous to them to cement their control over the Kievan Rus.

So she shows honours to the visitors. She has them carried into Kiev in a boat. Then, according to the primary chronicle, the boat is dropped into a deep... trench and they are all buried alive. Next, she then sends messages inviting the prince of the Deravillians and her nobility over. So he comes to the court.

And they're invited to bathe after their long journey. So she's kind of showing hospitality to her kind of perhaps her future husband, as the negotiations seem at the time. And when him and his ambassadors arrive, they are then locked in the bathhouse, which is then... set on fire.

And then the final part, and this is what gives it this kind of folkloric quality, this kind of rule of three. It's quite a prominent narrative device that, you know, something happens, then something else happens. And then the final episode, and each one is kind of building up the dramatical potential. that Olga is doing these more and more outlandish things to gain revenge for the death of her husband, is that she and her son send an army to besiege the main city of the Dorevlians.

She demands a tribute from them in revenge for the death of her husband. But she says, I don't want to desire a heavy penalty, so I'm just going to ask for a tribute of birds, of six birds from every house, pigeons and sparrows. But...

Once this gathering of birds is being made, she orders matches to be tied to the legs of the birds and for them to be released at nightfall. And the birds' matches then set on fire. So you've got this gruesome image of these kind of burning birds flying through the air. But the idea is they all fly back to their own home.

as is the habit of homing pigeons, and so burn down all the houses of the city. I feel that that's unlikely to be historically true, because A, I think it'd be quite hard to do, but also it's a folklore motif we find, for example. in Heimskringler, which is a saga narrative of the 13th century written about Scandinavian kings. So I feel that what we've got is a folklore motif. But what this is perhaps echoing is that Olga was remembered.

as a powerful and fearsome leader, and that that then became the focus of stories and legends to develop at a later time.

Again, it's a similar thing, isn't it? It's the idea that there's an audience for this and there's an audience for hearing about this powerful female figure and it's not surprising, it's not shocking, but it's actually something that is to be celebrated. I think there's a couple of things that all these three seem to have in common. One is this idea that you have an enemy. So a couple of cases, certainly that's the Vikings, as you said right at the beginning, that...

is essentially she's responding to this threat that perhaps her enemies think that she's not capable. And I mean, how much do you think that these were able to rise to power because there was something very specific for them to sort of have to step in? and fight against. Yeah, I think there's more general factors that mean that women are given these more prominent roles in the 10th century. I mean, if we think of the...

sort of macro trends in politics in the period before, we do have sort of centralization of power taking place. So if we think of like...

The 6th, 7th centuries, we tend to think of these very small embryonic kingdoms, which by the 9th and 10th century, we're getting roughly the shape of what will be kind of national governments. And during that time of political growth in the... of particular families, it becomes important that their royal marriages are cementing alliances and also perhaps the political uncertainty, that sort of changing nature of circumstances at the time.

means that the queen and her family is a key political ally. So whereas we get, for example, examples of in the 6th century Merovingian kings marrying slave women, that's not really the dumb thing by the 9th century. Kings want to marry. the daughters of other kings and the importance of her family is something that is then brought into.

the royal household of her husband. So they're not just given a minor role in court. They are seen as ambassadors. They are seen as allies. They are seen as influential. The other thing you've got is growing ecclesiastical influence, which encourages royal monogamy. So rather than a king having a succession of queens and concubines, there is one main woman in the life of the court. And that perhaps raises her...

influence in society as well. And we see that cemented through the rituals of anointing and crowning of queens in the 9th and 10th centuries, something of a sort of innovation in this period. But I also wonder, as well as the importance of the queen as ally and partner to the king, whether the sort of nature of royal government and warfare in the 10th century facilitated female leadership roles.

power was becoming not quite so hands-on because power is centralised. So it's not always expected, for example, for a ruler to be at the head of an army. you know, there is more of a sense that they are strategising a little bit more behind the scenes. And that's the role we see these women stepping into when they stand in as regents for their husbands and for their children.

But neither is power so centralised that you've got a cohort of administrators. So I would suggest that the perceived... role of women changes a little bit by the 12th century when you have more of a kind of clerical administration ruling kingdoms. devolves quite a lot of government roles to a male clerical elite. And the woman is perhaps then seen to be slightly more of an ornament in court or we start to get slightly more misogynistic commentary.

on women who do take leading roles. So an example of this would be Matilda in the early 20th century when there's the English Civil War. The people who praise Matilda praise her because she's like a man. And the people who denigrate her said, oh, well, she's a female and that's inappropriate. for rule, you know. So I think there is a kind of changing discourse about the roles that women are seen to fulfil, and the 10th century does seem to be something of a golden age for queenship.

due to perhaps the conversion of different political factors. And yes, it is quite interesting, as you mentioned, that these women really are stepping in. They're not seen... The power of women is so self-evident that women should succeed to power. The man is not able to perform his duties due to illness or death or youth, so a woman steps in.

to fulfil their role and proves to be very successful at doing it. So it's not as though we're in some idealistic golden age where women are seen as equal to men, but it shows that a woman is seen able to fill a man's shoes.

when it's appropriate and necessary and that is socially accepted and those women are praised when they do those roles well. And that, I think, if we go back to the Birka burial, that sort of... very nicely contextualizes it because it shows that in that context, in that wider context, of course, we will never know if she had some sort of royal position or if she was from a sort of high status aristocratic family or, you know, what her background, if she was married. But...

In that context, in a world where these things were possible, where they were seen at some quite high levels, it shouldn't really be that surprising then, should it, that somebody was buried like that. It doesn't mean that she had to be a sort of very strong fighter herself, but she could easily fit into that. picture couldn't she?

Definitely. And I think, you know, some of the interpretations say with the gaming pieces in the grave is that she was a military strategist and therefore she was buried with the honours and equipment of a military leader. And that doesn't seem so strange. when you see other examples like Aethelflaed and Gerberga and Olga being military leaders and strategizing and organizing, you know, acts of military. So in that sense, yeah, it does provide a context.

for the grave at Birka. But as you say, there are still so many questions about how she identified herself, what her background would have been, and how she was regarded by her followers. But what is clear is that in death, she was accorded a very high... status and that that was something that would have been respected and seen by the community that buried her.

Exactly. So that's also telling us about those people next to her, not just her herself, but actually the society she was a part of, which I think is absolutely key, as you've so nicely demonstrated in some of these other examples as well.

this whole case I mean it was such a huge big thing all of us who work in the field it was everywhere it's all everyone talked about in the media and everything but actually these questions do have relevance today don't they I mean we have got so much of an interest in these strong female characters, as we already mentioned, in film and TV. And actually, there is a point, isn't it, to actually studying that now in 2021? Yeah, definitely. I think it is very interesting. I mean...

In a way, the way we study the past is a reflection of our concerns in the present. And I think the fact that, you know, we are very interested in the roles of women and female leadership and important female role models. And that's something which you see.

a political sphere but we also see it in the world of our imaginations you know with all the kind of female superheroes the kind of wonder womans and even sort of ambivalent characters like harley quinn but the basis of female characters having films about themselves

and they're seen as these sort of powerful women. And I do feel that is something that we can maybe see in 10th century popular culture as well. If we think before there were films, people would sit around in an evening and tell stories and recite poems. We do have these 10th century poems of powerful female figures like Helena.

finder of the true cross and Judith, the Old Testament heroine. And the way that these stories are told is that these women are front runners. They are the ones directing the narrative. The narrative is seen from the woman's perspective and she is prey. for her wisdom, her military prowess, her bravery, that these are all attributes that are showing that people at the time were open to accepting women having these roles and may also perhaps have inspired

young girls of elite families to think that they could be in positions of power one day themselves. That's a really nice thought. I like that. Now, Claire, we could...

I usually sit here and talk about this all day, I think. But I'm just going to say thank you so much for coming on the podcast and sharing all of this with us today. It's a pleasure to come along and talk about subjects I find interesting. So thank you. now if you want to find out more about Claire's research do look her up online if you go to academia.edu she's got lots of her papers including the one she's written about these women available for free to download on there so search for Claire

Downham on academia.edu and you will find it. And that just leaves me to say, as always, thank you so much for listening. I'm Dr. Kat Jarman and this has been an episode of the Gone Medieval podcast from History Hit.