© Rafał Borysławski

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Anglo-Saxon women. A background to “Wulf and Eadwacer” and “Wife’s
Lament”.

1.

Tacitus on Germanic women (from De Origine et situ Germanorum):

a.

they accompanied their men in battles and thus spurned them into action;

b.

men would bring dowry to their wives;

c.

very strict marriage laws;

d.

the relation between the man and the children of his sister sometimes preferred (in

hostage taking).

2. But… a Christian misogynist and antifeminist perspective:
St. Augustine on the necessity to subjugate women resulting from the fear that the female
body might escape the control of male reason:

“The subjugation of woman is in the order of things; she must be dominated and governed by man just
as the soul should regulate the body and virile reason should dominate the animal part of the being. If a
woman dominates man, and the animal part dominates reason, the house is turned upside down.”

St. Augustine, On Genesis. Against Manicheans

3. Debatable legal status of Anglo-Saxon women – evidence from early laws (often cryptic
& difficult to interpret: the same taken to indicate direct male control over women as well as
some equal legal standing).

a.

wills and charters – evidence that women were able to acquire and dispose of

property.

b.

evidence of law-suits brought and defended by women.

4. The legal and economic status of Anglo-Saxon women:

a.

personally accountable before the law (no male supremacy here);

b.

sexual assaults against women (both free and slave) heavily penalized (acc. to King

Alfred’s law code the compensation was payable directly to the woman);

c.

women were considered oath-worthy (oaths made by women were equal in importance

to those made by men). Recorded cases when women defended their property on oaths
against false accusations.

d.

In the absence of primogeniture, daughters could inherit equally with sons –

apparently no marked preference for male as opposed to female heirs.

e.

women most likely responsible for the management of their own households (cf. the

Keyhole Riddle and some major land-holders recorded in the Norman Domesday Book
were women)

5. However the fate of women in the past largely determined by their physicality:

a.

if not nuns, they were first prepared for their roles as mothers, then they were either

pregnant or soon after pregnancy.

b.

Anglo-Saxon women and the slavery in the times of the Viking invasions.

6. Anglo-Saxon women in literature. The 1990s and early 2000s: a growing number of
gyno-criticist works (historical study of women writers done by women) and feminist
criticism in general connected with Anglo-Saxon studies.

a.

Etymological equality of the sexes? The O.E. “lord” and “lady”: hlæford (hlæf

‘bread’+weard ‘protector’) and hlæfdige (hlæf ‘bread’+digene ‘kneading’).

b.

Some critics argue for a kind of A-S sexual equality (evident from the Old English

riddles) (?);

© Rafał Borysławski

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c.

Anglo-Saxon ecriture feminine: a feminist interpretation of The Wife’s Lament and

Wulf and Eadwacer

as reflecting “the feminine mind”;

d.

several short Anglo-Latin love and erotic poems with women separated from their

lovers as narrators recorded in the so-called Cambridge Songs:

“Languishing with love for you, / I rose at daybreak and barefooted / walked across
the snow and cold, / searching the sea expanse to see / if I could spot sails in the
breeze / or see a bow of a ship.”

e.

literacy standards among women possibly higher (?) than among men – acc. to Asser,

King Alfred’s mother, Queen Osburh, instilled in him love of books.

f.

Women-saints in literature: Elene (Empress Helena reported to have found the True

Cross in 325 A.D.), the heroine of Cynewulf’s Elene, and St. Juliana (Juliana of
Nicomedia, a Christian martyr killed in 304 A.D.), the heroine of Cynewulf’s Juliana.

7. Notable Anglo-Saxon women: queens and abbesses (the church offered significant
opportunities for women to gain positions of authority).

a.

Abbess Hild(a) of Whitby (St. Hild) (c. 614-680) – related to the beginnings of Old

English literature (the story of Cædmon) and a principal proponent of the monastic life
in early Northumbria. Synod of Whitby of 664 organised and held in her monastery (a
double community, not infrequent in early monasticism). Declared saint after death.

b.

St. Æðelþryð (636-679), an Anglo-Saxon female saint. Princess of East Anglia, wife

of King Ecgfrith of Northumbria, entered a convent (as a virgin) and became Abbess
of Ely.

c.

Queen Cuðburg (St. Cuðburg) (d. 718), later abbess of Wimborne, sister of King Ine

of Wessex, wife of King Aldfrith of Northumbria (addressee of Aldhelm’s literary
letters), who, after Aldfrith’s death, established a double monastery. Declared saint
after death.

d.

Æðelflæd (872/9-d. 918), the Lady of the Mercians – eldest daughter of Alfred the

Great; defeated Danes during an attack on her and her entourage on the way to Mercia
where she was to marry the ealdorman (duke) of Mercia. After the death of her
husband, she effectively ruled Mercia: she was a successful military leader in the
times of conflicts with the Vikings from the Danelaw. Her daughter Alfwynn was also
the ruler of Mercia for some time.

e.

Ælfgifu (d. 959), the wife of Eadwig, King of the English (r. 955-959) noted for her

great beauty. Ælfgifu, together with her mother, was involved in a sexual scandal at
the time of Eadwig’s coronation. Dunstan, abbot of Glastonbury, infuriated the king
for apparent shaming of the monarch and his future queen. Dunstan was temporarily
exiled, but, paradoxically, thanks to this exile he instigated the Benedictine revival of
monasteries (see below).

f.

Emma of Normandy (985-1052) – a twice queen consort (of Ethelred the Unready

and Canute the Great), glorified in the Encomium Emmae Reginae.