Evaluating the Influence of Women on Viking Society - Essay Example

Wui Tse Yee No: 10479350 Unit: The Viking Lecturer: Ernie Jones The research essay. Why it is so difficult to evaluate the influence of women on Viking society In the following essay I will discuss the difficulty of evaluating the influence of women on Viking society. My work will examine the social role of women in the Viking Age, discuss their representations in a series of old Norse literature, and use some historical support from archaeological findings and from the laws of early Iceland - Grgs to determine the reasons of such situation behind Viking society during the period of 800-1400 A.D. Basically, we must understand that saga construction lies in an awareness of the modelling systems that links saga and social form1. As we see from the written saga world, women lost their voice and power because of the shift to the new political situation and new faith of Christianity. The saga writers of the 13th century belonged to an oral tradition, which embraced written culture like the Holy Bible. It is characteristic of Scandinavian or Norse societies, that they had never had any hierarchical form of governing. But Viking societies now had a king, who served as a ruler, and men were the dominant group in the society and the family. All these social aspects were then highlighted in epics and romance. As a result, saga writing became a political act in gender relations under this situation. The ideological view of the binary opposition formed a kind of "stereoscopic" view on women as depicted in the sagas, paying special attention to gender roles and the contexts of these performances. First, when one looks at women's representation in one of the oldest forms of Icelandic literature, the 'Gylfaginning' saga, most of the gods are represented as warriors, and are thus heroic images. This depicts the social role of males as being the 'external' heroes and proves their dominance both in the society and in their own family. Goddesses such as Frigg and Freyji usually represented marriage, motherhood, fertility, love, household management and domestic art2. Frigg and Freyji are the highest goddesses from the sir and Vanir races. In addition to their divine images, they are always seen as role models for the moral code for Viking women. Oral literature or written sagas were the major entertainment for Vikings, so the sagas worked as 'social education', developing the stereotype and the binary ideology in the Viking society. With this change and suppression of the past, there still were "strong women" in oral sagas in the Viking age. But nevertheless women were constrained from playing the role of remembering and preserving the connection with the past, and evoking it in a way that minimizes its potential disruption of, or threat to, the present symbolic order3. Additionally, because of changes in political, social and religious culture, Viking women have lost their power in the public sphere. That's why women in sagas have always been the subordinate group under the authority of the male in the family. As in the Laxdoela Saga, the father was the one who decided about Gudrd's first marriage to Thorvald, a man she did not love4. This fact shows that women were under male's authority and seldom appeared in public. They were powerful in their limited private surrounding, taking care of their household and family, but still faced the binary opposition that influenced their society and the role and power of Viking women. Ultimately, it has blurred or flattened the influence of female Vikings on Viking society. To understand the social and historical function of sagas in Old Norse society, it is necessary to see, how women were represented in early legislation, together with their life's depictions in archaeological documents. In the medieval Scandinavian culture and from my study of the sagas, Viking women were always signified and related to the household and to nurturing their family and children. We can see this from one of the oldest sagas in Northman Literature, the Saga of Gylfaginning, which represented and depicted the highest god's (Odin) wife, Frigg5. Women in Viking society were always depicted having many keys at their belt, as the world innan stokks ("within the household"), which meant they were in charge for child care, cooking, serving and other household chores. Men belonged to the public sphere and they were occupied with fishing, agriculture, herding, travel, trade, politics and law6. According to social binary opposition, this divided men and women into two different sectors of Viking society. Men belonged to the public sphere and women always belonged to the household surrounding and reigned indoors. However, simultaneously, the cowsheds and the storehouse were in female hands7. Gisli saga can be taken here as an example: when Gisli ran away and was hiding from Eyjolf and his men, Gisli's wife Aud, and their daughter Gudrid were not with him. Instead, they remained in their homeland, Geirthjofsfjord, and awaited his return8. This situation proves that women were excluded from the public sphere of life and external affairs, being imposed a moral code of how to become a good, loyal and faithful wife and woman in society9. When their husbands were working or were away on long military expeditions or trading voyages, women were left in charge of everything at home10. However, this was not necessarily true only for women, who stayed in their homeland. The Grgs shows, that Icelandic women had the right and power to choose whether to follow their husband according to the separation law in the Betrothals Section11. But apart from this, the annals and chronicles that are our main contemporary sources for the activities of Vikings outside Scandinavia, have little to say about women and their influence. From some of the contemporary texts, as the Domesday Book for the counties of Sussex, Essex and Somerset, which are now parts of modern England, we can find that women with Viking names, such as Gunnhildr, are mentioned seven times. In the same text, an additional 21 female Scandinavian names were recorded in different regions such as Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and East Anglia12. Although the Domesday material is limited as the historical source of the actual presence of Scandinavian women, these names are in the minority and became unpopular in the English region after some time. But the Scandinavian female names are preserved in all sources, demonstrating female immigration from Scandinavia to England. Apart from this example, there is additional evidence from the Norse site, which was part of the ultimate Viking expansion in northern Newfoundland, the L'Anse aux Meadows. Two of the largest halls at the Norse site contain a large stfa-like room. In the sagas such rooms were usually women's working and sitting places. Although there is no clear indication of the rooms' function, some archaeologists found a spindle whorl of soapstone, a fragment of bone needle and a needle honed from quartzite13. These suggested that women were following the Viking armies and cared for the household work of the crews on the boat and in the settlement area. According to another piece of an article from Jesch on BBC.com, Scandinavian women might also have taken care of the farming and trading, for these have been seen as family business; women could even inherit their husbands' death. In the article on BBC.com, Jersch also provides evidence that women could make a living in commerce in the Viking age, as merchants' scales and weights were found in female graves in Scandinavia. She also gives the example of a rich widow, Frideburg, and her daughter, Catla, who travelled to the Frisian port of Dorestad because with a Christian mission14. These are some records of Scandinavian travel, but women's main purposes were still concentrated around the family and the Christian belief, which traditionally bind the responsibility of Viking women. However, these historical and archaeological findings present us with a view that Viking women could leave their hometown and did travel to other places to settle. However, did it mean that they really walked out of their place of living I do not think so because, after all, they still followed the rules of traditional Viking society and spent most of their time on family matters, even when they travelled outside the Scandinavian regions. Viking women still followed their moral code and stayed in their own private place. Despite this historical and archaeological evidence, they show that the social role and statues of Viking women in the male dominated Viking Age were limited in regards to the public sphere. Another major reason making it difficult to assess the influence of women in Viking society is the biased representations of women in Old Norse Literature. The Icelandic sagas always represented women as shield maidens, warrior women, troublemakers, sorceresses, avengers or inciters.15 In my reading, these representations were usually negative. For example, in the Eyrbyggja saga16, Thurid went against Thorgunna's will, which resulted in the death of her husband and his men, causing misbalance in the society. Here, we can see another, more significant, example from Njl's saga17. Hallgerr was always seen as a "bad" woman, having intentionally caused the death of her first husband who slapped her. This has later become the main reason for the long and destructive feud with Njl's wife Bergpra. The affair was mainly based on household goods and slaves. Though it was the matter of the two women only, it has still become the public problem with many people involved into it18. At the end, because of her hate for Gunnar, who had once slapped her, she refused to help her own husband, causing him to die. She was described as a bad woman and a disloyal wife as evidenced by the words of Gunnar's men in Chapter 77, "You are an evil woman, and your shame will long be remembered"19. From these examples, we can see how Viking women, such as Thurid and Hallgerr, were negatively represented as troublemakers or avengers, such as Aud, the divorced woman in the Laxdoela Saga20. However, I must also note, that there are warrior women in sagas, but most of them were not considered "real" until they settled down after getting married under the hegemonic society. Also, if we look at Hallgerr and Bergpra from the other viewpoint, they were not just taking care of their household and children. Actually, they were the mistresses of family farms, and such women had the sole responsibility for the provision of simple household works to a large number of people21, such as slaves and farm labourers. So again, under the hegemonic Viking society, and based on who is writing the history, the Viking women's power and actual influence on society's economy and development were demolished, and what was left of them was their stereotypical representation in the main record of the Icelandic saga. In conclusion, we can see how sagas functioned in the Viking age based on the change of the religious and political situation in Viking society. Under the circumstance of hegemonic dominance in Viking society, their ideologies and stereotypes are the major factors that help to construct the social and gender structure. In the end, women were limited to the private space under the dominant ideology and moral code given by society, which limited the view of their contribution to and influence on the Viking society. The most important sagas are always important for studying the social and political construction of the Viking Age. This is why it is difficult for us to evaluate the influence of women in the Viking age. Bibliography Andrew Dennis, Peter Foote and Richard Perkins (trans and eds), Laws of Early Iceland: Grgs, Winnipeg: The University of Manitoba Press 2000, 1980, p.66. Arent. Margaret (tran), Laxdoela Saga, Seattle: University of Washing Press., 1964, pp.85-89. Arwill-Nordbladh. Elisabeth, 'The Swedish Image of Viking Age Women: Stereotype, Generalisation, and Beyond', in, Ross Samson (eds), Social Approaches to Viking Studies, Glasgow: Cruithne Press, 1991, pp.58. Borovsky. Zo, in 'Never in Public: Women and performance in Old Norse Literature', The Journal of American Folklore, American Folklore Society, 1999, Vol.112, No.443, pp.7, 11, 27. Byock. Jesse L., 'Saga Form, Oral Prehistory and the Icelandic Social context', New Literary History, The John Hopkins University Press, 1984, Vol 16: 1, Autumn, pp.1543-173. Carol. J. Clover, Regardless of Sex: Men, Women and Power in Early Northern Europe, Speculum, Medieval Academy of America, 68:2 (April, 1993), pp.365. Hermann Plsson and Paul Edwards (trans), Eyrbyggja Saga, Edinburgh: Southside, 1973, pp.156-170. Jesch. Judith, in 'Warrior woman to nun-looking back at Viking women', Women in Viking Age, Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 1991, pp.182-220. Jesch. Judith, 'Viking Women', from BBC.com. Available from http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/, [accessed: 17 may 2006}. Johnston. George (tran), The Saga of Gisli, J.M.Dent & Sons Ltd, 1963, pp.1-60. Magnus Magnusson and Hermann Plsson (trans), Njal's Saga, Harmondworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, LTD. 1960. Odner. Knut, 'Porgunna testament: a myth for moral contemplation and social apathy', in Gisli Palssonb (ed), From Sagas to Society: Comparative Approaches to Early Iceland, Middlesex: Hisarlik Press, 1992, pp.125-146. Quinn. Judy, Women in Old Norse Poetry and Sagas, in Rory McTuck (ed), A companion to Old Norse- Icelandic Literature and Culture, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2005, pp.528. Sturluson. Snorri, 'Gylfaginning', Edda, Anthony Faulkes (trans), Dent: London and Melbourne, Everyman Classic, 1987, pp.7-58. Wallace. Birgitta Linderoth, 'L'Anse aux Meadows and Vinland: An Abandoned experiment', in Vikings: the North Atlantic saga, edited by William W. Fitzhugh and Elisabeth I. Ward, Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press in association with the National Museum of Natural History, c2000, pp.222-226. Read More