Gloria Harchar

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Although women are physically weaker than men, they carried a great advantage in battle during the early medieval days before the Norman invasion.

Saxon Warrior Woman

Because they seemed to have lost their natural maternal instincts (and the reason for these women to lose their maternal instincts makes my imagination go in overdrive! On the other hand, not all women are maternal . . . but I digress!), women in battle were greatly feared. I’m assuming it’s because men stereotyped them to be maternal and going to war is so opposite that it freaked them out! Nevertheless, this made them valued warriors and there were armies solely made of women.

Too, this advantage gave women the power to defend their homes, lands, and families when the men were away fighting. Their primary purpose of learning how to fight was to defend their land from invaders. Too, they were expected to assist men in fighting off invaders if their town or castle was attacked.

Historical evidence shows that some women disguised themselves as male warriors and actually went to battle with the men. Once some women in Denmark dressed themselves to look like men. They spent almost every minute cultivating soldiers’ skills.

Several other examples throughout this period show women’s involvement in battle. One of particular interest was of an Anglo-Saxon female, who formally participated as a warrior. She was a Queen of Denmark named Thrya. She ruled in her husband’s absence and led an army into battle against the Germans.

Additionally, some women were allowed to participate in seeking revenge for the death of a family member:

A formal mechanism was in place by which a woman could be treated as a male heir in the earliest Icelandic legal codex, Gragas, with respect to the paying and receiving of wergild. However, the law only applied to unmarried women who had no brothers. Gragas may also have extended to a responsibility for taking part in retaliation and blood feuds between families in cases where there was no agreement on the weregild. This can also be found in Danelaw.

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The status of women under Danelaw, or the Old English Law, is the most controversial topic of the Anglo-Saxon period. Some argue that the years before the Norman Invasion were surprisingly bright years for women in that they were allowed to own land, hold important offices in the political arena, and practice medicine and law. Others claim women were viewed as little more than men’s property, subject to the same second-class treatment as in later medieval cultures.

I found a very interesting resource on the internet called Anglo-Saxon Women Before the Law by Andrew Rabin from the University of Louisville. He says that in order to understand just what kind of rights women had in the Anglo-Saxon era, one needs to study records of the way law was implemented. He had to look in all sorts of texts, including Saint’s lives, chronicles, Doomesday Book, and charters.  For instance, Henry Cabot Lodges essay on “The Anglo-Saxon Land-Law” says “In all the law to be drawn from books women appears as in every respect equal to men.”

Anglo-Saxon Ladies

The author goes on to say that surprisingly royal law was not used to settle local disputes or lawsuits–that where you lived depended upon local law. One record said that procedure and argument displayed considerable informality and flexibility. Personality and honor, honor and shame came into play explicitly or implicitly. Argument did not focus on legal rules; indeed, the legal was not clearly distinguished from the social or the religious. The procedures used in settling a lawsuit depended upon the region, the status of the litigants, the issues involved, and the local traditions of those trying the case.

Even with all these variables, pre-Conquest lawsuits do display some common features. Surviving lawsuits indicate that lawsuits were brought to the court on their own, or by surviving family members rather than representatives or agents of the state. Disputes were resolved by panels rather than individual judges (except when the King himself ruled over a lawsuit). Evidence was presented in the form of witness testimony sponsored by the disputants. And though “oath-helping” (where a witness attests to the credibility of another witness) was common, it wasn’t widespread nor as influential as is frequently portrayed. Even these practices weren’t universal, however.

In my medieval romance, William the Conqueror has already invaded and killed King Harold, and has been crowned King William. The heroine is the Lady of Dyrne and is used to ruling her demesne. She is proud to be following Danelaw and is seen as fair to both men and women, no matter the gender or the plaintiff’s status in life. She has heard horrible things about the Normans, and how women are not allowed to own land or participate in politics, or do anything other than be a wife or a nun. So she is resisting their rule with all her might. But God has other plans for her!