Anglo-saxon England and The Place of Women

In 1985, in Butler’s Field, Lechlow, a grave of an Anglo-Saxon woman buried over fifteen hundred years ago was discovered. The extraordinary richness of her grave goods, its abundance of amber beads and gilt bronze brooches making it one of the most opulent burial sites in early England, suggests not only her wealth, but the prominent position she enjoyed in sixth-century society. The influence of her Germanic forebears, who had created kingdoms in the fifth and sixth-centuries characterised by a robust warrior ethos, may be seen in such feminine accoutrements as ‘thread-boxes’ and ‘latch-lifters’, symbols of the highly particularised role mature women were expected to fulfil as domestic producers (weaving the family’s cloth) and treasurers of their husband’s household. Although defined and limited by her position in a male-oriented combative culture, the woman was capable of possessing her own capital, holding her own land and possibly even exercising influence over local affairs. Furthermore, a comparison between her grave and those of other women buried after the Christianisation of England in the seventh-century and whose burials were predominantly unadorned, bears witness to the restrictive, altering effect such a religious conversion had on the pagan mindset. These two influences, the Germanic cultural tradition and strict, pacifist Roman spirituality, had a considerable impact on the status of women in Anglo-Saxon society: both advocated prescriptive functions centred almost exclusively around the family, while the loyalty and duty owed to the kin-group by both male and female were developed, extended and popularised to include more emphasis on a clerically-championed patriarchal system, which, in its later stages, actively diminished the position of women outside those delineated by societal norms.

However, England pre-the Norman Conquest has long been considered by many as a golden age for women’s rights and been celebrated for having had a remarkably egalitarian attitude towards the female sex, especially within the context of the period. Historians such as Christine Fell and Doris Stenton have argued, especially in comparison with the treatment of women post-1066, for approximate gender equality in Anglo-Saxon society and, indeed, the legal codes, documentary sources (including poetic and ecclesiastical literature, in addition to more prosaic administrative records) and archaeological findings all point to a relatively enlightened perspective. The woman buried in Gloucestershire all those years ago was being honoured by her community, the riches she possessed in life beautifying her wooden sepulchre and proving to posterity that here was an individual, perhaps, of some economic and social stature. Nevertheless, it must not be forgotten that her position was almost certainly conferred upon her by her kin, whether natal or marital, and that her life, from birth to death, was determined, regulated and supported by them. As she began and ended, so shall we, with the family.

At the heart of Anglo-Saxon government was an ancient and long-established tradition of respect for the ties of kith and kin. The Germanic tribes were famed for the strength of their personal bonds; for instance, the Roman Tacitus was chiefly impressed by the fact that ‘it is not at random nor by the fortuitous conflux of men that their troops . . . are formed, but by the conjunction of whole families’. Yet more significant is the role of their womenfolk in stirring the warriors’ spirits, their importance in recognising, inspiring and, especially at times, criticising their valour, the most eminent of virtues according to a militant culture. Thus, despite living in a world dominated by warfare and a heavy physical bias towards the male, Anglo-Saxon women had a valued history of responsibility in upholding familial honour. Their birth relations remained of vital importance even after marriage, the bride never passing ‘entirely under the control of husband and husband’s family’, while from their own they could expect fiscal and bodily protection. In this manner, the child’s line could be traced not only through the father, but also through the mother; her social status or, more accurately, that of her family, and from which hers had originally derived, was of sufficient consequence to merit extreme care in any possible marriage alliance, particularly among members of the aristocracy, as it possessed the potential to improve her progeny’s standing, in addition to consolidating the power of her mate and, conversely, her kin as well. If men provided ‘the main substance of a lineage’, women ‘provided the connections’. In 1045, Queen Edith, the daughter of Earl Godwin, was used in this way by her ambitious, politicking father to further extend their clan’s authority; the saintly Edward, her husband, on the other hand, benefitted from a union with the Danish Royal House, a latent political threat, though one with which the Godwin family was intimately connected and, therefore, immune from.

However, the woman’s own position within the nucleus unit depended in large part on the strength of her character, the influence of cultural type-casts and her personal relationship with husband, father, brothers and sons. The role of the mother was arguably the most illustrious, not simply due to the influence likely to be granted her by doting offspring (an effective arrangement really only in women of a higher class), but more critically because ‘obedience and honour were due equally to mother as to father.’ As counsellor, nurturer and protectrix, she was held in deep, abiding reverence, whilst this the most fundamental feminine purpose, the culminating point in the female life-cycle, was celebrated by the two complementing, at times contrasting, traditions in Anglo-Saxon culture: the Christian veneration of the mother, embodied in the Virgin Mary, Mother of Christ, and the powerful maternal figures of a pagan past, recorded in the poem ‘Beowulf’, most especially in the characters of Hildeburh and most memorably Grendal’s mother, whose monstrous portrayal is tempered and, for the most part, justified as the natural desire to ‘avenge her son’s death’ . This evident regard for male children does not, though, diminish the value of daughters to the family. As has already been noted, they retained membership of their natal group for the entirety of their lives and, significantly, blood could be ‘sexless as well as gendered, carrying claims in the right circumstances to women as well as men’.

Consequently, the lack of male heirs did not mean the death of a dynasty, but the elevation of its females, whose right to control land, property and wealth gave them economic weight, greater standing and even, at times, a degree of independence. For example, in eleventh-century Northumbria, Ecgfrida, the first wife of Earl Uhtred, received six estates from her father, the saintly Bishop Ealdhun, which were retained ‘under her own control’. Moreover, even if it was true that her husband had exercised direct jurisdiction over all her property, upon their divorce, and after returning to her father’s household, it was she who kept the land. However, the experience of upper-class female landowners was very different to that of the majority of women in Anglo-Saxon society; just as their men-folk, they occupied varying, sharply delineated economic strata. At the time of the Domesday inquest, in 1086, female slaves numbered 706, while many more were wives of the 33,000 males held in bondage (‘roughly 12 per cent of the total estimated population’). Their position was dependent on the kindness of their lord and, at a daily level, more commonly their mistress; economically, they fulfilled several tasks, working as dairymaids, weavers and domestic servants, while, both legally and socially, they were counted as little more than chattel. More generally, the role women played as head of a household differed, in its reality, only marginally: the archaeological evidence of grave goods included ‘thread-boxes’ used for spinning, the ‘pre-eminent’ occupation of ‘women from every class’, a discovery which supports the notion that ‘married women, whatever their social class, contributed to the economic well-being of their families’, even as other occupations, like cooking and weaving, would certainly have been shared by daughters, mothers and wives, whether free or slave. On the other hand, the unearthing of keys and latch-lifters present a distinct picture of the mature, espoused female as ‘guardians of a house and its possessions’, having access to and control of the family’s coffers, a responsibility that denoted considerable economic influence, albeit within a personal, domestic framework . Furthermore, like most early governments, the Anglo-Saxon system was conceived of and structured primarily in order to best serve the needs of hearth and home. Thus, it follows naturally that the central court should be a model household, only on a much grander scale, and that, at its heart, a woman be at its organisational helm: a queen to ably and efficiently maintain the equilibrium of court-life, act as counsellor to her powerful mate and, above all, manage the affairs of her, royal, family.

Queenship in early England often meant an unusually commanding and politically active position in high society. Her great wealth, derived largely from the extensive lands granted her at her marriage, enabled her to reward followers, a chief requisite of good leadership according to the marauding values of the ancient German tradition (a custom still visible in the conduct of the rapacious Vikings) and wield an authority grounded in the economic and military support of her tenants. Indeed, a principal reason why ‘seventh- and eighth-century queens did not have a recognised role’ was because they were denied ‘landed estates’, either because they suffered from the ancient Wessex prejudice towards queens , or because their families were not of sufficient standing to provide for them. The difference between this and their status in the later Anglo-Saxon period is reflected in the extraordinary holdings of Queen Edith: the ‘lands assigned to her in Domesday were worth between £1,570 and £2,000 per annum’, making her ‘the richest woman in England’. However, the earliest royal consorts were not prevented from ruling beside, on behalf of, or in place of their husbands: for instance, in 672 A.D., ‘Seaxburg, the widow of Coenwalh king of Wessex, reigned after him for a year’. These queens, nonetheless, do share one very vital thing in common: their power is defined, and both simultaneously created and limited, by their relations with the men in their family. As a result, although the anointing of Aelfthryth, King Edgar’s wife, in 973, bestowed a sanctified, exceptionalised glamour to the status of queen and she alone was ‘of sufficient public moment to be listed among witnesses of royal charters’ , the premier peeress was still circumscribed by family; her ‘influence . . . was very dependent on the support of her husband or her son and could disappear as the circumstances altered’.

The potential for political, and religious, authority was, in turn, almost entirely restricted to royal or aristocratic women; consequently, the great abbesses of the early Christian period were, almost uniformly, of noble blood. The illustrious figure of Abbess Hilda of Whitby (c.614 – 680), eulogised by the Venerable Bede as the paradigmatic leader of a devout community, was herself a member of the Northumbrian royal dynasty and, as a result, had access not only to the funds of a regnant family desperately desiring sacred sanction through the intercession of a saintly female relative, but also enjoyed a highly ‘significant political role’. Furthermore, the double monastery, which she so ably commanded, was a particularly peculiar feature of the Anglo-Saxon Church during the seventh- to eighth-centuries; rooted in the more distinguished status women held in earl Germanic society, this remarkable fusion of males and females, ‘living together with various degrees of internal segregation under the overall authority of an abbess’, led to a unique spiritual and intellectual atmosphere of mutual respect, guidance and admiration. As Stephanie Hollis maintains, the position of these religious women in relation to men, and their active participation in a cosmic struggle against the evils of the world, reflected the heroic ideal of the ‘comitatus’ , in addition to evoking ‘the warrior-companion model . . . from pagan Valkyrie imagery’; thus, Christianity may have actively conserved the former prominence of women, albeit within a vigorously pious, and scholarly, framework. It is also worth noting, however, that Christian ideology similarly supported the concept of ‘the female soldier of Christ’, a theme ‘common in patristic literature’. Thus, the two most basic influences in Anglo-Saxon society, a bloody, epic culture combined with a physically passive, though mentally and spiritually demanding, faith-system, promoted the exceptional standing of the early abbesses and their daughters in Christ. The age of the double monasteries was gradually completely replaced, though, by ‘the second stage of the conversion’, begun, in the late seventh-century, by Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury, when ‘changed perspectives of women were used to justify a diminution of their activities and their role’. Their previous religious status was, in many ways, largely only a product of the brief period of leniency, insecurity and desperation during the establishment of the English Church, when the lingering importance of the Germanic woman enabled them to assume some holy authority over men, especially since a conflicting warrior code made the transition much more difficult for the male than the already pacific female body. What remained was a deep reverence, common to most patriarchies, for the purity of the virgin; a cultural attitude that had a substantial effect on the way women were perceived in Anglo-Saxon society, as well as the prestige of certain highly specialised roles.

The cult of the Virgin Mary was a pervasive social and religious force in early England; indeed, ‘the notion of a passive Anglo-Saxon woman’, dominated by her male kindred and the misogynistic doctrines of the Christian faith, derived ‘from the idea that the only acceptable model for her was the Virgin’. This was, perhaps, true to an extent: a woman’s status was defined, firstly by that of her family’s, then by the strength of her own moral worth, judged, of course, by men. Moreover, there is even an insidious sense, in Bede’s tributes and Aldhelm’s praise of the nuns at Barking, elevated ‘by that special attribute, virginity, . . . believed to be next kin to angelic beatitude’ , that the only way for a woman to have been recognised is to be, at once, ‘virginal, maternal, regal and holy’ ; a daunting criterion for any but the most extraordinary, and fortunate, of women. Thus, the cultural perceptions of the period, coloured by a religion obsessed with the pollution of the secular world, as well as women’s inherent responsibility for its initial and continuing corruption, seemed to have exalted only particular feminine traits, including an emphasis on noble birth; a feature which necessitated the exclusion of the vast majority of the female population and explains, in part, the reasons why there is a dearth of written evidence for the status and condition of the ordinary woman.

However, the survival of epic and poetic literature does allow an insight into some of the values Anglo-Saxon society placed on women, albeit its supremely eminent, at times, partially mythic queens: in ‘Beowulf’, for instance, Queen Wealtheow is evoked ‘ring-bejewelled’ and ‘distinguished for the quality of her mind’ . The vivid reference to wealth is key to understanding the role of all aristocratic ladies in dispensing treasure to her husband’s loyal acolytes and, at the same time, underscores her primary duty as controller of the household’s capital; the precious clothes and jewellery found in some female graves may be seen as evidence for this close association. The statement regarding her mental capacities, on the other hand, indicates an unusual respect for, and belief in, the efficacy of the female brain, allowing the interpretation that individual women, especially those among the higher echelons, were positively personalised and adulated for their intellects; something distinctive to the Anglo-Saxon portrayal of great women, in comparison to the vacuous prettiness and charm the Normans afterwards attributed to their leading demoiselles. The status of each queen could, likewise, be dependent on her ability with ‘words’; her rhetorical ability soothes court strife, earning her a role as ‘symbol of [its] unity and concord’, exacts promises and oaths of loyalty from the men who drink from the cup of her generous hospitality, and has the vital power to mediate, on behalf of grateful supplicants, with the king himself. This critical position as counsellor and intercessor was almost identical to that held by the Abbess Hilda, while the pivotal nature of her role was ‘derived not only from the nobility of [her] birth, but also from the status of Whitby as an educational centre and seminary’. Indeed, in Anglo-Saxon England, ‘it seems to have been the women who took to the bookish life with particular enthusiasm’: their general literacy may even have superseded that of men and, though there is no direct proof of creative authoresses, their status as intellectuals and scholars, heavily involved in education, may not be so easily discounted.

The law codes of King Aethelbert of Kent and Alfred of Wessex, in addition to various others, provide another useful source for the importance and situation of the majority of women in early English society. To begin with, marriage was considered ‘in the form of a contract between the bridegroom and the bride’s kindred’, a sound economic exchange, which may have had the effect, both legally and socially, of commodifying the person of the bride. In spite of this, the consent of the woman seems to have been essential, with the ‘role of the kindred simply being to safeguard her interests’. Furthermore, a wife and her husband were not held accountable for the other’s misdeeds; in this manner, she remained an autonomous body and her wergild the same according to the social standing of her natal family. Her legal status within that group, in other words ‘the daughter’s right to a share in her father’s land’, is not so clearly delineated and, while the fact that ‘women could inherit land before the Norman conquest’ is indisputable, whether she was automatically excluded from patrimonial inheritance by a brother is decidedly less so. This ambiguity is common in most of the law codes; the precise status of women, therefore, is vague and, at best, cannot be disproved, at worst, can never be confirmed.

In the end, their position in Anglo-Saxon society was dependent on and revolved round the rank of their family; the nature of their role within it; the religious demands of the period; and the cultural attitudes of their society, still largely informed by its Germanic history. However much it may have bettered the conditions of women under the Normans, their status was yet subordinate to that of men, as well as confined and defined by their relations with male kindred. Yet, the woman in the Lechlow grave was rich; her personal possessions numerous, her person lovingly adorned and her esteemed place in the community reflected in the grandeur of her final resting place. Though her independence and influence, economic, political and legal, may only be roughly inferred from imperfect sources, it is certain that this woman, at least, was felt to have deserved, whether due to family connections, her husband’s power, or her own fine qualities, a fitting tribute at the last. So, as they intended it to mark her out to the gods, we too shall take note, appreciate and judge. Here lies a woman, buried in an English grave, according to Anglo-Saxon rites and in a world of bloodshed, conflict and men; but, she, at least, shall not be forgotten.