Women in Anglo Saxon Literature: Are they there or aren't they?

Stronger women, not absent women: There is no single portrayal of the woman as the marginalized figure, excluded from the literature because it is concerned with describing a masculine warrior society. It is true that the Germanic code requires the active participation of men, and women are allowed a role, which is given to them by men and accepted by the women, and it is one which is largely related to the men’s actions. For example, Tacitus writes that women stood on the sidelines of battlefields encouraging their warriors and ‘restoring’ the army. They are part of the heroic code, rather than being against it- they count the wounds, they don’t clean them [Tacitus]. This is in keeping with modern critical perceptions of the Anglo Saxon woman. Christine Fell suggests that women were in a stronger position before the Norman Conquest than in the subsequent centuries, and she has a point: the courtly code forces a much more closed, fixed role for women than before. So in the Anglo Saxon world, far less from being passive, silent figures, women are given active roles in different ways, whether or not this is seen as positive. Early studies of OE lit saw the transition from pagan past to enlightened present as a smooth linear progress, the change seen in the roles of women who moved from passive pagan women with no roles to strong Christian figures (like the saints). Berit Astrom argues that this perception is distorted because it focuses only on the stories of noble women and queens, and is based on preconceived assumptions about Anglo-Saxon society, coloured by Tacitus. I agree, I think that Anglo Saxon studies have been strongly influenced by assumptions and a general sense of what one expects the society to have been like. Note, Jacob Grimm’s view, largely followed by traditional scholars, that pagan literature was “pure” while Christian influences curbed and tamed its spirit. [I think the Christianity that developed in England was shaped by the pre-existing culture, it was not an external bubble that placed itself in the middle of the country and started influencing everything. It shaped and was shaped by the culture]

Man at the centre: At the same time, I think it’s true that the centre of society remains man, and women are seen in relation to this centre, moving either towards it or away from it. Thus, we see the woman as the ‘goader’ in Waldere, where Hildeburg encourages Waldere to use the sword. Another image is that of the peace weaver [freoþuwebbe], and the Beowulf poet plays around with this notion with the story of the failed peaceweaver. Christine Alfano argues that the Beowulf poet did not see Grendel’s mother as a monster, but rather as a woman who transgresses gender boundaries (this makes her ‘monstrous’) and is an active warrior who performs the male role of vengeance, rather than the traditional role of peace weaver. Where women are given a voice, critics have often tried to pass this over or see it as negative (unless it is a woman saint). So R.C. Bambas in 1963 argued that the Wifes Lament isn’t addressed by a woman at all, because the feminine endings are only at the beginning and end of the poem, and could be scribal error (how convenient). He even says that men and women didn’t express their love in this way until the courtly tradition post-conquest! Rubbish, its only after the conquest that we see love having a fixed and therefore artificial mould- things seem a lot more free and natural before then. I know this is falling into Jacob Grimm’s trap, but I’m saying this is because of the courtly code and not because of Christianity. Other scholars have tried to see the woman as a female deity who is lamenting because her followers have turned to Christ (again, unlikely, because a monk wouldn’t be copying something like that, and there is nothing explicitly Christian or religious in the poem to suggest this.). The poem gives an active voice to the grieving woman, and this is what critics have found hard to accept- that this is just what the poem is about. The man is absent, the woman is active. [woman does, man is?]

Woman on top: the active sexual woman is seen in many of the riddles. Now in general the riddles are known for their bawdiness, but I thought it quite surprising that some of them are spoken by a man who is being fucked by a woman. [sorry ayoush] The emphasis on the woman’s body and her sexuality is not surprising, but the image of the woman as the active assaulter is. The riddle on the “onion” which also describes a penis shows the male as the victim and the woman as the one who becomes wet. The riddle goes: ‘heo on mec gripeð/ ræseð mec on reodnbe, reafað min heafod/ fegeð mec on fæsten’. Look at the use of the verbs showing the woman gripping, raising and even ‘reafað’ which means ‘to rob, plunder’ but has the sense of rape. Similarly the riddle on ‘Dough’ has the image of a girl gripping a man’s penis. I wonder why these riddles were placed in the Exeter Book- does their presence suggest that the book was not written for the monks at Exeter, but had already been written and was presented to them, or does it suggest that these images of sexually active women are negative? I think the latter is more likely: it is a man writing about his being sexually exploited by a woman, so it shows the woman in a role that she should not have. There is a contrast between the body of the woman in the Riddles, described in terms of her physicality and flesh, and the body of the Christian woman in the saint’s lives, whose virginity is emphasized- they are valourised for not having sex. In the same manuscript we thus have three different images of women: the lustful woman, the peaceweaver, the saint. While the latter two are held up as ideals, I don’t think the poet(s) directly condemn the lustful woman either. Contrasting the Christian woman and the sexual woman may suggest an opposition of the Christian and the pagan, but does this matter? Is the woman in the Riddles heathen because she is sexually active? Earlier notions of kinship communities that we see as part of the role of the peaceweaver changes in the description of the Christian woman. Juliana is like the thane who reels against his lord, but this is acceptable in her case. She is also the only female presence in the poem (the poet removes the character of her mother, present in the Latin Acts); on the other hand Judith is accompanied by her maid, forming a female community, constructing a heroism for Judith based on protection rather than aggression (Dockray Miller: 1998). Are these two women portrayed as heroic Christian women, just as Guthlac was the soldier of Christ, or is it just written in a heroic literary style, because of the absence of a separate discourse for them?

The other place where we find the woman is in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle. The Parker Chronicle has at least forty entries which mention women. Some of these are just the names of queens, such as Queen Seaxburh ruling for a year between 672-3 after the death of her husband; annal 722 mentions queen Aethelburh who demolished Taunton. The Law Codes shows that women had property rights and were not considered weak or inferior. We see this in the chronicle, where Edward deprived his mother of her treasures because she betrayed him, Ethelred’s daughter is also said to have been deprived of authority. But women are mentioned in the chronicle only when they have some male related significance- thus, in the Cynewulf and Cyneheard episode, the king was visiting his mistress when he was attacked. Women are also seen as property: in Alfred’ reign, in a battle between the English and the Danes in 893, the English captured goods, women and children (ge on feo, ge on wifum, ge eac on bearnum). Later in the same annal, the survivors kept their ships, money and women safely: ‘hira wif and hira scipu and hira feoh’. The Chronicle gives a masculine political perspective, as it is meant to be a historical record of events- different from the description of domestic roles of men/women in the riddles and in poems like Wife’s lament- here, we only have “political” women, or women present on the political scene. In one place, there is mention of a woman in spiritual role, when the body of Wihtburg (a woman) is found undecayed 55 years after her death (782).

Finally, I like A.H. Olsen’s argument that both Anglo Saxon society and modern society are influenced by the myth of male superiority over women- thus the need for women to prove themselves, so as not to be marginalized. They want to remove themselves from the position given to them, but it is a constant fight- men don’t have to fight for these rights. The male perspective is assumed to be universal, and dominates and shapes knowledge. It is incorrect to conceptualise women as negatives in a heroic, male world- I think Olsen is suggesting that just because we do it in our society, doesn’t mean that this is how it used to be- we are reading the poems in terms of our own history. But I don’t think this is entirely true. I need more time to think about this last point, maybe you two can help!