Random Facts #7: Oktoberfest

It is September now, and that means Oktoberfest! I get a lot of questions about this particular event, not because of my historical training,  but because I was raised in Germany. I thought it'd be fun to write a quick history of this event, some of the customs surrounding, and a few fun facts!

The History

In 1810 heir to the throne of the Kingdom of Bavaria, Crown Prince Ludwig married Princess Therese of Saxony-Hildburghausen. Therese was quite a catch; Therese was from an ancient family and considered quite beautiful and she'd been one of Napoleon's prospects for marriage . A royal marriage was always a great event, and celebrations were held on the fields near the city gates of Munich. Big public gatherings like these (Volksfest) were common in Germany on feast days or during celebrations, and the citizens of the city happily ventured into the fields to drink, feast, and be entertained on the King's dime. In honor of the new bride, the field was named Theresienwiese, Therese's field. 

The festival ran for several days, starting the day after the royal wedding (on October 12, 1810). One of the final events was a horse race to be held on October 18. According to legend the race was organized by a Major in the army, but the details remain hazy. What is certain is that the Theresienwiese was the ideal place for such an event; the field itself was large but right next to the city, and a large hill located at its edge could serve as seating for tens of thousands of race spectators. A royal pavilion was set on top of this hill, so the newlyweds and the Monarch would have a fine view of the upcoming race. To entertain the royal guests, local wines and beers were sampled, and children put on shows for them. The race itself was a wild event, and ultimately a horse belonging to a Franz Baumgartner (possibly another founder of the event) won. 

The race proved so popular that in 1811 it was decided to repeat the event. Knowing that thousands from across Europe would attend, the Bavarian government decided to host an agricultural show in the week before the race. Bavarian trade goods could be shown off, adding an economic element to the festivities. The agricultural show remains a part of Oktoberfest (it's held every third Oktoberfest)  and the economic and advertising element would later be adopted by the famous Bavarian breweries. 

The festival continued to grow; in 1813 it was cancelled thanks to Napoleon, but afterwards it exploded in popularity as Europeans began to celebrate and take life easy after decades of war. In 1818 the first "carnival" entertainments, such as simple rides and games, started appearing alongside the rapidly growing number of beer tents, and the next year it was decided to officially make the October Festival a yearly event. In 1850 a statue of Bavaria, the personification of the kingdom, was erected over the field and in 1853 the Rumshalle, a large classical style building was constructed nearby to serve as a focal point of festivities. 

Rumshalle and Bavaria

In the early days small stands built by local brewers were erected to serve beer to thirsty guests, but as time went on the number of these booths expanded and the festival took on more and more of a public drinking aspect. Finally, in 1896 large tents and beer halls began to be built by the Munich's largest breweries; the idea was to have everything a festival patron might want under one roof. Around this time the date of the event was also pushed up to mid-September; foul October weather had dampened events in some prior years and pushing the event to late summer would guarantee better weather. 

The Beer

As mentioned above, originally beer was sold to guests as an afterthought, but as the Munich breweries grew it became the main attraction. A number of strict rules and traditions have grown around the beers served at Oktoberfest, mostly dictated by the Club of Munich Brewers, a trade organization of the city's breweries. 

A Maß is quite large. Extra head is there to make carrying the glass without spillage easier. 

All "official" beers served at Oktoberfest are Marzen, a type of German lager. It has to conform to the rules set down in the Bavarian Beer Purity Law (Reinheitsgebot) which states the only ingredients used in the brewing are water, hops, and barley. This "Oktoberfestbier" is specially brewed for the event, and it is allowed to be stronger than normal, usually around 2% stronger than the beer normally produced by a given brewery. This means the beer served at Oktoberfest is around 6% abv. It is always served by the "Maß", which means of mug of exactly 1 litre (about 33 ounces) of beer. 

Officially only 6 breweries have the right to produce Oktoberfest Marzen; Augustiner-Bräu, Hacker-Pschorr-Bräu, Löwenbräu, Paulaner, Spatenbräu, and Staatliches Hofbräu-München. Each of the 6 runs one of the main beer tents, and while craftbrews and foreign beers have become available outside of the main event, these 6 still dominate throughout Munich during Oktoberfest. 

Some Facts

-Oktoberfest has been cancelled on numerous occassions, usually during war or as a result of a public health crisis. In several instances (in the years after both World Wars) a smaller event, the kleineres Herbstfest (Smaller Fall Festival) was held to save money. 

-While a parade was held at the first Oktoberfest in 1810, the tradition of the modern annual parade started in 1887. This event celebrated the staff of the local breweries and festivals, and the garish decorations of the wagons and later floats built by the breweries serve as a lure to bring guests to their beer tents. The parade is always held the first Saturday of Oktoberfest and serves as the event's official kickoff. 

-The festival was one of the first in Europe to be lit electrically in 1880. 

-Originally, beer was drunk out of ceramic mugs, usually brought to the event by guests. In 1892 breweries instead started serving the beer in glass mugs so that they could better control portions served to guests. 

-About 75% of attendees are Bavarians or Austrians. Another 15% are foreigners from outside of Europe. The event annually brings about 6 million visitors in. 

-"Drunk Watching" is a favorite past time of many Munich residents during the event; many visitors overindulge and this, combined with the heat and extremely cramped conditions makes many sick. The issue is so common that this year Adidas released a shoe which is "puke resistant". Pleasant, no?

-Oktoberfest is extremely crowded; locals make reservations for tables inside of the big beer tents up to a year in advance, and many foreigners find themselves shut out of the most desirable tents by throngs of Germans with reservations. 

Oktoberfest waitresses can carry over a dozen  beers, and use whistles to get the crowds to move out of their way!

-There are rides and games at Oktoberfest, and efforts continue to be made to make the event more family friendly. 

-Oktoberfest isn't really an event outside of Munich, contrary to popular thought in America. Most towns and cities have their own fall festivals. Many Germans are aware of Oktoberfest but have never been, and the event holds a similar place in many German minds to the one held for Mardi Gras by many Americans outside of the Gulf coast. 

-The second largest Oktoberfest in the world is held right here in Cincinnati, Ohio! It starts today!

Historical Misconceptions 2: Viking Warrior Women

Woo boy, this one is going to generate some anger I suspect, so let me start by saying the following. It is extremely disingenuous and dangerous to the study of history to project modern beliefs and desires on people of the past. Here in the United States in 2017 we live in one of the most socially progressive, open-minded societies in human history. While we still have a long way to go on many fronts, more people enjoy more freedoms, protections, and social mobility here and now than at almost any other point in the last 10,000 years. Assuming that people of the past thought the way we do isn't just detrimental to discovering the truth, it is unfair to those people of the past who didn't enjoy the same levels of education and development that we do today.

There's a news story going around right now, talking about how DNA evidence has "proven" the existence of female viking fighters. To quickly summarize, a grave was found in Scandinavia where the person had been buried with items usually associated with male burials; weapons and a military-themed board game. As a result, most scholars assumed it was a male, but a recent DNA test showed the person to have been a woman. As a result, we're seeing headlines like "scholars proven wrong about warrior women!". What?

For the last 20 years or so there's been a trope in Norse studies of trying to prove that the vikings (that is, early medieval Scandinavians from modern Denmark, Norway, and Sweden) were somehow an extremely liberal, tolerant society focused on trade. The massive documentary and archaeological record of the victims of their raids of course disprove that to some extent. It IS good that we are trying to look at groups like the vikings with a more open, even-minded and open view, but in my mind this has gone way too far; instead of viewing them only as barbaric raiders some have begun to regard them (as the Victorians did before us) as some sort of nearly Utopian society.

The concept of viking warrior women is old; the Sagas themselves after all discuss the Valkyries, angelic female warriors of the gods. The Sagas also mention Shield-Maidens, women who have forsaken a "normal" life to fight as warriors. It's a concept that many modern historians are attracted to; after all, if the vikings who were feared across the world had many female fighters, it clearly says something about how wrong some peoples' views about the traditional role of women are.

The problem is, a lot of this is wishful thinking, backed up by very scant evidence which itself is still heavily debated among scholars of Norse history. Were there perhaps SOME women who fought alongside men on raids and invasions? Possibly. Were they common? Certainly not. The evidence for women taking part as warriors is extremely scant. The Sagas mention shield maidens, and a handful of graves of women with weapons have been discovered. There have also been Scandinavian women buried in places the Vikings invaded, like northern England.

Obviously, these few bits of evidence aren't at all conclusive. People are often buried with items they may not have used in life; think about all of the people you know who are buried in suits but never wore one while they were living! Overseas burials were scant, and can easily be chalked up to the women simply immigrating with their male kinfolk, as we know they did in Iceland and North America. The Great Heathen Army's invasion of England was after all to conquer territory and not just a great raid, and it makes sense men may have brought mothers, wives, or daughters with them. In short, the archaeological record is sparse and open to interpretation at best.

Viking women also enjoyed more rights than women in other areas of Europe in the Early Middle Ages, suggesting perhaps they had greater roles in society as well. Viking women had the right to divorce their husbands, own land and other property, choose their husbands, and act as political and religious leaders. With that said, greater social liberty doesn't always equate to greater social influence. Take American women in the 1930's; they had the right of divorce, the right to vote and hold political office, the right to property, and more, but their social opportunities were (compared to today) not quite there yet to say the least. There were some very powerful, influential women at this time of course, but this doesn't mean that it was common yet, and it'd take things like women entering the male-dominated workforce as a result of the Second World War to really get the ball rolling.  So that there were some exceptional viking women doesn't indicate it was common.

That leaves the Saga evidence which I feel to be a mixed bag. On the one hand, the Sagas often exaggerate or flat-out lie, but many of them do hold many kernels of truth. The Sagas were mostly recorded after the Viking golden-age by Christian priests or monks, and they'd have had no reason to include women that hadn't been in the original orally-transmitted tales. With that said, when shield-maidens to appear in sagas, they're always being described as exceptional to some degree, which would indicate they weren't exactly a common thing.

The evidence against women regularly fighting alongside men in viking armies and warbands is extensive though. Or at least, the lack of things we SHOULD find showing they regularly took part in warfare is telling. The first are clear battlefield casualties. A skeleton of a person killed in combat is pretty distinctive, as the wounds given to a person fighting defensively are much different from the wounds of a person simply hacked down with little or no resistance. As of the time of writing, I am aware of no female viking bodies ever discovered showing any of these kinds of wounds.

Then there's the almost complete lack of literary evidence. In Scandinavia, runestones were large carved rocks which commemorated a great person or event. Only a few mention women at all, and in every case only as great wives or servants. Take the Odendisa runestone, the ONLY such runestone ever discovered in all of Sweden to mention a woman. it reads:

Boandi goðr Holmgautr let ræisa æftiʀ Oðindisu, kunu sina. Kumbʀ hifrøya til Hasvimyra æigi bætri, þan byi raðr. Rauð-Balliʀ risti runiʀ þessaʀ. Sigmundaʀ vaʀ [Oðindisa] systiʀ goð

The good husband Holmgautr had this stone raised in memory of Odendisa, his wife. There will come to Hassmyra no better housewife, who arranges the estate. Red-Ball carved these runes. Odendisa was a good sister to Sigmundr. 

You would think that if there were many women holding great positions of power or military ability in viking society, the runestones would have indicated that, but none that have been discovered show any evidence of that. 

Now the argument can be made that runestones are somewhat rare, and the vikings weren't known for a strong written literary tradition, which is fair. So lets look at the many, many literate people who had contact with viking raiders or traders and wrote about their interactions. The four obvious ones are the Franks, the Anglo-Saxons of England, the Byzantine Empire, and several Arab Caliphates and Emirates. All four of these groups were deeply religious, extremely patriarchal by modern standards, and produced rich sources of documentary evidence.

None of these groups ever really describe women fighting alongside men. Saxo Grammaticus, an Anglo Saxon chronicler, does transcribe a legendary story about a battle involving several female war-leaders from a Saga, but Saxo Grammaticus himself seems to have taken this story as legend. The Anglo-Saxons in particular are telling here; they've been described as perhaps the most patriarchal group of people in early medieval Europe (which is saying something!) and they also wrote heavily and in great detail about the viking invasions of Britain. These writers went to great lengths to describe all of the terrible things the vikings did, down to hygienic and domestic practices  the Anglo Saxons found distasteful. You would think that had women been fighting against this patriarchal society, the Anglo Saxon chronicles would have mentioned them with horror, but they're nowhere to be found. I am not as familiar with Byzantine or Arab sources, but here again there is a near-total dearth of documentary evidence supporting women fighters. 

Another obvious place where viking women should have appeared but don't was within the Byzantine military. The Byzantine emperors were protected by a group called the Varangian guard, drawn originally from vikings from Rus and Scandinavia. Several prominent vikings did a tour with the guard because the job promised great wealth, but there is no evidence of a woman ever serving with the Varangians, or even applying to join their ranks. 

Viking Graffiti in Constantinople's Hagia Sophia

This evidence all indicates to me that there may have been some women who fought regularly alongside men, but it seems more likely that when most women did fight it was out of necessity. A great example of this is Leif Erikson's sister Freydis; the story goes that while in North America her settlement was attacked by a group of natives. The women and children fled, but because she was pregnant Freydis fell behind. When the natives caught up with her, she took the sword from a dead man (possibly one of her retainers) and beat it against her breasts, challenging the natives to fight her. Out of fear or respect they fell back and the day was saved. She wasn't a "warrior", and fighting was not her job, but she showed great bravery at a desperate moment. 

A warrior is someone whose primary job it is to fight. They occupy a distinct place in their society. A person picking up a spear to defend their home is brave and desperate, but they aren't a warrior. They're heroic, sure, but they don't spend their lives training to fight, they are expected to fight except under exceptional circumstances, and given any other option they probably wouldn't fight. The evidence showing that women routinely held this role in Norse society is lacking and open to debate at best. 

What bothers me about all of this viking warrior women talk is that it ignores the many truly exceptional women throughout history. Shows like History Channel's Vikings portrays the legendary Lagertha as leading a band of all-female warriors, leading many with the false assumption that this is historically accurate. When these people learn it's at best a partial-truth, it leaves them questioning what to believe. Let's talk about Aethelflaed, an Anglo-Saxon daughter of Alfred the Great who inspired the Mercians to drive off the Vikings and dressed as a warrior. Let's focus on the amazing women throughout history, and not discuss theoretical narratives based on scant evidence and wishful thinking. It cheapens the field of research and diminishes and dilutes the stories of people we know who existed. 

We need to keep an open mind. Evidence may be found that conclusively proves women routinely fought alongside men in Norse society, and we need to be ready to accept it if we find it. Until that time (if it ever comes) we need to not project modern sensibilities and desires on the past. Does it matter one way or the other to modern discussions about gender and women's roles in society? Not really.