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.
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| 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.
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