Marching through history – in which Paula sheds some light on 11th century Anglo-Saxon women

Today, I am joined by Paula Lofting. As long as I have known Paula, she has been a major, major fan of Anglo-Saxon England, more specifically the period just preceding the Conquest. Yes, she has a crush on Harold–so no wonder she has just published a book about him (on my TBR – I am quite sure I will be very impressed, given Paula’s passion AND research) but she has also written fiction set in the period – fiction in which the women play a very important part.  But  no more from me: allow me to turn you over to Paula!
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When Anna asked me if I would like to participate in her blog hop for women’s month I couldn’t refuse. However, with so many great and interesting women to choose from in my period of interest, I couldn’t make up my mind, so I decided to focus on two women in my Sons of the Wolf series, the wife of my main character, Ealdgytha, and her maid servant, Sigfrith. For those of you who are not familiar with my books or my characters, Ealdgytha is the wife of a Saxon thegn called Wulfhere, living in the heart of Sussex in a clearing in the forest of Andredesweald. Both women lived in a place like this.

Unless they were high status women, or abbesses, women of the 11^th century are rarely mentioned in the sources and mostly turning up with very little detail. Even Emma of Normandy, twice queen of England, was only mentioned a dozen times in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Queen Edith, wife of Edward of the Confessor, was mentioned even less. However, we do have the Encomium Emmae and the Vita Edwardi, commissioned by the women themselves and written by anonymous scribes. These writings give us a glimpse into the personalities of these women, more so than the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles and the Chronicon ex Chronicis. We must not be fooled, the former books do have their own agendas.

Wills belonging to two women named Wulfgyth and Wynflaed, give us some indication of their lives and status by the things they left their family and the church. Wulfgyth’s will shows us she was a woman of substantial wealth in the form of land, leaving it to her children and religious establishments. She also owned slaves like many wealthy people of her time, and like many, granted some their freedom on her passing, an act that was surely intended to win God’s favour. Her gift of land to Earl Harold and his father Godwin, shows that she probably knew them and mixed in high places. She liked nice things, for she gifted two beautifully bonded horns and left a cape and regalia as well as money to various saints.

Wynflӕd, however, appears to have been a widowed vowess and from her will, we gather that she might have been a highly prized seamstress and embroiderer to whom younger girl’s may have been apprenticed, for she gifts textile workers to her daughter, Eadgifu. Like Wulfgyth, Wynflaed was hoping to win favour with the church by leaving many precious items for the sake of her soul, such as the two silver cups, money, and gold noted in her will. She had probably been educated at Wilton, for the Abbey was also a beneficiary of her will. Wynflaed also had plenty of land as well as movable goods to leave to her children and grandchildren and also other beneficiaries of her will of whom there were many. The will also mentions her marriage gift, the land at Faccombe that she left to her son Eadmer. She bequeathed all sorts of clothing, including her holy tunic and her holy veil, linen chests and their contents, bedding, tapestries, cooking utensils, books and animals. She would have been able to do whatever she wanted with all her property. She was able to seek justice in the shire courts, could not be forced to marry against her will, and obtain divorce if she so wished. How well she did in all of those aspects often depended on who was supporting her, the nature of those she brought the suit against, and whether the law was properly enforced. Even lower-class women, as long as they were free, were entitled to bring a case to court.

Despite the law, women of nobility were often coerced into marriage by their elders to enforce peace, (friðuwebbe) against two enemy clans. This happens to Ealdgytha’s daughter, Winflӕd in the third novel, Wolf’s Bane. Some women may have had it drummed into them that it was their duty to marry the husband of their father’s choice, especially where bargains were struck to the benefit of the fathers. Winflӕd manages to make her own choice of partner without going against the peace treaty.

A woman of the servant class like Ealdgytha’s maid, would probably not have found themselves forced into marriage to bring peace to warring families. If a man wanted to ‘court’ a girl, he had but to travel to the next village, and the girl was free to pick and choose, as long as her parents took a shine to the man. But nonetheless, all marriages had to be presided over by a king’s representative wherever they were held. In this day there was no official marriage mass, and the ceremony mostly took place on the church steps before entering the church for a blessing. Or you could be married the ‘old way’, known as more Danico, or handfasting, but whatever way you chose, a woman’s rights and that of her children were supported.

How the ladies spent their days depended on the class they were born into. Ealdgytha and Sigfrith would have worked closely together to run the household with Sigfrith doing most of the ‘hard labour’. Ealdgytha came from influential families on both sides. Unfortunately, her own father was not quite as successful in securing her as prominent a husband as he did for her older sister, Eanflaed, and she ended up locked in a marriage with Wulfhere, a king’s thegn of reasonable means, but not as important as she would have liked.

Each morning, Sigfrith would be awake before any of the others, ensuring that the fire in the central hearth had not gone out overnight. She would set a huge cauldron with water to boil over the hearth. Later that cauldron would be bubbling away with stock, vegetables and hunks of meat. Getting up in the dark and cold was a cross she had to bear. You wouldn’t find her mistress starting her day that way. Ealdgytha had been brought up to run a household for her husband. She would oversee that the household chores were carried out and the food was prepped. If her husband was away as he frequently was, she would have to make sure that the men were at their tasks in the morning and that the fields were attended to by their tenants.

Her daughters would work with her, seeing to the younger children, helping to make sure that the house was kept shipshape, the baking was done, the clothing and linen washed and hung out to dry, fruit picked and stewed, nuts and berries collected from the woods. The animals needed to be fed, the wool spun, dying and weaving carried out and if there was time, Ealdgytha might like to enjoy the pastime of tablet weave, or embroidery, which according to the Exeter book, the place for women (of high status) was at her embroidery. She was the hlafdige, lady of the house, who held the keys to not only the doors and weaving sheds, but the precious spice box. She was treated as an independent, respected, and important part of a marriage partnership, but of course that all depended on the man she was married to.

Excerpt from The Wolf Banner, Book 2 of Sons of the wolf.

 Winflӕd observes the interactions between her mother and the servant.

The little babe was tired, and having been generously supplied with Sigfrith’s milk, was being rocked to sleep in Mother’s adoring arms. This was a relief as prior to that, the child had screamed until it seemed its lungs would burst, along with Winflæd’s eardrums.

“There, she sleeps like an angel now,” Mother murmured.
“Such a noisy little thing,” Sigfrith remarked, tossing a recently spun skein of wool into the basket. She took up another unworked batch and teased out the fibres, meshing it together with the wool on the spindle. “No wonder her mama sought to be rid of her.”
“Nonsense, I cannot imagine how anyone could abandon such a beautiful child. She has been sent to us from God. She is a miracle,” Mother said, her eyes intent on the foundling in her arms.
“I for one am certain she is not a miracle but has come from the devil himself. The noise is too much to bear sometimes.” Sigfrith sighed and looked at her own infant, happily playing in a wicker pen nearby. “Thankfully, Leofweard is nothing like that screaming brat.”
Winflæd sucked in her breath. It always amazed her how Sigfrith could say whatever she wished with impunity. Sigfrith’s imposing manner resembled Aunt Gunnhild’s, except Sigfrith was generally right in her assumptions, and it seemed to serve her better than it did Gunnhild.
Eanflæd and Ælswith, wives of the miller and the wood smith, were speculating on the origin of the babe. “I wonder whence she came?” remarked one of them.
“Do you think the mother could be one of our village girls?” asked the other.
Ælswith’s daughter-in-law, Cuthburga, studied the child as she looked over Ealdgytha’s shoulder. “Obviously, the babe has been fathered on some poor girl out of wedlock, and she is ashamed, as she should be, so she has left her somewhere for someone else to bring up,” the young woman said.

Looking casually at Sigfrith, Mother said, “If anyone would know, Sigfrith would. What do you think, Sigfrith? Could the mother be one of our village girls?”
“Of course, Sigfrith knows everything, but Sigfrith has not noticed any swollen bellies of late,” replied the maid.
“Perhaps the daughter of the one of the charcoalers, the girls are little strumpets, I hear,” Eanflæd said.
Sigfrith rolled her eyes as Ælswith asked inquisitively of her companion, “How do you know, Eanflæd?”
Cuthburga interjected, nodding her head at Eanflæd. “Ask that son of hers, he would know.”
“What do you mean?” asked the miller’s wife. “My son does not associate with such girls.”
Sniffing indignantly, Sigfrith said, “Why do folk always blame the girl? Why is it that men are never taken to task for their conduct? They take a girl’s maidenhead without so much as a word said against them, but the girl who has had it taken from her is constantly spoken ill of.”
Winflæd could tell by the way Sigfrith lips bunched together that the maid was seething.
“Mayhap the mother left the child where the father might find her,” Sigfrith added sharply, throwing a ball of wool into the basket with a tad more effort than was needed.
Mother glanced warily at Sigfrith and seemed uneasy for a moment. “Nonsense!” she said and lowered the sleeping child into her cot. “Why would she leave her in my husband’s stables? He is not the father.”
Sigfrith, a hint of a contented smile on her lips, continued to spin.
A thought came to Winflæd, and she ventured, “Perhaps the baby’s mother knew the father would be attending the wedding.”
Instantly, heads turned in her direction and Mother’s sour expression burned Winflæd’s ears. “Such talk is not for little girls, Winflæd, so I would ask you to keep your mouth, and your ears shut, and mind your own business!”

My Sons of the Wolf series is a saga centred around an 11^th Century thegn and his family in the years leading up to the Norman Conquest of England. We see their trials and tribulations against the political landscape of the time as they weather conflict, bloodfeud, and  murder.

Book links myBook.to/Sonslive

myBook.to/WolfB

Paula Lofting is an historical fiction author and as well as her novels, she has written a biographical history about the life of one of England’s greatest warrior kings, Harold Godwinson for Pen and Sword Books. She is currently working on the third novel in her Sons of the Wolf series and is commissioned by Pen and Sword to write about Edmund Ironside.

Website www.threadstothepast.com

Check out the previous Marching Through History post HERE!