Women, War and Words: a Verbal Archaeology of Shield-maidens

Scholarly discussions of the question of the participation of women in war in the Viking Age have based their arguments on a variety of evidence, including both archaeology and texts. However, even those scholars who make substantial use of the textual evidence have not paid sufficiently close atte...

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Autor principal:	Judith Jesch
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	NB SV
Publicado:	Norsk arkeologisk selskap 2021
Materias:	Archaeology CC1-960
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/31910688c28e4c29aa6ce9b77682c39b
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id	oai:doaj.org-article:31910688c28e4c29aa6ce9b77682c39b
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:31910688c28e4c29aa6ce9b77682c39b2021-11-23T14:50:35ZWomen, War and Words: a Verbal Archaeology of Shield-maidens10.5617/viking.90540332-608X2535-2660https://doaj.org/article/31910688c28e4c29aa6ce9b77682c39b2021-11-01T00:00:00Zhttps://journals.uio.no/viking/article/view/9054https://doaj.org/toc/0332-608Xhttps://doaj.org/toc/2535-2660 Scholarly discussions of the question of the participation of women in war in the Viking Age have based their arguments on a variety of evidence, including both archaeology and texts. However, even those scholars who make substantial use of the textual evidence have not paid sufficiently close attention to (a) the vocabulary used in the representations (whether historical or fictional) of women acting in the supposed male role of warrior and (b) the literary-historical contexts in which the texts were produced, including potential relationships between texts. To further these discussions, this paper proposes a method which might be called the ‘stratigraphy of texts’ to demonstrate how a careful sifting of the cumulative textual evidence can enrich discussion about this important question. With close attention to the vocabulary used by the texts, and by considering the date, genre and sources of, and – importantly – the relationships between, texts in Old Norse, the discussion will demonstrate what can and what cannot be deduced from these textual representations of female warriors in the Viking Age. The paper will focus on tracing the development of the Old Norse concept of the skjaldmær, ‘shield-maiden’, through a variety of texts in which this term occurs, and also suggest a probable origin for the concept. There will also be a brief consideration of the term ‘valkyrie’ (ON valkyrja). Judith JeschNorsk arkeologisk selskaparticleArchaeologyCC1-960NBSVViking, Vol 84, Iss 1 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	NB SV
topic	Archaeology CC1-960
spellingShingle	Archaeology CC1-960 Judith Jesch Women, War and Words: a Verbal Archaeology of Shield-maidens
description	Scholarly discussions of the question of the participation of women in war in the Viking Age have based their arguments on a variety of evidence, including both archaeology and texts. However, even those scholars who make substantial use of the textual evidence have not paid sufficiently close attention to (a) the vocabulary used in the representations (whether historical or fictional) of women acting in the supposed male role of warrior and (b) the literary-historical contexts in which the texts were produced, including potential relationships between texts. To further these discussions, this paper proposes a method which might be called the ‘stratigraphy of texts’ to demonstrate how a careful sifting of the cumulative textual evidence can enrich discussion about this important question. With close attention to the vocabulary used by the texts, and by considering the date, genre and sources of, and – importantly – the relationships between, texts in Old Norse, the discussion will demonstrate what can and what cannot be deduced from these textual representations of female warriors in the Viking Age. The paper will focus on tracing the development of the Old Norse concept of the skjaldmær, ‘shield-maiden’, through a variety of texts in which this term occurs, and also suggest a probable origin for the concept. There will also be a brief consideration of the term ‘valkyrie’ (ON valkyrja).
format	article
author	Judith Jesch
author_facet	Judith Jesch
author_sort	Judith Jesch
title	Women, War and Words: a Verbal Archaeology of Shield-maidens
title_short	Women, War and Words: a Verbal Archaeology of Shield-maidens
title_full	Women, War and Words: a Verbal Archaeology of Shield-maidens
title_fullStr	Women, War and Words: a Verbal Archaeology of Shield-maidens
title_full_unstemmed	Women, War and Words: a Verbal Archaeology of Shield-maidens
title_sort	women, war and words: a verbal archaeology of shield-maidens
publisher	Norsk arkeologisk selskap
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/31910688c28e4c29aa6ce9b77682c39b
work_keys_str_mv	AT judithjesch womenwarandwordsaverbalarchaeologyofshieldmaidens
_version_	1718416694836199424

Women, War and Words: a Verbal Archaeology of Shield-maidens

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