Viking women - How was their life in the Viking age?
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- Опубліковано 11 вер 2017
- How was the life for a women in the viking age? Did the women have any rights and did they work?
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What is was with the Northmen was that they recognized all the hard work the women also did to keep the children happy, the home functioning, and making the food. As well as being the healers and magical pieces of the gods and gave them respect for it. The men knew they couldn't function without women, just like how the women needed the men. The Vikings were quite smart. Unlike some Saxon neighbors...
Right?! I also like how other people were tasked to help them around the house and take care of the elderly.
You just picked up a new subscriber. I'd rather have lived among the Vikings than under the Roman Empire, I'll tell you that for nothing.
Same.
I have seen this ship in Oslo, its absolutely fantastic, and the restoration and continued maintenance of all 3 ships shows enormous respect for the ancient cultural history these treasures bring us.
Video: Viking Women have more rights then any women of the Viking age.
Hunter-Gather women: Hold our basket.
😂😂
Historically noone had rights. Esp Hunter gatherers. They were slaves to unbridled nature. Do or die.
@@sloth_e oh please this is so cliché
@@Carla63Wild the most cliche reply ever. Can or will you dispute this with some credible evidence that ive somehow missed? Or just drop smarmy replies?
@@sloth_e i am an archeologist. Prooves we have that hunter gatherers woman were mostly treated like the weak sex, not much different from viking period, even less
something I like about pagan culture, you don't have to be a feminist to be for women's rights. I remember the first time I told a feminist "listen, bitch, I don't have to be a feminist to believe in your right to speak, own things, have opinions, and defend yourself with a gun... for me that is apart of being a heathen." with that in mind, not a whipped simp, not a soy boy but for the love of family, I know women have rights that they can handle and might I say... need. especially with the right to bear arms... both men and women need to defend themselves for when there is no help or strength in numbers at a situation.
Amazingly interesting!!! I'm very curious about the Vikings. Cheers from Brazil!!!
Br Hue.
Most ancient Scandinavians weren’t Vikings, viking was something that many did not something that they were. You went viking, in other words, you travelled throughout the rivers and seas in order to trade with other cultures. When Europe became increasingly ‘christianized’ these countries started to refuse to trade with the Vikings because they were heathens. This caused the Vikings to start plundering especially the churches and monasteries because they knew that the wealth was stored there. Also the archeologists have a tendency to interpret things from their own experience/perspective of the culture that they come from. For example, there has been discoveries of female warriors due to osteologists studying the skeletons, etc.
I have read that women had the right to inherit and own property.
My impression was it depended. They could inherit if there wasn't a fit male heir.
I love the story in the sagas where the woman makes a tunic for her husband with a head hole so large that his nipples showed, a decidedly feminine adaptation to ensure ease of breastfeeding, and thus she divorced him for wearing women's clothing! lol
Louise Bentley that is hilarious 😅
Thank you for this I often wonder about this as the artistic and entertaining version of society at the time portrayed is more of a modern interpretation though the lens of current cultural norms
I can think of at least one example from the sagas of a girl refusing large numbers of suitors, thinking none of them good enough for her. Perhaps she had a lenient father or maybe it was because she was exceedingly beautiful, but it still shows women definitely had a say in the matter. It wasn't like a girl could be bought for a few pieces of silver and shipped off to a random sailor... unless perhaps if she was a real bitch and her father was desperately out of mead or something. ;)
A smart father, that man.
what time period are you talking about please ?
Well, the fathers weren't considered obliged to consult their daughters on a proposal, but that does not mean they didn't. It depends on the guy. But also widows had the right to remarry and were pretty much free agents to do as they pleased.
I would not want to be a women without choices, or be cruelly used or abused. We are sometimes, I think, luckier today with all of our choices.
@Artemis Fowl Does that mean you think it is all right to abuse women or are you against it? Abuse by either men or women is wrong.
Well some in places. Women aren't that lucky. People in Hunter-Gather culture would be shock to find out that some women are treated like shit.
@@hereshotrod3873 im not sure thats true ! i think women of old ! were respected! not like today a very unequal society ! all down to religions ! we females , need to start fighting back ! to save the children !who are now being abused % exploited ! it so frightening ! god please help us all ! red ! yellow ! black ! or white ! all are precious in gods sight! love & joy & peace to the world !
@@cherryberry7024 Take a chill pill.
@@jurikurthambarskjelfir3533 take a walk off a short pier darling love .&peace manxx.
Thanks for your videos. I would love to know where you get your information, as I am also going to create some Viking type videos on my channel. Also, I see a lot of Viking tent structures.. I would like to know where they came from and how they were made. Thank you for your time. Cheers!
Interesting. Thank you for sharing.
Very informative,thanks for posting this.
thanks for watching :)
Subscribed!
But has new videos stopped being released?
Hi Very interesting indeed and in some cultures not much has changed either
I have read elsewhere that Viking women had the right of inheritance under some restricted circumstances, basically if there was no male heir to speak of.
Me as a viking woman: Fratricide FTW! $$\O/$$
THANK YOU
Good details
What are your sources ?
Great video.
greetings fellow shiledbiter from across the skagerak.
I think you should mention that if a woman chose to a man's job, this was allowed and no one thought less of the woman, meaning if she decided to go sailing, fishing or doing other traditional male type jobs.
However if a man did a woman's job this would be looked down upon.
And then you have the concept of the shieldmaiden and women warriors.
Viking children of both genders played and learned to use weapons, and did learn to fight, everyone did, they even armed some slaves/thralls.
A norse woman faced with an armed frenchman WAS a female warrior to the frenchman, but a hose wife and a mother to the vikings.
Shieldmaidens did exist, they were few an far between, but they did exist, and more often were women that due to their smaller size and better natural dexterity often were the ones behind the shield wall replacing broken and lost shileds. As well fighting.
It is all a matter of definition.
Women could attend and even hold thing, IF they were the community rulers etc.
"Shieldmaidens did exist, they were few an far between, but they did exist, and more often were women that due to their smaller size and better natural dexterity"....--
This is written by someone who plays Dungeons & Dragons but has never committed to any sport. Are you fuc…. kidding me!?
Completly false assumptions. Look into osteology. The study of bones and bone structure, wear n tear and muscle growth anchoring etc. It tells the difference between a farmer and a sewer and a warrior. It shows injuries old and new. It shows the difference between an archer and a sword user. Theres so little evidence world wide of female warrior's that I can only recall one actually female warrior found on the Eurasian steppes. To be buried with a sword etc shows status not occupation.
The sagas talk about shield maidens sure, but they also talk about magic and dragons and trolls etc.
Also, vikings weren't supreme warriors. In 99% of instances when faced with an organised army the norse were defeated and chased out. Stone age native Americans over came them. They were persistent raiders of the franks and anglo saxons. When the anglo saxons got together and got organised even the fyrd made up of farmers defeated them. They were warriors of opportunity. But the sagas and thier mythology was epic!
@@sloth_e But not like those of the Greeks and Romans!
@@linkskywalker5417 thats a well organised full-time military. Romans exemplify this. There were many 10 out of 10 individual warriors amongst the vikingr but untill they became Normans, they weren't a standing full-time trained army with manoeuvres and discipline that could run a full campaign. They made excellent mercenaries though. The best of the best in thier time.
Sad women weren't treated better than most society's glad we have equal rights today 😀100precent
Thanks for this interesting piece Skjalden, I would happily live in a Viking settlement but most of these rules would need to be removed one of the worst things being arranged marriage no thanks! I would be happier being a shield maiden so that I can duck face before going into battle lol !
Yes, it is much better when everyone is free and able to pursue their dreams. I'm sure you could have been a shieldmaiden, and maybe you have, who knows how all this works :) Crowsbaneful member of the mighty duck clan anno 875 ;)
Nein nein nein nein nein nein nein nein
@@arnaraki7514 That's German dude
I've read the sagas, and this is fairly accurate. Most Norse women did not make a career out of fighting or raiding, but were something like my mother-in-law who grew up in Karelia. You needed to be physically and mentally tough to run a farm, and some times it was necessary to defend your home because they didn't have 911 in those days...but the whole "lesbian shield maiden" thing on Vikings is ludicrous, because as it says in the Kalevala "women can not mate each other", and ensuring the continuation of one's biological family was more important than relationships based on purely physical attraction. Viking women fought and died alongside their men because their society was based on mutual co-operation and respect between men and women, not hatred and contempt!
Men and women were definitely more equal in the Viking age, but it slowly changed after the introduction of Christianity. However we should not dwell in the past, none of us were alive back then. Today the society is much better regarding equality, and I think some of these ideas spread from Scandinavia and to the rest of Europe and the west.
@@Skjalden what time period are you talking about here sir ? norsemen ! and vikings ! there could be a different story ! according to timeperiod !
Guess what .. as long as you fullfill your duties no one cared who you loved and what kind of job you had.
so in case you can't explain graves like Birka in Sweden without calling science a lie you better watch your mouth claiming women couldnt go on raids as equal as men in the shieldwall.
Oh and just in case you missed the first point: Im telling you to cut your homophobia out!
@@DarkAngelsCry16 given that such duties included carrying on your blood line and contributing to the general well being of your family (which aside from your blood relatives only included people you "loved" if said relationship was biologically viable) and it's not "homophobic" to make a plain statement of fact... although some women did in fact go on raids with the men, most did not and that in a society in which men and women often HAD to work together in order to survive people who secluded themselves into all female or all male groups did not have as much chance of survival as those who cooperated with the opposite gender and were not highly thought of (in fact, the term used to describe such people was "agr", and was commonly used as an insult). In fact, the idea that any woman who engages in "masculine" pursuits like hunting, fighting, trade or higher education must necessarily be "masculine" in her other tastes as well (including in the bedroom) is a lot of Victorian silliness invented to harm women. The simple fact is that in Norse society there were strong women who worked and fought and traded with men, and if any of them did in fact have feelings for one another they did not let said feelings have any impact on their day to day lives.
@@sarahgray430 you are quite right. They had a different idea about a lot of the 'sacred cows' of modern western civilization as well. Their views on death and dying in particular (which only makes perfectly logical sense given they would be surrounded by it until it was normalized, from the death of livestock to friends to family). This includes, I would imagine, their views on the perpetuation of the bloodline and family-- if a man or woman was lucky enough to live to old age (surviving injury and illness, quite common things on an iron age farm, where even the slip of a knife could kill you with infection, potentially) then who would look after them? There were no social programs, no retirement homes, no safety net at all-- you absolutely had to have children who would look after you in your old age. A son would be highly hoped for if for no other reason than inheritance rights. If dad died from any number of risky ventures (from felling trees to quarrying stone, to breaking livestock and, finally a nd more romantically, raiding) a son would immediately inherit his properties without dispute and the mothers security in life more assured.
People often allow their notions of what life is like today to color their opinion of how it must have once been. While such same sex pairings almost certainly happened, their impact on a person's social standing (or lack of impact for that matter) is little understood.
The iron age and early medieval era were very, very different places than the modern era. The parasites alone, I shudder to think.
Thanks for this. It makes a change for someone to cover a topic that seems to be too often avoided. I think that some folk must believe that all the Medieval Scandinavians went on raiding trips and left their country homes unoccupied and didn't have a normal life.
Btw are you Danish?
Yes, I am Danish.
Thank you for the history of Viking women. It was very enlightening.
Thank you for the making of this video. Blessed be. May the Gods and Goddesses guide and protect you!
)O(
interesting
Any info of different treatment for Woman of high status? King's sisters, etc... I guess they had servants and no need to work. Is it right? Did they sit or feast with the King? Gundur from the saga of the Volsungs for example.
I may be completely incorrect in this, or the information I got was bogus, but I was under the impression that SOME women, in SOME circumstances were allowed to wear a Seax and vote with it at a Thing.
The old 'there are always exceptions to the rules' bit. Like I said, I could be entirely wrong as I'm still in the shallow end of my investigations into my ancestry. If I'm wrong, I'd appreciate a good, sourced correction.
A Roman source said that everyone wore a weapon at all times.
I have come here beacuse tomorrow i need to write an essay " in which society would you like to live in,why?
Did they invent the guitar strap?
It went on clothing . It was way before guitars as we know them. Before the guitar was the lute.
This is incorrect facts. I recommend everyone reading the book "Den forna seden" by Östen Kjellman. There you have all the facts and sources written down.
When Christianity got involved, they wrote false statements about the Northmen. And that's a lot of the history documentation. But it's been proven wrong.
Which statements are incorrect?
Isnt that book werry nationalistic and almoust nazi..
@@smidefix8147 Nothing wrong with Nationalism.
@@jurikurthambarskjelfir3533 Everything isnwrong with nationalism
@@TitaniusAnglesmith How, and what is wrong with it?
So question just to clarify. A viking woman could divorce her husband if he settled in another land/hearth and they had not had sex for 3 years? Did I hear that right?
Yes, but there were more legal ways to get a divorce.
Please, subtitles.
You can find all the videos as articles on the website, I do not have the time to convert them into subtitles.
Were there any women considered equal or above the men? Such as the Queen? If she became Queen then married would her husband still be above her and can do what he wants? Was the Queen allowed in court?
Viking women never went on raids
Marry the one with the bluest eyes. 😳
Thank you for this informative video. The Vikings knew polygamy was acceptable.
i just got hit by a car
How did the relationship between a wife and a “concubine” work? Also, Did they practice polygamy?
There was no such thing as univesral viking laws and customs. Culture varied allot from place to place.
It is an interesting video but I think you are looking from the wrong perspective. You are looking from a perspective where you compare woman to man and if they are equal or are able to do the same things. Seen from this perspective where you compare masculine with feminine from a masculine perspective the masculine comes out ontop. Now look at it this way: there are 2 kinds of power internal and external. The external meaning wars and politics was a masculine teritory but the intern power was given to woman. They decided who they hired of fired and they where the keepers of the keys to the money chest. Meaning they had absolute power of where the money was going. So if a husband whished to buy a present to help persuade someone for a political purpose the wife had the power over how small of big this pressent could be. This key feature also shows itself in a symbolic key hanging from the womans belt. So no woman did not always do the same things as man and they where not always alowed to do everyting but so where man. Each had power over different segments of daily life. By looking upon it thisway one might bypass the comments over woman had less rights or where only house wifes with no power and where seen as less. Which is incorrect feministic talk. To suport it even further woman where more valuable for the survial of a clan of group of people. If half of the women would die the consequences would be a thousand times worse compared to if half of the men would die. Generically speaking. So basically men are expendable so yess men protect their women but not because the women are unable to defend themselfs or are considerd to be weak. Far from it. Men protect their women because they are far more valuable.
I was wondering when he was going to mention the fact that Norse women had control over the household funds.
Not to mention that there apparently was strict laws against inappropriately touching women. I can’t remember much but it was something like a fine.
what about a domestic violence situation? What happened then?
Either you fought back, or you got beaten down.
it sounds like domestic violence was considered grounds for divorce.
Don’t quote me on this, but I think I’ve read that female Vikings could divorce their husbands. So in bad situations that could be an option
If your husband striked you 3 times in public if I remember correctly hey could divorce
@@jenniferbrewer5370 I think there was a punishment for it and if i’m correct here you could get a heavy fine for abuse especially if it was sexual abuse.
It's the Middle ages. Women were poorly took into consideration everywhere. The tv show fails on that point trying to portrait viking women as wariors and queens
Women were better treated in pre Christian Norse society than their Christian neighbors
Do you get your farthers inherents if the girl is the only child
yes
Uh
Dude you dont know anything about viking s women had rights they owned the home ,
Raids? Were they thieves? Raid villages, kill and pillage?
Yup.
Unlike the Roman empire where conquering was a way of life the Danish or Scandinavian people were in a climate that made raiding outlining areas a necessity.
So much wrong.... by odin, who told you all this nonsens.
I don't care about equal rights of women or anything. I'm just hear to learn how their lives were.
yes its sad, even the vikings had a sexist culture back then.
Women knew their place back then, as they should now...
@cookie monster That's a long conversation to have, one that I'll decline...
Women did this stuff, because they had practiced ( trained ) for it for Years. Bloke s happy to be fed, defend the Fire, no way us Blokes trying to make (amatuer / rough /embarrasingly inept) textiles. =( material/clothing ) It hasn changed, and I like that, heheh
Aiye, but it's changing more and more these days, sadly.
You think men don't make textiles? How would you know?
Fix your accent...cant understand a thing
that's extremely racist
Rude! You need to fix your attitude!
Open your ears and listen then.
That message you deleted made no sense.
Of course accent
Fix your stupidity
Mr. Shady
I a dane too as narrator and our bloodline is the viking snow essay this without accent
Jef er on skiderik