It seems likely that there was the occasional woman warrior as there were in other early medieval cultures.
However they were not militarily significant in numbers, nor could they be in practical warfighting terms.
A warrior has to engage in war and Viking warfare involved a large amount of shield wall fighting, it was the standard of battle and all warriors had their place in the wall. Preference to the lead ranks of the wall was given to the strongest, most experienced and heaviest armed men because the initial clash often decided the battle. Your enemy was certainly going to bring their best and if you didn't match that you would be crushed.
Simply put, a large number of women warriors in the shield wall would weaken the wall. You would lose battles.
It's simple and obvious military logic. Anything else is fantasy.
Thanks for your thoughts. I certainly agree. The surviving evidence for the Viking Age supports the fact that these women existed occasionally. It's simply a numbers game since, as you mentioned, they appear in other places cross culturally. But we can't state that they were anywhere near a norm for the time for all sorts of reasons, not the least of which you mention here regarding the nature of Viking Age combat. It's just not practical.
Our fixation with women warriors also begs (for me at least) the question of what constitutes power for women in the Middle Ages. Our modern mind wants it to be sword wielding, but we forget just how much power is inherent in being the ones who ran the homes, raised the kids, wove the sails for the ships, etc. Without women doing those more mundane tasks the whole society would have fallen apart. Now THAT'S power :)
Oh agreed. You can see the power of women in Viking society in Njals Saga as only one example. Huge cultural power. But a warrior, especially a Huscarl type house warrior is for war. If they are bad at it they wouldn't be supportable.
Combat power has a brutal logic to it. If you look at the clash of Phalanxes in which the elite super veteran Silver Shields formed part, the Silver Shields chewed through the opposing phalangites like a threshing machine. Why? Skill, size, strength, experience, elite equipment. This didn't surprise anyone at the time.
Physical ability in hand to hand combat is paramount and taken over thousands of interactions in any battle any significant advantage for one side or another leads to defeat.
After 3 catastrophic losses to Hannibal why did Rome put slaves in the Legions and no women?
I'm not sure why modern day thinking leads people to dismiss the combat logic of ancient or medieval warfare. It's odd.
It seems likely that there was the occasional woman warrior as there were in other early medieval cultures.
However they were not militarily significant in numbers, nor could they be in practical warfighting terms.
A warrior has to engage in war and Viking warfare involved a large amount of shield wall fighting, it was the standard of battle and all warriors had their place in the wall. Preference to the lead ranks of the wall was given to the strongest, most experienced and heaviest armed men because the initial clash often decided the battle. Your enemy was certainly going to bring their best and if you didn't match that you would be crushed.
Simply put, a large number of women warriors in the shield wall would weaken the wall. You would lose battles.
It's simple and obvious military logic. Anything else is fantasy.
Hi Martin,
Thanks for your thoughts. I certainly agree. The surviving evidence for the Viking Age supports the fact that these women existed occasionally. It's simply a numbers game since, as you mentioned, they appear in other places cross culturally. But we can't state that they were anywhere near a norm for the time for all sorts of reasons, not the least of which you mention here regarding the nature of Viking Age combat. It's just not practical.
Our fixation with women warriors also begs (for me at least) the question of what constitutes power for women in the Middle Ages. Our modern mind wants it to be sword wielding, but we forget just how much power is inherent in being the ones who ran the homes, raised the kids, wove the sails for the ships, etc. Without women doing those more mundane tasks the whole society would have fallen apart. Now THAT'S power :)
Oh agreed. You can see the power of women in Viking society in Njals Saga as only one example. Huge cultural power. But a warrior, especially a Huscarl type house warrior is for war. If they are bad at it they wouldn't be supportable.
Combat power has a brutal logic to it. If you look at the clash of Phalanxes in which the elite super veteran Silver Shields formed part, the Silver Shields chewed through the opposing phalangites like a threshing machine. Why? Skill, size, strength, experience, elite equipment. This didn't surprise anyone at the time.
Physical ability in hand to hand combat is paramount and taken over thousands of interactions in any battle any significant advantage for one side or another leads to defeat.
After 3 catastrophic losses to Hannibal why did Rome put slaves in the Legions and no women?
I'm not sure why modern day thinking leads people to dismiss the combat logic of ancient or medieval warfare. It's odd.