Femina: A New History of the Middle Ages

by Janina Ramírez

Few individuals received such adulation in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History as St Cuthbert (c. 634–687). In fact, the historian wrote two separate works, one in prose and one in poetry, on the life of this famous Northumbrian bishop. For Bede, Cuthbert brought together the most important elements of Christianity in the north during the tumultuous seventh century. The two men are now buried together in Durham Cathedral, the remains of early medieval Northumbria’s most famous bishop and historian huddled together in the grave.

Bede’s caution against ‘amulets’ is ironic, since nestled within Cuthbert’s coffin, under many layers of burial shrouds, one such talismanic object was discovered.

Lindisfarne

priest Alfred Westou, who during the early eleventh century repeatedly combed the hair of Cuthbert’s incredibly well-preserved corpse.

Cuthbert lived as a hermit and a monk but hid this high-status piece of Germanic jewellery inside his robes.

But some time before this, Irish missionaries had been working their way across the northern borders, establishing Celtic institutions and exerting considerable influence over individual rulers. Cuthbert’s own monastery of Lindisfarne was founded as a west-coast satellite of Iona. This important Celtic monastery had been established by St Columba in AD 563 – decades before Augustine arrived in Kent. All along the northern part of England, Irish missionaries were making inroads and setting up monasteries that were different to the Benedictine ones spread by the papacy.

Born from the earlier wave of Christianity which took hold in the Celtic fringes when the Romans left in the fifth century, the power of Celtic influence in the north explains why Edwin, his Kentish wife Æthelburg and Bishop Paulinus went in hard with converting the region to Roman Christianity. The different worlds reconciled in the person of Cuthbert. He combined a Germanic warrior youth with an early religious career in the Celtic monastery of Melrose, then later a commitment to Roman Christianity during his time as Bishop of Lindisfarne. But it would take a woman – Hild of Whitby – to finally embed Roman Christianity in the north.

Like that great converting queen of the Franks, Clotilde, Hild of Whitby’s name means ‘battler

Ad Geferin,

She would have been brought up listening to the boasts of warriors, the tales of heroes and the myths of Woden, Freyja and Thor. She was a warrior princess. However, Bede states that at 33 – the age at which Christ died and halfway through her own life – Hild embraced Christianity. She had wanted to travel abroad to a monastery in Gaul, but she was seen as an asset to the conversion efforts in northern England and made abbess in Hartlepool. She was following in great footsteps, as her predecessor, Heui, was the first woman in Northumbria to become a nun and found a monastery in AD 640.50

Nearer to the sheer cliff face, a collection of female graves was discovered. This was most probably the earliest cemetery space for the nuns, called Cross Close. Like the Loftus Princess, the newly converted noblewomen at Hartlepool were buried on a windswept headland, surrounded by the sea, and were also laid out as if in eternal sleep. Some had pillow stones beneath their heads. Significantly, though, these nuns were part of a literate community, as eight of the graves had headstones inscribed with women’s names.

Despite Bede’s claims that no one at Hild’s monasteries was rich or poor, holding ‘all things in common’, early English medieval convents were not places of simple living and modesty. These first-generation converts did not have to give up all the luxuries of their secular lives, and as wealthy noblewomen, they brought their finery with them. This pattern continues 40 miles down the coast at Whitby.

Strenaeshalch

even a comb with a runic inscription.52 Runes were the alphabet of the pre-Christian

English, but the inscription is clearly Christian: ‘My God. May God Almighty help Cy …’ Again, we find an object which links the Germanic warrior world to the new Christian one.

Bede states that ‘even kings and princes sought and received her counsel’, and she acted as mentor to the daughter of Oswui, King of the Northumbrians from 642–670.

Synod of Whitby in AD 664. With Hild in charge of proceedings, the good and the great, representatives of Rome and Ireland, argued which traditions the Northumbrian church should follow.53 The result went the way of Rome. The variety and uniqueness of Celtic monasteries was lost to the rigour and routine of the Benedictine Rule, and monasticism in the north was transformed forever.

that five men who trained under Hild were all made bishops; if there were king-makers in the medieval world, then she was the bishop-maker.

these seventh-century northern women do reveal is that joining the Roman church in the first flush of conversions was a way of gaining power and influence. These noblewomen could bypass marriages arranged for the purposes of securing allegiances and creating heirs, and instead form their

own centres of learning where they could be rich, respected and remembered, with the same opportunities as the men around them. They could shape their future and those of their communities. This was a singularly positive time for women in the church

Queen Ethelthryth,

nun Eadgyth,

Hild ‘the most religious handma...

Cynethryth,

Monasteries, convents and double monasteries like the one at Cookham, where men and women lived and prayed together, were political, social, artistic and cultural hubs. They were run by the most powerful people in the country, and were the nexus of education, medicine, science, technology, writing and both secular and religious influence.

tiny Anglo-Saxon coin, called a sceat.2 Minted between AD 680 and 760 as some of the first coinage issued in the early medieval period, the sceat gives the team a ‘terminus post quem’ – a starting date.

This hall on the edges of the kingdoms of Mercia and Wessex also resounds with the noise of feasting and the song of poets. But rather than the plights of knights and battles against dragons, the words shared around this burning hearth tell of a different lord – the lord of heaven. Instead of battles with enemies, stories of saints against demons entertain those within. Rather than the berserker Beowulf tearing Grendel’s arm from its socket, the audience listen in raptures to St Judith’s beheading of Holofernes. For this is a monastery, not a mead-hall.

These saintly superheroes have taken the place of warriors, and a surprising number of women feature in this new spiritual universe.

The greatest of the four Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in the eighth century, Mercia had a different approach to women in power than the neighbouring kingdoms of Wessex, Northumbria and East Anglia. In the huge region stretching from the Humber in the north, down the Welsh border to the Thames, women could sign charters, own land in their own right, and co-rule with their husbands. What’s more, through the increasing reach of monasteries founded by female members of the royal family, Mercian women could navigate their way into politically expedient positions as prominent decision makers.

His wife Cynethryth is the only early medieval woman in the West to have her own coinage minted.

Two thousand miles away, another powerful woman was also minting coins with her image pressed into metal. In Constantinople (now Istanbul) the Empress Irene had, over a period of thirty years from 775 to 802, progressed from queen consort, to regent for her son, and finally to sole ruler. Offa and Cynethryth, at the edges of the known world, were well aware that there was a woman at the very heart of power in the East. Irene’s supporters had gouged out her own son’s eyes to secure her position as sole ruler, and with her rivals out of the way Irene demanded she rule not as empress, but as emperor. She signed her letters with this title and even had coins minted referring to the ruler as ‘Emperor of Rome’.7

Threatened by her influence, Pope Leo III threw his support behind Charlemagne as

Emperor of the West and on Christmas Day AD 800, declared him Holy Roman Emperor. The threat of this powerful woman in the East had to be subdued at all costs.

Coins don’t just tell us about someone’s influence: they are among the most fascinating and useful of all historical artefacts. If discovered in an archaeological site they provide dating evidence, and the materials and alloys used reveal information on metalworking and systems of exchange. Their imagery is an art-historical goldmine, with symbols and styles indicating cultural links. And the combination of text and image can reveal ideological issues of importance to kingdoms, states and nations. One coin minted during Offa and Cynethryth’s time as rulers reveals more than most. Struck in 774, the template is that of the golden dinars produced under the powerful Abbasid caliph Al-Mansur at the same time. This coin indicates that the Mercian court was in contact with Islamic lands and sought to directly copy their style of inscription, even if the English version indicates little knowledge of written Arabic.

Cynethryth negotiated marriages and positions as monastic leaders for all four of her daughters. By doing so she tied her family to rulers of the separate kingdoms and secured their status as saintly queens.

These

women were the glue that helped hold together ever-fractious regional relations.

It is a sign of how highly women were valued in Mercia that all four of Cynethryth’s daughters were also listed at witnesses to charters – something almos...

But in the early medieval period loyalty was to a ruler rather than to a country, and kingdoms would shift their borders regularly.

Chi-rho page from the Lichfield Gospel book, eighth century (left) and from the Lindisfarne Gospels, c. AD 720 (right).

Two things make it unique. First, evidence of paint remains across the sculpture, so we know the original slab would have been brightly coloured. The background was white, the halo gilded, and the feathers show delicate painting with areas of red, outlined in black, grading down to pink.

so much of the art and architecture of the medieval period survives without its colour. We see just the bones, rather than the finished piece.

Repton was famous for St Guthlac, who had entered the monastery there but abandoned his life as a monk to become a hermit. He lived the rest of his years in the fens covered only by animal skins, battling with demons which he said constantly assailed him. Today we might consider Guthlac troubled by mental health issues, but to the eighth-century Mercians he was seen as a saint and was visited, even by royalty, for his advice and guidance.

AD 865. A coalition

of Scandinavian troops launched a concerted effort to occupy and conquer the major kingdoms of England. The fleet of ships, which may have carried many thousands of warriors, first landed in East Anglia where they negotiated the acquisition of horses in return for peace.41 With the ability to move faster across land, the army then began its assault on Northumbria. Over the next few years, the Vikings did not leave the country but ‘overwintered’ at camps, consolidating their troops with new arrivals and taking advantage of local resources to support their soldiers.

Inside the two stone rooms, now partly demolished, piles of bones were arranged around a single burial in a separate chamber – most likely that of a particularly important Viking war leader. It has been suggested that the remains might have belonged to Ivar the Boneless, son of the legendary Ragnar Lothbrok, who certainly played a role in the Great Heathen Army and died around AD 873.

Isotope analysis on the mass grave was conducted by the archaeologist Dr Cat Jarman across five years, and her discoveries have shed new light on the people who made up the Great Heathen Army.45 The primary bones (skulls and femurs) of 264 individuals had been stacked as in an ossuary, suggesting they were brought from another location, most likely a Mercian battlefield. The majority of the skeletons were male and between the ages of 18 and 45, in keeping with what we might expect of a Viking army. The bones reveal that they also ate a foreign diet, suggesting they originated from Scandinavia. However, a surprising 20 per cent of the bones were female. We can gather from this that women travelled with the army and lived with them at the camp. This reinforces the idea that the aim of the Great Heathen Army was not just to raid and pillage, but to conquer and settle. These women may have been wives, slaves, servants, relatives or even female warriors, but in their fragmentary state it’s hard to know more of the role they played.

To understand the significance of Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians, she must be positioned alongside the men of her time, who are far better documented. Only then can her achievements come into focus.

The cities of Winchester, Worcester and Malmesbury all owe their footprint to Alfred’s burghal system.

Their settlement effectively separated England into two kingdoms running along a line from the Thames to the Humber. The area to the north was the Danelaw, while the south was English and governed by Wessex. The divide was ideological too, with Wessex defining itself as a Christian powerhouse opposed to the pagans ruling north of the border. Relative peace allowed Alfred to build on his military successes and secure the future of his kingdom.