THE HOMEMAKER

As wife, host, teacher and storyteller, the mistress of the household was the fulcrum of Viking family life

There’s no doubt about it: Viking women lived in a man’s world. Viking men fought the wars, did most of the trading and were even, strictly speaking, the only true Vikings – the Old Norse word víkingar referred solely to men. For this point in history, however, Viking women enjoyed a high degree of social freedom. They could own property, ask for a divorce if not treated properly, and they shared responsibility for running farms and homesteads with their menfolk. They were also protected by law from a range of unwanted male attention.

Their chief sphere of influence was in the home, beginning when they married, often at an early age. By contemporary standards, Viking home life was noisy, dirty and smelly, but cosy and communal too. Most Vikings lived in a long, single-roomed structure, where seating and sleeping accommodation were arranged around a central hearth. Such ‘longhouses’ were the hubs of Viking domestic life, where people cooked, ate, socialised and slept.

As well as husband, wife and children, the Viking household was made up of elderly relatives and foster- children – and the role of caring for this extended family typically fell to women. The woman was also responsible for entertaining honoured guests, although it was primarily men who conducted practical, legal and political negotiations when the home was used for business.

Another important role played by women was handing on knowledge to the next generation in the home – in part by sharing poems and stories, including the famous myths and sagas that were later written down in medieval Iceland.

The mistress of the household also had responsibility for its valuables. As the Viking home was also the centre of a family business, this included any raw materials produced – products that could be sold if there was a surplus. The discovery of weighing scales in certain female graves – they are particularly common in Russia – suggest that women, especially those living in urban areas, sometimes took charge of the family’s finances and may have negotiated terms of sale or trade.

A married couple of húsbóndi (an Old Norse word which gives us English ‘husband’) and hýfreyja (wife) presided over the home as partners. The status accorded to the role of wife is clear from an inscription on the Hassmyra rune stone (Sweden), in which a bereaved húsbóndi claims that “no better hýfreyja will come to Hassmyra to run the estate” than his late wife, Odindisa. Common signs of wives’ social status are the pairs of ornamental oval brooches, used as dress fasteners, found in large numbers of Viking- era female graves.