The Politics of Female Namelessness between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, circa 300 to 750

Hillner, Julia; MacCarron, Máirín; Vihervalli, Ulriika

doi:10.1353/jla.2022.0021

Journal of Late Antiquity

2022

DOI: 10.1353/jla.2022.0021

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The Politics of Female Namelessness between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, circa 300 to 750

Julia Hillner¹,

Máirín MacCarron²,

Ulriika Vihervalli³

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2024

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Cited by 2 publications

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“…A famous omission in Asser's Life of Alfred is the name of Alfred's wife, Ealhswith. However, Julia Hillner et al.’s study of female namelessness in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages argues that women could be left nameless for a variety of reasons which can be categorized as pragmatic, rhetorical, or socio‐cultural. In their analysis of sources from the late Roman world, Merovingian Gaul, and early medieval Northumbria, they have identified practices such as not naming women who were still alive due to concerns about modesty and respectability, and ‘delayed’ naming where a character is at first unnamed to have their name revealed later in the narrative.…”

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confidence: 99%

Review of periodical literature for 2022: (i) 400–1100

MacCarron

2024

The Economic History Review

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The literature from the past year covered a range of themes including environmental history, crosscultural connections, gender history, legal culture, and memory studies. We begin with gender. Emily Winkler's assessment of AEthelflaed, ruler of Mercia in the early tenth century, challenges scholarly understanding of female power in this period. She argues persuasively that modern scholarship needs to distinguish between grammatical gender in Latin and gendered language. There are many examples of women ruling as lords where concerns about their gender do not arise in the sources. Of greater note to these women's contemporaries were practical matters such as their wealth, presence, and foreign relations. Winkler demonstrates that later historians, including the influential writers of history in twelfth-century England, were enamoured with AEthelflaed because of the nature of the challenges that she faced. She dismisses suggestions that they saw a link between AEthelflaed and Empress Matilda (1102−67) because they were both women, and argues that it was AEthelflaed's triumphs for Mercia, not her gender, that separated her from other rulers. Alex Traves also considers royal women in his analysis of early medieval royal genealogies in Asser's Life of King Alfred. He argues that the two genealogies of royal women included by Asser -concerning Alfred's mother and wife -performed an important political function for Alfred's dynasty. Alfred used his ancestry to justify ruling an enlarged kingdom: his mother, Osburh, helped in asserting his rights over recent additions to Wessex, and his wife, Ealhswith, gave Alfred's son, Edward (and indeed his daughter AEthelflaed, see Winkler), a legitimate claim to rule in Mercia. Traves concludes that male royal genealogies were concerned with tracing the origins and legitimacy of a dynasty's authority, while female genealogies were focused on narrower and perhaps more pressing political objectives.Georgina Pitt turns her attention to Alfred the Great, asking why his elites supported his vast system of defence by constructing the burghal network in the ninth century. Through an analysis of the material record of fortifications, alongside the sparse entries in the textual record (Asser's Life of Alfred and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle), and using assemblage theory and social practice theory, she argues for the close connection between Alfredian ideology and military reform. Alfred was a good Christian king who led and protected his people, and those who obeyed him were protected; in contrast, the people who disobeyed his orders, for example, to construct burhs, were

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confidence: 99%

Review of periodical literature for 2022: (i) 400–1100

MacCarron

2024

The Economic History Review

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A Tangled Web

Stewart

2023

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Few debates in modern academia are as heated as the one among scholars who consider the arrival of bubonic plague in Constantinople in the spring of 542 as a demographic and social disaster and those who argue for less tumultuous outcomes. Whatever side one stands on in the current discussion, the pandemic’s immediate impact on the administration, economy, politics, society and religious culture within Constantinople and the wider empire seems clear. In this article I will suggest that increased competition amongst Constantinople’s elites for a shrunken pool of suitable brides and grooms for their sons and daughters was one hitherto underappreciated result of the pandemic. The sixth-century eastern Roman historian, Procopius of Caesarea, offers ample evidence not only about the devastation wrought by the bubonic plague but also its impact on the political alliances in Constantinople. His digressions in Secret History concerning marital politicking amongst Constantinople’s elites provide evidence of this impact. Capitalizing on advances in our knowledge about Procopius both as an author and historical figure, I will analyze his writings on three levels: as history, literature and propaganda. By pondering what motivated Procopius to focus on these marital alliances and, moreover, pondering links between them, the paper offers some revisionist takes on these digressions, both as literary devices and as actual events.

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The Politics of Female Namelessness between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, circa 300 to 750

Cited by 2 publications

References 0 publications

Review of periodical literature for 2022: (i) 400–1100

Review of periodical literature for 2022: (i) 400–1100

A Tangled Web

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