This post follows up the previous one. As luck would have it, I have been working on an article on identity and 'otherness' in early medieval cemeteries, which essentially argues that alterity, properly-conceived, is not visible in post-imperial furnished inhumation cemeteries, largely thanks to the processes implicit in the creation of that part of the archaeological record. When it is finished I will post the whole text (can you wait?). For now I wanted to return to the issue of inhumations where the biological sex of the deceased does not match the gender associations of the grave-goods deposited. I have written about this before, in chapter 9 of Cemeteries and Society in Merovingian Gaul, which you can read via the links on the 'my publications' page. I don't want to repeat most of those points here, which concern the necessary methodology for establishing gender-specific artefact-kits, avoiding simple assumptions, not so much about 'weaponry' and 'jewelry' but about what might constitute jewelry and weaponry in the first place. That chapter also confronts the pragmatic value of distinguishing, for the purpose of archaeological analysis, between biological (or perhaps osteological) sex and social sex/gender, as well as the problems implicit in assuming that transgression of the normal gender rules means that assumptions about the gender implications of particular artefacts are 'wrong' (equivalent to assuming that the fact that the - I assume - biologically male Eddie Izzard sometimes wears a dress means that dresses cannot normally be assumed to mark feminine identity). I have also written about the problems that have been implicit in the refusal of certain interpretations of 'transgressive' burials (some of which comments are repeated on the blog here). All of which illustrates (yet again) my gloom about the quality and rigour of 'theorisation' in modern archaeology. Ho hum.
A lot of interest in this issue has (re)surfaced as a result of the gross misrepresentation of an article in the journal Early Medieval Europe from 2011 ('Warriors and women: the sex ratio of Norse migrants to eastern England up to 900 ad' by Shane McLeod, EME 19.3 (2011), pp.332-353) - see here for a good expose. That original paper is itself problematic for a number of reasons. One is the identification of burials as 'Norse', as confronted in the previous post (that article is ignored by McLeod). The isotope evidence is in fact no less problematic, as Scandinavia is only one of a number of possible origins for the subjects that could be indicated and one is entitled to wonder whether it has been chosen to fit a better-known historical narrative. Be that as it may, the issue of sex and gender is rather unconvincingly bracketed in note 1, but needs some attention. This confusion seems to remain quite general in historical and archaeological studies of the early middle ages, including many of my own. Any evidence from the mass burial at Repton surely has to be ruled out on the grounds of the insecurity of the context alone. As I see it, even if one accepts Heath Wood, Ingleby, as a plausible case - indeed even if one accepts all of these burials as those of Norse immigrants (something for which there is precious little prima facie evidence) - the scarce numbers of burials must (as argued in the previous post/article) mean that one has to ask why only a certain portion of the settler community was buried like this, for such a short time. The argument there saw the explanation in terms of instability and social competition consequent upon the political turmoil (including but not limited to Viking invasion) in northern and eastern England and a momentary and perhaps not too severe crisis for some local elites. If one were to follow that, then all the article suggests - even on an 'immigrant interpretation' - is that some of the incoming elite brought their wives with them - something we know from the written data.
However, my main reason for posting concerns not that paper so much as what one might do with burials which have grave-goods that seem inappropriate to the osteologically-revealed sex of the deceased. Here is what I have to say (in first draft, without notes) in the article I am working on:
"There may be one
category of burials about which we can say something a little different. This is constituted by burials which have
grave-goods which generally seem to be inappropriate for people of the
biological sex in question. A discussion
of this group will lead me to my concluding points. It must first be conceded that this group of
graves is very small; the vast majority of alleged cases may be questioned
either on the basis of inadequate osteological data survival or analysis or,
more commonly, because of insufficient contextual examination of the normal
gender-associations of objects on that site at that period. Often, the artefact-classes of ‘weaponry’ or
‘jewellery’ are too loosely defined. Nonetheless,
there are certainly some examples which appear to be genuine. How one analyses these within the problematic
of alterity is a difficult problem. On
the one hand the point must be reiterated that the bare fact of inclusion in
the communal cemetery, as well as the evidence that the interment was conducted
with appropriate ritual, care and attention by surviving relatives speak
against seeing the occupant of such a grave as somehow ‘other’. The fact that the difference from the normal is
made clear in the evidence, in the public deposition of artefacts and costume
accessories, also removes the possibility (discussed earlier) that the
deceased’s family were trying to cover up any difference and stress consensual normality. On the other hand, however, it is very
difficult to avoid the conclusion that the deposition of (in biological terms) a
man or woman with items overwhelmingly associated with the opposite sex represents
an inversion of one of the most important structuring norms in social
organisation, one with which concepts of alterity were very strongly
associated, as noted above.
"The first point to be
made in confronting this conundrum is that we should not see the interment of
biologically female subjects with masculine artefacts analytically equivalent
to the burial of biological males with feminine material culture. One of the detectable movements in
Merovingian material culture in the sixth and seventh centuries is the adoption
of some masculine artefacts by women.
This is best seen in the case of plaque-buckles. These started out as strongly masculine items
of apparel but seem gradually to have been adopted by women. This in turn led to a redrawing of this
gender distinction, with decorated and larger examples being buried with
males. The dynamic continued to operate,
however, with women starting to wear decorated plaque-buckles and men investing
more in the size and decoration of their belt-buckles. This dynamic is of course well attested in
many social contexts. The construction
of masculinity and the boundary it erected against the feminine were therefore
always under a certain degree of pressure, with a constant level of ‘background
noise’ where women were adopting masculine items. This movement is in many ways to be expected
in situations where women were judged positively for the possession of certain
masculine qualities.
"The handful of
plausible cases of women interred with weapons needs particular care. It has been tempting, especially for
non-academic readers, to leap to conclusions questioning the male dominance of
warfare and even to refer to mythic concepts such as ‘shield-maidens’. This is especially significant for this paper
as societies which contained armies of women (notably the Amazons) constituted
one of the key manifestations of alterity in the Roman ethnographic imaginary. Some caution is required. Heinrich Härke long ago drew attention to the
fact that close study suggests that a strict, functionalist connection between
weapons and an actual warrior role is highly questionable. Most obviously, there are small children
buried with weapons – rarely in Merovingian Gaul; more commonly in Anglo-Saxon
England and the Alamannic regions. We do
not assume that this implies that six-year-olds went off to fight. That said, I have argued before that the
symbolism of weaponry was more specific than merely a right to fight. The written sources in any case tell us of
women involved in low-level violence. I
have suggested that the level of violence referred to in the deposition of
weaponry was that of the army, of warfare, and the right to take part in
it.
"There is no evidence
that women had a right to participate in the activities of the army but there
are nevertheless several ways in which weaponry could still appropriately be employed
in the interments of females. One might
be through the breach of norms to manifest a family’s distinction, as noted
earlier; in other words a family might be suggesting that its right to
participation in the military and political activities of the army inhered in,
and could be passed through, its womenfolk.
Similarly, the family into which such a woman had married might have
been staking a claim to acquire that right, or the military obligations that
came with particular lands, through that marriage. The written sources do tell us occasionally
of women involved in some military activities.
The Liber Historiae Francorum’s
admittedly problematic account of Queen Fredegund accompanying the Neustrian
army on campaign against the Austrasians is perhaps the best instance. Weapons could represent the control of warriors. It is also well-attested that a female role
in leading the defence of settlements was accepted in the early Middle Ages. Weapons in a female burial could represent
recognition of such a role or achievement.
There are therefore many interpretive options available before we appeal
to shamanism, the historical existence of warrior maidens or a mass conspiracy
on the part of male writers to conceal the existence of the latter.
"The points made in the
preceding paragraph are, however, only valid where weapons accompany an otherwise feminine burial assemblage. Where a subject biologically sexed as female
was interred with a masculine complement of grave-goods different issues arise. If what we might think of as a biological
woman lived her/his life as a man, then there is no necessary transgression of
the usual societal norms. This is where
the more recent revision of the common idea that gender is a social construct
on the basis of biological sex make their point. If such people were interred as men then
clearly the community regarded them as men, not as women acting as men. The only transgression would be when women
who lived their lives as women take part in what were regarded as exclusively
masculine activities.
"Females buried with
what we might call a mixed gender-kit – weaponry alongside the usual female
assemblage – nevertheless raise a crucial point, with which I will end. The female warrior was, as noted, a classic
sign of alterity in the late antique imaginary.
And yet, we do seem to have some actually-existing female subjects whose
involvement in warfare was recognised as apt by the community – hence its
recognition in the burial rite. This
same seeming paradox may be attested in the interment of males with female
artefacts. As I intimated earlier,
these examples do raise some different issues from those brought up by the
females with masculine goods. First,
there is no commensurate valorisation of the male adopting feminine
attributes. Here we actually have a
written text to help us, although it is not one without problems. Gregory of Tours does refer to a man dressed
as a woman, during the tribunal at the end of the revolt of the nuns of Holy
Cross, Poitiers. [See also here.] The man justified his wearing of female garb
in terms of his inability to perform ‘manly work’. Whatever this may have meant, it was evidently not an unalloyed positive.
As Nancy Partner has pointed out, moreover, it is significant that this subject was described by Gregory and, evidently,
the other participants in the episode as a man wearing woman’s clothes, not as
a woman. It seems therefore that the
episode shows us costume being employed an outward sign of some kind of falling
away from ideal manliness, rather than a ‘biological male’ living life as a
woman. It is also unlikely that we would
encounter burials of the ‘mixed’ type just discussed with biological
males. Someone recognised as a man, but
buried in feminine costume would be unlikely also to receive the weaponry
customary for someone of his (biological) sex, for the simple reason that a
decision to live life as a woman would undermine the ability to participate in
the masculine activities symbolised by weapons.
It might, however, be the case that we might find men buried with
masculine costume but with female artefacts appended – items evidently symbolic
of female work such as weaving batons, loom-weights and so on, for
example. This would require close
examination because methods of determining the gender association of artefacts
might simply render these objects ‘gender-neutral’ and the fact that they are
not items of bodily or costume adornment (jewellery) would make the anomaly
less immediately obvious. Thus the known
‘transgressive’ burials of biological males seem to be those interred in female
costume, like the Poitevin mentioned by Gregory. The inclusion of these people within the
communal cemetery, and the respect and recognition given to their identity in
the public burial ritual, show that even though one might consider their
life-style to have represented the very acme of ‘otherness’, as envisaged in
writings about ideal behaviour, in practice room could be made for them within
the early medieval community. This point
would seem, as intimated earlier, to apply quite commonly within early medieval
society, as it is manifested in the burial record.
"This illustrates a
vitally important element of alterity, which has been much discussed in modern
philosophy, and returns us to our starting point. The social and political value of ‘otherness’
resides precisely in in the fact that it cannot be actualised; it can be
confronted on the basis of the empirical only with difficulty, as was mentioned
earlier. It is extremely difficult to illustrate
the ideology of alterity via actually-existing communities. As Slavoj Žižek has repeatedly argued, the
ideological function of otherness is to act, so to speak, as a peripheral ‘blot’
which draws the gaze away from tensions that might threaten the status quo. When one attempts to view it constantly moves
again. The only way to tackle it is to adopt
a perspective different from that assumed by ideology. On the other hand, the tragedy of identity and
alterity is that that ideology can be used to rupture communities that have
long lived side-by-side, as in the countless instances of nationalism and ethnic
cleansing in the modern world. The
variability that we can see within the post-imperial cemetery record may
suggest, more happily, moments when such differences could be incorporated
within everyday interaction."