Pride! Trans Vikings and Ace Christians in the Middle Ages

The Maniculum Podcast

Happy Pride! In this episode of the podcast, we explore the varied gender identities of Viking witches. While the modern stereotype of Vikings is that that of the masculine warrior and dutiful wife, grave goods found at several sites illustrate the fluidity of gender in the Nordic and Icelandic world!

Citations & References:

• Bennett, Judith M. "'Lesbian-Like' and the Social History of Lesbianisms." Journal of the History of Sexuality, vol. 9, no. 1/2, 2000, pp. 1-24.
• Bill, Jan. “Ambiguous Mobility in the Viking Age Ship Burial from Oseberg.” Materialities of Passing: Explorations in Transformation, Transition and Transience, 2016, pp. 207–20.
• Colwill, Lee. "The Queerly Departed: Narratives of Veneration in the Burials of Late Iron Age Scandinavia." Trans and Genderqueer Subjects in Medieval Hagiography, edited by Alicia Spencer-Hall & Blake Gutt, Amsterdam University Press, 2021, pp.177-97.
• Mayburd, Miriam. “‘Heizt Þóttumk Nú Heima í Millim⋯’ A Reassessment of Hervör in Light of Seiðr’s Supernatural Gender Dynamics.” Arkiv För Nordisk Filologi, vol. 129, 2014, pp. 121–64.
• Murray, Jacqueline. “Twice Marginal and Twice Invisible: Lesbians in the Middle Ages.” Handbook of Medieval Sexuality, 1996, pp. 203-33.
• Greenberg, David F., and Marcia H. Bystryn. “Christian Intolerance of Homosexuality.” American Journal of Sociology, vol. 88, no. 3, 1982, pp. 515–48.
• Osberg Ship example - Link

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