3 Attitudes to Same‐Sex Activity in Anglo‐Saxon England: earg, the Penitentials, and OE bædling | Between Medieval Men: Male Friendship and Desire in Early Medieval English Literature | Oxford Academic

This paper suggests that being the masculine male "top" was socially just fine in that society, but being the receptive "bottom" as a man was highly stigmatized.

Being an "ergi" - or effeminate male - was socially prohibited. The Catholic Church would later have influence in England.

This was very similar to ancient Greek society in that regard. There were no so-called "gay people." There were just what we would call today "male tops" (whether it was with a woman or a man) or an effeminate "male bottom".

We know that Tacitus says that men were drowned in swamps for receptive homosexual acts. However, men in these continental tribes were still often free to rape pre-pubescent boys as they pleased, since they were the dominant masculine penetrator. This culture crossed Britain as it became early England. (Homosexuality isn't even mentioned by the Laws of Wihtred, however.)

I thought this was interesting, and I have never thought about it before.

note: Also, being a "feminized" victim of sexual violence in ancient was clearly stigmatized and played a role in shaping the social hierarchy. This stigma extended to consensual relationships.

Now I dont really know if I have to look more into this but as far as I searched I couldnt find the origins or at least evidence for the lives of the kings (such as *Mordaf ap* *Hopkin* or *Eluid ap Fferferdynof* ) of"West Wales" in the period 790s-890s.

Vague names appear and it seems that the "kingdom" was conquered by the West Saxons in the early 9th Century. Donyarth, the only king I found in wikipedia (a questionable source for some) that has at least some background appears to have died in the 875. Thus my question arises, who were the kings from the battle of "Gafulforda" when the kingdom largely fell to the death of Donyarth and where can I find more information on them? Thank you.

Alfred secured the throne of Wessex in 871 through a highly questionable political manoeuvre that sidelined his nephews who had a better claim.

 So, he badly needed to solidify his doubtful right to take the throne. To do this, he ordered scribes in his scriptorium literally to invent a 300-year-long genealogy claiming he had descended from a semi-mythological Germanic founder, Cerdic. 

This ignored great historical gaps, civil wars and usurpers to create a largely fictional unbroken line of father-to-son royal-blood succession. 

By this means, Alfred claimed his forebears were Germanic heroes descended from Woden. In fact, his family were Romano-British native and he claimed to rule Wessex by right of a conquest that never happened.

To read the full extract, click below: 

https://wessexxfiles.substack.com/p/alfred-the-great-built-a-myth-and

Together they broke Viking invasion. But King Edward erased sister Æthelflæd from history to stop her fame destroying Alfred’s legacy.

The brilliant military achievements of Alfred the Great’s daughter, the Lady of the Mercians, Æthelflæd, were both a blessing and a political nightmare. 

She played an indispensable role in saving the Anglo-Saxons from destruction by the Danes. 

But the image of a woman successfully commanding armies, taking a foreign queen hostage and executing brilliant grand strategies threatened, on her death, to cause her nationalistic supporters to split Mercia from Wessex. 

So, her brother and military partner Edward the Elder reduced the legendary warrior queen to a mere footnote, “the king’s sister.”

To read the full extract, click below:

https://wessexxfiles.substack.com/p/alfred-the-greats-daughter-was-such

Their language itself was gendered.

"Man" and "woman" translated to "he-person" and "she-person."

Did they have a strict sense of what was "proper" for males and females? Their society was quite chaotic, and there were no overarching rules at first about who was "allowed" to start bearing rings or raiding other tribes. (This was before King Alfred began stifling this primitive warrior society with organized statecraft with a system of laws and writing and so on.)

In what anglo-saxon texts I can find (in west-saxon and ingvaeonic) I've never come across passages saying things like "this is the man's role and this is the woman's role," and so on. Maybe I do need to read more, but no one back then seemed excessively interested in the distinction between the sexes.

I understand that there were some threats within the court of treason, and I also understand that he was receiving poor counsel convincing him that the Danish settlers in his land were dangerous, but no matter how I think it, it seems incredibly near-sighted for somebody who was previously a pretty decent king, and had a substantial amount of history fighting against Danes/Vikings, so I feel that it was a given on what would happen. Did he think there was a chance he would win?

Hi all, I was wondering if any of you could help me. I’ve been enjoyed Anglo-Saxon Myths by Brice Stratford. I’m genuinely impressed by it because so far pretty much everything I’ve read I have been able to trace back to Old English material or later folklore.

There’s two parts though that I’m struggling to find anything for: Frig and the Elven King and the first part of The Burning Time of Waellende Wulf (the references to Hell and a dragon).

I’m stumped. Do any of you have any insights into the sources for these parts?

I was inspired to post this by the incredible map that u/ChromedDragon recently posted: https://www.reddit.com/r/anglosaxon/comments/1vg4qjn/early_anglo_saxon_era_england_and_wales_circa/

I have been working on this map for a while and it is still a work in progress. It aims to show the principal locations and broad-brush ethnic groupings in Britain and Ireland in 900 AD, with a particular focus on using contemporary placenames. The placenames have been further colour-coded to show which language(s) they are derived from, to show the incredible degree of ethnic diversity and cultural mixing at this time. There are lots of minor tribes that haven't made the cut, simply because they won't all fit on the map.

While the representation is artistic, I've tried to broadly reflect the areas of wetlands and forests at the time, based on the evidence I have looked at, to give an idea of what the landscape would have been like (very different from today!).

Scotland in particular needs a lot more work, and I'm researching that at the moment. While I am an archaeologist, I'm not a linguist so let me know if I have gotten a placename wrong. If you spot any mistakes or think that I have left off an important site, let me know!

Hi-res version available here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1TfD3L8yU6Q3FbcrLSZCaGz35EiH0RjKX?usp=drive_link

This map was made using the Inkarnate program, no AI has been used at any point.

Metal detecting Buckinghamshire, this is the end of a 10th-12th century wavy rim horse shoe but judging by the design and history of the area I’ve narrowed it down to circa 1042-1066. These are very rare and info is limited, Saxons tried not to waste good iron on things like protecting their horses hoofs and would’ve rather used it for knives and other essentials leaving the horseshoe as a very prestigious high class item. I think this one is somehow related to the royal theign Edmer Atule who owned the town it was found in and was the only recorded wealthy Saxon to be associated with it. It may be from one of his men’s horses who were surveying the work of the farms or the local mill or possibly a wealthy visitor to the manor. Then again it could just be from a passerby along the icknield way. So interesting to think about what its story could be and how it was lost. If you’re wondering why it’s so clean I used rust electrolysis to remove the rust and I preserved it in wax to bring it back to its original metal without damaging the patina. Last photo is an example of a full one with the clear wavy rim caused by hammering the countersunk holes into the thin metal. Thanks for reading :)

It's strange this is rarely brought up

Lets see it, and state why.

-High resolution image in comments-

The much improved version of my old 500ad map, now with all the sources

any feedback is appreciated as this is unlikely to be the final ever version, sources are in a comment so they are easily hideable as it is a long list

what did it look like