Women in Anglo-Saxon England: Status Before and After 1066

Introduction: The Seismic Year of 1066

Fell, Christine. Women in Anglo-Saxon England and the Impact of 1066. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

1066 was a seismic year — perhaps the seismic year — in England's early history. It was the year that the Norman William the Conqueror took control of Saxon England. Anglo-Saxon England was never to be the same, nor was the life of England's daughters, wives, and mothers. While different kings had previously held feudal sway over their respective territories, the Norman code of conduct, custom, and law now ruled the land with absolute authority. In her book Women in Anglo-Saxon England and the Impact of 1066, medieval scholar Christine Fell argues that Anglo-Saxon women after the Conquest did not simply lose many of the rights, legal protections, and social respect they had enjoyed as Englishwomen — they lost standing simply as women in general.

Fell's Approach and the Challenge of Generalization

Fell admits that it is difficult to generalize about life for women during the Anglo-Saxon era, because the English nation was far from unified. Different kings and provinces had different laws regarding sex, marriage, and relations between the genders. Some kings, such as Alfred the Great, were more sympathetic than others. Fell also notes that gender-specific laws evolved — or devolved — over time, often granting women fewer rights than they had previously enjoyed. She identifies a discernible difference between early and late Anglo-Saxon law, even before 1066. Regardless, Fell argues that one can make the generalization that the unifying influence of the Norman Conquest solidified women's secondary status in a way that had not existed beforehand. She describes life for women in Anglo-Saxon England as both more attractive and more assertive, from a modern woman's perspective (Fell 23).

The first sections of Fell's scholarly work are filled with precise details of life during the era to substantiate her point. She draws from contemporary accounts and existing records to examine the law and custom surrounding marriage and women's legal status. For example, Anglo-Saxon marriage contracts between families were considerably more equitable than the types of relationships contracted under Norman feudalism and celebrated in the Norman literary tradition of chivalric romance. Although marriages were arranged between the relatives of the prospective bride and groom, neither party held more influence in the matter by virtue of their gender alone.

Anglo-Saxon Marriage Contracts and the Morgengifu

Rather than bringing a dowry to her husband's family, an Anglo-Saxon bride benefited from one of the key stipulations of the marriage contract: the morgengifu, or morning gift, which a husband was required to pay directly to his new wife — not her relatives. This practice affirmed the value of the woman and reinforced the idea that a husband was not taking on a burden. The morning gift served as the wife's financial security should she find herself in an unsuitable arrangement after marriage, and as a deterrent against mistreatment by her husband. These gifts could include both land and money (Fell 57–58).

The morgengifu would revert to the sole control of the wife in the event of divorce. A husband could only withhold it if his wife had entered the marriage under false pretenses — for instance, if she had been pregnant by another man or had committed adultery. After the Norman Conquest, however, women could not own any property after marriage, which made it far more common for women to be given away to the wealthiest rather than the most suitable husbands, as their families retained any gifts for themselves.

Conclusion: A Harder World for Women

This is not to suggest that life was easy for women in Anglo-Saxon England. The punishment for raping a woman differed depending on whether she was high born or common, and adultery was treated as a more serious offense when committed by a woman than by a man. Women suffered the indignities of frequent pregnancies, miscarriages, and childbirth, all of which took a considerable toll in a world without adequate medical care. Moreover, much of the oral literature and legend that constituted Anglo-Saxon women's own voices and cultural expression has been lost, replaced by the victors' — the Norman — version of history.

Nevertheless, Fell's use of legal documents, her comparative analysis of different Anglo-Saxon provinces over time, and the final essays of the work — which argue that Norman religious attitudes and the chivalric mode of conceptualizing gender relations supplanted an Anglo-Saxon argot of relative equality — combine to build a compelling case. The Norman world may have been hard for everyone, but Fell persuasively demonstrates that it was far harder to be a woman.