Women in the Viking Age

What roles did women play in Viking Age society, both in Scandinavia and across the wider world of Viking settlement and travel? Judith Jesch brings together a wide range of evidence to reconstruct lives that are often difficult to recover from the surviving record.

Drawing on archaeology, runic inscriptions, place names, personal names, historical sources and Old Norse literature, Jesch examines women’s lives on Scandinavian farms and in trading centres, as well as their experiences in settlements from the British Isles to Iceland, Greenland and the East. By comparing what different kinds of evidence can reveal, Women in the Viking Age offers an important study of gender and society beyond the familiar image of a predominantly male Viking world.