The wool was degreased and then carded with fingers or a comb to straighten it and separate the fibers. This involved the shearing of sheep or goats and then cleaning and grading the wool. Linen was made but the most common cloth was wool. Wine and mead were imported from countries further south.Ī task women performed year round was the making of cloth which would be for household needs and also for export to Norway and England. This system was also used to bake bread and oat cakes and to make stews. Evidence exists that meat was roasted on a spit or baked in a pit filled with embers and covered with earth. Cooked meat and fish, porridge, gruel and bread were staples. If there were guests, the mistress of the household and her daughters may have helped serve.įoods that required no cooking included cheeses and skyr, salted meat or dried raw fish. They also filled the tankards and drinking horns. The food was served in wooden bowls and dishes carried by women servants. Meals were eaten in the main room of the house. There were usually two meals a day one in the morning about eight or nine and one in the evening after the men’s work was over about seven or eight. Women were responsible for the preparation and serving of meals. Women washed clothes, usually in streams and they were also responsible for drawing and fetching water for drinking, cooking and bathing. Women would collect berries, mosses, herbs, seaweed, wild fruit and bird’s eggs. In wealthier families, servants or slaves did some of the harder outdoor work. In poor families, women would work in the fields during the harvest. Women would help with the harvest and the haymaking as the presence of sickles in graves indicates. They would usually drink plain or boiled whey instead of the whole milk and would turn the whey into buttermilk. They also made a soft cheese from sour fermented milk and a form of cheese curds called skyr. This included fresh butter and a long-lasting butter made from sour cream and highly salted. The women would perform the milking and create the dairy products which were an important part of the Scandinavian diet. The milch cows and ewes would be together near the shieling with a herdsman but the other animals would be free to roam. During the summer months, the Vikings made their home in the mountains in a shieling, a small house. Women were in charge of the dairy operations. Women would maintain and run farms while the men were away. Women were buried with the tools of housekeeping and weaving while men were buried with items related to warring and fighting. The most telling evidence of women’s work comes from the preponderance of goods found in graves. Women during this historical era managed all of the affairs related to inside the house while men were in charge of everything outside the house although women did venture outside for tasks related to their duties inside. The main sources of information on Viking Age women are archaeology along with the written sagas, poetry and runes and depictions of women in art. There is little known about women in urban areas but if they were married to craftsmen or merchants, presumably they helped with their husband’s business. Their positions ranged from slave to farmer to landholder and their tasks varied from the spinning and weaving of cloth, manufacturing garments and hangings, preserving, producing and cooking food and drink, tending livestock, working in the fields, cleaning and laundry to warming beds. Women played many fundamental roles in Scandinavia during the Viking Age (eighth to eleventh century).
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