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"'Ic Paet Secgan Maeg, Hwaet Ic Yrmpa Gebad'": Christian Scribes' Condemnation Of Blood Feud And Its Effect On Women In Anglo-Saxon Society, Tara Seate-Beck

Theses & Honors Papers

In preserving The Wife 's Lament, Wulf and Eadwacer, and Beowulf's battle scene with Grendel's mother, Christian poets and scribes preserved much more than just the literature of Anglo-Saxon England. They recorded the feminine voice, a rare perspective emerging from a society founded principally on the fundamentals of warfare and male dominance. The women's songs stand as testaments to the strife and discord women suffered as a consequence of their husbands' participation in blood feud. Their stories are not merely recounted as third person narratives, as much of the other extant texts from the period are; in the elegies, these …