I’m usually pretty good at understanding a concept or theory verbally. If the author has a clear idea of what they are trying to say, I can more often than not understand what they mean. When this doesn’t happen, however, I like to have things arranged visually.
The other day I was trying to visualize the interrelationships between gender, the practice of seiðr, taboo, and ergi/argr. Obviously this is an odd thing to try to understand in an afternoon as various scholars have been working on it for years, but I came up with a rudimentary diagram that I would like your input on.
Unclear factors:
-Was there such a thing as a non-normative gender identity in the Viking Age that was not associated with seiðr? Some have argued that “gay” as an identity is a modern invention, but same sex sex and relationships were by no means absent in this time period. The challenge is defining those relationships in the context of the times, particularly with regard to women. Men who engaged in passive homosexual activity were undoubtedly seen as ergi, but there appears to be little information regarding this same behavior among women.
-Were women who practiced seiðr classified as org by default, or was the gender expectation simply that of crossing into the realm of taboo, not necessarily sexually?
I welcome any thoughts on this, but particularly from those who have studied this material in more depth than I have.
And, to explain the title: here.
I can’t say I have myself studied ‘this material’ in any particular depth, but since you ‘welcome any thoughts, I venture to respond, since I have always been interested in what evidence can be used to study the social norms of the past. Your summary makes no reference to evidence at all, and you speak of ‘this time period’ and ‘the context of the times’ in reference to the Viking Age, but what are the Viking Age sources for the blanket statements you make like ‘Men who engaged in passive homosexual activity were undoubtedly seen …’ – seen by whom? What is the evidence for this activity, or indeed for ‘women who practised seiðr …’? Indeed, what do you mean by seiðr? It’s rather easy to generalise, and then to build conceptual houses of cards, but much more difficult to pin down what really happened, and what people really thought. Not to mention the fact that, then as now, different people almost certainly thought different things. How ‘normative’ are norms? Who decides them, how well known are they, do people follow them? Speed limits are normative, but even the most law-abiding individuals break them regularly (assuming that at least a percentage of the drivers on British motorways are in fact law-abiding).
Sorry to blather on, but you got me thinking with your previous post on ‘knowing stuff’. I agree that you don’t need to know stuff, or rather to remember everything you have once learned, it’s often enough to know what you don’t know, and how to find out. But you can’t really evaluate theories and concepts without having at least some experience of having learned (and possibly still knowing) ‘stuff’. In the end, theories must be judged against the evidence. To an old fogey like me, theories are not even interesting until confronted with evidence. And I’ve always thought that playing with the evidence, i.e. trying to decide what constitutes evidence, and what it is evidence for, and weighing up very different types of evidence against each other, is much more fun than turning clouds into castles in the air. Please don’t get me wrong, I appreciate that you are just starting out on this journey, and it’s fun to think abstract thoughts. But don’t forget the evidence, and do tell us where you’re coming from, evidence-wise, and you might get some interesting answers. Though probably not from me
Well said. This is exactly why I welcomed all thoughts, and yes I am light on (read: “completely lacking”) sources, citations, evidence and what not. I had doubts about posting this, since it was more an exercise in thinking out loud than any sort of legitimate scholarship.
For what it’s worth, I was playing around with theories on seiðr and gender put forth by the likes of Neil Price and Sami Rainen. Like you, this isn’t specifically my purview. I’m not trying to make any claim or put forth any theory, mainly trying to conceptualize what I’ve read.
Thanks for your thoughts, though! I appreciate your candor.