A variety of roles were played by women in post-classical warfare. Only women active in direct warfare, such as warriors, spies, and women who actively led armies are included in this list.
James Illston says,
"the field of medieval gender studies is a growing one, and nowhere is this expansion more evident than the recent increase in studies which address the roles of medieval women in times of war....this change in research has been invaluable".
Illston provided an exhaustive bibliography of recent scholarly books and articles, most of them connected to the crusades.[1]
Timeline
The antiquity ended with the 5th century, and the list therefore starts with the 6th century.
6th century
6th century: A
Saxon woman is buried with a knife and a shield in
Lincolnshire, England.[2]
624–625:
Battle of Badr.
QurayshiArab priestess
Hind bint Utba leads her people against
Muhammad in the fight. Her father, uncle, and brother are killed.[10][11] She was among fifteen women accompanying troops in a battle near
Medina, singing songs to inspire warriors. She exults over the body of the man who killed her father, chews his liver, and makes jewelry from his skin and nails.[12]
627:
Umm Sulaym bint Milhan participates in the
Battle of the Trench carrying a dagger in her robes. When
Muhammad asked her what she was doing with it, she informed him that she planned to use it to fight deserters.[15]
630s:
Khawla bint al-Azwar participate actively in combat during the Battle of Adnajin dressed as a man along with several other women, takes command of the
Rashidun army at the
Battle of Yarmouk against the
RomanByzantine Empire. She was nearly beaten by a
Byzantine Greek when one of her female companions, Wafayra, beheaded her opponent with one blow. This act rallied the Arabs and they defeated the Greeks.[18]
632: Prophetess
Sajah, a contemporary of
Muhammad, led an army of 4,000 against
Medina after his death, but called off the attack when she learned of the defeat of
Tulayha.[19]
738: According to legendary
Czech history,
Valasca seized power and created a
state ruled by women.[32] She decreed that only women were to receive military training and that boys were to be maimed to render them unable to fight by removal of the right eye and thumb. She supposedly distributed a potion to the women of Bohemia which protected them from men.[33]
10th-century: According to legend,
Saint Theodora of Vasta, in Arcadia of Peloponnesus, joined the army of
Byzantine Empire in her father's stead dressed as a man, to spare her father from conscription, and had no brother who could take his place: when refusing to marry a woman who claimed to have been made pregnant by her, she is executed, resulting in the discovery of the biological gender of her corpse, and her status as a saint for the sacrifice she made for her father.[39]
912–922: Reign of
Æthelflæd, queen of
Mercia. She commanded armies, fortified towns, and defeated the Danes. She also defeated the Welsh and forced them to pay tribute to her.[41]
914: Queen
Sugandha and her forces marched against the Tantrins. She was defeated and deposed.[42]
916:
Xochitl (Toltec), a
Toltec queen, fights in a civil war the erupted in the
Toltec Empire. She created and led a battalion made up entirely of women soldiers.[43]
960: Ethiopian queen
Gudit laid waste to
Axum and its countryside, destroyed churches and monuments, and attempted to exterminate the members of the ruling dynasty of the
Kingdom of Aksum.[44][45]
Early 11th century:
Freydís Eiríksdóttir, a
Viking woman, sails to
Vinland with
Thorfinn Karlsefni. When she faced hostile natives while pregnant, she exposed her breasts and beat her chest with a sword. This caused the natives to run away.[53]
1016:
Adela of Hamaland defend the fortress Uplade in the Netherlands in the absence of her spouse, and fills out the ranks of her defense force with women dressed as soldiers.[56]
11th century:
Sikelgaita commands troops in her own right.[57]
1047:
Akkadevi, an Indian princess, besieges the fort of Gokage.[58]
1050: Norwegian noblewoman
Bergljot Håkonsdatter raise an army to kill the king for murdering her spouse and son: she takes the king's estate, but by then the king had managed to escape her.[59]
1055: Defeat and execution of
A Nong,
Zhuang ruler, warrior, and shamaness. Alongside her son, father, and husband, she led the Zhuang and
Nùng minorities of the Sino-Vietnamese frontier against Vietnamese and Chinese foes.[60]
1058–1086:
Sikelgaita of
Salerno, second wife of
Robert Guiscard,
Duke of Apulia, accompanies her husband on military campaigns, and regularly puts on full armor and rides into battle at his side.[61]
1087:
Matilda of Tuscany personally leads a military expedition to Rome in an attempt to install Pope Victor, but the strength of the imperial counterattack soon convinced the pope to retire from the city.[65]
1097:
Florine of Burgundy participates in the first crusade with her spouse, and fell participating in actual combat by his side while their army was attacked and destroyed in Anatolia.[67]
12th century
12th century:
Moremi Ajasoro of the
Yoruba is taken as a slave by the
Igbo and married their ruler as his anointed queen. After familiarizing herself with the secrets of her new husband's army, she escaped to Ile-Ife and revealed this to the Yorubas, who were then able to subsequently defeat them in battle.[68]
1130: Female Chinese general
Liang Hongyu, wife of general
Han Shizhong of the
Song dynasty, blocks the advance of the
Jin army with her husband. Her drumming invigorated the Song army and rallied them to defeat the Jin.[75]
1147:
Fannu, an Almoravid princess, participate in the defense of the Almoravid dynasty capital's fortress in Marrakech dressed as a man during the conquest of the Almohad jihad.[79][80]
1150: Swedish nobleman
Jon Jarl are killed by Baltic pirates who attacks his estate Askenös after his return from the
First Swedish Crusade, after which his widow, the Lady of Askanäs (her name is not preserved), flee to Hundhammar, gather an army and return to kill the murderers of her spouse.[81]
Late 12th-century:
Umadevi, consort of King
Veera Ballala II, commanded Mysore armies against the rival Chalukyas on at least two occasions,[89] allowing Bellala to concentrate on administrative matters and thus significantly contributing to the
Hoysalas' conquest[90] of the Chalkyua at
Kalyani (near present-day
Bidar).
13th century
1201: Japanese archer
Hangaku Gozen defends a fort until she is wounded by an arrow.[91]
1258:
Doquz Khatun accompanies her husband Hulagu on campaigns. At the
Sack of Baghdad in 1258, the Mongols massacred tens of thousands of inhabitants, but by the order of Doquz, the Christians were spared.[100]
1261–1289: Reign of Indian queen
Rudrama Devi. She leads her troops in battle, and may have been killed in battle in 1289.[101]
1270:
Eleanor of Castile accompanies her husband on his crusade. According to legend, she saved his life by sucking poison from his wound when he was injured.[103]
1285:
Mercadera, dressed as a man, wounds and captures a French knight during the French siege of the Aragonese city of Peralada.[106]
1290:
Royal Armouries Ms. I.33 is written. It depicts fighters. An illustration of a woman named Walpurgis training in sword and buckler techniques is in the manuscript among others.[107]
Late 13th century:
Khutulun, a relative of
Kublai Khan, is described as a superb warrior and accompanies her father
Khaidu on military campaigns.[110]
14th century
14th century:
Urduja, a
Filipino princess, takes part in several battles. Many historians believe that she was mythical, however.[111]
14th century: Women of the
Mississippian culture in the Central Illinois River Valley Region participated in warfare, defending their camp, if needed, while men were out hunting.[112]
1335: The Scots defeat a company led by the Count of Namur. Amongst the Count's casualties was a female lancer who had killed her opponent, Richard Shaw, at the same moment that he had killed her. Her gender was only discovered when the bodies were being stripped of their armor at the end of the engagement. "The chronicler Bower seems to have been at least as impressed by the rarity of two mounted soldiers simultaneously transfixing one another with their lances as with the fact that one of them was a woman."[115]
1347:
Philippa of Hainault persuaded the King to spare the lives of the
Burghers of Calais. This popularity helped maintain peace in England throughout their long reign.[119]
1348: Empress
Irene Asanina organize the defense of Constantinople against the Genoese.[118]
1351–1363:
Han E serves as a soldier in the Chinese army as a man under the name Han Guanbao, and is promoted to lieutenant.[120]
1351–1357: Cia Ordelaffi née Marzia degli Ubaldini an Italian noblewoman from
Forlì came in help of Lodovico Ordelaffi during the battle of
Dovadola (part of the
Guelphs and Ghibellines war). In 1357, she took part in the defense of
Cesena during the Forlivesi crusade induced by
Pope Innocent VI.[121]
1353: Empress
Irene Asanina organize the defense of Constantinople against the army of John V.[118]
1354:
Ibn Battuta reports seeing female warriors in Southeast Asia.[122]
1389: Frisian regent
Foelke Kampana leads armies to assist her spouse Ocko Kenisna tom Brok, chief of
Auricherland: after finding him dead on the battlefield, she returns to Aurich, and upon finding it taken by an enemy during her absence, she retakes it by military force.[125]
1395:
Agnes Hotot takes part in a lance duel while dressed as a man, only revealing her gender once the fight is won.[126][127][128]
1429:
Joan of Arc asserts that God has sent her to drive the English out of France, and is given a position in the
French Royal army.[133] She is supported by
Yolande of Aragon, mother of Queen Marie d'Anjou (wife of King Charles VII).[134]
1451–1452 :
Brita Tott serves as a
spy in the war between Sweden and Denmark[139]
1455:
Elise Eskilsdotter leads a war against the German merchant class of Bergen in Norway as revenge for the murder of her spouse, by means of her pirate fleet.[140]
1481: Dutch noblewoman
Swob Sjaarda defends her castle during a siege in the Netherlands.[149]
1487:
Katarina Nipertz defends
Raseborg Castle in Finland, the fief of her late spouse, against the troops of the new vassal appointed by the regent, for several weeks.[150]
^James Michael Illston, "'An Entirely Masculine Activity'? Women and War in the High and Late Middle Ages Reconsidered," (Thesis, Department of History, University of Canterbury, 2009) p. 1
^Hodgkin, Thomas. Italy and Her Invaders: The Ostrogothic invasion, 476–535. pp. 587–590
^People, Personal Expression, and Social Relations in Late Antiquity, Volume 1, Ralph W. Mathisen
University of Michigan Press, 2003 – Foreign Language Study. p. 234
^Gregory of Tours.
"Chapter 15". Historia Francorum. Vol. Book X.
^He Hong Fei; Wang Jiu; Han Tie; Zhang Guangyu (2000). Peterson, Barbara Bennett (ed.). Notable Women of China: Shang Dynasty to the Early Twentieth Century. Associate editors. M.E. Sharpe Inc., New York. p. 177.
ISBN978-0765605047.
^For God's Sake by Jane Caro, Antony Loewenstein, Simon Smart, & Rachel Woodlock
^Leila Ahmed, Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate (Yale University Press, 1992) p. 71
^Hale, Sarah Josepha Buell (1853). Woman's Record: Or, Sketches of All Distinguished Women, from "The Beginning Till A.D. 1850, Arranged in Four Eras, with Selections from Female Writers of Every Age. Harper Brothers. p. 120.
^Historical Dictionary of Women in the Middle East and North Africa by Ghada Talhami, p. 287
^Hannoum, Abdelmajid (2001). Post-Colonial Memories: The Legend of the Kahina, a North African Heroine (Studies in African Literature).
ISBN978-0325002538.
^
Ashley, Mike (1998). The Mammoth Book of British Kings and Queens. London: Robinson Publishing. p. 309.
^Golden, Peter (1980). Khazar Studies: An Historio-Philological Inquiry into the Origins of the Khazars. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó.
^Rothery, Guy Cadogan, The Amazons, Francis Griffiths, London 1910, p. 102
^Watanabe-O’Kelly, Helen, Beauty or Beast: the woman warrior in the German imagination from the Renaissance to the present, Oxford university Press 2010;
ISBN978-0199558230, p. 79
^Hellēnikē Archaiometrikē Hetaireia. Symposium, Giór̄gos Fakoréllis̄, Nikos Zacharias, Kiki Polikreti: Proceedings of the 4th Symposium of the Hellenic Society for Archaeometry: National Hellenic Research Foundation, Athens, 28–31 May 2003, Archaeopress, 2008
^King, William C. (1902). Woman; Her Position, Influence, and Achievement Throughout the Civilized World. Her Biography and History. The King-Richardson co., Springfield, Massachusetts. p. 177.
^Culture and Political History of Kashmir, Volume 1 By
P. N. K. Bamzai p. 140
^Salas, Elizabeth (1990). Soldaderas in the Mexican Military: Myth and History. University of Texas Press. p. 3.
ISBN978-0292776388.
^Harrison, D. & Svensson, K. (2007). Vikingaliv. Fälth & Hässler, Värnamo.
ISBN978-9127357259. p. 71
^Jerome Kroll, Bernard S. Bachrach, Medieval Dynastic Decisions: Evolutionary Biology and Historical Explanation, The Journal of Interdisciplinary History,, Vol. 21, No. 1 (Summer, 1990), p. 9
^Valerie Eads, "Sichelgaita of Salerno: Amazon or Trophy Wife?" Journal of Medieval Military History 3 (2005), pp. 72–87.
^Campbell, James M.; R. E. Enthoven (1904). Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, Volume I, Part II, History of the Konkan Dahkan and Southern Maratha Country. Govt. Central Press, Bombay, India. p. 435.
^Barlow, Jeffrey G. (2002),
"A Nong (c. 1005–1055)", in Commire, Anne (ed.), Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia, Waterford, Connecticut: Yorkin Publications,
ISBN978-0787640743.
^Grant DePauw, Linda (2000). Battle Cries and Lullabies: Women in War from Prehistory to the Present. University of Oklahoma Press. p. 86.
ISBN978-0806132884.
^Steven Runciman: Geschichte der Kreuzzüge. München 1978 (Sonderausgabe), S. 341
^Historia monasterii Marchtelanensis, MGH SS XXIX, III.5, 665; Berthold of Zwiefalten, Chronicon, ch. 41, p. 221.
^Everglades, Theodore, Aristocratic Women in Medieval France, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999, p. 113.
^Stephens, H. Morse (1891). The Story of the Nations: Portugal. New York, G.P Putnam's Sons, London, T. Fisher Unwin. p. 29.
^Jinhua Dai; Jing Wang; Tani E. Barlow (2002). Cinema and Desire: Feminist Marxism and Cultural Politics in the Work of Dai Jinhua. Verso. p. 147.
ISBN978-1859842645.
^Lloyd, John E. (1935). A History of Carmarthenshire. Pub. Caerdydd. p. 140.
^Marjorie Chibnall, "Matilda (1102–1167)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004.
^Weiss, Sonia; Lorna Biddle Rinear; Adriana Leshko (2002). The Complete Idiot's Guide to Women's History. Alpha Books. p. 87.
ISBN978-0028642017.
^Emmanuel Kwaku Akyeampong & Henry Louis Gates: Dictionary of African Biography, Volym 6
^Ramusack, Barbara N.; Sharon L. Sievers (1999). Women in Asia: Restoring Women to History. Indiana University Press.
ISBN978-0253212672.
^Houghton Mifflin Company; Justin Kaplan (2003). The Houghton Mifflin Dictionary of Biography. p. 487.
ISBN978-0618252107.
^Low, Sidney James; Frederick Sanders Pulling (1910).
The Dictionary of English History. Cassell and Company Limited, London, New York, Toronto, and Melbourne. p.
421.
^Williamson, Paul (1998). Gothic Sculpture, 1140–1300. Yale University Press. p. 171.
ISBN978-0300074529.
^Apeles, Teena (2004). Women Warriors: Adventures from History's Greatest Female Fighters. Seal Press. p. 65.
ISBN978-1580051118.
^Bengtson, J.; O'Gorman, J. (6 June 2016). "Women's Participation in Prehistoric Warfare: A Central Illinois River Valley Case Study". International Journal of Osteoarchaeology. 27 (2): 230–244.
doi:
10.1002/oa.2532.
ISSN1047-482X.
^Brogi, Cecilia (1996). Caterina Sforza (in Italian). Arezzo: Alberti & C. Editori.
Further reading
Surveys
De Pauw, Linda Grant. Battle Cries and Lullabies: Women in War from Prehistory to the Present (University of Oklahoma Press, 1998), popular history by a leading scholar
Blythe, James M. "Women in the Military: Scholastic Arguments and Medieval Images of Female Warriors," History of Political Thought (2001), v. 22 pp. 242–269.
Edgington, Susan B. and Sarah Lambert, eds. Gendering the Crusades (2002), 13 scholarly articles
Hacker, Barton C. "Women and Military Institutions in Early Modern Europe: A Reconnaissance," Signs (1981), v. 6 pp. 643–671.
Hay, David. "Canon Laws Regarding Female Military Commanders up to the Time of Gratian: Some Texts and their Historical Contexts", in A Great Effusion of Blood'? Interpreting Medieval Violence, eds. Mark D. Meyerson, et al. (University of Toronto Press, 2004), pp. 287–313.
Hay, David. The Military Leadership of Matilda of Canossa, 1046–1115 (Manchester University Press, 2008).
Hingley, Richard, and Unwin, Christina. Boudica: Iron Age Warrior Queen (2006).
Illston, James Michael. 'An Entirely Masculine Activity'? Women and War in the High and Late Middle Ages Reconsidered (MA thesis, University of Canterbury, 2009)
full text online, with detailed review of the literature
Lourie, E. "Black women warriors in the Muslim army besieging Valencia and the Cid's victory: A problem of interpretation", Traditio 55 (2000), pp. 181–209
McLaughlin, Megan. "The Woman Warrior: Gender, Warfare and Society in Medieval Europe", Women's Studies 17 (1990), pp. 193–209.
Maier, C.T. "The roles of women in the crusade movement: a survey" Journal of medieval history (2004). 30#1 pp 61–82
McLaughlin, Megan. "The woman warrior: gender, warfare and society in medieval Europe" Women's Studies – an Interdisciplinary Journal 17 (1990), pp. 193–209.
Nicholson, Helen. "Women on the Third Crusade", Journal of Medieval History 23 (1997), pp. 335–449.
Solterer, Helen. "Figures of Female Militancy in Medieval France," Signs 16 (1991), pp. 522–549.