European “Heroic Warrior Women”
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- čas přidán 9. 05. 2024
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0:00 Introduction
2:15 Medieval Women Warriors
8:17 Early Modern Decline of Women Warriors
10:36 Curiosity Stream Sponsor Spot
11:55 Changing of Modern Gender Roles
14:40 Sophie Krüger & Her Military Exploits
17:10 Other Warrior Women of the Revolutionary & Napoleonic Wars
18:50 Gender Roles Evolving yet Remaining
_________________________________________________________________
Duke tier Patreons
-Sahni
-DaneToast
-Brandon Weller
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#History #Women #Warriors
! Extra Information & Clarifications !
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There's a possibility that some of the women mentioned in this video, both modern and medieval, did not consider themselves as "woman". Gender is a fickle thing and modern definitions of a "female" and or a "male" didn't always apply in past societies (and are starting to be questioned today as well), meaning they could have had their own, different, definitions. On top of that, many of these women could have had very nuanced definitions for themselves. Some would proudly identify as a woman (Sophie Kruger) while others might consider themselves a man (Nadezhda Durova, maybe, who was said to "live the life of a man" after her/his discharge from the army). Some might call themselves transgender (like maybe Francina Gunningh Broese, a born female Belgium soldier who tried marrying another girl) while still, some, didn't know what to classify/identify as, or, did not want to classify/identify as anything. Due to these varied possibilities of people's gender identities, such interpretations of people's gender identity in the past is really hard to do and often highly speculative. Therefore, I am here acknowledging the nuance, so please be aware of it, but I will not address it further in the video as, I am talking about these women in the context of the historical sources which talk about them as "women".
1:56 She also used Auguste Krüger, or Friederike Krüger as aliases.
2:42 Although, stories from the classical period of women crossdressing as men to fight in an army are known. However, over all, the classical Greek and Roman societies were VERY patriarchal.
With that said, other European societies like the Celts seemed to have less clearly defined gender roles and, therefore, people like Boudica could have risen to power. But, I had to start the video somewhere and, I didn't have time to get into the nuances of the Classical period, specially pertaining to non-Greco-Roman societies.
2:52 Cod. Bodmer 78 - Guido de Columnis, Historia destructionis, f. 67v.
2:58 Collection of French romances and fabliaux, c.1275, folio 188.
3:05 There is still a debate around how "women warrior graves" should be interpreted exactly. Whether they where truly "warrior women". Some archaeologists argue that there could be other factors why these women were buried with weapons, armor, a shield, etc. Most notable of these debates is happening around the grave of a Norse Woman called the Birka female (look it up on Wiki). I clearly land on the side of the argument that the warrior graves that happen to have female not male bones should be interpreted as warrior women but be aware this is still debated by academics.
3:08 De mulieribus claris (fol.163r)
3:12 Outside of the Slavs which constituted part of the Rus, we don't know how prevalent were woman warriors in Slavic society. Taking aside the whole debate over how to interpret "warrior graves", early Slavs conducted mostly empty cremation burials, meaning no burial goods exist to judge whether someone was a soldier or not or was a woman or man. Lastly, writings about the Slavs from the early medieval period are very few and far apart so discerning anything about their society, let alone if women fighting would be admissible, is very hard.
3:23 This source is problematic in that it is written a couple hundred years after the "Viking Period" and it also represents an opinion of a definitely biased monk. With that said, it does present the fact that "Viking women" were known to exist in the Danish past, otherwise this writing would be very out of place in a book about the history of the Danes. So take that into account.
4:39 Royal 20 C V f. 49. Pontheslea
5:04 Royal MS 15 E IV, f.316v
5:45 Yes, the Latin word bellatrix meaning 'warrior woman', 'female warrior' is why J.K. Rowling chose this word to be the name of Bellatrix Lestrange in Harry Potter.
5:48 There were also numerous accounts of warrior women participating in the crusades but, I did not have time to talk about that. For more information see; Susan B. Edgington, Sarah Lambert, eds. Gendering the Crusades. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002.
6:00 Cod. Bodmer 78 - Guido de Columnis, Historia destructionis… f. 68v.
6:11 British Library Cotton MS Claudius B VI, f.14.
6:34 Tumbo del monasterio de los Santos Justo y Pastor de Toxos Outos. Archivo Histórico Nacional, CODICES,L.1002, f.20.
6:41 Vita Mathildis des Donizo, um 1115. Vatikanstadt, Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana, Ms. Vat. lat. 4922, fol. 49v.
7:16 BL. Harley MS 4431, f.103r.
7:52 BL. Harley MS 4431, f.102v.
7:59 Christine de Pizan, Livre de Faits d'armes et de chevalerie , Mutations de Fortune, f.174r.
8:36 Martial d'Auvergne, Vigiles de Charles VII, f.60v.
8:40 Martial d'Auvergne, Vigiles de Charles VII, f.66v.
9:30 Thomas Rowlandson. Entitled Soldiers on a march.
9:48 Of course, women involvement with the military never really went away as women where still nurses, cooks, secretaries of generals, etc. But they increasingly began to be sideline to these more passive military roles which where often carefully separated from the men and the battlefield.
10:00 Also, throughout the early modern period, and until the modern period, the economics of war and soldier's pay changed. This meant that there where also economic changes that effected women's involvement with the military which, again, I did not have time to talk about. See for more: Wilson, Peter H. "German Women and War, 1500-1800.", War in History, vol. 3, no. 2 (1996), pp. 127-60.
10:12 Of course, this does not mean that woman didn't end up in active combat one way or another during this time. In extreme cases like during a desperate defense of a city, or when woman through happen chance found themselves in the midst of a battle, would/could partake in the combat, but these where very much so unplanned exceptions.
13:38 Of course, the enactment of national conscriptions was different in different places. In some places like Russia the new conscription was only an alteration and expansion from an already existent system, while in countries like Prussia it was part of a wider military restructuring for the whole country.
18:09 There were also various uprisings in the tumultuous French revolutionary period which often had sizable female presence or where even organized by woman like the Women's March on Versailles. But, in this video, I focused more on "official" "warrior women", that is soldiers in an official capacity and, therefore, I did not mention these events, but I agree they are quite important to know about in the context of this topic.
19:24 Before I get any smooth brain people calling out Pauline Leon, that obviously the "Rights of Man" do not apply to woman, just know that there is far more nuance to her statement than you're aware of. During Leon's speech there was still an evolving idea of what "natural rights" meant and of how exactly did the declaration of "The Rights of the Man and of the Citizen" apply to women. As the revolutionary period continued the idea of an "active" and "passive" citizen evolved and woman where increasingly pushed to the sidelines as a "passive citizen". Her statement about The Rights of Man not applying to woman was supposed to literally point to the hypocrisy of the document which has the initial statement of "Les hommes naissent et demeurent libres et égaux en droits" (Men are born and remain free and equal in rights).
19:33 I know 'Liberty Leading the People' is about the July Revolution, but its core artistic idea represent well what I am talking about here, hence I decided to show it.
19:39 Napoleon and Josephine. Source: The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection, The New York Public Library.
20:31 The photograph of the painting by Le Dru, representing the Fernig sisters, can be seen at the town hall of Mortagne-du-Nord.3:08 De mulieribus claris (fol.163r)
The best book I found during my research on this subject is: Hagemann, Karen, Stefan Dudink, and Sonya O. Rose. The Oxford Handbook of Gender, War and the Western World since 1600. Oxford Handbooks. Oxford ; New York, 2020; so, I recommend getting that if you want to know more.
Thank you to Jasmine from @A long, long time ago... for reading some of the quotes in this video. Go check out her channel! czcams.com/users/Alonglongtimeago
I think mentioning Emilia Plater, a Polish-Lithuanian captain in the November Uprising would be a perfect fit for this video. She was quite succesful in leading her troops and is considered a hero in both Polish and Lithuanian nations.
True, but I mean, there's like a billion people I didn't mention. Women in British, Spanish, Polish, etc. armies. I sadly can't mention everyone. But you're free to mention them in the comments, which you have done :)
I see that someone was quicker than me and already mentioned Emilia Plater. Other Polish women soldiers of that period, arguably even more badass but less known, were Joanna Żubr and Antonina Tomaszewska.
Joanna Żubr served in the Army of the Dutchy of Warsaw, crossing the line between a typical camp follower, an NCO's wife, and the active combat soldier. Apparently some crossdressing was involved at first but she eventually served openly as a woman, achieving the NCO rank herself and being awarded the Virtuti Militari - Poland's highest decoration for valor.
Antonina Tomaszewska, like Emilia Plater, was a Polish-Lithuanian noblewoman taking part in the November Uprising. She distinguished herself in combat, becoming a Lieutenant of Lancers, despite being barely 17 and not hiding her gender at all.
She's a personal favourite of mine.
In WW1 there was a Serbian girl that fought and the French called her "Serbias Joan D Arc", she is one of the most decorated female soldiers in the world.
Milunka Savić, the most decorated woman of WW1, Sabaton made a song about her czcams.com/video/rM9PuJxppdI/video.html
I just realized that Sicheilgaita is an actual historical character. In ck2 there is a woman with that same name and high militart skill and I always make her a commander. Cool
yea lol she was pretty badass in real life too, really quite a match for her husband the famous Robert the Fox
Surprisingly well researched video. Many of the cases you mentioned I found myself before and they´ve been verified several times through various sources.
I´ve never seen though the whole information condensed in one source like here though.
Well done!
Also, this topic could be expanded much more - especially Eastern Europe has it´s examples.
Yeah, the topic could definetly be expanded way more. This was suppose to be more of an introduction to the topic for people who may not have been aware of it.
Thank you so much for making and sharing this video.
I’ve recently been trying to find a program about EXACTLY this subject and so was so happy when the notification appeared.
Yeah, thanks 🙂🐿
My wife would definitely go to war I often wonder if I will come home to find that we have annexed the neighbor's yard I once had to stop her from shoveling a snow wall the end of our shared driveway during a snowstorm over an argument she has a very fiery personality I love her a lot
A shield Maiden to the Core!💪🖤
3:30 Interesting from Saxo Grammaticus's Gesta Danorum. It seems to me that this is a Scandinavian trope almost. From the Sagas, who's validity as historical texts I personally find questionable to Saxo's stories which tend to emphasize the pre christian era, I believe they should be taken with a grain of salt. Did English or Frankish chroniclers talk of scandinavian female warriors? And I know for certain the byzantines did not mention them.
Yes, I did mention Saxo Grammaticus' problems in the pinned comment. But I thought the quote was really interesting so I used it. The thing with his work is that many historians argue that he couldn't have just completely made up the whole warrior woman thing. This is not to say that his account is genuine, most historians definetly see him as being very problematic, but none the less him making it completely up would be very unlikely. This is mostly because there are mentions of Norse woman warriors in other texts like the "Inghen the Red (a woman) - mentioned independently in Irish sources as one of the leaders of the Vikings in Ireland", and there are archaeological sources which increasingly support the existence of Viking warrior women.
Came here and subscribed based on your comments on Cynical Historian's channel. I'm loving how much in-depth, quality history content I'm encountering on YT. As my first watch, your research and presentation impressed me. I look forward to exploring more unusual topics in history here. 💜🌎🌍🌏✌️😎
I love history and I really enjoy your videos
it would be interesting of you could do a video on the warrior women of the classical or ancient European world in general and you could mention the very few but still interesting warrior women of the Greco-Roman world, most notably the ancient Greek side of it. We tend to look the Ancient Greeks through the eyes of Athenians at most (though women in Ancient Athens is also a complex thing to say about) and mostly from the classical age only and logically of course since they wrote and copied or published the most things down and we still have them.The Greek world though despite sharing of course many similarities traditions and customs or having contacts with each other through not only war but trade,festivities or politics, most city-states still had their micro-culture and differences. Even when the "mainland" Greek world was more or less unified under Phillip and Alexander"s reign , there were still many differences across the regions. So i believe it could be an interesting video exploring the warrior women of antiquity in general and talking about these women of Ancient Greece who although very few compared to the Middle Ages ,they existed. One of them that comes to my mind at least from the sources that we have in sources is Cynane,the half sister of Alexander the Great.Of course there are many others through Celtic,Germanic or Thracian/Dacian culutures.
Most warrior women of the Classical period where non-Greco-Roman but as I mentioned in the pinned comment some Greek or Roman women did end up fighting just not that much comparatively to other cultures or times. It would definetly be an interesting topic, one that I might do as an off shoot of my Athenian series. On the other hand might be interesting to convince someone else like @Archaia Istoria to do a video on it. He knows way more about Classical Greece in general than me. I only mostly specialize in Classical Athens.
@@MLaserHistory Thanks for answering and yeah I agree. I probably didn't say it right but yes there were very few warrior women of the Greco-Roman world and most of the rest were from other European cultures. But still it could be an interesting video if you want to make it.
The timing of this video releasing and me starting to read "The Unwomanly Faces of War" by Svetlana Alexievich is quite uncanny. Great video nonetheless!
What are your thoughts on the book? I'm intrested in it and would love to hear your opinions on it.
@@pimmeaxelsson3090 Sorry for late reply. I really like the book and highly recommend it to anyone who like reading WW2 memoir. The raw description and account from the women honestly was quite gut wrenching and emotional. It honestly reminds me of the story that my grandmother used to tell me during her times in Japanese occupation in my home country. All of the stories recorded in the book had that raw emotional power to it that for me is hard to explain. The interesting part is the book shows almost every women's perspective in the war is shown, from a cook to a partisan member. It honestly shows how involves women are during the entire war and quite an eye opening view. All in all, high recommendation.
@@Pakcat123 No worries. I am gratefull for your answear, you've made me more exited to read it now that I know more of it. Thank you!!
"if woman fight, how would I feel special anymore?!🥺😭"
Another great book about the relationship between women and war that I recommend is The unowmanly face of war by Svetlana Alexievich (recollection of soviet women who fought during ww2)
This sure feels like Nebula content
Really well put together.
aw hell yeah m laser is back!
What do you think about doing a video about Milunka Savić (serbian heroine of ww1)?
Very cool topic!
I remember seeing this artwork of Freydis Eiriksdottir, where she just killed a man for supposedly insubordination. She had that insane demonic look on her face, like asking "anyone else?!?" and her men just looked at her like they're gonna shit themselves.
Thank you for this excellent and well-researched video. I find it very interesting that the rise of nationalism both enabled/lionised and suppressed women warriors. Really appreciate the use of primary sources.
Yeah, it is very interesting how sometimes in history certain trends can have contradictory effects on certain parts of the population.
I think there are also material reasons.
After the defeat of Napoleon, no major power conflict happened until the Great War. Unprecedented 100 years of mostly peace. Conflicts were usually short and localised, so the need for military, in general, were mitigated.
Conversely, the Revolutionary and Napoleoic Wars were 25 years of almost continual carnage. Additionally, the quantity of men was hitherto unprecedented due to the new idea of conscription. Proportionally, this partially explains why there were more more female soldier during the French wars, and less later on.
Laser lives! And a lovely topic.
What do you mean I live? My last video was on Christmas. If you thing that's a long wait, ou man you haven't been here during the video drought of spring 2021 :D
@@MLaserHistory XD
My apologies, Laser. ^_^
Is that Tiberium universe reference?
KANE lives lol
@@Gusararr yessss
@@Gusararr and vulkan ref
Fascinating, simply fascinating. Hard to immagine how badass a girl would look in a 18th century style uniform
Does a female have to bahave like a "male warrior" in order to be considered a badass.
@@fitnesspoint2006 Are you saying that's not badass?
@@gabrielboi3465 war and war mongering is not badass be it from females or males
@@fitnesspoint2006 I said that women in 18th century uniforms it's badass as a concept, i didn't comment of the morality of the napoleonic wars (?) Which, by the way, fighting for your country is an honorable thing to do, especially if defending it from a foreign occupator like is the case here.
Still, i think women in uniform look good as fuck too. Especially in these kind of uniforms that are very elegant.
yoh these comments be attacking you for no reason lol
Nemůžu uvěřit že OverSiplified si jakože vypůjčil informace od Bratra Slováka, jen tak dál děláš super videa
Thanks!!!
Very interesting stuff
I am so glad you brought up the burials.
This is one interest of study I did in college and it seemed a lot of classical thinkers were very disturbed at the prospect of 'woman warriors' and tried to make every excuse and reason to justify they were 'just loved by their fathers more than their sons' and why they were buried with weapons and armor.
The only real reason, is that they likely warriors, there is no other reason, especially in societies that valued warriors, for someone to be buried with a weapon that WASN'T a warrior.
Also, the Romans were disgusted that females fought on the walls of Germanic and Gaulic cities and wrote quite a bit about them, especially Caesar, who turned it around and said his wins were BETTER because he had to fight even more people. Lol
Yeah, I mentioned all this in the pinned comment, some classical non-Greco-Roman societies seem to have been ok with female warriors.
As for the burials, the thing is that the burials are still debated today and I am not really in the position to argue that. I am not an archaeologists nor an expert in the field and even though I do believe the burials should be taken as women warriors, hence I said it in the video, I also had to mention in the pinned comment that this is debated.
The Caesar thing is rally interesting and I never heard of it. But yeah it does sound like something he would do :D
@@MLaserHistory The other thing that is very interesting is that it seems a lot of Christian authors seemed to be more recommending how society SHOULD be, and not in actuality when they wrote about gender roles and the expectations of women and men in society.
"The only real reason, is that they likely warriors, there is no other reason, especially in societies that valued warriors, for someone to be buried with a weapon that WASN'T a warrior."
I can't speak for the rest of the world but in pre-Christian Scandinavia that is absolutely not the case. There are numerous instances of young children having been buried with weapons and armour. And those hardly had a warrior occupation in their life.
Fact is, ask any credible archaeologist and they will tell you that it is hard to determine the occupation of even a man buried with weapons. Since it was so common for all manner of items to follow a person into the grave, man, woman or child.
Imma be honest with you, if an entombed corpse with armaments is found to be a woman, that woman more than likely was not a warrior. A woman in armor would be indistinguishable from any other combatant and her chances of survival would be pretty low. So the place to look for remains of women warriors is among the masses of slain warriors scattered across battlefields. More likely those women buried with weapons and armor were widows of warriors.
@@kavky Burial rights seemed extremely important to medieval men and women, and is how they were presented to God after death. Women were not buried with swords and armor because their husbands were warriors.
thank you major lazer
Much love
What is interesting is that Megan McLaughlin is the exact same name of a Australian sports commentator of 7 news station. Clearly her parents are intellectuals.
These woman had some balls of steel.
Btw the most used german word for ''ovaries'' is ''Eierstock''. The word can be devided between ''Eier'' meaning egg and is slang for balls in germany. ''Stock'' is simply stick.
Additionally on anatomical drawings ovaries look abit similar testicles, at least to a 6 year me, who proudly exclaimed in a gynocological private practise, that women had balls too. Something that struck me as vitally important to tell everybody. ^^
"(...) of the Kolberg Regiment (...)"
Heeey, that's my hometown! Sorry, I know it's hardly related, but I had to get it out of my system.
Tbh though, Kołobrzeg, as it's now called has some really fascinating history to it. The town itself is well over a thousand years old, and has had city rights for well over 750 years. Shame most of it was levelled in 1945...
Most of Central Europe was leveled in 1945 ...
True... A lot of people nowadays don't realize the extent of the damage. When looking at family photos from the 50's and 60's, I was always wondering why they left huge open swaths of grass in the middle of the city (which are densely built-up today). Well, the town was basically built from scratch starting in 1945 largely on the plan of a city that was 90% gone, and reconstruction was slowed and limited in area by the constant need to remove unexploded ordnance. Well, it still does, now that I think of it.
Even worse than what I just described is the norm, not the exception. It's all just such a damn shame.
Anyways... Circiling back to the topic of the video, and some other comments I've read, I think it fitting to mention that the Battle of Kołobrzeg was the place where Emilia Gierczak, another heroic woman, died on the battlefield.
@@michaireneuszjakubowski5289 I've even heard somewhere about bricks from the ruined historical buildings in the "Regained Lands" being used in the reconstruction of those in Warsaw, viewed as more valuable.
BTW thanks for introducing the story of Emilia Gierczak to me.
@@Artur_M.
I've heard that as well, notably my great-grandparents, who were one of the first families (re)settled in the area (grandma was a PPS whip and found her hometown suddenly become part of the USSR, so... shut up and wagons west.)
At the same time, I was told most people were, at the time, neutral to this particular fact. After all, Kołobrzeg was basically settled as it was being rebuilt, whereas the rubble that was hauled off to Warsaw was needed then and there.
What I'm told was actually bemoaned was whenever salvaged wirings, pipes or fittings were shipped out. Rubble was plentiful enough and local demand for it low enough not to matter, but pipes, wires, fitings and such were basically an illicit drug level of black market commodity.
@@Artur_M. Also, as for Emilia Gierczak, I have the urge to nitpick that she has a street named after her in Kołobrzeg, but it's not the street she died in... Which still exists by the way, and follows its old course by the site, as far as I can tell - it's next to the lighthouse, by the park; plenty of space for the monument, too. Oh well.
I'll also note I've been seeing you comment under Sam Aronow's vids. Greetings to a fellow enjoyer of Jewish culture!
Hi, can you do a video about Makhnovshchina or about revolutionary Catalonia?
19:25 exactly!! Great video! I didn't know about most of this women and history. They deserve to be better known in history books. Also 20:27 the fragility of men's ego really amazes me.
More a question. I know this video is in febuar, the long hair in time before ww1 was not for only women, i can accept that the picturing show this way the difference. I dont a have personaly a sources. i "use" second hand information mostly geting to idees. Even i try to see if ther in other sources fit or not the "marks" are similar.
fantastic video wow
When it comes to late medieval women in armies, we have at least one very important document - it is not a chronicle, but rather a royal donation, meaning it doesn't have the goal of mythologizing any particular figure, albeit it does praise the recipient.
This document concerns Cecilia of sv. Jur, who commanded a ship at the battle of Nikopolis under Sigismund (so, 1396 AD), in pretty much direct combat, seeing as she was bombarding a fortress as the battle went on. Not only did she receive a royal donation for her deeds in that battle, which is exceptional enough, she received it while her husband (Stefan of Rozhanovce) was *alive and in the same battle*. I don't have the entire donation available (and am not willing to go to Budapest and spend a ton of money to get at it), the source cited below says that the text is along the lines of "in spite of being of the delicate female persuasion, she heroically took part in the fighting".
Source: Rytier a jeho kral, D. Dvorakova, p74-75, citing D(iplomatikai) L(eveltar) 12 220 and DL 12 229
2:47 What about Queen Olympia and Cynane of macedon?
As I mentioned in the pinned comment, some women warriors did exist in classical Greco-Roman societies but they were uncommon, usually very unliked, and the societies they lived in, for the most part, were extremely patriarchal. Because the video can be only so long I have to simplify some stuff and therefore I went with the generalization of the classical period as being VERY patriarchal, because it was, but, yes, there where exceptions to it as there almost always are in history.
@@MLaserHistory Thanks for taking the time to reply. Sorry for my ignorance of skipping the pinned comment
@@MegaTang1234 No worries :)
Awesome video, love your work.
Would you consider a cross-over shout out for our fans?
How do ypu come up with topics for your videos?
Coming across interesting topics during my academic research, listening to historical podcasts like In Our Time by BBC or History Extra Podcast, watching other CZcams History content, reading historians' blogs or historians' tweets, and lastly just talking to other historians about history at my uni.
I admire your work. You never fail to amaze!
15:03 that’s a cool thing for that time. Most would probably just arrest and abandon her.
Instead they gave her a chance if she would be herself.
Wow. Did not know that.
I like your style
My mother's service in SOE in WW2 was simply a form of the role of other women, releasing men to fight. It was conditioned by her grandfather's awards in the Belgian Army, and may have conditioned my own, a job offer from the SAS, which I walked away from after discovering what had caused the job offer. During my training, we had as many female officer candidates as men, and they were better shots, on the whole. There was no reason not to accept them as our kin. More recently, they have been widely accepted in combat roles.
The Victorian romantic ideal of the Chivalrous Male was undone in Eastern Europe in the later years of WW2, when the Russians turned to rape, particularly in Germany. We have similar reports in Ukraine, and of Russian partisan units led by women.
Going back in history, at the same time as Jeanne of Domrémy was figurehead of a French Army more functionally led by Gilles de Rais, so Guillaume Dufay was setting a song of a few years earlier, L'Homme Armé, where the civil community, regardless of gender, were telling themselves to get their hands on the obsolescent iron hauberks, because it was better than nothing when facing the routier freebooters plaguing the Ardennes-Vosges.
The classical world saw armed female divinities as normal. A few were submissive, but most were dominant. Hatshepsut, for instance, was a war leader, as was Elizabeth 1 of England.
It might be as valid to examine the military competence of politicians.
Part of the ongoing legacy of the patriarchal developments mentioned in this video is that these remarkable figures and stories are today still seen as obscure, alternative, fun fact history learned about largely by people with special focuses and interests, and not woven into the core narratives everyone is expected to know and take for granted. Our generation can contribute a lot to rectifying this, and I think efforts like your video are part of that.
Cool
Vikings: We're so badass even our women are badass.
Other Europeans: Our women being strong is an embarrassment.
I wonder how this was possible since the Bible (Deuteronomy 22:5) forbids women to wear men's clothing because it is an abonimation to the LORD thy God.
Never came across this issue during my research so perhaps armor was seen as separate from clothing, or woman just wore their normal outfits because after all armor was expensive, or this passage just like many other bible passages was simply ignored during the middle ages. Also, on occasion, we do get accounts of female armor existing. For example, Joan of Arc was famously said to have worn armor commissioned by Charles VII custom-made to fit her body. The answer may just be a combination of all of these.
I thought Boudicca would be considered one
“You can’t be a warrior because you don’t fit my expectations of a woman!”
HI can u do ukranian history?
While certainly not historically based the novel Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett is surprisingly relevant to this video.
GNU Terry Pratchett
Very very nice video brother😎 G
Itneresting video. This seems far more of a northern european thing than an italian one sadly. Spain and Greece I believe had notable exceptional women, including the one that helped destroy the english invasion of spain.
I am sure I read somewhere about women in the Greek War of Independence but I can't remember atm. I don't know, I feel like it would be the same. Like Prussia and later Germany was very unhappy with these woman as stated. They praised them all while trying to strongly solidify traditional gander roles (which they did) and single them out as the exceptions to the rule. I feel like Italy and Greece and definetly Spain went through a similar thing.
@@MLaserHistory Laskarina Bouboulina was a famous warrior-woman from the greek war of independence. There were also partisan women in ELAS (during the german occupation of greece) and in the democratic army of greece (during the greek civil war).
very cool. I cant believe ive never heard of this before.
That is the kind of reaction I was going for :)
Even though I despise war, the last part really brought a tear to my eye and sent chills down my spine. Perhaps there is hope for humanity after all.
Why did you put the roman professional army in quotes? were they not professional?
I mean it all just depends on how you choose to define "professional", which specific Roman army you're looking at, which time period in the Roman history you're looking at, etc. For the most part, yes, Roman armies could definetly be defined as professional but the nuance nature of the topic means that's not always the case. Plus I was talking about Greco-Roman armies together in that sentence, not just Romans, and for the Greeks the "professional" aspect is much more debatable as they had many more citizen militia and such. Which technically you could perhaps also define as "professional" depending on their training, how they're deployed, etc. Basically it all depends on many factors and therefore it's far easier to put it in quotation marks, meaning that many people and books would say it, that's where I got the quote "professional" from, but it depends.
@@MLaserHistory ah I understand
🤠👍🏿
I think a good example is Catherine Teodoroiu. She was a Romanian soldier in ww1. And also the First Female Officer in Romanian history.
A famous female warlord of antiquity was Zenobia and Skythean women were famous raiders.
Any female monarch of Antiquity would also be a warlord and that's not the same thing as a warrior.
The loughlin in McLoughlin is pronounced loch-lin like in Loch which is the same word
Just when you think that a name from a mostly English speaking country would be pronounced the way it would make sense in English but no.
@@MLaserHistory In middle English it makes sence as I'm middle English as ugh was pronounced as a akh as in loch and the irish word for lake "loch " was translated into English as lough as the English came to Ireland in the 12th century while it was written as loch in english in Scotland due to Scots and engldih rule not coming till the 17th century
That point when you have to learn the linguistic history of a country to be able to pronounce a name properly. There's a meme somewhere in there.
@@MLaserHistory lol anyway great video
@@MLaserHistory Don't feel bad, English is my first language and I know plenty of people with the last name McLaughlin who pronounce it exactly as you did. Variation is just the first rule of English.
I expected to come in disliking this video, but it's really good, great work as always
I think the problem with these kinds of topics is that some modern people try to present them in a very propagandist way to counter act some sort of, by them perceived, modern problem. Which, I mean, isn't new. History has always been, and I think always will be, used as propaganda by some people.
Due to this very propagandist, at some point bordering on "preaching", kind of representation of historical topics like women warriors in history, a lot of people get a lot of disdain for such topics, and, expect all the videos on such topics to be very similar in their propaganda. Hence, when you saw me publish a video on the topic you probably had the thought of "ou well I wont like this". Which, a lot of other people had as well. So far this video has the worst like to dislike ratio than my past 10 videos, even though at no point did I talk about current politics, current gender roles, or said anything about current society. It was just the past actions of warrior women, the way these action were perceived by others, and how the evolution of gender roles through out history effected this perception and the action of warrior women. Some men and women wanted women to fight, others didn't, and some didn't care.
Anyways, I am glad you liked it :)
@@MLaserHistory yes, I expected it to be preaching, but it turned out to be just a story about amazing soldiers. Maybe if in the title it wasn't in any way said that it's about just women video would do better, since people might be just like those 19th-century frenchmen - "are there not enough male heroic warriors that you have to talk about women?" or something along these lines
@@MLaserHistory Interesting channel, I peeked in on The Aztec video and Subscribed Your Channel 🧙♂️
Wow, that Monk who wrote the Gesta Danorum was a real incel
...Wait a second...I guess no, he technically would be a volcel I suppose?
This only cements my belief that the medieval ages were a far better time for women to live than the 19th century.
Some ways yes, some ways no. Not really a better or worse kind of situation more of a change in the type of situation. Women in the 19th century didn't have to deal with raping as part of pillaging which was quite common in the middle ages as compared to the 19th century. Nor were women in the 19th century seen as an extension of their husbands to such an extend that when the husband was set to be executed due to whatever illegal thing he committed, his wife would be often executed with him. Punishments for acts committed against women in the middle ages also were very lackluster compared to the 19th century. Like rape of a married woman, even though seen as illegal, often only garnered a fine, where as in the 19th century it was punishable much more harshly if proven, even if proving it was often a huge problem because "no one would believe a woman", legally speaking if proven it was far more enforced than just a simple fine. Marrying off a girl in the middle ages could have been done only with the consent of the parents, which did occur in the 19th century but legally speaking parents couldn't just cancel a wedding between two consenting parties, which they could in the middle ages. On the other hand there were more opportunities for women to gain agency, even though still within a patriarchal system, over their lives in the middle ages than in the 19th century which enforced much more strictly cultural gender roles. Basically neither time was better or worse, it was all shity.
Might be because instead of being under control of exclusively men, who wanted to keep women away from any power, in the middle ages, they were under a rule of someone who didnt really care, what they were doing, as long as they everyone , both males and females worked hard, gave them money. At least outside of big cities. Correct me if im wrong
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i wish there was an english video this well researched about southamerican warrior women, like Juana Azurduy, but alas
Interesting, never herd of her.
THANKS FROM GERMANY
I always wonder how many of these people would view themselves as trans men today. Obviously the term didn’t exist back then, but performing the heavily masculine roll the military carried could be very alluring
To be clear I’m not stating all or any of the people talked about here would be trans today, and we’ll never know, but I just wonder :)
Yeah, as you said, we will simply never know since that term and idea didn't really exist back than. We can try to retrospectively apply the term to some of them with our current definitions of the term, which would be technically possible, but retrospectively applying modern terms to historical figures is a dangerous game. It can often distort the ideas and feelings those people had in a time when there did not exist a term for them or different terms existed that don't exist now. The best way to treat it, in my opinion, is to make comparisons to modern trans people who do identify as such. i.e. these things these people in the past did or felt are similar to these things that modern trans people do or feel. As well as, perhaps, these things were different to modern trans people. This comparison can give people an idea of what these historical figures were like in comparison to something that is more familiar to us in our time, without us actually applying a modern term to them.
@@MLaserHistory yeah as you went into at the end, gender is a complex thing, and very culturally sensitive. The military aspect especially reflects the modern theory of performative gender, with them performing gender hard through military enlistment, but it’s difficult to know where else their lives went, if they stuck with the performative aspects for years afterwards, least of all what was going on in their minds. In general though, it’s very unnormative and different as to how gender was variously viewed in Europe. Being trans (or the general feeling at least) didn’t just start recently, and even though it’s impossible to know, I think it’s very likely some of these peoples thoughts would align with our modern ideas:) thanks for responding! I’m a new subscriber btw, and I love your content so far!
i'm early for once
it happens sometimes
One for the history books
Sophie Kruger is one of the most based person in history.
Why doesn't Disney do a cartoon about these woman? 🤔
Why not Antiquity? Nor a word of the Huns, Avars, Bulgars and Hungarians, and all the other cavalry people from the Medieval times either. Overall Eastern European history doesn't exist.
For most of those areas there simply isn't enough secondary research, that I can read, which would talk about this specific topic, and I do not have the time to do primary research into it which takes regular academics years to do. Hence I did mostly talk about Western Europe.
For the topics I have done primary research for as an academic, like early Slavs, I mentioned that in the pinned comment. For the Avars I didn't mention anything because we have absolutely not enough written evidence to know about that and no extensive secondary archaeological research has been conducted into Avar graves (I would know because I am currently doing it) to really know anything concrete about woman involvement in that society.
Later parts of the video talk about greater gender systems changes in Europe which occurred mostly all around, to various results of course, and mentioning each individual area of Europe separately would be unfeasible. High Medieval Hungary had similar woman involvement as other Places in Europe like the HRE.
Lastly "steppe culture" is often not considered as European and I needed to encompass the video topic somehow. Early Pechenegs, Khazars, Cumans, etc. were often exceptions to the way most of feudal Europe function and as such would require their own definitions and explanations which would be too much of a side tangent for this already long video.
omg wahmen so powerful and independent
omg youtube commenter so insecure for no reason
did you know that joe biren named his son sukkon in honor of a native tribe leader?