Female titles of nobility in Norse langauges

Been reading a lot of Norse history and mythology lately so here is what I have gleamed so far...

Jarl is the Danish equivalent to the British term Earl or Eorl, which denotes a military leader and not necessarily a person of nobility/peerage. A Jarl commanded his own fighting men sworn to him. He in turn would often times pledge to fight for a higher lord who could grant them land, slaves, silver and gold.

With the British, Earl is still a military leader who commands his own troops and was often courted by various Kings, when England had more than one king.

There was no Danish feminine equivalent for Jarl and I am not sure Countess would have been used in parts of England not controlled by Danelaw, like Northumbria.

If you haven't already, you might want to check up on Danelaw vs West Saxon Law or Mercian Law. Here is a quick wiki overview...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danelaw

In British royalty/peerage, titles did not automatically extend to the rest of a persons family, especially if the person was a commoner before. This is different from most European peerage systems because the title elevated the whole family's peerage.

During Alfred's rule, late 9th century Wessex, his wife was simply noted as the Kings wife. She was never a queen, though his son was a prince and his daughter a princess because their bloodline was from Alfred.

I do like your usage of the Jarl-wife suffix, though I am not sure it is a title that denotes peerage as much as it does to identify who she belongs too.

Such as,

"Who is the woman riding behind Ragnor?"

"She is the wife of Jarl Ragnor, and he is very protective of her if you understand."

While Danes fell in love, women were mostly thought of as a possession, depending on the time period you are writing about.

Hope some of this makes sense...

There just aren't very many. The Norse didn't really have an inherited aristocracy. Titles other than Queen were usually male-only.

(I'm running across this in my story, too. It's not set in the Viking age, but it's heavily influenced by Anglo-Saxon and the next level below the King is Jarl. I've settled on "The Jarl of Wessex" and his wife "Lady Wessex", as an example. There just isn't a good female equivalent.)

The SCA, a medieval...er...not quite reenactment group but that's close enough to go on with. It publishes a list of alternate titles. Here is their one for Old Norse. RESEARCH YOURSELF as well. The people who put this list together did research but there may be more now. You will note there are not many female equivalents in the Old Norse column. The ones in the Norwegian column are undoubtedly from later than the Viking era.
http://heraldry.sca.org/titles.html#table5

thothguard51 said:

While Danes fell in love, women were mostly thought of as a possession, depending on the time period you are writing about.

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Not during Viking times. Women had lots of rights compared to other areas of Europe at the time. They could divorce, get custody of children, own and manage property, will their posessions after death, all sorts of things. By no means were they thought of nor treated as "possessions".

Three books; the first is likely only to be found in a university library, but it is excellent, albeit very pricey:

The Cold Counsel: The Women in Old Norse Literature and Myth (Garland reference library of the humanities). Eds. Sarah M. Anderson and Karen Swenson. ISBN: 0815319665. This is the paperback; there's an even pricier hardcover from Garland.

Much easier to find, but be a little cautious when they depart from primary sources:

Women in Old Norse Society. Jenny Jochens. Cornell UP. ISBN: 0801485207.

Women in the Viking Age. Judith Jesch. Boydell. ISBN: 0851153607.

ULTRAGOTHA said:

Not during Viking times. Women had lots of rights compared to other areas of Europe at the time. They could divorce, get custody of children, own and manage property, will their posessions after death, all sorts of things. By no means were they thought of nor treated as "possessions".

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Viking is a term that means to go pirating. It does not mean a set time period as many cultures went viking. Danish, Franks, and even Saxons, etc went a viking at times.

So it really depends on which culture you are referring to as to what women's right were at the time. Many Danes who settled in Wessex converted to Christianity and no longer followed Danelaw, not openly anyway...

Tanydwr said:

Hi guys, thanks for your suggestions. The lands aren't direct counterparts - or at least I hope they won't be - and in this world there's a lot of inherited titles, most of which were originally, like our own, were due to military strength. But I've introduced things like the Riders, which are basically knights for Thoswid, usually of Jarl bloodlines. On the other hand, I have at least five estates/titles that exist through the female bloodline, partly due to the generally female domain of magic, so those female-jarls need titles. Currently I'm using 'Lady', but that's from Old English, and gets used in other countries, so I'd prefer to use something else. (This coming from someone who uses 'Master' and 'Mistress' almost indiscriminately for non-nobles in any 'Germanic' Cold Land because I can't find anything else...)

I'll look into the SCA - I've run across it before, so hopefully there'll be something I can use!

ETA: Using -inde as the feminine ending for Thoswid (the more leaning towards Danish Norse-language country would give a feminine of Jarlinde, which sounds better than Jarlynja, and I could then use Jarl-kona or Jarlkona to specify the Jarl's wife. Especially as they can take concubines known as thrællkonas, literally 'thræll-wife.'

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If you want "venerated woman", use freyja (Old English cognate: frea; German cognate: Frau. It's an old honorific meaning "lady" in most German languages.) or gyðja (priestess, maybe landlady.)

thothguard51 said:

Viking is a term that means to go pirating. It does not mean a set time period as many cultures went viking. Danish, Franks, and even Saxons, etc went a viking at times.

So it really depends on which culture you are referring to as to what women's right were at the time. Many Danes who settled in Wessex converted to Christianity and no longer followed Danelaw, not openly anyway...

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You are quite correct that "Viking" is a job description, not an ethnic designation.

But it is also, roughly, a period of time. That period of time varies from country to country and historian to historian, but it is generally when the Norse were boiling out of Scandinavia and all over Europe and parts of North America in their square-sailed ships.

It generally ends when Christianity and other forces have influenced the Scandinavian (and Anglo-Scandinavian, Russo-Scandinavian, Franco-Scandinavian, etc) cultures to the point where they're no longer raiding their neighbours.

There's no clear cut-off. *I* tend to place the English Viking Age as running from the first recorded raid in England by Northmen in the late 8th century to the battle of Stamford Bridge.

Though why a Norwegian King attempting to invade England in square-sail ships counts as "Viking" and a Norman Duke invading England in square-sailed ships doesn't count is ... sticky. Probably because the Normans are no longer Norse by any real means of classification and William the Bastard succeeded.



And to WRENCH this back on topic....

Tanydwr, you might look at adding 'wif' to the end of a word. It's a bit Old English, but then so is Jarl, supposedly. Jarlwif.

Or Jarlfru or Jarlinde or Jarlinna.

Does your fantasy world have female Jarls-in-their-own-right? Otherwise you wouldn't need to differentiate.

Yes, -fru is related to frau.

/stirs pot

Well, a lot of Jarls had more than one wife (as many as they could stand, or afford) which may be why no one honorific applies -what husband wants that catfight on his hands?

Who do you think managed the farms, the slaves, the industries while the menfolk were out riding in their little boats around the block, being up to no good?

Women had a comparatively equal footing in Norse societies, if you were a freewoman.

Aristocracy didn't really start to matter until the arrival of Christianity. What was important was if you were a freeman or not. From the ranks of the freemen, you got the first aristocrats.

But think of Norse society as one built on the clan system. Think Scotland, or the Highlands. The Norse were similar in that respect to the McGregors or the Campbells. The clans were divided into families on farms scattered around.

The remnants of this lived on into Christian times, so if you're interested you can read up about Birkebeinerne in Norway or Folkungarna in Sweden. These clans operated in Christianised lands, but still had the clan structure until the rise of feudalism and aristocracy. The rise of the aristocracy grew out of the increasing importance of the monarchies. In most of scandinavia the kings were elected by the clans. This went on well into the 1500s. In Sweden Gustaf Wasa was the last to be elected king, and that happened in 1523, long after the end of the Viking era.

The term 'jarl' was just a job description, not a title. The fighting forces of the Norse were the hird which consisted of the freeborn menfolk within a family or farm of a clan, unless they were infirm or had a trade like blacksmithing.

Women would have their standing decided by who their father was. So, women didn't use their husband's sirname. If you were a Sif, and your father was the chief Ragnar, your name was Sif Ragnarsdottir. See Icelandic naming customs where this live on. If you were a lower clan chieftain and married a higher clan chieftain's daughter, the name would confer more prestige.

http://www.lothene.org/others/womenvik.html


http://content.usatoday.com/communi...-of-the-viking-women-unearthed/1#.T0WwYXJSTO8

Unless you really want to use Jarl, what about Drott and and its female equivalent Drottning (or Dronning/Drottinn)? Modern Swedish still uses the word Drottning for Queen, but it is an old Norse title. It's not quite the same as Jarl (it's a bit more.. warlike), but it is a ruler's title. Drottning certainly carries more authority than Jarlkona and the like.

As for your own suggestions, Jarlinna is the most natural sounding one. Jarlynja is also okay, and even Jarla sounds good to my Scandinavian ears. Jarlkona, however, sounds like the title of a Jarl's wife, while the others sound as though they could be rulers in their own right.

Why does there need to be masculine and female titles in your world. She could be a Jarl too. If she is taking on what is traditionally a very male role she may consider it better to have the male title. There are some titles like that - Chieftain, for example, is gender neutral. Remember Elizabeth I's famous (possibly apophrycal?) speech - 'I may have the body of a weak and feeble woman...' as well as her 'not a word used for Princes...' line.

A woman in a traditional male role may well consider it appropriate to assume the male title to reinforce her position against the inevitable prejudice.

Konginde?

As a born-and-raised Norwegian I think the general idea of going with -inde to be sound. Konginde however sounds contrived. I have certainly never come across anything in my life that resembles it. As I am writing a Viking novel I have done a fair amount of research, and that one does not resonate. Drottning may be the better choice.

If you're going for a council who advise the King and don't mind Anglo-Saxon, you can use Witenagemot.

In English history it was a council (moot) of wise men (witans) who advised the King in various ways that changed from time to time and maybe even from reign to reign.

They elected the King, if there was no clear heir, from amongst the AEthelings (princes of the Royal house). They elected King Harold II, for example (though he was not an AEtheling), and then Edgar the AEtheling when King Harold died at the Battle of Hastings.

A thing I am battling with in my own story is reducing or explaining or smoothly integrating all these Anglo-Saxon words I'm using without overwhelming the reader. You might keep an eye on that yourself.

Carfan works for me, but I like the term witan better...

Still, use what works for your story...

You could call it the Privy Council. Very prosaic, though.

Candidates:

The Runn (The Secret Chamber)
The Rede (The Council)
The Rede of the Runn (The Council of the Secret Chamber)
The Witan (The Ring of Wise-men.)

I don't speak Welsh, but I live in Wales and I've picked up the odd word here and there.

The Welsh Government is called the Welsh Assembly, or the National Assembly for Wales.
Cynulliad Cenedlaethol Cymru.

In this Cynulliad means Assembly.

By the way, I don't know if you know (or care) but there is no V in Welsh. F is pronounced as V, and FF is pronounced as F.

Actually, the word I always see for Council is Cyngor. I see it every day, on local council stuff. I don't think I've ever seen cwnsel.
I just looked Cyngor up. It has the meanings council and advice. So maybe that's something you could use.