Author: Cassandra Schilling
Schilling, Cassandra, 2024 The Anomalousness of the Old English Judith: Reconsidering the Exceptionalism of Women in Early Medieval England, Flinders University, College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
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Women of Early medieval England are generally believed to have had limited agency. However, the Old English Judith is a poem that presents a powerful, authoritative and violent woman who is celebrated as a heroine. Scholars thus consider Judith atypical and extraordinary, because she engages in activities deemed inappropriate for women.
Ms Schilling questions this interpretation. Her thesis interrogates the perceived gender norms that advance the interpretation of powerful women and female violence as exceptional. It finds that Judith’s agency has been minimised, and her authority and violence problematised by scholarship.
Its findings show that Judith is exceptional, but that her specific behaviours are, in and of themselves, neither exceptional nor transgressive. The thesis points to a far less polarised and exclusionary conception of gender roles in early medieval England.
Keywords: Old English Judith, medieval women, Old English Literature, medieval studies, women, violence, medieval gender, literature, poerty, medieval literature
Subject: English thesis
Thesis type: Doctor of Philosophy
Completed: 2024
School: College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
Supervisor: Erin Sebo