Nancy L. Wicker

Minnesota State University, Mankato

Art Department, Nelson Hall 136

Mankato, MN 56001 U.S.A.

nancy.wicker@mankato.msus.edu

The fury of Vikings sacking monasteries in England was reported by Christian clerics who were targets of the brutality. Scandinavian historians have focused on studies of trade and colonization to mollify this savage reputation of Vikings. However, an aspect of violence in Viking society that has received little attention is the indirect effect that pillaging or colonizing abroad had on Scandinavian society at home. As Viking men died abroad, whether by violence or natural causes, women suffered the consequences of female infanticide as a regulatory mechanism of population control.

A variety of Old Norse literary and historical sources report that exposure of female infants was practiced, and women are underrepresented in grave material of the eighth through twelfth centuries A.D. in Scandinavia. Though this dearth of women may be partially attributed to different burial rites or biased archaeological methods, it also seems that there were in reality fewer women than men in these Scandinavian populations. In this paper I correlate written sources with the archaeological shortage of women and finds of scattered infant bones, probable evidence of exposure. I also examine the concealed violence against women and children that is implicit in selective infanticide.