Woden – Medieval Studies Research Blog: Meet us at the Crossroads of Everything

February 5, 2021April 29, 2021

Misappropriating the Medieval: How Ignorant Nationalists Reify Whiteness

Like other scholars in the field, I recently wrote about the use of medieval symbolism in the white nationalist movement involved in the January 6th attack on the US Capitol, which focused on how they mobilize narratives of white supremacy and an imaginary “pure white” medieval period in European history to recruit members to their cause.

Then, to my horror, I recently discovered that indeed my own work has been appropriated by white nationalist rhetoric. My blog on Woden’s characterization as an ancestral chief in certain early medieval sources was both cited and misrepresented in the service of white supremacy in another blog titled “How ‘Ignorant’ Pagans Deified A Real-Life Wodan Into Their Ancestral Anglo-Saxon Warrior God ‘Odin’.” This blog was initially published by the website ChristiansForTruth (1/20/2021), later reappearing on European Union Times (1/22/2021) and Ancient Patriarchs (2/5/2021), and it promotes specifically Christian white nationalist propaganda.

*Woden surrounded by medieval English royal descendants in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge MS 66, p.69.*

My original blog, “Woden: Allfather of the English,” was written in 2015, during the early years of my PhD studies at the University of Notre Dame, when I was much less sensitive (or aware) of the ways in which this type of work was being used by white supremacists. This lack of awareness underscores my own white privilege and highlights my ignorance with respect to this issue, especially considering how medievalists of color have been actively calling out these harmful appropriations. For this reason, and in light of recent events, I feel that it is absolutely imperative that I respond directly, clarify my own position, and reject the noxious white supremacist claims embedded in this dishonest framing and mischaracterization of my work.

There are so many problems with ChristianForTruth’s blog, it is hard to know where to begin. The blog laments how “European paganism is very popular among many White Nationalists” and proceeds to try and reclaim their allegiance within a Christianized version of white supremacy. It gets worse from there. The blog erroneously asserts that “White Europeans migrated up into Europe from the Near East” in its effort to define Europe as uniformly white, and adds that “At the time of Christ, the Near East — including Anatolia (modern Turkey) and Judea — were inhabited largely by White people — extending across most of the northern coast of Africa.” As with arguments made by certain philologists and Egyptologists in the past, this narrative supports the white surpremacist notion that ancient Egypt was specifically “white” in a rhetorical move designed to strip Africa of one of its best known and most prominent, premodern civilizations.

Their agenda is laid bare when the anonymous authors that comprise the mysterious “CFT Team” contend that “Christianity has been a ‘European’ religion from its foundations — the apostle Paul sent his epistles to White European peoples” as they complain that “We know from history that most of this area was eventually overrun by Arabs — who now occupy — and live on top of — much of this former White homeland — the literal cradle of our civilization.” The use of “our” here, to refer to white people specifically, is another indicator of the blog’s rhetorical aims, which concern identifying Christianity as natively European and misrepresenting both medieval Europe and the ancient Mediterranean world as homogeneously white.

At the very end of the blog, the CFT Team further reveals their hand by placing Woden directly within a Christian worldview and alleging ridiculous genealogical connections. The blog concludes by stating that “Woden/Odin was a Saxon, a Goth, a Scythian, an Israelite — but he wasn’t God,” thereby fusing their theological argument for Christian superiority within their ethnocentric argument for white supremacy.

Although ChristianForTruth’s post reproduces almost my entire blog, it clearly was not read very closely. The CFT Team states that when it comes to regarding Woden as a god: “There is only one small problem with this fanciful narrative — Woden was a real man — a historically-documented ancestral chieftain — that pagans long ago turned into a god — and began to worship as a god out of sheer ignorance, according to Medieval historian Richard Fahey [my PhD is in English].”

*Woden interwoven into early medieval English royal lineage, The British Library, Cotton Caligula A.viii, f. 29r.*

This is not at all what I argued in 2015, and these claims attributed to me are in actuality the arguments of the CFT Team alone (seemingly drawn from my discussion of the 10^th century historian Æthelweard‘s writing). They do not in any way represent my opinions or beliefs on the subject. In my initial blog, I make no judgment as to whether to regard Woden (or Odin) as principally a god or an ancestor, and I certainly do not consider the deification of Woden a matter of “sheer ignorance” on the part of pre-Christian peoples. I make no theological claims at all, nor any historical argument that Woden was “a real man” as the CFT Team suggests. In fact, I speculate that Woden may have been first regarded as a god (prior to Christianization), and that it is only after early medieval England’s gradual conversion to Christianity that Woden’s role seems to become distinctly defined a legitimizing ancestor for many early medieval kings in England. Perhaps there was an ancient leader named Woden, who is later deified, but the truth is we have no way of knowing for sure.

In sum, and with unfettered conviction, I reject the CFT Team’s problematic distortion of my work. I denounce the arguments being made in ChristiansForTruth’s blog as a racist historical revision and a blatant effort to affirm ahistorical, white supremacist narratives. And, while I responded directly on their website, in a comment on their page (which will probably never be approved), to express my outrage over the misrepresentation of my work, it occurs to me that this can be a teachable moment—both for myself and perhaps for other white medievalists. This is what can happen to our work if we are not careful, and while it is not always possible to control who uses and abuses our scholarship, it is crucial that we give white nationalists as little ammunition for their weaponization of the medieval as possible.

Richard Fahey
PhD in English
University of Notre Dame

Further Reading

Baker, Peter. “Anglo-Saxon Studies After Charlottesville: Reflections of a University of Virginia Professor.” Medievalists of Color (2018).

Dockray-Miller, Mary. “Old English Has a Serious Image Problem.” JSTOR Daily (2017).

Elliott, Andrew B.R. “A Vile Love Affair: Right Wing Nationalism and the Middle Ages.” The Public Medievalist (2017).

Fahey, Richard. “Marauders in the US Capitol: Alt-right Viking Wannabes & Weaponized Medievalism.” Medieval Studies Research Blog. University of Notre Dame (2020).

—. “Woden and Oðinn: Mythic Figures of the North” Medieval Studies Research Blog. University of Notre Dame (2015).

—. “Woden: Allfather of the English” Medieval Studies Research Blog. University of Notre Dame (2015).

Franke, Daniel. “Medievalism, White Supremacy, and the Historian’s Craft: A Response.” Perspectives on History (2017).

Gabriele, Matthew. “Vikings, Crusaders, Confederates: Misunderstood Historical Imagery at the January 6 Capitol Insurrection.” Perspectives on History (2021).

—, and Mary Rambaran-Olm. “The Middle Ages Have Been Misused by the Far Right. Here’s Why It’s So Important to Get Medieval History Right.” Time (2019).

—. “Islamophobes want to recreate the Crusades. But they don’t understand them at all.” The Washington Post (2017).

Goodman, Lawrence. “Jousting With the Alt-Right.” Brandeis Magazine (2019).

Heng, Geraldine. “Why the Hate? The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages, and Race, Racism, and Premodern Critical Race Studies Today.” In the Middle (2020).

—. The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018.

Höfig, Verena. “Vinland and white nationalism.” In From Iceland to the Americas: Vinland and historical imagination, ed. Tim William Machan and Jón Karl Helgason. Manchester University Press, 2020.

Kim, Dorothy. “The Question of Race in Beowulf.” JSTOR Daily (2019).

—. “White Supremacists have Weaponized an Imaginary Viking Past. It’s Time to Reclaim the Real History.” Time (2019).

—. “Teaching Medieval Studies in a Time of White Supremacy.” In the Middle (2017).

—. “The Unbearable Whiteness of Medieval Studies.” In the Middle (2016).

Knight, Ellen. “The Capitol Riot and the Crusades: Why the Far Right Is Obsessed With Medieval History.” Teen Vogue (2021).

Little, Becky. “How Hate Groups are Hijacking Medieval Symbols While Ignoring the Facts Behind Them.” History.com (2018).

Livingstone, Josephine. “Racism, Medievalism, and the White Supremacists of Charlottesville.” The New Republic (2017)

Lomuto, Sierra. “Public Medievalism and the Rigor of Anti-Racist Critique.” In the Middle (2019).

—. “White Nationalism and the Ethics of Medieval Studies.” In the Middle (2016).

Luginbill, Sarah. “White Supremacy and Medieval History: A Brief Overview.” Erstwile: A History Blog (2020).

Mas, Liselotte. “Auschwitz, QAnon, Viking tattoos: the white supremacist symbols sported by rioters who stormed the Capitol.” The Observers (2021).

Mills, Ryan. “The ‘Q Shaman’ on Why He Stormed the Capitol Dressed as a Viking.” National Review (2021).

Müller, Miriam. “Revolting Peasants, Neo-Nazis, and their Commentators.” Medievally Speaking (2021).

Narayanan, Tirumular. “Frazetta’s “Death Dealer” and the Question of White Nationalist Iconography at Fort Hood.” Medieval Studies Research Blog. University of Notre Dame (2020).

Olusoga, David. “Black people have had a presence in our history for centuries. Get over it.” The Guardian (2017).

Perry, David. “How to Fight 8chan Medievalism – and Why We Must.” Pacific Standard. (2019).

—. “What to Do When Nazis are Obsessed with Your Field.” Pacific Standard. September 6, 2017.

—. “White supremacists love Vikings. But they’ve got history all wrong.” The Washington Post. (2017).

Rambaran-Olm, Mary. “Misnaming the Medieval: Rejecting “Anglo-Saxon” Studies.” History Workshop (2019).

—. “Anglo-Saxon Studies [Early English Studies], Academia and White Supremacy.” Medium (2018).

Reed, Sam. “Here’s the Story Behind Those Viking Helmets at the Capitol.” In Style (2021).

Romey, Kristin. “Decoding the hate symbols seen at the Capitol insurrection.” National Geographic (2021).

Schuessler, Jennifer. “Medieval Scholars Joust With White Nationalists. And One Another.” The New York Times (2019).

Sturtevant, Paul B. “Leaving “Medieval” Charlottesville.” The Public Medievalist (2017).

Symes, Carol. “Medievalism, White Supremacy, and the Historian’s Craft.” Perspectives on History (2017).

Vinje, Judith Gabriel. “Viking symbols “stolen” by racists.” The Norwegian American (2017).

Young, Helen. “Why the far-right and white supremecists have embraced the Middle Ages and their symbols.” The Conversation (2021).

—. “White Supremacists love the Middle Ages.” In the Middle (2017).

—. “Re-making The Real Middle Ages (TM).” In the Middle (2014).

April 2, 2015November 17, 2022

Woden: Allfather of the English

Last week we learned about the deified Woden, often identified with the Old Norse god Oðinn. But not everyone agreed that Woden was divine.

No detailed account of Woden and his mythic adventures survives from early medieval England; nevertheless, this ancestral figure remains present in the cultural imagination of the English people even centuries later. The famous 8th-century ecclesiastical historian Bede is the first known Anglo-Saxon author to describe this mythic genealogy in Book I, Capitula 15 of his Historia claiming: Duces fuisse perhibentur eorum primi duo fratres Hengist et Horsa….Erant autem filii Uictgilsi, cuius pater Uitta, cuius pater Uecta, cuius pater Uoden, de cuius stirpe multarum prouinciarum regium genus originem duxit, “From the first their leaders (the Anglo-Saxons) were held to be two brothers, Hengest and Horsa….They were sons of Wictgils, whose father was Witta, whose father was Wecta, whose father was Woden.”

Image from the Peterborough Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 636, f. 1r. © All Rights Reserved.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, surviving in nine extant manuscripts and probably completed under King Ælfred the Great in the 9th century, reiterates Bede’s Wodinic genealogy. Almost a century later, in a Latin adaptation known as Chronicon Æthelweardi, the 10^th century historian Æthelweard (descended from the 9th-century King Æthelred I, the elder brother of the King Ælfred the Great) laments Woden’s divine status within the Norse Pantheon. In his chronicle, Æthelweard complains that ignorant Scandinavian pagans have mistakenly deified Woden, whom Æthelweard identifies as king of the barbarians. He bemoans how these pagans honor Woden as a god rather than the ancestral chieftain that Æthelweard, like so many Anglo-Saxon authors, understood him to be.

Well after the Norman Conquest of 1066, Woden was still making his way into English manuscripts, especially in depictions of Anglo-Saxon royal lineages. At roughly the same time as Snorri was composing his Edda, and Geoffrey of Monmouth his Historia, Wodinic genealogy remains present in the English written record, remembering the Anglo-Saxon kings of old who trace their ancestry back to this deified chieftain.

Woden, depicted as ancestor of the Anglo-Saxon Kings. The British Library Board Cotton Caligula A.viii f. 29r © All Rights Reserved.

The Libellus de primo Saxonum uel Normannorum adventu—located in a 12th-century manuscript (London, British Library Cotton Caligula A. viii) and often attributed to Symeon of Durham—contains an illustration of Woden, crowned as ancestral king of the Anglo-Saxons. The text surrounding the illustration describes the royal lineages of the kingdoms of Kent, Mercia, Deira, Bernicia and Wessex respectively, each claiming descent and the right to rule from this legendary figure.

Woden genealogically linked to King Henry II of England. The Master and Fellows of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge MS 66 p.69 © All Rights Reserved.

A strikingly similar image of Woden as a crowned English ancestral figure surrounded by his royal descendants accompanies the 12th-century Historia Anglorum by Henry, Archdeacon of Huntingdon (located in Cambridge Corpus Christi College MS 66). This text connects Woden with Henry II, the contemporary king of England.

Ernulf’s Wodinic genealogy for the Kings of East Anglia. From Rochester Cathedral Library, MS A.3.5 © All Rights Reserved.

Likewise, Ernulf, Bishop of Rochester describes the kings of East Anglia as descendants of the legendary Woden in his 12th century Textus de Ecclesia Roffensi (found in Rochester Cathedral Library, MS A.3.5).

In early medieval English historiography, Woden appears to have been used to establish dynastic legitimacy for kings. Long after Woden may have been worshiped as a god, well past the Anglo-Saxon conversion and even through the Norman Conquest, the importance of this legendary figure continues to loom large in the cultural imagination of those living and ruling in medieval England. Although today nowhere near as popular or well known as Arthur, the famous king of the Britons, the earliest kings ruling in England turned to Woden, not Arthur, in order to affirm and legitimize their royal lineages.

Richard Fahey
PhD Candidate in English
University of Notre Dame

Special thanks to David Ganz, Andrew Klein and Christopher Scheirer for their contributions to this post.

Further Reading:

Davis, Craig R. “Cultural assimilation in the Anglo-Saxon royal genealogies.” Anglo-Saxon England 21 (1992): 23-36.

Hill, Thomas. D. “Woden and the pattern of nine: numerical symbolism in some old English royal genealogies.” Old English Newsletter 15.2 (1982): 41-42.

John, Eric. “The Point of Woden.” In Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History 5. Oxford University Committee for archaeology, 1992.

Lutz, Angelika. “Æthelweard’s Chronicon and Old English Poetry.” Anglo-Saxon England 29 (2000): 177-214.

Meaney, A L. “Woden in England: a reconsideration of the evidence.” Folklore 77.2 (1966): 105-115.

—. “St. Neots, Æthelweard and the Compilation of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A Survey.” In Studies in Earlier Old English Prose: Sixteen Original Contributions. State University of New York Press, 1986: 193-243.

Meehan, Bernard. A reconsideration of the historical works associated with Symeon of Durham: manuscripts, texts and influences. University of Edinburgh, 1979. Dissertation.

Moisl, Hermann. “Anglo-Saxon royal genealogies and Germanic oral tradition.” Journal of Medieval History 7.3 (1981): 215-248.

North, Richard. Heathen gods in Old English Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

Rowsell, Thomas. Woden and his Roles in Anglo-Saxon Royal Genealogy. Medievalists.net, 2012.

Whitbread, L. “Æthelweard and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.” The English Historical Review 74.293 (1959): 577-589.

Primary Sources mentioned concerning Woden/Oðinn:

Æthelweard. Chronicon Æthelweardi (The Chronicle of Æthelweard). A. Campbell (ed and trans). Oxford University Press, 1962.

Bede. Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Colgrave, Bertram, Mynors, R.A.B. (eds). Oxford University Press, 1969.

Ernulf, Bishop of Rochester. Textus Roffensis: Rochester Cathedral Library manuscript, A. 3.5.

Henry of Huntingdon. Historia Anglorum (The History of the English People). D. E. Greenway (ed). Oxford Medieval Texts, 1996.

Symeon of Durham (possible author). De primo Saxonum adventu. In Symeonis Dunelmensis Opera et Collectanea I. Blackwood and Sons, 1868: 202-203.

Sturluson, Snorri. Edda. Anthony Faulkes (trans and ed). David Campbell Publishers, 1987.

Swanton, Michael, (trans and ed). The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Phoenix Press, 2000.

March 26, 2015March 10, 2021

Woden and Oðinn: Mythic Figures of the North

King Arthur is not the only legendary figure used to legitimize rulership in medieval England. Long before Geoffrey of Monmouth’s 12^th century Historia Regum Britannium, the most influential mythic ancestor of the English people was Woden.

Woden is presumably derived from a common god of the pre-Christian Germanic peoples and is often identified with the pagan god Oðinn, who was worshiped in early medieval Scandinavia and called the Alföðr (“Allfather”) in Old Norse. This legendary figure was later understood to be an ancestral chieftain from whom the Anglo-Saxon kings claimed descent and thus the authority to rule in England.

18th century image from Icelandic MS, Reykjavík, Stofnun Árna Magnússonar, SÁM 66 © All Rights Reserved.

Woden remains an obscure and enigmatic figure in the extant written records from early medieval England. Like Oðinn, he is often understood in surviving narratives as a deified chieftain who becomes the godhead of the Norse pantheon. It is impossible to tell precisely how analogous the Anglo-Saxon chieftain Woden and the Norse god Oðinn might have been by the time the Angles, Saxons and Jutes invaded, conquering the once Roman island of Britannia. Scholars have debated the role and significance of these respective pagan deities and their potential relationship with each other.

Woden, from Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica and a medical charm with Odinic parallels from the so-called Lacnunga (found in British Library Manuscript Harley 585), seems to be a warrior-god; however, the sparse evidence undermines any clear portrait of this mythic figure. Ælfric, Abbot of Eynsham, (whose homilies are preserved in four extant manuscripts) composed a 10^th century sermon titled De falsis Diis “Concerning false gods” that contains a fairly involved discussion of the gods, equating them to figures in the Roman pantheon, likening Woden to Mercury. Woden weirdly makes his way back to Iceland, via Ælfric’s sermon recorded in the 14th century Hauksbók (Icelandic National Library, AM544 4to). Wulfstan II, Archbishop of York, later expands on Ælfric’s work in his 11^th sermon by the same name (found in Bodleian Library, MS Hatton 113).

18th century image of Oðinn riding Sleipnir. From Icelandic MS, Reykjavík, Stofnun Árna Magnússonar, SÁM 66, f.80v © All Rights Reserved.

More regularly attested and clearly defined is the Norse god Oðinn, who is associated with runic wisdom and reigns in Valhalla (The Hall of the Slain). One-eyed Oðinn rides on his magical, eight-legged horse called Sleipnir, and according to surviving Icelandic literature from the 12^th century onward, he will battle the wolf Fenrir, child of Loki, during the final apocalyptic battle known as Ragnarǫk.

Illustration of the wolf Fenrir biting the right hand off the god Týr, from an Icelandic 18th century manuscript, SÁM 66, f.78v © All Rights Reserved.

Oðinn is featured throughout Norse literature in texts such as Snorra Edda or Prose Edda, written by the famous Icelandic author Snorri Sturluson in the early 13^th century, which survives in seven extant Icelandic manuscripts some from as late as the 18^th century such as SÁM 66 (housed at Stofnun Árna Magnússonar), ÍB 299 4to (housed at the Icelandic National Library) and NKS 1867 4to (housed at the Danish Royal Library). The anonymous collection of so-called eddic poems, often referred to as the Elder Edda or Poetic Edda (and located in Reykjavík, Stofnun Árna Magnússonar, GKS 2365 4to—pet-named “Codex Regius”), is another wealth of Odinic knowledge. This collection begins with the famous Old Norse poem Vǫluspá, in which a prophetic vǫlva (“seeress”) describes the creation and end of the world to Oðinn.

Image from Snorra Edda, showing Oðinn, Heimdallr, Sleipnir and other figures from Norse mythology. From the late 17th century Icelandic manuscript ÍB 299 4to © All Rights Reserved.

But in post-conversion England, Woden was not usually considered to be the father of the gods. More often, he was viewed as the ancestral patriarch English royal lineages. Check back next week for more on this enigmatic figure!

Richard Fahey
PhD Candidate
Department of English
University of Notre Dame

Special thanks to Tim Machan for his contributions to this post.