A variety of roles were played by women in post-classical warfare. Only women active in direct warfare, such as warriors, spies, and women who actively led armies are included in this list.
James Illston says, "the field of medieval gender studies is a growing one, and nowhere is this expansion more evident than the recent increase in studies which address the roles of medieval women in times of war....this change in research has been invaluable".
Illston provided an exhaustive bibliography of recent scholarly books and articles, most of them connected to the crusades.James Michael Illston, "'An Entirely Masculine Activity'? Women and War in the High and Late Middle Ages Reconsidered," (Thesis, Department of History, University of Canterbury, 2009) p. 1
Timeline
The antiquity ended with the 5th century, and the list therefore starts with the 6th century.
6th century 6th century: A Saxon woman is buried with a knife and a shield in Lincolnshire, England. 6th century: Lady Xian personally leads her army in China. 6th century: Halima, a Ghassanid princess, assisted the warriors of her tribe in the battle of Yawm Halima. 6th century: Amalafrida leads a revolt.Hodgkin, Thomas. Italy and Her Invaders: The Ostrogothic invasion, 476–535. pp. 587–590 589:People, Personal Expression, and Social Relations in Late Antiquity, Volume 1, Ralph W. Mathisen University of Michigan Press, 2003 – Foreign Language Study. p. 234 The royal nuns Basina, daughter of Chilperic I, and Clotilda rebel and take power in the city of Poitiers by the use of an army of criminals.
7th century 7th century (before 637): Life of Mo Chua of Balla. The account of his life describe him as converting two violent "Amazons" named Bee and Lithben. 617–618: Princess Pingyang of China helps overthrow the Sui dynasty by organizing an "Army of the Lady". 624–625: Battle of Badr. Qurayshi Arab priestess Hind bint Utba leads her people against Muhammad in the fight. Her father, uncle, and brother are killed. She was among fifteen women accompanying troops in a battle near Medina, singing songs to inspire warriors. She exults over the body of the man who killed her father, chews his liver, and makes jewelry from his skin and nails.Olsen, p. 31 625: Nusaybah bint Ka'ab fights in the Battle of Uhud on behalf of Muhammad after converting to Islam.Girl Power. ABC News. Hammanah bint Jahsh also participated in the Battle of Uhud and provided water to the needy, and treated the wounded and injured.Role of Muslim woman in society, Afzal-ur-Rahman. Seerah Foundation, 1986, p. 74 Umm Sulaym bint Milhan entered the battle carrying a dagger in the folds of her dress, and tended to the wounded. She also made attempts to defend Muhammad when the tide of the battle turned against him. 627: Umm Sulaym bint Milhan participates in the Battle of the Trench carrying a dagger in her robes. When Muhammad asked her what she was doing with it, she informed him that she planned to use it to fight deserters. 630s:For God's Sake by Jane Caro, Antony Loewenstein, Simon Smart, & Rachel Woodlock Ghazala leads troops in battle.Leila Ahmed, Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate (Yale University Press, 1992) p. 71 630s: Khawla bint al-Azwar participate actively in combat during the Battle of Adnajin dressed as a man along with several other women, takes command of the Rashidun army at the Battle of Yarmouk against the Roman Byzantine Empire. She was nearly beaten by a Byzantine Greek when one of her female companions, Wafayra, beheaded her opponent with one blow. This act rallied the Arabs and they defeated the Greeks. 632: Prophetess Sajah, a contemporary of Muhammad, led an army of 4,000 against Medina after his death, but called off the attack when she learned of the defeat of Tulayha.Historical Dictionary of Women in the Middle East and North Africa by Ghada Talhami, p. 287 634: Umm Hakim bint al-Harith ibn Hisham single-handedly disposed of seven Byzantine soldiers with a tent pole during the Battle of Marj al-Saffar. 640s–741: Wak Chanil Ajaw rules the Mayans. She led military campaigns to conquer neighboring cities. 651: Female Sasanian generals like Apranik, Negan and Azedeh fight against the Muslim conquest of Persia. 653: Chen Shuozhen leads a peasant rebellion in China, declaring herself empress regnant of China.Lily Xiao Hong Lee, Sue Wiles: Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Women, Volume II: Tang Through Ming 618–1644 656: Aisha, widow of Muhammad, leads troops at the Battle of the Camel. She is defeated. 690s: Kahina leads Berber resistance against the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb.
8th century 8th to 11th century (Viking Age): Sagas and historical records tell of Viking shield-maidens participating in battles and raids, such as Veborg in the Battle of Brávellir in 750, and Lagertha. In addition, remains of a Birka Viking warrior were confirmed in 2017 by DNA analysis to be female. 722: Queen Æthelburg of Wessex destroys the town of Taunton. 730: A Khazar noblewoman named Parsbit commands an army against Armenia. 738: According to legendary Czech history, Valasca seized power and created a state ruled by women.Rothery, Guy Cadogan, The Amazons, Francis Griffiths, London 1910, p. 102 She decreed that only women were to receive military training and that boys were to be maimed to render them unable to fight by removal of the right eye and thumb. She supposedly distributed a potion to the women of Bohemia which protected them from men.Watanabe-O’Kelly, Helen, Beauty or Beast: the woman warrior in the German imagination from the Renaissance to the present, Oxford university Press 2010; , p. 79 741: A Byzantine Roman army attacks the Umayyad province of Melitene. With most of the garrison depleted or absent, the Arab women of the town mounted the walls, armed and wearing turbans, deterring the Romans from attempting a siege. 769: Gülnar Hatun, a semi-legendary Turkish heroine, is killed fighting the Abbasids.
9th century 811: After suffering great losses, Khan Krum mobilizes the women of the Bulgars, who then take part in the Battle of Pliska. 816–837: Banu, wife of Babak Khorramdin, resists against the Islamic Abbasid Caliphate.Kaveh Farrokh, The Persian Lioness: Iranian Women in History 880: Ermengard of Italy conducts the defense of Vienne until forced to surrender in September 882. Vol. III, p. 58;
10th century 10th-century: A Birka female Viking warrior is buried in Birka, Sweden; she were confirmed in 2017 by DNA analysis to be female. 10th-century: According to legend, Saint Theodora of Vasta, in Arcadia of Peloponnesus, joined the army of Byzantine Empire in her father's stead dressed as a man, to spare her father from conscription, and had no brother who could take his place: when refusing to marry a woman who claimed to have been made pregnant by her, she is executed, resulting in the discovery of the biological gender of her corpse, and her status as a saint for the sacrifice she made for her father.Hellēnikē Archaiometrikē Hetaireia. Symposium, Giór̄gos Fakoréllis̄, Nikos Zacharias, Kiki Polikreti: Proceedings of the 4th Symposium of the Hellenic Society for Archaeometry: National Hellenic Research Foundation, Athens, 28–31 May 2003, Archaeopress, 2008 900: A Viking woman is buried in Solør, Norway with weapons. 912–922: Reign of Æthelflæd, queen of Mercia. She commanded armies, fortified towns, and defeated the Danes. She also defeated the Welsh and forced them to pay tribute to her. 914: Queen Sugandha and her forces marched against the Tantrins. She was defeated and deposed.Culture and Political History of Kashmir, Volume 1 By P. N. K. Bamzai p. 140 916: Xochitl, a Toltec queen, fights in a civil war that erupted in the Toltec Empire. She created and led a battalion made up entirely of women soldiers. 960: Ethiopian queen Gudit laid waste to Axum and its countryside, destroyed churches and monuments, and attempted to exterminate the members of the ruling dynasty of the Kingdom of Aksum.Gudit . The Dictionary of Ethiopian Biography, Vol. 1 'From Early Times to the End of the Zagwé Dynasty c. 1270 A.D.,' copyright © 1975The Queen of the Habasha in Ethiopian History, Tradition and Chronology. School of Oriental and African Studies 971: Sviatoslav I attacked the Byzantine Empire in Bulgaria in 971. When the Varangians were defeated in the siege of Dorostolon, the victors were stunned to discover shieldmaidens among the fallen warriors.Harrison, D. & Svensson, K. (2007). Vikingaliv. Fälth & Hässler, Värnamo. . p. 71 975: Adelaide-Blanche of Anjou, acting for her sons Guy and Bertrand, led an army to aid Guy (a.k.a. Guido II), Count-Bishop of le Puy, in establishing the Peace and Truce of God in le Puy.Jerome Kroll, Bernard S. Bachrach, Medieval Dynastic Decisions: Evolutionary Biology and Historical Explanation, The Journal of Interdisciplinary History,, Vol. 21, No. 1 (Summer, 1990), p. 9 986: The Khitan Dowager Regent Xiao Yanyan of the Khitan Liao state, regnal title Chengtian, assumes power at age 30 in 982. In 986, she personally led her own army against the Song dynasty and defeated them in battle.
11th century Early 11th century: Freydís Eiríksdóttir, a Viking woman, sails to Vinland with Thorfinn Karlsefni. When she faced hostile natives while pregnant, she exposed her breasts and beat her chest with a sword. This caused the natives to run away. 11th century: Great Saxon Revolt. Adelaide of Savoy, Duchess of Swabia, remains in Swabia to defend her husband's lands.Bernold, Chronicon, a. 1077, 289 ; Meyer von Knonau, Jahrbücher, III, pp. 38f. 11th century: Judith d'Évreux is left in the care of Roger I of Sicily's garrison while he campaigns.John Julius Norwich, The Normans in the South 1016–1130 (London: Solitaire Books, 1981), p. 151 1016: Adela of Hamaland defend the fortress Uplade in the Netherlands in the absence of her spouse, and fills out the ranks of her defense force with women dressed as soldiers.Bronvermelding: Anton Kos, Adela van Hamaland, in: Digitaal Vrouwenlexicon van Nederland. URL: http://resources.huygens.knaw.nl/vrouwenlexicon/lemmata/data/Adela van Hamaland [13/01/2014] 11th century: Sikelgaita commands troops in her own right.Valerie Eads, "Sichelgaita of Salerno: Amazon or Trophy Wife?" Journal of Medieval Military History 3 (2005), pp. 72–87. 1047: Akkadevi, an Indian princess, besieges the fort of Gokage. 1050: Norwegian noblewoman Bergljot Håkonsdatter raises an army to kill the king for murdering her spouse and son: she takes the king's estate, but by then the king had managed to escape her.Krag, Claus. (13 February 2009). Bergljot Håkonsdatter. I Norsk biografisk leksikon. Hentet 27. August 2016 fra https://nbl.snl.no/Bergljot_H%C3%A5konsdatter. 1055: Defeat and execution of A Nong, Zhuang ruler, warrior, and shamaness. Alongside her son, father, and husband, she led the Zhuang and Nùng minorities of the Sino-Vietnamese frontier against Vietnamese and Chinese foes. 1058–1086: Sikelgaita of Salerno, second wife of Robert Guiscard, Duke of Apulia, accompanies her husband on military campaigns, and regularly puts on full armor and rides into battle at his side. October 14, 1066: Edith the Fair, according to folklore, identifies Harold Godwinson's body after the Battle of Hastings. 1071: Richilde, Countess of Hainaut is captured fighting in the Battle of Cassel. 1072: Urraca of Zamora, Infanta of the Kingdom of Castile, defends the city of Zamora against her brother, Sancho. 1087: Matilda of Tuscany personally leads a military expedition to Rome in an attempt to install Pope Victor, but the strength of the imperial counterattack soon convinced the pope to retire from the city. 1090: Norman woman Isabel of Conches rides on horseback, armed.