Brewing and Drinking Ale in Late Iron Age Scandinavia. An Interdisciplinary Investigation on Drinking Customs with a Female Perspective

Abstract

This thesis aims to investigate with an interdisciplinary approach the role that the beverage “ale” had in late Iron/Viking Age society. The survey, however, focuses on the relationship that women in the Viking Age had with ale, thus the study has been carried out by analysing which roles women had when brewing, serving and drinking ale. The geographical region of this research has been limited to modern day Norway, while the interdisciplinarity is given by the employment of methods and sources drawn from different disciplines. The first part of the analysis concerns the study of the possible procedures that the Vikings might have employed for brewing ale, and deals with the reinterpretation of archaeological sources and previous contributions in light of an attempt of experimental archaeology. In the second part, literary material and runic inscription have been analysed for investigating the potential cultural and symbolic meanings which ale had in association to women’s activities as brewers, as provider of drinks and as drinkers. The combination of different kinds of sources has pointed out that ale had a central role in the lives of Viking Age women.