Vikings & Eunuchs
Posted: Thu Jan 23, 2014 1:50 pm
I recently discovered the book Castration and Culture in the Middle Ages, edited by Larissa Tracy (Cambridge, UK: D.S. Brewer, 2013). It contains 14 articles covering 351 pages.
The opening article is by Kathryn Reusch on the archaeological evidence for castration. She discusses the skeletal characteristics that could indicate prepubertal castration in ancient burials. The article is primarily a plea to look for the relevant data as little has been reported thus far, though she cites a recent article on excavations of two Chinese eunuchs and of the remains of Farinelli. She has worked with skeletal material from an Ottoman eunuch.
That's followed by an article by Shaun Tougher: The Aesthetics of Castration: The Beauty of Roman Eunuchs, which considers the value of prepubertal eunuchs as both house ornaments and sexual partners. Tougher spends quite a bit of space on the differences between the postpubertal Galli priests of the Great Mother goddess and the prepubertal house eunuchs.
The first article that I've read in detail in the book is #8: Castrating Monks: Vikings, the Slave Trade, and the Value of Eunuchs, by Mary A. Valante, (pp. 174-187).
Valente begins with some early Arab accounts of the advantage of raids on Byzantine churches and monasteries any eunuch monks or castrati singers captured could be repurposed as court eunuchs. Her opening lines are:
'I asked a group of them about the process of castration, and I learned that the Romaeans castrate their youngsters intended for dedication to the church.... When the Muslims raid, they attack the churches and take the youngsters away from them', says the tenth-century geographer, al-Muqaddasi. He describes Arab raids that deliberately targeted Greek churches and monasteries during his own time, a time when the Greeks castrated some young boys to keep them as singers in the Church, and a time when the Arab world wanted eunuchs.
Valente goes on to discuss the Viking preference for raids on Christian monasteries in most of Europe, from Ireland to the Black Sea. One goal of which was to capture educated boys and young teens who could be castrated to become more valuable as exports to the Middle East. Moslem courts preferred educated eunuchs for many administrative posts and Europe was the source for them.
At one point Valente notes that Dublin was founded as a Viking trading post for valuable trade goods to be exported from the lands surrounding the Irish Sea. These goods were mostly traded east to the Byzantine and Abbasid empires and consisted primarily of attractive young women for harems and educated boys, captured from monasteries and castrated along the route primarily in Venice, but also in Kiev. (She notes that the majority of boys castrated in Venice were from the Slavic lands, many of them captured from monasteries. There were also boys captured from Byzantine monasteries castrated in Venice for sale to the Moslems.) The monasteries taught Latin and Greek, languages used in both the Christian and Moslem realms.
The caliph Al-Muqtadir (AD 908-932) had approximately 4,000, mostly educated, European eunuchs in his palace administration (as well as 7,000 Black African eunuchs to guard the thousands of women of the palace).
When Saladin deposed the Fatamid dynasty in Egypt in 1171, he found over 12,000 people living in the palace. The only intact males were the Fatamid caliph and his immediate family.
Valente also spends some time on the rise of the modern European economy and trading system and the importance of the trade in eunuchs in promoting that rise.
I will post information about additional chapters later.
The opening article is by Kathryn Reusch on the archaeological evidence for castration. She discusses the skeletal characteristics that could indicate prepubertal castration in ancient burials. The article is primarily a plea to look for the relevant data as little has been reported thus far, though she cites a recent article on excavations of two Chinese eunuchs and of the remains of Farinelli. She has worked with skeletal material from an Ottoman eunuch.
That's followed by an article by Shaun Tougher: The Aesthetics of Castration: The Beauty of Roman Eunuchs, which considers the value of prepubertal eunuchs as both house ornaments and sexual partners. Tougher spends quite a bit of space on the differences between the postpubertal Galli priests of the Great Mother goddess and the prepubertal house eunuchs.
The first article that I've read in detail in the book is #8: Castrating Monks: Vikings, the Slave Trade, and the Value of Eunuchs, by Mary A. Valante, (pp. 174-187).
Valente begins with some early Arab accounts of the advantage of raids on Byzantine churches and monasteries any eunuch monks or castrati singers captured could be repurposed as court eunuchs. Her opening lines are:
'I asked a group of them about the process of castration, and I learned that the Romaeans castrate their youngsters intended for dedication to the church.... When the Muslims raid, they attack the churches and take the youngsters away from them', says the tenth-century geographer, al-Muqaddasi. He describes Arab raids that deliberately targeted Greek churches and monasteries during his own time, a time when the Greeks castrated some young boys to keep them as singers in the Church, and a time when the Arab world wanted eunuchs.
Valente goes on to discuss the Viking preference for raids on Christian monasteries in most of Europe, from Ireland to the Black Sea. One goal of which was to capture educated boys and young teens who could be castrated to become more valuable as exports to the Middle East. Moslem courts preferred educated eunuchs for many administrative posts and Europe was the source for them.
At one point Valente notes that Dublin was founded as a Viking trading post for valuable trade goods to be exported from the lands surrounding the Irish Sea. These goods were mostly traded east to the Byzantine and Abbasid empires and consisted primarily of attractive young women for harems and educated boys, captured from monasteries and castrated along the route primarily in Venice, but also in Kiev. (She notes that the majority of boys castrated in Venice were from the Slavic lands, many of them captured from monasteries. There were also boys captured from Byzantine monasteries castrated in Venice for sale to the Moslems.) The monasteries taught Latin and Greek, languages used in both the Christian and Moslem realms.
The caliph Al-Muqtadir (AD 908-932) had approximately 4,000, mostly educated, European eunuchs in his palace administration (as well as 7,000 Black African eunuchs to guard the thousands of women of the palace).
When Saladin deposed the Fatamid dynasty in Egypt in 1171, he found over 12,000 people living in the palace. The only intact males were the Fatamid caliph and his immediate family.
Valente also spends some time on the rise of the modern European economy and trading system and the importance of the trade in eunuchs in promoting that rise.
I will post information about additional chapters later.