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Bæddel and bædling are Old English terms referring to non-normative sexual or gender categories. Occurring in a small number of medieval glossaries and penitentials, the exact meaning of the terms (and their distinction, if any) are debated by scholars. Both terms are connected to effeminacy and adultery, although bæddel is glossed as hermaphrodite, while bædling is glossed with terms associated with effeminacy and softness. The Oxford English Dictionary, citing German philologist Julius Zupitza, supports bæddel as the etymological root of the English adjective bad, although various scholars propose alternate origins, including a shared root with both bæddel and bædling.

The Paenitentiale Theodori distinguishes men and bædlings as separate categories of person; it describes men having sex with other men or with bædlings as separate offenses, and states that bædlings must atone for having sex with other bædlings. Bædlings may have been regarded as a third gender or a position outside of the gender binary. The term may have included people assigned female at birth who took on masculine social roles or (like bæddel) to intersex people. Gender non-normative burials from the period have been associated with the term, and scholars have suggested that bædlings could represent a third gender or form of gender nonconformity in Anglo-Saxon society. The Antwerp Glossary associates bæddel with the uniquely attested wæpenwifestre, seemingly denoting a woman with a phallus or phallic masculinity.

Definition

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Bæddel and bædling are Old English terms referring to some category of gender, sex, or sexuality outside the norm, although their precise meaning and scope are debated by scholars. While bæddel is generally associated with intersex people, it also seems to connotate effeminacy. Bædling is thought to denote some sort of gender nonconformity, sexual passivity, or possibly a third gender.[1][2][3] The terms are quite obscure; bædling is attested in a small number of sources — including two glossaries and two penitentials — while bæddel is only attested from two glossaries.[4] The linguist and etymologist Anatoly Liberman describes the terms as synonyms.[5]

The Antwerp Glossary the word bæddel is used to gloss two Latin phrases: homo utriusque generis ('man of both sexes') and Hermafroditus ('hermaphrodite').[1][6] The Antwerp Glossary associates bæddel with the otherwise unattested word wæpenwifestre. Literally a wif (woman) with a wæpn (weapon), it seemingly denotes a woman with a phallus or phallic masculinity along the lines of the common term wæpnedman (a male, lit. 'weapon-person').[7]

Bædling is likely derived from bæddel, either with the patronymic suffix -ing or the dimunitive patronymic suffix -ling. It is given three different Latin glosses in the four extant sources, including molles 'soft person' and effeminati molles 'effeminate soft ones'. A third gloss from the Harley Glossary, cariar, is difficult to interpret and possibly a reference to the Anatolian region of Caria. Caria is the location of the legendary spring Salmacis, with the supposed power of feminizing and softening men.[1][8]

An Old English translation of the penitential handbook Paenitentiale Theodori makes a distinction between men and bædlings, describing "sex with other men" and "sex with bædlings" as separate (although equal) offenses for men.[9][10] It states that bædlings who have sex with other bædlings must atone for ten winters, describing them as "soft like an adulteress";[9][10] a similar comparison with adultery is also applied to bæddels in the Antwerp Glossary.[7] The penitential also specifies that both adults and children can be bædlings, setting aside different punishments for bædlings of different ages. The historian Jacob Bell theorizes that the reference to a sexual relationship between two bædlings may refer to pederasty.[11]

Analysis

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While in some of the extant sources, bædling seems to denoted a passive partner in gay sexual intercourse, the reference to bædlings having sex with each other complicates this as a strict definition.[12][13] Indicated by an association in the Cleopatra Glossaries with the Latin mollis 'soft', they may have been people assigned male at birth who took feminine social roles or feminine gender presentation.[13][14] It is debated by scholars how bæddels and bædlings fit into the Anglo-Saxon gender system. Bædlings may be regarded as a third gender category outside of the bounds of manhood and womanhood, or as emasculated people who share a position of "non-manhood" with women and child when compared with "manly men".[15][16] The term may have also referred to people assigned female at birth who took on masculine social roles, or (as with bæddel) to intersex people.[16] The American philologist Robert D. Fulk has associated the terms has associated the terms with gender non-normative burials from the Anglo-Saxon period, including male skeletons buried alongside female grave goods.[17]

Etymology

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Scholars such as J. R. C. Hall and Ferdinand Holthausen have argued an additional meaning of 'to defile' or 'to stain' for the Old English term bædan 'to compel', from which bæddel was possibly derived. They cite a Latin gloss in the Eadwine Psalter. However, the psalter gives unusual and erroneous glosses for some Latin terms, leading philologists such as Herbert Dean Meritt to dismiss the alternate definition.[6][18] Fulk, concurring with Meritt, derived bæddel from a hypothetical early Old English term *bai-daili-, 'both parts', mirroring the derivation of words for hermaphrodite in other Germanic languages, such as Danish tvetulle 'two tools'.[19] A dialectal word badling attested in Northern England for variously 'rascal', 'worthless person', or 'naughty child', may descend from bædling, but could also be a later, independent derivation from bad and the suffix -ling.[5][20]

Connection to bad

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The German philologist Julius Zupitza theorized that the English word bad is derived from bæddel. James Murray, the first chief editor of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), supported Zupitza's theory and included it with the dictionary's first edition in 1884.[5][21] This etymology's inclusion in the OED led to widespread scholarly acceptance, although some philologists continued to contest it. The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology more tentatively makes the connection, denoting it as only a possible etymology.[5]

The scholar William Sayers proposes a shared etymology of bad, bæddel, and bædling from a reconstructed Gaulish word *baitos 'foolish, mad, immoral', an adjective carried into Old English by the hypothetical form *baed.[20] Richard Coates also describes bæddel and bædling as descended from a common ancestor with bad, in the form of a hypothetical Old English *badde possibly meaning 'worthless' or 'of ill omen'.[22] Anatoly Liberman, concurring with Coates, states that bæddel was formed from bad. While yfel was the standard word for "bad" during the Old English period, bad was established enough by the thirteenth century to become a common nickname (in the form bade).[5] The Dictionary of Old English gives no etymology for bæddel, but tentatively derives bad instead from bædan, through a connotation of male-on-male rape.[20]

See also

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Look up bæddel, bædling, or wæpnwifestre in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

References

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Citations

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  1. ^ a b c Wade 2024, p. 55.
  2. ^ Frantzen 1998, pp. 163–165.
  3. ^ Bell 2023, pp. 19–20.
  4. ^ Clark 2009, p. 63.
  5. ^ a b c d e Liberman 2015.
  6. ^ a b Fulk 2004, p. 26.
  7. ^ a b Bell 2023, p. 18.
  8. ^ Fulk 2004, p. 21.
  9. ^ a b Wade 2024, p. 56.
  10. ^ a b Clark 2009, pp. 63–65.
  11. ^ Bell 2023, pp. 17, 19.
  12. ^ Fulk 2004, p. 30.
  13. ^ a b Clark 2009, pp. 65–66.
  14. ^ Fulk 2004, pp. 30–32.
  15. ^ Clark 2009, pp. 64–66.
  16. ^ a b Wade 2020, p. 23.
  17. ^ Fulk 2004, p. 32.
  18. ^ Meritt 1954, p. 190.
  19. ^ Fulk 2004, pp. 26–27.
  20. ^ a b c Sayers 2020, pp. 9–10.
  21. ^ Coates 1988, p. 92.
  22. ^ Coates 1988, p. 99.

Bibliography

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  • Bell, Jacob (2023). "Recovering a Global Encounter: The Paenitentiale Theodori and the Greek Terminology of Sex Between Men in The Early English Penitential Tradition". The Medieval Globe. 9 (1): 1–26.
  • Clark, David (2009). Between Medieval Men: Male Friendship and Desire in Early Medieval English Literature. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199558155.001.0001. ISBN 9780191567889.
  • Coates, Richard (1988). "Middle English Badde and Related Puzzles". NOWELE: North-Western European Language Evolution. 11 (1): 91–104. doi:10.1075/nowele.11.06coa.
  • Frantzen, Allen J. (1998). Before the Closet: Same-Sex Love from "Beowulf" to "Angels in America". University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226260914.
  • Fulk, Robert D (2004). "Male Homoeroticism in the Old English Canons of Theodore". In Pasternack, Carol; Weston, Lisa M. C. (eds.). Sex and Sexuality in Anglo-Saxon England: Essays in Memory of Daniel Gillmore Calder. Phoenix: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. ISBN 9780866983204.
  • Liberman, Anatoly (2015). "The History of the Word ‘Bad’". Accessed 27 November 2024. OUPblog.
  • Meritt, Herbert Dean (1954). Fact and Lore About Old English Words. Stanford University Press.
  • Sayers, William (2020). "The Etymologies of Old English Bædling "Sodomite" and Modern English Bad". ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes and Reviews. 33 (1): 9–11. doi:10.1080/0895769X.2019.1573132.
  • Wade, Erik (2020). "The Beast with Two Backs: Bestiality, Sex Between Men, and Byzantine Theology in the Paenitentiale Theodori". Journal of Medieval Worlds. 2 (1–2): 11–26. doi:10.1525/jmw.2020.2.1-2.11. hdl:20.500.12648/7892.
  • Wade, Erik (2024). "Religion and Trans Literature". In Vakoch, Douglas A.; Sharp, Sabine (eds.). The Routledge Handbook of Trans Literature. London: Routledge. pp. 51–61. doi:10.4324/9781003365938-6. ISBN 9781003857297.
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