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For the early Middle Ages, no country in Western Europe can boast of such wide documentation as Anglo-Saxon England.* One of the interesting aspects of its cultural history, which started with the Germanic invasions in the course of the fifth century and ended with the Norman Conquest in AD 1066, is that it passed from a pagan Germanic into a Christian society. Studying the position of widows in this period, therefore, implies an awareness of two traditions which have often blended to a degree where it is impossible to distinguish them. Moreover, the nature of the available sources, varying from epic to sermon and law, and composed in different periods and places, should alert us to the danger of making a monolith picture of the Anglo-Saxon widow. We should also bear in mind that most of the extant documents were produced by and intended for the upper crust of a mainly illiterate society. Because of these restrictions, what we discover of the image of widows will necessarily be of a mixed nature.1
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