Hausfraus and Sieges through History

While I was home ill with food poisoning, I spent some of my spare moments curled up on the bathroom floor studying siege warfare. If, in fact, my neighbors were lacing our water supply with hellebore to make their invasion easier (a la Solon's tactics at Cirrha), I wanted the family to be prepared.

Although I didn't find any seige-repelling tactics I wanted to use against the neighbors (if they were to blame - and I'm not ruling it out), I came across several interesting points from a feminist perspective.

The first was an incident mentioned in Michelle Ziegler's Heavenfield post, Lady Aethelflaed's Defense of Chester, c.907 .  When the Vikings came, Lady Aethelflaed encouraged her troops to use what Ms. Ziegler refers to as "the beer and bee defense," first pouring boiling ale over the walls on the invaders and then dumping bee hives on them. I'm not sure I have enough liquor on hand to repel the neighbors by dousing, and John is allergic to bees so keeping hives is out of the question. I think, however, we could manage enough alcohol to get encroaching neighbors nicely potted, whereupon we could throw some of the enormous mutant spiders from our woodpile on them. I myself have stringent sobriety requirements before I will engage even a small spider in hand to hand combat, so I think this is a solid plan for home defense.

In contrast with the blatant display of Grrl Power from the Fragmentary Annals of Ireland, here is a chauvinistic bit of advice on siege warfare from Aeneas Tacticus, circa 350 B.C.: "4. The men of Sinope, when at war with Datamas, were in a critical position and in want of men. They therefore disguised and armed the fittest of their women, so as to make them look as much as men as they could, gave them jars and similar brass utensils to represent armour and helmets, and marched them round the walls in full view of the enemy. 5. They were not allowed to throw anything: for you can tell a woman a long way off by the way she throws."  (Courtesy of Maria Pretzler's website http://www.aeneastacticus.net/x_40.htm which is also a fun read in and of itself.)

The contrast got me to thinking about women in warfare through the ages. Not professionals, like our military ladies or peace officers today. Regular civilians. How much has our approach to defending our homes really changed?