MHDB Article ID: ATIOAMGIF20210813
MHDB Article date: 13 August 2021
MHDB Article Author(s): Staff
Medieval History In The News: CNN Article "The inhabitant of a medieval grave in Finland may have been nonbinary, a new study finds"
Abstract:
A recent CNN article has alleged that a medieval grave in Finland belonged to a "non-binary" individual, while also attempting to link Joan of Arc to the
issue by alleging that she was also non-binary or similar. The first of these claims is more credible but debatable; the second is contradicted by Joan of Arc's
own statements and circumstances.
Analysis:
One recent topic which has received a great deal of media coverage is
the interpretation of ambiguous medieval graves, such as the flurry of articles about an alleged female skeleton in grave Bj 581 at the Birka, Sweden, Viking-era
burial site ("Wonder Woman Lived" proclaimed one sensational headline). CNN is now giving similar coverage to a skeleton found at Suontaka Vesitorninmäki, Finland,
which one group of archaeologists believe had an XXY chromosome pattern and hence, in their view, the person's "gender identity may well have been non-binary".
CNN's piece, published on 12 August 2021, is referring to a recent article in the European Journal of Archaeology entitled "A Woman with a Sword? – Weapon Grave at Suontaka Vesitorninmäki, Finland"
by Ulla Moilanen et al, published on 15 July 2021. Since the latter article is less than a month old, there hasn't been adequate time for a meaningful response
from other archaeologists or historians, which should signal a obvious problem: CNN is citing a single article that has not yet gone through the normal process of
scrutiny by other specialists.
Even if the DNA analysis is confirmed by future examination, the idea that the person identified as "non-binary" is far less likely : most people with an XXY chromosome pattern
do not exhibit any ambiguous sexual traits and hence never realize they have the condition, in fact even today only about 25% of people with this condition are
ever diagnosed as such. The vast majority identify as male and never consider any alternative possibility. It would therefore be even less likely that someone
from the medieval period with this condition would have identified as non-binary. It could also be noted that previous claims about this same grave
declared the person was a "female warrior" (much like the Birka skeleton mentioned above), but if the genetic pattern is XXY then the person would likely
be considered male and
the previous attempts to use the grave as evidence for female warriors in Viking society would be debunked. CNN's article alludes to this and mentions that a sword was
found in the grave, but the sword had apparently never been used in battle - in which case this person was likely not a warrior at all, regardless of gender.
CNN's article tries to link Joan of Arc to this issue by claiming that she "lived outside the gender binary" by wearing a soldier's riding outfit and armor
given to her for practical reasons by the soldiers who escorted her to Chinon and then by the Royal government and various nobles, and which several eyewitnesses
said she continued wearing in prison for another practical reason: she kept the outfit securely laced together to make it more difficult for the English soldiers
in her prison to pull her clothing off during their periodic attempts to rape her. This type of clothing had thick laces that were drawn through eyelets to
fasten the long leather hip-boots, trousers and tunic all together into a single piece, which would in fact hinder a would-be rapist. The bailiff during the
trial, Jehan Massieu, said that the guards manipulated her into a "relapse" by taking away the dress she agreed to wear and then forced her to put the soldier's
clothing back on for lack of any other options, then the judge was brought in to condemn her as a "relapsed heretic". This set of circumstances - wearing soldier's
clothing out of necessity and then being manipulated into a false "relapse" - has nothing to do with a non-binary
identity, and in fact Joan of Arc routinely called herself "the maiden" ("la pucelle") which would seem to prove she identified as a woman. Many eyewitness accounts
show that she had previously worn a dress for the first sixteen years of her life up until the soldiers who escorted her to Chinon gave her a soldier's outfit
(according to descriptions by two of these soldiers). CNN's article glosses over all of
this while misleadingly describing her military riding outfit as "male clothing" - as if she was wearing generic male clothing outside of any military context - and then
claims that this would make her non-binary. The article links to a page at mentalfloss.com which ironically mentions the practical reasons for wearing this
clothing which CNN ignored.
The identity and circumstances of the skeleton found at Suontaka Vesitorninmäki will need to be determined after more study has been conducted, and hence the
current media attention is premature and its conclusions are questionable. The fact that several different claims have been put forward for this skeleton - first
the allegation that it represents a female warrior, and now a non-binary person - should underscore the dubious nature of speculating about something which
is currently uncertain.
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