Speaker: Broderick Haldane-Unwin, Faculty of History, University of Oxford

Abstract: »This paper reexamines Paul the Deacon’s account of the Avar sack of Friuli (c.610) and the sexual assault and murder of its duchess, Romilda, in the Historia Langobardorum. Rather than a moral exemplum or narrative foil, the episode is treated as an unusually explicit source for the lived realities of wartime captivity and sexual violence. By situating Romilda’s experiences within broader patterns of gendered violence, the paper demonstrates that the systematic capture and violation of women were central to early medieval warfare. It challenges the sanitisation of women’s suffering and reinterprets Romilda’s story as a paradigmatic example of how gender shaped the experience of war and captivity in the early Middle Ages.« (Source: Online Program)

Wikipedia: History of Europe: History of Italy / Italy in the Middle Ages | Historiography: Historiography in the Middle Ages / History of the Lombards | Sex and the law: Rape / Romilda of Friuli | War: Wars of the Middle Ages