Baddel
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Bæddel and bædling are Old English (Anglo-Saxon) terms theorised to refer to non-normative sexual or gender categories. They occur in only five medieval glossaries and penitentials (guides for religious penance). Scholars debate their exact meanings (and their distinction, if any), but both are linked to effeminacy and adultery. Bæddel appears in one glossary, where it is defined as "hermaphrodite" and a "man of both sexes", while bædling is often glossed as an "effeminate" or "soft" person. The Oxford English Dictionary states that bæddel may be related to the English adjective "bad"; scholars have proposed that the word may share a root with both bæddel and bædling.
The Old English translation of the medieval penitential Paenitentiale Theodori distinguishes men from bædlings; it describes men having sex with other men or with bædlings as separate offences, and states that bædlings must atone for having sex with other bædlings. The term has been variously conjectured to refer to people assigned male at birth who exhibited gender-nonconforming behaviour or took on a feminine social role, or to intersex people, and it is also suggested that it may have included people assigned female at birth who took on a masculine social role. Some scholars have associated the term with gender non-normative burials from the period, and have suggested that bædlings could represent a third gender outside the gender binary, or a form of gender nonconformity in Anglo-Saxon society. The 11th-century English Antwerp Glossary associates bæddel with the uniquely attested wæpenwifestre, seemingly denoting a woman with a phallus or one displaying masculine characteristics.
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Bateu - 2025-02-27 00:00:00
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