The term freoðuwebbe appears one single time in all of Beowulf. The word occurs in Fitt XXVIII, in reference to King Offa’s queen: 

Ne bið swylc cwenlic þeaw

idese to efnanne,    þeah ðe hio ænlicu sy,

þætte freoðuwebbe    feores onsæce

æfter ligetorne    leofne mannan. (Beowulf lines 1940-1943)¹

In this fitt, Hygelac’s wife Hygd is recalling the stories of Offa’s wife as a sort of cautionary tale of how not to rule. The poet chides Offa’s wife as having behaved in an unqueenly manner; for somebody who was supposed to be a peace-weaver to have committed such senseless acts of violence would be unacceptable. However, the narrator of the poem immediately offers an alternative account of the queen’s reign:

 . . . after her marriage

she no longer caused pain to the people,

once she was given, gold-adorned,

to that young warrior when she sailed

at her father’s behest to Offa’s hall

in a voyage over the sparkling sea.

She was later lauded for her good deeds;

she pledged herself to the people’s welfare . . . (Mitchell, lines 1862-1869)

Offa’s wife, whether by her own free will or at Offa’s insistence as the poem suggests, seemingly transformed into a peace-weaver once marrying Offa. This cessation of violence upon marriage would support the idea that queens must also take on the role of peace-weaving. Since many of the characters in Beowulf seem to retain the core essence of their identities throughout the poem (with Beowulf himself remaining a valor-seeking warrior until the day he dies) this transformation from violent bachelorette to peaceful queen seems especially significant. For the society described in Beowulf, peace-weaving and queenship appear to be inextricably linked. 

Freoðuwebbe also appears in the poem Widsith, with its usage of the word also referring to a queen. In the following excerpt of the poem translated by Craig Williamson in The Complete Old English Poems, Ealhhild is lauded as a generous queen and peace-weaver:

He first came out of the east from Angel

With Ealhhild, a trusted and gracious peace-weaver,

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..

Then Ealhhild, the dear daughter of Eadwine, 

Noble and majestic, queen of her people,

Gave me another precious gift. (Williamson lines 8-9, 105-107)

One might think that a song of praise about a peace-weaving queen would include tales of treaties she negotiated or battles she prevented, but instead, the scop commended Ealhhild’s gift-giving at length. Since no examples of Ealhhild’s peace-weaving were given, the implication seems to be that a woman is a peace-weaver simply by virtue of being a queen, or that queens are expected to bring peace during their reign. 

Although the uses of freoðuwebbe in Beowulf and Widsith both apply to women, the use of the term in the poem Elene applies to a male angel who appears to an emperor in a dream. Craig Williamson has translated the lines in which freoðuwebbe appears as follows: “The emperor was suddenly alert at the angel’s / Bold bidding and laid open his heart, / Lifting his eyes as the peace-weaver proposed” (lines 90-92). Interestingly, the angel was not acting to prevent war in this instance, but was passing a message to the emperor Constantine. In short, the purpose of this message was to inform Constantine that the Lord Christ and the sign of Christ’s cross would protect Constantine’s men in battle, which gave them the strength needed to win. According to Larry M. Sklute, author of the article “‘Freoðuwebbe’ in Old English Poetry”, the peace-weaving being done in this instance is the “weaving together [of] a peace between God and man” (576). Through this logic, the peace-weaver seems to be somebody who weaves together alliances and political relationships, whether between man and man, nation and nation, or God and man. 

Another instance of a guardian angel figure within an Old English text occurs in the poet Cynewulf’s Guthlac A, and is described by the term freoðuweard. Craig Williamson’s translation of the lines in which the term appears is as follows: “His guardian angel was always nearby, / Protecting that rare warrior of the wasteland” (lines 173-174). This use of the word is different from the examples of freoðuwebbe in that it refers to the protection of an individual’s peace, rather than a communal peace. In the instance of Guthlac A, the creation of peace was enacted through more of a preventative measure than a unifying measure; the angel was acting as a barrier between the warrior and any oncoming harm, rather than bringing people or nations together to induce peace. Because the author chose to use freoðuweard to describe this peace-making action instead of freoðuwebbe, it seems apparent that the action of unifying is a crucial element to the distinct role of peace-weaver. 

The fact that there exist so many iterations of the peace-weaver throughout Old English texts–men, women, queens, and angels alike–makes it all the more interesting that the Bosworth-Toller dictionary made the distinction that peace-weavers are women. A potential explanation for the origin of the peace-weaving women stereotype posited by E.T. Donaldson is mentioned in Sklute’s article: “Daughters of kings were frequently given in marriage to the king of a hostile nation in order to bring about peace” (Sklute 535). However, in a footnote of the text, Sklute claims that his research has found this explanation to be incorrect. Furthermore, since men were also involved in such peace-weaving political marriages, it would be reductive to only consider women to be the peace-weavers in these marital alliances. Perhaps Bosworth-Toller’s decision to align women with peace-weavers in their definition of freoðuwebbe was informed by the numerous occurrences of women who use their position as queens to weave peace throughout their worlds in Old English texts. 

In addition to the question of why women were associated with peace-weaving, there is also the question of why peace-making is associated with weaving. Looking at Anglo-Saxon art, it is clear that weaving in various forms was deeply appreciated. In Beowulf alone, there are myriad instances of braiding and interlacing imagery. Hrothgar’s horse is “wicg wundenfeax”,² the hall of Heorot is adorned with “web æfter wagum”³, and lives are saved by “breostnet broden”⁴ (Beowulf lines 1402, 994, 1550). An artifact of Anglo-Saxon art in the form of a belt buckle found at Sutton Hoo is described by the British Museum as being adorned with “graceful animals” that “writhe and interlace together” (Decoding Anglo-Saxon Art). Clearly, weaving was valued as an art form by the Anglo-Saxon culture. It stands to reason that this culture might have also perceived peace-making as an art form, for all the complex braiding and interlacing of interpersonal and international relationships that peace-weaving entailed. 

Though Beowulf’s character Wealhtheow was never explicitly referred to as a freoðuwebbe, her peace-weaving actions were nothing short of an art form. She established order of importance in the hall by bringing the cup of mead first to her husband, King Hrothgar. She then entreated Hrothgar to allow their son to take the throne instead of Beowulf, saying, “. . . ond þinum magum læf / folc ond rice”⁵ (Beowulf lines 1180-1181). Next, Wealhtheow brought the cup to Beowulf, establishing him as another important figure in the hall, and gifted him an incredible bounty of riches and treasures. She asked Beowulf to treat her sons with kindness, and then said to him:

Her is æghwylc eorl    oþrum getrywe,

modes milde,    mandrihtne hleo;

þegnas syndon geþwære,    þeod ealgearo,

druncne dryhtguman.    Doð swa ic bidde. (Beowulf lines 1230-1233)

Although Hrothgar had promised the throne to Beowulf, Wealhtheow was able to revert the inheritance of the throne from Beowulf and back to her own sons. Beowulf certainly could have argued or refused to rescind the throne, but Wealtheow was so wise and diplomatic in her words and actions that the men accepted her plan without vocalizing any misgivings. Her enumeration of the many ways in which the thanes and the lord are loyal to one another demonstrates the value she holds in the unifying and relationship-forging actions that are characteristic of a peace-weaver. Like a true artist, layers of intention lie behind everything Wealhtheow says and does in this scene.

In analyzing each of the occurrences of the word freoðuwebbe in Old English poetry, as well as the synonym freoðuweard, it is evident that peace-weaving is an incredibly complex concept in Anglo-Saxon tradition. Despite the fact that there is a connotation of women with peace-weaving, there are instances of men and angels performing actions of peace-weaving in Old English poems as well. Creating relationships and political unions seems to be a crucial component of peace-weaving that separates peace-weavers from guardians of peace. Regardless of who is doing the peace-weaving, it is arguably an art form in and of itself–one which the poet of Beowulf seemed to be especially appreciative of. 

References

Beowulf: And, the Fight at Finnsburg. Translated by Frederick Klaeber, 3rd ed., D.C. Heath, 1950.

Bosworth, Joseph. “freoðo-webbe.” An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary Online, edited by Thomas Northcote Toller et al., Faculty of Arts, Charles University, 2014, https://bosworthtoller.com/12355

“Decoding Anglo-Saxon Art.” The British Museum, 28 May 2014, www.britishmuseum.org/blog/decoding-anglo-saxon-art.

Kiernan, Kevin. “Studying Beowulf: Electronic Beowulf – Fourth Edition – Ed. Kevin Kiernan.” Studying Beowulf | Electronic Beowulf – Fourth Edition – Ed. Kevin Kiernan, ebeowulf.uky.edu/. Accessed 13 May 2024.

Mitchell, Stephen. “BEOWULF.” Beowulf, Yale University Press, 2017, pp. 1–208. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1bvnfmt.8. Accessed 16 May 2024.

Sklute, Larry M. “‘FREOƉUWEBBE’ IN OLD ENGLISH POETRY.” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, vol. 71, no. 4, 1970, pp. 534–41. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43342535. Accessed 15 May 2024.

Williamson, Craig. The Complete Old English Poems. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017.

1. “Not is such queenly custom / woman to perform, though she incomparable may be, / that peace-weaver life deprive / after pretended insult dear man.” (Translations in footnotes are performed by the author of this paper, using Electronic Beowulf.) ↩︎
2. “With wound-hair”. ↩︎
3. “Weaving along walls”. ↩︎
4. “Breastnet braided”. ↩︎
5. “Thy kinsmen leave / folk and kingdom”. ↩︎