Episode 2904
Bæddel and bædling
Thu, 2025-Apr-17 00:15 UTC
Length - 2:57
Direct Link
Welcome to Featured Wiki of the Day, your daily dose of knowledge from Wikipedia’s finest articles.
The featured article for Thursday, 17 April 2025 is Bæddel and bædling.
Bæddel ([ˈbæd.del]; BAD-dell) and bædling ([ˈbæd.liŋɡ]; BAD-ling) are Old English terms referring to non-normative sexual or gender categories. Occurring in a small number of medieval glossaries and penitentials (guides for religious penance), the exact meaning of the terms (and their distinction, if any) are debated by scholars. Both terms are often connected to effeminacy and adultery. Bæddel is glossed as "hermaphrodite" and a "man of both sexes" in its two extant glosses, both from the same glossary, while bædling is often glossed with terms associated with effeminacy and softness. The Oxford English Dictionary, citing the philologist Julius Zupitza, supports bæddel as the etymological root of the English adjective bad, although various scholars propose alternative origins, including a shared root with both bæddel and bædling.
The Old English translation of the medieval penitential Paenitentiale Theodori distinguishes men and bædlings as separate categories of person; 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 may have included people assigned female at birth who took on masculine social roles or referred to intersex people. Gender non-normative burials from the period have been associated with the term, and scholars 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 ([ˈwæːpnˌwiː.ves.tre] WAPN-wee-ves-tre), seemingly denoting a woman with a phallus or phallic masculinity.
This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 00:15 UTC on Thursday, 17 April 2025.
For the full current version of the article, see Bæddel and bædling on Wikipedia.
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Until next time, I'm long-form Danielle.
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