Daily life for most men and women during the Viking Age revolved around subsistence-level farmwork. Almost everyone lived on rural farmsteads that produced most of the goods used by the people who lived there.

The work on a farmstead was divided by gender/sex. Women were customarily charged with the tasks that were performed “within the threshold” of the house, while men were charged with those tasks that lay outside of the house.

The two main tasks of women were producing clothing and preparing food. Women baked, cooked, made alcoholic drinks, and made dairy products such as milk, butter, and cheese. Milking sheep and cows were tasks that fell to women as part of this process, even though those activities were often performed outside of “the threshold.” In winter, the animals were in the homesteads’ longhouses, and so would have been inside a threshold, but in summer the animals were out grazing and were watched over by shepherds who could be either male or female.

Agricultural work, as opposed to food preparation, fell to men. This involved fertilizing, plowing, sowing, harvesting, and threshing. During the harvest, however, all members of the household would typically join in the work, since it was so laborious that all available hands were needed, be they male or female.

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