Lowlandlord said:
The Christians spent alot of time trying to break the Fianna, as it was a pagan warband that often went around with "demonic markings", tattoos. They were not horribly uncommon in Japan, naginata's are most well known as a women's weapon (not in like a bad way just women tended to use them). As I recall, Christian Saxons didn't bury weapons so I doubt that those women were Chistian, I also seem to recall women sometimes being buried with their husbands. Cultures matter more than country, I don't see what China has to do with England, the Soviets also had alot of women soldiers, and the Britons of the Roman age had a few. And it wouldn't be logical for them to use a bow, for several reasons, one the breast, ancient women archers in some cultures (namely the ones that came to inspire the Greek Amazonians) had to cut off a breast to shoot properly, otherwise the string hits your breast, you miss and get hurt. Bows also weren't so common in Britain at the time. And camp follower is a euphimism for whore, or other service industry related to the military, like cook or seamstress so they aren't really the fighting type. And Aethelflaed just adds to what I said earlier, Shieldmaidens, especially for the later era, are every one of them, individuals who picked their path and should be heroes, you don't wash dishes one day and swing a sword the next.
Of the Fianna;
One, the mythic Fianna are barely known to have existed in the capacity myth gives them, and are probably heavily hagiogriaphied. They were also not being 'broken' by Christians in any provable extent, since by the time there was a substantial Christian majority in Ireland, there weren't Fianna like those described in the Fenian cycle, if they ever existed as that had described them, and we have little proof of the Irish tattooing at such a time, except for some in Ulster, who were most likely Ulster Picts (Cruithne tribes who dwelled there), and the scattered, occassional tattooed individual mentioned (which included several priests, such as one of the abbots of an ecclesiacal community near Armagh). Tattoos weren't as much of a concern to the Irish church as they were to the British, who interpreted them negatively probably due to constant conflict with Picts (while the Christianization of Ireland probably started from Britain, it quickly grew to be largely handled by native Irish converts trained as clergy). What we do know about the Fianna as described in the Fennian Cycle, if it is indeed supposed to be at least vaguely accurate, is that they were largely destroyed in the 3rd century by Cairbre Lifechair. By the time Christianity came to Ireland, if they had been a regular army, they simply didn't exist in that capacity anymore. References to them existing as such a the time invariably come from centuries later and are mixed with hagiographies of saints (like St. Patrick meeting Oisin, an utter impossibility, since Oisin would have been over two-hundred), which wasn't uncommon in any part of Europe, in attempts to tie the native culture to the missionaries who had converted the region, but it's no proof that the Fianna of myth still existed.
Two, there were bands called Fianna in Christian Ireland, who were themselves Christians. The only verifiable historical Fianna are described in early medieval Irish law, and were mercenary bands composed mainly of landless young aristocrats (each called a fénnid, their leader called a rígfénnid). Each Fian was independent and would travel around Ireland seeking employment in various wars. This differs heavily from the Fianna described in the Fiannaidheacht/Fiannaíocht (the Fenian Cycle), which gives them as a single, standing army in the service of the high king of Ireland, divded between two rival clans who competed over rulership of the group. Fianna as mercenaries in this period would still exist, and there'd be no conflict in Christians hiring them or working with them, since they were mostly Christians anyway (though Ireland almost certainly still had some native pagans, either as individuals in communities, or as small isolated communities; the Normans report a few centuries later, though it's certainly propaganda, and inflated if not purely invented, that some isolated villages in Ireland didn't even know the name of Christ).
Also, you seem to think the period was a bit more stacked against women than it was,or that the period was monolithic in general theologically. It was not sinful to be seen with hair down perse. It was, especially prior to the 1100s, more or less regional. It highly depended on the culture in an area to determine what was acceptable and what was not. More than anything, the local churches seemed to take a stance of not 'rocking the boat' as it were, to avoid social disharmony. So, what was acceptable culturally, outside of those things blatantly against doctrine, was typically allowed fine. Women in Christian Ireland and among Christians in Pictavia were allowed to fight in wars, and some still did, though Adomnain's Law was set up to try and restrain that. He was apparently told (like how all good laws are made! ...if you're a ponce) by his mother to set this up, which was intended to forbid women from going to war because it made orphans of too many children. This never worked a hundred percent, and numerous, though highly reduced and certainly more of an oddity, fought in Ireland and Scotland right up into the modern period. It had little to do with religion so much as Adomnain being disturbed by dead parents leaving their children behind. On tattoos again for a moment, mind that for a long period, Christians in Ethiopia and Nubia tattooed their forehead with a cross. That wasn't determined evil or sinful. Though, in some societies, it was seen as distasteful, and harsher ones, even as a sin, because it was not a social norm. The church at the time varied far too much culturally between even small areas to make any broad sweeping statements about what they thought about anything, since it was largely in the hands of local bishops (or abbots among Gaels and many Britons), and then, even into the hands of local priests and monks, and outside of the basic doctrine, things began to vary broadly very fast. It'd actually be something interesting if Ireland were on the map, considering the odd relationship of the Saxon and Gaelic churches. Those Saxons that had been largely educated by Gaels sided with the Irish doctrinally (Northumbria) for quite a time, the Saxons in the south tended to sort of side with Rome, as they'd put it, yet they also did a lot of things their own way, and often their bishops used their clout just to antagonize the Irish bishops at various synods (since papal messages to Ireland went through Britain to get there, they had some manner of power to, not really force the Irish to do anything, but, kind of like prodding them in the face with a stick for little reason other than being a toffee-nosed git).
