Deer may have been more important as a source of antler than as potential meat. In York most was collected as shed antler over the winter months. At aristocratic sites with access to hunting forests, such as Portchester, or isolated sites with local wild herds, such as Ribblehead, venison provided an occasional part of the diet.
Cats appear to have been tolerated, but were not looked after as pets. Cat skins were routinely collected. At Thetford the remains of some 18 cats and kittens were found in one pit. Dogs were more abundant and better looked after; at Coppergate, Flaxengate and Thetford there was little evidence for disease or injury on any dog bones. In Lincoln and York they ranged in size from those smaller than a fox to those as big as a wolf, and may have been kept as pets, as guard dogs or for hunting. British hunting dogs were famous and frequently presented as diplomatic gifts in the Viking Age. William of Malmesbury’s description of the Welsh tribute to Æthelstan included as many dogs as the king chose ‘which could discover with their keen scent the dens and lurking places of wild beasts’. At Thetford all the dogs were of the hound type with relatively long muzzles, and most were the size of a present-day retriever. Some may also have been used as shepherd dogs. At Portchester the absence of dog bones in the domestic refuse has led to the suggestion that the dogs were so highly regarded that they were buried separately.
In towns game animals were relatively rare, but on rural sites such as Ribblehead foxes and hares may have provided a significant supplement to the diet. Certainly the workshops and domestic buildings of the urban centres provided homes for house mice, whilst rats exploited the fringes of the settlements.
Birds
Geese, ducks and chickens were important in both town and country, and were kept around the houses for both meat and eggs. During the tenth century there was a distinct increase in backyard geese and fowl at Coppergate. At Portchester the remains of over 80 chickens and 30 geese were excavated, but the chickens appear to have been kept largely for their eggs. At Cheddar a circular structure with two attached rectangular huts has been interpreted as the remains of a fowl-house with nesting boxes and roosting places in the circular building, with a fowl keeper’s dwelling and food store attached.
Game birds are also found in rural and urban deposits, although in York wild birds were never a significant component of the diet, except in so far as they contributed variety. From the late tenth to the early eleventh centuries an increasing diversity of birds was brought to Coppergate. They were mainly wetland species, with some woodland birds, such as wood pigeon and woodcock, moorland birds, including golden plover and black grouse, and cliff-nesting coastal birds, such as guillemot and razor bill. The latter must have been brought from at least 50km (30 miles) away.
At Portchester the remains of numerous wading birds, including golden plover, dunlin, redshank, curlew and woodcock, must represent extensive exploitation of the mud flats. Game birds were considered part of the lordly diet; the remains of 11 curlew in one pit may indicate the leftovers from just one feast. The proportion of birds, particularly ducks, in the York Minster assemblage may reflect the higher status of the site compared to Coppergate.
Marine resources
Clearly seafood was particularly important at coastal settlements such as Mawgan Porth, Green Shiel, and Sandtun (Kent). On Lindisfarne finds included whale and seal; they may have been hunted, but are more likely to represent the exploitation of chance strandings on a nearby beach. Coppergate produced a comb and a sword pommel made from whale bone. The fisherman in Ælfric’s Colloquy, written in the late tenth century, reports that he caught porpoises and sturgeon, among other fish, but that he declines to catch whales on the grounds that they are too dangerous and may sink the boats sent to hunt them (Gardiner 1997).
Freshwater fish were certainly exploited. At Colwick near Nottingham traces of a Viking Age fishing weir have been discovered (Salisbury 1980). In York the freshwater species included pike, roach, rudd, bream and perch, and especially eels, which could be obtained within or near the town. Fish-hooks from Coppergate and Billingsgate suggest that the inhabitants caught many of their own fish, using a long line. In both London and York, however, there is a common pattern in the early eleventh century with a shift away from the local river resources in favour of the sea. This may be linked to the increased pollution of the rivers as the urban centres expanded. In York there is a decrease in the proportion of salmon, and an increase in cod, with herring, haddock, flat-fish, ling and mackerel also being caught. In Lincoln, cod, haddock and flatfish were being brought in from the coast. In Northampton, herring were imported from the coast.
Shellfish were also widely eaten. In York, oysters were eaten in substantial quantities, and cockles, mussels, and winkles were gathered in smaller proportions. In one particular case a Coppergate pit contained about 2000 mussel shells, along with incidental mussel-bed species, strongly suggesting that this represented the spoiled but unsorted catch of Yorkbased fishermen who had been exploiting mussel beds in the Humber estuary. At Thetford mussels, cockles, winkles and whelks were eaten, and oysters, winkles and mussels at Lindisfarne. The inhabitants of Mawgan Porth ate mussels and snails, keeping them unopened in water tanks constructed of slate slabs.
In summary, the inhabitants of Viking Age England enjoyed a varied diet, with differences in emphasis according to what was available locally. Unsurprisingly there was more variety on rural sites, but ‘exotic’ foods were also brought to the Viking towns from some distance. The Viking settlement led to no major changes in the animals kept or crops grown, but as the population expanded so agriculture was forced to intensify. The trend visible at Coppergate, but probably also present at other urban sites, indicates a transition from a relatively narrow resource base in the late ninth century, moving through a period in the mid-tenth century in which home-production and the exploitation of local resources was important, to a pattern of commercial trade and exploitation by the late tenth and early eleventh century. By this stage the urban catchment area extended over a wide area, in a manner familiar from later medieval York (O’Connor 1994). The eighth-century wic at Fishergate appears to have had limited access to York’s environs, and the inhabitants’ diet was largely limited to the staple meat species, presumably supplied under the control of the ruling elite. The inhabitants of Coppergate, by contrast, had access to produce of local woods and rivers, in the form of plants and berries, wild game, and marine resources. They were also able to keep a few birds and pigs in their own backyards. This suggests that the Viking Age merchants and craftworkers were able to buy, barter or just go out and collect for themselves items that their more controlled predecessors were denied access to. Whilst there was no immediate change in the ninth century the Viking takeover of York appears to have created a social revolution which laid the foundations for the later medieval period. In York’s hinterland the farmers of the East Riding may also have begun to break out of the subsistence cycle, in which the elite consumed the agricultural surplus, with little market penetration other than via the households of the aristocracy. In the same way that the traders of York were now free to range more widely in search of more interesting additions to their diet, so the inhabitants of Cottam may have been freed from royal control and allegiance to the vill of Driffield and were now able to sell their produce in the blossoming towns.
7
CRAFT AND INDUSTRY
During the Viking Age the manufacture of basic items such as pottery and iron tools underwent such dramatic changes that it is possible to talk of a ‘first Industrial Revolution’ (Hodges 1989). Industrial production on any scale had disappeared in England before the end of the Roman occupation, although specialised rural crafts had survived under the patronage of kings and later of the Church. Items of fine jewellery circulated as gifts and tribute, rather than being bought and sold in the market-place. Palace sites such as Cheddar also served as centres for craft specialists working in precious metals. Manorial sites often maintained control of rural res
ources, with weaving at Goltho, gold and silverworking at Faccombe Netherton, and mass-produced bone tools at Portchester. As urban markets developed, however, they drew craftsmen to them, and acted as centres for the exchange not only of products, but also of ideas. From the early ninth century there were experiments in methods of manufacture, and a trend towards greater standardization which allowed increased productivity. From the late ninth to early tenth century industrial production was revived across a wide range of crafts.
POTTERY
Pottery is a very durable artefact and will always survive wherever it is used. The development of the pottery industry during the Viking Age provides a useful index to the process of industrialisation.
In the early ninth century, no pottery was used over much of the West Midlands and south-west England. In other areas, including Lincoln, York and London, crude pottery was manufactured locally by hand, without the use of a fast wheel, and fired on a bonfire. Only at Ipswich in East Anglia was kiln-fired pottery produced on an industrial scale and traded both overland and along the coast from Yorkshire to Kent (Hurst 1976).
From the middle decades of the ninth century changes begin to occur at a number of centres. These developments cannot be attributed to Scandinavian settlers as they were underway before their arrival, but the adoption of industrialised wheelthrown production certainly corresponds to those areas of Mercia and the Danelaw which underwent military reorganisation (Mellor 1980;Vince 1985; 1991). They may be associated with increased marketing opportunities developing in the ninth century towns. In late ninth-century York there were the first steps towards a specialised industry with handmade wares now produced in standardised forms and fabrics (Mainman 1990). In East Anglia the Ipswich potters began to use a wheel to make cooking pots in a sandy fabric on a large scale in what is known as the Thetford tradition.
By 900 wheel-thrown pottery was manufactured over much of eastern England. The manufacture of Thetford-type wares soon spread to other East Anglian towns, and tenth-century kilns have been excavated in Pottergate, Norwich and in Thetford itself. York was producing wheel-thrown pottery by the beginning of the tenth century, and Lincoln by the mid-tenth century. In York, wheel-thrown pottery fired at a high temperature developed from the local handmade types. The simple York ware cooking pots could be produced easily by local potters unfamiliar with the wheel, and are the principal domestic ware found at Coppergate throughout the late ninth and early tenth centuries. In the East Midlands, the handmade shelly wares at sites such as Eaton Socon developed into the wheel-thrown St Neots ware. In Wessex industrial pottery production evolved more slowly out of the local handmade tradition. The first results were fairly crude and often finished by hand, but by the mid-tenth century, respectable wheel-thrown pots were being fired in single-flue kilns. The range of forms also increased, with bowls, dishes, lamps and pitchers all being thrown.
South of the Thames and in the north-west, production continued on a small scale with handmade pots fired on a bonfire continuing as the main products well into the tenth century, alongside wheel-thrown forms. Crude handmade pottery reached Cornwall in the ninth century, and continued in use well into the eleventh century. Squat cooking vessels with flat grass-marked bases and distinctive bar-lug handles form most of the assemblage at Gwithian and Mawgan Porth. The style is also found throughout the western Baltic and north Germany and was once thought to be Viking; it has since been suggested that it was introduced by Frisian traders.
By 950 industrial-scale wheel-thrown production had supplanted handmade wares at over 30 centres. This new pottery production was notably town-based: Northampton, Stamford, Stafford, Thetford and Winchester are all examples of new wares which take their names from the towns in which kilns have been discovered. Kilns have been excavated in four of the five Scandinavian boroughs; and their absence at Derby is probably due to the lack of excavation. Stafford ware, or Chester-type ware, as it is sometimes known, was produced at the Tipping Street kilns in Stafford in a Thetford ware tradition from the mid-tenth century, and soon spread throughout the Mercian burhs.
Urban potters may have had difficulty acquiring enough fuel, and for this reason, and because of the risk of fire, many kilns may still have been situated on the edges of towns. The St Neots ware potters still fired their vessels to a fairly low temperature on an open bonfire; elsewhere the single-flue kiln was now widely used. Production normally involved the use of local clays. The reputation of Stamford ware was based upon local estuarine clays found on the Fen margins which did not require additives. At Torksey, where Frankish potters brought by the Danes after their overwintering in 872 began producing a distinctive type of pottery, the fabric was rougher because of the presence of sandy quartz crystals in the local clay. For St Neots ware the clay was tempered with crushed shells.
Decoration might be added to vessels by thumbing, incising, combing, stabbing or rouletting, or by the addition of strips or stamped motifs. Glazing was relatively uncommon and was probably restricted to high-quality luxury items; a number of production sites have now been identified, but the similarities between them suggest that the potters had a common source for their techniques. It may be significant that many of the early glazed-ware production centres are also known for glass manufacture. The potters generally selected white-firing clays, enabling them to achieve a clear yellow or olive-green colour. Experiments in glazing dark reduced wares, such as at Lincoln, tended to be short-lived. Glazed pottery was generally produced according to a restricted range of forms, including spouted pitchers, lamps, and sprinklers.
The most famous pre-Conquest glazed pottery form in England is the spouted pitcher with a pale yellow, orange or green glaze produced from a fine off-white clay at Stamford, and traded throughout England (Kilmurry 1980). The start of pottery production in Stamford coincides with the Scandinavian occupation in the mid-ninth century. As the settlement developed into a town so the pottery production and trade grew. The Stamford potters specialised in four main types of pottery: cooking vessels (small pots and bowls), table wares (for food and drink), lamps, and crucibles. The distribution of their kilns suggests that there were several individual workshops, lying outside the town walls.
The crucibles and fine tableware, pitchers and jugs were exported far afield, but the bulk of Stamford production was of cooking pots which were distributed locally in south Lincolnshire. The Stamford industry may be characterised as a basic industry sustained by a local market which was growing at a rate rapid enough to support an upsurge in production and a shift to an industrial base. Glaze and red paint were used in Stamford from the beginning, in the late ninth century. Their sudden appearance suggests that they may have been introduced by foreign potters working in Stamford. These are unlikely to have been Danes, as the idea originated in northern France or the Low Countries. Nevertheless, its origin should be seen in the context of Viking disruption in north-west Europe, and the potters may have arrived ‘in the Viking baggage train’. With the interaction between Denmark and England during Knutr’s reign, and the consequent free movement of craftsmen, the glazed Stamford ware tradition spread back to Scandinavia.
Experiments with glazing local Lincoln wares in the late ninth century may also be seen as Viking-influenced, but the pottery was unsuitable and the attempts were short-lived (Gilmour 1988). In York there is little evidence for experimentation in glazes on local wares. The Early Glazed wares, which have now been identified in tenth-century levels, are all well produced and hard-fired. They are all of a very small size and may possibly have served some specialist function such as containers for oils or perfumes. The similar development of tenth-century glazed wares at Northampton, Winchester, Portchester and Michelmersh can all be seen as inspired by Stamford, or derived from the same continental origin.
CARPENTRY
The relative abundance of pottery on most sites can lead archaeologists to exaggerate its importance. Other materials which are not found as often may have been just as common at the tim
e. Wood, for example, may have been preferred for plates, bowls and cups; and wooden barrels may have been used for storage and transport. Wooden objects may have been lavishly decorated but rarely survive, a saddle-bow from Coppergate being a rare exception. Where wood survives it is often abundant; at the Saddler Street site, Durham, six wooden vessels were recovered compared with 30 pottery ones.
Timber was used selectively, with a view to the properties of different woods. Evidence from London indicates that a variety of tree-producing land must have existed in southeast England. There must have been large areas of coppiced woodland which was harvested for wattlework, but also large oaks, sometimes up to 1m in diameter, growing in remnants of ancient forest or in former Roman managed plantations (Milne 1992). At Coppergate the post-andwattle structures were predominantly of oak, hazel and willow, whilst oak provided the massive timbers used in the later cellared buildings. Lathe turning was being carried out nearby, as there were large numbers of waste cores; many had been dumped in an abandoned building. Lathe-turned bowls and cups of maple, alder and ash were found (plate 8); indeed, the derivation of the name Coppergate is thought to be ‘the street of the cup-makers’ (Hall 1994). Specialist wood-working tools, including adzes, axes, augers and boring bits, chisels and draw knives have been found on both rural and urban sites and in metalworker’s hoards of scrap iron. The saw, however, was not known until after the Norman Conquest.
BONE, ANTLER, IVORY AND HORN WORKING
Large-scale antler and bone working, and to a lesser extent horn working, seems to be characteristic of Viking Age towns, although it is unclear whether it should be regarded as a craft or an industry (MacGregor 1985). Many of the simple types of object could have been made by anyone, although the more sophisticated combs were probably made by specialists (plate 30). Analysis of the evidence from Sweden concludes that combs were made exclusively by itinerant workers who travelled from one market to another. Antler and bone working certainly seems to have been widespread and evidence has been recovered from Chester, Ipswich, Lincoln, Northampton, Oxford and several York sites, including Coppergate, and York Minster. The distribution of offcuts and waste at Coppergate suggests that there may have been foci of activity in one or two of the buildings at different periods of the site’s history. There is insufficient debris, however, to suggest a long-term settled workshop and it has been suggested that itinerant craftsmen operated from these tenements. Significantly these craftsmen were able to adapt to changing fashions, producing objects decorated in both Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Scandinavian art styles (MacGregor et al. 1999).
Viking Age England Page 11
