Viking Age England

by Julian D Richards

  This boom in the construction of churches was a byproduct of the new landowners’ quest for status. The possession of a church was an important status symbol, as well as a source of income. Noblemen also attempted to acquire burial rights for their churches, reserved until then by the old minster churches, so that their families could be buried on their estates, in the same way that pagan cemeteries had developed around ancestral graves. The new churches were therefore normally attached to the manorial residence, as at Raunds, where the church was built adjacent to the manorial enclosure. A survey within the Archdeaconry of Colchester has revealed that out of a total of 29 churches of definite Saxon origin, 19 are alongside later manorial halls.

  Church foundations therefore frequently pre-date the development of the village, although as the manorial churches acquired burial and baptismal rights they also acquired the functions of a parish church. In many areas the modern parish boundaries may preserve the pre-Conquest manorial boundaries. The ecclesiastical dues derived from the performance of burial and baptism would frequently have supported a parish priest, which in turn brought about significant changes in the organisation of Christianity as the priests were now brought into daily face-to-face contact with their parishioners.

  Most of the manorial churches were new buildings, although some were adapted from existing minster or monastic sites. Many probably began as wooden buildings, but from the eleventh century most were soon transformed into impressive stone edifices. Richard Gem (1988) has argued for a ‘great rebuilding’ in stone of churches beginning during the reign of Edward the Confessor, but continuing until the twelfth century. The new churches generally started as simple small rectangular boxes providing a nave only, although chancels were often added later. At Wharram Percy there is some evidence to suggest that an eighth- or ninth-century minster or monastery may have fallen into disuse as a result of Viking disruption. A small timber church was established on a new site in the tenth century (plate 33), perhaps as a private chapel of an Anglo-Scandinavian lord. This was enlarged in the eleventh century by a small two-celled church consisting of a nave and chancel. The church became a focus for burials of the early lords of the Percy manor, and later of the parish (Bell et al. 1987).

  At Raunds Furnells (Northamptonshire) a small singlecelled late ninth- or tenth-century church was erected on a stone foundation adjacent to the manorial enclosure (Boddington 1996). Initially this tiny chapel was without a graveyard and provides an example of the seigneurial provision of a church as one of the key attributes of those seeking the status of a thegn. The church acquired burial rights during the tenth century and an enclosure ditch was cut defining a rectangular graveyard, 30m x 40m. The addition of a graveyard may also reflect the rising status of the owner, and an early grave under a decorated stone slab, perhaps with a stone cross at its head, is a good contender for the founder’s grave. At this stage a chancel was also added to the church and excavation has revealed a clergy bench within the chancel, a canopied altar at the east end of the nave and, in front of the altar, a sacrarium, a pottery vessel placed in the floor to serve as a piscina or soakaway for holy water. A wooden bellcote stood against the west wall. By now the church must have served a broader community than those who occupied the manor house itself, and it has been suggested that the cemetery was drawn from a population of about 40, including a range of social status (chapter 10). In the late eleventh or early twelfth century this building was replaced by a larger church, 15m long, presumably to accommodate a larger congregation using this as their parish church. The Domesday Book records the transfer of the manor from Burgred to the Bishop of Coutances at the Norman Conquest. The rebuilding of the church, levelling of the graveyard (chapter 10) and rough treatment of Saxon crosses may correspond to this transfer of ownership.

  Many of the new churches were founded by Scandinavian lords. The sequestration of monastic estates in the Danelaw may even have facilitated the creation of local churches as some minsters lost control of their territories. At several Yorkshire sites the lords chose to record their benefactions in a prominent position on the church sundial, for all to read (Wall 1997; Watts et al. 1997). At Aldborough (North Yorkshire) the Old English inscription records that ‘Ulf ordered the church to be put up for himself and for Gunwaru’s soul.’ At St Gregory’s Minster, Kirkdale (North Yorkshire), it commemorates that another lord with a Norse name, Orm, bought the redundant minster and erected a new church on its site during 1055-65. Excavations have revealed a number of graves in the field to the north of the present churchyard, under ridge and furrow plough soil containing eleventh and twelfth-century pottery. Burials excavated on either side of the tower were on a different alignment from that of the present church, but were on a similar alignment to those excavated in the field, suggesting a major reorganisation of the site and contraction of the churchyard, possibly associated with the eleventh-century takeover and rebuilding (Rahtz and Watts 1998).

  13 Sundial, St Gregory’s Minster, Kirkdale. The inscription records that ‘Orm, son of Gamal, acquired the church of St Gregory when it was tumbled and ruined, and had it rebuilt from the ground in honour of Christ and St Gregory, in the days of Edward the King and Tosti the Earl’. The sundial shows the day divided into eight tides of three hours each. Lines mark the middle of the tides; it also has an extra line marking the start of the morning tide at 7.30 a.m., no doubt the time at which Mass was held

  URBAN CHURCHES

  There was a similar boom in church building in the towns. These new churches were linked to the wealth of towns and the presence of an urban aristocracy. Many were simple single-cell structures, functioning as private household chapels for urban ‘estates’; others may have been founded by groups of citizens. They were sometimes slow to acquire burial and other parochial rights, which were preserved by the urban minsters. Churches proliferated in towns such as Lincoln, London, York, Norwich and Winchester, although their number may be linked to the number of estates and the wealth of local lords rather than the size of population. In London there were 30 churches by the Norman Conquest; in Norwich there were 24. Most were sited on former domestic tenements in prominent positions on street frontages and particularly at the junctions of major streets. Recorded property disputes reveal that urban churches were treated as private property which could be inherited or bought and sold. Simple rectangular stone structures representing eleventh-century urban churches have been excavated at the site of St Mark’s, Lincoln (Gilmour and Stocker 1986); St Nicholas Shambles, London (White 1988); and, perhaps of the tenth century, St Helen-on-the-Walls, York (Magilton 1980). Excavations at Lower Brook Street in Winchester uncovered two small churches close together; St Mary’s occupied a small plot alongside the street, while St Pancras was away from the main street, behind the yards and approached by a path. Urban churches had their own favoured locations, such as adjacent to a market or beside a town gate.

  Many urban churches may also have been founded by Scandinavian settlers. There are churches dedicated to the Norwegian saint, Olaf, in Chester, York, Exeter, Norwich, Southwark, Chichester, Grimsby and London. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records for 1055 that ‘In this year passed away earl Siward at York, and he was buried in Galmanho in the church which he himself had built and consecrated in the name of God and [St] Olaf’. At St Mary Castlegate, York, a late tenth- or early eleventh-century dedication stone reveals that two of the church’s patrons had Norse names. In Denmark, dedications to St Clement, the patron saint of sailors, became popular after the conversion. In England there is a preponderance of St Clement dedications in the east and south-east, particularly in urban areas. Barbara Crawford has argued that these frequently represent eleventh-century garrison churches, established by Knutr’s Scandinavian military elite. Many are at strategic locations, near river crossing points or town gates. St Clement Danes, London, is located outside the west entrance to the city on the route to Westminster, and probably close to the Danish royal residence.

  In both town an
d country, therefore, the Viking Age witnessed church foundation on a massive scale and the crystallisation of the parish system. Changes in ecclesiastical structure mirror those in land ownership. The monopoly of the monasteries and minsters was broken as the old estates were fragmented. New secular landowners sought to demonstrate their power and wealth by the construction of private churches. Later they would tend to endow a chapel within an existing church, but for the present each manor had its own chapel, which would be used for burial. Such displays were not confined to Saxon lords, and Viking settlers competed to demonstrate their authority. Indeed, the changes in land ownership which led to this spate of church building may have been a direct consequence of the Scandinavian settlement.

  10

  DEATH AND BURIAL

  It is one of the most remarkable aspects of Viking Age England that despite several centuries of Scandinavian settlement there are very few Viking graves. As testament of an earlier invasion of pagan Anglo-Saxon immigrants, there are vast communal cemeteries, each one containing hundreds and even thousands of cremations, and inhumation cemeteries of warriors and their women laid out with their weaponry and dressed in their folk costume. Yet for the ninth and tenth centuries there are less than 25 known burial sites in England which have been described as Scandinavian, and the majority of these comprise single burials, frequently accompanied by only one or two artefacts.

  In Scandinavia, on the other hand, there was a revival of elaborate burial rites in the Viking Age, as Paganism came into conflict with Christianity. In the areas from which the Vikings came there was no standard burial custom and there seems to have been a wide variety of local practices. The dead were either inhumed or cremated with their possessions, and sometimes placed in coffins, or in a burial chamber, or on a bier of some sort. There were great ship burials, such as those discovered at Oseberg and Gokstad in Norway, but there is no evidence that ships were ever set alight and floated out to sea. Warriors were often buried with their horse and weapons (although not their armour, as once dead they could be killed any number of times without further harm!). Well-to-do females would be laid out with their jewellery, and sometimes a wagon to take them to the next world. Sacrificial offerings of food and drink, and even human slaves, have also been found. Provision was being made for a further life of feasting and fighting in Valhalla.

  The presence of grave-goods has often been interpreted as indicating a pagan custom and such accompanied burials have frequently been described as Viking. However, if the various candidates for Scandinavian burial in England are mapped (14) then it is apparent that there are at least two distinct trends. In north-west England and Cumbria there is a cluster of burials, sometimes under mounds and frequently with an assortment of weapons. These burials should really be seen as part of a distribution of Norse burials in the areas bordering on the Irish Sea; they reflect a similar culture to that known from the Isle of Man where there is a relatively large number of highly visible Norse burials. A number of possible outliers to this group can be found spreading across the Pennines to the Viking Kingdom of York, where they become intermingled with less characteristically Norse burials.

  By contrast, in those areas of lowland England which became known as the Danelaw there are very few strong candidates for Scandinavian burials. With the exception of the cemeteries at Repton and Heath Wood, Ingleby, the rest of the Viking burial corpus comprises a handful of burials in churchyards and other Late Saxon cemeteries which have been singled out as unusual because they have been accompanied by artefacts.

  14 Map of Viking accompanied burials in England

  SCANDINAVIAN-STYLE BURIALS IN ENGLAND

  Ben Edwards has catalogued Viking burials in the north-west, and the following description is based upon his discussion (1998), and on earlier accounts by Cowen (1948; 1967) and Shetelig (1940). Many of these burials were investigated in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; the finds have often been lost, and we must often rely upon unreliable antiquarian accounts of their discovery.

  A mound at Beacon Hill, Aspatria (Cumbria), some 9m in diameter, was examined in the late eighteenth century and found to contain a stone cist or chamber, comprising six stones, within which was a skeleton. The finds were published in 1792 and although they have subsequently been lost we can be fairly certain that the grave contained a skeleton with a sword with a silver encrusted hilt and a spearhead with a decorated silver socket. In addition, an ordinary axe is illustrated and ‘pieces of a shield’ are referred to in the description of the find. More unusual is the presence of a gold buckle and a strap-end of Carolingian type, confirming the high status of the deceased, further underlined by an iron horse-bit and spur.

  At Hesket-in-the-Forest (Cumbria) a layer of charcoal, bones and ashes with several grave-goods was found in 1822 lying on a bed of sand under a cairn, 7m in diameter (plate 18). All the burnt bones were of animals which had been cremated as part of the burial rite; there was no trace of a human skeleton. The weapons had been deliberately damaged. The sword and spears were bent; the shield had been broken in two; the sword had been deliberately bent back twice on itself by heating and hammering, rendering it useless. Horse and weapons may also have been thrown on the cremation pyre as it was reported that the sword, shield boss and horse-bit were all burnt. There was also an axe head, a pair of spurs, a fine unburnt comb with its protective comb case, a sickle and a whetstone.

  A third mound burial was also discovered in 1822 at Claughton Hall, Garstang (Lancashire), when a small sand mound was cut through in the course of road building. The objects comprised a pair of gilt copper alloy oval brooches, apparently wrapped up back-to-back in cloth and encasing two beads and a molar tooth, a Carolingian silver mount re-used as a brooch, and various iron objects, including a sword, spear, axe and hammer (plate 35). This may have been a double burial of male and female, but it is more likely that the burial was male and the brooches enclosed a ritual deposit of various amulets or keepsakes. There may have been a wooden chamber below the surface but the finds also included a Bronze Age axe hammer and a pot containing a cremation, now lost, so the finds from Claughton may represent another Scandinavian cremation, or secondary usage of a prehistoric barrow.

  A small number of other sites in the north-west have also been advanced as Scandinavian burials, but only that at Eaglesfield (Cumbria) is likely to have been a mound burial. A skeleton accompanied by a sword, a spearhead (described as a ‘halberd’), and possibly a ring-headed cloak pin (described as a ‘fibula’) was found on the limestone crags in 1814.

  Outside Cumbria, Scandinavian barrow burials are extremely rare in England. At Cambois, Bedlington (Northumberland), three bodies were found in a cist-grave in a mound (Alexander 1987). One was a female, aged 45-60; the other two were males, the first in his twenties, and the second in his forties. The only grave-goods were an enamelled disc brooch and a bone comb. Lack of weapons perhaps suggests that these may have been relatively peaceful landowners; they are certainly a Viking Age elite in an area with little other evidence for their presence. Further south, a sword and spear buried with a skeleton in a natural hill at Camphill, near Bedale (North Yorkshire), may represent the choice of a natural prominence for a burial to avoid erecting a mound. There is an antiquarian report that in 1723 a skeleton, horse bit and an iron knife with a bone handle were found in the middle of the top of Silbury Hill (Wiltshire), but the finds are now lost and this is impossible to date to the Viking Age. Another possible Viking mound burial has been identified at Hook Norton (Oxfordshire), where skeletons were found associated with a late ninth-century coin hoard (Biddle and Blair 1987).

  Such individual burials represent a distinct tradition of Scandinavian pagan burial which is parallelled especially in Norway, and examples of which are also found in the Northern and Western Isles of Scotland, as well as the Isle of Man. This north-west group reflects uncontrolled isolated burial away from churchyards and outside the control of authority. Such burials often seek to become part of
the landscape, frequently by the use of mounds, which are generally interpreted as reflecting claims to land, and the evocation of ancient traditions. There are other candidates for single burials which must also represent pagan Scandinavian practice, and which may once have been marked by mounds or some other distinctive feature, although no structural evidence survives. Stirrups, shears, horseshoe and prickspur were found in 1884 near Magdalen Bridge in Oxford. Originally thought to have been casual losses they have recently been reinterpreted as the remains of a Viking warrior and his horse, buried on an island in the Cherwell around 1000, although this interpretation must still be regarded as disputed. The horseshoe and a third small stirrup are seen as later intrusive objects but two larger stirrups with brass overlay, the prick-spur and shears are each seen as consistent with a pattern of late tenth-century equestrian burials in Jutland. If so then this is one of the last furnished warrior burials known from England. The man may have belonged to one of the armies that raided the region in the 990s, or even to Svein Forkbeard’s army which attacked Oxford in 1009 and 1013. It may be significant that the burial site is close to St Clement’s, the possible site of a Knutr-period Danish ‘garrison’ (Blair and Crawford 1997).