by Chris Peers
In practice pattern-welded swords may not have been greatly superior to less sophisticated versions, as the process can make them brittle. But perhaps appearance and function were not easily separated in the minds of potential purchasers: the distinctive appearance of the blade might have served not only as a status symbol but as a sort of quality mark, indicating both to the owner and others the effort and expense which had gone into making it. Good quality swords could be fabulously expensive; one mentioned in the tenth-century will of Earl Aelfgar of Essex, for example, was valued at 120 ‘mancuses’ of gold, or roughly the equivalent of the same number of good plough oxen.
Swords were clearly optimised for cutting or slashing rather than for thrusting. The typical blade of the pre-Viking era was parallel sided for most of its length and had a rounded rather than an acutely pointed tip, though as it was sharpened on both sides it would still be effective for stabbing, at least against an unarmoured target. Perhaps a more important consideration was that Anglo-Saxon pommels, both the decorative gold and garnet designs of the nobles’ expensive weapons and the cheaper, more functional types, were too light to act as counterweights as they did on later medieval swords. This would have made the weapons somewhat blade heavy, and so perhaps more suited to deliberate, powerful cuts than to rapid manoeuvring. This may remind us of the remarks of the eleventh-century Danish writer Saxo Grammaticus, who says that ‘in days of old’ men did not try to beat each other down in a sword fight with a rain of blows, but relied on the force rather than the frequency of their strokes. However, Saxo was referring specifically to a rather ritualised form of single combat, and it is unlikely that men in the heat of battle would have had the time to prepare their blows carefully in this way. More probably what to modern eyes seem unbalanced Anglo-Saxon swords simply required a stronger sword arm to wield, rewarding the practice needed to master them with the ability to deliver cuts of devastating force.
Another weapon commonly associated with the Anglo-Saxons is the knife or ‘seax’, which is generally believed to have given the Saxons their name. Most of the seaxes found in England, however, have blades of fourteen inches or less, and look like general-purpose knives rather than weapons of war. Early types had single-edged but symmetrical blades with rounded tips, but by the sixth century a variant appeared with a sharply angled back, or even a reverse-curved tip like a Bowie knife. If the tip was sharpened on both sides in the manner of a modern Bowie knife this would have made the seax a more effective stabbing weapon, but such short blades can only have been used in combat as a last resort by a man who had lost his spear or sword. In the eighth century seaxes began to appear which were of similar design but much longer, approaching the length of short swords. Still single edged, but with relatively broad, heavy blades, these could have been very effective cutting and thrusting weapons, reminiscent of the later medieval falchion. Stephen Pollington has even suggested that some long-hilted seaxes could have been used two-handed, though he admits that this tactic is difficult to reconcile with the use of a shield.
Like the seax, the axe in this period was basically an agricultural or woodworking implement, with a limited application to warfare. The famous ‘axe-hammer’ from Sutton Hoo looks more like a tool than a weapon, perhaps connected with the maintenance of the ship it was buried with. Fifth- and sixth-century finds – for example from Burgh Castle in Norfolk – occasionally include the remains of axes with narrow curved heads which have been interpreted as belonging to throwing axes of the type used by the Franks (Underwood). The two-handed axes familiar from the Bayeux tapestry were a much later development, adopted under Scandinavian influence in the eleventh century. However, despite Henry of Huntingdon’s probably anachronistic description of the West Saxon champion Aethelhun wielding one at the Battle of Beorhford in 752, there is no reliable evidence that the axe played a significant part in the wars of the Mercian era.
Apart from thrown spears, missile weapons included bows and possibly slings; the latter have left no archaeological trace, but the ‘Life of Saint Wilfred’ (Stephanus) describes one being used to kill a pagan priest in a passage with very obvious echoes of David and Goliath. Unfortunately archaeology can shed little more light on Anglo-Saxon archery, because the wooden bows themselves were perishable and the iron arrowheads are difficult to identify, the larger ones being easily mistaken for small spearheads.
It is often assumed, without much supporting evidence, that the early English despised the bow as a weapon of war, and that it was used mainly by the lower classes for hunting. This idea probably derives from Henry of Huntingdon, who quotes William the Conqueror as telling his men before the Battle of Hastings that the English were ‘a people that does not even possess arrows’. Even for Harold’s army of 1066, however, this is suspect, as a general’s pep talk on the eve of a battle can hardly be taken as evidence for his enemy’s real capabilities! In fact an unprejudiced investigation lends weight to the idea that the English not only used the bow in war, but used it to considerable effect. It is obvious from one of the riddles preserved in the well-known Exeter Book that the bow was an implement with which most people would have been familiar, and it is noteworthy that this text describes it being used against men and not as a hunting weapon.
The scene on the lid of the Franks casket shows an archer defending himself successfully from within a building against a group of assailants advancing from outside; one of them is already down with an arrow protruding from his chest, while one of his companions has two arrows in his shield and seems about to be hit in the head by another. Three other dead or wounded figures may represent further victims of the same archer, who appears to be labelled with the name ‘Aegil’ or ‘Aegili’. Numerous attempts to identify a historical or legendary prototype for this dramatic picture have been unsuccessful, and Professor Swanton suggests that it may represent a small-scale skirmish which was of personal significance for the owner or commissioner of the box, but too commonplace to have been recorded in historical sources (Swanton, 1998). The casket is obviously an expensive item, and if Aegil the archer was its owner it shows that even high-ranking warriors did not disdain the bow. Wiglaf’s eulogy for Beowulf describes his career in terms which suggest that being shot at with arrows was a typical experience in war: ‘. . . the sustainer of the warriors, who often endured the iron shower, when, string-driven, the storm of arrows sang over shield-wall.’
The poem on the Battle of Maldon is admittedly much later than our period, but there is no reason to suppose that tactics had changed significantly by the late tenth century. It contains three references to archery, including the account of the presumably high-ranking Northumbrian hostage Aescferth, who ‘wavered not at the war-play, but, while he might, shot steadily from his sheaf of arrows.’ In the later Middle Ages certain counties in northern and central England – Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Lancashire and especially Cheshire – were noted for their skilled archers, and it has been suggested that this regional specialisation might date back to Anglo-Saxon times (Bradbury). There is little real evidence for this, but if it was the case we might expect Mercian and perhaps Northumbrian armies to have made more use of the bow than their southern rivals. It is perhaps significant that the one archer who is singled out by name in The Battle of Maldon is a Northumbrian.
The performance of the bow has probably been subject to more misconceptions than any other aspect of medieval warfare, and the idea is still sometimes put forward that before the introduction of the ‘longbow’ in the thirteenth century archery was relatively ineffective. In fact there is archaeological evidence for powerful bows in England as far back as the Neolithic period. The remains found at Nydam, and an eighth-century weapon from Oberflacht in Swabia, show that early medieval bows could also be just as long and powerful as those from later centuries, and that yew, the preferred wood for longbows, was already in common use. An Anglo-Saxon-period bow from Chessel Down on the Isle of Wight was about five feet long, which is at the lower end
of the size range for longbows, but bow lengths were tailored to the height of the archer and so were always highly variable (Pollington). Some authors, while conceding that Anglo-Saxon bows were not inherently weak, continue to downgrade their importance by arguing that they were drawn to the chest, and not to the chin or the ear as was customary in later centuries. This conclusion seems to be based on the figure on the Franks casket and the archers on the Bayeux tapestry, including the only example there of an Englishman with a bow, who are using very short weapons drawn rather awkwardly to their chests or stomachs. In fact this style of depicting archers was quite common throughout the Middle Ages, and was probably adopted for aesthetic reasons, so that the arrows and bowstrings would not obscure the men’s faces (Strickland and Hardy). It is unwise to use it as evidence for real-life practice, which would imply that men made and used these powerful weapons in life-or-death situations for thousands of years, without ever discovering minor changes in shooting technique which would have greatly increased their effectiveness.
Defensive Equipment
A warrior’s first line of defence against the weaponry arrayed against him was always his shield. As with the spear, its importance is demonstrated by its appearance in poetry, where a battle line was often described as a ‘bordweall’ or ‘scyldburh’, both terms usually translated into modern English as ‘shieldwall’. The shield was circular, made of wood (traditionally linden or lime wood, although excavated remains show that many different types of wood were used in practice), and reinforced with an iron boss in the centre. It was held by a single central grip behind the boss, which served both as protection for the hand and as a weapon in its own right, capable of being punched into an opponent’s face. The boss evolved over time, with seventh-century examples being taller and more pointed than earlier versions, perhaps to enhance their effectiveness in this aggressive role. There was sometimes an iron ‘button’ on the point of the boss which could have had the function of trapping or deflecting an enemy’s weapon.
The wooden shield board itself varied in size, with some examples not much more than twelve inches across, though most were between twice and three times that in diameter. It has been claimed that English shields were originally slightly smaller than those found on the Continent, but became larger as time went on. This trend has even been used as evidence for a change in tactics, the idea being that smaller shields are better suited to individual skirmishing tactics, and bigger ones to close-formation ‘shieldwall’ fighting (Harke, in Hawkes). All this is highly speculative, however, as no actual shields from England survive, and estimating their dimensions from the positions of bosses and other fittings found in graves may give unrepresentative results. The shields on the Franks casket, as well as two depicted on a plaque from the Staffordshire Hoard which probably formed part of a helmet, are fairly small, probably between eighteen inches and two feet in diameter, but of course they may have been shown undersize for artistic reasons, in order not to obscure the human subjects.
The wooden part of the shield was made of a number of planks cut to shape, glued together and further strengthened with leather, which might be just a binding round the edge or, more commonly, a complete covering on the front, back or both. That the leather made an important contribution to the defensive value of a shield as well as just holding the boards together is implied by a tenth-century law of King Athelstan, which penalised men who presented themselves with shields covered in inferior sheepskin instead of the preferred cow hide. This has been confirmed by modern experiments, which showed that ‘a layer of rawhide was the key to the shield being at all effective’ against a sword cut (Loades). Rivets and metal plates were often added, either to strengthen the wood further or simply for decoration. Contemporary illustrations sometimes depict shields as convex in shape, a design which would provide slightly better protection for the body than a flat surface, and offer significantly greater resistance to the rippling motion of the wooden boards in response to a blow. It is usually assumed that English shields would be painted, as some Viking ones were, but this is not certain. Shields in Beowulf are described as yellow, but this may simply refer to a leather covering bleached by exposure to the elements. There is no evidence in this period for a system of heraldic designs which might have served to identify important men, or even for uniform shield colours or patterns within a unit, though a passage in The Battle of Maldon describes Earl Byrhtnoth raising his shield before making a speech, which implies that it somehow marked him out as a leader.
It is very difficult to determine how common defensive armour was in seventh- and eighth-century armies. Beowulf and his followers all wear helmets and mail coats, by which they are recognised as warriors when they arrive in Hrothgar’s kingdom, but these are heroes, and their equipment, like their exploits, can be expected to be larger than life. There are only four surviving Anglo-Saxon helmets, all dated to the seventh or eighth centuries; the Staffordshire Hoard includes parts of at least another one which still awaits reconstruction, though as the excavated pieces of this item are made of gold and silver rather than iron it may have been more ceremonial than functional.
As in the case of weapons this bias towards the early part of the period may be due to the pagan habit of burying war gear in graves, though the idea that this practice ceased immediately after the conversion seems to be too simplistic. The earliest and best-known example of Anglo-Saxon headgear is the helmet from Sutton Hoo, which is generally supposed to have belonged to the early-seventh-century King Raedwald of the East Angles (see pages 80 to 83). The workmanship and elaborate decoration of this piece, as reconstructed by archaeologists at the British Museum, certainly befits a king, but it is by no means certain that all the other helmets belonged to men of such high rank. The four which have been reconstructed are all of different design. The Sutton Hoo specimen seems to have been inspired by Roman cavalry helmets, and consists of a one-piece metal bowl with attached neck guard, cheek pieces and full face mask. The face plate may have been more common than this single excavated example suggests, as two words used for helmets in Beowulf, ‘grimhelm’ and ‘heregrima’, incorporate a term meaning ‘mask’.
The Benty Grange helmet, discovered in a burial mound near Buxton in Derbyshire in 1848, has been dated to the middle of the seventh century, a time and place which suggest that it may have been worn by one of the gesiths of Penda’s army. It is made from plates of horn, fastened together and reinforced with iron bands, and lacks cheek pieces or a face plate, though it does have a short nasal. On the top of the helmet is a crest consisting of a bronze boar, decorated with gold and garnet and with a slot along the top to hold a strip of horsehair or similar material. These crests are also mentioned in written sources, and had a number of functions. As a symbol of the pagan gods the boar might have offered supernatural protection, but more practically it could deflect a sword cut aimed at the crown; Beowulf was said to have possessed a helmet with a crest bound with wire, which made it impossible for a sword to injure him. It is also likely that a distinctive crest would serve to identify a leader in battle. Another interesting feature of the Benty Grange helmet is a silver cross on the nasal, which despite the boar crest and the pagan style of burial implies that its owner was a Christian, and intended to be recognised as such in battle. On the other hand a member of Penda’s multi-cultural army may have seen no inconsistency in wearing protective charms from as many different religions as possible.
A helmet discovered in 1997 at Wollaston in Northamptonshire also dates from around the middle of the seventh century. Like the Benty Grange example it is constructed of plates riveted to metal bands, though in this case the plates are iron, and cheek pieces were attached by hinges. It has an undecorated iron boar crest, and in general appears plain and functional, with no trace of garnet or precious-metal inlay. The latest helmet to be excavated is probably late eighth century, and was found at Coppergate in York in the 1980s. It is similar in construction to the Wollaston specimen, with the apparent
addition of a mail aventail at the back, but is better made and more finely decorated.
There is abundant literary and archaeological evidence, discussed below, that blows aimed at the head were a common cause of death and injury in Anglo-Saxon battles, so we would expect head protection of some sort to have been fairly common. The shortage of archaeological remains is therefore surprising. At first glance the inventory of the Staffordshire Hoard – one helmet compared to about eighty-six sword pommels – appears to give a rough idea of the proportion of men who might wear such protection, and this is probably not inconsistent with the frequency of excavated helmets generally. However, this almost certainly overstates their rarity, and the existence of plainer varieties such as the Wollaston example suggests that they were not restricted to kings and high-ranking nobles. Helmets are mentioned several times in Beowulf (though usually in the context of being cut through by sword blows, which casts some doubt on the usefulness of cheaper designs). In the passage describing a surprise attack on the hall by Grendel’s mother we are told that the warriors seized their swords and shields, but helmets and mail coats were ignored (‘helm ne gemunde’), obviously because there was no time to put them on. Beowulf is a work of fiction, but it was intended to be read in just such a hall as is described here, and the implication is that the audience would expect some, if not all, of the defenders to have had helmets and armour available, and would need an explanation of why they were not used.
