Barbarians- Secrets of the Dark Ages

by Richard Rudgley

  In 1975-6 a reconstruction of the old view of the Grubenhaus was made. It was soon found that apart from the practical difficulties of living down in a pit, there were other problems – particularly with the rapid decay of the part of the thatched roof in contact with the ground. A different reconstructed Grubenhaus had also been made at the site. It was based on the hypothesis that the early Anglo-Saxon house basically had a floor at ground level and a pit beneath that. Over time it became clear that this latter was a much more convincing reconstruction than the more primitive one envisioned by earlier generations of archaeologists working purely from theory. In this instance, the reconstruction of early Anglo-Saxon buildings was also a rehabilitation of Anglo-Saxon abilities and cultural sophistication. They were not the ignorant savages that they had been portrayed as being for far too long.

  Wood was the material par excellence in the northern tradition of house building. The 'poor' Anglo-Saxon housing was for a long time perceived as a real Dark Ages fall from the grace of Roman building techniques. This is simply to misunderstand the nature of the northern technological traditions. Wood was the most plentiful and practical building material, and it is absurd to think that after using it for countless generations the northern people who became the Anglo-Saxons did not have a mastery of this material, and could construct only draughty and rickety buildings. The Nydam boat shows the high degree of practical skill that existed in the northern shipyards. If they could make boats of this technical level they were hardly likely to lack similar abilities in the building of their own dwellings and workshops.

  The surviving evidence indicates that the various crafts and industrial activities that took place in and around the village (weaving, pot-making, bone-working, smithing and so on) were all for servicing their own needs. They were probably not entirely self-sufficient and were certainly not cut off from the outside world. Exotic goods of various kinds found their way even to this quiet Anglo-Saxon village. Cowrie shells from the Red Sea or the Indian Ocean and brooches in the Frankish style were among the women's fashion items. The ubiquitous Germanic bone comb also inevitably turned up among the material remains from the village.

  West Stow must have been integrated into a loose-knit skein of villages, all probably under the jurisdiction of a local chieftain to whom the villagers would literally pay tribute. This in turn would have linked it to the much wider network of the kingdom of East Anglia. There is little in the archaeology to suggest that these were violent times for the villagers. Stability is demonstrated by the continuous occupation of the same site for 200 years or more. Two of the most complete pictures we have of the world of the early Anglo-Saxon people in England come from Lakenheath and West Stow. The picture that is emerging is not one of violent and savage destruction but of technical ability and stable and secure village life. Another site much further to the north tells us even more about the lives and deaths of the Anglo-Saxons.

  West Heslerton: Virtual Landscape of the Angles

  Like Stanley West, who excavated at West Stow on and off for a quarter of a century, Dominic Powlesland spent many years directing excavations at the site of West Heslerton, on the edge of the Vale of Pickering, North Yorkshire. For both archaeologists, a single site proved endlessly challenging and fascinating, changing every time something more was unearthed, something new understood. In Powlesland's case, he went on to study the computerised data base, creating a virtual West Heslerton that is as useful for reconstructing the Anglo-Saxon past as the houses and other buildings put up at West Stow.

  Powlesland is one of the archaeologists who maintain that the standard picture of the Anglo-Saxons is a long way from the truth. Just as the Romans and other imperial powers denigrated their contemporaries as 'barbarians' or 'pagans', so archaeologists of the past were mostly members of the Establishment and as such tended to project their prejudices back into the Dark Ages. They were particularly dismissive of the pagan Anglo-Saxons, believing paganism to be a sign of a primitive cultural level. In contrast, they exalted the Roman era in Britain as a Golden Age of civilisation and learning. Yet, as Dominic Powlesland put it in conversation with me, the Romans weren't that golden and the pagans weren't that primitive.

  One of the problems with the Anglo-Saxons has been that although numerous cemeteries have come to light, few associated settlements have been found. Much more is known about the way they died than the way they lived. But among the sites that can show us both aspects of their culture, West Heslerton is one of the most important and certainly the most meticulously documented. Using the most sophisticated computerised system of recording the data from the site, Dominic Powlesland has created a state-of-the-art model for future archaeologists to emulate. It is, by his own admission, the most sophisticated use of computer technology in archaeology anywhere in the world.

  The north of England has been seen as the place where the Angles rather than Saxons or other Germanic peoples chose to settle. The Anglo-Saxon (or Anglian) cemetery and settlement at West Heslerton was found by accident, as so many sites are, as a result of industrial quarrying. During the autumn of 1977, sand was being quarried when a burial became exposed. Luckily, Jim Carter, the quarry worker who found it, had previously worked on other archaeological digs and informed the local archaeology unit. Work then began at the site and continued until 1987. It is the most complete settlement and cemetery of an Early to Middle Anglo-Saxon period to have been excavated in England. The whole site turned out to be over 8,000 square metres (86,000 square feet), of which 6,000 square metres (64,000 square feet) were thoroughly excavated; the rest of it lies under the A46 trunk road that bisects the site.

  Long before the Angles came to this part of the world, the site was used as a ceremonial centre by people of the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age periods. It will be remembered that the Bronze Age burial mound at Lakenheath was incorporated by the Anglo-Saxon community into their cemetery. The choice that the Angles made at West Heslerton may indicate that they too wanted to associate themselves with the indigenous past. For whatever reasons, they identified more closely with the prehistoric rather than the Roman past.

  In prehistory at least ten people had been buried and three cremated in what was for its makers a sacred zone. The Anglian cemetery was founded in the late fifth century in the midst of this prehistoric ritual complex consisting of barrows, an enclosure and a number of round barrows. The Anglians continued to use the cemetery until the early seventh century. West Stow and West Heslerton were therefore contemporary. Dominic Powlesland and his team excavated and documented 201 burials, mostly inhumations but also some cremations. Study of the physical remains has revealed two distinct physical groups: the majority were shorter and of stockier build while the minority (about 20 per cent) were taller and gracile and were buried with their weapons.

  It seems that the taller people were of southern Scandinavian origin and were therefore Anglians, while the rest were indigenous Britons. Whether the evidence from the cemetery indicates a small force of Anglians dominating the local people, or whether it actually shows small groups of Scandinavian migrants integrating themselves with the locals, is impossible to say. Invasion and violence are not indicated by the human remains. None of the many burials contains evidence that the deceased had suffered a violent death or traumatic injuries likely to have been caused by warfare.

  What is clear is that the material culture from the site is unequivocally Anglian, with strong links to Scandinavia. Numerous brooches, beads, pendants, buckles and belt fittings gave the archaeologists plenty of material to compare with finds from both elsewhere in England and on the continent. Powlesland is very keen that people do not jump to premature conclusions when looking at the artefacts. He makes an analogy with our own times: just because you use a Japanese computer does not mean that you are Japanese. If you took the number of Japanese computers in England today as an indicator of the presence of Japanese people, then you would conclude that there were many living here, whereas in fact the
percentage of Japanese people living here is very low. If you accept things too readily at face value, false conclusions are not far behind.

  We can also add to this example of the computer. Not only does the widespread presence of Japanese computers in England not automatically demonstrate the presence of Japanese people – neither does it show that those who use the computers have any knowledge of the Japanese language or even have even the remotest interest in Japanese culture. People use Japanese computers for utilitarian reasons, not because they are Japanese themselves or wish to adopt Japanese ways.

  The computer is of course a different kind of object from a brooch. The first is mainly practical, the second is mainly decorative. However, wearing a brooch of Scandinavian origin does not necessarily mean that you are trying to become Scandinavian in a wider cultural sense – you may simply like the brooch. Yet whatever the reason, it is clear that the inhabitants of West Heslerton, including the indigenous people, preferred Anglian dress, fashions and designs. They also adopted their burial practices. In life and death the Anglian influence was paramount. Some of the burials turned out to be a big surprise.

  Some of the burials that have items typically found in male graves have female remains in them. The discovery of a woman buried with two spears is certainly not the norm at West Heslerton, and it raises some interesting questions by challenging our stereotypes. We cannot say with certainty that she was an Amazon, or female warrior. The weapons, like many that are found in graves, do not seem to have seen much action. They may be better explained as symbols of rank rather than arms as such.

  There are also some unusual burials of men with objects traditionally found in female graves – brooches, beads and items that are usually described as purses but which Dominic Powlesland says are really more like large handbags. Shamans have been known to dress in the clothing of the opposite sex, though a modern interpretation might be tempted to consider transvestism. Which of these is the most likely is an open question, but the fact that these burials (both the woman with spears and the men with handbags) were in the main cemetery with the more ordinary burials shows that these individuals had not been spurned by their communities. Had they been outcasts, surely their mortal remains would have been deposited beyond the boundaries of the community.

  The settlement was probably a fairly typical Anglian village in its time, and the excavation has done much to change archaeologists' views about Anglo-Saxon villages. The reconstruction work at West Stow has helped to show how knowledgeable the people were at building in wood. Even as recently as twenty years ago the view was that a typical Anglo-Saxon settlement consisted of a few shifting farmsteads that gradually evolved then moved on to a new location every few years. This preconception seems to echo what Tacitus says about the shifting farming practices of the ancient Germans. West Heslerton shows that their villages were large, well-organised and stable communities. There is no sign whatsoever that they were eking out a miserable living any more than they were living in holes in the ground. The population was probably around a hundred, which is what the present-day village of West Heslerton (just down the road from the site) would have been about twenty years ago. A village population of a hundred people would have consisted of probably something like six to ten extended families. Only one or two of these would have been of Scandinavian origin. Overall, the population of the Vale of Pickering and the number of villages in it was probably the same in Anglo-Saxon times as it is today.

  The village community in some ways echoes that of West Stow. It was well organised and there are no real signs of great differences in wealth or status among the inhabitants. But, as seems to have been the case at West Stow, beyond the confines of the village there was probably some regional leader to whom they paid homage. There are two main types of buildings: the Grubenhaus type of continental origin and post-hole buildings (rather like the 'halls' at West Stow) that seem to be a local development.

  There is a surprising degree of uniformity in the buildings from the various excavated Anglo-Saxon settlements. The buildings from sites in Hampshire, Suffolk or Northumbria could almost be pulled out of the ground and placed in the post holes at West Heslerton. There is a fairly limited range of standard designs and these appear regularly throughout England. As Dominic Powlesland says, 'It's almost as if there's an Anglo-Saxon Mr Wimpey or Mr Barrett out there who has a book of building plans and you choose whichever one you like. It's interesting enough that it occurs on this site. But it's quite remarkable that it occurs throughout early Anglo-Saxon England.'

  The combined evidence from West Stow and West Heslerton paints a far more complete and rosy picture of the early Anglo-Saxon communities of England. We know from West Stow how sophisticated their building and woodworking traditions were. The buildings from West Heslerton and other sites show us that it was not just a sophisticated tradition but one that was standardised. This suggests that the various communities, far from being isolated, were in touch with each other and drawing on common traditions and cultural practices. The old reconstruction of pit-dwelling Anglo-Saxons who were primitive pagans – violent, savage and unsophisticated – has been demolished by the evidence from West Stow and West Heslerton. Its debris should be cast in the rubbish pit of history.

  Chapter Thirteen

  THE LEGACY OF A LANGUAGE

  If you look at the countryside of England, the pattern that we see, of villages, of churches, of parish boundaries, county boundaries, the major towns, the roads, the whole map – particularly the map as it was until the Industrial Revolution – is a map that was created and developed in the Anglo-Saxon period.

  Dr Catherine Hills, a specialist in the Early Anglo-Saxon period

  The archaeological evidence presented so far demonstrates that the Anglo-Saxon contribution to the cultural history of England was far more significant than previous generations had believed; it still influences the land and the people today in many very different spheres of life. The maps, the language, the literature and even the characteristic sense of humour of the English are all stamped with the unmistakable signature of the Anglo-Saxons. It is not just the name of the country of England that comes from the name of one of the Germanic peoples, the Angles. It is also the political entity of England that can be said to have emerged out of the actions of the Anglo-Saxons.

  The Seven Kingdoms

  The writings of men of the Church, most notably the Venerable Bede in the eighth century, supply us with details of the various kingdoms of southern Britain as they were organised in the seventh century. By this time, the so-called Anglo-Saxon heptarchy (that is, seven kingdoms) was in place: Wessex, Sussex, Kent, East Anglia, Essex, Mercia and Northumbria (the last of these consisting of two parts – Deira and, further to the north, Bernicia, representing the Anglian presence north of the river Humber).

  In reality, the picture of the vying kingdoms was even more complicated than these seven units might lead us to believe. There were other regional rulers, subordinate maybe, but nevertheless referred to as kings – the king of the Isle of Wight and the king of Lindsey (the region between East Anglia and Deira), to name but two. Elsewhere in Britain there were still independent Celtic kingdoms: Dumnonia (Cornwall), Dyfed, Powys and Gwynedd in Wales and others in Scotland.

  The more powerful kings of the late sixth and the seventh centuries were able to extend their rule beyond the confines of their own kingdoms. Bede gives a list of these that includes Aethelbert of Kent, Raedwald of East Anglia and Edwin of Northumbria. Such kings are described in a later source (the ninth-century Anglo-Saxon Chronicle – a composite work based on earlier sources) as bretwaldas, a word meaning 'ruler of Britain'. This information cannot be taken simply at face value. The shifting tides of power in Britain at the time make it a mistake to envisage anything approaching 'national unity' or a stable political map. There were clearly kings who were able to dominate the neighbouring kingdoms for a few years, but that is all.

  England and Britain as a whole still h
ad a long way to go before the countries into which it is divided today came into being. However, many of the county and other regional names of England have their origin in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. East Anglia, not surprisingly, got its name from the Angles, while it was also felt necessary to distinguish the north folk and the south folk – hence the county names Norfolk and Suffolk. The Saxon presence also left its mark: Wessex (the land of the West Saxons), Sussex (South Saxons) and Essex (East Saxons).

  Anglo-Saxon Word-play

  We can equally say that the Old English language, spoken by the Anglo-Saxons, had a long way to go before it became Modern English. When we consider the strong influence of both Roman and, later, Norman culture on England, it is rather surprising that the language that evolved is not Latin or French but a Germanic language: English – rooted in the Dark Ages, and not in Roman or Norman times.

  For the Anglo-Saxons, spoken language was not just a means of everyday communication: in a mainly non-literate society, it was also a means of learning about the past and the outside world – as well as a vehicle of artistic expression and amusement. The reciting of poems and the telling of stories in the evenings played the same kind of role as television does in the homes of today. One of their great delights was the posing and answering of riddles. This was not just a matter of fun; it was also one of the chief forms of cultural expression. The ambiguity that is an integral element of the riddles of the Anglo-Saxons captured the imaginations of the whole community from children to kings. Here is an example from a collection of riddles translated by John Porter:

  I saw a beast breasting the waves,

  it was strangely stuffed with wonders.

  It had four feet beneath its belly

  and eight upon its back;

  had two wings, twelve eyes

  and six heads. Say what it was.

  It flew over oceans but was no bird,