Frisia and England: the Archaeological Evidence for Connections

FRISIA AND ENGLAND: THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE FOR CONNECTIONS by Catherine Hills - Cambridge When P.C.l.A. Boeles discussed the relationship between England and Frisia during the migration period it seemed to hirn that the archaeologi cal evidence told a very clear story of Anglo-Saxon invasion. Ex cavation by van Giffen of the terp at Ezinge confirmed this story, because it seemed to show a phase dated to the fifth century, which involved destruction by fire and subsequent rebuilding with a new and intrusive building type, the grubenhaus. At the same time, new types of pottery and metalwork, especially cruciform brooches, appeared in hoth settlements and cemeteries. He identified grubenhauser and arti facts as Anglo-Saxon and interpreted them as evidence of an invasion of Frisia by Anglo-Saxons at about the same time that they invaded England (Boeles 1951: 578-81). The English scholars Leeds and Myres followed Boeles, although Myres suggested that Frisia was to some extent a temporary stopping place for Anglo-Saxons on their way to England. Myres was attracted by the idea that similarities between pottery from lutland, Frisia and Kent could be used to give substance to the person (or persons) known as Hengest who appears in both 'Beowulf and the 'Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'. He illustrated aseries of similar pots with simple linear ornament from these regions (Myres 1948) to demonstrate the connection "If one had been asked to guess the style of pottery which a lutish chieftain with Frisian contacts would have used" Myres argued it would have been like pottery which has in fact been found in Kent, which is where Hengest, just such a chieftain, is supposed to have setttied (Myres 1969: 97). Myres also pointed out that the affinities of the material found in Frisia lay with Anglian finds from Schieswig-Hoistein and lutland, rather than with Saxon finds from Lower Saxony, which is perhaps surprising since Frisia is closer to Lower Saxony. Arecent discussion of this material produces far more cautious con clusions. "It seems likely that small numhers (of Angles and Saxons) settled in Friesland. At any rate there must have been intensive con tacts" (Knol 1993: 244). Why the loss of confidence in an apparently straightforward story?l A key part of Boeles' evidence was the "intrusive" grubenhauser. But at Wijster van Es showed that these buildings existed in the Nether lands before the migrations and that there, as elsewhere, they were sub sidiary buildings (van Es 1964). At another terp, Feddersen Wierde, grubenhauser occurred as ancillary buildings in later phases of occu- 1 I am very grateful to Egge Knol for sending me a copy of his recently published dissertation. 36 pation (Haarnagel 1979). They seem to have appeared on sites in Denmark, northern Germany and the Netherlands during the Roman Iron Age, more probably in response to chan ging climate or farming practices than brought in by new peoples. In eastern England, where they are also now seen as ancillary, and not as the main building type, they are more plausibly associated with Anglo-Saxon migration, but even this has been called in doubt and needs further investigation. The alien and intrusive character of these buildings at Ezinge might have seemed less striking if it had been possible to recover a sequence of plans of the whole site, phase by phase. Van Es also pointed out that some of the "Anglo-Saxon" pottery has antecedents in the pottery found at Wijster, and that in discussing the northern coastal areas of Europe from the Netherlands to Jutland, we are dealing with a small area with a generally similar material culture. Changes in archaeological interpretation have also altered our per ceptions. Instead of explanation of change in terms of external forces such as migration or invasions there is more concern with long-term indigenous development and with analysis of the different ways in which material culture reIates to the societies which produce it. In Eng land the migration of the Anglo-Saxons has been played down by some scholars to the extent that it has been argued that there were only a few invading chieftains who imposed their rule and their culture on a people who remained largely of native British descent, while nonetheless coming to think of themselves as Anglo-Saxon. Not everyone would take the argument so far, but most recent studies of early medieval settlements and settlement patterns in England, Denmark and the Netherlands (but perhaps not in Germany) stress continuity and local development rather than dramatic change induced by outsiders. This shift in interpretation is partly a matter of intellectual fashion, affected as much by recent and current social and political developments as by evidence for the past. It does however rest more securely on the re cognition that pattern in material culture does not derive only, or chief ly, from the distribution of ethnic groups. Possession of a Japanese television does not make us Japanese. All those who were buried in "Anglo-Saxon" pots need not have been Anglo~Saxons and it is not seIf-evident that similarities between Frisian and Anglo-Saxon artefacts demonstrate the presence of the same people on both sides of the North Sea. If we look at the archaeological evidence for connections between England and Frisia in the migration period in this light it does become difficult to reach more than very tentative conclusions, and in this paper only a sketch for future research can be presented. I shall be looking at material from the Netherlands only, not from north Germany. There is, according to Knol, a change in burial practice in Frisia around 400AD, which may be connected with the migrations (Knol 1993: 244). But since this is a change from no visible burials to the .

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