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V. THE ROLE OF WEAPONS AND WEAPONRY IN POLITICAL AND MILITARY LEADERSHIP BALTICA 8 BALTICA FIT FOR A ? REGALIA AND WEAPONRY IN EARLY ANGLO-SAXON ROYAL GRAVES ARCHAEOLOGIA JOHN HINES

Abstract

The excavation of a princely grave of the early seventh century at Prittlewell, , in 2003, is the starting point for a review of the development of kingship in early Anglo-Saxon . Emphasis is placed upon the equally important contributions of history and . It is also argued that it is essential to balance the attention given to the immediate contexts in England with the long-term development of kingship amongst the . Valuable supplementary evidence is found in the terminology of kingship and lordship in Germanic philology, as well as the comparative study of Continental Fürstengräber of the Roman Age. Key words: Anglo-Saxon, archaeology, burial, kingship, Prittlewell, .

Early-medieval kingship 1938; Genrich 1954; Wegewitz 1977). It has proved rather easy to lose sight of that situation when German- In our many efforts to understand how the organization ic kingship in the middle of the first millennium AD V of society developed amongst the Germanic-speaking is considered principally in the light of the different THE ROLE peoples over the two thousand years from the , scope for political leadership in the context of the great OF WEAPONS before the birth of Christ, to the High , the war-bands, such as those of the , which invaded AND WEAPONRY history of kingship remains one of the most fundamen- and conquered the more southerly parts of the Roman IN POLITICAL tal challenges for archaeological and historical scholar- Empire in Europe, and are therefore better illuminated AND MILITARY ship. The term that survives as the English word king, in Late Roman historical sources. And yet all of these LEADERSHIP German König, Scandinavian konge etc, came to de- groups, great and small, apparently had . King- note the monarchic ruler and leader of a hierarchically ship, it seems, was fixed at the very core of the idea stratified community: a society which, in the Middle of society and community, a model that was preserved Ages, also had a powerful aristocracy of noble but non- through sequences of extensive social change. What royal status. In the , however, from kingship actually involved must have varied greatly the earliest, distant historical sources at our disposal, from context to context. This paper offers some re- we know that kingship could be shared, and was not flections upon the particular insights into a dramatic necessarily monarchic, however much kings may al- formative phase of English kingship that archaeology ways have sought to maximize their personal power may provide, reconsidered in the light of the discovery (Wallace-Hadrill 1971; Wolfram 1970; James 1989). of a further princely burial, at Prittlewell, Essex, late The overall structure of those early-medieval com- in 2003. munities could also be very different from the large Historically, England emerged from the formerly Ro- kingdoms and early nation-states of the later Middle man province of Britannia between c. AD 400 and 700. Ages. The smaller scale of polities in the Germanic In the period 408 to 411, most if not all Roman troops homelands seems to coincide with a shallower and less were withdrawn from Britain to support the usurper sharply stratified hierarchy, as expressed in overt (ar- Emperor Constantine III in his unsuccessful challenge chaeological) symbols of wealth and power (eg Asmus to Honorius; in 411 Honorius suspended Roman rule 223 in Britain by telling the civitates there, the local au- thus implicitly sub-kingdoms, into one (Yorke 1990;

thorities, to organize their own defence, not to look for Kirby 1991). In the case of the very early anglicized ar-

the protection of the Imperial army (Salway 1981, esp. eas around the east and south coasts, however, it is not pp.415-445). Britain then plunges into a very obscure so clear that Sussex, Essex, Surrey and Lindsey had to period, although we do know that there were raids, and be constructed in this way. In Kent, the annexation of apparently the conquest and settlement of some areas, the area west of the River Medway is likely to represent by Scotti from Ireland, Picti from the north, and Ger- the same process, but it is by no means certain that the manic peoples, mostly Saxones () over the sea “North-folk” and “South-folk” of and

Fit For A King?аnd Weaponry RegaliaAnglo-Saxon in Early Royal Gravesfrom the east. Archaeologically, there is a complete in East Anglia were component parts that preceded the demise of Roman towns, villas and military camps by definition of that kingdom itself (Fig. 1). the early fifth century; and by the mid-fifth century a Some kingdoms in very early Anglo-Saxon England, new series of settlement and burial sites is starting to then, may have covered areas and population groups of appear in the east and south whose features and mate-

JOHN HINES a size commensurate with those in northern Germany rial culture have obvious sources in northern Germany of the late Roman Iron Age. However, there is no evi- and southern (Hines 1990). Writing in the dence for the mere transferral of existing Continental eighth century, the English monk said that this Germanic kingships into England by the conquest and part of Britain had been settled by three gentes, the An- colonization of substantial tracts of territory, unlike in gles, Saxons and . His account is over-simplified the northwest of England, where a kingdom of Dal Riata but appears essentially factual (HE, Book I, chapter in Ulster does seem to have reproduced itself in west- 15). In the 590s, Pope Gregory in Rome sent a mission ern Scotland in such a way (Laing 2006, pp.324-329). to establish Roman in England, starting in As political units, all Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were cre- the kingdom of Kent under its King Æthelberht. With ated anew; how far this was done to a template, social, the gradual establishment of the Church in England, territorial, or both, familiar in the Continent or in Scan- historical records came to be kept, as a result of which dinavia is the issue to be investigated. The individual we can now see the later sixth and seventh centuries as leaders in this process may well have entered Britain a period of consolidation and strong development for with a special status and identity. Linguistic analysis kingship and kingdoms in England. of the word “king” suggests that at its very heart lies What has long been a dominant view of how Anglo- the concept of a man, or a few men, who somehow Saxon kingdoms, and thus Anglo-Saxon kingship, de- represent a genetically related group, or clan: the “kin” veloped was rather light-heartedly described by Steven (Greene 1998, pp.121-140 and esp. pp.130-134). But Bassett (1989, p.26ff.) in terms of a knock-out football kinship, as we know well, can be constructed as well as tournament. This view postulates that the competition inherited; so too could such kingship. There is no sig- between kingdoms for success and survival began with nificant correspondence between the ethnic identities a huge number of small, local teams, of which defeated Bede records, Anglian, Saxon and Jutish, and politi- competitors are steadily eliminated, especially when cal identity. All of these ethnic groups were subdivided the biggest and most powerful teams appear in the later into several provinces or kingdoms, and their popula- rounds of the contest. Eventually there is just one win- tions, even their leaders, were undoubtedly of mixed ner, the unified kingdom of England. In this model, of origin. Three early kingdoms, the West, South and East course, the minor losers are absorbed into their suc- Saxons (Wessex, Sussex and Essex), largely defined cessful conquerors. It postulates a starting-point with the extent of the territory and population claimed to a form of social organization that is uniformly one of be the product of settlement of the Continental Saxons small, local polities, out of which larger kingdoms, in (together with what was probably a later Mercian sub- effect, evolve (cf Scull 1993). The process is indeed kingdom of the Middle Saxons/Middlesex). Anglian well illustrated for us historically by the one area of England was much more deeply divided, with only the central England where a large number of tiny “provinc- East identifying themselves by this ethnic term, es” or principalities survived long enough, to the mid- a named group of which we have no secure historical seventh century, when they were merged, in a sequence attestation before Bede, although it is likely to have of events that is historically recorded, into a short-lived existed alongside Middle Anglia in the 650s. Archaeo- kingdom of Middle Anglia, itself very soon absorbed logically, it is possible to distinguish material suites of into the West Midland kingdom of (Dumville characteristically Anglian, Saxon and Jutish character, 1989a, 1989b; Hines 1999). It is likewise the case that and the distribution of these in fifth- and earlier sixth- all of the three major kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon Eng- century Anglo-Saxon England has some congruency land, Wessex, Mercia and Northumbria, were demon- with Bede’s account of where those peoples were set- strably formed by amalgamating sub-kingships, and tled (Hines 1994; Høilund Nielsen 1997). The little 224 BALTICA 8 BALTICA ARCHAEOLOGIA

V

THE ROLE OF WEAPONS AND WEAPONRY IN POLITICAL AND MILITARY LEADERSHIP

Fig. 1. Early Anglo-Saxon England, indicating the location and extent of the political territories of the mid- to late seventh century mentioned in the text. Mx = Middlesex. Jutish material is concentrated mostly in Kent; dis- we should expect, itself one of constant selective re- tinctly Saxon material is found predominantly in the structuring and redefinition. south; the Anglian cruciform , by contrast, is A persistent and important idea attaching to early Ger- found mostly in the Midlands and northeast. But there manic kings is that of “sacral kingship”: the idea that are broad border zones of great overlap, interchange kings mediated between the people and the gods. It was and hybridization. The process of the transmission and obviously a matter of practical politics for Christian inheritance of the ethnic identities concerned was, as missionaries to target kings and their courts in Eng- 225 land, but it was an uncontested fact of deep historical the distinctly religious and juridical role of kingship,

origins that the religion of the king was the religion of he tends to use the catch-all term principes, “leading

the people. We must not underestimate the significance men”, to accommodate the inevitably close connexion of the fact that all known Anglo-Saxon royal families of these two aspects of leadership. Such a change may claimed descent from Germanic gods: often Woden, have made particular sense in the practical circum- but also less well-recorded figures such as Bældæg stances of the establishment of the first English king- and Seaxneat. As is so widely the case with Germanic doms following the colonization of Britain, although cultures, we are frustratingly dependent upon Christian those circumstances, and the development itself, were

Fit For A King?аnd Weaponry RegaliaAnglo-Saxon in Early Royal Gravessources for accounts of and references to detail of the certainly not unique to Anglo-Saxon England. What traditional pre-Christian, “pagan” practices of these remains much harder for us to determine is whether we peoples; but in the case of seventh-century England should therefore talk of a persistent and strong tradi- there is at least sufficient here to allow us to conclude tion of Germanic kingship continuing in England, or if that there was a close connection between those kings that kingship was largely re-invented, or re-introduced, JOHN HINES and the rites and priesthood of a communal religion primarily because of the immediate conditions that de- (Bede, HE, II.5 and II.13; Clanchy 1970). The most veloped in England in the fifth and sixth centuries. convincing example of a pre-Christian cult building from England is the “temple”, Building D2 at the royal The Anglo-Saxon “princely” graves palace site of Yeavering, Northumberland (Hope-Tay- lor 1977, pp.154-169; Hines 1997, pp.388-389). Representing the English royal graves, there are really But what most historians regard as the one factor above just four sites to consider: the famous Sutton Hoo in all others that made a man a successful king was mili- Suffolk, Broomfield in Essex and in Buck- tary leadership (eg Wolfram 1988; James 1989; Yorke ingshamshire, both excavated in the 19th century, and 1990, p.16). Interestingly, and as is widely recognized, now Prittlewell in Essex, found quite unexpectedly just of course, this is quite at variance with what four years ago (Bruce-Mitford 1975–83; Read 1895; wrote in his ethnographic account of at the MoLAS 2004). Early Anglo-Saxon custom was to bury end of the first century AD, where he identified the the dead with , but these graves stand out rex as a man of noble birth with predominantly reli- both because of the exceptional quality, quantity and gious and juridical functions as systematically distinct range of the material buried within them, and for the from the dux of the army who was elected for his mili- special structure of the burials, as chamber burials, in tary prowess: “Reges ex nobilitate, duces ex virtute one case with a ship. In terms of wealth, they stand sumunt” (They accept kings for nobility, leaders for quite apart; not merely at the top of a scale of increas- prowess) (Tacitus, Germania, 7). ing opulence. There are other burials we may suspect were of this kind but of which too little survives: for Alongside their role in the conversion of England to instance at Asthall Leigh and Cuddesdon in Oxford- Christianity, we have surviving seventh-century law- shire; at Caenby in ; and at Coombe in codes, three from Kent and one from Wessex, which Kent (Dickinson, and Speake 1992; Dickinson 1974; show us that early Anglo-Saxon kings were well aware Jarvis 1850; Davidson, Webster 1969). In fact, apart of their juridical role and very keen to assert it (Lieber- from the miraculously intact burial under Mound 1 at mann 1903–16; Wormald 1999). They were, however, Sutton Hoo, all but one of the other graves in this royal very much military leaders too. Our historical records necropolis had been robbed, and this site too would of Anglo-Saxon kingship right through to the reign of remain in that doubtful category. We are, therefore, Alfred the Great at the end of the ninth century are undertaking the risky business of drawing inferences dominated by records of their battles. Succession to the from only a fraction of the original evidence. kingship commonly took the form of one king being killed in battle to be replaced by his victor. The main The exceptional quantity of skilfully crafted artefacts issue for future research identified by this short review of course attracts attention to these burials. However, starts from the point that, if we compare the contents the most significant common factor between them is and distribution of what are known as the Fürsten- the special provision for hospitality amongst the grave gräber of the first to fourth centuries AD in Germany goods (Plate III: 2). All four burials have great caul- and Denmark with the kingly and princely burials of drons for feeding a large assembly, and all contained seventh-century England, we may indeed be able to see the symbolically laden drinking-horns too. Accessory a subtle shift in the nature of kingship in this direction: vessels include iron-bound wooden buckets, some- a closer association of kingship itself with the distinct- times great tubs, bowls of various forms, turned ly military role, as Tacitus called it, of dux. It should be wooden cups or glass vessels. Sutton Hoo, Taplow and stressed, though, that while Tacitus was very clear on Prittlewell all had both a lyre and gaming pieces rep- 226 resenting entertainment; Sutton Hoo, Broomfield and century revealed a perfectly intact chamber grave that Prittlewell also a lamp to light the chamber. Relatively had barely even collapsed. A fact of particular interest little of this particular range of material appears to have in the present context is that the man who was buried in been imported rather than to be locally made. Overall, the chamber grave of Prittlewell was not armed in any this is clear evidence that the social role of the dead way different from the occupants of at least six of the man was the most fundamental element to be com- 19 other weapon-graves known here: not only in being memorated in his burial: his ability to provide for a equipped with a , shield and two spears, but even very privileged household indeed. in the very types of the weaponry (Tyler 1988). 8 BALTICA All of the dead men also had fittings from a costume The princely graves of Taplow, Broomfield, Prittlewell they may have worn that would have displayed their and Sutton Hoo apparently date from the span of a sin- special rank. Only at Sutton Hoo and Taplow, however, gle generation: the period c. AD 600 to 630. The buri- does this really amount to more than one conspicuous- als at /Sutton Hoo and the other graves

ly expensive and well-crafted buckle: the only dress at Prittlewell bring us face to face with the proxim- ARCHAEOLOGIA accessory Anglo-Saxon men usually wore. Taplow and ity between the kings or princes in these graves and Sutton Hoo had special sets of clasps. We can infer a population that supported them. Similarly, when we from this that the buckle was a central item of display look back in time across the sixth century, we can find for a man. This makes it extremely significant that the significant predecessors of this type of elite burial. At famous Sutton Hoo great gold buckle comprised an , Norfolk, for instance, a large amount of gold equal to 300 contemporary coins, the cemetery serving several surrounding village commu- tremissis – apparently the 300-shilling wergild or life- nities was established around the middle of the fifth price of an Anglo-Saxon nobleman. A man who could century. For three or four generations from the begin- display, in a noble assembly, the price of the life of ning of the sixth century, however, a small population any nobleman there on his belt, can surely only have was inhuming its dead on the northeast corner of the been a king. The attention paid to equipment in terms cremation burial zone. The inhumation graves include of weaponry and armour is at much the same level. a few barrows, and two chamber graves (31 and 40). The men buried at Prittlewell and Broomfield went We have an interesting archaeological sequence here in into the grave with the quite standard noble warrior’s that the shield-boss from grave 40 is of a later type that equipment of a shield, a sword, and one or two spears. those in graves 31 and 41, so graves 31 and 41 may be Heinrich Härke’s overview of weapon-assemblages in the earliest, one in a chamber, the other under a small Anglo-Saxon graves shows even this “full weapon-set” barrow, followed by grave 40 with a large barrow and to be relatively rare, but it is at the top end of a com- then grave 32 alongside grave 31 and perhaps, then, V mon range of weapons in graves, not beyond it (Härke the raising of a second large barrow over them both. THE ROLE OF WEAPONS 1992, pp.97-124). Taplow has extra in the provision of This seems to be an unusually dramatic and dynamic AND a second, possibly a third shield, and three spears. Sut- illustration of a small elite emerging alongside a larger, WEAPONRY IN POLITICAL ton Hoo too had just one sword and shield, although undifferentiated population, expressing at least its am- AND they were very specially crafted. However, Sutton Hoo bitions to be of a special, higher status through burial MILITARY LEADERSHIP also had a helmet and a mailcoat, and no less than nine practice (Hills et al. 1984: unfortunately the published spears, three of them barbed throwing-spears (Bruce- stratigraphical data do not show conclusive evidence Mitford 1975–83, Vol. 2). for the order of the barrows around graves 31, 32 and 40 respectively, although that is confidently stated in Further excavations were carried out at Sutton Hoo the text). from 1986 to 1992 under the direction of (Carver 2005). No one then really expected an- Another important site for tracing hierarchy back other treasure hoard like the Mound 1 ship-burial to across the sixth century is also newly excavated, and be found, but it could be assumed that whatever did as yet unpublished: on the Royal Air Force base at emerge would be appropriate to a royal cemetery. One , Suffolk. Here, as in Sutton Hoo Mound undisturbed grave was discovered, in Mound 17: the 17, we have two men with horse graves, one of them grave of a richly equipped man, buried with a horse. fully equipped with sword, shield and spear, and rich The real surprise here came when a larger, slightly ear- horse-harness. A new chronology of weaponry pro- lier cemetery was found as a new visitor centre was duced primarily by Karen Høilund Nielsen together being built at Tranmer House, about half a kilometre with myself dates this grave to the early sixth century, north of the barrowfield. Quite the inverse was the maybe even the late fifth (Hines ed. forthcoming). It is complete surprise in Prittlewell Park, Southend-on- as yet too early to draw firm conclusions, but again this Sea, Essex, late in 2003, when roadworks close to the conspicuously rich weapon-burial is at least amongst site of a known, not unusual cemetery of the seventh the very earliest in this burial zone: it could therefore 227 be a founder grave. The one point I would emphasize of the archaeology of Early Anglo-Saxon kinghips

as a result of this, is that we need to be very careful in implies the achievement of power and status by indi-

looking at these burials in a diachronic perspective and viduals who succeeded in essentially the same role as jumping to conclusions about a process of evolution, the great Frankish and Gothic Heerkönige: effective, by which hierarchical social structures, and particular- practical, leaders and protectors. ly aristocracy and kingship, grew increasingly strong, It is equally reasonable, in the most general terms, to rich and apart from the rest of the population over time. draw attention to the contrast in respect of the inclu- There were indeed changes, but hierarchy and power sion of weapons in the graves of the high social elite Fit For A King?аnd Weaponry RegaliaAnglo-Saxon in Early Royal Graveswere, in significant measure, always there. Kingship of relevant Germanic communities, between the Lüb- cannot be studied as a subject on its own; it can only sow-type Fürstengräber of the first to fourth centuries, be understood as a phenomenon within a relationship with their predominant emphasis on hospitality and with its context. Even this very brief overview should bodily display and virtual absence of weaponry (Egg- be sufficient to show how plausible it is that changing

JOHN HINES ers 1950; Gebühr 1974), and a range of different finds circumstances made kingship more visible in Anglo- of the Late Roman Iron Age, Migration Period and be- Saxon England, rather than that there must have been yond, such as the burials of the Leuna-Haßleben group some internally or externally driven “growth of king- in central Germany (Schulz 1933, 1953; Steuer 1982, ship” itself. esp. pp.181-308); the fifth-century grave of Childeric at Tournai (Böhner 1981); and in due course the Scan- A wider perspective dinavian burials such as Snartemo in southwestern and the /Valsgärde graves in central As an interpretation of what have been summarized (Rolfsen, Stylegar 2003; Lamm, Nordström here as the critical points of the history and archaeol- 1983). We cannot refuse to acknowledge that this real ogy of kingship in Early Anglo-Saxon England, there- contrast and change in Germanic social leadership is fore, it is suggested that the social hierarchy materially consistent with a development away from the character expressed in burial archaeology between the beginning of kingship as Tacitus described it in the first century, of the sixth and the mid-seventh centuries in fact em- when he imputed to kings, as such, juridical functions phasizes a continuum between cyning and folc (king and religious roles and mystique, and separated them and people) at the same time as it manifests the spe- from the army-leaders. The biggest challenge for us cial status of the former in relation to the latter. This here, in fact, is rather to understand how far those roles has to be a general proposition, maintained as a valid could have been separated in the first place. Neverthe- basis for further consideration despite the differences less, it seems clear that by the end of the Roman Pe- between and uncertainties concerning the few princi- riod, the Migration Period and the establishment of a pal princely/royal burials discussed herein. In the case new and powerful series of Germanic kingdoms saw of our two Essex graves, Prittlewell and Broomfield, military leaders increasingly appropriating the position we have a man armed in essentially the same way as of kingship, without losing its traditional, practical as- other fully armed warriors; at Taplow the man had a sociations as summarized above. superabundance of the same type of weaponry; at Sut- As was stressed at the beginning of this discussion, ton Hoo, however, he had a very fine sword and excep- however, although kingship thus developed radically tional shield, special body armour, and an unparalleled in pragmatic terms, the immaterial concept of king- number of spears. The cemeteries of Spong Hill and ship, and the ancient terminology, seem to have held Eriswell, in different parts of East Anglia to Sutton their fundamental place in the idea of community Hoo, show that the relationship between a well-armed, passed from generation to generation: the notion of dominant elite, burying its dead in a conspicuous and the folc. It will help us greatly to understand the pro- distinctive way, and the more ordinary mass of the found changes in southern and eastern Britain after population can be traced back to the beginning of the the demise of Roman rule to be able to measure what sixth century at least. The case for identifying the early ideas of society and identity of this kind the incom- seventh-century graves as specifically royal, princely, ing Germanic elements brought with them. This paper even kingly, – rests first and foremost upon the excep- introduces the proposition that kingship may indeed tional scope of evidence for the social relationship of have been utterly primary: ideologically, another truly hospitality represented in the grave assemblages, and Germanic element brought into Britain, alongside the specially, too, on the material quantification of social much more easily identifiable pottery, metalwork and power embodied in the Sutton Hoo great gold buckle. building-types of material culture. And the necessary It is quite reasonable, then, to argue that, with due ad- corollary of kingship was the concept of the people justments for the real differences of scale, the aspect (folc), which elsewhere I have argued was intensely 228 associated with cultural conformity in the intrusive S. ASSETT, ed. The Origins of Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms. Germanic cultures of northern Germany and southern London, 1989, 123-40. Scandinavia at this time (Hines 1996). No such insist- DUMVILLE, D.N., 1989b. The Tribal Hidage: an introduc- tion to its texts and their history. In: S. BASSETT, ed. The ence on the antiquity and durability of the Germanic Origins of Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms. London, 1989, 225- concept of kingship and folk will deny that those same 30. traditional elements then had actively to be manipu- EGGERS, H.J., 1950. Lübsow, ein germanischer Fürstensitz lated in Early Anglo-Saxon cultural history, as king- der älteren Kaiserzeit. Praehistorische Zeitschrift, 34/35, 58-111. 8 BALTICA ship and kingdoms were absolutely reconstructed (as GEBÜHR, M., 1974. Zur Definition älterkaiserzeitli- noted); nor that, as the foreign objects in the Prittlewell cher Fürstengräber vom Lübsow-Typ. Praehistorische and Sutton Hoo Mound 1 graves show us particularly Zeitschrift, 49, 82-128. clearly, such a reconstruction of kingship was directly GENRICH, A., 1954. 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Received: 17 January 2007; Revised: 7 June 2007

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