Tag Archives: Anglo-Saxon

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Society News: Ceorls

In every society you have the elites and the rest. The percentage of people belonging to those two classes will fluctuate, and those broad categories are almost always broken down into further sub-categories, but in general, that’s how human societies tend to organize themselves.

The Anglo-Saxons were no different. The elites were made up of the Kings, Earldomen, and to a lesser extent, the thegns and the clergy.  These were the powerful people, the ones with wealth and prestige. They owned the most land, and had the political power. The movers and shakers, as it were. It’s impossible to say exactly how many  there were at that time, but suffice to say that they were not the majority. The majority of the people were the lower classes, those who were called the ceorls. We would call these the peasants.

The word ceorl is where we get our English word churl from, but that word has connotations that give us a false picture of this class of people in 7th century England. The ceorls were freemen who owned or rented land, or were the tradesmen who were the silversmiths, weavers, carpenters, etc. They would work the land cooperatively with their neighbours, often sharing the burden of planting and harvest. Which would mean they would live in close proximately to each other in order to accommodate this division of labour, and as well as for protection.

Often there was a lord, such as a thegn, to whom the ceorls would give either rent and/or labour to in exchange for protection. The thegn would also call on these ceorls as a fighting force, or fyrd, when needed.

That is the broad strokes. Looking more closely at the ceorls, you will discover that this class was further broken down into three sub-classes, divided up by how much land the ceorl owned and therefore how wealthy they were.

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Typical clothing of the ceorls. Image from ThoughtCo.com

The highest class amongst the ceorls was the geneatas. These were the peasant aristocracy, who owned the most land, sometimes as much or more as a thegn. They might not have to work the thegn‘s land in exchange for his protection, but they would have to pay some kind of rent or payment for his services. This could be in the form of food or livestock, not just money. They also could be messengers for the thegn, or help build fences around his lord’s land, or even provide entertainment.

Below the geneatas were the kotsetla. They would provide labour on their lord’s land at least one day a week, and up to two or three days per week during harvest. The rest of the time they would work their own land. They could also do other work for the thegn, such as helping during the hunt or coast guarding duties. They could also be called up for  duty in the fyrd. 

The gerburas were the lowest class of ceorl. They owned the least amount of land, or none at all, and in order to survive had to depend on their lord for land they needed to produce the crops and livestock to feed themselves and their families.  In exchange they would work the lord’s land, at least two days a week, and  more during planting and harvest. They would not have much free time to improve their lot, and would have been the ones with the hardest lives in Anglo-Saxon England (excluding the slaves, whom I will write about in a future post).

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Definitely my favourite peasants ever…

It’s important to note that there was opportunity for movement between the classes. If one was born a gerbur, it didn’t mean you would necessarily be one for life, although, as I mentioned, the lower down you were the harder it was to move up.

But in Anglo-Saxons society, hard work and service to your lord, whether that be militarily or otherwise, could be rewarded with gifts of land or booty from the latest military campaign, so it was definitely possible for people to improve their lot in life–if not for them, at least for their children. A hard-working ceorl who fought valiantly at his lord’s side could find himself rewarded generously in land, bumping him up the social scale.

It was even possible for slaves to move up the social ladder,  but that is a tale for the next post in this series! Stay tuned…

Note: this post is part of a series on the class levels that made up Anglo-Saxon society in  7th century Anglo-Saxon England. For other posts in this series, check out the links below:

Society News: Introduction

Society News: The Kings (and Queens).

Society News: The Upper Crust

Society News: The Church

Society News: Weregild

Feature image is an artist’s reconstruction of Tintagel, off the coast of Cornwall, in 600 AD, from English Heritage

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What Day is It, Ecgfrida?

A couple of months back I did a post on the months of the year in Anglo-Saxon England, and I thought it might be fun to do another post on the same theme, but this time on the days of the week.

Many of us probably know is that the names of the days of our week – Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday – are based on the names of gods, and come to us from way back in history (and if you were paying attention in school you might guess there is at least some Roman connection to all this).

At least that is what I knew, at any rate. But what about the Anglo-Saxons? How did they name their days?

First of all, we should probably take a slight step back and talk about why we have seven days in a week. Because that has not been the case for all people throughout time and across the world. Just like people had various ways of determining how many months in a year, the same was true for calculating how many weeks in a month and how many days in a week. Years, months, and days can be tied to astronomical events – the passage of the sun or moon through the sky. But a week has no such astronomical significance.

However, a lunar month has approximately 28 days, which can be nicely divided in four sections of 7 each, corresponding to each phase of the moon, which have seven days. There was seven heavenly bodies known by the ancients (five planets plus the sun and moon). For all these reasons (and others) the number seven has always been an important number for many cultures.

So it’s not surprising that the seven-day week comes to us from ancient times.  The Sumerians in the 21st century B.C. developed it, and it was adopted by the Babylonians, who in turn (possibly) influenced the Jews (the days of Creation in Genesis number seven), as well as the Romans. But the Romans didn’t start to use a seven-day week until the first century. Up until that point they observed an eight-day week. It was Constantine, in 321 AD, who made the seven-day week official across the Roman Empire. He also decreed that Sunday would be the first day of the week, not Saturday as the Romans observed. This was to honour the resurrection of Jesus, which occurred on a Sunday.

The Babylonians named the days of the week after the five planetary bodies known to them, plus the sun and moon. The Romans took this idea and named the seven days after their gods (who in turn were represented by the planets), so Monday was Dies Lunei (Moon), Tuesday – Dies Martis (Mars), Wednesday – Dies Mercurii (Mercury), and so on. You can still see a direct correspondence to these names for the days of the week in the languages which derive directly from Latin, ie French, Italian and Spanish. So in French, Monday is Lundi, Tuesday is Mardi, Wednesday is Macredi, and so on.

But those of us who speak English have different weekday names. And that’s because ours hearken back to the Anglo-Saxons.

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The Germanic and Norse tribes who were the ancestors of the ones who migrated to England in the fourth and fifth centuries, took the idea of the seven-day week from the Romans, as well as the idea of naming those days after the gods. However, in their case they used the names of their Anglo-Saxon gods. So, for example,  the Roman name for Friday was Dies Veneris (the day of Venus). Venus was the god of beauty, love, and fertility. The Anglo-Saxons named the sixth day of the week after their god of beauty, love, and fertility, whose name was Frigg.

So, in Anglo-Saxon England, the days were named as follows (note: daeg means day in Old English):

Sunday – Sunnandæg. This is a Germanic interpretation of the Latin Dies Solis (the Roman’s name for Sunday), which means “Sun’s Day”. But they are referring to a different god than the Roman one.  The Germanic people personified the sun as a god named Sunna, or Sól.

Monday – Mōnandæg, Named after the god Mani (Sól’s brother), represented by the moon.

Tuesday – Tīwesdæg. Named after the god Tiw or Tyr, who is equivalent to the Roman god Mars, the god of war.

Wednesday – Wōdnesdæg. Woden was the ruler of the gods in the Germanic/Norse pantheon (also known as Odin). The seventh-century Anglo-Saxon kings made sure their lineages traced back to Woden, even if they were Christian kings. Woden cast a long shadow on the Anglo-Saxons.

Thursday – Þūnresdæg. Thunor’s Day. Thunor was the Germanic god of thunder and strength, related to the Norse god Thor. .

Friday – Frīgedæg. Named after the wife of Woden/Odin, who was called Frigg or Freya (they could also be two separate gods, scholars disagree on this).

Saturday – Sæturnesdæg. Interestingly enough, the Anglo-Saxons did not assign any of their gods to this day. They simply used the Roman name for this day, which was named after the Roman god, Saturn.

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Statues of the seven Saxon deities corresponding to the days of the week can be found in Stowe, England. They were created in the early 1700s. This is the god Woden. Image from Wikicommons 

One of the  most obvious influences on English-speaking people from the Anglo-Saxons  is that some of the words we use most often, that being the names of days of the week, come directly from them. You can get a sense of this when you see the written Old English, but have a listen to this very short clip of someone saying these words in Old English.

Fascinating, no? Of course there are quite a few other words that come to us from Old English (Anglo-Saxon), but these ones certainly sound quite a lot like the original ones, don’t they?

It’s amazing to me that despite the fact that many of us know very little about the Anglo-Saxons, we still are influenced by them in more ways than we think, none more evident than the names of the days of the week.

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For more posts on Anglo-Saxon life, check out the links below:

What’s for Dinner, Ecgfrida?

Ecgfrida, I’m Home!

Making a Date in Anglo-Saxon England

What They Wore: Clothing in the 7th Century

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Making a Date in Anglo-Saxon England

Probably most of you know that our calendar comes from the Roman one. January is named after Janus, the two-faced god who looked front and back simultaneously, March comes from the Roman god Mars, the god of war, etc.

But the Anglo-Saxons of 7th century England had a very different calendar.

The most detailed account of this  Anglo-Saxon calendar comes from Bede, who, in his book, The Reckoning of Time, written in 725 AD, details each of the months. It’s interesting to note that by the time Bede writes this book, this is very much an “old” way of reckoning the calendar year. The Julian calendar we still follow had come to England along with the Gregorian mission in 595 AD, and as Christianity spread, the old Germanic calendar fell into disuse.

It’s a good thing Bede bothered to include this old, “heathen” calendar in his book,  because his summary preserved for us a bit of history we would not have, otherwise.

The Last Chapter

The Venerable Bede

The Anglo-Saxon calendar was a lunisolar calendar, based on the moon’s cycle. But as the lunar cycles are about 29.5 days each, the year ends up with 354 days instead of 365. After two or three of these shortened twelve month years, the lunar cycle would be out of line with the solar year by about a month. The Anglo-Saxons got around this by inserting an extra month in summer time every so often to keep it all synchronized properly.

According to Bede, the new year began on December 25th, called Modranecht, or “Mother’s Night”. There is much speculation about what these “mothers” might be, but there is a tradition of Germanic peoples honouring female ancestral spirits, so possibly this is what Bede is referring to. It happened at the winter solstice, which was a very important day for the Anglo-Saxons, know as Geola (“Yule”).

The months of the year were as follows:

January – Æfterra Geola, or “after Yule”.

February – Solmonað,  roughly translated as “mud month”, which Bede says refers to the cakes they offered to their gods in that month. However, the word “sol” is not generally translated as “cakes”, but “mud”. So maybe their cakes looked like mud? Or it’s a reference to the soggy English winter? Hard to say.

March – Hreðmonað. Bede tells us that this refers to the goddess Hreða, whom they sacrificed to in this month. We don’t know a lot about this goddess today. There is not much existing Germanic lore about her.

April – Eostermonað, corresponding to the goddess Eoster or Eostre, who was celebrated this month. This is where we get the name Easter, for the Christian celebration of Christ’s resurrection, which is usually celebrated in April. Interestingly enough, like Hreda there is no information about Eostre apart from Bede’s writings.

May – Ðrimilcemonað, or “month of three milkings.” The idea being that the grass is so plentiful and rich that the livestock (cows, sheep, goats) could be milked three times in one day.

June – Ærra Liða, or “before mild”.

July  –  Æfterra Liða, or “after mild”. “Mild” refers to the calm breezes that made it easy to sail on the sea in the summer months (as well as the mild summer weather). At the height of summer, another month would be added occasionally to compensate for the shorter lunar cycles, a “leap month”, if you will. This month was called Thriliða, or “third mild”.

August – Weodmonað, or “weed month”. I’m sure modern gardeners can relate! However, to be fair, the word “weod” could mean “weeds” or could also refer to herbs, or grass.

September – Haligmonað, or “holy month”. Unfortunately Bede lets us down here and doesn’t give us any details as to why this month was given this name. Perhaps there were celebrations that happened to do with harvest. He merely says it was a month of sacred rites.

October – Winterfylleth, or “winter full moon”. This refers to the fact that the Anglo-Saxons counted the beginning of winter as the first full moon in this month.

November – Blotmonað, or “blood month”, as this was the month where surplus livestock would be slaughtered in preparation for the winter season, and/or sacrificed and consecrated to the gods.

December – Ærra Geola, or “before Yule”.

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The early Germanic people counted the day as starting at sunset, not sunrise. It is possible the Anglo-Saxons did the same. The concept of the “week” came from the Romans, and was adopted by the Germanic peoples as well.

Although the Anglo-Saxon names of the months have not survived in today’s modern English, we can’t say the same about the names of the week. Perhaps I will do a blog post about those echoes from the Anglo-Saxon past that are still in use today.

In the meantime, I hope you have a happy Ðrimilcemonað!

Featured image is found at Medievalists.net, and is the phases of the moon, from an 11th century manuscript.

 

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Ecgfrida, I’m Home!

In the post What’s for Dinner, Ecgfrida?, about food in the Dark Ages, I mentioned that one of the important things I needed to get right when I began to research and write my novel set in 7th century Britain was the food they ate.

However, even before I looked at what they ate, I did a lot of research on where they lived. And, like all things Dark Ages, this whole area of research is at turns fascinating and frustrating, especially to a novelist who has to write about the spaces her characters call home.

Once again, there is not a lot of existing material from that time period to give us many clues about this. Mainly because, for the most part, the houses and buildings were built out of wood. There are a few stone buildings surviving from that time period (more about them later) but your average, everyday dwelling was made from wood with either timber or wattle and daub walls. Such materials do not survive the test of time, never mind the raiding of the marauding Vikings, with their penchant for burning and looting.

This means that archeologists are left with impressions of buildings, only. In particular, they find things like the post holes (or even just the impression of post holes)  from the wooden posts which made up the frame of the building, or the ashes and other indications of the hearth fire.

And a word about “villages” or “towns”… there were no such things, for the most part, although this is also a matter of some debate (remember, I’m not a historian, so feel free to quibble, but this is my understanding from the research I have done). People would naturally gather around the centres of power, such as the kings’ halls, or powerful thegns, or major ecclesiastical centres. So, for example, at Bebbanburg, where King Oswy had his hall and the influential monastery of Lindisfarne was close by, there would have been a village of sorts, a centre for trading and commerce. But out in the countryside, people would live in “holdings” – a gathering of extended family members, under the lordship of the most powerful of those, where the main source of activity was agriculture. The concept of a town where a whole lot of unrelated people lived in close proximity to one another would have been a fairly exotic one in those times.

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West Stowe Anglo-Saxon Village is located on the spot of an actual Anglo-Saxon village dating from the 5-7th century. Here archeologists have reconstructed several buildings, trying out various interpretations of what the buildings may have looked like based on the evidence they have found.  In the reading I’ve done it seems like the style of building shown in the foreground is not as likely as once thought. Mainly because the thatch on the roof will rot because of the contact with the ground.  Image from wikicommons

It seems that the buildings in general were fairly small, mostly one room, and generally with no second floor (although there is speculation now that some of the buildings actually might have been two-story). The mead halls were an exception, I’ll cover those later, too. But people’s houses were quite simple, for the most part.

One thing that is quite clear from the archaeological evidence is that many of the buildings featured a sunken pit of about three feet below ground level. There is some speculation about what this looked like and the purpose of it. It seems likely that in many cases the houses had a wooden floor, and the pit area was used either for storage, or even filled with straw which would provide some heat as it rotted during the winter months, giving the inhabitants a type of central heating system.

The hearth was often raised, and found in the centre of the house, where it would provide both warmth and the place to cook food. There were also separate cook houses close by the mead halls, where the thegns and kings could cook the large amounts of food and bread needed for feasting.

Windows were not common, and when they were used, they were not glass, for the most past. Vellum would be used as a window “pane”, and shutters could also be employed to keep in the warmth during the cold winter nights.

Chimneys were not a feature of the buildings. The roofs were thatch, and the smoke would escape from a small hole in the roof, or diffused through the thatch. The hearth fire would lend some light, as would tallow (animal fat) candles, but still, the interior would be both dark and smoky. I imagine most people would have a cough, especially the women, who would spend the most time indoors preparing meals and caring for small children.

To escape the gloom and smoke, people would do as many of their chores outside as possible, whenever the weather allowed. It’s likely the houses would have had some kind of porch or area under overhanging eaves where people could sit and repair clothing or furniture, weave cloth, or make things.

The walls could be either  timber or wattle and daub. Wattle and daub is thin, coppiced wood woven together with the chinks filled with a mixture of dung, clay, and straw (rotting straw, manure walls, smoke and sweat….the odours in a typical house must have been, shall we say, interesting….). The wattle and daub would have been a good insulator, at any rate. Any chinks which still allowed the wind to get through could have been covered by tapestries or other wall hangings.

It all sounds very crude to our ears, and indeed it was in many ways. But it probably wasn’t quite as crude as you might think. The Anglo-Saxons were master builders, and loved making beautiful things. To the extent that they could, their dwellings and the furning in it would have been embellished with carvings, paint, or, for the very wealthy, even adorned with gold. We know this from some of the descriptions of the mead halls found in poetry such as Beowulf.

Here’s a description of the mead hall, called Heorot, from that poem:

The men did not dally; they strode inland in a group
Until they were able to discern the timbered hall,
Splendid and ornamented with gold.
The building in which that powerful man held court
Was the foremost of halls under heaven;
Its radiance shone over many lands. (lines 306-11)

Even accounting for some literary licence, this gives you a bit of an idea that the mead hall of the Anglo-Saxons was an impressive place, built to show off the wealth and power of the king or thegn who had built it. Rich tapestries and intricate carvings would adorn the walls and wooden posts, and also along the walls the treasures taken from vanquished enemies such as mail, swords, helmets, and the like, would be displayed.

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Tolkien modelled his  Rohirrim on the culture of the Anglo-Saxons (he was an Anglo-Saxon scholar, don’t forget). Here is Peter Jackson’s take on the Golden Hall of Edoras, which Tolkien based on Beowulf’s description of Heorot. Image from Middle Earth Architecture

The Anglo-Saxons did build some buildings out of stone, and amazingly, there are a few of these at least partially surviving in Britain today. For the most part these structures are churches. You can see an example of one in Escomb, built somewhere between 670-675 AD.

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Escomb church, located in County Durham. Much of the stone to build the church came from the nearby abandoned Roman fort in nearby Binchester. In fact, on the south wall you can see a brick with the words LEG VI (Sixth Legion) set upside down! On the south wall you can see a 7th century Anglo-Saxon sundial. Amazing. The building fell into disrepair over the centuries but thankfully was restored in the late 1800s. This church is definitely on my ever-expanding bucket list of places to see in Britain. Image from wikicommons

So, to sum up, the Anglo-Saxons in the 7th century would have had small, cosy (!) houses, along with a central place to gather with the community in the larger centres.  They would have taken pride in their dwellings, decorating them with as much largesse as their wealth allowed. In some cases that could make for a richly decorated hall, and in others, maybe one simple tapestry or tanned hide to hang over the drafty spot in the wall.

There’s a lot more to think about when we think of the dwelling of the times. What furniture would they have? How would they store things? Did they have locks on their doors? What about a latrine?

But I’ll have to leave those for another day, perhaps…

Featured image: Another one of the reconstructed houses at West Stowe Village. Image from wikicommons

 

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Oswald, King of Bernicia

There are so many fascinating people who lived in the 7th century. I have highlighted a couple of them on the blog. And it’s well past time to introduce you to one of the most important figures of the time: Oswald, King of Bernicia. He is relatively unknown now, but for centuries after his death in 642 AD he was famous throughout Europe, venerated as a Saint for his role in establishing the Christian church in England.

Oswald was the oldest son of the Anglian king Æthelfrith, who had a fierce reputation among the native Britons he fought against in his occupation of their ancient lands. They gave him the nick-name Flesaur, which means “twister”, which gives us sense of the perhaps begrudging respect his enemies gave to this most canny of warriors.

Æthelfrith is the first Bernician king of Britain that we really know much about with any accuracy, and that is probably because of his prowess as a warrior and a king.  He defeated Ælla of Deira, sending Ælla’s son Edwin into exile, and became the first king of both Bernicia and Deira (the area we know now as Northumbria). He eventually married Ælla’s daughter Acha, probably to legitimize his hold on the Deiran throne by marrying the former king’s daughter. Æthelfrith was a pagan, like the other Angles and Saxons of the time.

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Bamburgh, the seat of the Bernician kings, was known as Bebbanburg in ancient times. It was called by the Irish, Dún Guaire, but re-named Bebbanburg in honour of Bebba, Æthelfrith’s wife. And yes, he was also married to Acha. Perhaps he married Bebba later in his reign, after Acha died, or it is also possible he was polygamous, which was not unknown at the time among the pagan Anglo-Saxon kings. Photo by Michael Hanselmann, on WikiCommons

Oswald was born in 604 AD, at the height of his father’s power. He was not the first son and heir, that honour went to his older brother Eanfrith. But when Oswald was twelve, his life as a privileged atheling (prince) of the ruling family came to an abrupt end. In 616 AD, Æthelfrith’s past came back to haunt him in the form of Edwin, who joined forces with Rædwald of Wessex to oust Æthelfrith from the throne, killing him in battle.

For their safety, Oswald and his siblings (there were actually eight of them altogether) fled  north, to the Irish kingdom of Dál Riata, out of Edwin’s reach. And from all accounts, Oswald thrived there during the long years of exile. He quickly adapted to the Irish culture and became fluent in the language, and even fought on the side of his hosts. And, importantly, he was taught by the monks at the school at Hii (Iona), and through their influence converted to Christianity.

In 633 AD Edwin was killed by the combined forces of Cadwallon of Wales and Penda of Mercia, and Northumbria was divided into Bernicia and Deira once again. Perhaps because of a previous alliance of some sort with Cadwallon, Eanfrith returned from exile and was crowned king of Bernicia. He was, after all, the heir to the Bernician throne. But if there was an alliance, it quickly fell apart. Cadwallon slew Eanfrith the next year when Eanfrith went to him seeking peace, and Cadwallon took his place as king of Bernicia (Game of Thrones, anyone?).

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Although George R.R. Martin purportedly got his inspiration from The War of the Roses, he could have just as easily looked a few centuries back to Dark Ages Britain! There was a whole lot of throne-swapping, alliances, and treachery going on then, too. Photo credit: Flickr

Enter our hero, Oswald, the next in line to the throne. From the historian Bede’s account, Cadwallon was a vicious, tyrannical ruler – killing, raping, and pillaging the Angles and Saxons in his new kingdom with impunity. We can take this account with a grain of salt, perhaps, but safe to say something dire reached Oswald’s ears about the upheaval in Bernicia, and we can only imagine how he felt about it.

Regardless of how he felt, we do know what he did, which was to gather an army, most likely made of some of the retainers that had accompanied the royal children while in exile, some of his brothers, and  a contingent of Irish warriors, and return to Bernicia to attempt to wrest the throne from Cadwallon and restore his father’s legacy.

And what happens next is remarkable, and has implications that reverberate down to us, today. Bede tells us that,

After the murder of his brother Eanfrith, Oswald arrived with an army small in numbers but protected by their faith in Christ, and he slew the accursed leader of the Britons and all that vast army that he boasted none could resist…

That is the summarized version, but Bede goes on to tell us the details. He writes,

On approaching this battle Oswald set up the sign of the holy cross…it is said when the cross had been quickly made and a hole made ready for it to stand in, Oswald himself, fired by his faith, seized it and placed it in its hole and held it upright with both hands, until the soldiers heaped up the soil and made it fast in the ground. Thereupon he raised his voice and cried aloud to the whole army: “Let us all kneel, and together pray the almighty, everliving and true God to defend us by His mercy from a proud and cruel enemy; for He knows that the war we have engaged in for the deliverance of our people is a just war.” They all did as he had ordered and, advancing thus against the enemy as dawn appeared, won the victory as the reward for their faith. 

Perhaps Oswald was inspired by the story of Constantine, who conquered his enemies under the standard of the Cross. But be that as it may, the prayer and Oswald’s example certainly inspired his army, resulting in the route of Cadwallon’s larger army, the death of the usurper, and the restoration of a son of Æthelfrith to the throne of Bernicia.

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The cross at Heavenfield, commemorating Oswald’s victory over Cadwallon. Photo: David Dixon

But not just any son. A Christian, who had been educated in the Irish north, and who came to faith under the influence of the Celtic Irish monks of Iona. And a man who wanted to bring that faith to his people. One of his first acts as king was to send a message back to Iona, asking them to send someone to begin spreading the Gospel among the Bernicians. Which eventually resulted in the mission of Aidan, who resided at Lindisfarne in the monastery established at that rocky outcrop close to Bamburgh on land granted by Oswald.

Oswald and Aidan began the  work together, Bede tells us, with Oswald travelling along with Aidan in the early days, acting as his translator between the Irish bishop and the Anglian people. This mission was responsible for the conversion of the pagan Bernicians to Christianity, and was the first church-state alliance in England’s history.

Oswald himself became a king to be reckoned with. With perhaps a touch of his father’s wily intelligence, he negotiated and fought his way to becoming king of a once-more united Northumbria, and one of the most powerful kings of England. He is one of the  kings given the honorific, bretwalda, meaning a king holding more than one territory.

Oswald ruled over Northumbria for less than ten years, which although is a short period by our standards, by the standards of the day is actually quite a long reign, given the penchant of the early medieval kings to make war upon another. He brought relative peace and stability to Northumbria, and the beginnings of a Christian society.

Alas, all good things must eventually come to an end, and in August of 642 AD, Penda of Mercia killed Oswald at the Battle of Maserfield, subjecting poor Oswald to the fate of having his body chopped up into parts and displayed in pagan fashion upon spikes as a way of celebrating the victory. Which eventually leads to the daring recovery of his brother’s arm by his younger brother Oswy and the later cult of Oswald’s arm, which is a whole ‘nother story…..

But although an obscure king today, you can still find Oswald hinted at in one of the most famous works of literature in our day. As I explained here, J.R.R. Tolkien was himself a scholar of Anglo-Saxon history, and included in The Lord of the Rings many nods to Anglo-Saxon culture and history. In reading Max Adams’ fascinating book, King of the North: Oswald of Northumbria (recommended reading if you want to know more about Oswald and the times in which he lived), Adams hints that perhaps Tolkien’s character, Aragorn heir of Elisdur, could perhaps have been based on the story of Oswald.

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Aragorn = Oswald?

I think Adams has a solid idea here. Think of it. Aragorn is the exiled son of a king, waiting to take his place on the throne. And when his people are threatened by an evil ruler, he reappears, ready to fight and reclaim the throne. And what about the Battle of Helms Deep, when Aragorn and Gandalf appear at dawn to help route the much larger orc army? Oswald won his great victory at dawn, too!*

Anyhow that’s just a fun example of how the legacy of Oswald still echoes today. I suspect, however, that he would be more gratified that his legacy of faith begun so many years ago with his friend Aidan still continues in the wild northlands of Britain, the ancient home of the Bernician kings.

*For more on the link between Oswald and Aragorn, see this article. And for a fictional take on Oswald, check out Oswald: Return of the King, by Edoardo Albert, the second book in his Northumbrian Thrones series. I reviewed the first book, Edwin: High King of Britain, here on the blog and have Book 2 on my must-read list!

Featured image from The Diocese of Lancaster

 

 

 

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The Wanderer

So, it’s the last Friday of the month and I’m supposed to have my Year of Important Books post ready. Whoops. Still reading the book…so we’ll get to it next month. In the meantime, how about a little Lord of the Rings mixed up with Anglo-Saxon history? Without further ado, I present….The Wanderer.

One of the poignant moments in Peter Jackson’s The Two Towers is the scene where King Théoden, newly restored to himself after Wormtongue’s enchantment, prepares for the upcoming battle of Helm’s Deep. Have a listen:

Wonderful! Just this little snippet made me want to go back and watch all three movies, but I digress…

The poem that Théoden quotes here comes from Tolkien, but in the book it is said by Aragon, as he introduces the Riders of Rohan to his companions. It has been condensed somewhat in the film, the original version is this:

Where now are the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing?

Where is the helm and the hauberk, and the bright hair flowing?

Where is the harp on the harpstring, and the red fire glowing? 

Where is the spring and the harvest, and the tall corn growing? 

They  have passed like rain on the mountains, like wind on the meadow;

The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into Shadow.

Who shall gather the smoke of the deadwood burning? 

Or behold the flowing years from the Sea returning? 

One day I am going to do a longer post about Tolkien, the Anglo-Saxons, and Aragon in particular, but for today I wanted to give you just a little tidbit, illustrated by this poem.

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Ah, yes, Aragon, aka Strider, aka son of Arathorn, aka heir of Esildur, aka…well, stay tuned to the blog to find out!

Tolkien, of course, was an Anglo-Saxon scholar, and in particular he modelled the Rohirrim after the people and culture of Anglo-Saxon Britain.

This poem that Aragon quotes is adapted from one of the poems that survive from that period, called The Wanderer. It begins like this (translated, of course, from Anglo-Saxon):

Often the solitary one 

finds grace for himself

the mercy of the Lord.

Although he, sorry-hearted,

must for a long time

move by hand [i.e. row]

along the waterways,

(along) the ice-cold sea,

tread the paths of exile. 

Events must always go as they must! 

This poem can be found in the 10th century anthology of Anglo-Saxon poetry called the Exeter Book, but many scholars believe that this poem existed long before then in oral tradition, and could date back to the 6th century.

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Facsimile of the first page of The Wanderer from the Exeter Book (from Wikipedia). This looks like it is written like prose, not poetry, but if you look carefully you will see extra spaces between words, which is the indication of a half-line division of a line of poetry. Also you will see some dots between words, which is also meant to show other half-line breaks.

 

The poem itself is about a warrior who is wandering in exile, having lost his liege lord, kin, and comrades in battle, defending his homeland from attack. It is melancholy in nature, which comes as no surprise – for in the Anglo-Saxon culture with its emphasis on close family ties and allegiance to a lord, to be alone in a strange land with no kin or lord to protect you is almost a fate worse than death.

In the first stanza quoted above, you can see a fascinating mix of the old Saxon religion and beliefs and the new Christian ones. It shows a culture in the midst of transition from the old ways to the new. The opening lines show that the warrior is looking for mercy from God, but at the end of the stanza you see “Events must always go as they must!” 

When you look up this poem you will find that there are many different ways to translate the Anglo-Saxon original, so that last line I can also find translated as, “Fate is established!” or “Fate has been decreed.”

This is the Saxon concept of wyrd, the inexorable fate that binds every person, that cannot be denied. So the poem begins with both the Christian concept of God’s mercy and the Saxon idea of fate. And you will see these two world-views juxtaposed throughout the poem.

In the midst of The Wanderer is the part that Tolkien adapted for The Two Towers. It comes in the poem after the warrior has contemplated the brevity of life, “as now in various places throughout this middle-earth walls stand, blown by the wind, covered with frost, storm-swept the buildings.” After meditating on this the warrior says,

Where is the horse gone? Where the rider? 

Where the giver of treasure? 

Where are the seats at the feast? 

Where are the revels in the hall? 

Alas for the splendour of the prince! 

How that time has passed away,

dark under the cover of night, 

as if it had never been! 

It’s all a bit gloomy, I’ll admit, but I can imagine the effect of the scop singing or reciting this poem on the people gathered in the mead hall, snug against the winter storms, surrounded by their kin and secure in their own place in the world. It would have given both a sobering contemplation of the fate of the exiled stranger, and the delicious relief that they were not him. Kinda like the effect of a thunderstorm when you are in bed, you feel extra cozy knowing that you are  not outside in the storm itself.

The Wanderer ends with the counsel, “It is better for the one who seeks mercy, consolation from the father in the heavens, where, for us, all permanence rests.” The Christian world-view has obviously won out for the original writer of the poem. Of course there are other speculations that one could make, for example, that some scribe along the way altered the poem, adding more overtly Christian elements than were originally in there. It’s hard to say, and I guess we will probably never know.

One of the best ways to understand a culture is to read their literature. Unfortunately, as the Anglo-Saxon culture was in many ways an oral culture, we have lost so much of their stories. I’m so glad this poem survived to open up to us the world of the mead-hall, and to enable us to meet the exiled wanderer, journeying alone through the icy mist.

I took my translation of The Wanderer from Anglo-Saxons.net. Hop on over there if you want to see the whole poem in Anglo-Saxon along with the English translation.

And just for fun, click here if you want to hear it read in the original Anglo-Saxon.

 

Featured photo: Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog, by Caspar David Friedrich, from WikiCommons

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Wandering Through the Web, Again

Awhile back I posted about some of the places I have enjoyed while trekking through cyberspace. Today I thought it might be interesting to you to have a look at some of the specifically Dark Ages or historical websites I like to visit when I am looking for information on the people and places that make up Northumbria in the 7th century.

  1. Bamburgh Research Project – for approximately twenty years there has been an archeological dig going on at Bamburgh. The team have explored various places on the site, and post about their important discoveries on this blog. Piece by piece they are giving historians a better picture of what this site actually contained throughout the years. Every summer they have spots for students and community members to take part in the dig as well. Oh, how I would love to do that! One of these days I would like to do a more complete post on this important project, so stay tuned…

2. Regia Anglorum – this is the website of an early medieval re-enactment and living history society, specializing in the 9th-13th centuries in Britain. So yes, they make their own costumes and get together to re-inact important battles, etc. Which sounds like quite a lot of fun, doesn’t it? Although their specialty is a time period a couple hundred years after the 7th century, this website has a wealth of information about the early middle ages in general.This is one of the sites I used the most at the beginning of researching my book, when trying to get a handle on understanding practical things that a writer needs to know, such as clothing, culture, social structure, food, customs, and all the other details that bring a book to life. Wonderful resource! And, they also have a permanent site in Kent where they are constructing a fortified manor house (a long hall) in the style of the late Anglo-Saxon period. Another place to add to my ever-growing list of places to visit.

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The gang from Regia Anglorum in front of Wychurst, their Anglo-Saxon hall. Photo from Regia Anglorum.

3. Heavenfield – I mentioned this site before, but it’s worth mentioning again. This site is run by historian and scientist Michelle Ziegler, and it is full of great information about the early middle ages. Particularly if you are interested in plagues and disease, this is the place for you, as she often links posts from her other blog, Contagions.  But disease isn’t her only interest. This page on the site has some really good articles about some of the Early Medieval Kings, all backed by solid research.  Ms. Ziegler can be found in other places around the web as well. I found  this article from The Heroic Age magazine really crucial in helping me to understand the interconnecting relationships of the various kings of the region, and in particular, the section entitled “Politics of Exile” gave me a way into understanding Oswy’s story that I hadn’t had before.

4. Other Dark Ages authors – often authors who write about a particular era will have interesting facts and information about that era on their website or blog. I try to do that here, too! I have found some great information on other author’s blogs, including that of A.J. Sefton,  Carla Nayland, and Octavia Randolph.

There are numerous other web resources out there for research into the Dark Ages. Wikipedia has a lot of information, of course. But one must always be careful when you are using the web for research. Check the sources of the article you are looking at, and always look at more than one source for the information you are seeking. That will help you to avoid misinformation and inaccuracies that would be easy to find if you don’t research properly.