Penda was the last great English King who followed the religion of his and our ancestors. He was the first King who raised the Mercians to supreme power in England. Therefore he links the world of his ancestor, Offa of Angeln – a hero who ranks in Germanic tradition with Sigemund or Beowulf – with the world of his collateral descendant, Offa ‘rex totius Anglorum patriae’ (king of the whole fatherland of the English) – the only western king whom Charlemagne addressed as ‘brother.’
Nothing we are told about Penda comes directly from a Mercian source. Our earliest informants are Bede, a Northumbrian Christian, and the first compilers of the Chronicle, who were West Saxon Christians. Other details are given by Nennius, who used early Welsh records, and the medieval historians Henry of Huntingdon, Florence of Worchester and William of Malmesbury, who relayed some interesting traditions but wrote late enough for these traditions to have been garbled.
Penda was the greatest English warrior and general in the first half of the seventh century. Until the disaster of Winwaed he had not lost a battle. In 628, he defeated the West Saxons at Cirencester; in 633, in alliance with Cadwallon of Gwynedd, he defeated the Northumbrians at Haethfelth with the death of King Edwin; about 635, he defeated the East Angles with the death of King Ecrig and the former King Sigbert, who had been brought out of a monastery to strengthen East Anglian morale; in 642 he killed Oswald of Northumbria at Maserfelth setting up his head and arms on stakes; in 645, he drove King cenwalh out of Wessex for repudiating his wife, Penda’s sister; in 654 he defeated the east Anglians again with the death of King Anna. He backed Deiran separatism against Oswy of Bernicia and made repeated and punishing raids into Bernician territory. The Welsh historian, Nennius, says that he won his victories “per diabolicam artem” – through the art of the devil.
It sounds like a career of Dark Age carnage, remarkable only for its duration and extent. Yet even in the scanty comments of alien and hostile chroniclers there are some strange remarks the catch the imagination, suggesting someone very different from a blood-soaked, power-hungry thug.
His genealogy shows that he was eighth in descent form the national hero Offa of Angeln and twelth in descent from the god Woden; that is, he was a member of a very ancient royal family that had ruled in Germania before the migrations. This puts his ruthless subjugation of other kings in a different light. He could demand their submission because, to use a later term, he had a ‘divine right’ to it. He may well have looked on those who resisted as rebels and traitors.
The Parker Chronicle says that he was 50 years old when he became king in 626, ruling for 30 years. This would make him 50 when, in the middle of Blotmonath, the month of Blood sacrifice, he led his huge army of thirty royal warbands to its destruction in the Winwaed. This is not physically impossible, though highly unlikely at that, or any other, period of history. That the story was told at all suggests the memory of a man of superhuman vitality, strength and, considering the youth of his children when he died, enduring virility.
Just before the final show-down between Penda and Oswy, there was a strange double marriage between the heirs of the two kings and daughters of the rival families. Penda’s eldest son, Peada, married Oswy’s daughter Alchflaed. Oswy insisted that the young man and all his household should turn Christian before he allowed the marriage. At that time, 653, most bets would have been on Penda’s breaking or destroying Oswy; it would not have been expected that Oswy would dare to set terms. Amazingly, Penda agreed. One can think of various devious and self-interested political reasons for this, but Bede’s comment on the outcome is remarkable:-
“King Penda himself did not forbid the preaching of the faith to any even of his own Mercians who wished to listen,but he hated and despised any whom he knew to be insincere in their practice of Christianity once they had accepted it and said that any who despised the commandments of the God on whom they professed to believe were themselves despicable wretches” (Hist. Ecc. Gen. Ang.III 21. Penguin trans.)
This shows a toleration for an alien religion and for freedom of choice in his own subjects that would be startling enough in itself. Bede’s selection of words (and Bede selected his words with scientific precision) to give Penda’s own judgement on insincerity and betrayal of one’s gods: “odio habebat et despiciebat – he hatedand despised” shows something more: a personal integrity of spirit that reacted to hypocrisy and unfaith with gut loathing.
The other revealing incident comes from Nennius (Hist. Brit. 64 & 65). At some time before the battle of Winwaed, Penda and an allied Welsh force had got Oswy in a tight corner at Iudeu, somewhere on the Forth, probably Stirling. Oswy offered “innumera et maiora quam credi potest ornamenta regia vel donaria – an incalculable quantity of regalia and presents” if Penda would call off the attacks and leave him and his land in peace. What Oswy was offering may be visualised from the Sutton Hoo treasures.
Bede and Nennius agree that Penda refused to touch the Northumbrian gold and jewels. Bede says it was because he had decided to exterminate the whole race, great and small. (Hist.Ecc. III 24). This might give a clue to the apparently suicidal decision to stage a major assault on Northumbria in the middle of a wet November – Blotmonath. If so, one wonders what would have brought the man of Bede’s III 21 to such a frame of mind. But Nennius says that Penda let the treasures be surrendered and then gave the whole lot to his Welsh allies,a gift of such astounding magnificance and generosity that it gained a title in Welsh history, since Nennius, who wrote in Latin, names the event in archaic Welsh: “Atbret Iudeu – the Restitution of Iudeu.”
In the Renaissance sense of the word, Penda was a magnanimousman – “great-souled” – a good deal larger than common life.
(First published in Withowinde Magazine, No 76, August 1986)

by Martin Vine

first published in Withowinde 120, Winter 1999

However, some writers have expressed doubts as to whether beor was in fact a malt-based drink similar to beer today. It has been suggested that the drink the Anglo-Saxons called beor was in fact the drink we now call cider. It has also been suggested that beor was a strong alcoholic, sweet fruit-juice; a short drink sipped from little cups. Of course both these suggestions cannot be correct, at least not at the same period of time. The following is mainly an attempt to see if there is any evidence for or against either of these suggestions. Also will be examined a related problem, namely, if Anglo-Saxon beor was similar to the drink we now call beer, how did beor differ from the drink they called ealu (ale)?

Old English beor is a very early drink-name. Compounds such as beorsele (beer-hall) and gebeorscipe (drinking party) show that the name beor had been in existence long enough for it to be used in a general sense to mean ‘strong alcoholic drink,’ in addition to its use as the name of a specific alcoholic beverage. Thus we have Gif ∂onne on gebeorscipe (Ine’s Laws AD688-94); and beorsele appearing only in early poetical texts and therefore indicating a term going back to the pagan period. It would certainly be extremely strange if a name for a high-status drink, drunk in the pagan beer-halls, was derived from monastic Latin.

From the Roman, Cornelius Tacitus, born c. AD 56, we learn that the alcoholic drink of the Germanic folk was a liquor made from barley, or other grain, fermented to produce a certain resemblance to wine (Germania: 23). It is interesting that Tacitus does not mention mead or cider. The drink of the Germanic folk, or at least their main drink, was, it seems, the drink that today we call beer or ale. We know from the Old English medicinal recipes that beor was much stronger than ealu and it would seem natural to assume that beor was the drink of the warriors in the Hall and ealu was the drink of the members of the family.

WINE

When Tacitus says that Germanic beer had a ‘resemblance to wine’ he perhaps should be taken as meaning that, not having vineyards at that time, the Germans made their alcoholic drink from barley, which they grew in quantity, and that this was their equivalent alcoholic drink to the Roman wine made from grapes. In other words, the Romans drank wine and the Germans drank beer. He probably did not mean that the Germans were trying, and failing, to make a drink up to the standard of Roman wine. This insulting view was however promoted by the Roman elite at a later date, for example by the Roman Emperor Flavius Claudius Julianus (AD 331-365) who maintained that Roman wine was like nectar whereas Germanic beer stank like a Billy-goat.

From the 7th century AD the Anglo-Saxons had a small number of vineyards and, to some little extent , adopted the Roman drink. But wine was never plentiful throughout the period and was therefore expensive and available only to a relatively small number of wealthy people. In Ælfric’s Colloquy the conversation runs as follows:

Ond hwæt drincst ∂u? (And what do you drink?) Ealu, gif ic hæbbe, o∂∂e wæter gif ic næbbe ealu (Ale, if I have it, or water if I have no ale)

Ne drincst ∂u win? (Do you not drink wine) Ic ne eom swa swedig ∂æt ic mæge bicgean me win. (I am not so wealthy that I may buy wine)

There was a warmer climatic phase from the 9th – 13th centuries, when it would have been easier to cultivate vines in England, though wine was still not drunk, certainly in any quantity, by the mass of the people. In his description of Britain in the middle of the 8th century, Bede says that vines grow ‘in some places’ (on summum stowum wingeardas growa∂). Wine was mainly produced for personal comsumption by the lord and his retinue (Hagen p.221) and later for those in the great monasteries.

Few monasteries were without a vineyard. Wine was needed for the Eucharist and the monks were usually allowed generous amounts for their own consumption. In the Old English medicinal recipes wine appears more frequently than any other alcoholic drink. This is partly due to the fact that the vineyards and the medicinal texts are both closely associated with the monasteries. In addition, the great use of wine reflects the Mediterranean origin of many of the recipes.

Wine has by far the greatest number of name compounds. According to Fell, the name win has fifty compounds whereas beor has eleven. Hagen points out that many of the win compounds are functional and descriptive, relating to wine production; for example, winbeam (vine), winberige (grape), wingeard (vineyard), Wingeardseax (pruning knife), winreafetian (gather grapes), winwringe (wine press) and winwyrcend (wine dresser). In passing, it should be noted that beor does not have these functional compounds. If the term beor was used by the Anglo-Saxons to mean cider, then we would expect to see compounds of the word beor relating to cider production; but there are none.  This is a strong indication that beor was not cider.

Wine was not an early, traditional drink of the Anglo-Saxons. From early, pagan times their high-status, strong alcoholic drinks were beor and medu (mead). These were the drinks of the warriors in the Hall and thus we have the terms beorsele (Beer Hall) and meduhealle (Mead Hall). Mead is a honey-based drink and it has been suggested that Beor was also a sweet drink. But having two high-status sweet drinks seems to reflect Roman rather than Germanic practice. One would have thought that beor would have been the strong drink made from barley mentioned by Tacitus, thus providing a choice between a sweetish drink (mead) and a thirst-quenching bitter drink (beor).

Mead and other Honey-based Drinks

The name mead does not seem to have germanic origins. Thus we have not only OE medu, OFris mede, OHG medo and ON mio∂r, all drinks made from honey and water, but also Lith medus and OSlav medu, meaning honey and Greek medu meaning wine and Sanskrit madhu meaning honey-sweet wine. Therefore others had ancient drinks similar to the mead of the Germanic folk.

The plant called in Old English Meduwyrt is usually taken to be, and probably was, the plant we now call meadowsweet (Filipendula ulmaria). This is often said to be a plant used by the Anglo-Saxons to give additional flavour to their mead.

In addition to mead there were a number of foreign drinks, some mentioned in the Old English medicinal recipes, that involved the use of honey, namely:

Ydromellum – Apples and honey fermented together, usually in water but one recipe gives wine (Cockayne Lb II iv).

Oxymel – a mixture of vinegar, honey and water.

Mulsum – wine and honey or wine, water and honey.

Hydromel – Honey diluted in water (becomes mead when fermented).

Glossaries

The view that beor was cider or a sweet alcoholic drink is largely based on certain glosses where beor is equated with various foreign drinks, as follows:

Beor is glossed Ydromellum (Wrt Voc 27 43)
Ydromellum is glossed Æppelwin (Wrt Voc ii 49 57)
Æppelwin is glossed ‘cider’ (WW430)

Therefore, from all these glosses, it would appear that Beor=Ydromellum=Æppelwin=Cider, and that beor is another name for cider. But we have more glosses: Beor is glossed mulsum (Wrt Voc 27 46), Mulsum is glossed ‘cider’ (Isidore 7th cent) and Mead is glossed ‘cider’ (Isidore 7th century). From these glosses it appears that beor=mulsum=cider, but mulsum is a drink made from wine and honey and is not therefore cider. Furthermore, in the 7th century cider (syder) was simply a name for a strong alcoholic drink. There is another gloss:  Ydromellum glosses ofetes wos (fruit juice) (BL Ms 32246f 7b) From all these glosses it would appear that Beor=Ydromellum=mulsum=mead=Æppelwin=cider=fruit juice, which of course is complete nonsense.

Bill Griffiths warns ‘the equivalence between incompatible drinking practices must be unsafe’ (2001). Unfortunately, Fell uses these ‘unsafe’ glosses to support her view stating ‘Old English beor was a drink made from honey and the juice of a fruit other than grapes, as the glosses ofetes wos and æppelwin suggest (Fell p 90). From these glosses it appears that any one of the drinks named is synonymous with any other drink named. The question arises as to why these glosses all appear to be in error. The answer would seem to be that the glosses are either equating drinks that are to some extent similar, or they are equating an alcoholic drink of one culture with an alcoholic drink of another culture. Thus beor is glossed cider simply because they are both strong alcoholic drinks and not because they are the same drink. It hardly needs to be said that any hypothesis based on these glosses is likely to be unsound.

What type of drink was beor?

One suggestion is that beor was a short, sweet, highly alcoholic drink. This seems to be only partly true. The evidence does show that beor was stronger than ealu (ale) (see Cockayne Lb II lxvii), but in the medicinal recipes beor appears as a long, bitter drink rather than a short, sweet drink. For example, genim bollan fulne leohtes beores (take a full bowl of light beer) (Cockayne Lac 18). Presumably a light beor would not be up to the usual acoholic strength. Another recipe states ‘ after eating salty food, by no means let him drink beor and wine and ale moderately’ (Cockayne Lb I xxxvi). In other words a long drink is needed to quench one’s thirst, therefore beor, like wine and ale, was a long drink to be had after eating salty food.

In the recipes, honey is sometimes added to wine or skimmed milk, but never to beor. Fell believes that this was because beor was sweet enough without the addition of honey (Fell 1975). However, if beor was a enjoyed as a thirst-quenching bitter drink, what would be the point of adding honey to it? The question is why was it deemed necessary to add honey to the wine or the skimmed milk?  A likely answer is that, whereas beor was a palatable drink in itself, the skimmed milk, particularly at that time, would be improved by sweetening. As to the wine, it seems that Anglo-Saxon wine was naturally dry (Hagen p227) but swete win sel mylt ∂onne ∂e afre (sweet wine digests better than rough) meant that the Anglo-Saxons sometimes sweetened their wine (Hagen ibid). Therefore honey is added to the milk and wine to make these drinks more palatable whereas beor did not require the honey because it was palatable in itself.

An interesting Old English medicinal recipe provides us with information regarding the relative weights of beor, win and ealu compared to a pint of water. This states that a pint of beor weighs 22 pennyweights less than a pint of water (Cockayne Lb II lxvii). Fell points out that given the same measure of water and a sweet alcoholic drink, the alcohol could not weigh less than the water (Fell ibid). Therefore it follows that beor was not a sweet drink. However, Fell maintains that the Anglo-Saxon scribe must have made a mistake regarding the weight of the beor, and sticks to her view that beor is a sweet drink.

Another medicinal recipe states that a pregnant woman should not eat anything salty, nor anything sweet, nor drink beor, nor eat pig or anything fatty, nor drink till she be drunk (Cockayne Lb III xxxvii). In other words she should have a bland or neutral diet – which is good advice. It is interesting to consider why, specifically, she should not drink beor. Was beor forbidden because, as some maintain, it was a sweet drink? Probably not, because she has been told to avoid anything sweet and then told to avoid beor; she is not told to avoid anything sweet like beor. In other words, there are two things she must avoid, namely, sweetness and beor. It is more likely that she is told to avoid beor because it is a strong alcoholic, bitter drink. (bitter drinks reduce body heat and dry body fluids and strong alcohol obviously should be avoided when pregnant). Therefore again the evidence, properly interpreted, shows beor to be a bitter rather than a sweet drink.

The comparative evidence from Old Norse is relevant if, as most seem to think, the drink called bjorr is the same type of drink as beor. Where beor or bjorr is said to be ‘sweet,’ it should be noted that ‘sweet’ in Old, and modern, English can mean pleasant, and, as Fell says, where svass is applied to bjorr, ‘precious’ is perhaps the nearest translation (Fell ibid) Therefore, when beor or bjorr is said to be sweet, it may mean that the drink is pleasant or precious and not sweet in the way that honey is sweet. More straightforwardly, in the second Lay of Gudrun, in the Elder Edda, said to date to the early 10th century, bjorr is presented as being served in a full horn of drink, cool and bitter. Thus bjorr, like beor, was a long bitter drink.

Some Post Anglo-Saxon references to beor/beer

1205   drink of his beore  (Layamon’s Brut)
1216    hi nabbeth noth win ne bor/beor (Owl & Nightingale)
c 1300  alle drunken of the ber  (King Horn)
c 1325  Rymenhild pours beer (King Horn)
c 1330  of hir bere & of hir wine (Guy of Warwick Auch )
1377 – 99    beir, a last iiij d; and for each barel (Oath book Colchester)
1391     in pane, beer, mede  (Acc. Exp.Derby Camden)
1397    Item ii beere val liii s iiiid  (Early Eng Customs System)
1400   Good ber & brygt wyn both  (Gawain)
1420   iii barellis biere   (Early Eng Custom’s system)
1440   bere, a drynke: Cervisia hummulina  (PParv Hrl 221)

There would seem to be no reason to doubt that all the references to a drink called beor or beore/bor/ber/beer/beir/beere/biere/bere, as shown above,are all references to the same type of drink. If the beor of the Anglo-Saxons was a short drink, very sweet and made from fruit, then the question arises as to what date did the name change its meaning and become applied instead to a drink made from fermented grain? According to Fell, this change in meaning occurred in the 15th century when there were large-scale imports of hopped beer from Flanders into England. However, against this explanation is the use of the word beer in c 1300, where Rymenhild fills a gallon bowl with beer and offers it to Horn (King Horn). Beer therefore in 1300 was a long drink, and Fell is proved wrong. Furthermore, it is hard to accept that the name of an old, traditional, alcoholic drink in England should, in the 15th century, stop being applied to a short, sweet drink and be applied instead to a long bitter drink made from grain, without this being mentioned anywhere in the literature.  It is difficult to see how this change could have been achieved, without a great deal of confusion over an extended period of time.

The Semantics of Beor

The Old English names for barley are beow and bere. We know from Tacitus (see above) that the germanic folk were noted as having an alcoholic drink made  from barley. Therefore it seems more than reasonable to take the ancient Old English drink called beor as being made from fermented barley, because the name of the drink seems to derive from the very similar name for barley. This was accepted without question until recent times, when, mislead by the glosses, as discussed above, it was maintained that beor was either cider or a short, sweet drink made from fruit and drunk out of tiny walnut cups. To fit in with these latter views it was necessary to find a different origin for the name beor. It was then suggested that beor was not derived from the name for barley but from the monastic Latin biber meaning ‘to drink.’ If this is so then it is, it seems, no more than a remarkable coincidence that the name they derived from the Latin biber happened to be so similar, sometimes identical, to their name for barley.

Types of Beor and Ealu

There were various types of Anglo-Saxon ale. Ealdus ealo∂ (Old ale) is mentioned in a fly-leaf leechdom. According to Cockayne, even without hops, a strong ale would keep until it became ‘old ale.’ Keeping and careful treatment would secure its being clear (Cockayne Glossary). They had strang hluttor ealu (strong clear ale), suran eala∂ (sour ale), god ealu (good ale) and niwe which is probably new ale. There is also a reference to twybrownum eala∂ (twice-brewed ale) (Cockayne LB I xivii 3), but this is probably a translation from a Mediterranean recipe and may not therefore be, as some suggest, evidence that the Anglo-saxons brewed their ale twice to make it a stronger drink.

There were also various types of Anglo-Saxon beor. There are references to swi∂e beore (very good beor?), strangan beor (strong beor), leohtes beors (light beor) and wearmum beore (warm beor). In the Old English herbarium, which is a translation of Mediterranean medicinal recipes, the Anglo-Saxon translator uses the native term beor to translate the foreign drink mulsum. As pointed out above, this does not mean that beor was the same type of drink as mulsum. It is from the Herbarium that one of the mis-leading glosses , i.e. beor = mulsum, has been derived. However there is a particular reason why the Saxon scribe translated mulsa as beor, which is discussed below.

We know, as earlier discussed, that the term beor was sometimes used as general term for strong alcoholic drink, as well as a specific term for a particular alcoholic drink. As a general term, beor was used to translate a number of foreign drinks, such as mulsum and syder (cider). However, in the Old English Herbarium, it is li∂on beor that is used to translate aqua mulsa, as follows:

Manuscripts   Ms V (OE)                                            MS O (OE)                                      Ms Vo (Lat)
Herb 1                   beore                                                        beore                                                   aqua mulsa
Herb 11                 niwe beor                                                beor                                                     aqua mulsa
Herb 90                swy∂e god beor                                      swy∂w god beor                                      -
Herb 140              li∂on beore                                              li∂e beore                                          aqua mulsa
Herb 146              li∂on beore                                              li∂e beore                                          aqua mulsa
Herb 158              li∂on beore (twice)                                        -                                                           -
Herb 181              li∂on wætan beores                              li∂e beore                                          aqua mulsa
Herb 185              li∂on beore                                                      -                                                   aqua mulsa

In Herbarium Section 11 (Ms V) the requirement for ‘niwe beor’ seems not that important since in Ms O the scribe gives simply beor. However, since aqua mulsa is nearly always translated as li∂on beore it seems likely that in Herb 1 and Herb 11 beor should also have been translated li∂on beor. This we have li∂on (mild) beor as a translation of aqua (watered down) mulsa. It would seem fairly certain that, in Herb 181, the li∂on wætan beores is the scribe’s attempt to translate the ‘watered down mulsum,’ but is does not follow from this that the Anglo-Saxons watered down their beor. The Anglo-Saxon scribe has the difficult problem of trying to translate foreign terms from a culture that incorporates drinking practices that are not always shared by both cultures. We have no latin original for Herb 90, which is a pity since iy would have been interesting to see whether swy∂e god beor was a translation of simply mulsa, that is to say a drink not required to be watered down.

In Herb 1 the recipe states that honey is to be added to the beore, but again the scribe is substituting a native term, as a general term, for the foreign term mulsa and therefore it does not mean that in practice honey would have been added to beor, when we take beor as a specific term, because if a sweet drink was needed then a honey-based drink such as mead would have fitted the bill. In the original Latin, adding extra honey to mulsa makes sense, but it does not make sense to add honey to a drink that is valued because it is bitter. In Leechbook II the foreign drink mulsa is translated by the Anglo-Saxon scribe as mulsa not beor. He states Drince mulsa ∂ is gemilscede drincan ælce dæge (drink mulsum that is, dulcet drinks every day); this being a translation from a Mediterranean text. Here the scribe is avoiding confusion by not using the term beor and he obviously knows that mulsum is a sweet drink and therefore should not be equated with beor.

Wylisc Ealu (Welsh Ale)

Ale was the commonest drink in Wales according to the Laws (Hagen p 217); therefore it is not surprising that some of this Welsh Ale made its way into England in the later Anglo-Saxon period, thus appearing in some of the Old English medicinal recipes and Food-Rent lists. In these lists Wylisc ale is sometimes called ”Sweet” Wylisc ealu, but there is no evidence to support the suggestion that Wylisc ale was a sweet, honeyed, spiced ale similar to the drink later called bragot. Ale has a sweetish flavour as long as the malt sugar in it is not completely fermented (Hagen p 216). Therefore Welsh Ale may have been a swete ealu as opposed to a hluttor ealu (clear ale).

Hops

Adding hops to beer, clarifies, preserves and gives it a bitter taste, which makes the drink more thirst-quenching. The practice of adding hops to beer may well have been done, in England, earlier than was once thought; though not done to any great extent until the 16th century. The inflorescences and nuts of the hop contain the bitter acids humulane and lupulone which have antibiotic and hence preservative qualities (Wilson).  Hildegard von Bingen in the 12th century mentions the preservative quality of hops: Its bitterness inhibits some spoilage in beverages to which it is added, making them last longer (Throop 1998).

It is not known whether the Anglo-Saxons were aware of the keeping qualities of hops; if used it may have been simply the bitter taste that was valued. It is often suggested that they used a number of different herbs to flavour their beer, but the evidence for this appears only to practices later than the period. For example, the name beerwyrt applied to the herb meadowsweet, a herb also associated with mead. According to Hagen, sap from sycamore trees was used to make beer stronger. This may be the case, but not in the Anglo-Saxon period because the sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus), a native of Central Europe, was not introduced into England until the 16th century. The oft-repeated statement that the Romans introduced sycamore is based on no evidence (Rackham 1986). On the other hand, there is some evidence that hops were used by the Anglo-Saxons, later in the period, to flavour, if not preserve, their drink.

Old English hymele (hop) appears in a medicinal recipe (Cockayne Lac Fo. 139a). The hop is the fructification of the female plant and Cockayne says the name eowohumelan (Lb III ixi) is probably ‘ewe hop-plant’ – i.e. the female plant. The Lacnunga (Fo 133b) also refers to hegehymele (hedge-hop), a name which, according to Cockayne, implies a possible cultivated hop plant (his view is repeated later by Wilson and Hagen). But this is not necessarily the case as wild hops grow, quite naturally on hedges, which, as a climbing plant, they need for support. There is a difference between evidence and interpretation of that evidence and, if there is doubt then the, doubt usually applies to the latter.

Wild hops have been part of the British flora since long before the adoption of agriculture (Godwin 1956). Their natural habitat is wet alder and oak woods and the ‘wild hops’ seen in hedgerows today are sometimes relics of these habitats or relics of former cultivation. Cockayne points out that three Saxon legal deeds refer to a hide of land at Hymel-tun (Hop-farm) in Worcestershire (Cockayne Vol 2 Pref ix). This may indicate that hops were cultivated or it may just have been a place/farm where wild hops were abundant and therefore named accordingly.

Section 68 of the Old English Herbarium at first seems to provide clear evidence that the Anglo-Saxons added hops to their drinks. This section refers to Herba brionia ‘which some call hymele (hop). In Section 68 (Ms V) the Saxon scribe states the hop is so approved and praised that men mix it with their usual drinks. Cockayne says that this remark about adding hops to the usual drinks is not in the original Latin and therefore must refer to an Anglo-saxon practice (Cockayne, Vol 1 p 173 fn). Unfortunately, Cockayne did not check all the Latin versions. In Section 68 (Ms Ca) the Latin reads hæc herba tamlaudabillis est ut (et in tyriacis) potionibus mittatur, which shows that the Saxon scribe was in fact translating from the Latin and the passage therefore does not necessarily reflect Anglo-Saxon practice.

In Kent documents exist which refer to hop-gavel. This involves pre-conquest land tenure and shows that hops were used as a customary due or rent-in-kind payable by certain tenants (Wilson/Connelly). Also in Kent was found the Graveney boat, apparently abandoned in the 10th century, which when found still contained a cargo of hops in some abundance, presumably intended to be used for brewing.  Wilson takes the presence of these hops in this boat as providing the first concrete evidence that hopped beer was known in Britain in the 10th century (Wilson ibid). Also, from the 9th century onwards there is good evidence that French monasteries were making beer with hops (Wilson), therefore it seems quite likely that this use of hops spread from France into Kent in the 10th century, with the Graveney boat offering evidence of this import.

Cider

Cider is a foreign drink that was eventually introduced into England. In France the term sidre was commonly used to mean a fermented drink made from apples, and later the same term (ME sidre) was used in England with the same meaning. Earlier forms of the term (Med.Latin cisara and Late Latin sicera) simply meant ‘strong drink.’ This earlier sense was retained in translations of the Vulgate, where forms of the term, such as ciser,cisar and cyser, were used by Christian writers to translate the Hebrew term shekar, a term also meaning ‘strong drink.’

According to Walter Baver’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament in Aramaic, Sikera derives from the Akkadian shikaru, with the meaning of ‘barley beer,’ but it is unlikely that this would have been known to the Anglo-Saxon scribes when they used their term beor to translate the foreign term sicera. The term cider is from Old French cisdre, earlier from Low latin cicera (strong drink), from Greek sikera from Hebrew shekar (strong drink). The name was at one time applied to a drink of various fermented fruits, then subsequently to a drink of fermented pears or apples, then, finally, more specifically, to a drink of fermented apples.

Many historians have presumed that the Anglo-Saxons made cider but did not have a name for it says Hagen.  She suggests that they did have a name for it, and that name was beor. The term for cider in German is Apfelwein (Applewine). In Danish it is Æblevin and in Dutch Appelwijn. It might be supposed that the Anglo-Saxons had a similar name for cider, and in fact Old English Vocabularies do give cider as Æppelwin (WW 430), but this is no more than a book-name. The real reason why the Anglo-Saxons had no name for cider is because they had no cider, and if they had had cider they would no doubt have followed the example of other Germanic folk and called it Applewine. The term beor is never mentioned in association with apples in the Old English literature.

Lots of suitable apples are required to make any amount of cider. The native Crab apple (Malus sylvestris) provided the only available apple throughout most of the Anglo-Saxon period, but these Crab apples would have been unsuitable as cider apples. The vast majority of Crab apple trees that are seen today, in England, are in fact Wildings. That is to say they are mostly trees that have hybridised, over the last 800 years, with various varieties of cultivated apple, and consequently their fruit is larger and not so sour as the original crab apples known to the Anglo-Saxons. The fruits of Wildings, often still called ‘Crab apples,’ are sometimes suitable for making cider. It should also be pointed out that in Anglo-Saxon times the native Crab apple trees were not all that plentiful anyway. It is described by Rackham as an anti-gregarious tree. This is why it was suitable to be used as a boundary marker. The cultivated apple first appeared in England at the very end of the Anglo-Saxon period.

There seems to be no mention of apples in Anglo-Saxon food-rent lists, but they are mentioned a few times in the medicinal recipes. However, it should be remembered that the term æppel in Old English can mean any type of fruit. For example, brembel æppel ( Lb I Ixiv) is the blackberry, and the ‘apples’ mentioned in another recipe (Lb II xxiii) are in fact pomegranates (Cockayne ibid). Wudusur æppel and surne æppel both refer to the native sour Crab. In Leechbook II apples are mentioned in half a dozen recipes, but these are all translations of Mediterranean recipes. There is one recipe where apples are used in a drink, but again this is a foreign recipe. (The writer deals with the native Crab apple and its fruit in more detail in an earlier article (Horn 2003)).

The exact date when apples were first cultivated in Britain is unknown, because cultivated apples cannot be distinguished from the native Crab using the plant material remains found in archæological excavations. It has been said that the cultivated apple was introduced into Britain by the Romans, but even if this is the case, since the trees do not grow ‘true to type’ from pips, they would not have survived throughout the Anglo-Saxon period. Celtic and Cornish dialects have words for apples, but it is most probably the indigenous crab to which they refer. There is, however, some evidence that a sweet, non-native apple was grown in one location in England towards the end of the Anglo-Saxon period (Horn 2003).

At the end of the Anglo-Saxon period some fruit trees were being cultivated in orchards, but all on a small scale (Harvey 1981). The term orceard (orchard) was beginning to take on its modern meaning, but the term æppulretun should not necessarily be taken as meaning ‘apple orchard’ because æppel sometimes meant generically fruit. However, an extensive apple orchard is recorded in the Domesday Book (Hagen ibid), but the fact that only one is recorded, albeit described as extensive, is significant.

Cultivated apple varieties spread across Europe from the mediterranean into France. The Normans had a strong tradition of cultivating apples and were familiar with cider production. They introduced  a number of varieties mainly into the south of England. A variety called Pearmain, recorded in 1204, is the oldest cultivated apple name in England. Its name is derived from the French word for a group of apple varieties. Later the famous Cox’s Orange Pippin was first propagated in Kent, as was the Bramley apple. The term pippin is derived from a French word meaning ‘seedling.’ Thus, like the use of hops in brewing, the cultivated apples came from France into Kent, and, to this day, hops and cider are largely associated with Kent.

Cider was established in France much earlier than in England, but the exclusive use of apples for cider-making came rather late. Bartholomeus Anglicus, who spent some time in France, describes, in about 1250, cider as being a drink made from fruit, which may have included apples and pears. In Anglo-Saxon England, the fruit of the wild pear, if it could be found, would have been even less suitable for cider-making than the crab apple. The earliest reference to a cultivated pear in England is in the 12th century, when Wardoun pears were developed at Warden Abbey in Bedfordshire.

The increase in Apple Orchards in the 14th century coincided with a decline in vineyards in England. According to Landsberg the vineyards dwindled in England mainly no doubt due to the cooler and wetter weather. In addition,…good wine was at that time readily available from France. As the vineyards closed in England they were replaced by orchards, even in monasteries such as Peterborough and Christ Church Canterbury (Landsburg).It was at this time that cider started to become a popular drink, mainly in the south of England. Thus we have the first record of a form of the name cider (syder) appearing in the English language; this being in the Shoreham Poems (1333).

The terms Beer and Ale

The two high-status drinks in the Anglo-Saxon hall were medu and beor. As Griffiths says, the association of beor with sweetness in glosses of Latin terms may be a misleading clue. The Romans seemed to have liked their wine sweet, but did not favour beer at all (Griffiths ibid). If Griffiths had continued researching along these lines he would probably have anticipated this article. The Romans liked their drinks to be sweet, but it does not follow that the Anglo-Saxons would have wanted both their high-status drinks to be sweet. A choice of sweet mead or bitter beer in the Hall seems more likely. The tiny silver or walnut cups, sometimes found as grave goods, do not in themselves constitute evidence that a particular drink was served in them. The large drinking- horn was the favoured drinking vessel. To be offered alcohol in a horn was a mark of status (Hagen ibid). When not a horn, the drinking vessel was a bowl not a cup.

The terms  beer and ale, in varying forms are used in many other, mainly germanic, countries as names for a drink made from fermented grain. In Europe there are four different terms: ale is the northern term, beer the western term, cervisia the southern term and pivo the eastern term for the drink. About 40 countries use a form of the word Beer and about 10 countries use a form of the word Ale, for a drink made from fermented grain. Some of the western and northern terms are as follows:

Western Terms

Old High German      bior
High German              bier
Low German                beer
Frisian                          bier
Dutch                            bier
Old Norse                    bjor
Old English                 beor
Mod English               beer

Northern Terms

Latvian                         alus
Lithuanian                  alus
Danish                         ol
Norwegian                  ol
Swedish                       ol
Old Norse                    ol
Old English                ealu
Mod English              ale

Most countries use either a form of the word beer or a form of the word ale for a drink of fermented grain. The question arises, if beer and ale are basically the same type of drink, why are both terms used in Old English, Modern English and Old Norse. We know there must have been some difference between beor and ealu because both terms sometimes appear in the same sentence. In most countries the question does not arise because only one of the terms is used for the drink.

A number of writers, for example F Kluge, have maintained that Bjor is a loan-word into Norse from Old English. Jan de Vries mentions Kluge’s hypothesis (Altnordisches Etymologisches Worterbuch 1962 p  40). The Icelandic dictionaries of Cleasby-Vigfousson and Fritzer give the translation of bjorr as beer or ale. The view that Old Norse bjorr may be of foreign origin is also in Cleasby-Vigfusson’s Icelandic Dictionary. There are also two references to bjorr in Sturlunga Saga, both of which deal with getting the drink from ships, suggesting that Icelanders were importing bjorr and that the drink was not a native drink to Iceland. (Fell ibid).

Conclusions

The appearance of both terms, beor and ealu, is to be expected in Old English, because the invading Germanic tribes brought into England both Western and Northern languages, and both terms have survived down to the present day.  If a term is given a useful meaning in a language, it will survive. In more modern times the difference between beer and ale is that only the former includes hops. However, this was not always the difference between the two drinks. In the times when hops were not used, or less widely used, the difference was a difference in alcoholic strength. According to Wright’s dictionary, beer was a malt liquor, stronger and superior to ale, brewed from the first mashing of the malt, and ale was a weaker brew, brewed from the malt after the beer had been extracted from it. This seems to be the difference in Anglo-Saxon times. Beor was the stronger, high-status drink, drunk usually from a horn and ealu was the weaker, common drink of the people, drunk from a bowl and no doubt safer, as well as nicer, than drinking river or well water. The term beor also survived as a general term for strong alcoholic drink.

References

Tacitus                        Germania 23  Penguin 1970
Ælfric’s                       Colloquy, Ed G N Garmonsway  1991
Bede                             A History of the English Church and People
Hagen A.                   A Second Handbook of Anglo-Saxon Food & Drink, 1999
Fell  C.                        Old English Beor
Cockayne O.              Leechdoms, Wortcunning & Starcraft of Early England
Wright T.                   Wrt Voc Vocabularies 1857 & 1873
Wright & Wulker     Vocabularies 1884
Isidore of Seville       Etymologiarum sive Originum
BL                                 Blickling Glossaries
Griffiths B.                 Notes on Beer/Ale.  Internet
Clark Hall                  A Concise  Anglo-Saxon Dictionary
King Horn                  OUP for Early English Society 1962
Wilson D G                Plant Remains from Graveney Boat, New Phytologist, 1975
Wilson/Connelly     Plant Remains including Evidence for Hops.
Rackham O.              The History of the Countryside, 1986
Throop P.                   Hildegard von Bingen’s Physica, 1998
Godwin H.                 History of British Flora, 1956
Horn P C                    The Apple Tree in Anglo-Saxon England, Withowinde 130, 2003
Bartholomeus           Bartholomeus Anglicus, De Proprietatibus Rerum
Harvey J.                   Mediæval   Gardens, London 1981
Landsberg S.            The medieval Garden
Wright T.                   English Dialect Dictionary.

(Based on Article in Withowinde 146,  2008)

Why has so little survived to the present?  After all, swords, seaxes, spears and arrow-heads have survived in significant numbers, buried with their owners in life.  Like byrnies and helms, all these too were made from precious iron and could have been re-cycled. Although

mail has a large surface area and corrodes quickly in the ground, even in the acid soil of the Sutton Hoo mound, a mass of iron mail is difficult to miss.  Perhaps mail was only very rarely buried in graves or perhaps it was much rarer than we have been led to believe.  It is time to re-examine this question with an open mind, jettisoning modern re-enactor-induced preconceptions and going back to basics.

The first idea which needs to be examined is that until late in the Anglo-Saxon period, the English were technically incapable of manufacturing mail and that when the mail-coats acquired from Roman Fabricæ on the mainland of Europe wore out, they could not be replaced.  It has been estimated that a ‘well cared for, iron byrnie, kept well-greased could last for up to 200 years. We know from ‘Beowulf’ that armour was kept in the family and passed down the generations:

…Onsend Higelace,     gif mec hild nime,

beaduscruda betst,      þæt mine breost wereð,

hrægla selest;               þæt is Hrædlan laf,

Welandes geweorc…

…send back to Hygelac, if battle take me

(this) best of battle-shirts that my breast weareth.

(this) gifted garment that is Hrethel’s legacy

the work of Weland .,….

Armour gifted to a warrior by his lord had to be returned at death, in order that it could be leant out again.  So Rædwald & Co. could well have been wearing heirloom mail, manufactured long ago in continental Europe. Some also say that the Sutton-Hoo helm was ancient when deposited and, to be fair, its design does hark back to a 4th Century AD Roman

Cavalry design. Also supporting this argument is the disappearance of the armour-piercing heavy javelin, the Angon, after the 7th Century; perhaps, in the absence of armour, it was no longer needed!

There are, however, major problems with this argument. The manufacture of mail is costly, tedious and time-consuming but not technically difficult compared to, for example, a ‘pattern-welded, sword, or even a silver-inlaid seax.  Saying that the Anglo-Saxons possessed little or no mail (or other armour) a few hundred years after coming to Britain because they were incapable of its manufacture must be wrong. English smiths were quite capable of making mail armour – if it was needed!

One must therefore ask the question: Were heavily armoured warriors tactically useful during the Anglo-Saxon Period? The answer has to be:  Only sometimes.  Armour, even a well-fitting mail-coat, is heavy, hot and uncomfortable. A soldier will only wear the minimum amount of armour necessary to keep him alive. There are well-recorded instances, in the later Mediæval period, of soldiers shedding the heavy armour which had been issued to them and in the 5th century De Re Militari, Vegetius laments the laziness of the current Roman Infantry: …negligence and sloth having by degrees introduced a total relaxation of discipline, the soldiers began to consider their armour too heavy and seldom put it on. They first  requested leave from the Emperor to lay aside the cuirass and afterwards the helmet.

For every military unit, from antiquity to the present day, there is the conflicting triad of protection vs. weaponry vs. mobility. A good modern example is the tank. In order to be an effective weapon the tank needs a gun for offence, a very large gun, needing a heavy turret and heavy, bulky ammunition limits either the armour that can be carried or the mobility or both.  A light gun means a fast, well-armoured tank, but one without much offence. Similarly, with regard to armour protection: too light armour protection leaves the crew vulnerable to enemy fire, too heavy and the mobility or offensive power of the tank suffers, limiting its tactical usefulness. Balance and compromise need to be made in order to obtain an efficient armoured fighting vehicle. The same is true of the Dark Ages Warrior: Armour would only be worn / provided / manufactured if it was tactically useful!

If your war-band has to slog hundreds of miles across the country in order to fight:

• they will not want to carry more than the bare minimum of arms / protection in order to save weight. Or : -
• you will require a large baggage train. This will be slow-moving and, hence, tactically vulnerable. Or : -
• you can, of course, have all your war-band mounted.  This is very costly, but as the horse, not the warrior, carries the weight of the armour and arms, until it comes time to fight, it is the best option but only affordable for a relatively small number of warriors, even if you are a king.

Thus, it is my thesis that Early English warriors usually went into battle with sword / spear and shield alone and only the privileged few who could ride to the field of battle wore helm and byrnie. Of course, heavy infantry could move by water, Viking-style and it is salutary to

remember, that one of the first things invading Danes did was to seize all the horses in the area.

Let us now consider the means whereby arms and armour from the distant past are preserved for us to find and study.

First, and most important, there is grave deposition.  This comprises most of the important finds both in England and in continental Europe and includes the Sutton-Hoo panoply, the Pioneer Helm and the Benty Grange Helm. Grave goods, however, cease with the

end of official paganism.

Second, material can have been lost by accident or discarded as rubbish. Into this category, one can place the Burgh Castle Helm.

Third, material can have been hidden carefully for later retrieval, but, like treasure trove, never recovered. The best example of this being the Anglian Helm from Coppergate, York.

Last, there is careful, deliberate deposition of material into rivers, bogs etc. as sacrifice to the gods. So far as I am aware, this usually applies more to weapons than armour and I am not aware of a definite example from Anglo-Saxon England.

It can thus be seen that aside from grave deposition, where site are generally well-recognised as such, the chances of finding Anglo-Saxon military artefacts are slim, for we do not know where to look! The Coppergate Helm was only found by luck and the keen eyesight of the mechanical excavator operator.

We return to the subject of the Sutton-Hoo Burial, where the only Anglo-Saxon mail-shirt known was recovered. Why were the Pioneer Warrior, the Taplow Warrior or the Benty-Grange Warrior not buried with their byrnies?  We can only speculate, but perhaps the

protective mail-coat did not have the same religious or ceremonial overtones that the sword or helmet did?  Perhaps mail was not regarded as so personal an item.  Certainly costly, it has great utility. It is durable, easy to repair and easy to adapt to different wearers. It can be

folded up, greased, stored and then used again and again. It can be re-worked repeatedly until the rings are worn to breaking point, whereupon it can be heat-welded into a lump and forged anew.  The very versatility of mail thus makes it nigh on impossible to date: a byrnie could include rings from older mail-shirts which had themselves been hybrids. The Bayeux Tapestry shows dead warriors being relieved of their hauberks; mail was much too valuable to leave lying around. It is quite possible, therefore, that part of a mail-coat worn by one of Harold’s huscarls at Hastings may have formed part of the harness of a Norman War-Lord in the 12th Century Not a particularly encouraging thought!

 As a modern day Heathen/Pagan I could not agree more!  Whilst Saxons living alongside Heathen Norsemen in the Danelaw area may have been influenced to return to their religious roots, I deplore the way in which it is presumed by so many that Anglo Saxon Paganism was the same as Scandinavian, except for some slight name changes: Odinn to Woden, Forr to Funor, Tyr to Tiw etc.

(In fact, as someone with an interest in Norse Paganism as well,  I will observe that it was not very  consistent from one village to the next, let alone across several different countries!)  Let’s not fall into the archaeologist trap: lf we can’t explain if, it must have ritual purpose…” So much is unknown, uncertain, and down to individual interpretation.

A lot of emphasis has been placed upon the writings of the Venerable Bede, possibly England’s first historian, writing in Jarrow after the Christianisation of England. While he does provide excellent evidence regarding some Anglo Saxon Heathen practices such as mentioning the obscure Heathen deities Eostre, Hreþa (month names) & Sætere, one must remember that he was a Christian monk with a political viewpoint, especially as regarding the lineage and legitimacy of his current royal dynasty and culture.  That makes it all the more surprising that he should remind us that the

Heathen feast of Modra necht is arguably on 26 December and that Solmonaþ(February) is a feast of cakes, while September is named as Halegmonaþ (Holy Month) and November as Blotmonaþ (from its animal sacrifices). Why would a Christian cleric want to make these up?

We have a far wider range of powerful literature, in the form of texts that can be analysed for clues to our Heathen past: Heroic poetry such as Beowulf and the Battle of Maldon, material from leech books and verse charms (such as the Nine Herbs Charm), laws, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, letters, and the Anglo Saxon Rune Poem.  I would argue that you cannot get into the early Anglo Saxon mind set without understanding something of the Paganism of that period, even when it had officially ceased to exist.

According to the 6th century writer Gildas, the first of the heathen Saxon newcomers in the 5th century were allegedly Hengest and Horsa, two warrior leaders brought in by the Celt Vortigern to evict the Picts between about 449-456. After completing this mercenary task, they decided to stay on, against his wishes.  At a battle near Aylesford in Kent, Horsa was killed, and the still visible White Horse Stone (or possibly its replacement) is said to be where he is buried, and is thus an important place to modern heathens as a memorial to one of the two human sources of English Heathenism.  It lies off the A229 Maidstone-Chatham road, near to where the Pilgrims Way and the more modern Channel Tunnel link cross it.  lt can be found via a footpath near to a garage.

Consider briefly the names though:  Vortigen is less a name than a title, which has been interpreted as “King of Kings.” Horsa means “horse” and Hengest either “stallion” – or alternatively the almost-exact opposite, “gelding.” (How etymologists justify their art as a science sometimes eludes me!) How likely is it, for two sons to be both named in equine fashion?  I wonder whether these were titles, rather than names, in the same way that Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia was known as the “Lion of Judah”?

LAWS

While I will accept that some laws are copied from one king to another, the successive laws against Paganism  seem to subtly change focus in each new generation: presumably to combat whatever was the “latest fad”.  The Saxon kings and the Church give us evidence of what was going on in England by what they forbade. For example, The Laws of King Alfred include:

30. The women (faamnan) who are accustomed to harbour enchanters (onfon gealdor-crasftiganJ and wizards (scin-læcan) and witches (wiccan) * do not allow them to live.

32. And he that sacrifices to idols (god-geldum onsaeoge), rather than to God alone, let him suffer

death. (Griffiths, 2006: 50)

Hence we know that people in the 880s were acting as enchanters, wizards and witches, as well as sacrificing to idols. It is unlikely that a law would be passed against something that did not exist. Prior to that in AD666, the biographer of St. Wilfriþ tells how a priest of the South Saxons cursed Wilfriþ and his companions as they were cast ashore in a storm.

The Council of Clofeshoh (747) condemned those who practiced divinations, auguries, incantations and the like.  The Dialogue of Archbishop Egbert named those who worshipped idols or gave themselves to the devil through others who took auspices or practiced astrology or enchantment as men who should never be appointed to the priesthood. (Blair, PH L997:LL7) – Though one might think they were already part of a rival priesthood, and would not therefore be interested in the one being denied them!

Between 1009 and 1016, King Æþelræd published his laws which included Renounce all Pagan Customs (Griffiths, 2006:84) demonstrating this was still a problem within an Anglo Saxon culture that had supposedly been converted to Christianity nearly four centuries previously (Pagan practices were specifically banned under Archbishop Theodore’s 7th century Penitential, which included penances for sacrificing to devils, foretelling the future and burning grain in a house after the death of a man – the last being the only reference I know of that particular Pagan practice).

The popular image of Christian conversion across Europe is not supported by the evidence, with some countries vacillating between various religions depending on their current rulers, invaders and even who they wanted as their allies or trading partners. Why, for instance, was the supposedly  Christian King Aþelhere of the East Angles named by Bede as being within the ill-fated 30 legions of the fervently Heathen King Penda’s AD654 expedition against Oswiu? (Stenton, 1971:83) Was it purely politics? Or had East Anglia reverted to Paganism once more? Prudence Jones & Nigel Pennick provide a detailed analysis of this type of process in A History of Pagan Europe (1995).

Earlier, East Anglian King Redwald had been baptised in Kent, but merely erected a crucifix in his Heathen temple and had a massive treasure burial – hardly the actions expected of a Christian. Maybe, like Prince Charles, he wanted to be “Defender of the Faiths” to his multi-faith society.  The Prittlewell treasure grave has proved this type of ostentatious funeral wasn’t unique in this period.  Wulfstan, ,Ælric and King Cnut (AD995) collectively ban animal guising, saluting the moon, making offerings at waterfalls and trees, making oaths to Heathen gods etc., in edicts years apart – which

suggest these things were still continuing. King Edgar had already forbidden well worship, divination, and practices around trees and wells in about AD970 – only 25 years before Cnut.   It would seem unlikely that laws would be repeatedly passed against some action that no longer happened.  Of course these accounts do all give us a very clear idea of what we should do as modern Heathens if we wish to worship in the way our ancestors did.

RITUALS & MAGIC

If one examines Anglo Saxon charms such as the one to make a field fruitful (Erce, Erce, Erce) it is hard to deny that there are some very magical acts going on alongside the instruction to say the Lords Prayer (cutting turf, and putting herbs and grain into the soil, etc.).   The period may officially be Christian, but it seems a lot of the old ways lingered, in a form semi- acceptable to the new religion.

When King Æþelberht met with Augustine and some 40 Christian missionaries, around 597 at Thanet in Kent, he insisted that it was in the open air, because he was suspicious of their magic. Does that mean then, at that place and time, people believed magic could only take place indoors?

CULT CENTRES

While there will always be linguistic and etymological arguments around place names, some of them

Wansdyke, Wednesbury (- Woden’s Barrow) Wednesfield, Thundersley (þunor’s grove), Tysoe (Tiw’s

Hill Spur) etc.- do seem to give evidence of centres of religious cults, Thurstable (Funor’s Pillar)    suggests a link with the sacred lrminsul pillars on the continent destroyed by Charlemagne, but St Anselm commenting on Heathen temples in Wessex mentions also crude pillars (ermula) of the same foul snake and the stag were worshipped with coarse stupidity in profane shrines… (Thompson, 2004:19). It was, of course, a stag that surmounted the whetstone sceptre of Sutton

Hoo, despite the wolf element to the Wuffing dynasty’s clan name,

Place names with an original element of hearg (hill sanctuary) in them such as Harrow Hill, likely indicate an outdoor altar site. Weoh = idol, allegedly, and this forms a Pagan element in place names such as Wayland Wood. What is much more controversial is the use of the Grimr nickname for Woden as part of place names. Whilst Grimsby might have been a centre for his worship, some places such as Grimsdyke, Grimspound, Grimes Graves etc, may have been named by later generations after a being that had by then gained ‘bogeyman’ status. What has not had much attention given it in recent years is the idea of areas named after their original tribes, who in turn were ruled by people who could only do so by claiming direct lineage back to a Pagan deity such as Woden or Seaxnot. A study of Frank Stenton (1971) will still repay the effort.

TEMPLES

According to Bede, the Heathen priest Coifi was asked by King Edwin of Northumbria to persuade the people to convert to Christianity in 627, by setting an example. He carried a spear on a stallion and threw it into the temple (ealh) at Goodmanham in the East Riding of Yorkshire – all taboo acts for an Anglo Saxon Heathen priest. (Blair, P. L977:121).  In contrast, at least one Icelandic priest owned a stallion and none seemed barred from carrying arms. Though they did share the custom of not taking weapons into the temple.

Certainly there must have been some well-constructed Heathen temples in England. Why else would Pope Gregory write to Abbot Mellitus a letter dated 17 June 601 (quoted by Bede) instructing him:  

I have come to the conclusion that the temples of the idols in England should not on any account be destroyed. Augustine must smash the idols, but the temples themselves should be sprinkled with holy water and altars set up in them in which relics are to be enclosed. For we ought to take   advantage of well built temples by purifying them from devil worship… (Branston, 8., L974:53-54)

Those English Heathen temples must have flourished well into the era of Christian conversion, since

elsewhere Bede mentions an unbroken tradition of at least one heathen temple seen by King Aldwulf of East Anglia ‘who lived into our own times’ and who testified ‘that this temple was still standing in his day, and that he had seen if when a boy.’(Branston, B. 1974:54) The temple in question had belonged to Aldwulf’s predecessor King Rædwald, who died in about 625, and is believed to be the main burial at Sutton Hoo, His temple was probably where Rendlesham church now stands in Suffolk.   If the life of Aldwulf (Eadwulf) is taken as 664-7L3 (Pollington, 2005:120) and if he saw it when he was six years old (the earliest he is likely to have been able to recollect) then the temple was there in 670 – fofty-five years after the death of Rædwald and the supposed end of Heathen practice. Bede also writes about King Sighere of the East Saxons rebuilding ruined temples and restoring Heathen worship after a serious plague in 665.

DANCE

A plate on the side of the Sutton Hoo helmet shows what appear to be two figures, each dancing with two spears and a sword, across two crossed spears on the ground. They have elaborate helmets on that appear to be crested with large bird-headed horns. There is a similar figure shown on the Finglesham belt buckle from Kent, and they have close parallels with panels from Torslunda, Sweden. It appears that ritual dancing is going on, and Ormsgard Dark Ages Theatre was

trying to do some experimental archaeology around that at Sutton Hoo during 2008. While one may argue about what sort of ritual dance it is, it would be hard to put it into a Christian context.

Two of the figures from the Torslunda plates have helmets with boars on them, and at least two similar helmets have been found in England: at Benty Grange, Derbyshire and fragments at Woolaston, Northants and Guilden Morden, Cambs.   Whilst they could simply be decoration, are they evidence of a boar cult an animal sacred to the god Frey? As I indicated at the start of this article it is all down to interpretation.

Some may find the title a little misleading. This is not a report on archaeological or documentary textile finds, it is a lovingly produced modern interpretation of ancient embroideries and artifacts, by a craftsperson who has a deep feeling for the period represented. This book began as a private project, a labour of love and only half way into the project was it mooted that it may become a book and that joy of unregulated creativity shows.

This is not really a ‘how to’ book with patterns or instructions to follow, it is a book for inspiration, just as the author has used everyday objects which would have been familiar to women of the period. The stories are told mostly through ‘altered books’ an artform which had not come my way before but which is perfect for the purpose. Cushions, purses and wall hangings are added if they lend themselves more fittingly to the subject matter. Many materials are combined, such as hand stitching, fabric, paper, fibres beads and paint.

The work begins with a short historic survey of the three cultures of the title and goes on to deal with who would have done the embroidery and for what purpose.

The contents include, Celtic Influences, The Book of Stitches, The Bayeux Stitch Book, The Dressing Up Book, The Book of Ancient Accessories, The Book of Motifs and The Domesday Book. Each section has a factual introduction giving information on what is known or surmised about embroidery of the period and then goes on to describe the ‘altered book’ dealing with that section, page by page and describing briefly how it was made.

The book has been beautifully produced by Search Press and has page after page of stunning colour photographs by the Roddy Paine Photographic Studio.

There are very few books which I would describe as true treasures, but this is one. If you are at all interested in art, craft or textiles, or just need a lift to your spirits, then buy the book.

Our ancient burial mounds, of which the Sutton Hoo set are the most well-known, are a mysterious and intriguing feature of our landscape, whether they occur singly or in groups.  Stephen Pollington has produced an excellent and detailed reference book about them.  

I turned first to the second section of the book, 126 pages in length, where all the known Anglo-Saxon barrows – some hundreds of them – are listed alphabetically by region. It includes the very many barrows that have disappeared through ploughing or other activities: for example, between 80 and 100 barrows were visible at Chartham Down, Kent, in 1729-30, and dozens of them were dug, but all traces of them had been ploughed out by 1856. The most important have lengthy entries – for example, Taplow has four pages including a diagram, Sutton Hoo seven pages – while the rest all have entries covering their identification and excavation. One of the earliest known excavations was at Barham, Kent, where a cremation urn was dug up at the time of King Henry VIII. It is fascinating to dip into, and rummage through, this section. I turned to my own area, the Peak District, where the Benty Grange mound, dug in 1848, was exceptional in its well-known boar-crested helmet. The common finds from my area are typical of all locations: corroded metal, such as shield bosses, knives, spearheads, arrowheads and buckles; female items, such as beads, pendants, pins, combs and needles; pottery and, of course, bones.

 Pollington takes 80 pages (in the first part of the book) for discussion and analysis. He defines ‘princely burials’ and ‘chamber burials’. He takes a special interest in the latter, wherein the dead are laid out in a room surrounded by display, discussing their construction, funeral rites and meaning. He looks at ship burial, burial with a horse, and bed burial. He looks at the mythical link between dragons and barrows. He talks about the way barrows were perceived were perceived in later centuries, their fate from treasure hunters and antiquarians, and their disappearance through agricultural practice. There are accounts of some of the known antiquaries, such as Bryan Faussett (1720 – 1776), who opened Kentish barrows and recorded their contents, and Thomas Bateman (1821 – 1861) who dug in the Peak District and discovered the Benty Grange helmet.

 Indexes include a listing of barrow placenames – that is, names including the elements hlaw (low) and beorh (barrow). Drakelow, Derbyshire, being dracan hlaw (dragon low) and Taplow, Buckinghamshire, being Tæppan hlaw (Tappa’s low).

 Godwine, one of the most famous Englishmen of the 11^th century, lived through the reigns of six kings – Æthelred the Unready, Edmund Ironside, Canute, Harold Harefoot, Harthacnut, and Edward the Confessor.

He achieved his greatest power under the last of these, dying in 1053 and passing the torch to his talented children, including the future King Harold. He can not have foreseen that his family would be destroyed in 1066 at the Battle of Hastings.

Grills has produced a very thorough and detailed account of Godwine’s life, covering a wide spread in space and time. Scattered through the book are a series of single-page tables, giving a list of dated significant events. The very first date, in table 1, is ‘991: Olafr Tryggvason invades England; Byrhnoth defeated and slain at Maldon.’ The last, in table 10, is ‘1107 May 7: Death of Gytha, Godwine’s granddaughter’.

He goes through the history of earl Godwine step by step, starting with the career of his father Wulfnoth, whose ancestry is tentatively traced back to the royal family in the person of King Æthelred I (865-871). As Godwin was such a prominent political figure, Grills gives a full picture of the mainstream political history of England, starting with the history of the struggles between King Æthelred the Unready and his sons against the Danish invaders. Godwine’s death occurs on page 200, and an evaluation of his character follows. Then, Grills moves straight to the aftermath of the Conquest, and discusses the fates of Godwine’s descendants.

Grills has used all the numerous sources, the main ones being: the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle; the chronicles of John of Worcester, William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon; the Encomium Emmae Reginae; the Vita Ædwardi Regis; the Scandinavian sources – the Knytlingasaga, the Gesta Danorum and the Heimskringla. He also quotes from wide range of scholars and commentators.

There are one or two small errors that will undoubtedly be corrected for a second edition. Thus, the family tree of Godwine’s descendants (page 219) is confused. On page 129, the Hakon mentioned seems to be indicated from the context as a son of Godwin, whereas he was a son of Swein, and thus Godwine’s grandson.

If you were to ask the man in the street, the chances are that they would say Harold.  The reasons behind this are not hard to understand, Harold was killed in a blaze of glory at Hastings, one of the most celebrated dates of English history.   Edgar who came from Hungary, did not fight at Hastings and died in some obscurity in 1126.  There is a kind of vagueness that surrounds the period from 15 October to Christmas 1066. Many people seem to assume that this is just a period when the country was waiting for William to be crowned, which may have been true for the Normans – but it is unlikely that the Anglo-Saxons would have seen it that way. For them there was no interregnum while they waited for William to be crowned. Some of them coalesced around the last survivor of the Cerdicings.   However, the question remains, was Edgar Æþeling recognised as king?   If so, he would have a strong claim to be the last Anglo-Saxon king: a claim that should be upheld today, rather than  being a man in Harold’s shadow.

What made a king a king? Though we read that kings were elected, Anglo-Saxon kings were not chosen by the people – rather this reflects a prince from the right family being acclaimed by the nobility. A link, or a demonstrable link (which is not necessarily the same) to the ruling family was useful – but was more an aid to respectability than a requirement.  Primogeniture was useful but not a guarantee of becoming king.  The support of the magnates was essential for retaining kingship but they could not propose a candidate.  Being crowned king was not a necessity: it could be left for months or even years.   What gave a prospective heir the greatest advantage was being designated by the previous king.   Looking at this, by what right does Edgar Æþeling hold the title of king?

Edgar was proclaimed king by the Witan on 15 October, the day after Hastings.  It appears that he was in London, which may be significant.  Version E of the Chronicle says that the local people thought that he should become king, whilst version D says that Ealdred (archbishop of York) and the garrison of London wanted Edgar for king, as it was his natural right.  This support of the Londoners reflects that given them to Edgar’s grandfather, Eadmund Ironside,  when they proclaimed him king, although too much should not be made of any apparent continuity.

It has been said that Edgar’s greatest (and possibly only attribute in some ways) was his descent. Before the death of Harold he did not enjoy the support of any branch of the political nation, nor did he have wide swathes of land or great treasure to give him substance.  He did not have any particular role in Harold’s regime beyond being present, nor did Harold associate Edgar with him as a possible heir.  His legitimacy through descent is beyond question.  Son of Æþelred Unræd, son of the son of Edmund Ironside, descendent of Alfred, Egbert, Ine, Cerdic and Woden (if one takes the

genealogies seriously).  The fact that he was allowed the title of Æþeling  (“of the royal family” and hence “kingworthy”) shows that he was regarded as being throne-worthy because of this familial affinity.

An argument can be made that accepting Harold, rather than the claimant from the rightful dynasty as king, may have been seen as a sin, with the defeat at Hastings being interpreted as being God’s judgement.  Returning to the true dynasty could have been seen as a way of regaining God’s support but this is a speculative motive and should not be pressed without real evidence.

It has been said that Edgar was not crowned before he submitted to William, but this is more of a technicality than a bar to his being a legitimate king: coronations could be delayed without having an adverse affect on the throne-worthiness of a king.   It appears that Edgar enjoyed the support of the leading lay and ecclesiastical members of the political nation. This recognition of his position by the archbishops and the earls, Edwin and Morcar, ensures his place as king.  Edgar was king because he was recognised as being king by the political nation (in the same way as Harold). It is as simple as that.  To reinforce this, Edgar acted as king, dispensing patronage in the form of appointing Brand as Abbot of Peterborough following the demise of Leofric at Hastings.

It has been claimed against Edgar that he only ever enjoyed the title of Æþeling.  However, this reflects the the sources being either written by Normans or following William coming to the throne. However much the Normans tried to avoid calling Harold king, they could not ignore his ten months in power. However, they could treat Edgar’s time as an interregnum, with William having been king through the grace of God from the moment that Harold fell.  Edgar was downgraded and appears to have stayed that way, even in modern sources he is always referred to as Edgar Æþeling and never as King Edgar.

So what are we to make of Edgar Æþeling? His claim relies on his having been accepted as ‘king” and having acted as such during the short period that it took William to reach him and pressure him into submitting.  This was a difficult time and things that might have been done, such as coronation, was not done because of the political situation.  However, it does appear that Edgar was indeed recognised as being king and was treated seriously by William.   Perhaps, after all, it is he who should be regarded as the last Anglo-Saxon king, rather than the more flamboyant Harold Godwinson?

Bibliography

Ashley, The Mammoth Book of British Kings and Queens (London: constable, 2000)

Barlow, The Godwins (London: Pearson Education,2002)

Barlow, Edward the Confessor and the Norman Conquest (Historical Association Hastings & Bexhill, 1966)

Higham, The Death of Anglo-saxon Engrand (Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 2000)

Lapidge (Ed), The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford: Brackwell Publishers Ltd,

2001)

Loyn, Harold Son of Godwin (Historical Association Hastings & Bexhill, 1966)

Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford: Oxford University press, 2001)

Swanton (Ed), The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, (London: Phoenix Press, 2001)

Walker, Harold – the Last Anglo-Saxon King (Stroud: Sutton Publishing , 1997)

The Stepney Rood

A rood would normally be placed within or on top of a rood screen of wood or stone stretching across from the north wall to the south wall of the nave and dividing the nave from the chancel. A wooden church was probably built at Stepney (Stybbanhythe, Stybba‘s landing place) in the late 7th century and Matthew Paris states that St Dunstan (909-988) rebuilt a church at Stepney in 952; he was archbishop of London 959-961. The original dedication of the church was All Saints; this was changed to St Dunstan‘s sometime after 1029 the date which Dunstan was canonised, the rededication was first recorded in 1302, so the rededication may not have occurred until the Norman church was built. The original dedication of All Saints was revived in 1896 creating St Dunstan and All Saints.

The Committee for the Survey of the Memorials of Greater London at the beginning of the 20th century, describe the rood as 12th century Norman, which was formerly surmounted above the roof of the south porch and moved inside in 1899, and placed on the north wall of the chancel or on the east end of the north wall of the nave. There are two possible reasons for the incorrect identification of the rood, the church has no identifiable Anglo-Saxon remains and the rood‘s borders contain Romanesque style decoration. As for the discrepancy as to whether it was moved to the nave or the chancel in 1899, this can probably be explained by the lack of a dividing chancel arch or rood screen. The first known written re-cord of the rood was in 1793 but it is recorded in earlier drawings of the church. In 1952 the church celebrated a thousand years of its dedication as All Saints by St Dunstan and in 1988 they also commemorated his death in 988. It was in this period that the full recognition of the rood‘s antiquity and present siting of it was achieved.

The date of the rood is possibly late tenth century but most likely early eleventh century. It is rectangular, 39 in (99 cm) X 27 in (68.5 cm) and is set upright under the east end chancel window and above and behind the altar. The finer details are badly weathered but the rood is deeply carved so the figures and decorations are recognisable. The stone itself appears as a greyish limestone, the corpus of Anglo-Saxon stone sculpture, identifies it as brownish-grey and probably Barnack limestone. The crucifixion is framed by a recurring early Romanesque style design of five-lobed leaves; each is en-closed and separated by ovoid and aligned incised mouldings. The cross which bears a haloed Christ with raised outspread arms and bent legs divides the rood panel into four. In the top left section is a depiction of the sun and in the right of the moon, both have weathered carvings of figure heads embossed on them. Below the sun is a robed and haloed figure of the Virgin Mary, with her head sinking into her left hand and her right hand across her breast as in mourning. On the right side under the moon is St John the Baptist the cousin of Christ, he too has his head in his hand though this is his right hand with the elbow cupped in his left hand. This rood is related to other similar stone sculptures elsewhere in England which also include personifications of the sun and moon. These two cosmic elements and the leaf decoration in the border enable the dating of the rood.

 St Dunstan and All Saints Church is about ten minutes walk from Stepney Green underground station. Sadly like most urban churches today it needs to be protected from modern day looters and pillagers and, so the opening hours are limited outside service times, 10am to 2pm Tuesdays and Thursdays, these times may change.