The Unknown Warrior (12 page)

Shields not only provided protection against swords, axes and arrows, they also had an offensive role with the shield boss being used to smash into an opponent. There is only one surviving example of a wooden Viking shield, found on the buried warship at Gokst, Norway,
c.
905. Discovered on the gunwales of the ship, the shield was made of ‘seven or eight white pine planks of varying widths, and only 7mm thickness' (Siddorn, 2000: 40). As it was so thin and had a poor handgrip, this circular shield of 94cm diameter might well have been purely decorative for the ship.

In terms of body armour, some examples survive, such as at Vimose in Denmark, but as the only complete Anglo-Saxon example of a mail coat is the one from the Sutton Hoo ship burial, it is likely that the Saxon warrior of lower birth would not have worn body armour.

That is not to say that armour is unknown on archaeological sites from this period. Recent work at the prosperous eighth- to eleventh-century Viking town of Birka, Sweden, examined the headquarters of the royal garrison, including its longhouse. Material from the abandonment of this site in the eleventh century included arrowheads and armour, with the latter assemblage composed of items both of mail and of lamellar armour (Shaw, 2003). Although a royal retinue would perhaps be expected to have equipment of higher status than that available to the average footsoldier, it nonetheless indicates that such armour was in use at this time.

Several authors have suggested that tough leather and hide coats were used both by Saxon and Viking warriors as they provided good protection from blade weapons – something that infantrymen from the English Civil War would discover some 600 years later (see, e.g., Gravett, 1999: 46).

The archaeological record seems clear on one aspect in relation to body protection: although helmets were present in this period, probably the preserve of men of power and taking many forms, the horned helmet does not appear to be present. We have a seventh-century example that may have been an heirloom and based on late-Roman helmets, with visors portraying faces (Sutton Hoo), an eighth-century iron example with mail neck protection, brass decorations and anthropomorphic noseguard (Coppergate, York (see Nicolle, 1984: 18; Tweddle, 1992)), iron helmets with decorated crests in the shape of boars (Benty Grange (see Underwood, 1999: 100–2, figs. 16, 17); Wallaston (
ibid.
: 103–4, fig. 21)) and other variants, but nothing of Saxon or Viking design with horns. The only examples of helmets with horns from northern Europe known to the author date from the Bronze Age and come from Viksø in Denmark.

One find of a Viking helmet within a proper context is from Gjermundbu, Norway. This tenth-century helmet was discovered in a man's grave and comprised four sections of iron that were joined together to form a dome with a lateral and traverse crest. A visor, resembling a pair of spectacles, was cut from a further sheet of iron and joined to the front of the helmet to protect the upper part of the face. There are traces of metal rings to the lower edge of the helmet and it seems likely that it was originally provided with some form of mail neck guard (Gravett, 1999: 30).

In terms of Saxon examples, the helmet from Coppergate bears intriguing evidence as to its owner. Each crest has the same inscription:

INNOMINE
^.
DNI
^.
NOSTRI
^.
IHV
^.
SCS
^.
SPS
^.
DI
^.
ET.

OMNIBVS
^.
DECEMVS
^.
AMEN
^.
OSHERE
^.
XPI

In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit (and) God: and To all we say Amen, Oshere

Oshere is an Anglo-Saxon name, most probably the owner of the helmet (Underwood, 1999: 103).

PRACTICE AND DISCIPLINE

Training would have been part of the lives of the Saxon and Viking warrior – attempts to draw up an effective shield wall and to maintain it against determined assault would have been futile without practice. Indeed, in ‘The Battle of Maldon', the Saxon leader, Byrhtnoth, spent some time instructing his forces in this. There is little by way of archaeological evidence for this, however, and we would have to turn to chroniclers such as the Dane, Saxo, for evidence that the warrior practised swordsmanship even in periods of peace (Underwood, 1999: 121).

THE LIFE OF THE SOLDIER

Drinking

Then the due time arrived
For Halfdane's son to proceed to the hall.
The King himself would sit down to feast.
No Group ever gathered in greater numbers
or better order around their ring-giver.
The benches filled with famous men
who fell to with relish; round upon round
of mead was passed; those powerful kinsmen,
Hrothgar and Hrothulf, were in high spirits
in the raftered hall. Inside Heorot
there was nothing but friendship.

(
Beowulf
, 1007–17, in Heaney, 1999: 32)

Our image of the Saxon longhouse or Viking hall, with large retinues of men feasting and drinking, is perhaps influenced by films such as
The Vikings
, yet epic poems, including
Beowulf
, make large play on the reward of men with mead and wine for their service in battle. Drinking vessels were included in the ship burial at Sutton Hoo, perhaps reflecting the requirement of those in the upper echelons of society to provide hospitality in return for fighting

service (Reynolds, 2002a: 55).

An expression of hospitality provided by those in power to their retinue and to the war band that helped these men to retain power was found in the phenomenal burial package at Prittlewell, Essex. Among the objects inhumed with the deceased were several glass beakers and the remains of a drinking horn (molas, 2004: 24).

Another poem, ‘Gododdin', recounts warfare in the sixth century during which a warlord named Mynydogg paid for the fighting services of his men through feasting and mead. These warriors were defeated at the battle of Cattraeth, Yorkshire, and found that ‘they paid for their mead-feast with their lives' (Newark, 1993: 54).

Eating

Studies of the diet of Anglo-Saxon and Viking warriors are hampered by a lack of secure military contexts with excavated cesspit remains. Archaeobotanical evidence for the diet of the period does exist, but not from specifically martial sites. For instance, excavations within Norse houses at Drimore Machair, on South Uist, Orkney, revealed the presence of cattle, sheep and pig bones. Other food elements included bird bones (great black-backed gull, razorbill and duck) and fish bones (cod). Shellfish also seem to have been eaten with cockle, limpet, mussel, oyster, scallop, whelk and winkle all exploited (Dickson and Dickson, 2000: 172–3). As one might expect, Norse societies made use of all local food resources possible.

Fish formed an important part of the Viking diet. Barrett's excavations at Westray, Orkney, have examined a midden site. It seems as though there was a dramatic change in the material deposited in the rubbish dump in the ninth or tenth centuries. Beforehand, pig, cattle and sheep bones were common, but this seems to have been replaced by huge quantities of shellfish and fish bones. It has been suggested that this represents the arrival of the Vikings, who were salting fish to use on voyages or to export (Richards, 2001: 66–7).

Toilet

Although we have evidence of waterlogged latrine deposits on sites of Anglo-Saxon and Viking vintage, none of this can be directly associated with a military context.

Gaming

Much of the material relating to gaming as a pastime comes from a non-military context, but these elements are still important as being available to the warrior – after all, the first phases of Viking settlement often followed military action, perhaps including several of the later settlers in the war band.

The phenomenal discovery of what is almost certainly an Anglo-Saxon royal burial at Prittlewell, Essex, included some of the richest grave goods excavated since the ship burial at Sutton Hoo with which it is broadly contemporary (
c.
630 ). Among other items inside this tomb were two pairs of glass jars (blue and green), a couple of gold foil Latin crosses, and a gold belt buckle, perhaps a reliquary, two cauldrons, two Merovingian coins and a probable sword and shield (Dawson, 2004: 70–1). This material was hanging on the walls of the tomb, in its original position. Further to these great finds were several bone gaming pieces and two antler dice provided for the royal afterlife (see also
molas
, 2004: 37).

Gaming pieces have been recovered from archaeological contexts. A Viking boat burial from Scar (see Memorials and Burials, pages 69–70) held the remains of a man with a sword and twenty-two gaming pieces, perhaps for playing the Viking game
hnefatafl
(Dalland, 1992: 475); a gaming board was excavated from Balinderry, Ireland (Richards, 2001: 118). Discoveries during the excavations of Viking York also included gaming pieces and part of a wooden gaming board (see York Archaeological Trust, 2005). Although again not associated with a martial context of the Viking period, bone and antler dice have been recovered from Viking sites in Dublin, and a gaming piece supposedly of Viking age was found in one of the mass graves in Visby (formerly Wisby; see
Chapter 4
), on the Baltic island of Gotland. Here, among the mail-clad deceased, was a chessman made from a horse's tooth. The piece was ‘square at the base, but spherical at the top, such as have been found in several places in male tombs from the Viking period' (Thordeman, 2001: 132–3). Had the mass grave accidentally disturbed an earlier Viking tomb, was the piece simply a residual artefact within the topsoil, or had it been held by one of the soldiers as a good-luck token, an heirloom? These are questions for which it is unlikely that we shall ever have an answer. Chess became popular in northern Europe from around the end of the eleventh century, after the First Crusade.

Another set of gaming pieces, known as the Lewis Chessmen, depict warriors of this period. Probably once owned by someone with money, it is possible that they were made in Norway between 1150 and 1200 from whales' teeth and walrus ivory. Some mystery surrounds their discovery near Uig on the Isle of Lewis, but it is likely that they were found in a stone chamber that had been covered. The chessmen, up to around 10cm in height, depict not only kings and mounted knights, but also the footsoldier of the period; wearing a conical helmet and carrying a sword and a kite-shaped shield. There is the possibility that these footsoldiers represent a type of warrior known as a ‘berserker', who would fight with frenzied ferocity in battle. Robinson (2004: 37) believes that ‘the Beserkers, although irresistibly comic to a modern audience, were probably not conceived as figures of fun, but as serious fighting machines who embodied an heroic ideal'.

Admittedly much of this gaming material comes from wealthy contexts, but almost certainly those lower down in society would have had access to similar material, or would have adapted their own examples.

Writings

That there was a level of literacy among the Anglo-Saxons and Norse is beyond dispute with such elements as the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicles
surviving. What is less certain is the number of men in a Saxon shield-wall or a Viking longship who would have been able to write.

Harald set out for Orkney at Christmas with four ships and a hundred men. He lay for two days off Graemsay then put in at Hamna Voe on Mainland, and on the thirteenth day of Christmas they travelled on foot over to Firth. During a snowstorm they took shelter in Orkahaugr and there two of them went insane … (
The Orkneyinga Saga
, 93; see Ancient Sites Directory, 2005)

The subject of
The Orkneyinga Saga
is a crusade led in 1150 by Earl Rognvald of the island of Orkney to the Holy Land. Taking advantage of his absence, Harald Maddadarson landed on the island on 6 January 1153. He and his party of warriors broke into the Neolithic tomb of Maes Howe (Orkahaugr), using it as a shelter. On their return later in 1153, Rognvald and his men also entered this tomb. Both parties left their mark on the ancient burial chamber by carving graffiti throughout. Some of the carvings were of mythical animals, such as the supposed ‘dragon', but much was in the form of writing. As these men, like so many on Orkney, were Vikings, the inscriptions they left on the stone walls of the tomb were in runes.

These runes referred to the prowess of the warriors, their names, their lusts. Examples of the writings of the warriors included ‘Ingigerth is the most beautiful of all women' (next to the image of a panting dog), ‘Ingebjork the fair widow – many a woman has walked stooping in here a very showy person', signed by ‘Erlingr', and, more crudely, ‘Thorni fucked, Helgi carved' (the former being a woman's name).

Several Viking names are present: ‘Haermund Hardaxe carved these runes', ‘Ofram the son of Sigurd carved these runes' or others referring to carvings made ‘with this axe owned by Gauk Trandilsson in the South land'. It is not uncommon for warriors to carve their names, images and more lascivious thoughts, but it also shows that there were those who were literate among the war band's ranks – this in the twelfth century (for all of these, see the work of Farrer, 1862, for the initial discovery).

Accommodation

In Ireland, an intensification of Viking raids from 830 onwards resulted in the creation of defended enclosures for warriors and ships, the so-called longphorts. These enabled the Vikings to remain in Ireland over winter prior to continuing their campaigning when the weather improved (Cunliffe, 2001: 505). Although the longphorts ultimately resulted in a more integrated sedentary lifestyle for many Vikings, their initial
raison d'être
was military. As with the attempts to study latrines, we have no direct martial evidence. Barracks were not in existence and, although we could examine the longhouse of the period as a place that provided hospitality to the warrior, or individual hut sites, none of these give direct evidence for the individual footsoldier.