The Unknown Warrior (13 page)

Religion

The religious persuasion of Anglo-Saxon and Viking warriors changed over time. Burial practices indicate this with grave goods being provided for a pagan afterlife for Saxons at the start of the period, but a Christian burial style being prevalent by the end. The Vikings, too, had a changing outlook – the warrior found at Repton (see pages 74–5) was buried with a miniature version of Thor's hammer, unequivocally following the old gods. This was also an issue between the Saxon king, Alfred the Great, and the Viking Guthrun when, on the latter's defeat, the
Chronicles
proclaimed that Alfred ensured the Viking was baptised.

Rognvald's men, who set out from Orkney on the crusade to the Holy Land in 1150, referred to in
The Orkneyinga Saga
(see page 64), were Christian and, on their return, one of them appears to have carved a crucifix on one of the stone walls of the Neolithic tomb of Maes Howe to affirm this fact.

The religious beliefs of the Norsemen were not always as simple as being either Christian or following the pantheon of Norse gods. In the British Isles there are several carvings in which the two religions coexist comfortably. At Andreas, on the Isle of Man, there is a stone slab on which is carved a large cross; below one of the arms of the cross is the figure of Odin with one of his ravens perched on his shoulder and being attacked by the wolf Fenrir, as described in the Norse sagas. A cross in Gosforth, Cumbria, depicts the crucifixion alongside various scenes from Norse mythology (Page, 1990: 10–11). An artefact from the Coppergate excavations, York, also shows the juxtaposition of beliefs. A coin die from the 920s, for the ‘reverse' side of the coin, bears the inscription ‘St Peter's money', alongside an image of a great sword and Thor's hammer (Wood, 1986: 147).

Burials, too, show signs of religions coexisting. Viking graves found on the Isle of Rousay carefully avoided the earlier burials that were marked by boulders (Cunliffe, 2001: 502). The Norse burials at Cumwhitton in Cumbria were provided with grave goods as well as being aligned in a Christian fashion.

Medicine

A skull from Quentovic, northern France, a site dating from
c.
sixth–tenth centuries, shows a severe head wound caused by a sword or axe which had, at least, partially healed (Maude, 1987: 42). Surviving Anglo-Saxon medical texts, as Deegan and Rubin (1988) point out, suggest various herbal treatments – betony, for example – for such wounds. But is there archaeological evidence for treatments being carried out, rather than for wounds simply healing by chance?

Evaluation of some of the human bones from the site of Wharram Percy, Yorkshire, appears to indicate that treatment of weapon injuries was not unknown. This site, which was abandoned as a result of the ravages of the Black Death on the population, yielded the body of a 40-year-old man who displayed signs of surgery to a wound. The man's skull had suffered a near-fatal blow by a blunt weapon, causing a severe depressed fracture on the left side. This wound had been trepanned, that is to say that a 9cm by 10cm area of bone had been removed from the wounded area, supposedly to relieve the pressure that would have built up. The wound showed signs of healing and palaeopathologist Simon Mays stated that ‘the skull is the best evidence we have that such surgery to treat skull fractures was being performed at this time … Violence at Wharram seemed to involve objects that were near at hand, like farming tools' (BBC News, 2004b). Even if this trauma was the result of local feuding, or simple violence, it illustrates that surgical techniques would have been available to the Saxon footsoldier.

The Vikings made use of plants in their medicinal repertoire. Some of the plant species found to this day on the more remote Scottish islands may have been introduced by the Norse as they moved westwards. For example, Kvann, the Norse for Garden Angelica, has anti-inflammatory properties and can also retard bacterial growth. It was grown in gardens in Shetland until 1973 and had probably been brought to this region and the Faroe Islands by the Vikings (Dickson and Dickson, 2000: 178).

THE PRISONER

We have no archaeological evidence for places where prisoners were held during this period, but it is possible that the burial of a man in Lejre, Denmark, reveals evidence for the killing or execution of prisoners. Here, around 49 graves from the Viking period were excavated between 1953 and 1968. Grave 55 contained two male skeletons 30–40 years of age. The upper of these bodies had no grave goods and appeared to have had both of his hands and feet tied when he went into the grave. His skull had been separated from his neck, having been cut from the body by a horizontal blow through the third cervical vertebra – an act that had also left a mark on his jaw. It appeared that he had been trussed up and then executed. This could, of course, simply have been an execution of a criminal, but there remains a possibility that he was a captive (Bennike, 1985: 108–9). Other Viking-period decapitations were recorded at Kalmergården, Denmark, where two such bodies were noted, dating to
c.
1015 and 1040 (
ibid.
: 106–7).

In Britain, there may be further evidence for the Viking slaughter of captives or of those who opposed a raid. At Anglesey, north Wales, the bodies of five people – men, women and children – were found having been thrown into a ditch. Although no weapon trauma was visible on the skeletons, one of these bodies had seemingly had their hands tied behind the back before or at the time of killing. These bodies were inhumed some distance from the normal burial place and had not been afforded the normal burial rites of the period – they had simply been thrown into a ditch and stone had been cast on top (Richards, 2001: 96–9).

MEMORIALS AND BURIALS

A dreadful battle ensued in which many English fell. But for every one who fell three came in his place out of the country behind, and when the evening came on the loss of men turned against the Norsemen and many were killed.

(‘The Saga of Hakan the Good', in Wood, 1982: 183)

In his examination of the life of the tenth-century Viking King of York, Eric Bloodaxe, historian Michael Wood examined the stump of stone cross on the bleak site of Stainmore – the legendary siting of Eric's last battle and death, as the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
puts it, at a ‘certain lonely place called Stainmore'. Was this cross, Wood (1982: 185) speculated, ‘commissioned by sympathisers in York to commemorate their king' and hence their lost independence following their betrayal and defeat in battle here in 954? If so, it would indeed have been a strange Christian memorial to a pagan king. This monument, the ‘Rey Cross' was moved to accommodate the A66 road and the chance was taken to see if it did indeed have any visible links to King Eric and his fallen warriors. Sadly, little of early medieval date was found and nothing to link the cross to commemoration of the dead of this battle (Vyner, 2001: 117–21).

In terms of memorials to Anglo-Saxon warfare, the best commemoration resides in the epic poetry of the era, such as the ‘Battle of Maldon'. For physical commemoration of fields of conflict, Hastings has a stone marking the place where King Harold may have died, and another where his supposed grave is to be found. This, however, remembers the last Anglo-Saxon king rather than any of the ‘housecarls' or common soldiers of the army. Folklore also suggests that one of the huge chalk horses carved into the hills of Wiltshire – the Westbury White Horse – although much later in its current appearance, was originally scoured to celebrate the victory of King Alfred the Great and his army over the Viking, Guthrun, at nearby Chippenham, but this is far from being proven.

Shepherd (1999: 242) makes some important points regarding the different grave goods packages found in Anglo-Saxon burials and suggests that ‘weapon-bearing may well have had several different meanings in Anglo-Saxon society, including the representation of warrior occupation, special political or economic status or rank, the individual's functional role within the kin group, basic male identity, or other personal qualities unrelated to biological sex, but denoting courage and eagerness to defend family honour or inheritance'. In Shepherd's study, several graves with female skeletons and ‘male' grave goods are discussed, including that of a 13–15-year-old girl at Empingham II, Leicestershire (Grave 106), which was provided solely with pottery and a spear beside the head – traces of its wooden shaft also survive, demonstrating that this was not a piece connected with weaving (
ibid.
: 241).

It is difficult to discern male skeletal remains simply from the assemblage of grave goods; it is even more difficult to state that the finding of weaponry in a grave means that the person inhumed was a warrior or ever even lifted a sword arm in anger. There are statements being made by the burying group about the person who was being buried, but this is probably as far as we should take it.

Norse burials can also be associated with weaponry, such as the Viking boat burial at Scar on the north coast of Sanday, Orkney. In addition to the
c.
6.5m-long boat (traced through the position of the 300 or so iron rivets), the finds included the bodies of three people in a central chamber: a man, woman and child. Next to the male was an iron sword with a wooden scabbard – it was covered with several arrowheads. Fragments of an iron rod, sickle, a bone comb, a ninth-century Norwegian-type brooch, twenty-two gaming pieces and a pair of scissors were recovered, too, alongside a spindlewhorle, bone comb and a whalebone plaque with two carved horsehead terminals (Dalland, 1992).

We are left with the same questions as before with this inhumation assemblage: was this man provided with weapons because he was a warrior, or because this portrayal with martial aspects was essential for someone in his society? The grave goods may have been his belongings placed into the grave, or may have belonged to those attending the funeral, as offerings. If the latter, they speak more resonantly of the society that buried these people than of the three individuals themselves. It is, perhaps, worth noting that burials in ships or representations of a ship, such as at Scar and Sutton Hoo, were not a new entity in this period – there are burials of Bronze Age date in Gotland, Sweden, that are in cists shaped like stone boats. The sea as major trade and raid route was essential and thus vital to the perception of the individual in death (Osgood and Monks, 2000: 18).

Oxford Archaeology North has also recently excavated a series of six richly furnished Viking graves. Although almost no human bone survived the acid soils of the site at Cumwhitton, Cumbria, many of the grave goods were retrieved. These included swords, knives, spears and a shield boss. The graves, although provided with grave goods in the pagan fashion, were all aligned in a roughly east–west Christian fashion. Perhaps this is yet more evidence that the two belief systems were not necessarily mutually exclusive (see English Heritage, 2004).

Pyres were used to burn the bodies of warriors and the remnants of the fire were buried. At Ingleby, near Repton, a cluster of around 60 mounds were opened in the 1950s and several contained such cremation hearths. Pyre goods included swords, buckles and strap ends. Richards (2001: 150) believes that these may be a material remnant of the Viking Great Army of 873.

THE FALLEN

Context and dating are all important if our analysis of burials is to be of any use. A case in point is the so-called Neolithic skeleton excavated from a Neolithic longmound in Dorset by Sir Mortimer Wheeler in 1943. The skeleton had wounds from stone weapons and was touted as being evidence for cannibalism in this period. Brothwell (1971) examined the wounds and found eight separate cuts to the skull, in addition to wounds to both arms, the left collar bone, both legs and the right side of the pelvis – all inflicted with a sharp, probably blade weapon. A radiocarbon date of 1315 ± 80
bp
, was obtained for the skeleton of
c.
AD
635 (
ibid.
: 240). Rather than Neolithic, this man was an Anglo-Saxon and was the subject of severe weapon trauma that probably caused his death (as opposed to wounds inflicted post-mortem).

Another cautionary tale comes from Wiltshire. Within an Early Bronze Age bell barrow at Sutton Veny lay the body of a man. The barrow was one of three in a cemetery common for this time period in the county. At the centre of the barrow, the body of the 28–35-year-old man had been placed in a wooden coffin, with a turf mound over it, and accompanied by a bronze dagger, a miniature accessory, so-called pygmy, vessel and a large pottery food vessel. A further cremation urn had been placed in the barrow and, more surprisingly, a secondary inhumation (Johnston, Powers and Wheeler, 1980). What was particularly interesting about this second body, of an adult male some 24–28 years of age, was that he was ‘the victim of a particularly violent head wound, probably from a sword' (
ibid.
: 38).

As the authors pointed out at the time, swords did not appear in Britain until the later Bronze Age – around 1,000 years after the initial inhumation and, as a result, this burial must have been sometime later. But was a Late Bronze Age date the most likely for this man? Unfortunately, the skeleton has been lost, so it is not possible to apply dating techniques, such as Carbon 14. Yet it is possible to make some overall statements on secondary deposits within barrows.

Skeletons with sword wounds are exceptionally rare and, in Britain, Late Bronze Age examples are non-existent to date. Reynolds (2002b: 173) stated that secondary burial within a barrow was a relatively common form of inhumation in seventh-century Wessex (the south-western Saxon kingdom) and elsewhere. It is my belief that a Saxon date is far more likely for this individual's death. In a study in 1999 I saw that there were some eighteen secondary Saxon burials in Wiltshire round barrows. These could be quite extensive and rich burial cemeteries, as recent work at Barrow Clump on Salisbury Plain has established (Jonathan Last, pers. comm.). The blade wound to the Sutton Veny skull was very similar to Burial G at Eccles, Kent, being to the left of the skull, from behind, and was inflicted by sword or
seax
(Osgood, 1999a).