Northern Archaeology Today issue 12

NORTHERN ARCHAEOLOGY TODAY YORK ARCHAEOLOGICAL TRUST MAGAZINE

This issue:

The Lost City: Eoforwic Into the Melting Pot The Dead of Anglian and Anglo-Scandinavian York The Watlington Hoard

Issue 12

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ontents

issue 12 Spring 2018

Welcome!

Much has been made over the years of York’s Medieval, Viking and Roman past, but the Anglian city of Eoforwic has until now received relatively little coverage.

The Lost City 1 Into the Melting Pot

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In this issue, four articles consider various different aspects of Anglo-Saxon York and the world to which it was connected, as it transitioned from a relatively small religious centre with associated wic to the large dominant trading emporia that became Jorvik.

The Dead of Anglian and Anglo-Scandinavian York 12 Questioning the Past with the Watlington Hoard 20 Editor: Peter Connelly Layout and design: Lesley Collett (lcollettgraphics@gmail.com) Printed by B&B Press, Parkgate, Rotherham Northern Archaeology Today is published twice a year: UK subscriptions £10.00 per year, Overseas subscriptions £16.00 (sterling) per year.

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Northern Archaeology Today is published by York Archaeological Trust. Editorial and contributors’ views are independent and do not necessarily reflect the official view of the Trust. Copyright of all original YAT material reserved: reproduction by prior editorial permission only.

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Cover picture: The 10th-11th century tower of St

England, number 1430801

Mary Bishophill Junior, York

ISSN: 2049-5897

The Lost City:

Hunting for Eoforwic – A Personal Insight Ian Milsted (Head of Archaeology, York – YAT) Talk of finding ‘lost cities’ irritates most archaeologists, who brace themselves for questions about Machu Pichu, Indiana Jones and Lara Croft. But secretly, when we don’t think anyone is watching most of us have quietly fantasised about stumbling across the remains of a hitherto unknown city. It helps numb the pain of watching yet another late-19th-century field drain splinter under the blade of a JCB and realising that your waterproofs are no longer waterproof.

One can hardly claim that ‘Eoforwic’, the Anglian settlement that was Eboracum and became Jorvik, is an unknown city, and yet a glance at how York portrays itself to the world reveals that few people would recognise the name. Although many have heard of Bede and Northumbria, and may even know something of Alcuin and Charlemagne, very few will associate York with those times. And yet, arguably, the years between the founding of the Minster in 627 and the coming of the Vikings in 866 were the time of York’s greatest influence on Europe, when it was at the forefront of religious thought, philosophical insight and art.

What happened to Eoforwic?

Why is this period so little known in the popular imagination? The ‘blame’, as it were, lies partly with media presentations of the past – Romans and Vikings are good copy. It also lies with us, the archaeologists: we don’t talk about it enough.

This is understandable, as the archaeological remains of Eoforwic are difficult for the nonspecialist to relate to as a living place. Many of the best artefacts are funerary: cremation urns and re-used grave markers. The ‘dirt archaeology’ is frequently just that – dirt, or ‘dark earth’, as archaeologists prefer to call it. There are no buildings or roads, and no visitor attraction to display the wealth of environmental evidence that has been recovered in the last 45 years. The historical figures vie for popular attention with everyone from Cleopatra to Churchill, and their

importance to York, and to Europe, is hardly a mainstream topic of conversation on the bus.

‘But neither is any other period’ I hear you cry. Well, that’s not true. After the TV programmes that featured the ‘gladiator cemetery’ excavated by YAT in 2004–2005 were aired, I was frequently surprised by ‘normal’ people (ie not archaeologists) who were suddenly keen to speculate on the whereabouts of the amphitheatre. I remember sitting in a construction site hut on the day Richard III’s discovery was announced, and found myself suddenly bombarded with complicated questions about the Wars of the Roses and DNA analysis.

In fact, as I often say to our developer clients, York is a city that prides itself on researching and telling its own story, and York people are deeply interested in and care about their city. This makes it all the more surprising that Eoforwic should be so little known about - in that sense, as a real place, it is indeed lost.

So, why isn’t anybody doing anything about it? As it happens, many people are working very hard to raise the profile of Anglian York, and of the period in general, including Ailsa Mainman and Peter Addyman, Mary Garrison at the University of York, and the Fishergate, Fulford and Heslington Local History Society, to name but a few. Through various ways YAT supports these efforts, and as consistently the largest archaeological team in the city for over 45 years, northern archaeology today

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I think we can also contribute significantly to the story of Anglian York by finding something and telling people about it.

What is being done about it?

Currently, YAT undertakes developer-funded work generated through the planning system.

Alongside this, as the designated investigating body in the Area of Archaeological Importance we also provide detailed advice on the likely archaeological impact of development, drawing on the breadth of our experience across the city.

Therefore, as part of our professional service YAT has always sought to identify areas for good research potential, particularly those where development is likely to lead to investment in the archaeology. This is how the Coppergate and Hungate projects were first conceived.

York faces a number of challenges over the next decade, and these will open up the chance to further explore all of York’s past in more detail, including the Anglian period.

Central to the future development of York is the Local Plan, which has undergone several phases of drafting, consultation and re-drafting.

When a final plan is achieved, it may lead to varied new strands of archaeological work, generating opportunities to uncover the story of Eoforwic.

Added to this picture of change is the need to enhance the City’s flood defence systems as the effects of climate change continue to emerge, along with the seemingly irresistible tide of new hotels and ‘in-filling’ of gaps in the historic core. York in 2030 may look very different to today. How all of this affects the archaeology of the city will require careful management, with positive outcomes built in from the start.

Where is Eoforwic?

Eoforwic is suspected to lie in several locations but has only been identified in a few. The recent Historic Towns Atlas shows the current state of knowledge; the fact that the Anglian period is represented by a single map, despite covering a time span greater than that between the present 2

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day and the formation of the United Kingdom, demonstrates the paucity of the current evidence. However, it does allow us to identify where future development may reveal more.

Eoforwic is often described as a ‘poly-focal’ settlement, meaning that there is evidence for the concentration of different activities in different locations, with little evidence of activity in between. To a certain extent this pattern is a function of where excavation opportunities have arisen and the survival of the archaeology.

Even then, if the clusters of activity identified represent the Anglian reality, it isn’t a given they were occupied simultaneously, or even all called ‘Eoforwic’.

Nevertheless, the main activities identified in Anglian York do appear to be spatially distinct. The earliest evidence is for 5th and 6th century cremation and inhumation cemeteries.

These sometimes occupy earlier Roman burial grounds, such as the Mount, and sometimes are in ‘virgin’ ground, such as in Heworth and Lamal Hill. Some evidence for early Anglian settlement has been identified at Heslington, leading to a suggestion that the remains of Eboracum were largely abandoned save for areas of higher ground, remaining as a focus only for ‘ceremonial’ and funerary activity, and that a largely rural population lived elsewhere, in the fertile areas around the city.

This impression is reinforced by the ‘dark earth’ phenomenon. Throughout the historic core, much of the later Roman landscape appears to be buried beneath thick deposits of organic material. These deposits suggest abandonment and refuse disposal, and especially in the Minster area, agriculture (Figure 1). The idea of the former Roman barracks being used as threshing barns is going too far, but the picture does not suggest concentrated ‘urban-style’ settlement, at least before AD 600.

From the 7th century, concentrations of activity do develop in the city. Churches appear and proliferate, suggesting a resident population to provide congregations. It has

Figure 1: Section exposed during the Minster undercroft lift pit excavation of 2012. The darkest material at the base of the section represents early medieval ‘dark earth’. The soil above, as it grades in colour to lighter grey, represents the re-modelling of the former Roman fortress buildings and a graveyard soil (light grey) which immediately predates the Norman cathedral. (scale reference = 0.5m)

long been thought that the ‘Earlsburgh’ region in Bootham was the site of an Anglian Royal palace, although the base for Northumbrian royal authority is also suggested for the courtyard of the former Roman Principia, which lies beneath the South Transept of the Minster, Deangate and St Michael-le-Belfry.

This location is also the likely site of the first Minster, the wooden church that witnessed King Edwin’s baptism in AD627. There are tantalising hints in the archaeological records produced during the Minster excavations of the 1960s and 70s of large-scale re-working of the area long before the Conquest. There is also an important collection of 7th and 8th century Anglian grave markers found re-used amongst the 10th and 11th century burials that were discovered to overly the Roman ruins and layers of ‘dark earth’ (Figure 2). These early grave stones, on permanent display in the Minster undercroft, are intriguingly unweathered, suggesting an interior location close to where they were discovered. Perhaps rather than carving cow sheds out of the principia remains, the early Anglian people in fact fashioned their first Minster in the former seat of Roman authority.

A better attested centre of Anglian religious activity is located in the upper Micklegate area, where a cluster of important churches became established in the 7th century (Figure 3).

Micklegate and its surrounding streets emerged

Figure 2: 7th century Anglian stele depicting an unknown cowled person, recovered from the York Minster excavations of the 1960s.

Image courtesy of York Minster (©York Minster)

within the former colonia, where large Roman public buildings and private dwellings have been identified since the 19th century. Many of these also display intriguing evidence for extensive post-Roman modification, particularly in the Wellington Row area, suggesting perhaps that the areas between the ‘poly-focal’ concentrations were more extensively occupied than once believed (Figure 4). northern archaeology today

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This impression is supported by spatial distribution analyses of Anglian pottery undertaken by Ailsa Mainman and other researchers. Finds of Anglian pottery are mainly concentrated in the river corridors. These effectively join up the ‘higher status’ Royal and Ecclesiastical centres of activity with a third area at the confluence of the Ouse and the Foss, where evidence for a small wic or emporium has been identified. Excavations by YAT at Fishergate and latterly by Field Archaeology Specialists at Blue Bridge Lane, identified several phases of large timber-built halls and craft materials suggesting bone-, metal-, amberand leather-working, amongst other activities, including butchery and trading (Figure 5).

Figure 3: The tower of Bishophill Junior church, built in the late 10th/early 11th century, probably marks the site of an earlier Anglo-Saxon c.7th century church

The presence of a trading wic, operating under Royal control, would correlate well with other Anglian settlements, including Hamwic (Southampton)/Winchester and Gipswic (Ipswich)/Rendlesham. By the mid-8th century the ‘wic-type’ activity in the Fishergate area had been abandoned, although importantly, there is some artefactual evidence from further up the Ouse, towards Coppergate, of later ‘wic-type’ activity. This suggests that the trading emporia may have moved upstream.

Where does this leave us in 2018? It is estimated that less than 3% of the Roman city

Figure 4: The Wellington Row Trench 7 excavation of 1988–9, viewed from the north-west. The upstanding remains of a stone Roman building can be seen in this trench, cut by Anglo-Saxon and later pits

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has been identified by excavation, meaning potentially that a greater amount of Eoforwic may lie undiscovered on top of its predecessor.

The problem of ephemeral deposits and destruction by later activity is exacerbated by the depth of this potential material. Much of Roman, and therefore Anglian, York is in very deep deposits, especially in the river corridors. A lot of development in the city doesn’t penetrate deeply enough to encounter it, except in pile foundations that are difficult to monitor for anything more than broad archaeological insights. Whilst observing it is difficult, it does also mean that in some areas it should be exceptionally well-preserved, lying in the deep, waterlogged strata that protected the extraordinary amount of Viking period information recovered at Coppergate. The trick will be getting at it.

What do we do now?

It is the impending large-scale developments in and around the city that the opportunities to find Eoforwic must be found. Crucially, many of the development proposals lie in areas where Anglian archaeology is expected to survive.

Once the Local Plan is in action the large areas around York that could enable housing for a burgeoning population probably present the best opportunity to observe Anglian settlement landscapes. These settlements, consisting largely of post-built structures, pits, enclosure boundaries and ditches, are very difficult to observe in small-scale developments where they appear isolated from their setting. As with the extensive Iron Age settlement observed in large-scale excavations for the University of York extension at Heslington, opening up large areas of land will allow the ephemeral post-holes and pits of the Anglian period to be observed, if they survive, and understood in context. As the construction of the outer ringroad and the routing of pipelines around York revealed increasing evidence for late prehistory in the ‘80s and ‘90s, so the new villages and suburban developments of the 2020s may show how the centuries after the end of the Roman occupation unfolded.

Figure 5: The Fishergate excavation in 1986. Archaeologists mark the position of post holes associated with the Western Hall, one of two AngloSaxon halls, found in this part of the excavation

Moving into the city, the accelerating gentrification of districts such as Piccadilly, Tanner Row and Rougier Street could see some of the largest clearance of 19th and 20th century landscapes for a generation. Those parts lying within the former colonia present the opportunity to further explore how the Roman urban landscape was re-modelled and could be crucial in bringing together data from the large 1980s excavations at Wellington Row, Rougier Street and the Queen’s Hotel (Figure 6).

The Piccadilly area, sited near the Ouse/Foss confluence, brings the focus back to the ‘arteries’ of Eoforwic: its rivers.

The City of York Council recently re-affirmed its interest in the ‘Castle Piccadilly’ area, formerly referred to as the ‘Southern Gateway’.

This previous name was apt, in that from the Roman until the late medieval period, the Ouse brought in goods, people and the occasional invading army, and the Foss allowed them a shallow bank to unload. The spit of land between the two rivers was therefore an important place: it was where you arrived and where you left.

The Vikings would have known this place as a ‘Ness’ – both a physical headland between two waters, and a jetty into the seaways. It was also an ephemeral place; its shape would subtly alter with every tide, and drastically change with every flood. Over centuries it was gradually northern archaeology today

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Figure 6: Wellington Row under excavation in 1988. Further analyses of the material from this site may provide insights into the Anglo-Saxon town that developed along the banks of the Ouse

pushed further out into the stream by the actions of nature and people, a vital peninsula connecting York to the world.

The strategic importance of this ‘ness’ is evidenced by William’s castle, placed here to control the river-routes in the 1080s. The 8th century ‘wic’ was located along the east bank of the Ouse, immediately downstream of the Foss.

Beneath the Norman castle (and the later castles, law courts and the car-park), in the same deep, water-logged deposits that preserved Jorvik, could lie a wealth of information on the buried Anglian city.

This is where the interests of modern York align with those of discovering its past, and the interests of those who once lived here. The rivers which define York’s topography and brought life to the city also threaten it. The catastrophic flooding of 2015 demonstrated how fragile our defences are in the face of nature – something the Anglian or Viking 6

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people would have understood only too well.

Government is responding to this threat; in York £45 million has been allocated to strengthen, improve and prepare the city for the environmental challenges of the century ahead. The approach will be multi-faceted, looking along the length of the rivers for solutions and improvements that best serve each location and the overall city.

As early investigations explore the riverside sediments for engineering information, they provide the chance to undertake what could be the most extensive and concerted city-wide archaeological investigation ever attempted. Extensive boreholes, test-pits, ground monitoring and small-scale foundation excavations for flood defences will be undertaken. Individually each will be limited in what it can tell, but collectively they could help piece together the story of Anglian Eoforwic.

The next 20 years will play a crucial role in the rediscovery of that place.

INTO THE MELTING POT:

Culinary identities in Viking Age England Steve Ashby, University of York How did people cook, eat, and drink in Anglo-Scandinavian York? Did food culture follow Anglo-Saxon traditions, or was it influenced by Scandinavian ideas, techniques, and ingredients? How did Jorvik’s cuisine compare to that of other Viking towns, such as Lincoln, or to those in the ‘Saxon’ south, such as London?

Was there a distinctively urban cuisine? These are some of the questions being addressed by a new Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funded project being undertaken at the University of York.

Figure 1: Pottery from Viking-Age Coppergate, York. Left: A cooking pot with a flat base, wide shoulder and narrowing neck represents a step-change from traditional Anglo-Saxon cooking wares. Right: The Viking Age also saw the introduction of specialised vessel forms, such as this large, ornate pitcher, which presumably held liquids such as ale or mead. Both photos © York Archaeological Trust

We all know the expression ‘You are what you eat!’

Around the world today one of the key ways in which people identify themselves as different from people of other ethnicities, regional or cultural backgrounds is by reference to foods, or the ways in which meals are prepared. In this way, cuisines are almost like accents. Even the word we use to describe our personal preferences and cultural likes and dislikes is ‘taste’. The cuisine of northern England today is made up of a mixture of traditional local dishes and recipes, those from elsewhere in the UK, and those from around

the world, many of which reference our history of Empire and colonialism, as well as the story of immigration and culture contact. In this way, cuisine even references politics. The power of food as a cultural touchstone explains why musician George Clinton characterised soul as ‘a hamhock on your cornflakes’, and why Donald Trump tweeted about Hispanic food to demonstrate his love of the Latin American community.

This being the case, might such an association of food and identity have been active in a period as distant as the Viking Age? This was a time northern archaeology today

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in which northern England saw substantial settlement from Scandinavia, as well as increasing contact with continental Europe.

Indeed, the Viking Age was a period of incredible social transformation, seeing developments in politics, belief, settlement and economy, all providing a backdrop for tremendous personal mobility. This makes it a promising context in which to study the formation of identity through social practice, a subject of much previous research, with particular focus on phenomena such as dress accessories, jewellery, weaponry, burial practice, and architecture. Strangely, food has never played as great a part in this as it should have done.

We know quite a lot about food in Viking Age towns, but there are few clear patterns. While York seems to have been quite dependent on beef, Viking towns like Kaupang (Norway) are suggestive of a more significant role for pigs.

Dairy and fish may have become more important elements of the diet through the Viking Age, but there is considerable geographic variability.

Moreover, due to their different physical

qualities, plant remains are less well preserved than animal bones, which means that it is not easy to say very much about the role played by vegetables and herbs in the Viking Age diet.

For all these reasons, it has been difficult to identify any real Scandinavian influence on Anglo-Saxon diet. Can it really be that Scandinavian settlement, the opening up of long distance trade, and the re-birth of towns had no discernible impact on the food culture of northern England? It is difficult to imagine that this scenario is true and so it is possible that the reasons we haven’t been able to identify any such influence are methodological. In order to get to the heart of the issue, we need to think less about diet and ingredients, and more about cuisine and the preparation of food. This means bringing together animal and plant remains, artefacts associated with food, and the little that we can garner from documentary sources.

In particular, we may learn something by looking carefully at cooking vessels. One way into this area of study is through the technological developments of the ceramic industry at this time. During the Viking Age, urban settlements across northern and eastern England went from focusing on a limited range of locally-made, fairly low-fired ceramics, to using more specialised products often imported from distance (Figure 1). These new products were frequently wheel-thrown, high-fired, and systematically produced in a new range of forms. They seem to have been produced at centres of Scandinavian settlement, and have traditionally been interpreted as the output of continental potters travelling with the Viking Great Army that was active across England in the second half of the 9th century.

Figure 2: Some of the sites sampled in our survey.

1. York (Coppergate and Hungate); 2. Cottam and Cowlam; 3. Burdale; 4. Lincoln (Flaxengate and Holmes Grain Warehouse); 5. Flixborough (N. Lincs), 6. Fishtoft (Lincs); 7. London (Guildhall Yard and Plantation Place)

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The question is how this may have related to food culture. Is it possible that these innovations were sparked by, or themselves led to, changing habits in the preparation and consumption of food? Did Scandinavian cuisine, or the cosmopolitan cuisines that developed in these northern towns, demand a new range of pots?

To answer these questions, the Melting Pot project aims to get beyond ingredients, and beyond material culture, to focus on the technologies of the fireplace. So we are less concerned with what people cooked and ate, than with how they did it, and how this varied in time and space. In our project, we’re applying a range of novel techniques to the study of ceramics, to see if we can access processes and behaviours associated with the transport, storage, preparation and consumption of food.

The project started in May 2016 by looking at the pots, and examining when and where we found different forms of vessel, before recording evidence of how they were altered, worn, or damaged through repeated use, to see if that could give us clues as to function.

The initial research on the pottery has revealed great potential with our Archaeobotanist, Anita Radini, identifying preserved plant and vegetable remains in the food crusts preserved on around 100 vessels. Anita has also been working with Professor Oliver Craig, and the University of York’s BioArCh facility, to chemically analyse the fats and waxes that have been absorbed into the pots through years of use. This means that we can distinguish fats from fish and terrestrial meats, and between pig and cattle/sheep. We can also recognise dairy, resins and beeswax, and leafy greens like brassicas.

To make sure that the identification of foodstuffs isn’t geographically biased we’re also analysing a range of rural and urban excavations across England (Figure 2). Excavations in York, Lincoln, and London have been targeted as places where we can attempt phase and even context-level comparisons, as well as looking for variability between sites within a settlement. For instance, were people cooking and eating in different

Figure 3: Evidence of pottery use, as seen in carbonisation patterns. The inside of this c.60mm cooking pot sherd from Flaxengate, Lincoln features a distinctive dark band around its midline (the complete pot would have extended some way below the preserved lower edge of the sherd). Such bands are formed as wet foods are boiled, and food remains stick to the walls of the vessel at and above the waterline. © Steve Ashby.

Thanks to The Collection, Lincoln

Figure 4: Food crust. The internal walls of this c.60mm sherd of pottery (from Ribe, Denmark) are covered with a thick, burnt-on coating of food remains. Microscopic analysis of this crust will allow for the identification of plant remains such as seeds, grains, and epidermi, and even non-plant material, like fish scales. © Anita Radini. Thanks to Sydvestjyske Museet, Ribe

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ways at Coppergate and Hungate? Did cooking techniques at these sites develop or change between the 10th and 11th centuries? These are the sorts of questions we hope to answer.

As we are starting to see, changes in vessel form may hint at new ways of dealing with food, but that is only one part of the story. To understand whether these new forms actually had specialised functions, we are also looking at the actual evidence for use. Patterns of sooting, burning, chipping and wear on the pots give us important hints about their use (Figure 3).

Figure 5: Organic residue analysis: After a fine powder from the interior of a sherd is produced, by drilling, it is then subjected to a number of chemical processes ahead of analysis. This image shows the samples ready for analysis

by Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS). © Steve Ashby; University of York

We can supplement this information with archaeobotanical data from food crusts (Figure 4) because in many cases our pots are partially coated with burnt-on botanical material. Sealed within this, the team have identified cereals such as oats and barley, as well as corncockle, a weed that grows amongst these crops. We have also recorded leafy greens, particularly leek, nettles, and a range of edible and medicinal herbs. Altogether this information builds upon what we know about Viking Age diet from animal bones, and is starting to gives us a real insight into cooking practices.

We also have a large body of data from the analysis of absorbed chemical residues, which is starting to reveal both extremely high concentrations, and suggestions of patterning, in the results (Figures 5 & 6). It would be premature to try to interpret the data at this stage, but it’s clear that from most of our sites our ceramics contain a mixture of different resources, with an important meat component.

Figure 6. Organic residue analysis: the results.

A typical chromatogram produced by GC-MS. This example, taken from a Torksey ware cooking pot found at Coppergate, shows the dominance of fats from ruminant meat. © Steve Ashby; University of York

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There is also some sign of variability in use-alteration across wares and vessel forms – particularly in sooting patterns – and it looks like there will be much to be learned from combining this with our residue analyses.

When we have run all our analyses, closely scrutinised all the data and contextualised any patterning, we should be able to either confirm, or not, whether this Anglo-

Scandinavian ceramic revolution was related to changing ways of cooking.

The Next Phase: More Food For Thought!

If our hypothesis holds true the next question is what the drivers were: did they come from culture contact, from urbanisation, or from long-distance trade? And what role did these elements play in the production of group identities? Addressing these questions will involve integrating our findings with what we know from traditional analysis of animal and plant remains, and other artefact types associated with food (Figure 7), as well as documentary and literary evidence.

With this in mind the project team are already excited to see what contribution food studies can make to our narratives of culture-contact and identity-making. Did food work in the same way as jewellery, dress accessories, or architecture? The Melting Pot project has already shown that we now have the techniques to investigate this topic, provided we apply them within a broad, integrated framework, and we are confident that new insights into the Viking Age world will undoubtedly come out of this.

Figure 7: Beyond Pottery The exceptional preservation conditions at Coppergate remind us that ceramics represent only one element of the material culture associated with food. Also important were vessels made of wood, iron and stone, in this example steatite (bottom left). © York Archaeological Trust

Melting Pot: Food and Identity in the Age of the Vikings is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. The project team consists of Steve Ashby, Oliver Craig, and Anita Radini, but we are grateful to a large number of specialists for assistance and advice, particularly Ailsa Mainman and Gareth Perry. We’d also like to thank all the museums who have generously loaned us material for analysis.

You can find out more about the project - including forthcoming public lectures, workshops, and exhibitions at www.meltingpot.site. You can also follow us on Twitter at @foodAD1000. Steve’s broader Viking-Age work can be followed at http://ashbysteve.wixsite.com/vikings and on twitter at @grungeviking

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The Dead of Anglian and Anglo-Scandinavian York Ailsa Mainman The map of York c.AD 200 in the recently published Historic Town Atlas shows Roman York surrounded by cemeteries. Population estimates are always difficult but there were perhaps 4–5000 inhabitants in the city then, and double that when the legions were in town.

Numbers declined steeply in the late and subRoman period to a point, somewhere in the late 5th/6th century, when they could probably be measured in hundreds (if that) – and activity in the old Roman centre becomes virtually invisible in the archaeological record. A slow and gradual rise in population is indicated through the 7th–9th centuries as York developed into an ecclesiastical, commercial and perhaps royal centre, although again precise numbers are impossible to establish.

Heworth York Minster 12–18 Swinegate Hungate 7–15 Spurriergate All Saints Pavement 16–22 Coppergate St Mary Castlegate 1–9 Micklegate St Mary Bishophill Junior St Mary Bishophill Senior George St / Dixon Lane All Saints Fishergate The Mount Driffield Terrace 46–54 Fishergate Fishergate House Belle Vue House Lamel Hill Acomb Heslington

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YORK

ve

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e us O

20 14 15

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16 17

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Figure 1: Sites and burial locations mentioned in this article

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6 7 8

1 km

ss Fo

9 10 11

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Approximate extent of Anglian/ Anglo-Scandinavian settlement Modern built-up area

But what of the people themselves, these inhabitants of Anglian and AngloScandinavian York? Through a combination of recent excavations, the revisiting of old excavation archives and the application of new scientific techniques we are beginning to piece together an understanding not only of the lives of these people, but of their death and burial practices (Figure 1).

Ri

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

The spread of material culture recovered from sites dating to the 10th and 11th century, following the Vikings’ capture of the city, is evidence of a booming population and household pottery, that most useful indicator of domestic activity, has been found distributed over a wide area.

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21 LEC

Cremation urns of late 5th and 6th century date, recovered during 19th century construction work on the fringes of town, give us a glimpse of the pagan Anglians, some of whom might have arrived as federate troops in the late Roman army to be followed by settlers. Until recently there were just two known cemeteries, one on the Mount and the other at Heworth but they have recently been augmented by new evidence from excavations at Heslington, where Anglian material, some of which might derive from disturbed pagan burials, has been recovered (Spall and Toop 2008). Elsewhere, an unurned cremation found at Driffield Terrace amongst Roman burials, close to the Mount cemetery, produced a 5th century date (Hunter-Mann pers. comm.) while at Hungate an inhumation amongst the late Roman burials include one which may also date from the 5th century (Connelly pers. comm.). These findings give us a rare glimpse

of York’s late/sub-Roman population and serve as useful reminders that there is still plenty to learn about these so-called Dark Ages.

In 627 King Edwin of Northumbria was baptised in York and his kingdom officially, though falteringly, adopted Christianity. From written sources we learn of the development of his baptismal church of St Peter the Apostle (presumed to be the forerunner of York Minster), the subsequent establishment of a monastery, a school and a library, and of other churches and chapels in York. In the 1960s excavations in York Minster, carried out as part of a major consolidation project, produced fragments of late 7th/ 8th century carved stone grave markers, or stelae, which had been built into the later Minster foundations. They once marked the graves of the ecclesiastical, and perhaps the secular, elite associated with this emerging episcopal centre (Lang 1991).

Bellevue House Swimming Bath

Lamel Hill

Trench shown on larger plan 0

0

50 m

5m LEC

Figure 2: The layout of the burials excavated during the 1983 Bellevue House excavation

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These, however, are not the only 7th/8th century graves from the York area. In 1847-8 Thurnam investigated a mound known as Lamel Hill in the grounds of the Retreat, a mental institution on the Heslington Road.

There he uncovered several intact skeletons together with charnel and various chest fittings (Thurnam 1849). In 1983 YAT excavated in the grounds of the nearby Bellevue House and uncovered a further 40-50 skeletons, laid out approximately west-east and likely to be part of the same cemetery (YAT archive). Thurnam’s speculation that the Lamel Hill skeletons

might be of Anglo-Saxon date was recently strengthened by radiocarbon dates on four of the skeletons from Bellevue House which produced dates ranging from mid 7th to 8th century, representing what must be first and second generation Christians (Mainman in prep). The graves occasionally intercut suggesting that not all were marked above ground, but there is some order in terms of alignment and they appear to radiate from the position immediately south of the Lamel Hill mound (Figure 2).

The cemetery lies approximately a kilometre from the old Roman centre and arguably is that of a rural community living close to, and doubtless interacting with, but separate from, the inhabitants of re-emerging York. No trace of a church was found although this does not preclude there having been one close by, perhaps forming the focus south of the mound referred to above.

By way of contrast, a discovery in 2017 in Acomb suggest that other communities living west of the old Roman colonia might be adhering to pagan rituals. An initial theory is that the artefacts uncovered in a back garden might be from a disturbed 7th century grave (York Press: 6 March 2017).

Figure 3: The most complete Anglian skeleton from 1–9 Micklegate.

Scale unit 0.1m

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From within the town itself there is also accumulating evidence for 7th and 8th century burials, but of a rather different kind. Work done by YAT at 1–9 Micklegate in 1988-9 revealed remains of a large Roman building, probably a bath complex, which was modified and then demolished in the sub- or post-Roman period (Brann 1989/90; YAT Archive). In a layer which comprised the rubble from the building’s demolition were the fragmentary remains of at least seven individuals, including one child; radiocarbon dates produced from the four most intact skeletons range from AD 609–770 (Mainman in prep). The burials had been disturbed by subsequent Anglo-Scandinavian activity but of the more intact ones, only one appeared to be in a grave cut and was intact enough to see that he had been formally laid out, arms across his lower abdomen and ankles crossed (Figure 3). The others were simply laid

Figure 4: Location of the four 7th- to 9th-century burials recovered during the 16–22 Coppergate excavations.

(Reproduced from Hall et al 2014, 550)

on the rubble, one possibly face down, and their alignment varied from approximately east-west in two cases to north–south in another.

There are other, similarly casual, burials from the north-east side of the River Ouse.

Excavations by Malton Archaeological Partners in 2005 at 7–15 Spurriergate uncovered four burials interred in a steep sided pit, and a fifth, a child aged between 6–8, from a nearby rubbish pit (MAP Assessment Report 2005). One of the group of four and the child have been dated to the mid 8th century. At 16–22 Coppergate,

less than 100 metres from the Spurriergate site, at least four fragmentary burials from preViking levels produced dates ranging from 7th to 9th century (Figure 4) (Hall 2014, 548–552), whilst downstream at 46–54 Fishergate, human bones, including a neo-natal infant and others described as immature, were recovered from two Period 3 (late 7th–mid 9th century) pits (Kemp 1996, 48.61).

So we now have evidence for at least three very different, but more or less contemporary, ways of disposing of the dead in 7th and 8th northern archaeology today

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century York: a formal cemetery, complete with grave markers, associated with the church of St Peter the Apostle in the north-east quadrant of the old Roman fortress; a semi-rural cemetery at Lamel Hill/Bellevue House; and several examples of haphazard and informal burials across the city. The Acomb find will, in due course, give further insights.

Less than a kilometre west of Lamel Hill/ Bellevue House, at the confluence of the Rivers Foss and Ouse, a medieval cemetery excavated

by Field Archaeology Specialists at Fishergate House is believed to indicate the position of the church of St Helen, Fishergate. Radiocarbon dates were obtained for what appeared to be an early burial and it was found to date to somewhere between the 7th and 9th century, with others dating to the 10th and 11th centuries (Spall and Toop 2008, Table 1). Perhaps there had been an early Christian burial site there, which became the focus for St Helen’s, first recorded in 1086, or an earlier foundation for the church itself. Excavations at the adjacent St Andrew’s Fishergate indicated that the 11th century priory church had had a timber predecessor, although there the earliest dated burials excavated are probably of 11th century date (Kemp 1996, 74–6).

Although there is no other dated skeletal material to gives us insights into late Anglian burial practices, there are other forms of evidence.

Built into the walls of the church of St Mary Bishophill Junior, for example, were sculptural fragments dated, on stylistic grounds, to the mid 9th – 10th century with one possibly taking the date back into the 8th century (Lang 1991 85–6).

Having captured York in 866–7 those Scandinavian Vikings who settled in York soon adopted Christianity. The population rose steadily through the 10th and 11th century and at its peak might have been as high as 10–12,000 (although this too can only be speculation).

But where was the Anglo-Scandinavian population burying its dead? We have already seen indications that there might have been burials associated with churches as early as the late 8th and early 9th centuries (though the question remains in some cases as to whether burials or church came first) and all the indications are that this practice quickly became commonplace. There are greater numbers of 10th and 11th sculptural fragments, including grave markers, found built into the fabric of later church buildings (Lang Figure 5: A burial from Swinegate with the coffin lid removed and skeleton exposed. Scale unit 0.1m

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Phase 6d burials pits

S222 S227

S264

S274 S282

S266

S228 S263

S275

S234 S267

S312

S269 S257

S287 LEC

Figure 6: Distribution of Sub Phase 6D Pre-Norman Conquest (early to mid-11th century) burials at the George Street and Dixon Lane site. (Reproduced from McComish 2015, 33)

1991) and there might have been as many as twenty pre-Conquest churches known from either Domesday accounts or from excavation – and doubtless more yet to find.

itself was not encountered during excavation but the burials appeared to be respecting the line of a Roman wall which might have served as a boundary to the churchyard.

In a few cases there are now dated burials associated with these early foundations.

Excavations in Swinegate, for example, close to the site of the lost church of St Benet’s, (one of the few churches within the old Roman fortress), revealed burials interred within wooden coffins (Figure 5). Dates from eight of these coffins were obtained using tree-ring dating (dendrochronology) which consistently indicated dates from the late 9th and 10th centuries (Allen 2015, Table 2). Only two radiocarbon dates have been obtained from the bones themselves, but both confirm these dates, with the range of possibility extending into the 11th century (YAT Archive). St Benet’s church

A similar situation exists at the lost church of St Stephen’s, first recorded in 1093-4, which once stood between George Street and Dixon Lane on the east side of the River Foss. Here what is believed to be the medieval churchyard was discovered, but the church itself was beyond the excavated area. Amongst the dead were thirteen earlier burials on a slightly different alignment, two of which have been dated to the late 10th – mid 12th century (McComish 2015) (Figure 6).

Whether these early burials determined or reflected the position of an earlier church remains to be seen. Perhaps it followed the pattern of nearby All Saints Fishergate, where On-Site Archaeology uncovered a small timber church northern archaeology today

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lying beneath its stone successor (Pearson pers. comm.). At least one burial there, on a different alignment to later medieval burials, is of late 10th or early 11th century date (Mainman in prep), preceding the earliest written reference to the church in the late 11th century.

Many other pieces of evidence can be brought together to help fill out the picture of AngloScandinavian burial practices. Fragments of 10th and 11th century grave markers built into the fabric of St Mary Bishophill Senior, for example, indicate an Anglo-Scandinavian burial ground,

Figure 7: Anglo-Scandinavian Grave C53700 at Hungate revealing evidence for a stone packed lining

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part of which was encountered in the 1960s by Herman Ramm, although evidence for an earlier church is extremely slight (Ramm 1976, 45-6).

Close by, at St Mary Bishophill Junior there were also 10th century graves, some accompanied by simple grave goods: a buckle plate, knife, whetstone and coin in the case of the man, silver arm rings for two of the women, their alignments varying from north-east/south-west to eastnorth-east/west-south-west with their heads to the west (Wenham and Hall 1987). A 10th century date has also been suggested for one of the graves referred to above from St Benet’s which was also furnished with a knife, a hone stone and a buckle (Rogers 2016). Christian burials rarely have grave goods in them so perhaps this is a rare glimpse of a society in transition between pagan and Christian/Scandinavian and Anglian cultural practices.

At St Mary’s Castlegate an inscribed stone found in the foundations of the 13th century church provides evidence for an earlier church and some of the cross fragments and grave markers push burials there back into the 10th century (Hall et al 1987). Excavations at nearby All Saints, Pavement also provided evidence for an earlier church there (MAP Assessment Report 1996) and perhaps the encroachment onto its churchyard accounts for the broken sculptural fragments and disturbed human bones found at the street end of the Coppergate excavation. More recently at Hungate, on land once used for Roman burials, a group of three later graves, still under consideration, have been dated to the late 9th or early 10th century. These burials had been laid out on a consistent south-west/north-east orientation, with head to the south-west, and again reveal the variety in mortuary practices during the Anglo-Scandinavian period – one was buried in a coffin, another appeared to be tightly bound, perhaps in a shroud, and the third was laid in a stone-lined grave and covered with a wooden board (Figure 7) (Connelly pers. comm.). Their location immediately to the north-east of a badly robbed- out substantial stone- founded building throws up further questions about this graveyard space.

So the answer to the question of where are all the dead of Anglo-Scandinavian York seems to be, in many cases at least, in burials grounds which either had, or subsequently acquired, churches - some in timber, others perhaps in stone from the outset. Some of these churches were rebuilt and extended through the 11th– 13th centuries while others might have lasted

no more than a generation and many have since vanished, their churchyards encroached upon, built over or destroyed. Surviving pieces of evidence, some of which are described above, become all the more valuable as a focus for ongoing research in order to advance our understanding of life, and death, in Anglian and Anglo-Scandinavian York.

Acknowledgements: I am very grateful to Malton Archaeological Partners for making available; ‘All Saints Church, York Assessment Report’ and ‘7–15 Spurriergate York SE 6032 5184 Archaeological Assessment Report’. I am also grateful to On-Site Archaeology, Field Archaeology Specialists, Durham University and Sheffield University for making samples available for a recent programme of dating undertaken by SUERC. All results are now in YAT Archive and with respective units.

Bibliography Allen, S. 2015, ‘Wooden Coffins and Grave Furniture from 12–18 Swinegate, 14 Little Stonegate, and 18 Back Swinegate, York (YORYM 1989.28, 1990.28, 1990.1)’ YAT Insight Reports (un-numbered) Brann, M. 1989/90, Interim reports on the Queen’s Hotel site, 1–9 Micklegate. Interim 13 and 14, York Archaeological Trust Hall, R.A. et al, 2014, Anglo-Scandinavian Occupation at 16-22 Coppergate: Defining a Townscape. AY8/5: York Archaeological Trust Kemp, R.L. and Graves, P.C., 1996. The Church and Gilbertine Priory of St Andrew, Fishergate. AY11/2: York Archaeological Trust Lang, J., 1991. Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture III: York and Eastern Yorkshire. Oxford: The British Academy Mainman, A. J. in prep, Anglian York Blackthorn Press McComish, J. 2015, ‘Roman, Anglian and Anglo-Scandinavian activity and a medieval cemetery on land at the junction of Dixon Lane and George Street, York.’ YAT Web Publication 9 Ramm, H. 1976, ‘The church of St Mary Bishophill Senior, York: excavations, 1964.’ Yorkshire Archaeological Journal 48, 35-68 Rogers, N. 2016, ‘A Furnished Grave in the Cemetery of St Benet’s Church’ YAT Insight Reports (un-numbered) Spall, C. and Toop, N. 2008. ‘Before Eoforwic: New Light on York in the 6th–7th centuries’ Medieval Archaeology 52, 1–26 Thurnam, J. 1849, ‘Description of an ancient tumular cemetery probably of the Anglo-Saxon period, at Lamel Hill, near York’, Archaeological Journal 6 27–39, 123–36 Wenham, L.P., Hall, R.A., Briden, C.M. and Stocker, D.A., 1987, St Mary Bishophill Junior and St Mary Castlegate AY 8/2: York Archaeological Trust York Press: www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/15133142.Men_digging_in_Acomb_garden_find_ancient_gold_treasure/

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Questioning The Past With The Watlington Hoard Dr Gareth Williams, British Museum

Figure 1: A small selection of the Watlington Hoard as displayed in the JORVIK Viking Centre

In October 2015, metal detectorist James Mather discovered a Viking silver hoard in farmland near Watlington in Oxfordshire. After removing the first few coins himself, James reported the hoard through the Portable Antiquities Scheme, so that the remainder could be professionally recovered. The find was excavated by David Williams, Finds Liaison Officer (FLO) for Surrey and East Berkshire, together with a colleague. As it was already apparent that many of the items were fragile and in some cases fragmentary, the main clump of hoard material was removed as a block to be excavated under laboratory conditions, while the remaining dispersed coins and fragments from the surrounding area were also carefully removed.

The hoard was excavated at the British Museum by Senior Conservator Pippa Pearce and colleagues. Examination of the block revealed no clear sign of a container, although a small fragment of leather may have come from a bag. There had also been disturbance in the ground, as some fragmentary objects in this core 20

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group could be matched with other fragments among the peripheral finds. Coins of this period are typically thin and fragile, but something in the soil conditions has made these particularly brittle, resulting in extreme fragmentation. As a result, while it has been possible in some cases to match individual fragments, others cannot yet be matched, and the exact number of coins in the hoard is not yet certain, and may never be, although work on the conservation and reconstruction of the hoard is ongoing.

Nevertheless, the majority of items in the hoard can be clearly identified, revealing this to be one of the most important Viking hoards from the British Isles. It was declared Treasure, and has been acquired by the Ashmolean Museum, working in partnership with Oxfordshire Museums Service.

Parts of the hoard have already been shown at the British Museum and at the Ashmolean itself, as well as in a number of pop-up displays around the county. The hoard also appeared in the refurbished Jorvik Viking Centre in York between February to May 2018 (Figure 1). As discussed

Figure 2: Detail of the Watlington Hoard arm rings. Image courtesy of the Ashmolean Museum (copyright Ashmolean Museum)

below, the hoard can be dated fairly precisely, and relates directly to the activities of the micel here (‘Great Army’). This marauding force raided and conquered its way around England in AD 865–79, immediately preceding the permanent settlement of parts of northern and eastern England by elements of the army.

The hoard contains three complete silver arm-rings, fifteen silver ingots, three pieces of hack-silver and one piece of hack-gold, as well as a little over 200 coins, many of which are fragmentary but also containing a number of rare and significant coins in excellent condition.

With the exception of two Frankish deniers, the coins are all Anglo-Saxon, although the overall mixture of coins with intact jewellery and bullion is typical of Viking hoards of the late 9th and early 10th centuries from the British Isles.

While many of these also contain Viking coins, their absence here reflects the relatively early date of the hoard, c. 879–80. Minting was almost unknown in Scandinavia at this time, being limited to small-scale coinages at the towns of Hedeby and Ribe in Denmark. Such coins had very limited circulation, and are exceptionally rare in Viking hoards in Britain, with only three recorded among around 7,500 coins in a hoard from Cuerdale in Lancashire, buried c. 905-910.

Cuerdale and other hoards also contain Viking coins minted in England, including types that can be firmly attributed to the Viking kingdoms of Northumbria and East Anglia, as well as anonymous imitations of West Saxon coins.

However, the earliest of these date from the

880s, and none have yet been identified from the period of the micel here.

By contrast, the arm-rings are of Viking types (Figure 2), and the hack-silver also comes from jewellery of Viking type, while the combination of coins and bullion is very typical of Viking hoards of this period (Figure 3). Scandinavia had very little precious metal at the beginning of the Viking Age, and the desire for silver for prestige items may well have been one of the driving forces behind the early Viking raids. However, contact with coins both in western Europe and in the Islamic world to the east familiarised the Vikings with the idea of using silver and to a lesser extent gold as currency. Rather than adopting coinage fully, they valued their metals by weight, and coins circulated alongside ingots and cut pieces of silver jewellery. Interestingly the Watlington hoard has a single piece of hackgold, implying the existence of a gold bullion economy alongside the silver. This is extremely unusual, but interestingly there are parallels from the site assemblage at Torksey, which can be dated on textual evidence to 872–3, and from a comparable site in North Yorkshire from a couple of years later, so the hoard provides further evidence for a gold bullion economy at the time of the micel here.

The hoard can be so precisely dated because it predominantly contains a mixture of coins, both West Saxon and Mercian, dating from the period 874 – c. 879, together with a single example of the Two-Line type introduced c. 879 northern archaeology today

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Figure 3: A selection of the material that makes up the Watlington Hoard. Image courtesy of the Ashmolean Museum (copyright Ashmolean Museum)

by Alfred the Great of Wessex (871–99). The earlier group have hitherto been extremely rare, while the later type was minted in large quantities. The only thing that makes sense of a single, relatively freshly minted example of the later type in a hoard predominantly composed of earlier types is if the hoard was buried after the new type was introduced, but before it had begun to circulate in large quantities.

Given the date of the transition, the location of the hoard fits neatly into the known activities of one element of the micel here. While one group of the army, under Halfdan, had moved north to Northumbria in 874, another group led by Oscytel, Anund and Guthrum moved to East Anglia at the same time. In 876 some, or all, of these, now led by Guthrum alone, attacked Wareham in Dorset, moving on the following year to Exeter, and then to Gloucester. A sudden attack in early January 878 caught Alfred 22

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unawares at the royal estate of Chippenham, and he was forced into hiding, but returned to defeat Guthrum’s army at Edington in May. Guthrum was forced to submit, accepting Christianity with Alfred as his godfather, and retreating over the Mercian border to Cirencester, where the army remained for a year before moving to East Anglia and settling permanently. The obvious routes from Cirencester to East Anglia at this time would have been Roman roads either to the north or to the south of Oxford before joining the prehistoric trackway known both as the Ridgeway and as Icknield Way. It is not recorded which route Guthrum’s army took, but if they took the southern route, this would have taken them through the Watlington area in exactly the period in which the hoard was buried.

The significance of the hoard comes from the fact that it contains a mixture of coins of

Alfred and his lesser known contemporary, Ceolwulf II of Mercia (874–c.879). According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Ceolwulf was a ‘foolish king’s thegn’, and a puppet of the Vikings, who was installed as ruler of part of Mercia by the Vikings, in return for a promise that he would return it to them if they asked for it, and that he would also provide them with military assistance, if required. Ceolwulf II is thus presented as having no apparent legitimate claim to the Mercian throne, and more likely to be an ally of the Vikings against the West Saxons than the other way round. The same picture appears in the Life of King Alfred written by a Welsh monk named Asser. Like the AngloSaxon Chronicle, Asser’s Life was written at Alfred’s court in the early 890s. Ceolwulf’s fate is uncertain, and we have no record of his death or abdication, although a list of Mercian kings preserved at Worcester tells us that he reigned for around five years.

There are several problems with this version of events. Firstly, although there are no records of Ceolwulf’s descent, there was a tendency in this period to have related names within the same

dynasty, and it seems likely that Ceolwulf II was a descendant of the branch of the Mercian dynasty that had produced Coenwulf (796–821) and his brothers Cuthred (sub-king of Kent) and Ceolwulf I (821–3). Ceolwulf also seems to have been accepted by the Mercian nobility, and issued charters as king, with Mercian bishops and nobles as witnesses, and with no suggestion that he was in any way subject to any other ruler. Furthermore, as shown by the hoard, Ceolwulf was able to issue an extensive coinage in his own name. Like the charters, this is typical of an Anglo-Saxon king ruling independently of any overlord. Thus, although Ceolwulf’s image in later histories has been largely shaped by the account produced by the West Saxon court years after he disappears from the historical record, the direct evidence from his own reign shows a very different picture.

The coinage in particular sheds new light on Ceolwulf’s relationship with Alfred. Ceolwulf issued two coin types, both of which were also issued by Alfred, in some cases apparently in the same towns by the same moneyers, suggesting a monetary alliance. The sense of alliance is

Figure 4: The middle two coins illustrate two kings or emperors, side by side, with the winged figure of Victory above them, suggesting a sense of alliance between Ceolwulf and Alfred

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strengthened by the use on one type of a Roman design showing two emperors standing side by side, with a winged figure representing Victory above them (Figure 4). This winged figure may have been interpreted by the Anglo-Saxons as an angel rather than Victory, but either way its presence above the two rulers is significant.

An angel would suggest that the West Saxons accepted that Ceolwulf was king of Mercia with God’s blessing. Victory might suggest that the coinage was struck to commemorate a shared victory which later West Saxon sources either fail to mention, or credit to Alfred alone. The sense of common purpose is also reinforced by the fact that the two kings carried out a reform of the silver quality of the coinage, increasing the silver content significantly from earlier coins in both Mercia and Wessex. The monetary alliance also included the archbishop of Canterbury, who also issued coins of related designs and silver standards, affirming Ceolwulf’s acceptance not just by Alfred, but by the Church.

The coinage thus shows a very different relationship between Alfred and Ceolwulf from the one given in the written records from Alfred’s court. That has been recognised by historians for many years, but so few coins of either ruler survived from the period of Ceolwulf’s reign that it was uncertain how representative they were. It was clear that the coins were struck at a number of mints in both Mercia and Wessex, but it was not certain that it was more than a very small and shortlived coinage. The Watlington hoard now shows clearly that the coinage was much more substantial than was previously recognised, and it may well have lasted throughout the whole of Ceolwulf’s reign. The fact that the later types of Alfred’s reign were barely represented in the hoard indicates that there was little overlap between the two phases of

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coinage, and the fact that these were struck to a heavier weight with a completely unrelated design may indicate that they were intended to drive Ceolwulf’s coins out of circulation.

The dating of this change is significant.

Ceolwulf simply disappears from the historical record around 879, the same period that Guthrum’s army was based at Cirencester in southern Mercia following its defeat at Edington. Shortly afterwards, it made its way to East Anglia, and a surviving treaty shows that Alfred and Guthrum divided southern Mercia between them, with Guthrum taking the land east of the River Lea and Watling Street. Various sources show Alfred thereafter as king of the Mercians, but there is nothing to say how he acquired that position, or what became of his former ally Ceolwulf. In texts which praise Alfred at every opportunity, their silence on his acquisition of a major kingdom is telling. Then in the 890s the sources appear which blacken Ceolwulf’s reputation. Without the coins, and particularly the large number of coins from the Watlington hoard, historians have tended to accept that later version of events at face value, but in the light of the hoard it looks rather like the Stalinist approach of airbrushing figures out of history when it was no longer considered convenient to remember them.

There is no reason to doubt that Alfred was a great ruler, and his success against the Vikings paved the way for the unification of England, but it is important to remember that the idea of Alfred ‘the Great’ was very much a creation of his own court. The Watlington hoard is an important reminder of the importance of archaeology in providing evidence that can provide a more nuanced understanding of Anglo-Saxon and Viking history than the official record that has passed down to us.

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