Roman York to Anglian York: a speculative model

In this sequence of posts, I have summarised some documentary and archaeological evidence that may help to sketch out a picture of York in the post-Roman centuries. For a summary, see the preceding post in the series.

I have also discussed the Brittonic ruler Peredur, recorded in the late sixth century and associated with York in later medieval tradition.

I suggested that York continued to be inhabited, probably at a low density, and to be used at least on occasion by the local rulers during the fifth and sixth centuries. If correct, this could provide a mechanism for York to retain its status as a political, ecclesiastical and military centre, and possibly some of its cultural heritage, throughout the gap in the historical record.

However, the context in which such a status functioned clearly changed between the fourth and seventh centuries.  In the fourth century, York was under the control of Roman officials, part of the diocese of Britain and the Western Roman Empire, the base of a legion of regular army troops, and the seat of a bishop.  In the early seventh century, York was under the control of the early English (‘Anglo-Saxon’) king of Deira/ Northumbria, had no established bishopric (or at least not one that Pope Gregory recognised), and was not part of a political entity bigger than the kingdom of Northumbria (or possibly of whatever was represented by the title of ‘Bretwalda’, which on the most generous interpretation only extends to most, not all, of modern England and parts of southern Scotland).  How might this transition have come about?  There are several broad possibilities. 

Direct transfer of power from Rome to English kings

One possibility is that power was transferred directly from the last Roman officials to the first English king, some time after Emperor Honorius told the British civitates to ‘look to their own defences’ in the early fifth century. The Late Roman Army was in the habit of recruiting Germanic ‘barbarians’ as allies and mercenaries, some of whom reached positions of great power. Stilicho, the general and de facto Emperor in the early fifth century, had a Vandal father. In the 360s the Dux Britanniarum had a Germanic name, Fullofaudes, and in 300 a Germanic warrior-king called Crocus and his troops helped to elevate Constantine the Great to Emperor in York. If the Roman Army based at York in the early fifth century was either commanded by a Germanic general like Fullofaudes or Stilicho, or relied heavily on a Germanic mercenary ally like Crocus, it is not hard to see how such an individual could have become in effect the ruler of York and its surroundings, and effectively founded a kingdom with little more than a change of terminology. In this model one of the last Roman officials could also have been the first English king.

Something like this happened in parts of Continental Europe, where Germanic kings such as Clovis in Gaul (roughly modern France) effectively took over chunks of the former Western Roman Empire wholesale. However, such a direct transfer does not fit easily with some aspects of the situation in York. First, the Christian church hierarchy seems to have disappeared in York, or at least was no longer recognised by Rome, since Pope Gregory clearly expected to establish a new bishopric there. This contrasts with the situation in Gaul, where Christian bishops continued under Clovis and were recognised in Rome. Second, although Clovis was a Frank and Frankish was a Germanic language, the language that became dominant in his territory was a descendant of Latin (eventually evolving into modern French). By contrast, the language that emerged in York was English, a Germanic language. It is possible that a particular set of circumstances could explain both of these differences – e.g. if the leader who took over in York happened to be a committed pagan who chased out any Christian church hierarchy, or if Germanic languages were already widely spoken in and around York after generations of recruiting Germanic soldiers who retained connections with friends and relatives across the North Sea. Nevertheless, my interpretation is that these differences are consistent with a less direct transition in York.

Invasion and conquest

A second possibility is that English warriors invaded and conquered Roman York and its surrounding area, destroyed the Roman aristocracy and the Christian church, expelled or oppressed the Roman population, and established their own kingdom without reference to anything that had gone before.  Such a hypothetical conquest could have happened at any time between the early fifth century and the late sixth or early seventh century. This model explains the absence of a bishop in the early seventh century, and the presence of pagan English cremation cemeteries at The Mount and Heworth in York in the fifth-sixth century.

Given York’s importance in Roman Britain, one might have expected to find such a conquest recorded in Annales Cambriae alongside battles such as Arthuret, or as a comment on an early king of Deira in the king-lists in Historia Brittonum or the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (‘X who conquered York’ like the enigmatic comment about Soemil), or to appear at least as a passing reference in poetry or the Triads. It may be possible that the reference to Soemil was supposed to mean that he had conquered York, expressed in an oblique way. It may also be possible that the un-located battle of Caer Greu mentioned in the Triads, where Peredur and his brother Gwrgi were killed (see post on Peredur), could be an oblique reference to a battle at York, called for some reason by the name of ‘Caer Greu’ instead of its more usual ‘Caer Ebrauc’ or ‘Caer Efrawg’.  It may also be possible that the enigmatic entry for the death of ‘Bishop Ebur’ in Annales Cambriae in 501 AD (see post on the documentary sources for post-Roman York) could be an oblique reference to an invasion and conquest that extinguished the bishopric. I am not convinced, because these are all very oblique; they could refer to a conquest of York, but that’s mostly because it isn’t clear what they refer to, so they could mean almost anything. It seems odd to me that there is no clear ‘X conquered Eboracum/ Caer Ebrauc’ or ‘X was killed in the battle of Eboracum /Caer Ebrauc’. However, the sources are so sparse that absence of evidence cannot be taken as evidence of absence.

Staged transition from Roman to a Brittonic kingdom to an English kingdom

A third possibility is that Roman York became an independent Brittonic kingdom that later became an English kingdom. Brittonic kingdoms are recorded in the late sixth and early seventh century in what is now northern England, such as the kingdom of Elmet in the area around modern Leeds, a few miles west of York (see post on Elmet), and the kingdom of Rheged somewhere in what is now north-western England and/or south-western Scotland (more on Rheged in a later post). If York was the centre of a similar kingdom, that would fit with the pattern.

Such a kingdom could have evolved from the military authority held by the late Roman army commander based at York (by a mechanism similar to the first possibility outlined above) and/or from the civilian political authority held by the leader(s) of the colonia. It could be similar to the situation at Birdoswald, where someone was building timber halls fit for a chieftain in the fifth to sixth centuries, presumably using the Roman fort for its defensive capability or its prestige or both. If some of the people in authority in Late Roman York were members of, or had close links with, the local British aristocracy, such a hypothetical post-Roman kingdom in York could have developed into a Brittonic tribal kingdom.

This model can accommodate the reference in Annales Cambriae to ‘Bishop Ebur’ in 501.  If the hypothetical Brittonic kingdom had developed out of a Late Roman Christian Brittonic aristocracy, it may also have retained the Late Roman Christian church hierarchy, at least for a while*. It can also accommodate the medieval tradition that the late sixth-century Brittonic king Peredur was associated with York (see post on Peredur). In this model, Peredur would have been the king of this hypothetical Brittonic kingdom that had developed in or around York. Peredur’s genealogy extends back to Coel Hen, the founder figure of most of the northern Brittonic dynasties.  Generation counting places Coel Hen somewhere in the early to mid fifth century, i.e. in the immediately post-Roman period, a plausible context for the emergence of a ruling dynasty (caveat, as always, that distant founder figures in genealogies may owe as much to imagination as to history).  Peredur’s father Eliffer had the epithet “of the Great Army”, which may imply that he had considerable military power in his time.  These scraps are consistent with a powerful Brittonic kingdom based in York from the immediate post-Roman period up to the later sixth century, though they do not prove it.

This staged transition model is not necessarily inconsistent with the presence of the pagan English cremation cemeteries at York; those only pose a problem if one assumes that populations must be ethnically, culturally and religiously homogeneous. The cremation cemeteries may represent one element of a mixed population living in post-Roman York, perhaps Germanic mercenaries hired by a Brittonic king or people descended from Germanic soldiers in the Late Roman Army, who happened to practice a particular funerary custom.

The transition from such a hypothetical post-Roman Brittonic kingdom to the English kingdom of Deira recorded by Bede could have occurred by conquest, alliance, intermarriage or inheritance, or any combination thereof. Peredur was killed in battle in 580 according to Annales Cambriae, and his son did not (re)claim his inheritance according to the Triads. Peredur’s death is a plausible context for a shift from Brittonic to Deiran control of York. Whether it represents direct military conquest by Deira, or an alliance hastily patched up after a military defeat by a common enemy, or an inheritance (disputed or otherwise) by the English-oriented children of a dynastic intermarriage in the previous generation, is open to interpretation.

A speculative model

I prefer the staged transition model, for several reasons. First, because it seems to me to fit with fragmentation of Roman Britain into a large number of small local polities, each ruled by whoever happened to be in the best position to grasp and maintain power in a given place at the time, which then changed and evolved over the following centuries.  Second, because a Brittonic kingdom based at York fits easily among the known post-Roman kingdoms ruled by kings with Brittonic names elsewhere in the region of what is now northern England/southern Scotland in the sixth century. Third, because it can accommodate the tradition associating Peredur with York (this is hardly strong evidence, since it comes from a medieval romance written centuries later, but it may reflect a genuine tradition).

So my speculative model for the development of post-Roman York sees a Brittonic tribal kingdom established in and around York, initially developing from the local Brittonic aristocracy and/or Roman officials based in York in the early to mid fifth century. By the mid to late sixth century it was a powerful kingdom capable of fighting a battle many miles away at Arthuret, whose rulers were important enough to be mentioned in the Annales Cambriae and were the subject of stories that survive in cryptic references in the Triads and later medieval romance. 

In this speculative model, the early English kingdom of Deira is postulated as separate from Brittonic York, based on the Yorkshire Wolds with an important centre near the extensive early cemetery at Sancton near Market Weighton and extending east to the coast and west towards the River Derwent.  If Soemil’s action that ‘first separated Deur from Berneich’ (see earlier post on Soemil) refers to gaining Deiran independence from a polity based in York, Deira may have initially been a sort of sub-region of Brittonic York, perhaps a land-grant to federate troops employed by the Late Roman Army based at York and/or the postulated Brittonic kingdom that succeeded it.  (More on the possible origins of Deira in a later post). I see Brittonic York and early English Deira as more or less independent neighbouring kingdoms for much of the fifth and sixth centuries, sometimes rivals and sometimes allies, depending on circumstances and the personalities of their respective leaders.  If Deira was initially founded by people who were formally granted land by Roman or post-Roman authorities at York, it is possible that both kingdoms may have shared a sense of Roman heritage (however hazy it may have become over time) and a tradition that they were supposed to co-operate militarily (whether they always did so in practice is a different matter).  Intermarriage could have reinforced such a (hypothetical) tradition, eventually leading to the effective merger of the two kingdoms under a Deiran king after the deaths of Peredur of York and his brother Gwrgi in 580 AD.  Whether this was voluntary, forcible or somewhere in between is open to interpretation. Since Peredur’s son Gwgaun is said in the Triads not to have (re)claimed his inheritance, implying that he was displaced, such a hypothetical merger may not have been entirely voluntary.  I lean to ‘somewhere in between’, with the aristocracy of Brittonic York accepting a Deiran king as the least-bad option available to them in a chaotic situation after their own kings had been killed in battle.  And thus this speculative model arrives at a situation in which York is a royal centre under the control of the early English kings of Deira in the late sixth century, ready to reappear in that guise in the documentary records in 627. 

I need hardly say that this is speculative.

 

*Even if the Annales Cambriae record means that there was a bishopric in York that came to an end in 501, it does not necessarily mean that Christianity disappeared along with the bishop. Monasticism was a powerful force in western Britain and Ireland in the early medieval period. If a monastery was established in Brittonic York during the fifth century, it may be possible that it had supplanted the local bishopric by 501.

 

 

Post-Roman York: summary

Late Roman York was an important military, political and ecclesiastical centre in the fourth century.  Anglian York was a royal and ecclesiastical centre in the early seventh century.  What happened in between? 

In this sequence of posts, I have briefly summarised some documentary and archaeological evidence that may help to sketch out a picture of York in the post-Roman centuries: 

• the documentary evidence;
• the headquarters building;
• the Anglian cremation cemeteries at The Mount andHeworth;
• the inhumation cemetery at Lamel Hill;
• the possible Anglian cemetery at Castle Yard;
• the craft-working and possible trading settlement at Fishergate.

I have also discussed the ‘Anglian Tower’, built at an unknown date between late Roman and Anglo-Scandinavian York.

In this post I will try to draw the information together.

York as a political and ecclesiastical centre

One aspect that strikes me is the similarity between York at either end of the gap in the documentary record. 

In Late Roman Britain, York was an important centre of ecclesiastical (a bishop of York attended an international church council in 314), military (base of the Sixth Legion and probably of the high-ranking military commander the Dux Britanniarum), and political (the civilian city on the west bank of the Ouse was a colonia, the highest rank of Roman city) power.

When York next appears in documentary records in the early seventh century, it was an important centre of ecclesiastical (seat of the bishop of York and intended by Pope Gregory to become an archbishopric) and royal (chosen by King Edwin (Eadwine) of Deira/Northumbria as the site for his baptism and that of much of the Northumbrian aristocracy) power.  Although military and political power were (in theory) separate under Roman administration, in early medieval Britain both were effectively subsumed under royal authority, as kings were both political and military leaders. 

So York seems to have held broadly similar status on either side of the three-century gap in the historical record.  This could be pure coincidence.  It is possible that Roman York was to all intents and purposes deserted in the fifth and sixth centuries, and that King Eadwine and Bishop Paulinus established their new church and bishopric in a grass-grown ruin that meant nothing to either of them except that Pope Gregory had specified the location.  Even this minimalist interpretation, however, requires that someone at least knew which particular grass-grown Roman ruin Pope Gregory meant, implying that the name of Roman York had been remembered.

More likely, in my view, is that York remained inhabited in some form throughout, and that its political, military and ecclesiastical roles were either retained – no doubt much modified according to changing circumstances – or at least remembered.

Continued habitation in some form is consistent with the archaeological finds, which (although fragmentary) span the gap in the documentary records between them:

• in the early fifth century, someone left a large quantity of young pig bones in the headquarters building, perhaps the debris from a Roman-style luxury feast;
• in the fifth to sixth century, someone was interring their dead in cremation cemeteries at The Mount and Heworth;
• possibly in the seventh to eighth century, someone was interring their dead in an inhumation cemetery at Lamel Hill;
• someone deposited an early seventh-century hanging bowl at Castle Yard;
• at some unknown date between the late fourth and mid ninth centuries, someone built the Anglian Tower;
• in the late seventh to mid ninth centuries, people were living and working on the production of craft goods at Fishergate, by which date York has reappeared in the documentary records.

The environment of post-Roman York

Such continued habitation would be very different from the densely populated urban environment of Roman York. The complex Roman mercantile economy with its network of specialist producers relied on safe transport over long distances, sufficient stability to make long-term investments such as learning specialist skills worthwhile, and a reliable means of exchange so that specialist producers could obtain the means of living that they did not produce for themselves. The economy was already declining in Roman Britain in the late fourth century, undermined by internal power struggles, political purges, raids, piracy, and successive troop withdrawals as a parade of would-be emperors ‘borrowed’ the British garrisons to have yet another try at grabbing the top job via a military coup. When the Empire officially gave up on Britain, in the shape of Emperor Honorius’ letter telling the civitas governments to look to their own defences, the cessation of Imperial funds would have been one more blow to an economy already struggling. People living in late- and post-Roman York would have had to adapt to increasingly erratic supplies at local markets and a near absence of long-distance trade. Increasingly, if you wanted something you would have to grow it or make it yourself, or make something you could arrange to swap for it with someone nearby.

City populations would probably have been less well equipped than rural populations to weather this change. Rural populations who already grew food for their own use and to sell to the city could still eat if trade collapsed, even if they could no longer buy useful manufactured goods; city populations would have lacked both the skills and the land area to grow enough food to feed themselves.  York may have been better placed than many cities to manage the issue of land availability, if the withdrawal of troops by successive usurpers reduced the city’s population and also freed up vacant land that could be converted to cultivation.  If York was very lucky, it may also have had access to military supplies or supply contracts for a while, which could perhaps have been used to smooth the transition. However, even if York fared better than average (which is speculation on my part), the city population would be expected to decrease from its peak as people moved away or died, and to settle eventually at a density sufficiently low to be roughly self-sustaining on the amount of land available. Post-Roman York is probably best thought of as sparsely populated, with settlement dispersed around the city and perhaps also shifting from place to place to make the best use of available land and surviving structures.

Social structure in post-Roman York

The presence of the elaborate hanging bowl at Castle Yard, and perhaps also the pigs in the headquarters building (if they represent the remains of luxury feasting) suggest that some people in post-Roman York had access to expensive luxury goods, and whoever built the Anglian Tower clearly controlled considerable resources. These are consistent with the presence of local rulers or chieftains, perhaps similar to whoever built the post-Roman timber halls in the old Roman fort at Birdoswald. York may have been a permanent base for a local ruler, or perhaps one of several bases visited on a rotating basis by a ruler with a larger territory (or both at different times).

Whether permanent residents or seasonal visitors, such rulers would presumably have needed a working population in and around York to provide for their needs; people who grew crops on areas of open ground, grazed livestock on grass and scrub among the ruins, scavenged for raw materials to work into craft products for use or exchange, built simple houses against convenient standing walls or where space allowed, interred their dead in cremation or inhumation cemeteries according to religion or family custom, and dumped their rubbish on waste ground or in convenient derelict buildings. Such activity would be consistent with the deposits of ‘dark earth’ that separate Roman from medieval archaeological deposits on some sites in York, which would form as rubbish and perishable materials rotted down.

Conclusion

So my suggested model for post-Roman York is one of a sparse and more or less self-sufficient resident population, producing what they needed to support themselves and a small group of visiting or resident aristocrats. This model offers a mechanism whereby York could have retained its status as a political centre if visited (even if only occasionally) by the local rulers, and as an ecclesiastical centre if some of the population continued to follow Christian beliefs and to maintain links with Christians elsewhere in Britain.

Although this model allows for some continuity of occupation and status between Roman York in the early fifth century and Anglian York in the early seventh century, there is a striking apparent change. In the early fifth century York was controlled by Roman officials. In the early seventh century it was controlled by an early English (‘Anglo-Saxon’) king. How might that political transition have come about?  More on that in another post.

Post-Roman York: the headquarters building

York was an important military, ecclesiastical and political centre in Late Roman Britain. In the early seventh century it was under royal control of the English (‘Anglo-Saxon’) kings of Deira, and later in the seventh century it developed into a major ecclesiastical centre and the seat of an archbishopric, a status it holds to this day. In between, the historical record is a blank; definite references to York between the fourth century and the seventh century number precisely zero, although there are one or two snippets whose meaning is less than clear (see earlier post on Post-Roman York: the documentary evidence for a summary of the documentary records). Evidence from archaeology provides some clues that may help to fill in the gap.

Minster excavations

Roman York was a legionary base from the date of its founding, and remained so throughout Roman rule in Britain. The legionary headquarters building (principia) was the most important building in a legionary fortress, always placed in the centre facing the main gate. It housed administrative offices, a great aisled cross-hall where the commander could address his assembled troops, a strong room for the legion’s pay chest and the soldiers’ savings, and the legionary shrine where the standards were kept. The principia at York was the centre of Roman military power in what is now north and north-east England.

The present York Minster is sited partly on top of the Roman principia (see my earlier post on the possible location of the seventh-century church in York for a sketch of the relative position of the two). When the Minster required urgent structural underpinning in the late 1960s to save the central tower from collapse, the engineering work provided a rare – possibly unique – opportunity for archaeological excavation on the site. One can only admire the archaeologists who carried out the excavation, which must have been the archaeological equivalent of keyhole surgery, conducted under difficult conditions in the middle of a major building project frantically trying to shore up a collapsing cathedral.

Clear, if sparse, evidence emerged of activity in the cross-hall in the late and/or post-Roman period. The Roman flagstone floor had been removed (at an unknown date), and replaced by multiple layers of trodden sand and charcoal. In some places these layers also contained fragments of ‘York ware’ pottery, which was in use in the eighth or ninth century (Rahtz; Carver 1994). In other places the layers contained large quantities of animal bone. Unusually, the animal bone contained a high proportion of pig (over one-third) and sheep (about one-third), instead of being dominated by cattle, and still more unusually, many of the bones were from juvenile animals less than a year old (Carver 1994). A sample of the bone was radiocarbon-dated to 343-416 AD (Rahtz). These layers were overlain by the collapsed roof of the cross-hall.

Interpretation

Date
So, it seems that at some time after the removal of the Roman flagstone floor and before the collapse of its roof, the cross-hall of the principia had seen some activity that resulted in the accumulation of multiple layers of sand, a lot of juvenile animal bones and a few sherds of pottery. As so often, the dating of this activity is the subject of much debate. The earliest possible date of the roof collapse is constrained by the latest date of objects sealed beneath the collapse layer (provided the objects have not found their way under the collapse layer at a later date, see below). There are two groups of datable artefacts in the layers under the collapsed roof, the animal bone radiocarbon-dated to the late fourth-early fifth century, and the York ware pottery fragments dated to the eighth-ninth century.

• If you take the deposition of the York ware pottery fragments as the last event before the roof collapsed, this suggests the cross-hall was standing until at least the late eighth or ninth century.


• If you take the deposition of the radiocarbon-dated animal bone as the last event, this suggests the cross-hall was standing until at least the early fifth century.

In either case, the cross-hall could have been standing much later – it must have collapsed after the latest object underneath was deposited, but how long after is a different question.

The original excavator, Derek Phillips, interpreted the findings as showing accumulation of material, and therefore some sort of activity in the principia, up to the ninth century, whereas Martin Carver interpreted them as fifth-century activity (Rahtz). When two respected practitioners disagree by 400 years, it probably tells you that there is not a definitive answer. It seems to me to depend on whether you think the York ware fragments were lying on the floor underneath the roof when it collapsed, or whether you think they were intruded underneath the collapsed roof at some later date, perhaps when the remains of the Roman principia was being used as a giant stone quarry for Anglo-Scandinavian and medieval York. I prefer the idea that the the cross-hall stayed standing until around the ninth century, but you can take your choice.

Animal bone
What might the animal bone represent? There is a lot of it, so someone slaughtered a lot of juvenile sheep and pigs in the vicinity. If the bones accumulated over a period of years or decades, which is quite possible even if the same radiocarbon date range applies to them all as radiocarbon dating is approximate, this might help to explain the quantity. I don’t know if it is possible to estimate the number of animals represented by the bones, which could help to assess how long they would have taken to accumulate. If, for example, there are more year-old animals than could be produced by the surrounding agricultural area in a year, that might indicate that the bones accumulated over several years (or were brought in from a distance, although transporting large numbers of juvenile animals over long distances would require considerable transport resources). The exact relationship of the sand layers to the bone might also be able to distinguish between a single event or a succession of events.

The proportion of juvenile animals is unusually high, quite different from the findings from the Roman town, the later Anglian settlement at Fishergate or the Anglo-Scandinavian town (Carver 1994). So it seems to me unlikely that the animal bone represents the routine debris of a subsistence farming community. Subsistence farming needing to maximise the amount of food from each animal would be more likely to let animals grow to full size, and probably get some useful work out of them (cattle) or some wool clips (sheep) into the bargain before eating them. The high proportion of juvenile animals suggests to me the consumption of expensive luxury food. Sucking pig in particular was a favourite Roman delicacy, if the recipes for cooking sucking pig in Apicius’ late Roman cookbook are anything to go by. Taken with the radiocarbon date, this would be consistent with the animal bones representing high-status feasting in or shortly after the Roman period, by people who had Roman tastes in food and/or wished to proclaim some sort of Roman identity and status.

As the bones are still there on the floor of the cross-hall, evidently no-one swept up the debris in antiquity and threw it out on a rubbish heap. This sits rather uneasily with the feast being held in the cross-hall itself. It seems unlikely (though not impossible) that an expensive Roman-style luxury feast would be served and consumed amongst a pile of smelly discarded bones. Possibly the cross-hall was being used as a butchery and/or kitchen, with the feast being consumed somewhere else in the vicinity, either in a different part of the headquarters complex or in another nearby Roman building. The commander’s house, baths complex and granaries would all have been nearby, and it is possible that one of these had become the focus of activity (as happened at Birdoswald, where the granaries seem to have been successively adapted for use as living halls, see earlier article on Birdoswald), with the headquarters building relegated to more workaday uses. This would be consistent with the evidence of metalworking hearths found in a room behind the cross-hall (Ottaway 2004, p. 146), which may suggest that the building was being used as a sort of industrial unit. This may seem a bit of a come-down for such a grand building, but something similar happened at the baths basilica in Wroxeter, which was used as a builders’ yard and bakery for a while in the late fifth century before demolition (see earlier article on Wroxeter). Another possibility may be that the cross-hall had gone out of use so completely that it was being used as a rubbish tip, although if this was the case one might have expected a thicker layer of debris, more like the ‘dark earth’ deposits elsewhere in York that are thought to result from dumping of domestic rubbish.

If the cross-hall was being used as a kitchen or butchery, it may still raise the question of why the bone debris was not cleared away. Possibly the cross-hall was used only intermittently, and the debris from the previous feast had ceased to be noisome by the time the next one came round and could be ignored. Perhaps the layers of trodden sand associated with the bones were scattered over the bones specifically to form a new floor surface from time to time, perhaps each time the cross-hall was used. One might imagine a ruling group progressing round various strongholds and consuming the local resources at each in turn, like a medieval king. Or if all the bone was deposited in a single event (as mentioned above, I don’t know if the quantity or layer structure is consistent with this), perhaps the debris was simply abandoned afterwards. One might imagine a scenario of one of the various usurper Emperors of the late fourth and early fifth century throwing a grand feast of Imperial style and scale for his troops and followers before marching off to try grabbing the top job, leaving the clearing up to look after itself.

If the animal bone is all late fourth-early fifth century (I am not sure how much of the bone was sampled for radiocarbon dating), and the cross-hall stayed standing until after the York ware fragments were dropped on its floor in the late eighth to ninth century, this raises the question of what happened in between. (Needless to say, if the roof collapsed in the fifth century and the pottery is a later intrusion, this question does not arise).

If there was activity in the cross-hall in the sixth-seventh-eighth centuries, it left no trace that was detectable by the Minster excavations (unless some of the bone is later than the radiocarbon date range). This may indicate that the cross-hall was disused or used only infrequently or intermittently, even if it was still standing and more or less intact. The York ware fragments are consistent with activity in the eighth or ninth century (or later), although the cross-hall may have been abandoned previously and then re-used for some reason. The Life of Wilfred says that the seventh-century stone church in York (location unknown, although it may have been in or near the principia, as discussed earlier), built in the 630s, was so neglected by the time Wilfred took it over in about 670 that the roof leaked and birds were nesting in it (Tweddle 1999, p. 126). If the church in York fell into temporary disuse for a time perhaps the principia cross-hall did too, either because its function was no longer needed at all or because it had been replaced by a different building.

Alternatively, the lack of finds could merely indicate that later users were tidier than their early fifth-century predecessors and either did not drop much debris or cleared away on a regular basis. If the animal bone was covered with trodden sand, it would have ceased being unpleasant after a while and could have consolidated with the layers of sand to form a relatively innocuous surface. If the cross-hall was later brought back into use, perhaps as a statement or as a replacement for another building nearby that had gone out of use, this surface could have formed a floor that was regularly swept, or possibly covered by a later floor that has left no detectable trace. The Minster excavations were confined to the areas where structural work was being carried out and did not cover anything like the full floor area of the cross-hall, so it is possible that isolated or slight traces could have been missed. I need hardly say that this is speculative.

Conclusion

For what it is worth, my interpretation of the post-Roman fate of the principia at York is broadly as follows. First, in the late fourth and early fifth centuries, a period of use as a political centre for a ruler or series of rulers who were either the direct successors of Roman authority or liked to claim they were, who had sufficient power and resources to consume Roman luxury foods like sucking pig in or near the cross-hall. Whether the cross-hall was itself a site of feasting or whether it was used as a preparation area for feasts that were consumed nearby is open to question. I would tend to favour the latter. The presence of large quantities of young animals also implies the presence of an agricultural economy and associated population, in or at no great distance from the city. This phase would be represented by the animal bone and trodden sand layers. How long it lasted is uncertain; it might have been only a few years, or it might have been decades or more if the bone accumulated over time.

Following this phase, a period of tidier or infrequent use, perhaps punctuated by periods of disuse if the focus of activity shifted between different locations, until the cross-hall roof came down some time in or after the ninth century (either by itself, or as a result of the Norse invasions of the later ninth century, or by deliberate demolition to clear the site for the Anglo-Norman cathedral).*



References

Apicius, De re coquinaria, translation available online
Carver MOH. Environment and commodity in Anglo-Saxon England. In: Rackham J (ed). Environment and economy in Anglo-Saxon England. Council for British Archaeology Research Report 89, 1994. ISBN 1-872414-33-8.
Ottaway P. Roman York. Tempus, 2004. ISBN 0-7524-2916-7.
Rahtz P. Review of Phillips D, Heywood B. Excavations at York Minster I. Medieval Archaeology, available online
Tweddle D, Moulden J, Logan E. Anglian York: a survey of the evidence. Council for British Archaeology/York Archaeological Trust, 1999. ISBN 1-902771-06-0.




Map links

York


*In Paths of Exile, I have imagined the cross-hall of the principia in use as a royal hall during the later sixth and early seventh centuries, by the Brittonic kings of Eboracum until Peredur’s death in battle in 580 and then by the Anglian king Aelle of Deira. Then a period of disuse or occasional use during the rule of the Bernician king Aethelferth, who controlled Deira and Eboracum but whose heartlands were further north.

Soemil of Deira

Soemil was an early king of Deira, a territory occupying part of what is now Yorkshire. Historia Brittonum lists him in the Deiran genealogy, with the addition of a cryptic note that he “separated Deira from Bernicia”, implying some important action or event. What do we know about him?

Evidence

Historia Brittonum

61. Woden begat Beldeg, Brond begat Siggar, who begat Sibald, who begat Zegulf,
who begat Soemil, who first separated Deur from Berneich (Deira from Bernicia.)
Soemil begat Sguerthing, who begat Giulglis, who begat Ulfrea, who begat Iffi,
who begat Ulli, Edwin

--Historia Brittonum, available online

Anglian Collection genealogies

Woden Frealafing
Uegdaeg
Siggar
Suebdaeg
Siggot
Saebald
Saefugul
Soemil
Uuesteralcna
Uilgils
Uscfrea
Yffi
Aelle
Eadwine
--Anglian Collection, available online

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

Ella was the son of Iff, Iff of Usfrey, Usfrey of Wilgis, Wilgis ofWesterfalcon,
Westerfalcon of Seafowl, Seafowl of Sebbald,Sebbald of Sigeat, Sigeat of Swaddy,
Swaddy of Seagirt, Seagar of
Waddy, Waddy of Woden, Woden of Frithowulf

--Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (entry for year AD 560), available online

The lists are broadly similar, with variations in spelling, but not identical. Brond and Baldaeg in the Historia Brittonum list are replaced by Uegdaeg in the Anglian Collection genealogy. Suebdaeg and Siggot in the Anglian Collection list are missing from the Historia Brittonum list. Sguerthing in the Historia Brittonum list is replaced by Uuesteralcna in the Anglian Collection list. From Uilgils/Giulgils onwards, the two genealogies agree (with variations in spelling).

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle genealogy matches the Anglian Collection genealogy, with variations in spelling, except that Soemil and Saefugul in the Anglian Collection list are replaced by Seafowl in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

Interpretation

Dating

The first king of Deira who can be dated securely is Aelle, father of Eadwine/Edwin. Bede tells us that Aelle was reigning in Deira when St Augustine arrived as a missionary to Kent in 597 (On the Reckoning of Time, Chapter 66 (4557)). Bede also tells us that Aelle was king in Deira when not-yet-Pope Gregory the Great saw some Deiran slave boys for sale in a Roman market and made his famous pun, "not Angles but angels" (Bede, Ecclesiastical History, Book II Ch. 1). This happened before Gregory was appointed Pope in around 590 AD, but after he returned to Rome from Constantinople in around 585 or 586 AD. In an earlier post on ‘Aelle of Deira’, I suggested that Aelle’s reign may have begun around 570 or 575.

Applying the inexact method of counting generations and allowing 25 years per generation, this would place Soemil somewhere around the middle of the fifth century.

‘First separated Deur from Berneich’

The meaning of this intriguing statement is not certain. We can probably be confident that whoever compiled Historia Brittonum, or its source material, thought that this action of Soemil’s was sufficiently important to be worth recording. Moreover, it is the only deed listed for any of the kings between Woden and Edwin, which suggests that it was considered very important indeed.

The kingdoms of Deira and Bernicia were combined, separated and recombined several times during the seventh century, as recorded in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History. The two kingdoms were separate before Aethelferth of Bernicia annexed Deira; I have argued elsewhere that this probably happened in about 605 (see ‘Dating the annexation of Deira’ for the rationale). Aethelferth ruled both kingdoms until his death in battle in 617, after which Eadwine son of Aelle ruled both kingdoms until his death in battle in 633. In 633/634 the two kingdoms were separated, with Deira ruled by Osric (son of Aelle’s brother Aelfric) and Bernicia by Eanferth son of Aethelferth; both were killed within a year. From 634 to 642, both kingdoms were united again under Oswald son of Aethelferth. After Oswald’s death in battle in 642, his brother Oswy ruled Bernicia and Oswine son of Osric ruled in Deira until Oswy had him murdered in 651 (yes, being a king in early medieval Britain was a dangerous job). If the compiler of Historia Brittonum was familiar with this to-and-fro, Soemil’s ‘separation of Deur from Berneich’ may have been seen as Round One in a long-lived dispute.

The founder figure for the dynasty of Bernicia was Ida, whom Bede says began his reign in 547 (Bede, Ecclesiastical History, Book V Ch. 24). At first sight this is a puzzle; if Ida did not found the kingdom of Bernicia until 547, how could Soemil have separated Deira from it a century earlier?

Two possibilities come to mind (besides the prosaic ones that the names or dates are wrong, or that the entry is fictional):

• Bernicia (or what was to become Bernicia) was in existence before Ida’s reign, and controlled the territory that was to become Deira;


• Soemil separated Deira (or what was to become Deira) from some political entity other than Bernicia, and the Historia Brittonum chronicler misunderstood or misinterpreted his source.

Although Bede is clear that Ida founded the Bernician (later Northumbrian) royal dynasty, that is not necessarily the same thing as founding the kingdom of Bernicia itself. The name Berneich or Bernicia is of uncertain origin and does not appear to be an Old English name. There seems no reason why the kingdom of Bernicia could not have been in existence, perhaps for some time, before Ida came on the scene. Historia Brittonum provides some support for this in another cryptic remark, saying that Ida united the fortress of Dynguayth with Berneich:

Ida, the son of Eoppa, possessed countries on the left-hand side of
Britain,
i.e. of the Humbrian sea, and reigned twelve years, and united
Dynguayth
Guarth-Berneich

--Historia Brittonum, ch. 61, available online

Dynguayth refers to the site of modern Bamburgh, which the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says that Ida fortified by surrounding it first with a hedge and then with a wall (Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, entry for 547). The statement that Ida “united” his fortress with Berneich is consistent with Berneich/Bernicia being a kingdom that already existed at the time. If this is the case, there is no indication of when it was founded, and therefore no reason why a kingdom of that name could not also have been in existence in Soemil’s (approximate) period in the mid-fifth century. Such a mid-fifth-century Bernicia would have had to be much larger than the later kingdom of Bernicia, if it controlled the area that later became Deira, but it is quite possible that kingdoms could have varied in size over time as political units consolidated or fragmented.

The second possibility is that Deira in the mid-fifth-century was subject to some other political authority, to which the compiler of Historia Brittonum applied the familiar name Bernicia. Given the date, only a few decades after the Rescript of Honorius telling the inhabitants of Roman Britain to look to their own defences, and the location of Deira, a short distance east of the major Roman fortress of York, a likely candidate for such a political authority would be whatever continued or succeeded the Roman government based at York.

Very little is known about post-Roman York (more about this in a later post). However, if some sort of local or regional government continued in York after the end of official Roman administration, that would be consistent with post-Roman activity observed by archaeology in other Roman cities (see post on Wroxeter) or Roman forts (see post on Birdoswald) in Britain. If Soemil of Deira was subject to a post-Roman ruler based in York and gained independence from his overlord, this might well have been considered worth remembering. By the time Historia Brittonum was compiled in 830 or so, York was under the control of Northumbrian kings of Bernician descent, and in ch. 50 of Historia Brittonum, Ida is described as “the first king in Bernicia, and in Cair Ebrauc (York).”. This is unlikely to be literally true since Bede, who was in a position to know a lot about Northumbrian history, doesn’t refer to Ida in connection with York. It may indicate that the compiler of Historia Brittonum considered that anyone who was a king in York would also be a king of Bernicia (as was the case in the early ninth century when he was writing). In this context, a rebellion against a previous authority based in York could be described as having “first separated Deira from Berneich”. Indeed, since there are no contemporary records of fifth-century names, any such post-Roman political entity based in York might even have been called Berneich for all we know (although something based on the Roman name Eboracum or its Brittonic equivalent Caer Ebrauc might seem more likely). If it was a polity covering most or all of the territory controlled by the Roman Dux Britanniarum, it would have extended from York to Hadrian’s Wall and could have taken a name equally easily from anywhere in the region.

The most famous account of a rebellion by an English leader against a post-Roman British overlord at some time around the middle of the fifth century is of course the tale of Hengest’s revolt against his employer Vortigern. Variations of the story are told in Bede, Gildas, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and Historia Brittonum. Briefly, Vortigern was a ruler of part or all of Britain after the end of Roman administration, and hired Germanic mercenaries led by Hengest to protect Britain from the Picts in exchange for grants of land and regular pay. Hengest’s troops defeated the Picts, demanded more cash and more land (obtaining Kent, Essex and Sussex by treaty from Vortigern), sent for friends and relatives to join them in Britain, then rebelled, murdered many of the British leaders (but not Vortigern), and plundered large areas of Britain in a destructive raid. Bede dates these events to the middle of the fifth century (Book I, Ch. 15; he gives the initial arrival of Hengest as AD 449, but the sequence clearly took place over an extended period).

The coincidence in approximate dates raises the intriguing possibility that Soemil in Deira might also have been a captain of English federate troops, who was hired under similar terms to Hengest and who rebelled at the same time. This is the sort of thing that might well have been remembered in oral tradition, perhaps hazily as time went on, to be written down centuries later as a cryptic note in Historia Brittonum. I need hardly say that this interpretation is speculative.

Speculating further, it may be noteworthy that the genealogies disagree about Soemil’s immediate successor. The Anglian Collection and Anglo-Saxon Chronicle give the name of Soemil’s successor as Uuesteralcna or Westerfalcon, Historia Brittonum says it was Sguerthing. Furthermore, in all the genealogies there is a change from the succession of S- names up to and including Soemil to a succession of names beginning with a vowel (W = uu). This change happens immediately after Soemil in two of the genealogies, and after his successor in the other, and is consistent with (but does not prove) a change of dynasty, from a family that favoured names beginning with S- to a different family that favoured names beginning with a vowel. Possibly there were different family factions among the Deiran aristocracy in the mid-fifth century, and possibly Soemil’s ‘separation of Deira from Berneich’ ended up having adverse consequences for his faction or family. If the ‘separation’ turned out to be temporary, perhaps Soemil’s faction was displaced by a rival group when it was reversed. Or if the ‘separation’ involved breaking the terms of a treaty or agreement, perhaps a rival faction disagreed and took the opposing side.

From the single line in Historia Brittonum and the genealogies, we can reasonably infer that Soemil lived some time around the middle of the fifth century, and that he was remembered for gaining independence for Deira from some other political entity. What that entity was, whether Soemil’s independence from it was temporary or permanent, how it was achieved, what its consequences were, and whether it had any connection with the more famous and roughly contemporary rebellion of Hengest against Vortigern, are open to question.

References

Anglian Collection, available online
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, available online
Bede. Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Translated by Leo Sherley-Price, Penguin Classics, 1968, ISBN 0-14-044565-X
Bede, The Reckoning of Time. Translated by Faith Wallis. Liverpool University Press, 1999, ISBN 0-85323-693-3.
Historia Brittonum, available online

Map links

Bamburgh
York

King Arthur: The Bloody Cup, by MK Hume. Book review

Headline, 2010. ISBN 978-0-7553-4871-8. 526 pages. Review copy supplied by publisher.

Set in post-Roman Britain some time in the fifth or sixth century, King Arthur: The Bloody Cup is the third part of a trilogy retelling the Arthurian legend. Many of the main characters are familiar figures from the legends, including Artor (King Arthur), Wenhaver (Guinevere), Gawayne (Sir Gawain), Percivale (Sir Percival), Galahad, Bedwyr (Sir Bedivere), Nimue, Artor’s half-sisters Morgan and Morgause, and Morgause’s son Modred (Mordred). Other characters are fictional, such as Artor’s bodyguard Odin and spy chief Gruffydd, and the villains Pebr and Gronw.

Artor has ruled as High King of Britain from his citadel on Cadbury Tor for many years and is now growing old. He has no legitimate heir as his wife Wenhaver is barren, and his court has grown corrupt and decadent. Artor’s enemies sense that he is growing weak. Three mysterious figures hatch a plot to steal the sacred cup once owned by the saintly Bishop Lucius of Glastonbury, claim that it once belonged to the goddess Ceridwen and use it as a symbol to provoke a rebellion against Artor. The struggle for possession of the cup, and a mysterious spear, threatens Artor’s friends, his kingdom and his life.

I reviewed the previous book in the series, King Arthur: Warrior of the West, in January 2010, and concluded then that it wasn’t for me. The publishers sent me a copy of the third instalment without asking first, and I read it partly out of curiosity to see if the loose ends from Book Two were resolved and partly to see if I got on better with the style on further acquaintance. The answers are ‘sort of’ and ‘no’, respectively. This is still not a series for me.

On the plus side, it was quite fun to spot bits of the medieval legends – e.g. the Trystan-Isolde-King Mark love triangle makes a brief appearance, transplanted to north-east Wales instead of the traditional Cornwall – and the steady attrition of Artor’s friends and potential heirs has a certain poignancy. On the other hand, the corruption and decadence of Artor’s court is so strongly emphasised that it is not obvious why the reader is supposed to be worried when it is threatened. If Artor’s court is full of lies, vanity and backbiting courtiers trying to stab each other in the back while living in the lap of decadent luxury, it’s hard to suppress a niggling thought that a different set up might not be noticeably worse. The tragic grandeur of the Arthurian legend – a good king brought down by lesser men and by his own flaws – seemed to me to be missing from this retelling.

However, the main reason I did not get on with the novel was the same as last time; I found the writing style reminiscent of academic prose. Maybe the intention is to create an archaic flavour (although modern slang such as “gumption”, “sodding thing”, “shite” tends to work against this), but to me it seemed lifeless, especially the dialogue. People speak in grammatically correct complete sentences even when being tortured or when mortally wounded, and everyone sounds much the same.

Place names are a mix of Roman names, e.g. Ratae (modern Leicester), Verterae (modern Brough, Cumbria), and modern names with Old English elements, e.g. Glastonbury, Cadbury. If there is a pattern to the mix it wasn’t clear to me. Similarly, although the ‘Saxons’ are treated throughout as an utterly alien enemy to Artor’s realm (they don’t make an on-stage appearance), some of the characters in Artor’s kingdom have Old English names, such as the saintly Bishop Aethelthred* the Pure of Glastonbury. This struck me as potentially intriguing; does the presence of Old English names indicate that some ‘Saxons’ were acceptable in Artor’s realm, implying a degree of co-operation or integration, and if so, how is this reconciled with the fact that everyone at Artor’s court apparently regards the ‘Saxons’ as the enemy? Was Bishop Aethelthred a ‘Saxon’ immigrant, and if so how did he come to be the revered head of the greatest Christian monastery in Artor’s realm? As far as I could see this was never touched on, unless I missed it somehow, and it contributed to a general impression of unreality about the setting. This perhaps doesn’t matter, since the medieval Arthurian legends are set in a ‘once-upon-a-time’ setting, and this novel is perhaps best read in the same light.

A partial character list at the front of the book helps with keeping some of the large cast straight, and is especially useful for characters who played a role in the earlier books but who are now dead. However, not everyone is listed (e.g. Taliesin and Modred are missing, as are the villains Gronw and Pebr), so I still had to jot down notes. A glossary of place names at the back of the book matches some of the place names in the novel with their modern equivalents, but it is incomplete – I got confused between Salinae and Salinae Minor and looked in the glossary for clarification, but only Salinae is listed. Readers who like to follow the characters’ journeys on a modern map may find they have to keep notes.

Final part of a trilogy retelling the Arthurian legends, but not a book for me.




*I’m not sure if this is a typo for Aethelred, as Aethelthred or Aethelthryth was a female name, or if I have missed something subtle.

Hawk of May, by Gillian Bradshaw. Book review

First published 1980. Edition reviewed: Sourcebooks, 2010, ISBN 978-1402240706, 356 pages. Uncorrected advance review copy supplied by publisher.

Hawk of May is the first part of a fantasy trilogy retelling the Arthurian legends, focussing on Gwalchmai as the central character. Gwalchmai translates literally as “Hawk of May”, hence the title, and in later legend he becomes the character Sir Gawain. Other key figures in the legend feature as major characters – Arthur, his evil sorceress sister Morgause, her sons Agravain and Medraut (Mordred), Bedwyr (Sir Bedivere) and Cei (Sir Kay). Gwenhwyfar (Guinevere), not yet Arthur’s wife, gets a walk-on part near the end, and will no doubt reappear in the later books. The historical king of the West Saxons, Cerdic, makes an appearance. So do some other figures from the scanty historical records, such as Maelgwn Gwynedd and Urien Rheged, although they are displaced in time by half a century or more from their actual positions in the mid to late sixth century. The setting for Hawk of May is post-Roman Britain at approximately the end of the fifth century, taking the dates for Arthur’s major battles from Annales Cambriae and for Cerdic’s reign from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. However, as the author’s note says, “...since the novel is only partially historical, geography is not that important.” and neither is chronology. The novel works best when read as a story set in the timeless world of “once upon a time”, rather like the medieval Arthurian legends themselves.

Gwalchmai is the second son of Queen Morgause and her husband King Lot of the Orkney Islands. To his father’s disappointment, he shows no noticeable talent as a warrior, although he is a skilled horseman and harpist. Bullied by his elder brother Agravain, Gwalchmai leads a lonely existence until his beautiful mother, whom he worships, offers to teach him reading and, later, black magic. After witnessing some of its cruelties, he comes to fear and hate sorcery, renounces it, and after an adventure in the Otherworld he comes into possession of a magic sword and the skills to wield it. Magically returned to the real world in southern Britain, Gwalchmai sets off to offer his services to Arthur – but Arthur has his own dark reasons to hate and mistrust Morgause’s son. Will Gwalchmai ever persuade Arthur to accept him, and will either escape the shadow of Morgause’s evil magic?

Hawk of May is a fantasy novel, centred on a supernatural conflict between the forces of good (the Light) and evil (the Darkness). Gwalchmai undertakes a supernatural journey on a magic boat to the Otherworld, where he obtains a magic sword and later acquires a fairy horse. He has superhuman strength in battle, and has to physically fight and kill at least one real demon. The magical elements are key to the plot, whereas the approximate historical setting in somewhere in post-Roman Britain is incidental.

Within this fantasy environment, Hawk of May is a coming-of-age story, as the young Gwalchmai has to break free of his mother’s influence, make his own choices and earn a place for himself in the world. The plot mainly follows his upbringing and the circumstances that bring him to Arthur’s warband, so is fairly slight. Perhaps this reflects the book’s position as the first in a trilogy, setting up characters and situations for the novels to come.

Characterisation is effective, with most of the major players clearly drawn as individuals. Gwalchmai is endearingly humble, ever ready to attribute his battle success to supernatural favour rather than to his own prowess as a warrior. He grows from a child to a young man without losing his youthful idealism. Arthur, as portrayed here, is a charismatic battle leader, human enough to win his followers’ affection as well as their admiration. I can see why men would have been drawn to fight and die for this Arthur (something that isn’t always apparent in Arthurian fiction). Among the secondary characters, Cei and Agravain are archetypal ‘Celtic’ warriors, boastful, quarrelsome, flamboyant, cheerful and always ready for a drink or a fight, preferably both. Bedwyr is an intellectual as well as a warrior, with an interest in philosophy and a disinclination to take sides in petty quarrels. Morgause is pretty much pure evil, but given her traditional role in the legend it might have been rather tricky to make her a nuanced character. Gwenhwyfar is attractive and realistic, as far as I can tell from her very brief appearance, which bodes well for the rest of the series (assuming it is going to develop along the traditional lines).

Fantasy retelling of the Arthurian legend from the perspective of Gwalchmai, describing how he came to Arthur’s following as a young man.

Birdoswald Roman Fort: post-Roman activity on the site

Location of Birdoswald

Birdoswald is a Roman fort on Hadrian’s Wall in north-west England. It’s the sixth fort from the western end of the Wall, sitting on the western edge of the Pennines where the hills start to roll off into the plain of North Cumbria and the Solway Firth. The fort site itself is strategically located on a steep-sided promontory formed by a deep meander of the River Irthing, with wide-ranging views in all directions. It occupies the western end of the communication route across the Pennines formed by the valleys of the Rivers Irthing and Tyne, and commands the crossing of the River Irthing at Willowford.

The location was compared to Troy by a romantically-minded eighteenth-century Earl of Carlisle and an estate agent trying to sell the property in 1901. Like most such comparisons a large grain of salt is required – I can’t see many people arriving at Troy, either Homer’s legendary city or Schliemann’s Hissarlik, and saying “Lo, behold the Birdoswald of Asia Minor!” Nevertheless, it’s an impressive, if rather rain- and windswept, site. Scroll around and zoom in and out of the map and satellite image links at the bottom of the page to get an idea.

Place name

The Roman name of the fort was Banna, attested by an altar found at the site in 1821 and dedicated to the woodland god Silvanus by the ‘Venatores Bannienses’, which translates as ‘the hunters of Banna’. Until recently it was thought to have been called Camboglanna*; however this is now thought to have been a mistake in the Notitia Dignitatum (Wilmott 2001 p. 97).

The modern name Birdoswald is first recorded as ‘Burthoswald’ or ‘Bordoswald’ in 1194-1220, when charters granted land there to the Priories at Lanercost and Wetheral (Wilmott 2001 p. 131). The name elements consist of the Old English man’s name Oswald and the Brittonic (Welsh) element ‘burth’ or ‘buarth’, meaning a pen or farmyard (Ordnance Survey glossary of place name elements), so the name means ‘pen or farmyard of Oswald’. The name elements are ordered in the Welsh format, with the personal name second (Old English names are typically ordered with the personal name first, in the format ‘Oswald’s farm’). This suggests to me that the name was coined and established by people who spoke Welsh or its Brittonic ancestor.

The most famous Oswald associated with the approximate locality is the seventh-century king of Northumbria, killed in battle in 642 and revered as a saint (Bede, Book III ch. 9), but as far as I know there’s absolutely nothing to connect him with Birdoswald except the obvious romantic appeal of such a notion. Incidentally, I don’t think the ‘buarth’ element of the name necessarily rules out a royal or aristocratic connection. Assuming that the ‘pen’ meaning of ‘buarth’ meant a livestock pen, a place where animals could be corralled, it could refer to the gathering of livestock for payment of tax or tribute as well as to agricultural use.

Post-Roman occupation at Birdoswald: the timber halls

The buildings visible in the north-west corner of the fort on the satellite image are those of the Georgian and Victorian farm, now a modern visitor centre. Occupation at Birdoswald is attested – though not continuously – from the Roman period to 1984, when the last farming tenants moved out. Much of the information we have comes from a series of excavations led by Tony Wilmott in 1987-1998 (for a fascinating, detailed and very readable account, I highly recommend his book on the subject, see references for details).

For the purposes of this post, I’ll focus on the post-Roman phases of construction and occupation at Birdoswald on the site of the former fort granaries, discovered and excavated in 1987.







Sketch plan of the location of the Roman granaries in Birdoswald fort (A) and of the second-phase post-Roman timber hall in relation to the north granary (B)
















Photos of the posts marking the site of the timber halls and the granary foundations on Gabriele's blog here.

The Roman fort at Birdoswald had two large stone granaries, built between the central headquarters building (principia) and the west wall, south of the west gate (see sketch plan A). The exercise basilica or indoor drill hall (which must have been a welcome facility in rainy north-west England) and a long rectangular building of uncertain function stood opposite the granaries, north of the west gate (for pictures of the reconstruction of the slightly smaller exercise basilica at Saalburg in Germany, see Gabriele’s post). The granaries were built some time in the second century (date uncertain) and repaired or rebuilt according to an inscription in 205-8. Around the same time, early to mid third century, the south portal of the west gate was walled up (Wilmott 2001 p. 93), leaving the north portal in use.

The stone roof of the north granary collapsed in around 350, dated by a coin of 350-353 found beneath the drifts of fallen roof tile, and the ruins were then used as a rubbish dump (Wilmott 2001 p. 118).

At about the same time, the south granary had a new stone floor laid (dated by the coins found beneath the floor, which cease in 348) (Wilmott 2001 p.119). This floor later became covered with deposits of silt interspersed with patches of stone, and two successive hearths were built at the western end. Around the hearths were found a fourth-century glass finger ring, a gold and glass earring, and a worn coin from the reign of Theodosius (388-395) (Wilmott 2001 p. 121). The hearths indicate residential use, the jewellery suggests the presence of women, and the presence of jewellery and a coin indicates high-status occupation. This is consistent with the south granary being used at this period as something akin to a chieftain’s hall. The jewellery, coins, hearths and stone floor were found beneath a layer of collapsed stone roof tiles, indicating that the roof fell in some time after the date of the coin (Wilmott 2001 p.121).

The north granary had been used as a rubbish dump after its roof collapsed in around 350, and the rubbish deposits included coins dated to the 380s and two penannular (ring) brooches of a type dated to the very end of or just after the Roman period in Britain (Wilmott 2001 p.121). A new flagstone floor was laid on top of these deposits, and shallow post-holes were made in the tops of the surviving walls by removing a few stones from the wall core. At the western end, the post-holes continued beyond the end of the original granary structure, encroaching on the Roman street. This suggests that the north granary was rebuilt as a timber building, re-using the remaining Roman walls as foundations (Wilmott 2001 p. 121). This timber building was the same width as the Roman granary and a little longer, and was therefore a large building, something like 25-30 m long. This is comparable with the size of the fifth/sixth century hall excavated at South Cadbury (though a different shape; the South Cadbury hall was 10 m x 20 m, while the Birdoswald granary was longer and narrower), so it was big enough to be the hall of an important ruler. It must have been built after the 380s on the evidence of the coins beneath the new flagstone floor. If it was the functional replacement of the “chieftain’s hall” in the south granary, then it was presumably built at or after the time of the roof collapse in the south granary.

At some later date, this timber hall constructed mainly on the foundations of the north granary was replaced by a second timber building with a different footprint. This second timber building was also hall-sized, 23 m by 6.8m, and was built partly over the site of the granary and partly over the adjacent street to its north (see sketch plan B). On the street, a line of stone post pads that would have supported timber posts were laid on the street surface, and on the granary shallow trenches were cut into the floor and stone post pads laid on the bottom of the trenches (Wilmott 2001 p.121). The north wall of this second timber building aligned with the centre pillar of the west gate; as the south portal of the gate had been walled up in the Roman period (see above), the hall was now lined up about as closely as it could get to the current entranceway, and would have been the first structure seen by anyone entering through the west gate (Wilmott 2001 p.121). (Constructing a hall directly opposite the gate would probably have been difficult because of the rectangular building and the exercise basilica on the north side of the street. Whether the exercise basilica was still intact or partly ruined by this date its massive walls and pillars would presumably have constrained any subsequent construction for some considerable time).

Both these big timber halls on the site of the north granary were associated with smaller timber buildings built against or close to the western fort wall, south of the west gate.

Other post-Roman evidence from Birdoswald

There is no definite archaeological evidence from Birdoswald between the post-Roman timber halls described above and one medieval pottery sherd from the twelfth/thirteenth century (Wilmott 2001 p. 129, 135). All there is from this intervening period is:

• a sixth-century Anglo-Saxon cruciform brooch of the type called ‘small-long’, of doubtful provenance but probably found at Birdoswald in the 1830s (Wilmott 2001 p. 123);


• a long cist grave found beside Hadrian’s Wall to the east of the fort site in 1956, ‘post-Roman’ but otherwise undated (Wilmott 2001 p. 172);
• 
  
• an eighth-century Anglo-Saxon disc-headed pin found outside the fort to the east (Wilmott 2001 p. 129).

The Anglo-Saxon brooch and pin could indicate contemporary trade contacts, conquest, loot, travel, occupation, marriage links or many other interpretations besides, or perhaps just a casual loss at some much later date. It’s impossible to read much into two isolated finds; the most that can be said is that they are not inconsistent with early medieval occupation or activity at Birdoswald, perhaps extending beyond the likely date of the post-Roman timber halls.

A long cist grave is essentially a stone box or coffin constructed within the grave, usually from stone slabs. As far as I know they are usually associated with early Christian sites in Britain, and Ken Dark considers them to be an indicator of a late/post-Roman Christian culture that spread in the fifth and sixth centuries to areas that had been outside or on the periphery of Roman Britain, such as Wales, Cornwall and the region north of Hadrian’s Wall (Dark 2002). Long cists are widespread in fifth- and sixth-century cemeteries in south-eastern Scotland (Dark 2002, p. 203), which is not so very far from the Birdoswald area. Furthermore, the centurion’s quarters at the end of one of the barrack buildings in the north-west corner of Birdoswald fort was remodelled some time in the late fourth century and acquired a rounded west end (Wilmott 2001, p. 119). This may be an apse, which in turn may indicate that the building was being used as a Christian church, which in turn may indicate that at least some of the occupants of the fort were Christians. A single long cist grave, undated, could mean almost anything. Again, about the most that can be said is that it would not be out of place for an early medieval Christian living at Birdoswald to be buried in a long cist grave.

How long did the post-Roman occupation of Birdoswald last? More on this in a later post.


* Camboglanna is now thought to refer to the next fort west, at the modern site of Castlesteads. Camboglanna is one of the candidates for King Arthur’s (legendary?) last battle at Camlann, favoured by proponents of a northern location for King Arthur.

References
Bede, Ecclesiastical history of the English people. Translated by Leo Sherley-Price. Penguin Classics, 1968, ISBN 0-14-044565-X.
Dark K. Britain and the end of the Roman empire. Tempus, 2002. ISBN 0-7524-2532-3.
Ordnance Survey glossary of place name elements, available online
Wilmott T. Birdoswald Roman fort: 1800 years on Hadrian’s Wall. Tempus, 2001. ISBN 0-7524-1913-7.

Map links
Birdoswald – Streetmap
Birdoswald – Google Maps satellite image