Early Medieval battle reenactment. Image courtesy of Ian Uzzell and Vikingasaga
It is not so long ago that a Time Team reappraisal of the topography at Battle revealed a better candidate for the site of the battle of Hastings than the traditional (English Heritage) site. This should come as no surprise to members of the Medieval Section because a number of our lectures this last year have focused on Medieval battles (Fulford, Chester and Bosworth – the lecture summary for this should be available shortly) and in all of them the site of the battlefield has proved to be debatable or subject to revision in the light of new evidence.
I am grateful to Medieval section Treasurer, Jo Heron, for sending a link to an animated presentation of the Bayeux tapestry by PotionGraphics. Jo says she loves the sound effects and asks if it is worth putting on the website?
The tapestry is only partly animated but it really does bring it alive to see people swinging axes to chop down trees or to see the wheels revolving on a cart that’s being pulled along. The action scenes are well done with a compulsory beheading scene which isn’t too shocking and won’t give the children nightmares.
But don’t take my word for it. Watch it for yourselves and let me know what you think. I’ll post comments for other members of Medieval Section to read, gladly.
On the subject of medieval battles, if it is not obsessing on the topic, Medieval Section member Rita Wood has suggested running a medieval Battles in Yorkshire dayschool this autumn. May I take a quick straw poll to find out what the members think? If positive, do you have any suggestions for presentations and speakers?
The Middle Ages seem already to be doing a brisk trade just a few weeks into the New Year.
Following the traditional seasonal overindulgence many of you may be considering going on a diet. Andrew Jotischky, Professor of Medieval History at Lancaster University has compared the monastic dietary regime with its regular periods of fasting to the currently trendy 5:2 diet (Daily Telegraph 9th January 2014). Which all goes to show that there’s nothing new under the sun, save perhaps for the cigarette.
The Vikings are one of those perennially fascinating historical topics that are revisited every few years with a blockbuster exhibition. So it proves this year and a new Viking exhibition Vikings: Life and Legend in the Sainsbury Exhibitions Gallery at the British Museum from 6th March (Daily TelegraphReview 4th January 2014). This promises to be the biggest show on the subject in living memory. Remember that the ‘World of the Vikings’ Conference celebrating 40 years of Viking Archaeology in York, takes place in York on 21st-23rd March this year. Locally the Bedale Hoard at the Yorkshire Museum pending fund-raising gives the topic added local and regional appeal if any were needed.
Further to the medieval section’s visit to the posited 1066 battlefield at Fulford, campaigners are trying to save the Wars of the Roses battlefield of Tewkesbury from being built upon (Daily Telegraph 1st January 2014).
The parish church in the village of Lacock, Wiltshire has sold a silver cup dating from about 1400 and originally used in feasting for £1.3 million. It has been described as one of the best-preserved specimens of its kind and was lent to the British Museum in 1963. It has been jointly bought by the British Museum and Wiltshire Museum. The silver medieval chalice was donated to the church more than 400 years ago and was used for communion (Daily Telegraph 30th December 2013).
The anniversary of the battle of Flodden (1513) barely passed, the opportunity to settle the score with the battle of Bannockburn (1314) presents itself. As if Medieval Matters in 2014 were not sufficient there is already anticipation building for celebrating the anniversary of Magna Carta. All of which bodes well for stimulating interest in Medieval history and archaeology this year and next.
Just a short note to inform you of a short residential course for beginners on the history of armour that will be running in August 2014 at:
Higham Hall
Bassenthwaite Lake
Cockermouth
Cumbria
CA13 9SH
United Kingdom
Office hours 09:00 to 17:00
Tel: +44 (0)17687 76276
The brochure for this period has yet to be printed. So our society now has prior knowledge of this popular course, that takes its influence from the tutor’s newly published book ‘The history of armour 1100-1700’.
For further info on this course and others please contact the above address or check Highams website at. www.highamhall.com
Early Medieval battle reenactment. Image courtesy of Ian Uzzell and Vikingasaga
The purpose of this lecture summary is to share with members of the Medieval Section news of the discovery in Manchester Museum collection of an important group of human skeletons dating from the time of King Aethelfrith of Northumbria, early in the 7th century AD. They were excavated at Heronbridge, near Chester, in 1930-1 (Petch 1933). David Mason of Durham Archaeology has already made a good case for them being the remains of men who were killed at the Battle of Chester (c.AD 616), which is described in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People (Mason 2005). As the bodies are likely to have been buried on or very close to the battlefield, it seems likely that Heronbridge was the site of the battle. If this is the case, then this will be the earliest battlefield located in the UK, pre-dating Maldon by some 300 years. This summary is based in part on a paper submitted to the Society of Museum Archaeologists Newsletter in spring 2012 but adds new information about the injuries suffered by the men who lost their lives in the battle.
Bryan Sitch, who is Hon. Secretary of the Medieval section, was careful to explain the justification for attributing the remains in Manchester Museum to Bede’s battle of Chester. The story of the collection dates back to the early 1930s when the Chester Archaeology Society was excavating the site of Heronbridge, to the south of Chester. When the skeletons were found it was assumed they were of Roman date because significant quantities of Roman material were also discovered on the site. Dr Elwyn Davies, who wrote the bone report appended to the site report, suggested that the trauma were inflicted by Roman cavalry swords or spathae:
‘Nine crania show signs of injury. Long cuts traverse the vaults of the skulls and their clean –cut nature suggest they were inflicted with a sharp-edged instrument of long leverage… some form of long sword or the spatha… it is of interest to note that these cuts are mostly along the vaults of the skull, which suggest that they might possibly have been inflicted by cavalry. If these injuries were received during life, and there is every appearance that this is the case, the individuals met with a violent death.’ (Davies 1933: 47)
Skull from skeleton 3, Heronbridge
The 1933 report stated that the remains would be deposited at the Manchester Museum and a detailed report lodged with the university library. On the basis of this published statement a number of people had enquired at Manchester Museum and the university library but neither the bones, nor Davies’ detailed bone report, could be located. Nor was there any evidence on paper, such as old index cards, museum minutes, acquisitions lists or annual reports to show that they had ever entered the Manchester Museum collections. It was only a chance re-reading of the 1933 skeletal report that enabled Bryan, who is Curator of Archaeology at Manchester Museum, to identify the bones in the collection. In a table appended to Elwyn Davies’ bone report, the various skeletons were listed and biometric data given in a number of columns. The number of each skeleton provided a heading at the top of each column of data. However, Bryan noticed that half way across the table the numbering of the skeletons suddenly changed and a dual numbering system was adopted. The second number was a letter from the Greek alphabet.
Long bone with label alpha from Heronbridge
This turned out to be the key that solved the puzzle because during earlier surveys of the human remains collection Bryan had noticed a number of bones which had distinctive labels with Greek letters written on them. This suggested that the bones were from Heronbridge. This hypothesis was tested to see if the bones had the cuts and slices on them described by Elwyn Davies in his 1933 report. They did. Further confirmation was provided by the discovery of an impacted fracture on one of the skulls that was described in considerable detail by Davies in his report, and the fact that the dimensions of some of the bones matched those given in the published table of biometric data. There could be little doubt that the group of un-provenanced human bones did indeed come from Heronbridge, near Chester and had been excavated in the early 1930s.
One of the researchers who enquired about the Heronbridge bones was David Mason of Durham Archaeology. David directed the excavations on the Heronbridge site that were reported in Current Archaeology (Mason 2005: 517). Two male skeletons were lifted during this work and examined by palaeo-pathologist Malin Holst. The evidence of trauma, especially on the men’s skulls, as before, showed that they died under extremely violent circumstances (see Current Archaeology no.202, pp.520-521 for photographs of injuries to the skulls). The number of dead and the burial context, with the bodies laid out side-by-side in pits, suggested these were casualties that had been ‘tidied up’ following a significant engagement. The two skeletons lifted in 2004 were radiocarbon-dated with a 95% chance of probability of being within the range AD 430-640, or 59% probability within the range AD 530-620, and with 95% probability of being within the range AD 530-660, or 51% probability within range AD 595-645. These results are consistent with a calendar date in the early 7th century AD. As Manchester Museum’s skeletons were recovered from the same burial pits at Heronbridge, all things considered, they must also date from the same time and relate to the same historical event. However, this assumption needs to be tested by radiocarbon-dating.
Historically one contender for an engagement of this date, involving considerable numbers of combatants, would be the Battle of Chester which is described by Bede:
That very powerful king of the English Aethelfrith… collected a great army against Civitas Legionis which is called Legacaestr by the English and more correctly Caerlegion by the Britons, and made a great slaughter of that nation of heretics. When he was about to give battle and saw their priests, who had assembled to pray to God on behalf of the soldiers taking part in the fight, standing apart in a safer place, he asked who they were and for what purpose they had gathered there. Most of them were from the monastery of Bangor… After a three-days’ fast most of these had come to the battle in order to pray for the others. They had a guard named Brocmail whose duty it was to protect them from the swords of the barbarians while they were praying. When Aethelfrith heard why they had come he said “If they are praying to their God against us, they are fighting against us…” He therefore directed his first attack against them, and then destroyed the rest of the accursed army, not without heavy loss to his own forces. It is said that that of the monks who came to pray about 1200 perished in this battle and only 50 escaped by flight. Brocmail and his men took to their heels at the first assault leaving those whom they should have protected unarmed and exposed to the sword strokes of the enemy.
Bede Ecclesiastical History of the English People Book 2, chapter 2 (translated by Leo Sherley-Price for Penguin Classics)
In response to an article about the Heronbridge excavations that appeared in Current Archaeology, readers speculated whether the two skeletons lifted might be those of some of the monks who were slaughtered on the orders of Aethelfrith in Bede’s account of the battle (see above). It seems unlikely, however, that the remains are those of monks. In an article about the monastery of Bangor-is-y-coed, which supposedly provided a contingent of monks to supplement the ranks of the outnumbered British army, Prof. Nick Higham of the University of Manchester Department of Medieval History argued that the account should not be regarded as reliable (Higham 2001). Prof Higham argues that the presence of monks in this account owes more to Bede’s narrative purpose in writing ‘providential history’ than it does military realities on the battlefield.
Dr Robert Stoddart of University of Manchester
Even if they are not the remains of the monks, there seems to be good reason to believe that the remains are those of men killed during the Battle of Chester. Dr Robert Stoddart kindly examined the Heronbridge skeletons. Skeleton 3 had suffered large sword injuries, mostly from the front, extending half way back across the calvarium, as well as further sword injuries to the side of the head and through the forehead. In addition there are triangular holes in the skull deficit, that could possibly represent stabs from pointed weapons such as spearheads, which is likely to be the weapon used by most of the rank-and-file at this period.
Skeleton 5 is another example. This individual suffered a large sword-cut halfway down the left parietal bone. Indeed another similar sword-cut crosses the first at right angles and has penetrated through the bone. There is also a large, crushed, penetrating fracture down the frontal bone, originating in a blow from an edged weapon (probably an axe). There are numerous hairline fractures at many places in calvarium. The most severe of the injuries was a blow across the facial skeleton, leaving the edge of the left orbit. In addition to other injuries to the skull, there appear to be cuts behind and to the side of the left knee and a cut to the right knee.
Skull of skeleton 5 from Heronbridge
Skeleton Y (15) suffered even more extensive wounds including a deep, heavy sword or axe blow into the face, penetrating deeply and causing extensive fracturing and loss of internal bones of the skull. The injury appears to reach as far as the circle of Willis, as well as indirect damage to the brain stem and cerebellum. There must have been associated damage to the inferior parts of the frontal lobes and their blood supply. And of course we only know about these wounds because the bones have survived. We do not know about the soft tissue wounds because the flesh rotted away in the ground.Overall the trauma on the bones are similar to those recorded on the skeletons of six individuals excavated in an Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Eccles, Kent, who met a similarly violent death (Wenham 1989: 123).
Skull from skeleton Y (15) with reconstruction of blow to the face.
In some cases the pattern of fractures of the skull suggest that the individual was wearing a helmet, perhaps similar to that excavated, complete with a boar as a crest, at Benty Grange in Derbyshire by Thomas Bateman in 1848. Iron bans supported plates of horn. The Wollaston Helmet is another 7th-century Anglo-Saxon boar-crested helmet found by archaeologists at a quarry near Wellingborough in Northamptonshire (Marzinzik 2007: 41). Much closer to home is the Coppergate helmet dating from the later 8th century AD.The Sutton Hoo is another high status helmet and fairly close in date to the time of the battle of Heronbridge.
Hollywood may give the impression that an ancient battle was a display of fancy sword-work, a veritable fencing match between the protagonists, but the reality, so far as the Heronbridge bones are telling us, was brutally pragmatic: chop the opponent off at the knees, bring him down and slice and hack at the head to make sure he was dead before stepping over the body to fight the next man. These men didn’t take part in a fencing match but went through a meat mincer! It brings home the callous, almost industrial nature of killing on the battlefield at this period, and fills one with a deep sense of compassion for the men who experienced this level brutality, which is all the more poignant at this time of year, at the time of writing, on Remembrance Day.
We are left with a group of about a dozen incomplete skeletons, many bearing edged weapon trauma, all men and all aged between their late teens and middle age. No women or children are present. This is clearly a biased sample. The burial context, in pits, the dead aligned side-by-side, and the numbers involved, suggests this was a battle of some size, although the numbers of men may not have been very great, up to 5000 in each army perhaps? The fact they were treated respectfully suggests they were buried by the victors, who Bede tells us were the Northumbrians. The British dead presumably were left on the field of battle for wild animals to feast upon until the belated reinforcements arrived. David Mason interprets the 5.7 hectare oval enclosure with bank and ditch beside the River Dee at Heronbridge to the Northumbrian army.
Heronbridge looking south showing earthwork. Photograph courtesy of Erik Grigg
How did the material from Heronbridge enter the Manchester Museum collection? And why was it not recorded? The 1933 report states clearly that the human remains were deposited at the Museum but there is no mention of this acquisition in the Museum’s annual reports. However, we do know that in the late 1950s William Jones (‘Bill’) Varley (died 1976) deposited boxes of human remains at the Museum where they became the responsibility of the curator James Forde-Johnston. Varley is best known for the excavation of hill forts in the North West, the Midlands and Yorkshire (e.g. Varley 1936, 1948). Varley was a former student of H.J.Fleure (1877-1969), Professor of Geography at the University of Manchester, member of the Manchester Museum Committee, and author of numerous books and articles covering geography, archaeology, anthropology and anthropometrics (Garnett 1970). The Heronbridge excavation took place in 1930-1, i.e. about the time Fleure moved to Manchester from Aberystwyth. Both Varley and Fleure are acknowledged for supporting the excavation in the 1933 report, Varley and his wife in particular are credited with the recovery of the human remains (Davies 1933: 48). Davies, moreover, was a friend of Fleure. What we appear to have is evidence of a circle of people around Fleure who were all involved in the Heronbridge excavation and post-excavation work, and who might well have been encouraged to consider the Manchester Museum as an appropriate home for the material.
Prof H.J.Fleure
Given Fleure’s position on the Museum Committee and his keen academic interest in anthropology and anthropometrics, exemplified by his long-standing survey of the Welsh people, is it possible that Fleure asked for the Heronbridge remains to be sent to the Manchester Museum where he could study them further because he recognised their research significance? If so, he was to be disappointed because archive correspondence held by the Chester Archaeological Society shows that the Museum committee turned down the proposal to acquire the bones during the 1930s. Fleure retired in 1944. Varley must have transferred the human remains to the Museum before he left to teach in Africa in 1957. Former Keeper of Archaeology Prof. John Prag, remembers the Curator of Anthropology at Manchester, James Forde Johnston, telling him that Varley had not passed on records of the finds. Varley for his part may not have felt inclined to share what he knew about the bones, remembering that the Museum had turned down the chance to acquire them 15 years earlier! At present this seems to be the best explanation for how the Heronbridge bones entered the Manchester Museum collections and why it is, lacking supporting information, that they sat unrecognised on the shelves for some 60 years.
The re-discovery of the Heronbridge skeletons throws light on a fascinating period in early Medieval English history, the time of the so-called Dark Ages. Not only are they a historically and archaeologically significant group of material, they are arguably one of the earliest conflict assemblages that can be related to a historical source. In this they will be extremely useful for comparison with more recently excavated and more complete assemblages from the same site. Unfortunately, but perhaps not entirely unexpectedly, there are no associated finds with the skeletons. One would expect them to have been recycled on the battlefield or before burial. If comparable material was needed to complement the skeletons, one has only to think of the incredibly rich discoveries at Sutton Hoo in the 1930s, or the material found in the Staffordshire hoard, though of a somewhat later date. A selection of the remains was displayed in the Ancient Worlds galleries that opened at Manchester Museum last year. The Grosvenor Museum will show some of the remains in a temporary exhibition next year.
Acknowledgements
Thanks are due to Dr Robert Connelly of the University of Liverpool and Dr Robert Stoddart of the University of Manchester who both very kindly examined the Heronbridge remains; David Mason, Durham County Archaeologist, provided information about the more recent work at Heronbridge in advance of publication; Prof Nick Higham supplied a copy of his paper about the monastery of Bangor-is-y-coed and discussed the passage in Bede; Erik Grigg kindly provided photos of the site; and Adrian Havercoft shared his memories of Bill Varley.
Bibliography
Davies, E. (1933) ‘Appendix 1: report on the human remains’, Journal Chester Archaeological Society (New Series) 30 (1): 46-55
Garnett, Alice. ‘Herbert John Fleure. 1877-1969’, Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, London: The Royal Society, 1970): 253-278.
Hawkes, S.C. (ed.) 1989. Weapons and Warfare in Anglo-Saxon England Oxford University Committee for Archaeology Monograph 21
Higham, N.J.(2001) “Bancornaburg: Bangor-is-y-coed Revisited”. In Archaeology of the Roman Empire A Tribute to the Life and Works of Professor Barri Jones, ed. Nicholas J. Higham, British Archaeological Journal International Series 940, 2001 311-318.
Marzinzik, S. (2007) The Sutton Hoo Helmet British Museum Press
Mason, D.J.P. (2005) ‘AD 616: the Battle of Chester’, Current Archaeology 202, 516-524.
Petch, J.A. et al. (1933) ‘Excavations at Heronbridge (1930-31)’. Journal of the Chester and North Wales Architectural Archaeological and Historic Society, New Series Volume 30, Part 1, 30, 5-45
Varley, W.J. (1936) ‘Recent investigations into the Origins of Cheshire Hill Forts’, Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society 51, 51-59.
Varley, W.J. (1948) ‘The Hill forts of the Welsh Marches’, Antiquaries Journal 105, 41-66.
Wenham, S.J. (1989) ‘Anatomical interpretations of Anglo-Saxon weapon injuries’. In Hawkes 1989: 123-139.
The next lecture, on Saturday 9th November, is by Bryan Sitch on Aethelfrith of Northumbria’s lost battlefield.
Saturday 14th December will be Bob Woosnam Savage of the Royal Armouries talking about ‘Identifying Richard III’s remains’. We will also be having minced pies and mulled wine 🙂
Please tell Bryan, yas.medievalsec@gmail if you want to attend.
£5 if you are not a section member so why not become a section member – only £6/year if you are already belong to the YAS.
Our Treasurer, Jo, has asked me to ask you to bring your subscriptions along to this meeting please.
This, the first lecture in the new-look programme for the Medieval Section for 2013, by Pam Judkins of Wakefield Council Arts Museums and Heritage, gave an account of the remarkable commemorative retracing of the route of the funerary procession from Pontefract to Fotheringhay for Richard Duke of York of July 1476, which was organised by Wakefield Historical Society in July 2010.
Bar where Richard of York’s head was displayed
Pam described the historical context for Richard’s death, which occurred near Sandal Castle, in December 1460 during the Wars of the Roses. The Duke’s frustration with the lacklustre rule of Henry VI had led him to press his own slightly stronger claim to the English throne, which directly threatened the right to succession of the son of Henry and his queen, Margaret of Anjou. In the fight at Sandal the Duke appears to have fallen into an ambush and his head, decorated with a paper crown, and that of his son Edmund, Duke of Rutland, were displayed above Micklegate Bar in York. The battle was one of the smaller engagements of the Wars of the Roses. It looked as though the Yorkist cause was dead but another son, Edward, having won a battle of his own in Wales, returned and on Palm Sunday 1461, with the help of his father’s old ally Warwick, defeated the Lancastrians at Towton. This may well be the largest and bloodiest battle ever to have taken place on English soil. Edward became Edward IV.
Once secure on the English throne, Edward made plans to give his father a decent funeral which involved taking the body in a formal procession from Pontefract in West Yorkshire to the favoured residence of the family at Fotheringhay Castle in Northamptonshire. It is not clear why it took quite so long -16 years – to bring this about but the unsettled politics of the time and the reglazing of Fotheringhay Chuch may have had something to do with it. The route would take in many towns along the great north road that had been pillaged by Lancastrians after the Battle of Sandal. At each of a number of overnight stops the body lay on a funeral bier in a church. Four hundred poor men were paid to follow the procession. Anyone who turned up to join the procession received a penny and pregnant women received 2d. Richly clothed wooden effigies of the Duke and his son Edmund lay on the coffins. The event was carefully planned and choreographed lest there be any repetition of the unedifying scenes at the funeral of Charles VI of France when clergy and members of his household had squabbled over the funeral pall and clothing.
Having exhumed the bodies of the Duke and his son Edmund at Pontefract, the procession set out from Pontefract on 22nd July, staying in Doncaster on 22nd-23rd July, Blyth on 23rd-24th July, Tuxford on 24th-25th July, Newark on 25th-26th July, Grantham on 26th-27th July, Stamford on 27th-29th July (an extra day was allowed because this was a Sunday), and finally reaching Fotheringhay on 30th July 1476.
Wakefield Historical Society hoped to commemorate the procession but unfortunately an application to the Heritage Lottery Fund failed, and the organizers threw themselves on the mercy of churches and local societies along the route. In hindsight this was not an entirely disastrous outcome because it did result in local people being involved on a more voluntary and ad hoc basis. Wakefield Historical Society decided not to re-enact the procession but to follow the route on the dates when the procession had taken place, staying at the same locations overnight where the body of Richard had rested. They were helped in this by the fact that the Richard III Society had published contemporary accounts of the procession [see Anne F.Sutton and Livia Visser-Fuchs with P.W.Hammond (1996) ‘The Reburial of Richard Duke of York 21-30 July 1476’ The Ricardian, the Journal of the Richard III Society, vol. X, no.127, December 1994]. Some stretches of the route had long since disappeared because of later development and changes to the modern road lay-out but the participants did walk the route where they could. Our speaker described this as quite an emotional experience and said that being there was important. Due to changes in the road lay-out some places that had been thriving historically were now quiet backwaters. The present day tranquil bridge at Wentbridge, for instance, had been widened three times, reflecting the importance of the river crossing when this was the main north-south road for travellers and a route for herds of animals being taken to London for slaughter. The participants also visited other Medieval places of interest along the route that would have been there in the late 15th century.
At Doncaster the Duke’s body lay overnight in Greyfriars’ Franciscan Friary. What the connection was with the Franciscans was, is not known but Edward’s sister, Margaret of York was also a patron of the order. Much of the Medieval Doncaster has been lost through development so the participants visited the site of an important Medieval shrine to the Virgin Mary, recently revived by the Roman Catholic Church. A Vespers service was held at this and each of the subsequent overnight stops. It is probably no accident that a number of towns along the route had been granted charters by Edward IV in the years before the funeral procession. Perhaps this was in recognition of, and to make amends for, the widespread looting of places along the route by Lancastrians after their victory at Sandal.
The next section of the route to Blyth has been destroyed by extensive mining but the participants called at Conisborough Castle where Richard was born and Roche Abbey, which was close enough to send a party of monks to join the funeral procession. The body rested at Tickhill were there was a Benedictine Priory, a daughter-house of Rouen. There the participants saw a Doom painting which had survived the Reformation. Blyth appears to have been more important historically but now that the route of the A1 has shifted, it is quiet backwater.
Gainsborough Old Hall
On 24th July the party travelled to Tuxford. The participants walked a quiet stretch of what is very likely to have been the main north-south road with a local guide and society. They diverted to Gainsborough Old Hall which was owned by the Yorkist de Burgh family and which was said to have been destroyed by Lancastrians. However, tree-ring dates taken from timbers suggests many of the trees were felled in the 1460s so perhaps the devastation was overstated. The Medieval kitchen is particularly well-preserved there. The party also visited Laxton where strip farming is still practised and where court leet meetings are still held to manage disputes. At Tuxford the party squeezed into the small church for Vespers. Again the presence of large inn betrayed the fact that the town had been far busier in the past.
From Tuxford they travelled to Newark. The body of the Duke lay at St Mary Magdalene in Newark. The money for the church came from wool. Newark retains its open marketplace and a number of buildings around it give a real sense of what it was like in the Middle Ages. The procession may have doubled the size of the population the night that the funerary procession spent there.
From Newark the party went to Grantham, another town that benefited from a charter from Edward IV. Again the body stayed overnight at the Greyfriars even though there was an impressive church there. The facade of a 15th century hotel still survives at Newark.
From Newark the party travelled to Stamford. They saw Elis Manor with its wall paintings dating from about 1500 depicting woodland scenes. Tickencote and Losecote, nearby, was the site of another battle during the Wars of the Roses. The body lay for two nights at Greyfriars in Stamford as the following day was a Sunday. The George Inn at Stamford is an early courtyard inn.
The next day, Monday, the party travelled to Fotheringhay, stopping at Longthorpe Tower near Peterborough to see some 14th century wall-paintings. Apethorpe Hall was built about 1500 and is so close to Fotheringhay it may have been linked to the House of York.
On 29th July the body arrived at Fotheringhay. Little remains of the castle save for a mound and ditch. A procession led by Edward IV came to meet the funerary procession. The body was guarded overnight by men who had served with the Duke. The funeral took place on Tuesday 29th July. Requiem masses were sung by and a sermon preached by the Bishop of Lincoln. A black war horse was ridden into the church. There were 400 lights on the hearse. In 2010 the Deputy Lord Lieutenant, the Duke of Gloucester, came for the final event. A plaque was presented to the church as at each of the previous overnight stops. In 1476 some 1500 people were served food and drink in tents but perhaps 5000 may have attended. £311 17s 1d was spent on 8000 gallons of beer, 48 beef, 210 sheep, and large quantities of fish and poultry. Cooks were brought up from London to provide the catering.
Our speaker finished her talk by saying that she felt the Wakefield Historical Society had made a real contribution to making members of the general public more aware of their history, especially in stopping off points along the route of the procession, as well as linking historical events at the local and national level.
Lecture summary by Bryan Sitch, Hon Secretary, Medieval Section. For any errors the writer is responsible.
Fulford is arguably the battle that made the Norman Conquest possible, although it has largely been overshadowed by the battles of Stamford Bridge and Hastings. Over the last years a considerable amount of work has been done to try and identify the site of the battle. On Saturday 21st September Medieval Section members visited Fulford for a tour of what is very probably the site of the 1066 battle. Our guide, Chas Jones, is careful to point out that it is the evidence that points to Fulford as the site of the battle, not him, and English Heritage are unambiguous in saying that this is the likely location.
Scandinavian fleet (from Chas Jones The Forgotten Battle of 1066 Fulford)
The historical context for the battle is as follows. In the summer of 1065 the Northumbrians rebelled against the unpopular rule of Tostig. Having lost control of northern England Tostig appealed to his brother Harold Godwinson of England to reinstate him but when Harold refused, Tostig sought help from abroad. In September 1066 whilst Harold was waiting for the Normans to land on the south coast, Tostig and Harald Hadrada of Norway landed in East Yorkshire and sacked Scarborough. They sailed up the Humber with a large fleet, exploiting high tides to land at Riccall about 3.5 miles from Fulford. Tidal rises of between 7 and 11m have been recorded which would have helped the Scandinavians. In the Domesday Survey Tostig is recorded as the owner of the manor and 25(?) hides at Fouleforde, and so he must have been familiar with the phenomenon of high tides at this time of year. Earls Morcar and Edwin moved their forces to cover the likely invasion routes on the rivers Wharfe and Ouse. The Northumbrian army marched out from York to meet the invaders. Chas points out that all of the experts who have looked at the evidence (e.g. the English Heritage Battlefields Panel) say that Germany Beck is the’ probable/most likely place’ for the battle. A plaque in the playing field commemorates what an earlier generation of researchers thought to be the site, very close to where Chas and other reserachers also believe the battle took place.
Commemorative plaque for the battle of Fulford
Sources for the battle are sketchy at best but Chas has drawn on material from Scandinavian sagas and related it to the topography at Fulford. Though written down in the 13th century there are grounds to suppose that the composer was concerned to record historical information accurately.
Chas Jones
Having set out the historical context for the battle, Chas explained the topography at Fulford, which is crucial to understanding the battle. The glacial moraine on which the village now stands is key. It overlooks low-lying swampy ground and there are steep slopes on either side, so that the defending force would have its flanks protected. In addition the watercourse, Germany Beck, would have served as a moat, protecting the approach to York from the south along the moraine.
the slope down to the Germany Beck
Chas drew on the Icelandic Saga written by Snorri Sturluson after 1220 to give us an account of the battle. An excerpt appears in Joan Pickering and Irene Briddon’s A History of Fulford, a copy of which can be found in the Yorkshire Archaeological Society library at Claremont:-
Harold (Hadrada) began to array his men. One wing stood upon the river bank, and the other higher up, near ditch, which was deep and broad and full of water. The jarls (Jorvik men) let their arrays go down along the river and most of their men in line. The standard of Harald was near the river, there the ranks were thick, but they were thickest at the ditch, and least to be depended upon. Thither Morkere came down with his standard. The wing of the Northmen by the ditch retreated, and the English followed them, thinking they were going to flee, but when Harald saw that his men retired along the ditch, he ordered a war-blast to be blown and urged them on. He had the standard ‘Landwaster’ carried forward, and made so hard an attack that all were driven back. There was great slaughter in the Jarl’s host. Walthof (Morkere’s brother) had had his standard brought along the river, downward against the army of Harald, but when the king hardened the attack, the Jarl and his men fled along the river upward. Only those who followed him escaped, but so many had fallen that large streams of blood in many places flowed over the plain. When the Jarl had fled, Harald surround Morkere and the men who had advanced along the ditch with him. The English fell by hundreds. Many jumped into the ditch and the slain lay there so thick that the Norsemen walked across it with dry feet on human bodies. there Morkere perished.
What seems to have happened is that Tostig’s forces tried to cross the Germany Beck but were thrown back by Morcar and the Northumbrians. However, the Northumbrians were then taken in flank by Hadrada’s Scandinavians who, having pushed back Edwin’s men along the river bank, had been waiting for their moment in low-lying ‘dead’ ground close to the River Ouse. Perhaps the falling tide allowed them to cross the Germany Beck which had earlier proved too great an obstacle. A scene in the Fulford Tapestry sewn in the style of the Bayeux tapestry shows the battle. The Northumbrians fled along the Germany Beck to escape encirclement and Chas told us about archaeological work in the area immediately north of the battlefield which has revealed hearths and furnace bottoms where broken arms and armour were recycled. Chas showed us the centre of the battlefield on the moraine, the Germany Beck and the ‘dead’ ground near the river from which the Scandinavians attacked. Walking back to the village it was striking just how steep the edge of the moraine is.
edge of moraine
Over a number of years Chas has sampled various areas of the battlefield looking for evidence. He thinks he may well have this confirmatory evidence but unfortunately he couldn’t show us any military finds when we visited because the objects are in the York conservation lab. However, he did say that iron nails and furnace bottoms found along the supposed line of the Northumbrian retreat have excited considerable interest amongst Scandinavian archaeologists.
A short time after the battle King Harold arrived, having marched the length of England at great speed. He caught Hadrada, Tostig and part of their army by surprise at Stamford Bridge on 25th September. Orders were sent back to the fleet at Riccall for reinforcements but the Scandinavians suffered heavy casualties. It was said that only a small fraction of the original invasion fleet returned to Norway. Having learnt that William of Normandy had landed, Harold returned south. His men were tired after their epic march and not all of the reinforcements had arrived. At Hastings on 14th October Harold was killed with many of his closest supporters and William I became king of England.
Sadly the site of the battlefield is threatened by development – a housing estate and a road – surprisingly located on low-lying ground liable to flooding. Chas has challenged the development in the courts but the battlefield is still under threat. For trowelling opportunties in advance of development see http://www.medieval.yas.org.uk/bl0g/?p=218
One of the suggestions that came out of this our first meeting of the new Medieval Section programme for 2013-14 was that we hold a dayschool looking at Yorkshire and Yorkshire related Medieval battlefield archaeology. Chas’ talk at Fulford certainly gets us off to a good start if this is something members would seriously like the Committee to explore. Any thoughts?
Given the insanitary conditions of the time and poor hygiene, parasites like roundworm must have been endemic. Archaeological evidence of astringents to clear the gut of such parasites have been found at Soutra hospital near Edinburgh, a medieval hospital that straddled the main highway between England and Scotland. Excavations there yielded the secrets of an extensive pharmacopoeia:- http://www.independent.co.uk/news/prozac-opium-and-myrrh-the-ancient-arts-of-anaesthesia-are-unlocked-1238659.html
Tormentil (Potentilla erecta) – with thanks to Claire Miles and Rachel Webster in Manchester Museum’s Botany Department
December speaker Bob Woosnam-Savage with Richard III’s remains‘. Image: University of Leicester.
Bob Woosnam-Savage has kindly provided details of his lecture about the remains of Richard III at the December meeting of the Medieval section.
In September 2012 a skeleton was excavated during an archaeological project at the former site of Greyfriars Church in Leicester, England, which lay under a local council car park. Part of the project’s remit was also to seek out any remains of the grave or tomb of the last Plantagenet king Richard IIII who had been buried in the choir of the church in August 1485 following his death at the battle of Bosworth. The skeleton, amazingly, bore signs of both scoliosis and, tellingly, the trauma of battle. Had Richard really been found after nearly 530 years?
In February 2013 it was publicly announced to the world that the skeleton was indeed that of Richard III, the last king of England to die in battle and, thanks to William Shakespeare, one of the most infamous monarchs known.
Bob, Project Weapons Expert for the University of Leicester ‘Search for Richard III’ Archaeological Team as well as part of the Search Team on the ‘Greyfriars Project’, has been studying the skeleton of Richard III since its discovery. He was employed to help find and examine the weapons trauma on the skeleton and attempt to identify the various types of weapons that may have been used to make them. As a result, using both historical and archaeological evidence, it is only now, for the first time, that we can begin to create a potential sequence of events that lets us discover the possible last moments and death of Richard III – ‘the king under the car park’.
Please let the Secretary know in advance if you are planning to attend this meeting as we may need to book a bigger space if there is a big turn out. Contact me at yas.medievalsec@gmail.com
Bob Woosnam-Savage is Curator of European Edged Weapons, at the Royal Armouries in Leeds.
Since the AGM on 27th April the members of the new committee have been busy on your behalf organising a programme for the coming year. Lecture meetings will be held at the Yorkshire Archaeological Society at Claremont on the second Saturday of every month at 2-3pm.
I thought I’d give you some advance details of what we’re planning so that you can reserve dates in the diary. Some of the details are still provisional as the speakers have yet to confirm wording of titles but there is already a strong Yorkshire medieval battlefield flavour to the autumn programme.
Viking reenactment enthusiasts
As the battlefield of Fulford is very much in the news at the moment we could organise an excursion to walk the site with Chas Jones. Whilst we would normally meet on 14th September, the 21st September works better for Chas. We could have a quick look at Riccall, have a talk and battlefield walk about Fulford and then see Stamford Bridge but Chas tells me it would be a very full afternoon! Please let me know what you’d like to do and we could organise a coach. We might have to leave at 1pm if not earlier. Maximum of 30 people.
On 12th October Pam Judkins of Wakefield Historical Society will talk to us about ‘Retracing of the 100-mile Route of the Funeral Procession of Richard, Duke of York’.
On 9th November in ‘Aethelfrith of Northumbria’s lost battlefield?’ I’ll talk about the study of human remains in the Manchester Museum collection that appear to be evidence of the Battle of Chester, described in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People.
Our Christmas meeting on 14th December will be addressed by Bob Woosnam Savage, Curator of European Edged Weapons, Royal Armouries, Leeds, who will talk to us about ‘Richard III the violent death of a king’.
Do let me know if you’d like us to hold the traditional section high tea that afternoon and we’ll make plans. The very least that Janet will let us get away with is mince pies and mulled wine!
If you intend to come to this lecture please let me know in advance as a large audience is expected because we can only seat 50 – the maximum for Health and Safety reasons. Do let me know if you’d be willing to bring along some nibbles.
On 8th March I’m hoping to invite a speaker from the Portable Antiquities Scheme to tell us about recent finds from Yorkshire. However, if because of maternity leave this proves to be impossible, Alison Leonard of the Department of Archaeology, King’s Manor at the University of York, has kindly agreed to talk to us about why it is that Yorkshire presents such a frustrating problem for Scandinavian studies compared to other parts of the country.
On 12th April Dr Hugh Willmott, Senior Lecturer in European Historical Archaeology in the Department of Archaeology at the University of Sheffield, will talk about ‘Recent work at Monk Bretton Priory‘. This talk would have to double up as our AGM too now that the accounts are completed in the spring.
Finally on 10th May, Professor Joyce Hill of the University of Leeds, will talk to us about work on an Anglo-Saxon hoard from the Vale of York.
Do let me know if this line-up is of interest, whether you’d like to go and see the battlefield of Fulford and whether the prospect of a traditional section high tea at Xmas appeals. We’ll distribute a programme once everything has been confirmed.
Thanks to Sue Alexander there is now a dedicated email if you’d like to contact me: yas.medievalsec@gmail.com
Do take a minute or two to send me an email so I can contact you in future. Email is much easier and cheaper to use – though we’ll still contact members by post if they prefer.
Medieval Section of the Yorkshire Archaeological and Historical Society 