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Anglo-Saxon Yule

21/11/2022

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How did folk in early medieval lowland Britain spend the coldest and darkest time of the year?  What evidence do we have for their midwinter traditions, how did they change and evolve during the period, and have any survived to influence our own festive traditions today?

In preparation for a special midwinter event and seasonal exhibition at the most famous early Anglo-Saxon archaeological site - Sutton Hoo, and building on an earlier article on this subject published in 2012, we embarked on a project to re-examine the evidence for Anglo-Saxon midwinter traditions.  Though noting the existence of a well established image of a generalized early medieval Yule based on passed-down folk traditions and logical inferences is held dear by many people today, we found that many traditions assumed to be Anglo-Saxon in origin are absent from primary sources from the period and are first documented surprisingly late. On the other hand, we found evidence for surprisingly familiar traditions established during the Anglo-Saxon period which can be thought of as distant ancestors of aspects of modern Christmas we still observe today.
So don your warmest cloak, grab a horn-full of mead, and join us on a journey through time, back to the Anglo-Saxon midwinter festival known as Yule.
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A Woman as King? The Secret Legacy of Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians

1/6/2022

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At the time of writing a season of celebrations is underway for the Platinum Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II, marking her 70 years as reign as monarch of the UK and Commonwealth.  Such a long reign is historically unprecedented and means that the overwhelming majority of people living in countries where she serves as head of state have no living memory of the reign of another monarch. In turn this also means that few have any memory of the reign of a king; a woman as head of state in these realms feels perfectly normal - even 'default' - and we have grown up talking of the history of "kings and queens" as if the words and roles have always carried equal weight. Historically this was not the case. Centuries ago, that which now goes without saying -that a woman could rule, competently and successfully in her own right - was a truly revolutionary idea. It only became accepted as the result of the examples set by a series of remarkable female rulers in Britain and the twists of fate which crowned them and tested them. 
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Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians. (Credit: Jennifer Peters)
Though certainly not the first female ruler on these islands, a disproportionate debt is owed to one remarkable lady in particular, who lived eleven centuries ago. Emerging from an age and culture in which female leadership was largely unthinkable and all but unprecedented, she took power only reluctantly, and ruled with such brilliance that any doubt in female leadership would have been banished. But in so doing, she established a dangerous precedent, leading men to try, and thankfully, fail, to erase her from history....

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Shield of an Anglo-Saxon Prince - Part 3:  Painting

25/4/2022

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Compared to the famous shield from Sutton Hoo Mound 1, the shields from the other treasure-filled princely Anglo-Saxon burials lack ostentatious decorative fittings. In the first chapter (link) we discussed the striking similarity of these shields, which appeared to be high-performance gear for warrior princes, optimised for agility rather than ostentation. In the second chapter (link) we reported on our project to produce an authentic replica of such a shield, and explore just how light weight they could have been. 
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Despite the minimal fittings, its hard to imagine the shields of the late 6th century princely burials were entirely plain, and new evidence has come to light concerning early Anglo-Saxon paints, and the painted designs preserved from the late Iron Age, which has allowed us to more confidently wade into the painting of early Anglo-Saxon shields for the first time.
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Researching and experimenting these paints, exploring the evidenced designs, and how they relate to decorative motifs seen in other media across both Anglo-Saxon material culture and adjacent cultures, we were finally able to finish our replica princely shield with a plausible painted design.

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Shield of an Anglo-Saxon Prince - Part 2:  Building the Shield

19/3/2022

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Aside from the magnificently decorated, heavy shield from Sutton Hoo Mound 1, remains of early Anglo-Saxon shields suggest they were typically relatively plain. Curiously the shields from the other treasure-filled princely burials – Taplow, Broomfield, Prittlewell, Sutton Hoo Mound 17 and others appear especially so, not befitting the status of these burials, with little in the way of decorative fittings, and very minimal, unusually simplified bosses. 
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In the previous chapter (link) we revealed that (in contrast to the wide variability of shields from contemporary graves) the late 6th century princely burial shields were all practically identical, with suites of four simple disc mounts on the board, simple 1a(i) iron grip reinforcers, and innovative SB-4b / Dickinson’s Type 6 shield bosses – the smallest and lightest of all Anglo-Saxon bosses. In a number of these cases the boards were also made of ultra-light-weight willow. This is the lightest combination of fittings possible, among those evidenced from early Anglo-Saxon graves.   We have therefore argued that the princely shields represent a class of very carefully made, high-performance versions of the standard Anglo-Saxon shield, with weight-reduction prioritised over ostentation.
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In 2021 we undertook a project to reconstruct such a shield – to explore precisely how light such a shield could be for a given diameter, and to explore methods consistent with archaeological clues which might have been employed to embellish such shields, commensurate with the status of their owners, without compromising their performance.  The result would provide a theoretical minimum weight for an early Anglo-Saxon shield of practical size, and represent our tenth and most ‘authentic’ shield reproduction to date. 



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