Dress, Music and Fighting: 11th-century life through the eyes of an Anglo-Saxon artist (Part II - Music & Fighting)

By Christopher Monk

As a specialist in Anglo-Saxon cultural history, I’ve found it immensely rewarding to explore the world of the early English peoples through the illustrated pages of their books.  My favourite manuscript for doing this is the Old English Illustrated Hexateuch (see HERE for Part I of this article)

Getting down with the womenfolk
For my second detail from the Hexateuch, I want to focus on a particular ‘female’ skill, and in doing so throw something out there that may cause a stir.  Now, I bet you’re thinking weaving, spinning or embroidery, aren’t you?  Well, I’m not going there; instead we’re going to look at women as musicians.

When was the last time you saw in a ‘medieval’ film a woman playing a musical instrument in the feast hall? Whenever an Anglo-Saxon scop (musical poet) is called for, you just know it will be a male actor chosen. Now I’m not saying that women were employed as scops in Anglo-Saxon times – in reality, ‘professional’ scops were likely male, as is suggested by the poem Beowulf, in which the scop is depicted as part of the all-male comitatus, or band of warriors – but I am saying that the idea of women playing music is not alien to the Anglo-Saxon imagination.  Take a gander at this picture of Miriam (the sister of Moses and Aaron, also known as Mary or Maria) and her women.

As you see, most of the women are playing something akin to the triangular harp.  The Harley Psalter, produced in Canterbury around the same time as the Hexateuch, shows similar instruments.  Note, too, that the woman on the far left is playing a smaller stringed instrument that resembles the lyre. 

Now you might be thinking that the artist had to show the women playing their stringed instruments because that’s what it says in the Old English text.  Indeed, the text states that they ‘took their harps (OE hearpe) in hand and praised and glorified God both with harp and with song (OE lofsang, literally ‘praise-song’)’. However, there’s more to it than that.  

The Latin Vulgate text actually says that Miriam ‘took a timbrel (Lat. tympanum) in her hand: and all the women went forth after her with timbrels and with dances’ (Exodus 15:20).  It would seem that the anonymous translator was unfamiliar with the timbrel, or tambourine, which was not yet introduced into Europe.  

Unwise as it is here to be categorical, I will simply suggest that the translator substituted an instrument with which he was familiar, the harp, and which was familiar to him in the very context of contemporary women playing instruments.  Furthermore, and rather fascinatingly, he didn’t seem to like the idea of women dancing and so instead he focuses on their instrument playing and singing.  

The artist apparently had no trouble in following the translator’s lead, though, remarkably, he also chose to make an additional contribution by depicting the men dancing, which is not described either in the Hexateuch text or the Latin Vulgate.

Perhaps what we are seeing here is a culturally acceptable interpretation of this biblical scene, and as a consequence we are shown that women in the late-Anglo-Saxon period could pick up their harp as well as their spindle!

Kicking the hell out of one another

Back to the men for my final insight from the Hexateuch.  And what is it in Anglo-Saxon culture that men did best?  All you living history performers know, don’t you?  Yes, fighting, of course.  Well my focus here is less on swordsmanship and valour, and rather more on getting the job done. 

Take a look at Moses’ fighting technique.  He’s just about to avenge a brother Israelite by slaying his killer, an Egyptian slave-driver (Exodus 2:11, 12).  Now ignore the ridiculously big sword in Moses’ right hand and instead take a close look at his left hand and right foot.  

Aha!  It would seem that the best way to demobilise your enemy was to grab his beard, place your foot firmly and swiftly in his abdomen, and then dispatch the sword.  None of this is described in either the Hexateuch or Vulgate texts, so it seems reasonable to suggest that the artist was drawing upon contemporary experience.  

But wait, I hear you cry, the artist was a monk, so would likely not be conversant with fighting. That may be the case – though, it should be noted, monks came from all sorts of backgrounds, including in some cases a warrior one – but there is other evidence that may shed light on this.  

The early Anglo-Saxon law of Ethelbert (c.600) refers to the ‘seizing of hair’ in the context of injuries from acts of violence, for which compensation had to be paid to the victim by the perpetrator.  Now it may be that this law refers specifically to cutting off a man’s hair as a means of insulting him (the OE word used, feaxfang, literally means ‘hair-booty’), something that is referred to in the laws of Alfred the Great (reigned 871-899), where beard-cutting is also mentioned.  Or it may simply mean that men grabbed other men’s hair when fighting.

In any case, it seems that seizing a man by his hair, or indeed his beard, may have been a common means of restraining a man in order to inflict violence upon him.  Perhaps the monk artist had witnessed this mode of ‘street fighting’ and tapped into his personal recollection as a means of imagining Moses’ vengeance.

Certainly when we examine images of warfare in the Hexateuch, we can appreciate that the artist didn’t just stick with a neatly choreographed sword-and-shield technique, but, as you see in the next two images, went as far as depicting warriors trampling on the heads and bodies of their enemies and, yes, pulling hair – a reflection perhaps of the real mess of war.

Well I hope you’ve enjoyed this short foray into Anglo-Saxon art as a means of gaining insight into the lives of the peoples of early medieval England.  There is so much more to be studied in the Old English Illustrated Hexateuch, in terms of cultural practices and items of everyday life: feasting, burying the dead and midwifery, for example; or baskets, buckets, wagons and farming tools, to name just a few objects.  

A more thorough study of the art of this remarkable book would, I suggest, open up a finer reading of Anglo-Saxon culture alongside historical and archaeological records.  Perhaps I should write a book about it...  

Works consulted:

Graham Lawson and Susan Rankin, ‘Music’, and Graeme Lawson, ‘Musical Instruments’, from The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Michael Lapidge et al. (Blackwell, 2001). 

Gale R. Owen-Crocker, Dress in Anglo-Saxon England: Revised and enlarged edition (Boydell, 2004).

Dorothy Whitelock (ed.), English Historical Documents c. 500-1042 (Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1955).

Online:

Bosworth-Toller Anglo-Saxon Dictionary: http://bosworth.ff.cuni.cz/

Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources: http://logeion.uchicago.edu/

Douay-Rheims Bible:  http://www.drbo.org/

The Old English Illustrated Hexateuch: http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/BriefDisplay.aspx: Just type ‘hexateuch’ into the search box.

Dr Christopher Monk taught for four years at the University of Manchester (UK) on subjects ranging from the language and history of Beowulf to sex and sexuality in Anglo-Saxon art.  He now works as an independent consultant and development editor.  Recently he was the medieval history and manuscript expert for a major permanent exhibition at Rochester Cathedral (due to open later in 2016) about one of Britain’s most important, but overlooked, medieval books, the twelfth-century Textus Roffensis.  Chris continues to juggle scholarly work with creative writing.  He has just published a chapter in a collection of essays about the Bayeux Tapestry, and has an eBook under review called Sodom in the Anglo-Saxon Imagination.  But he’s also written a screenplay based in 1978 about a Kate Bush obsessive and is presently writing what he describes as “a sort of historical fantasy prequel to Beowulf”. He blogs as the transhistorical Anglo-Saxon Monk. Rounded Globe have just announced that they are to publish Christopher's study *Sodom in the Anglo-Saxon Imagination* as an eBook. 

Find him: At his website

and On his blog

Dress, Music and Fighting: 11th-century life through the eyes of an Anglo-Saxon artist (Part I - Dress)

by Christopher Monk

How should we imagine life back in early medieval England (pre-1066)?  What did people look like?  What did they believe?  What did they do to ‘hang out’, as one historical fiction writer put it to me recently?

There are, of course, written historical records upon which we can draw.  We have laws, charters and wills, for example – written from as early as 600 in the case of the Kentish laws of Ethelbert – from which we may tease out details about everyday life.  We also have the rich archaeological record from the Anglo-Saxon period (c.450-c.1066), which furnishes us with many a revelation, be they somewhat tantalising at times.

Not to be overlooked as a resource is the art of the period.  As a specialist in Anglo-Saxon cultural history, I’ve found it immensely rewarding to explore the world of the early English peoples through the illustrated pages of their books.  My favourite manuscript for doing this is the Old English Illustrated Hexateuch.  Let me tell you something about it, and let us see what insights it might bring to our understanding of life back in the eleventh century.

The Hexateuch goes by the official ‘shelfmark’ of London, British Library, Cotton Claudius B.iv.  To see it in the flesh, then, you would need to go to the British Library, though it’s extremely unlikely that it would be made available for your perusal at leisure.  Fortunately, we can see it online, as the Library has made it available in full as one of its digitised manuscripts (a link is provided at the end).  And what’s particularly exciting is that we can zoom in really close to examine the detail.

The Hexateuch was produced around 1020-40, so towards the end of the Anglo-Saxon period, very probably during the reign of King Cnut (reigned 1016-35).  Its origin is likely the St Augustine’s monastery at Canterbury.  The Hexateuch combines both a textual and visual treatment of the first six books of the Bible, Genesis through to Judges.  It is essentially a picture book – certainly the design of the book focused on the illustrations – accompanied by vernacular (Old English [OE]) translations and paraphrases of Jerome’s Latin Vulgate bible.

To the modern eye, it resembles a comic book.  The pictures closely follow the order of the text but they dominate the pages, there being 394 framed illustrations in total.  Furthermore, they frequently amplify the text, revealing emotions, tensions and scenarios not always evident in the words themselves.  What is key for our purposes is that the artist draws upon contemporary life in order to bring the lives of the patriarchs and the Israelites into sharp focus.  

Let us have a look at just a handful of pictorial scenes to see what they reveal about life in eleventh-century England.  And hopefully that will help us all appreciate that we have another resource in which our imagining of the Anglo-Saxons can be rooted.

Dapper dressers

So what did the Anglo-Saxons look like?  How did they dress, for example?

First, I should point out that we need to show care when interpreting art.  To illustrate: when God or angelic messengers appear in the Hexateuch, they are depicted in classical garb, thus we have a nod to Roman culture rather than a representation of what figures of authority in the period would have gone around wearing.  And I should also make the observation that colour is not always used in a realistic way by the artist.  So, for example, please don’t think that blue rinses were in fashion!

One of my favourite images for demonstrating male attire is the one here of four ‘unrighteous’ men in the days of Noah before the Flood.  They are probably meant to represent the giants or ‘entas’* who were born from the miscegenation of ‘the sons of God’ and ‘the daughters of men’ (Genesis 6:1-8)

They wear the ubiquitous long-sleeved short tunic, along with a cloak fastened by a brooch, either at the shoulder or centrally (the majority of men are shown wearing it at the shoulder).  

Elsewhere men are shown without cloaks or with shorter versions than you see here.  Sometimes we also see men with longer tunics, often kings or pharaohs, though these are also very often shown on men who are seated and so perhaps the artist is concerned with preserving modesty rather than wishing to indicate actual length. 

Though the vast majority of tunics are plain, nevertheless we do come across a significant number of tunics with decorated edging, very similar to those worn by the two central figures.  As you see, these fringes run along the bottom and partway up the sides of the garment.  This may indicate that some tunics had side slits, similar to those on Joseph’s famous ‘coat of many colours’, depicted later – although Joseph’s garment lacks an embellished edging.  Incidentally, the ‘technicolour dreamcoat’ is not shown as truly multi-coloured because the artist is following the slightly odd OE translation – hringfag, meaning ‘ring-patterned’ – of the Latin polymita, meaning ‘cloth woven from threads of many colours’. 

These decorative edges, or fringes, may be representative of embroidery, and would likely have been worn by men of some note, not by ordinary ceorls (free-men of low rank) and certainly not by slaves.  Indeed, in the Hexateuch they appear on men from important families, such as Joseph’s brothers, who as you see here are shown with golden edging on their tunics. 

It would seem, then, that if you really wanted to look the dapper man about town in the eleventh century, you needed embroidered garments.  Maybe it might catch on today? 

I’m afraid that’s all I have space for in this post concerning dress.  There was so much more that could have been said about both male and female dress, too, which brings me to a core area of my present research: women in Anglo-Saxon culture.

For my second detail from the Hexateuch, I want to focus on a particular ‘female’ skill, and in doing so throw something out there that may cause a stir.  Now, I bet you’re thinking weaving, spinning or embroidery, aren’t you?  Well, I’m not going there; instead we’re going to look at women as musicians. And then it will be back to the men for my final insight from the Hexateuch.  And what is it in Anglo-Saxon culture that men did best?  All you living history performers know, don’t you?  Yes, fighting, of course.  

[These will be published in Part 2 - Music and Fighting - on Saturday (27th August)]

*Tolkien fans will recognise the origin here of his giant tree-beings, the ‘ents’.

Works consulted:

Graham Lawson and Susan Rankin, ‘Music’, and Graeme Lawson, ‘Musical Instruments’, from The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Michael Lapidge et al. (Blackwell, 2001). 

Gale R. Owen-Crocker, Dress in Anglo-Saxon England: Revised and enlarged edition (Boydell, 2004)

Dorothy Whitelock (ed.), English Historical Documents c. 500-1042 (Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1955)

Online:

Bosworth-Toller Anglo-Saxon Dictionary: http://bosworth.ff.cuni.cz/

Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources: http://logeion.uchicago.edu/

Douay-Rheims Bible:  http://www.drbo.org/

The Old English Illustrated Hexateuch: http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/BriefDisplay.aspx: Just type ‘hexateuch’ into the search box.

Dr Christopher Monk taught for four years at the University of Manchester (UK) on subjects ranging from the language and history of Beowulf to sex and sexuality in Anglo-Saxon art.  He now works as an independent consultant and development editor.  Recently he was the medieval history and manuscript expert for a major permanent exhibition at Rochester Cathedral (due to open later in 2016) about one of Britain’s most important, but overlooked, medieval books, the twelfth-century Textus Roffensis.  Chris continues to juggle scholarly work with creative writing.  He has just published a chapter in a collection of essays about the Bayeux Tapestry, and has an eBook under review called Sodom in the Anglo-Saxon Imagination.  But he’s also written a screenplay based in 1978 about a Kate Bush obsessive and is presently writing what he describes as “a sort of historical fantasy prequel to Beowulf”. He blogs as the transhistorical Anglo-Saxon Monk.

Find him At his website

and On his blog