Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T09:05:25.323Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The ‘Northwest Essex Anglo-Saxon Ring’, Falconry and Pagan–Christian Discursive Space

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 March 2020

Robert J. Wallis Open the ORCID record for Robert J. Wallis [Opens in a new window]
Robert J. Wallis*
Affiliation:
Richmond University, the American International, University in London, 1 St Alban's Grove, Kensington, LondonW8 5PN, UK Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A unique gold finger ring, dated stylistically to c.ad 580–650, was discovered by metal-detecting in Essex in 2011. The ‘northwest Essex Anglo-Saxon ring’ is highly decorated with Style II art and shows a distinctive juxtaposition of ‘pagan’ and ‘Christian’ imagery including birds of prey and an anthropomorphic figure holding a long cross in the right hand, a raptor in the left. In this article, I consider the possibility that the object provides further evidence that falconry was practised in early Anglo-Saxon England. I begin by examining the finger ring itself and the imagery upon it, situating this within an Anglo-Saxon and broader Continental context. I then explore the possible social context of the ring, focusing on the ‘ideology of predation’ within which falconry, as a high-status hunting pursuit, may have been performed. Evaluating the hybrid ‘pagan’ and ‘Christian’ elements of the imagery, I suggest that falconry, and the ring itself as a high-status and possibly royal object, may have played important roles in the dynamics of pagan–Christian ‘discursive space’.

Type
Research Article
Information
Cambridge Archaeological Journal , Volume 30 , Issue 3 , August 2020 , pp. 413 - 432
Copyright
Copyright © 2020 McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adams, N., 2015. Between myth and reality: hunter and prey in Early Anglo-Saxon art, in Representing Beasts in Early Medieval England and Scandinavia, eds Bintley, M.D.J. & Williams, T.J.T.. (Anglo-Saxon Studies 29.) Woodbridge: Boydell, 13–52.Google Scholar
Avalon Project, n.d. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: Ninth Century. New Haven (CT): Yale Law School, Lillian Goldman Law Library. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/medieval/ang09.asp (accessed 4 January 2020).Google Scholar
Åkerström-Hougen, G., 1981. Falconry as a motif in early Swedish art: its historical and art historical significance, in Les Pays du Nord et Byzance (Scandinavie et Byzance): Actes du colloque nordigque et international de byzantinologie tenu à Upsal 20–22 avril 1979, ed. Zeitler, R.. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 263–93.Google Scholar
Bailey, R. & Cramp, R., 1988. Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture II: Cumberland, Westmorland and Lancashire North-of-the-Sands. London: British Academy. http://www.ascorpus.ac.uk/catvol2.php (accessed 3 January 2020).Google Scholar
Baldwin Brown, G., 1921. The Arts in Early England. London: John Murray. https://archive.org/details/artsinearlyengla05brow (accessed 3 January 2020).Google Scholar
Blackmore, L., Blair, I., Hirst, S. & Scull, C., 2019. The Prittlewell Princely Burial: Excavations at Priory Crescent, Southend-on-Sea, Essex, 2003. (MOLA monograph 73.) London: Museum of London Archaeology.Google Scholar
Blair, P.H., 1962. An Introduction to Anglo-Saxon England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
British Musuem, n.d. Collection online: finger-ring. https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=90327&partId=1 (accessed 2 January 2020).Google Scholar
Brundle, L., 2013. The body on display: exploring the role and use of figurines in early Anglo-Saxon England. Journal of Social Archaeology 13(2), 197–219.10.1177/1469605312469455CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brundle, L., 2019. Image and Performance, Agency and Ideology: Human figurative representation in Anglo-Saxon funerary art, AD 400–750. (BAR British series 645.) Oxford: BAR Publishing.Google Scholar
Bruce-Mitford, R.L.S., 1952. The Snape boat-grave. Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology 26(1), 1–26.Google Scholar
Canby, J.V., 2002. Falconry (hawking) in Hittite lands. Journal of Near Eastern Studies 61(3), 161–201.10.1086/469022CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carver, M., [1998] 2007. Sutton Hoo: Burial ground of kings? London: British Museum Press.Google Scholar
Carver, M., 2010. Agency, intellect and the archaeological agenda, in Signals of Belief in Early England: Anglo-Saxon paganism revisited, eds. Carver, M., Sanmark, A. & Semple, S.. Oxford: Oxbow, 1–20.Google Scholar
Chadwick Hawkes, S., Davidson, H.R.E. & Hawkes, C., 1965. The Finglesham Man. Antiquity 39, 17–32.10.1017/S0003598X00031379CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Challis, K.D., 1992. Early & Middle Saxon Essex. Unpublished MPhil thesis, University of Nottingham.Google Scholar
Cherryson, A.K., 2002. The identification of archaeological evidence for hawking in medieval England. Acta Zoologica Cracoviensia 45, 307–14.Google Scholar
Curta, F., 2006. Merovingian and Carolingian gift giving. Speculum 81(3), 671–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hardt, M., 2013. Gold, Prestige, Herrschaft: Warum der Schatz den König macht [Gold, prestige, domination: why the treasure makes the king], in Macht des Goldes, Gold der Macht: Herrschafts und Jenseitsrepräsentation zwischen Antike und Frühmittelalter im mittleren Donauraum [Power of gold, gold of power: representation of rule and the afterlife between antiquity and the early Middle Ages in the central Danube region], eds Hardt, M. & Heinrich-Tamaska, O.. (Forschungen zu Spätantike und Mittelalter 2.) Weinstadt: Bernhard Albert Greiner, 525–33.Google Scholar
Dickinson, T.M., 2005. Symbols of protection: the significance of animal-ornamented shields in Early Anglo-Saxon England. Medieval Archaeology 49(1), 109–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dobiat, C., 2013. Early falconry in Central Europe on the basis of grave finds, with a discussion of the origins of falconry, in Hunting in Northern Europe until 1500 AD: Old traditions and regional developments, Continental sources and Continental influences, eds Grimm, O. & Schmölcke, U.. Neumünster: Wachholtz, 343–56.Google Scholar
Dobney, K. & Jaques, D., 2002. Avian signatures for identity and status in Anglo-Saxon England. Acta Zoologica Cracoviensia 45, 7–21.Google Scholar
Epstein, H.J., 1943. The origin and earliest history of falconry. Isis 34(6), 497–509.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fern, C., 2007. Early Anglo-Saxon horse burial of the fifth to seventh centuries AD, in Early Medieval Mortuary Practices, eds Semple, S. & Williams, H.. (Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology & History 14.) Oxford: Oxford University Committee for Archaeology, 92–107.Google Scholar
Fern, C., 2015. Before Sutton Hoo: The prehistoric remains and early Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Tranmer House, Bromeswell, Suffolk. (East Anglian Archaeology 155.) Bury St Edmunds: East Anglian Archaeology.Google Scholar
Fern, C., Dickinson, T. & Webster, L., 2019a. The Staffordshire Hoard: An Anglo-Saxon treasure. London: Society of Antiquaries of London.Google Scholar
Fern, C., Dickinson, T. & Webster, L., 2019b. The Staffordshire Hoard: An Anglo-Saxon treasure (Online Catalogue). York: Archaeology Data Service. https://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archives/view/staffshoard_he_2017/index.cfm (accessed 3 January 2020).Google Scholar
Fern, C. & Speake, G.. 2014. Beasts, Birds and Gods: Interpreting the Staffordshire Hoard. Alcester: West Midlands History.Google Scholar
Filmer-Sankey, W., 1990. On the Function and Status of Prestige Finger-Rings in the Early Medieval Germanic World, c. 450–700. DPhil thesis, University of Oxford.Google Scholar
Filmer-Sankey, W. & Pestell, T., 2001. Snape Anglo-Saxon Cemetery: Excavations and surveys 1924–1992. (East Anglian Archaeology 95.) Bury St Edmunds: Suffolk County Council.Google Scholar
Gannon, A., 2003. The Iconography of Early Anglo-Saxon Coinage: Sixth to eighth centuries. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Geake, H., 1997. The Use of Grave-goods in Conversion-period England c600-c850. (BAR British series 261.) Oxford: British Archaeological Reports.Google Scholar
Geake, H., 2002. Persistent problems in the study of Conversion-period burials in England, in Burial in Early Medieval England and Wales, eds Lucy, S. & Reynolds, A.. (Society for Medieval Archaeology Monograph 17.) London: Society for Medieval Archaeology, 144–55.Google Scholar
Geake, H., 2012. Portable Antiquities Scheme Report for HM Coroner. ref.: 2011 T855 (Rec. no. 7732). Saffron Walden Museum Archive.Google Scholar
Geake, H., 2014. The compleat Anglo-Saxonist: some new and neglected Early Anglo-Saxon fish for Andrew Rogerson, in Landscapes and Artefacts: Studies in East Anglian archaeology presented to Andrew Rogerson, eds Ashley, S. & Marsden, A.. Oxford: Archaeopress, 113–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geake, H. (ed.), n.d. Papers from the Staffordshire Hoard Symposium 2010. https://finds.org.uk/staffshoardsymposium (accessed 3 January 2020).Google Scholar
Giese, M., 2013. Legal regulations on hunting in the Barbarian Law Codes of the Early Middle Ages, in Hunting in Northern Europe until 1500 AD: Old traditions and regional developments, Continental sources and Continental influences, eds Grimm, O. & Schmölcke, U.. Neumünster: Wachholtz, 485–504.Google Scholar
Grieve, A., 2012. The Human-Dog Relationship in Early Medieval England and Ireland (c. AD 400–1250). PhD thesis, University of Southampton. https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/367062/ (accessed 3 January 2020).Google Scholar
Halsall, M., 1981. The Anglo-Saxon Rune Poem: A critical edition. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heaney, S. (trans.), 2000. Beowulf. New York: FSG.Google Scholar
Hedeager, L., 2011. Iron Age Myth and Materiality: An archaeology of Scandinavia AD 400–1000. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Helmbrecht, M., 2013. Figures, foils and faces – fragments of a pictorial world: anthropomorphic images from the Vendel Period and Viking Age found at Uppåkra, in Folk, fä och fynd [People, cattle and bargains], eds Hårdh, B. & Larsson, L.. (Uppåkrastudier 12.) Lund: Lunds universitet, Institutionen för arkeologi och antikens historia, 9–31.Google Scholar
Hicks, C., 1986. The birds on the Sutton Hoo purse. Anglo-Saxon England 15, 153–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hilgner, A. 2016. Die frühmittelalterliche »Schlangenkette« von Isenbüttel (Lkr. Gifhorn) und ihre angelsächsischen Vergleichsfunde [The Early Medieval snake chains of Isenbüttel and Anglo-Saxon comparisons]. Archäologisches Korrespondenzblatt 46(3), 399–419.Google Scholar
Hines, J., 2013. Religion and Anglo-Saxon burial practices, in Anglo-Saxon Graves and Grave Goods of the 6th and 7th Centuries AD: A chronological framework, eds Hines, J. & Bayliss, A.. (Society for Medieval Archaeology Monograph 33.) London: Routledge, 548–54.Google Scholar
Hines, J. & Bayliss, A. (eds), 2013. Anglo-Saxon Graves and Grave Goods of the 6th and 7th Centuries AD: A chronological framework. (Society for Medieval Archaeology Monograph 33.) London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hinton, D.A., 2005. Gold and Gilt, Pots and Pins: Possessions and people in medieval Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hirst, S. & Scull, C., 2019. The Anglo-Saxon Princely Burial at Prittlewell, Southend-on-Sea. London: Museum of London Archaeology.Google Scholar
Høilund Nielsen, K., 1999. Style II and the Anglo-Saxon elite, in The Making of Kingdoms, eds Dickinson, T. & Griffiths, D.. (Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History 10.) Oxford: Oxford University Committee for Archaeology, 185–202.Google Scholar
Høilund Nielsen, K., n.d. Style II and all that: the potential of the hoard for statistical study of chronology and geographical distributions, in Papers from the Staffordshire Hoard Symposium (2010), ed. Geake, H.. https://finds.org.uk/staffshoardsymposium/papers/karenhoilundnielsen (accessed 3 January 2020).Google Scholar
Holmes, M., 2014. Animals in Saxon and Scandinavian England: Backbones of economy and society. Leiden: Sidestone.Google Scholar
Jennbert, K., 2007. The mania of the time: falconry and bird brooches at Uppåkra and beyond, in On the Road: Studies in honour of Lars Larsson, eds Hårdh, B., Jennbert, K. & Olausson, D.. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 24–8.Google Scholar
Jennbert, K., 2011. Animals and Humans: Recurrent symbiosis in archaeology and old Norse religion. Lund: Nordic Academic Press.Google Scholar
Jennbert, K., 2018. Birds of Prey, Falconry and Bird Brooches in Iron Age Scandinavia. Paper presented in the session ‘Relating to Raptors: The Art of Human Engagements with Birds of Prey’ at the ‘Art, Materiality and Representation’ conference of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Department of Africa, Oceania and the Americas of the British Museum and the Department of Anthropology at SOAS, London, 1–3 June.Google Scholar
Karkov, C., 2011. The Art of Anglo-Saxon England. Woodbridge: Boydell.Google Scholar
Laing, G.L., 2014. Bound by Words: Oath-taking and Oath-breaking in Medieval lceland and Anglo-Saxon England. Doctoral dissertation, Western Michigan University.Google Scholar
Leahy, K. & Bland, R., 2009. The Staffordshire Hoard. London: British Museum.Google Scholar
Marzinzik, S., 2013. Masterpieces: Early medieval art. London: British Museum.Google Scholar
Mauss, M., [1925] 2016. The Gift: Expanded edition (trans. Guyer, J.I.). London/Chicago: Hau Books.Google Scholar
McLean, L., 2011. ESS-E396B1: A Early Medieval Finger Ring. https://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/record/id/476309 (accessed 3 January 2020).Google Scholar
McClure, J. & Collins, R. (eds), 2008. Bede: The Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Mellor, J.E.M., 1949. Notes on Falconry. Privately printed at Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Mirrington, A., 2013. Transformations of Identity and Society in Essex, c. AD 400–1066. PhD thesis, University of Nottingham. http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/13443/1/A.D.M._Ph.D._2013__Transformations_of_Identity_and_Society_in_Essex_c.AD_400-1066_Vol.I.pdf (accessed 3 January 2020).Google Scholar
MoLAS (Museum of London Archaeology Service), 2004. The Prittlewell Prince: The discovery of a rich Anglo-Saxon burial in Essex. London: MoLAS.Google Scholar
Nicolay, J., 2014. The Splendour of Power: Early medieval kingship and the use of gold and silver in the southern North Sea area (5th to 7th century). Eelde: Barkhuis.Google Scholar
North, J.J., 1980. English Hammered Coinage I: Early Anglo-Saxon to Henry III c. 600–1272. London: Spink & Son.Google Scholar
Oggins, R.S., 1984. Falconry in Anglo-Saxon England. Mediaevalia 7, 173–208.Google Scholar
Oggins, R.S., 2004. The Kings and their Hawks: Falconry in medieval England. New Haven/London: Yale University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ó Carragáin, É., 2006. At once elitist and popular: the audiences of the Bewcastle and Ruthwell crosses. Studies in Church History 42, 18–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parker Pearson, M., Van de Noort, R. & Woolf, A., 1993. Three men and a boat: Sutton Hoo and the East Saxon Kingdom. Anglo-Saxon England 22, 27–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pesch, A., 2012. Fallstricke und Glatteis: Die germanische Tierornamentik [Pitfalls and black ice: Germanic animal ornaments], in Altertumskunde – Altertumswissenschaft – Kulturwissenschaft: Perspektiven nach 40 Jahren Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde [Classical Studies – Cultural Studies: Perspectives on 40 years of encyclopedic German classical studies], ed. Bech, H.. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 633–87.Google Scholar
Pestell, T., 2012. Das Baldehildis-Siegel [The Baldehildis seal], in Königinnen der Merowinger: Adelsgräber aus den Kirchen von Köln, Saint-Denis, Chelles und Frankfurt am Main [Merovingian queens: noble graves from the churches of Cologne, Saint-Denis, Chelles and Frankfurt am Main], eds Wamers, E. & Périn, P.. Regensburg: Schnell & Steiner, 145–8.Google Scholar
Pluskowski, A., 2010. Animal magic, in Signals of Belief in Early England: Anglo-Saxon paganism revisited, eds Carver, M., Sanmark, A. & Semple, S.. Oxford: Oxbow, 103–27.Google Scholar
Poole, K., 2015. The contextual cat: human–animal relations and social meaning in Anglo-Saxon England. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 22(3), 857–82.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Price, N., 2010. Heathen songs and devil's games, in Signals of Belief in Early England: Anglo-Saxon paganism revisited, eds Carver, M., Sanmark, A. & Semple, S.. Oxford: Oxbow, xiii–xvi.Google Scholar
Prummel, W., 1997. Evidence of hawking (falconry) from bird and mammal bones. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 7, 333–8.3.0.CO;2-7>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salin, B. 1904. Die altgermanische Tierornamentik [Germanic animal ornament]. Stockholm/Berlin: Asher.Google Scholar
Schjødt, J.P., 2009. Diversity and its consequences for the study of Old Norse religion: what is it we are trying to reconstruct?, in Between Paganism and Christianity in the North, eds Słupecki, L. & Morawiec, J.. Rzeszow: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Rzeszowskiego, 9–22.Google Scholar
Schroer, S.A., 2015. On the Wing: Exploring Human-Bird Relationships in Falconry Practice. PhD thesis, University of Aberdeen.Google Scholar
Scull, C., 2011. Social transactions, gift exchange and power in the archaeology of the fifth to seventh centuries, in The Oxford Handbook of Anglo-Saxon Archaeology, ed. Hamerow, D.. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 848–64.Google Scholar
Sheppard, T., 1930. Bronze Age bracer from east Yorks, in Bronze Age Remains, ed. Sheppard, T.. (Hull Museum Publication 169.) Hull: Hull Museum, 71–2.Google Scholar
Speake, G., 1980. Anglo-Saxon Animal Art and its Germanic Background. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Sutherland, C.H.V., 1948. The Anglo-Saxon Gold Coinage in the Light of the Crondall Find. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Traherne, E., Richardson, I. & Lewis, M. (eds), 2013. Treasure Act Annual Report 2011. London: British Museum, Department of Britain, Europe and Prehistory. https://finds.org.uk/documents/treasurereports/2011.pdf (accessed 3 January 2020).Google Scholar
Wallace, L.V., 2018. The early history of falconry in China (2nd to 5th centuries AD) and the question of its origins, in Raptor and Human: Falconry and bird symbolism throughout the millennia on a global scale, eds Gersmann, K.-H. & Grimm, O.. Kiel/Hamburg: Wachholtz, 1847–63.Google Scholar
Wallis, R.J., 2014. Re-examining prehistoric stone ‘wrist-guards’ as evidence for falconry in later prehistoric Britain. Antiquity 88, 411–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wallis, R.J., 2017. ‘As the falcon her bells’ at Sutton Hoo? Falconry in early Anglo-Saxon England. Archaeological Journal 174(2), 409–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wamers, E., 2009. Behind animals, plants and interlace: Salin's Style II on Christian objects, in Anglo-Saxon/Irish Relations before the Vikings, eds Graham-Campbell, J. & Ryan, M.. (Proceedings of the British Academy 157.) Oxford: Oxford University Press, 151–204.Google Scholar
Webster, L., 2002. Carlton Colville, Suffolk: Anglo-Saxon part-gilded silver pendant figure, in Treasure Annual Report 2000, eds Bland, R. & Voden-Decker, L.. London: DCMS, 45–6.Google Scholar
Webster, L., 2011. The Prittlewell (Essex) burial: a comparison with other Anglo-Saxon princely graves, in Transformations in North-Western Europe (AD 300–1000): Proceedings of the 60th Sachsensymposion, 19–23 September 2009 Maastricht, ed. Panhuysen, T.A.S.M.. Hanover: BWH GmbH, 266–72.Google Scholar
Webster, L., 2012a. Anglo-Saxon Art. London: British Museum.Google Scholar
Webster, L., 2012b. The Franks Casket. London: British Museum.Google Scholar
Wingfield, C., 2015. Saffron Walden Museum gold finger ring from the time of the early Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. Essex Heritage News (Spring): 1.Google Scholar
Woodward, A. & Hunter, J., 2011. An Examination of Prehistoric Stone Bracers from Britain. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Yorke, B., 1990. Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England. London: Routledge.Google Scholar