KNIGHTS AND WARDERS National Museums Scotland knight from left and right sides (NMS 27).
WARDERS National Museums Scotland warders (NMS 29, berserker, left and NMS 28 warder, right).
The knights [Figs 8.a, b] and warders [Fig. 9] seem mostly to be bearded and wear protective coats, divided at front and back for ease in moving and especially for sitting astride a horse. They probably represent originals of hide or leather. Three warders are represented as having hauberks (mail coats), two of them with coifs (hoods), but otherwise head-gear consists mostly of helmets or else kettle-hats. The helmets are conical, many with protective flaps for the ears and back of the neck. Some of the kettle-hats are like twentieth-century bowler hats, but two have a distinctive carinated (keel-like, with a horizontal ridge) outline. They are all provided with large kite-shaped shields, many of which have geometric designs, especially of crosses. Three of the warders are carved biting the top of their shields. The knights all have spears and the warders drawn swords. The knights’ horses, in appearance and relative proportions, look – presumably misleadingly – like present-day Shetland ponies.
PAWNS Drawings of the 10 pawns in Frederic Madden’s paper in Archaeologia: or Miscellaneous Tracts relating to Antiquity. (Source: Society of Antiquaries of London, vol. xxiv, 1832)
The pawns [see Fig 4.60] are either slab-like or bullet-shaped and faceted. Two of them have engraved decoration.
Why Twelfth-century Scandinavian?
FROM the outset there have been no serious doubts about the Scandinavian origin of the Lewis chessmen. They are mostly made of walrus ivory and that tends to favour a northern European origin rather than one further south, although, undoubtedly, uncarved walrus tusks could readily have been traded for use by craftsmen in centres far away from the seas around Iceland and Greenland where the animals thrived. Useful comparisons have been made between the carving on the thrones occupied by kings, queens and bishops and other ivory carvings with a Scandinavian provenance, with the wood carvings of Norwegian stave churches, and with architectural sculpture in Trondheim Cathedral in Norway – all material datable to the twelfth century. Two other ivory chessmen are known from Scandinavia which are so similar to the Lewis chessmen that they could have come from the same workshop at the same time. One is a knight from Lund in Sweden (in Kulturen, Lund), and the other (now lost) is a queen from Trondheim. Both are fragmentary.
None of this provides proof of a Scandinavian origin, and it has to be said that much of the art and culture of twelfth-century Europe, and clothing and equipment, was truly international, extending from Norway and even Greenland and Iceland, to Sicily and the Crusader states in the Holy Land. There is one feature of the Lewis chessmen, however, which is difficult to believe could have originated anywhere else but the Scandinavian world, and that is the warders shown biting their shields [Fig. 4.49 (see Fig. 9 and image opposite) and Figs 4.57-59]. This is believed to indicate that these men were berserkers, warriors who fought in an uncontrollable fury, possibly trance induced. Berserkers are said to have fought naked, but it is possible that the carvers of the Lewis chessmen, in showing their warders gnashing their teeth, were deliberately poking fun at some of their contemporaries. The idea is solely Scandinavian and it is doubtful if warriors elsewhere would have chosen to be represented in this way.
In terms of dating, a key consideration is the form of the mitres worn by the bishops. These have peaks or horns, front and back, as mitres worn ever since. It is known that prior to about 1150, bishops wore their mitres with the peaks to the sides. A date about the third quarter of the twelfth century is now generally suggested for the chessmen, and no scholars have dated them any later than the twelfth century. One reason for this is the lack of obvious heraldry on the shields of the knights and warriors. Heraldic designs, as badges of individuals and families, were appearing before the end of the twelfth century.
How Lewis?
FOR many, Lewis is a remote part of the British Isles, off the beaten track and with a landscape of moors and bogs that does not support a large population. Uig Strand, a desolate, wind-swept area of sand dunes, is just the place that a treasure would be buried, especially if it had come by sea. It is perhaps not surprising that those art historians who have studied the chessmen have assumed that their Lewis provenance was largely accidental. How else could the presence of such fine works of art be explained in such a place? The story of the run-away sailor murdered by the Red Gillie was difficult to swallow. It was much more likely that the hoard belonged to a merchant who was sailing from Scandinavia to markets further south in Ireland or England. Perhaps he was shipwrecked and had to bury his stock as best he could until he could come back and recover it. He may also have hoped to hide the fact that he had landed goods so that he could escape paying hefty tolls to local officials of the King of the Isles. This is what happened to another merchant ship, blown off-course in 1202 and forced to land on Sanday, next to Canna in the Inner Hebrides, as reported by a passenger, Gudmund, bishop-elect of Holar. Whatever the particular circumstances, the person who buried the hoard must have intended rescuing it again and taking it off to somewhere where fine chessmen could be appreciated. Some other disaster must have prevented this happening.
While this reconstruction of events is plausible, it is by no means the only one. It also pays scant regard to Lewis and what sort of place it was at the time the chessmen were made. In many ways that is the key to gaining a fuller understanding of the hoard.
Lewis and the Kingdom of the Isles
FROM the end of the eighth century many parts of the British Isles were subjected to raids by the Vikings, pirates from Scandinavia. In the case of the Western Isles of Scotland these men came from Norway, and by the mid-ninth century many of them were settling down. Local Gaelic-speaking populations were removed, slaughtered or at least suppressed, and the islands became part of a wider Scandinavian world with strong links being maintained with the Norwegian homeland.
Archaeological evidence suggests that the main centre of occupation in Lewis by early Scandinavian settlers was in the parish of Uig. At Cnip Headland there is a pagan Viking cemetery which is the largest known concentration of such burials in the Hebrides. Included is the burial of a wealthy female, with another such interment nearby at Bhaltos School. There is reason to think that the parish of Uig continued to be a relatively important area through the medieval period. The Macaulays, who claimed descent from King Olaf of the Isles (ruled 1226-37), are said, at least by about 1400, to have had their main residence at Chradhlastadh (Crowlista), looking south across Camas Uig to Uig Strand. The main Lewis-based family in the medieval period – the MacLeods – are said to have had a residence on the island of Beàrnaraigh (Great Bernera).
Much of what we know about events in the Isles in medieval times is derived from The Chronicles of the Kings of Man and the Isles, seemingly written on the Isle of Man. They tell us that in 1079 Godred Crovan established himself as King of the Isles, and the kings descended from him continued to rule over the Isles until the 1260s. The kingdom included all the Hebrides and the Isle of Man where the kings were based. As time went on, it is clear that Gaelic culture and language re-emerged, so that by the twelfth century the kingdom was a hybrid Norse-Gaelic state. Its kings recognised the overlordship of the Kings of Norway: Kings of the Isles and other local leaders were required to go to the royal court in Norway and Norwegian kings intervened directly in the affairs of the Isles. In 1152, or the following year, the Archbishopric of Nidaros (Trondheim) was created and the new archbishops were given power over the bishops of the Isles, who had authority over all the churches in the kingdom of the Isles. The Hebrides only reverted to Scottish rule by the treaty of Perth in 1266, but the archbishops of Nidaros continued to exercise their power there for some time afterwards.
The authority of the kings descended from Godred Crovan was by no means unchallenged, especially from the mid-twelfth century by a local prince, Somerled, and his descendants, includ
ing the MacRuaris, the MacDougalls and the MacDonalds. Somerled defeated King Godred Olafsson in a sea-battle in 1156 and soon afterwards claimed kingship over the Isles. Although Godred reclaimed his kingdom after the death of Somerled in 1164, he and his successors were to find the MacSorleys (Somerled’s descendants) troublesome subjects or rivals. In 1249 it appears that King Hakon of Norway was obliged to recognise Ewen (MacDougall) as king over the northern part of the Hebrides. This was an acknowledgement that there was no longer a unitary kingdom of the Isles and that the kings based in the Isle of Man were unable to control other islands. Ewen’s territory is not defined and may only have included Skye and Lewis, although he would already have held the Mull group of islands by inheritance. As Ewen was a subject of the King of Scots for mainland territories, he immediately came under pressure from King Alexander II to give up his Norwegian allegiance. He was forced to flee to Lewis, and his position as King of the Isles was assumed by his main MacSorley rival, Dugald (MacRuari), who remained the main power in the Hebrides, from a Norwegian perspective, until the 1260s.
There is little information on Lewis itself in this period. The Viking activities of the Orkney nobleman Sveinn Asleifarson, in the middle of the twelfth century, suggest that Lewis, where he had a friend called Ljotolf, was a good base for himself and his brother Gunni when the latter was forced into exile by Earl Harald of Orkney. Perhaps at that time Lewis was neither under the firm hand of Godred Olafsson nor Sveinn’s friend Somerled.
Godred Olafsson appointed his son Olaf as his successor, but since he was only a boy at the time of Godred’s death in 1187 the Manx people chose his elder half-brother Rognvald as king. Rognvald gave Lewis to Olaf. Olaf found that the island was unable to sustain himself and his army and he therefore came to his brother, who was then in the Isles, and asked him for some better portion of lands. Rognvald, after promising to take counsel with his own men, had Olaf bound in chains and handed him over to be imprisoned by William King of Scotland. Immediately prior to his death seven years later (in 1214), William ordered the release of all his prisoners, including Olaf. Olaf returned to his brother Rognvald in Man and shortly afterwards went with a retinue of nobles to visit the shrine of St James (at Compostella). On his return, Rognvald had Olaf marry Lauon, his own wife’s sister. He granted him Lewis and the newly married pair went off to settle there. There are no clues as to why the King of Scots should have wished to imprison Olaf or, perhaps a related matter, why Olaf sought the intercession of St James for his sins.
Perhaps Lewis was in the sway of the MacSorleys and Olaf was intended to bring it back to the allegiance of his brother. Hence the need for an army, and, it should be noted, Rognvald was also in the Isles at that time, very probably also campaigning to regain territory. But if Lewis was peaceful on Olaf’s return to it, his own life there was to be drastically upset a few days later on the arrival of his uncle, Bishop Rognvald of the Isles, to undertake a visitation of the island’s churches. The bishop refused to join Olaf in the great banquet prepared in his honour, on the grounds that Olaf’s marriage to Lauon was illicit in the eyes of the Church. This was because Olaf had previously kept Lauon’s cousin as a concubine.
The bishop proceeded to hold a synod at which the wedding was annulled. Since Olaf married a daughter of the powerful Earl of Ross soon afterwards, we may wonder if Olaf really was a passive, unwitting victim of the bishop’s censure. Certainly Lauon’s sister, the queen, was furious and sought to get her revenge on Olaf. She ordered her husband’s son Godred to kill Olaf, who was obliged to flee Lewis in 1223. Nevertheless, Olaf recovered his position, forcing King Rognvald to split his kingdom with him, and succeeding him as king in 1226.
Olaf did not enjoy peaceable control of all his kingdom for very long. In 1230 he divided his kingdom with his nephew Godred Don. Olaf kept Man, while Godred Don got the Isles (unspecified). It is clear that some of the Isles at that time were held by the MacSorleys, possibly including Lewis. Godred Don was killed soon afterwards in Lewis, perhaps attempting to regain it for himself. In 1231 a Norwegian army, returning home from aiding Olaf, also went to Lewis. What it achieved there is not known, except that it forced Tormod son of Torquil to flee, and captured his wife along with a great treasure that belonged to her husband. Tormod was the ancestor of the MacLeods of Lewis.
13. KILMICHAEL GLASSARY BELL SHRINE This bronze reliquary (NMS H.KA 5) was made in the 12th century to contain the bell of an early saint.
The Lewis Chessmen in Lewis
SUPPOSING the hoard was not abandoned accidentally by a merchant on his way elsewhere, then the story of the brothers Rognvald and Olaf, and all the events we have just outlined, are of considerable importance in understanding the hoard. Although the documentary sources are meagre, they do demonstrate that Lewis was home to some important individuals – men who might well have owned chessmen as prestigious and valuable as those now in National Museums Scotland and the British Museum. This was obviously the case with Olaf, who would presumably have maintained a princely lifestyle while based on Lewis. Some scholars believe that Rognvald, by giving him that island, was effectively recognising him as his sub-king or viceroy.
Then there is Bishop Rognvald, himself a member of the Manx royal family, and his immediate predecessors and successors as bishop. They should have gone to Trondheim for consecration and for other church business. Rognvald very probably did. Might an archbishop, keen to impress and win the loyalty of his bishop in the Isles, have given such a present?
And what about Tormod? His great treasure was presumably not the Lewis chessmen since it was carried off by the Norwegian army, but it is noteworthy that there were treasures to be had on the island.
A MacSorley cannot be dismissed as a possible owner. Some of them were great warriors, holders of extensive lands, and were recognised as kings. One in particular is worth considering here, and that is Angus Mor, a great grandson of Somerled, whose main centre of power was the island of Islay. A praise poem written in his honour in the mid-thirteenth century describes how he inherited his ivory chessmen from his father Donald. It also describes him as King of Lewis – flattery yes, but Angus was clearly a big man in the world of the Isles, Scotland and Ireland. As son of Donald he was the first MacDonald, and also one of the commanders of the invasion fleet which King Hakon used to threaten Scotland in 1263.
Excavations directed by Dr David Caldwell at Finlaggan on the Isle of Islay, probably Angus Mor’s main home, produced no chessmen but many tables-men – three of bone and about fifty of stone – probably all of later date than Angus. It is not without interest, however, to note that Angus’ praise poem also records how his father Donald left him his dog leashes and hounds. The bronze mounts from two dog collars were found in midden material dating to the 13th century. They include two fine quality swivel attachments with dragonesque heads [Fig. 11].
Great men like these did not lead a sedentary life, but moved from house to house, went campaigning and visiting their lands, tenants, churches and clergy. It is possible that one such as these would have hidden or secured their chessmen in an underground chamber, no doubt adjacent to a favoured residence, until their return from a voyage.
The Lewis chessmen are not the only items from parts of modern-day Scotland that demonstrate the ongoing Scandinavian heritage in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. An enamelled copper plaque with an image of Christ has been recovered from a grave in Teampull Bhuirgh (Castle Chapel) at Borve, Benbecula, in the Outer Hebrides [Fig. 12]. It would originally have decorated the reverse of a large crucifix, but seems to have been reused, probably as a morse or clasp to fasten the cope of a cleric. It is believed to be Scandinavian work of the mid-thirteenth century.
A superb, copper alloy bell-shrine from Kilmichael Glassary in mainland Argyll demonstrates the fusion between Scandinavian and Gaelic culture in the twelfth century [Fig. 13]. In many of its details, and in conception as a receptacle for a relic of a local saint, it is a ‘Celtic’ work. The figure of Chr
ist in the Crucifixion on the front of the shrine, and the background scrollwork, are Scandinavian in style. It could really only have been produced in Argyll or the Western Isles.
11. A DOG COLLAR MOUNT From Finlaggan.
12. ENAMELLED COPPER PLAQUE Enamelled plaque (NMS H.KE 18) with an image of Christ, from Teampull Bhuirgh, Borve. Scandinavian, mid-13th century.
Analysing the Chessmen
IMAGINING that the Lewis chessmen belonged to someone in Lewis opens up all sorts of other possibilities. A belief that the hoard was a merchant’s stock implied that the chessmen were brand new when lost, and all from the same source. If the hoard belonged to a great man, then the pieces may have been of some age when buried and might be from more than one source. They might not all be the same date, and include pieces which are substitutes for ones lost or broken. A recent research project by the authors has considered these very issues.
So far no evidence for wear and tear on the pieces, consistent with them being used in gaming, has been detected. This is not surprising. Walrus ivory is a very tough substance and it would arguably take constant playing over many years for such wear to be observable.
Differences in the pieces resulting from the work of different craftsmen and workshops appears a much easier thing to trace, although there are obvious problems in trying to compare, say, a bishop with a warder, since they both have different clothing and equipment. This is why it is important to concentrate on the faces. The authors supposed that craftsmen carving chessmen, day in and day out, would tend to give them the same faces, in the same way as a cartoonist nowadays, or the carver of holiday souvenirs. Grouping the face-pieces by their faces would clearly be a very subjective business if we relied solely on a visual examination. Instead, we have employed Caroline Wilkinson’s skills as a forensic anthropologist to make a comparative study, assessing and comparing each face with the aid of magnification and measurements. The aim was to characterise and describe the different faces, sorting them into groups, principally by checking the proportions of mouths, noses and eyes, both vertically and horizontally.
The Lewis Chessmen Page 2