Barbarians- Secrets of the Dark Ages
Page 1
Barbarians
Secrets of the Dark
Ages
Richard Rudgley
Copyright © 2002, Richard Rudgley
RICHARD FREDERICK RUDGLEY
1931-2002
When we compare the present life of man on earth with that time of which we have no knowledge, it seems to me like the swift flight of a single sparrow through the banqueting-hall where you are sitting at dinner on a winter's day with your thegns and counsellors. In the midst there is a comforting fire to warm the hall; outside, the storms of winter rain or snow are raging. This sparrow flies swiftly in through one door of the hall, and out through another. While he is inside, he is safe from the winter storms; but after a few moments of comfort, he vanishes from sight into the wintry world from which he came. Even so, man appears on earth for a little while; but of what went before this life or of what follows, we know nothing.
Bede
A son is better
though late begotten
of an old and ailing father.
Only your kin
will proudly carve
a memorial at the main gate.
Hávamál
(The Sayings of the High One)
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank all the people whom I met on my journey through Britain and elsewhere in Europe in search of more tangible links with the past than books alone could provide, particularly: Lindsay Allason-Jones on Hadrian's Wall; members of Angelcynn, especially Colin and Ben Levick; Richard Bailey on Lindisfarne; Alan Baxter, manager of West Stow Anglo-Saxon Village; Dan Carlsson for a fascinating tour of Gotland; Joanna Caruth of the Suffolk Archaeological Unit at Lakenheath; Martin Carver, excavator of Sutton Hoo; the swordsmith Hector Cole; Richard Darrah on Anglo-Saxon woodworking skills; Angela Evans, curator at the British Museum; Manuela Farneti at the beautiful church of Sant' Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna; Michael Gebühr on the Nydam boat in Schleswig; Sauro Gelichi at the mausoleum of Theoderic; Edwin and Joyce Gifford for having me on board the Sæ Wylfing; Catherine Hills on the Anglo-Saxons; Olaf Höckmann in Mainz; horse archer Kassai Lajos in Kaposmero, Hungary; Lola Luque for help in Cordoba; Sergeant McHale for escorting me round RAF Lakenheath; Soren Nielsen at Roskilde Viking Ship Museum, Denmark; Knut Paasche, curator of the Viking Ship Museum, Oslo; Ricardo Perezsbrino, surgeon in Cordoba; Dominic Powlesland at West Heslerton; Julio Samso on Islamic science in Spain; Jorn Schuster, curator at the Burg Bederkesa Museum; Laura Sole at Bede's World, Jarrow; Jonas Ström for showing me the Krampmacken in Gotland; Janos Tari, for interpreting for Peter Tomka in Hungary, and Tomka himself; Maria Teschler-Nicola and Karin Wiltschke-Schrotta of the Naturhistorisches Museum, Vienna; Brunetta Zavatti (see photo), for her mosaic making; Karoline Zhuber-Okrog and Elisabeth Reicher of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.
I would also like to thank all those people who worked with me on the Granada Media television series Secrets of the Dark Ages made for Channel 4: Mark Atkinson, Mark Elliot, Alex Horsfall, Birgitte Johnson, Bill Jones, Faith Lawrence, Paul Lord, Roger Lucas, Chris Malone, Liz McLeod, Alison Neslany, Tim Pollard, Karen Stockton, Graham Veevers and David Wason. At Channel 4 Books: Charlie Carman and my long-suffering editor Gillian Christie – the support and understanding of both has been greatly appreciated; Christine King, my text editor; and my agent, Andrew Lownie.
Thanks to Benedict for help with references concerning Gotland; to my mother-in-law Dorothy for her invaluable support during the last stages of the writing of this book; to Bernadete for her much appreciated help; and to my dear wife Robin for her fortitude in difficult circumstances.
The dedication is to the memory of my father, who died during the writing of this book.
CONTENTS
Introduction: Barbarian Times
PART ONE: ROMAN TWILIGHT
1All Roads Lead to Rome?
2The Edge of Empire
3Wanderlust and Goldlust
4The Goths: A Roman Horror Story
5Shadow Emperor
6The Hell's Angels of History
7On the Centaur's Trail
PART TWO: SHADOWS ON THE LAND
8The Barbarian Hydra
9Dwellers in the Marsh
10Germania Rules the Waves
11The Land of Two Dragons
12Reconstructing the Anglo-Saxons
13The Legacy of a Language
14The Burials of Sutton Hoo
15Treasures of a Warrior King
16Last Rites of a Pagan World
PART THREE: NORTHERN LIGHTS
17The Twin Monasteries
18Holy Island
19Vikings: Pirates and Poets
20Warships and Pleasure Yachts
21Gotland: A Barbarian Bank
22North Atlantic Colonies
23Ragnarok: End of the Viking World
Afterword
Introduction
BARBARIAN TIMES
The very word 'barbarian' conjures up images of violence, savagery and contempt for learning and the world of books – so to try to put across the barbarian viewpoint in a book is rather ironic. Yet the word also evokes heroism and drama, however tainted by blood and destruction. So what were the barbarians really like? Were they truly as bad as their reputation suggests, or did they have genuine cultures and subtle beliefs of their own? Was their era simply a black mark in the history of humanity, or did they actually contribute a legacy of lasting significance? In fact, just who were the barbarians? Where did they come from? What was the driving force behind their restless migrations, their conflicts with each other and with Rome? Who were their warriors, their diplomats and their leaders?
These are among the questions that are raised in this book. History should never be written in black and white, but always in shades of grey. We must guard against the temptation to portray the 'civilised' Romans as pure as driven snow and the barbarians as the harbingers of darkness and ignorance. There are two sides to every story, yet the barbarian version of events is barely known. This book is an attempt to turn the tables and catch a glimpse of what those times might have meant to the barbarians themselves.
The era of history that Barbarians deals with is sometimes called by the neutral name of the Early Medieval Period (the Early Middle Ages), from AD 300 to 1000 – beginning with the decline and fall of the western Roman empire and ending with the coming of a new millennium. In England, part of this period (or sometimes even the whole period) has often been called the Dark Ages, an era little known and little understood, whose very name embodies this obscurity.
The term 'Dark Ages' is a loaded one that can be read in two ways. Firstly, it is seen as dark in the sense that there are few written records to illuminate the period, compared with those before and after it – and writing is understood to be a marker of civilisation. Secondly, the Dark Ages have been portrayed by conventional history as a time of moral, cultural and social decay, precipitated by the collapse of Rome and, therefore, civilisation itself. We are led to believe that the torch of civilisation flickered only in the monasteries that dotted the landscape of a Europe engulfed in the darkness of barbarism. While this period of our history may well have been dark in the first sense, it is wrong to accept the second interpretation without greatly qualifying it. The period should not simply be stereotyped as one of cultural backsliding and ignorance, a yawning chasm between the fall of Rome and the domination of Europe by Christianity.
Many historians prefer not to talk about the Dark Ages at all, and use different terms to describe this period. In Germany it is known as the Age of Migration, or time of Volkerwanderung (wandering peoples), in recognition of the fact that this was a period of gre
at upheaval and change in the make-up of the ethnic map of the continent.
The Barbarian Peoples
In this mysterious and complex period of our past, there were a great many barbarian tribes competing for power and land on the European stage. Some of them were destined to disappear or dissolve into the ethnic mix that characterised the continent at the time. The names of others, such as the Franks, the Angles, the Lombards and the Saxons, survive to this day on the maps of Europe: in France, England, Lombardy and Saxony. Most of the names of these past peoples (or ethnonyms as they are sometimes called) appear only here and there in the ancient records: the Alamanni, the Alans, the Avars, the Gutones, the Tervingi, the Heruli, the Antes, the Rugians, the Suevi, the Scirians and the Gepids were among those who were either swallowed up by other ethnic groups or simply played too minor a role in the great political machinations of the time to merit further attention from the chroniclers.
It would be a mistake to clump all the barbarian tribes together as one homogeneous entity; they each had their individual identity. For the purposes of this book, they can be broadly divided into Celtic peoples, Germanic peoples, a number of Iranian tribes and the Huns.
The Celts emerged during the second millennium BC, long before our story begins. They were once a major power in continental Europe but Roman conquest of their territories (and Germanic expansion) had drastically reduced their influence by the first century BC. Pushed out of central Europe, they tried to hold on to the region of Gaul, the old name given to most of France, Belgium, the Netherlands and neighbouring regions, and after which the Celtic inhabitants of this area were called. Under the leadership of their commander Vercingetorix, the Gauls fought hard against the forces of Julius Caesar but could not maintain their independence. Gaul became a Roman province, and Celtic autonomy on the mainland was now a thing of the past. The Britons with whom the Romans came into contact were Celtic peoples who had already established themselves in Britain from as early as the fifth century BC. Before the Roman domination of western Europe, the Britons had established many trading links and cultural exchanges with the continental Celts. In Ireland, too, Celts kept their cultural traditions alive and, to a large extent, independent of Roman influence. The Celtic people spoke (and still speak) languages that belong to a distinct group. The Celtic languages that have survived into modern times are Welsh, Cornish, Breton, Manx, Scots Gaelic and Irish.
The barbarian peoples speaking Germanic languages can be conveniently divided into three broad groups: eastern, western and northern. It must be said that this is a division of their languages rather than strictly a reflection of their geographical location. The eastern peoples included the Goths (who split into two groups, the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths), the Vandals, the Gepids and the Burgundians. Although their origins were in the eastern part of the continent, it must be remembered that the Dark Ages were a time of great migrations, and many tribes ended up settling in western and southern Europe. All these peoples subsequently merged with other ethnic groups, and no longer exist as separate entities. Similarly, none of their languages survive as living tongues. Some historians prefer to describe the East Germanic peoples as simply Gothic peoples; I refer to each people by their name rather than by either of these group terms – although these bigger entities can be useful in attempting to understand the bigger picture.
The West Germanic peoples consisted of numerous tribal groupings, among them the Franks, Angles, Saxons, Alamanni and Frisians. The modern languages that belong to the West Germanic branch include English, German and Dutch. The North Germanic group were the Scandinavians: the Vikings or Norsemen. The Scandinavian languages of today – Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic and Faroese (but not Finnish) – belong to this branch.
All the Celtic, Germanic and Italic tongues, including Latin, are branches of the great Indo-European language family; another branch is that of the Iranian-speaking peoples, who lived over a much larger region in antiquity than the present borders of Iran. A few of these tribes (such as the Alans and the Sarmatians) ventured westwards into Europe, where they came into contact with the Romans, the Germanic peoples and the Huns. The Huns were a nomadic people who inhabited the vast steppe lands that stretch from Mongolia in the east to the Black Sea in the west. During the Dark Ages, they also moved westwards into Europe and became a major force in the political landscape of the time. Both their language and their culture were very different to those of the European barbarians.
Historical Sources and Propaganda
The dual influences of classical education and Christian beliefs have moulded much of the world view of the European peoples. It follows that our view of our own history is formed by these two pillars of western society. Almost all the historical information we have about the Dark Ages comes from the written records of classical and Christian authors. The barbarians did not, as a rule, read or write and so speak only through the filter of Rome or Christendom. The glories of Roman civilisation speak for themselves through the architectural splendours that adorn the European continent – and if they did not speak volumes enough, then the writings of a thousand Roman authors remain to recount their story in their own words. But what of the story of the barbarians?
It is misleading to accept classical and, later, Christian sources at face value. Any attempt to equate these 'civilised' views with the plain truth would be an error. The barbarians and pagans had their own side to the story and it is this that needs telling alongside the traditional account. The archetypal image of the barbarian as savage, violent and ignorant is only a one-dimensional caricature: good political propaganda but very poor history. Even the most infamous barbarian of them all, Attila the Hun, will be shown to be a far more sophisticated and rational being than his role as the 'Scourge of God' suggests.
The Romans inherited the snobbish attitudes of the Greeks towards their ruder neighbours, trading partners and enemies – the word 'barbarian' derives from the Greek and was thought to best describe the bar bar sounds of 'savage' languages. This superior attitude to lesser beings is tellingly echoed in more recent times, as the great European powers of the nineteenth century carved out their colonial empires. The beginnings of modern anthropology are intimately intertwined with colonialism: the subject peoples and 'untamed' tribes needed to be studied in order to control them better, and their languages learnt where possible to communicate with them. This is not to say that the only interest was merely to exploit this knowledge, but it was certainly useful to the colonial powers.
Returning to the times of Greeks and Romans, it is clear that they laid the foundations for this anthropological science. Their writers did not just record history; they also sought, in their own way, to give an anthropological account of the other peoples that they came into contact with. They too needed to have some understanding of the other cultures that surrounded them; they too saw themselves as superior, with a mission to rule and civilise. The prejudices concerning the 'natives' of the British and other colonial dominions clearly echo those of the Greeks and Romans. These prejudices took many forms, but there were always a few underlying themes. The basic fact that the barbarians were not ruled over by a stable system of kingship but by a shifting series of chiefs and temporary tribal alliances made them primitive and unpredictable in Roman eyes. Their lack of writing – and therefore the fact they did not abide by a written body of law – was also seen as a sign of their cultural backwardness.
Yet neither their forms of government nor their lack of written laws meant that barbarian societies were anarchic. Societies that rely on oral tradition are perfectly capable of administering themselves and are just as likely to maintain law and order as any more 'advanced' society. The succession to power of chiefs was likewise no more unpredictable than the rise and fall of kings and emperors. Even a cursory look at Roman history makes it clear that the empire suffered as many power struggles and unexpected changes in leadership as the barbarians experienced in their own societies. To give but one exa
mple, only two emperors in the whole of the third century were fortunate enough to die from natural causes!
Another recurrent theme of Roman anthropology is that barbarians could not control their appetites – their insatiable desire for food, drink, sex and gold. (Though the Romans, with their notoriously extravagant banquets and rapacious use of the wealth and manpower of their subject peoples, were hardly in a position to preach.) Not surprisingly, the Romans were also contemptuous of barbarian religion. It was hardly considered religious at all, but simply a confused mass of superstitious practices that the barbarians themselves barely understood. This kind of attitude is later echoed by many European accounts of the native peoples of Africa. Implicit in both accounts is the underlying belief that the Imperial powers are superior, and that the subject peoples or unconquered 'savage' tribes live an inferior material and spiritual life. It is, of course, now understood that the traditional African societies have their own religious life and are not simply ruled by mindless superstition. The same was true of the European barbarian tribes; it was simply that the arrogance of the Romans blinded them to this fact.
The other main prejudice voiced by the Romans about the barbarians was that they were unable to make rational decisions and were prone to act in inexplicable ways. All these accusations – lack of law, stable government, self-control, religious belief and rationality – were down to the fact that the Romans simply did not understand the inner workings of the barbarian cultures they came into contact with. True, they often knew enough to control them, trade with them and negotiate with them, but beyond that their own sense of cultural superiority meant that they overlooked the subtlety and complexity of barbarian life. Although the word 'barbarian' still conjures up many of these prejudices even today, I shall use the term without resorting to inverted commas every time. It will soon become apparent that I do not use it in a disparaging way.