The Franks or Auzon Casket is an 8th century Anglo-saxon casket of probably Northmbrian origin. Its is a whalebone casket completely decorated on its 4 sides and the lid with runic inscriptions as well as images which portray both Christian and Pagan stories. The casket is about 23cmx 19cm x 11cm ins size. Its age has been deduced from the language used on the script that accompanies the illustrations. These are Latin as well as old English and the Futhorc runic script.

The panels that make up the casket were donated by a Sir Augusts Wollaston Franks to the British Museum in 1867. He was an antiquarian and a collector and considered one of the great Victorian collectors whose finds benefited the British Museum. Franks himself found the panels in an antique shop in Paris in 1857.

We know virtually nothing about the origins of the casket. It is believed to have probably been made in a monastery in Northumbria in the 8th century. What then happened to it is a mystery but it probably belonged to a church at some point before being looted in the French Revolution. It eventually turns up in the possession of a family in Auzon in the upper Loire which is why it is sometimes called the Auzon casket. It is thought it had been used as a sewing basket for some time. The casket was originally held together by hinges of silver which have been lost or sold as have the lock and some of the lid panels which may also have been silver. Without these the box was just loose panels.  These turned up (minus one side panel) in an antique shop in Paris which is where Franks found them.

The missing panel was found in 1890 by the Auzon family who then sold it to a museum in Florence.

Thus the casket on display in the British Library consists of the 3 of the original panels, what is left of the lid and a cast of the missing panel.

The front panel of the Franks casket shows two legends. On the left is the pagan Germanic myth of Wayland the Smith. Elements that can be made out include Wayland aparently crippled by his captor king Niohad working in the forge. At his feet is the body of the king’s son who Wayland kills. On the right Wayland captures birds whose feathers he uses to escape.

On the right is the Christian story of the Adoration of the Magi. Three kings/wisemen can be seen bearing gifts approaching the stable wherein a manger can be recognised and overhead a star is  visible

The writing around the edge is a riddle about whale bone from which the casket is made.

The flood cast up the fish on the mountain-cliff

The terror-king became sad where he swam on the shingle.

Whale’s bone.

The rear panel of the Franks casket shows the capure of Jerusalem by the Romans under Titus in AD 70. This event occured as part of the Roman-Jewish wars that followed an uprising by the Jews against Roman rule and eventually ends with destruction of their Temple. Why the panel shows this scene is unknown.

 

The left side panel of the  casket portrays the legend of Romulus and Remus and the she wolf. In the centre we can see the two boys being suckled by the she-wolf. She also is seen at the top protecting them from a hunting party. The text translates as:

Romulus and Remus, two brothers, a she-wolf nourished them in Rome, far from their native land.

Romulus and Remus go on to found Rome. There are paralells with Hengist and Horsa who found the first Anglo-Saxon kingdom in Kent. Thus it is thought by some that this scene is saying something about the destiny of the Anglo-Saxon invaders ruling Britain.

The right side panel of the  Franks casket is the most confusing.  At the far left a animal figure sits on a small hill or mound, and is approached by a warrior. In the centre is a horse and another figures. Finally on the right are three figures. Two of them seem to be holding the third captive. The text has never been entirely understood. It has elements that say something like:

Here sits Hos on/in the hill/barrow. She suffers distress as ??Ertae had imposed it upon her.  A wretched den of sorrows and torments… wood/rushes.

Theories abound about this image. One idea is that this might be be a reference to the death of Horsa (often associated with the horse image), the brother of Hengist. He died in battle with the British. Is the text a reference to his mother mourning him? Is that warrior we can see his brother visiting his grave?

Other ideas  are that ii is a now lost Pagan tale, others that it refers to Satan and hell.

We probably will never know.

Most of the lid of the Franks casket is missing. It is believed that panels of perhaps silver laid here above and below the remains. What is left is thought to show another Pagan legend. Again there are arguments as to what is protrayed. The only word visible is Egil.  So many believe that this time it shows an archer, Aegil brother of Wayland the Smith defending a fortress from an attacking horde of giants (shown on the left). Other ideas is that Egil refers to Achilles in which case is this the scene where Achilles is shot by an arrow in his heel? If so this could be the fall of Troy which fits in which the panel showing Romulus and Remus who, exiled from Troy, go onto found Rome.

The Franks casket is a remarkable object. We may never know its full story – niether what happened to it in those missing centuries or exactly what it all means but if you are ever in the British Museum be sure to visit the Anglo-Saxon room as it and many other wonders are on display there.

News about my books

I am currently working on the 5th Northern Crown book which continues the story of Cerdic and his brother Hussa whose rivalry mirrors that between the Kingdoms of Bernicia and Deira over the destiny of one of the greatest of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms: Northumbria. It was that land at the height of its power in the 7th to 8th Century that led to a treasures like the Franks Chest and was home to Bede and the site of the important Synod of Whitby. But the Northern Crown series tells the story not of those glory days but of that earlier struggle that created that kingdom.  Explore the darkest years of the dark ages with Cerdic and Hussa. My next book will be out spring 2020.

The Kingdom of Northumbria is born

by Richard Denning

Northern Britain 580 to 616

The existence of the England we know today is strongly and rightly linked to the victories of Alfred the Great and his Kingdom of Wessex over the Vikings in the ninth century. Yet, three hundred years before Alfred’s time, it was the creation of the powerful kingdom of Northumbria and its emergence as the dominant power in Britain for about a century, where we can see the roots of that England.

This was the Kingdom of Bede, the great chronicler of the late 7th. and early 8th. centuries and author of Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum: ‘The Ecclesiastical History of the English People’. It is also the land of the great kings, Aethelfrith, Edwin and Oswald, as well as the location of the Council of Whitby that established the form that the Christian Church in England would take: a form that lasted − more or less unchanged − until Henry VIII broke away from Rome some 900 years later.

One day, the Vikings would sweep it all away, but by then the mark left on the history of England by the golden age of Northumbria, could not be erased. How though does Northumbria come to exist? What are its roots?

A tale of two Kingdoms

In the 5th and early and mid 6th century two distinct groups of Angles migrate to Britain and settle in Northumbria. The first group to come were led by a figure called Soemil of which we know almost nothing. Sometime in the 5th century, possibly in response to appeals by the Romano-British inhabitants pleas for mercenaries, he establishes settlements along the river Humber and in the Yorkshire Wolds. These will one day become the kingdom of Deira in what is today Yorkshire.

In the 6th Century another Anglo-Saxon warlord, Ida and his family capture the fortress of Din Guardi – what is now Bamburgh and around this and settlements along the coast up to Lindisfarne they create a kingdom – Bernicia.

To begin with both are weak and small and surrounded by potent Romano British kingdoms of which the strongest was the Kingdom of Eboracii (what is now York) under King Peredur and further west Rheged under King Urien. Survival of the fledgling Anglo-Saxon enclaves may have been a lot to do with infighting between the various British kingdoms. Perhaps in the early stages the Angles avoided provoking the British too much but they were gradually expanding. The succession of kings in Bernicia is confusing and between circa 569 and 593 there seems to have been as many as 7 different Kings. It is likely that all of these (Ida, Clappa, Ada, Frithuwulf, Theowulf, Hussa, Aethelric) were all related and that Ida was succeeded by a series of sons, brothers or uncles most of whom may have died in battle.

After the mysteriousness Soemil the succession in Deira is totally unknown to historians BUT around 560 a strong king emerges – Aelle – who set about unifying the Deiran lands and establishing his own dynasty.

Slowly the invaders numbers grew, their lands expanded and finally the British took notice and began to take action.

Battle of Caer Greu

Around 580 King Peredur and his brother, alarmed by the growth of Bernicia, took an army north to attack them – probably in the time of King Ada. At a battlefield somewhere in Bernicia called Caer Greu the British army is defeated and the British Kings slain. Bernicia’s immediate future is secured but this battle has a knock on effect as Aelle may well have taken advantage of the power vacuum at Eboracum  (York) to capture the city. Certainly around the same time Eboracum becomes part of Deira. It was renamed Eorforwic. ( Which the Vikings would one day change to Jorvik and later people to York).

Crisis at Lindisfarne

The defeat at Caer Greu and the fall of York would have sent shock waves through the Northern British.  The powerful king of Rheged, west of the Pennines in what is now Cumbria set about building an alliance of Kingdoms that included the kingdoms of Strathclyde, Gododdin (around Edinburgh) and others. He led an army on a furious campaign around the year AD 590 that swept across Bernicia and retook almost all the land previous lost by the northern Britons. The Bernicians under either Theodric or Aethelric (or maybe both as they were probably brothers. ) were besieged on the island of Lindisfarne and may well have been destroyed had the British alliance not then started to crumble and old rivalries emerge. Urien was assassinated by a fellow British ruler, Morcant before he could defeat the Angles and the heart seemed to have gone out of the British alliance. A resurgent Bernicia launched a counter attack that turned the tables on the losses suffered and in fact Theodric and Aethelric now invade Rheged.

Disaster in Rheged – Rise of Owain and Aethelfrith

At some point in circa 590 to 593, whilst campaigning in Rheged, first Theodric and later Aethelric are killed by the son of Urien – Owain.  Owain then seems to take a pause to regroup and rebuild the shattered alliances with his British neighbours. In Bernicia, meanwhile, this brings the powerful Warlord Aethelfrith, son of Aethelric to the throne. He too rebuilds his strength but it now can only be a matter of time before another huge clash ensued.

The Battle of Catreath – Owain tries to destroy Northumbria

That clash takes place at a place called Catreath in about AD 597. This is PROBABLY Catterick in Yorkshire which is located on the junction of two Roman roads – one over the Pennines to Rheged and the other the main north south road linking Deira and Bernicia.  Strategically an army able to capture Catterick can turn on Bernicia OR Deira at will.

The battle of Catreath has passed into legend thanks to a Welsh Poem Y Goddodin that tells of the gathering of a host of British from various kingdoms and their march to Catreath. It tells of their bravery and prowess and the charge of the Goddodin cavalry. Then it tells of defeat. For whereever the battle occured Aethelfrith of Bernicia and probably Deira united to crush Owain and his alliance.

This defeat removed the risk that the fledgling Northumbrian Kingdoms would be easily destroyed. There were still enemies of course  but Catreath can possibly be seen as the birthplace of Northumbria

In another article I will take the story forward as the Northumbrian Kingdoms once again unite to crush the Scots of Dal Riata at the battle of Degsastan and then turn on each other in a tale of exile and revenge that lasts 28 years.

The time period of this article is the same as my novel The Amber Treasure:

“I will take care of the body of my lord and you can carry the sword, story teller. For all good stories are about a sword.”

6th Century Northumbria: Cerdic, the nephew of the great warrior Cynric, grows up dreaming of glory in battle and writing his name in the sagas.

When war comes for real though, his sister is kidnapped, his family betrayed and his uncle’s legendary sword stolen. It falls to Cerdic to avenge his families’ loss, rescue his sister and return home with the sword.

‘Enjoyable novel set in sixth century Northumbria. Accurate detail and vivid fight scenes together with an engaging central character and his coming-of-age make this an absorbing read for fans of historical fiction…’ The Book Bag

 

 

 

 

 

 

Evidence and guesswork in the 6th Century

I was not long born the day my uncle stood on the battlefield, surrounded by the corpses of his men.

They had died defending this narrow gully through hills which blocked the approach to the city of Eboracum. The city lay to the east under a pall of smoke that arose from a hundred burning houses. King Aelle had taken the army there to capture it but, hearing reports of an enemy warband coming to lift the siege, had sent Cynric and his company around the city to the west to intercept them.

Eighty men marched through the night to reach this sunken road. They planted their flag in the ditch so it streamed in the wind, revealing the image of the running wolf emblazoned upon it. Then, they gathered about it and waited.

They did not have to wait long… (Excerpt from The Amber Treasure)

Some of the historical fiction which I have written is set in a remote and obscure period. Writing about the late 6th and early 7th century in The Amber Treasure puts you right in the middle of the darkest years of the Dark Ages.

When the last Roman soldier departed Britain in about 417 AD reliable documentation of events started to collapse. The invading Anglo-Saxon tribes were effectively illiterate and it was not until the coming of Christianity (which did not fully pervade England until the late 7th century) that some form of regular record keeping returned. It really took until the time of Alfred the Great at the end of the 9th century for reliable continuous commentaries on the goings on in the land to be kept in the form of the Anglo Saxon Chronicle and other documents.

What then do we do when we want to find out what happened in the early Saxon period? Where could I turn to when writing a book set in the late 6th century?

The documents that I turned to when trying to found out what historians knew about this period were:

De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae On the Ruin and Conquest of Britain) by Gildas. Gildas was a monk who lived around AD 500 to 570 in the Dumfries area of Scotland (what was then the British Kingdom of Strathclyde). Much of what we know about the possible existence of Arthur, Vortigern, Ambrosius and so on comes from Gildas. His writing shows the state of chaos and confusion with a land split between half a dozen races and the civilization that had persisted for four centuries collapsing. There are limits to Gildas however. Firstly he had a message to pass on. He wrote about the downfall of Britain – the end of Roman rule and the invasion of the Anglo Saxons and very much argued that this was God’s punishment for their sins. More importantly he died around AD 570 – JUST before the period I was writing about.

The Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum: Ecclesiastical History of the English People by Bede. Bede was a late 7th and early 8th century scholar and monk. His main work is believed to have been completed in 731. Bede writes a lot about the ancient (to him) history of Britain and basically stopped around the fall of Britain and the end of Roman rule, picking up the story with the Augustine mission in 597. He only really gets interested in the conflict between Celtic and Roman Christianity and the conversion of kings and very much argues that the defeat of the Britons is the result of them backing the wrong horse (theologically speaking). So he was quite content to report Pagan English slaughter of Welsh monks as being justified for example. All that said he has a lot of detail from the early 7th century onwards BUT there is an agonising gap before about AD 600.

The Historia Brittonum, or The History of the Britons, is a historical work that was first composed around 830 by the Welsh Monk Nennius. It contains a lot of  of detail on the Arthurian period and some full genealogies of the Royal Families of Deira and Bernicia but again there is an annoying lack of commentary on the late 6th century.

Annales Cambriae, or The Annals of Wales,  and other Annales in Ireland and Scotland are chronologies and lists of dates compiled in the 8th to 12th centuries in various monasteries and then combined together. They offer snippets and brief glimpses of events - particularly brief the further back you go.  Names come up, some useful dates but very little detail. It its like looking at the contents page of history text book! Scholars though can study all these fragments and combine them into something approaching a coherent history and these add some knowledge.

The Anglo Saxon Chronicle (late 9th century and afterwards)

Probably started by King Alfred the Great who at least sponsored and encouraged it, this was a chronicle of events in England and surrounding lands recorded by monks. It focuses on the large events, battles, Kings and Lords and so forth and at first glance would seem to be just the thing. BUT there are limitations to its usefullness. The writers were living in a period over three hundred years after the events they recorded and so were relying on passed on word of mouth or old documents that no longer exist and we cannot validate. Moreover the Chronicle is south centric – focusing for the most part on the events in the southern kingdoms and little on those in Northumbria where my story is set. This is so much so that the chroniclers seems to just simplify matters by lumping the Royal Houses of Deira and Bernician (the two parts of Northumbria) into one. Fortunately other geneaologies do exisit for this period. The historic Battle of Catreath which did so much to shape the north is not even mention in the ASC. Then again it is not mentioned in many places.

Welsh Poetry

Oddly enough it is poetry, not historical documents, that shed some more light on these dark years. The British poets and bards Aneiren and Taliessen witnessed or heard about the great and traumatic moments of the late 6th century. To them it was real life, happening to them and those they knew. Taliessen lived circa 534 to 599 and wrote about Urien and Owain of Rheged. Much of what we know about the struggles between Bernicia and Rheged we read of in his poems. Aneirin was younger - possible a young man in 597 at the battle of Catreath and it was his poem about it – Y Goddodin that is really the only record of the event.

Modern References

There are many books that have been written that discuss events in he period 550 to 650 AD. It can be tempting to take them at face value and assume they are correct. However you soon discover that they often contradict each other and that many are making assumptions and simplifications themselves and that all struggle with the same paucity of original sources. So all must be taken with  a pinch of salt. That said there are a few useful sources for someone researching this period:

The Mammoth Book of British Kings and Queens Mike Ashley takes all the material including a vast number of commentaries and modern books on the monarchies and nations of the last 2000 years and tries to set out a definitive record. It is the most accesible of the reference tools I used.

The Age of Arthur John Morris. Written by an academic whose area of expertise was the period 350 to 650 this tries to lay out as fact a coherent history for the period. It ha been widely criticised by historians for relying heavily on interpretation but at least Morris gives us A version of history. The problem with many academics work is there is almost NO attempt to sift the evidence and present an interpretation. Morris has the courage to do that.

An English Empire NJ Higham is a work that conducts an analysis of what Bede writting tells us about this period and is a useful commentary although  abit limited to Bede’s perspectice.

The Britons Christopher Snyder is an academic work with  a lot of archaeological references but  is a good summary of current thinking on the period. He presents the arguments that are current (or where a few years ago) and tries to weigh them.

Making sense of it all

This then is the problem that writers of historical fiction set in the late 6th and early 7th century have. There is something like a 150 year gap in reliable data. There are theories and ideas but in the end you just have to examine it all, visit the possible battlefields and locations that are known about and make the best effort to create a believable world, to bring to life those that lived in these forgotten but critical years – the birth of England.

I hope I have achieved this in The Amber Treasure.

After the Romans left their province of Britannia, Britain entered a darkage. It would be centuries before the land we know today as England came into existence. Germanic tribes – the ancestors of the English began migrating across the North Sea. The invading and colonising Angles who settled in the northeast in time would see the creation of the powerful kingdom of Northumbria. Its emergence as the dominant power in Britain for about a century, is critical in the path that would one day lead to the England we know today.

This was the Kingdom of Bede, the great chronicler of the late 7th and early 8th century and author of Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum: The Ecclesiastical History of the English People. It is also the land of the great kings, Edwin and Oswald, as well as the location of the Council of Whitby that established the form that the Christian church in England would take: a form that lasted more or less unchanged  until Henry VIII broke away from Rome some 900 years later.

Before Edwin and Oswald created this golden age, and made Northumbria briefly the most powerful of the old Saxon Kingdoms, one man: Edwin’s rival and Oswald’s father was the first to unify Northumbria. It was this powerful man who above all other put the Romano-British onto the back foot. This man was Aethelfrith the king of Bernicia and later of a united Northumbria.

When Aethelfrith was born in Bernicia (the most northerly Saxon kingdom based around the Bamburgh and Lindisfarne area) he was probably a long way down the line of succession. The twenty years before he became king are very confusing and no less than four men including his father Aethelric and (probably) his uncles Hussa, Theodric and Frithuwulf are listed as ruling. What is clearer is that around 593  probably after civil war between various rivals Aethelfrith finally secured the throne.

After becoming king Aethelfrith embarked on campaigns to extend his borders initially west and particularly northwards. This brought him into conflict with the Britons of Rheged, Strathclyde and Manau Gododdin. It seems likely that this aggression provoked the British to unite and attack the Saxons at a place called Catraeth, now identified with Catterick in Yorkshire, in around 597 to 600 AD. The battle – recorded in the poem called Y Gododdin – was a disaster for the British and only increased Aethelfrith’s power. Further expansion west into what is now lowland Scotland provoked conflict with the Irish invaders of Dal Riata (who became the Scots). Aedann of Dal Riata lead a great army to oppose Aethelfrih but despite being outnumbered (apparently) Aethelfrith destroys this army at Degsastan in around 603.

Degsastan now removed the threat on Bernicia’s north and west and so it seems that at this time Aethelfrith turned his eyes south to Deira (the other half of what will become Northumbria). It seems that a weak or possibly elderly king called Aethelric was king in Deira at this time. He might be brother or uncle to Edwin of Deira. Either by invasion or some sort of power play Aethelfrith takes over Deira around 604 and Edwin flees into exile with Aethelric’s son Hereric (although Hereric is poisoned in Elmet, a British land the princes take shelter in, probably under the orders of Elmet’s king who is trying to appease Aethelfrith.) Edwin goes into extended exile in Mercia (where he marries a princess) and Gwynedd.

Aethelfrith secures his position by marrying Asha, sister to Prince Edwin and in so doing uniting the two houses. The future king Oswald is born of this union. Some versions suggest that he may have already been married to Asha and took advantage of a weak king to move in. Aethelfrith may have already been married at this time to a Bebba after whom Bamburgh is named. It is unclear if she was already dead by the time he married Asha. Another possibility is that Asha is his first wife and Bebba his second. We really don’t know.

Over the next decade Aethelfrith was fairly quiet and was probably consolidating the gains in land his earlier reign had brought. However, in about 614, he is again on the move and leads an army west to Chester. It appears that Edwin had not been idle and had perhaps managed to unite the Welsh kingdoms of Gwynedd and Powys, possibly with Mercia, in an alliance that now threatened Aethelfrith. The results was a battle at Chester. The only feature we know is that supposedly a large number of monks from a nearby monastery came to pray for British victory over the Northumbrian army and were slaughtered by Aethelfrith. The result of this battle was that Edwin was again on the road and trying to find allies. In around 616 he ends up in East Anglia in the court of, the then overlord of the Saxon’s, Redwald. Aethelfrith sent offers to pay Redwald if he would kill Edwin. Instead Redwald agrees to send an army with Edwin to attempt to defeat Aethelfrith. At the battle of the River Idle, in 616, Edwin is finally victorious and Aethelfrith’s luck runs out and he is slain.

Edwin becomes king in Northumbria and the young Oswald flees to the north with his brothers and kin. The tables are turned and Aethelfrith’s line is now in exile  for the next 16 years.

Edwin goes on to build on the foundation that Aethelfrith laid, but it is the Bernician royal line that played and would later play the largest role in the establishment of the Kingdom of Northumbria as the most powerful Saxon land in Britain and Aethelfrith must be given credit for his part.

Aethelfrith and the battle of Catraeth appear in my novel The Amber Treasure . Degsastan and the Invasion of Deira  occur in the sequel Child of Loki (published March 2012).