My Travel and History Blog, Focussing mostly on Roman and Mediaeval Times
29 May 2016
Unifinshed Perfection - The Architecture of Beaumaris Castle
When work on Beaumaris Castle was finally abandoned in 1330, the curtain walls had been completed and all towers raised to battlement level at least. The inner towers were supposed to have an additional storey and should have been crowned by turrets the way you can see in Caernarfon and Conwy, but that was never done. The harbour was dug out as well as part of the moat. The southern barbican had been completed (but not the gate house). The northern gate house was completed to the first floor, and some of the interior buildings, including the chapel, may have been finished, too, though little remains of them today.
Beaumaris Castle, both curtain walls seen from the moat
But when William de Emeldon, chancellor of the exchequer of Ireland surveyed several Welsh castles after Edward the Black Prince was invested as Prince of Wales in 1343, things didn't look too good in Beaumaris. The chamber above the sea gate was dilapidated, roofs were lacking in several towers and the chambers below therefore ruinous, the chapel tower needed to be completed, the kitchen was unuseable, parts of the battlement had fallen down, and the southern gate house was in bad repair; the twin towers flanking the northern gate house needed their staircases to be completed. William estimated the most important repairs to cost £ 685. We don't know if any of the suggested repairs had been undertaken.
Remains of the harbour
Minor repairs went on, and the castle was garrisoned in 1389 (towards the end of the second phase of the Hundred Years War) and again in 1403 during the rebellion of Owain Glyn Dŵr. But no substantial renovation was done, and and the castle constable Roland de Velville reported that there was scarcely a chamber in Beaumaris where a man could lie dry in 1534. Five years later, the new constable, Richard Bulkeley, wrote to Thomas Cromwell, secretary to Henry VIII, that Beaumaris was "ruynous and ferre in decay", and badly equipped with arms to boot. Since relations between England and Scotland - ruled by the Catholic James V - were more than a bit unruly at the time, Henry VIII feared a Scottish invasion via Wales. Bulkeley bought gunpowder, bows and arrows, sallet helmets and brigandines for the garrison at his own costs.
View through the south gate
In 1609, the castle was "utterlie decayed". Later, another of those poor Bulkeleys who got stuck with Beaumaris, Viscount Thomas, paid £ 3,000 out of his pocket to repair the castle in service of King Charles I (see also the first post) in 1642. During the time the castle was held by Cromwell's men under Colonel John Jones after its surrender, two men of the garrison were imprisoned for "stealing ye leads of ye castle".
Lead was expensive. The lead roofs were officially dismantled in Beaumaris and Conwy in during the Restoration in 1660. What existed in the way of inner buildings was taken down in during time as well (the stones were probably used ot build Beaumaris Gaol in 1829); the rest got grown over by ivy.
View towards the north gate
The 19th century saw a rise in interest for picturesque ruins, and ivy-clad Beaumaris with its formidable towers attracted the first tourists. It was the location for a 'Royal Eistedfodd', a meeting of poets and singers, in 1832. Among the visitors were Victoria duchess of Kent and her daughter Princess Victoria - the future queen.
The Bulkeley family was connected with Beaumaris Castle since 1440 and held the office as constables without interruption since the Civil War. The sixth Lord Bulkeley bought the ruins from the Crown in 1807, but his successor Sir Richard Williams-Bulkeley gave the castle to the Commissoners of Works in 1925. Repairing those dang roofs turned out to be too expensive. *wink*
View into the inner bailey
The Commissioners of Works got rid of the pretty but ultimately wall damaging ivy and carried out repairs and restoration neccesary to prevent further decline. They also dug out part of the moat which had filled with silt and refilled it with water - half of the castle is thus surrounded by it again. Makes for some really nice photos. :-)
Beaumaris was declared part of the Castles and Town Walls of King Edward in Gwynedd World Heritage site in 1986. Beaumaris Castle is today managed by Cadw, the Welsh Assembly Government's agency for historic monuments.
A model of the castle
The drawing above shows Beaumaris Castle as it should have looked when finished. You can see the almost perfect symmetry of the double curtain walls with their towers set up in regular intervals, and the double D-shaped south gate and north gate. The only feature that stands out is the sea gate (left of the south gate). The walls and towers, as well as the gates, remain today, albeit some of them are lacking their upper storeys. The buildings in the inner bailey have mostly disappeared except for some foundations, as did the part of the south gatehouse that should have housed living quarters - the north gatehouse is in better shape (though lacking the second floor). All wooden structures, including the floors, decayed long ago.
The passage between sea gate and barbican
The material used are limestone (a smooth grey variant and a more common brown laminated stone), grey sandstone and green schists, all quarried locally on Anglesey. The distribution of the various stones in the wall is random, contrary to Caernarfon where the horizontal lines of red sandstone are clearly set to form decorative bands. The praecambrian green schist has only been used during the first building phase until 1298 and can be found in the walls up to 20 feet heigth. None of the stones are suitable for intricate carvings, which adds to the sturdy impression of Beaumaris - no fancy archs and elaborate window transoms.
Remains of the south gatehouse with the foundations of the staircase turrets
It was not easy to get into the castle if you couldn't provide an inviation letter. :-) The way through the sea gate, barbican and south gate involved a drawbrige and a series of no less than fifteen doors or portcullises. And in between those were murder holes and arrow slits through which all sort of upleasant things could be thrown or shot.
The D-shaped double towers of the south gate are but lacking their upper storey, but the building attached to it that would have faced the inner bailey has never progressed even to the level of the - also unfinished - northern gatehouse. The staircase turrets exist only in foundations, and the first storey apparently was never roofed in when work ceased in 1330. No wonder that the biggest post of repair costs on William de Emeldon's list was the southern gatehouse.
Remains of the barbican adjacent to the south gatehouse
Beaumaris was not only a formidable defense structure but also designed as royal residence, either for Edward I and maybe a future queen (his wife Eleanor of Castile had died in 1290), or his son Edward II, the Prince of Wales - who might have liked to help with the thatching of those roofs and digging out the moat - and his household But King Edward I visited the castle but once, in July 1296. Some temporary wooden housing had been set up for the king then; since the main work concentrated on the defense structures. I don't know if Edward II ever stayed at Beaumaris, maybe Kathryn can enlighten me.
Fireplaces in the inner wall
The gate houses were clearly intended to be grand structures with large inward facing windows and halls and chambers befitting a king. Several of the buildings along the inner curtain wall may have been completed and later fallen into decay. Some fireplaces and door frames can still be seen, as well as holes in the wall to support floor beams, and bits of wall plaster.
Besides the royal appartments, a great hall, and the kitchen, there would also have been lodgings for the constable and his household and maybe the local sheriff as well (if he didn't reside in Llanfaer), and those must have been habitable at the time when the castle was garrisoned
Remains of buildings along the inner curtain wall
The garrison would likely have lived in the towers of the inner curtain wall where several chambers were habitable during the time the castle was used, though originally barracks may have been planned, perhaps even in the outer ward. Some arched lintels that once supported a floor can still be seen. The towers were intended to be three storeys high, but the uppermost one was never finished. The tower halfway along the eastern inner curtain wall houses a little chapel that has been restored, but it was closed when I visited the place.
The interior of the north-east inner tower seen from an upper storey
I posted a photo of the inner passageways in my first post about Beaumaris. They would have run through the entire inner curtain walls at first floor level, and a significant part of them is still intact. Those passageways connected the various buildings and towers with their guardrooms, sleeping chambers and other rooms along the wall, and also held a set of 16 latrines which emptied into the moat by a system of drains. Yuck. The drains already needed mending in 1306.
Those passageways also still exist in Caernarfon and in Pembroke. The ones in Pembroke Castle are much lower than those in the Edwardian castles in northern Wales. He got his nickname 'Longshanks' for a reason.
The outer ward, with the outer curtain wall and the remains of battlements to the left
While the inner bailey was the place for accomodation, the outer ward was a defense structure. You didn't want to get caught between both sets of curtain walls and the twelve outer and six inner towers plus the inner gate towers. Arrowslits would allow a defense against outside besiegers, though some of them have been blocked, probably during the Civil War (when bows were mostly replaced by guns). The corbelled tables that supported the wooden battlements are still intact in part, though the upper crennellations are mostly gone.
Stairs leading to the battlements of the outer wall
Like the sea gate next to the southern gatehouse, there was another gate next to the northern gatehouse, the Llanfaes Gate. It was used during the time when the north gate had been blocked because its doors and portcullises were not yet working (they never did, it seems), but the Llanfaes Gate remained unfinished as well; their towers never got the outward looking D-shape outlined in the foundations. Today, the moat ends at Llanfaes Gate.
View from Beaumaris Castle across Conwy Bay to the mainland
Literature
Arnold Taylor: Beaumaris Castle - Cadw Guidebook, Cardiff 2004
Read more! ¶ May 29, 2016 4 comments
When work on Beaumaris Castle was finally abandoned in 1330, the curtain walls had been completed and all towers raised to battlement level at least. The inner towers were supposed to have an additional storey and should have been crowned by turrets the way you can see in Caernarfon and Conwy, but that was never done. The harbour was dug out as well as part of the moat. The southern barbican had been completed (but not the gate house). The northern gate house was completed to the first floor, and some of the interior buildings, including the chapel, may have been finished, too, though little remains of them today.
But when William de Emeldon, chancellor of the exchequer of Ireland surveyed several Welsh castles after Edward the Black Prince was invested as Prince of Wales in 1343, things didn't look too good in Beaumaris. The chamber above the sea gate was dilapidated, roofs were lacking in several towers and the chambers below therefore ruinous, the chapel tower needed to be completed, the kitchen was unuseable, parts of the battlement had fallen down, and the southern gate house was in bad repair; the twin towers flanking the northern gate house needed their staircases to be completed. William estimated the most important repairs to cost £ 685. We don't know if any of the suggested repairs had been undertaken.
Minor repairs went on, and the castle was garrisoned in 1389 (towards the end of the second phase of the Hundred Years War) and again in 1403 during the rebellion of Owain Glyn Dŵr. But no substantial renovation was done, and and the castle constable Roland de Velville reported that there was scarcely a chamber in Beaumaris where a man could lie dry in 1534. Five years later, the new constable, Richard Bulkeley, wrote to Thomas Cromwell, secretary to Henry VIII, that Beaumaris was "ruynous and ferre in decay", and badly equipped with arms to boot. Since relations between England and Scotland - ruled by the Catholic James V - were more than a bit unruly at the time, Henry VIII feared a Scottish invasion via Wales. Bulkeley bought gunpowder, bows and arrows, sallet helmets and brigandines for the garrison at his own costs.
In 1609, the castle was "utterlie decayed". Later, another of those poor Bulkeleys who got stuck with Beaumaris, Viscount Thomas, paid £ 3,000 out of his pocket to repair the castle in service of King Charles I (see also the first post) in 1642. During the time the castle was held by Cromwell's men under Colonel John Jones after its surrender, two men of the garrison were imprisoned for "stealing ye leads of ye castle".
Lead was expensive. The lead roofs were officially dismantled in Beaumaris and Conwy in during the Restoration in 1660. What existed in the way of inner buildings was taken down in during time as well (the stones were probably used ot build Beaumaris Gaol in 1829); the rest got grown over by ivy.
The 19th century saw a rise in interest for picturesque ruins, and ivy-clad Beaumaris with its formidable towers attracted the first tourists. It was the location for a 'Royal Eistedfodd', a meeting of poets and singers, in 1832. Among the visitors were Victoria duchess of Kent and her daughter Princess Victoria - the future queen.
The Bulkeley family was connected with Beaumaris Castle since 1440 and held the office as constables without interruption since the Civil War. The sixth Lord Bulkeley bought the ruins from the Crown in 1807, but his successor Sir Richard Williams-Bulkeley gave the castle to the Commissoners of Works in 1925. Repairing those dang roofs turned out to be too expensive. *wink*
The Commissioners of Works got rid of the pretty but ultimately wall damaging ivy and carried out repairs and restoration neccesary to prevent further decline. They also dug out part of the moat which had filled with silt and refilled it with water - half of the castle is thus surrounded by it again. Makes for some really nice photos. :-)
Beaumaris was declared part of the Castles and Town Walls of King Edward in Gwynedd World Heritage site in 1986. Beaumaris Castle is today managed by Cadw, the Welsh Assembly Government's agency for historic monuments.
The drawing above shows Beaumaris Castle as it should have looked when finished. You can see the almost perfect symmetry of the double curtain walls with their towers set up in regular intervals, and the double D-shaped south gate and north gate. The only feature that stands out is the sea gate (left of the south gate). The walls and towers, as well as the gates, remain today, albeit some of them are lacking their upper storeys. The buildings in the inner bailey have mostly disappeared except for some foundations, as did the part of the south gatehouse that should have housed living quarters - the north gatehouse is in better shape (though lacking the second floor). All wooden structures, including the floors, decayed long ago.
The material used are limestone (a smooth grey variant and a more common brown laminated stone), grey sandstone and green schists, all quarried locally on Anglesey. The distribution of the various stones in the wall is random, contrary to Caernarfon where the horizontal lines of red sandstone are clearly set to form decorative bands. The praecambrian green schist has only been used during the first building phase until 1298 and can be found in the walls up to 20 feet heigth. None of the stones are suitable for intricate carvings, which adds to the sturdy impression of Beaumaris - no fancy archs and elaborate window transoms.
It was not easy to get into the castle if you couldn't provide an inviation letter. :-) The way through the sea gate, barbican and south gate involved a drawbrige and a series of no less than fifteen doors or portcullises. And in between those were murder holes and arrow slits through which all sort of upleasant things could be thrown or shot.
The D-shaped double towers of the south gate are but lacking their upper storey, but the building attached to it that would have faced the inner bailey has never progressed even to the level of the - also unfinished - northern gatehouse. The staircase turrets exist only in foundations, and the first storey apparently was never roofed in when work ceased in 1330. No wonder that the biggest post of repair costs on William de Emeldon's list was the southern gatehouse.
Beaumaris was not only a formidable defense structure but also designed as royal residence, either for Edward I and maybe a future queen (his wife Eleanor of Castile had died in 1290), or his son Edward II, the Prince of Wales - who might have liked to help with the thatching of those roofs and digging out the moat - and his household But King Edward I visited the castle but once, in July 1296. Some temporary wooden housing had been set up for the king then; since the main work concentrated on the defense structures. I don't know if Edward II ever stayed at Beaumaris, maybe Kathryn can enlighten me.
The gate houses were clearly intended to be grand structures with large inward facing windows and halls and chambers befitting a king. Several of the buildings along the inner curtain wall may have been completed and later fallen into decay. Some fireplaces and door frames can still be seen, as well as holes in the wall to support floor beams, and bits of wall plaster.
Besides the royal appartments, a great hall, and the kitchen, there would also have been lodgings for the constable and his household and maybe the local sheriff as well (if he didn't reside in Llanfaer), and those must have been habitable at the time when the castle was garrisoned
The garrison would likely have lived in the towers of the inner curtain wall where several chambers were habitable during the time the castle was used, though originally barracks may have been planned, perhaps even in the outer ward. Some arched lintels that once supported a floor can still be seen. The towers were intended to be three storeys high, but the uppermost one was never finished. The tower halfway along the eastern inner curtain wall houses a little chapel that has been restored, but it was closed when I visited the place.
I posted a photo of the inner passageways in my first post about Beaumaris. They would have run through the entire inner curtain walls at first floor level, and a significant part of them is still intact. Those passageways connected the various buildings and towers with their guardrooms, sleeping chambers and other rooms along the wall, and also held a set of 16 latrines which emptied into the moat by a system of drains. Yuck. The drains already needed mending in 1306.
Those passageways also still exist in Caernarfon and in Pembroke. The ones in Pembroke Castle are much lower than those in the Edwardian castles in northern Wales. He got his nickname 'Longshanks' for a reason.
While the inner bailey was the place for accomodation, the outer ward was a defense structure. You didn't want to get caught between both sets of curtain walls and the twelve outer and six inner towers plus the inner gate towers. Arrowslits would allow a defense against outside besiegers, though some of them have been blocked, probably during the Civil War (when bows were mostly replaced by guns). The corbelled tables that supported the wooden battlements are still intact in part, though the upper crennellations are mostly gone.
Like the sea gate next to the southern gatehouse, there was another gate next to the northern gatehouse, the Llanfaes Gate. It was used during the time when the north gate had been blocked because its doors and portcullises were not yet working (they never did, it seems), but the Llanfaes Gate remained unfinished as well; their towers never got the outward looking D-shape outlined in the foundations. Today, the moat ends at Llanfaes Gate.
Literature
Arnold Taylor: Beaumaris Castle - Cadw Guidebook, Cardiff 2004
Read more! ¶ May 29, 2016 4 comments
16 May 2016
Edward Longshanks and the Welsh Rebels - The History of Beaumaris Castle in Wales
In 1282, King Edward I was done with rebellious Welsh princes and Welsh risings which had plagued his predecessors ever sind William the Conquerer put a foot west of the Dee and Severn (1). He staged a massive invasion that led to the conquest of northern Wales, in particular the Principality of Gwynedd. Part of King Edward's domination was to build a ring of castles in northern Wales: Caernarfon, Conwy, Harlech, and Beaumaris on Anglesey.
Beaumaris was built on the plain with no geological restrictions upon its layout and therefore follows the 13th century pattern of a Norman castle to perfection. But it was never finished due to financial problems. What we can see today is more or less what the castle looked like since 1396, minus some timber structures and roofs.
Beaumaris Castle, the moat and outer curtain wall
The history of Llywellyn ap Gruffudd's rise in Wales, and King Edward I's conquest deserve a longer post. But to put the construction of Edward's Welsh castles in context, here is a short summary of the events. (With lots of photos - Beaumaris was presenting itself at its best in the summer sunshine.)
Llywellyn ap Gruffud of House Aberffraw (1223-1282; there are several Welsh rulers of that name) had used Henry III's problems with Simon de Montfort and other barons to extend his power in Wales and bring several Welsh rules under his hegemony, among them Gruffudd ap Gwenwynwyn of Powys. From 1258 on Llywellyn styled himself Prince of Wales, a title that was ackonwledged by King Henry III in the Treaty of Montgomery 1267. Llywellyn was granted the rule over Wales for the pay of an annual tribute of 3,000 marks gold.
Portcullis openings in the southern gate passage
But not all Welsh nobles were happy with that sort of overlordship, and in good Welsh tradtion Llywellyn's brother Davydd quarreled about the heritage (2) and eventually went into exile at the English court. Things changed with the death of Henry in 1272. His successor Edward I was a different sort of man. Ask the Scots. (The Welsh, too, but somehow Edward's Scottish conquest got more popular in the media.)
By 1267 Llywellyn had increasing problems with the Marcher Lords, among them Roger Mortimer with whom he was related (3); moreover King Edward had kidnapped his bride Eleaonor of Montfort, daughter of Simon of Montfort, and his brother Davydd made an alliance with Gruffudd ap Gwenwynwyn of Powys. So when Edward demanded Llywellyn to come to Chester and do homage for Gwynedd, Llywellyn decided it would be safer to stay at home. That of course, was an offense according to feudal law, and Edward went to Wales with an army to put the rebellious prince on the potty.
Edward invaded Gwynedd from the north-east (via Rhuddlan) with an army of some 15,000 men. Most of Llywellyn's Welsh vassals fell over their feet to make peace with Edward. Bereft of support, Llywellyn surrendered and agreed to the Treaty of Aberconwy. He kept the western part of Gwynedd and the tiltle Pince of Wales, while the eastern part was split between King Edward and Llywellyn's brother Davydd, and the vassalty of Powys and other noble houses was transfered to the crown. Lylwellyn was allowed to marry Eleanor, though.
At that time, King Edward already built or refortified some castles at the borders to Gwynedd, among them Rhuddlan, Flint, Builth, and Aberystwyth.
The sea gate with former drawbridge
But Davydd was not happy with what he thought a tiny bit of land. Also, King Edward had a talent to run roughshod over the people's feelings like personal dignity and national pride and angered Llywellyn and Davydd more than once. In 1282, Davydd started another rebellion which was soon joined by other Welsh rulers. Aberystwyth Castle was captured, Rhuddlan besieged, the Earl of Gloucester defeated in battle, as was a royal force crossing over from Anglesey.
Llywellyn initially wanted no part in the rebellion which he thought ill prepared and bound to fail, but he had no other option than support his brother if he did not want to lose everything. The archbishop of Canterbury, who mediated between King Edward and Llywellyn, offered him a large estate in England in exchange for the surrender of Wales, but Llywellyn refused. The offer well demonstrates the inability of the English king to understand the Welsh.
Beaumaris Castle, moat with corner tower
This was a much bigger affair than the troubles of 1277. Edward hired archer mercenaries form Gascony, gathered as big as a host as he could manage, including levies from southern Wales, and ordered the Cinque port fleet to supply and support the three armies. He marched from Rhuddlan again, Roger Mortimer of Chirk (4) from Mid-Wales, and the Earl of Pembroke (5) from the south.
It is not entirely clear what happened in December 1282. We know that Llywellyn marched south where he was killed at the Battle of Orewin Bridge, facing the army of the Mortimers and his old enemy Gruffyd ap Gwenwynwyn of Powys. It is said that Edmund Mortimer, who was related to Llywellyn, offered negotiatons and lured him into an ambush, but there is no proof. Llywellyn got separted from his army, though, and was killed when surrounded by but a few retainers. His head was taken to London and displayed on a stake.
A room in the northeastern tower
Davydd succeeded his brother as Prince of Wales, but his support was melting like snow in summer. Edward stroke right into the heart of Gwynedd and took Dolwyddelan Castle, the main seat of the Princes of Gwynedd in the 13th century. The rebellion ended when Davydd and his family who had taken to the mountains, were betrayed and captured in June 1283. Davydd was executed as traitor in September, his sons imprisoned and his daughters sent to nunneries (6). The Principality of Gwynedd ceased to exist (7).
Llywellyn's surving brother Rhodri had sold his Welsh possessions long ago and lied low on his estates in England. Rhodri's grandson Owain Lawgoch, Owain of the Red Hand, became a famous mercenary leader in France and would eventually claim the title, supported by exiled Welsh nobles and King Charles V of France. The threat of a French invasion in Wales - right in the middle of the Hundred Years War - was important enough for King Edward III of England (8) to have Owain assassinated in 1378.
King Edward stripped Gwynedd of all royal insignia and reorganised the land into counties and shires administered by English magistrates according to English law. In the Statute of Rhuddlan (1284) three new shires were created: Caernarfon, Merioneth and Anglesey; castles were built at Harlech, Caernarfon, and Conwy - the latter two including walled towns. They would be the administrative centres of the new shires and populated by English settlers. Plans were also made for a castle and settlement on Anglesey near the town of Llanfaes, but there was not enough money, so the plan was postponed. Edward's sheriff of Anglesey, Roger de Pulesdon, took his seat in the manor of Llanfaes.
The outer ward, with the inner curtain wall towers to the left
But there was still a rebellious spark in the subdued Welsh. In 1294, Madoc ap Llywellyn, member of a junior branch of House Aberffraw and fifth cousin of Llywellyn, used the growing discontent with the English administrators who often abused their power, and English taxes, to ally several Welsh nobles in an uprising that included southern lords from Glamorgan. The rebellion had been well planned and totally surprised Edward. Caernarfon and several other castles were taken, the castles of Harlech and Criccieth besieged, towns burned, Caerphilly partly destroyed; the unpopular sheriff of Anglesey, Roger de Pulesdon, was killed.
King Edward led an army into north Wales in December 1294. He reached Conwy Castle, having lost his baggage train in an ambush, and got stuck in the besieged castle for several months until his fleet could relieve him. But the Welsh could not withstand Edward's army in the field. They lost the battle of Maes Moydog in March 1295; Madoc ap Llywellyn escaped with nothing but his life and lived as fugitive until he was betrayed and captured. He obviously spent the rest of his life in prison in the Tower (9). The failed rebellion only resulted in further suppressions and restrictions for the Welsh people.
The inner bailey (it would have been filled with buildings along the walls)
Well, financial troubles or not, a castle was now to be built on Anglesey. The Welsh population of Llanfaes was moved 12 miles to the south-west because Edward wanted an English town to go with his castle (albeit other than Caernarfon and Conwy, the town was never walled in). Sure, the site was the same distance from Caernarfon and Conwy and thus strategically sound, but Llanfaes had been a busy trading town due to its location and would never prosper on the new site. Another thorn in the Welsh side.
The castle was called after the place name Beau Mareys, 'fair march'. The work was overseen by Master James of St.George who had the responsibilty for all of Edward's castles in Wales. In 1295, he concentrated on the repair of Caernarfon and the building of Beaumaris. His work here is well documented; I'll get to that in the next post.
Another view of the outer ward
Edward truly wanted that castle like yesterday. In February 1296, the inner curtain wall stood to 6-8 metres, work on four of the inner towers had been begun, as well as on ten of the towers of the outer curtain wall. The south gate was already fitted with portcullises, and construction of the harbour that would allow to supply the castle garrison by sea, was well under way. An average of 2,000 labourers worked on the site, plus 400 stonemasons, 200 quarrymen and an unspecified number of carpenters and smiths. The place must have looked like an anthill. The transport of material involved 30 boats, 60 waggons and 100 carts moving to and fro.
The fun cost £ 270 a week in wages, not to mention the costs for material. The following year only a third of that sum would be spent and work progressed much slower. Edward's increasing involvment in Scotland led to a shortage of money and in 1298, work on the castle almost ceased.
There was a second period of builiding going on since 1306 because Edward feared that the Scots and Welsh might ally and attack England from two sides. The south barbican was built during that time, the outer curtain wall and the moat finished, as well as the north gate which had simply been walled up in 1298. Work on Beaumaris finally ended in 1330. The considerable sum of £ 15,000 had been spent until then.
The south gate from the outside
Albeit unfinished, the castle was strong enough to serve as defense and was garrisoned. It was taken by the Welsh during the rebellion of Owain Glyn Dŵr in 1403 and recaptured by royal forces in 1405 (10). It thus played only a small part in the rebellion, but since I have covered several Welsh raisings in this post already, it's a good place to present a short version of Owain's rebellion as well.
Owain Glyn Dŵr was a descendant of both the princes of Powys and Deheubarth, and thus could claim the title Prince of Wales with some right after the princes of Gwynedd had died out. He got into trouble with Baron Grey de Ruthyn over some land and, as usual, the court decided in favour of the English lord. Grey then 'forgot' to tell Owain about a call of the levies, branding Owain as traitor at court. Owain, together with his son, brothers-in-law, the bishop of St.Asaph and other digruntled noblemen, launched an attack on Lord Grey's lands. The revolt soon spread to northern and central Wales which went over to Owain. King Henry IV's military invention in 1401 remained unsuccessful. The following year, Owain captured Baron Grey. King Henry paid a heavy ransom for him.
A wall passage - unusually high to fit Edward I Longshanks (those in Pembroke are much lower)
But when Owain captured Sir Edmund Mortimer at the battle of Bryn Glas, the king was not willing to pay the ransom (since Mortimer had a claim to the English throne). Mortimer negotiated an alliance with Owain instead, and later the Tripartite Indenture between Owain, Mortimer and Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland. The three basically wanted to divide England and Wales among them.
With the Hundred Years War still being in full swing, Owain could also draw on French support, and the Scots never liked the English, either. Scottish and French privateers operated round Wales and a French army invaded Herefordshire. Several companies of English archers - probably of Welsh descent - went over to Owain. 1404 was his year. Owain called the first Parliament of all Wales at Machynlleth where he was crowned as Prince of Wales. Wales was to be an independent state with its own laws again (which had been replaced by English laws and courts since Edward I) and its own church.
But it would not last. In 1405, the king of France wanted peace with England and withdrew his support, while the young prince Henry (the latter Henry V; 11) adopted a strategy of economic blockade instead of punitive expeditions which often failed - he had led some of them himself, but the Welsh used guerilla strategies which were difficult to deal with. Some nobles began to look for reconciliation with the English, and many commoners went back to their fields and tools.
The southern gatehouse seen from the inner bailey
In autumn 1407, Owain had lost the castles of Aberystwyth and Harlech to the English; his wife and daughters were captured, his ally Edmund Mortimer died in battle. Owain remained free and still launched raiding parties, even managed to capture and ransom one of King Henry's supporters in 1412, but the rebellion more or less petered out. But contrary to his predecessors Davydd ap Gruffudd and Madoc ap Llywellyn, he was never betrayed, despite the handsome reward put on his head.
Wen Henry V became King in 1413, he decided for a more reconciliatory course and offered pardons to the leaders of the revolt. Owain refused and vanished into obscurity and legend. Even the date of his death is not known, it may have been 1415. Owain's legacy is his legend as Owain Glyn Dŵr and a bunch of statues in Wales.
The inner facade of the northern gatehouse
Beaumaris castle fell into disrepair, lacking roofs, with timber structures rotten away, until the Civil War when it was repaired and held for the king by Thomas Viscount Bulkeley since 1642 (he spent some £ 3,000 on those repairs); the commander of the garrison was Colonel Richard Bulkeley. . The castle was situated at a strategically important site on the route to the king's bases in Irleand. It surrendered to a Parliament army 1646 and was garrisoned by Parliament forces. It was briefly recaptured by royalists two years later, but eventually fell to the Parliament again. Contrary to other conquered castles, Beaumaris was not slighted since Cromwell feared an invasion from Scotland. It was instead garrisoned under Colonel John Johnes, a relative by marriage of Cromwell.
Charles II restored the Bulkeley family as constables of Beaumaris when he returned to the throne in 1660. But the castle was soon stripped of its valuable lead roofs and abandoned for good. It says something about those big Norman walls that so much of it survives until today.
(The next post will cover the architecture of Beaumaris Castle.)
Another view of the moat and the outer curtain wall
Footnotes
1) Actually, William's invading Wales was a response to Welsh border raids. He had his hands full with England already and probably would have left the conquest of Wales to the next generations.
2) There were more brothers and half-brothers involved, but Davydd was the most important.
3) Roger's mother was Gwladys Dhu, a daughter of Llywellyn the Great who also was Llywellyn ap Gruffudd's grandfather.
4) Edmund Mortimer and Roger Mortimer of Chirk took over from their father who died in October 1281, bereaving King Edward of one of his most able commanders.
5) William de Valence of Pembroke had replaced the inept Earl of Gloucester.
6) As was Llywellyn's daughter. All children died in captivity.
7) The Principality of Powys-Wenwynwyn was changed into a Marcher lordship; its rulers took the surname de la Pole.
9) At the time of Owain's death, the underage Richard II was king of England, but the assassination was likely set into motion by Edward III. The assassin, one John Lamb, needed time to gain Owain's confidence. He got £ 20 for his job.
9) We know he was not executed since that would have been mentioned in the sources, but there is not really any further information about Madoc.
10) Owain's main problem was the lack of artillery which was needed to conquer castles, and the lack of a fleet (though he would later get some help from the French and Scots there). He mostly took to guerilla strategies instead.
11) Henry IV's health failed since 1405, and his son, who had fought at his side in the Battle at Shrewsbury 1403, took up more responsibilies, often in conflict with his father.
Literature
R.R. Davies: The Age of Conquest. Wales 1063-1415, Oxford 1987, repr. 2000
Arnold Taylor: Beaumaris Castle - Cadw Guidebook, Cardiff 2004
Read more! ¶ May 16, 2016 3 comments
In 1282, King Edward I was done with rebellious Welsh princes and Welsh risings which had plagued his predecessors ever sind William the Conquerer put a foot west of the Dee and Severn (1). He staged a massive invasion that led to the conquest of northern Wales, in particular the Principality of Gwynedd. Part of King Edward's domination was to build a ring of castles in northern Wales: Caernarfon, Conwy, Harlech, and Beaumaris on Anglesey.
Beaumaris was built on the plain with no geological restrictions upon its layout and therefore follows the 13th century pattern of a Norman castle to perfection. But it was never finished due to financial problems. What we can see today is more or less what the castle looked like since 1396, minus some timber structures and roofs.
The history of Llywellyn ap Gruffudd's rise in Wales, and King Edward I's conquest deserve a longer post. But to put the construction of Edward's Welsh castles in context, here is a short summary of the events. (With lots of photos - Beaumaris was presenting itself at its best in the summer sunshine.)
Llywellyn ap Gruffud of House Aberffraw (1223-1282; there are several Welsh rulers of that name) had used Henry III's problems with Simon de Montfort and other barons to extend his power in Wales and bring several Welsh rules under his hegemony, among them Gruffudd ap Gwenwynwyn of Powys. From 1258 on Llywellyn styled himself Prince of Wales, a title that was ackonwledged by King Henry III in the Treaty of Montgomery 1267. Llywellyn was granted the rule over Wales for the pay of an annual tribute of 3,000 marks gold.
But not all Welsh nobles were happy with that sort of overlordship, and in good Welsh tradtion Llywellyn's brother Davydd quarreled about the heritage (2) and eventually went into exile at the English court. Things changed with the death of Henry in 1272. His successor Edward I was a different sort of man. Ask the Scots. (The Welsh, too, but somehow Edward's Scottish conquest got more popular in the media.)
By 1267 Llywellyn had increasing problems with the Marcher Lords, among them Roger Mortimer with whom he was related (3); moreover King Edward had kidnapped his bride Eleaonor of Montfort, daughter of Simon of Montfort, and his brother Davydd made an alliance with Gruffudd ap Gwenwynwyn of Powys. So when Edward demanded Llywellyn to come to Chester and do homage for Gwynedd, Llywellyn decided it would be safer to stay at home. That of course, was an offense according to feudal law, and Edward went to Wales with an army to put the rebellious prince on the potty.
Edward invaded Gwynedd from the north-east (via Rhuddlan) with an army of some 15,000 men. Most of Llywellyn's Welsh vassals fell over their feet to make peace with Edward. Bereft of support, Llywellyn surrendered and agreed to the Treaty of Aberconwy. He kept the western part of Gwynedd and the tiltle Pince of Wales, while the eastern part was split between King Edward and Llywellyn's brother Davydd, and the vassalty of Powys and other noble houses was transfered to the crown. Lylwellyn was allowed to marry Eleanor, though.
At that time, King Edward already built or refortified some castles at the borders to Gwynedd, among them Rhuddlan, Flint, Builth, and Aberystwyth.
But Davydd was not happy with what he thought a tiny bit of land. Also, King Edward had a talent to run roughshod over the people's feelings like personal dignity and national pride and angered Llywellyn and Davydd more than once. In 1282, Davydd started another rebellion which was soon joined by other Welsh rulers. Aberystwyth Castle was captured, Rhuddlan besieged, the Earl of Gloucester defeated in battle, as was a royal force crossing over from Anglesey.
Llywellyn initially wanted no part in the rebellion which he thought ill prepared and bound to fail, but he had no other option than support his brother if he did not want to lose everything. The archbishop of Canterbury, who mediated between King Edward and Llywellyn, offered him a large estate in England in exchange for the surrender of Wales, but Llywellyn refused. The offer well demonstrates the inability of the English king to understand the Welsh.
This was a much bigger affair than the troubles of 1277. Edward hired archer mercenaries form Gascony, gathered as big as a host as he could manage, including levies from southern Wales, and ordered the Cinque port fleet to supply and support the three armies. He marched from Rhuddlan again, Roger Mortimer of Chirk (4) from Mid-Wales, and the Earl of Pembroke (5) from the south.
It is not entirely clear what happened in December 1282. We know that Llywellyn marched south where he was killed at the Battle of Orewin Bridge, facing the army of the Mortimers and his old enemy Gruffyd ap Gwenwynwyn of Powys. It is said that Edmund Mortimer, who was related to Llywellyn, offered negotiatons and lured him into an ambush, but there is no proof. Llywellyn got separted from his army, though, and was killed when surrounded by but a few retainers. His head was taken to London and displayed on a stake.
Davydd succeeded his brother as Prince of Wales, but his support was melting like snow in summer. Edward stroke right into the heart of Gwynedd and took Dolwyddelan Castle, the main seat of the Princes of Gwynedd in the 13th century. The rebellion ended when Davydd and his family who had taken to the mountains, were betrayed and captured in June 1283. Davydd was executed as traitor in September, his sons imprisoned and his daughters sent to nunneries (6). The Principality of Gwynedd ceased to exist (7).
Llywellyn's surving brother Rhodri had sold his Welsh possessions long ago and lied low on his estates in England. Rhodri's grandson Owain Lawgoch, Owain of the Red Hand, became a famous mercenary leader in France and would eventually claim the title, supported by exiled Welsh nobles and King Charles V of France. The threat of a French invasion in Wales - right in the middle of the Hundred Years War - was important enough for King Edward III of England (8) to have Owain assassinated in 1378.
King Edward stripped Gwynedd of all royal insignia and reorganised the land into counties and shires administered by English magistrates according to English law. In the Statute of Rhuddlan (1284) three new shires were created: Caernarfon, Merioneth and Anglesey; castles were built at Harlech, Caernarfon, and Conwy - the latter two including walled towns. They would be the administrative centres of the new shires and populated by English settlers. Plans were also made for a castle and settlement on Anglesey near the town of Llanfaes, but there was not enough money, so the plan was postponed. Edward's sheriff of Anglesey, Roger de Pulesdon, took his seat in the manor of Llanfaes.
But there was still a rebellious spark in the subdued Welsh. In 1294, Madoc ap Llywellyn, member of a junior branch of House Aberffraw and fifth cousin of Llywellyn, used the growing discontent with the English administrators who often abused their power, and English taxes, to ally several Welsh nobles in an uprising that included southern lords from Glamorgan. The rebellion had been well planned and totally surprised Edward. Caernarfon and several other castles were taken, the castles of Harlech and Criccieth besieged, towns burned, Caerphilly partly destroyed; the unpopular sheriff of Anglesey, Roger de Pulesdon, was killed.
King Edward led an army into north Wales in December 1294. He reached Conwy Castle, having lost his baggage train in an ambush, and got stuck in the besieged castle for several months until his fleet could relieve him. But the Welsh could not withstand Edward's army in the field. They lost the battle of Maes Moydog in March 1295; Madoc ap Llywellyn escaped with nothing but his life and lived as fugitive until he was betrayed and captured. He obviously spent the rest of his life in prison in the Tower (9). The failed rebellion only resulted in further suppressions and restrictions for the Welsh people.
Well, financial troubles or not, a castle was now to be built on Anglesey. The Welsh population of Llanfaes was moved 12 miles to the south-west because Edward wanted an English town to go with his castle (albeit other than Caernarfon and Conwy, the town was never walled in). Sure, the site was the same distance from Caernarfon and Conwy and thus strategically sound, but Llanfaes had been a busy trading town due to its location and would never prosper on the new site. Another thorn in the Welsh side.
The castle was called after the place name Beau Mareys, 'fair march'. The work was overseen by Master James of St.George who had the responsibilty for all of Edward's castles in Wales. In 1295, he concentrated on the repair of Caernarfon and the building of Beaumaris. His work here is well documented; I'll get to that in the next post.
Edward truly wanted that castle like yesterday. In February 1296, the inner curtain wall stood to 6-8 metres, work on four of the inner towers had been begun, as well as on ten of the towers of the outer curtain wall. The south gate was already fitted with portcullises, and construction of the harbour that would allow to supply the castle garrison by sea, was well under way. An average of 2,000 labourers worked on the site, plus 400 stonemasons, 200 quarrymen and an unspecified number of carpenters and smiths. The place must have looked like an anthill. The transport of material involved 30 boats, 60 waggons and 100 carts moving to and fro.
The fun cost £ 270 a week in wages, not to mention the costs for material. The following year only a third of that sum would be spent and work progressed much slower. Edward's increasing involvment in Scotland led to a shortage of money and in 1298, work on the castle almost ceased.
There was a second period of builiding going on since 1306 because Edward feared that the Scots and Welsh might ally and attack England from two sides. The south barbican was built during that time, the outer curtain wall and the moat finished, as well as the north gate which had simply been walled up in 1298. Work on Beaumaris finally ended in 1330. The considerable sum of £ 15,000 had been spent until then.
Albeit unfinished, the castle was strong enough to serve as defense and was garrisoned. It was taken by the Welsh during the rebellion of Owain Glyn Dŵr in 1403 and recaptured by royal forces in 1405 (10). It thus played only a small part in the rebellion, but since I have covered several Welsh raisings in this post already, it's a good place to present a short version of Owain's rebellion as well.
Owain Glyn Dŵr was a descendant of both the princes of Powys and Deheubarth, and thus could claim the title Prince of Wales with some right after the princes of Gwynedd had died out. He got into trouble with Baron Grey de Ruthyn over some land and, as usual, the court decided in favour of the English lord. Grey then 'forgot' to tell Owain about a call of the levies, branding Owain as traitor at court. Owain, together with his son, brothers-in-law, the bishop of St.Asaph and other digruntled noblemen, launched an attack on Lord Grey's lands. The revolt soon spread to northern and central Wales which went over to Owain. King Henry IV's military invention in 1401 remained unsuccessful. The following year, Owain captured Baron Grey. King Henry paid a heavy ransom for him.
But when Owain captured Sir Edmund Mortimer at the battle of Bryn Glas, the king was not willing to pay the ransom (since Mortimer had a claim to the English throne). Mortimer negotiated an alliance with Owain instead, and later the Tripartite Indenture between Owain, Mortimer and Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland. The three basically wanted to divide England and Wales among them.
With the Hundred Years War still being in full swing, Owain could also draw on French support, and the Scots never liked the English, either. Scottish and French privateers operated round Wales and a French army invaded Herefordshire. Several companies of English archers - probably of Welsh descent - went over to Owain. 1404 was his year. Owain called the first Parliament of all Wales at Machynlleth where he was crowned as Prince of Wales. Wales was to be an independent state with its own laws again (which had been replaced by English laws and courts since Edward I) and its own church.
But it would not last. In 1405, the king of France wanted peace with England and withdrew his support, while the young prince Henry (the latter Henry V; 11) adopted a strategy of economic blockade instead of punitive expeditions which often failed - he had led some of them himself, but the Welsh used guerilla strategies which were difficult to deal with. Some nobles began to look for reconciliation with the English, and many commoners went back to their fields and tools.
In autumn 1407, Owain had lost the castles of Aberystwyth and Harlech to the English; his wife and daughters were captured, his ally Edmund Mortimer died in battle. Owain remained free and still launched raiding parties, even managed to capture and ransom one of King Henry's supporters in 1412, but the rebellion more or less petered out. But contrary to his predecessors Davydd ap Gruffudd and Madoc ap Llywellyn, he was never betrayed, despite the handsome reward put on his head.
Wen Henry V became King in 1413, he decided for a more reconciliatory course and offered pardons to the leaders of the revolt. Owain refused and vanished into obscurity and legend. Even the date of his death is not known, it may have been 1415. Owain's legacy is his legend as Owain Glyn Dŵr and a bunch of statues in Wales.
Beaumaris castle fell into disrepair, lacking roofs, with timber structures rotten away, until the Civil War when it was repaired and held for the king by Thomas Viscount Bulkeley since 1642 (he spent some £ 3,000 on those repairs); the commander of the garrison was Colonel Richard Bulkeley. . The castle was situated at a strategically important site on the route to the king's bases in Irleand. It surrendered to a Parliament army 1646 and was garrisoned by Parliament forces. It was briefly recaptured by royalists two years later, but eventually fell to the Parliament again. Contrary to other conquered castles, Beaumaris was not slighted since Cromwell feared an invasion from Scotland. It was instead garrisoned under Colonel John Johnes, a relative by marriage of Cromwell.
Charles II restored the Bulkeley family as constables of Beaumaris when he returned to the throne in 1660. But the castle was soon stripped of its valuable lead roofs and abandoned for good. It says something about those big Norman walls that so much of it survives until today.
(The next post will cover the architecture of Beaumaris Castle.)
Footnotes
1) Actually, William's invading Wales was a response to Welsh border raids. He had his hands full with England already and probably would have left the conquest of Wales to the next generations.
2) There were more brothers and half-brothers involved, but Davydd was the most important.
3) Roger's mother was Gwladys Dhu, a daughter of Llywellyn the Great who also was Llywellyn ap Gruffudd's grandfather.
4) Edmund Mortimer and Roger Mortimer of Chirk took over from their father who died in October 1281, bereaving King Edward of one of his most able commanders.
5) William de Valence of Pembroke had replaced the inept Earl of Gloucester.
6) As was Llywellyn's daughter. All children died in captivity.
7) The Principality of Powys-Wenwynwyn was changed into a Marcher lordship; its rulers took the surname de la Pole.
9) At the time of Owain's death, the underage Richard II was king of England, but the assassination was likely set into motion by Edward III. The assassin, one John Lamb, needed time to gain Owain's confidence. He got £ 20 for his job.
9) We know he was not executed since that would have been mentioned in the sources, but there is not really any further information about Madoc.
10) Owain's main problem was the lack of artillery which was needed to conquer castles, and the lack of a fleet (though he would later get some help from the French and Scots there). He mostly took to guerilla strategies instead.
11) Henry IV's health failed since 1405, and his son, who had fought at his side in the Battle at Shrewsbury 1403, took up more responsibilies, often in conflict with his father.
Literature
R.R. Davies: The Age of Conquest. Wales 1063-1415, Oxford 1987, repr. 2000
Arnold Taylor: Beaumaris Castle - Cadw Guidebook, Cardiff 2004
Read more! ¶ May 16, 2016 3 comments
7 May 2016
Shiny Things from Viking Times - The Gold Treasure of Hiddensee: The Craftmanship
As promised, here is the second post about the Hiddensee Gold Treasure where I'll take a closer look at the pieces, the craftmanship involved in creating them, and the cultural context in which they were created.
Hiddensee Treasure, the ring
Rings of all sizes are a well-known feature in Mediaeval Scandinavian culture where kings were known as 'ring givers'. Those rings were usually arm rings or neck rings and served as payment as well as decoration (some rings that have been found show that material has been hacked off (1)). Surely, the art was valued, but more so the material. Older jewelry has often been melted down to create new pieces - the whole set of Hiddensee was made of re-used gold (2). Viking goldsmiths were pretty skilled at separating the various metals from an alloy, which explains the high purity of the Hiddensee gold of ~ 97%.
The neck ring of the Hiddensee Treasure weighs 152,8 gram and has an outside diametre of 13,5 cm. It is thus a ring more fit for a child or a woman. It consists of four entwined gold wires in the way that first two wires were wound round each other and the both two-wire sets were entwined again, giving the ring a sort of braided look. The ends have been flattened and end in an hook and eye clasp to fasten the ring. The purity of the gold and the structure of the ring make it possible to bend it to some extent without breaking, so it can easily be fixed around a neck (3).
Silver ingots, wire, and wire drawer (Museum Haithabu)
The photo above shows a set of silver ingots, wire, and a wire drawer (in the lower part of the photo) from the toolmaker's hoard found in Haithabu. Silver or gold wire is created by casting an oblong ingot which is then drawn through a set of holes in a piece of harder metal - bronze or iron - which get subsequently smaller. The gold or silver is heated during the process to make it softer, but not the point of melting.
To create the filigree beadwork that adorns several of the pieces from the Hiddensee Treasure, the wire is treated with a beading file or a beading press. The latter looks a bit like a thumbscrew, with several bead shaped hollows into which the heated wire is pressed. The beadwork therefore consists of bits of bead-shaped wire, not of single beads.
Hiddensee Treasure, one of the pendants with granulation decoration
Granulation is a different technique. The irregular little granules on some of the pendants are created by mixing little gold splinters with charcoal in a crucible. When heated in an oven, the metal particles will form into granules, the shape with the smallest surface.
Both beaded wire and granules are fixed to the surface of the pendant by soldering. The soldering alloy is a mixture of gold, silver and copper with a lower melting point than pure gold. It was created by filing off tiny particles from an ingot which were spread onto the surface of the pendant and heated to melting point; then the beaded wire was fixed to it. With complicated ornaments that would likely have required several steps. Granules were simply strewn onto the soldering alloy.
Metal press models for fibulas and pendants (Museum Haithabu)
You have seen in the first post that several of the cross shaped pendants have the same form - they were indeed some sort of mass product, though the ones from Hiddensee are of particularly high quality. Among the finds from Haithabu is a set of 41 press models for various sorts of pendants. Press models and other tools of gold- and silversmiths have also been other found in Viking settlements like Sigtuna, Trelleborg, Lund, even York or Old Ladoga in Russia, but the Haithabu find is the largest.
Moulds and press models made from antler (Haithabu)
The press models of bronze or brass, or sometimes antler, present the basic shape of the fibula or pendant - a slightly elevatd disc, four cross, or bird are the most common - and often also lines for the beadwork. A flat ingot of gold or silver would be hammered into sheet metal which was then punched into shape on the model with a wooden or rounded metal punch. Excess metal was cut off. In a next step, the shaped sheet metal was soldered onto an undecorated second sheet, thus forming a hollow pendant that is rather light in weight. Some of the pendants have tiny cross bars inside to give the structure better support.
Hiddensee Treasure - the fibula
Here is the photo of the fibula again so we can have a closer look at the ornaments. It is 8 cm in diametre with a slighly elevated front, making it 1,4 cm thick in the middle. Like the pendants, the fibula is hollow inside. The bronze needle on the back side has been lost, but the hook and the fittings remain; they are of a somewhat lesser purity than the show side of the fibula, but that alloy makes the gold less soft to carry the weight of the fabric fastened by the fibula.
The show side displays four animals seen from above. Their heads meet in the middle where five little fields, now empty, form a cross. They had once been filled with green glass - an unusal addition. The beasts show the typical elongated and twisting shape found on a number of Viking time decorations. Neck, body and tail are very long while the shoulder is triangular and the hindquarter pear shaped. The style is a mix of the Borre style (with the round shapes and twists) and the Jellinge style (the elongated form) and often referred to as Hiddensee style. Some 50 fibulas in that style exist, but most of them are made of silver and smaller than this one.
Two of the six largest pendants
All ten cross shaped pendants consist of a hollow tube in the shape of a bird's head seen from above, and a cross from whose three arms springs another cross each. The openings at the sides of the tube are made of an alloy with a higher percentage of copper to support the strain of a chain or band. The bird's heads with the two eyes and beak likely belong to some bird of prey, though probably not an eagle, since eagle shaped pendants usually show the bird's head from the side (4). The combination of the pagan bird motiv and the Christian cross makes those pendants interesting in their cultural context. About 40 of them have so far been found in places connected with the Viking culture.
One of the pendants with simple knotwork
The braided bead ornaments on the cross part of the pendants are more typical for continental and AnglosSaxon ornaments. Their origins lie in Roman and Byzantine decoration. The six largest pendants (about 7 cm in length) show braided bands, two smaller ones of about 5 cm length show bead knotwork, and two have granulations ornaments (see photo above). The four 'intermediate' pendants of 2 cm length don't have a bird on the tube; their ornaments are braided bands.
Clover shaped brooch and a fibula in the Terslev-style (Museum Haithabu)
Haithabu had been a centre of trade and craft from the late 9th to the mid 11th century, and the finds of tools and jewelry show a development of style. The older type is the so-called Terslev style (named for the silver hoard of Terslev in Denmark). The ornaments are four-point symmetrical braided bead bands or knot work on round fibulas, but there are no animal shapes like in the later Hiddensee style. Models for both styles and intermediate forms can be found in Haithabu. Gold fibulas are rare and there are few that can compare to the Hiddensee one in size and craftmanship. The cross shaped pendants are more common, but most finds are made of silver.
We cannot be sure how the Hiddensee jewelry was worn, except for the fibula (to hold a cloak or mantle) and the neck ring. The cross shaped pendants don't fit into a necklace where they would bump against each other, so it is likely they were worn as pectoral of several parallel sets held by horizontal bands or chains connected by vertical chains at the sides. If the whole set was worn together, it must have been a pretty impressive sight, jewelry worthy a queen indeed.
Moulds, a thong and other tools for metalwork (Haithabu)
Footnotes
1) An example is the ring from Tissø which weighed about 2 kg - a bit heavy to wear - and shows traces of material having been removed.
2) There were no gold mines in the part of Scandinavia where such jewelry was created, so the material for the Hiddensee treasure is assumed to have come from older jewelry or coins. While the purity of the gold and the way those pieces were created has been researched with modern methods, I could not find any information about a possible origin of the gold, which surprises me - those informations can usually be obtained today. It would be interesting to know if the gold is more local - from the British Isles for example, or as exotic as coins from the Arabian Caliphate. Other metals necessary for alloys, like copper, tin or zinc, had to be obtained by trade or re-melting as well.
3) And it survived being bent to fit into a jar.
4) In most cases, the rest of the fibula, pendant or whatever is also shaped as stylized bird.
Literature
B. Armburster, H. Eilbracht: Wikingergold auf Hiddensee. Rostock, 2010
Kurt Schietzel: Spurensuche Haithabu. Neumünster/Hamburg, 2014
Read more! ¶ May 07, 2016 3 comments
As promised, here is the second post about the Hiddensee Gold Treasure where I'll take a closer look at the pieces, the craftmanship involved in creating them, and the cultural context in which they were created.
Rings of all sizes are a well-known feature in Mediaeval Scandinavian culture where kings were known as 'ring givers'. Those rings were usually arm rings or neck rings and served as payment as well as decoration (some rings that have been found show that material has been hacked off (1)). Surely, the art was valued, but more so the material. Older jewelry has often been melted down to create new pieces - the whole set of Hiddensee was made of re-used gold (2). Viking goldsmiths were pretty skilled at separating the various metals from an alloy, which explains the high purity of the Hiddensee gold of ~ 97%.
The neck ring of the Hiddensee Treasure weighs 152,8 gram and has an outside diametre of 13,5 cm. It is thus a ring more fit for a child or a woman. It consists of four entwined gold wires in the way that first two wires were wound round each other and the both two-wire sets were entwined again, giving the ring a sort of braided look. The ends have been flattened and end in an hook and eye clasp to fasten the ring. The purity of the gold and the structure of the ring make it possible to bend it to some extent without breaking, so it can easily be fixed around a neck (3).
The photo above shows a set of silver ingots, wire, and a wire drawer (in the lower part of the photo) from the toolmaker's hoard found in Haithabu. Silver or gold wire is created by casting an oblong ingot which is then drawn through a set of holes in a piece of harder metal - bronze or iron - which get subsequently smaller. The gold or silver is heated during the process to make it softer, but not the point of melting.
To create the filigree beadwork that adorns several of the pieces from the Hiddensee Treasure, the wire is treated with a beading file or a beading press. The latter looks a bit like a thumbscrew, with several bead shaped hollows into which the heated wire is pressed. The beadwork therefore consists of bits of bead-shaped wire, not of single beads.
Granulation is a different technique. The irregular little granules on some of the pendants are created by mixing little gold splinters with charcoal in a crucible. When heated in an oven, the metal particles will form into granules, the shape with the smallest surface.
Both beaded wire and granules are fixed to the surface of the pendant by soldering. The soldering alloy is a mixture of gold, silver and copper with a lower melting point than pure gold. It was created by filing off tiny particles from an ingot which were spread onto the surface of the pendant and heated to melting point; then the beaded wire was fixed to it. With complicated ornaments that would likely have required several steps. Granules were simply strewn onto the soldering alloy.
You have seen in the first post that several of the cross shaped pendants have the same form - they were indeed some sort of mass product, though the ones from Hiddensee are of particularly high quality. Among the finds from Haithabu is a set of 41 press models for various sorts of pendants. Press models and other tools of gold- and silversmiths have also been other found in Viking settlements like Sigtuna, Trelleborg, Lund, even York or Old Ladoga in Russia, but the Haithabu find is the largest.
The press models of bronze or brass, or sometimes antler, present the basic shape of the fibula or pendant - a slightly elevatd disc, four cross, or bird are the most common - and often also lines for the beadwork. A flat ingot of gold or silver would be hammered into sheet metal which was then punched into shape on the model with a wooden or rounded metal punch. Excess metal was cut off. In a next step, the shaped sheet metal was soldered onto an undecorated second sheet, thus forming a hollow pendant that is rather light in weight. Some of the pendants have tiny cross bars inside to give the structure better support.
Here is the photo of the fibula again so we can have a closer look at the ornaments. It is 8 cm in diametre with a slighly elevated front, making it 1,4 cm thick in the middle. Like the pendants, the fibula is hollow inside. The bronze needle on the back side has been lost, but the hook and the fittings remain; they are of a somewhat lesser purity than the show side of the fibula, but that alloy makes the gold less soft to carry the weight of the fabric fastened by the fibula.
The show side displays four animals seen from above. Their heads meet in the middle where five little fields, now empty, form a cross. They had once been filled with green glass - an unusal addition. The beasts show the typical elongated and twisting shape found on a number of Viking time decorations. Neck, body and tail are very long while the shoulder is triangular and the hindquarter pear shaped. The style is a mix of the Borre style (with the round shapes and twists) and the Jellinge style (the elongated form) and often referred to as Hiddensee style. Some 50 fibulas in that style exist, but most of them are made of silver and smaller than this one.
All ten cross shaped pendants consist of a hollow tube in the shape of a bird's head seen from above, and a cross from whose three arms springs another cross each. The openings at the sides of the tube are made of an alloy with a higher percentage of copper to support the strain of a chain or band. The bird's heads with the two eyes and beak likely belong to some bird of prey, though probably not an eagle, since eagle shaped pendants usually show the bird's head from the side (4). The combination of the pagan bird motiv and the Christian cross makes those pendants interesting in their cultural context. About 40 of them have so far been found in places connected with the Viking culture.
The braided bead ornaments on the cross part of the pendants are more typical for continental and AnglosSaxon ornaments. Their origins lie in Roman and Byzantine decoration. The six largest pendants (about 7 cm in length) show braided bands, two smaller ones of about 5 cm length show bead knotwork, and two have granulations ornaments (see photo above). The four 'intermediate' pendants of 2 cm length don't have a bird on the tube; their ornaments are braided bands.
Haithabu had been a centre of trade and craft from the late 9th to the mid 11th century, and the finds of tools and jewelry show a development of style. The older type is the so-called Terslev style (named for the silver hoard of Terslev in Denmark). The ornaments are four-point symmetrical braided bead bands or knot work on round fibulas, but there are no animal shapes like in the later Hiddensee style. Models for both styles and intermediate forms can be found in Haithabu. Gold fibulas are rare and there are few that can compare to the Hiddensee one in size and craftmanship. The cross shaped pendants are more common, but most finds are made of silver.
We cannot be sure how the Hiddensee jewelry was worn, except for the fibula (to hold a cloak or mantle) and the neck ring. The cross shaped pendants don't fit into a necklace where they would bump against each other, so it is likely they were worn as pectoral of several parallel sets held by horizontal bands or chains connected by vertical chains at the sides. If the whole set was worn together, it must have been a pretty impressive sight, jewelry worthy a queen indeed.
Footnotes
1) An example is the ring from Tissø which weighed about 2 kg - a bit heavy to wear - and shows traces of material having been removed.
2) There were no gold mines in the part of Scandinavia where such jewelry was created, so the material for the Hiddensee treasure is assumed to have come from older jewelry or coins. While the purity of the gold and the way those pieces were created has been researched with modern methods, I could not find any information about a possible origin of the gold, which surprises me - those informations can usually be obtained today. It would be interesting to know if the gold is more local - from the British Isles for example, or as exotic as coins from the Arabian Caliphate. Other metals necessary for alloys, like copper, tin or zinc, had to be obtained by trade or re-melting as well.
3) And it survived being bent to fit into a jar.
4) In most cases, the rest of the fibula, pendant or whatever is also shaped as stylized bird.
Literature
B. Armburster, H. Eilbracht: Wikingergold auf Hiddensee. Rostock, 2010
Kurt Schietzel: Spurensuche Haithabu. Neumünster/Hamburg, 2014
Read more! ¶ May 07, 2016 3 comments
