the winter camp of the viking great army, ad 872-3 ...eprints.whiterose.ac.uk › 107011 › 1 ›...

This is a repository copy of The Winter Camp of the Viking Great Army AD 872-3 TorkseyLincolnshire

White Rose Research Online URL for this paperhttpeprintswhiteroseacuk107011

Version Published Version

Article

Hadley Dawn orcidorg0000-0001-5452-5265 and Richards Julian Daryl orcidorg0000-0003-3938-899X (2016) The Winter Camp of the Viking Great Army AD 872-3 Torksey Lincolnshire The Antiquaries Journal pp 23-67 ISSN 1758-5309

httpsdoiorg101017S0003581516000718

eprintswhiteroseacukhttpseprintswhiteroseacuk

Reuse

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence This licence allows you to distribute remix tweak and build upon the work even commercially as long as you credit the authors for the original work More information and the full terms of the licence here httpscreativecommonsorglicenses

Takedown

If you consider content in White Rose Research Online to be in breach of UK law please notify us by emailing eprintswhiteroseacuk including the URL of the record and the reason for the withdrawal request

THE WINTER CAMP OF THE VIKING GREAT ARMYAD ndash TORKSEY LINCOLNSHIRE

Dawn M Hadley FSA and Julian D Richards FSAwith contributions by Hannah Brown Elizabeth Craig-Atkins

Diana Mahoney-Swales Gareth Perry Samantha Stein and Andrew Woods

Dawn M Hadley Department of Archaeology University of Sheffield Northgate HouseWest Street Sheffield S ET UK Email dmhadleysheffieldacuk

Julian D Richards Department of Archaeology University of York The Kingrsquos Manor YorkYO EP UK Email julianrichardsyorkacuk

This paper presents the results of a multidisciplinary project that has revealed the location extent

and character of the winter camp of the Viking Great Army at Torksey Lincolnshire of AD ndash

The camp lay within a naturally defended area of higher ground partially surrounded by marshes

and bordered by the River Trent on its western side It is considerably larger than the Viking camp of

ndash previously excavated at Repton Derbyshire and lacks the earthwork defences identified

there Several thousand individuals overwintered in the camp including warriors craftworkers and

merchants An exceptionally large and rich metalwork assemblage was deposited during the Great

Armyrsquos overwintering and metal processing and trading was undertaken There is no evidence for a

pre-existing Anglo-Saxon trading site here the site appears to have been chosen for its strategic

location and its access to resources In the wake of the overwintering Torksey developed as an

important Anglo-Saxon borough with a major wheel-thrown pottery industry and multiple churches

and cemeteries The Torksey evidence allows for a radical reappraisal of the character of Viking

winter camps and the legacy of the Viking Great Army for Anglo-Saxon England

BACKGROUND

From AD to a Viking army wreaked havoc on the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms leading topolitical conquest settlement on a substantial scale and extensive Scandinavian culturaland linguistic influence in eastern and northern England This critical period for Englishhistory was followed by revolutionary changes in land ownership society and economyincluding the growth of towns and industry while transformations in power politics wouldultimately see the rise of Wessex as the pre-eminent kingdom of Anglo-Saxon England Yetdespite the pivotal role of the so-called Great Army (micel here) in these events little isknown of it documentary sources provide few insights into its activities and intentions andarchaeological evidence has largely remained elusive The size of the army and thescale of subsequent settlement have been disputed but the debate about the impact ofScandinavian raiders and settlers is typically informed by evidence that has widely differinglevels of chronological resolution and relates to diverse social economic and politicalcontexts scholars have long struggled to integrate this evidence effectively

copyTheAntiquaries Journal This is anOpenAccess article distributed under the terms of theCreativeCommons Attribution licence (httpcreativecommonsorglicensesby) which permits unrestrictedre-use distribution and reproduction in any medium provided the original work is properly cited

Hadley ndash McLeod ndash

The Antiquaries Journal pp ndash copy The Society of Antiquaries of London doifrasl

httpwwwcambridgeorgcoreterms httpdxdoiorg101017S0003581516000718Downloaded from httpwwwcambridgeorgcore IP address 851332715 on 03 Nov 2016 at 101954 subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use available at

This paper provides a fresh perspective on the Viking Great Army and its impacton Anglo-Saxon England based on new tightly dated and contextualised evidencefrom Torksey The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle tells us that in late AD lsquothe army wentinto Northumbria and it took up winter quarters at Torksey in Lindsey and then theMercians made peace with the armyrsquo While it has long been assumed that this occurredin the vicinity of the present-day village of Torksey on the River Trent c km northwest of Lincoln only now has the site of the Viking winter camp been precisely locatedand its extent established Torksey offers a unique research opportunity as both thecamp and the adjacent urban settlement that developed in the wake of the overwinteringare unencumbered by later development Hence from to we undertookan archaeological evaluation at Torksey as part of a wider research agenda to examinethe impact of ninth-century Viking armies to illuminate their scale complexity andintentions and to provide new insights into the relationship between raiding politicalconquest and settlement

THE VIKING GREAT ARMY

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that the Great Army landed in East Anglia in Thiswas evidently larger than any previous Viking force and it became a constant threat as itstayed in England through the winter Over the following years it engaged in battle acrosseastern and northern England leading each of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms to lsquomake peacersquoas the Chronicle puts it This is doubtless how the Army acquired many of the resources andallies it needed for a sustained campaign that marked a change in tactics from previousintermittent raids Viking armies had overwintered before ndash on the Isle of Thanet in themouth of the Thames in and on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent in ndash but these wereapparently isolated episodes on coastal sitesThe new force appears to have embarked on aphase of political conquest in which it exploited internecine warfare and played a role inappointing new kings from among its newly acquired allies drawn from the local elite Thedecade or so from witnessed the transformation of the Great Army from raiders tosettlers hastening the demise of the separate kingdoms of Mercia East Anglia andNorthumbria In one force lsquoshared out the land of the Northumbrians and theyproceeded to plough and support themselvesrsquo and another force settled in Mercia in

The remainder of the Great Army led by Guthrum was defeated in by theWest Saxonsunder Alfred at Edington inWiltshire As part of the ensuing peace negotiations Guthrumand thirty of his warriors were baptised then in the Army went to East Anglia lsquoandsettled there and shared out the landrsquo Subsequently Guthrum and Alfred famouslyengaged in the making of a treaty dividing out their areas of jurisdiction and makingarrangements for relations between their followers concerning legal disputes trade and the

Manuscripts C A and B contain the extended versionHer for se here on Norethhymbre and he nam

winter setl on Lindesse aeligt Tureces iege and thorna namon Mierce frieth wieth thornone here while manuscript Dnotes only that lsquoIn this year the army took up winter quarters at Torkseyrsquo Whitelock

Ibid McLeod ndash Whitelock ndash Ibid ndash Blackburn ndash Whitelock Ibid Keynes and Lapidge

THE ANTIQUARIES JOURNAL


movement of people Coins were minted in Guthrumrsquos realm on some of which he used hisbaptismal name ofAEligthelstan These initiatives were part of the process by which Guthrumbecame a king in a western European guise

Yet despite the importance of this pivotal period in Anglo-Saxon history the army thatprecipitated these changes is poorly understood The size of Viking armies has been muchdebated especially following Peter Sawyerrsquos attempts some fifty years ago to challengeprevious assumptions about the large scale of the Viking onslaught Sawyer argued thattranslating the term here as lsquoarmyrsquo was misleading it was used in the early seventh-centurylaws of King Ine to mean any group numbering more than thirty-five men lsquoIf a here couldbe three dozen men it would be as well not to call it an ldquoarmyrdquorsquo He maintained that theChronicle exaggerated the numbers of ships involved in Viking raids and argued that thedifficulty of keeping a large army in the field precluded Viking armies comprising more thana few hundred men

Sawyer also attempted to mobilise archaeological evidence However he relied onantiquarian speculation about possible Viking encampments in his argument for the smallsize of the armies since the sites concerned were undated they did not readily support hiscase without some circularity of argument For example in the s Sir Cyril Fox haddismissed the notion that the earthwork known as Gannockrsquos Castle was the site of theViking winter camp of recorded at Tempsford (Bedfordshire) because at c times ft(c times m) it would only have accommodated around men However Sawyerargued that there was lsquono reason to think that the herementioned by the Chronicle was muchlarger than thisrsquo In contrast in Isaac Chalkley Gould had identified an earthworksome yards (m) long as the fortress built by a Viking army in at Shoebury(Essex) and Sawyer explained the larger size by describing it as a place lsquointended toshelter the women ships and property of the raiders during campaigns andhellip the men andhorses as wellrsquo

Nicholas Brooks subsequently demonstrated the flaw in Sawyerrsquos insistence that theAnglo-Saxon Chronicle is an unreliable witness to the numbers of ships that Viking raidscomprised He showed that the Chronicle is in fact notably restrained in its assessments ofthe scale of most of the raids and moreover that the estimates of the numbers of ships ndashsometimes or more ndash are corroborated by Frankish Irish and Spanish Muslim sourceslsquothe Chroniclersquos figures for Viking fleets are neither random nor wild they avoid the obviousexaggerations of less well-placed or more colourful continental sources and they mostly fita consistent pattern of Viking activity that is credible and circumstantialrsquo Brooks alsoargued that the Great Army was more successful than contemporary Viking armies raidingon the continent because it was demonstrably larger than those armies It was this that ledto the lsquoshattering effect which they achievedrsquo on Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and the Church

While there was still no reliable archaeological evidence concerning the encampments ofViking armies Brooks drew attention to the documentary evidence suggesting that theGreat Army typically based itself at the royal and administrative centres of the Anglo-Saxonkingdoms chosen lsquoprecisely because they already had defencesrsquo some of them substantialRoman fortifications He concluded that the size of the places the army chose as their

Blackburn Kershaw Sawyer Gould Sawyer Brooks Ibid Ibid

TORKSEY LINCOLNSHIRE


winter bases lsquowould be inexplicable unless the ldquolargerdquo Danish armies were numbered inthousands rather than hundredsrsquo

The places at which the Great Army spent each winter between and the mid-swhen permanent settlement commenced are critical to our understanding of theViking impact including scale composition and the range of activities in which theArmy was engaged Yet although the Chronicle records the overwintering sites this hasproven only partially helpful for locating and exploring Viking encampments in somecases it is unhelpfully vague (eg lsquoEast Angliarsquo in ndash) and even where a precise locationis named modern development has rendered the sites archaeologically inaccessible(eg York in ndash and ndash Nottingham in ndash Thetford in ndash Reading in ndash

and London in ndash)There are however two exceptions Torksey (ndash) and Repton(ndash)

Excavations and geophysical survey by Martin Biddle and Birthe Kjoslashlbye-Biddle atRepton (ndash) identified a substantial ditch some m deep which formed a relativelysmall D-shaped enclosure c ha in size This did nothing to challenge the view thatViking armies can only have been numbered in the hundreds Four furnished graves wereassociated with the recorded overwintering while excavation of a former mausoleumrecovered the disarticulated remains of at least individuals among which per cent ofthe sexed bones were male and described as lsquorobustrsquo Radiocarbon dating suggested thatthese remains dated to no later than the late ninth century and the deposit was interpretedas at least partly comprising members of the Great Army Other than some indication ofdamage inflicted on the church investigations at Repton revealed little more of the activitiesof the Great Army but this can now be seen as a reflection of the lack of metal detector andlandscape survey Nonetheless for a generation Repton has served as the prototype forViking encampments At Torksey our project now offers a different perspective We havesecurely identified the precise location of the overwintering of ndash through a programmeof archaeological evaluation and the plotting of an exceptional concentration of metalworkincluding ingots hack-metal and coinage (fig ) Our work has also revealed that thecamp was c ha in extent considerably larger than that identified at Repton andcharacterised by a wider range of activities Important as the excavations at Repton remainthe scale and character of this new evidence from Torksey forces a radical reappraisal of theViking Great Army

The new insights fromTorksey are timely given recent work on comparable sites in bothEngland and Ireland Metal-detecting excavation and landscape survey have revealed thelocation of another as yet unpublished winter camp at Aldwark north of York This isnot a documented winter camp but on the basis of the date of the metalwork it has been

Ibid Whitelock ndash it has been suggested that the camp at Reading lies beneath the site of the

medieval abbey Graham-Campbell ndash Biddle and Kjoslashlbye-Biddle and give an internal area of ha but recalcu-

lation by Stein and Guilbert n and comparison with OrdnanceSurvey maps confirms that a figure of ha is nearer the mark suggesting that ha is amisprint for ha

Williams Biddle and Kjoslashlbye-Biddle ndash For example Edgeworth Formerly known by the portmanteau name of Ainsbrook (from the surnames of the metal

detectorists who identified the site) and more recently as lsquoa riverine site in north Yorkshirersquo orlsquoa riverine site north of Yorkrsquo (ARSNY) Williams



associated with the movement of part of the Great Army back to Northumbria in ndash

Evidence for the operation of a bullion economy metal-working and trade has beenrecovered The site extended over an area of c ha surrounded by a sub-rectangularditched enclosure possibly of early medieval date Limited landscape analysis has revealedthat the site was on higher ground above the flood plain of the River Ouse and that wind-blown deposits may have obscured any archaeological features

The Annals of Ulster record the locations at which Viking armies in Ireland were basedsometimes describing them as longphuirt (plural for lsquoship-placersquo or lsquoship-harbourrsquo) with theearliest recorded being at Lough Neagh (Northern Ireland) in and Dublin in Whether the longphort should be regarded as a specific monument type has been extensivelydebated but recent work has begun to identify their locations through excavation surveyand recognition of a suite of morphological and locational characteristics Fieldwork atAnnagassan (Co Louth) has illuminated the longphort constructed at Linn Duachaill in Geophysical survey and excavation has identified a rampart comprising a bank andditch of c m running from the River Glyde to the sea and cutting off a km-longsection of the peninsula The geophysical survey also identified areas of burning and

Fig A selection of metal-detected finds from the Viking winter camp at TorkseyPhotograph copy Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge

Ibid Stein Sheehan Kelly



Fig Location plan showing the study area and the approximate outlines of theViking winter camp and the Anglo-Scandinavian borough Illustration base map ofthis and subsequent figures derived from m LiDAR data Environment Agencycopy all rights reserved field boundaries from Ordnance Survey Mastermapcopy Crown Copyrightdatabase right an Ordnance SurveyEDINA supplied

service general map of GB derived from Ordnance Survey MiniScale map



occupation lsquoconsistent with industrial activity and settlementrsquo and excavation revealeddebris from metal-working ship roves and rivets hack-silver a lead weight a fishingweight an iron knife and what has been interpreted as a weighing scale beam Finally therecent publication of the excavations at Woodstown (Co Waterford) has presented evi-dence for a Viking encampment It is not specifically recorded as a longphort although thispart of Ireland is poorly represented in surviving documentary sources and excavationsuggests that it was occupied for a longer period of time than other sites discussed in thispaper from the mid-ninth century until the early to mid-tenth century Two adjacentD-shaped enclosures encompass c ha and evidence for iron-working silver-workingglass-working ship repair and trade has been identified A burial containing weaponry hasalso been excavated

AIMS AND METHODS

Over the last twenty years several thousand pieces of early medieval metalwork and coinshave been recovered bymetal detector users from six fields to the north of the modern villageof TorkseyThese finds first came to scholarly attention in the s and in his overview ofAnglo-Saxon Lincolnshire they were interpreted by Sawyer as evidence for a market or fair ofeighth- and ninth-century date albeit that he accepted that lsquosome of the ninth-century coinswere probably brought by Vikingsrsquo Torksey was described by Katharina Ulmschneider in as a lsquovery productiversquo site At that time so-called lsquoproductiversquo sites characterised byunusual concentrations of coins and other metalwork of the Middle Anglo-Saxon periodwere increasingly being discovered in eastern England by metal-detecting However in apaper published two years later Mark Blackburn highlighted the concentration of ninth-century coins which implied lsquoa period of exceptional activity at Torkseyrsquo and he linked thefinds which then included eleven Arabic dirhams as well as hack-metal ingots and copper-alloy weights with the Viking overwintering of ndash although the precise locations in theparish from which the material was coming were unknown to him An updated list of findswas published in by which time it was apparent that most of the eighth-century coinswere not from the site of the winter camp now identified as lsquoseveral ploughed fields adjoiningthe Trentrsquo Blackburn estimated that the finds were coming from an area of c ha but ourfieldwork indicates that the size of the camp was in fact nearer to ha (fig )

In order to set this exceptional metal-detected assemblage in context we haveundertaken a five-year programme of archaeological investigation employing a variety oftechniques including geophysical survey fieldwalking environmental analysis and small-scale excavation By overlaying the various forms of evidence it is possible to make sense ofthe different categories of data Our aims have been to define the location and scale of thecamp its physical nature and organisation the activities undertaken there and its legacyWe have asked why the Viking army chose the site and examined its relationship to any

Kelly ndash Bill Oacute Floinn Sheehan Young Hurley Blackburn Sawyer Ulmschneider Blackburn Blackburn Ibid



pre-existing settlement and we have assessed the role played by this overwintering in thesubsequent emergence of the borough of Torksey to the south Earlier excavations withinthe area of the borough evidently once much larger than the current village of Torksey hadidentified at least four cemeteries and fifteen pottery kilns of ninth- to eleventh-centurydate However the spatial and chronological relationship between the borough and thewinter camp was previously unclear Our project has major implications for the widerunderstanding of Viking armies their strategies and composition and their interaction withlocal populations as well as the subsequent revolutionary changes in Late Saxon potteryindustries and the development of Anglo-Saxon towns

The project aims have been addressed via eight specific objectives employing a multi-disciplinary team of archaeologists geomorphologists numismatists and historians and byusing a range of techniques

Geoarchaeological investigation of the winter camp and its environs employingauguring test pitting optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating and pollenanalysis to understand the nature and development of the landscape and allow us tovisualise its likely appearance on the eve of the arrival of the Viking Great Army

Geophysical survey of the winter camp to identify archaeological features associatedwith the Viking camp and with other phases of activity

Fieldwalking and geo-referenced metal-detector survey within the Viking camp toidentify and date activity foci

Trial and test-pit excavations to assess the visibility and depth of buriedarchaeological features within the winter camp

Concordance and cataloguing of the metal-detected finds known to be from theViking camp (with a cut-off date of August ) to integrate a range of disparatesources

Fieldwalking and geophysical survey of Castle Field within the Anglo-Saxonborough to investigate the Torksey pottery industry

Petrological thin-section study of the pottery and its clay sources to help understandthe industry and inform broader issues of its relationship to the winter camp andborough

Assessment and radiocarbon dating of the excavated cemeteries in Torksey tounderstand their relationship to the winter camp and borough

The focus of this paper is on the winter camp itself (objectives ndash) as our study of theTorksey pottery industry is being published separately although reference is made to thekey outcomes of the other objectives (ndash) where they illuminate the camp and its impactA searchable and illustrated database of all early medieval finds and reports covering allobjectives are included in the digital archive curated by the Archaeology Data Servicetogether with the current paper they offer a full and up-to-date catalogue of all themetal-detected finds A selection of these finds have been discussed in previouspublications but our project has collated published sources current Portable Antiquities

Barley ndash Sawyer ndash Barley and Field Palmer-Brown Williams and Field Rowlandson

Rowe Perry Hadley and Richards b Perry Hadley and Richards a The projectrsquos physical archive will be deposited in LincolnMuseum

with accession numbers prefixed TORK and TORK For example Blackburn and Naismith



Scheme (PAS) records and museum accessions along with newly recovered finds Byintegrating these strands of information with the results of targeted fieldwork and dating weare able to demonstrate the value of metal-detected evidence through a contextualisedapproach on a scale not hitherto seen

THE LANDSCAPE OF THE VIKING WINTER CAMP

The winter camp was located east of the River Trent between the modern villages ofTorksey and Marton and straddling the parishes of Torksey and Brampton (OS gridreference SK ) This was a strategically important nodal point in the regional trans-port network just south of a crossing point over the river from which the Roman road nowknown as Till Bridge Lane ran south east to join Ermine Street just north of Lincoln Inthe medieval period (and probably earlier) Torksey was on a key transport route from thesouth to York as travellers transferred from road to river at this point according toDomesday Book its inhabitants had the special responsibility of accompanying royalmessengers to York lsquowith their ships and their means of navigationrsquo The position ofTorksey within reach should the need arise of Northumbria and the heart of Mercia isstriking The Trent would have provided access to the Midlands and downstream to theHumber estuary and thence to York or the North Sea This facilitated movement of thearmy between the kingdoms but also allowed control over other travellers into and out ofMercia It is also possible that waterborne access into Lindsey was controlled fromTorkseyas it is located adjacent to the Foss Dyke a canal of probable Roman construction whichconnects the Trent to Lincoln Although we cannot be certain that it was navigable in theninth century the transportation of pottery produced at Torksey to Lincoln in the followingcentury suggests that it was open by then

The current channel of the Trent does not necessarily correspond with its early medievalcourse It is likely however that climatic deterioration from the fourth to the tenthcenturies led to the formation of an unstable multi-channelled fluvial system with semi-permanent wetlands across the wider valley floor interspersed with areas of raised groundformed by the Mercia Mudstone and sand and gravel islands Our programme of coringand radiocarbon dating of peat sequences to the east of the winter camp has revealed thatthere had been a palaeochannel of the Trent up until the Bronze Age when upstreamsiltation cut it off from the river and peat deposits began to form Without an activechannel and with water levels averaging ndashm higher than they are today the low groundeast of the camp would have remained a wetland allowing peat to accumulate into the earlymedieval period (fig []) Sediment mapping to the north and south of the site revealednot peat but silt (fig [ and ]) suggesting that these areas remained open to the Trentwhich would have provided naturally occurring seasonal tidal ports with gently sloping

Metal-detected evidence has transformed our understanding of Viking Age England (Richardset al ) but has hitherto been largely discussed without reference to context (eg Kershaw) or on a smaller scale (eg Richards et al )

Whitwell Sawyer Foster and Longley Edwards and Hindle argue that the Trent was navigable as far upstream as Burton-

upon-Trent in Staffordshire Sawyer Wessex Archaeology Stein



sandbanks leading up to the higher ground of the winter camp The area to the north of thesite would have flooded regularly with the tidal influx of the Trent as it continues to do tothe present day when the Trent is in flood (fig []) Indeed the place name lsquoMartonrsquocomes from the Old English mere-tūn meaning lsquopool farmrsquo arguably derived from itsposition on the Trent flood plain Modern land management including the digging ofdrainage channels and the installation of a pump-house at Marton in the nineteenthcentury has had a significant impact and geoarchaeological analysis was essential indetermining the landscape setting of the winter camp

In the winter of ndash bounded to the west by the Trent and surrounded by wet andmarshy ground the site of the Viking campwas effectively an island A prominent bluff ndashmin height overlooked the floodplain gradually becoming less pronounced towards its northernend the land sloping gently down to the east and north east (figs [] and ) Although thehighest point is only c m higher than the modern village this is a significant difference in thecontext of the surrounding landscape The vantage point offered by the elevated locationcombinedwith access to the Trent must havemade it particularly attractive to theGreat ArmyViking armies are frequently recorded as occupying islands including Thanet (Kent) in Sheppey (Kent) in an unnamed island in the River Colne (Hertfordshire) in and anisland calledMersea out in the sea off the Essex coast in On the continent Viking armiesare also known to have based themselves on islands inmajor rivers and the advantages that thisoffered are suggested in a late ninth-century account byAdrevaldus amonk fromFleuryAbbey(France) of a Viking army on an island in the Loire where they lsquoheld crowds of prisoners in

Fig The ninth-century landscape of the winter camp

Cole Coates Stein Whitelock ndash ndash



chains and hellip rested themselves after their toil so that they might be ready for warfare Fromthat place they undertook unexpected raids sometimes in ships sometimes on horseback andthey destroyed all the provincersquo The island character of Torksey is supported by its placename which incorporates theOld English element ēg (lsquoan island dry ground in fen raised landin a wet arearsquo) alongside a personal name of debated etymology but probably Old EnglishTurocAlternatively the lsquoislandrsquo element may have referred not to the site of the camp but tothe raised ground on which the present village stands bounded by the Foss Dyke and theTrent and a band of low-lying wetland to the east where thirteenth-century sources recordlsquoBrampton Marshrsquo and lsquoTorksey Marshrsquo

A magnetic gradiometer survey was conducted over ha within the site This initiallytook the form of two m-wide transects which traversed the site northndashsouth and westndasheastalthough the survey area was expanded where there was the clearest evidence for archaeologicalfeatures (fig ) Themost striking anomalies were found in the centre of the transect where thedata indicate a post-medieval rabbit warren and a complex of rectilinear enclosures located

Fig A twenty-first-century view looking east across the River Trent to theprominent bluff and the winter camp

Nelson Purcell Torksey is first recorded as Old English Tureces iege (lsquoTurocrsquos islandrsquo) although later spellings are

all consistently lsquoTurcrsquos islandrsquo (eg aeligt Turces ige in Turcesige) Cameron and Insley ndash Barley Cole Brown a



towards the northern end of the ridge of high ground that forms the ʻislandʼ onwhich the wintercamp was based These enclosures are characteristic of a Romano-British settlementincorporating rectilinear ditched enclosures possible droveways and discrete pits they areinterpreted as a farmstead or similar (fig ) This interpretation is reinforced by concentrationsof Roman pottery found across this area during fieldwalking as well as by the distributionof Roman metalwork recovered by the detector survey (see fig ) The location provides a-degree view of the surroundings including Lincoln Marton the Trent and Till BridgeLane which led to a crossing over the river opposite the former Roman town at Littleborough

Fig The area of the winter camp overlaid with the results of the magnetometer survey



(Nottinghamshire) c km further north There is little indication of any Roman activitywithin the area of the later village of Torksey although pottery kilns of the second and thirdcenturies have been excavated south of the Foss Dyke

Our geoarchaeological survey demonstrated that considerable build-ups of windblownsand a part of the Lincolnshire Coversands deposit blanket the winter camp up to ndashm indepth The coring programme identified the location of former sand dunes many ofwhich were probably flattened by the first century AD Analysis of pollen from peatdeposits east of the winter camp suggests that woodland clearance accelerated in theRomano-British period probably associated with the establishment of the farmsteadidentified by themagnetometer survey By the time the Vikings arrived in ndash most of theformer dunes probably appeared as wide mounds of sandy ground interspersed with theterrace gravels and clay mudstone It is suspected that the deposits of windblown sandwhich have continued to build up and move since the Viking Age have obscured detectionof archaeology that even under ideal conditions can be expected to demonstrate com-paratively weak magnetic contrasts with the surrounding soil Such deposits may howeverhave positive implications ensuring the survival of the archaeology intact beneath the reach

Fig Geophysics interpretation of the central area showing the Roman farmstead(centre) and rabbit warren to the west

Riley et al Barley Mahoney-Swales and Perry Oswald Stein that windblown sand was characteristic of the Torksey landscape had been noted by

Barley Stein



of the plough Indeed one of our test excavations intended to assess a line of magneticanomalies identified in the gradiometer survey (fig ) revealed that silty sand extended to adepth of m below the modern ground surface (fig ) with a gaming piece fishingweight and buckle found at a depth of more than mOSL dating demonstrated that thisdeposit had begun to form in the second century AD and continued to build up in sub-sequent centuries The gradiometer survey found no evidence of a defensive ditch such asthat detected with excavation and geophysical techniques at Repton It is of courseconceivable that any such ditch at Torksey was masked by windblown sand but such adefensive measure may have been unnecessary when one considers the naturally defensiblelocation of the site

THE METALWORK ASSEMBLAGE

The windblown sand contains one of the richest assemblages of early medieval findsknown from the British Isles It is estimated that over the last twenty years some seventymetal-detector users have been working the site of the winter camp The majority

Fig Geophysics interpretation of part of the southern area showing possibleanomalies and the location of the TORK test trench (green rectangle)

Mahoney-Swales and Perry Biddle and Kjoslashlbye-Biddle Aspinall



of finds are in private collections although some have been sold online Many have beenlogged by the PAS and given the wide area from which the detectorists have been drawn toTorksey objects have been reported to a number of finds liaison officers including those inSheffield Derby Lincoln Scunthorpe and York A major task of the assessment hasbeen to update the catalogue of finds provided by Blackburn and to develop a databaseof all known finds recovered before August (table ) The largest proportion( per cent) has been logged by the PAS per cent are in the Fitzwilliam MuseumCambridge per cent are in a variety of other locations including Lincoln Museumand private collections and a growing number (currently per cent) are from our ownmetal-detector survey The site of the winter camp continues to be subject to modernagricultural practices including deep ploughing which regularly brings fresh objects to thesurface Nonetheless the current landowners are in favour of controlling the detecting andaccess is now limited to a small number of detectorists who have been logging the locationof their finds with hand-held GPS Since all new finds have been plotted Althoughthere is a scatter of Roman andmedieval finds (as is common inmost areas of Lincolnshire)the majority of objects ( per cent) are early medieval (fig ) Around per cent of thesefinds are copper alloy with per cent lead per cent silver and very small proportions ofgold and iron (fig ) Apart from the under-representation of iron which is not generallycollected by the detectorists the sample appears to be broadly representative of the

Fig The TORK test trench looking east

Blackburn Hadley and Richards a



Fig Finds by period

Fig Early medieval finds by material



metalwork present on the camp particularly as the proportions are consistent betweendifferent detectorists

The distribution of early medieval finds plotted during our detector survey (fig ) showswidespread activity across each of the six fields identified as comprising the Viking campWhile the second southernmost field appears to have fewer finds the survey here has so farbeen constrained by the cropping regime Similarly although distributions of finds by type sofar indicate undifferentiated activities the overall number of geo-referenced finds is stillrelatively small Nonetheless the area of the Roman farmstead as revealed throughgeophysics is certainly confirmed by the distribution of Roman finds (fig ) The onlypossible indication of zoning of activities during the overwintering comes from the distributionof lead gaming pieces (fig ) which cluster towards the northern part of the site and mayprovide the best indication of domestic areas although we can map the find-spots of onlytwenty of more than pieces recovered

Table Early medieval finds recovered by metal detector from the winter camp at Torksey(to August )

Dressstrap end

pin

hooked tag

mount

brooch

bead

Thors hammer

other

Fragments

Economic

coinsceatta

styca

dirham

penny

precious metalhack-silver

ingot

hack-gold

weightscubo-octahedral

truncated spheroid

lead (inset)

lead (plain)

copper alloy (lead-filled)

balance

Gaming piece

Metal-working

Other (tools weapons and uncertain)

Total finds



Fig Distribution of the early medieval finds



Fig Distribution of the Roman finds



Fig Distribution of the lead gaming pieces



DATING THE CAMP

It is the metalwork and specifically the coinage that allows the assemblage to be dated soprecisely and which confirms this as the site of the Viking winter camp of ndash More than early medieval coins have been recovered including forty English silver pennies with anotable concentration from the s and early s (fig ) which is striking given that coinfinds of the early ninth century are generally more prolific than those of the middle andlater parts of the century Remarkably there are also more than Northumbriancopper-alloy stycas which did not circulate widely outside Northumbria and are generallyonly recovered in Lincolnshire as single finds Most of these were struck in the sparticularly during the reign of Aethelred II (ndash ndash) of Northumbria There are alsoeleven late stycas of Osberht (died ) probably dating towards the end of AnglianNorthumbria The concentration of stycas at Torksey suggests that they had remained incirculation and had been brought there directly from Northumbria from where theGreat Army had retired to Torksey Indeed stycas are increasingly being identified inScandinavian contexts in Britain including settlements hoards and burials and ninetystycas have been recovered from Aldwark

There are also dirhams from Torksey the largest concentration on any insularsite (fig ) These had all been cut into smaller fractions indicating that they had beenretained for their silver content rather than their monetary value These dirhams hadclearly been brought to England from the Middle East via Scandinavia and similar

Fig The age structure of the Anglo-Saxon coins excluding stycas found atTorksey

Blackburn Pirie Abramson Whitelock Williams Williams Blackburn ndash



concentrations of dirhams have been found at Scandinavian trading centres such asBirka (Sweden) and Kaupang (Norway) Indeed there is growing evidence for largeamounts of Arabic silver flowing into the Baltic in the s and s and the date profileof the dirhams is similar to that from Torksey although the sudden break in the late sat Torksey is not reflected at the Scandinavian trading sites which continued to receivedirhams into the mid-tenth centuryA similar span of dates to that at Torksey comprisingboth relatively recent and considerably older coins occurs when dirhams ndash admittedly inmuch smaller numbers ndash are found in hoards in England

The latest dirhams from Torksey have a terminus post quem in the late spost-dating the arrival of the Great Army in England which indicates continuedcontact with Scandinavia during the years of campaigning The English silver coinshave an end-date in the early s and they are likely to have been lost close totheir date of production as there is no evidence for pecking to test for qualityArchibald has argued that the most likely context for the introduction of peckingfirst demonstrated in hoards dated to after c was the reform of coinage in the mid-swhen the silver content of new issues was increased yet earlier issues continuedto circulate Allowing for the time it would have taken for the dirhams to reachEngland they appear to have an end-date remarkably similar to that of the English silvercoins in the early s (fig ) In summary it is clear that the early medieval coins canonly have been brought to the site by the Great Army given the combination of silvercoins of the s and early s dirhams used as bullion and the exceptional concentrationof stycas outside Northumbria

Fig Some of the Islamic dirhams found at Torksey Photograph copy FitzwilliamMuseum Cambridge

Blackburn ndash and Kilger Blackburn ndash Naismith ndash Archibald



A handful of Middle Anglo-Saxon finds and a few late tenth-century dress accessorieshave been recovered from the same fields but in insufficient amounts to suggest significantif any earlier or later settlement Fourteen late seventh- to early eighth-century sceattashave been found but this is a far smaller assemblage than is generally associated withMiddle Anglo-Saxon trading sites The character of the vast majority of the other metalartefacts is consistent as we shall see with them having been brought to the site or pro-duced there by the Great Army We are confident therefore that the exceptional assem-blage of finds from Torksey largely represents a single year of activity which may be linkedexactly to the overwintering of ndash recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

ACTIVITIES IN THE CAMP

At first sight the amount of metalwork recovered from the camp seems remarkable as thereflection of a single overwintering yet it is clear that in certain circumstances single eventscan lead to massive accumulations of material the detritus left by more recent armies ndash oreven on modern music festival campsites ndash reminds us how easy it is to mislay items inmuddy and trampled fields The fact that even gold and silver objects were not recovered atthe time indicates the sheer quantity of portable wealth that must have been collected by theArmy The assemblage is invaluable in contributing to our understanding of what a Vikingarmy did while it was overwintering including trade and exchange coin production andmetal processing as well as leisure activities

Trade and exchange

That Viking armies were accompanied by individuals involved in trade is suggested by the findsfrom Torksey This should not be a surprise as it is revealed in continental textsFor example theAnnals of St-Bertin record that in a Viking army besieged by Frankish forces

Fig The age structure of the dirhams found at Torksey



at Angers was permitted to hold amarket on an island in the Loire before departing in FebruaryThat armies were associated with trading is reinforced by the entry in the Annals for whichdescribes the lsquotraders and shield-sellersrsquo that followed the army of Charles the Bald

It is apparent that there were multiple economies operating alongside one anotherat Torksey There was evidently an important role for bullion as is clear from the fragmentedstate of the dirhams the presence of sixty pieces of hack-silver (fig ) and themixed profile ofthe coins ndash from three Anglo-Saxon kingdoms the continent and the Arabic world In thiscontext Anglo-Saxon Irish and Scandinavian fragmentary decorative silver jewellery can alsobe interpreted as having been used for monetary exchange Taken together this evidencereinforces the impression of the operation of a bullion-based economy that emerges from themany Viking silver hoards of the late ninth and early tenth centuries Most of these are ageneration later than the finds from Torksey but an exception is the hoard from Croydon(Surrey) consisting of hack-silver ingots and c coins from Mercia Wessex and the con-tinent plus three dirhams This has been dated to c and associated with the movement ofthe Great Army to London in the winter of ndash More recently a hoard fromWatlington(Oxfordshire) comprising coins seven items of jewellery and fifteen ingots has beendated to the late s following the defeat of the Viking army at EdingtonHack-silver silveringots and imported coins have also been found atWoodstown and Aldwark suggesting that a

Fig Some of the silver ingots and hack-silver found at Torksey Photographcopy Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge

Nelson ndash Blackburn ndash Brooks and Graham-Campbell lthttpwwwbritishmuseumorgabout_usnews_and_presspress_releasesviking_hoard_

foundaspxgt (accessed Sept )



bullion economy also characterised these Viking campsRecent analysis of a rural settlementat Cottam (Yorkshire) has revealed late ninth-century use of bullion indicating Scandinaviansettlement which endured at the site into the tenth century

Twelve pieces of hack-gold have been recovered at Torksey which are very unusualfinds (fig ) Several pieces had been chisel-cut from gold ingots although one twistedpiece may have been cut from an arm- or neck-ring Two cut gold solidi ndash one Frisianthe other Carolingian ndash may also have been bullion This is an important insight intoViking activity because unlike hack-silver and silver ingots gold in any form rarelyoccurs in Viking Age hoards in Britain and it has been suggested that this is in part becauseof its greater rarity and in part because it may have played more of a role in statusdisplay than in economic transactions However the remarkable concentration of goldfinds fromTorksey does seem to suggest the use of gold in such transactions This may evenhelp to explain the unique discovery of fake hack-gold from the site in the form of gold-plated copper alloy including a fragment of an ingot and two sections cut from squarerods

It is possible that copper-alloy artefacts were also being used as a form of low-valuebullion Indeed there are twelve copper-alloy ingots fromTorksey (fig ) one of which hasthe transverse hammering often visible on silver ingots and this may hint at a system ofvalue where copper was of some importance in exchange Such a practice is not reflectedin Viking Age hoards in England but copper-alloy ingots from eastern England are

Fig Some of the hack-gold from Torksey Photograph copy Fitzwilliam MuseumCambridge

Williams Haldenby and Richards Blackburn Blackburn ndash for recent discoveries of Viking Age gold ingots from East Anglia see

Pestell ndash Blackburn ndash



increasingly being identified some with the distinctive transverse hammering There isalso some evidence for this economic use of copper alloy more broadly across the Vikingworld with ingots found in several hoards (such as one from Spillings on Gotland whichhas a terminus post quem of AD ) and stycas found at trading sites in Scandinavia

A bullion economy required the weighing of the metal and more than weights havebeen recorded from Torksey (fig ) Nearly one hundred of these are copper-alloycubo-octahedral weights and there are also six truncated spheroid copper-alloy weights Botharguably reflect the design and weight standards of Arabic copper-alloy weightsand similar examples appear in considerable numbers on Scandinavian sites from the sand s while there is some evidence from Birka and Gotland that they were beingmanufactured there They are increasingly being recognised from sites in Britainand Ireland Aldwark has produced twenty-four cubo-octahedral weights and there is also onefrom Woodstown although neither has produced a spheroid weight Those at Torkseymust represent parts of multiple sets of weights Our analysis has not identified any

Fig A group of cut copper-alloy ingots (hack-copper) from Torksey Photographcopy Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge

Pestell ndash Pettersson Williams ndash Determining the difference between lead weights and gaming pieces is difficult but in our

analysis solid lead pieces were classed as weights and hollow examples as gaming pieces Thishollow formwould have allowed them to be stacked indeed one of the Torksey pieces was foundinside another

Pedersen ndash Williams one object from Aldwark may be the iron core from a spheroid weight



consistent weight standards although the composite nature of the Great Army mightaccount for a diversity of practice Nearly lead weights have been recovered thirty-seven of which are inset with decorative metalwork largely of insular origin Similar insetlead weights have been found at numerous sites Aldwark Woodstown the settlement atLlanbedrgoch on Anglesey and in Viking burials at Islandbridge near Dublin and atKiloran Bay in the Inner Hebrides Inset lead weights are also found in low numbers inScandinavia itself where they are thought to represent the transfer of an insular VikingtraditionThese inset weights seem therefore to reflect innovation in the operation of themetal-weight economy and the production of these weights provides another example ofmanufacturing during the earliest phases of Scandinavian settlement

The sheer scale of the precious and base metalwork from Torksey does not of itselfdemonstrate the nature or extent of economic transactions undertaken there but these arelikely to have been diverse The distribution of precious metals was undoubtedly one of themeans by which Viking leaders enhanced their prestige and secured the loyalty of theirfollowers While the imported dirhams show extensive fragmentation this is not true of theAnglo-Saxon coins which may reflect their use within a monetary economy not simply asbullion The use of bullion alongside amanaged currency has been dubbed the lsquodual economyrsquoof the Danelaw and has been assigned to the period when coins began to be minted forScandinavian rulers from the ss until the s but it now appears that it existed fromthe very outset of Viking settlement in the west The picture that emerges from Torksey ishowever not so much of a lsquodual economyrsquo as of multiple metal economies operating simul-taneously with gold silver and copper alloy all used in both coined and bullion form

It is unlikely that the Great Army accrued the wealth that is reflected in the finds fromTorksey solely through raiding and plunder The Great Army is repeatedly recorded as having

Fig A sample of weights from Torksey including examples of cubo-octahedraltruncated spheroid and lead inset types Photograph copy Fitzwilliam Museum

Cambridge

Oacute Floinn ndash Williams ndash Graham-Campbell Cf Williams



concluded peace treaties during its overwintering and tribute-taking may have been anelement in this process leases of land by ecclesiastics are known to have occurred in the lateninth century as a means of raising tribute to pay Viking armies Slave tradingmay have beena factor in acquiring wealth andmay ultimately be the origins of the dirhams from theMiddleEast that Viking armies brought with them Irish and continental sources record the captureand sale of slaves by Viking armies and while this is not directly documented in contemporarysources in England it must have occurred indeed the peace treaty between Alfred andGuthrum from the s contains a clause in which the rulers agreed not to harbour therunaway slaves from the otherrsquos realm Slaves may also have been used for labour or toprovide sexual services within the camp The ransoming of hostages may have been anothermeans of acquiring wealth and hostages were also politically useful Following the arrival ofthe Great Army at Repton the new ruler of Mercia Ceolwulf gave hostages and swore oathsthat he would be ready lsquoat the enemyrsquos servicersquo whenever required The details of the peacemade between the Army and the Mercians at Torksey are not provided in the Anglo-Saxon

Chronicle but it may have included similar arrangements

Coin production

There is some tentative evidence that the Great Army was minting coins during itscampaigns A strip of lead fromTorksey bearing the impression of the die for an imitative goldsolidus of Louis the Pious (ndash) supports the long-held belief that imitative gold solidi werebeingminted in England since a number have been found in eastern England albeit not fromthese actual diesThey seem intended to have served as coins not pendants since there is noevidence for suspension loops A lead impression of a lunette coin of Burgred of Mercia fromTorksey (fig ) also suggests minting it appears to bear a blundered inscription as do percent of the stycas which may be an indication that these were Viking imitations A platedcopper-alloy lunette was evidently a forgery and one of the dirhams (finds catalogue CMndash) appears to have a green patina again suggesting a contemporary forgery of which asimilar example of the early tenth century has been found in York

Once they had seized control of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms Viking rulers such asGuthrum began to mint coins which is usually regarded as requiring lsquoan administrativeinfrastructure to issue them and regulate their usersquoHowever the lead impressions of diesand blundered stycas from Torksey suggest that the minting of coinage emerged during theoverwintering phase even before the Viking leaders had adopted the administrative appa-ratus of Anglo-Saxon kingship Nonetheless the boundaries between the use of preciousmetals in a bullion monetary and a status-based or lsquodisplayrsquo economy can be fluid andprecious metals could easily be melted down and transformed into other forms whetheringots coins or display items such as the silver arm-rings of which fragments have beenfound at Torksey along with some evidence for their manufacture The decision to mint

McLeod and ndash Pelteret ndash Holm Whitelock ndash Blackburn ndash Blackburn ndash Blackburn Hall Blackburn Blackburn Williams



coins is an ideological one and often an expression of authority on the part of a rulerTo aViking army coins were not necessarily more logical than bullion but minting of imitationssuggests that they understood something of the political as well as the economic value ofcoinage The Great Army may have been engaged in minting coins for a variety of reasonsto use coinage in economic exchange locally to buy supplies to display the aspirations of itsleaders in an attempt to establish Viking authority within the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms andas a response to competition between leaders within the Great Army

Metal-working and other activities

Metal was also used in various forms of processing and production While not capable ofbeing closely dated melts of gold and silver indicate metal-working and silver-castingwaste has also been recovered from Aldwark and Woodstown while a high proportion ofthe cupels and crucibles recovered from Woodstown were used for silver-working

At Torksey the recovery of three strips of lead on which decorative punches had been tested

Fig Evidence of coin and metal production at Torksey Top left leadbearing the impression of lunette type A coin of Burgred of Mercia top right a leadtrial piece for triangular punches bottom a lead striking from dies of a lunette

type A coin Photograph copy Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge

Ibid ndash Treasure Annual Report ndash Sheehan ndash Young ndash



suggests the production of Scandinavian silver jewellery such as arm-rings A fragment of alead Pressblech die could have been used to impress decoration onto gold foil which was to beapplied to other objectsThat base metal-working was also undertaken is supported by therecovery of a lead casting for a strap end (fig ) copper-alloy and lead melts andmore than fragmentary copper-alloy artefacts (fig ) which were deliberately

Fig A lead casting for a strap end Photograph copy Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge

Fig A sample of fragmentary copper-alloy decorative metalwork from TorkseyPhotograph copy Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge

Blackburn



cut suggesting they were to be melted down Some of the fragmentary items mayalternatively have been intended as insets for the lead weights or other form of displaysince a significant minority have been pierced and some have intact rivets

Although no examples of clench nails have yet been recovered from Torksey it is very likelythat ships were drawn up onto the flood plain below the camp for repair over winter Indeed ahoard of iron woodworking tools is believed to have been recovered from the winter camp

The tools (fig ) which include four axeheads an axe hammer an adze and a two-edged bladecan be dated broadly on typological grounds to the eighth to tenth centuries If they were usedduring the overwintering it is notable that they have anAnglo-Saxon form lacking the distinctivepointed lugs of Scandinavian types and may reveal the use of Anglo-Saxon material culture ifnot labour Hoards of iron tools have sometimes been interpreted as ritual deposits in aScandinavian context these are typically found in riverine and marshy environments

However a ritual interpretation seems unlikely for the Torksey hoard as the tools are not acomplete set for any particular type of woodworking unlike broadly contemporary iron hoardsfrom Scandinavia The worn and damaged tools were accompanied by some fifteenfragments of iron vessel ndash mainly bowls and two tripod stands ndash suggesting that this was scrapiron ready for reworking the hoard may therefore provide evidence for both woodworking andiron-working on the site The general paucity of iron artefacts from Torksey must to a largedegree be connected to the under-representation of iron among the reported finds It is in

Fig A selection of artefacts from the hoard of woodworkersrsquo tools including a caul-dron an adze an axehead and several hammer heads Photograph copy Lincoln Museum

An unfinished strap end has also been recovered from Aldwark Williams For example Hadley and Richards a finds catalogue CM__ Now in Lincoln Museum Carhart Thomas Raffield Carhart



contrast notable that excavation and metal-detecting for iron at Woodstown recoveredhundreds of ferrous items many seemingly associated with ship repair

A range of other artefacts also seem likely to derive from overwintering activities Thepresence of spindle whorls needles punches and awls suggest textile-working presumablyincluding the repair of sails tents and clothing (fig ) Meanwhile lead gaming piecesserve as a reminder that the Army may have had leisure time on its hands (fig ) This allsuggests that the study of the impact of Viking raids in the late ninth century needs tobroaden its focus beyond the purely military Indeed few items related to military activityhave been recovered ndash merely two iron spearheads an iron sword hilt and an arrowhead

THE COMPOSITION AND SIZE OF THE VIKING GREAT ARMY

The winter camp at Torksey was evidently occupied not only by warriors but also bymerchants and craftworkers Women and children may also have been present as they arecertainly recorded as accompanying Viking armies in contemporary continental sourcesand in the Chronicle entries for and While no oval brooches typical of femaleScandinavian dress have been recovered and the other items of jewellery and dress acces-sories found cannot be confidently assigned to a specific gender the textile-workingequipment from Torksey may reflect a female presence Elsewhere textile-working spindle

Fig Some iron tools from Torksey including awls and spoon bits Photographcopy Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge

Bill Hadley and Hemer ndash Whitelock



whorls needles and needle cases linen smoothers and shears are overwhelmingly found inthe graves of females Moreover there are females among the individuals buried at theGreat Armyrsquos cemetery at HeathWood (Derbyshire) and among the mass burial at Reptonincluding one for whom stable isotope analysis has suggested a childhood spent in mid-continental or Baltic Europe

Documentary and archaeological evidence reveals that the Great Army was not asingle unified force but rather comprised multiple warbands drawn from different partsof Scandinavia In the unusually detailed account of the Great Armyrsquos battles with theWest Saxon forces in it is apparent that it was led by at least two kings ndash Halfdan andBagsecg ndash and a number of jarls with the army dividing into two at various stagesMoreover it was reinforced in this year by what the Chronicle describes as a lsquogreat summerarmyrsquo The differing burial strategies adopted subsequently at Repton and HeathWood ndash inhumation and cremation respectively ndash have similarly been interpreted asindications of the differing factions within the Great Army which divided in two after theoverwintering at Repton Stable isotope analysis of three males buried in furnished gravesat Repton reveal that they were from diverse regions within Scandinavia

Fig Examples of lead gaming pieces from Torksey Photograph copy FitzwilliamMuseum Cambridge

Graham-Campbell and Batey Budd et al Whitelock Richards et al Budd et al ndash



In this context it is striking that evidence for two areas of burial has been found withinthe winter camp at Torksey The fieldwalking programme recovered seventy fragments ofdefinite or possible human remains (fig ) two samples were radiocarbon-dated to the lateninth century Excavation revealed that modern ploughing had disturbed the site down tothe underlying clay derived from the Mercia Mudstone therefore it was not possible toconfirm the presence of graves although further fragments of human remains were recov-eredNonetheless the excavations were useful in revealing that the geology is different here

Fig Plan showing the location of TORK test trench (red) and find-spots ofhand-collected human bone (black triangles)

Hadley and Richards a the radiocarbon dates for two samples were AD ndash AD ndash

and AD ndash AD ndash (at per cent probability) Richards



with badly draining natural clay lying beneath the ploughsoil rather than the free-drainingsandy soils to the east this may help to explain the choice of this site for burial on the ridgeoverlooking the Trent as in the case of HeathWood Unfortunately the human remains wereso fragmentary that a minimum number of only two adults both probably male could beconfidently identified aged ndash and ndash years respectively A fragment of occipitalconsistent with the human cranium shows evidence of two separate blows from a sharpimplement providing compelling evidence for a violent and probably fatal encounter

A further human cranial fragment was recovered c m to the north east which may indicatea second burial area within the camp possibly reflecting another warband within the Army

It is possible that the presence of Anglo-Saxon slaves and hostages and perhaps evenallies acquired during their campaigns explains some of the Anglo-Saxon dress accessoriesand jewellery recovered from Torksey These were almost exclusively Anglo-Saxon inorigin and include copper-alloy strap ends the majority decorated in the late ninth-century Anglo-Saxon Trewhiddle style (fig ) as well as hooked tags (fig ) Howeverit is also possible that Anglo-Saxon material culture was being acquired and usedby Scandinavians even before permanent settlement Indeed a disc brooch of the flatAnglo-Saxon form decorated in the Scandinavian Borre style may suggest the presence of

Fig Examples of Anglo-Saxon strap ends from Torksey Photograph copy FitzwilliamMuseum Cambridge

Craig-Atkins



local metalworkers producing dress accessories to meet the tastes of the raiders

Furthermore the presence of metalwork from Ireland and Frankia may reveal something ofthe diverse places to which members of the Great Army had travelled and the peoplecultures and economic systems they had encountered

The evidence from Torksey also has considerable implications for our understanding ofthe size of the Viking Great Army Although not all of the ha is likely to have been asdensely occupied as a later town ndash and it may have comprised separate zones for the distinctgroups that made up the Army for industrial and trading activities and for living spaceand burial ndash the clear implication is that the population of the camp numbered in thethousands not the hundreds The Repton camp now seems rather small at ha to haveaccommodated an army and its accompanying camp followers and it appears implausiblysmall in the context of the camp at Torksey The Torksey camp is also considerablylarger thanWoodstown at ha and is more comparable with the winter camp at Aldwarkwhich is estimated to extend over ha although smaller this may reflect the fact thatAldwark dates to a few years later after the Great Army had divided in two The scale ofTorksey is striking given that it has been estimated that the four major urban places inScandinavia ndash Birka at c ha Kaupang at c ha Ribe (Denmark) at c ha and Hedeby(Germany) at c ha ndash were all considerably smaller even at their maximum extent in thetenth century

Without doubt given the size of the camp the Great Army and its followers probablyincluding women and children as well as traders and craftworkers comprised thousands ofpeople We can never know exact numbers but if a fleet comprised ndash longships and

Fig Examples of Anglo-Saxon hooked tags from Torksey Photographcopy Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge

Hadley and Richards a finds catalogue NLM-DC Russell and Hurley Williams Skre a



each ship had a crew of thirty to fifty warriors then an army within the range ndash isnot implausible and could easily have been accommodated on the island at Torksey TheAnglo-Saxon Chronicle references to fleets of several hundred ships may not have beenexaggerations after all

WHY TORKSEY

The choice of Torksey was doubtless partly determined by its easily defendable position at ajunction of river and road routes However it was not the only option facing theGreat Army asthere are other suitable locations along this stretch of the Trent including a similar lsquoislandrsquo kmsouth atKettlethorpe It is difficult to assess the specific appeal of Torksey given that we havenowritten record pre-dating theChronicle entry and little archaeological evidence that is reliablyearlier David Stocker has proposed that there was an Anglo-Saxon lsquobeach marketrsquo associatedwith St Margaretrsquos Church at Marton just to the north of the camp However the basis for thisargument is Sawyerrsquos suggestion that the metalwork from what is now known to be the site ofthe winter camp derived from a market of eighth- and ninth-century date and the presence ofmultiple stone sculptures of the second quarter of the tenth century at StMargaretrsquosThere isnothing to indicate significant activity prior to ndash even following our fieldwalking on the siteof the winter camp and in the fields to the south of the village Only a single sherd of handmadeearly Anglo-Saxon pottery has been recovered during excavation in the village while sherds oftwo sixth-century vessels recorded by J N L Myres are from unknown find-spots within theparish Two sixth-century brooches have been recovered by metal detectorists east of thevillage Excavation in the s of one of the pottery kilns to the south of the village ndash whichhas since been dated to the late ninth century ndash revealed traces of an earlier building comprisingstone foundations laid in clay but nothing else is known of the building

The early history of Torksey is obscure It was held by Queen Edith in but wecannot discern how long it had been a royal landholding There is some intriguingevidence that the parish churches of St Peter and St Mary were part of an early ecclesiasticalcomplex principally in the form of their juxtaposition and the pairing of their dedicationswhich has been found at early monastic complexes However they have produced no earlystructural evidence and our radiocarbon dating of cist graves associated with the church ofSt Mary has produced only eleventh-century dates Within and around the modern villageof Torksey three further cemeteries have been excavated that date broadly to the laterAnglo-Saxon centuries (fig ) but neither radiocarbon dating nor stratigraphic evidencedates these any earlier than the tenth century

The Great Army repeatedly spent the winter adjacent to major centres such as Reptonwhere there was an important Mercian ecclesiastical site and royal shrine It has recentlybeen argued that longphuirt in Ireland were typically located at the boundaries between king-doms where Viking armies can be found intervening in internecine rivalries However

Stein Stocker ndash Pre-Construct Archaeology Myres ndash PAS LIN-DA and LIN-F Barley Brown b Foster and Longley ndash Hadley and Richards b the radiocarbon dates for the cist graves are AD ndash and

AD ndash (at per cent probability) McLeod Kelly



there is little to confirm whether similar factors were relevant to the choice of Torksey as aplace to overwinter Nonetheless there are several major churches in the vicinity Stow justkm north east was an episcopal possession in the eleventh century Given the interest shownin it by the archbishops of York and the bishops of Dorchester it has been suggested that thechurch was an endowment of the revived bishopric of Lindsey from the s The cruciformchurch has a large central tower built in the mid-eleventh century under archiepiscopal

Fig Map of Torksey showing the location of the Torksey ware pottery kilns(red dots) and the Anglo-Saxon cemeteries (black lozenge)



patronage The part of the winter camp that was in the parish of Brampton was held by theBishop of Lincoln in the thirteenth century and may have been the subject of a grant to Stowin the s by Earl Leofric of Mercia and his wife Godgifu but the association with Stowcannot confidently be traced back any further Across the Trent from Torksey is anotherchurch with early origins at South Leverton (Nottinghamshire) from where fragments of lateeighth- or early ninth-century sculpture have recently been recovered The strategicpotential of the camp in the vicinity of at least two major churches may therefore partiallyaccount for the choice of Torksey as a base for the Great Army

The Great Army would also have needed to provision itself and the potential ofaccessing the food renders owed to major churches may have been another key factor inchoosing where to overwinter Food and other resources may have been offered as part ofthe peace settlements made when the Army overwintered such as those recorded in Frankiain the s The Army was also able to exploit natural resources as demonstrated by therecovery of fishing weights It would have required access to a variety of raw materialsincluding timber and canvas for the construction of temporary winter accommodation aswell as for fuel and ship repair and clay for the manufacture of moulds and hearthsnecessary for metal-casting and smithying These resources may have been acquired by acombination of foraging of the type Asser says occurred during the overwintering atReading on the Thames in ndash and purchase which is what some of the coinage andbullion may have facilitated Indeed one of the largest assemblages of stycas outsideNorthumbria other than Torksey itself comes from Littleborough The date profile of thetwenty-five stycas is almost identical to that of the Torksey assemblage and may indicatecontemporaneous activity Clearly the army must have reached some form of accom-modation with the local population albeit enforced The winter camps like the towns thatsucceeded them must have had hinterlands that extended for several kilometres Indeedthe association between the camp at Repton with the Viking cemetery at HeathWood somekm to the south east underlines the need to consider the camps at a landscape level not assingle sites No doubt the sudden arrival of a settlement the size of a small town had amajor impact on the locality

WHAT HAPPENED NEXT

The Great Army did not merely spend a few months in a locale and then moveon its leaders often attempted to maintain some level of control Sometimes theyappointed a ruler from the local elite as demonstrated at Repton where they replacedBurgred with Ceolwulf II while the Anglo-Saxon successors of Edmund of East Anglia(d ) minted coins that in the words of Blackburn displayed lsquoall the hallmarksof a Viking coinagersquo suggesting they were lsquopuppet kingsrsquo Beyond the fact that the

Everson and Stocker forthcoming Foster and Longley Sawyer ndash contra Stein Stocker and Everson Nelson McLeod Stafford Blackburn ndash Keynes and Lapidge Abramson Richards et al Williams ndash Whitelock Blackburn McLeod ndash



Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that the Great Army made peace with theMercians at Torkseytheir ensuing local interactions are unrecorded However Torksey is well known for itswheel-thrown pottery industry which developed in the wake of the overwinteringTorksey ware has not been recovered from excavated contexts reliably pre-dating theend of the ninth century in York or Lincoln and none was recovered from the wintercamp during our fieldwalking Torksey was at the forefront of a revolution in ceramicproduction which witnessed the reintroduction of the fast potterrsquos wheel for thefirst time since the Roman period and the use of updraft kilns producing high-firedsand-tempered vessels on a near industrial scale The involvement of Carolingianpotters has long been suspected given that the fast wheel had remained in use on thecontinent

Torksey ware has been found widely in eastern and northern England It has previouslybeen suggested that lsquoTorksey-typersquo ware was also produced in York following thepresumed foundation of a lsquodaughter industryrsquo of Torksey but fabric analysis conducted aspart of the present project has revealed that this pottery was in fact produced in Torkseyand transported north The arrival of Carolingian potters was part of the legacy of theoverwintering of the Great Army and our project has revealed the pottery industry atTorksey was of regional significance and must have been crucial to the emergence of athriving urban settlement with burgesses by By the turn of the eleventh centuryTorksey possessed a mint and by the twelfth century a court It has accordingly beensuggested that Torksey was one of the lsquoseven boroughsrsquo referred to within the Anglo-SaxonChronicle entry for thought to have included the lsquofive boroughsrsquo of DerbyLincoln Nottingham Stamford and Leicester named in the Chronicle entry for alongwith two others There were at least three parish churches and two monasteries inTorksey by the twelfth century serving as another marker of its urban growth in thecenturies following the Viking overwintering

CONCLUSIONS

In summary our research at Torksey has revealed not only the location of the Viking wintercamp but something of its character as well The sheer quantity and value of the metalworkassemblage forces a radical reappraisal of the scale of wealth amassed by the Viking GreatArmy Plunder was being processed on a massive scale There was intensive trade andexchange in goods and probably in slaves The evidence from Torksey suggests a hybrideconomy with monetary as well as bullion transactions and the minting of coins reflectingsomething of the complexity of the multiple economic systems that co-existed during theViking Age

Torksey also forces us to reassess our interpretation of the size of the winter camps andof the Great Army that occupied them Hitherto our picture of Viking encampments haslargely been derived from the excavations at Repton but it is now clear that even if theD-shaped enclosure was indeed the work of the Great Army it can only reflect a small part

Perry Ibid Foster and Longley Barley Dolley and Strudwick Whitelock Barley Williams ndash



of the Viking encampment It is apparent that much antiquarian and even some modernspeculation about the potential locations of Viking winter camps is misguided researchershave been seeking sites that are far too small and have been lured into an unnecessary searchfor D-shaped enclosures The unusual concentration of people in such camps has beenrevealed by our work at Torksey and they may have given many of the members of theViking armies their first taste for urban living Other urban features included a range ofindustries comprising the processing of precious metals and other metal-workingsmithying and textile-working Although pottery manufacture was not undertaken on thecamp the development of the Torksey ware industry followed soon after the Army depar-ted and was a direct result of its overwintering following the arrival of Carolingian potterswho introduced the technology

Our research at Torksey has demonstrated the huge importance of the winter camp andits legacy as well as its role for our understanding of the Viking Great Army and thedevelopment of urban life in ninth-century England Indeed there is already more evidencefor ninth-century activity from Torksey than from the lsquofive boroughsrsquo combined Futurefieldwork may well reveal more about the nature of camp life including temporary livingstructures industrial hearths and faunal assemblages and the processes by which the townof Torksey developed

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The Anglo-Saxon and Viking Torksey project is a collaboration between the Universities ofSheffield and York with the additional participation of staff of the Portable AntiquitiesScheme and York Museums Trust Dawn Hadley and Julian Richards would like to thankGareth Williams (British Museum) Helen Goodchild Andrew Marriott Virginia Pichler(University of York) Lily Carhart Elizabeth Craig-Atkins Samantha Stein DianaMahoney-Swales Gareth Perry (University of Sheffield) Andrew Woods (York MuseumsTrust) Adam Daubney Rachel Atherton (PAS) Hannah Brown (freelance geophysicist)and Jane Young (freelance pottery specialist) as well as all the metal-detector users whohave worked with us notably Dave and Pete Stanley and Neil Parker

We are also grateful to the landowners Rodger Brownlow Derrick Small andDick Denby for allowing us access and to Ben Robinson of Historic England for theSection licence to undertake geophysical survey in the Castle Field Scheduled AncientMonument

Funding was provided by the British Academy and the Society of Antiquaries of Londonwith additional support from the Quaternary Research Association the MedievalSettlement Research Group the Robert Kiln Trust and the Universities of Sheffieldand York

A number of colleagues kindly commented on earlier drafts of this paper includingJames Graham-Campbell Caroline Jackson and John Moreland and we would also like tothank the Journalrsquos two anonymous referees Our greatest debt however is to the late MarkBlackburn who first brought the site to our attention and encouraged this archaeologicalinvestigation

Edgeworth Williams Perry



BIBLIOGRAPHY

Abramson T lsquoldquoWhere therersquos mucktherersquos brassrdquo coinage in theNorthumbrian landscape and economyc ndashc rsquo unpublished PhD thesisUniversity of York

Archibald M lsquoTestingrsquo in J Graham-Campbell The Cuerdale Hoard and

Related Viking Age Silver and Gold

from Britain and Ireland in the British

Museum ndash British Mus Res Publ London

Aspinall A lsquoRepton magnetometer andearth resistance surveyrsquo unpublished surveyreport Bradford University

Barley M W lsquoThe medieval borough ofTorksey excavations ndashrsquo Antiq J ndash


Biddle M and Kjoslashlbye-Biddle B lsquoReptonand the Vikingsrsquo Antiquity ndash

Biddle M and Kjoslashlbye-Biddle B lsquoReptonand the ldquogreat heathen armyrdquo ndashrsquo inGraham-Campbell et al ndash

Bill J lsquoNailsrsquo in Russell and Hurley ndash

Blackburn M lsquoExpansion and controlaspects of Anglo-Scandinavian mintingsouth of the Humberrsquo in Graham-Campbellet al ndash

Blackburn M lsquoFinds from the Anglo-Scandinavian site of Torksey LincolnshirersquoMoneta Mediaevalis Studia numizmatyczne ĭ

historyczne ofiarowane Profesorowi Stanisła-

wowi Suchodolskiemu w roxcnicę urodzinndash ndash

Blackburn M lsquoPresidential address Currency under the Vikings Part Guthrum and the earliest Danelawcoinagesrsquo Brit Numis J ndash

Blackburn M lsquoGold in England duringthe ldquoAge of Silverrdquo (eighthndasheleventhcenturies)rsquo in Graham-Campbell andWilliams ndash

Blackburn M lsquoThe coins findsrsquo in Skreb ndash

Blackburn M lsquoThe Viking winter camp atTorksey ndashrsquo in Viking Coinage and

Currency in the British Isles ndash BritNumis Soc Spec Publ London

Brooks N lsquoEngland in the ninth centurythe crucible of defeatrsquo Trans Roy Hist Socth ser ndash

Brooks N and Graham-Campbell J lsquoReflections on the Viking Age silver hoardfrom Croydon Surreyrsquo in N BrooksCommunities and Warfare ndash ndashHambledon London

Brown H a lsquoMagnetometer survey of landnorth of Torksey Lincolnshirersquounpublished report University of York(doi )

Brown H b lsquoGeophysical survey atTorksey Lincolnshire magnetometersurvey of land south of Torksey Castlersquounpublished report University of York(doi )

Budd P Millard A Chenery C Lucy S andRoberts C lsquoInvestigating populationmovement by stable isotope analysis areport from Britainrsquo Antiquity ndash

Cameron K and Insley J The Place Names

of Lincolnshire Part Lawress WapentakeEnglish Place-Name Society Nottingham

Carhart L lsquoAn iron hoard from TorkseyLincolnshire identification and analysisrsquounpublished MA dissertation University ofSheffield (doi )

Clarke H B and Johnson R (eds) TheVikings in Ireland and Beyond Four CourtsPress Dublin

Coates R lsquoReflections on someLincolnshire major place names Part Algakirk to Melton Rossrsquo J Engl Place-Name

Soc ndashCole A lsquoDistribution and use of the Old

English place-name mere-tūnrsquo J EnglPlace-Name Soc ndash

Cole R E G lsquoThe royal borough ofTorksey its churches monasteriesand castlersquo Ass Architect Soc Rep Pap ndash

Craig-Atkins E lsquoThe human remainsfrom the winter camprsquo unpublished reportUniversity of Sheffield (doi)

Dolley R HM and Strudwick J S lsquoA noteon the mint of Torksey and on some earlyfinds of English coins fromNottinghamshirersquo Numis Chron ndash

Edgeworth M lsquoThe Tempsford projectan interim reportrsquo South Midlands Archaeol ndash

Edwards J F and Hindle B P lsquoThetransportation system of medieval Englandand Walesrsquo J Hist Geogr () ndash



Everson P and Stocker D forthcominglsquoArchaeology and episcopal reform greaterchurches in York diocese in the thcenturyrsquo in D M Hadley and C C Dyer(eds) The Archaeology of the EleventhCentury continuities and transformationsRoutledge London

Field N lsquoCastle Farm Torkseyexploratory excavationsrsquo unpublishedreport Lindsey Archaeological ServicesLincoln (doi )

Foster C W and Longley T TheLincolnshire Domesday and the Lindsey

Survey Publications of the Lincoln RecordSociety Lincoln

Gould I C lsquoAncient earthworksrsquo inH A Doubleday and W Page (eds)Victoria History of the County of EssexVol ndash Archibald Constable London

Graham-Campbell J lsquoThe dualeconomy of the Danelawrsquo Brit Numis J ndash

Graham-Campbell J lsquoThe archaeology ofthe ldquoGreat Armyrdquo (ndash)rsquo in E Roesdahland J P Schjoslashdt (eds) Beretning fratreogtyvende tvaeligrfaglige vikingesymposiumndash Aarhus Universitet Hoslashjbjerg

Graham-Campbell J and Batey C Vikingsin Scotland an archaeological surveyEdinburgh University Press Edinburgh

Graham-Campbell J Hall R Jesch J andParsons D (eds) Vikings and the

Danelaw Proceedings of the Thirteenth Viking

Congress Oxbow OxfordGraham-Campbell J and Williams G (eds)

Silver Economy in the Viking AgeLeft Coast Press Walnut CreekCalifornia

Guilbert G lsquoBorough Hill Walton-upon-Trent ndash if not a hillfort then whatrsquoDerbyshire Archaeol J ndash

Hadley D M The Vikings in England

settlement society and culture ManchesterUniversity Press Manchester

Hadley DM and Hemer K lsquoMicrocosmsof migration children and early medievalpopulation movementrsquo Childhood in the

Past ndashHadley D M and Richards J D (eds)

Cultures in Contact Scandinavian settlement in

England in the ninth and tenth centuriesBrepols Turnhout

Hadley D M and Richards J D aArchaeological Evaluation of the Anglo-Saxon

and Viking Site at Torksey LincolnshireArchaeology Data Service York(doi )

Hadley D M and Richards J D blsquoThe Viking winter camp and Anglo-Scandinavian town at Torksey Lincoln-shire the landscape contextrsquo in V E TurnerO A Owen and D J Waugh (eds) Shetlandand the Viking World papers from the seven-

teenth Viking Congress Lerwick ndashShetland Amenities Trust Lerwick

Haldenby D and Richards J D lsquoTheViking Great Army and its legacy plottingsettlement shift using metal-detected findsrsquoInternet Archaeol (doi ia)

Hall R Viking Age York BatsfordLondon

Holm P lsquoThe slave trade of Dublin ninthto twelfth centuriesrsquo Peritia ndash

Hurley M lsquoDiscussion and conclusionsrsquoin Russell and Hurley ndash

Kelly E P lsquoThe longphort in VikingAge Irelandrsquo in Clarke and Johnson ndash

Kershaw J Viking Identities Scandinavianjewellery in England OxfordUniversity PressOxford

Kershaw P lsquoThe AlfredndashGuthrum treatyscripting accommodation and interaction inViking Age Englandrsquo in Hadley andRichards ndash

Keynes S and LapidgeM Alfred the Great

Asserrsquos Life of King Alfred and other

contemporary sources PenguinHarmondsworth

Kilger C lsquoWholeness and holinesscounting weighing and valuing silverin the early Viking periodrsquo in Skre bndash

Mahoney-Swales D and Perry G lsquoReport on an evaluation trench excavatednear Torksey Lincolnshire Julyndash August rsquo unpublished reportUniversity of Sheffield (doi )

McLeod S lsquoFeeding the micel here inEngland c ndashrsquo J Australian Early

Medieval Soc ndashMcLeod S The Beginning of Scandinavian

Settlement in England Brepols TurnhoutMyres J N L lsquoThe Anglo-Saxon pottery of

Lincolnshirersquo Archaeol J ndashNaismith R lsquoIslamic coins from early

medieval Englandrsquo Numis Chron ndash

Nelson J The Annals of St-BertinManchester University Press Manchester

Oacute Floinn R lsquoCast and gilt copperalloyrsquo in Russell and Hurley ndash



Oswald A Roman Pottery Kilns at Little

London Lincs Rock House WellowPalmer-Brown C lsquoCastle Farm Torksey

an archaeological excavation report CFTrsquounpublished report Pre-Construct Archaeol-ogy Lincoln (doi )

Pedersen U lsquoWeights and balancesrsquo inSkre b ndash

Pelteret D lsquoSlave raiding and slave tradingin early Englandrsquo Anglo-Saxon Engl ndash

Perry G lsquoPottery production in Anglo-Scandinavian Torksey (Lincolnshire)reconstructing and contextualising thechaicircne opeacuteratoirersquo Medieval Archaeol ()ndash

Pestell T lsquoImports or immigrantsReassessing Scandinavian metalwork in lateAnglo-Saxon East Angliarsquo in D Bates andR Liddiard (eds) East Anglia and its North

Sea World in the Middle Ages ndashBoydell Woodbridge

Pettersson A (ed) The Spillings Hoard

Gotlandrsquos role in Viking Age world tradeGotlands Museum Visby

Pirie E J E Thrymsas Sceattas and Stycas of

Northumbria an inventory of finds recorded to

Northumbrian Numis Stud Llanfyllin

Pre-Construct Archaeology lsquoArchaeological field evaluation reportldquoVerityrdquo Church Lane Torkseyrsquounpublished report Pre-ConstructArchaeology Lincoln(doi )

Purcell E lsquoThe first generation in Irelandndash Viking raids and Viking basesrsquo inClarke and Johnson ndash

Raffield B lsquoldquoA river of knives andswordsrdquo ritually deposited weapons inEnglish watercourses and wetlands duringthe Viking Agersquo European J Archaeol ()ndash

Richards J D lsquoTorksey test trench report on a trial trench excavated nearTorksey Lincolnshire ndash Dec rsquounpublished report University of York(doi )

Richards J D Austin T Bateman J Bell SBirchall K Brothwell D Campbell ECarrott J Dobney K Garner-Lahire J andGaunt G lsquoCottam an Anglian andAnglo-Scandinavian settlement on theYorkshire Woldsrsquo Archaeol J ndash

Richards J D Beswick P Bond J Jecock MMcKinley J Rowland S and Worley F lsquoExcavations at the Viking barrow

cemetery at Heath Wood InglebyDerbyshirersquo Antiq J ndash

Richards J D Naylor J and Holas-Clark C lsquoAnglo-Saxon landscape andeconomy using portable antiquities to studyAnglo-Saxon and Viking Age EnglandrsquoInternet Archaeol (doi ia)

Riley DN Buckland P CWade J DearneMHartley B Hartley K Kinsley G andOrsquoConnor T lsquoAerial reconnaissanceand excavation at Littleborough-on-TrentrsquoBritannia ndash

Rowe E lsquoLand to the north of the railwayTorksey Lincolnshire archaeologicalevaluation reportrsquo unpublished report Pre-Construct Archaeology Lincoln ltdocswest-lindseygovukgt (accessed Sept )

Rowlandson I M lsquoMain Street TorkseyLincs archaeological watching briefrsquounpublished report Lindsey ArchaeologicalServices Report No (doi)

Russell I R and Hurley M (eds) Woodstown a Viking Age settlement in Co

Waterford Four Courts Press DublinSawyer P H The Age of the Vikings

Edward Arnold LondonSawyer P H Anglo-Saxon Lincolnshire

History of Lincolnshire Society forLincolnshire History and ArchaeologyLincoln

Sheehan J lsquoThe longphort in Viking AgeIrelandrsquo Acta Archaeologica ndash

Sheehan J lsquoSilverrsquo in Russell and Hurley ndash

Skre D a lsquoThe development of urbanismin Scandinaviarsquo in S Brink and N Price(eds) The Viking World ndash RoutledgeLondon

Skre D b Means of Exchange dealing with

silver in the Viking Age Kaupang ExcavationProject Publ Ser Oslo

Stafford P lsquoThe ldquofarm of one nightrdquo andthe organisation of King Edwardrsquos estatesin Domesdayrsquo Econ Hist Rev ()ndash

Stein S lsquoGeoarchaeological report fromTorksey Lincolnshire OctoberndashNovemberrsquo unpublished report University ofSheffield (doi )

Stein S lsquoGeoarchaeological report fromTorksey Lincolnshire July and Novemberrsquo unpublished report University ofSheffield (doi )

Stein S lsquoThe geoarchaeology of Vikingoverwintering camps in Englandpreliminary results of a radiocarbon-dated



palynological sequence at Brampton inTorksey Lincolnshirersquo Quaternary

Newsletter ndashStein S lsquoUnderstanding Torksey and the

Viking winter camp of ndash a geo-archaeological and landscape approach toViking overwintering campsrsquo unpublishedPhD thesis University of Sheffield

Stocker D lsquoMonuments and merchantsirregularities in the distribution of stonesculpture in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire inthe tenth centuryrsquo in Hadley and Richards ndash

Stocker D and Everson P lsquoTwo newlydiscovered fragments of pre-Viking sculp-ture evidence for a hitherto unsuspectedearly church site at South LevertonNottinghamshirersquo Trans Thoroton Soc

Nottinghamshire ndashThomas G lsquoThe symbolic lives of

late Anglo-Saxon settlements acellared structure and iron hoard fromBishopstone East Sussexrsquo Archaeol J ndash

Treasure Annual Report Department forCulture Media and Sport London

Ulmschneider K lsquoSettlement economyand the ldquoproductive siterdquo Middle Anglo-Saxon Lincolnshire AD ndashrsquo Medieval

Archaeol ndashWessex Archaeology lsquoBlyborough Lincs

to Cottam Notts pipeline report on thearchaeologyrsquo vols unpublished reportsWessex Archaeology (doi and doi )

Whitelock D (ed) The Anglo-SaxonChronicle Eyre amp Spottiswoode London

Whitwell J B Roman Lincolnshire Societyfor Lincolnshire History and ArchaeologyLincoln

Williams G lsquoKingship Christianityand coinage monetary and politicalperspectives on silver economy in theViking Agersquo in Graham-Campbell andWilliams ndash

Williams G lsquoSilver economiesmonetisation and society an overviewrsquoin J Graham-Campbell S M Sindbaek andG Williams (eds) Silver EconomiesMonetisation and Society in Scandinavia

AD ndash ndash Aarhus UniversityPress Aarhus

Williams G lsquoTowns and identities inViking Englandrsquo in D M Hadley andL Ten Harkel (eds) Everyday Life in Viking

Age Towns social approaches to towns in

England and Ireland c ndash ndashOxbow Oxford

Williams G lsquoViking camps and the meansof exchange in Britain and Ireland in theninth centuryrsquo in Clarke and Johnson ndash

Williams M and Field N lsquoMain StTorksey Lincs New medical centre andhousing development archaeologicalevaluationrsquo unpublished report LindseyArchaeological Services Rep No (doi )

Young T lsquoCeramics crucibles andcupelsrsquo in Russell and Hurley ndash



THE WINTER CAMP OF THE VIKING GREAT ARMY ad 872ampx20133 TORKSEY LINCOLNSHIRE

BACKGROUND


Fig 1A selection of metal-detected finds from the Viking winter camp at Torksey Photograph ampx00A9 Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge

Fig 2Location plan showing the study area and the approximate outlines of the Viking winter camp and the Anglo-Scandinavian borough Illustration base map of this and subsequent figures derived from 2m LiDAR data Environment Agency ampx00A9 2014 all ri

AIMS AND METHODS


Fig 3The ninth-century landscape of the wintercamp

Fig 4A twenty-first-century view looking east across the River Trent to the prominent bluff and the wintercamp

Fig 5The area of the winter camp overlaid with the results of the magnetometer survey

Fig 6Geophysics interpretation of the central area showing the Roman farmstead (centre) and rabbit warren to thewest


Fig 7Geophysics interpretation of part of the southern area showing possible anomalies and the location of the TORK13 test trench (green rectangle)

Fig 8The TORK13 test trench lookingeast

Fig 9Finds byperiod

Fig 10Early medieval finds by material

Table tab1

Fig 11Distribution of the early medievalfinds

Fig 12Distribution of the Romanfinds

Fig 13Distribution of the lead gamingpieces

DATING THE CAMP

Fig 14The age structure of the Anglo-Saxon coins excluding stycas found at Torksey

Fig 15Some of the Islamic dirhams found at Torksey Photograph ampx00A9 Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge


Trade and exchange

Fig 16The age structure of the dirhams found at Torksey

Fig 17Some of the silver ingots and hack-silver found at Torksey Photograph ampx00A9 Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge

Fig 18Some of the hack-gold from Torksey Photograph ampx00A9 Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge

Fig 19A group of cut copper-alloy ingots (hack-copper) from Torksey Photograph ampx00A9 Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge

Fig 20A sample of weights from Torksey including examples of cubo-octahedral truncated spheroid and lead inset types Photograph ampx00A9 Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge

Coin production


Fig 21Evidence of coin and metal production at Torksey Top left lead bearing the impression of lunette type A coin of Burgred of Mercia top right a lead trial piece for triangular punches bottom a lead striking from dies of a lunette type A coin Ph

Fig 22A lead casting for a strap end Photograph ampx00A9 Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge

Fig 23A sample of fragmentary copper-alloy decorative metalwork from Torksey Photograph ampx00A9 Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge

Fig 24A selection of artefacts from the hoard of woodworkersampx2019 tools including a cauldron an adze an axehead and several hammer heads Photograph ampx00A9 LincolnMuseum


Fig 25Some iron tools from Torksey including awls and spoon bits Photograph ampx00A9 Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge

Fig 26Examples of lead gaming pieces from Torksey Photograph ampx00A9 Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge

Fig 27Plan showing the location of TORK12 test trench (red) and find-spots of hand-collected human bone (black triangles)

Fig 28Examples of Anglo-Saxon strap ends from Torksey Photograph ampx00A9 Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge

Fig 29Examples of Anglo-Saxon hooked tags from Torksey Photograph ampx00A9 Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge

WHY TORKSEY

Fig 30Map of Torksey showing the location of the Torksey ware pottery kilns (red dots) and the Anglo-Saxon cemeteries (black lozenge)

What happened next

CONCLUSIONS

Acknowledgements

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

THE WINTER CAMP OF THE VIKING GREAT ARMYAD ndash TORKSEY LINCOLNSHIRE

Dawn M Hadley FSA and Julian D Richards FSAwith contributions by Hannah Brown Elizabeth Craig-Atkins

Diana Mahoney-Swales Gareth Perry Samantha Stein and Andrew Woods

Dawn M Hadley Department of Archaeology University of Sheffield Northgate HouseWest Street Sheffield S ET UK Email dmhadleysheffieldacuk

Julian D Richards Department of Archaeology University of York The Kingrsquos Manor YorkYO EP UK Email julianrichardsyorkacuk

This paper presents the results of a multidisciplinary project that has revealed the location extent

and character of the winter camp of the Viking Great Army at Torksey Lincolnshire of AD ndash

The camp lay within a naturally defended area of higher ground partially surrounded by marshes

and bordered by the River Trent on its western side It is considerably larger than the Viking camp of

ndash previously excavated at Repton Derbyshire and lacks the earthwork defences identified

there Several thousand individuals overwintered in the camp including warriors craftworkers and

merchants An exceptionally large and rich metalwork assemblage was deposited during the Great

Armyrsquos overwintering and metal processing and trading was undertaken There is no evidence for a

pre-existing Anglo-Saxon trading site here the site appears to have been chosen for its strategic

location and its access to resources In the wake of the overwintering Torksey developed as an

important Anglo-Saxon borough with a major wheel-thrown pottery industry and multiple churches

and cemeteries The Torksey evidence allows for a radical reappraisal of the character of Viking

winter camps and the legacy of the Viking Great Army for Anglo-Saxon England

BACKGROUND

From AD to a Viking army wreaked havoc on the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms leading topolitical conquest settlement on a substantial scale and extensive Scandinavian culturaland linguistic influence in eastern and northern England This critical period for Englishhistory was followed by revolutionary changes in land ownership society and economyincluding the growth of towns and industry while transformations in power politics wouldultimately see the rise of Wessex as the pre-eminent kingdom of Anglo-Saxon England Yetdespite the pivotal role of the so-called Great Army (micel here) in these events little isknown of it documentary sources provide few insights into its activities and intentions andarchaeological evidence has largely remained elusive The size of the army and thescale of subsequent settlement have been disputed but the debate about the impact ofScandinavian raiders and settlers is typically informed by evidence that has widely differinglevels of chronological resolution and relates to diverse social economic and politicalcontexts scholars have long struggled to integrate this evidence effectively

copyTheAntiquaries Journal This is anOpenAccess article distributed under the terms of theCreativeCommons Attribution licence (httpcreativecommonsorglicensesby) which permits unrestrictedre-use distribution and reproduction in any medium provided the original work is properly cited

Hadley ndash McLeod ndash

The Antiquaries Journal pp ndash copy The Society of Antiquaries of London doifrasl











































AIMS AND METHODS




















































Barley Stein















Fig Finds by period







Dressstrap end

pin

hooked tag

mount

brooch

bead

Thors hammer

other

Fragments

Economic

coinsceatta

styca

dirham

penny


ingot

hack-gold


truncated spheroid

lead (inset)

lead (plain)


balance

Gaming piece

Metal-working


Total finds












DATING THE CAMP
















Trade and exchange
































Cambridge






Coin production


















Blackburn



































Craig-Atkins












WHY TORKSEY














WHAT HAPPENED NEXT







CONCLUSIONS








ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS








BIBLIOGRAPHY




















































































































































BACKGROUND




AIMS AND METHODS









Fig 9Finds byperiod


Table tab1




DATING THE CAMP




Trade and exchange






Coin production












WHY TORKSEY


What happened next

CONCLUSIONS

Acknowledgements

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

BIBLIOGRAPHY










































AIMS AND METHODS




















































Barley Stein















Fig Finds by period







Dressstrap end

pin

hooked tag

mount

brooch

bead

Thors hammer

other

Fragments

Economic

coinsceatta

styca

dirham

penny


ingot

hack-gold


truncated spheroid

lead (inset)

lead (plain)


balance

Gaming piece

Metal-working


Total finds












DATING THE CAMP
















Trade and exchange
































Cambridge






Coin production


















Blackburn



































Craig-Atkins












WHY TORKSEY














WHAT HAPPENED NEXT







CONCLUSIONS








ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS








BIBLIOGRAPHY




















































































































































BACKGROUND




AIMS AND METHODS









Fig 9Finds byperiod


Table tab1




DATING THE CAMP




Trade and exchange






Coin production












WHY TORKSEY


What happened next

CONCLUSIONS

Acknowledgements

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

BIBLIOGRAPHY















































Barley Stein















Fig Finds by period







Dressstrap end

pin

hooked tag

mount

brooch

bead

Thors hammer

other

Fragments

Economic

coinsceatta

styca

dirham

penny


ingot

hack-gold


truncated spheroid

lead (inset)

lead (plain)


balance

Gaming piece

Metal-working


Total finds












DATING THE CAMP
















Trade and exchange
































Cambridge






Coin production


















Blackburn



































Craig-Atkins












WHY TORKSEY














WHAT HAPPENED NEXT







CONCLUSIONS








ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS








BIBLIOGRAPHY




















































































































































BACKGROUND




AIMS AND METHODS









Fig 9Finds byperiod


Table tab1




DATING THE CAMP




Trade and exchange






Coin production












WHY TORKSEY


What happened next

CONCLUSIONS

Acknowledgements

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

BIBLIOGRAPHY













Fig Finds by period







Dressstrap end

pin

hooked tag

mount

brooch

bead

Thors hammer

other

Fragments

Economic

coinsceatta

styca

dirham

penny


ingot

hack-gold


truncated spheroid

lead (inset)

lead (plain)


balance

Gaming piece

Metal-working


Total finds












DATING THE CAMP
















Trade and exchange
































Cambridge






Coin production


















Blackburn



































Craig-Atkins












WHY TORKSEY














WHAT HAPPENED NEXT







CONCLUSIONS








ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS








BIBLIOGRAPHY




















































































































































BACKGROUND




AIMS AND METHODS









Fig 9Finds byperiod


Table tab1




DATING THE CAMP




Trade and exchange






Coin production












WHY TORKSEY


What happened next

CONCLUSIONS

Acknowledgements

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

BIBLIOGRAPHY




Dressstrap end

pin

hooked tag

mount

brooch

bead

Thors hammer

other

Fragments

Economic

coinsceatta

styca

dirham

penny


ingot

hack-gold


truncated spheroid

lead (inset)

lead (plain)


balance

Gaming piece

Metal-working


Total finds












DATING THE CAMP
















Trade and exchange
































Cambridge






Coin production


















Blackburn



































Craig-Atkins












WHY TORKSEY














WHAT HAPPENED NEXT







CONCLUSIONS








ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS








BIBLIOGRAPHY




















































































































































BACKGROUND




AIMS AND METHODS









Fig 9Finds byperiod


Table tab1




DATING THE CAMP




Trade and exchange






Coin production












WHY TORKSEY


What happened next

CONCLUSIONS

Acknowledgements

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

BIBLIOGRAPHY










DATING THE CAMP
















Trade and exchange
































Cambridge






Coin production


















Blackburn



































Craig-Atkins












WHY TORKSEY














WHAT HAPPENED NEXT







CONCLUSIONS








ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS








BIBLIOGRAPHY




















































































































































BACKGROUND




AIMS AND METHODS









Fig 9Finds byperiod


Table tab1




DATING THE CAMP




Trade and exchange






Coin production












WHY TORKSEY


What happened next

CONCLUSIONS

Acknowledgements

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

BIBLIOGRAPHY










Trade and exchange
































Cambridge






Coin production


















Blackburn



































Craig-Atkins












WHY TORKSEY














WHAT HAPPENED NEXT







CONCLUSIONS








ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS








BIBLIOGRAPHY




















































































































































BACKGROUND




AIMS AND METHODS









Fig 9Finds byperiod


Table tab1




DATING THE CAMP




Trade and exchange






Coin production












WHY TORKSEY


What happened next

CONCLUSIONS

Acknowledgements

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

BIBLIOGRAPHY




























Cambridge






Coin production


















Blackburn



































Craig-Atkins












WHY TORKSEY














WHAT HAPPENED NEXT







CONCLUSIONS








ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS








BIBLIOGRAPHY




















































































































































BACKGROUND




AIMS AND METHODS









Fig 9Finds byperiod


Table tab1




DATING THE CAMP




Trade and exchange






Coin production












WHY TORKSEY


What happened next

CONCLUSIONS

Acknowledgements

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

BIBLIOGRAPHY



Coin production


















Blackburn



































Craig-Atkins












WHY TORKSEY














WHAT HAPPENED NEXT







CONCLUSIONS








ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS








BIBLIOGRAPHY




















































































































































BACKGROUND




AIMS AND METHODS









Fig 9Finds byperiod


Table tab1




DATING THE CAMP




Trade and exchange






Coin production












WHY TORKSEY


What happened next

CONCLUSIONS

Acknowledgements

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

BIBLIOGRAPHY













Blackburn



































Craig-Atkins












WHY TORKSEY














WHAT HAPPENED NEXT







CONCLUSIONS








ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS








BIBLIOGRAPHY




















































































































































BACKGROUND




AIMS AND METHODS









Fig 9Finds byperiod


Table tab1




DATING THE CAMP




Trade and exchange






Coin production












WHY TORKSEY


What happened next

CONCLUSIONS

Acknowledgements

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

































Craig-Atkins












WHY TORKSEY














WHAT HAPPENED NEXT







CONCLUSIONS








ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS








BIBLIOGRAPHY




















































































































































BACKGROUND




AIMS AND METHODS









Fig 9Finds byperiod


Table tab1




DATING THE CAMP




Trade and exchange






Coin production












WHY TORKSEY


What happened next

CONCLUSIONS

Acknowledgements

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

BIBLIOGRAPHY










WHY TORKSEY














WHAT HAPPENED NEXT







CONCLUSIONS








ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS








BIBLIOGRAPHY




















































































































































BACKGROUND




AIMS AND METHODS









Fig 9Finds byperiod


Table tab1




DATING THE CAMP




Trade and exchange






Coin production












WHY TORKSEY


What happened next

CONCLUSIONS

Acknowledgements

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

BIBLIOGRAPHY







WHAT HAPPENED NEXT







CONCLUSIONS








ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS








BIBLIOGRAPHY




















































































































































BACKGROUND




AIMS AND METHODS









Fig 9Finds byperiod


Table tab1




DATING THE CAMP




Trade and exchange






Coin production












WHY TORKSEY


What happened next

CONCLUSIONS

Acknowledgements

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

BIBLIOGRAPHY



CONCLUSIONS








ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS








BIBLIOGRAPHY




















































































































































BACKGROUND




AIMS AND METHODS









Fig 9Finds byperiod


Table tab1




DATING THE CAMP




Trade and exchange






Coin production












WHY TORKSEY


What happened next

CONCLUSIONS

Acknowledgements

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

BIBLIOGRAPHY



ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS








BIBLIOGRAPHY




















































































































































BACKGROUND




AIMS AND METHODS









Fig 9Finds byperiod


Table tab1




DATING THE CAMP




Trade and exchange






Coin production












WHY TORKSEY


What happened next

CONCLUSIONS

Acknowledgements

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BIBLIOGRAPHY




















































































































































BACKGROUND




AIMS AND METHODS









Fig 9Finds byperiod


Table tab1




DATING THE CAMP




Trade and exchange






Coin production












WHY TORKSEY


What happened next

CONCLUSIONS

Acknowledgements

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

BIBLIOGRAPHY













































































































BACKGROUND




AIMS AND METHODS









Fig 9Finds byperiod


Table tab1




DATING THE CAMP




Trade and exchange






Coin production












WHY TORKSEY


What happened next

CONCLUSIONS

Acknowledgements

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

the winter camp of the viking great army, ad 872-3 ...eprints.whiterose.ac.uk › 107011 › 1 ›...

Documents