Edith Swan-Neck Identifies the King's Body on Senlac Hill

The Handfasted Wife is the story of King Harold's wife Edith Swan-Neck. As 14th October is the anniversary of The Battle of Hastings here is an extract from the novel.

The soldiers escorted Elditha to the battlefield shortly after Matins. They brought her to where Duke William had remained all night in his bivouac encampment, to where she could see Harold’s captured standards flying alongside the Duke’s own by the entrance to his tent.  Desperately looking around she saw a horrific sight. Everywhere bodies were already stripped of mail, hauberks and weapons. Even boots and hose had been taken from them. The Duke’s soldiers had been at their grisly plunder during the night.  Torches burned over it, lighting up the grim sight. She sat on her horse, her long neck erect and with Ursula by her side. They were accompanied by the two monks who had come with the King from Waltham. They had said that they could not identify the King’s fallen body, only his head. The rest was mutilated, in pieces. They told the Norman leader that Elditha Swanneck would be able to recognise her husband and reunite the King’s severed head with his body. So here she was, unceremoniously lifted onto a horse, escorted from the camp and marched north to the boundary of Harold’s estate of Crowhurst that was marked by a grey apple tree, and into the meadows of death that lay around the ridge.

 Her very sense of herself was frozen. She searched for him through the piles of the dead, pointing for this body or this limb to be turned over. Her fine boots were slippery with blood and she had to clutch her veil close against the metallic smell of it; not only that, but also the stench of shit and spilt guts. Duke William, his brothers Bishop Odo and Robert of Mortain, and a group of knights were watching her as she moved amongst the copses of departed Danish house-ceorls and Saxon aristocrats. A great gathering of priests was permitted to take away the corpses of fallen noblemen for burial. Another quarter hour passed and still she had not found Harold.

‘You have done what you can, Lady,’ said William Mallet, half a Norman and half English-man, a knight who had lived at Edward’s court. She had known him then. ‘Would you rest?’ he added.

            ‘This place will too soon become a Golgotha of skeletons, a vast field of bones,’ she cried out. ‘What evil have you done here? You will rot in hell for this, Mallet. I shall find my husband.’

            He turned away from her. She refused to be consoled or stop searching, but frantically carried on asking for bodies to be lifted, peering closely at any torso that resembled her husband’s. It was as she made a second tour of the dead up on the ridge, that she found him. She identified his long body by marks on his shoulder.  There were battle scars, too, which she now recognised on his torso and bracelet tattoos on his other arm. When she found his severed leg close by she could see the swan’s feather and the blood-stained, green-eyed dragon that encircled it and by these marks, she knew the limb was his. It was then that she sank into the mire and wept for her loss.

‘May my lord’s soul rest in peace.’ She took a cloth from her belt and carefully wiped away the blood from around the marks.

Read on...The Handfasted Wife is published by Accent Press and can be bought from Amazon Books or ordered from bookstores everywhere.

Embroidery in the 11th Century

This month, September, sees the anniversary of the first two battles of the Norman Invasion of 1066, Fulford Gate and Stamford Bridge. The Battle of Hastings occurred three weeks later, on October 14th, 1066. The story of the events leading up to the Battle of Hastings and the battle itself are famously recorded by 11th century English embroiderers on the Bayeux Tapestry, thought to be commissioned by Bishop Odo, William's half brother, for his church at Bayeux in Normandy. Some Tapestry scholars think that the Tapestry was designed in Canterbury but that its panels were embroidered in both Wilton Abbey and in Canterbury workshops. One reason for this thought is that if you study the wide angle pictures and the small vignettes, you realise that the first half of this work tells the Godwin story and the second the events around the actual Norman Invasion. The death of Edward the Confessor divides the two sides of the story as it falls right in the Tapestry's centre section. Structurally this event links both as well as being the crucial factor that heralded The Norman Conquest.

Above: The Death of King Edward from The Bayeux Tapestry

 Edith Godwin, King Harold's sister Edward the Confessor's widow, was one of the most famous English embroiderers of the time. She was patron of Wilton Abbey where there was a school for young noblewomen and embroidery workshops. It is very likely that Dowager Queen Edith wanted to tell her family's story and she may have been involved in the overall plan for the Tapestry's dialogue. She was pragmatic and after Conquest she is one of the few English landowners recorded in The Doomsday Book who retained all of their pre-Conquest property. When she died in 1075 King William gave her a state funeral in Westminster where she was honoured and buried beside her saintly husband. She was not ignored by the Norman nobility and retired after The Conquest to Wilton Abbey.

Queen Edith

English textiles had a reputation for quality on the continent. Fibres used in the production of these textiles were wool, silk which was imported, and linen. Flax was the best known plant fibre used in the Anglo-Saxon period. The plants were harvested by pulling up whole plants, which were then dried. The seed pods were removed by using a wooden toothed rippler and stems were placed in water for some weeks, a process known as retting. Once the stems had partly decomposed fibres could be removed from the tough outer surface. They were pounded with wooden mallets and using a scutching knife the Anglo-Saxon flax worker would move up and down the flax stems against a vertical wooden board to remove the fibres. They were heckled using long iron teeth to clean and separate them ready for spinning. Quite a process! Linen was the background material used for The Tapestry. The embroidery on The Bayeux Tapestry depictions is of wool, not silk.

Scutching knives

Only three great embroideries survive from the Anglo-Saxon period. The Bayeux Tapestry is the largest at 70m. The Durham embroideries were designed during the early 10th century and were discovered in the tomb of St Cuthbert. The collection has an embroidered stole, maniple and a girdle, which are closely related in design and are embroidered with gold and silk threads on silk fabric. They are thought to be Southern English work and the first two items have inscriptions to show when they were commissioned between 909 and 916. The third embroidery from this period comprises of gold thread and silk on linen. The pieces that survive are thought to have been commissioned for an altar frontal decoration. This embroidery is influenced by Anglo-Saxon art from The Book of Cerne and the Brunswick Casket. However, scholars think that they may have a Rhine-Meuse origin that is, in fact, influenced by Anglo-Saxon art.

From the Book of Cerne

Research suggests that England was pre-eminent amongst European Nations for embroidery during the Middle Ages, not just the early Middle Ages. It was a great art never since equalled in design, technique or the quality of the materials employed. It was much sought after. St Aldhelm Bishop of Sherbourne referred to the skill of Anglo-Saxon women saying

'The shuttles, not filled with purple only but with various colours are pushed here and there amongst the thick spreading threads, and then with the art of embroidery they adorn all woven work with groups of figures.'

William of Poitiers, 11th C, wrote, 'The women of England are very skilled with the needle and in the matter of tissues of gold.'

King Harold from The Bayeux Tapestry

Finally, in the Domesday Book, two specialist English embroiderers are mentioned by name, Alwid and Leviet who worked on textiles for the king and queen. Interestingly, too, Dowager Queen Edith, Edward the Confessor's wife, was reputed as skilled in d'or argent work and she is said to have dispensed beautiful works from her own workrooms and to have embroidered robes for the king. It is, I suggest, very likely that this talented aging queen had a hand in the execution of the beautiful Bayeux Tapestry.  

Bibliography

English Medieval Embroidery by AG Christie, Oxford: The Clarendon Press.
Anglo-Saxon Crafts by Kevin Leahy, Gloustershire: Tempus.
The Blackwell Encyclopaedia Of Anglo-Saxon England, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing ltd.

Carol McGrath is the author of The Handfasted Wife, the story of Edith-Swan-Neck, King Harold II's Handfasted wife, an historical fiction, published by Accent Press.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Handfasted-Wife-ebook/dp/B00CL7QBVM/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1379833849&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Handfasted+Wife



 

The Anglo-Saxon Heiress and The Norman Conquest

Anglo-Saxon women played an important role in the years following The Conquest by providing the opportunity for intermarriage into the landowning class of Saxon society. This intermarriage gave legitimacy that cloaks the conquerors with respectability. Oderic Vitalis writing in the early 1130s speaks of rich English magnates who were Normans already settled in England before 1066 and also those who were Normans from mixed parentage and raised in England. Normans and French men who settled in England before 1066 were regarded as Anglici suggesting that to an extent integration had begun before Conquest.

convent or marriage?



In the immediate post-conquest period there is evidence that William gave confirmation of lands and rights to the Anglici. However, according to The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, William did not grant such favours for nothing. In fact the loyal English and Anglici bought their lands off the king. Queen Edith, Harold's sister and Edward the Confessor's wife, was confirmed in her lands after 1066. Similar provision may have been made for Harold's mother, Gytha, at least until she refused to pay the king's tax in Exeter and as a result brought William's wrath down on her dower town with a siege that lasted for three mid-winter weeks. On the other hand, manors belonging to the male members of the Godwin family e.g. the brothers and family of Harold II were divided amongst royal followers such as William Fitz Osbern (the central shires) and Odo of Bayeux (Kent and the south-east).

Eventually wealthy Anglo-Normans might build up such a manor, maybe after a few centuries 

An obvious way to secure land was to marry an heiress. The Breton Geoffery de la Guerche apparently acquired the lands of Leofine, Harold's brother who died at Hastings through marriage with Leofwine's daughter Aelfgifu. Sometimes the enforced marriage policy was not welcome and the ladies took refuge in nunneries 'not for love of religious life but from fear of the French', according to Oderic Vitalis. William also had been concerned to restore land to the English nobility who accepted Norman rule. Just after Hastings penances due from William's men for destruction were lessened if they married into the enemy. And this penance for Norman knights could be costly.



The Romantic Anglo-Norman marriage! She wed the knight! ( it is a very romantic pre-Raphaelite image rather than a faithful one)

 

The bulk of male English survivors were royal servants and officials of varying kinds. For example Edward of Salisbury, the sheriff of Wiltshire, an official appointed by Edward the Confessor, survived Conquest and held onto his office. According to The Domesday Book he had an estate of 300 hides in 1086. Widows holding lands in alms were also able to acquire or recover something of the pre-conquest wealth and status. Thus, although the royal court was dominated by foreigners much of local business was in the hands of Englishmen.

A Sheriff such as Edward of Salisbury

The integration of both peoples after The Conquest did draw on similarities of both peoples and was possible because of similarities as much as the imposition of one set of customs on another such as castle and cathedral building. Oderic Vitalis describes markets of villages and towns as 'filled with displays of French wares and merchandise'. William of Poitiers speaks of how the women of the English race excelled in embroidery and cloth of gold.

The most famous embroidery of the 11thC

 

Marriage between incoming Normans and native English families was commoner than surviving sources indicate. There was inter-marriage at all levels of society. One evidence is that women's names changed less rapidly than men's names suggesting that newcomers sought English women as wives. Marriage with an English heiress might help secure possession of her family's lands. William was concerned immediately after the take-over to keep loyal Saxon/English magnates loyal. Though it must be said that the greatest Norman lords still sought their wives from France. It was those who made their fortune in England who found English wives an advantage. Here is an example of a 'lesser' heiress's marriage and how within this family the tradition continued through several generations.

Robert d'Oilly and Ealdgyth, daughter of Wigot of Wallingford
Matilda their daughter married Miles Crispin
Robert d'Oilley II married Edith, daughter of Farne, son of Sigulf and she, interestingly, had a son by Henry I called Robert. It is likely that Henry I, William the Conqueror's youngest son, married off his Saxon mistress to Robert d'Oilley.

Henry 1, of course, married the greatest English heiress of them all Maud /Matilda of Scotland who was the niece of Edgar Aetheling often regarded as the true and rightful heir to the English throne after Edward the Confessor's death.

Henry 1 who married the most prestigious heiress of all,  Matilda

 

Then, as well, there is the scandal concerning Gunnhild the youngest daughter of King Harold and Edith Swan-neck who eloped with Breton Alan of Richmond, (a cousin of King William) from Wilton Abbey. She is the subject of my new book in progress, The Swan-Daughter.

King William recorded land in the Domesday Book 1086



As a consequence inter marriage produced families that spoke English and Norman French. By the end of the 12th century an aristocracy that described itself as English indicates how English became the language of most Anglo-Normans. Sadly though, English wives and mistresses did face a twofold imbalance in power because with the Conquest Norman society gave them less influence than they previously held before 1066. Also, often, the dispossession of male English aristocrats meant that many aristocratic English women who married into the first generation of Normans, French and Bretons, lost what family backing they once had. Equally, they were a factor in the assimilation of two peoples and, by the end of the 12th century, marriage with the Anglo-Saxon heiress contributed to the triumph of an English identity



The Handfasted Wife is the story of Edith Swan-Neck and can be purchased from Amazon as kindle e book, for all e readers, paperback and also from Accent Press

 

Some Summer Reading

Summer is a great time for book reading especially if you are on holiday and have that precious time for relaxing on a veranda somewhere peaceful with a good read. Here is my selection. Of course I would love you all to read The Handfasted Wife, my own historical novel set in the 11th century, but actually here are some books I have enjoyed this long summer in my Greek escape. To celebrate summer reading, I am offering a freebie apple down load of The Handfasted Wife at the end of the reviews.

The Summer Queen by Elizabeth Chadwick



This novel is the first in a Trilogy about Eleanor of Aquitaine. It is beautifully written and I felt that I was walking in the heroine's shadow, living her life, totally transported into a medieval world, Eleanor's world. Elizabeth Chadwick is an expert in writing the period. She grasped its mind-set as well as creating an engaging set of characters. Her depiction and subtle analysis of these particular regal personalities in a fiction is unsurpassable, her treatment of  a well-trodden story unique, and, for me, this book is a superb and very rich summer read.


A Swarming of Bees by Theresa Tomlinson



A Swarming of Bees is simply a delight. It is a page turning mystery set in a remote Northumbrian abbey during the 8th century. The prose is beautiful because of the author's delicate touch and the story absolutely fascinating. I was very loath to leave its characters and their lives when the book ended. Highly recommended.

Inceptio by Alison Morton



Inceptio is an unusual and fast-paced thriller set in a future New York and in a mountain kingdom that survived the fall of the Roman Empire. It has a feisty, engaging heroine who discovers her family dwelling in this remote kingdom when she has to escape villains who want to destroy her. They follow her beyond the mountains. Let the chase and thrills and spills commence. This novel is the first in a series and one which has the atmosphere of a graphic novel, although it is not exactly that either. It might appeal to older teenagers and anyone interested in parallel speculative histories such as can be read in Archangel by Ken Follett. A good read.

Brothers' Fury by Giles Kristian



Brothers' Fury by Giles Kristian is my favourite summer read. It is the best written in my selection and is set during The English Civil War. His writing is poetic but also gritty. He has a deeply human touch. He is influenced, he says, by Seamus Heaney's wonderful poetry. His characters are so richly depicted and the story so engaging that I found myself reading it too quickly. I wanted to see what happened to this family in a time of great strife when brother was set against brother and a daughter sets out to find the Parliamentarian brother who is lost to them. The pace is perfect. I believe Giles Kristian is returning to the Viking period for his next novel so I am going to have to wait some time with along with Beth, the brothers' sister, to find out what happens to my favourite character, her brother, Parliamentarian Thomas and to their Royalist brother Mun.

The River of Destiny by Barbara Erskine



If you like a well-written, well-constructed time slip this is for you. This one steps into two past periods after a couple retire to a town on the Norfolk coast. The periods are linked through place and though a centuries old lingering atmosphere. Ghostly reappearances of those who lived there once made my heart go bump. It is actually terrifying at times and all three stories link-the early Victorian narrative, the Anglo-Saxon period and also the mysterious ship that slips up the inlet on foggy nights with the present day story which is simply brilliantly told. I loved Erskine's Lady of Hay and this one is fabulous also. Here, I would like to mention another excellent time slip, The Silent Touch of Shadows by Christina Courtney which casts back to a romance set during England's Wars of the Roses. It is an award winning novel and also an excellent read.

Available as paperback from Amazon, Accent Press, and for all e readers

Happy Reading. Have you a novel which you read and loved this summer? Share your choice in the comments and if you would like to win a freebie apple download of The Handfasted Wife leave a contact email in the comments. I shall draw a winner on Sunday 1st September.

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Eleventh Century Wall Painting

I have long been fascinated by medieval wall paintings whether they are in tiny churches in Greece where I have spent much of the last year or in closer to home English medieval churches.

This was photographed in a small 11thC Greek Church in the Tagetis Mountains

Wall paintings are very beautiful and, like tapestries from the same period, are a picture book of stories used to decorate and to instruct in a world where literacy was restricted to priests and the wealthiest  nobility. Features of Anglo-Saxon wall painting did not disappear with the Norman Conquest but along with other aspects of Anglo-Saxon culture merged with new art forms brought to England from the continent, particularly Romanesque architecture.

St Oswald's Priory Wall Painting fragment

 Little evidence survives of eleventh century painted plaster. Most wall paintings would have belonged to churches although I like to think that palace walls and those belonging to great halls may also have been decorated. These buildings were constructed of wood and so in domestic buildings evidence has vanished. I introduce wall paintings into The Handfasted Wife on the exterior walls of Reredfelle, a hunting lodge on the borders of Sussex and Kent which once belonged to Earl Godwin and in the Reredfelle chapel where what is known as a Doom painting becomes integrated into the story's narrative. Wall paintings also appear in a secular way in my work in progress, The Countess of the North, a story about King Harold's daughter and her elopement with a Breton knight.

Nether Wallop. The wall painting was cut through to make way for a later Norman arch



Romanesque Wall painting

Fragments of Anglo-Saxon wall paintings have been excavated so we have an idea of what they were like. For example, painted stone work was discovered in Winchester in 1966. It had been reused in the foundations of the New Minster circa AD 901 but it is much older. It shows the remains of three figures and a border of what is known as pelta-pattern which is similar to sub-antique ornament shown on Carolingian manuscripts. The figure style is similar to the manuscript illumination used in the second quarter of the tenth century in Winchester. The cultural links with Carolingian art is apparent in English art of the period and in Norman writings such as The Song of Hastings ( 1068), a praise poem written to celebrate William's victory over King Harold at Hastings.

Anglo-Saxon painted plaster has in recent decades been recovered from other sites such as Monk Wearmouth near Jarrow where late 7thC to early 8thC fragments belonged to monastic buildings. A timber and wattle building in Colchester may have been a royal chapel. There, fragments remain of the wall paintings including an eye and draperies belonging to figures that may have been life-sized. Other wall painting images include the remains of four angels around the top of the chancel arch on the Nave east wall at Nether Wallop ( shown above) near Winchester. The angels were presumably shown supporting a figure of Christ in Majesty. The Carolingian linear style is very like that on late 10th C Winchester manuscripts. Hem lines are fluttering and the angels wear bulky flying folds that fall over their bodies. 



Anglo Saxon wall painting in situ and almost complete to this day

Wall paintings were executed at the royal nunnery of Wilton as a result of new building works directed by Queen Edith, Harold's sister, just before 1066. Goscelin, one of Queen Edith's scribes, left an account of her major scheme of works.  Saint Edith's timber chapel was added to the main church there. It was decorated with paintings of Christ's passion. Major schemes survive after the Conquest in Sussex churches such as Clayton and Hardham dating from 1100. Here we have the cultures mingling. The iconography and style derive from Anglo-Saxon painting yet the overall effect is Romanesque in Norman tradition. On the Bayeux Tapestry depiction below to the right is thought to be an abbess, possibly another of Harold's sisters, though unconfirmed, standing in the archway of what may be Saint Edith's Chapel at Wilton where Queen Edith undertook building works and wall paintings during the mid eleventh century.  



The promise made by King Harold to recognise William as heir to England's throne. Look at the archway to the right.

1066 did not make a clear break with Anglo-Saxon traditions of plaster painting. As the terrible effects of Conquest gripped the land aspects of two different cultures mingled, and this is the sense that I try to integrate into the background 'wallpaper' of both novels, The Handfasted Wife and my 'work in progress', Countess of the North, a story about King Harold's daughter Gunnhild.

The Handfasted Wife, a story of Edith Swan-Neck, is published by Accent Press and is available from Amazon UK and USA as a paperback and for kindle. It is available from Accent Press on line bookshop and for all e readers.

Eleventh Century Beauty Treatments- My Lady's Cosmetics

Eleventh century women did care about their appearance. Of course they did! Cosmetics were not as horrific as those used in Tudor times, such as lead to whiten the complexion or belladonna to brighten the eyes. These earlier treatments were generally less sinister and not quite so harmful. We know about cosmetics from The Trotula which was a compendium of women's medicine in medieval Europe. The mysterious Trotula was said to be the first female professor of medicine in eleventh century Salerno, south of Naples. Salerno was, indeed, the leading centre of medicine learning in medieval Europe for many centuries.

Herbs and spices, essential ingredients



In this wonderful book there is a section entitled 'On Women's Cosmetics'. The suggestions here range from depilatory treatments to hair treatments and face adornment. There are also recorded treatments for whitening the teeth and for lip care.

Here are a few of my favourites, ideas which I have consulted for my second novel in a trilogy about The Women of Hastings that is scheduled to follow from Edith Swan-Neck's story in The Handfasted Wife.

 Look at the bottom of this post for a free I tunes copy of this novel.

medieval girl outside an Italian Monastery

The Depilatory

Take quicklime and orpiment (a yellow sulphide mineral). Place these in a small linen sack and let them boil until they are cooked. If the depilatory be too thick, put fresh water in it to thin it. Take care it is not cooked too much and does not stay on the skin too long. It causes intense heat. And note that the dried powder of this is good for abrading bad flesh and for making hair grow again on the heads of people with tinea (ringworm infection). But first the affected place must be anointed with oil or honey. Then the powder is sprinkled on.

  A Cure for Blemishes

Take the juice of squirting cucumber and almond milk; with these placed in a vessel, gently mix in quicklime and orpiment. Add powdered galbanum (a fragrant Persian gum resin) mixed with a small amount of wine for a day and a night, and cook with this. Once it is well-cooked you should remove the substance of the galbanum and put in a little oil. Having made the decoction, you should remove it from the fire and add a powder of herbs, mastic, frankincense, cinnamon, nutmeg and clove in equal amounts. This ointment smells sweetly and is gentle for softening the skin. A popular depilatory as well.

The Castle Kitchen 12th/13thC

Hair

If you wish to have hair soft and smooth and fine, wash it often with hot water in which there is powder of natron and vetch.

After leaving the bath, let her adorn her hair, and first of all let her wash it with a cleanser such as this:

Take ashes of burnt wine, chaff of barley nodes, and licorice wood ( so it may more brightly shine), and sow-bread; boil the chaff and sowbread in water. With the chaff and the sowbread, let a pot having at its base two or three small openings be filled. Let the water in which the sowbread and chaff were previously cooked be poured into the pot, so that it is strained by the small openings. With this cleanser let the woman wash her head. After washing , let her leave it to dry by itself, and her hair will be golden and shimmering.

If indeed you want to have thick, black hair, take colcynth and, having thrown away the insides, let it be filled with laurel to which have been added henbane seed and a bit of orpiment. And let the hair be anointed with this often.



Adornment of Women's Faces   

First of all, let her wash her face very well with French soap and with warm water and with a straining of bran let her wash herself in the bath. Afterwards oil of tartar take and, having first dried her face, let her anoint it.

Oil of Tartar is made thus:

• break tartar into little bits
• wrap in piece of cloth and dip in strong vinegar and make it soaking wet
• place on fire until it turns to coals
• place in bowl and mix with oil using fingers
• expose to air for three nights
• collect the oil in a jug
• let the woman anoint herself with this oil for fifteen days at night
• in the morning wash with warm water and fatty residue of starch to soften it

There is also a recipe for the starch.

Are we ready to try to compose treatments!

To conclude, my Lady Elditha and her daughters would have had access to many of the more exotic ingredients mentioned above. There was extensive travel and trading during the early middle ages and ingredients came from very far flung lands, but that is a post for another time. I think I shall be happy to continue using my own modern day natural products and I am not so sure about any of the above!

The Handfasted Wife, a novel about Edith Swan-Neck, King Harold II's common-law wife is published by Accent Press and available on Amazon USA and UK as paperback and is also available for all e readers.  And to celebrate the end of my first month in print a free apple download. Can whoever takes this code leave a message to say it is taken please.

TE9N4N74HLLE ( to redeem go to The Handfasted Wife on I tunes books and click on codes button there. This came as a promotion to my publisher Accent and they kindly gave me a few for reviews etc. Enjoy!)

Hairstyles in the Eleventh Century

The Handfasted Wife, a novel about Edith Swan-Neck, common-law wife and beloved of Harold Godwinson, opens at Westminster during Christmas 1065. Elditha rides in on her mare Eglantine surrounded by a guard and with her two younger children following in a covered cart. Harold arrives at Thorney Island on a long shaped boat, the Wessex dragon flying at the mast. So, what did this noble 11th C family look like, what, for instance, was their hair fashion or head gear? How did they turn out for King Edward's winter crowning and Christmas feast?

Your age in Anglo-Saxon England, your position in society, your marital status and even if you had been found guilty of criminal behaviour could be detected by your size, bodily afflictions, hairstyle, clothing and jewellery.  Male hairstyles were linked to social status. One of the most heated debates in the early Anglo-Saxon Church revolved around hairstyles, For example, should churchmen be tonsured at the front in Celtic style or as in Roman fashion on the crown?

Harold as depicted on the Bayeux Tapestry is always pointing driving us through the story

The Bayeux Tapestry shows King Harold and his followers with long flowing locks and wearing thin moustaches, while William and his men had their hair short, and shaved at the back. Moustaches may have been associated with warrior status. Leofgar, Harold's mass priest in his priesthood kept his moustaches until he became a bishop. It was considered an insult to cut a man's hair and spoil his appearance. In the poem The Carmen, written in 1068 about the Battle of Hastings, the Norman poet is disparaging about the English warriors referring to them in Frank Barlow's translation as 'nancy boys' and in other translations as 'effeminate.' Interestingly, high status English men treasured their combs!

Moustaches, long hair and the Norman short cut!

Women wore headdresses to cover the head and neck. Young girls wore their hair long and loose over their shoulders with a band to keep it from becoming unruly. This was the fillet. In the privacy of their homes all women may have worn their hair this way, loose or plaited, up or down with a fillet to keep it neat. The head cloth concealed head, neck and shoulders. There is some variation in the way the headdress is depicted by Anglo-Saxon artists. Some females wore very loose headdresses with many folds; others have a close fitting version. Sometimes they wore embroidered, possibly jewelled headdresses, or maybe with a simple ornament at the forehead.

A wall decoration showing women wearing veils and fillets

The wimple is a typical headdress, a little like the head covering nuns may still wear today. The cuffia is where the word coif originates. It is a hood and often was of value and was referred to in women's wills. Generally the fillet was worn in conjunction with a headdress of fabric rather than by itself. It might be a decorated band across the forehead with two streamers ending in expensive decorated tags. Sometimes these bands were made of solid metal such as silver or even gold. A woman might wear a cap under her hood. Also she might wear a scarf or a veil arranged in various ways, even turban-style.  A scarf might be arranged around a round or stove-pipe shaped hat too.

 

Women's hair is hidden in depictions in Anglo-Saxon art with only a suggestion at the forehead. There are depictions of the Virgin with a plait or firm mound of hair on which to pin the wimple, hood or veil. Pins appear in glossaries. feax-preon or haer-naedle, hairpin and hair-needle. A frawing-spinel was a pin for curling the hair.



I had a great deal of fun writing about appearance in The Handfasted Wife, working many of these ideas subtly into the story. It all helped me to create the sense of falling into the early medieval past, recreating a faithful older world. If you read this novel I hope you enjoy the little details that are worked into the historical adventure and most of all I hope you enjoy the thrilling journey with my heroine, Elditha, Edith Swan-Neck. 


Find the Handfasted Wife on     http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Handfasted-Wife-ebook/dp/B00CL7QBVM/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1371285603&sr=1-1

It is available also from Accent Press's own online bookshop as a paperback as well as from Amazon. It is for all e readers too. If you read it look for Harold's amber sword decoration as large as a goose egg and his belt, a gift from Edith Swan-Neck.