8
The raid at Lindisfarne in 793 is often cited as the starting point for the Viking Age in Britain, but in reality this is something of an artificial delineation. More recent studies have confirmed a Scandinavian presence in Britain prior to this date (there was even an earlier attack in 789 in Dorset) and there certainly was no immediate rush of Norsemen arriving immediately afterwards.
Instead, mentions of raids and ‘pirates’ start to increase from this point onwards, building towards the arrival of the Great Heathen Army in the later part of the ninth century.
In Wessex, the first mention of this new threat comes a short time after Gafulford, in 833, when the Chronicle records:
This year king Egbert fought against the men of thirty-five ships at Charmouth, and there was great slaughter made, and the Danish-men maintained possession of the field. And Herefrith and Wigthun, two bishops, died; and Dudda and Osmod, two ealdormen, died.
Thirty-five ships would have represented a significant force of Viking raiders, probably led by an already somewhat successful warlord. Despite this, it’s still somewhat unusual to see a battle where Ecgberht comes off the worse. However, it’s difficult to interpret this entry in anything but a negative light for Wessex. In particular, the death of two bishops, whom one would potentially not expect to see on the front lines, suggests that it may have been an even less ordered withdrawal then the Chronicle paints.
Such a loss would almost certainly become common knowledge very quickly, most likely reaching the ears of Cornwall’s king before too long. Perhaps this is why, two years later, a large fleet (potentially the same fleet) of Viking ships arrived in the Tamar and made an alliance with the Cornish to attack Ecgberht’s kingdom, eventually facing his forces at a place called Hingston Down.
As the Chronicle relates:
This year a great hostile fleet came to the West-Welsh, and they united together, and made war upon Egbert king of the West-Saxons. As soon as he heard of it he went thither with an army, and fought against them at Hengeston, and there he put to flight both the Welsh and the Danish-men.
For the Cornish this alliance must have seemed an opportunity too good to pass up. After all, they had been fighting more or less alone for more than a hundred years by this point and Ecgberht in particular had proved to be an implacable foe. The opportunity to join with a potentially already victorious army and exact some revenge was clearly enough even to override any objections they may have held towards the Vikings’ pagan faith.
Not that this was the first time the Cornish had met the Vikings; or rather, it would seem to be extremely unlikely for that to be the case. As we have noted at various times, Cornwall’s infrastructure was built to support an outward-looking, trade-based economy, and this remained true into the Early Medieval period even as the wider power and wealth of the Western Kingdom declined.
Very early in this period we begin to see Viking artefacts emerge at these coastal sites, such as the Borre-style buckle [PAS record: CORN-EC5F13] found at Hayle, whose earliest potential date sits around 800, raising the intriguing possibility that this was left by one of the first Vikings to visit Cornwall.
Despite the highly coastal nature of settlement, there appear to be very few records of any Viking raids in Cornwall, however, at least until the later part of the tenth century when it is much more closely aligned with Wessex.
Additionally, place-name clustering of English names seems to occur largely in the inland zone, mostly in the region between the Tamar and Lynher rivers, while Cornish place names continue to frequent the coastal zone throughout the period [Preston-Jones and Rose, 1988].
Given this information, and the documented alliance that led to the battle at Hingston Down, it seems likely that relations between at least some Viking fleets and the Kingdom of Cornwall were largely friendly.
The question this raises, of course, is why this should be the case. After all, the arrival of Vikings is largely heralded by tales of raids and destruction even if this is eventually followed by peaceful settlement. In Cornwall we don’t appear to have this same pattern, in either the documentary record or the archaeological sources.
It is perhaps unsurprising that the Scandinavian finds in Cornwall are largely Hiberno-Norse in origin, meaning that the Vikings who were arriving and potentially allying with the Cornish had come from Ireland and the Irish Sea. This means the Vikings were following in the path of the previous Irish raiders, traders and settlers who had come before. This may mean that there was some ancestral knowledge or experience in dealing with seaborne raiders that served the natives well, an experience that the Anglo-Saxons, themselves originally the shipborne raiders, had not had time to develop. However, it is unclear exactly what form this could conceivably take. With that said, earthworks such as Tintagel’s headland, Dun Heved and the Giant’s Hedge were still in place even if they were no longer frequently utilised.
The presence of the teylu of both the king and lords of Cornwall, experienced and weathered in long years of conflict with Wessex, would also likely have acted as a deterrent for any sudden aggression. Given that elite sites in Cornwall also tended to be within easy reach of at least some of the coastal settlements, it’s likely they were never far away.
Additionally, with the Cornish now isolated on the far west of the peninsula, the north Cornwall coastline greeting the arriving Vikings would not have been conducive to the kind of quick hit-and-run raiding they were used to. While there are frequent small bays and inlets perfect for anchoring safely, they are usually surrounded by extreme rises in the terrain, sometimes entirely hemmed in by cliffs of sandstone or granite.
There are also very few navigable rivers, with the notable exception of the Tamar, though this is of course on the south coast.
The combination of these factors may have limited the appeal of Cornwall as a target, but the bays and inlets mentioned would also not have escaped the notice of early Viking captains. We know at least some raiders worked their way around from the Channel into the Irish Sea and vice versa, journeys that can be treacherous around Cornwall’s rugged and stormy coast. Having access to safe harbour would therefore be a significant benefit for these journeys. Of course, it would also be a benefit for raiders wanting to plunder Wessex and then retreat to safety before striking out again.
We actually have evidence of exactly this sort of behaviour, although it was not initially described as such.
In November 1774, a group of miners streaming for tin came across a collection of silver objects and coins that had been hidden near the village of Trewhiddle on the south Cornish coast, about a mile from St Austell. Many of the objects were decorated with zoomorphic patterns incised in the metal and picked out with niello. This style of decoration became known as ‘Trewhiddle Style’ after the hoard; however, many other contemporary examples are found largely in areas around the Midlands and further north.
There are also objects with potentially Irish origins, such as a brooch as well as the chalice the whole assemblage was found inside. The chalice is thought to be the only Anglo-Saxon silver chalice known from Britain; however, its closest parallel is found in a smaller chalice from Lough Kinale in Ireland [Ryan 1990].
The most mysterious of the objects is called the ‘Scourge’; it is a braided rope of silver wire woven through a circular object and left with several dangling ends. Its functionality is unknown, although most theories assume it to have some sort of ceremonial or religious significance that has since been lost. Given the number of unknowns surrounding the object, it is also impossible to say for sure where it came from or what its purpose was.
Finally, there are a number of coins, from both Mercia and Wessex, which date the whole assemblage to some point in the latter half of the ninth century with dates around 870 usually suggested.
The Trewhiddle hoard, as it became known, has traditionally been seen as wealth hidden from Viking raiders. However, this view should be challenged. For one, the location of the hoard in relation to known raiding activity makes it a complete outlier; the closest known camp of the Great Heathen Army (whose activities the suggested date of the hoard line up with) is in Exeter, making burial for safety seem unlikely [Hadley & Richards, 2021].
Other factors which seem to work against a ‘hidden for safety’ hypothesis are the partial or damaged nature of some of the pieces. The Scourge, for example, may well have been part of some larger item which would help to explain its somewhat mysterious origin and purpose. Additionally, there is a collection of semi-circular items which have been tentatively identified as horn mounts; however, these would usually be expected to be made in a single piece. As such it is possible the examples in the Trewhiddle hoard have been broken down for trade or hacksilver from larger, circular originals. There is also the eclectic nature of the assemblage as a whole. While we have consistently emphasised the trading nature of Early Medieval Cornwall, it seems unlikely that a native person would come into possession of all the items in the hoard without having done significant travelling of their own.
When considering the likely candidates for the hoard owner, then – someone who was well travelled around Wessex, Mercia and the Irish Sea and who, potentially at least, valued silver by weight rather than strictly minted coins – a Viking raider has to be considered highly probable.
This is then reinforced by Trewhiddle’s close proximity to the sea, as well as the other signs of Viking habitation in the region which we will discuss shortly.
If the Trewhiddle hoard does represent the career savings of a prolific raider then it was most likely buried in the expectation of being retrieved shortly after, and this reinforces the idea that Viking ships were using the Cornish coastline as a convenient safe harbour on their journeys to attack Wessex, no doubt with the elicit approval and potentially active support of the native elite and population.
Why the hoard was never retrieved is another question worth asking, and again it does not seem likely that a local source for the hoard would have been able to hide such wealth ahead of a raid or other threat without either its location becoming common knowledge or being overtaken by the events they were fleeing from.
As for our hypothetical raider, the tentative date of the hoard in the 870s ties closely with Alfred the Great’s victory at Ethandun. Perhaps the hapless owner of the treasure was relying on an easy victory of the Wessex king trapped in the marshes before returning for his takings, and ended up finding much more than he bargained for.
So, if we accept the Trewhiddle hoard as proof of Viking raiders, not just settlers, operating around Cornwall and in conjunction with local entities, we can start to see how the alliance that fought at Hingston Down may have been forged.
Given that there was already a large fleet operating around the south-west coast a few years before the battle, it is not impossible that the same fleet, or even just vessels from within it, would have taken refuge in Cornwall and spread news of their victory. The Cornish elite, either a local lord or perhaps even the king himself, would have potentially reached out to this fleet with the offer of an alliance. There is a persistent rumour in Cornish history circles that there was a general ‘alliance’ with the Danes, but this is highly unlikely in the early stages of the Viking Age when crews were much more likely to be small and independent rather than part of the overall army of a king or lord.
However, a specific alliance with the fleet that had already managed to defeat Ecgberht in combat would seem to be an obvious choice for a Cornish kingdom still angry over the loss of west Devon and eager to exact revenge on Ecgberht. Arrangements would then have taken some time, perhaps accounting for the delay between the two confrontations, in order not just to organise a return for the fleet but also to gather, arm and equip the Cornish warriors to support the endeavour.
Of course, Ecgberht himself is unlikely to have been idle over this same timeframe, and certainly (given the result of the battle) it seems he had learnt some lessons from his initial clash with the Vikings.
The battle itself is also sited at Hingston Down, near Gunnislake in Cornwall. However, this seems an unusual location, given that the Chronicle describes both the Viking fleet arriving ‘among the West Wealas’ and the combined forces going on the offensive together.
The most likely site for a significant Viking fleet to actually enter into Cornwall, rather than just anchor off the coast, is the River Tamar (as can be seen by the tenth-century raid that destroys Tavistock Abbey). Sailing up the Tamar would also allow the Cornish forces to meet them easily at the edge of their territory and then push forward into Wessex.
The Cornish Hingston Down is, as one might expect, on the west side of the Tamar and is a few miles away from the river. If the allied force is on the offensive then it seems strange they would choose to meet, or indeed be surprised by, Ecgberht’s forces inside of Cornwall itself.
This is even more odd when we consider that Viking raiders, dependent as they were on their ships for mobility, usually took pains to maintain lines of retreat to their ships. If they were anchored in the Tamar, as seems most likely, then the Gunnislake site would mean the Vikings were fighting a battle with a Saxon army between them and their ships. This seems extremely unlikely.
Additionally, if Ecgberht had so successfully outmanoeuvred the Vikings as to cut them off from the ships, we would expect the Chronicle to record the burning of the fleet or the taking of significant plunder, as it does in other entries; but there is no mention of that here, only of a battle fought at Hengestdon.
The fixed assumption about the location is particularly odd in this case because, unlike several of the other battles we have discussed, there is another Hingston Down a short distance away that would seem a much better fit. Just outside of Moretonhampstead in Devon there is a spur of high ground known as Hingston Down. This is in central Devon, an area we have already identified as seeing frequent conflict between the Cornish and Saxons.
Significantly, the root words for both Hingston Downs are Hengest Dun, or ‘Stallion Hill’; this may well, given the importance of horses to the native Brythonic warrior elite, have a secondary meaning or some kind of military significance, potentially as a gathering place for forces.
The eastern Hingston Down seems the much more plausible location for the battle, particularly given that Ecgberht, according to the Chronicle entry, has to gather his army prior to confronting them. This would have given the Cornish-Norse forces time to push further into Devon and, largely the Danes, indulge in a bit of looting.
The battle taking place in Devon would have two significant impacts on our understanding of later events. Firstly, and most significantly, it means that the fighting between Wessex and Cornwall (this is the last noted military confrontation between the two) ends not within Cornwall following a successful invasion, but instead in Devon after the Cornishmen’s own efforts have been thrown back.
Secondly, it reinforces that the Cornish remain not just an annoyance to Ecgberht but a potent threat to the western regions of his domain.
Regardless of the specifics, the loss at Hingston Down effectively ends the war between Wessex and Cornwall. It is usually assumed that at this point Cornwall is absorbed into Wessex; however, as we shall see, the reality is much more complicated than that.
Hingston Down also wasn’t the end of the Vikings in Cornwall. We continue to see signs of Viking settlement throughout the Early Medieval period; however, the evidence slowly changes from scattered personal objects lost over time, like the belt buckle from Hayle or the sword pommel from Penzance, and becomes more emblematic of a population that is putting down roots in the area.
The clearest examples are found in religious stonework.
Firstly, there is the Cardinham Cross, an Early Medieval Cornish cross with an unusual ring chain decoration along its shaft. This decoration is Norse in origin and the closest parallels to it are all found in Scotland, the Isles and other northerly sites. The Cardinham example is an outlier that suggests someone familiar with the artwork had journeyed south to Cornwall, although whether they were the one who commissioned the cross or simply the one who carved it we cannot be sure. The likely date of its construction is sometime in the tenth century.
Then there are a pair of hogback gravestones, the better known of which is found at Lanivet Churchyard. Hogbacks are not specifically Viking artefacts but rather tend to be indicative of Anglo-Danish or sometimes Hiberno-Norse involvement. They are frequently found in Scotland and Yorkshire and in general are indicative of Scandinavian settlement in an area. The Yorkshire stones are quite closely dated to the tenth century, although in Scotland this extends into the eleventh [The Corpus of Anglo Saxon Stonework, 2021].
In terms of appearance, hogbacks are large stone sarcophagi which are decorated in a rough proximity of a great hall shape, including engraved tile patterns on the roof as well as long lines of interlace or knotwork pattern on each flat surface. Most typical hogbacks have large beasts on either end of the ‘gable’, and this is a feature the Lanivet stone does possess, although they are significantly less pronounced than those found on most typical hogbacks. The patterns of stone carving on the Lanivet example are also interesting in that they combine elements of Hiberno-Norse art with traditional Insular patterns, including knotwork that is most often seen on examples around the Irish Sea, including within Cornwall.
The overall impression we are left with is very similar to the Ogham inscriptions from the start of the period and their transition to honouring people with Latin names. It seems like an incoming population has become closely tied into the fabric of Cornish life while still maintaining some of its own cultural identity.
The other potential hogback is found at St Tudy Church, although this one is not such a clear parallel to northern examples: it has an interesting pattern of wavy lines on its side but is otherwise less decorated overall, and lacks the signature beasts on either end. Despite this, there is very little like it in Cornwall other than the Lanivet stone, and as such a potential link or similar purpose cannot be ignored.
The dating of all these examples to around the tenth century supports continuing Viking, or more accurately Scandinavian, presence in Cornwall past the supposed conquest in 836/8. Given that the construction of stone memorials implies at least some level of settled population, both in order to acquire the wealth needed for their construction and to have a local population for whom the monument will serve as a reminder/focal point to your memory or religious pronouncement, it may well be the case that these represent a continuous population from the first contacts in the ninth century.
Given Dumnonia and Cornwall’s long-standing role in Irish Sea trade, a trade that was quickly being dominated by Scandinavian interests over this time period with the construction of cities like Dublin, Wexford and Waterford, it makes sense that we would see increasing numbers of Scandinavian settlers within Cornwall both taking part in this trade and as a result of it.
We can see some evidence of this trade network from later period excavation at both Waterford and Wexford (the cities closest to Cornwall), where significant assemblages of Cornish pottery wares have been found [Wood, 2014]. The assemblages in this case are from the eleventh and twelfth centuries, showing the durability of this trading network even in the face of continuous political change – not only the theoretical absorption of Cornwall into Wessex, but also the Norman invasion.
There is, however, a darker side to this trade that should not be ignored. As well as trading for tin and other precious materials, the Vikings were prolific slave traders and all of the Irish Norse cities were involved in the trade to greater or lesser extents. Eventually Dublin would become the largest slave market in western Europe, with slaves taken in Viking raids shipped as far afield as Iceland and Anatolia [Holm, 1986]. There is reason to suspect that the Cornish elite also played an active role in this trade and profited from it.
By some estimates the average percentage of slaves in England was 10 per cent of the population, rising to 12 per cent in some instances. In Cornwall this figure is 21 per cent [Pelteret, 2001] which suggests slave labour was much more widely used then elsewhere in the country. It has been suggested in the past that this discrepancy is due to an incoming English elite enslaving the native population, pointing to the preponderance of English names freeing slaves in the Bodmin Manumissions. However, as we will cover later, the recent revelations around the identities contained within the manumissions make this scenario seem unlikely.
Instead we have to accept that, likely as part of a wider trading network with their Hiberno-Norse allies, the Cornish were actively engaged in the taking, trading and use of slaves.
We can see cultural memories of this in other sources too, such as the Exeter Book, a codex of Anglo-Saxon poetry compiled in Exeter in the late tenth century. As well as containing several relatively well-known Old English poems, including ‘The Wanderer and The Seafarer’, the Exeter Book also contains a number of riddles. While some of these are straightforward brain teasers, and usually include their solutions, others are more longform and two of these are relevant to us now: Riddle 52 and Riddle 72:
RIDDLE 52
I saw two prisoners,
borne into the building
beneath the roof of the hall,
both of them stiff –
they were of a kind,
clasped close together
with binding chains –
one of them held close
by a dark Welsh girl
She wielded them both,
fixed in fetters.
RIDDLE 72
I was little…
[ a few fragmentary lines intervene]
My sister fed me… often I tugged
at my four dearest brothers, each of them
uninjured gave me drink once per day
heavily through a hole. I thrived with a thrill,
until I was older and lonely left that
to a swarthy herdsman, journeying farther,
treading paths of the Welsh frontier,
cutting across the moors
bound under a beam.
I had a ring round my neck,
suffering works of woe
along the way,
my portion of hardship.
Often the iron harmed
me, sorely in my sides—
I kept silent, never
speaking out to any man,
even if the pricking
was painful to me.
Both of these riddles mention Wealas in relation to slavery, either in possessing slaves or being the region where a slave is taken. Given the book’s production in Exeter, the most likely ‘Welsh’ for this to be referencing are the Cornish. This seems to be reinforced by Riddle 72’s reference to crossing moors on the Welsh frontier, as a journey from Exeter to Cornwall would involve crossing or circumnavigating Exmoor, Dartmoor and (potentially) Bodmin Moor, all due to the south-west’s unique geological makeup.
This would seem to reinforce the impression that the Cornish were taking an active role within the slave trade. While conflict ends after Hingston Down, this may also hint that there are ongoing slave-taking expeditions in and around western Wessex. Whether these are purely Viking activities, sometimes with the unfortunate captives then taken on to Cornwall, or if the Cornish elite are taking part themselves, is unclear.
Before we move on from Norse involvement in Cornwall and back into the main flow of our study, there is one additional assemblage of items that is worth looking at. The portable antiquities scheme has entries for several stirrups and other horse fittings dating to the eleventh and late tenth centuries. These are all decorated in a typically Anglo-Scandinavian style and seem to have parallels with finds further north, again in areas of heavy Scandinavian settlement. The fact that so many turn up in Cornwall may potentially tell us two things.
Firstly, it may suggest that the native Cornish, with their longstanding links to the Hiberno-Norse world, may well have enjoyed some measure of benefits from the ascension of Cnut to the throne of England in 1012. Certainly, the number of finds all from a similar date range suggest an increase in the level of portable wealth on casual display.
Secondly, the fact that the finds are all parts of horse tack may be indicative that the cultural affinity for horses and riding continued well past the fall of Devon to Wessex. However, it must also be considered that the level of general equestrianism in the upper classes was increasing at the time as fashions and warfare on the Continent drove adaptations in Britain, albeit at a much slower rate.
All in all, the continuing Viking presence in Cornwall should be viewed as one chapter in the much longer story of Irish Sea trade and exchange which encompasses so much of the Western Kingdom’s history. Once the Vikings became ensconced within that network it was only natural that they would also become part of the fabric of Cornish life and vice versa.
What their continuing presence can also speak to, however, is that, following the cessation of direct confrontations between Wessex and Cornwall with Ecgberht’s victory at Hingston Down, Wessex still wasn’t in possession of Cornwall in a meaningful way. Certainly, it would seem fair to assume that the Cornish kings were now sub-kings to the King of Wessex; however, as we have seen throughout Wessex’s history, the level of independence the sub-kings enjoyed could vary wildly over time and between individuals. So long as they remained in nominal control of a region and population that saw itself as separate from the greater whole, there was always a danger of rebellion or disobedience.
This was the situation with Cornwall that Ecgberht left his descendants on his death in 839, potentially only one year after the victory at Hingston Down.