Sutton Hoo Princes In Byzantium?
A new paper explores the connections between Anglo-Saxon elites and the mercenary world of the Sasanian-Byzantium frontier
A Happy New Year to all my friends and followers! Thank you for sticking with me or welcome aboard. I have nearly finished working on my third book, sadly I wasn’t able to get it out in time for Christmas, but I hope it will be well received nonetheless so watch this space.
We have a wonderful new paper to start 2025 off with, a paper which attempts to reinterpret the famous Sutton Hoo and related Anglo-Saxon burials. It was published in the English Historical Review by Helen Gittos, a medievalist from Oxford, and is titled Sutton Hoo and Syria: The Anglo-Saxons Who Served in the Byzantine Army?. The link between the Saxons and Byzantium has been known for a long time, with the Varangian Guard of Emperor Alexios Komnenos (11th century AD) being heavily English, and the Black Sea Angli orientales refugees who fled the Norman Invasion. However, nearly 500 years earlier the Byzantine Romans were battling the Persian Sasanians all throughout the Middle East, from the southern Caucasus to Syria, with the help of foreign mercenaries. In this paper Gittos argues that the magnificent burials of Sutton Hoo, Prittlewell and similar sites were not necessarily those of royals, but rather of returning heroes bedecked with luxury goods and Imperial rewards. First, some context.
The Anglo-Saxon Princely Burials
Nationally, the emergence or crystallization of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom structure appears to be broadly contemporary with a horizon of ‘princely’ burials such as those at Sutton Hoo (Suffolk), Taplow (Buckinghamshire) and Asthall (Oxfordshire). In the scale of their wealth and monumentality these are unlike any graves known from Anglo-Saxon England before the late 6th century, and can be attributed plausibly to ruling elites who wielded power at a political level.
-Archaeology, early Anglo-Saxon society and the origins of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms (1993) Christopher Scull
The arrival of the Anglo-Saxons to Britain’s shores between 400-450 AD is still an archaeological mystery. Between 580 and 640 AD the sudden appearance of a type of aristocratic, elite burial marked a transition point in the solidification of the political structures of England. Some of these burials are relatively famous (Sutton Hoo, Prittlewell) and many others are not, but they often featured a large raised mound grave for single adult male, sometimes with a ship (Snape, Sutton Hoo), sometimes with a chambered tomb (Taplow, Broomfield). The wealth on display in these burials is nothing short of jaw-dropping: helmets, brooches, clasps, musical instruments, books, textiles, jewels, weaponry, furniture, purses, coins, drinking vessels, bowls, spoons, ladles, dishes, game boards and so on. The craftsmanship and use of precious metals has been pored over by generations of antiquarians and archaeologists, identifying Mediterranean, Irish, Pictish, British and other artistic motifs and styles.
A common explanation for these burials is the assertion of form of monumental pagan power as the Christianization of England began after 595 AD. Sutton Hoo has been identified with Rædwald, King of East Anglia, as well as with Beowulf and material comparisons to the Swedish Vendel Period. Many believe that these aristocratic or royal tombs reflect local English or Anglo-Saxon concerns, whilst also keeping an eye on continental, Roman and Merovingian fashions and tastes. In a word - more provincial than other dynasties in Europe. Unfortunately, many of the known burial mounds from this period have been looted and stripped of their contents many centuries ago - Sutton Hoo itself came within inches of being discovered by Tudor grave-robbers. Thus we are left with only a partial record of this incredible legacy.
An Alternative Explanation?
Gittos attempts to reinterpret this complex tangle of archaeology and history by focusing on the artifacts from Prittlewell and Sutton Hoo mound 1. To lay out her hypothesis she describes a number of objects found in the Prittlewell chamber:
A large silver spoon of a Byzantine type, made in the late sixth or early seventh century (Fig. 2b). At least two different owners’ names are scratched on it, one with the form of an A which is common in Greek inscriptions…
A copper-alloy flagon of a type made in Asia Minor and the Levant in the sixth and seventh centuries (Fig. 2c). This is of a very unusual kind, decorated with a bracelet of discs with images of St Sergius, an equestrian soldier martyred c.305, that served as pilgrims’ badges. Eight others are known, of which only three have archaeological contexts: one from Mount Nebo, Jordan, one from Cyprus, and another from Aidlingen in south-western Germany… These flagons came from the centre of Sergius’s cult in the remote fortress town of Sergiopolis (modern Rusafa) in central Syria.
A cast copper-alloy basin, traditionally known as a ‘Coptic bowl’, that was intended to be used for hand washing and could perhaps be placed over a fire to warm the water…
The remains of a copper-alloy cylindrical container (Fig. 2e). It is c.45 mm long and 25 mm wide, made of sheet metal, with a flat lid that fits over the top to which is attached a chain and a suspension loop for hanging it from something… it is very likely that it was made in Byzantine Egypt. The alloy contains 8 per cent lead and 10 per cent zinc.
The hanging bowl (Fig. 2f), although made in the British Isles, is of an unusual kind: rather than being decorated with designs common in insular art, it has ‘classical, non-Celtic derived ornamental motifs’ which are not only ‘Romanising’ but also ‘consonant with continuing contacts with the art of the Christian east’
For an Anglo-Saxon burial these objects seem very foreign - Byzantine, Coptic, Egyptian, Syrian, Levantine and eastern Christian. How did these come to rest in the tomb of a prince on a remote island the other side of Europe?
The simplest explanation does not invoke unusual diplomatic gifts from Merovingian kings or a special shipment. Instead, I think the Prittlewell Prince obtained these goods when he was in the Middle East.
Side-stepping all the usual explanations of diplomatic networks and so on, Gittos instead cuts through and has the prince himself go to the eastern Mediterranean and acquire his prizes directly. But why?
And there is a good historical context to explain how and why he went. In 575, the Byzantine army urgently needed more troops because of the renewed war with the Sasanians. Tiberius, ‘caesar’ under Justin II, ‘conducted a major recruiting campaign’, at great cost, on both sides of the Alps. According to the early seventh-century historian Theophylact Simocatta, Tiberius ‘recruited multitudes of soldiers and rendered the recruits’ hearts eager for danger through a flowing distribution of gold, purchasing from them enthusiasm for death by respect for payment’. Contemporary sources talk of ‘squadrons of excellent horsemen’ numbering some 150,000; modern historians think it more likely to have been in the region of 12,000–15,000. Nonetheless, we are talking about large numbers of troops. These soldiers probably joined the newly formed Foederati as part of a major reorganisation of Byzantine forces. They served until the end of the war with the Sasanians in 591, continuing under emperors Tiberius II (578–82) and Maurice (582–602).
This then is the core of the re-interpretation. Moving away from a northern world of Germanic poetry and paganism, we instead re-encounter the Anglo-Saxons as mobile mercenaries heading towards Byzantium to act as paid horsemen in combat with the Persians. This by itself is a refreshing theory, tying the Saxons into a much wider and more cosmopolitan world, rather than their narrower inter-tribal conflicts around Kent and East Anglia. On their successful return from the Roman frontier, these warlords were honoured as heroes and buried as befitted their deeds in life.
Making the case
Evidence for northern European mercenaries does exist in the Levant, and Gittos provides some examples:
In Constantinople, there are five funerary inscriptions with Germanic names dating from c.580 to 620
In the Biqā Valley in Lebanon, silver liturgical vessels have been found which include a censer, chalice and spoon, all probably made in Syria in the late sixth/early seventh century, with inscriptions on them commemorating people with western European names: Framarich, a Germanic name, and Karilos, probably a Merovingian
Germanic style sword-buckles from late sixth-/early seventh-century with triangular plates that have been found in Anemurium (the southernmost point of Turkey), two near Constantinople, and another from the fortress at Sadovec, Bulgaria.
Continental burials of high-status warriors also bear testament to the return flow of luxury items and weaponry from Constantinople and its empire. These include Gammertingen, in south-west Germany and at Tiszagyenda in Hungary. For Gittos, these cosmopolitan connections between warrior elites are more important than any ‘national’ or tribal status, as they formed a kind of brotherhood who became susceptible to Christian conversion before Rome decided to send a mission to the British Isles. Indeed she even goes so far as to say that:
the connections between eastern Britain and Byzantium in the late sixth century were associated with conversions to Christianity that pre-date the Gregorian mission. They might also be part of the background to Pope Gregory’s mission itself, not least since during the eastern campaign Gregory was a papal legate in Constantinople from 579 to 586, became friends with Maurice and his family, and stayed in the imperial palace. Gregory’s interest in missions to the English could have been stirred by encounters with English cavalry fighting for the Christian empire. This might also have emboldened those English recruits to request a mission directly from the Byzantine papacy, rather than from Merovingian bishops.
This is borne out by the huge array of objects which came back to England, including many directly imperial pieces such as the ‘Anastasius Dish’
A huge silver dish stamped with the monogram of Emperor Anastasius (491–518), probably made in Constantinople, was found in Sutton Hoo mound 1 (Fig. 7b). Its decoration was probably added in the later sixth century, some time after it was made. This is one of the largest Roman silver dishes to survive, belonging ‘to that class of objects which the Emperor gave on special occasions to the holders of high imperial rank or to barbarian kings’
The full list of artifacts is too extensive to quote here, but it includes Greek engraved silver spoons and ladles; silver bowls with the stamps of Heraclius and Maurice; necklaces made with imperial gold coins; a winged victory cameo; Syrian wool; lumps of bitumen and pieces of armour which have no precedent in the Anglo-Saxon world.
Gittos also sees in these warrior elites the formation of a homogenous class which celebrated the power of the horse and rider.
One remarkable feature of elite culture in later sixth- and early seventh-century Britain, specifically from 580 to 640, was its surprising degree of homogeneity. The different regional characteristics began to disappear: in particular, we might not be able to tell that the peoples of eastern Britain were ruled by different kings from the evidence of the material culture alone.
This equestrian class was steeped in a shared aesthetic of art, architecture, ritual, warfare and kinship. These were perhaps not the petty kings of the imagination, who battled over every field at the edge of their small domains, but a transcendent class of men who returned home and imposed themselves politically and culturally onto the landscape and probably shared more in common with each other than with their subjects. Gittos points out that these princely burials are often on the edge of their territories, not at the centre. They were concerned with each other, with the negotiation and dynamic interplay of relationships, marriages and dynasties.
They were members of an equestrian elite whose kings were not tribal leaders within their regions but overlords of a more extensive kind, leaders in a wider world… These kings, and the aristocratic elite of which they were a part, shared a ‘remarkably cosmopolitan … cultural idiom’. They liked the same things; they knew one another, would have recognised one another, and, perhaps, shared adventures as well as aesthetics
Furthermore, these men also seemed committed to making themselves into distinct individuals through the intentional combination of Saxon, Scandinavian and Roman styles. The armour for the man laid down in Sutton Hoo mound 1 has always been hard to explain, since it looks like a Roman design but made in England using Anglo-Saxon motifs. The shoulder clasps, the ‘imperial’ whetstone scepter and the iron ‘standard’ also look like intentional imitations of Byzantine Roman military equipment, but reimagined in an Anglo-Saxon style.
Conclusions
Gittos has not presented a thesis or book long argument here in a definitive style, but rather has opened the door onto a new theory of Anglo-Saxon mobility and political power. She is not the first to suggest a direct connection between Britain and Byzantium, but such a bold argument is good for the field I think. In her conclusion she laments that early medieval history has become quite insular and timid:
Why, then, have early medievalists been so reluctant to consider direct contacts between eastern Britain and Byzantium? I think three things have blinded us. The first is a tendency to see the Anglo-Saxons as late followers of continental trends rather than in step with them. The reasons for this probably have to do with the comparatively late date for the recorded conversion to Christianity, the extent to which Britain was less Romanised than other regions, the degree to which urban life collapsed during the fourth century, and a more general wariness about English exceptionalism. Secondly, there is a tendency to think of Romanitas too much in terms of a Roman past rather than a Byzantine present.131 The third is a tendency to favour explanations which posit gradual social changes over sudden ones, when of course both can happen concurrently.
In this assessment she is correct. Scholars of the early Anglo-Saxon world have in recent decades viewed Britain as a remote and unimportant island, unconnected to the wider changes of Europe. On top of this, the eastern Roman Empire lacks any substantial presence in the academic mind, for reasons I can’t quite explain. The collapse of the Western Empire has dominated the narrative around British history, with Rome’s withdrawal and the barbarian invasions, pushing Byzantium into a fringe position which only regains importance somewhere around the First Crusade. Finally it also true across both archaeology and history that gradual systemic explanations are favoured, ultimately stemming from a more Marxist and systems-theory type approach which relegates the individual to a helpless branch washed out on the tides of historical forces. The power of Sutton Hoo and the princely burials is that they bring the individual man of history back into sharp focus, on his deeds, his exploits, his friends and family. Even if Gittos is wrong, and these men never sailed to Byzantium, we should cherish these much more interesting and dynamic interpretations.
Thank you - that is fascinating, especially the conclusions, opening questions regarding academe's attitudes!
One of your best pieces about a very interesting paper. Thank you.