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Settlement in the Earldom was not uniform. Though a central farm is apparent at many of the sites discussed, others hint at a spread of settlement over an area with no specific focus of

architectural prestige, except ecclesiastical buildings. There are several reasons why this may have been the case. It has already been noted that magnates in the Earldom were as much at ease in a courtly setting as they were farming and fishing, though admittedly this might also represent a literary trope. It is unlikely that they would seek to express their status by drastically altering a pattern of land and settlement in which they were habitually working. This is certainly connected to the ‘flat’ hierarchy of contemporary society – and the small, compact nature – of Orkney at this time. There is no doubt magnates set themselves above others in society, but this was clearly not done through altering the landscape in the dramatic fashion of contemporaries in neighbouring polities. It is widely appreciated, however, that Norse society voiced a clear awareness of the prehistoric landscape. “In 1316, the Norwegian law expected the allodial farmers to account for their ancestors back to haughs ok till heiðni (mounds and pagan times) when land and inheritance were disputed.”⁴⁸² Late Norse high-status sites could demonstrate interaction with prehistoric monuments in a more than superficial way. Beyond recognising a relationship, no further analysis was undertaken at the sites examined. There is scope for suggesting a social, symbolic connection to existing monuments in the landscape and high-status (castellar and non-castellar) sites.

One expression of authority more like that seen around the Earldom was architectural patronage.

Churches and chapels of stone were apparent at many of the high-status, non-castellar sites explored above. These are obviously related to the desire of magnates for personal spiritual salvation, but further social dynamics were at play. A church or chapel served as a clerical office of service to magnates in matters of administration and government. It also served as a community

477 Morris, Batey, Rackham, Freswick Links, Caithness, p.259.

478 Morris, Batey, Rackham, Freswick Links, Caithness, p.136.

479 Morris, Batey, Rackham, Freswick Links, Caithness, p.25.

480 NMS, Acc. no. X.IL 748; C. Batey, ‘The Late Norse site of Freswick’, in J.R. Baldwin (ed.), Caithness: a cultural crossroads (Edinburgh, 1982) p.48.

481 Ashby, ‘An atlas of medieval combs from Northern Europe’, 2.2, Type 13.

482 Iversen, ‘Royal villas in Northern Europe’, p.112, n.2.

focus for a parish and township(s). Lastly, it reflected the commitment, made in stone, of the magnate towards communal and personal piety. In a secular context, these buildings reflected on the connectivity of their builders to trends of architectural style outside the Earldom, too. Grants of land to church institutions, at Brough of Birsay towards a monastic foundation, served similar social functions. In purely material terms, the archaeological evidence clearly suggests timber was a high-status material, especially in a secular context. The dominance of stone in ecclesiastical buildings hinted at above certainly has symbolic overtones of Romanitas and Petrine right, “[…]

expressions of permanence and visibility […].”⁴⁸³ The question of material remains a key consideration in discussion of the physical properties of kastalar, especially in light of the documentary evidence discussed in the beginning of this chapter. Da Biggings, Earl’s Bu and Freswick Links all featured high-status halls composed chiefly of timber in the Late Norse period.

In administrative and social terms there was a distinction, if presently poorly understood, between places lived in, and places exploited by, comital magnates. Is it necessary for lived sites to evidence arable cultivation? It is tempting to argue for Freswick Links being an exploited site, for evidence of agriculture at the site is poor. By contrast, the instances of arable cultivation archaeologically determined at many other high-status sites are plentiful. To add nuance to this, Da Biggings is useful, because although it is in rich arable land it is surely an exploited rather than lived estate, despite the investment in timber architecture of high status. Surely, therefore, what Da Biggings and Freswick Links demonstrate are manorial economies of exploitation which are in social terms a level of sophistication beyond the archetypal image of the magnate-farmer which Orkneyinga saga portrays. Freswick Links especially argues for caution in ascribing too much importance to terrestrial wealth generation at the expense of recognising how important

maritime resources were to contemporary society. That Da Biggings and Freswick could continue to generate resources for their absentee owners must mean that estate administration on the behalf of magnates was being undertaken, perhaps with clerical assistance. While the magnate-farmer of the saga was certainly an important fixture of the 12^th-century Earldom, there should not be any doubt that the means to accrue wealth sufficient for investment in castellar

architecture was apparent. This is hinted at in the emergence of material culture, European in origin and signalling the emergence of courtly ideals in self-expression (e.g. wine consumption, pilgrimage), twinned with enduring traditions (e.g. combs, nomenclature).⁴⁸⁴ Furthermore, this stands in contrast to the continued tradition of property inheritance of odal practice in the Earldom, wherein inherited land was divided amongst a large group of inheritors. The splitting of

483 Griffiths, ‘Status and identity in Norse settlements’, p.229.

484 Birsay-Skaill, 12^th-century Norman: Griffiths, ‘Status and identity in Norse settlements’, pp 225, 228; Da Biggings: 13^th-14^th-century East Anglian and Lower Saxonian: Crawford, Ballin Smith, The Biggings, Papa Stour, p.80; Skaill, Deerness was virtually aceramic: Buteaux, Settlements at Skaill, Deerness, Orkney:

excavations by Peter Gelling, pp 196-7.

units of wealth generation runs counter to the accrual of wealth necessary for castle construction and it is therefore concluded that traditional means of wealth generation in the Earldom were not responsible for the construction of castles. The emergence of intensive fishing in the Late Norse period must represent a new factor in the Earldom economy and must be related to new castellar and ecclesiastical architecture. While the emergence of surplus resources was not deliberately managed, the wealth it created was inevitably claimed by the magnates.

5.4.3 Summary

High-status sites were apparently arranged in a fashion very similar to Viking age farms. The hall remained the key social and political space. The details of the hall vary; the 12^th-century stone hall of the Bishop’s Palace at Kirkwall is a useful exemplar, and certainly appears to mirror tentative finds at Tuquoy, East Mound (Bay of Skaill) and possibly Skaill, Deerness. Arguably these are quite different structures from the longhouses at Da Biggings, Earl’s Bu and Westness, which appear to represent varieties of the stofa, skáli and eldhus arrangement familiar from the Viking Age. This dichotomy is probably not solely representative of a clear change in preference, but rather it may be seen to confirm the rapid social changes, mirrored in architectural preference and expression in the 12^th century. The difference is not indicative of a relative status: Earl’s Bu was one of, if not the, foremost comital centre in Orkney, and is was also home to an arguably expensive and elaborate 12^th-century round church. The social symbolism of the hall remains as it was in the Viking Age, a venue for socialising. However, the role that socializing fulfilled appears different.

Previously, it served to re-affirm bonds of personal friendship in which lordship (early medieval in character) was built. It would seem from the fragmentary pottery finds from later phases of the stone-built halls referenced here that more familiar ‘conspicuous consumption’ was undertaken at halls, a process of referencing a magnate’s wealth and generosity but setting them apart from their peers. Theirs became a relationship increasingly not dynamic and proximate but firm and unyielding, a permanent bond between subject and lord.⁴⁸⁵ Other buildings were apparent.

Chapels and churches, new additions, were often nearby and always apparently of stone. Other buildings and facilities – lesser halls, stables, houses, storage facilities, ancillary buildings, and mills – were probably arrayed nearby, as buildings from Earl’s Bu and finds distribution from Tuquoy hint at. Proximity to the sea, as ever in a thalassocracy, was important. These

arrangements, though familiar to late medieval lordship in Europe generally, represent a context firmly situated in Late Norse society specifically, for the emergence of kastalar which must not be ignored. Territories under the control of central places were not always contiguous, as the

485L. Hermanson, ‘Vertical bonds and social power: ideals of lordship in twelfth-century Scandinavia’, in B.

Poulsen, S. M. Sindbæk (eds), Settlement and lordship in Viking and Early Medieval Scandinavia (Turnhout, 2011), pp 71-2.

evidence from Brough of Birsay, as well as Sourin and Husabae, demonstrates (Figure 23).⁴⁸⁶ Nor were lands held by a magnate necessarily near to each other: Sveinn Ásleifarson’s paternal lands were at Duncansby in Caithness, but he chose to spend much of his time on his island of Gairsay, south of Wyre, in Orkney, c.48km distant.⁴⁸⁷

FIGURE 23:SKETCH MAP OF EGILSAY AND ROUSAY

©GOOGLE EARTH.THE LARGER ESTATE CENTERED ON HUSABAE, STRADDLING THE SMALL SOUND, APPEARS TO HAVE FRAGMENTED BY THE 12^TH CENTURY INTO ITS CONSTITUENT PARTS:SOURIN,SCOCKNESS AND EGILSAY PROPER. INFORMATION DIRECTLY REPLICATED FROM THOMSON,‘SOME SETTLEMENT PATTERNS IN MEDIEVAL ORKNEY’,

P.341.

In material terms, high-status Late Norse settlement is primarily understood in terms of timber, rather than stone – with the noted exception of ecclesiastical buildings. Da Biggings, Earl’s Bu and Freswick Links evidence partial or whole segments of high-status buildings composed of wood.

Metalworking, perhaps for the maintenance of the weaponry important for lordly identity in martial Orkney (or for domestic tools), was undertaken at Tuquoy, Earl’s Bu and Freswick Links in this period. Lastly, perhaps of most importance, the new wealth which furnished the means to satisfy an appetite for new castellar architecture – of timber or stone – can be found in the evidence for intensive fishing, as the evidence from Da Biggings, Tuquoy, Earl’s Bu, Skaill (Deerness) and Freswick Links suggest.

486 Thomson, ‘Some settlement patterns in medieval Orkney’, p.341.

487 OrkSag 56.