Knowledge of armor from the Anglo-Saxon period is scant. There is evidence that warriors used a type of mail that protected the legs by falling past the waist and protected the arms by including coverings for the shoulders and upper arms (DeVries and Smith 60-1). The mail-shirts or corselets described in Beowulf are composed of metal rings woven tightly together. An example of a similar mail-shirt was found in the remains at Sutton Hoo; however, it was of poor quality (Chickering 296). Another example of an Anglo-Saxon mail-shirt discovered in a barrow in Derbyshire was not made exactly like the ones described in Beowulf (Chambers 360). The Anglo-Saxon mail-shirt was made with connected links of chain of various lengths, but they
"all show the impression of cloth over a considerable part of the surface" instead of the full mail- shirt armor in the poem. Because of this, "it is therefore no improbable conjecture that they would originally constitute a kind of quilted cuirass, by being sewn up within or upon a doublet of strong cloth" (Bateman 32). Finds from Danish bog burials dating from the third and fifth centuries yielded two mail-shirts that contained rings with small diameters tightly woven
together with approximately twenty thousand rings. These corselets may be a closer match to the armor described in the poem than the ones made by Anglo-Saxons (Chickering 296). The helmet is another important piece of armor described in Beowulf. Helmets from Sutton Hoo and
Derbyshire have a boar's head on top of them, just like the boar-crested helmets described in the poem. These helmets also contain cheek guards, and were often gold-plated (Chickering 297; Chambers 358). While large amounts of armor were more than likely not worn by the Anglo- Saxon warrior, they would have carried shields for protection (DeVries and Smith 61).
The use of armor serves the basic function of protection, so warriors wear armor to protect the vulnerable flesh during battle. The design of armor corresponds to “the weapons likely to be used against it and of the degree of protection against them which is desired, or deemed practicable” (Ogorkiewicz 321). Therefore, the armor acts as a second, protective layer of skin, and this so-called skin denies everything on the outside access to the body. It creates a boundary that protects the wearer from the external environment. While archeological evidence of armor from the Anglo-Saxon period may be limited, armor and weapons are described often throughout Beowulf. In the poem, armor is connected to the heroic code and warrior culture, which occurs not only when the characters wear armor, but also when characters exchange swords and gifts of armor and weaponry are exchanged. In Anglo-Saxon culture, "men's social identity was bound up in the weaponry they carried" (Crawford 116). The depiction of the
characters wearing armor clearly identifies them as part of the heroic culture and the comitatas, and this armor serves as a performative gesture that helps establish their social identity.
While many Old English poems, such as Beowulf, “The Wanderer,” “The Seafarer,”and “The Battle of Maldon,”depict a world where the comitatus was a strong ideal among the warriors and the lord-retainer relationship was prized, the reality of Anglo-Saxon military structure was not as romantic. The Anglo-Saxon army was built upon a military obligation system called the fyrd, which was part of the three-prong trimoda necessitas. Many scholars believe that the members of the fyrd were chosen through a hide system, making it a conscription army based on the size of an estate instead of a personal obligation or a duty chosen through loyalty.40 In his book Anglo-Saxon England, F.M. Stenton claims that the military obligations of
lords were related to their rank, and ignoring any summons would result in the lord losing his land (275). However, military duty was not reserved only for the upper class; freemen and peasants were also conscripted. Regardless of class, men were required to answer summons to military service if called and could be fined if they ignored their obligations (Chadwick 94, 127; Hollister 59). While ultimately the men were serving the king, members of the army were chosen based on the size of the lord’s estate and answered to the lord directly (Chadwick 102). If called to serve, there were almost no exceptions that allowed a man out of their military duty (Hollister 71). The military service of an Anglo-Saxon warrior did not influence his status within the society since it was considered service to the lord of the estate because of the selection process and the fact that the lord would equip the warrior when called (Dressler 30). The reality of the Anglo-Saxon army is more one of required service than one based on blind loyalty to one’s lord.
40 For more on the fyrd, see C. Warren Hollister, Anglo-Saxon Military Institutions (Oxford, 1962); F.M. Stenton, The First Century of English Feudalism, 1066-1166: Being the Ford Lectures Delivered in the University of Oxford in Hilary Term 1929 (Oxford, 1932); H. Munro Chadwick, Studies on Anglo-Saxon Institutions (University Press, 1905).
This military system extended beyond the conquest, well into the fourteenth century. However, just as in pre-conquest England, evidence suggests “that active participation was frequently honored more in spirit rather than in reality” since during the years 1277 to 1327, muster patterns illustrate that the number of knights who answered summons decreased (Dressler 34).
Imagining the Anglo-Saxon warrior within this more realistic paradigm frames the warriors in Old English literature as more complex figures instead of blindly loyal drones following their lord to their deaths. In fact, repercussions were put in place for situations where men ignored their summons, which implies that was at least enough of an issue to need
regulations. In the Domesday Book, a passage relating to Worcestershire states, “if the freeman of another lord remains away from the army, and his lord leads another man to the host in his place, he pays 40s. to his lord who received the summons. But if nobody at all goes in his place, he shall pay his lord 40s. but his lord must pay the entire amount to the king.”41 Additionally, a
passage relating to Berkshire states, “if anyone for the sake of remaining behind promised to send another in his place, and yet he who was to have been sent remained behind, his lord was freed of obligation by the payment of 50s.”42 These two examples from the Domesday Book
illustrate that a hierarchy approach to the select fyrd was used where the lord answers to the king for his direct summons, but freemen living in the territory answer to the lord and the lord in turn has to answer to the king for the freemen. Though military support was a duty and obligation of both a lord and freeman, it was not necessarily voluntary, and the hierarchy created a disconnect between the freemen or peasants and king since the lord was the intermediary. Furthermore, the existence of a select fyrd implies that most men were not soldiers and would not fulfill the comitatus role found in so many Anglo-Saxon poems. For the most part, when not called the
41 qtd. In F.M. Stenton, First Century of English Feudalism, p. 118n. 42 qtd. In Stenton, First Century of English Feudalism, p. 56.
military service, men would be “engaged in the work of the villain, including agriculture” (Dressler 30). Since both examples provide consequences for situations where the freeman does not answer the summons, this suggests that though all men were required to fulfill their military obligations, that was not always the case. Bands of warriors were made up of everyday men who were legally mandated to join the army.
Despite the fyrd being built through conscription, war and military matters were an important concern during the Anglo-Saxon period. In addition to the poetry of the time, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle outlines multiple militaristic campaigns, and documents and law codes survive that address military topics. In John Hill’s book The Anglo-Saxon Warrior Ethic, he argues that “a properly socialized retainer in this world must prepare himself for violent acts on his lord’s behalf” (29). Hill’s assertion suggests that the militaristic system within the culture leads to a socially sanctioned violence. The “properly socialized retainer” – that is, the lord, freeman, or peasant who fits within his proper social norm – accepts that eventually, he will be required to enact violence for his lord or king, when if the situation was different and he was never called to his military obligation, he would never have just cause to participate in this ritualized violence. Since the reciprocal blind loyalty lauded in the poetry is not realistic, the lord or king must provide incentive for the retainers to provide their services. The “lord gives [them] rings that materialize a relationship in the first place and bespeak the giver’s continuing personal and social presence. Thus rings, weapons, treasures, and so on are not simply given away” (Hill 29). Each exchange holds significance and an understood agreement or payment between giver and receiver. Therefore the alliance is bought, or perhaps secured, through monetary means. This reward system often appears in the poetry. For example, Hrothgar rewards Beowulf and the Geats for defeating Grendel and Grendel’s mother by giving them treasures and weapons, which
in turn Beowulf gives to his king Hygelac. In “The Wanderer,” the unnamed warrior searches for a new treasure giver (sinces bryttan, line 25b) and remembers receiving treasures (Gemon...ond sincþege, line 34). This need for payment of services between the lord and retainer reinforces the notion that the loyal comitatus was the exception rather than the rule. Even the two poems dealing chiefly with the comitatus, Beowulf and “The Battle of Maldon”, both demonstrate that the comitatus is not always to be trusted to remain with the lord until their deaths. At the end of Beowulf, Wiglaf is the only retainer who remains by Beowulf’s side as he fights with the dragon while all the other men retreat. In “The Battle of Maldon,” multiple warriors run away after Byrhtnoth is killed (lines 185-97). I present these examples to refocus the idea of the Anglo- Saxon warrior not as the loyal comitatus warrior, but as a regular man. The aim is to explore how men are called to violence by their duty and obligations, and how through this, they adorn
themselves in armor, which transforms them into fabricated hybrid socially accepted monstrosities.