Animals in Anglo-Saxon England

Once they’d settled on these shores (and there’s a long debate about how that settlement came about) the Angles, Saxons, Jutes and all the other folk who’d come over from Europe worked the land. They farmed and, with one or two notable exceptions, we’d recognise the processes today by which they brought food from the fields to the table, although their methods were more labour-intensive. They did not milk and have fresh dairy produce all year round. The cows and other milking animals - goats, sheep - went ‘dry’ over winter, so there was no fresh milk or cheese (though they did smoke the surplus summer cheese, so hard cheese was available in the ‘dry’ months). Still, the basic idea of keeping animals for meat, dairy, and by-products is fairly standard. Would we, though, recognise the animals?

A Dexter eating hay. Photo Annie Kavanagh

Sheep bones have been found in abundance and it’s clear that they were used for milk and meat. Even today there are many different sheep breeds but the sheep of Saxon England would, like the cows, have been smaller than their modern-day counterparts and certainly would have been hardy. The Soay sheep of St Kilda remained isolated and therefore unaffected by later breeding improvements, so perhaps their Saxon counterparts resembled them, or the Manx Loaghtan. Wool was, of course, a valuable by-product of sheep farming. 

Manx Loaghtan (public domain image)

Goats were also used for milk and meat, with the milk perhaps used for invalids, being easier to digest. Skins were used for parchment, as were sheepskins and of course calf skin, which was specifically known as vellum. (As you’d expect, calves would not have been killed just for their skins and it’s been suggested that young animal meat, when available, was considered a treat, a bit of a luxury.)

Pigs were kept, but were semi-feral, living not on the farms but in woodland and were often kept more for commercial purposes, rather than in small numbers for individual families. They foraged in the woodland, and there are many - slightly later - images depicting them eating acorns. 

Public Domain Image

Few foot bones have been found, suggesting that while the main joints of ‘pork’ might have been salted, the trotters might have been disposed of, perhaps even fed back to the pigs although there is a possibility that they were sold as delicacies. [Ann Hagen - Anglo-Saxon Food]

Pigs, again, would not have looked like their modern-day counterparts, something which was recently bemoaned in this blog post 

We should perhaps think more in terms of the Tamworth pig or even, of course, the wild boar, which were plentiful. 

Tamworth pig (public domain)

What did the meat taste like? Well, again, here the animal husbandry differed from modern practices, in that the beasts were mostly killed at the end of their useful life (although see vellum, above), so might have been quite tough. The majority of meat was boiled or stewed. 

What about smaller, ‘domesticated’ animals? Well, they had chickens and geese, but not domesticated ducks at this point, though they might have eaten them, catching them perhaps with nets. Eggs, like milk, were seasonal, and hens did not lay all year round. Perhaps the spring glut added to the association of eggs with Easter. 

In the tenth-century Colloquy of Ælfric, the king’s hunter says that with swift hounds he hunts down wild game. He takes harts and boars, bucks and roes, and sometimes hares. These dogs were working dogs, probably kept in kennels. But there is some evidence of dogs being buried in human graves, suggesting a role as faithful companions, or perhaps even personal guard dogs, but much more evidence of dogs being buried in middens, or rubbish pits, which suggests a less friendly relationship. We should perhaps imagine these dogs as predominantly deer hounds and greyhounds. 

A scene from the Bayeux Tapestry depicting hawking

Since pests needed to be kept out of the grain stores, and mice and black rats were certainly present in Saxon England, it stands to reason that some kind of animal was employed for pest control, and remains of cats have been found on numerous sites. But what might be more surprising is that there is evidence that weasels and polecats were also used for this task and tamed and trained specifically to catch rats and mice. 

Were even these small furries pets? No. Any animal would need to earn its keep. But I’m sure that human nature being what it is, there must have been some young children who had their favourites and perhaps tried to cuddle them from time to time. What is not clear is how ‘tamed’ these beasts were. Watch your fingers!