The Staffordshire Hoard

There are many mysteries wallowing unsolved in the murky depths of the period known - erroneously as it happens - as the Dark Ages, from the identity of the man associated with the Sutton Hoo burial chamber to the final resting place of Harold Godwineson’s body after the battle of Hastings.

But today I want to talk about a field just off the A5 near Lichfield, or, more specifically, what was found there in July 2009: The Staffordshire Hoard.

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The largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver to be found, it comprised almost 4600 pieces but these items are just that: pieces. Torn from the weaponry they would originally have adorned, they are decorative fittings from, for example, swords, though the sword blades are missing. Where are the blades? No one knows. Blades were perhaps considered more valuable, passed down from father to son. They were forged by skilled metalworkers and were definitely not a one lifetime-only product. Only one item survived complete, and that was a gold pectoral cross. There was another gold cross, larger, which had been bent as if folded. I’ll come back to that. Around one third of the pieces came from a helmet, which has been reconstructed. It is rare to find a helmet from this period - only around 5 have been unearthed.

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Other fittings came from such things as saddles, reliquaries, and bibles. 

There are more gold items than silver, although some of the silver was originally gilded. The decoration techniques include filigree and cloisonné. There is also niello which produces a silver inlay.

Anyone familiar with the gold and garnet pieces from Sutton Hoo will spot a similarity. Sword pyramids with their multi-faceted garnets set in gold have also been found in the Sutton Hoo burial treasure. In keeping with the mystery theme, no one is sure how they were actually attached to the weapons.

There’s a piece which looks like a seahorse, but isn’t. It probably decorated the hilt of a sword. It has tiny fixing holes. 

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The hoard was found in Mercia, but the pieces weren’t made there and they weren’t collected there, if we consider the fact that the hoard probably dates to a period when Mercia was still pagan, and yet it includes crosses. The gold must have come from somewhere other than England, most likely from Byzantium, possibly in the form of gold coins which had been melted down. There are different shades within the gold suggesting impurities (each time the gold was melted down, further impurities would have been introduced).

Speaking of melting down, was it on its way to be melted down and repurposed? The location, near two places called Hammerwich, has sparked interest, because Hammerwich means a hammer working or trading place. But nothing else has been found in the area to suggest that there is a link to the hoard or that there was any kind of production or worksite nearby and besides, this wouldn’t explain why there are only ‘elite’ pieces, nor why they show little sign of wear and tear, almost as if they are part of a ‘dress uniform’. 

There are no items associated with women, nor are there any everyday objects. The hoard is a curated collection of items found only in an aristocratic, male, martial environment. Perhaps even the pectoral cross was owned by a priest who carried it whilst going into battle?

It may be that it was heriot – war gear given by the lord to his retainers and paid back upon death, but this doesn’t explain why it was buried.

So where did it come from, and why and how did it come to be buried? There is a significance about where it was found, and I’ll come back to that, too. It might, indeed, have been put there by a non-Mercian. As Archaeologist Helen Geake has pointed out, anyone could have been travelling along that road.

But let’s assume that it has something to do with Mercia. What was going on at around that time? Quite a few historians have pointed to a ninth-century Welsh poem which details a battle at Lichfield, very close to where the hoard was found. 

In the Marwnad Cynddylan (A Lament for Cynddylan), Morfael is depicted as taking loot and killing the bishop and many monks at Caer Lwytgoed. But the dates don’t really fit if Caer Lwytgoed is supposed to be Lichfield. There was no reason for there to be monks in pagan Mercia and the first bishop of Lichfield wasn’t appointed until 669. It has been suggested that this religious community were in fact not at Lichfield but at Wall, and serving the religious needs of a Northumbrian army.

Hmm, Northumbria. Well, for a long time during this period it dominated Mercia and parts of Wales. Was this treasure collected as some sort of owed tribute? What we do know is that the hoard wasn’t buried in the equivalent of someone’s back garden. Excavation of the site revealed that there were no buildings, or burials so this was not a settlement or cemetery, so if this is tribute, again, why was it buried?

The epic poem Beowulf – thought to have been composed in Mercia – describes how objects of gold were placed ritually in a grave and given back to the earth as they had been taken from a barrow guarded by a dragon. Was the Staffordshire Hoard similarly given back to the earth? No barrow was found at the site and there is no pagan shrine associated with this spot, despite the nearby Wednesbury and Wednesfield suggesting a Woden cult in the area. If it wasn’t put there as part of a ritual, was it accidentally lost? It seems unlikely. 

A page from Beowulf

So what if… Well, here’s the thing. The burial of the hoard seems to coincide with the reign of King Penda, the last pagan ruler of Mercia. Clearly the stuff wasn’t his, not if it included Christian items. But remember that larger gold cross, that had been bent as if folded? And remember that I said the location of the find was significant? In my novel Cometh the Hour I played with the idea that this hoard was treasure which Penda collected after his battle victories, and I show him ordering the cross to be bent so that it fits into a sack. I also show one of his daughters taking a shine to the ‘seahorse’ and him making a gift of it to her. 

The bent gold cross

The significance of the burial spot? Well, yes, it’s not far from Lichfield and you’d go past it if you’re heading from Tamworth. You see, the road, the A5 as it's now known, is an old road. It existed in the seventh century and it was known as Watling Street. 

I can’t explain why the hoard only contains elite weapon fittings that had barely been used, but I did come up with a scenario in which it was buried, deliberately, by someone intending to come back for it…

My two-book series, The Tale of the Iclingas, begins with the story of Penda, the last pagan king of Mercia, and in a sweeping saga of bloodfeud, love, and loss, includes the collection of the Staffordshire Hoard, the Sutton Hoo ship burial, and the founding of the Lindisfarne holy community. It continues with the story of Penda's sons, their continuing fight against the murderous Northumbrians, and focuses on Ethelred, the youngest of Penda's children, on whose shoulders the fate of the kingdom and his kin ultimately rests.

The books can be read as standalones.

Cometh the Hour

The Sins of the Father

Tamworth - Ancient Mercian Royal Residence

Last time, I wrote about the site of Bamburgh Castle,  which features in both of my Tales of the Iclingas novels. This time I thought I’d explain some of the background to my choice of the main Mercian setting in both books: Tamworth. This is where Penda, the last pagan Mercian king, and his family, whose stories are told in the books, had their main residence.

There’s some debate about whether Tamworth can truly be described as the ancient capital of the midland kingdom of Mercia, because Repton also claims that title. On a recent BBC Radio 4 programme, Gareth Williams, the British Museum's Curator of Medieval Coinage, said that the notion of ancient capitals is "a product of nineteenth-century antiquarianism." If we think in terms of 'royal centres' though, I think both places have a claim, up to a point, and I’ll explain why.

Though the kings at this time were itinerant, moving from royal vill to royal vill, it seems clear that they had their favourite, or main, residences and these changed according to which family was ruling. 

Mercia, more so than the other kingdoms, grew from, and to an extent remained, a federation of smaller kingdoms and tribes which gradually became part of Greater Mercia, and it suffered from dynastic disputes which played a significant part in its eventual demise. Even in the later part of the period, its administrative system differed from that of its neighbour, Wessex, in that the leading men of the Witan and those charged with the business of local government, tended to be leaders of those tribes and smaller kingdoms, rather than being appointed centrally by the king.

And so, we find that a later king, Cenwulf (depicted left), seemed to favour Winchcombe in modern-day Gloucestershire and used the abbey there as a repository for royal documents. Meanwhile the mausoleum at Repton housed the remains of King Wiglaf and his family, as well as being the base for King Burgred, who was ousted when the Great Viking army made camp there.

The crypt at Repton

Offa, in the eighth century, seems to have favoured Tamworth, building a ‘palace’ there. So I think it’s fair to say that at different times, different places were the ‘capital’ of Mercia, but all were situated  within the core area of the original ‘kingdom’. I chose to make my character King Penda part of the Iclingas, Icel being the supposed founder of the royal house of Mercia. In one genealogy, he appears five generations above Penda (Anglian Collection).

Repton and Tamworth both fell within the territory of a people called the Tomsæte, ‘the dwellers by the River Tame’ and the Iclingas perhaps began as the leaders of these people, who established themselves in "an open meadow by the Tame" which they called "Tomworðig (Tomworthy). The settlement straddled the River Anker (which flows into the Tame). Bede described the Mercians as being the people who lived north and south of the River Trent, and it should be noted of course that the Tame flows into the Trent at Alrewas in Staffordshire, so to talk of the Tame Valley Mercians and the Trent Valley Mercians is to refer to a small enough area. In fact, Tamworth to Repton is a distance of only just under 23 miles. 

However, since we don’t know where Penda came from, for my novels I opted for Tamworth as his base which, of course, is not far away (11 miles or so) from where the Staffordshire Hoard was found - a crucial element of my tale. If we assume that Penda was one of the Iclingas, and that the Iclingas absorbed or were part of the Tomsæte, then Tamworth seems a fitting main residence. 

From the roof of the castle, the view of
St Editha's Church

The current castle sits high on a mound but dates back no earlier than the 12th century, while the original motte was built in the eleventh. The picture below shows the beautiful Norman herringbone brickwork. The location of Offa's palace has never been identified, although excavations north of Bolebridge Street in 1968 revealed what appeared to be the outline of a large Saxon building.

In the 1970s excavation work, also in the Bolebridge Street area, uncovered a water mill, dating from the 9th century or perhaps earlier. Remains of a second mill were also found. “Among the finds were the sole-tree of the mill, with its steel bearing; one of the wheel-paddles; many fragments of millstones, of local stone and imported lava; fragments of the clay bed in which the lower millstone was set; and the residues of lead window-cames. Grain and grain impressions include oats and possibly barley. The second mill was destroyed by fire.” [Archaeology Data Service] 

A few generations after Penda’s rule and that of his immediate family, the succession switched to another branch of the royal house. Then, in the eighth century, Offa appears to have favoured Tamworth while later kings based themselves elsewhere as I’ve mentioned. There was a period where no Mercian rulers were able to base themselves there, for Tamworth was occupied by the ‘Vikings’ in the ninth and early tenth century.

Which is why (and if you’ve read my novel about her life you'll know), Æthelflæd seems to have lived in the southwest - and thus the free area - of Mercia, with strong links to Gloucester and Worcester. However, in 913 her forces liberated Tamworth and it was here that she died in 918, still on campaign. The statue of her just outside the castle was erected in 1913 to mark the centenary of her victory over the Vikings. 

In 2018 there was a conference and a literary festival held at Tamworth to mark the 1100th anniversary of Æthelflæd’s death. I was there, giving a talk about the Lady, and even met her myself.

There was much talk about her, quite rightly, and mention of Offa, of course. But I also spent the weekend wandering around looking for the site of the excavated water mill, and imagining Penda and his family living in the town which would, of course, be unrecognisable to them now. But there is something there which just might catch their eye: Tamworth Castle now houses the largest collection of pieces from the Staffordshire Hoard outside Birmingham. And, as I said, the hoard plays a crucial part in my tale… 

Cometh the Hour

The Sins of the Father 

[All photographs taken by/copyright of the author. Promo Graphics by Avalon Graphics]

You can find all my books, fiction and nonfiction, at

http://viewauthor.at/Annie-Whitehead