Spears

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A spear is a spear whether it is of the middle Bronze Age or the nineteenth century; there is little room for variation and the same shapes of spearhead crop up in every age and in every land. R.Ewart Oakeshott The Archaeology of Weapons, 1960

Art

Numerous Anglo-Saxon and Carolingian sources depict the use of the spear being used one handed in an overarm style.

Literature

• Caedmon, æsc-plega, “Spear-bearer” is applied to a soldier.
• History of Judith, æsc-plega, “play of spears” used as a term for battle
• Codex Extoniensis, æsc-stede, “a field of battle”
• Beowolf, Eald æsc-wiga, “some old spear warrior”

Archaeology

• England. So far I have identified 45 spearhead finds from England. 20 are of type K/M or M. 7 others are of winged form.
• Wales. 2 finds
• Iceland. 81 spearheads have been found dating from the Viking Age. They have been found in 56 graves and 22 spearheads have been registered as stray finds. 40 spearheads belong to type K, 3 to type G, 2 to type H, 3 to type I and 1 to type E. The remainder are probably of local manufacture and do not sit easily within Petersen’s typology.

Discussion

If one ignores Oakeshott’s [Oakeshott 1960] rather short and glib analysis of spears in his seminal work ‘The Archaeology of Weapons’ then you quickly realise that spears follow fashion changes by time and region in much the same way as swords. Although not as glamorous as the sword, the spear was in every sense the definitive weapon of the Viking Age and used as the primary weapon of combat by almost every warrior. Decorated spearheads inlaid with precious metals prove that in the Viking Age spears were not seen as the poor man’s choice and one has only to look at the representations of warriors from the illuminated manuscripts of the era to quickly come to the conclusion that the use of the spear was ubiquitous. Many of the Anglo-Saxon phrases used to describe both battle and warrior help to underline the importance of the spear.

The Typologies
Petersen created the first and still the most used typology of spearheads for the Viking Age in 1919 [Petersen 1919]. His typology is based on finds from Norway and includes some types that are rare or nonexistent in Britain. It must be remembered that Petersen was working on dates derived from associated items found along with his spear-heads in Norwegian pagan burials and that he often commented on the difficulty of precisely dating a specific burial find.
Thålin working on Swedish finds radically simplified Pertersen’s typology into 3 groups based on the method of manufacture. Thålin’s groups are refered to in Graham-Campbell and explained in Fuglesang .
Swanton presents us with an in depth analysis of spearheads found in pagan Saxon graves in England. Unfortunately this only takes us up to around the time of the Christian conversion, about 700AD. After this our burial record in England disappears with the Christian’s practice of burying their dead with no grave goods. Solberg re-evaluated Petersen’s work as his 1985 Phd thesis, again working from Norwegian finds. Solberg’s work is discussed in Halpin .
Two settlements from Europe can be used to help corroborate Petersen’s typological dating, Iceland and the town of Birka in Sweden. Both have clear datable horizons that help us to place spearheads into clearly dated periods. Iceland was probably settled c.874AD and out of the 81 spearheads dated to the Viking Age from Iceland only one falls into Thalin’s group 1. All of the others are from his groups 2 and 3 (K x40, G x3, H x2, I x2, E x1, Unclassified x33) [Androshchuk and Traustadóttir 2004: P.6].
The settlement at Birka came to an end around c.960AD. No spearheads of K/M or M types were found there, which would help confirm a late dating for these sometimes decorated spearheads.
Both of these settlement horizons help confirm Petersen’s original typological dating.

Reviewing the Evidence
Most spearhead finds dated from 800AD to 1100AD in Britain are single discoveries often from rivers and are dated by their form against Petersen’s typology.
We do however have a few graves in Scotland, the Isle of Man and northern England. Unfortunately most of these were excavated in the 19th Century with only basic notes about the burials being recorded. To make things even worse many of the spearheads from this era have ended up in private collections or have become ‘lost’. Haakon Shetelig has helped us here by compiling a series of books of Viking Age finds from England and Scotland. These books list all of the known finds up to 1940 including some that are now lost.
We do have a number of depictions of spears from stone sculptures in Britain. The carving of Christian stone crosses became popular in northern England in the 10th and 11th centuries .
Manuscript drawings tend to be stylised and often copied older templates. Spears are depicted often and most warriors are seen to be carrying them. Unfortunately the spearheads are usually shown as a simple arrow shape which bears no resemblance to the actual spearheads found in archaeology.
Paul Hill points out that the term æsc is only used to refer to large two-handed, long bladed weapons used by a high status warrior . He then goes on to argue that the term geir was more commonly used.

Size and weight guides

The following size categories are extremely arboratory
Arrow
Javelin
One-Handed Spear
Two-Handed Spear

Open and closed sockets

Wheeler used the spear socket to determine the origin of the spearhead. He classed all spears with a split ‘open’ socket as being English in manufacture and those with overlapped ‘closed’ socket as Scandinavian . This convention has continued in use to the present day.

Spearhead styles

Leaf shaped heads

Leaf shaped heads, Petersen types A(B), C(D1) and E, seem to go out of fashion by 950AD . Other people have suggested that a few leaf shaped heads may have continued throughout the period ^{[Citation Needed]}.

Angular shaped heads

F – 30cm to 50-60cm, 50-60cm being typical.

Decorated spearheads

Some of the K, K/M and M types of spearheads are decorated in Ringerike style around the join between the blade and the socket. A group of 24 such ornamented spear-heads of types K, K/M, and M has been discussed by Fuglesang . Only one of these was found in Britain [WHEELER 1927: p.21 Fig.5]. Except for another from Belgium they seem to concentrate in Sweden although as Fuglesang correctly points out, not enough finds have been made to make any firm statements regards regional origins.
3 Types

Type I – Silver Decoration

characterised by the use of different metals, or metals of different colours, to form the ornament E-, I- K- and K-type spearheads, but also in some cases to G-type

Type II – Ringerike Style

1000 – 1060AD

Type III – Runic Style (Urnes)

1025 – 1100AD

Spear shafts

Woods used

Identification of wood from spears in the Baltic region shows that shafts were made of ash, elm or oak. These kinds of woods were used because of their straightness of grain, stiffness, hardness, strength, moderate weight, flexibility, and capacity for being smooth in use . Spear shafts were likely to be no thicker than 3cm in diameter.

Spearhead attachment

The methods used to secure the spearhead to the wooden shaft. Riveting, pinning and gluing were probably the most common.

Art

Anglo-Saxon art depicts spear heads with one or more lines through the socket.

Literature

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Archaeology

66% of the spearheads from Dublin had rivet holes with the hole size usually being between 2 to 3 mm in diameter .
An example of Linen being used to help secure a spearhead can be found on a spearhead from Balladoyne in the Isle of Man. This type K spearhead retained traces of a fine linen fabric that had been wrapped twice around the point of the wooden shaft (BJORN and SHETELIG 1940, p.26).

Painted

A spear shaft painted in a single colour.

Art

Anglo-Saxon manuscripts only show spear shafts as a thin black line. Some Western European manuscripts depict thicker shafts filled in a single colour.

• Life of St Aubin, Angers Abbey c.1100AD

Literature

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Archaeology

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Discussion

Currently we have no evidence for spear shafts being painted in more than one colour from the Viking Age.

Carved

Danish bog finds

References

• ANDROSHCHUK, Fedir, and Ragnheiður TRAUSTADOTTIR. “A Viking Age spearhead from Kolkuós.” Framvinduskýrsla 6, 2004.
• FUGLESANG, Signe Horn. Some Aspects of the Ringerike Style, A phase of 11th century Scandinavian art. Odense University Press, 1980.
• GRAHAM-CAMPBELL, James. Viking Artefacts, A Select Catalogue. British Museum Publications, 1980.
• HALPIN, Andrew. Weapons and Warfare in Viking and Medieval Dublin. National Museum of Ireland, 2008.
• HILL, Paul. “Anglo-Saxon and Viking Period Spears.” In Ancient Weapons in Britain, by Logan THOMPSON. Pen and Sword Military, 2004.
• MAGI-LOUGAS, Marika. “On the Relations between the Countries around the Baltic as Indicated by the Background of Viking Age Spearhead Ornament.” 1994.
• OAKESHOTT, Ewart. The Archaeology of Weapons. Lutterworth Press, 1960.
• PETERSEN, Jan. De Norske Vikingesverd. 1919.
• WHEELER, R.E.M. London and the Saxons. London Museum Catalogues: No 6, 1935.