January 13, 2025

New Evidence of Early Medieval English Warriors in Byzantium

And more British medieval stuff (like the UK release of our book!)

Modern Medieval

by David M. Perry and Matthew Gabriele

Oathbreakers launches this week in the UK! Please send us pictures if you find it in local bookstores. If you don’t find it in local bookstores, please order it!

Britain doesn’t figure heavily in the book other than a reference to the Carolingian courtier Alcuin (originally from York), but of course the island and its inhabitants are part of the big, connected early medieval Europe in which the Carolingian Empire played such a key role. But those connections weren’t always to the benefit of the people of the time…

We write:

The Canche River flows through northwestern France and into the English Channel. Throughout the Carolingian era and surely long before, the mouth of the Canche provided a welcome harbor for English visitors to the continent and was recognized as a place that connected the Frankish kingdom to the trade in goods and ideas that came across
the water. In addition, throughout our period, that settlement, named Quentovic, served as one of the coastal emporia—trading sites—and mints of coins on the Atlantic coast. The problem with being a wealthy port on the ocean is that opportunity isn’t the only thing that can come knocking. In the spring or early summer of 842…a fleet of longships appeared off Quentovic at dawn. The Vikings had arrived.

One of the great ongoing research fields in premodern studies right now is archaeological work on early England, finding links between that region and the rest of the world, dating back to the very beginnings of the Middle Ages. For example, early English grave goods contain precious objects from throughout the hemisphere, including garnets and silks. Typically, the argument (one we’ve made in The Bright Ages) is that these objects moved via trade and plunder, passing from hand to hand, shifting across regions in ways that demonstrate how connected people could be. But we don’t tend to argue, due to lack of evidence, about whether individuals might have crossed those regions. Still, we know people moved - SOMEONE had to bring those things across those vast distances!

Earlier this January, Oxford history Helen Gittos published a remarkable article (open access), arguing on the basis of finds at Sutton Hoo, that early English soldiers may well have served in the Byzantine army in the 6th century, fighting in Syria against the Persians and then bringing home objects that she can identify not only as Byzantine, but Byzantine of a period very close to the burials at Sutton Hoo themselves.

Therefore, whatever process of movement took place, it took place quickly, rather than hand-to-hand over generations.

Gittos lays out the puzzle:

Two things strike me about these finds. Firstly, the spoon, basin and flagon were quite new when they were buried; similar types of flagon were being sold in shops in Sardis, Turkey, when they were destroyed by an earthquake in the early seventh century. The hanging bowl is also likely to have been new, given the lack of wear on its suspension rings. Secondly, the imported objects are rare types; they are not items that were routinely exported and are not commonly found elsewhere in western Europe. The shrine at Sergiopolis was popular among Arab- and Greek-speaking Christians but not pilgrims from the west. So how did these things get so rapidly to Prittlewell?

She then answers her own question:

The simplest explanation does not invoke unusual diplomatic gifts from Merovingian kings or a special shipment. Instead, I think the Prittlewell Prince obtained these goods when he was in the Middle East. And there is a good historical context to explain how and why he went. In 575, the Byzantine army urgently needed more troops because of the renewed war with the Sasanians. Tiberius, ‘caesar’ under Justin II, ‘conducted a major recruiting campaign’, at great cost, on both sides of the Alps. According to the early seventh-century historian Theophylact Simocatta, Tiberius ‘recruited multitudes of soldiers and rendered the recruits’ hearts eager for danger through a flowing distribution of gold, purchasing from them enthusiasm for death by respect for payment.’

Dr. Gittos then details the evidence of 6th-century contact between England and Byzantium, the clear evidence of western European troops serving in the Byzantine military (including grave markers and other objects), and then why she thinks the prince (buried at Sutton Hoo) was himself most likely a warrior in Syria, rather than receiving these goods from others on the continent who were. She closely analyzes eastern Mediterranean objects found in the burials, emphasizing their newness and rarity (so not generationally old, and not typical trade goods or elite gifts), concluding:

it is likely that the men buried in the princely burials at Prittlewell and Sutton Hoo mound 1 served, with a group of their contemporaries, as cavalry soldiers in the Foederati recruited by Tiberius in 575 in the wars with the Sasanians on the eastern front. Those who returned brought back with them metalwork, and other items including textiles, which were brand new, and distinctive, and not the kinds of things that were part of normal trading networks. They were buried with military equipment and armour associated with their military status, perhaps in part paid for with the annual grants for weaponry, horse equipment and armour they received when serving.

It’s an exceptional piece of scholarship, featuring the most careful readings of extant objects and texts, building a compelling hypothesis. We especially like one of her concluding thoughts, that “there is a tendency to think of Romanitas too much in terms of a Roman past rather than a Byzantine present.” The Roman past allows for a clean break between the ancient and the medieval, a clean start to a “dark age.” But history is always messy, and it’s so often much better to thing of “transformations” instead of “rises” and “falls.”

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Helen Gittos, Sutton Hoo and Syria: The Anglo-Saxons Who Served in the Byzantine Army?, The English Historical Review, 2025; https://doi.org/10.1093/ehr/ceae213

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