Thegns of Mercia

22/10/2026

Jewelled-hinted seaxes (7th century). It’s a widely held misconception that seaxes (large slaughter-knives) are rare in furnished burials in Britain. In fact, they appear at similar frequency to swords, & like swords, usually lack metal hilt fittings.

Indeed metal fittings on seaxes are proportionally even rarer than on swords & jewelled fittings are all but unheard of. Only two graves in England (Ford Laverstock and Oliver’s Battery, Wi******er) contained seaxes with silver fittings.

The Staffordshire Hoard contained fittings of at least 80 (but probably over 100) gold or silver-hilted swords suggesting that, while nevertheless products of royal workshops, the use of such richly adorned weapons was not exclusive to kings. In contrast only two seaxes were represented — both by gold fittings of higher quality & purity than most of the gold sword fittings.

So while seaxes seem less prestigious than swords in the c6-7th, the two in the Staffordshire Hoard were on a par with the very most expensive swords. How do we make sense of this contradiction?

While swords in the c7th were likely produced exclusively in workshops under royal patronage — their use & circulation controlled by kings — seaxes were much less iron-expensive to produce and of simpler forging possibly produced at a more local level (by local smiths not attached to elite jewellery workshops) for individual warriors, particularly those who might not have been granted a sword. This might explain the extreme rarity of burials containing both, and the increase of seax burial in the mid 7th when sword burial sharply declined.

With swords & seaxes products of different workshops and circulating in different weapon economies, jewelled fittings might only ‘cross over’ onto the less prestigious weapon — the seax — when part of a weapon set for the top elite.

Thus, ironically, while we cannot be confident that any particular gold-hilted sword in the Staffordshire Hoard was carried by a king, it’s more likely that the gold hilted seaxes were.

(Picture by member James D Wenn 2026, thanks to member Dr Andrew Thompson)

vendelperiod

20/10/2026

Early medieval lyre for a Kentish Thegn inspired by the Cologne Lyre (part 2)

Previously we shared in-progress images from 2025 of a project by members Æd and Matthijs to make a lyre for Matthijs’ C7th Kentish impression. Lyres represented by tiny fragments in graves at Dover Buckland (g114) & Mill Hill, Deal (g91) could have been the standard early AS design, but as C7th grave goods in Kent often show substantial Frankish influence we chose to explore an alternative design drawing inspiration from surviving images & descriptions of the Merovingian ‘Cologne Lyre’ excavated in 1939 but destroyed by bombing in WW2.

Having been assembled, new the lyre was finely sanded to a glassy finish & treated with natural walnut oil.

As is typical for c6-7th lyres, the Cologne lyre’s yoke showed holes for six pegs; for this lyre tapering pegs were hand-whittled from alder by Æd, with vibrant reddish tone providing a gorgeous contrast with the cooler browns of the maple. A bridge was also hand-carved in willow, based on the extant bridge from the Trossingen lyre. We then turned to two almost unique aspects of the lyre from Cologne:

• Soundboard nails — Usually held on purely by glue, the thin soundboard (sitting as a lid on the dug-out sound box) on the Cologne lyre had round-headed copper-alloy nails, similar to the rougher rectangular ‘brads’ on the Sutton Hoo lyre, and the row of iron repair-nails on the Trossingen lyre. We used dome-headed rivets sharpened into tacks, to provide a smooth tactile result on the surface once installed. Tapping nails through the edge of the soundboard is a terrifying business with huge risk of splitting & ruining the instrument! Pilot holes were first drilled through the board to minimise splitting forces, then corresponding smaller pilot holes were pressed into the wall of the body piece before the tacks were carefully tapped into place.

• Iron Tailpiece - Finally we turned to the tailpiece, which on the Cologne lyre was understood to be of iron (though no images of the original survive, the photo of the early replica resembled that of a violin). Matthijs forged a fabulous replica using antique wrought iron, designed to fit very precisely onto the integral end-knob carved from the body-piece (after Trossingen) and carefully angled to follow the string-path. The natural streaky grain peculiar to real wrought-iron beautifully mirrors that of the maple.

With the tailpiece locking perfectly into place all that remained was to string the lyre and allow the sound to mature! Now a year later the sound is — as we’d expect for this shorter instrument — bright and chirpy, and Matt is now learning to master its unique sound.

16/10/2026

With this week's anniversary of the & the temporary exhibition at the British Museum everyone's talking about the . Not everyone managed to get tickets! But did you know there's another place you can study the incredible embroidery all year round, and it's all thanks to earlier generations of historic craftspeople and enthusiasts in our HQ county of Staffordshire?

In 1885 the ladies of Leek Embroidery Society embarked on the monumental task of producing a faithful full-scale replica of the famous 11th century embroidery which depicts the events of 1066, determined that "England should have a copy of its own". Elizabeth Wardle of Leek, Staffordshire, travelled to Bayeux to study the original to inform the replica (while her husband's connections as a silk industrialist helped supply materials) and it is her embroidered signature which finishes the incredible work — the last of the thirty-five signatures of the talented women who produced the copy which run along the lower margin.

After completion in spring 1886 this masterpiece of historical reconstruction toured England and eventually found its permanent home in Reading Museum where an entire floor remains dedicated to its display. Captions below explain each of the scenes, which are further contextualised with display of local finds, including a late Anglo-Saxon sword and dane-axe (pictured).

So if you didn't manage to get tickets to see the Bayeux Tapestry in London why not plan a trip to Reading and see the next best thing?

(Pics taken by a member of our team in 2015).

06/10/2026

Recreating an early medieval lyre for a Kentish Thegn!

Traces of Anglo-Saxon lyres have been identified in at least 12 graves. Many more have likely gone unnoticed. While well-studied early AS lyres — mostly from East Anglia— are extremely consistent in design, lyres in other kingdoms may have varied slightly.

Small fragments from two Kentish graves, previously overlooked, are now thought to be similar instruments, though too little survives to reconstruct their designs. We do know, however, that the wealthy & powerful c6-7th Kingdom of Kent was a gateway for continental fashions; If their lyres differed from the Anglian standard, they might have resembled those from Frankia.

In 2025, members Matthijs Demedts & Æd Thompson set out to build a lyre for Matt’s Kentish impression, inspired by a lyre found in 1939 in a Frankish Prince’s grave at St Severin’s Cathedral, Cologne (c. 700 CE). While the original remains were lost to bombing in 1943 were able to rely on photos of the traces and an early replica.

Th Cologne lyre was shorter than AS examples, with a waisted shape which appears to foreshadow the predominant design of lyre in the “Viking” age. The original had an oak body & maple soundboard but for our “Kentish” lyre we chose to use the more traditional Anglo-Saxon combination of field maple heartwood for the body & maple sapwood for the soundboard.

Like AS examples, the Cologne lyre also had a yoke made of a separate piece carefully jointed into place (though lacking escutcheons). In this respect it arguably resembles Anglo-Saxon lyres more than other German grave finds, so while we chose it to represent Frankish influence in Kent, it could equally speak to trade & influence flowing in the opposite direction across the Channel.

The precise joint type used on the Cologne lyre is unclear. For attaching the yoke / string arm to Matt’s ‘Kentish Lyre’ we deployed the most challenging & sophisticated carpentry joints in AS archaeology — the infamous *round-tipped, tapering, half-hidden mortise-and-tenon joints* seen on the Sutton Hoo lyre.

More to follow... 👀✨

26/09/2026

28/08/2026

Earlier this summer we were thrilled to be invited by Oxford University’s Centre for Early Medieval Britain & Ireland to speak at Balliol College to both faculty & students.

Members Marc S., Matt W., Andrew & Æd T. delivered a special afternoon workshop, speaking about the work we do, the methodology we follow with our reconstructions, and insights which have been gained from these projects. This was followed by a handling session with some of our portable collection.

We’re grateful for the very warm welcome we received, and honoured that so many leading scholars in early medieval studies & archaeology came along to meet us and see some of our work. Many fascinating discussions were had, raising so many fresh ideas, new lines of inquiry and potential future projects & collaborations, and we can’t wait to work together more in the future.

A big thanks to Dr Helen Gittos for organising this wonderful day, and to all who attended and helped make it a success.

21/08/2026

Thanks to everyone who braved high temperatures and scorching sun to visit our encampment at Sutton Hoo NT last week! We had a fabulous weekend alongside lovely people from CHES and the The Sutton Hoo Ship’s Company Company (do check them out!) and fantastic audiences each day joining us to explore so many different aspects of life, art, archaeology and culture in the early medieval period.

Here’s just a sneak preview of the hundreds of photos from the event which we can’t wait to share with you over coming weeks, which will include spotlights on some special projects members have been working on over the past year and which debuted this summer.

Though our main event season is now coming to a close as we pivot to behind-the-scenes research, collaborations and projects once more, we can think of at least 627 reasons to be excited for next year!

12/08/2026

Gazing at the today we reflect on how early medieval people viewed this awesome phenomenon!

Early medieval scholars including Bede (c. 703 CE) accurately described eclipses as natural occurrences caused by the moon hiding the sun, & the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle often recorded them quite prosaically. Ordinary people however likely experienced awe, perhaps sometimes panic, and built folk practices & myths around these memorable events. While later Norse myths spoke of great wolves devouring the sun and moon, an 8th century Frankish text describes a pagan practice of shouting encouragement to the moon to fight off its attacker!

Did early Anglo-Saxons share a similar belief? With few written records of ‘pagan’ thought, we look to their art. The stunning c6th shield boss from Bidford-on-Avon (grave 182) features a rare sun-motif apex disc surrounded by dancing Style-I beasts, with tinned rivets being swallowed by gaping monster jaws. Hanging in a great hall, its decoration flickering in the firelight, could this magnificent shield have served as a visual aid to tell an early Anglo-Saxon eclipse story?

08/08/2026

The Mercians have arrived at Sutton Hoo National Trust! Come and visit our encampment today between 10:00 and 16:00 and discover more about Anglo-Saxon life at this incredible site!

07/08/2026

The long march to Sutton Hoo begins! See you there! (suttonhoo_nt Sutton Hoo National Trust)