Anglo-Saxon Romsey and the Lower Test Valley
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Stored in the vestry of Romsey Abbey is an iron spearhead. First evidently recorded in 1907, it was then thought to be of Roman date. Writing about the earliest finds from Romsey Abbey and its locality, and specifically those on display in Romsey Abbey, the Revd. T. Perkins referred in 1907 to ‘a Roman spearhead found at Greatbridge, a short distance to the north of the town’. This is at present the only known reference to the discovery (in A Short Account of Romsey Abbey: a description of the fabric and notes on the history of the Convent of SS. Mary & Ethelfleda, Bell's Cathedral Series).
Two separate studies have now agreed that the spearhead is of the Anglo-Saxon period. The spearhead is therefore of interest to The Romsey Local History Society’s (LTVAS Group) project to study the lower Test valley in the Anglo-Saxon period (https://www.ltvas.org.uk/anglo-saxon-project), which arranged for the preparation of the archaeological drawing of the item as drawn by Penny Copeland of the University of Southampton Archaeology Department.
It should be explained for the non-specialist in Anglo-Saxon archaeology that most such spearheads are found in Anglo-Saxon burials. Deceased men were often buried with weapons, including a spear and shield. Usually, only the metal parts survive – the spearhead which would have been affixed to a wooden shaft, and the metal shield boss which would have been fixed to a timber circular shield. Cemeteries of such burials and many isolated single burials have been found across southern and eastern England in large numbers and can now be studied in an online dataset that results from a project by archaeologists in London University that brings together information on Early Anglo-Saxon burials in southern England: (https://www.ucl.ac.uk/early-medieval-atlas/map-data/beyond-tribal-hidage-data).
First to examine the spearhead was Professor Michael Swanton, historian, linguist, archaeologist and literary critic, specialising in the Anglo-Saxon period and its Old English literature and now Emeritus Professor of Medieval Studies at the University of Exeter. In his The spearheads of the Anglo-Saxon settlements (1973, 92-5) and in his A Corpus of Pagan Anglo-Saxon Spear- Types (1974, 76) Swanton identified the Romsey spearhead as being of his category F2, a small group of spearheads where the blade is separated from the cleft socket by a length of solid shank. Swanton used selected examples of spear types found with associated dateable other objects to provide the dating for the different types identified.
Looking at the F2 type he concluded that ‘probably all are to be placed some time in the later sixth or seventh centuries’.
AN ANGLO-SAXON SPEARHEAD FROM ROMSEY by Roger Leech
Since the publication of Swanton’s two books, further research into the dating of Anglo-Saxon spearheads has taken place, to be found in a volume published by the Society for Medieval Archaeology - Anglo- Saxon graves and grave goods of the 6th and 7th centuries AD : a chronological framework. In that study, the Romsey spearhead conforms with Dr Karen Høilund- Nielsen's spearhead type SP4, which she dates from the third quarter of the 6th to the first quarter of the 7th century. The SP4 group, however, appears to cover two or three different Swanton (1973) types (D1, D2 and F2, the latter a more angular blade than the others), so Swanton seems more helpful for identifying workshops and distribution areas. His basis for extending the range well into the 7th century, however, seems a little uncertain, and it may be safest to conclude that more evidence is needed to establish when the F2 type went out of use - though he does note, on the basis of later, very similar, forms, that the type could even have lasted into the 8th century. The example from Romsey is one of the most westerly occurrences of the F2 group, which is particularly evident in Kent and along the Thames valley.
There is no evidence for how or where the Romsey spearhead was discovered. It is most likely however that it came from the chance discovery of an Anglo-Saxon burial, examples of which have been discovered in the river valleys to the north and south of Romsey.
Some were isolated single burials: going north from Romsey the closest known site was that of an Anglo-Saxon burial with a knife, spearhead and shield boss discovered at Broughton in 1875. Further north a similar burial was found in building works at Middle Wallop in 1957. Without the benefit of further archaeological work, we cannot be certain that these were not within larger cemeteries such as that recorded on the Portway Industrial Estate at Andover in 1974. Here some 150 burials were recorded: 69 inhumation graves and up to 87 cremations. Finds from female inhumations included two bronze-bound wooden buckets, six saucer brooches, fifteen disc-brooches, seven small-long brooches, two bone combs, two finger-rings and strings of beads. Nine male burials were equipped with a spear, three of them also containing shields. The cemetery probably began in the late 5th century and continued in use throughout the 6th century.
To the south of Romsey a further such cemetery has been recorded beside the bend of the River Itchen at Bitterne, between the river and the site of the Roman settlement or small town of Clausentum. Six supine and extended inhumations were recorded in building works in Hawkeswood Road. All were orientated west- east, five were without grave goods. The sixth burial was accompanied by a seventh-century spearhead. Radio-carbon dating of one of the burials has given a seventh- or eighth-century date.
The Anglo-Saxon spearhead from Greatbridge at Romsey is therefore of more than passing interest. Not only is it the earliest known Anglo-Saxon artefact from Romsey, but it is also part of the evidence for the early Anglo-Saxon settlement of Hampshire. It also has a wider context in Anglo-Saxon burials with weapons across southern England and finds of similar spearheads in the closest parts of continental Europe from whence some of the Anglo-Saxon settlers came. In his recently published From Roman Civitas to Anglo-Saxon Shire, Dr Bruce Eagles has drawn attention ‘to the extent of ‘Frankish’/Kentish influence in southern Hampshire and the Isle of Wight in the sixth century’. Mary Harris, chairman of the Romsey Local History Society (LTVAS), has thus expressed the hope that the spearhead can eventually be placed in the care of Hampshire Cultural Trust and displayed as part of the history of Romsey at King John's House.
In concluding this note I must thank for their interest and advice my friend Dr Bruce Eagles of Salisbury, and through him Barry Ager, formerly on the staff of the British Museum, also Liz Hallett for first locating the spearhead in the Abbey vestry and Penny Copeland for coming to Romsey to make the drawing. Anyone wishing to follow up this note will find the key references on the Internet, including the Historic England Heritage Gateway and Pastscape search sites.
