Runic Literacy Frisia

• 13 • RUNIC LITERACY IN NORTH-WEST EUROPE, WITH A FOCUS ON FRISIA Tineke Looijenga T his chapter discusses runes and runic writing in the Early Middle Ages in general, and in Frisia in particular. Objects with runes on them have been found in the Frisian terp-area dating from around the sixth to the ninth century. In this chapter I aim to discuss how we should assess ‘Frisian’ runes and their relation with other runic traditions. Although the oldest known runic objects date from the second century, it is assumed that the runic alphabet was created sometime in the first century AD.1 But why, when and where runes were developed from an archaic Mediterranean model is still an unsolved question. Runic writing, the exclusive indigenous script of Germania, emerged in a period when Germanic-speaking people grew increasingly in touch with the Roman imperial world, a literate world. Many Germanic men served as mercenaries in the Roman army. They received Roman citizenship after twenty-five years’ service, and we may assume that some of them returned home after this service. Because this citizenship was hereditary, the sons of these auxiliaries were also Roman citizens, even before entering the army. Some of them made a career in the army, and learned to read and write. This became increasingly common in the second and third centuries AD, exactly the period in which we infer runic knowledge to have spread across a large part of northern Europe (Stoklund 2006, 358). Most scholars now believe that runes were based on a Mediterranean alphabet, most likely the roman/Latin alphabet.2 I believe they will have been devised in close connection with Roman culture and possibly on Roman territory. The obvious context would then be creation through one of these Germanic soldiers, with their literary training in the army and the implicit ability to create a script of their own (Derolez 1998, 26; Pollington 2016, 79). The survey produced by René Derolez (1998, 5–6) contains the observation that ‘there was a near-perfect agreement between the runes of the futhark and the phonemes of Germanic as reconstructed for the beginning of the period under consideration. Could such a phonemic fit be the result of a gradual adaptation or does it presuppose a conscious and systematic arrangement?’. And Antonsen (1996, 11) 1 2 The oldest known runic inscriptions date from the second century AD. As it can hardly be supposed these were the first to be made, the creation of the runes is assigned to ‘some time between the birth of Christ and the first half of the second century AD’ (Barnes 2012, 9). There are other candidates, such as the Etruscan alphabet or one of the Alpine scripts. 375 Z01 Hines Book A.indb 375 18/02/2021 12:23 Frisians of the Early Middle Ages claimed that ‘no alphabetic writing system can survive from one generation to the next without a spelling tradition’. Perhaps we should consider the possibility of one or more Germanic individuals being taught in rhetorica and grammatica in Rome. Germanic soldiers served, for instance, as bodyguards for the Imperial family, so this supposition is not so far-fetched as it might seem. They may have passed their knowledge on – and introduced it to their homeland – but somehow and for unknown reasons it was not the roman alphabet that came into use in Germania but a variant of some archaic alphabet such as existed in the Alps and northern Italy. We do not know what the story was, but runic evidence first appears far away from the Limes, in Scandinavia, with a concentration in Denmark. Interestingly, futhark inscriptions (the complete runic alphabet) seem to occur around the periphery: in Bosnia, in Hungary, in Thuringia, in Burgundy, near London, and on Gotland. A separate group are the fifth-century bracteates with a futhark or part of it. Does this mean that copies of the whole or partial futhark had some specific purpose in the spread of literacy? Runic inscriptions appear in Scandinavia from the second century onwards on weapons, weapon parts, jewellery, tools, utensils, combs, personal gear, bracteates and coinage. But we should note that also ‘from the second century onwards, Roman military items began to appear in southern Scandinavia including sword-blades with stamped factory marks; alongside these are a few examples of terra sigilata ceramics and a large quantity of Roman coins’, according to Pollington (2016, 70, quoting Imer 2010). Runes came to be known and used over a large area in Europe, at first in Scandinavia, from where they spread to the south-east of Europe,3 to Poland, Pannonia, Romania and Ukraine, along with groups such as the Goths in the fourth century. From the fifth century onwards runic use also spread to western and central Europe: from Jutland or Schleswig-Holstein along the coast to the Elbe-Weser triangle (Aufderhaar 2017), to Frisia and on to Anglo-Saxon England. From the sixth century onwards runic objects appear in Merovingian France and southern Germany. It is not quite clear along which routes knowledge of the runes will have travelled. For instance, runologists have wondered why runic practice came rather late (the sixth century) to the south of Germany, where the remarkable quantity of nearly a hundred runic objects has been found found, dated to within about 150 years. But since the recent runic finds in Merovingian France from the first half of the sixth century (the ring-swords of Saint-Dizier, Grenay and Fréthun: Fischer and Soulat 2010), it seems conceivable that runic knowledge may have come to southern Germany from the west, from Francia (see Fig. 13.1). The current idea (Düwel 1996) is that runes could have reached southern Germany only from the north, and only after the fall of the Thuringian kingdom (AD 531/2). But that kingdom was conquered by the Franks. The sixth and seventh centuries were the runic prime time in Europe; subsequently runes only remained in use in Scandinavia and in England. In the first centuries of runic writing, the use of runes seems to be reserved for a small exclusive group of people, one could call them an elite. To answer the question of who was literate in those days in Germanic-speaking society, we can only guess; there must have been some literates because those runes were written and read by people 3 The Frienstedt comb is dated to the third century, and was found near Erfurt. It has a reading kaba interpreted as WGmc for ‘comb’. It is a small portable object, and this type of comb is known from a large area, including the northern coasts. In fact, all the early runic objects are portable, so their findplace and origin may be quite different. 376 Z01 Hines Book A.indb 376 18/02/2021 12:23 Fig. 13.1 The ‘Frisian’ and ‘Frankish’ runic items, part of a Continental North Sea group. Drawing: RuneS. Z01 Hines Book A.indb 377 18/02/2021 12:23 Frisians of the Early Middle Ages – but by whom, and by how many? Derolez (1998, 5) noted that ‘we have no more than a couple of hundred inscriptions spread over five centuries’. Katrin Lüthi (2006, 169–82) has analysed the ‘South Germanic’4 runic inscriptions in respect of the level of literacy among the people who wrote these runes and concluded that their writing skills are comparable to those of children learning to write, including the kind of mistakes and writing imitations. This is in fact the situation in all regions where runic writing was practised in the early centuries. If we suppose only a select few were able to read and write, this form of literacy may have served as a means for cultural and elite display. This is consistent with runic use in the first centuries in Denmark, and also in later centuries in southern Germany, Francia, Frisia and England. Here we find signs of ownership, marking personal items, and expressing personal relations and gift-and-exchange customs. We find runic objects used as charms and amulets everywhere. It may be useful to point out that there was almost certainly no role for script as an administrative instrument, since administration and state building among the Germanic nations was still a long way off. For what, then, did they develop a script? Just in imitation of Roman practices? That seems partly to be so: the practice of marking weapons and small personal objects with names, even if in some cases the inscription was not meant to be read by the public, resembles everyday Roman inscriptions on earthenware and personal belongings.5 Even if this supposition is true, it does not explain why Germanic people preferred runes above Roman script – or was that just because of a feeling that their own language needed its own writing system? Literacy Anyone involved in runic studies is confronted with the question: who could read or write runes in the Roman Imperial Period and the Early Middle Ages? How ordinary was this script, and what does it mean that we have so few attestations left? The question at this symposium regards especially people living in Frisia after the habitation gap of the fourth century AD. This is because to determine to what extent Frisians were literate depends on the period you study; in Roman times one may suppose that some Frisians could at least read and perhaps also write Latin, as is shown by inscriptions found near Hadrian’s Wall, presumably made by Frisian auxiliaries in the Roman army (Galestin 2007/2008 provides a comprehensive overview of Roman inscriptions mentioning Frisii and/or Frisiavones). Some classical authors wrote about Frisia, situated approximately between the estuaries of Meuse and Ems along the continental shore of the Oceanus Germanicus. Pliny the Elder, Tacitus, Cassius Dio, Ptolomy and Pomponius Mela provided limited information and say nothing about any literacy. Pliny actually visited the area. Epigraphic examples in Frisia in Latin or an indigenous tongue have not been found, except for the first-century wax tablet of Tolsum, in Latin. We have some names of Frisian kings, Malorix and Verritus, recorded by the Romans. Tacitus, for instance, mentions a certain Cruptorix (Annales IV, 73) and a goddess Baduhenna 4 5 Südgermanisch is a conventional term in runic studies for the Continental inscriptions, mostly in what was probably the ancestor of Old High German. The Roman practice of putting up memorial stones with elaborate texts meant to be read by the public might be mirrored by the large, Viking-age stones with runic inscriptions found in Norway, Denmark and Sweden. 378 Z01 Hines Book A.indb 378 18/02/2021 12:23 Runic Literacy in North-West Europe apud lucum quem Baduhennae vocant (‘at the grove which is named after Baduhenna’). As Schrijver (2017, 44) points out, these names do not appear to be Germanic names but Celtic. One of the names mentioned on the Tolsum tablet may also be Celtic: Caturix, slave of one Iulia Secunda (Galestin 2009/2010, 9–26). This means that we probably have to regard those Roman-period Frisians as a Celtic-speaking community. When we look at the newly inhabited Frisia after the Roman Period, and see what traces of literacy the post-Roman Frisians have left, we only have a few runic inscriptions. One of the first remarkable observations is that the Frisian runic texts have little in common with the kind of texts the Roman-period Frisians produced (or had produced for them), such as we find on altars near Hadrian’s Wall or elsewhere in Roman territory. However, the oldest runic texts we find on weapons and personal belongings have much in common with Roman graffiti: names mostly, and makers’ inscriptions. Monumental and public texts, so common for Roman society, are completely lacking in the early runic period.6 Only in later centuries, from about the seventh century onwards, do monumental runic texts on stone appear, almost exclusively in Scandinavia. (One might consider the runic inscriptions on the so-called megaliths as having inspired by Roman culture, but the kind of texts they bear is divergent. Take for instance Noleby: runo fahi raginaku(n)do ‘a rune I mark, from the advisory (gods)’, or otherwise Einang: [ek go]daga[s]tiz runo faihido translated as ‘I Godagast marked a rune’. These texts have nothing to do with the Roman kind of texts.) According to Bernard Mees (2015, 2), early epigraphic texts produced by ancient societies just adopting literacy tend to fall into standard types, such as makers’ inscriptions on objects like weapons and jewellery. Further, there are commemorative epigraphs and magico-religious texts. ‘The restriction of inscriptions to these three basic categories is common not just to Old Latin and archaic Greek tradition, but also to Etruscan, archaic Italic, and archaic Celtic or Lepontic epigraphy.’ These categories occur in the runic tradition as well, and also in the Old Frisian texts. So far, nothing out of the ordinary: we can only conclude that the Frisian tradition is no exception. Frisian runic texts such as Westeremden A: adugislu meth gisuh[i]ldu, two personal names, can be Fig. 13.2 Westeremden A. A ‘weaving-slay’ (or ‘reed’), inscribed with the runes adujislu me(þ)gisuhldu. Photograph: Groninger Museum. 6 Inscriptions with mixed Latin/Roman-vernacular contents, such as can be found in Gallo-Roman Gaul after the Roman conquest, are also lacking in the Germanic realm, in all probability because Germania was never conquered by the Roman Empire. 379 Z01 Hines Book A.indb 379 18/02/2021 12:23 Fig. 13.3 Runes inscribed on the plates of the Oostum comb. (a) aib kabu; (b) deda habuku. Photographs: Groninger Museum. Z01 Hines Book A.indb 380 18/02/2021 12:23 Fig. 13.4 A miniature yew-wood sword from Arum inscribed with the runes edæ boda. Photograph: Fries Museum, Leeuwarden. Collectie Het Koninklijk Fries Genootschap. Fig. 13.5 The word kobu (‘comb’) inscribed in runes on the Toornwerd comb. Photograph: Groninger Museum. Z01 Hines Book A.indb 381 18/02/2021 12:23 Frisians of the Early Middle Ages Fig. 13.6 Westeremden B. A stick of yew-wood, inscribed with runes. Photograph: Groninger Museum. compared to many Scandinavian, South Germanic and Anglo-Saxon ‘commemorative’ inscriptions (Fig. 13.2). Also Oostum, aib kabu, deda habuku translated as ‘Habuku (modern speech would have Habbeke) made the comb for Aib’ (‘Aib made the comb for Habbeke’ is equally possible), is one of very many so-called makers’ inscriptions found all over the runic world (Fig. 13.3a–b). The Wijnaldum bone piece, with an inscription in ‘ornamental’ runes, may be read as inguz, the name of a Germanic god, and might have been a kind of amulet. That is the extent of potentially magico-religious inscriptions in Frisia. The Arum miniature wooden sword (Fig. 13.4) has eda boda, which may be taken as a means to summon people to come to a trial and take oath. An owner’s inscription may be found on the Ferwerd comb-case with the inscription em ura or me ura, to be taken as ‘I am from Ura’, or possibly ‘Ura has me’. We also have more personal names on coins: Hada, Welad, Skanomodu and Aeniwulufu, plus appellatives like ‘comb’ on a comb – Oostum kabu and Toornwerd kobu (Fig. 13.5) – as well as Hamwic katae on a knucklebone, meaning exactly what it is: ‘koot’ in Dutch. Only the long Westeremden B inscription (Fig. 13.6) is absolutely out of the ordinary; the reason why it was supposed to be a forgery. After investigations into the weathering of the wood by the archaeologist and wood specialist Dr Casparie and the art historian Professor Van Asperen de Boer there is no reason to regard it as such (Looijenga 1991). Nevertheless, Gaby Waxenberger prefers to keep it out of her investigations, because ‘the inscription is at least partially in a poor state, particularly regarding the critical graphemes’ (2017, 97). The inscription does indeed show some extraordinary graphs, and seems to have been influenced by Scandinavian younger futhark runes, but some ‘mirror runes’ may be present, otherwise found in East Anglia (Spong Hill) and on some bracteates. Whatever its problems, the Westeremden B inscription needs more serious attention. Runic writing in Frisia (and beyond) As has been argued widely (for instance, Taayke 2003; Knol 2009; Gerrets 2010; Lanting and Van der Plicht 2009/10; Nieuwhof 2016; Knol and IJssenagger 2017), Frisia was virtually depopulated in the fourth century and became inhabited again after a hiatus of about a century – apparently by people who migrated from the east, along the coast, or perhaps also from the Pleistocene sandy hinterland to the south. In any event, this new population was Germanic-speaking. The written evidence is from runic inscriptions carved in objects that became buried in dwelling mounds (terpen or wierden) built in the marshes against the tides. This is the only kind of literacy we have from the post-Roman pre-Christian Frisians, until the writing down of the Old Frisian lawbooks 382 Z01 Hines Book A.indb 382 18/02/2021 12:23 Runic Literacy in North-West Europe in the twelfth–fourteenth centuries. Other written sources about the Frisian population derive from missionaries and historians and are not discussed here (see Wood, and Hines, this vol.). The runic period in Frisia may have lasted some centuries – but dating the inscribed objects is difficult since they are all stray finds from the terpen and no context has been recorded. We only have observations from people who attended the commercial digging of fertile soil from the ancient dwelling mounds in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. There are, however, also a few objects considered ‘Frisian’ not found in these mounds, but found elsewhere, in England, Belgium and Ostfriesland. Some ‘Frisian’ inscriptions show peculiarities that are supposed to be characteristic of the Frisian language and the runes of the Early Middle Ages. I will come to that subject further on. Runic literacy in Frisia is limited and enigmatic. Here we find the difference of langue and parole, terms distinguished by Ferdinand de Saussure. It is not so much langue, the principles of language, we have to take into consideration but parole, the concrete instances of the use of language. The Frisian corpus Let us first review what objects we are talking about. There are nineteen in total: four gold coins, six combs, four objects made of yew wood, three objects made of whale bone or whale ivory, one knuckle bone and an antler point.7 Furthermore there are many silver coins (sceattas) and one gold bracteate, probably an import. The bracteate is an unlocated find from the Hitsum terp, but stylistically similar to a bracteate from Sievern (Nicolay 2014, 155–6). Boeles (1951, 325) recorded another bracteate found in the terp at Achlum with a longer runic inscription and unfortunately sold to an unknown person in 1944. Two other runic objects found in the Netherlands must be noted: a silver-gilt scabbard mount from the Rhine-Meuse estuary near Tiel and a copper-alloy belt buckle from a Merovingian burial site on the Meuse just north of Maastricht. The scabbard mount was part of a large assemblage of metal objects, maybe the stock of a smith or part of a (votive) deposit. The belt buckle is one of the few runic grave finds from the Netherlands and is an example of a widespread type of buckle. The name on the buckle, Bobo, could be Frankish or Alemannic. I shall deal with these objects separately (below), since they cannot be counted as ‘typically Frisian’ as far as their runes or language goes. ‘Typically Frisian’ refers to the use of certain rune-forms and diagnostic linguistic features. The runic objects found in the terp-area are anomalous when compared with objects from Denmark, Germany or England. There we sometimes find runes on precious objects such as gold and silver brooches, personal outfits, tools, weapons and bracteates. The Frisian runic corpus is rather eclectic as regards the range of objects. We have humble objects made from unremarkable materials such as bone, antler and wood, but also a remarkable whale-bone staff with a nearly eroded inscription: only the name 7 In earlier surveys a golden pendant from Wijnaldum is mentioned, with a runic inscription hiwi, but this object should be deleted from the list. On closer inspection the alleged scratches are not runes at all. Although not discussed in detail in this paper, for convenience sake, images of the inscribed Britsum yew-wood stick and Bernsterburen tau-staff of whale bone have been included at the end as Figures 13.14 and 13.15. 383 Z01 Hines Book A.indb 383 18/02/2021 12:23 Frisians of the Early Middle Ages Fig. 13.7 Ring-sword from Saint-Dizier, inscribed with the runes alu on the pommel. Photograph: S. Culot, Inrap. Tuda is certain and possibly the verbal form kius ‘chose, selected’. Further we have a whale-bone sword handle, with a likewise eroded inscription: here only the name Oka is certain. The ‘Frisian’ gold coins are striking, although it cannot be ruled out that they were in fact Anglo-Saxon products – we shall return to his tricky subject later on. But all objects were inscribed in a notably careful way. As noted, all of the terp finds are stray finds, without precise contexts. In Denmark, England, Francia and Germany, runic objects emerge from graves or ritual deposits such as votive bog finds. The great majority of the early Anglo-Saxon runic finds in the UK are grave finds. There are almost no Frisian runic objects from graves, since cemeteries are relatively scarce in the terp-area.8 It should be noted that most ‘Frisian’ runic objects were found in the dwelling mounds – terpen and wierden – which were most favourable for preserving the organic objects. They are in fact settlement finds. If we did not have those mounds, we would have a runic landscape comparable to that in France: only a number of metal pieces found by metal detectors, because of road works, or in the occasional dig. France has three runic ring-swords (from graves); one bow brooch (from a grave); and one disc brooch (from a grave). The ring sword from Saint-Dizier, found in 2002, has a legible inscription: alu, a well-known, but not fully understood word, found only in runic inscriptions (Fig. 13.7; Truc and Paresys 2010). The Netherlands would then have one gilt-silver scabbard mount from a hoard or a smith’s stock, one copper-alloy belt buckle from a grave, and four possibly Frisian gold coins. One of those is from an antique shop at Harlingen: in de buurt van Harlingen gevonden, kennelijk in een terp (‘found in the region of Harlingen, apparently in a terp’: Boeles 1951, 345). Another gold coin belonged to a royal collection in England (possibly originating from Hanover); the third is an unlocated find from a field in Ostfriesland, Germany. The gold tremissis from Folkestone is now lost, and a similar one (see below, Fig. 13.10) in the Hunterian Museum (Glasgow) was possibly bought on the Continent, and appears to be modelled 8 The comb from Hoogebeintum is from a grave assemblage, and the comb from Amay (Wallonia; Fig. 13.8) is also from a grave find although far away from the terp-area. This grave was part of a a Merovingian row-grave cemetery close to the Meuse, south of Liège. 384 Z01 Hines Book A.indb 384 18/02/2021 12:23 Runic Literacy in North-West Europe upon a Merovingian tremissis from south-western France (Blackburn 1991, 143). In these circumstances, we would have described the runic landscape of the north-western part of the Continent from Ostfriesland to Burgundy as ‘Merovingian’. Nothing mirrors the uncertainty of assigning runic finds to an ethnic or cultural entity better than this situation. This conclusively demonstrates that one should be very careful in assigning specific runic knowledge to certain areas as opposed to other areas which seem to be ‘empty’. What kind of inscriptions do we have? We have names and appellatives, of persons and objects, which is typical for (early) runic (and other archaic) inscriptions in general. An outstanding example of a long, elaborate runic text is found on the small wooden stick of Westeremden, which seems to express some kind of a call for good fortune. According to the Elfde en Twaalfde Jaarverslag van de Vereniging voor Terpenonderzoek over de verenigingsjaren 1 mei 1926 tot 31 april 1927 en 1 mei 1927 tot 31 april 1928, this object was found by the mound diggers J. de Vries and H. Boukema in 1917. A very accurate description of the findplace is given (ibid., 52), and also an indication of the date of deposition: no earlier than the fifth century, and no later than the eighth, because in the layers above the runic stick some Saxon pottery was found that could be dated to the eighth century. Interesting is the remark by Van Giffen, the excavator, that it was found in the vicinity of a small burial ground. The combs According to Düwel (2018, 325), there are fifty runic combs (an extraordinary tally for one category of inscribed object). A separate sub-group is the combs inscribed with a word meaning ‘comb’, found along the coastal areas of the North Sea, from Frisia to Ribe in Jutland, Denmark. These are five: Oostum and Toornwerd in Frisia (above, Figs. 13.3 and 13.5), Elisenhof in Schleswig-Holstein, Ribe in Jutland, and Frienstedt near Erfurt. More combs have a runic inscription although not the word ‘comb’: Kantens, Ferwerd, Hoogebeintum (all Frisia), (Wallonia) (Fig. 13.7), Whitby (Yorkshire, England), Fig. 13.8 The Amay comb, inscribed with runes on the left, alongside the break. Photograph: Musée Le Grand Curtius, Liège. 385 Z01 Hines Book A.indb 385 18/02/2021 12:23 Frisians of the Early Middle Ages Vimose (Fyn, Denmark), Lauchheim (Baden-Württemburg), Setre (Norway), Belgorod (Russia). Combing one’s long hair may have had a special meaning since long hair was a privilege among high-standing Frankish men (cf. Childeric’s signet ring with his long-haired face on it, and the famous gravestone from Niederdollendorf at the Landesmuseum in Bonn). Writing ‘comb’ on a comb could have meant something specific. The coins There are four gold coins with runes: the hada, welad (Looijenga 2013) and skanomodu solidi plus the æniwulufu tremissis, often ascribed to the Frisians, although sometimes an Anglo-Saxon source is considered (Figs. 13.9–13.10). These solidi were not meant as everyday cash. A general market economy with its central places and emporia was yet to develop. Before the end of the seventh century, the demand for coins to buy goods in regular transactions caused the introduction of a silver coinage, the sceattas. A gold coin such as the solidus had too high a value to be used in such transactions. Solidi were used as payment to soldiers, or to pay taxes, or they were used as precious gifts. A high-ranking warrior under Theoderic the Great earned three solidi per year. ‘There was a gradual devaluation of the post-Roman solidus. In the middle of the seventh century the solidi contain only 10% gold and 90% silver. Perhaps this was done as a solution to obtaining coins that could be used in the market.’ (Steuer 2003, 186). The four runic gold solidi mentioned above show different levels of gold fineness. The skanomodu coin has the highest measured gold content, at 90.5%. This coin may be dated ‘partly by type but more confidently by gold fineness, no later than the early seventh century’ (Hines 2017, 31, referring to Williams and Hook 2013). The hada and welad solidi can be dated to around 640, according to Hines. They contain c. 50–73% gold and are thus probably a little younger than the skanomodu coin. The fourth gold coin, the æniwulufu tremissis, has not yet been analysed to the same standards. These runic coins may have served other purposes than a medium for payment; they may have been gifts, the more precious because of the runes. The skanomodu solidus once had a loop for suspension. In all four cases the inscriptions show names, which, as Hines demonstrates, could be Frisian male names. But one may ask: is this so? Couldn’t these names be Merovingian? There is a tendency to add an ending -us to indigenous names, cf. LEVDARDVS (Bishop Liudhard), VANIMVNDVS (mint-master, listed by Hook and Williams 2013 and mentioned by Blackburn 1991, 145). The æniwulufu coin is a copy of a Merovingian coin; according to Blackburn (1991, 143), ‘The design and legends copy those of a Merovingian tremissis from south-western France, with the insertion into the obverse legend of runes … The Kentish provenance (Folkestone) for the coin would not preclude a Frisian attribution.’ I wonder why a Merovingian provenance has not been considered? Because of the runes there has been a desire to assign it to either the Anglo-Saxon or the Frisian runic corpus, understandably so since France was not, when Blackburn was writing that article, in the picture as an area where runes were used. As John Insley (1991, 173) observed in the same volume, in an appendix to Blackburn’s paper: ‘[T]he first element of the name is western Ingvaeonic */aun-i-/, a side-form of the etymologically obscure West Germanic name element */aun-a-/ contained in such names as Frankish Aunobertus, Aunogisil, Aunecharius, Aunemundus, Aunulfus’. As regards the ongoing discussion of the ‘typically Frisian -u endings’ in personal names, we should note that Insley declares that the final -u in the 386 Z01 Hines Book A.indb 386 18/02/2021 12:23 Fig. 13.9 The ‘Schweindorf ’ runic solidus. Photograph: Christina Kohnen, Ostfriesische Landschaft. Fig. 13.10 The æniwulufu tremissis. Hunterian Museum, Glasgow. Photograph: author. Z01 Hines Book A.indb 387 18/02/2021 12:23 Frisians of the Early Middle Ages supposedly ‘Frisian’ names can plausibly be explained as the Old Saxon instrumental case: ‘there is no reason why the language of the Frisian runic inscriptions should not have shared this feature [the retention of the instrumental -u in the Gmc a-declension] with Old Saxon’ (Insley 1991, 174). The Bergakker and Borgharen inscriptions The Bergakker silver-gilt scabbard mount was found with a metal detector in 1996 near Tiel, between the rivers Rhine and Waal (Fig. 13.11). It is dated to c. AD 425. It has a runic inscription on the reverse. The runes are of the older futhark but it also contains an anomalous rune formed of a double chevron which most probably denotes the vowel e or u. Uncertainty about its transliteration means there is no agreed transcription and/ or interpretation. I propose to read the inscription as haþẹþẹwas: ann: kẹsjam: logẹns, with the anomalous sign interpreted as e (Looijenga 2003, 319). Several others prefer the reading u (e.g., Bammesberger 1999). This, however, is not the place for discussing such matters in detail. According to its ornamentation, in provincial Roman style, the mount seems to belong to a group of swords from northern Gaul into the Lower Rhineland, the area known as Toxandria, a territory of the Salian Franks. The runic inscription might therefore be considered Frankish. The same identity may be assigned to the belt buckle found in 1999 in a Merovingian cemetery near Borgharen on the Meuse, just north of Maastricht (Fig. 13.12). This has been dated to the third quarter of the sixth century. Its runes are unproblematic and read bobo. It might have belonged to a Frankish miles settled in the area (Looijenga 2003, 323). Fig. 13.11 The Bergakker scabbard mount. Photograph: Courtesy of the Museum Valkhof, Nijmegen. Fig. 13.12 The Borgharen belt buckle, front, inscribed with the runes bobo. © Centre Céramique, Maastricht. 388 Z01 Hines Book A.indb 388 18/02/2021 12:23 Runic Literacy in North-West Europe The range of runic literacy If we consider the distribution of runic objects from the period of the fourth–fifth centuries, we may get an idea of the dispersal of runic knowledge. It has been noted that the oldest known objects appear in Scandinavia, especially Denmark, and Schleswig-Holstein. They are in fact followed by a small group of objects along a route towards the south-east of Europe in the third century: the spearheads of Dahmsdorf, Rozwadów and Kowel (in Brandenburg, Poland and Volhynia, respectively). Then, from the fourth and fifth centuries there is the spindle-whorl of Leţcani, Romania (fourth century), the silver buckle of Szabadbattyán, Hungary (early fifth century), the silver buckle of Sukhodil/Shydlivtsy, Ukraine (early fifth century), the comb of Belgorod, Russia (fifth century), and the gold neck-ring of Pietroassa, Romania (early fifth century). Towards the south and south-west, meanwhile, there is the silver neck-ring of Aalen, Baden-Württemberg (fifth century), and to the west and south-west the bracteates from Sievern (fifth century)9 and the Fallward footstool (early fifth century), both in Niedersachsen, the Bergakker scabbard mount from the Rhine/Meuse estuary (early fifth century, Fig. 13.11), the Loveden Hill urn, Lincolnshire (fifth or sixth century), the Spong Hill urns, Fig. 13.13 A core area in which runes occur to the south and south-west of Scandinavia in the fifth and sixth centuries. 9 The diffusion of bracteates occurred in the fifth century in the same regions, mainly in northern Europe and the countries around the North Sea, but also some in southern Germany. 389 Z01 Hines Book A.indb 389 18/02/2021 12:23 Frisians of the Early Middle Ages Norfolk (fifth century), and the Caistor-by-Norwich astragalus, Norfolk (early fifth century). The picture roughly presents two groups, one expanding south-east towards the ‘Gothic’ area of the Çernjachov Culture, and one extending west and south-west, the route of the Anglo-Saxon and Frankish expansion (Fig. 13.13). In the sixth century the diffusion reaches its maximum extent: Frisia, Francia, England, southern Germany, Switzerland, Bosnia and Pannonia. It seems that we may identify two main groups carrying runic knowledge with them: Goths on the one hand, and Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Frisians and Franks on the other. If no one other than these groups were responsible for this diffusion, that could account for the widely noted uniformity and continuity of runic writing, and the linguistic unity as well (Derolez 1998, 5–6), and also for the phonemic fit; the standardization of, inter alia, word-division markers, the standardization of the futhark, and the acrophonic principle. But if we take into account the poor quality of the texts themselves, the near absence of eloquency, and the very limited choice of words and expressions (formulae) we do not get an impression of great literacy. If these two groups were the bearers of runic knowledge through Europe, they may not be seen as the bearers of a literate culture, but as those who ‘sich vielmehr im Stadium der “begrenzten Literalität” befanden’ (‘found themselves rather in the state of “limited literacy”’: Lüthi 2004, 335). Conclusion There is still no complete corpus edition of the Anglo-Saxon and Frisian runes. In order to compile such a useful study, I would plead for a broader context for studying the Frisian runic reality than is commonly in use. I would propose to include in analysis and discussion the whole Continental region of the North Sea coast and the Channel from the mouth of the Elbe to the mouth of the Somme, and also the coastal regions of Britain in East Anglia and Kent opposite. This wide coastal area is the stage where all kinds of interactions between the peoples of the Late Roman Period and the Early Middle Ages took place (cf. Wood 1990; Lebecq 1990; Soulat 2014). That means we ought to study the runic finds from the Continental area between Sievern/Fallward in Niedersachsen and Fréthun and Grenay in Pas de Calais, and across the North Sea the area from Southampton to the Humber, as a whole. And we should also include the ring sword from Saint-Dizier and the Bergakker scabbard mount. I consider the latter to be of Frankish origin as far as its ornamentation goes, and as regards the runes I would argue these were made by a Frank or a Saxon, based upon the observance that the runic inscription of the Fallward footstool has some peculiarities in common with Fig. 13.14 A stick of yew-wood from Britsum with double carved runes. Photograph: Fries Museum, Leeuwarden. Collectie Het Koninklijk Fries Genootschap. 390 Z01 Hines Book A.indb 390 18/02/2021 12:23 Fig. 13.15 (a) An inscribed whalebone tau-staff from Bernsterburen; (b) runes reading tuda on the Bernsterburen staff. Photographs: Fries Museum, Leeuwarden. Collectie Het Koninklijk Fries Genootschap. Z01 Hines Book A.indb 391 18/02/2021 12:23 Frisians of the Early Middle Ages the Bergakker inscription – such as the writing of double consonants, not otherwise normal runic practice). I would propose to call this runic area the North Sea/Channel group. In general one may say that the question of who was who in the fifth century is quite confusing. Saxons, Frisians and Franks are frequently mixed up (Wood 1990; Seebold 2003). Merovingian objects occur in graves of south-west England, and Anglo-Saxon objects occur on the other side of the Channel in equally copious numbers (Soulat 2014, 94–5). The Bergakker piece was found in the area of the Lower Rhine and Meuse (Betuwe), which was re-settled around AD 425 by a migrant group (Heeren 2017, 158– 63). The area had apparently become depopulated a century earlier. That the migrants came from the north is argued by their house-building techniques and the growing of rye. Only along the Limes were there surviving settlements, all belonging to military fortifications and associated with foederati (Heeren 2017, 166).10 This is the context of the Bergakker find, and also of the runic buckle from Limburg. To place the Frisian runes in a broader context and to study the connectivity of the runic area of the entire North Sea–Channel region will provide more insight into runic literacy. It appears from the archaeological and historical evidence that the whole region was, in a dynamic sense, in close contact and interaction. In order to get a complete picture, one must therefore include all finds from both sides of the sea. Literacy and runic use in these areas may reveal greater cohesion in terms of reading and writing in the transformational period of the fifth–seventh centuries. Discussion LOOIJENGA I would like to investigate the possibility of seeing the oldest runic inscriptions as part of the decoration of the object – sometimes the combination of runes and ornamental lines make the impression of being part of a single design. Of course the runes offer a text too – in nearly all cases a name. NIEUWHOF It had already struck me that there are some indications in the material which seem to me possible signs of gift exchange: some wordings you mention. For example, the inscription on a comb from Oostum translates as: ‘Habuku made the comb for Aib’. Another, on a comb-case from Ferwerd, as: ‘I am from Ura’. Or the one from Freilaubersheim, that ends with ‘greetings’. Such inscriptions would be very understandable in the context of gift exchange. We were talking about the family archive when we discussed my paper (Ch. 3). Well, these seem to me the kind of objects that end up in family archives. There are stories attached to them, about from where they come, who made them, and by whom they were given. That may be the explanation for part of the puzzling runic inscriptions, though of course not for all. What do you think of that? 10 ‘In short, the material culture of the fifth century contains Roman elements and traditional Germanic forms but, most importantly, new forms were created and used well into the Merovingian period. Instead of referring to the mix of Roman and Germanic elements in terms of assimilation as is previously the case, it might be better to see this material culture as an independent hybrid group and to acknowledge that most of it developed in the fifth century in the context of newly inhabited territories in the former Roman province. … In short, an essentially post-Roman society took shape in the northern part of the former Roman province and adjacent area north of the Lower Rhine, in close conjunction with and inseparable from the decline of Roman authority.’ (Heeren 2017, 166). 392 Z01 Hines Book A.indb 392 18/02/2021 12:23 Runic Literacy in North-West Europe LOOIJENGA Objects with runes are very rare, and it seems that these objects did have a very special meaning; they are not just objects with some text on them. The idea that these special objects belong to a family archive may be quite right. I am inclined to believe that runes were designed just for that single purpose: to preserve the names of special people; to prevent them from being forgotten. You see the same mechanism in other archaic epigraphy around the Mediterranean; almost all ancient script is especially concerned with the writing of names. It seems to be the most important feature. NIJDAM The Pforzen belt buckle has a runic inscription that seems to refer to an old heroic tale – what could that be? LOOIJENGA That inscription reads: Aigil andi Ailrun ltahu gasokun, which can be translated as ‘Aigil and Ailrun fought …’ . The sequence ltahu makes no sense, so you probably have to amend the sequence with an extra graph: possibly an ‘a’ since alliteration would predict that: i.e., Aigil and Ailrun altahu gasokun. ‘altahu’ might be the name of a river, say modern Alzach, and indeed one runologist came up with Illzach (Nedoma 2004). The story has been explained by several runologists, but I think the interpretation the Innsbruck scholar Max Siller gave is most convincing (Siller 2011). Important here is that the name ægili occurs in the runes on the Franks Casket, and that the Old Norse Vǫlundr (Weland) story has been handed down to us with the names of Egill and his wife Ǫlrún. Egill or Aigil was a famous archer and Ǫlrún was one of the swan maidens who came flying to where Egill and his brothers were living. Part of it is a fairy tale. Aigil married one of the swans (Ǫlrún). He is shown defending a stronghold on the Franks Casket. The source of the tale has been found, according to Max Siller; he relates it to a famous classical town in north Italy, Aquileia, and he identifies the archer on the Franks Casket as Egill while the woman who is sitting behind him in a kind of castle with towers would be Ǫlrún. Siller claims that the background is a historical event that eventually turned into a heroic tale. The archer who seems to be defending the castle may be the Alamannic general Agilo, serving in the Roman-Byzantine army during the reign of the Emperor Julianus. The date was March 362, and the story was recorded by the historian Ammianus Marcellinus (Siller 2011). There is no mention of a river, and besides, there is no river known named Alzach or Illzach. But, according to Siller, there is a River Elz which in the Middle Ages was called Elzach. There is even a town called Elzach. The river flows along the Kaiserstuhl in the Black Forest. There was an important Roman castellum here, a capital of the civitas Breisgau, at a junction of several Roman roads (Siller 2018, 148). This would typically be an ideal place for telling stories and get these spread all over Europe. KNOL I have several points. You say that there are no runic inscriptions from Frisian graves; we have one on a comb from a grave at Hogebeintum. In northern Germany, at Fallward, we have the stool with runic ksamella (scamella, Latin for footstool), also from a burial site. And there is the supposed bracteate from Achlum, sold in 1944: this was claimed to be genuine by Boeles but Morten Axboe has discovered that Boeles had the information from a person called de Jong, who became famous for selling a false Viking hoard to the Fries Museum (poster presentation at the 68. Sachsensymposion, Canterbury, 2018). It seems very likely that the runic bracteate was also false. The Spong Hill alu urn: this is a funerary 393 Z01 Hines Book A.indb 393 18/02/2021 12:23 Frisians of the Early Middle Ages urn, but only in its final use – the pot itself could have been a normal functional one to start with. It’s quite usual to have vessels with the word for ‘beer’ on them. LOOIJENGA You are right about Hoogebeintum – indeed a grave find. But the runic find from Fallward is not Anglo-Frisian I would say, it is too early for that (dated c. AD 425). The Spong Hill urn is found in Norfolk, not Frisia. And whether or not the word alu really only means ‘beer’ is a matter of dispute – there seems to be a connection between the word alu and death; we have several instances of that (Heizmann 2011). KNOL As for the Betuwe (Bergakker) and Limburg inscriptions, are these in AngloFrisian runes? LOOIJENGA No, Bergakker is also too early for Anglo-Frisian runes; it is dated to the beginning of the fifth century. This is in itself quite remarkable – to have a runic object of that date in the Rhine-Meuse estuary. The Borgharen buckle with runes is sixth century and belongs to the so-called Continental tradition (or maybe we should say Merovingian). KNOL So they are very different. LOOIJENGA The Bergakker find is from an area that was essentially Roman, with an admixture from an indigenous Celtic population, down to the fourth century. After that date the area became populated with all kinds of Germanic folk; it was a transitional period. People speaking different languages would have met and the prevailing Roman culture gave way to other cultures, those of people coming in from several directions. You’ll find people with Celtic, Germanic and Roman backgrounds, and there was some depopulation in certain areas. That means in fact that the language of the Bergakker inscription need not necessarily be Germanic. There is one anomalous rune in the inscription, which occurs four times, and must reflect a vowel, e or u. There is no consensus, though, and therefore no commonly accepted interpretation. The inscription though is clearly a sentence starting with the name of a Germanic man which begins with h, followed by a verb: he gave swords to his comitatus, or something like that. Sentences are rare among runic texts. KNOL But you could have had people moving in from the north. The surprising thing is that you have a runic inscription there at all, because they are so rare. My final remark is about the ‘secret’ character of the inscriptions. It reminds me of long inscriptions on clocks and bells in church towers: they can be long and meaningful, but no one will ever read them. It’s also the case with elements of the sluices. What is stated on them is ‘I have made this’. Perhaps all that is important is that the words are there. WOOD It’s the same in churches: there are lots of paintings with inscriptions that are quite impossible to read. LOOIJENGA Egge (Knol) says that the meaning lies in the fact that there is a text, even if no one can read it. I also think that that is the really significant thing; it is all about the writing itself, the fact that something important is being inscribed to be kept for ever. WOOD It’s a bit different with a prophet with a scroll. KNOL Also similar is the immensity of the war memorials at places like Ypres. You cannot read all the names. They just have to be there. 394 Z01 Hines Book A.indb 394 18/02/2021 12:23 Runic Literacy in North-West Europe MAJCHCZAK We still today put inscriptions on objects for gift exchange; for instance on the inside of wedding rings. It’s very important those names are there. It’s a good analogy. In that case it is personal. KNOL You can remove the ring. MAJCHCZAK But it’s also a personal thing to remove it. VERSLOOT I am puzzled by the idea that the runes come from the south, inspired by archaic alphabets. LOOIJENGA At the very least, the inspiration must have come from a literate society . The only possible model for the runic alphabet is one of the archaic Mediterranean alphabets. The puzzling thing is the geographical distance, and the time gap: between the latest archaic Mediterranean inscriptions and the first runes there is a gap of more than a century. Geographically the nearest ancient script, Raetic, is dated between the sixth and the first centuries BC. So it is suggested that the source alphabet might have been the Roman alphabet; if so, you will have no time gap. But the shape of the runes looks very much like the archaic Etruscan and other Italic alphabets, and the practices are also very much the same. I mean they all are epigraphic, funerary, mostly short, mostly names and appellatives, makers’ formulae, alphabets. VERSLOOT With regard to the shapes of the letters, there is discussion of possible origins in northern Italy. The earliest runic inscriptions are in the North, in Denmark; but perhaps this gap is now being filled up a bit. But these examples are later. There is nothing from the first century in the Rhine area, for instance. There is what appears to be a former Roman officer buried at Fallward, with his military paraphernalia, and an object with a runic inscription. If writing is only symbolic, why would he use runes? Latin would be better for display. I don’t want to claim widespread literacy, but the runic script was around, and used more than just for ‘fun’. LOOIJENGA One can speculate but I do not have the answer. He may have showed off his Latin knowledge with the name of the object. And added to his Latin knowledge he showed off his knowledge of runes. Perhaps this was not extraordinary, but among the very few objects with Latin and runes this is quite a sensation! VERSLOOT skamella is a Latin loanword, although it may be incorporated into Germanic with the -a ending. The morphology seems to be Germanic. Latin would be scamulum, neuter singular. LOOIJENGA This Fallward inscription is really an eye-opener: it shows a mix of Roman and Germanic culture, nicely embedded in the mortal remains of a Roman officer of Germanic descent. He used runes, and he used a Latin word in this one inscription; he was very sophisticated! And the inscription is not random; it fits with a tradition: the name of the object and name of the man himself, or perhaps of his dog. HINES My first point is about reluctance to believe in a widespread runic tradition. I would be more positive. It is widespread in so far as it covers a very large area of northern Europe. Also it has a very long history, at least a thousand years as a living script which develops. With development we can recognize that despite the difficulties of interpretation of the texts, there is consistency in the letter forms. We can debate the exact circumstances, but we have quite a good sense of what was 395 Z01 Hines Book A.indb 395 18/02/2021 12:23 Frisians of the Early Middle Ages happening overall. There are certain places where we seem to get sudden, quite intense changes, sometimes with strange forms; a particularly good example is the Ash Gilton sword pommel (Hines 2006). Another key point I would like to make, going back to the Pforzen inscription. The text there is a single line of alliterative verse, or a well-formed sentence with a subject, main verb and possibly a direct object: you can take the text away from the object and it would still make sense, linguistically, in whatever medium you read it. The great majority of the really early inscriptions make very little sense separated from the objects: kabu/‘comb’ is comprehensible, but it belongs to the object. The only properly formed sentence in pre-Old English is the Loveden Hill urn. The distinctive change in England is that a new form of literacy comes in with conversion in the seventh century, so that eighth-century inscriptions are texts that make sense on their own, once the use of literacy has really begun to separate from the material-cultural context (Hines 2019). But in the case of the Frisian inscriptions, I do not see that development taking place in Frisia. If that is valid, somehow the introduction of ‘literacy’ in Frisia hasn’t taken place that early and does take place at a later date. It’s a more positive way of looking at the problem of the Frisian inscriptions. It’s also a good bit more positive than just calling the writing symbolic or decorative. KNOL A lot of the material which is used for runic inscriptions in Frisia – wood, bone and antler – will not be preserved over a very large area: for instance, the whole Pleistocene area. So I suppose that very many such inscriptions have been lost. The number made must have been very much greater. LOOIJENGA Yes, it must have been thousands. VERSLOOT Inscriptions may be difficult to interpret, but there are two or three sentence-like examples from Frisia. Compared with South Germanic and AngloSaxon this is really quite rich, and also gives quite a positive impression if you compare it with all the question marks in Martin Findell’s book on the Continental inscriptions (Findell 2012). It is a problematic old corpus though. NIJDAM Two observations. One is that the Anglo-Frisian alphabet is not as consistently attested in both England and Frisia as the term suggests. In Frisia only two or three Anglo-Frisian runes occur in inscriptions. Most of the new ‘AngloFrisian’ runes are attested in England. It also seems to me that the Frisian runic corpus has a comparatively large number of strange, non-standard forms. LOOIJENGA Yes, in a way that is right. You are thinking of Westeremden, by all means an intriguing inscription which seems to contain runes from the younger futhark, mixed with Anglo-Saxon runes. NIJDAM And Bernsterburen. LOOIJENGA I don’t think Bernsterburen has anomalous runes. The inscriptions on the staff are very much eroded, and really only the name tuda is clear, and possibly a verb form kius, although the s-rune there might be a short-twig form from the younger futhark. This is puzzling indeed. IJSSENNAGGER-VAN DER PLUIJM Tuda is a recorded name, and we noted in the discussion of Egge’s paper (this vol., Ch. 2) that there was a known bishop of Lindisfarne of that name. Should we distinguish between the carving of runes, and the inclusion of runes that are part of the design of an object? 396 Z01 Hines Book A.indb 396 18/02/2021 12:23 Runic Literacy in North-West Europe LOOIJENGA If the main purpose was to write a name, a specific person’s own name, not just anybody’s – and at the same time you knew that nearly no one would be able to see or read the runes, the purpose is not the reading, but the preservation of that name (identity) for eternity. I think that maybe it was not ornamentation that mattered, but the use of a kind of secret, votive, language, with a confined purpose; especially names and appellatives (such as ‘comb’) were important. Think of the fairy tale of Rumpelstiltskin and the fact that nobody should know his name, otherwise he would lose power. 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