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Chapter 8

Trade with Europe

Agricultural production was the mainstay of all early societies since in good years it provided sustenance and a small surplus for rent and perhaps something for local trading. Larger surpluses and wider trade came from the most fertile lands and improved methods of cultivation. This way of life had been the norm for almost everybody during the Roman period and almost anybody would have been able to earn a living from it wherever they came from. At some point those who had produced the larger surpluses would start to look for larger markets and opportunities of obtaining commodities that they were unable to produce for themselves.

Although the picture we have of post-Roman Britain and northern Europe is an almost entirely agricultural scene there was a burgeoning overseas trade. The addition of sail to northern European ships around AD500 was an immense improvement in transport. Lately, wics (market-places) have been recognized as trading and manufacturing settlements on both sides of the North Sea and the English Channel. Quentovic (Nord-Pas-de-Calais), Rouen (Haute-Normandie) and Wijk-bij-Duurestede (Netherlands) are three emporia in northern France and on the lower Rhine.

The last is the best excavated and in the ninth century has been proved to have been a site of about 12 hectares with wooden houses spread out along more than half a mile of the bank of the River Rhine. A large dock flanked the stream and the whole site was enclosed by a palisaded earthen wall. It was one of the chief toll stations of the Frankish Empire along this important waterway and issued silver sceattas from its mint and dealt with a variety of merchandise including exotic goods from the easterm Mediterranean and glassware and hides and wool from its hinterland. but came to an end round about AD863 at the hands of Viking raiders.

In England, some wics are found outside the decaying or decayed old Roman towns and existed from about two hundred years, from c650-c850. Finds excavated inside them include the sceattas that were the trading coins produced only in wics and emporia from about 650 to c750. Manufacturing evidence in most wics includes bone combs, metal and pottery. East of London, at Barking, on a site that was perhaps a wic, a glass workshop has been discovered. Wics have also been discovered at Fishergate in York, in London at Aldgate west of the City, at Lincoln, Ipswich and at Hamwic (Southampton). The Venerable Bede described London (presumably one or other or both wics) as 'an emporium visited by many people coming by land or sea' during the early eighth century when cloth was a major export item.

Excavations of the wic at Fishergate in York (Tweddie) produced some evidence of the products and traded goods on the site including Niedermendig lava querns from the Rhineland, Frisian combs from the same part of the world, Rhenish and possible Frankish pottery suggesting a trading link with the wic at the mouth of the Rhine (Duurestede) while craftsman on the site made spindle whorls and loomweights for the woollen industry and various metal objects. Another wic at Ipswich or Ipswic was founded at the end of the seventh century.

At Hamwic (Andrews), on Southampton Water, timber-framed houses and workshops were laid out along gravelled roads with refuse pits in the backyards whence a great many of the finds have come. Trading links are demonstrated by foreign sceattas and continental pottery. Hamwic seems to have come into existence at the end of the seventh century at about the same time as Lundenwic probably as a foundation by the Wessex king and has its earliest nucleus inland and not on the waterfront that was only settled when overseas trade began to develop in the place. Excavations (Wessex Archaeology) on the north-eastern edge of the town included a cemetery containing weapons, gold and Kentish-style jewellery.

The development of wics may be related to conclusions of recent research that suggests a shift towards increased textile production in the seventh and eighth centuries, a period sometimes referred to as the Middle Saxon period although, if we accept the thesis of the grubenhauser as woollen production units, it was already widespread.  In Wessex wool/textiles could have been exported from the sheep grasslands via the south-flowing rivers down to Hamwic.

Another considerable export in this period and for hundreds of years to come was slaves, a trade that normally does not leave any archaeological traces behind.  What evidence we have is documentary. Slavery was still strong at the time of the Conquest. In the ‘Life of St Wulfstan (Florence of Worcester), we hear that in 1066  ‘There is a maritime town called Bristol which is on the direct route to Ireland and so suitable for trade to that barbarian land. The inhabitants of this place with other Englishmen often sail to Ireland for the sake of trade. Wulfstan banished from among them a very old custom which had so hardened their hearts that neither the love of God nor the love of King William could efface it. For men whom they had purchased from all over England they carried off to Ireland: but first they got the women with child and sent them pregnant to market. You would see queues of the wretches of both sexes shackled together and you would have pitied them; those who were beautiful and those who were in the flower of youth were daily prostituted and sold amidst much wailing to the barbarians. Oh execrable crime, wretched dishonour, men who remind us of beasts, to sell into slavery their nearest relative because of their necessities.’

An unusual example of this trade is the story of an English slave-girl Balthild who was sold into Merovingia and must have been a lady of much charm and character for she married the Merovingian king Clovis II (AD639-657) and on his death became regent of the kingdom. She died in AD677 greatly respected for her piety and honoured as founder of several monasteries including the house at Chelles on the outskirts of Paris.

Lundunwic extended from the western edge of the Roman city round the river bank south and west to Westminster and as far north as Oxford Street. Excavation has produced large amounts of animal bones with imported pottery from the Frankish Empire and the Rhineland. It seemed to have been laid out in lanes with ditches as property boundaries as discovered at the excavated site at the Royal Opera House which contained nearly sixty buildings along a street. (Museum of London Excavation Service)

In association with the wics was produced a silver currency, the pennies, although they are more commonly known as sceattas, which were produced as an aid to the trade between the English trading ports and wics in Frisia such as Duurstede and Quentovic. They were made both in England and in Frisia and are often described as Anglo-Frisian. Trade between the two countries was an important economic activity, reaching a peak during the second quarter of the eighth century.

So far, no evidence has come to light of a wic in Kent. We know how important trade had always been across the narrow sea and the evidence of it during the post-Roman period is strong, certainly stronger than the evidence of trade to and from the other various wics in this country.  It is possible that it was located in the Wantsum Channel, perhaps at Fordwich. Ongoing research in an ancient shingle spit east of the town of Sandwich is concerned to identify the location of an eighth-century landing place. This would be about twelve miles east of Canterbury, probably too far away for a wic type settlement especially as there is no direct water connection between the two.

What strikes one as strange about most wics is that the excavated evidence suggests that they dealt in such trifling goods. Combs, loomweights and pottery were not substantial items even then, certainly not substantial enough to create a currency with which to trade with them and the suspicion is that some more valuable but evanescent commodities were the chief goods involved and these were likely to have been  wool/textiles and the slaves. 

Other commercial sites of the period include a variety of excavated settlements such as Whitehouse  outside Ipswich with three post-holed buildings, Billingford, Norfolk, with evidence of iron smelting and post-holed structures, Gamlingay in Cambridgeshire which yielded a site with grubenhauser, hall and evidence of textile production , Flixton Park Quarry in Suffolk with grubenhausers, halls and evidence of textile and iron working and Barrow Hill, Butley in Suffolk which also produced evidence of metal working together with textile manufacture and the suggestion that it was a monastic site. It may be that the extensively excavated settlement at Wicken Bonhunt in Essex (Wade) was a similar high status place. A large quantity of pig bones were found there, together with imported pottery. Waltham Abbey in Essex, a settlement with a possible timber church dated to 560, replaced in stone in the eighth century, also yielded imported continental pottery together with the local Ipswich ware. Barking in Essex, (Essex County Council Planning Service) was a monastery which survived into the pre-Conquest period. Wells, timber buildings and finds of a styli, Ipswich pottery and window glass may have been part of the enceinte of the establishment but evidence of bronze, iron and textile production and a mill leat seem more in keeping with an enterprising full-medieval monastic site like Castle Acre especially when one takes into account the continental contacts that are proved by the presence of Niedermendig quernstones and pottery from the Rhineland. Similar evidence has been found at Brandon in Suffolk with twenty-five buildings and window glass, styli, remains of glass vessels, imported pottery and gilt and silver decorated metalwork.. This also may have been a monastic site. (Suffolk Archaeology Service). Imported pottery and ‘high class’ objects of this kind are usually taken to be on the site of a monastery, a noble or royal site or a wic and one needs to choose which seems to be most appropriate in the circumstances.  As well as being a monastery, it has been suggested that Barking operated as the wic east of London providing landfall for large vessels which couldn’t make it further upstream.

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