Grantanbrycg

Tīma is tō æfenmete!

A simple bowl perhaps, but one that brings together many of the flavours and ingredients available in early medieval England. Today's meal features slow cooked mutton braised in a rich gruit ale, served with a hearty pottage of barley, peas and broad beans.

Barley was one of the staple grains of the Anglo-Saxons, while peas and broad beans provided valuable protein and were among the most common crops grown across the country. The ale itself is flavoured with traditional gruit herbs rather than hops, reflecting the way many brews were seasoned before hopped beer became widespread.

It is served with leavened maslin bread, made from a mixture of wheat and rye, accompanied by soft sheep's cheese. Maslin bread was a common everyday loaf, combining the qualities of both grains, while sheep's cheese would have been a familiar source of dairy across much of England.

We chose mutton rather than lamb because sheep were generally kept for many years to provide wool and milk before eventually being slaughtered for meat. Meat itself was not an everyday food for most people. For much of the population it was an occasional luxury, often eaten at feasts, celebrations or when an older animal reached the end of its working life.

A meal such as this would therefore have been both nourishing and something to savour. Simple, wholesome and deeply rooted in the archaeological and documentary evidence, this is a taste of Anglo-Saxon England brought back to life.

Last weekend we were back at the lovely Denny Abbey for our annual show. The main event of the day saw warriors in tournament to join the Kings Housecarls.

A big thank you to Denny Abbey for letting us use the site for two fantastic days of Living History and combat training.

Salt Production in Anglo-Saxon England

We use salt all the time in our re-enactment cooking, but how much do we actually know about how the Anglo-Saxons produced it?

Salt was not simply a seasoning. It was an important commodity, a preservative, a source of wealth and taxation, and part of a network connecting coastal communities, royal estates, monasteries, traders and households across Anglo-Saxon England. By the Middle Saxon period, from around the 8th century onwards, salt production was becoming an increasingly organised industry.

Salt-rich mud and silt were collected from tidal marshes and washed with water to produce concentrated brine. This was then boiled, usually in large lead pans, until the water evaporated and the salt remained.

This is particularly interesting for us in Grantanbrycg because of our connection with the Fenland landscape. Although direct Anglo-Saxon evidence from the Fens themselves is surprisingly limited, evidence has been discovered around the Norfolk side of the Wash, where archaeologists have found evidence for a process known as sleeching or sand-washing.

Elsewhere, Droitwich was one of the great centres of Anglo-Saxon salt production. By the 8th century, the Mercian kings were controlling and taxing the industry, while monasteries and other major landowners also held rights to salt production. By 1086, salt was a major organised industry. Droitwich alone was reportedly producing more than 1,000 tons of salt annually.

So, the next time we throw a handful of salt into a pottage or use it to preserve meat or fish at a show, it is worth remembering the much bigger story behind it.

Photo courtesy of Saltwic, our Worcestershire local group of Regia Anglorum, who specialise in interpreting and demonstrating early medieval salt production. Please go and check out their work on Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/saltwic.regia/

From the Archive
Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
Late Saxon. 188.56. Viking tortoise brooch
IDNO LS.168073.TC1
collections.maa.cam.ac.uk/photographs/461554/

Digging through the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology archive this week turned up an interesting Magic Lantern slide titled simply "Late Saxon. 188.56.
Viking tortoise brooch", which demonstrates links between Cambridgeshire and Norway in the Viking period.

The record shows no other information about the context of the find other than “Place: Cambridgeshire; Ely district” and a note about the slide itself “found un-accessioned in drawer” but as this is a photograph on a lantern slide it is likely to have been photographed in the late 19th early 20th Century and used as a teaching aid.

The place record for the MAA image: “Cambridgeshire; Ely district” is tantalising as the brooch is an identical design to an artifact in the Mjøsmuseet Museet an historical museum for the Mjøsmuseet region right in the heart of Norway, and is listed on the brilliant digital museum project: https://digitaltmuseum.no/021028239204/smykke

Brooches are often regarded as evidence for the movement of Scandinavian women and families. If this brooch was indeed found in the Ely district, which is likely, it could offer a small but significant glimpse of the women who travelled, settled and helped shape life in Viking-Age Cambridgeshire, reminding us that migration and settlement were family enterprises in which women played a central role.

Why do our shields look the way they do?
If you've ever watched us at an event and wondered why our shields are painted the way they are, with no dragons, elaborate knotwork or Norse runes, the answer is simple: evidence!

At Grantanbrycg, we're part of Regia Anglorum, one of the UK's most research-focused early medieval re-enactment societies. Everything we wear, carry and use is guided by what the historical record actually tells us. When it comes to shield designs, that record is fascinating, but surprisingly limited.

The problem with painted shields?
Wood rots. Paint fades. Of the thousands of shields that must have existed in Viking Age Britain and Scandinavia, almost none have survived with their decoration intact. Most of what we know about shield decoration comes instead from picture stones, manuscript illustrations and embroidered works such as the Bayeux Tapestry, all of which have to be interpreted with care.

What our shields reflect?
The designs you see on our shields follow the authenticity guidelines developed by Regia Anglorum, based on the best available historical research. An English warrior of the 9th or 10th century might carry a plain shield or one with a swirling segmented design in period-appropriate colours. Viking-period shields might be plain or feature simple radial patterns. Norman shields of the 11th century increasingly show crosses and geometric divisions that foreshadow the development of heraldry.

Why does it matter?
When you watch us in a shield wall, you're not just seeing costumes. You're seeing a serious attempt to understand and represent the people who lived, fought and died in early medieval Britain. Their shields were practical tools, symbols of identity and status, and sometimes carried deeper cultural meaning. We think they deserve to be treated with that level of care.

None of this is guesswork. Where the evidence is clear, we follow it. Where it is uncertain, we're honest about what we don't know.

If you'd like to know more about what we do, or fancy picking up a shield yourself, feel free to get in touch.

Brewing Prior's Reserve for Sherwood, Brother Wulfstan here:

To celebrate Regia Anglorum's anniversary, preparations continue for Sherwood (26th-27th Sep @ https://www.forestryengland.uk/sherwood-pines), Grantanbrycg has begun work on one of the drinks that will be served from our priory brewhouse as many WICs will be transforming into taverns, alehouses and drinking establishments for the evening.

Instead of our usual Living History Exhibition, Grantanbrycg will be presenting a monastic brewhouse attached to our priory. Fellow members will be able to sample two house drinks: Hey “Prior's Reserve”, a honey mead, and “Refectory Ale”, a strong gruit ale brewed with malt, oats, honey and herbs.

As with much of living history, there is a balance to be struck between historical practice and modern practicality. The ingredients and flavourings used in these brews are intended to reflect those available in Anglo-Saxon England, whilst modern brewing methods help ensure a reliable fermentation, a stable finished product, and a drink that can be safely served to a large number of people.

An Anglo-Saxon brewer would have approached the process rather differently. Rather than commercial yeast, Campden tablets and measured nutrient additions, fermentation would have relied upon naturally occurring yeasts present in the environment or carried over from previous brews. The results would likely have varied from batch to batch and from season to season. Modern brewing methods allow a far greater degree of consistency whilst still offering opportunities to explore ingredients and flavour combinations familiar to early medieval brewers.

Grantanbrycg’s encampment at Leominster focused on everyday skills and activities that underpinned life in Anglo-Saxon England.

In the priory kitchen and refectory, visitors could explore the preparation and serving of food, from grain processing through to the communal meals that formed an important part of monastic life. Alongside this, members demonstrated traditional fire-lighting techniques using flint, steel and tinder, showing just how much effort was required before a hearth could be brought to life each morning.

Visitors were also able to examine a range of different tinder materials that may have been used in Anglo-Saxon England, from prepared plant fibres to naturally occurring materials selected for their ability to catch and hold a spark.

Our healing display explored some of the plants and remedies recorded in early medieval medical texts, highlighting the important role of herbal knowledge in Anglo-Saxon society.

Nearby, our merchant display showcased furs and a selection of imported goods, reflecting the trade networks that connected England to the wider world. A particular favourite with visitors was the quern stone, where they could see grain being ground into flour by hand, a daily task that consumed countless hours across early medieval England.

Many thanks to everyone who stopped to chat with us over the weekend. Events like these are a wonderful opportunity to share the skills, crafts and daily experiences that rarely make it into the history books.

Over the past few weeks our Grantanbrycg group leader, who is a specialist in all things relating to medieval food, has been building up a collection of preserved fish and shellfish for our Anglo-Saxon Fenland display. The food, Anglo-Danes ate in the Viking period, perhaps more than anything else, reflects the landscape of Cambridgeshire a thousand years ago.

Fishing was a vital part of life in and around the Fens. Fish provided food, could be preserved with salt for later use, and formed part of local trade and taxation. Eels in particular were so valuable that they were sometimes paid as rent. One reason for this is that you can keep them alive in barrels for long enough to transport them across the county.

The display includes pike, herring, roach, lamprey and oyster shells, salmon and eel. These are all fish and shellfish that might have been caught locally in the rivers and waterways of the Fens, alongside foods that could have reached the region through trade and transport networks linking the Fens to the Wash and beyond.

The fish are thoroughly dried and stored on a bed of salt beneath a layer of linen. At shows they will be displayed hanging from drying lines or laid out in baskets alongside the fishing equipment, helping to tell the story of fishing, preservation and trade in early medieval England.

These images were taken just last weekend at Leominster Priory, where we were proud to take part in a Viking Age fashion show as part of a major Regia Anglorum event.

The spotlight is on two of Grantanbrycg's younger members stepping out in style, and seeing the next generation bring history to life. These outfits capture a fascinating period in English history when Scandinavian and English cultures lived side by side.

Both are wearing beautifully crafted Hedeby-style costumes, one of the most important trading centres of the Viking Age. They are wearing Scandinavian apron dresses (smokkr) over linen shifts, fastened with distinctive tortoiseshell brooches and completed with authentic details such as bead strings, woven cords and hanging knives.

As an Anglo-Danish re-enactment group, these costumes tell an important story of migration, settlement and cultural exchange in 10th-century England. They represent members of the Anglo-Danish communities that emerged across England following Scandinavian settlement.

If you look closely at their bead strands, you will spot some a Thor's hammer pendant on one and a silver Arabic coin, known as a dirham on another. This was repurposed as jewellery after it travelled thousands of miles from the Islamic world into Scandinavia, and then England through trade and gift.

Grantanbrycg is a family re-enactment group, and seeing the next generation bring history to life with such enthusiasm and dedication is what our society is all about.

Want to step back in time with us? Grantanbrycg is always welcoming new members, families and individuals alike.

Whether you are interested in authentic crafts, combat or living history, there is a place for everyone. Message us to find out how you can get involved.

Grantanbrycg joins Lindcolne Skipfierde, Suðfolc Gesiþas and Norðfolc this weekend 23rd - 25th May at Castle Rising's Black Knight Historical - Soldiers Through the Ages. The event reenacts 2000 years of soldering and living history.

The four Regia Anglorum groups thrilled the crowds with an entertaining reenactment of a confrontation between Anglo Dane and Anglo Saxon Thanes over land rights. The Saxon challenger, a Thane by birthright, risks all to reclaim his father's lands only to pay the ultimate price.