About History: Double weight Roman swords and shields

Many of us have heard or read that recruits to the Roman army trained with double weight swords and shields while practicing their attacks and defences against a wooden stake or post. The notion stems from the extant 5th-century AD writing of Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus in his work Epitoma Rei Militaris (“Epitome of Military Science”). More specifically, in Chapter 11 of Book One on “Recruitment and Training” we read:

Antiqui, sicut inuenitur in libris, hoc genere exercuere tirones. Scuta de uimine in modum cratium conrotundata texebant, ita ut duplum pondus cratis haberet, quam scutum publicum habere consueuit. Idemque clauas ligneas dupli aeque ponderis pro gladiis tironibus dabant. Eoque modo non tantum mane sed etiam post meridiem exercebantur ad palos. Palorum enim usus non solum militibus sed etiam gladiatoribus plurimum prodest.

“The ancients, as is found in books, trained recruits in this manner. They wove shields from withies, of hurdle-like construction, and rounded, such that the hurdle was twice the weight that an official shield normally has. They also gave recruits wooden foils likewise of double weight, instead of swords. So equipped, they were trained not only in the morning but even after noon against posts, for the use of posts is of very great benefit to gladiators as well as soldiers.”

So, we are told that the Romans gave their recruits round wicker shields (Latin: scuta; sing. scutum) twice as heavy as those used on active service. No problem, but what follows - “Idemque clauas ligneas dupli aeque ponderis pro gladiis tironibus dabant.” - has often been mistranslated into English as the recruits trained with “wooden swords”. The sentence begins with idemque meaning “in the same way”. This refers once more to the training shields being double the normal weight. The sentence ends by saying that the training weapon given to recruits (tironibus dabant) was double the weight of a gladius “sword”. So far so good, but clauas ligneas does not mean sword, or more specifically a wooden sword (Latin: rudis). The simplest translation in English would be “wooden foil” but in this context perhaps “wooden club” would be a better fit.

It was these double-weight clubs that were used, in conjunction with the heavier wicker shields, to train recruits at the palus or “post”. The increased weight was clearly intended to strengthen the recruit physically, improve their endurance and, when they took up real, lighter weapons, allow them to fight with more confidence and agility. When recruits moved on to one-on-one full contact sparring, then the clubs were not used in favour of a lighter wooden sword or rudis. Bon appétit!

Dispelling Some Myths: King Arthur

A legend is born  In about 1138, possibly inspired by memories of the Cornish kings, Geoffrey of Monmouth chose to include King Arthur, the legendary ruler of Britain, Ireland and large parts of continental Europe, in his Historia Regum Britanniae (“History of the Kings of Britain”) [1]. It is this history that contains the earliest written mention linking Tintagel Castle in Cornwall to the tale of Arthur’s conception - the result of the magically assisted seduction of Queen Igerna (Igraine), wife of Duke Gorlois of Cornwall, by Uther Pendragon, King of Britain. Then, about 1480, the antiquary William Worcestre [2] made Tintagel not only the place of Arthur’s conception but also of his birth. Nearly two centuries later the name “King Arthur’s Castle” is first recorded in 1650. By then King Arthur and Tintagel Castle had become an inextricable mix of local folklore and literary legends. 

Then, in 1998, a stone with the name “Artognou” inscribed on it was discovered in securely dated sixth-century contexts among the ruins at Tintagel Castle. Sometimes erroneously referred to as the “Arthur stone”, after its discovery the news media excitedly claimed it was possible evidence of a historical basis for the legendary King Arthur. The name “Artognou” was proposed as a variant of “Arthur”, but as Celticist John Koch points out, linguistically Artognou means “bear-knowledge” while Arthur is more likely derived from the Latin “Artorius”. Even so, with the full force of wishful thinking believers point to this as definitive proof of Arthur’s birth and historicity; but that is the thing with beliefs, they have no need for evidenced based facts. That said, myths and legends are woven into history, often inspired by real people, places and events, such that the fictions become accepted facts. So, what myths can be dispelled but more importantly, what can we learn from the tales of King Arthur?

A “Dark Age” setting  The Arthurian legend is popularly set in the “Dark Ages” of post-Roman Britain, so-called because of a scarcity of written sources for historians to pore over and debate. The lack of documentary evidence, however, has in more recent decades been offset by archaeological excavations of early Mediæval sites and their related finds. Even so, the end of Roman Britain is frequently stated to have happened, or at least begun, in AD 410; a year often quoted by many populist historians in documentaries. Rather inconveniently, however, archaeological investigation at sites such as Canterbury, Cirencester, Wroxeter, Winchester, Gloucester and even Birdoswald Roman fort on Hadrian’s Wall have clearly shown that Romano-British life continued through the 5th- and into the 6th-century AD. Archaeological evidence from Wroxeter in Shropshire has revealed the occupation of the Roman town continued into AD 600, and the same is true of the former Roman fortress at Birdoswald in Northunbria.

Why 410?  The year AD 410 is still widely advocated because of a letter from Emperor Honorius that has traditionally been seen as rejecting a British appeal to Rome for help against “barbarian” incursions into Britannia from the north and west. Awkwardly, it is increasingly suspected that the emperor’s letter may not have been addressed to the Britons at all but rather to the towns of either Bruttium or Bologna (Moorhead & Stuttard, 2012, 238). Nevertheless, the layers of imperial military and civil government did begin to collapse around this time consigning justice and the administration of Britannia to municipal authorities. The resulting power vacuum meant that anyone with an armed force could quickly become very political. Supported by their loyal soldiers, former military officers gradually emerged across Britain to become local warlords who, presumably, promised to protect the populace from aggressors out of today’s Scotland and Ireland. Such groups (warbands?) most likely still followed Romano-British ideals and conventions. Investigating this process, historian Stuart Laycock has noted elements of continuity from the British tribes in the pre-Roman and Roman periods, through to the native post-Roman kingdoms (Laycock, 2008). That meant the Roman way of life did not end in AD 410 (or after AD 446 as we shall see), but it is into this tumultuous post-Roman Britain that the legend of “King Arthur” is set.

A monastic history  According to Gildas (c. 450/500 – c. 570), the 6th-century British monk and historian, some 1,600 years ago things were not going well in the former province of Britannia. His scathing religious polemic De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae (“On the Ruin and Conquest of Britain”), dated to ca. AD 540, recounts the history of the Britons before and during the arrival of the Saxons. Gildas records that in AD 446, after nearly 400 years of Roman rule, an appeal known as the “Groans of the Britons” was sent to the general Flavius Aetius requesting military assistance to defend Roman Britannia from invasions and attacks by Picts and Irish raiders [3]. Unfortunately, the Roman Empire, especially its western half, was in serious decline and had few military resources to spare. How Rome responded to this appeal, if there was a response at all, is frustratingly missing from the historical record. Even the 8th-century English monk, author and scholar Bede, who repeats Gildas’ earlier account in chapter 13 of his Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (“Ecclesiastical History of the English People”), is silent on the appeal’s outcome. It is most likely that it was about this time (between AD 446 and AD 454) that the Romano-Britons finally discovered they were on their own. 

Gildas is convinced the failure of the Roman armies to secure the province led the Britons to invite Anglo-Saxon mercenaries to the island, which precipitated the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain. In the British tradition, or at least in the writings of the monks Gildas and Bede, the pagan Saxons were invited by Vortigern, the so-called “king of the Britons”, to assist in fighting the northern tribes of Picts, Scoti (Gaels), and Déisi. Gildas’ version of events refers to a “superbus tyrannus” (“proud ruler”) who welcomes the Saxons to this island, while Bede names him Vortigern. The existence of this warlord in post-Roman, 5th-century AD Britain is disputed by scholars, and information about him is obscure to say the least.

Vortigern  The best-known form of the story of this enigmatic character is in Welsh author Geoffrey of Monmouth's pseudohistorical chronicle Historia Regum Britanniae (“The History of the Kings of Britain”). The work, published sometime between 1135 and 1139, traces the British kings to the great-grandson of Aeneas, Trojan hero and legendary founder of Rome. Although the Historia was one of the most popular books of the Middle Ages, its value as a historical source is almost nil. Within its pages, however, Geoffrey fashions the image of a wicked and foolish Vortigern whose ambition leads to the treacherous killing of a king and whose folly leads to inviting the Saxons into Britain. Geoffrey tells of Vortigern persuading Constans, the brother of Uther Pendragon and Aurelius Ambrosius [4], to leave a monastery and ascend to the throne. Thoroughly unsuited to rule, Constans gives all real power to Vortigern, who then engineers the assassination of Constans and has himself named king. Geoffrey’s tale makes for a cracking read, but hard evidence that Vortigern ever existed is sadly lacking. Moreover, this mythical king may not even have been instrumental in instigating a widescale Germanic migration into Britain. The arrival on these shores of Angles and Saxons may have begun much earlier. There is documented evidence for example of auxiliary soldiers recruited from the Germanic provinces supporting Rome’s legions in the province of Britannia in the 1st- and 2nd-centuries AD. Scroll forward to the “Dark Ages”, however, and it appears that the new arrivals rebelled, plunging the country into a series of wars leading to the Saxon occupation of Lowland Britain by AD 600. In AD 577, for example, the Battle of Deorham led to the fall of the significant cities of Bath, Cirencester and Gloucester and allowed the Saxons to finally reach the western sea. Around this time, many Britons fled to Brittany (hence its name), to Galicia in Spain and probably westward to Ireland.

Arthur Rex  It is into this turbulent period of post-Roman rule that Arthur strides onto the stage. The historicity of the king who supposedly resisted the Anglo-Saxon conquest according to later mediæval legends, however, is generally rejected by modern historians. At the very least “Arthur” is a Mediæval first name. It does not have the ring of an earlier age, so the Latin name “Artorius” has been suggested as a more fitting version to conveniently place Arthur in a late-Roman context. Usefully, this name is first recorded historically when one Lucius Artorius Castus is cited as the Roman commander of a detachment of Sarmatian conscripts stationed in Britain. Said to have led his contingent of mounted troops to Gaul (Latin: Gallia; today’s France) to quell a rebellion, one theory suggests Castus' actions are the basis for similar exploits in the Arthurian legend and furthermore that the name Artorius became a title, or honorific, ascribed to a famous warrior in the 5th-century AD (Gill, 2019).

Geoffrey of Monmouth certainly connects the British king with the tail end of the Western Roman Empire and also wrote that Arthur campaigned and “conquered Gaul”. Importantly Geoffrey’s pseudohistorical Historia Regum Britanniae draws on earlier Welsh sources, albeit ones written some 300 years after the events they claim to document. One of these is the purported history of Britain written around AD 828 and known as Historia Brittonum (“The History of the Britons”). Although its authorship may be an anonymous compilation, the work is traditionally attributed to Nennius, a 9th-century AD Welsh monk, but only survives in numerous revisions dated after the 11th-century. Historia Brittonum is the source of Britain’s origin story when, after the fall of Troy, the land was settled by fleeing Trojans. These refugees were led by a descendant of Aeneas [5] called Brutus from whose name Britain is derived. The tale included in Geoffrey’s very popular later work, Historia Regum Britanniae, meant the Trojan origin tradition was duly incorporated into subsequent chronicles of the long-running history of Britain. Regardless, Historia Brittonum was the first source to feature Arthur not as a king but as a dux bellorum (a late Roman term for a “military leader”) or more simply as miles (“warrior, soldier”). Along with Historia Brittonum and Welsh poems such as Y Gododdin, Geoffrey undoubtedly drew inspiration from at least one other Welsh source, Annales Cambriae [5]. Within this work are two entries on King Arthur, one on Medraut (Mordred), and one on Merlin (see below). Together they have been presented as proof of the existence of Arthur and Merlin. This view is no longer widely held since the Arthurian entries could have been added arbitrarily as late as AD 970 which is long after the development of the early Arthurian myth.

Geoffrey of Monmouth’s (possible) connection to Wales probably gave rise to the notion that Arthur was himself Welsh. He was clearly not of Anglo-Saxon stock since our Welsh sources portray him as a leader in post-Roman Britain battling Saxons in the late 5th- and early 6th-centuries. It is conceivable that the Welsh connection might stem from the Old English word Wielisc [7] which meant “foreign” or, more significantly, “not Anglo-Saxon”. In other words, to the Anglo-Saxons Arthur would have been an indigenous Briton but perhaps not Welsh in the modern sense. Regardless, the character clearly developed through Welsh mythology, appearing either as a great warrior defending Britain from human and supernatural enemies or as a magical figure of folklore, sometimes associated with the Welsh otherworld Annwn.

Cast list  The popularity of Geoffrey of Monmouth's fanciful and imaginative 12th-century Historia Regum Britanniae developed Arthur into a figure of legendary international interest. Arthur was not just a king of Britain who defeated the Saxons but a king who established a vast empire in northwest Europe. Geoffrey's Historia is instrumental in establishing the many elements and incidents that are now an integral part of the Arthurian story. These include introducing readers to Arthur's father Uther Pendragon, the magician Merlin, Arthur's wife Guinevere, the sword Excalibur, Arthur's conception at Tintagel, his final battle against Mordred at Camlann, and his final rest in Avalon. Later, in the 12th-century, the French writer Chrétien de Troyes added Lancelot and the Holy Grail to the story. In fact, it was Chrétien who was responsible for introducing the romance element that became a significant strand of Mediæval literature. Romance stories in this sense emphasise Mediæval notions of courtly love [8] and are more concerned with tales of chivalry and knights in warfare as they rescue fair maidens and battle supernatural forces. In these French stories, the narrative often shifts from King Arthur to focus on other characters, such as various Knights of the Round Table. The 14th-century chivalric romance concerning Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is one of the best-known examples in the Arthurian corpus. The themes, events and characters of the Arthurian legend vary widely from text to text, and there is no one canonical version. Today Arthur is surrounded by a familiar cast of characters some of whom have a long tradition while others, like Sir Lancelot, were added by later authors. Here are just a selection.

Merlin  One of the most famous characters associated with Arthur is the mystical Merlin. In some versions of the legend it is Merlin’s magic that aids Uther Pendragon’s seduction of Queen Igerna and the fathering of Arthur. The literary Merlin first appears in Prophetiae Merlini a 12th-century poem written in Latin hexameters by John of Cornwall. There is a strong possibility that Geoffrey of Monmouth, who popularised Merlin in his AD 1150 work Vita Merlini (“Merlin's Life”), knew of and plagiarised the poem. Geoffrey, as we have already discovered, drew on a Welsh tradition, specifically a poem dated to AD 600 concerning a bard or prophet named “Myrddin”. A somewhat similar individual appears in Cornish tales as “Marzhin” and in Breton as “Merzhin” but, apparently worried that an Anglo-Norman audience would take offense at the similarity between the name Merdinus and the French word merde, Geoffrey changed the prophet's name. Thus it is “Merlin” that helps Uther Pendragon, and Merlin who was instrumental in moving the stones from Ireland that would form Stonehenge. Geoffrey further developed the Merlin story by adapting a northern legend about a wild man of the woods, gifted with powers of divination, which led Geoffrey to the incorporate the “Prophecies of Merlin” into his Historia Regum Britanniae. Yet, being based on early British mythology, Vita Merlini provides insufficient evidence of an actual person. As reliable 5th- and 6th-century records have not survived, it is impossible to say confidently that a character named “Merlin” existed or was even contemporary with the equally legendary Arthur.

Early in the 13th-century, the poet Robert de Borron added a Christian dimension to the Merlin character making him a prophet of the Holy Grail, which by then had already been incorporated into the Arthurian legend. Later Merlin’s role as Arthur’s counsellor would be developed to mirror his earlier advice that Uther should establish the knightly fellowship of the Round Table. By this point in the legend’s evolution it was Merlin who suggested that Uther’s true heir would be revealed by drawing a sword set in a stone and also introduced Merlin’s infatuation with the Lady of the Lake, a passion that would eventually result in his death.

Was Merlin a sage, a mage or a druid?  Merlin was certainly thought of as magician but,  as the story evolved, he also became a sage providing wise or prophetic counsel. This has led some to believe that perhaps the name “Merlin” was more akin to a title held by a senior druid. For those drawn to this idea, it is worth cautioning that the definitive evidence for druids is sparse. Much is written by modern commentators emphasising they were some sort of superior class of priests as well as political advisors, teachers, healers and arbitrators among the Iron Age tribes. In truth little is known about the extent of druidic influence, their beliefs or rituals.

What we think we know relies almost solely on the Romans who, having first visited and later conquered France (Gaul) and Britain, reportedly met druids and wrote about their practices. Yet these accounts may not always have been completely truthful so the descriptions of Roman authors should be treated with scepticism. Archaeology rarely finds tangible evidence for priests in the Iron Age, but they do find evidence for religious rites and sacrifices. For many, it is assumed these were carried out by druids, but conclusive proof is at best scant. It is abundantly clear that the modern druidic revival, which started in earnest in the 19th-century, has no direct connection to the priests of the Iron Age. Many of the resulting popular notions of druids are therefore based on the misunderstandings and misconceptions of scholars some 200 years ago. There is, for example, no link between the Iron Age druids and the people who built and “worshipped” at Stonehenge. This ancient monument may have featured in the rites of a lost and unknowable religion, but this ended long before the Iron Age began. Even so, try convincing self-styled modern “druids” whose annual pilgrimage to Stonehenge at the summer solstice is of course welcomed by English Heritage, the site’s commercial custodians. A thought provoking, extensive and systematic history of the ways in which ideas about druids in Britain have developed over the last 300 years is presented in Professor Ronald Hutton’s work “Blood and Mistletoe” (2009).

All we can truly say is that Merlin is an enigmatic figure central to the Arthurian legend. The variations and inconsistencies in his character are seemingly dictated by the requirements of a particular narrative or by changing attitudes of suspicious regard toward magic and witchcraft. The treatments of Merlin do however reflect the different stages in the development of Arthurian romance itself.

Morgan le Fay  The archetypal femme fatale, Morgan le Fay is styled as a powerful and ambiguous enchantress. Her epithet “le Fay” is a pseudo-French phrase coined in the 15th-century by Thomas Malory, author of “La Morte d’Arthur”. He most likely derived it from the original French descriptive form la fée (“the fairy”) thus establishing her as “Morgan the Fairy”, an enchanted or magical creature. Her early appearances in Arthurian literature establish Morgan’s role as a goddess, a fay (“fairy”), a witch or a sorceress who is generally benevolent and connected to Arthur as his magical saviour and protector. As with other characters, her prominence increased as the legend of Arthur developed over time, as did her moral ambivalence. In some texts there is an evolutionary transformation of Morgan to an antagonist, particularly in the Lancelot-Grail prose and the Post-Vulgate Cycle. A significant aspect in many of Morgan's mediæval and later iterations is the unpredictable duality of her nature, with a potential for both good and evil. Male prejudice in this period habitually seeks to undermine independent women either to marginalise them or, at the very least, to re-assert male dominance at a time when women were supposed to be subservient to men. Thus, it seems that Morgan came to represent “evil” in the ubiquitous “good versus evil” storyline.

The earliest documented account, by Geoffrey of Monmouth in Vita Merlini, associates Morgan  with the Isle of Apples (Avalon), to which Arthur was carried after having been fatally wounded at the Battle of Camlann. In this version she is the leader of the nine magical sisters unrelated to Arthur. In fact, Geoffrey's description of Morgen and her sisters closely resembles the story of the nine Gaulish priestesses of the isle of Sena (now Île de Sein). Known as Gallisenae, they were originally described by the 1st-century Roman geographer Pomponius Mela. Subsequently it has been reasoned that Pomponius’ De situ orbis (“Description of the World”) was one of Geoffrey's sources.

Romance authors of the late 12th-century determined that Morgan was Arthur's supernatural elder sister. While in the 13th-century prose cycles – and the later works based on them, including Malory’s influential “Le Morte d'Arthur” – she is the youngest daughter of Arthur's mother Igraine and her first husband Gorlois. Arthur, being the son of Igraine and Uther Pendragon, is thus Morgan's half-brother. In more modern times, she was said to be the mother of Arthur's son and nemesis Mordred, but Mordred’s mother was the Queen of Orkney, Morgan’s full sister.

Some accounts have Morgan becoming an apprentice of Merlin, and a capricious and vindictive adversary of some knights of the Round Table, all the while harbouring a special hatred for Arthur's wife Guinevere. In this tradition, she is also sexually active and even predatory, taking numerous lovers that may include Merlin, while maintaining an unrequited love for Lancelot. In some variants, including in the popular retelling by Malory, Morgan is the greatest enemy of Arthur, scheming to usurp his throne and indirectly becoming an instrument of his death. Eventually, however, she reconciles with Arthur and resumes the role given her in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Vita Merlini of taking Arthur on his final journey to Avalon.

Guinevere  According to Arthurian legend, Guinevere was an early-medieval queen of Great Britain and the wife of King Arthur. Her earliest datable appearance is once more in Geoffrey of Monmouth's 12th-century pseudo-historical British chronicle Historia Regum Britanniae, written nearly 700 years after the purported times of Arthur. Geoffrey’s tale includes her seduction by Mordred during his ill-fated rebellion against Arthur while later developments to the Arthurian legend, from the French romance tradition, introduce the queen’s notorious tragic love affair with her husband's chief knight and trusted friend, Lancelot. In this version, popularised by Thomas Malory’s seminal English compilation “Le Morte d'Arthur”, the affair indirectly causes the death of Arthur and the downfall of the kingdom. Other themes found in Malory and other texts include Guinevere's barrenness, the scheme of Guinevere's evil twin to replace her, and the particular hostility displayed towards Guinevere by her sister-in-law Morgan le Fay.

Guinevere has continued to be a popular character featured in numerous adaptations of the legend since the 19th-century Arthurian revival. Many modern authors, usually following or inspired by Malory's telling, continue to define Guinevere’s character through her illicit relationship with Lancelot. Since Geoffrey of Monmouth’s introduction, Guinevere has been portrayed as everything from a fatally flawed, villainous, and opportunistic traitor to a noble and virtuous lady in the finest of chivalric traditions.

Lancelot du Lac  King Arthur's close companion and one of the greatest Knights of the Round Table is Lancelot du Lac (“Lancelot of the Lake”). He is not present in the earlier versions of the legend but becomes a popular character through the chivalric romance tradition. Lancelot's first datable appearance as main character is found in Chrétien de Troyes' 12th-century French poem “Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart”. This was centred around his courtly love for Arthur's wife, Guinevere. However, another early Lancelot poem, “Lanzelet”, a German translation of an unknown French book, did not feature the secret love affair creating an uncertainty about a possible common source and how both texts may be related. Later, Lancelot’s character and his story from Chrétien's tale is expanded in the subsequent works of Arthurian romance, especially Malory’s “Le Morte d'Arthur”, to become the now-familiar version of his legend. 

In his most prominent and complete depiction, Lancelot is a beautiful, orphaned son of King Ban of the lost kingdom of Benoïc. He is raised in a fairy realm by the Lady of the Lake while unaware of his real parentage before joining Arthur's court as young knight and discovering his origins. A hero of many battles, quests and tournaments, and famed as a nearly unrivalled swordsman and jouster, Lancelot soon becomes the lord of the castle Joyous Gard and personal champion of Queen Guinevere, to whom he is devoted absolutely. In some versions of the legend Lancelot suffers from frequent and sometimes prolonged fits of violent rage and other forms of madness. The romance tradition introduces Lancelot being magically seduced by the Lady Elaine which results in their son, Galahad. Devoid of his father's flaws of character, Galahad becomes the perfect knight who succeeds in completing the greatest of all quests, achieving the Holy Grail when Lancelot himself fails due to his sins. Eventually, when Lancelot's adulterous affair with Guinevere is publicly discovered, it develops into a bloody civil war that, once exploited by Mordred, brings an end to Arthur's kingdom. Both loyal and treasonous, Lancelot has remained a popular character for centuries and is often being variably reimagined by modern authors.

Excalibur  While not exactly a “character” in the Arthurian legend, no account would be complete without mentioning “Excalibur”, the sword that plays such a central role in the tradition. Perhaps surprisingly, however, Excalibur is not the magical “sword in the stone” that the hereto unknown Arthur effortlessly withdraws from its lithic resting place to fulfil the prophesised return of the rightful king of the Britons. Very early in his reign, however, the young Arthur breaks it in his duel against King Pellinore. On Merlin's advice, Arthur accompanies him and, in exchange for a later boon, the Lady of the Lake gives Arthur the actual “Excalibur”. So, while the sword in the stone is the proof of Arthur's lineage, it is not sword he will carry until, on the brink of death, he enigmatically orders his surviving knight Griflet (later Bedivere) [9] to cast Excalibur into a nearby pool after the battle at Camlann [10]. The confusion probably stems from those versions of the legend that give both weapons the same name. According to Bromwich and Simon Evans (1992, 64–65) “Excalibur” derives from the Welsh Caledfwlch, a compound of caled meaning “hard” and bwlch, “breach, cleft”. It is unclear if the name was an early loan word from Welsh or represents an earlier, pan-Brittonic traditional name for Arthur's sword (Koch, 2006, 329). Either way, Geoffrey of Monmouth Latinised the name to “Caliburnus” in his Historia Regum Britanniae. When his influential pseudo-history made it to continental Europe, writers altered the name further until it finally took on the popular form “Excalibur”.

Incidentally, the “sword in the stone” trope may have something of a historical and archaeological precedent. The early casting of swords suggests the use of clay moulds but by the middle Bronze Age there is evidence of moulds carved in stone blocks. Such moulds have the advantage of being reusable, even though the casting process did not necessarily produce identical blades. Witnesses to the swordsmith’s creative art would have seen a blade physically drawn from a stone perhaps giving rise to the legend.

“Caliburnus”, however, is the name used in the movie “The Last Legion” which, according to the screenwriters, is the sword of none other than Gaius Julius Caesar. Unsurprisingly, this is complete nonsense. Never mind the ridiculous pentangle on the pommel, from a historical perspective the movie blade’s length is too long and the fittings, such as eagle cross guard, are incorrect for the typical gladius wielded in the Roman Republic of the mid-1st-century BC. It is worth noting, however, that gladius (pl. gladii) is the general Latin word for “sword” and as such does not relate to a specific design. In the Roman Republic, the term gladius Hispaniensis (“Spanish sword”) referred (and still refers) specifically to a shorter sword, approximately 60 cm (24”) long, used by Roman legionaries as their primary weapon from the 3rd-century BC onward. Several different better-known designs followed, the most widely recognised being the “Mainz” pattern and the “Pompeii” pattern (the names referring to where or how the canonical example was found). The “Mainz” pattern, developed from the Hispaniensis, had generally wider, diamond-section blades of 50 to 75 cm (c. 20 in to 30 in) long. These were slightly waisted along their length, with a long tapering point. The “Mainz” pattern seems to have entered service in the 1st-century BC and continued in use until at least AD 40 and possibly beyond. A variation called the “Fulham” pattern (third from the left below) also had a long point but was only 5 cm (2 in) wide with straight edges that flared slightly at the hilt. The “Pompeii” pattern gladii were simpler derivatives of the “Mainz” type with a narrower diamond-section blade approximately 5 cm (2 in) wide and 45 to 50 cm (18 in to 20 in) long. Its edges were parallel with a shorter, triangular shaped point. Overall, these swords varied in length between 60 cm and 65 cm (24 in to 26 in) and weigh approximately 700 g (1.5 lb). The “Pompeii” pattern was in service by the AD 50s, remaining in general use into the 2nd-century AD. To confuse matters slightly, over the years the “Pompeii” pattern sword got longer, and these later versions were called semispathae or half-swords.

Literary tales  So, there is no clear historical evidence for a real-life king named Arthur, and no one individual can be clearly identified as the inspiration for the character who has been so popular in English culture from the 12th-century onward. Drawing on its Mediæval foundations, the Arthurian legend has been repeatedly reinvented for each new audience. The tale has transitioned from the earliest Welsh stories and poems through the embellishments of the French chivalric romance tradition to novels and eventually to television and cinema. Each rendition mixes the various familiar elements in new ways often to reflect the prevailing mores of each age. Each retelling adds a little more to the legend as King Arthur emerges from or returns to the shadows of history.

Ultimately Arthur’s story is a great yarn whose many versions continue to captivate audiences today. But it is Rosemary Sutcliffe’s “The Sword at Sunset” (1963) that resonates the best with Tastes Of History. Her novel sets Arthur firmly in a “Dark Age” of Saxon invasions and British resistance. In this version Arthur is not the king - that role held by Ambrosius, a former Roman officer and a man determined to preserve Roman ideals. Arthur is instead the experienced leader of a warband, an element that echoes with the known post-Roman history of Britain. However, Sutcliffe’s excellent story line does follow the outdated version of British history that emphasised an Anglo-Saxon invasion and subjugation of the native Britons pushed ever westward to become the Cornish, Welsh and Cumbrians. Despite a wealth of evidence to the contrary, this is unfortunately another myth that, in the popular imagination at least, refuses to die. Even so, “The Sword at Sunset” is well worth reading.

References:

Britannica, (2024), “Merlin: legendary magician”, Available online, accessed 10 March 2024.

Bromwich, R. & Simon Evans, D. (1992), “Culhwch and Olwen, An Edition and Study of the Oldest Arthurian Tale”, Cardiff: University of Wales Press.

Gill, N.S., (2019), “Did Merlin Exist?”, ThoughtCo, Available online (accessed March 10th, 2024).

Hutton, R. (2009), “Blood and Mistletoe: the history of the Druids in Britain”, Yale University Press.

Koch, J., (2006), “Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia”, Volume 1, ABC-CLIO, p. 329.

Laycock, S., (2008), ‘Britannia: the Failed State’, The History Press.

Moorhead, S. & Stuttard, D., (2012), ‘The Romans who Shaped Britain’, London: Thames & Hudson.

Endnotes:

1. Geoffrey’s fictional history had an enormous influence on later chroniclers, but for the most part, modern-day historians are unanimous in dismissing his claims of accuracy. Even so Historia Regum Britanniae was considered by some as a factual retelling of events and, in some areas, was given credence well into the 16th-century. Today it is now thought by most to be unreliable and hold almost no value at all as a historical source.

2. Also known as William Worcester, William of Worcester, and William Botoner, he was an English topographer, antiquary and chronicler.

3. The Groans of the Britons (Latin: gemitus Britannorum) is the final appeal made between AD 446 and AD 454 by the Britons to the Roman military for assistance against Pict and Scot raiders. The appeal is first referenced in Gildas' 6th century De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae. Gildas' account was later repeated in chapter 13 of Bede's Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum. According to Gildas, the message was addressed to one ‘Agitius’, who is generally identified with Flavius Aetius, magister militum (“master of soldiers”) of the Western Roman Empire who spent most of the 440s fighting insurgents in Gaul and Hispania.

4. In De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae (“On the Ruin and Conquest of Britain”) Gildas mentions Vortigern and Ambrosius Aurelianus thus gifting Geoffrey of Monmouth these characters.

5. Aeneas, mythical hero of Troy and Rome, son of the goddess Aphrodite and Anchises. A member of the royal line, and cousin of Hector, he played a prominent part in defending Troy against the Greeks during the Trojan War. Aeneas was said to be the leader of the Trojan survivors after Troy was captured by the Greeks.

6. The Annales Cambriae (Latin for “Annals of Wales”) is a complex of Latin chronicles compiled or derived from diverse sources at St David's in Dyfed, Wales. The earliest is a 12th-century presumed copy of a mid-10th-century original. Despite the name, the Annales Cambriae record not only events in Wales, but also events in Ireland, Cornwall, England, Scotland and sometimes further afield, although the focus for the events recorded in the latter two-thirds of the text is Wales.

7. Also Wylisc in West Saxon or Welisc/Wælisc in Anglian and Kentish respectively.

8. Courtly love was a Mediæval European literary conception of love emphasising nobility and chivalry. Medieval literature is filled with examples of knights setting out on adventures and performing various deeds or services for ladies because of their “courtly love”. Originally a literary fiction created for the entertainment of the nobility, as time passed these ideas about love spread to popular culture and attracted a larger literate audience.

9. Griflet felt that such a great sword should not be thrown away, so after two failed attempts to deceive Arthur, he finally complies with the wounded king's request. A woman's hand emerges from the pool to catch Excalibur, and shortly afterward Morgan appears to take Arthur to Avalon.

10. The Battle of Camlann is the legendary final battle of King Arthur in which he either died or was mortally wounded while fighting either alongside or against Mordred, who also perished. In the later French romance tradition, it became known as the Battle of Salisbury being fought on Salisbury Plain.

About History: Testudo

Etymology  The Roman testudo means “tortoise” not “turtle”, even if Rex Harrison, playing Julius Caesar in the 1963 film “Cleopatra”, uses the latter term. To be fair, he was delivering a line from script written by an American, which may sound a little condescending until one realises that in North America “turtle” is used to denote the whole group of creatures. In fact, the order’s name, Testudines, is based on the Latin word testudo meaning “tortoise” and was coined by German naturalist August Batsch in 1788. The word “turtle”, however, is borrowed from the French word tortue or tortre which is seemingly used interchangeably to mean either “turtle” or “tortoise”. In Britain, where tortoises and turtles are not native, “turtle” is reserved for sea turtles as opposed to freshwater terrapins and land-dwelling tortoises.

The ancient Roman army used the term testudo because their soldiers’ shields formed an all-round shell-like defence reminiscent of a tortoise. The front rank of men, possibly excluding those on the two flanks, held their shields from about shin height to their eyes, creating a contiguous “wall” protecting the formation's front. Those men in the succeeding ranks would raise their shields above their heads using the shields to not only protect themselves but also the head of the man preceding them. There has been some debate as to whether shields were underlapped as shown in the colour image above or overlapped as shown in the black and white image from a relief panel on Trajan’s Column in Rome. In fact, contemporary imagery from the Roman period depicts shields being used in both styles so either manner is attested and thus correct.

From experience overlapping shields is easier to execute, even while advancing, but critics have claimed that arrows, for example, could breach the formation passing under the shield rim. As can be observed in the accompanying image of a small testudo, gaps in the overlapped shields are minimal. The biggest danger is the much larger opening where the front rank men’s heads can be seen. While one man has to keep watch to “steer” the formation, the threat to the others can be minimised by tilting the head downward so the crown of the helmet is presented and the face protected. From bitter experience, a well placed arrow can still penetrate the testudo, but such shots are the exception.

The men along the formation’s flanks, however, would present a shield wall to either side of the testudo. If necessary, the soldiers at the rear of the formation could stand backwards with their shields held as the front ranks to protect the formation's rear. In this manner the testudo offered all-round defence against opposing infantry and excellent protection against arrows and other missile attacks, albeit at the cost of reducing the speed and mobility of the formation.

Battlefield use  The two principal uses of the testudo most often quoted are as a defence against enemy missiles or projectiles, or to close on defended positions or fortifications during sieges. The former was most likely employed by stationary troops as Cassius Dio implies in his description of Mark Antony’s campaign in 36 BC:

“This testudo and the way in which it is formed are as follows. The baggage animals, the light-armed troops, and the cavalry are placed in the centre of the army. The heavy-armed troops who use the oblong, curved, and cylindrical shields are drawn up around the outside, making a rectangular figure; and, facing outward and holding their arms at the ready, they enclose the rest. The others, who have flat shields, form a compact body in the centre and raise their shields over the heads of all the others so that nothing but shields can be seen in every part of the phalanx alike and all the men by the density of the formation are under shelter from missiles. Indeed, it is so marvellously strong that men can walk upon it and whenever they come to a narrow ravine, even horses and vehicles can be driven over it.” (Cassius Dio, “Roman History”, XLIX, 30)

Dio does not suggest that Anthony’s troops were moving but the testudo can be used on the march. Because of its density or compact nature of the formation, the primary drawback was that it was more difficult to fight in hand-to-hand combat and because the soldiers are required to move in unison, speed was sacrificed. Yet it is documented that the steadily advancing testudo was used in siege warfare to close on and storm a defended position. Tacitus, for example, recorded its use during the siege of the city of Cremona by the troops commanded by Marcus Antonius Primus, part of Titus Flavius Vespasianus’ army. During the attack the troops advanced under the rampart “holding their shields above their heads in close ‘tortoise’ formation” (Tacitus, “Histories”, III, 27).

The testudo was not invincible. Once again Cassius Dio provides an account of a Roman testudo being defeated by Parthian cataphracts and horse archers at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BC:

“For if [the legionaries] decided to lock shields for the purpose of avoiding the arrows by the closeness of their array, the [cataphracts] were upon them with a rush, striking down some, and at least scattering the others; and if they extended their rank to avoid this, they would be struck with the arrows.” (Cassius Dio, “Roman History”, XL, 22)

Forming a testudo severely restricted the Romans ability to engage in melee combat. The Parthian cataphracts exploited that weakness and repeatedly charged the Roman line, which caused panic and inflicted heavy casualties. When the Romans tried to open their formation to repel the cataphracts, the latter rapidly retreated, and the horse archers resumed shooting at the legionaries, who were now more exposed. In effect the Parthians were able to pin the soldiers of Marcus Licinius Crassus’ army in place and systematically engage them with cavalry charges and withering volleys of arrows from a distance.

Mythbusting  As an aside, after the defeat at Carrhae an estimated 10,000 Roman prisoners of war appear to have been deported to Alexandria Margiana (Merv) near the Parthian Empire's northeastern border in 53 BC. Employed as border guards they reportedly married local women. Nearly twenty years later the nomadic Xiongnu tribal confederation [1], led by their chieftain Zhizhi Chanyu, had migrated east and established a state in the Talas valley, near modern-day Taraz, Kazakhstan. Fearful that Zhizhi was planning to build a great empire, in 36 BC the Chinese Han Dynasty launched a pre-emptive attack and besieged Zhizhi’s wooden-palisade fortress. According to the Chinese account of one Ban Gu, during the subsequent Battle of Zhizhi about “a hundred men” under the Zhizhi’s command fought in a so-called “fish-scale formation”. In the 1940s, Homer H. Dubs, an American professor of Chinese history at the University of Oxford, hypothesized that this might have been the Roman testudo formation and that these men, who were captured by the Chinese, founded the village of Liqian (Li-chien, possibly from “legio”) in Yongchang County. Dubs proposed that the people of Liqian [2] were thus descended from these Roman prisoners. To date, no artifacts that might confirm a Roman presence, such as coins or weaponry, have been discovered in Liqian. Dubs' theories therefore have been rejected by modern historians and geneticists on the grounds of a critical appraisal of the ancient sources and recent DNA testing of Liqian residents. This “rural myth”, which quite regularly resurfaces on social media, has spawned at least three works of popular fiction. Alfred Duggan used the possible fate of the Roman prisoners as the kernel of his novel “Winter Quarters” suggesting they were employed as frontier guards on the eastern border of the Parthian Empire. Ben Kane used the recurring myth as the basis for his novel “The Forgotten Legion”. While in “Empire of the Dragons”, Valerio Massimo Manfredi deviates slightly from the premise placing the starting point of his novel in AD 260, some 200 years after Crassus’ ill-fated campaign. In Manfredi’s version a small group of Roman soldiers escape the Parthians but end up as the personal bodyguard of an exiled prince accompanying him on his epic journey through the forests of India, the Himalayan mountains, the deserts of central Asia and all the way to the heart of China.

Phoulkon  Despite this apparent weakness the testudo could still be an effective defence against less well-trained cavalry. Thus we encounter in Plutarch’s version of Mark Antony’s campaign in Parthia in 36 BC a description of the testudo being used as a static defensive formation:

“Then the shield-bearers wheeled about, enclosing the lighter armed troops within their ranks, while they themselves dropped on one knee and held their shields out before them. The second rank held their shields out over the heads of the first, and the next rank likewise. The resulting appearance is very like that of a roof, affords a striking spectacle, and is the most effective of protections against arrows, which glide off from it.” (Plutarch, Parallel Lives: Anthony, 45)

The description is reminiscent of the much later “phoulkon” (Greek: φοῦλκον), in Latin: *fulcum, a close-order infantry formation used by the military of the late Roman and Byzantine Empire. The term “phoulkon” is first attested in the Strategikon of Maurice, a military manual written in the AD 590s. Although written in Greek, the author of the Strategikon “also frequently employed Latin and other terms which have been in common military use” (Rance, 2004, 267). Like other military terminology found in the manual, “phoulkon” is likely a Greek transliteration of a hypothetical Latin word *fulcum, a term not attested in any surviving texts (Rance, 2004, 286). The only other early Byzantine author to use the term was Theophanes the Confessor, who describes Rhazates arranging his troops in three phoulka when facing Heraclius's army at the Battle of Nineveh in AD 627 (Rance, 2004, 310–311). Later Byzantine writings, such as De velitatione bellica and Praecepta Militaria, describe keeping a portion of troops, either cavalry or infantry, in phoulka to serve as guard while the rest of the army dispersed for pillaging or foraging. These later usages appear to have evolved to simply mean a “battle formation”, rather than Maurice's specific description of a shield wall tactic (Rance, 2004, 321–324).

Before close contact with the enemy, and while outside archery range, on the command “ad fulco” (αδ φουλκω) the infantry closed ranks and formed a shield wall from the first two lines (Rance, 2004, 271–272). As they advanced, light infantry from the rear would shoot arrows at the enemy while the heavy infantry could hurl martiobarbuli darts or throw their spears before closing and engaging in hand-to-hand combat with the spatha (Rance, 2004, 274–275). In the presence of enemy cavalry, the first three ranks of the phoulkon would form a shield wall and thrust their spears outwards while fixing the ends in the ground. The third and subsequent rear ranks would hurl projectiles, while the light infantry shot arrows (Rance, 2004, 276–280).

Though only the Strategikon explicitly describes this formation as a phoulkon, such tactics appear to have been established Roman practice. In the Strategikon we read:

“If the enemy [cavalry], coming within a bow shot, attempts to break or dislodge the phalanx...then the infantry close up in the regular manner. And the first, second and third man in each file are to form themselves into a phoulkon, that is, one shield upon another, and having thrust their spears straight forward beyond their shields, fix them firmly in the ground...They also lean their shoulders and put their weight against their shields so that they might easily endure the pressure from those outside. The third man, standing more upright, and the fourth, holding their spears like javelins either stab those coming close or hurl them and draw their swords.”

In his work Ektaxis kata Alanon (“Deployment against the Alans”) Arrian describes an almost identical tactic used centuries earlier against the Alans:

“If [the enemy cavalry] do approach, the first three ranks, closing their shields together and exerting pressure with their shoulders, should receive the attack as steadfastly as possible and locking together very closely, pressing themselves together as firmly as they are able. The fourth rank should throw javelins overhead, while the third rank should strike with their spears or throw them like javelins unstintingly at both horses and riders.”

Other tactical uses  Testudines were also employed to cross obstacles if we believe Cassius Dio’s comment: “…whenever they come to a narrow ravine, even horses and vehicles can be driven over it.” One suspects that this might be something performed in extremis when no other options were immediately available. Scrambling up a testudo to scale a palisade or wall appears feasible although curved shields would not offer a particularly good climbing surface. Moreover, in the face of a determined defender it seems a riskier option than using scaling ladders which are attested and would be far more effective. 

A fifth use is revealed by Plutarch comment “enclosing the lighter armed troops within their ranks”. The same sentiment is expressed in Cassius Dio’s description of the testudo being used to protect “[t]he baggage animals, the light-armed troops, and the cavalry…placed in the centre of the army.” Two further uses of testudines have been suggested, namely as a defence when reforming troops during lulls in battle and in critical situations during a melee. The former, presumably resembling the aforementioned “phoulkon”, would rely on the troops breaking contact with the enemy to give them the time and space to re-order their ranks. The latter example seems counter-intuitive in the classic all-round defensive testudo which provides little option for hand-to-hand combat but less so if using “phoulka”.

Later usage  Testudines were a common feature in the Middle Ages. The following examples serve to prove the tactical sense of using shield formations in battle, especially during sieges where attackers are vulnerable to missiles from the defensive works above (Rance, 2004, 286; 310-311; 321-324):

• A testudo was used by Muhammad's forces during the Siege of Ta'if in AD 630 (Muir, 1861, 145).

• The Carolingian Frankish soldiers of Louis the Pious used one to advance on the walls of Barcelona during the siege of the city in AD 800–801.

• During the siege of Paris in AD 885–886 the Norse besiegers would undoubtedly have used their shields to protect against the defenders’ missiles as the approached the walls and during any breaching assault.

• East Frankish soldiers under King Arnulf of Carinthia used a similar tactic during the siege of Bergamo in AD 894, as did the Lotharingians under Conrad the Red at the siege of Senlis in AD 949, and by Lotharingian defenders at the siege of Verdun in AD 984.

• Just over a century later and the Crusaders of Count Raymond IV of Toulouse were employing the same tactic during the siege of Nicaea in AD 1097 (Bradbury, 1992, 280).

The testudo formation was again employed by Mediæval Arabs, who called it the dabbāba or “crawler”. It was employed by Abu Abdallah al-Shi'i in the AD 906 siege of Tobna (in modern-day Algeria), where he used it to protect sappers as they advanced to the city walls to undermine and collapse a tower, creating a breach for their allies to enter the city (Halm, 1996, 110).

Although in popular culture testudines are associated with the Romans, the formation has a much longer history. This makes perfect sense when one considers that this obvious and simple tactic allows shield armed troops to not only safely manoeuvre, whether on the battlefield or during a siege, but also protect themselves against missiles and projectiles. Indeed, testudines can be observed being employed by modern riot police in various countries across the globe. And why would they not – the testudo just works. Bon appétit!

References:

Bradbury, J., (1992), “The Medieval Siege”, Woodbridge: Boydell Press.

Cassius Dio, “Roman History”, Book XL, chapter 22, Volume III of the Loeb Classical Library 1914 edition, available online at LacusCurtius (accessed 25 March 2025).

Cassius Dio, “Roman History”, Book XLIX, chapter 30, Volume V of the Loeb Classical Library 1917 edition, available online at LacusCurtius (accessed 25 March 2025).

Halm, H., (1996), “The Empire of the Mahdi: The Rise of the Fatimids”, (Translated from the German by Michael Bonner), Leiden: E.J. Brill.

Muir, W., (1861), “The Life of Mahomet and History of Islam to the Era of the Hegira: With Introductory Chapters on the Original Sources for the Biography of Mahomet and on the Pre-Islamite History of Arabia”, Smith, Elder & Company.

Plutarch, “Parallel Lives: Antony, chapter 45”, Volume IX of the Loeb Classical Library 1920 edition, available online at LacusCurtius (accessed 23 March 2025). 

Rance, P., (2004), “The Fulcum, the Late Roman and Byzantine Testudo: The Germanization of Roman Infantry Tactics?”, Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 44, pp. 265–326.

Tacitus, “Histories”, Book III, chapter 27, Volume II of the Loeb Classical Library 1925 edition, available online at LacusCurtius (accessed 25 March 2025).

Endnotes:

1. The Xiongnu (Chinese: 匈奴) were a tribal confederation of nomadic peoples who, according to ancient Chinese sources, inhabited the eastern Eurasian Steppe from the 3rd century BC to the late 1st century AD.

2. Zhelaizhai (traditional Chinese: 者來寨) is a village on the edge of the Gobi desert in Gansu province, China. The area was renamed after Liqian, an ancient county, and is located in Jiaojiazhuang township, Yongchang County. Some of the modern-day residents of Zhelaizhai, now known as Liqian village, claim to be the descendants of the accounted for Roman prisoners of war after the Battle of Carrhae.

Dispelling Some Myths: Witches

In an earlier article we used a common mistake made in dramatic reconstructions, this time in a BBC television documentary series “Lucy Worsley investigates…”, to explain the difference between pillories and stocks. Usefully for the present purpose, the first episode focused on “The Hunt for Witches” and followed the case of Scottish “wise woman” and healer Agnes Sampson. 

The case of Agnes Sampson  Two years after King James VI of Scotland’s mother, Mary Queen of Scots, had been executed another dramatic event deepened the King’s growing obsession with magic and witchcraft. In 1589 he was betrothed to Anne of Denmark, but she almost lost her life in a violent tempest on her voyage across the North Sea to meet her new husband. In an uncharacteristic show of chivalry, James resolved to sail to Denmark and collect her in person. On the royal couple’s return voyage, the Scottish fleet was battered by further storms sinking one of the ships. James immediately placed the blame on witches, claiming that they must have cast evil spells upon his fleet. As soon as he reached Scottish shores, he ordered a witch-hunt on a scale never seen before. No fewer than 70 suspects were rounded up in the coastal Scottish town of North Berwick on suspicion of raising a storm to destroy the King and his new bride. One of those suspects was Agnes Sampson.

So, in 1590, Holyrood Palace became the scene of a fateful meeting between Agnes and King James. The king desired to know if Agnes was a witch and if she had used diabolical powers to try and sink the ship as he and his queen sailed home to Scotland from Denmark. Agnes denied all charges put to her but after she was taken away and tortured, she confessed to meeting the Devil, accepting him as her master, and attended a witches’ sabbath. The King, who would later write his own witch-hunting guide “Daemonologie”, interrogated her again. This time Agnes reputedly told James that she knew what he had said to his wife on their wedding night. Clearly this was not something that Agnes could have known but it was all the evidence needed to prove her a witch. By royal order she was condemned to death. On 28 January 1591 Agnes Sampson was taken to a scaffold on Castlehill, part of the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, where she was garrotted then burnt at the stake.

Myths  Agnes Sampson’s part in the story of the North Berwick witch trials is significant as it highlights many popular myths about witches commonly found in European, and by extension North American, folklore. Asked to imagine a witch most people will probably picture a woman. More than that, she will most likely be old, wearing a pointy hat, riding a broomstick and accompanied by her familiar, a demonic spirit, who might assist her in casting spells. We know from the indictment against her that Agnes was a poor, elderly widow and mother who was respected as a healer within her local community. This article explores these notions to discover just how universal they are and whether there are any myths to be dispelled.

Women only?  Of the 100 suspected witches in the North Berwick trials two are named as Robert Grierson and John Fian, a schoolmaster and scholar in Prestonpans, East Lothian. Although Grierson and Fian are but two examples, a significant minority of those put on trial for witchcraft - an estimated one in four - were indeed men. Those accused were sometimes the target of witch-hunts because they were related to accused women or romantically involved with them. One such example occurred in the Austrian town of Innsbrück in the mid-1480s when a potter was suspected largely because he was the lover of an accused witch, Barbara Selachin.

The aforementioned schoolmaster, John Fian, is an example of a man who fell under suspicion because they were thought to have turned their godly learning to bad ends. It was said that Fian had studied magical texts so he could unlock doors without a key and light candles with his breath. He was also accused of learning love spells and using his literacy skills to record the minutes of satanic meetings. John Fian’s eventual confession to having a compact with the Devil was extracted through torture. According to the English ambassador Robert Bowes, during his execution Fian recanted his confession saying he told those tales by fear of torture and to save his life. Sadly, it did not save him as, like Agnes Sampson, he was strangled and burnt at the stake on Castlehill on 27 January 1591. The cost of his execution was £5 18s 2d.

Old widows?  The stereotypical image of a witch collapses when one discovers that many of those accused were frequently wives and mothers, fathers and sons, with large families. Many were also surprisingly young. A boy of nine, for example, was questioned in Suffolk in the 1640s on suspicion of witchcraft. His fate is unknown, but it is reported that his mother was executed as a witch. Similarly, some 50 years earlier, eighteen-year-old Joan Waterhouse had been tried alongside her mother and a woman who may have been her aunt in Essex in 1566. Joan had confessed to witchcraft but was acquitted possibly because of her age. Significantly, like the nine-year-old boy, these trials reveal the widely held belief that witchcraft was an inherited skill and that witches’ children could not escape indoctrination. In such cases, juries were more likely to show mercy for a first offence. However, in 1730s France, it took a popular outcry to save a young life. Such was the case for a young religious mystic named Marie-Catherine Cadiere sentenced to death for witchcraft against a Jesuit priest. The uproar that followed in her hometown of Toulon against the verdict drove the court to free her.

Familiar story  Along with the pointy hat and broomstick, witches are accompanied by a familiar, a demonic animal or spirit that assists in casting spells. In the popular imagination, the animals are commonly cats and dogs but those accused of practising magic might call upon a whole menagerie of creatures. For example, in 1582 Elizabeth Bennet from Essex confessed she had two familiars: “one called Suckin, being blacke like a Dogge, the other called Lierd, beeing red like a Lion or hare.” Whether we believe that Bennet meant she had both a dog and a cat familiar is uncertain, but some sixty years later when Margaret Wyard was accused of witchcraft in Suffolk, she claimed to have seven imps, including flies, dores, mice and a spider. “Dores” in this instance is short for “dumbledores” or, as we might know them, bumblebees. During examination, purported witches were kept under constant surveillance to see if demonic spirits visited them, and the accused were often “walked” to deny them sleep for days and nights. Sleep deprivation of this sort undoubtedly led to “confessions” during interrogation and the frequent citing of these smaller creatures as familiars. Moreover, any tiny creature venturing near the exhausted prisoner could be identified as a demonic spirit and the tortured suspect could be forcibly encouraged to agree they were devils.

Witch-hunting  Margaret Wyard was one of 68 witches who were hanged in Bury St Edmunds in 1645, all victims of the witch-hunting zeal of Matthew Hopkins and his associate, John Stearne, a similarly fanatical Puritan. Hopkins was the son of the vicar of Great Wenham in Suffolk but chose not to become a minister like his father and brothers. During the English Civil War, he undoubtedly capitalised on the chaos and the genuine fear of devilry at that time to become England's most notorious witch-hunter. Styling himself the “Witchfinder General” - never a formal title - between 1644 and 1646 Hopkins instigated a fourteen month reign of terror, roving the countryside to root out “witches” in exchange for exorbitant fees. His and Stearne’s actions resulted in the execution of some 300 people, and the ruin of many others. About one in ten of his victims were male, and many others were poor widows living on Parish Relief. The pair used unscrupulous methods to extract confessions. Victims were thoroughly searched for witch's marks, said to be supernumerary teats from which imps suckled. Such examinations were a humiliating ordeal for women, since the “marks” were usually found in or on the genitals. It is said Stearne was particularly fond of seeking witch's marks and boasted that 18 of the Bury St. Edmonds witches:

“[A]ll were found by the searchers to have teats or dugs which their imps used to suck…And of these witches some confessed that they have had carnal copulation with the Devil, one of which said that she had conceived twice by him, but as soon as she was delivered of them, they ran away in most horrid, long and ugly shapes.”

According to surviving records, at least 124 men and women in Suffolk were charged with witchcraft, all of whom were tried in Bury St. Edmonds in August of 1645. Most of the “confessions” concerned possession by evil imps, the making of compacts with the Devil, and having carnal relations with the same, the latter being guaranteed to inflame Puritan outrage. Some of these “witches” were even charged with the murder of livestock and people. As for Margaret Wyard, at her trial she confessed the Devil had appeared to her seven years earlier in the likeness of a calf, saying he was her husband. She claimed she would not submit sexually to him until the Devil returned as “a handsome young gentleman” – most likely an example of a victim saying what they thought their accusers wanted to hear to stop further torture.

Denounce your neighbour  In 1582 fourteen women from St Osyth were put on trial in Chelmsford, Essex suspected of witchcraft. The first to be accused was Ursula Kempe, once again a poor woman who struggled to make a living on this occasion as a nursemaid and midwife. Ursula’s tale begins after she had cured the young son of Grace Thurlowe of convulsions by holding his hand and muttering incantations.  Grace was suspicious of witchcraft and thereafter refused to let Ursula nurse her newborn daughter. When later Grace's daughter fell out of bed and broke her neck, suspicion fell upon Ursula. Thurlowe and Kempe quarrelled fiercely, whereupon it is alleged that Ursula threatened Grace Thurlowe with lameness. As it is with such cases, shortly afterward Grace was severely crippled with arthritis and again suspicion fell on Ursula. Interestingly, an alternative account suggests Ursula had treated Grace for her arthritis, but that the latter had refused to pay Ursula’s fee of 12 pence. Presumably Ursula then refused Garce further help, and Grace’s arthritis flared up again. The “bad blood” between the two women was most likely the catalyst for Ursula Kempe being denounced to the authorities and sent for trial in Chelmsford accused of witchcraft.

At the trial the judge, Bryan Darcy, persuaded Ursula 's eight year old son to testify against her. Using children to denounce one or both of their parents was a common tactic employed by the authorities in witch trials. Darcy also persuaded Ursula that he would show clemency if she confessed. She duly did and admitted to having four familiars: two cats, a toad and a lamb. The latter was blamed for the death of the Garce Thurlowe’s baby.

During the trial Ursula named four other St Osyth women as witches: the aforementioned Elizabeth Bennet together with Alice Newman, Alice Hunt and her sister Margery Sammon. Hunt and Sammon were the daughters of “old mother Barnes”, an alleged witch of notorious repute who had bequeathed to them her familiars: “two spirites like Toades, the one called Tom and the other robbyn.” Hoping for mercy from the court the accused in turn named a further nine women: Cicely Celles, Elizabeth Eustace, Agnes Glascock, Margaret Grevell, Annis Herd, Alice Manfield, Joan Pechey, Anne Swallow and Joan Turner. Of the fourteen purported witches, two women were not indicted at all. Somewhat oddly one of these was Margery Sammon who had actually confessed to witchcraft. Two others were imprisoned but after denying the charges of bewitching cattle and two people to death were not indicted and released. Four women were sent to trial, three of whom on charges of bewitching people to death. All four pleaded not guilty and were acquitted. Four others who pleaded not guilty, were tried and convicted, and then reprieved. One of them was Alice Newman, who had been charged with bewitching to death four people plus her husband. Agnes Glascock and Cicely Celles similarly were charged with bewitchment to death. Joan Turner was charged with “bewitchment by over-looking” (using the “evil eye” [1]) and spent a year in prison. The only two hanged were Elizabeth Bennet, charged with killing a man and his wife, and Ursula Kempe. The latter was charged with and confessed to the crimes of bewitching three people to death between 1580 and 1582. Despite his promises, Judge Darcy showed Ursula Kempe no mercy whatsoever.

In league with the Devil?  In contrast to the many Wiccans or those who identify as witches today and follow modern notions of an earlier, supposed pagan religion, Mediæval and Early Modern “witches” were very often fervent churchgoers. This should hardly be surprising given that they lived in a Europe dominated by the Christian church and where belief in God was integral to everyday life. During interrogations many of the accused explained they used prayers in healing spells calling on the help of God, the saints and the Holy Ghost. Some suspects belonged to fundamentalist Christian sects. Rebecca Nurse and Martha Corey convicted of witchcraft in 1692 were among the most pious worshippers at the Congregational Church in Salem, Massachusetts. Somewhat bizarrely, or so it may seem, two Christian ministers, one in Salem and the other, thousands of miles away across the Atlantic Ocean in the English village of Brandeston in Suffolk, were both accused of witchcraft. In the latter case, the vicar John Lowe had been deemed insufficiently puritanical and was charged with only reading state-approved lessons in church. Fortunately (or not) he was able to recite his own burial service before being hanged. While in Salem, the Reverand George Burroughs repeated the Lord’s Prayer – thought impossible for witches – before he too was hanged. It seems that accusations against such good Christians were largely concerned with them not adhering to the same religious teachings as those who suspected them.

Fear and prejudice  One of the most famous witch-hunts in history took place in the aforementioned Salem which, at the time (1692-93) was a small coastal town in colonial Massachusetts. Not all of those accused of witchcraft, however, were colonists. Most famously was Tituba, a native South American woman who had been enslaved in Barbados and transported to Massachusetts by one Samuel Parris, who became minister of Salem village church. While working in the minister’s house she was embroiled in the accusations of witchcraft. It is almost certain that Tituba conformed to her master’s faith yet doubts lingered in the wider community that she was not wholly Christian. Imprisoned for more than a year, she never faced trial. This one instance exemplifies how European settlers associated Native American religion, and that of enslaved Africans, with witchcraft because it did not conform to Christian beliefs. Such prejudices almost certainly were a factor in the accusations of witchcraft levelled against several Sami people - migratory herders living in the Arctic circle - by their Norwegian neighbours. One such Sami woman was Kari Edisdatter who, in 1620, having confessed to meeting the devil in the form of a ghost was burned at the stake.

To conclude  So, there we have it. Contrary to popular belief the heyday for witch-hunts was largely not in the Mediæval period but in the religiously charged atmosphere of 16th- and 17th-century Europe (and North America). Witch-hunts and the resulting interrogations, trials and executions were driven by a genuine fear of devilry during this period. By far women were the majority of victims in a patriarchal society, although men were not immune to accusations. Purported witches were often the poorest in society or marginalised members of a community. Mostly ill-educated they had very little influence over the authorities prosecuting them. Some were clearly the victims of personal rivalries, ignorance and fear, but by the 18th-century rationalism was beginning to hold sway over superstition. Prosecutions and executions for the crime of witchcraft declined in all European countries, and their respective overseas colonies, where previously witch-hunts had taken place. The decline was marked by an increasing reluctance to prosecute witches, the acquittal of many who were tried, the reversal of convictions on appeal, and eventually the repeal of the laws that had authorized prosecutions. Finally, in the UK at least, the Witchcraft Act of 1735 introduced prosecution for fraud rather than for witchcraft since many no longer believed individuals possessed supernatural powers or had genuine traffic with the Devil. Bon appétit!

References:

Borman, T., (2016), “Why was King James VI and I obsessed with witch hunts?”, BBC History Magazine: History Extra, available online (accessed 28 March 2025).

Ferre, L., (2017), “Bury St Edmunds Witches”, Occult World, available online (accessed 26 March 2025).

Ferre, L., (2017), “St Osyth Witches”, Occult World, available online (accessed 27 March 2025).

Gibson, M. (2024), “Five things you (probably) didn’t know about…the history of witchcraft”, BBC History Magazine (May edition), pp. 46-47.

St Oswyth Museum, (2025), “1579 - St Osyth Witches & Witch Trials - St Osyth Museum”, available online (accessed 27 March 2025).

Endnotes:

1. The evil eye is a supernatural belief in a curse brought about by a malevolent glare.

2. Coincidently, radio and television presenter Sian Eleri investigated Helen Duncan’s story in a four part BBC mini-series “Paranormal: Britain’s Last Witch”. It is available on BBC iPlayer.