Anglo-Saxons
Symbolism

Symbolism was an essential element in Anglo-Saxon culture. Julian D. Richards suggests that in societies with strong oral traditions, material culture is used to store and pass on information and stand instead of literature in those cultures. This symbolism is less logical than literature and more difficult to read. Anglo-Saxons used symbolism to communicate as well as to aid their thinking about the world. Anglo-Saxons used symbols to differentiate between groups and people, status and role in society.

The visual riddles and ambiguities of early Anglo-Saxon animal art, for example, has been seen as emphasising the protective roles of animals on dress accessories, weapons, armour and horse equipment, and its evocation of pre-Christian mythological themes. However Howard Williams and Ruth Nugent have suggested that the number of artefact categories that have animals or eyes—from pots to combs, buckets to weaponry—was to make artefacts 'see' by impressing and punching circular and lentoid shapes onto them. This symbolism of making the object seems to be more than decoration.

Conventional interpretations of the symbolism of grave goods revolved around religion (equipment for the hereafter), legal concepts (inalienable possessions) and social structure (status display, ostentatious destruction of wealth). There was multiplicity of messages and variability of meanings characterised the deposition of objects in Anglo-Saxon graves. In Early Anglo-Saxon cemeteries, 47% of male adults and 9% of all juveniles were buried with weapons. The proportion of adult weapon burials is much too high to suggest that they all represent a social elite. The usual assumption is that these are 'warrior burials', and this term is used throughout the archaeological and historical literature. However, a systematic comparison of burials with and without weapons, using archaeological and skeletal data, suggests that this assumption is much too simplistic and even misleading. Anglo-Saxon weapon burial rite involved a complex ritual symbolism: it was multi-dimensional, displaying ethnic affiliation, descent, wealth, élite status, and age groups. This symbol continued until c.700 when it ceased to have the symbolic power that it had before. Heinrich Härke suggests this change was the result of the changing structure of society and especially in ethnicity and assimilation, implying the lowering of ethnic boundaries in the Anglo-Saxon settlement areas of England towards a common culture.

The word bead comes from the Anglo-Saxon words bidden (to pray) and bede (prayer). The vast majority of early Anglo-Saxon female graves contain beads, which are often found in large numbers in the area of the neck and chest. Beads are sometimes found in male burials, with large beads often associated with prestigious weapons. A variety of materials other than glass were available for Anglo-Saxon beads, including amber, rock crystal, amethyst, bone, shells, coral and even metal. These beads are usually considered to have a social or ritual function. Anglo-Saxon glass beads show a wide variety of bead manufacturing techniques, sizes, shapes, colours and decorations. Various studies have been carried out investigating the distribution and chronological change of bead types. The crystal beads which appear on bead strings in the pagan Anglo-Saxon period seems to have gone through various changes in meaning in the Christian period, which Gale Owen-Crocker suggests was linked to symbolism of the Virgin Mary, and hence to intercession. John Hines has suggested that the over 2,000 different types of beads found at Lakenheath show that the beads symbolise identity, roles, status and micro cultures within the tribal landscape of the early Anglo-Saxon world.

Symbolism continued to have a hold on the minds of Anglo-Saxon people into the Christian eras. The interiors of churches would have glowed with colour, and the walls of the halls were painted with decorative scenes from the imagination telling stories of monsters and heroes like those in the poem Beowulf. Although nothing much is left of the wall paintings, evidence of their pictorial art is found in Bibles and Psalters, in illuminated manuscripts. The poem The Dream of the Rood is an example how symbolism of trees was fused into Christian symbolism.Richard North suggests that the sacrifice of the tree was in accordance with pagan virtues and "the image of Christ's death was constructed in this poem with reference to an Anglian ideology of the world tree". North suggests that the author of The Dream of the Rood "uses the language of the myth of Ingui in order to present the Passion to his newly Christianized countrymen as a story from their native tradition". Furthermore, the tree's triumph over death is celebrated by adorning the cross with gold and jewels.

The most distinctive feature of coinage of the first half of the 8th century is its portrayal of animals, to an extent found in no other European coinage of the Early Middle Ages. Some animals, such as lions or peacocks, would have been known in England only through descriptions in texts or through images in manuscripts or on portable objects. The animals were not merely illustrated out of an interest in the natural world. Each was imbued with meanings and acted as a symbol which would have been understood at the time.
combination:two_responses, change_case:english_capital