North = cold = ice + snow
This equation is obvious for anyone. Therefore, all the people living in the North have invented throughout History means on transportation on such winter ground.
Norse people had skis, ice-skates and sledges, to slide through the Northern cold. But sometimes, they didn't want to slide at all. That's were ice cleats come into play.
Wikipedia suggests (without any serious source...) that modern-day "Scandinavian crampons", with steel spikes embedded in a rubber contraption, are a direct evolution from the Norse cleats.
On the other hand, the few examples of those Norse cleats that we had seen with Þorgeirr in the Stockholm History Museum came back to my mind during slippery hikes on winter vacations.
So I decided to dig a bit more into that topic. I spent several hours in the digital collection of the SHM looking at Viking Age cleats, then several more thinking about the way they could function... Now the next step will be experimentation : I have to find the way to forge some replicas and try them on!
Since I'm unfortunately a total ignorant as far as horsemanship is concerned, I didn't do much research about the horse cleats, which are most probably designed to be attached to the horseshoe without the need of shoeing the horse again for winter with spiked horseshoes.
The first product of my thoughts about these cleats is a typology, and some hypothesis about the use of each type of cleats.
Type A: simple cleats, made of a roughly rectangular strip of iron with a protruding spike in the middle. The shapes and sizes vary a lot, hence the definition of several subtypes.
Type A1: they have the shape of a closed staple, with an internal width of about 2 to 4 cm. Type A1's are usually found in pairs, or alone, in one instance in a group of four.
Hypothesis: these cleats were literally stapled on a leather strap 2 or 3 cm wide, two by two, and the strap was then tied or otherwise attached to the front part of the foot. I'm saying tied, because I'm not aware of any iron or bronze buckles found with such cleats.
Type A2: they have generally a narrow strip and a very pronounced U shape, and therefore have not been stapled to anything.
Hypothesis: (really unsure there...) they might have been nailed to the soles of wooden pattens ? But I don't know about any Viking-Age wooden soles or pattens...
Type A3: similar to type A2, but with crooked / stapled extremities for the U, as if they had been affixed to something thick, with an almost square section.
Hypothesis: (of the top of my head) since the material to which these cleats were attached didn't survive, it was probably leather (as for type A1) or wood. If it's wood, it might have been the wheels of a chariot, to prevent it from slipping sideways when pulled by a horse wearing horse-cleats. The main problem here is that Norse chariots had rather very thick wheels, to my knowledge...
Type A4: these are quite rare, and often thought to be spurs. Similar to type A2, but with broader iron strips and a very broad U shape.
Hypothesis: these cleats are broad enough to accommodate a heel it they were actually spurs, or to accommodate the narrowest part of the foot sole. I'd rather go for the second option, since I would expect spurs to have a more rounded shape. So, such a tailor-fitted cleat could be placed under the foot and strapped.
Type B: these cleats have multiple spikes, and have generally the shape of a polygon, serving as a platform, with the spikes placed underneath it, one per angle of the polygon.
Type B1: triple-spiked cleats. They are shaped like a (slightly concave) equilateral triangle.
Hypothesis: from the designs that I tried, these cleats where probably rather worn under the heel (two spikes at the back, one at the front), being quite uncomfortable under the front part of the foot. One or two leather straps could be used to tie the cleats to the ankle, with quite a tricky lacing pattern.
Type B2: (existence unconfirmed) four-spiked cleats, with a square shape. Intermediate between types B1 and B3.
Hypothesis: similar in use to type B1, but their square shape makes them more suitable to be worn under the front side of the foot.
Type B3: hinged four-spiked cleats. These are found in later Middle-Ages, and would be descendants of type B1 and B2. They have the four-spiked, square shape of the type B2, but additionally they have two hinged plates on two opposite sides of the square, one with a slit, and the other one buckle-shaped.
Hypothesis: the use of this type of cleats is the most obvious : the square was place under the front part of the foot, and the plates secured the foot laterally when the leather strap attached to the slit was buckled, which also simplified the lacing.
One can very well imagine wearing in conjunction cleats of types B1 and B2, or B1 and B3, when going on a longer walk on something as dangerously slippery as a glacier. Such a combination of medieval cleats would make a good predecessor of modern-day alpinism crampons. On the other hand, type A1, being lightweight and versatile, might match more today's rubber "Scandinavian crampons".
So, next step is to build some type A1's, and maybe later some B1's too, and try them on the ice !
To be continued...
Yours, Eiríkr
UPDATE!
I had the opportunity to discuss several archaeological finds from the Birka catalogue with my friend Kára, who is an experienced horsewoman. Apart from various horse harness parts, her hindsight was also priceless for understanding the nature of several types of cleats.
Let's start with the simplest: for the type A4 cleats, they seemed very impractical to her to be used as spurs. Besides, comparing them with other Norse spurs, she concluded that it is definitely different and cannot be a surviving element of a spur. So we can even more confidently assume that this king of object was a cleat, not a spur.
Now on to a topic that I said I would not tackle: the horse cleats (or calks, as I just learned they are called). It appears that my interpretations of the type A2 and A3 cleats were wrong - they are just various occurrences of calks.
Horse calks were not intended to be attached to horse shoes as I initially thought. The simple reason for this is that there is no such thing as Norse horse shoes! Most representations of Norse town show them having either "raw", muddy streets, or covered with wooden planks or logs. So, no paved causeways and rocky paths, only soft surfaces that do not damage the hooves, and therefore do not require the horses to be shoed. This is perfectly consistent with the fact that not a single horse shoe was found in a large city like Birka. Therefore, the calks were directly nailed to the hooves when needed, and depending on the relative length of the spikes and thickness of the hoof, either the spikes stayed straight, or they went all the way through the hoof and were bent back, hence the more or less square shape of the calk spikes.
Birka grave nr. 887 gives a perfect example of such calks and their use. The calks and their position in the grave can be seen here, in Taf. 39 (9) and 40 (3). You can see that the cleats are situated near the back of the hoof, in a manner very similar to these modern, screw-in calks:
Thanks to Kára for her help, maybe I'll manage to get more ideas on Norse horsemanship from her!
Norse people had skis, ice-skates and sledges, to slide through the Northern cold. But sometimes, they didn't want to slide at all. That's were ice cleats come into play.
Wikipedia suggests (without any serious source...) that modern-day "Scandinavian crampons", with steel spikes embedded in a rubber contraption, are a direct evolution from the Norse cleats.
On the other hand, the few examples of those Norse cleats that we had seen with Þorgeirr in the Stockholm History Museum came back to my mind during slippery hikes on winter vacations.
So I decided to dig a bit more into that topic. I spent several hours in the digital collection of the SHM looking at Viking Age cleats, then several more thinking about the way they could function... Now the next step will be experimentation : I have to find the way to forge some replicas and try them on!
Since I'm unfortunately a total ignorant as far as horsemanship is concerned, I didn't do much research about the horse cleats, which are most probably designed to be attached to the horseshoe without the need of shoeing the horse again for winter with spiked horseshoes.
The first product of my thoughts about these cleats is a typology, and some hypothesis about the use of each type of cleats.
Type A: simple cleats, made of a roughly rectangular strip of iron with a protruding spike in the middle. The shapes and sizes vary a lot, hence the definition of several subtypes.
Type A1: they have the shape of a closed staple, with an internal width of about 2 to 4 cm. Type A1's are usually found in pairs, or alone, in one instance in a group of four.
Type A2: they have generally a narrow strip and a very pronounced U shape, and therefore have not been stapled to anything.
Type A3: similar to type A2, but with crooked / stapled extremities for the U, as if they had been affixed to something thick, with an almost square section.
Type A4: these are quite rare, and often thought to be spurs. Similar to type A2, but with broader iron strips and a very broad U shape.
Type B: these cleats have multiple spikes, and have generally the shape of a polygon, serving as a platform, with the spikes placed underneath it, one per angle of the polygon.
Type B1: triple-spiked cleats. They are shaped like a (slightly concave) equilateral triangle.
Type B2: (existence unconfirmed) four-spiked cleats, with a square shape. Intermediate between types B1 and B3.
Hypothesis: similar in use to type B1, but their square shape makes them more suitable to be worn under the front side of the foot.
Type B3: hinged four-spiked cleats. These are found in later Middle-Ages, and would be descendants of type B1 and B2. They have the four-spiked, square shape of the type B2, but additionally they have two hinged plates on two opposite sides of the square, one with a slit, and the other one buckle-shaped.
One can very well imagine wearing in conjunction cleats of types B1 and B2, or B1 and B3, when going on a longer walk on something as dangerously slippery as a glacier. Such a combination of medieval cleats would make a good predecessor of modern-day alpinism crampons. On the other hand, type A1, being lightweight and versatile, might match more today's rubber "Scandinavian crampons".
So, next step is to build some type A1's, and maybe later some B1's too, and try them on the ice !
To be continued...
Yours, Eiríkr
UPDATE!
I had the opportunity to discuss several archaeological finds from the Birka catalogue with my friend Kára, who is an experienced horsewoman. Apart from various horse harness parts, her hindsight was also priceless for understanding the nature of several types of cleats.
Let's start with the simplest: for the type A4 cleats, they seemed very impractical to her to be used as spurs. Besides, comparing them with other Norse spurs, she concluded that it is definitely different and cannot be a surviving element of a spur. So we can even more confidently assume that this king of object was a cleat, not a spur.
Now on to a topic that I said I would not tackle: the horse cleats (or calks, as I just learned they are called). It appears that my interpretations of the type A2 and A3 cleats were wrong - they are just various occurrences of calks.
Horse calks were not intended to be attached to horse shoes as I initially thought. The simple reason for this is that there is no such thing as Norse horse shoes! Most representations of Norse town show them having either "raw", muddy streets, or covered with wooden planks or logs. So, no paved causeways and rocky paths, only soft surfaces that do not damage the hooves, and therefore do not require the horses to be shoed. This is perfectly consistent with the fact that not a single horse shoe was found in a large city like Birka. Therefore, the calks were directly nailed to the hooves when needed, and depending on the relative length of the spikes and thickness of the hoof, either the spikes stayed straight, or they went all the way through the hoof and were bent back, hence the more or less square shape of the calk spikes.
Birka grave nr. 887 gives a perfect example of such calks and their use. The calks and their position in the grave can be seen here, in Taf. 39 (9) and 40 (3). You can see that the cleats are situated near the back of the hoof, in a manner very similar to these modern, screw-in calks:
No comments:
Post a Comment