History doesn’t necessarily write itself – a choice, often conscious, is made of what to retain and hand down. When that choice is bypassed, things get really interesting.

The Vindolanda tablets, and the extensive site itself, took one such circuitous route. They are important historical records of the more pedestrian aspects of an empire whose reach was wide and whose grip was fast.

In 1970s a horde of impossibly fragile artifacts from Roman Britain came to light at Hadrian’s Wall. The site was bought by an archaeologist by the name of Eric Birle. His sons still run and excavate the site today.

A somewhat fanciful story is told of how Flavius Cerialis, a camp commander at the time, upon hearing of his and his troops’ redeployment to other, more strategically important parts of the empire, set about disposing of anything that would not be brought along.

However, you would have to imagine this particular man was not the exemplary and adroit Roman military commander that comes to mind when we picture the huge empire and its armies. In fact, it seems he was even incapable fire to his own rubbish properly. The burning and looting, raping and pillaging of any self-respecting ravaging horde must have been utterly incomprehensible to him. Or maybe he was just lazy.

But we should thank him. And profusely so. This partially burned waste is a historical record of the greatest value.

The Tablets Overview

The horde contains a huge number of handwritten fragments on extremely thin, folded, wooden tablets. The everyday nature of these was a revelation. Until these tablets were found scholars worked with few writings on the mundane, which had been survived through to posterity. We knew about how the common people but that knowledge was not personal in any way. So lacking was our understanding that the distinctive handwriting scripts were unfamiliar – this was a kind of shorthand used for epistolary communication (an awkward and pretentious blogger’s contrivance meaning “letters”). It was still Latin, just not the formal script used by the stonemasons who created the works most resistant to wear over time.

The subject matter is varied, as you might expect from a random collection of everyday writings, containing everything from task lists to inventories, writing lessons to personal letters.

Their Historical Context and Importance

Rome was an empire that positively revelled in documenting and celebrating its achievements. Vast amounts of Latin literature still inform communication and the arts globally today. Architects still look back to the grandeur of Rome. Columns, amphitheatres, arches and more triumphal edifices still dot the ancient imperial lands. Rome was no shrinking violet. This triumphalist entities only tell part of the story, the one that the rulers would have wanted us to hear. And that is why this alternate voice is so powerful. The fact that it details the lives of true Romans but at the Empire’s boundary only adds to this.

Vindolanda Excavations by Flickr User James Laing

The Site

The camp formed before Hadrian’s Wall, the first line of defence against the Picts. The garrison’s job was to, along with defending that particular section of the wall, police the locals, promote trade and spread Roman cultural and economic influence. The site is so huge excavations are expected to be ongoing until well into the next century!

The camp was rebuilt many times before and after the tablets were produced. The methods employed by the Romans for this involved demolition of existing structures and flattening them compacted into the soil. This created a series of anaerobic layers which were inhospitable to the processes of biological decay.

In fact these layers were so sterile and effective in their preservation that when the tablets are unearthed today, and exposed to air they are only legible for minutes before fading. Thankfully the ink residue can be seen clearly in infra-red light (as in the image at the top of this page).

Three Tablets – sample translations

Tablet 291 – Birthday Invite
Hi Lepidina, Claudia Severa here! Sister, I am celebrating my birthday on the 11th of September. I would love if you could join us, which would improve the day no end. Give my greetings to Cerialis. My husband Aelius and are little boy send their love. See you soon, favourite sister, all going well.

Tablet 302 – Shopping List
…2 jars of bruised beans > 20 chickens > 100 apples (only if they look nice, and are cheap) > 100 or maybe 200 eggs > 8 loads of garum* > a jar of olives. Bring all this back to Verecundus’ house.
*Garum was a very salty sauce made from fermented anchovies. As disgusting as this description is, the sauce is really tasty, especially to add depth of flavour to pasta sauces or as a pizza topping. It is still made by Geo. Watkins and Co.

Tablet 118 – Writing Exercise
INTEREA PAVIDAM VOLITANS PINNA
TA .VBEM m2 seg. uacat

This tablet fragment appears to have been unsent and then used by a child to practice their writing. In capitals they have written a partial line from Virgil’s Aeneid

Bibliography
See the tablets online
The offical website for the site
The Story of Archaeology in 050 Great Discoveries, Justin Pollard, Quercus, 2007
Salt – A World History, Mark Kurlansky, Vintage, 2003

Original content created by: The Inquisition

Reproduced by permission of English Heritage. NMR Reference Number: CC72/00939

Missing, presumed dead.

Its the 16th of August, 1660. In Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire a 70 year man vanishes. This septuagenarian is William Harrison, the rent collector for the estate that had previously been owned by Baptist Hicks. Several items which would have been on his person were found – his hat, comb and the removable collar of his shirt.

The Immediate Aftermath

Now, obviously no man in his right mind would be seen to wander the highways and by-ways of England without proper attire – even if the nation’s morals were loosened by the recent Restoration of the monarchy.

The next morning Mrs Harrison, sent out their son Edward, who enlisted the help of the Harrisons’ manservant John Perry, whom he met along his way. William Harrison had been collecting rents in Charingworth, so the search headed there.

Along the way they met locals in Ebrington, who said they had handed over their rent the previous night to Mr Harrison (Of course they said that, why wouldn’t they?). The trail went cold in the next town Paxford.

Showing the grim resolve and determination to leave no stone unturned that made Britain great, our intrepid duo called it a day and went home. On the way home their dinner was delayed by the discovery of the missing man’s items. They had been slashed and were bloody. No body was found.

Criminal Proceedings

The rumourmill began and soon after Perry was brought in for questioning by the authorities. A man of great convictions and firm character, Perry immediately made the suggestion that his mother and brother had killed and robbed William Harrison. But wait said Perry! He must have added that his mother was a witch as it was entered in the subsequent sentencing.

John sang any tune he was asked and even said his closest kin had also stolen £140 from Mr Harrison’s house a year previously. The first trial fell through. But John Perry soon found himself in the dock along with his, clearly beloved family members.

Forget what I said earlier your honour, complained Perry, I was mad you see. No matter was the judicial response, we’ll simply hang the lot of you and be done with it. Of course Joan Perry hung first due to the merest hint of a suggestion of her possibly being a witch.

Two Years Later

So what did happen to the elderly gent with the un-coiffed barnet and the daringly-exposed plunging neckline? Well, considering the case has been extensively written about, including by nineteenth century Poet Laureate John Masefield, it will come as no surprise that William Harrison was not murdered.

For one thing, murdered people don’t return corporeally to their old homes. Secondly, murder victims can’t recount swash-buckling tales, which are so far-fetched as to essentially unbelievable.

Well, eventually the gobshite returned with a tale of being captured by three horsemen, loaded onto a Turkish pirate ship, brought to Smyrna and sold into slavery.

Barbary pirates were a delicate international issue at the time but chipping Campden is quite a bit inland. Slim pickings indeed if the pirates had to charge across a foreign land and the only saleable booty was a partially clothed 70 year old. It would seem, according to William Harrison, that the Turks were only to happy to part with good money for aged rent collectors.

The Inquisition finds it hard to picture three pirates being sent out to rape, pillage and plunder, and being welcomed back with open arms to a horde overjoyed with the senior citizen strapped to the horses’s arse. It is true that the current use of the word booty is at quite a remove from the piratical canon, but this is just mad.

The most unbelievable part of the entire concoction is that the elderly gent outlived his oriental master and was able to make his return as a stowaway on a Portugese ship. Clearly, William Harrison had a very low opinion of his impressionable audience.

Legacy

The case was never fully resolved and all but the most accepting and gullible would find cause for concern in the missing man’s tales of derring-do. Other questions include the exact nature of the basis for Perry’s claims, and whether William Harrison was suitably investigated for what would seem to be fairly duplicitous claims.

This case is often cited by opponents of capital punishment and torture. It does show that coerced testimony, or that which is given under duress, or indeed underwater, is inherently unreliable. It also raises the spectre of habeas corpus legal tenets as became prominent under Dubya.

Bibliography
The Wilson Almanac
The Inquisition hates referencing Wikipedia – but it is a necessary evil
The Cotwolds online
The Campden Wonder – a site dedicated to this story
A blog of ongoing research on this topic
Fantastic resource site on this story

Original content created by: The Inquisition