Aethelflaed, Lady of Mercia (870 – 12 June 918 AD)

Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians, was the eldest daughter of Alfred the Great.

Anglo-Saxon Ladies (and a Viking one)

Anglo-Saxon Lady of the 7th Century AD

Anglo-Saxon Lady of the 10th Century AD

Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians (870 – 918 AD)

Anglo-Saxon Woman of the 13th Century AD

Viking Hausfrau, 11th Century AD

Nun of the Poor Clares, 1300 AD 

Alamannic Warriors and Hillfort, 5th century AD

 

There are many wrong informations about the life and the general appearance of the people who lived in the late Antiquity/Dark Ages.

First of all: folks were not always short!

According to the data of the beautiful Archaeologisches Landesmuseum Baden-Württemberg in Konstanz (average height of the men at 172 cm and at 162 cm for the women in Alamannic area, www.konstanz.alm-bw.de), the archaeologist of the Oxford University Sally Crawford writes about the Anglo-Saxons:

“(the earliest cemeteries) show that the population buried in these Germanic burial grounds was a little taller than the population associated to the late Romano-British cemeteries, with males standing at about 173 cm and females at 162 cm on average. (…) The evidence from the early Anglo-Saxon inhumation cemeteries shows that the population was relatively healty, with little bone evidence for diseases caused by malnutrition or deficiency in the diet.”

©Sally Crawford, “Anglo-Saxon England”, Shire Publications, 2011, page 65.

The results of the measurements of Charlemagne's tibia indicates that he was 1.84 m tall!

 

Anglo-Saxons

Anglian King, 7th century AD




Anglo-Saxon Woman, 7th century

Ceorl, 8th century AD

Anglo-Saxon Thegn, 8th-9th century AD