Beowulf - Institutionen för arkeologi och antik historia

(Herschend 1993). It has also become obvious that one of the roots of the Late Iron
Age leadership originates from a development of the household on these major
farms brought about by adding the hall, which was originally a dwelling room for the
farm owner’s family (Herschend 1993, pp. 195 ff.), to the traditional kitchen dwelling
(Onsten 1993), thus separating those who lived on a farm from each other.
The most central halls are often badly preserved due to their being central and
thus situated in what is still today some of the best arable land, but judging from the
well preserved, albeit slightly peripheral examples, we may venture to say that the
hall as an institution became the interface between the private and the public sphere.
In some cases the expression interface can be understood quite literally inasmuch
as the hall, which was from the beginning singled out, i.e., more or less separated by
a fence (Haarnagel 1979, pp. 319 Beilage 26–28, house 12), or placed within the
fenced courtyard (cf. Stenberger and Klindt-Jensen 1955, pp. 199 ff.; Herschend
1993, Fig. 5), becomes incorporated within the fence surrounding the farm houses
(van Es 1967, plan VII, house XV; Tibblin 1994, pp. 45 ff.). This straightforward or
naïve symbolism was short-lived, but despite its oddity it is a solution to the problem
of how to link the private with the public. Once the hall as an interface, in itself part of
a change in society, had been created, then it was only natural that concepts and
metaphors connected with this room should influence, or try to influence, the ideology
of the whole society. With its background in wealth the hall was bound to become
a social success.
The res publica of the Late Iron Age society with its democratic roots could not
be satisfied solely by the hall (Notelid 1995, p. 420), not least while the affairs of
society were traditionally strongly influenced by the assembly of free men. The free
men as a political body, originally the assembly of warriors (Thompson 1965, pp.
29 ff.), was threatened by the leadership of the hall since in this house the rich entertained
an elite with whom they shared the conviction that they and the elite should
govern the people (Herschend 1992, pp. 150 ff.). In the form of the open air thingassembly
the collective continued to be the counterpart for a very long time, though
with ever-diminishing strength, of the individual chieftain or king and his retinue in the
hall. In some cases, like Yeavering (Hope-Taylor 1977, Phase III A–C), when the
need for a symbolic balance was manifest, we are shown how, along a line between
two graves, the room of the traditional res publica, the amphitheatre, is matched by
the room of the selected, the king’s hall, and vice versa. To the modern eye such a
manifest way of symbolising and pointing out reciprocity is obviously not very convincing.
The connection between the hall and the roots of society as a hierarchy headed by
an individual, the hall owner, was essential. The power of this man may have varied
considerably, but the idea of the individual hall owner reflected a wish to create a
hierarchical social model which could be applied at any level between the international
and the local. The hall owner, whether a local peasant, chieftain or king, was a
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