David A. Hinton

The Oxford handbook of Anglo-Saxon archaeology

I. ANGLO-SAXON IDENTITY: ETHNICITY, CULTURE, AND GENES II. RURAL SETTLEMENT III. MORTUARY RITUAL IV. FOOD PRODUCTION V. CRAFT PRODUCTION AND TECHNOLOGY VI. TRADE, EXCHANGE, AND URBANIZATION VII. THE BODY AND LIFE COURSE VIII. THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF RELIGION IX. SIGNALS OF POWER X. THE PLACE OF ARCHAEOLOGY IN ANGLO-SAXON STUDIES

The ‘Scole-Dickleburgh field system’ examined

ABSTRACT In some areas of eastern England, ‘semi-regular grid systems’ of field boundaries have been claimed as Roman or earlier. This paper examines in detail an example in south Norfolk, and questions the hypothesis that the Venta to Londinium Roman road is an intrusion into a co-axial pattern of fields and lanes. It is suggested instead that the earliest routes followed the local topography, and that they and other features such as the edges of greens and commons were only in occasional and coincidental conformity with the postulated early Roman or pre-Roman grid system, nor are non-conforming road-lines clearly explicable as diversions around subsequent medieval settlements. Parish boundaries do not relate consistently to any single dominant landscape pattern. Encroachments on the commons show late creation of several new field boundaries, with many others resulting from enclosure of medieval open fields. Consequently it is suggested that most of the field shapes shown on early nineteenth-century maps...

Demography: from Domesday and beyond

Various calculations of the population of late eleventh-century England have been made from Domesday Book, but scrutiny of a range of manorial entries suggests that it under-recorded an even larger number of people than has previously been estimated. Using documentary, field and artefactual evidence, a population of 2.5 million can be considered, which has consequences for estimates of the speed of its subsequent increase.

Recent Work at the Chapel of St Laurence, Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire

Excavation in September 2000 on the south side of the Anglo-Saxon chapel at Bradford-on- Avon, Wiltshire, showed that the missing south porticus would have been high enough to have had two internal storeys. Because it was built on steeply sloping ground, the chapels walls needed deep foundations on the south side; observation on the north side confirmed that no footings had been thought necessary below the plinth of the nave and chancel. If the chapel was built by Shaftesbury Abbey after c. 1001 as a shrine for the cult of Edward the Martyr, the lower space in the south porticus might have had a timber-roofed crypt for housing associated relics.

The Dolphin Inn Hoard: Re-examining the Early Nineteenth-Century Discovery of a Mid-Thirteenth-Century Hoard from Cambridge

This paper discusses the evidence relating to a mid-thirteenth-century hoard of coins and jewellery discovered beneath a cellar in Cambridge in 1817. Five gold rings with gemstone settings survive from this group and are now in the possession of Trinity College library; these rings are examined, and their date and significance explored. The history of the material—from its initial discovery up until the mid-nineteenth century when the rings were donated to the college—is also investigated. Finally, the original context of the hoard is discussed, including its possible association with the medieval Jewry of Cambridge.

A smith's hoard from Tattershall Thorpe, Lincolnshire: a synopsis

During 1981, excavation of a large sand and gravel pit in Tattershall Thorpe, Lincolnshire, revealed many traces of Neolithic occupation and three Roman pits (fig. 8). In the southwestern part of the site, a sub-rectangular feature, aligned approximately east-west (pl. II a ), was found to contain a large number of iron tools and other objects, including Roman coins and glass which initially caused the material to be reported as Romano-British. Subsequently, however, a few objects were identified as post-Roman, and they are enough to show that the material was buried in the seventh century or possibly a little later. Because the soil in the area is very acid, conditions for the survival of organic material were poor, but a few fragments of human bone were recovered nevertheless, and it is therefore assumed that the feature was a grave with an inhumation. The objects had been deposited in two discrete assemblages, at each end of the grave.

An Early Anglo-Saxon Cemetery and Archaeological Survey at Breamore, Hampshire, 1999–2006

A Byzantine pail, datable to the sixth century AD, was discovered in 1999, in a field near the River Avon in Breamore, Hampshire. Subsequent fieldwork confirmed the presence there of an early Anglo-Saxon cemetery. In 2001, limited excavation located graves that were unusual, both for their accompanying goods and for the number of double and triple burials. This evidence suggests that Breamore was the location of a well-supplied ‘frontier’ community which may have had a relatively brief existence during the sixth century. It seems likely to have had strong connections with the Isle of Wight and Kent to the south and south-east, rather than with communities up-river to the north and north-east.

The Art, Literature, and Material Culture of the Medieval World: Transition, Transformation, and Taxonomy, edited by Meg Boultonand Jane Hawkes

The main title of this book suggests essays on various medieval topics unconnected by any theme. They are certainly varied, but the sub-title attempts to provide unity. The editors seek to show that the Middle Ages were not ‘static and stagnant’ (p. 2), and address the issues that can arise from three words that are usually tossed lightly around, the first two to make a time-period or an artefact-type sound important and not the mere reporting and cataloguing implied by the third; ‘transition’ and ‘transformation’ are not to be seen merely as synonyms for ‘change’. Unfortunately, however, they are words that can be applied to anything from the everyday, such as making the transition from sleep to consciousness and achieving transformation by getting dressed, to worldwide upheaval such as making the transition to global capitalism whilst being transformed by climate change. The nineteen contributions in the book focus on ‘visual, literary and material evidence’ (p. 2), not ‘historical’, and therefore exclude such matters as constitutional transition, which may be regarded as a dull topic, but affects how lives are transformed. Economic swings are also important, but if there is anywhere a reference to the ‘Brenner debate’ or to the ‘three traditional supermodels of economic development in the Middle Ages and beyond’ (outlined by J. Hatcher and M. Bailey in their 2001 book Modelling the Middle Ages, quotation p. 208), let alone to Chaos Theory, I missed it. Most of the contributions are concerned with Christian art: stone sculptures (Hawkes; Dumelow; Boulton) and manuscript illumination (Stoner; Stirrup; Farr), with Baker covering both. The most obviously archaeological contributions are McLain, primarily on north country churches but also addressing the changes brought about by or around the time of the Norman Conquest, Lenton on domestic buildings in Spain, and Krasnodębska-D’Aughton on shrines and relics. Christie interprets a scrunched-up cross-shaft mount in the Staffordshire hoard as something carried into battle to show that God blessed its devotees, evidence of transition to Christianity (assuming it was in Anglo-Saxon hands; but it would demonstrate continuity if in British). Symons likens the Franks Casket to the Ruthwell cross, and gives long passages from Old English poetry as well as half a page of a nonsense poem by John Keats to argue for its panels’ coherent expositions of wisdom. Bintley considers the word wic, applied as a place-name to a now well-known class of archaeological site, and reviews its dissimilar use in literature. Herman considers the few examples of full-length human figures on early Anglo-Saxon artefacts, usefully bringing the embossed plaques in the Staffordshire hoard to attention, but unfortunately omitting the three-dimensional representations typified by the Carlton Colville pendant. The range and breadth of this book would have been suitable enough as a Festschrift, with overall unity not mattering too much. It results from funded conferences, which may have been stimulating occasions for interdisciplinary discussion, but I was left feeling that the published papers did not really hang together; with the various contributors not making reference to any of the others.