Review of Perceptions of the Prehistoric in Anglo-Saxon England: Religion, Ritual and Rulership in the Landscape

Abstract

ham University, Sarah Semple has been tantalising Early Medievalists for several years now with various papers and articles produced off the back of her doctoral research, completed at Oxford University in 2003. Her ground breaking thesis explored how the people of Anglo-Saxon England (AD c.400– 1066) understood and utilised the prehistoric monuments that they found scattered across their landscape. In doing so, she explored not only archaeological evidence but also textual sources, folklore, and toponyms. Now, a decade after her PhD was finished, this much anticipated work has seen publication, and I am pleased to say that it does not disappoint. Brought out by Oxford University Press as part of their ongoing series on Medieval History and Archaeology edited by John Blair and Helena Hamerow, the quality of the published hardback tome is very good, having been edited well and given a nicely composed cover image. Nevertheless, at £85 it comes at a price tag that few archaeologists could afford, although hopefully copies will be available in university libraries across the country. Semple’s work is a perfect example of many recent trends in Anglo-Saxon studies. Interdisciplinary approaches are (thankfully) becoming increasingly common, as archaeologists are coming to recognise the utility of a holistic investigatory approach. Within the study of pre-Christian religion in Early Medieval England more specifically, scholarship no longer relies on scrutinising the religious context of Beowulf or debating the beliefs behind the Sutton Hoo treasure. Now, influenced by archaeological approaches to the ideologies of prehistoric Britain, AngloSaxonists are increasingly devoting themselves to exploring the wider religious use and interpretation of landscape (c.f. Carver, Sanmark, and Semple 2010). Semple opens her volume with an introductory chapter that examines the state of scholarship so far. She discusses the many different ways in which antiquarians, archaeologists, and historians have understood the relation between the Anglo-Saxons and the prehistoric monuments that littered their world; from the pioneering early attempts of the nineteenth-century through to recent developments in landscape archaeology. Doyle White, E 2014 Review of Perceptions of the Prehistoric in AngloSaxon England: Religion, Ritual and Rulership in the Landscape. Papers from the Institute of Archaeology, 24(1): 5, pp. 1-3, DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.5334/pia.455