Settlements and Strongholds in Early Medieval England: Texts, Landscapes, and Material Culture by Michael D. J. Bintley

Abstract

Reviewed by: Settlements and Strongholds in Early Medieval England: Texts, Landscapes, and Material Culture by Michael D. J. Bintley Sybil Jack Bintley, Michael D. J., Settlements and Strongholds in Early Medieval England: Texts, Landscapes, and Material Culture (Studies in the Early Middle Ages, 45), Turnhout, Brepols, 2020; hardback; pp. 231; 13 b/w illustrations; R.R.P €75.00; ISBN 9782503583846. While not all scholars of the early medieval period will accept Michael Bintley's views, this book is an invaluable introduction to some new approaches to interpretation of the period between the departure of the Romans and the coming of the Normans in England, such as those of John Blair and Éamonn Ó Carragáin. In this book Bintley hopes to open further areas for future research. He is primarily interested in changing our understanding of the ways in which the authors of contemporary vernacular literary works presented the links between people and the places in which they lived. [End Page 195] The texts that survive from any period are important, but they have a particular place in any largely non-literate society, such as early medieval England. Before archaeological excavation in England revealed some of the material remains of the period after the departure of Rome, investigation into why and where literature and poetry were composed, and in what language and how they were disseminated, provided almost the sole insight on the ordering of a society both lay and religious where knowledge was spread by oral presentation. Well-known authors such as Gildas and Bede, who set out the myths of the communities' origins and their narratives of events, were the basis for classical historical analysis even when their attribution of the destruction of the communities to religious failure was abandoned. As Bintley shows, in the years since World War II this classical presentation has been modified as archaeologists have uncovered numerous sites of many different types from this period across England. Scholars since extended their vision to examine how space was structured and perceived by people from all parts of society and interdisciplinary studies soon followed, one of the earliest being Audrey Meaney's PhD thesis (University of Cambridge) in 1959 on A Correlation of Literary and Archaeological Evidence for Anglo-Saxon Heathenism. Bintley's study introduces an analysis of the material settlements that interprets the physical remains in the light of widely accepted social practices that are held to bind society together, such as gift exchange, oath swearing, and ritual feasting. The spiritual understanding of landscape at the time is brought into the explanations of how towns were shaped for a strongly ecclesiastical purpose. He examines closely the role of the Church in the form and nature in which particular structures were created and interpreted as critical to their role. That the secular buildings were almost invariably wooden, while religious buildings were normally stone (and often of older, Roman stone reused), is presented as a critical cultural signifier. The apparently disorganized village layouts are seen as relating to different expectations of community interaction and integration from those that had preceded them. Bintley makes clear the different situations at different times such the slow regeneration of towns and the special approach to interurban space immediately after the departure of the Romans and the effect of the Viking invasions and the need for strongholds. Some of his arguments are still heavily dependent on interpretations of more recent texts, such as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, that create an image of a directing elite, starting in the eighth century, and getting more authoritative in the Alfredian ninth century—when pivotal change in the conceptualizing of the function of a town was occurring and the creation or recreation of governing institutions, and the development of philosophical arguments about the definition of the role of a king, the duty of the community, and the creation of bonds across social strata and secular and religious interests began to emerge. Bintley seems concerned to establish the continuities in social and settlement culture throughout the period and to show not only how a familiar legacy was developed, but also how there was a constant return to grief [End Page 196] about intellectual ignorance and the loss...