Early Saxon Research Articles

Reassessing the Relationship Between Early Saxon Activity and Parish Boundaries

ABSTRACT The relationship between sites of Early-Anglo-Saxon activity and territorial boundaries, once much-debated, has been subject to little direct exploration in recent years despite its significance for landscape history. This article examines this important relationship using data from the Suffolk Historic Environment Record and the Portable Antiquities Scheme. It is suggested that the association between deserted settlement sites and parish boundaries has a much longer pedigree than is often suggested, persisting through the Norman Conquest and beyond. It is argued the origins of this relationship can be usefully understood in terms of territorial reorganisation following settlement abandonment.

Masters in the Things of War: Rethinking Military Justice during the Thirty Years War

Abstract Some historians have proposed that common soldiers in various parts of Europe lost a previous judicial independence around 1600 and have linked this development to a contemporary increase in discipline and in control over them. Meanwhile, historians of the Thirty Years War rarely mention military justice at all or depict this war as a time when military justice did not function. In contrast, this article examines the ordinary practice of military law during the Thirty Years War through a close reading of low-level legal paperwork generated by electoral Saxon units. Although military justice was not egalitarian, common soldiers in these units took an active role in the administration of justice, even in the early seventeenth century. The practice of law in early seventeenth-century electoral Saxon military units was similar to pre-existing structures of military justice, but subtly modified.

Medieval Activity at Beech Tree Close, Oakley, Hampshire

An archaeological excavation in advance of a housing development revealed a range of deposits dating from the 11th to 13th centuries. The features do not conform to what would be expected either for the nucleus of an isolated farmstead or as part of a medieval village, but they perhaps indicate an area of activity adjacent to a more densely settled area. The deposits were relatively rich in charred plant remains indicating arable production. The parish church, usually considered to be located close to a village centre, lies several hundred metres to the west and if the deposits here do not relate to an independent farmstead, perhaps they pre-date the formation of the nucleated village. One feature is potentially a Saxon SFB (sunken-featured building). Some early Saxon and Roman pottery sherds were also recovered.

Cattle, Sheep/Goats and Pigs from Northern and Central Hampshire: Iron Age, Roman and Early Saxon Faunal Remains from Excavation Assemblages

This paper is a survey of overall species counts from northern and central Hampshire sites, of Iron Age, Roman and early Saxon date, and their implications for chronological changes in animal husbandry and diet. Three zones, around Basingstoke, Andover, and central Hampshire, are compared with each other, and also with the Roman urban centres of Silchester and Winchester. The Andover region shows the greatest degree of continuity from Iron Age to Roman times and later, while the Basingstoke region has a pattern of change from sheep/goat dominated assemblages to ones with higher cattle numbers. This may be due to agricultural intensification, and an orientation of the animal economy in northern Hampshire more towards the Thames Valley and supply to Silchester, than an earlier 'Wessex pattern' more focussed on sheep and wool production.

Iron Age and Roman Enclosed Settlement at Winchester Road, Basingstoke

Excavation in Area 1 identified an enclosed settlement of Middle–Late Iron Age and Early Roman date, which included a roundhouse gully and deep storage pits with complex fills. A group of undated four-post structures, situated in the east of Area 1, appeared to represent a specialised area of storage or crop processing of probable Middle Iron Age date. A sequence of re-cutting and reorganisation of ditches and boundaries in the Late Iron Age/Early Roman period was followed, possibly after a considerable hiatus, by a phase of later Roman activity, Late Iron Age reorganisation appeared to be associated with the abandonment of a roundhouse, and a number of structured pit deposits may also relate to this period of change. Seven Late Iron Age cremation burials were associated with a contemporary boundary ditch which crossed Area 1. Two partly-exposed, L-shaped ditches may represent a later Roman phase of enclosed settlement and a slight shift in settlement focus. An isolated inhumation burial within the northern margins of Area 1 was tentatively dated by grave goods to the Early Saxon period.<br/> Area 2 contained a possible trackway and field boundary ditches, of which one was of confirmed Late Iron Age/Early Roman date. A short posthole alignment in Area 2 was undated, and may be an earlier prehistoric feature.

Iron working in Anglo-Saxon England: New evidence to show fresh iron smelting of ironstone ores from the 6th–10th centuries CE

This paper discusses the current recycling and importation models of the Early Saxon iron economy. New evidence from the analysis of smelting slags and ores from the sites of Quarrington and Flixborough is presented which proves that fresh metal production was also occurring at this time, and with an increase in scale through the Saxon period. The findings are further supplemented by historical evidence which demonstrates that bedded iron ores were in use from at least the 7th century CE

Characterising copper-based metals in Britain in the first millennium AD: a preliminary quantification of metal flow and recycling

Abstract

‘We'll have what they're having’, cultural identity through diet in the English Saxon Period

The roots of the English population lie in diverse cultural origins. Within the second half of the first millennium AD, there were two major migrations, firstly the Saxons in the immediate post-Roman period, and later following the ‘Viking’ incursions of the mid-9th century. This paper considers the visibility of these migrations in the animal economy. Zooarchaeological data from 141 Saxon sites within England were analysed for evidence of diet and animal husbandry. Results indicate that there were signatures specific to native British rural populations in the early Saxon phase, relying largely on a self-sufficient economy, consuming very few wild species or domestic birds. Saxon cultural differences were implied from a number of sites, dependant on the increased importance of cattle in the diet and as culturally symbolic animals signifying status and utilised for trade. There was also evidence for the earliest settlers to have used pigs as a ‘mobile larder’, to provide meat while they established herds and flocks of cattle and sheep. Regional differences were visible in the late Saxon phase, within Wessex and the Danelaw, related to agricultural changes in the midlands and central southern region, and cultural identity, particularly within the heartlands of the northern Danelaw, towards an increase in cattle production.

Environment, Society and Landscape in Early Medieval England, by Tom Williamson

Environment, Society and Landscape in Early Medieval England, by Tom Williamson. Woodbridge, The Boydell Press, 2013. viii, 270 pp. $80.00 US (cloth). Tom Williamson tackles a tried-and-true landscape history question in his latest book on early medieval England: why do regional settlement differences appear the way they do? Because of the paucity of written evidence from the period, Williamson blends historical documents, archaeological investigations, and modern landscape configurations to propose some answers to the question. His thesis is that the landscape patterns of the early Saxon settlement, particularly the fifth to eighth centuries, are largely due to environmental factors, rather than cultural or social ones. The first two chapters set up the background material. In chapter one, Williamson gives readers an overview of the historiography of early medieval settlement in England, including how ethnicity, demographics, and social structures have been treated. He is particularly keen to discredit the model, which deals with the breaking up of large estates into smaller and smaller units over time. In the second chapter, Williamson outlines the physical geography of England, including soil, rainfall, bedrock, and drainage basin information. In each of the following chapters Williamson argues against a prevailing settlement theory using environmental variables. Watershed boundaries are more important than military conquest in establishing settlement areas of immigrants (chapter three). Co-axial are the result of resource linkage in topographic contexts rather than evidence of planning (chapter four). The different landholding patterns in east and west, which are usually explained by Viking invasions, are more attributable to climatic factors that created more risk for agricultural production in the west (chapter five). The big issue Williamson wants to address is the supposed differences between champion landscapes of nucleated villages with communal agriculture and areas of individually worked property. This takes up the remainder of the book (chapters six through nine). Williamson takes issue with scholars who portray these types as homogenous landscapes dictated by tenurial or social factors. He believes that the typologies are far too simple since landscapes are variable and depend on local environmental factors. He attacks the dichotomy of champion/woodland landscape on multiple fronts. First, he forcefully argues that woodland landscapes do not indicate late or dispersed settlement. Second, he writes that the prominent theory of nucleation of settlement in the Saxon period is a myth, positing instead that seemingly planned settlements were much more irregular and gradually developed in place. …

Royal Piety and Davidic Imitation: Cultivating Political Capital in the Alfredian Psalms

This article examines the first fifty Old English prose psalms in Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France, fonds lat. 8824 (ff. 1–63). Composed in an early West Saxon dialect, they are located amongst the uniquely early West Saxon works of the Alfredian canon. Within this Alfredian literary milieu (c. 871–899), the political model of Alfredian kingship appears informed by a consistent imitation of Davidic topoi and royal piety, generating political capital through appropriating the historical and religious authority of Davidic kingship. As the pre-eminent Davidic work, the Psalms represent the greatest potential for Alfredian kingship to posture itself as a new dispensation of Davidic rule. Translating the Psalms provided an ideal opportunity for “royal posturing,” which was “exploited with particular immediacy” (Pratt in Problems of authorship and audience in the writings of King Alfred the Great, p. 179, 2007). The Davidic posturing in the Alfredian Psalms functioned within a broader political agenda, encouraging national unity. Through identifying Alfredian kingship with David and disseminating a vernacular reconstruction of a Hebraic text, the Anglo-Saxons were postured as the new Israel: a divinely chosen and blessed nation with a mandate to uphold Judeo-Christian law and morality. In this translation, we see Alfred’s angelcynn presented as participating in the providential trajectory of biblical history, unifying the separate Anglo-Saxon principalities in the collective progression and expansion of Christendom.

Animal husbandry and farming in East Anglia from the 5th to the 10th centuries CE

Archaeological research that has been carried out in East Anglia since the 1960s has shed light on the changes in animal husbandry and farming that took place in eastern England between the 5th and the 10th centuries CE. The sites of West Stow and West Stow West have shed light on animal husbandry during the Early Saxon period. The rural estate centres of Brandon, Suffolk and Wicken Bonhunt, Essex provide evidence for Middle Saxon animal husbandry practices. Animal bones from the proto-urban ‘wic’ site of Ipswich in Suffolk show how this site was provisioned, while data from the Late Saxon contexts at Ipswich can shed light on the transition of this site from an emporium to a local market town. This paper takes a multi-proxy approach to changes in animal husbandry, farming, and landscape in Eastern England between the end of the Roman period and the 10th century, drawing on faunal data including species ratios, age profiles, biometrical data, and butchery patterns, as well as other classes of data that can inform us about changes in agriculture and landscape use.

The Detection and Mapping of Saxon Sunken‐featured Buildings at Caistor St Edmund, Norfolk

ABSTRACTStrong archaeological evidence exists for the presence of Anglo‐Saxon settlement at the former Roman civitas capital Venta Icenorum, including two cemeteries of early Saxon date. A large‐scale magnetic survey west of the former walled town has revealed a complex palimpsest of surviving subsurface features, several of which were cautiously interpreted as the remains of Anglo‐Saxon sunken‐featured buildings (SFBs). Targeted earth resistance measurements enhanced the interpretation in terms of likely subsurface morphology. One of these anomalies was subsequently subject to archaeological excavation, revealing the surviving remains of an SFB of middle Saxon date. The magnetic susceptibility of deposits sampled during excavation was also evaluated and a simple forward model constructed to compare a theoretical magnetic response of the structure to that observed in the field. A reasonable correlation was observed, allowing the quantitative characterization of similar magnetic anomalies revealed in the survey data. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Ashtead Common, the evolution of a cultural landscape: A spatially precise vegetation record for the last 2000 years from southeast England

The results of palaeoecological (pollen and fungal spores) investigations of an abandoned clay pit on Ashtead Common, Surrey are presented and compared with archaeological and documentary evidence. The pit lies adjacent to a Roman industrial complex, with early Saxon activity recorded nearby. Prior to the early twentieth century AD the Common was managed as wood-pasture and it has a high nature conservation designation as a result of c. 2000 veteran pollarded oak trees which remain from this phase. The pit provides a record of landscape history from the Roman ( c. cal. AD 150) to the modern ( c. AD 1850) era which, in terms of spatial and temporal resolution, is unrivalled in southeast England. From the late Roman into the middle Saxon period the palaeoecological data are consistent with archaeological evidence for the continuity of settlement and land use. Subtle changes in woodland cover, probably reflecting changes in the importance of grazing against the exploitation of wood, are evident up to c. cal. AD 1200. Thereafter grazing pressure on the Common appears to have increased and the resulting shortage of underwood is likely to have led eventually (cal. AD 1490—1680) to the adoption of pollarding. Changes in depositional environment are shown to have a major impact on the fungal spore record. In general terms the stratigraphic data from the Ashtead Common pit accord well with archaeological/documentary evidence and demonstrate the utility of studies which use a combination of sources to reconstruct vegetation change in the historic era.

Continental Crosscurrents: British Criticism and European Art 1810-1910 by J. B. Bullen (review)

Reviews Continental Crosscurrents: British Criticism and European ArtI8IO-I9IO. ByJ. B. BULLEN. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. 2005. X+ 297 pp. C50. ISBN: O-I9-8I869I-6 & 978-o-I9-8I8691-5. The separate chapters of J.B. Bullen's Continental Crosscurrents explore a series of impor tantmoments in the relationship between Britain and the art and architecture of continental Europe during thenineteenth century. If the subjects of the chapters vary considerably, so do thedominant personalities. There was Edmund Sharpe, the scholar architectwith a passion forRomanesque buildings; John Ruskin, passing his doomed honeymoon inVenice; and the relatively inexperienced AlfredWaterhouse winning the competition to design theNatural History Museum. These threewere high-minded Victorians, but the final essays, on British attitudes toGauguin's Polynesian paintings and on D. H. Lawrence and German sculpture, carry us into a different world, remind ing the reader of the lengthof thejourney from the 'crosscurrent'with which thebook opens -the reassessment of early Italian art inPisa. A common theme is the contention that theBritish, when led by forward-looking critics,could begin to respond to continental influences. Some of the conclusions are startlinglyoriginal. Bullen is amongst the firstto investigate theRomanesque Revival. How didcNorman architecture, initially seen as primitive, heavy, and ugly,become a popular source for laterVictorian buildings? Sharpe's extensive explorations in central Europe, and his own buildings in the north of England helped to change attitudes. Amongst thosewho followed his example was Sara Losh, who designed the church of StMary's, Wreay, inCumberland. Dante Gabriel Rossetti and his friend William Bell Scott, both admirers of StMary's, described thebuilding as 'Byzantine',whereas Losh herself, influenced by the symbolism of southern European churches, thought it 'early Saxon ormodified Lombard' (p. 72). 'Byzantine' isa keyword thatre-emerges ina laterchapter of Continental Crosscurrents. Here, however, the emphasis is on the influence of the great mural decorations in Ravenna. As Bullen points out, Roger Fry's enthusiasm forByzantine art echoed the earlier 'discovery'of 'primitive'Italian paintings. Fry isa key figurein the freshappraisal of Byzantine art; another was Matthew Prichard, a former deputy director of the Isabella StewartGardner Museum inBoston. Like Ruskin in Venice, orEdmund Sharpe in Southern Germany, Prichard had what Bullen calls a 'decisive conversion' (p. 234) when facedwith Byzantine art, seeing parallels with modern works, including those of Matisse. One of themost teasing speculations of thebook is tobe found in the finalchapter, where Bullen traces theconnections between Richard Moest, a German sculptorwhom D. H.Lawrence probably met inGargano in March I9I3, and theunlikable Loerke in Women inLove.Lawrence, as Bullen shows us, gave thename Moest toa character inone of his stories and must have seenMoest's statuetteof Godiva,whether as an original or 246 Reviews in reproduction. Lawrence's account of Loerke's appearance is similar to known portraits and photographs ofMoest. Bullen puts forward a convincing case forbeliev ing thatMoest's 'strong,but mainly unpleasant, impression on him, and his Godiva statuetteexemplified forLawrence something of theemotionally cold aloofness of early twentieth-century aestheticism' (pp.26I-62). This isa scholarly and challenging book, demonstrating an impressiveunderstanding of nineteenth- and early twentieth-centurycriticism and cultural developments. There are, however, a fewproof-reading lapses. The comparison of Spencer Gore's painting of the public viewing post-impressionist paintings at the StaffordGallery in I9II and Gauguin's Visionof the Sermon,forexample, ismade even more striking when, as here (pp. 222-23), the images have been transposed! KING'S COLLEGE, LONDON LEONEE ORMOND The OxfordEnglishLiterary History,Volume X: I9IO-I940: TheModern Movement.By CHRIS BALDICK. Oxford: Oxford University Press.2004.xvii+ 477PP.?32 (pbk ?I8.99). ISBN:0-I9-8I8310-0 & 978-0-I9-8I8310-5 (pbk 0-I9-928834-8 & 978-0-I9-928834-2). Chris Baldick believes that academic literarycritics generally misrepresent the period 1910-I940 as the triumphof the revolution thatwe callmodernism amovement that 'was in itsown timeaminority current' (p. 3). For Baldick thedominant tendency in the poetry of theperiod was 'not thatof "modernism" but of realism' (p. IO7),and he argues that it is misleading to seemodernism as a revoltagainst realism. So far as prose fiction isconcerned, he remarks that 'theopposite of realism isnotmodernism; it is,as ithas been forcenturies, romance, or fantasy,or fable' (p. 212). His case restson...

Does Property have a Gender? Household Goods and Conceptions of Law and Justice in Late Medieval and Early Modern Saxony

The subject of this essay is the so-called Gerade, a term used in medieval and early modern Saxon law to designate those objects of personal and household use that were classified as the property of women and were inherited only by descendants of the female line. On the basis of a corpus of documents from the city of Leipzig related to succession wills, inventories, records of negotiation and arbitration of conflicts the meanings and usage of the Gerade within the household economy and the broader context of late medieval and early modern urban life have been brought out. An underlying principle of the Gerade was a gendered ordering of objects and proprietary rights, one which the emergence of a modern, uniform civil law no longer held to be compatible with Enlightenment notions of universality, equality and abstract ideals.

Grave-Goods as Gifts in Early Saxon Burials (ca. AD 450-600)

This paper considers the possibility that Anglo-Saxon grave-goods, rather than having been the life possessions of the deceased, may have been gifts to him or her, thereby directly effecting a relationship between the survivors and the donor. This cautions against ‘life-mirror’ approaches to burial data that assume a reflective correspondence between the wealth of the deceased in life and in death. It also takes a Deleuzean approach to signs, emphasizing them as a means of directly producing something, social relations in this case, rather than as a means of communication and as symbols to be decoded. Different lines of evidence are explored to determine, first, if any grave-goods were more likely to have been gifts and then to establish the possible scope of such actions, so that we might have some confidence that we are dealing with a practice, rather than with idiosyncratic, isolated instances.

An Early to Middle Saxon Settlement at Quarrington, Lincolnshire

Excavations undertaken at Quarrington, near Sleaford, Lincolnshire, revealed part of an Early and Middle Saxon settlement with associated fields or enclosures. Several timber buildings were identified, both round and rectangular, and there was evidence of ferrous and non-ferrous metalworking at the site. Finds included a large and regionally significant pottery assemblage, showing that Quarrington had an extensive trading network and obtained pottery from Lincolnshire and Leicestershire in the Early Saxon period. Pottery from the Northamptonshire area dominated the assemblage in the Middle Saxon period, with a smaller component from Lincolnshire and a limited quantity from Ipswich. Spatial variations in the Saxon ceramic assemblage suggest that the focus of settlement shifted towards the west or north west in the Middle Saxon period.Few rural sites of Early and Middle Saxon date have produced sufficient faunal material to permit an analysis of changes during the fifth to eighth centuries until now; the large bone assemblage from Quarrington indicates changes in diet and the husbandry of domestic animals through time, with sheep becoming more important as pig diminished. Alterations to the slaughter profiles of cattle and sheep were also evident and may indicate changes from subsistence to surplus production. An apparently isolated Neolithic cremation and a post-medieval stone building were also revealed.

A Neolithic dugout from a multi-period site near St Albans, Herts, England

With contributions by N. Brown, V. Fryer, R. Holgate, P. Murphy, I. Thompson and R. Wiggins In December 1988 rescue excavations on a multi-period gravel site 5km south-east of St Albans revealed the charred remains of a probable logboat containing cremated human and animal remains. Radiocarbon dating indicated a date in the early 4th millennium BC. The site continued to be used sporadically until the Late Iron Age, and there is some indication that it may have continued to have a ritual significance. The excavation also recorded one (possibly two) Early Saxon sunken floor huts, and ovens and ditches associated with medieval Parkbury.

A Neolithic dugout from a multi-period site near St Albans, Herts, England

In December 1988 rescue excavations on a multi-period gravel site 5 km south-east of St Albans revealed the charred remains of a probable logboat containing cremated human and animal remains. Radiocarbon dating indicated a date in the early 4th millennium BC. The site continued to be used sporadically until the Late Iron Age, and there is some indication that it may have continued to have a ritual significance. The excavation also recorded one (possibly two) Early Saxon sunken floor huts, and ovens and ditches associated with medieval Parkbury.

The Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Spong Hill, North Elmham. Part VII. The Iron Age, Roman and Early Saxon Settlement

The Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Spong Hill, North Elmham. Part VII. The Iron Age, Roman and Early Saxon Settlement