Archaeology,common rights and the origins of Anglo‐Saxon identity

It is generally accepted that rights over land, especially rights of pasture, played a formative role in establishing the identity of early Anglo‐Saxon ‘folk groups’, the predecessors of the middle Anglo‐Saxon kingdoms. This speculative paper sets early medieval and medieval common rights in the context of the archaeological longue durée of the period before 400 ad . It argues that ancient traditions of common governance, integral to Anglo‐Saxon identity, might have offered an attractive legitimacy to middle Anglo‐Saxon kingdom‐builders. While not seeking to establish any answers, the paper hopes to contribute to a wider research agenda.     

Squabbling Siblings: Gender and Monastic Life in Late Anglo‐Saxon Winchester

In early medieval Winchester, three monastic communities were enclosed together in the south‐eastern corner of the town. By the later Anglo‐Saxon period, Old Minster was a monastic cathedral and New Minster and Nunnaminster were monastic communities for men and women respectively. This paper addresses ways in which the three foundations collaborated and co‐ordinated with each other and with the city. While gender segregated these communities, both liturgy and the urban context integrated them, as can be seen from the books used and produced by religious men and women in this city in later Anglo‐Saxon England. The importance of prayer to the inhabitants of the city and the wider locale can be seen in the documents that request liturgical services – most often prayers and masses – in return for grants of land and other gifts. Ecclesiastical and lay individuals alike allied themselves to these religious houses, seeking commemoration and often also burial in their cemeteries and hoping to benefit spiritually from their prayers. The ways in which gender affected the religious experiences of Winchester's citizens and their consecrated brothers and sisters are complex, but they are also important in understanding how the saints and their servants on earth related to God, to each other and to the surrounding urban space.     

From virtue to virtue: diverging visions of sanctity and monasticism in two Lives of Cuthbert

The onset of the long eighth century demanded that churchmen develop new visions for their place in the changing social and political landscapes of Anglo‐Saxon England. The Anonymous Life of Saint Cuthbert (699–705) and Bede's Life of Saint Cuthbert (c.721) responded to these changes by offering two such visions. Each author made systematic divergences from his exemplars, articulated with a finesse often mistaken for emulation. Nevertheless, each of these texts offered a distinct vision for the church, giving particular attention to the role of monasticism in the changing circumstances of the long eighth century.     

A Note on the Role of Dogs in Anglo‐Saxon Society: Evidence from East Anglia

This paper examines the roles that dogs played in Anglo‐Saxon (420–1066 CE) society in East Anglia, drawing on data from the Late Roman site of Icklingham and the Anglo‐Saxon sites of West Stow, Brandon and Ipswich in Suffolk, England. The archaeological context of these dog finds is described, along with zooarchaeological data on dog sizes, ages at death and paleopathology. The data indicate that Early and Middle Anglo‐Saxon dogs are less varied than Late Roman dogs. Ageing and paleopathological data indicate that the West Stow dogs, in particular, had hard lives. Early and Middle Saxon dogs from East Anglia were relatively large, with an estimated withers height of about 60 cm. They may have served as guard dogs and herding dogs. The West Stow dogs may also have been involved in hunting and fighting. Late Saxon dogs from Ipswich reveal an increasing morphological diversity, suggesting that they played multiple roles in Late Anglo‐Saxon urban sites. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Old English sǣte and the historical significance of ‘folk’ names

Old English s?te names survive in documentary sources and place‐names, and have been used in historical discourse as evidence for early and middle Anglo‐Saxon socio‐political organization. Earlier analyses, founded on incomplete datasets, have attempted to interpret the material in isolation from its onomastic context; this has led to confusion about the significance of such names. Here the analysis of s?te names is based on a more complete corpus, leading to a radically new interpretation of their distribution, chronology and historical context, with significant implications for our understanding of the evolution of Anglo‐Saxon administrative geography and the wider perception of so‐called ‘folk’ names.     

Anglo‐Saxon Style Pottery from the Northern Netherlands and North‐Western Germany: Fabrics and Finish,Regional and Chronological Patterns,and their Implications

This paper presents the results of a study of Anglo‐Saxon style pottery in the northern Netherlands and north‐western Germany, involving macroscopic and microscopic analysis of fabrics and finish. Both regions show similar developments in form and decoration in the pottery of the fourth and fifth centuries ad , the late Roman and Migration period, resulting in the typical decoration and shapes that are known as the Anglo‐Saxon style. In the northern Netherlands, this style is traditionally associated with Anglo‐Saxon immigrants. It has, however, been suggested that this style was, rather, part of an indigenous development in areas in the northern Netherlands where occupation was continuous, though influenced by stylistic developments in north‐western Germany. That hypothesis is supported by the analysis of fabrics and finish presented here. The characteristic of fabrics and surface treatment indicate technological continuity. The use of local clay sources for Anglo‐Saxon style pottery and for contemporary regional types indicates that most of the Anglo‐Saxon style pottery in the northern Netherlands was not brought by Anglo‐Saxon immigrants or as imports, but must have been made locally. That applies to settlements with continuous habitation, as well as settlements in the coastal area that were not inhabited during the fourth century ad .     

Benedictine reform and pastoral care in late Anglo‐Saxon England

This article challenges the traditional assumption that the so‐called Benedictine reform produced a clear demarcation between secular and monastic communities in late Anglo‐Saxon England and, consequently, between, on one side, those who had pastoral responsibilities towards the laity and, on the other, those characterized by monastic seclusion. Though to varying degrees, the evidence available for both reformed and newly founded Benedictine communities suggests that the late Anglo‐Saxon monks, especially those serving the urban cathedrals of Winchester, Worcester and Canterbury, could be actively involved in the delivery of such pastoral provisions as preaching, baptism, attending the dying, and burial. Monastic communities therefore represented yet another factor influencing the lively and quickly developing pastoral landscape of late Anglo‐Saxon England.     

Elizabeth Elstob (1674–1752): England's First Professional Woman Historian?

Elizabeth Elstob was a scholar of Anglo‐Saxon, who published two important books and was admired by the leaders of the new movement for Anglo‐Saxon studies in the early eighteenth century. She was able to be part of this community because her brother William encouraged and enabled it. His death in 1715 was a catastrophe, marking the end of her productive life as an intellectual and plunging her into poverty. She disappeared for almost twenty years, but was discovered and rescued by the first generation of bluestockings. A project she had begun – a history of intellectual women – was taken up and completed by George Ballard. His Memoirs of British Ladies(1752) included Elstob's memories about Mary Astell, and is, among other things, the single most important source of information about this pioneer feminist.     

Acquiring,flaunting and destroying silk in late Anglo‐Saxon England

This paper argues that silk was ubiquitous in England in the late Anglo‐Saxon period. It also contends that when examined in the context of its use, it becomes clear that the deployment of silk was symbolic. People of means moved heaven and earth to get silk because it allowed them to appropriate its associated meanings for themselves. So, after establishing silk's ubiquity and its uses, the paper teases out its ideological underpinnings. Finally, the paper investigates the economics of silk. In the end it strives to prove that a whole spectrum of people acquired, displayed, and sometimes even destroyed silk, because it made others see them as they wished to be seen.     

Finding Vikings in the Danelaw

Historical, artefactual and place‐name evidence indicates that Scandinavian migrants moved to eastern England in the ninth century AD, settling in the Danelaw. However, only a handful of characteristically Scandinavian burials have been found in the region. One, widely held, explanation is that most of these Scandinavian settlers quickly adopted local Christian burial customs, thus leaving Scandinavians indistinguishable from the Anglo‐Saxon population. We undertook osteological and isotopic analysis to investigate the presence of first‐generation Scandinavian migrants. Burials from Masham were typical of the later Anglo‐Saxon period and included men, women and children. The location and positioning of the four adult burials from Coppergate, however, are unusual for Anglo‐Scandinavian York. None of the skeletons revealed interpersonal violence. Isotopic evidence did not suggest a marine component in the diet of either group, but revealed migration on a regional, and possibly an international, scale. Combined strontium and oxygen isotope analysis should be used to investigate further both regional and Scandinavian migration in the later Anglo‐Saxon period.     

Defining the OE hearg: a preliminary archaeological and topographic examination of hearg place names and their hinterlands

The OE term hearg is interpreted variously as ‘pagan temple’, ‘hilltop sanctuary’ and even ‘idol’. It is a rare survival in the English place‐name record. When it can be identified, the place name is commonly considered to refer to a location of pre‐Christian religious activity, specifically a pagan Anglo‐Saxon temple. Taking inspiration from the extensive and methodologically well‐advanced studies in Scandinavia, which have successfully related place‐name evidence for cultic and religious sites with the archaeology and topography of these localities, this paper adopts and uses a similar methodology to investigate the archaeological and topographic character of a selection of hearg locations. The traditional interpretations of the place name are questioned and evidence is presented that these sites are characterized by long‐lived, localized cult practice spanning the late prehistoric to early historic periods, but with activity reaching a zenith in the late Iron Age to Romano‐British eras, rather than the fifth to seventh centuries AD.     

Anglo‐Saxon attitudes: In search of the origins of English racism

In this article I examine the attitudes of the dominant ethnic group in Anglo‐Saxon England, the Germanic ‘settlers’, to the subordinate group, the indigenous British. 1 confine myself to the earlier period, before the tenth century, because the British population of England has disappeared from the historical record by that time. This probably means they had been absorbed into Anglo‐Saxon society and were no longer recognised as a distinctive group. Then, partly by means of a comparison with white English attitudes to black people today, I ask whether Anglo‐Saxon attitudes constituted, in modem terms, a racist ideology, and conclude that they did. Realising that this question will be held by some historians to be illegitmate, I finish by considering why they might take this view, and suggesting that racism has in fact been part of English national identity from the beginning.     

Book reviews

Barlow, Frank, (ed) The Carmen de Hastingae Proelio of Guy Bishop of Amiens Benericetti, Ruggero, Il Cristo nei Sermoni di S. Pier Crisologo Blackburn, Mark A.S. and Dumville, David N., (eds.) Kings, Currency and Alliances: History of Coinage of Southern England in the Ninth Century Bolòs, Jordi and Hurtado, Victor, Atles del Comtat de Besalú (785–988) Bolòs, Jordi and Busqueta, Joan J., (eds) Territori i Societat a l'Edat Mitjana. Història, Arqueologia, Documentació II: Almenar, 1147–1997, 850 anys de la Carta de Poblament Borge, Ignacio Álvarez, Comunidades locales y transformaciones sociales en la Alta Edad Media. Hampshire (Wessex) y el sur de Castilla, un estudio comparativo Borgolte, Michael, Sozialgeschichte des Mittelalters. Eine Bilanz nach der deutschen Einheit Brubaker, Leslie, Vision and Meaning in Ninth‐century Byzantium: Image as Exegesis in the Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzus Carver, Martin, Sutton Hoo: Burial Ground of Kings? Clanchy, M.T., Abelard: a Medieval Life Davis, R.H.C. and Chibnall, Marjorie, (eds) The Gesta Guillelmi of William of Poitiers Dodwell, C.R., Anglo‐Saxon Gestures and the Roman Stage Everson, Paul, and Stocker, David, Corpus of Anglo‐Saxon Stone Sculpture, Volume 5: Lincolnshire Freedman, Paul, Images of the Medieval Peasant Goetz, H.‐W. and Sauerwein, F. (eds) Volkskultur und Elitenkultur im frühen Mittelater: das Beispiel der Heiligenviten Guido, Margaret, The Glass Beads of Anglo‐Saxon England c. AD 400–700 Hawkes, Jane and Mills, Susan,(eds) Northumbria's Golden Age Hill, Joyce and Swan, Mary, (eds) The Community, the Family and the Saint: Patterns of Power in Early Medieval Europe Hooke, Della, Warwickshire Anglo‐Saxon Charter‐Bounds Howe, John, Church Reform and Social Change in Eleventh‐century Italy: Dominic of Sora and his Patrons Jestice, Phyllis G., Wayward Monks and the Religious Revolution of the Eleventh Century McGrail, Seán, Ancient Boats in North‐West Europe. The Archaeology of Water Transport to AD 1500 Magennis, Hugh, Anglo‐Saxon Appetites. Food and Drink and their Consumption in Old English and Related Literature Müller‐Wille, Michael, (ed) Rom und Byzanz im Norden. Mission und Glaubenswechsel im Ostseeraum während des 8.–14. Jahrhunderts, Band II, Internationale Fachkonferenz der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft in Verbindung mit der Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, Mainz, Kiel, 18.–25. September 1994 Neville, Jennifer, Representations of the Natural World in Old English Poetry Pörnbacher, Mechthild, (ed.) Walahfrid Strabo Zwei Legenden Potter, T.W., and King, A.C., Excavations at the Mola di Monte Gelato Saenger, Paul, Space between Words: the Origins of Silent Reading Schneidmüller, Bernd and Weinfurter, Stefan, (eds.) Otto III. Heinrich II. Eine Wende? Toswell,M.J., and Tyler, E.M., (eds.) Studies in English Language and Literature. ‘Doubt wisely’: Papers iin Honour of E.G. Stanley Van Houts, Elisabeth, Memory and Gender in Medieval Europe, 900–1200 Van Houts, Elisabeth M.C., (ed) The Gesta Normannorum ducum of William of Jumièges, Orderic Vitalis and Robert of Torigni, Volume II, Books V–VIII Wright, Roger, Early Ibero‐Romance     

From innovation to use: Ten eclectic theses on the historiography of technology

Abstract

The paper argues that most (Anglo‐Saxon) historiography of technology, including recent sociologically‐oriented work, is concerned with innovation rather than technology, and that there has been an unfortunate conflation between the two. Distinguishing innovation from use allows an engagement between the history of technology and history more generally, and is essential to the investigation of questions concerned with gender, race, and class in the history of technology. Moreover a focus on use allows us to make better sense of such terms as “technological determinism”. The history of innovation, while interesting and important, cannot address many issues which should be central to the history of technology, and cannot answer many of the questions historians of technology pretend to ask. A history of technology‐in‐use does so and, at the same time, opens up new areas for investigation, including the history of maintenance, repair and remodelling, as well as further developing accounts of innovation based on use. The paper deals largely with modern technology, and draws on a number of different, and all too often disjointed, traditions of thinking about the role of technology in history.     

Book reviews

Books reviewed: Miquel Barceló and François Sigaut (eds), The Making of Feudal Agricultures? P.S. Barnwell and Marco Mostert (eds), Political Assemblies in the Earlier Middle Ages Giselle de Nie, Word, Image and Experience: Dynamics of Miracle and Self‐Perception in Sixth‐Century Gaul Miriam Gill and Jane Hawkes (eds), Images of Salvation: The Story of the Bible through Medieval Art Sonja Marzinzik, Early Anglo‐Saxon Belt Buckles (Late Fifth to Early Eighth Centuries A.D.): Their Classification and Context     

Approaches to violent death: a case study from early medieval Cambridge

This paper examines one of a number of weapon‐injury victims from the cemetery at Church End in Cherry Hinton, Cambridge (Hertfordshire Archaeological Trust/Archaeological Solutions site HAT358), which was in use from the late Anglo‐Saxon period until after the Norman Conquest. Drawing on precedents set by forensic studies, palaeopathology and more traditional spatial cemetery analysis, assertions are made about the nature of the attack and its context. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.