Landscape and warfare in Anglo‐Saxon England and the Viking campaign of 1006

This paper outlines the state of research into early medieval conflict landscapes in England and sets out a theoretical and methodological basis for the sustained and systematic investigation of battlefield toponymy and topography. The hypothesis is advanced that certain types of place were considered particularly appropriate for the performance of violent conflict throughout the period and that the social ideas that determined the choice of locale are, to some degree, recoverable through in‐depth, interdisciplinary analysis of landscapes, place names and texts. The events of 1006 and the landscape of the upper Kennet are introduced as a case study that reveals the complex interplay of royal ideology, superstition and place that were invoked in the practice of violence in late Anglo‐Saxon England. In the course of the discussion, this paper seeks to demonstrate the value of applying a similar approach to the full range of evidence for conflict landscapes in early medieval England and beyond.     

Painted Glass

The consideration of contemporary ‘designed landscapes’ around late medieval castles is now well-established. However, all too often the consideration of such a landscape is not accompanied by an equally detailed study of the building from which it was viewed, particularly the ‘viewing windows’—windows suggested to be deliberately placed within a building to provide a view over, across or towards a specific element of a designed landscape or the wider natural landscape. This paper discusses such windows, and also wall-walks, within the architectural context of one particular castle. It identifies three basic questions which should be asked in relation to any view (how did the viewer look, what were they looking at and why did they choose to look at it?), and seeks to demonstrate that windows and wall-walks intervene between the viewer and the view to the same degree as they facilitate the act of looking. An appreciation of these processes is crucial to understanding late medieval concepts of viewing.     

Early medieval landscapes in north‐west Spain: local powers and communities,fifth–tenth centuries

There has been in the last few years a rapid expansion in the archaeology of early medieval societies in the north‐west of the Iberian Peninsula. A large part of this evidence remains unpublished or has been published incompletely. This article considers the historical landscapes of the north‐western Iberian Peninsula in the early medieval period as social constructions, starting with the identification of the systemic relationships between different archaeological entities. The dynamics and articulation of early medieval societies in the Cantabrian area and in the Duero and Tagus basins will be outlined by means of deconstructing their landscapes. To achieve this, a set of variables will be analysed in comparative terms from three regions selected as case studies: Madrid, the Duero basin and the Basque Country. With the aim of explaining these systems diachronically a division between the fifth–eighth and eighth–tenth centuries will be taken into consideration.     

Monuments,Mobility and Medieval Perceptions of Designed Landscapes: The Pleasance,Kenilworth

THE PLEASANCE AT Kenilworth Castle was a ‘vividarium’, or pleasure garden, constructed by Henry V in the early 15th century. Despite academic recognition and the survival of well-preserved earthwork remains, the Pleasance has never previously been subjected to a programme of detailed archaeological survey and investigation. This article discusses the results of a new analytical earthwork survey undertaken by staff from English Heritage in 2012. It considers the contribution that these new findings make to wider debates on medieval designed landscapes, with a particular focus on mobility and its role in unlocking the meaning and symbolism embedded in elite landscapes.     

Cities of God? Medieval urban forms and their Christian symbolism

Situated in the context of recent geographical engagements with 'landscape', this paper combines 'morphological' and 'iconographic' landscape interpretations to examine how urban forms were perceived in late medieval Europe. To date, morphological studies have mapped the medieval city either by classifying urban layouts according to particular types, or by analysing plan forms of particular towns and cities to reveal their spatial evolution. This paper outlines a third way, an 'iconographic' approach, which shows how urban forms in the Middle Ages conveyed Christian symbolism. Three such 'mappings' explore this thesis: the first uses textual and visual representations which show that the city was understood as a scaled-down world – a microcosm – linking city and cosmos in the medieval mind; the second 'mapping' develops this theme further and suggests that urban landscapes were inscribed with symbolic form through their layout on the ground; while the third looks at how Christian symbolism of urban forms was performed through the urban landscape in perennial religious processions. Each of these 'mappings' points to the symbolic, mystical significance urban form had in the Middle Ages, based on religious faith, and they thus offer a deepened appreciation of how urban landscapes were represented, constructed and experienced at the time.     

A Few Remarks upon the Antiquities of Silver Found at Cuerdale

The settlement of Le Yaudet, in northern Brittany, occupies a prominent position on a headland dominating the estuary of the river Léguer. It is the focus of a long-term research excavation, now in its tenth year, designed to study continuities and discontinuities in the occupation sequence from the Iron Age to the late medieval period. The paper focusses on late Roman and early medieval occupation. Tenuous evidence for late fourth- to early fifth-century military use is considered. Thereafter, fields worked by the ‘lazy bed’ method were laid out: contemporary corn-drying ovens have produced dates in the sixth and seventh centuries. The results are discussed in the context of the sparse historical evidence and other contemporary finds from Brittany.     

Archaeology and Myth in Early Medieval Europe: Making the Gods of Early Ireland

THIS ARTICLE CRITICALLY EXAMINES medieval¹1 Archaeology and Palaeoecology, School of Natural and Built Environment, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast BT7 1NN, UK. p.gleeson@qub.ac.uk archaeology’s relationship with myth. A surge of research examining pre-Christian belief has seen mythology, place names and folklore increasingly utilised to reconstruct mentalities and cosmologies. As a wider global phenomenon, this trend comes with pitfalls that must be addressed more systematically. This article examines these issues through early medieval Ireland, beginning with an overview of recent trends in cognate disciplines, before proceeding through case studies of Tara, Brú na Bóinne (both Co Meath), and Nenagh (Co Tipperary). Far from being relics of prehistoric cult practices, many deities populating these landscapes may have been consciously invented for political, allegorical and exegetical reasons during the medieval period. This creative process had a marked 8th-century monumental dimension, contemporary with the floruit of saga literature. This precludes such evidence being utilised to reconstruct pre-Christian cosmologies. This has broad implications for research across European medieval archaeology that would seek to access ritual, belief and religion.     

Going round in circles: Some new evidence for population in the later middle ages

The Myntling Register contains some little known and, in some respects, highly unusual demographic evidence relating to the period from around the later fourteenth century up to the 1970s and to the wealthy Lincolnshire Priory of Spalding. It is in the form of hundreds of ‘family trees’ relating to the villein families of the priory's major manors. It has evidence of interest to economic historians of medieval England on several fronts, the three of which dealt with here are proportions of males to females, percentages of females marrying, and most particularly numbers of surviving children per family. This evidence, whilst by no means perfect, is of a much more direct kind than that often used in attempts to calculate later medieval population. As such it has a contribution to make to the very vexed question of later medieval demography.     

Climatic anomalies,food systems,and subsistence crises in medieval Novgorod and Ladoga

Climatic factors have affected subsistence strategies throughout human history. In northern Europe and Russia, short-term climatic anomalies and weather extremes are commonly thought to underlie famines in the Middle Ages. However, medieval subsistence crises were not just natural disasters and medieval people were not passive victims of climatic anomalies. In addition, the capacity to cope with climatic anomalies has varied temporally and spatially throughout the Middle Ages. Yet only a few studies have explored the climatic impact on regional medieval food systems comprehensively. This article examines the significance of climate variability on subsistence crises in medieval Novgorod and Ladoga (Russia), focusing on the relationship between short-term climate anomalies and crop cultivation. In addition, this paper evaluates the impact of crop failures, frosts, and other weather phenomena on the food system. The materials are drawn from medieval sources, paleoclimatological reconstructions, and archaeological evidence. The results show that short-term climatic anomalies alone rarely lead to severe subsistence crises, and during every famine period there is evidence of other contributing factors, such as unfavourable weather phenomena, disease, or social unrest. The variety of cultivated crops and agricultural techniques is shown to increase the region’s resilience to climatic anomalies and to crop failures.     

Bolton Castle and the Practice of Architecture in the Middle Ages

Abstract

It is suggested in this paper that our view of the medieval master mason's methodology, in respect of building design, tends to be a partial one; that it represents the ideal, and fails to take account of some medieval architects' inherent empiricism. A good deal is made of comparatively scarce documentary evidence, and of analyses of completed buildings chosen for their architectural coherence. For this reason, perhaps, our perception of the medieval master mason is sometimes too close to that of the modern architect. It is rare to examine a building's construction sequence in attempting to illuminate the subject: Bolton Castle is a building where it has been possible to reconstruct the process of design, and the conclusion drawn from it is that the design was not cut and dried prior to the commencement of building operations; rather it evolved as they progressed. It is shown that, in this, Bolton was by no means atypical and that such cases are a direct result of the medieval mason's craft based approach to his profession.     

Medieval Coastal Sand Inundation in Britain and Ireland

HISTORICAL, ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND GEOMORPHOLOGICAL data indicate that many of the coastal dune formations of Britain and Ireland underwent significant accretion in the medieval and post-medieval periods. The changes wrought by sand-blows to settlement and agriculture were far-reaching, and in some cases devastating. Contemporary attempts to stave off their effects were in many cases the prelude to settlement shift and abandonment. The desertion of sand-inundated settlements has left a rich but fragile archaeological resource concealed under coastal sand-dunes. Exposure, deflation and erosion remain serious challenges to the management and conservation of these landscapes. Archaeological methods applied in sand-dune landscapes are reviewed, with the aim of outlining the range of techniques and approaches available for research and management.     

Technologies of Appearance: Hair Behaviour in Early Medieval Europe

Personal appearance in general—and the grooming of hair in particular—has long held a position of interest in historical, art-historical, and literary scholarship. The same cannot be said of archaeology, and the material aspects of personal grooming in the construction and communication of identity have not been fully synthesized. As a result, little attempt has been made to understand the social role of hair in less well documented societies, such as those of early medieval northern and western Europe. This paper considers archaeological, iconographic and documentary evidence for the significance of, and physical engagement with hair in early medieval northern and western Europe, and offers a model for the interpretation of grooming as a social phenomenon. It is argued that grooming was a socially meaningful practice, and that it played a key role in the construction of early medieval identities, as well as in the maintenance and manipulation of boundaries and distinctions between individuals and groups.     

A Study of the Folklore on the Coasts of Connacht,Ireland

During the first two-thirds of the twentieth century, it was commonplace among historians that the common people of medieval England had remained substantially pagan in their religious beliefs. Christianity, according to this view, was essentially the faith of the elite, with the populace embracing what was at best a dual allegiance to the new and old religions. This view has now disappeared, and the time seems right to take stock of medieval popular religion in England with a view to solving three problems: why did the concept of a pagan medieval populace develop, flourish for so long and then decline; what is the actual evidence for medieval popular belief; and what new perspectives can be taken on medieval English Christianity by employing comparisons with paganism?     

APPROACHING THE LANDSCAPE DIMENSION OF THE MEGALITHIC PHENOMENON IN SOUTHERN SPAIN

Although the megalithic phenomenon in southern Iberia has received attention since the mid‐nineteenth century, there has been very little attention paid to the role that megalithic structures played in the organization of prehistoric landscapes. Just as in other areas of Europe, however, southern Iberian megalithic structures must have played complex roles in the social organization of landscapes that go far beyond their use as funerary containers. Using examples from our work in southern Iberia, we employ GIS‐based spatial analysis to explore for the first time various aspects of the landscape dimension of these monuments. We discuss three case‐studies for which fresh field data have been recently made available. In the first (Almadén de la Plata) we find patterns of association between medieval transhumance routes and megaliths, and we use cost‐surface modelling to suggest that medieval routes may reflect earlier, prehistoric patterns of movement which in turn suggest that megalithic structures functioned in this area as waypoints within an emerging mobility system for people and livestock. In the second case (Aroche) we show correlations between the locations of megaliths and theoretical territories defined by isochrones and contrast this pattern with the distribution of non‐megalithic funerary sites of the Early Bronze Age, concluding that the spatial distribution of megaliths in this region may relate to their role as landmarks. Lastly we describe a far more specific relationship which we have encountered in the Antequera region, where we believe we have identified a relationship between the orientation of the megalithic structure of Menga, a prominent natural feature and several newly discovered prehistoric sites. Together, these three examples suggest that the current focus on typology, chronology and contents in the study of Iberian megaliths needs to be matched with efforts to identify and interpret the often highly complex structure of the prehistoric landscapes of which they form an integral part.     

Champaner‐Pavagadh Archaeological Park: A Design Approach

Champaner‐Pavagadh, like many other heritage sites in India, is both an historic and ethnographic landscape. It possesses a unique status as a medieval city—Champaner—frozen in time, more or less protected by its sudden abandonment 450 years ago. At the same time, it is a living sacred site—Pavagadh Hill—visited annually by millions, with a resident population. Efforts are underway to declare the hill and the remains of the medieval city at its foot an archaeological park, which will ensure protection and conservation of cultural and natural resources. The challenge in designing the site as an archaeological park lies in articulating the pastoral image conjured up by the term in a manner that does not belie complex issues of land ownership, varied use, and ecological integrity of the site. Working landscapes—farms, flower fields, orchards, and nurseries—can be employed as a landscape‐design typology to ensure sustainability and to preserve and frame sightlines to monuments. Garden archaeology is necessary to uncover the symbiotic relationship between buildings and gardens of medieval Champaner.     

Localizing the Different Faces of Archaeological Landscapes in South India

Siruthavoor is a village situated 40?km south of Chennai in south India. The people of this village share their landscape with archaeological remains of south India’s past, including Iron Age–Early Historic burials and medieval temples. As an archaeologist, having witnessed and been both an indirect and direct participant in the changing reactions, actions, and perceptions of the community towards these monuments, I use this paper to explore the implications we can draw from the interaction between archaeological landscapes and various actors, spanning a period of twelve years. In India, as in many other countries, archaeological landscapes, monuments, and objects face the possibility of alteration, conservation, preservation, or destruction. The factors involved in this, I argue, are specific to localized conscious and unconscious decision-making by people living around such archaeological sites. Delving deeper into these issues will help us understand these often seemingly inexplicable choices that imperil the continued presence of archaeological monuments in the contemporary landscape. The behind-the-scenes events that occur in the ‘field’ of archaeology often remain untold, and yet they hold a lot of information. Through this narrative, this paper explores some of the subjectivities that we need to acknowledge as academics.     

Interpreting Rock-Cut Grave Cemeteries: The Early Medieval Necropolis and Enclosure of São Gens,Portugal

EXCAVATION AT SÃO GENS (Guarda district) in central Portugal has revealed an early medieval rock-cut grave cemetery and settlement, along with Roman and prehistoric evidence. The site presents an exceptionally rich palimpsest of archaeological monuments. This paper reviews the findings and seeks to address the problem of interpreting rock-cut grave cemeteries, by describing a spatial analytical methodology that draws on comparisons with early medieval cemeteries in England, as a means of enhancing the information deficit of such necropolises. In the light of these analyses, an interpretation of the São Gens site is offered in conclusion.     

St Darerca and Her Sister Scholars: Women and Education in Medieval Ireland

This article examines largely neglected evidence for women's education in Irish saints’ Lives and integrates it with findings from other medieval Irish texts, such as chronicles, devotional works and poetry. The sources attest that education was available to at least some girls and women under male and female teachers in mixed and single–sex schools from the earliest days of the Irish church until the mid–fifteenth century. Their history points to the power, agency and authority open to medieval Irish women and the respect, affection, and admiration their brothers felt for them.     

AN INVESTIGATION OF THE LIGHT-TRANSMITTING PROPERTIES OF EARLY MEDIEVAL SPLAYED WINDOWS

There is some evidence that early medieval single-light splayed windows were specifically designed for maximum optical efficiency. Some factors affecting the design of an individual window are examined from three points of view: (1) a brief theoretical consideration of the crude effects of size and angle of splay; (2) an abbreviated account of an analysis of the characteristics of actual windows surviving from the Anglo-Saxon period; (3) an account of an experiment to determine by means of a scale apparatus the relative effects of window size, angle and type of splay, and surface finish of the fabric.