Original DocumentsCharter of Hugh of Bayeux to the Church and Canons of St. Mary of Torrington,temp. Henry II

The ‘Northern British Cooking-Pot’ stems from Saxo-Norman antecedents, and is found in two basic light-coloured fabrics, the ‘Gritty Northern’ and the ‘Staxton Ware Type’. From Yorkshire the type spread in the early thirteenth century west over the Pennines to Carlisle and thence to south-west Scotland. Present evidence suggests that while ‘Gritty Northern’ ware traditions may have spread to eastern Scotland by an overland route, there is reason to suppose there was close contact between the potteries of Fife and Angus and those of the Scarborough district in the late thirteenth century. While in Scotland there is a considerable hybridization of forms and fabrics, ‘Gritty Northern’ ware appears predominant north of the Forth, ‘Staxton Type’ ware to the south. In the fourteenth century distinctively Scottish local variants occur. French and Low Countries influences on early Scottish pottery are discussed, a tentative Scottish cooking-pot type-series put forward, and a gazetteer of sites producing rim-sherds given.     

Recent Excavations at the Cluniac Priory of St. Mary,Thetford, Norfolk

RUMNEY CASTLE, a small ringwork historically part of the marcher lordship of Gwynll?g, was situated above a steep natural scarp overlooking the R. Rhymney. First mentioned in A.D. 1184–85, the castle guarded the W. boundary of the lordship and the river crossing. The defences consisted of a ditch and clay rampart constructed around three sides of the site. Initially incorporated into the defences along the fourth side was a large timber building and possibly a palisade. The entrance was originally defended by a large timber gate tower, later superseded by a smaller timber structure. Following this, the defences were strengthened with the widening of the rampart and the construction of a small tower or keep alongside the entrance. Several phases of timber building, including two large halls, were arranged around a courtyard. During a later period the entrance was relocated and a stone gate tower constructed.

During the second half of the 13th century the site was converted for use as a manorial centre. The rampart was levelled, the interior of the site infilled, and a range of buildings constructed along the edges of the mound. A well-sealed coin hoard of c. A.D. 1288–89 discovered in a destruction deposit provides a terminus post quem for the abandonment of the site.     

Recent Developments in the Academic Study of the Cult of the Virgin Mary

Marian veneration is a vital dimension in Catholic and Orthodox Christianity, growing in significance from its origins in the early Christian centuries. This development has been particularly important in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; the era termed the "Age of Mary." The four books reviewed in this paper approach the subject of Marian veneration and pilgrimage to Marian shrines from a variety of perspectives. Significant themes covered include the evidence for Marian apparitions, traditional religious pilgrimage, and the changes the Internet has brought to pilgrimage and Marian devotion. Stafford Poole, CM's The Guadalupan Controversies in Mexico (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006), Robert Maniura's Pilgrimage to Images in the Fifteenth Century: The Origins of the Cult of Our Lady of Czestochowa (Woodbridge: Boyell Press, 2004), and Paolo Apolito's The Internet and the Madonna: Religious Visionary Experience on the Web (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005) all treat specific sites of Marian pilgrimage and are reviewed at length. In contrast, Swanson's edited volume, The Church and Mary: Papers Read at the 2001 Summer Meeting and the 2002 Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2004), contains a large number of papers on a range of issues relating to the cult of Mary including music, relics, visions, and the spread of Marian veneration. A selection of these papers is referred to throughout this essay, where relevant.     

Interpretations of Burial and Commemoration in Moravian and African Diasporas on St. John, Virgin Islands

I address change and continuity in mortuary practices from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries within enslaved and free populations on the former Danish and current US Virgin Island of St. John. Based on the evidence I present, St. John’s former residents created diverse burial sites for practical and symbolic reasons related to environment, kinship, socio-cultural politics, and religion. The following analysis reveals how people historically transformed identities of selves and communities as they perceived and commemorated the dead through meaningful mortuary sites and practices within dynamic local and regional contexts.     

The Excavation of a Brick Clamp at Shotesham St. Mary,Norfolk, 1969

Abstract

Rescue excavations in the small village of Llanmaes investigated an area of earthworks indicating the presence of several buildings. Medieval evidence was largely confined to finds. Three late 17th-century properties were examined; it is possible that they represent a planned development on the east side of the village green in response to population expansion in the Vale of Glamorgan. The buildings are of simple two-roomed plan, and would appear to be tenements of low status. One of the buildings produced evidence of smithying. A large group of metal finds of agricultural and domestic use was found, as was a closely-dated assemblage of wine bottles; a large midden deposit on the north edge of the site contained a very large group of post-medieval pottery. The buildings were abandoned by the end of the 18th century, presumably following rationalization of the local settlement morphology and farming. Thus the site represents a short-lived expansion in low-status rural housing at the time of the ‘Great Rebuilding’.