Disputing legal privilege: civic relations with the Church in late medieval England

This article explores how provincial town governments sought to bolster civic authority in the period from c.1350 to c.1500. It focuses on royal boroughs, such as York, Chester and Norwich, which had a strong sense of lay civic identity and political pride. In these places, the king was the direct overlord, but the power of civic government was nonetheless frequently challenged by the franchises of local abbeys and convents, cathedral chapters, bishops' palaces, areas of sanctuary and the estates of local nobles. The main case study is urban relations with the Church, in particular disputes with local religious houses and rivalry between the Church and borough courts. How town leaders sought to deal with rival authorities provides an insight into the creation and assertion of lay urban identity in the late medieval period, and illuminates broader themes of how power was legitimised and enforced in post-Black Death society.     

Early medieval port customs, tolls and controls on foreign trade

The objective of this paper is to offer a fresh perspective on the nature and organization of international trade in early medieval ports from the evidence of documentary sources on tolls and customs, trading practices and controls on foreign merchants. In particular, the paper considers the evidence for continuities and borrowings from the Roman and Byzantine worlds and the extent to which they influenced trading practices in the west and especially in Anglo-Saxon England.     

Early medieval slave‐trading in the archaeological record: comparative methodologies

Efforts to identify archaeological indicators of slave‐trading have highlighted four main criteria: shackles, fortified settlements, currency, and burials. However, little effort has been made to examine these indicators together for the early medieval period. By comparing finds, studies, and methodologies from the two major slave‐trading regions of Britain and Ireland and Slavic east central Europe, it becomes clear that these so‐called ‘indicators’ for slave‐trading are inconclusive, and textually attested slave‐trading can remain archaeologically invisible. To better understand slave‐trading in the seventh to eleventh centuries, historians and archaeologists should instead focus on its context within general trade.     

Fama publica,infamy and defamation: judicial violence and social control of crimes against sexual morals in medieval Castile

Control of crimes such as the sin of lust was one way in which the elites at the head of Castilian town councils emphasised their good government. Among all the such crimes, sodomy was considered to be the most terrible, which brought major misfortunes to the population, and against which it was necessary to avenge. For those accused of this crime, or who actually committed it, it meant exclusion from society. For the urban Castilian elites this struggle was a way of justifying themselves as a governing group. Defence of society against sodomites is related to the political context and to the internal struggles of the urban elites. In the lawsuits analysed, there is clear repetition of a series of words related to individual reputation and social esteem: fama, honour, Buena fama, fama publica, infamia. These can be shown to be vital to the defence of the accused, and also frequently recur in the legislation itself. Rumour was also used as propaganda to shape public opinion and to discredit rivals in the struggle for urban power.     

Fama publica, infamy and defamation: judicial violence and social control of crimes against sexual morals in medieval Castile

Control of crimes such as the sin of lust was one way in which the elites at the head of Castilian town councils emphasised their good government. Among all the such crimes, sodomy was considered to be the most terrible, which brought major misfortunes to the population, and against which it was necessary to avenge. For those accused of this crime, or who actually committed it, it meant exclusion from society. For the urban Castilian elites this struggle was a way of justifying themselves as a governing group. Defence of society against sodomites is related to the political context and to the internal struggles of the urban elites. In the lawsuits analysed, there is clear repetition of a series of words related to individual reputation and social esteem: fama, honour, Buena fama, fama publica, infamia. These can be shown to be vital to the defence of the accused, and also frequently recur in the legislation itself. Rumour was also used as propaganda to shape public opinion and to discredit rivals in the struggle for urban power.     

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.     

Early medieval origins of iron mining and settlement in central Sweden: multiproxy analysis of sediment and peat records from the Norberg mining district

The historical Norberg mining district in central Sweden with its shallow, easily accessible iron ores figures prominently in the earliest documents from the 14th century concerning mining or metallurgy. This 1000-km² district is considered to be one of the first areas in Sweden exploited for iron ores and, in fact, Europe’s oldest known blast furnace, Lapphyttan, is located in the Norberg district about 10 km from the mines in the village of Norberg (Norbergsby). Earlier archaeological excavations suggest the furnace was in operation as early as the 11th or 12th century (870 and 930 ¹⁴C yr BP), and a number of other sites in the district have been dated to the 13th–15th centuries. Here, we have analyzed two lake sediment records (Kalven and Noren) from the village of Norberg and a peat record from Lapphyttan. The Lapphyttan peat record was radiocarbon dated, whereas the sediment from Kalven is annually laminated, which provides a fairly precise chronology. Our pollen data indicate that land use in the area began gradually as forest grazing by at least c. AD 1050, with indications of more widespread forest disturbance and cultivation from c. 1180 at Lapphyttan and 1250 at Kalven. Based on ²⁰⁶Pb/²⁰⁷Pb isotope ratios in Kalven’s varved sediment record, there is an indication of mining or metallurgy in the area c. 960, but likely not in immediate connection to our sites. Evidence of mining and metallurgy increases gradually from c. 1180 when there is a decline in ²⁰⁶Pb/²⁰⁷Pb ratios and an increase in charcoal particles at Lapphyttan, followed by increasing inputs of lithogenic elements in Noren’s sediment record indicating soil disturbance, which we attribute to the onset of mining the iron ore bodies surrounding Noren. From AD 1295 onwards evidence of mining and metallurgy are ubiquitous, and activities accelerate especially during the late 15th century; the maximum influence of Bergslagen ore lead (i.e., the minimum in ²⁰⁶Pb/²⁰⁷Pb isotope ratios) in both Kalven and Noren occurs c. 1490–1500, when also varve properties change in Kalven and in Noren sharp increases occur in the concentrations of a range of other ore-related metals (e.g., arsenic, cadmium, copper, iron, lead, mercury and zinc). From the 15th century onwards mining and metallurgy are the dominant feature of the sediment records.     

The fruits of migration: Understanding the ‘longue dureé’ and the socio-economic relations of the Early Transcaucasian Culture

The appearance of the Early Transcaucasian Culture (ETC) across large portions of the Near East in the 3rd millennium BC is commonly cited as one of the best archaeologically documented and broadly studied cases of a prehistoric migration. This study uses the ETC to develop a model of what happens when migrants move into regions that are already inhabited by emerging or complex societies. In particular, this study focuses on how immigrant populations can integrate themselves into indigenous communities in a physical, socio-political and economic sense, and how a migrant group’s identity can be constructed and maintained alongside these indigenous communities.