Heathen Graves and Victorian Anglo-Saxonism: Assessing the of John Mitchell Kemble

Howard Williams

INTRODUCTION

John Mitchell Kemble [b. 1807, d. 1857], was one of the leading Anglo-Saxon scholars of the Victorian era. He is credited with having revolutionised many areas of Anglo-Saxon scholarship and promoted the view that England in his day owed much of its racial and linguistic origins, as well as its customs and institutions, to the Anglo- Saxons. His studies addressed many topics including social, political and legal history, literature and poetry, mythology, philology, as well as the analysis of runes and place names. Kemble also turned to archaeology in his search for the nature and qualities of the early Germans and their contribution to the origins of England. Kemble was one among a small number of mid-nineteenth century scholars who studied early Anglo-Saxon funerary remains and consequently laid the theoretical and methodological foundations of modern Anglo-Saxon archaeology i. While others may have stronger claims to the title of 'father of Anglo-Saxon archaeology' ii , Kemble's work had a unique and profound impact on subsequent developments in Anglo-Saxon archaeological thought. In particular, Kemble appears to hold the singular position of not only excavating and studying archaeology in England, but also searching for the material evidence of the Saxon's ancestors in the grave-fields of northern Germany. Kemble combined a careful study of the north German funerary remains, both through excavation and the study of museum collections, with a rigorous comparison with the available English evidence compiled by fellow archaeologists. In doing so, Kemble developed a sophisticated argument charting the Germanic racial origins of the Anglo- Saxons and portraying their social organisation, moral values and religious character from the testimony of archaeological remains.

In order to explain and contextualise the archaeology of John Kemble this paper argues that he was strongly influenced by contemporary Victorian ideas of race and racial origins. More specifically, Anglo-Saxon philology and history (including Kemble's own work in these fields) had an important role in the emerging discourses on racial origins in the nineteenth century and emphasising the Germanic nature of England's origins. In turn, these theories provided a motivation for the manner the material evidence was addressed. We can also identify the importance of Kemble's personal circumstances, personal relationships and political views as influences over his archaeological thinking. In particular, his affiliations and sympathies with the German states and people are mirrored in his approach towards burial rites and material culture. This paper hopes to provide a case study in the investigation and reassessment of early Victorian Anglo-Saxonism from an archaeological perspective, aiming to both develop as well as question many of the current assumptions and generalisations concerning the Victorian studies of the Anglo-Saxons, including the well-worn perception that Victorian archaeology was simply the 'handmaiden' of history. iii

Anglo-Saxon Archaeology and the Victorians

1 It has often been said that the Victorians were obsessed with the past, and particularly with their Anglo-Saxon racial origins. iv The Victorian Age was a time in which the legendary and historical past was appropriated and invented through many media from historical novels and poems to its re-creation and invention in art, architecture and landscapes. v The Victorian fascination with the past included the widespread excavation, collection and presentation of ancient material culture from Britain, its Empire and beyond. vi The subsequent growth of interest, patronage and research in archaeology by middle and upper class individuals, through museums and national and local societies, needs to be seen as only part of a Victorian ‘ cult of the pre- industrial age ’. This encompassed numerous ‘ invented traditions ’ and perceived associations between the past and present including the study of the material and written evidence for the Anglo-Saxon period. vii

There have been many theories to explain the Victorian interest in the past in general, and the Anglo-Saxons in particular, through archaeology. The root of archaeology as a discipline has an intellectual context alongside contemporary developments in geology, natural history, ethnology, history and philology. Archaeology also emerged in the distinctive socio-political and economic climate created by the upheavals of the Agrarian and Industrial Revolutions, the growth of the middle class and the rise of nationalism and imperialism. The disruption and changes motivated by the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars and the riots and protests that followed have also been frequently cited as motivations for the interest and importance given to the ancient past as a source of discussion and research. All these factors may have contributed to a climate in which archaeology could develop. In particular, Victorian concerns of nationhood and national origins could have encouraged the increasing focus upon ' national antiquities ' and the exploration of the Middle Ages for the roots of Victorian values and institutions. viii Moreover, the Victorians inherited the romantic tradition of seeing medieval graves as a grisly window onto the medieval past, ix and this may have motivated the specific in graves as evidence for the origins of the English.

The antiquarian interest in the Anglo-Saxons can be traced back to the Tudor period and it is clear that the Victorians were not the first to develop an interest in the Anglo- Saxons. x Yet alongside the Victorian exploration of historical, literary and philological studies for the Anglo-Saxons, the identification and dating of burials for the first time provided material evidence for the customs and culture of the earliest English. Across southern and eastern England, Anglo-Saxon burials were discovered as part of the Victorian craze for barrow-digging while others were uncovered during agricultural improvement schemes and the proliferation of industrial activities such as road construction, railway-building and quarrying. When burial mounds were investigated by archaeologists, Saxon graves were either found as primary interments, or as secondary additions to earlier Neolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age monuments. xi On other occasions labourers accidentally opened Anglo-Saxon burials not marked with a surviving burial mound. In such cases the finds were sometimes reported to local archaeologists who might return to carry out extensive excavations. In turn, discoveries were sometimes published, either as separate volumes, as papers in the journals of the national societies including Archaeologia, The Archaeological Journal, and the Journal of the British Archaeological Association or as reports in the emerging county-based archaeology societies .xii These diggings produced a wealth of

2 information and material about Anglo-Saxon graves and their contents that have remained valuable to researchers to the present day.

Anglo-Saxon objects and graves were not novelties to British , however early antiquarians usually assigned them to the British, Celts or Romans. xiii In 1793, the prolific barrow-digger James Douglas presented an argument for the Anglo-Saxon date for many of the burial mounds that he had excavated in Kent, but his conclusions were ignored by subsequent antiquaries like Colt Hoare and Cunnington. xiv It was only from the 1840s that Douglas’ views became widely recognised and accepted. Even so, grave-finds continued to be misidentified as Prehistoric, Roman or Viking. xv What was different about the mid-nineteenth century studies was that through the pioneering work of Thomas Wright and Charles Roach-Smith, early medieval graves and artefacts were increasingly assigned to the Anglo-Saxons or Teutons , distinct from those associated with earlier races .xvi These labels constituted more than a chronological ascription; they were racial and religious epithets developed from the burgeoning interest in the Germanic origins of Victorian society. In other words, the use of the Anglo-Saxon label simultaneous shows the increasing competence and accuracy of nineteenth century antiquarian and archaeological researches, but also represents the interpretation of early medieval graves within the increasingly important nationalistic and racial academic discourse. The excavation of cemeteries and burial mounds provided material evidence for 'Pagan Saxondom' .xvii

What is notable concerning recent research in Anglo-Saxon archaeology has been the lack of interest in the socio-political and academic context within which the discipline developed. Certainly, recent years have seen a growth in research into the archaeology of the Victorian period. Yet histories of archaeology and its socio-political context have tended to address only although, more recently, histories of both Roman and later medieval archaeologies of the nineteenth century have been charted and assessed. xviii In contrast, the development of Anglo-Saxonism has been researched almost exclusively on the fields of history and philology. xix The work that has taken place falls into two camps. The first are detailed and biographical assessments of the accomplishments of individuals and institutions in the development of Anglo-Saxon archaeology, such as the work of the London collector Charles Roach Smith and the meetings and publications of archaeological societies such as the Archaeological Institute. xx The second are narrative histories of the origins of Anglo-Saxon archaeology that identify the influences of intellectual traditions in philology and history and show the influence of Victorian archaeology on subsequent generations of researchers. xxi Both the detailed biographies and the broad histories have contributed valuable insights and perspectives on Victorian Anglo-Saxon archaeology and have set the stage for future research. By looking further at the archaeological career of John Mitchell Kemble, the aim is to combine the strengths of both of these approaches to identify the close interaction of Kemble’s personal, political and academic ideas in his attempts to use of Anglo-Saxon graves to construct racial history. xxii In order to do this, we must begin by sketching Kemble's career and investigating his historical and philological scholarship.

KEMBLE'S ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH

During Kemble’s lifetime his achievements in Anglo-Saxon studies were numerous. While a full resumé of his researches is beyond the scope of this paper, the most

3 important works provide an impression of his many achievements. Kemble made a fundamental contribution to Anglo-Saxon literary studies in his edition of the epic Anglo-Saxon poem first published in 1833. xxiii Between 1839 and 1848 he produced the Codex Diplomaticus Aevi Saxonici , a collection of Anglo-Saxon charters that remains an invaluable source of evidence for students of Anglo-Saxon law and history. xxiv In 1849 he published a two-volume history of Anglo-Saxon England, its people and institutions, entitled the Saxons in England . The book proved to be influential throughout the nineteenth century and beyond. xxv A consequence of the magnitude of this scholarship has been that previous biographers and commentators (usually students of literature, history and philology), have yet to appraise Kemble's contribution to archaeology. xxvi Equally, archaeologists have themselves tended to downplay his archaeological contribution, regarding Kemble as ‘an historian’. xxvii Yet it will be shown that Kemble not only directly contributed to the knowledge of early medieval cemeteries and material culture, but remained an influence on the theoretical development of Anglo-Saxon archaeology even to the present day.

In the introduction to the posthumous collection of Kemble's works entitled Horae Ferales, Kemble's friend R.G. Latham argued that Kemble came to archaeology late in life upon travelling to Germany. xxviii However, there is evidence for his involvement in archaeology at a much earlier stage. Kemble's biographer Raymond Wiley noted his involvement in an early excavation in Surrey in 1825 with the Scottish geologist Sir Roderick Impey Murchison. xxix This is when Kemble would have been eighteen years old and attending the King Edward VI Free Grammar School at Bury St. Edmunds, with a place awaiting him at Trinity College Cambridge. xxx His involvement may have been encouraged by his headmaster at Bury, Dr Benjamin Heath Malkin, who was a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and later Professor of History at the University of London. It is not clear whether Kemble sustained his interest in excavating graves during the next two decades when archaeology was becoming increasingly popular, as the next indication of his archaeological activities occurs during the late 1840s. The end of his term as editor of the British and Foreign Review in 1845 brought him financial hardship and family difficulties leading to separation from his wife the following year. However this state of affairs may have given him more time with which to pursue his academic interests. At this time he is known to have examined Roman camps and villas as well as medieval churches in the Cheltenham area with some friends. xxxi By 1848 he had reached a position of responsibility as a member and auditor of the Archaeological Institute. xxxii In a letter to in April 1849, Kemble records his attendance of archaeological and historical society meetings. xxxiii At the annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute at Salisbury in the same year, he excavated a barrow on Salisbury Plain with a 'medical friend'. This is referred to in another letter to Grimm in which he sketches a section of this multiple-phased burial mound and the graves that were discovered. xxxiv In the archaeological collection Horae Ferales , Kemble mentions further barrow excavations that either he observed or participated in. xxxv Kemble was thus already actively involved in archaeological thought and practice by 1849 and before his move to Germany.

Kemble's motive for leaving England was his marital separation. His wife was the daughter of a University professor whom he had met while visiting the Grimm brothers in Göttingen. They had married there in 1836 and in order to secure a divorce, Kemble had to be resident in the kingdom of Hanover. xxxvi Within a month of

4 his arrival, in a letter to Grimm dated 15 th September 1849, he described the wealth of the prehistoric barrows in the environs of Hanover and that he was ‘ desirous of opening some of them, that I may compare them with our own, of which I have examined many ’. This letter confirms that he already perceived himself to be an established field excavator before this move to Hanover. It also shows his immediate enthusiasm for investigating the local burial mounds expressly to compare them with English examples. Indeed, he notes to Grimm that he had already promised the Archaeological Institute a paper on heathen burials before departing to Germany.

In the six years in Germany from 1849 to 1855 during which he lived in comparative poverty, xxxvii Kemble's archaeology consisted of two activities. First, Kemble became involved in illustrating and ordering archaeological materials. In a letter to Grimm, he described how he was passing his time painting the bronze and stone weapons in the Museum of the Historischer Verein xxxviii where he was rapidly afforded a position of responsibility and was systematically registering and labelling the Museum's growing collections of Germanic antiquities. xxxix A German colleague Goedecke wrote to Grimm describing Kemble's activities:

As a hobby he is now arranging the lance-heads, battle-axes, plowshares and such instruments of the Antiquarian Society with a zeal which I can never comprehend for such externally mute objects. Moreover, he is making sketches of spangles, axes and urns for future lectures in England, copying embassy reports from London to Hanover around 1700, intending to publish them, and is busy in many fields. xl

Kemble appears to have had an incredible memory for objects, making informed observations and comparisons between artefacts he saw and drew in museums and collections throughout Germany, notably the museums of Munich, Berlin and Schwerin as well as in Hanover. xli In the introduction to his article ‘Burial and Cremation’ , Kemble stressed the importance of proper finds illustration, and of the recording of exact details of the manner and location of the artefacts. xlii

Second, Kemble became an enthusiastic excavator. He was responsible for large-scale excavation programmes undertaken with the help of antiquarian colleagues in the name of the Historical Society of Lower Saxony. xliii The foci of research were the barrow cemeteries and urnfields of the region around Hanover. As with his illustrations, the explicit aim seems to have been to gather evidence for comparison with British antiquities. He was involved in the excavation of cemeteries in the regions of Soltau (1853) and Oldenstadt (1854) over two long seasons. While his excavation and recording skills were poor by modern standards, his unparalleled skills at detecting denuded burial mounds and recovering their interments have been recognised by recent commentators. xliv In a paper published in 1855 in the Archaeological Journal, and in lectures delivered in 1856 and published posthumously, his zealous investigations are discussed in some detail. A quote from the paper ‘Burial and Cremation’ in the Archaeological Journal gives an impression of his activities:

…from the most important cemetery that I ransacked, that of Molzen, [were found] more than two hundred urns of the Iron Age, and of no other,.. In the cemetery at Ripdorf, from which I took nearly sixty urns entire, I also found one dagger of flint and a profusion of flint chips, of the sort we call knives, some placed with, some round, the urns. xlv

5 The breadth and depth of his archaeological knowledge was clearly immense by the end of his stay in Germany and he gained the respect and thanks of many of his German colleagues. When the Hanover museum opened in 1856, he was asked to give three lectures that illustrate his critical grasp of contemporary approaches and his knowledge of the archaeological evidence. xlvi

Kemble had taken his experiences from England to Germany, but now he was to take the results and expertise from his German research back across the North Sea. Upon his return, he regularly attended meetings of the Archaeological Institute, presented lectures and continued to excavate. For instance, as the Chair of the November meeting of the Archaeological Institute in 1856, he gave details of two excavations in Kent: one at Mereworth Castle, the seat of the Viscount of Falmouth, where a levelled barrow was excavated and thought to be potentially Roman in date, another by the Reverend L. B. Larking and himself on the site of Coldrum long barrow in Kent. xlvii The pottery recovered from the latter site was thought to be Saxon and he suggested that the place-names containing the element ád that he interpreted as ‘ funeral fire ’ reflected the reference to places where Saxon cremation rites had taken place. xlviii He also refers to a Kentish barrow in which he uncovered the bones of a falcon, perhaps hinting at further diggings before his death in 1857. xlix

During these final years, it is difficult to regard Kemble as anything other than an archaeologist, even if he never relinquished his philological and historical interests. His final activities in archaeology show the potential of his work had he not succumb to bronchitis. In presenting a lecture to the Royal Irish Academy in February 1857 and drawing upon his wide experience and knowledge of Bronze Age finds from across Europe, he promoted the view that they can be linked to the 'Keltic' race. Finally, just before his death, he was commissioned to arrange the Keltic and Anglo-Saxon portion of the archaeological finds for the planned Manchester Exhibition that would have, for the first time, produced a scientific typological categorisation of British prehistoric and early historic archaeology. l Sadly, this final project was interrupted by his death on month later in the same city. li Subsequent to his death, his unfinished works were compiled under the title Horae Ferales . The volume was edited, compiled and published by R.G. Latham and A.W. Franks with brilliant illustrations by Orlando Jewitt .lii Recognition of the importance of Kemble's work by contemporaries can be found in the list of pre-publication subscribers to the volume. The list included many of the leading historians, antiquaries and archaeologists of the time. Had Kemble lived to develop his researches, there is little doubt that he would have further profoundly influenced the development of the prehistoric and early historic archaeology of both Germany and the British Isles. Let us now explore what factors influenced Kemble’s archaeological research.

KEMBLE'S ARCHAEOLOGY IN CONTEXT

During his lifetime, a complex network of personal, social and ideological factors influenced Kemble's Anglo-Saxonism and Germanism and impacted directly upon his scholarship and archaeology. Kemble came from a middle-class theatrical family, and his mother was of French and Swiss extraction and a German-speaker. liii In his early years, Kemble had travelled widely on the Continent. Once he became fascinated with Anglo-Saxon scholarship, he frequently travelled to Göttingen where he had established a strong academic and personal friendship with the famous German

6 philologists and folklorists Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. This was also where he met his future wife (see above). liv

His travels and both his family and personal links to Germany are reflected in his politics and philosophy. Kemble appears to have developed a radical liberal stance at Trinity College influenced by the writings of Benthem and Mill. He was also a member of the Cambridge Apostles that contained many of the leading literary and academic figures of the time including Alfred (later Lord) Tennyson who wrote a sonnet in Kemble's honour. lv His radical and liberal views are revealed explicitly in his letters to Jacob Grimm. lvi Partly, no doubt because of his controversial and often outspoken criticisms of Anglo-Saxon scholars in England, Kemble failed to secure a permanent academic position. Instead he supported his research through private teaching, editing and later as the examiner of stage plays. As well as his personal and academic context, this lack of institutional restraints may have contributed to his freedom in eschewing a narrow nationalism for a more internationalist and pro- German political stance. lvii Once established as editor of the British and Foreign Review, he composed determined articles staunchly defending liberties and constitutional monarchies against both totalitarian regimes and revolution. His political affiliation was with both Britain and the German states, and he held strong feelings against Spain, France and Russia. lviii His idealistic and liberal philosophy even led him to be involved in the aborted Spanish Revolution of 1830. lix

All these aspects led to a deep Germanism in both personal and academic life. Yet these factors do not in themselves explain Kemble's focus on archaeology in later life. In order to provide a more specific context for his interest in the study of material culture as a source of evidence, we need to investigate his other academic research. Kemble's studies in Anglo-Saxon literature, language, history and runes, together with the interdisciplinary environment of contemporary scholars and academic circles all may have influenced his archaeology.

Literature and Language

It can be argued that Kemble's studies of literature and language provided a philological approach to material culture and burial rites. Jacob Grimm's influential Deutsche Grammatik had a strong impact on Kemble's research. Grimm regarded the Anglo-Saxon language as an off-shoot of the Germanic tree and promoted a scientific approach to philology. Through his correspondences and visits, Kemble utilised and championed Grimm's approach in England. lx His perception of the language as evidence of the historical and racial link between Britain and the Continent can be illustrated by his 1835 edition of Beowulf :

...it is more than probable that the tongue spoken by Hengest in Sleswic was that of Aelfred the king, four centuries later.... lxi

Kemble regarded words as 'artefacts' from the past whose history could be scientifically analysed and traced logically. It was a short step to regard material culture, as both materially and conceptually ‘artefacts’ of the German races. Kemble regarded archaeology as a science with techniques akin to comparative anatomy, the same way in which both Grimm and Kemble regarded their philology. Language thus provided a comparative model from which Kemble was to set about exploring Continental connections using archaeological remains. This approach is not unique, 7 and recent studies of the development of have demonstrated that the 'philological tradition' for the study of archaeological remains had a long history in antiquarian research. In particular, while a scientific approach to philology was relatively novel in England, there had been a longer tradition of close links between archaeology and philology in Germany in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. lxii Consequently, it may be no coincidence that an archaeological metaphor is employed for the German land and people when Kemble complemented Grimm's work in the British and Foreign Review of 1840:

He [Grimm] entwined the naked ruin and the dried-up moat with the undying wreath of native poetry, and, by example as well as by precept, encouraged his countrymen to cultivate the flowers indigenous to their soil... lxiii

Evidence for language and literature influencing Kemble's archaeology is exemplified in his edition of the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf . From his commentaries, it is clear that Kemble regarded Beowulf , both as a literary work and as a source of historical and philological information, as a cultural lynchpin that connected England to its Teutonic heritage. lxiv In the introduction, Kemble states that: ' Beowulf was nearly Hengest's contemporary.' lxv In other words, Beowulf provides us with an historical window onto the northern world from which the Anglo-Saxon tribes came to invade and settle England. lxvi Even more than the poem's early date and language, it contained rich evidence of Germanic beliefs and practices. In particular the clarity of the descriptions of the material culture and burial rites (including two scenes of cremation) give explicit expectations for the racial and cultural significance (as well as the form and character) of ancient Germanic burials. There was an existing tradition of combining the known funerary archaeology with historical accounts in order to portray the character of primitive Germanic society. lxvii Indeed, the poem was increasingly used in relation to archaeological evidence as compatible but contrasting insights into early Germanic society following the distribution of Kemble's edition. lxviii Moreover, Kemble had also read Tacitus' Germania , Scandinavian sagas and histories, and a range of Greek and Roman sources, all of which portrayed cremation rites among the barbarians and early civilizations. lxix Even though he was not alone in seeing disparities between the spectacular cremations portrayed in the poem and the more modest cinerary urns commonly uncovered by archaeologists, Kemble described the importance of cremation as a pagan, Germanic rite through the discussion of the poem:

...I am struck with amazement when I read in Beowulf so many passages which have reference to it [cremation] as a rite, and a noble one, applied to the funerals of heroes and kings. lxx

So by establishing how objects and graves within ancient texts were described, and by seeing language and objects as comparable means for charting racial origins, Kemble may have been encouraged to address and interpret archaeological evidence for comparable racial and cultural links across the North Sea. Indeed, Kemble was aware that the poem was far from being an objective historical document. Hence, the use of archaeology may have been not only inspired by Beowulf and philological models, but may have been directly aimed as compensating the limitations of the literary and linguistic evidence.

History and Myth

8 These relationships were further underpinned through Kemble's explorations of Anglo-Saxon social and legal history. The development of Anglo-Saxon customs and institutions was examined by Kemble in The Saxons in England .lxxi Kemble followed the Whig tradition of defining the Saxons as the direct ancestors of the Victorians. Drawing on Tacitus and earlier perspectives that highlighted the primitive and democratic nature of the Germans, Kemble suggested that the society and institutions of early Anglo-Saxon England owed their origin, not to the Romans, but to their Continental German ancestry, a view that resonated in subsequent scholarship. lxxii For example, influenced by Grimm's Deutche Mythologie, Kemble argued that the Anglo- Saxons shared with other Germanic tribes a similar pantheon of gods, rituals and beliefs. lxxiii

Kemble’s historical studies also extended to the investigation of more recent links between Germany and Britain, namely the seventeenth and eighteenth century political relationships associated with the Hanoverian dynasty. Whilst he developed his archaeological researches in Germany, he simultaneously worked on the Leibniz Correspondence that detailed relationships between the courts of Hanover and Britain. lxxiv Both Kemble's knowledge of this period and his Germanic bias are evident in his review and criticisms of Macaulay's History of England. lxxv Moreover, as an extension of this interest in more recent links between Germany and England it is also noteworthy that Kemble dedicated his study The Saxons in England to Queen Victoria and explicitly recognises the relationship between her reign and the Saxon past. Given Victoria's position, and the German heritage of both her husband Albert as well as her Hanoverian ancestors, the title of Kemble's book (the Saxons in England) neatly encapsulates the Continental relationship with England perceived in both the past and the present.

Kemble employed what might be described as a comparative and ethnological approach to the Germanic tribes that no doubt invited him to consider the possibility that Germanic burial customs were one among many institutions and traditions which united the Anglo-Saxons with their Continental predecessors. This is supported by the study of the charter evidence by which Kemble suggested a special significance for funerary rites as a custom integral to primitive Germanic society. Kemble argued that the references to ‘ heathen graves’ (hæþenen byrigels) recorded in the boundaries of later Anglo-Saxon estates illustrated that prior to Conversion boundaries were appropriate places of burial. lxxvi These charters were deemed by Kemble to embody the very essence of the Anglo-Saxon inheritance from their Germanic predecessors both in terms of land-holding and social structure. The grave was:

‘The work of man indeed, but intended to be his eternal home, when, after his long days of work, he folds his hands and betakes himself to his rest.... Accustomed to a free life among the beautiful features of nature, he would not be separated from them in death. It was his wish that his bones should lie by the side of the stream, or on the summit of the rocks that overlooked the ocean which he had traversed; or he loved to lie in the shade of the deep forests, or on the glorious uplands that commanded the level country; nor was it till long after Christianity had made him acquainted with other motives and higher hopes, till the exigencies of increasing population had made new modes of disposing of the dead necessary, and till the clergy discovered a source of power and profit in taking possession of the ceremonies of interment, that regular churchyards attached to the consecrated building became possible’. lxxvii

The pagan grave to Kemble was thus more than a store of archaeological data, it embodied and evoked associations between land, people and nature. In the context of

9 romantic nationalism, the graves of the ancient Germans were evidence of the link between race and landscape. lxxviii Kemble had read Grimm's work on cremation in Germanic myth and folklore, and it is likely that the burning of the dead held a particular significance to him as the archetypal Teutonic custom. lxxix

But for Kemble and his contemporaries, the use of archaeology was not simply an alternative to the use of written sources, whether myth and legend, history or literature. Instead, texts and artefacts were essential ingredients to be mixed in the construction of history through the study of burial customs. Kemble explicitly stated that he saw the work of Anglo-Saxon archaeologists as 'in vain' if it was not combined with an understanding of the mortuary ceremonies of the Scandinavians. lxxx 'We must collate and combine; ever the spade in one hand, the book in the other .'lxxxi Although aware that cremation rites were widespread in ancient societies, Kemble was interested in its role among the ancient pagan Germans supported in Tacitus’ Germania , the Capitularies of Charlemagne and the poem Beowulf. lxxxii His interpretation of the rite was further influenced by his use of Old Norse literature. lxxxiii The Age of Burning before the use of inhumation, referred to in Heimskringla was seemingly verified by Kemble in his German excavations. lxxxiv Another example of a combined approach is his use of his archaeological work in Germany together with Icelandic sagas and English place-names to suggest the possibility that the Anglo- Saxons used prehistoric cairns or newly erected stones upon which they cremated their dead. lxxxv He also combined written and material evidence in discussions of early medieval weaponry, lxxxvi ship-burial, animal sacrifice, lxxxvii the sacred significance of animals, lxxxviii the relationship between barrow-size and social status, lxxxix self immolation in cremation rites xc and even the religious significance of plants in funerary practices. xci In short, he regarded 'the essential importance of the mortuary ceremonies of the Northmen as an elucidation of those of the Anglo-Saxons' .xcii

There was however, a further factor that influenced his archaeological research. While written sources could be read as ethnography and mythology to support the Germanic status and racial identity of the Anglo-Saxons, Kemble was more critical of their value for writing history . Unlike many Victorian scholars who used historical sources with little critical appraisal to construct a narrative of Anglo-Saxon settlement and nation-building, xciii Kemble was more cautious. In The Saxons in England, Kemble states:

I confess that the more completely I examine this question, the more I am convinced that the received accounts of our migrations, or subsequent fortunes, and ultimate settlement, are devoid of historical truth in every detail .xciv

The fact that similar sources are found for other nations also questioned their historicity: it strikes the enquirer at once with suspicion when he finds the tales supposed peculiar to his own race and to this island, shared by the Germanic populations of other lands, and with slight changes in locality, or trifling variations in detail, recorded as authentic parts of their history. xcv

He repeats the same approach in his archaeological work, stating concerning Bede’s division of the Anglo-Saxon settlers into three tribes (the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes) that he is ‘ not disposed to lay great stress upon the historical value of a tradition nearly three hundred years old,...’ .xcvi As with the literature and language, these comments lead us to suggest that Kemble's approach to archaeology was inspired by more than a desire to find corroboration for an already confirmed and complete historical narrative. Instead, his recognition of the weaknesses of the written 10 evidence suggests that Kemble regarded archaeology as a more direct, physical and valuable discipline for establishing the detail of the character and customs of the primitive Germans. In summary, while Kemble had developed and promoted an interdisciplinary approach to Anglo-Saxon studies, there is evidence that Kemble may have regarded ancient graves as a more reliable and distinctive form of evidence for study of the early Germans and the origins of the Anglo-Saxons.

Runes

The study of runes has always been closely linked to history, philology and archaeology both before and during the nineteenth century. xcvii Kemble’s investigations into Anglo-Saxon runes provided a further inspiration for his archaeological research. Once again, encouragement came from the Grimms; this time Jacob's brother Wilhelm. xcviii In a private correspondence to Jacob Grimm, Kemble explains that in a fit of sorrow at English antiquarians and in indignation at Scandinavian scholars he was motivated to write a paper on Anglo-Saxon runes. xcix In doing so, he once again sought parallels between England and Germany, but this time there was a material context to the evidence. By discussing the pre-Viking stone sculpture from Hartlepool, Bridekirk, Bewcastle and Ruthwell, he argued against their Danish origin and instead for their close links with the Continental Saxons. Kemble also argued that they displayed similar religious beliefs between the English and their Continental predecessors, including the attribution of the invention of runes to the god Woden or Odinn. c He famously recognised that the runic inscription on the was an element of a poem discovered in the Vercelli Book and now known as the Dream of the Rood .ci

While not explicitly archaeological, it is in the study of runes that the philological, historical and material approaches to the origins and development of the Germanic race can be seen to coalesce. Runes could be used to answer historical and philological questions, but moreover, provided a more certain linkage between England and the Continent than the available written sources could hope to provide. cii Hence, Kemble's use of the runes and their material context provided a neat template for his subsequent approach to archaeological evidence and his interpretation of cremation rites. ciii

Disciplinary Boundaries

Having discussed the effect of his academic work and ideas on his developing archaeological interests, one final point is worth considering. In contrast to the later Victorian period, disciplinary boundaries between antiquaries, archaeologists and historians were far from secure and less institutionalised in Kemble's day. The societies of the time allowed a fertile ground for interdisciplinary researches, providing an ideal social and academic context for Kemble to develop his archaeological interests alongside his history and philology. civ Therefore, long before Kemble developed his own archaeological interests, he would have read and interacted with many individuals that were involved in archaeological pursuits. For example, his former pupil and rival in philological disputes in the 1830s, Thomas Wright, became a close friend of Charles Roach-Smith and contributed many articles to the study of Anglo-Saxon graves and artefacts during the 1840s and 1850s. cv He would undoubtedly have been familiar with the excavations and studies of Anglo-

11 Saxon remains appearing in contemporary publications. cvi These were later used to support his interpretations (see below). Upon his return to England in 1855, Kemble addressed the Archaeological Institute emphasising the importance of combining fieldwork with historical research. cvii All of this suggests that for Kemble, interpreting archaeological remains would seem a 'natural' development from his historical, literary and philological researches supported by the climate of opinions and researches of the time. Kemble may have also benefited from the contemporary climate of interest in comparing English with Continental and Scandinavia discoveries, especially following the visit of the Danish archaeologist Jens Worsaae to Britain in 1846 and 1847. cviii In particular, the extensive travels of Worsaae in search of Viking finds comparable with those found in Scandinavia may have inspired Kemble in his search for comparative archaeological material for the early Germans moving beyond national boundaries. cix

KEMBLE’S ARCHAEOLOGICAL THEORIES

It has often been implicitly assumed that nineteenth century antiquarians and archaeologists constructed their interpretations in a theory-free environment because of their focus upon the description and illustration of findings. In contrast with the speculations of eighteenth-century antiquaries, mid-nineteenth century archaeologists emphasised their reliance on facts and the scientific nature of their discipline. cx This is illustrated by Kemble’s efforts to contrast his own ‘rational’ interpretation to those made by ‘ curiosity hunters ’ of earlier centuries who failed to adequately record their excavations and finds and who tried to explained discoveries of cremation urns as either natural products of the earth or brought from distant lands by whirlwinds. cxi Kemble explicitly warned his archaeological colleagues to refrain from theorising, and instead focus upon the collection of facts. cxii In the 1850s, as still in some circles in historical archaeology to this day, the overt use of theory was regarded with suspicion. cxiii Yet as we have argued, historical and philological theories inspired Kemble's archaeology. cxiv His zealous collection of ‘ fact s’ through visiting museums, organising the museum collections at Hanover, his cemetery excavations and the drawing of finds, all had an explicitly ideological purpose. They served to present incontrovertible evidence in material form for the Anglo-Saxon migrations and settlement. cxv

In his introduction to the Archaeological Journal in 1849 he explicitly states his Germanist paradigm for archaeological researches by stating that archaeology should not be an end in itself but should be used in writing a history of nations and their origins:

The higher purpose at which we ought to strive is the Record of human development in the special terms of national development - the History of Man imaged in the History of one collection of Men. cxvi

In a later presentation to the Archaeological Institutes he expounds further, describing archaeology as a scientific discipline akin to philology and anatomy, through which the inductive method could be applied through both 'comparison and combination' and by noting 'resemblances and differences' between artefacts. cxvii The archaeological record was an 'historical record' .cxviii In the report of an unpublished paper ‘On the Heathen Graves of Northern Germany’ he explicitly defined the role of archaeology in relation to history. He thought that historians too often saw

12 archaeology as an inferior pursuit, while the archaeologist did not always possess the knowledge of philology and history to bring his studies to fruition. cxix He regarded the use of both as the only way to achieve ‘true deductions’ and clearly saw a common goal in the study of the origins of the Germanic peoples. cxx

I have, myself, opened as many tumuli and graves as almost any one I know: I believe that I have copied with my own hands all the most interesting and valuable articles of antiquity in the North German museums and collections, both public and private; or that I have had the means of consulting all the works of any importance in which such antiquities have been described. To the illustration of the materials thus collected, I have striven to bring all the notices which may still be gathered from the classic authors of Greece and Rome, and whatever it seemed useful to apply from Old Norse and Anglo-Saxon sources. cxxi

As argued above, this shows Kemble's view of archaeology as equal to, distinctive from, but complimentary to, other sources of information. cxxii

Race and Cremation

It is this theoretical perspective that allowed Kemble to make some important and influential interpretations by using archaeology to provide evidence for the Anglo- Saxon migrations. This was achieved by comparing German and English graves and grave-finds. In articles entitled ‘On Mortuary Urns found at the Perlberg, Stade-on-the Elbe, and other parts of North Germany, now in the Museum of the Historical Society of Hanover ’cxxiii and ’Burial and Cremation ’,cxxiv Kemble became the first person to systematically compare the English and Continental grave-finds. The initial observation seems to have came from his study of the form, decoration and contents of a cinerary urn from Eye depicted in J.Y. Akerman’s Remains of Pagan Saxondom. cxxv Kemble’s unpublished notebooks, now held in the British Museum, demonstrate his wide reading among the antiquarian and archaeological reports of Anglo-Saxon cemeteries of the 1840s and 1850s in which similar urns were described and illustrated. Kemble noted the close similarities between the urns from the Perlberg at Stade and those reported by Professor Henslow from Kings Newton in Derbyshire. cxxvi He also compared the German finds to those cinerary urns found during R.C. Neville’s excavations at Little Wilbraham: cxxvii

The resemblance of these urns to those found at Stade on the Elbe is very striking: and so also was the (one might almost say) identity of their contents. cxxviii

The direct comparison is underpinned by the deliberate comparison of British and German urns illustrated by Orlando Jewitt in the posthumous collection Horae Ferales .cxxix As with the quote above, in the introduction to Burial and Cremation Kemble explicitly sets out his interpretation of this similarity as evidence for the racial identity of those contained within:

It is impossible not to see, that graves of a certain peculiar character, opened in various places, in Kent, in Gloucestershire, in the Isle of Wight, belong to one another; that is, to one race of men, and one period of time. cxxx

Therefore, from across England, cinerary urns had been found that were very similar to those that he had discovered in Continental collections and publications and those recovered on the Continent. His interpretations were not simply based upon the comparison of the forms and styles of material culture. cxxxi Kemble also addressed the

13 burial context in which they were found and the Germanic nature of the cremation rite employed: cxxxii

• Urns were used to contain the cremated remains of the dead in both eastern England and northern Germany. Moreover, this suggested that the custom of cremation was the focus of the material similarities. cxxxiii • Cinerary urns were similar in their brown or black colour, their ‘rude’ construction and the rarity of handles. cxxxiv They had similar decorative motifs and decorative grammar in both regions, whereas urns from elsewhere in Germany showed fewer similarities. Similarities included the use of stamped decoration and the use of bosses pressed out from the inside with the thumb rather than being stuck on after the vessel was complete. cxxxv The urns from the Perlberg at Stade also showed close similarities to some English urns in the presence of custom-made lids rather than having stones or ceramic saucers or bowls placed over them. cxxxvi • The range of material culture within the cinerary urns showed strong similarities. Both English and German cremation burials were found with triangular bone combs, cxxxvii toilet implements including tweezers (‘ pincette ’) and razors (‘ small bronze knife ’) cxxxviii and shears (‘ used to remove superfluous hair from the face ’). cxxxix These objects, some placed on the pyre, others placed with the bones after they were collected into the urns, were evidence of ‘ the piety of the survivors devoted to the service of the departed’ .cxl Other comparable grave goods included glass vessels, beads ‘ exposed to the action of a strong fire ’, earpicks, ornamented discs of bone, bronze buckles, fibulae and clasps. cxli • Continental graves showing closest similarities to the English urns are restricted to those uncovered at Stade, cxlii although others similarities could be found with burials from other sites in regions ‘ occupied by the fore-fathers of the Anglo- Saxons ’. cxliii In England, Anglo-Saxon cremation urns were rarer than those cinerary urns of earlier ages, ‘ making their resemblance all the more instructive ’. cxliv However, similar urns of ‘ precisely similar form ’ to Continental grave-finds, cxlv were found over a wide geographical area across England ‘ in Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Northampton, Derby, Sussex, the Isle of Wight, Gloucestershire, and Warwickshire... ’cxlvi and described as being ‘ of a very marked and peculiar character ’. cxlvii

Kemble’s logic was simple. The urns could not be Roman or they would not be found in Germany. If the urns were Slavonic as some German archaeologists believed, why are they found in England? If they were Keltic or British as some English archaeologists thought, why were they found in northern Germany? The art styles differed markedly from those known as Keltic. Instead they belonged to the Germans, ‘The Burnt Germans of the age of Iron ’. cxlviii It is important to emphasise that while Wright and Roach Smith were interested in using artefacts to differentiate between the Jutes, Saxons and Angles to find archaeological correlates for Bede's statement that the Germanic settlers of the fifth century derived from these three tribes, cxlix Kemble took a broader perspective. Instead of being interested in identifying differences between tribes, he was interested in demonstrating that cremation was a shared feature of the ‘ different branches of one great race, namely, the Teutonic ’ and hence a common custom and institution that embodied racial rather than tribal identity: cl

The urns of the ‘Old Saxon’ and those of the 'Anglo-Saxon' are in truth identical, as there was every reason to suppose they would be. Keltic they are not, or they would not be found in Lüneburg; Slavonic

14 they are not, or they would not be found in Warwickshire: one only race remains - they are Saxon in the one place as well as the other. The bones are those of men whose tongue we speak, whose blood flows in our veins. cli

In ‘Burial and Cremation’ Kemble developed this argument by drawing upon further historical, numismatic and archaeological evidence to substantiate the chronological and racial elements of this argument. clii Yet it is also clear from his writings that Kemble regarded the archaeological evidence alone as having the potential to compare German and English connections ‘ for the elucidation of our national treasures ’. cliii

Paganism & Conversion

Kemble was aware that cremation and inhumation were rites found widely across Europe and were not exclusively Germanic at all times and in all places. He was also aware that the early Germans used both rites. Therefore in ‘Burial and Cremation’ he focused upon addressing what distinguished Burnt Germans from those being buried without cremation (‘Unburnt Germans of the Age of Iron’). cliv He suggested two alternatives: first that different pagan tribes practised different forms of disposal, second that different tribes over time adopted first one mode of disposal and later another. clv He rejects the first explanation by highlighting the widespread adoption of cremation among all the Germanic tribes in England, even in ‘Jutish’ areas such as the Isle of Wight and Kent where it appears as a minority rite. Meanwhile, inhumations are found in the same areas as the large cremation cemeteries of eastern England. Furthermore, on the Continent cremation prevails in many regions. Kemble therefore argues that cremation was not restricted to particular tribes but is instead the earlier rite with inhumation replacing it over time. Of the second preferred option, Kemble sees two possible causes to the decline in cremation. The first was that cremation was abandoned because of ‘ physical’ reasons of expense and obtaining wood, but this is seen only to apply to Iceland. clviclvii The second ‘ moral ’ option was that Christianity caused the cessation of cremation. To support this view, he proceeded to find support for this argument both in the overall absence of evidence for mentions of cremation in the Anglo-Saxon Christian written sources (with the exception of Beowulf ) and in Charlemage’s legistlation against cremation among the Old Saxons. clviii Equally Kemble rejects the possibility that any Christian would have adopted any other method of disposal other than inhumation following Jewish tradition. clix

Therefore, cremation rites were Germanic, but they also exclusively reflected pagan Germans and were only relinquished with the adoption of Christianity:

… it is Christianity which makes the distinction between the two modes of interment observed; in other words the 'Burnt Germans of the age of Iron" were Pagans .clx

The Anglo-Saxon pagan never failed to burn his dead; the Christian never did anything of the kind. clxi

Cremation was seen as the archetypal primitive Germanic custom:

I believe that cremation to have been originally the universal rite of all Teutonic races, - as well as most others in the north of Europe, and of by far the greatest number I can prove it to have been so’. clxii

More than evidence of pagan ignorance of Christian mores, cremation was an active decision, an ‘ act of piety ’ since cremation was a ‘ religious rite ’clxiii involving a 15 ‘sanctifying fire’ .clxiv Kemble proceeds by suggesting (implicitly drawing upon Norse written sources and Beowulf ) that the pagans believed their gods had instituted the rite of burning and that fire was seen as a purifier, one of the holy elements, and possibly a means of communication with the gods. clxv

To account for his argument that Anglo-Saxon inhumations as universally Christian, Kemble explained them as continuing to use the traditional burial places of their pagan ancestors before they could take advantage of burial in the neighbourhood of churches between the eighth and tenth centuries: clxvi

As far as Anglo-Saxon history teaches us, nearly a hundred years elapsed between the advent of Augustine and the regular establishment of anything like parish churches. So that I find no great difficulty in the supposition that here and there a professed Christian may have been dispatched on his long journey more paganorum, simply because no Christian priest happened to be by to prevent it. clxvii

Alternately, inhumations associated with cremations may indicate the fact that Christian churches were deliberately placed over pagan burial grounds. clxviii Consequently, in order to sustain this religious division between the rites, he challenged the (probably correct) interpretations of R.C. Neville’s excavations at Little Wilbraham. Neville’s book Saxon Obsequies had appeared to show that cremation and inhumation were contemporaneous burial rites with urns found both cut by later inhumations and overlying the graves of some unburned skeletons. Kemble questioned Neville’s excavation techniques and then outlined alternative interpretations for Neville’s observations. He insisted that inhumations were either later Christian interments and that cases where cinerary urns were placed over inhumations could be explained in other ways. They may have been pagan German burials overlying an earlier British inhumation. Alternately, cremations interred later than inhumations were evidence for apostate Christians being cremated or evidence for the incursions of pagan Vikings into East Anglia attested in the historical record. clxix To support his argument further, Kemble was obliged to insist that in East Kent, the richly furnished inhumation graves uncovered by Bryan Faussett and reported by Charles Roach-Smith were ‘ Christian ’ and ‘ Frankish ’. clxx

Supporting their Germanic and pagan character of cremation, the burial evidence was used as an irrefutable index of the civilising process from paganism to Christianity that in turn connected the Anglo-Saxons to the Victorians:

The rite of burning was heathen, and could only be given up when heathendom itself was shaken to its foundations, as it happened in Scandinavia. clxxi

The Iron period ends only with the gradual spread of Christian civilization, which first did away with the burning of the dead body and afterwards with the custom of adorning it. clxxii

Kelts and Etruscans

A further integral aspect of Kemble’s argument is that the cremation rites of the Germanic Iron Age supplanted those of earlier peoples, both Celts and Romans that ‘differ in almost all essential conditions ’. clxxiii Kemble was aware of the Three Age System developed by Christian Thomsen and promoted by Jens Worsaae clxxiv both in England following Worsaae's visit of 1846 and 1847 and through discussions with Georg C.F. Lisch who had ordered the museum at Schwerin following the Danish 16 example. clxxv However, he appears to have been critical of ascribing a single race to each period as Lisch and others had attempted. Originally Kemble was influenced by this approach clxxvi and he recognised that different forms of cremation took place in both the Bronze and Iron Ages but was absent from the Stone Age. clxxvii However, Kemble's excavations and research increasingly convinced him that the Three Age System was misplaced and of questionable relevance to history. He consequently became one of its most vehement British opponents. clxxviii This was not due to Kemble's 'backward' approach as Glyn Daniel has suggested, but instead because of his theoretical programme of making archaeology write the history of people, not a series of technological ages. From a modern perspective, some of his arguments against the Three Age System appear reasonable. He argued that stone tools could continue in use into the Bronze and Iron Ages, and that the form of a barrow and the presence or absence of objects of particular materials alone cannot be used to date a grave. clxxix This was because, he argued, the nature of the grave and the ornamentation on the objects also needed to be taken into account. clxxx Furthermore, Kemble recognised that within the ' Age of Iron ' geographical and racial differences can be seen in the broadly contemporary mortuary rites of Slavs, Kelts and Germans. clxxxi However, Kemble did accept the premise that Three Ages gives a broad indication of the differences between periods and races if the funerary context is combined with the artefacts found within them. Consequently Kemble was aware of a chronological distinction between the Bronze Age in which 'Keltic' finds could be identified, and the Iron Age burials of northern Germany that were regarded as 'German' :

In my opinion, a much larger portion of the monuments and their contents, are Keltic, than the good people here are willing to admit. Very many I cannot possibly allow to be Germanic. However the whole collection is extremely interesting to me, and will tend to throw a good deal of light upon our own English historical antiquities. clxxxii

This view was linked to Kemble’s philological perspective of regarding the Germans as coming from the east and supplanting earlier peoples:

... before the Germans pushed in, a Keltic race had possession of these northern countries. The Germans, coming along over the Black Sea, pushed these Kelts northward, southward and before them westward. clxxxiii

Even the forms of barrows could be compared between the regions:

In England the Saxon barrows are unquestionably the smallest and lowest, and nothing of a Saxon character has ever been found in the stone monuments. I thoroughly suspect the case to have been the same here: and that before the Germans pushed in, a Keltic race has possession of these northern countries. clxxxiv

While, Kemble was later to reject this view of using barrow form in dating graves, the idea that a Germanic period replaced an earlier Celtic phase seems to be retained implicitly. clxxxv In his writings, Kemble does not appear to recognise the practice of ‘monument re-use’ in German and English burial sites, interpreting the discovery of flint daggers in burials associated with cinerary urns with bronze and iron artefacts as evidence for the longevity of the use of stone artefacts. clxxxvi Yet, in his earlier letters and publications, Kemble expressed the view that the individual barrow can sometimes provide this chronological relationship in microcosm since the cremations burials of the Iron Age of Germans were placed in the tops of earlier Keltic graves in both England and Germany. clxxxvii

17

Therefore, just as Victorians defined their racial values through comparing and contrasting the qualities of the Celt and Saxon in the present, clxxxviii so Kemble could detrimentally contrast the Celts in the past against their Germanic successors and superiors. What have been called 'evolutionary' and 'diffusionist' viewpoints are neatly combined to define the Germanic race in archaeological terms. clxxxix His precise views on these issues are not made clear in his published work. cxc However, in his final address to the Royal Irish Academy he goes beyond his earlier, narrow interest in the Germans to discuss establish a more explicit contrast with regions and times deemed Keltic . Comparing the ornamentation upon artefacts now assigned to the later Bronze Age and Iron Age from Ireland and Britain with the Faussett collection of early Anglo-Saxon grave finds showing ‘ Frankish influence ’, Kemble insists that:

Each form of art is beautiful in its own way; but each has a character so peculiar that I will defy any observer to find any one point by which the two can be classed together, beyond the one that they both deal with metal, and are subservient to ornament. cxci

For Kemble, this distinction in art styles owed itself to two contrasting ‘streams of culture’, one German, one Keltic, influencing the British Isles via different routes and at different times. He accepted that the ‘ Keltic ’ bronze and gold work demonstrated ‘an advanced stage of culture and a widely extended commercial intercourse ’cxcii with other nations, but the implication remained that the Kelts were replaced by the Saxons in Britain. cxciii

Kemble’s view of the material attributes of the pagan Germans was also predicated upon a contrast with the Mediterranean world. When discussing grave-finds from a barrow near Schwerin and defined by Lisch as Germanic , Kemble wanted to find an alternative, non-Germanic explanation for the finds that showed close Mediterranean connections. Bronze wagons, vessels, figurines and other objects found in German graves he saw as closer to Etruscan forms than Iron Age Germanic finds. cxciv He also rejected the sacrificial function of the bronze vessel and ' wagon ' presented by Lisch and instead suggested it to be a dinner wagon with parallels in Etruscan tombs. Retreating from any firm conclusions he entertains the possibility of a Slavonian, Greek and Gaulish racial origins for these objects but admits his uncertainty. Most importantly from his perspective, he denies their Germanic character: ' It is not my business. It is no Teutonic matter'. cxcv Interestingly, in discussing the phenomenon of house urns found widely across Europe and close comparisons with Etruscan ideas of the tomb as home, he regarded them in the context of Etruscan trade with the North rather than population movements. cxcvi

So the definition of Germanic graves not only involved comparisons between England and Germany, the distinction between cremation as pagan and inhumation as Christian, but also between racial/chronological phases of funerary tradition in both Britain and Germany. In this way, Kemble adopted archaeology into the Whig view of history of studying of the development of civilisation from its Germanic root embodied in cremation rites. cxcvii The grave was testimony to, and metaphorically promoted, a ‘soft-primitivism’ that celebrated and romanticised the noble, freedom- loving but uncivilised nature of the early Saxons. cxcviii In Lower Saxony the Saxons developed the qualities that they were to extend to England:

18 And here, [In Lower Saxony] we may plainly trace down to well-known historical periods, did the noble ancestors of the Saxons defend their civil liberties, and what must have appeared to them of equal importance, their country’s gods. cxcix

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

Kemble had qualities and qualifications not often found united in a single man. He had first-hand knowledge of the sources, literary, historical, legal, and archaeological, of his period, and his outlook was not bounded by the North Sea or the English Channel. cc

This paper has argued that the archaeological interpretations and practices of John Mitchell Kemble were influenced by his philological and historical writings in a variety of ways. He was not simply describing his discoveries in an empirical or objective manner, but constructing a theoretical interpretation drawing on a range of sources from his wider ranging studies of northern European societies with an explicit Germanist and Anglo-Saxonist ideological programme in mind. Heathen graves were used as a metaphor for Anglo-Saxon racial and socio-cultural status set against a background of origins in northern Germany.

Kemble regarded the cremation rites as the 'Burnt Germans of the Age of Iron' ; the custom embodied the idealised attributes of the early Germans. Their presence in eastern England provided material evidence of the Anglo-Saxon migrations. He also defined the cremation rite in relation to the civilising process instigated by Christianity; cremation epitomised a stage of Germanic primitive barbarity prior to conversion. Furthermore, he contrasts the remains with those of earlier ages and other areas that were categorised as 'Slavonic’, ‘Keltic' and 'Etruscan'. Meanwhile, by comparing Kelts and Saxon in terms of successive phrases or invasions, he seems to implicitly assert the superiority of the latter over the former.

Although he was often controversial and truculent in his views of other's work, never obtaining an academic position, and dying in poverty at an early age, cci Kemble was one of the most influential scholars of his generation. Kemble's research seems to have been held in high regard and respect on both sides of the North Sea. When referenced, his name and work is frequently accompanied by the epithet 'learned'. ccii The tone of the notes of archaeological meetings (both before and after his death) show the way in which he is perceived as an expert, highly respected in a range of disciplines. For example, in the proceedings of one meeting of the Archaeological Institute, W.J. Bernhard Smith produced a fragment of stag's horn from a prehistoric burial in Wychwood Forest, Oxfordshire. Kemble had to hand illustrations of comparable objects of horn from Germany and was able confirm and explain the significance. cciii The same applies to academic papers by contemporary archaeologists and antiquaries. Kemble corresponded with Charles Roach-Smith and is treated as an expert on the German material. cciv Meanwhile, William Wylie's paper ‘ The Burning and the Burial of the Dead’ takes Kemble's work as his inspiration for his focus on funerary rituals, and the combination of historical, literary and archaeological evidence with a wide geographical and chronological scope. ccv Kemble influenced a wide range of nineteenth century archaeologists from the museum collector Augustus Franks to the barrow-digger Canon Greenwell. ccvi The notice of his death in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of London supports this view that Kemble was perceived as an Anglo-Saxon polymath and an archaeological authority:

19

...with the written as well as the unwritten remains of our primaeval fathers, he was intimately acquainted, and he will for ever take his place as one of the most accomplished Saxon scholars which this country has produced. ccvii

There is no evidence that he was regarded in the way that twentieth century archaeology tended to portray him; as an historian and philologist with a passing interest in archaeological matters.

Moreover, as we have argued, Kemble's use of archaeological evidence was not simply a response to his existing beliefs and ideas gained from his other studies. His archaeological practice and theory reflects the use of material culture and cemeteries as a powerful metaphorical representation of a clustering of racial and philological values that Kemble believed reflected the primitive, pagan, noble Teuton. By turning to archaeology, Kemble was providing the origin myth of the Anglo-Saxons with new historical legitimacy and a physical component.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Hannah Sackett for organising the session at the TAG 2000 conference at St Catherine's College, Oxford where an early version of this paper was first presented. I would like to thank the following for reading and commenting on earlier drafts: Vicki Cummings, Julia Roberts, Hannah Sackett, Eva Thäte, Jeni Williams and Elizabeth Wilson. Thanks to Catherine Lloyd and Tim Pestell for helping gaining access to articles not easily available in West Wales and to Eva Thäte for her help in translating the German material. Thanks also to Catherine Hills, Geoff Harrison, Simon Keynes, Sam Lucy, Andrew Reynolds, Sarah Semple and Leslie Webster for discussions whilst pursuing this area of research.

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i For useful reviews of modern approaches, see Arnold 1997; Dickinson 2002; Lucy 1998; 2000; Webster 1986. ii While the 17 th century antiquary Thomas Browne (1893 [1658]) first described and illustrated Anglo- Saxon burials and the 18 th century antiquary Bryan Faussett conducted the first large-scale excavation and recording of such graves, both ascribed them to the Romans. Moreover, Faussett’s work remained unpublished in his lifetime (Roach-Smith 1856). Therefore, James Douglas is thought of as the first to excavate and assign graves to the early medieval period. Meanwhile, the London collector Charles Roach-Smith is often regarded as singly the most influential figure in the development of Anglo-Saxon archaeology because of his publications of Anglo-Saxon graves and artefacts and his syntheses and interpretations of others excavations and discoveries in relation to English origins; see Kidd 1977; 1978; Rhodes 1990. iii Readers should note that this paper does not include detailed discussions of Kemble’s German excavation reports nor a thorough of unpublished archaeological manuscripts. This is planned as a separate and future study drawing upon the issues presented here relating to his published archaeological research. iv Reviews of the Victorian interest in Anglo-Saxon racial origins are manifold: Burrow 1981: 116-125; 162-3; Bowler 1989; Brooks 1998; Curtis 1968: 7-9; Frantzen 1993; Hannaford 1996: 241-6; Horseman 1976; Levine 1986; MacDougall 1982: 96; Simmons 1990; Smiles 1994: 113-28; White 1971: 587. v e.g. Bryden 1996; Dellheim 1982; Miele 1998; Smiles 1994; Vaughan 1998. vi Brooks 1998; Hides 1996; Levine 1986; Marsden 1999; Trigger 1989. On the growth of collecting by private individuals and museums, see for example Finn 2001; MacGregor 1997; 1998. vii Lowenthal 1985 and papers in Hobsbawn & Ranger 1983. viii This seems in part to reflect a move away from a fascination with the classical past linked to an increasing medievalism that included the Gothic revival in architecture and the arts, and the focus on the origins of the nation state (Gerrard 2003; Hudson 1981: 15-42; MacGregor 1997: 13-15; Rhodes 1990; Weatherall 1998). Glyn Daniel (1950) for instance sees the emergence of prehistoric archaeology as predicated not only on the acceptance of the Three-Age system but also upon the recognition of the great antiquity of the earth enabled through Palaeolithic discoveries and the emergence of geology. Neither of these were pre-requisites for the study of the Middle Ages. This does not necessary mean that studies of historical periods were necessarily ‘backward’ as Daniel claims, but saw their links to art, architecture and history in developing an archaeological discourse. This is a point recently discussed by Gerrard 2003. ix This is a point made by Trigger (1989: 66-7) with reference to the barrow-diggings of Faussett and Douglas in the late eighteenth century. Other examples include the opening of the tombs of Edward I in

30

Westminster abbey in 1772 and Edward IV at St George's chapel Windsor in 1790 (Peltz & Myrone 1999: 1-4). A nineteenth century example is exhibited by the popular fascination with the medieval graves during railway construction from the site of the Cluniac priory at Lewes (Dellheim 1982: 32-7). x On the origins of Anglo-Saxon historical and antiquarian studies in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, see for example MacDougall 1982; Murphy 1982; Payne 1982; Parry 1995. xi For barrow-digging, see Marsden 1999. For example, the excavations on Breach Down in Kent (Conyngham 1842) and interventions in the burial mounds of the Peak District (Bateman 1848; 1863). For the circumstances of the excavations of cemeteries without surviving earthworks see Dickinson 1980: 13; Webster 1986. xii Akerman 1855; Neville 1852; Wylie 1852. It must be remembered however that many excavations in Saxon cemeteries and barrows were poorly recorded or unrecorded, (e.g. Carver 1998: 148-53), and some, like Bryan Faussett's excavations were either misinterpreted or unpublished for many decades (Hawkes 1990). xiii Browne 1893 (1658); Colt Hoare 1812; Roach-Smith 1856; for discussions see Cherry 1994: 199; Hawkes 1990; Rhodes 1990. xiv Douglas 1793; For Victorian commentaries, see Roach-Smith 1856: xviii; Wright 1861: 112. xv e.g. Henslow 1847; Jarvis 1850; Milner 1853; Wilson 1852. xvi Rhodes 1990: 48-9; Roach Smith 1842; 1848; 1858; 1860; Wright 1847. xvii This term was used in the title of Akerman's 1855 publication 'The Remains of Pagan Saxondom' . For definitions of 'Anglo-Saxonism' see Frantzen 1993; Frantzen & Niles 1997: 1. xviii Many studies have addressed the theme of the relationship between archaeology, ideology and society in the history of archaeological thought and practice. Notable studies include Austin 1990; Champion 1996; Collis 1996; Daniel 1950; 1967; Dennell 1996; Dietler 1998; Gerrard 2003; Härke 1998; 2000; Hingley 2000; James 2000; Kohl & Fawcett 1996; Meskell 1999; Piggott 1989; Trigger 1989. xix e.g. Burrow 1981; Frantzen 1993; Horseman 1976; Niles & Frantzen 1997; Simmons 1990; White 1971. . xx These works have looked at Charles Roach Smith (Kidd 1977; 1978; Rhodes 1990), Augustus W. Franks (Caygill & Cherry 1997; Wilson 1984), Nina Layard (Plunkett 1994) and the archaeological societies (Ebbatson 1994). xxi Useful reviews and discussions can be found in the following: Arnold 1997: 21; Härke 1998; Higham 1992: 2; Hodges 1989; Lucy 1997a & b; 1998; 2000: 10-11; 155-86; Webster 1986; Wickham- Crowley 1999. xxii In this way, it is hoped to build on the more generalised statements about Victorian Anglo-Saxon archaeology found in Hills 2003; Lucy 1998; 2000 and Williams 2002 and building on the discussions by Levine (1986) who has illuminated the complex interactions between antiquaries, historians and archaeologists in the early and middle Victorian period. For a comparable approach in relation to Merovingian archaeology, see Effros 2003a & b. However, no claim is made to supercede the more detailed assessment of Kemble’s life by Raymond A. Wiley (Wiley 1979). xxiii Kemble 1835. xxiv Kemble 1839-48; Kemble 1857a. xxv Kemble 1849; Dickens 1986; Wiley 1979. xxvi A number of authors have assessed Kemble's life and work: Ackerman 1982; Dickens 1974; 1986; Wiley 1971; 1979; 1990; Keynes 1992; 1995; 1999). The importance of his researches for philology are discussed by Dilkey & Schneider 1941; Murphy 1982; Payne 1982; Wiley 1990. His pivotal role in the development of Anglo-Saxon history is discussed by Burrow 1981: 116-25; 162-3; Bowler 1989; Curtis 1968: 7-9; Frantzen 1993; Hannaford 1986: 241-6; Horseman 1976; Levine 1986: 25; MacDougall 1982: 96; Simmons 1990; White 1971: 587. His role in archaeology has received only limited commentary, see Ebbatson 1994; Lucy 1998 & Wiley 1979. xxvii For example, Michael Rhodes' study of the career of Charles Roach Smith refers to Kemble as 'an historian' (Rhodes 1990), while Chris Arnold's account of the history of Anglo-Saxon archaeology notes the archaeological work of Kemble yet cites his 'greatest' contribution was his historical research (Arnold 1997: 6). xxviii Latham in Kemble 1863. xxix Wiley 1979: 235; 241. xxx Wiley 1979: 175. xxxi Wiley 1979: 229. xxxii In the 'Notice of the Annual Meeting at Norwich in 1848 John Kemble was elected to audit the accounts of the Archaeological Institute. Anon 1849: 266.

31 xxxiii Wiley 1971: 278. See Ebbatson 1994 for Kemble's intellectual contributions to the Archaeological Institute. xxxiv Wiley 1971: 298. xxxv Kemble 1863: 67. The historical section of the annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute meeting at Salisbury was presided over by Kemble, and he presented a paper with his 'customary power and eloquence, a lively picture of political relations, the strife between Church and State, and of the eventful occurrences of the times of Henry II' . Kemble was clearly one of those who accompanied Dean Mereweather and John Bathurst Deane to excavate on the Marlborough Downs and investigate Silbury Hill (Mereweather 1849; Anon 1850: 306-7). xxxvi Wiley 1971: 16; Wiley 1979: 236. xxxvii Wiley 1979: 236. xxxviii Wiley 1971: 289. xxxix Gummel 1951, 13-27; Wiley 1979: 237. xl Dilkey & Schneider 1941: 469. xli Caygill 1997: 327; Dickens 1974; Wiley 1979. xlii Kemble 1855a: 314. xliii Kemble 1855b: 385. xliv Kemble 1855a: 334; Dickens 1974: 16; Gummel 1954, 21; Wiley 1979: 237-8. xlv Kemble 1855a: 336. xlvi Dickens 1974: 16; Kemble 1863: 36-70; Latham in Kemble 1863: vi. xlvii Kemble 1857b; on Coldrum, see Evans 1950: 69-74; Holgate 1981: 231-2. Evans mentions L.B. Larking’s discovery of human remains at the site, but not the involvement of John Kemble in the excavation of the site. Interestingly, the early 19th century excavations also produced material thought to be ‘Saxon’ in date suggesting that Larking and Kemble may not have been inaccurate in the interpretations of the pottery from their excavations. xlviii see also Kemble 1857a: 139. xlix Kemble 1863: 69. l These plans were aired at the last meeting of the Archaeological Institute that Kemble attended in January 1857, two months before his death: Anon 1857. li Latham in Kemble 1863: v. lii Kemble 1863. liii Wiley 1979: 173. liv Dickens 1986: 57; see Wiley 1979 for a review. lv Dickens 1974; 1986; Lubenow 1988; see also Keynes 1992; 1995; 1999. Tennyson 1881: 24-5. lvi His views are clearly stated in a letter to Jacob Grimm dated November 25 th 1848 (Wiley 1971: 270). lvii Levine 1986: 25-8; Wiley 1979. lviii Wiley 1979; e.g. Kemble 1840a & b. Kemble's Germanist stance are found in his political writings and his letters to Grimm. see Wiley 1971. lix Dickens 1974; Keynes 1995; Wiley 1979. lx Many scholars have emphasised the importance of Kemble in bringing the scientific methods of German philology to Britain: e.g. MacDougall 1982; Levine 1986: 79; Frantzen 1993: 34-5, 57; Stanley 2000; Wiley 1971. lxi Kemble 1835: xxi. lxii Andrén 1998: 117; Schnapp 1996: 304-10. lxiii quoted in Stanley 2000: 31. lxiv Frantzen 1993; 35; see also Stanley 2000: 33-7. lxv Kemble 1835: xix. lxvi Thomas Wright concisely argues the same point in his book 'The Celt, the Roman and the Saxon' when he says that Beowulf provides a: ' glimpse of the manners of our forefathers before they had turned from the worship of Wodin' (Wright 1852: 466). See also Simmons 1990: 68. lxvii e.g. Mallett 1847; Worsaae 1849. lxviii The use of Beowulf in discussions of archaeology, and the employment of archaeology to illustrate the objects and practices described in Beowulf have a long history and were commonplace by the 1840s and 1850s: Cramp 1957; Hills 1997. lxix see Wiley 1979; Kemble 1863, see also Wylie 1857. lxx Kemble 1855a: 327. lxxi Kemble 1849a. lxxii Burrow 1981; Simmons succinctly states that: 'in the attitudes of John Mitchell Kemble...the commencement of the Teutonist spirit that was to influence liberal thinking in the latter part of the

32 century is most clearly revealed' (Simmons 1990: 67). Meanwhile MacDougall regards Kemble as the 'most highly regarded Anglo-Saxon scholar of the first half of the nineteenth century...' (MacDougall 1982: 96). lxxiii Kemble 1849a: 327-445. lxxiv Wiley 1979: 236-7; 238-40. lxxv Kemble 1855c; 1856a, see Frantzen 1993: 34-5 & Wiley 1979. lxxvi Kemble 1857a. lxxvii Kemble 1857a: 122. lxxviii see also Kemble 1855a: 331. lxxix In the letter to Jacob Grimm dated December 30 th 1849 he refers to Grimm's work on cremation. Wiley 1971: 297. lxxx Kemble 1856b: 94. lxxxi Kemble 1855b: 392. lxxxii Kemble 1855a; 1856c; 1863. lxxxiii Kemble 1856c: 271; 1856d: 291. lxxxiv Kemble 1856b: 92-3; Kemble 1856c: 272. lxxxv Kemble 1857a: 137-9. lxxxvi Kemble 1863: 203-5. lxxxvii Kemble 1863: 67. lxxxviii Kemble 1856e; 1863: 68. lxxxix Kemble 1856b: 93. xc Kemble 1856f: 184-5; Wiley 1971: 305. xci Kemble 1856d: 291. xcii Kemble 1856b: 94. xciii For example Edwin Guest, fellow member of the Archaeological Institute, makes scant use of archaeological evidence in his discussion of the settlement of the Anglo-Saxons, although dykes and topography are employed (Guest 1849). In contrast, Thomas Wright, like Kemble, was cynical of the value of Gildas and Bede, regarded the fifth century as a period 'left blank by contemporary annalists...a later period fill up with fable' (Wright 1852: 453). This cynical stance has been noted by archaeological commentators such as Hines (1998: 155-6) and Lucy (2000: 160) but its implications for Kemble's archaeological research have not been explored. xciv Kemble 1849a: 16. xcv Kemble 1849. xcvi Kemble 1855a: 319. xcvii for instance, see Worsaae 1849; see also Schnapp 1996. xcviii Heyerdahl 1990; Kemble 1840c; 1842; 1844. xcix Wiley 1971: 190. c Kemble 1840c: 335, see also Wiley 1979: 222-3. ci Kemble 1844; Cassidy 1992: 12-14. cii see Andrén 1998: 113-9. ciii Cassidy 1992: see also his reaction to Worsaae's work on the Scandinavians in England: Wiley 1971: 311. civ Levine 1986: 12; 99; Weatherall 1998; see Daniel 1967 & Rhodes 1990 for the role of meetings and excavations as contexts for interaction between scholars. Kemble is the exception to the rule noted by Levine that nineteenth historians tended to dismiss antiquarian and archaeological researches: Levine 1986: 28. However as Ebbatson (1994: 56) recognises, many of the leading Anglo-Saxon historians did at various times have a passing involvement in the archaeological societies such as the Archaeological Institute, including Edward Freeman, John Richard Green, Edwin Guest and William Stubbs. Kemble was therefore not only in his interdisciplinary approach, but he is exceptional in developing his archaeological studies to such an extent as well as promoting archaeology as more than a 'handmaiden' to history (Ebbatson 1994: 55). cv Wright 1852; 1861; he also had contact through the Royal Archaeological Institute with figures such as Charles Roach-Smith and Augustus Franks: MacGregor 1997: 56. cvi Akerman 1855; Hillier 1855, Neville 1852; Roach Smith 1848; Wright 1847; 1852; Wylie 1852. cvii Kemble 1855b. This was confirmed by the numerous notes taken on discoveries of Anglo-Saxon graves from England recorded in Kemble’s unpublished archaeological notebooks held at the British Museum. cviii Roach-Smith, Wright and Wylie were among those that were aware of some Continental and Scandinavian discoveries comparable with, and relevant to, Anglo-Saxon graves through their

33 researches, travels and correspondences. For instance, Roach Smith had contacts with Jens Worsaae, Abbé Cochet and Boucher de Perthes. See Kidd 1977: 110, 120, 124; Kidd 1978; Rhodes 1990. Examples of comparisons between English and Continental grave-finds can be found in Roach-Smith 1856: xxiii; Wright 1852: 478; Wright 1861: 158-9; Wylie 1857: 461 & 464. cix see Kemble 1855a: 321-4. For Worsaae's visit to Britain, see Wilkins 1961. cx see Levine 1986: 74-5; Piggott 1989: 152-7. cxi Kemble 1855a: 313-4. cxii Kemble 1855a: 309; Kemble 1855b: 392. cxiii For a review of theory in historical archaeology, see Moreland 2001: 98-119. cxiv see Trigger 1989 chapter 1 for a critique of the view that there was a time when archaeology was purely a process of excavation and description without interpretation. cxv contra Rhodes 1990. cxvi Kemble 1849b: 3. cxvii Kemble 1855a: 309. cxviii Kemble quoted by Ebbatson 1994: 31-2. cxix Kemble 1855b: 387. cxx Kemble 1855b: 386 & 390; 1856c. See also Ebbatson 1994: 53. cxxi Kemble 1855b: 391. cxxii Comparable arguments are made throughout the work of Charles Roach-Smith (e.g. Roach-Smith 1856: x). cxxiii Kemble 1856c. cxxiv Kemble 1855a. cxxv Akerman 1852; Kemble 1856c: 270. cxxvi Henslow 1847; Kemble 1855a: 316. cxxvii Neville 1852. cxxviii Kemble. Unpub, see also Kemble 1855a: 316; Kemble 1856c: 270. cxxix Kemble 1863: 215-17, plate 30. cxxx Kemble 1855a: 309. cxxxi c.f. Rhodes 1990. cxxxii Kemble is clear that cremation is not exclusively Germanic, but his description makes it clear how he perceived the rite to be an integral custom of those Germans that practised it: Kemble 1863: 45-6; Kemble 1855b: 387; 1863. A similar approach is evident in his criticisms of the Three Age system of Thomsen since Kemble preferred instead a perspective that takes on board the contexts and assemblages of graves rather than simply the material and form of objects. Thomsen used the contexts in which objects were found as an integral part of his typological scheme (see Gräslund 1981), but for Kemble, the burial context was central to the construction of history rather than a means of supporting the grave’s relative date. cxxxiii Kemble 1856c: 271. cxxxiv Kemble 1855a: 315. cxxxv Kemble 1855a: 315-6; Kemble 1856c: 271-2. cxxxvi Kemble 1856c: 274. cxxxvii Kemble 1856c: 275-6. cxxxviii Kemble 1856c: 276-7. cxxxix Kemble 1856c: 277-8. cxl Kemble 1856c: 271; 275. cxli Kemble 1855a: 316. cxlii Kemble 1856c: 273. cxliii Kemble 1855a: 315. cxliv Kemble 1856c: 279. cxlv Kemble 1855a: 315. cxlvi Kemble 1856c: 280. cxlvii Kemble 1855a: 315. cxlviii Kemble 1855a: 317. cxlix Wright & Roach-Smith on comparisons between Jutes, Saxons and Angles. cl Kemble 1856c: 321-3. cli Kemble 1856c. clii Kemble 1855a: 311. cliii Kemble 1856c: 280. cliv Kemble 1855a: 312.

34 clv Kemble 1855a: 318. clvi Kemble 1855a: 324. clvii Kemble 1855a: 321-2. clviii Kemble 1855a: 326-28. clix Kemble 1855a: 329. clx Kemble 1863. clxi Kemble unpub. clxii Kemble 1855a: 323. clxiii Kemble unpub. clxiv Kemble 1855a: 326. clxv Kemble 1855a: 329. clxvi Kemble, unpub; Kemble 1857a: 122. Kemble states that ‘The earliest Christians buried, beyond a doubt, where the earliest Pagans had deposited the burnt remains of their dead. They still desired to rest among those whom they had loved, or from whom they were sprung; but in the Xth century, very new notions had become prevalent, and new habits were becoming established’ (Kemble 1857a: 125). Mirrored in recent discussions, Kemble even states that: ‘...I suspect that great tumuli continued to distinguish the rich and powerful, till the fashion of stone monuments in the churches themselves rendered it baroque and rococo .’ (Kemble 1857: 127). clxvii Kemble 1855a: 330. clxviii Kemble 1855a: 331-2. clxix Kemble, unpub. clxx Kemble unpub. The Frankish nature of the Kentish finds is also argued implicitly in ‘Burial and Cremation’ (Kemble 1855a: 311-2). clxxi Kemble 1856c: 330. clxxii Kemble 1863: 60. clxxiii Kemble 1855a: 313. clxxiv Worsaae 1849. clxxv Trigger 1989: 73-77; Wilkins 1961; Wiley 1979: 237; Worsaae 1849. For the adoption of the Three Age System in northern Germany, see Böhner 1981. clxxvi Kemble 1863, 37. clxxvii Kemble 1863, 45-7. clxxviii Kemble's resistance to the Three Age System, together with that of Thomas Wright, is often cited as one of the reasons for the slowness of its acceptance in Britain, see Daniel 1950; Cook 1997: 121; 124; Kemble 1856a: 366; Morse 1999; Wiley 1979: 237-8; Wilkins 1961. He had initially been in favour of it, and it influenced his research until c.1854, but afterwards he became increasingly critical, see Gummel 1951. When delivering his paper to the Royal Irish Academy Kemble felt embarassed that Jens Worsaae, Danish proponent of the Three Age System had spoken there only ten years before. He regarded the system as 'not without truth' and useful in arranging a museum. He also made it clear that he accepted the great antiquity of Irish discoveries associating flint technologies with ancient deposits that were stratified below, and far older, than those with metal artefacts and discoveries from the Somme associating flint artefacts with extinct species (Kemble 1863: 72). However, he saw stone technologies as lasting into the Bronze and Iron Ages citing Ammianus Mercallinus concerning the Huns: ‘... a race undoubtedly acquainted with the use of metallic weapons were univerally in the habit of pointing their arrows with sharpened bone’ (Kemble 1863: 74). Therefore, he saw the Three Age System as dangerously simplistic, having the potential of leading to 'grave historical errors' and leading to historical reductio ad absurdum if applied to strictly (Kemble 1863: 71, 73-4). clxxix Kemble 1863, 44. clxxx Ironically, while nationalist and patriotism is often cited as influencing Worsaae's promotion of the Three Age System, evident in the introduction to his Primeval Antiquities (Worsaae 1849), the same motivation cautioned Wright and Kemble against the Three Age System. clxxxi Kemble 1855d; 1863: 60-2. clxxxii Wiley 1971: 289. clxxxiii Wiley 1971: 289. clxxxiv Wiley 1971: 289. clxxxv Kemble 1855b: 391. clxxxvi ‘All that we can with certainty say is that, - even if constructed in the earliest periods of human culture, they [stone implements] continued, for various reasons, to be used until we come almost to the threshold of historical times’ (Kemble 1863: 75). The same lack of appreciation that earlier barrows might be re-used by urnfields can be seen in Kemble’s explanation for cinerary urns inserted into

35 earlier barrows being due to the building of a mound on the boundary of the ‘mark’ to receive the dead collectively (Kemble 1855a: 331). clxxxvii Wiley 1971: 298-9. Kemble also recognises the possibility that prehistoric barrows might be ‘re- used’ in Saxon land charters and boundary markers although he is cynical whether ‘dull dog’ Anglo- Saxon surveyors saw them as anything special (Kemble 1857: 134). He does however, note the possible re-use of prehistoric monuments as cremation pyres (Kemble 1857a: 123 & 136). clxxxviii see Curtis 1968. clxxxix see Trigger 1989. cxc According to a report of the August meeting of the Archaeological Institute in 1855 Kemble had initially called the Bronze Age race 'Iberians' (Kemble 1856: 395). cxci Kemble 1863: 80. cxcii Kemble 1863: 78. cxciii Kemble 1863: 74-81. In the light of the emphasis put upon the stature of certain ‘warriors’ interred in early Anglo-Saxon cemeteries (Wylie 1852: 20; see also Williams forthcoming) it is worth noting that the small size of bronze sword hilts attributed to the Kelts by Kemble, led him to suggest that they were a ‘dimunative race’ (Kemble 1863: 75). cxciv Kemble 1855d: 353; 1855b: 390. cxcv Kemble 1855a: 365. cxcvi Kemble 1856g: 274; Kemble 1863: 81. cxcvii Brooks 1998: 8. cxcviii Piggott 1989; see Burrow 1981. cxcix Kemble 1863, 37. cc Dickens 1974: 21. cci Lubenow 1998: 132. ccii e.g. Westwood 1847. cciii Kemble 1857b: 82-3; Kemble 1863: 73. In the introduction to Kemble’s ‘Address to the President and Members of the Royal Irish Academy’ shortly before his death, he records that the reason for his invitation to speak was ‘on account of the extensive opportunities which I have enjoyed of seeing what is new to many of us in the various European collections,...’ (Kemble 1863: 71). cciv Kemble; unpub. Roach-Smith 1856: xxxii, xxxiv. ccv Wylie 1857. ccvi Caygill 1997: 169; Greenwell 1877: 106. ccvii Hunter 1857: 272.

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