Society for Medieval Archaeology Newsletter
Issue 42 November 2009 ISSN 1740-7036
EDITORIAL event is on 14 November: The Origins of Medieval Field Systems. See www. The seemingly ever-growing size of the cont-ed.cam.ac.uk/research/conferences. Newsletter is testimony to the continued growth of medieval archaeology, despite The Institute of Archaeology, UCL on the present climate. I am particularly 14–15 November will host a seminar delighted to have the opportunity to on Trees, Timber and Woodland in the profi le research projects from across Anglo-Saxon World. Contact Michael G Ireland and Britain and, as the Society Shapland, [email protected] increases its efforts to engage with colleagues beyond ‘these islands’, we 27–28 November an International look forward to receiving more notices Symposium will be held in University of research from further afi eld. Members College Dublin, and will focus on the will fi nd a lot in the present issue that is INSTAR Early Medieval projects. of interest, and the conference reports Full details of the programme will be and research sections provide very available at: www.mappingdeath.ie useful overviews of new studies. There are interesting observations in the A conference entitled Roots of discussion section, and the Society also Nationhood will be held at the University seeks your feedback on our activities of Glasgow on 28–29 November. Key and publications. Preliminary details are questions to be addressed include: presented for a fi eldtrip to Rome in 2011, how have accounts of Scotland’s past reminding us that it is never too early to plan ahead. Mark Hall once again informed the ongoing political debate brings the Newsletter to its conclusion over devolution and independence? Does with a marvellous refl ection on a series archaeology and history reveal the roots of events that he has attended over the of nationhood, or are other themes of past number of months. Please continue diversity, discontinuity and far-fl ung to send me your pieces by e-mail, and connections and allegiances just as thanks to all contributors of the present compelling? See www.gla.ac.uk/media/ issue. media_123544_en.pdf DECEMBER: The Society’s AGM will take place in London on 7 December 2009. Prof.dr.em. Frans Verhaeghe (Vrije Dr. Niall Brady Universiteit Brussel) will present a lecture Project Director entitled, Highly Decorated Pottery in the The Discovery Programme Medieval Low Countries: The Dynamics 63 Merrion Square and Context of a Quality Product. See Dublin 2 News and Views below. Ireland. E-mail: [email protected] The 31st Theoretical Archaeology Group (TAG) Annual Meeting will be held at the Department of Archaeology, Durham CONFERENCES & EVENTS, University, 17–19 December. Among the forthcoming many sessions that might be of interest NOVEMBER: The University of to medievalists are: Archaeology and Cambridge’s Institute for Continuing Englishness; Developing Landscape Education is hosting a number of Historical Ecologies: Integrating Theory research conferences with medieval with Applied Approaches; Medieval themes in 2009 and 2010. Held at the Sensory Perceptions: Beyond the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Classical Senses; and Theorising Early Research, Department of Archaeology, Medieval ‘Towns’ (c. 700–1200 AD). See University of Cambridge, the fi rst www.dur.ac.uk/tag.2009/
www.medievalarchaeology.org 2010 is the topic of an international conference FEBRUARY: The University of of the Institute for Name-Studies at Cambridge’s Institute for Continuing University of Nottingham on 23–27 June Education will host its second event 2010. Topics will include: differences in on 13 February: Medieval Parks: naming practices in different regions of Recent Research, which is being held in England; relations with place-names in association with the Medieval Settlement neighbouring countries; place-names and Research Group. See www.cont-ed.cam. dialectal variation; and reassessments of ac.uk/research/conferences varying methodological and disciplinary approaches to place-names. See The Society for Medieval Archaeology www.nottingham.ac.uk/english/ins is planning a post-graduate colloquium at the University of Birmingham, JULY: The International Medieval 19–20 February. The conference will Congress (IMC) at the University of be free to all members of the Society Leeds will take place on 12–15 July. The currently registered on a post-graduate largest conference of its kind in Europe, programme. For details and to submit the event will feature over 1,000 papers proposals, check the website and and 375 academic sessions. For the facebook, or contact Amanda Forster, call for papers and information about [email protected] or Jill Campbell, organising sessions, see www.leeds.ac.uk/ [email protected] ims/imc/imc2010_call APRIL: The 24th Annual Conference SEPTEMBER: The Society for Post- of the Castle Studies Group will take Medieval Archaeology will hold place on 8–11 April. Based in Taunton, a conference at the University of the theme is Castles of West Wessex Glasgow from 3–5 September. The – Somerset and parts of Dorset/Wiltshire. theme will be: Engaging the Recent Details of connections, costs and further Past: Public, Political, Post-Medieval information will be supplied with the Archaeology. The conference will focus Castle Studies Group Journal mailing in on the contemporary context of post- December/January. See the CSG website medieval archaeology – the archaeology at: www.castlestudiesgroup.org.uk/ of the period from c.1500 to the present in Britain and Ireland, Europe The University of Cambridge’s Institute and countries affected by European for Continuing Education third event is colonialism and imperialism. See on 24 April: Vernacular Architecture in www.spma.org.uk/ the Fens. See www.cont-ed.cam.ac.uk/ research/conferences CONFERENCE REPORTS MAY: The Society for Medieval Archaeology is sponsoring a session at the The Early Medieval Wales Archaeology 2010 International Congress on Medieval Research Group held its twenty-fi fth Studies at Western Michigan University, anniversary colloquium at the university USA, 13–16 May. Following the SMA’s in Bangor, Gwynedd, on 25–26 April successful session at the 2009 Congress, 2009. Its aim was, above all, to put the next year’s session is entitled New archaeology of early medieval Wales in Directions in European Castle Research context: there was strong representation and will seek to highlight the vibrant and from Scotland and Ireland, with interdisciplinary nature of castle research particularly useful comparative material in the 21st century. Attracting over 3,000 from both, and some from England and scholars annually, the ICMS is one of the Denmark too. This was an unusually rich world’s largest gatherings of medievalists. conference, with 18 papers and plenty of See www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/ good discussion, and it was exceptionally well planned. JUNE: Perceptions of Place: English Place-Name Study and Regional Variety
2 not only the Christian landscape but also the complexities of the political landscape in north Wales, observing that the single stone source of these monuments carries implications for the control of resources as well as for their distribution. Kristján Ahronson and Karen Pollock then drew attention to the unrecognized potential of cave sites in Wales, and the need to contextualize their early medieval occupation, while Marion Dowd showed how important cave occupation could be in Ireland in the early middle ages – with 26 early medieval of the 100 or so archaeologically signifi cant sites, her analysis emphasized how wrong we are to think of cave-dwellers as ‘primitive’. Bodies and bones, both human and animal, were the subject of four equally enlightening papers. Janet Montgomery, taking examples from the Scottish Isles, talked about isotope analysis and its The cross at Llanfi hangel Tre’r Beirdd, value, particularly when applied to tooth Anglesey, a new discovery made by Nancy enamel, for identifying immigrants in a Edwards during fi eldwork for Corpus 3 community. Mick Wysocki and Andrew Davidson summarized analysis of the Firstly we considered places. Alan 122 stone cist and (later) dug burials Lane talked about one of the three key at Tywyn y Capel on Holy Island off sites that has emerged in Wales in the the west coast of Anglesey, noting the course of the last 25 years – Llan-gors indicators of metabolic stress in elements crannog – summarizing the history of the dug burial population, as also of excavations, drawing attention of an increase in the number of deaths to its Irish links, and focussing on in the 24–45 year old range – hints, explanations for its construction in the perhaps, of increasingly hard times. Both 890s; Aidan O’Sullivan, remarking that animal bone papers (Jacqui Mulville on his colleagues have too much rather the 35,000 fragments of animal bone than too little early medieval material, from Llan-gors, Finbar McCormick sketched the context and outcomes of on the signifi cance of understanding the phenomenal number of excavations cows) showed the enormous importance in Ireland since 1995 and the issues that of animal bone studies for our now confront Irish archaeologists, not understanding of social context and least the need for research on the data economic change. Interestingly, there recovered. Issues also emerged from is far more evidence of pig at Llan-gors Tomás Ó Carragáin’s description of the than is usual at early medieval sites in ‘Making Christian Landscapes’ project Britain, and there is a relatively high in Ireland (highlighted in issue 41 of incidence of hunted animals. It was the Society’s Newsletter), designed to good to have a succinct summary of explore some of the new data in selected McCormick’s views on the changing role areas in detail; he emphasized the high of cattle in the early Irish economy and density of churches, including many a lively discussion probed the origin of on secular estates, and the clustering ringforts and the signifi cance for humans of non-ecclesiastical burials, and called of age and place of butchering. the recognition of a new type of site (the cemetery settlement) the ‘great Trees are important too, as Mark revelation’ of the last decade. Nancy Redknap demonstrated in his unravelling Edwards took the sculptured stone of of techniques for working with wood Anglesey as a way into understanding in the early middle ages – the re-use of
3 planks at Llan-gors, and the summer of whatever date, if used judiciously. But felling of new wood, as well as the judiciously is the point; each class of text combination of building techniques needs assessment on its own terms and (round and rectangular) in use in the it is important to differentiate between early phases of the third of the key Welsh texts that are securely dated and those sites, Llanbedrgoch. Ann Crone gave us that are not. a detailed examination of woodworking techniques at the Scottish sites of Buiston What had changed in the (remarkably and Loch Glashan. Both papers, and rapid) passage of 26 years since the ensuing discussion, demonstrated the Gregynog meeting of 1983 which gave high level of technical skill necessary for rise to the birth of EMWARG the woodworking at this time, as well as the following year, was the subject of my implications for labour and woodland summing up. At Gregynog there had management. been much stress on how little we knew about the early middle ages; much Lastly words. Was there a Welsh argument about whether there should dreamtime, asked Jerry Hunter, what be research strategies or not; concern was the past that was remembered in about problems of dating and also about literature, and what was its archaeology? the need for co-ordination between Is the material culture described in the many bodies involved in Welsh literary texts a memory or just some archaeology. Since then, there has been wishful thinking? An interest in much greater use of radio-carbon dating topography and landscape, rather than and signifi cant collaboration between the in artefacts, characterizes early Welsh National Museums of Wales, universities, literature (in contrast, for example, the archaeological Trusts and the state to Beowulf), so John Hines argued through its relevant body CADW (the – hence, we cannot recover the totality of historic environment service of the Welsh practical life from such works although Assembly Government); there have we could benefi t from thinking about been strategic surveys, major research the material and experiential contexts in on, and publication of, inscribed and which words have meaning and about sculptured stones by Nancy Edwards, literature as active performance. So John Lewis and Mark Redknap, and new too place-names: Hywel Wyn Owen material discovered through the Portable indicated how the meaning of names Antiquities Scheme; while the key sites can take us back to medieval people have transformed the way we think about and how, for example, names can reveal early medieval Wales. So things have imposed colonization; and, despite the certainly changed. limited interest in Wales by Norse saga writers, there are tantalizing references I also drew attention to some consistent to a place called Jarlsnes in two sagas, themes which had emerged from the said Peder Gammeltoft, suggesting colloquium: Ireland, of course, and the there may have been two Scandinavian great value of setting a large quantity earldoms in south Wales. In looking at of Irish material, as well as a good the textual references to Welsh kings deal of Scottish, beside the Welsh. Alex Woolf raised many questions, The contrast in the volume of early among them the possibility of monastic medieval Welsh and Irish material is towns at places like Llantwit Major and partly to be explained by the low level Margam – perhaps with kings resident of construction programmes and by the there for some parts of the year. Anne fact that the state (be it UK government Connon, in describing some of her work or Welsh Assembly) does not focus on for the (Irish) Discovery Programme, the early middle ages as the defi ning demonstrated that meticulous attention phase of Welsh heritage. But it does raise to text, even of much later periods, questions about whether it is right to can solve early medieval topographic expect Ireland and Wales to be the same. problems. The clear message from this Then there is the impact of Christianity, range of sessions, all of which explored a theme that comes strongly out of the the interaction of words and archaeology Irish material. The density of churches in some way, was that text can be helpful, in lowland Wales must be comparable to
4 the densities that Tomás Ó Carragáin has the western outpost of Christian culture been fi nding. And Alex Woolf’s point on facing east. monastic towns was well made – perhaps not as many, nor as big as the Irish, but the dozen or so major monasteries in Wales before the Norman Conquest must have been sites of nucleation, multiple activities and exchange. The conference ended with some shared thoughts on what next. Others suggested the need to raise funding levels, systematic work on bogs, the need for dated pollen cores. And are we sure that there are no water mills? There remains Conference participants at the monument to much to do. The conference ended with a the Battle of Mohi (AD 1241) heartfelt show of appreciation for Nancy Edwards: it is her energy, commitment This year, some 30 scholars from and tenacity that has made the work the host country, Germany, Russia, continue. the Ukraine and Spain followed the Wendy Davies invitation of Professor Mihaly Dobrovits to Miskolc (pronounced Mishkolts), Message from the Dark Side of the in the northeastern corner of Hungary, Moon (or Europe, at any rate). I am where a small university founded after unashamedly borrowing this title the Second World War continues the from Leslie Alcock (who, in turn, had tradition of an 18th century mining borrowed it from a certain pop group). college. The subjects of the conference Leslie once used it for a paper on papers ranged from linguistics to history Celtic Britain given at an Anglo-Saxon and archaeology, from Mongolia and conference. There are, however, ‘darker’ India to the Carpathian Basin, and sides of medieval Europe, foremost from 5th century Huns to 19th century among them the nomadic societies on the Kirgiz. Aspects which I (as a relative western reaches of the Eurasian steppe newcomer to this fi eld) found particularly belt: Huns, Avars, Bulgars, Magyars interesting included the interrelation of (Hungarians), Mongols and others. Even nomadic societies with the neighbouring though they had a marked impact on the civilizations of Byzantium, Iran and history and archaeology of Eastern and China, located at opposite ends and on Central Europe, they do not really form the southern fl ank of the steppe belt, and part of our standard concept of medieval the built-in trend of successful nomad Europe. societies to create powerful military alliances and tribal confederations. As Some of those who study medieval Professor Istvan Zimonyi (Hungary) societies of the Eurasian steppes meet put it in his paper: “No survival is every other year for a small conference possible on the steppes without political held at varying locations in Hungary organisation.” (surely a form of academic nomadism). Traditionally, Hungarian scholars have The nearby wine-growing region of Tokaj made themselves the mediators between was the setting of a very liquid excursion. Eurasian steppes and western Europe. Its fi rst stop was at the impressive and For historical and geographical reasons, moving monument to the disastrous this is, of course, not a huge surprise, but defeat of the Hungarian army against the beyond academia, too, it is noticeable to Mongols in the battle of Mohi (or Sajo what extent the Huns and the Magyars, River) in 1241. The Latin inscription, in particular, play a signifi cant role written 750 years later, interprets this as in the identity of modern Hungary: a last stand for freedom – a signifi cant depending upon circumstances and statement in the political context of the context, Hungary sees itself as the eastern early 1990s, and another proof (if one outlier of steppe culture looking west, or were needed) of how the past and the
5 present are inextricably linked. On the of the manuscript to contemporary fi nal day, conference participants were compilers, scribes, illustrators, and escorted by train to Budapest where they readers. Such evidence suggests a need were given a guided tour (by Professor for modern-day book historians and Istvan Fodor) of the National Hungarian cultural materialists to reconceptualise Museum’s outstanding temporary the manuscript book as fully constitutive exhibition on the Scythians, the late rather than the sum of disparate parts, prehistoric predecessors of the societies the chief of which is predominantly and discussed over the previous three days. restrictively, merely writing on the page. The next conference in this series will be held at Budapest in 2011. In ‘Carolingian gifts to St. Peter ‘the Shepherd’, Joanna Story, University Heinrich Härke of Leicester, considered the intriguing Visiting Research Fellow problem of learning in the medieval University of Reading h.g.h.harke@ period. Her study of manuscript sylloges reading.ac.uk focused on a poem that is preserved in a manuscript whose origins lie in the Kalamazoo. The Society sponsored its abbey of Lorsch. The poem considers an fi rst session at the International Congress altar-cloth given by Charlemagne’s queen of Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, MI, on Hildegard. Story’s contribution is to 7–10 May. Leslie Webster organized the consider such pieces from the perspective panel on Archaeology and the Artifact, of how they might have been seen by which aimed to demonstrate the breadth contemporary pilgrims, suggesting a of the Society’s interest across the reinterpretation of such royal gifts is disciplines. Niall Brady, session presider, possible within their liturgical context, provides an overview based on the in relationship to the furniture of the presenters’ abstracts. oratory and the wider architecture of the Constantinian basilica of Old St. Peter’s. Elaine Treharne, Florida State The sense to which the artefact, as it University, began with a paper entitled, survives or as it is remembered, provides ‘The Archaeotextuality of the book’, a vital and unique trace to undocumented in which she sought to rehabilitate the aspects of daily life, is inescapable. whole book, the ‘archaeotextuality of the book’, by working against the common In ‘Through text and artefacts to virtual trend in Book History, when that communities: Beyond the Tribal Hidage discipline talks about the ‘archaeology’ (A Leverhulme Trust Research Project)’, of the book—a focus that depends for Sue Harrington, UCL Institute of success on various, rather dexterous but Archaeology, changed the pace a little reductive analogies between excavational and demonstrated the importance of archaeology and codicology. Rather than GIS-based databases to studies that unpacking the individual strata of the consider large volumes of artefacts and book, her paper insisted on the book as burials from many different landscapes architecturally constituted, indivisible, and contexts. Her paper focused on the above ground. Treharne sought to Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Kent, Sussex work with archaeological, architectural, and Wessex to reveal a clear and nuanced codicological and art historical elements picture of the changing economic of the book to illustrate how effectively and social interactions of the discrete we can reconstruct the medieval book communities that formed the basis of the from the self-authenticating clues it early kingdoms. Readers can expect a presents us with as a whole object. The detailed overview of this research project overarching objective is to introduce in the 2010 Spring Newsletter. the medieval manuscript as an Edifi ce of Letters–a three-dimensional artefact, For details relating to the Society’s 2010, with more similarities to the buildings session, see above, Conference events. attended to by historical architects and archaeologists than differences. The Ruralia VIII. The Eighth International evidence for this is found in depictions Medieval Rural Settlement Conference of books within medieval books that took place in Lorca in the region illustrate unequivocally the ‘wholeness’ of Murcia in S.E. Spain, from 7–12
6 September. All together over 60 people research project on the diet of medieval attended this discussion on ‘Food in the Iceland. Other speakers who have been Medieval Rural Environment’, many of active in the Society included Naomi whom are members of the Society. Both Sykes, who considered ‘Meat and the your Newsletter editor, Dr Niall Brady, Creation of Communities in Medieval and myself made up the Irish delegation. Rural England’, Richard Jones, on ‘The All 34 papers given over two and a half Medieval Dunghill: the processing, days encompassed a wide chronological storage and distribution of food waste’, and geographical spread, and they all and Piers Dixon, ‘Of bannocks and were of a consistently high standard ale: cereal processing in Scotland, both in content and in their presentation c.11001750’. from both younger and more established scholars. Many of the presentations were given in a different language to their mother tongue, which was impressive to us native English speakers. Because of the untimely death of the organisation’s President, Professor Dr Johnny De Meulemeester, the present author gave a short eulogy on his life, with especial reference to Ireland, whilst Alan Aberg introduced the Conference by discussing the origins and development of the Ruralia organisation, Jorge Eiroa Rodríguez presenting the and Johnny’s major role in this. excavations of the Mezquita [Mosque] del Cortijo del Centeno The Conference proper started on a high note, with an intellectually thought- There were also two excellent fi eld trips provoking and challenging paper that took place during the Conference by Thomas Meier of the University helped by the sunny, warm weather, of Heidelberg on the stresses that as well as an additional one to Eastern drove economic change in the rural Andalusia immediately after the Conference’s end. The all day trip societies east of the Rhine during the focussed on the medieval irrigation Carolingian period. His approach was system of the Ricote valley, which echoed by a later paper from another included a visit to Blanca castle that German scholar, Rainer Scherg, who Jorge Eiroa Rodríguez had excavated a investigated elements of ‘Chaos Theory’ few years previously. The second fi eld and its usefulness when studying trip, which was only half a day in length, medieval societies, to show whether took us to the excavation of a small the economic systems of medieval rural rural mosque and fi nished up with a tour settlements were either in the ‘resilient’ or around the impressively sited castle of ‘destabilised’ phase of their cycles. Lorca that still dominates the present day town. Your author also had to try Niall Brady in his paper looked at the to summarise the main conclusions of challenges facing agricultural history the Conference in a fi nal presentation, a in Ireland, and demonstrated where job made harder by the consistently high settlement studies can make important standard of all the contributions. inroads. He highlighted the research of the Discovery Programme, and The Conference was yet another triumph featured the Dublin Hinterland study, for Ruralia, and the organisational skills which is now ready for publication of Jorge A. Eiroa Rodríguez, and his assistants in Lorca. All the participants and should show how Ireland’s capital are very much looking forward to the was supplied with food in the medieval imminent publication of the proceedings period, while Mark Gardiner gave the of the Seventh Conference by Brepols, paper for Natascha Mehler on their and to the next meeting in September
7 2011 in Götzis, Austria, where the landscape histories was more common, theme will consider ‘Hierarchy in rural and whether this varies in different settlements’. For further information parts of the country. Another theme will about Ruralia, contact Mark Gardiner be to explore the date of a distinctive (national representative for the UK) or type of modern fi eld system whose Niall Brady (Ireland). Ruralia’s website is clearly planned layout has led to the http://www.ruralia.cz/index.html term ‘co-axial’ being used to describe them. Circumstantial evidence suggests Terry Barry that some at least may be Roman in date, and this hypothesis will be tested SPOTLIGHT ON RESEARCH in the ‘Fields of Britannia’ project. In addition to these possible examples of The Fields of Britannia: Landscape Romano-British fi eld systems that have Transition in the Roman to Medieval survived in use, the project will also Periods. The Leverhulme Trust has look at whether there was continuity awarded Professor Stephen Rippon, of or discontinuity in patterns of land-use the Archaeology Department, University using ‘palaeoenvironmental’ evidence of Exeter, a major research grant to look (plant and animal remains) preserved at the relationship between the Romano- on archaeological sites and in natural British and the medieval landscapes. deposits such as peat bogs. Overall, at One of the most distinctive features of the end of the project we hope to have a the British landscape is its countryside far better idea of the extent to which the characterised by an intricate pattern of character of the British landscapes has its agricultural fi elds. Archaeological and roots in the Roman period. historical research has shown that in many areas the fi eld systems of today Stephen Rippon were in existence by the late medieval [email protected] period, but when and how these fi elds came into being is less clear. The The Glenmorangie Early Historic ‘Fields of Britannia’ project will use a Scotland Project is the core element range of techniques to systematically in a developing relationship between explore for the fi rst time how far these National Museums Scotland and The fi eldscapes originated in the Roman Glenmorangie Company. The Hilton period. This will form an important and of Cadboll sculptured stone has proved innovative contribution to the current central to the development of this debate over one of the major formative unprecedented partnership. While the periods in British history: the nature of major part of the stone is now exhibited the transition from Roman Britain to in the Early People displays in the medieval England. National Museum of Scotland, the site of its discovery is close to Glenmorangie’s The contribution that the landscape of distillery at Tain, and very close to Roman Britain made to the medieval Glenmorangie House. The intricate panel and modern countryside will be explored of spiral decoration on the Hilton of through a number of themes. The fi rst Cadboll slab provided a natural source will be to examine the relationship of inspiration for the new Glenmorangie between Romano-British fi eld systems brand insignia. (that have been dated through excavation) and the overlying medieval The project was launched in December and later fi eld systems. In the far west 2007 and runs until December 2010. of Cornwall, for example, we know that Glenmorangie’s fi nancial support has the present pattern of fi elds has remained enabled National Museums Scotland in use since the Roman period, while to appoint a Research Offi cer to work elsewhere in Britain the Romano-British full time on the project. Alice Blackwell landscape was clearly abandoned in took up this post in July 2008. She joins the early medieval period with later, a small team from the Department medieval, fi eld systems overlying their of Archaeology, National Museums Roman predecessors unconformably. Scotland consisting of Martin Goldberg, This project will explore which of these the newly appointed Early Historic
8 Curator and David Clarke, Keeper of construction techniques through a fully Archaeology. manipulable, 3D model and give us the ability to examine sections at any angle The central feature of the project is across, or point on, the Reliquary. The the production of a book covering study is to be augmented by radiocarbon Early Historic Scotland, AD 300 to dates from samples taken from the inner AD 900. The book is intended to be an wooden box and lid. accessible but scholarly-based review of the archaeological evidence. It will be rooted in the surviving material culture of the period and will cover the whole of the country. Within the book we are adopting a thematic structure, moving from sections considering the individual, towards topics that focus on groups of people and society as a whole. The Monymusk reliquary
The other strand of the project made possible by Glenmorangie’s support is based on building relationships with modern craftspeople. Through these collaborations we are commissioning versions of Early Historic objects that are not replicas but which never the less inform and enhance our understanding of how those early pieces might have been made. We have almost completed a project to make a ‘Pictish’ throne based on images on the sculptured stone from Fowlis Wester, Perthshire. Dialogue between Adrian McCurdy, the craftsman who is making the throne, and ourselves has thrown up a number of issues that would not have arisen had the study of these thrones been limited to an academic exercise. Trying to resolve these issues constantly requires a return to the available evidence in order to extract more information as knowledge of the processes grows. Hilton of Cadboll slab Our collaboration with Glenmorangie Glenmorangie’s support is also is based on an enthusiastic desire on facilitating new academic research both sides to better understand and on specifi c topics. To date we have communicate Scotland’s Early Historic concentrated on looking at the form, archaeology. Their support for a research function and construction of objects, and project on this scale is enlightened and particularly composite objects. Like so unprecedented, and the project’s success many major pieces from Early Historic will, we hope, encourage others to engage Scotland, the Monymusk Reliquary is a in comparable ventures. well-known object that regularly features in discussion of the period but lacks a David Clarke detailed and defi nitive description. We Alice Blackwell are currently preparing such an account, aided by CT scans undertaken by the SIMBIOS Centre, University of Abertay. The scans will enable us to investigate
9 INSTAR Funding in Ireland – the Irish The website provides details of the aims National Strategic Archaeological of the project, personnel involved, and Research programme 2008 past and future events. A further method of dissemination of information is the Two further research projects funded by involvement of project personnel in 3rd the Heritage Council in 2009 are reported level and graduate teaching, and in the below under its INSTAR programme. presentation of papers at conferences, The Council remains a leading funder of seminars, and to local historical societies. archaeological research in Ireland.
Mapping Death: People, Boundaries and Territories in Ireland 1st to 8th Centuries AD. This project, funded by the Heritage Council for the period May to December 2008, and for the period June to December 2009, is a collaborative, inter-disciplinary project involving the UCD Mícheál Ó Cléirigh Institute for the Study of Irish History and Civilisation, the UCD School of History and Archives, and the Discovery Programme. One of the objectives of the project is to document within an online database all published and unpublished burials in Ireland dating from the 1st to the 8th centuries AD. Using the information gathered, detailed studies are being produced based on archaeological observations, and, as a signifi cant element of the project is Burial B4 Ballymacaward, Co. Donegal. concerned with the wider interpretation © EO’Brien of burial practices, the archaeological study is being supported by a thorough In November 2008 a most successful analysis of the extensive corpus of Symposium entitled ‘Mapping Death: primary historical sources available from People, Boundaries and Territories Ireland, Britain and Continental Europe. in Ireland 1st to 8th centuries AD’ In order to maximise the potential was organised by the Project team, outcome of the project, contacts are under the aegis of the UCD Mícheál being established with national and Ó Cléirigh Institute, at which papers international colleagues in the disciplines were delivered by project members of anthropology, archaeology, science and invited speakers, covering topics (especially with regard to strontium/ which included; Dr Elizabeth O’Brien isotopic analysis, DNA, and c14 dating ‘The Mapping Death Project’; Dr Edel of skeletal material), osteo-archaeology, Bhreathnach ‘Royal tombs, kingdoms history, and place-names specialists. and boundaries: literary sources for mapping death’; Mr Ian Doyle ‘Imported A major objective of the project is pottery in Ireland from 5th to 7th centuries the dissemination of outcomes to the AD’; Ms Elizabeth Dawson ‘Waves of archaeological community, scholars conversion: bishops in Ireland from 5th in other disciplines, and to the wider to 7th centuries AD’; Ms Maeve Sikora public. To this end a website describing Burial in Ireland from 1st to 8th centuries the project has been constructed and can AD: recent research in the archives of the be accessed at www.mappingdeath.ie. National Museum of Ireland’: Mr Fintan
10 Walsh/Ms Yvonne Whitty/Ms Maeve • The anthropological signifi cance Tobin ‘Mapping death and the private of the occurrence of female sector’; Dr Elva Johnston ‘Palladius ancestral burials dateable to the and conversion: the historical context’; 4th to 6th centuries which are often Dr. Michael Potterton ‘Mapping death accompanied by animal bones. project: potential directions for the • A site-specifi c study of a number of future’. ferta-type burial mounds (ancestral graves/cemeteries) on possible early medieval territorial boundaries. The Mapping Death INSTAR Project team consists of: Dr Edel Bhreathnach, UCD Mícheál Ó Cléirigh Institute, Principal Investigator, and expert on the interpretation of early Irish texts with regard to landscapes, monuments, boundaries, peoples and kingdoms of early medieval Ireland; Dr Elizabeth O’Brien, Post Doctoral Fellow UCD Mícheál Ó Cléirigh Institute, and Burial enclosures Holdenstown (1), Co. specialist in burial practices in late Kilkenny. © Gavin Duffy, AirShots prehistoric and early medieval Ireland, and in late Roman Britain and Anglo- On 27–28 November 2009 a two-day Saxon England; Dr Elva Johnston, International Symposium will be held UCD School of History and Archive, in UCD, and will include papers by and a leading authority on religious project team members covering the range conversion and society, literacy, cultural of collaborative and inter-disciplinary identity and on Ireland’s relations with aspects of the Project, papers by members Late Roman Britain, Anglo-Saxon of other INSTAR Early Medieval England and the Continent; Dr Michael projects which are already in progress; Potterton, The Discovery Programme, papers incorporating wider international experienced in combining archaeological collaboration; papers by members of data with documentary and cartographic the scientifi c community especially with information with particular reference regard to the use of isotopic/strontium to medieval settlement and society; analysis and c14 dating; papers from Mr Anthony Corns, The Discovery osteo-archaeologists. Full details of the Programme, expert in surveying and programme will be available soon on the mapping archaeological monuments ‘Mapping Death’ website. It is envisaged and landscapes, and in designing related that the proceedings of this Symposium computer databases. will be published. As the inter-disciplinary research The following is an example of just being undertaken by the INSTAR some of the interesting themes which are ‘Mapping Death’ team progresses, currently emerging from the project and customs and practices which appear in are being pursued: the archaeological burial record and in historical and literary records will • The process of religious conversion in be identifi ed, and our understanding Ireland AD 400–700. will be informed by the different • The terminology of burial in early perspectives of the various disciplines. medieval Irish and Hiberno-Latin The objectives of the project are to sources. comprehend the beliefs of a society in • The interpretation of external relation to that fundamental reality of infl uences known from documentary being human, death, and to see what the and archaeological sources. rites associated with that reality tell us • The implications of early imported about late prehistoric and early medieval pottery for economic or religious society in Ireland. trade into Ireland. Betty O’Brien
11 Medieval Dublin: an archaeological past; the archaeological resource; 2.) research framework. A new research Research Agenda: Gaps in knowledge; tool for the medieval city of Dublin is Research questions and the potential of coming on stream under the Heritage the resource; Study Areas; 3.) Research Council’s INSTAR programme. Under Strategy: Policies and guidelines; the theme ‘Landscape and settlement’, Implementation, policy and review of the the report is entitled ‘The archaeological Research Framework. remains of Viking and Medieval Dublin: a research framework’ and was For the purposes of the research strategy written by Linzi Simpson, of Margaret the medieval city has been divided into Gowen and Co. Ltd, the Principal eight sections or Study Areas, which Investigator, in conjunction with a creates a spatial framework for specifi c series of project participants including research questions, focusing on the area Donncha Ó Dúlaing (formerly of within the city walls but extending into Dublin City Council), Dr Ruth Johnson the adjoining suburbs. This approach (Dublin City Council), Dr Seán Duffy has its limitations as the sections are (Trinity College, Dublin), O’Connor simply divisions on paper and bear Sutton Cronin Consulting Civil and no relationship to the chronological Structural Engineers and Anthony development of Dublin. However, the Reddy Associates Architects, Planning research questions within each Study Consultants and Urban Design. The Area are grouped chronologically (from referees for the project are Prof. Anngret the early medieval period onwards) to Simms (Emerita, UCD) and Prof. allow for cross reference, especially where Michael Ryan, Director of the Chester a research question potentially spans Beatty Library several areas, for example, ‘Where is the longphort? This approach was favoured The aims and objectives of the Research as it permits the future insertion of Framework are to promote research of research questions where appropriate Medieval Dublin, not only the walled and allows the Research Framework city, but also the immediate and adjacent to be used in specifi c areas, where suburbs. Specifi cally, the document re-development might be pending. formulates an archaeological research framework for this historic area, which This Research Framework represents summarizes our knowledge to date, the fi rst such overreaching exercise in the both archaeological and historical, provision of a comprehensive strategy, and more critically, identifi es research the aim of which is to promote research questions, which the resource can be and aid the formulation of policy for the called on to answer in the future. The archaeology of medieval Dublin. report also addresses key issues in current Linzi Simpson archaeological practices, identifi es [email protected] current and past mistakes and attempts to promote a consistency of approach to archaeological mitigation and best archaeological practice by the provision of basic guidelines. The fi nal objective is the provision of a body of information, GROUP REPORTS, 2008 which can be used by the relevant THE FINDS RESEARCH GROUP heritage authorities to inform future AD 700–1700 (FRG) assembled at decisions in planning and management two great venues in 2008: the glorious of the heritage resource in a systematic Palace of Hampton Court and amongst way. Most important is the creation of the misty mounds of Sutton Hoo. The a proactive data collection, which can theme for the weekend conference at be updated and reviewed on an ongoing Hampton Court (17–18 May) was Life basis. in Fragments. A Two Day Conference The report is divided into three main looking at Assemblages, their Stories, sections: 1.) Resource Assessment: and the Stories they tell. The claim Introduction; Understanding the that archaeologists spend their careers rooting about in other people’s rubbish
12 must have lost any claim to merit or experimental work and documentary wit shortly after fi rst utterance, yet research. the perennial popularity of the phrase suggests it contains a grain of truth. If On 24 October a large group of FRG such material is indeed rubbish then members attended the meeting Wealth how do we interpret the decisions and and Circumstance: Anglo-Saxon burials processes which led to the formation in the East of England held at Sutton of assemblages or the values placed on Hoo. The venue was the house previously the material by those who discarded it? owned by Mrs Edith Pretty, who had Conversely, should we view the absence commissioned the excavations that of certain classes of material in the revealed the now famous ship burial archaeological record as indicating their back in the 1930s. The fi rst speaker continuing value to their users? The FRG was Angus Wainwright, National gathering at Hampton Court Palace, Trust Archaeologist for the East of ably hosted by Marc Meltonville and his England, who explained the detailed colleagues in the Historic Royal Palaces, research that had gone into the design gave scope to dwell upon such issues. of the visitor centre. (He also acted as the excellent guide for the site tour at The fi rst paper saw Graham Keevill’s lunch). He explained how visits to Birka overview of excavations at the Tower had proven to be particularly useful, of London: excavation campaigns over because, as at Sutton Hoo, most of the 50 years provided little in the way of famous artefacts are displayed in other artefacts from within the site itself, institutions. As at Birka, many of the yet the moat and foreshore were both treasures, and the burial layout itself, rich in fi nds – thus raising important are displayed as reconstructions and in points about how one should interpret creating these pieces new conclusions a site when the artefactual record is not have emerged about the materials and where one might reasonably suppose it technology required for the originals. to be. Maria Hayward’s discussion of Tim Pestell spoke next about the then the inventories of Henry VIII usefully current exhibition, The Life and Death examined values placed on various of a Kingdom: East Anglia 500–869 AD. classes of object; frustratingly these His talk explored the wider distribution inventories ignore those low status of cemeteries and grave goods in East objects which tend to comprise the Anglia. Angela Evans then guided bulk of archaeological material, yet it us through the details of some of is an illustration of contemporary value the discoveries made during Martin judgments of both a cultural and fi scal Carver’s excavations of the mounds, nature. Geoff Egan concentrated on and the excavation of a cremation and fi nds from the Rose and Globe theatres; inhumation cemetery discovered nearby like the Tower of London – or indeed at Bromeswell. Hampton Court – the loss, discard and subsequent integration into the In the afternoon, Ian Blair of Museum of archaeological record of these artefacts London Archaeology Service discussed appeared dependent on factors and the prestigious grave at Prittlewell attitudes unique to each particular site. (published as the ‘Bling King’ in The Sun!), with fi nds including a large Marc Meltonville and his colleagues hanging bowl, a folding stool, an iron generously provided talks and candelabra stand and a lyre, all of demonstrations on the stewardship which had been carefully placed either and interpretation of the Palace, and on the fl oor or hanging from the walls the original research which makes of the funerary chamber. At the head public interpretation possible. The end, two gold sheet Latin crosses were re-colourisation of the tapestries found, suggesting that despite the Pagan of Henry VIII by the projection splendour of his tomb the deceased had of a tinted overlay was a notable presumably adopted Christianity. Helen example of both conservation and Geake considered horse-harness mounts interpretation, but pride of place must th th th and pendants in the 6 and 7 centuries. go to the reconstruction of the 16 - The rivets on the reverse distinguish them century kitchens based on a wealth of
13 from brooch fragments and strap ends to consider developments in pottery and more, as yet unparalleled mounts making, methods of distribution recorded by the Portable Antiquities and patterns of trade, comparing Scheme, may turn out to be from horse and contrasting pottery traditions of harness. Further research is needed to the European Mediterranean states. increase our understanding, but some Speakers from all over Europe addressed patterns are emerging already. Graves these themes and participated in wide- such at those at Lakenheath show that ranging discussions, with Graziella mounts are deliberately reused in female Berti presenting the Gerald Dunning costume, with some female burials Memorial Lecture on technical devices including single strap pendant mounts, in sgraffi to-ware production in Tuscany. when they are used in pairs on harnesses. The event was well attended, with over Interestingly, there appears to have been 50 attendees from the UK alone. The a close relationship between women and Group is in a secure fi nancial position horse, rather than men and horse. and has funds to cover the publication schedule for the near future. Volume 29 Two meetings were planned for 2009: of Medieval Ceramics was released in Finding the Familiar: Dealing with 2008, which includes articles on pottery Artefacts of the Modern Age which was and identity in Saxon Sussex, ceramic use being hosted by ARCUS in Sheffi eld in monasteries in Liguria and Eastern on 9 May, and A Celebration of Irons! Flanders, whitewares from Clarence to be held in Lincoln on 24 October. Street, York and Rolandsons Wharf, No Datasheets were published by the Leith and an unexpected ‘catch’ for FRG this year as our editor was busy the Brixham trawler, Catear. The next preparing a consolidated reprint of volume of Medieval Ceramics is due for Datasheets 25–40 in book format. This, release at the 2009 conference. Work alongside the book Datasheets 1–24, are is ongoing on the online bibliography, available to members for £5 or £7.50 to which gives details of published reports non-members (plus p+p). and is updated annually (
14 areas alone require a fresh examination – Kent and Cumbria and Lancashire in the light of subsequent developments respectively. All was brought together in within professional archaeology in the an excellent summing up by Chris Lewis. UK, most notably the introduction of PPG16 and the emphasis on commercial, The Group’s 2008 Winter Seminar, competitive practice. It is hoped funding jointly run at Leicester University with can be secured to take the project the Society for Landscape Studies, was forward and that work can commence on held on 6 December, and was in memory the research strategy in 2009. of former MSRG President, Harold Fox, who died in August 2007. A series Hon. Secretary of papers on themes centred around the Anne Boyle landscape and economy were assembled c/o Museum of London Specialist under the seminar banner Fishing, Services Transhumance and Woodland in Medieval 46 Eagle Wharf Road, London N1 7ED. Britain. Stimulating papers by Andrew Email: [email protected]. Fleming, Della Hooke and Nicola uk Website: www.medievalpottery.org.uk Bannister explored in particular trees and wood pasture from Wales to the Weald; THE MEDIEVAL SETTLEMENT issues of transhumance – its visibility, RESEARCH GROUP (MSRG) the bases of the shepherds, its modes continues to be a well supported and of practice – were discussed by Peter highly active body, offering both Herring, Angus Winchester and Mark informative conferences and seminars Gardiner, with coverage from south- and outputs. The MSRG Spring meeting west and northern England to Northern was held on 29 March at the McDonald Ireland; and James Barrett opened up the Institute, Downing Street, University much-understudied world of medieval of Cambridge, and was entitled The sea-fi shing. Publication is planned of Multiple Estate Revisited: Territories, papers from both this seminar and a Resources and Society in Early Medieval separate conference also held in Leicester Britain. Glanville Jones developed the in summer 2008 centred on Harold’s concept of the multiple estate in a series research interests. of papers during the 1960s and 1970s, arguing that there was a basic form of Core to the 80 page Annual Report land structure which could be found no.22 published in October 2008 were in many parts of Britain. The multiple the extended summaries of papers estate combined the arable areas of the and discussions from POMLAS lowlands with the pastoral uplands into – ‘Perceptions of medieval landscapes and an administrative and economically settlements’ – the innovative programme integrated region. As this idea developed, of workshops engineered and promoted Jones concluded that the estate structure by MSRG Vice-President Professor Chris must have Celtic origins and that it Dyer (Centre for English Local History, survived in its purest form in the west University of Leicester) and funded of Britain where it was recorded in early by the Arts and Humanities Research Welsh laws. This wide-ranging and Council (AHRC) from its ‘Landscape infl uential model was not without its and Environment Programme’. critics, however. This MSRG seminar Workshops on themes such as ‘Planning re-visited Glanville Jones’ original ideas and meaning’, ‘Working and sharing’ and explored how far the multiple estate ‘New people, new farms’ succeeded still provides a useful way of thinking greatly in stimulating discussion and about territories, society and resource raising extra issues and debates, which exploitation. In this well-attended day we hope will be the prompt for new conference, the model and idea of the projects and meetings. The Annual multiple estate were cleverly discussed Report also included summaries of by both Mark Gardiner and Dawn recent fi eldwork activities, such as at Hadley, and new angles explored by Ros Hazleton and in the Mendips; Carenza Faith and Alex Woolf; in the afternoon, Lewis, meanwhile, reported on test- Stuart Brooks and Angus Winchester pitting work in East Anglian villages; considered evidence from diverse zones and there was an extended summary of
15 the 2007 John Hurst MA Dissertation on 7 December 2009, at 5:30pm. Tea Prize winning thesis by Michael Busby on and biscuits will be served from 5:00pm 14th-century poll tax records for medieval in the Council Room. The AGM will Leicestershire. be followed by the Annual Lecture (at approximately 5:45pm). Prof.dr.em. The MSRG Annual General Meeting in Frans Verhaeghe (Vrije Universiteit December (framed between the Winter Brussel) will present a lecture entitled, Seminar morning papers and the enticing Highly Decorated Pottery in the Medieval lunch!) – overseen by new President Paul Low Countries: The Dynamics and Stamper – saw the re-election of the Context of a Quality Product Committee offi cers, the election of three new Committee members, and reported In the (late) 12th century, a new on a new venture, a projected edited commodity appeared in Flanders, today volume on medieval rural settlement commonly called highly decorated in Britain, drawing on the expertise of pottery. Resulting from the adoption past and present Committee and other of a few foreign models, new fashions members. and a few technical innovations, combined with a number of older Whilst no John Hurst MA Dissertation potters’ traditions, it rapidly became Prize (initiated in 2004 to honour fairly widespread throughout the Low the memory of John Hurst and his Countries. Produced by local potters in achievements with the MSRG) was workshops which normally also made awarded for 2008, the Group funded common objects such as cooking wares two fi eldwork grants; the Group has also and storage vessels, the group consisted introduced a bursary fund, linked to the mainly of tablewares. Jugs of different name of Maurice Beresford, for younger types were by far the most common kind scholars to apply to for conference or of product and they were linked to new related attendance. Please see the web table manners and preferences. But the pages or Annual Report for details of how range of highly decorated wares was soon to apply to the various awards. Finally, expanded with other types of objects. the MSRG editor, Dr Sam Turner, is overseeing a redevelopment of the Annual A variety of decoration patterns can be Report, with the aim of attracting fuller identifi ed, but in some ways the range is research articles on the Group’s core rather limited and this raises interesting interest area of medieval rural settlement. questions related to traditions, tastes and Potential contributors should contact the even economic strategies. It also seems editor with ideas of papers. that many of these highly decorated goods were quality objects rather than Hon. Secretary luxury items in the full sense of the word. Dr. Neil Christie School of Archaeology & Ancient By the early to mid-14th century, History University of Leicester, Leicester however, the group was superseded by LE1 7RH new products, more particularly the E-mail: [email protected] German (Rhenish) stonewares. The Low Website: http://www.britarch.ac.uk/msrg/ Countries potters did not, however, forget some of their acquired skills: the NEWS & VIEWS decoration techniques continued to be used and adapted and this led to the Salford Hundred. Stuart Mendelsohn development of later types of pottery and has created a blog that focuses on other ceramic products. the medieval resources surviving in this part of the country. For further The lecture presents an overview of these information, readers are directed to medieval highly decorated goods but also http://salfordhundred.wordpress.com/ looks at the factors which infl uenced the emergence, success and decline of the The Society’s AGM will take place in group and at its economic, cultural and the Meeting Room of the Society of social meanings. Antiquaries of London, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W1J 0BE
16 The Staffordshire Hoard. News abounds to be persuaded even now that ‘Charles of the remarkable discovery of Anglo- Coulson has proved his case beyond Saxon period metalwork close to the reasonable question . . . (that) display Mercian capital of Tamworth. The of lordly status was the prime function pros and cons associated with such fi nd of licences to crenellate’ (2008:250). Yet circumstances generate very different in everything Davis touches – whether responses, both within the profession and in mapping the licences, in ranking the outside it. Perhaps it is time to re-engage applicants, or in counting the licences in some discussion. The Newsletter by decade – his work fl atly contradicts may be a useful forum for views on the Coulson’s thesis. Thus the licences Portable Antiquities Scheme, its absence cluster especially on the coasts and in the in Ireland, and whether there is merit marches, leaving other less threatened in considering appropriate responses to areas substantially licence-free. They these issues over the next decade. Please were awarded overwhelmingly to high- send comments to the Newsletter editor. status applicants: to noblemen, leading churchmen, and successful offi ce-holders. DISCUSSION BOARD And over the period as a whole – i.e. from 1199 (the fi rst recorded licence) to On Re-thinking Licences to Crenellate and 1567 (the last) – applications surged at the Moated Site. Readers already familiar irregular intervals, which would hardly with the war v. status debate (Medieval have been the case had the licences Archaeology 51 & 52) may be interested been regarded throughout as fashion to learn of the timely analysis of licences statements. to crenellate published by Philip Davis in The Castle Studies Group Journal Davis sees those sudden ups and downs (2006:226–45). As things stand, Charles as ‘fairly random’ (2008:247). Yet Coulson has insisted over the years that random is just what they were not. In licences to crenellate were ‘sought most practice, the fi rst surge in applications usually by lesser men in order to enhance coincides with the Baronial Revolt their own social status’ (1979:78); that (1263-5); the second with the collapse such licences ‘are almost the trademark of the general eyre in the late thirteenth of the medieval English arriviste’ century; the third with the famines and (1982:70); that ‘the danger-response murrains of 1315-22; the fourth with theory is simplistic . . . (and) numbers extreme population pressure in the 1330s of licences and of buildings correlate and 1340s; the fi fth with post-plague more with peaceful prosperity at home’ tenant militancy and the Peasants’ (1994:111); and that even in the Scottish Revolt (1381); the sixth with currency Marches and other threatened areas, depreciation and Jack Cade’s Revolt ‘fortifi cation was chiefl y an expression of (1450); and the last with the Wars of status, and the architectural programme the Roses (1455-85). On each of those was predominantly residential’ occasions private property was at risk, (2003:353). Coulson, however, has never and the wealthy built walls to keep out seen the need to count his licences, even criminals. when claiming that ‘the manor-houses They also dug moats and planted thorn and homestead moats of the lay and hedges. And it follows that the very ecclesiastical gentry class comprise general phenomenon of the homestead about three-quarters of the total over the moat has more to do with violence whole era’ (1994:93). And in turning his than with status or any other cause. It spotlight on Coulson’s numbers for the was Oliver Creighton, the landscape fi rst time, Davis has made a signifi cant archaeologist, who wrote of those contribution to castle studies. moats that ‘a further indication of the Davis, curiously, has not revised his prestige inherent in castle-building is the opinion that ‘Charles Coulson’s wealth competitive emulation of castle moats of supporting evidence and profound and associated features by slightly lower understanding (of licences to crenellate) ranking members of the medieval rural make him the most credible author on élite’ (2002:195). And I heard it said the subject’ (2006:227). And he claims just recently that another archaeology
17 lecturer, better left nameless, is in the crenellate’, Castle Studies Group J 21, 203–7. habit of categorizing the medieval Platt, C 2009 (forthcoming), ‘Patterns in homestead moat as ‘thirteenth-century licences to crenellate’, Castle Studies Group J bling’. Yet most datable moats belong, 23. as I pointed out long ago, to the same lawless decades – roughly 1270 to 1350 – Getting Things Right about Lejre — and when acute land shortages caused a crisis the Beowulf Connection, Too. Readers in public order, and when applications of Medieval Archaeology should note to crenellate reached their peak that a signifi cant misapprehension (1978:111–115). Consequently, given the underlies Richard Hodges’ review, in well-documented evidence of soaring Medieval Archaeology 52 (2008): 479, crime at this period, how satisfactory are of a collaborative book, Beowulf and drainage or fi shing or even ‘competitive Lejre, edited by myself and Marijane emulation’ as primary explanations for Osborn, with contributions by Tom moat-digging before the Black Death Christensen, and published under my (1348-9)? And why did moats cease to name in 2007. Hodges’ review is a be popular after the plague, at just that positive one (the book ‘must be warmly time when the lesser gentry, the franklins, welcomed… We must hope that [it] starts and the principal villein families were at a trend for compendiums of studies their most prosperous and self-assertive? pertaining to archaeological sites with Could it be that they felt less threatened convincing literary connections’), and so when there was land to spare, when any complaint on my part might seem Robin Hood and his fellow outlaws came merely churlish. Still, the review fosters a out of the green forest, and when the misunderstanding about chronology, and Sheriff of Nottingham was replaced by those with a professional interest in the the JP? topic addressed by the book will want to get the dates straight. Colin Platt [email protected] Hodges writes that Lejre, on the island of Zealand, is ‘a quintessential Danish References Viking centre which ... belongs to the rise Coulson, C 1979, ‘Structural symbolism in of Danish kingship partly in response to medieval castle architecture’, J Brit Archaeol the Carolingian revolution and its zenith Assoc 132, 73–90. in the Ottonian age’. This statement Coulson, C 1982, ‘Hierarchism in conventual accurately refl ects what was known about crenellation: an essay in the sociology and Lejre until about fi ve years ago. During metaphysics of medieval fortifi cation’, 2004–05, however, a dramatic discovery Medieval Archaeol 26, 69–100. Coulson, C 1994, ‘Freedom to crenellate was made by the Danish archaeologist by licence – an historiographical revision’, Tom Christensen, the director of Nottingham Medieval Stud 38, 86–137. excavations undertaken in 1986–88 that Coulson, C 2003, Castles in Medieval Society. had revealed the existence of a great Fortresses in England, France, and Ireland Viking-Age hall site located just outside in the Central Middle Ages, Oxford: Oxford the village of Gammel Lejre. The 2004– University Press. 05 excavations revealed the existence of Creighton, O 2002, Castles and Landscapes. a second hall site located about 500m Power, Community and Fortifi cation in north of the one discovered earlier. On Medieval England, London: Equinox. archaeological grounds as well as by Davis, P 2006, ‘Licences to crenellate: information on sources and some analysis’, radiocarbon dating, the newly-discovered Castle Studies Group J 20, 226–45. settlement site is ascribed a date in the Davis, P 2008, ‘Licences to crenellate: mid-sixth century. The great Migration additional data, analysis and comment’, Age hall that stood at that spot was in Castle Studies Group J 22, 245–67. use for somewhat under a hundred years. Platt, C 1978, Medieval England. A Social Not long after it was taken down, a new History and Archaeology from the Conquest to hall of comparable size, only somewhat 1600 AD, London: Routledge. wider (and hence potentially taller), was Platt, C 2007, ‘Revisionism in castle studies: a erected (in c. 680) slightly to the south. caution’, Medieval Archaeol 51, 83–102. The later settlement site continued to be Platt, C 2007, ‘Understanding licences to used (with much additional building and
18 rebuilding) for another three hundred Danish royal line, the Scyldingas. The years, until close to the year 1000. Scyldingas of Beowulf correspond to Perhaps not by coincidence, it was also the Skjöldingar of Danish tradition, of in the mid-seventh century, at roughly course, and all the early Scandinavian the same time as the shift was made from authorities, whether reporting legend or the earlier settlement site to the later supposed history, agree in locating the one, that the great cremation mound seat of Skjölding power at Lejre. known as Grydehøj was built up on a prominence just across the Lejre River. Since Hodges’ review takes no explicit Like the Lejre cremation mound, the notice of the excavations undertaken two great halls at Lejre (each of which at Lejre in 2004–05, it ignores the measured about 48m in length) were signifi cance of Lejre at the end of the the largest structures of their kind that Migration Age. As a consequence, are known from this period of southern it misrepresents the impact of the Scandinavian prehistory, with the Lejre excavations on the scholarly exception only of a hall built at Tissø, understanding of Beowulf. ‘Associating Zealand, in the second half of the tenth Lejre — undeniably a major royal centre century. — and the poem involves some licence as they belong to different periods’, Hodges In other words, it is misleading to speak writes. Granted, some licence is involved of Lejre as ‘a quintessential Danish in any attempt to link literary sources Viking centre’. It was that, and it was and archaeology. And yet the action of also a major centre of power long before Beowulf is set in the late Migration Age, the Viking Age, and also long before very close to the time when a great hall, Carolingian and Ottonian models of as we now know, was indeed a feature kingship became available for emulation. of the landscape at Lejre. And the only Lejre seems to have remained a major extant manuscript copy of Beowulf was regional centre (surely a royal one) written out at about the turn of the fi rst until close to the year 1000, when it millennium, right at the end of the period was effectively dismantled at about the of Lejre’s greatness. So in a meaningful same time as the kings of Denmark sense (regardless of the disputed matter (Harald Bluetooth, d. 986, and/or Svein of just when Beowulf was composed), Forkbeard, r. 987–1014) established the poem and the hall complex at Lejre their capital on the coast of Zealand at pertain to the same period of time, and so Roskilde, less than 10 km away. they can justly be ‘read’ together. The question of dating to which I call With characteristic generosity (for which attention is not a trivial one, then. The I am grateful), Hodges praises Beowulf leading purpose of Beowulf and Lejre and Lejre as a ‘timely’, ‘apposite’, ‘rich’, was to draw attention to what the ‘relevant’, and ‘useful’ publication. But a complete set of excavations at Lejre reviewer should also get the chronology has revealed, with secondary attention right, hence the need for the present note. to the signifi cant, though often wildly inventive, legendary history of Lejre John D. Niles, University of Wisconsin from the Middle Ages to the present day. – Madison Chapter Two of the book (pp. 109–26) [email protected] consists of Christensen’s report on the Reference: post-1988 excavations at Lejre — the Niles, J with Christensen, T and Osborn, fi rst detailed account to be published. M 2007 Beowulf and Lejre, Tempe: Arizona My own main contribution to the book Center for Medieval and Renaissance (pp. 169–233) analyzes the bearing of Studies. all these discoveries on the scholarly understanding of the Old English epic poem Beowulf. As is well known, the SOCIETY NEWS main part of Beowulf is set in the period Feedback. It is time to have your say! of roughly the early sixth century AD at The Society for Medieval Archaeology a hall, here called ‘Heorot’, that the poet identifi es with the seat of power of the is seeking feedback from members regarding our activities and publications.
19 We are looking for ideas and comments city, its history, art and archaeology. which will help guide us into 2010 and The itinerary, which will concentrate beyond, and which will contribute to on Medieval Rome, will include special the continuing growth of the Society’s admissions to important medieval sites. journal, Medieval Archaeology, our It is hoped to include in the programme website, publications and day-schools. visits to Castel Sant’Angelo; the Crypta We are keen to provide value for money Balbi museum of Medieval Rome; St to our members by delivering a high Peter’s Basilica (especially the fragments quality product across all our pursuits, of Old St Peter’s in the Crypt of the and your feedback will put the spotlight Popes, and the Vatican necropolis); the on what we have been doing so far and Vatican galleries and the Sistine Chapel; how you feel we should be looking to the excavations under the basilicas of develop in the future. The range of San Clemente, Santi Giovanni e Paolo, questions being asked is presented at San Crisogono and Santa Cecilia; the the end of this Newsletter. A link to the frescoes recently found in the excavations online questionnaire is being posted at Santa Susanna; Santa Maria Antiqua on the website. If you are interested in and the Chapel of the Forty Martyrs providing feedback but would prefer a in the Roman Forum; the Sancta hard copy form to complete, please ring Sanctorum chapel at the Lateran; the Wendy Hollingsworth 0121 414 5513 catacomb of Priscilla, and many other and request the Medieval Archaeology sites. Feedback form, or email us at [email protected] Participants will be accommodated in with your address and we will send one the British School at Rome which offers out to you. good, set evening meals, included in the price. Participants will also have the Keeping you updated. Over recent opportunity to meet Roman scholars months the Society has been adding based at the British School at Rome, and to our methods of communicating will enjoy access to the School’s excellent to our members, and this includes Roman archaeological library. setting up a mailing list. If you are interested in joining our email-based The excursion fee per person ranges from mailing list, please contact us at €605 to €880 and includes bed, breakfast, [email protected] and a four course dinner each night with MAILING LIST in the Subject except Saturday, metro/bus tickets and Header. We will provide details of any admission to a number of museums and forthcoming events, conferences and sites. Participants will make their own general organisational information. In travel arrangements to Rome, the price addition, we have a student email-based of which is not included in the fee. Please discussion group and mailing list. To note that places are limited to 26, and it register on this, please go to the following is recommended to express an interest as url: http://lists.shef.ac.uk/sympa/info/ soon as possible. sma-students Provisional dates for this excursion are Amanda Forster 16–23 September 2011. These dates are [email protected] not yet fi nalised and may change. For further information, interested LOOKING AHEAD TO 2011 members should contact: Katinka Stentoft Excursion to Rome, September 2011 [email protected]. Explore medieval Rome with Professor Éamonn Ó Carragáin. The Society is delighted to announce that Professor Grants and Awards Éamonn Ó Carragáin of University The Early Medieval Archaeology Student College Cork has agreed to lead a Symposium (EMASS) took place on the tour of Rome for Society members. 21–22 May at the University of Sheffi eld. Participants will be able to benefi t from The event was well attended by both Éamonn’s personal knowledge of the students and established academics.
20 It included an extensive and diverse historians, archaeologists, numismatists, programme of twenty-fi ve papers from saga experts and other scholars. current and recently-completed PhD Postgraduate students presented posters students, primarily from UK institutions throughout the conference, receiving but also from further afi eld, including valuable feedback from established Spain and the Netherlands. A generous scholars in the fi eld. In addition, the grant from the Society’s Eric Fletcher delegation took fi eld trips to visit sites Fund greatly assisted in the organisation such as the Viking-Age farm overrun by of the conference. lava at Húshólmi and a tenth-century structure built by outlaws in a cave at Presentations highlighted the variety of Surtshellir. PhD research currently underway on the subject of early medieval archaeology. Erin’s PhD thesis examines changes in Topics under discussion included the funerary practice as a result of migration, research potential of early Anglo-Saxon comparing Viking-Age burials in cremated bone, fourth- to seventh- Norway, Scotland and Iceland. Her century urban housing in Sicily, the poster focused on one chapter of this sensory impact of early Norman castles work, analysing migrant identities and in Shropshire, coin use in England in boat-burials. Elizabeth’s research looks the fi fth century, the geo-archaeological at changes in cultural identity in the analysis of house use in Viking Orkney, Norse of the North Atlantic based on economy and identity in coastal Flanders artefactual assemblages from the Faroe between AD 500–1000, and attitudes Islands, Iceland and Greenland. Her towards monastic space in early medieval poster outlined some of the theoretical northern Britain. The organisers are frameworks in her thesis and gave grateful to Dr Dawn Hadley, Dr Steve examples of these as applied to categories Ashby, Dr Aleksandra McClain and of artefacts. Both students would like to Prof Martin Carver for their efforts in thank the Society for its support of their chairing sessions, and particularly to work. Martin Carver for his summing up at the end of the conference. Erin McGuire and Elizabeth Pierce [email protected], The conference proceedings, including [email protected] abstracts, will soon be available to download from the EMASS website MEDIA AND EXHIBITION (http://emass.group.shef.ac.uk/home). It was agreed that next year’s EMASS will Traprain Law, Rome and Dorestad: take place at University College Dublin, transforming treasures. Since the where it is hoped that the appeal and appearance of the March issue of the scope of the event, which is now in its Newsletter three diverse experiences (in third year, will continue to grow. their medieval dimensions spanning the Vicky Crewe entire period) have reminded me of the Prp07vac@sheffi eld.ac.uk fl uidity of the concept of treasure and of the deep human desire to imagine and Summary Report for the Sudreys Fund fantasise. Erin McGuire and Elizabeth Pierce, both PhD students working with Dr Colleen The fi rst was a joint Society of Batey at the University of Glasgow, Antiquaries of Scotland and National shared this year’s award from the Museums of Scotland conference: Sudreys Fund. Both students attended Roman Silver and the End of Empire and presented posters at the 16th Viking – The Traprain Treasure in Context Congress, held 16–24 August in Iceland. (Edinburgh, 9 May). It was a The Viking Congress is an invitation- wonderfully stimulating day that more only conference of Viking scholars from than fulfi lled its aim of demonstrating Europe and farther afi eld held once every that the series of late Roman silver four years. hoards from across Northern Europe are ‘crucial to the debates about the end Conference attendees heard nearly of the Roman period in the west and the 60 papers over nine days by Viking emergence of early medieval Europe.
21 An international array of speakers refuge at Traprain? It seems possible addressed the hoard (discovered in 1919) that the hoard may not have become the under three headings, The Setting, The hoard we know until some fi nal act of Treasure in Context, and Silver after deposition – prior to that it is conceivable Traprain. The fi rst encompassed the it comprised either several smaller hoards present archaeological understanding of (of varying purposes?) or individual Traprain Law, the political geography pieces. Could the fi nal act of deposition of the Votadini, and the 5th century have been in the late 5th/early 6th century transition of the Hadrian’s Wall garrison to mark the formal abandonment of into war-bands. Two papers stood out, Traprain Law? Does the Christianity and they were James Fraser’s compelling demonstrated by the iconography on analysis of the rhetoric of St Patrick’s some of the pieces, when taken with its letter to king Coroticus, and Simon condition, suggest a non-Christian owner Esmonde-Cleary’s characterisation in the end (or an earlier?) phase of its of the end of Roman Britain as state active use? There is clearly an element collapse by analogy with the effects of of economic necessity in the converting modern-day state collapse. The second of ostentatious plate into hack-silver, theme encompassed the nature of late and then using it to pay soldiers and/ Roman silver, how it functioned before or give bribes/gifts. The plate as plate being hacked and it’s functioning as would surely have been hugely valuable hacksilver, primarily to make military in cultural terms to the elite class who payments. The standout paper was by owned them and to surrender the plate Annemarie Kaufmann-Heinimann, a in tax would imply they had no other brilliant assay on the array of contexts disposable income. Equally it was in which the Treasure can be understood essentially people from the same social and how we go about detailing that class who seized/taxed that plate for what understanding. The fi nal session was the state perceived as a higher political/ the shortest and encompassed the post- survival necessity. Another aspect of its discovery exploitation of the Treasure subsequent use as hack-silver could have to make a range of replicas and Susan been to demonstrate a sort of negative Youngs’ analysis of the use of silver cultural capital – acquiring Roman in post-Roman North Britain. The silver/wealth demonstrates attachment concluding discussion was wide-ranging to Rome but by then changing its form and inevitably curtailed by time. you demonstrate non-subservience in that attachment. Indeed melting some of By the day’s end my head was buzzing it down and refashioning it as something with new information and ideas about entirely new could make such a statement the many different ways to view such very powerfully. Such thoughts, for hoards and the way the meaning of such me, chimed with other indications of a pieces both as particular objects and complicated relationship to Romanitas as signifi ers of cultural capital are/were north of the Wall. The possible infl uence always open to change. With respect to of Roman brooch design on Pictish the Traprain Treasure these meanings symbols (specifi cally the double-disc) were clearly in a shifting balance between suggested by Susan Youngs is one economic necessity and other forms of example. Another was the suggestion that cultural (including ritual) value. From the well known silver chains of Scotland the speakers there came unanimity could be late Roman but “Pictifi ed” in on down-playing A O Curle’s notion the 6th/7th century by the addition of a of pirate treasure, which admittedly symbol-marked penannular ring, as with does seem a little fanciful now but we the Whitecleugh example. Even if the should still hold in mind the possibility chains are entirely Pictish they may still that some of the treasure was seized by have been made from recycled Roman raiding across Hadrian’s Wall, certainly silver (an implication of Youngs’ paper in the context of a putative collapsing needing further investigation). Another state. Equally that collapsing state possible infl uence struck me. The could have seen refugees head north lay-out, or if you like the grammar, of across the Wall, some of them with some Pictish stones – the way the fi gures their family treasure, perhaps seeking and objects occupy and relate in surface
22 space – does seem to echo some of the tosh, though the fi lm then pulls its own lay-outs on some of the British found rug by tuning their reappearance into silver plate (and indeed on some Roman a concoction by a megalomaniac pope) stone sculpture, such as the Mithras but it tries to persuade us that they are Saecularis relief from Housesteads). the two sides of the one coin, each able Curle’s publication of the Treasure in to benefi t from the other. Indeed with 1926 remains a landmark but, given the anti-matter becoming the “God particle” pending republication of the Treasure, the two are confl ated, an indication of re-excavation of the fi nd-spot and its how trite and mendacious is its depiction vicinity surely recommends itself? of both religion and science. Its central scientifi c premise is that the LHC could My second experience was watching the be used to harness anti-matter and use it fi lm Angels and Demons. Still traumatised as a bomb. The sheer ignorant lunacy of by the sheer awfulness of The Da Vinci this, or rather the fact that it appears to Code, I galvanised my underwhelming have persuaded the US military that they enthusiasm to go and see this fi lm sequel. could develop such a bomb, provoked Dan Brown’s fi ctions are still generating physicist Frank Close to write a riposte, noise and comment, most recently by Antimatter (especially pp. 140–47), which David Aaronovitch (2009, 187–218), debunks the feasibility of such an idea whose new book on conspiracy theory (as does the CERN website, set-up in devotes an entire, withering chapter the wake of the fi lm’s release to explain (‘Holy Blood, Holy Grail, Holy Shit’) to the reality of the science behind Brown’s lambasting and explaining the nonsense. fantasy: http://angelsanddemons.cern. The treasure here is hidden knowledge, ch/). secrets and conspiracies, the unleashing of which can transform the world and Whilst it is all too easy to dismiss it all overthrow established hegemonies. The as vacuous, pseudo-everything mumbo- secrets are of both religion (stored in the jumbo (made easier by its failure as a fi lm Vatican archive) and science (resolving due to its massively over-expositionary around the deployment of CERN’s Large dialogue and consequently leaden Hadron Collider). The basic premise of performances) it nevertheless touches on the fi lm is that in order to prevent an a deeper human desire. In his discussion anti-matter bomb from destroying the of the appeal of Brown’s fi ction Vatican, “symbologist” Professor Robert Aaronovitch quotes (p. 217) Burnstein Langdon has to uncover the secrets of the (2004) on how it resonates so much with long-vanished and Vatican-persecuted many of its readers that it seems true: secret society, the Illuminati, following ‘The modern American church concealed clues in several of Rome’s churches. That heinous cases of sexual abuse for years; there was no Illuminati society before the president of the United States may the 18th century is but one of a string of have launched an invasion of a foreign expected historical infi delities (the others country based on concocted evidence of including inaccuracies about Raphael’s weapons of mass destruction; executives name and burial, the operation of of companies like Enron and WorldCom coffi n lids, the orientation of the Castel deceived shareholders and regulators Sant’ Angelo, the nature of the Vatican about billions … of nonexistent value’ Archives, the writings of Galileo and [we could add UK MPs expenses claims the remit of the Vatican security forces). to the list] ‘One can’t read The Da Vinci Many of these are par for the course Code without hearing echoes of these of dramatic license. Perhaps its biggest contemporary incidents of lying and failing is its presentation of the religion cover-up and truth coming out in the vs. science debate. Having portrayed the end.’ Into this equation Aaronovitch Catholic Church as a bunch of deranged, adds a pinch of Eco and Mamet. Eco, violent sociopaths, in The Da Vinci Code, in Foucault’s Pendulum, observes that here there is a certain amount of rowing publishers give their book buyers back to a tolerant position. The clash ‘anything that says the opposite of what between science and religion is still there they read in their books at school. That and rooted in medieval violence and way when they have read this magical distrust (which permits all the Illuminati nonsense they will think that they know
23 more than those who instructed them’ images resembles the actual city’ (p.120). (p. 218). Playwright and screenwriter Before leaving Angels and Demons it is David Mamet describes this as anti- also worth noting the fi lm’s fascinating, Stratfordianism – in reference to those symbolic, seal-breaking (see Cherry who believe the hidden truth is that 2002) opening in which we witness Shakespeare was not the author of his the seal-ring of the recently deceased plays: ‘The purpose of the writers and by pope ceremonially destroyed with extension … of their readers, is somehow chisel and hammer and its association to make themselves greater than even the with that (murdered) pope, oddly and greatest poet, partly of course by making unintentionally evokes Knüsel’s (2006) him lesser … They are then lonely discussion of the investiture contest as a custodians of the truth and they got there model of funerary interpretation – in this through the quality of their minds – and fi lm burial is very much about succession. by being brave enough to read a book’ (p. 218). Some of this refashioning of the My third experience of treasure world has very clear medieval precedents, took me back to an authentic early as implied by Mary Carruthers’ (2000) medieval Europe, this time to what analysis of medieval thinking processes we now call the Netherlands – what (and which might also apply to the was once the northern frontier of the Pictish refashioning of Roman art Carolingian empire. I was able to do discussed above). She quotes from both this by the compelling staging of the Augustine and Alcuin; the latter observes exhibition Dorestad Een Wereldstad in that ‘one who sees Rome also fashions de Middeleeuwen (‘Dorestad A World [an image of] Rome in his soul, and City in the Middle Ages’), from 17 April forms it as it actually is. When he may –1 November 2009, in the Rijksmuseum hear or remember “Rome” immediately van Oudheden (‘National Museum of its essence recurs to his memory, Antiquities’), Leiden. The archaeological where he has stored its image. And it assemblage from various excavations is more remarkable, that with respect of Dorestad is (after the Merovingian to unknown things, if they come to our material from the cemetery of Rhenen) ears from reading or hearing something, the largest component of the National the mind immediately fashions a fi gure Museum collections. I can think of of the unknown thing’ (p. 119). How no better contemporary defi nition appropriate then that Angels and of treasure or treasure-house. Some Demons careens around the medieval 1200 years after its fi rst fl ourishing and baroque churches of Rome (but Dorestad fl ourishes again in this splendid not Vatican city, which refused fi lming, exhibition and will continue to do so and so a scale model of St Peter’s and through the superbly illustrated catalogue its square had to be doubled by a scale (in Dutch, Willemsen 2009) and no model in Hollywood). Carruthers goes on doubt in the forthcoming proceedings to write that ‘Images for thinking are not (in English) of the conference – Dorestad primarily useful because of their objective in an International Framework – held in truth content or their mimetic ability: June 2009. they have none’ unless ‘incidentally. Nor The exhibition seeks to give the visitor are they useful because they “trace” some a sense of the Carolingian emporium past experience in unaltered detail, for of Dorestad (now the sleepy backwater instance a previous visit to Rome. What of Wiijk bij Duursteede) and how life one recalls, Alcuin says, is not the exact, was there in the 8th and 9th centuries. verbatim copy of the raw experience, It does so through the deployment of but its essence… For Alcuin to write a rich variety of artefacts displayed that “human beings think in images” with bold, sympathetic imagination. is a statement about cognitive process The exhibition was laid out over two – people use these images to think with galleries and divided into two twin (and remember with). It makes no themes: Town/Winter and Harbour/ difference to its cognitive value whether Summer. The second emphasised the my mental images of [Rome] is like yours seasonal mainstay of its existence as or not. And it certainly doesn’t matter an international port of trade on the whether or not either of our mental
24 northern edge of the Carolingian empire, glass cases within theme-signalling, whilst the fi rst emphasised that the town colour-coded, gable-ended structures, had an everyday reality, not confi ned to evoking both small houses and (to a winter but usefully counterpoised against lesser degree) giant reliquaries. The the seasonal work of the harbour. Within lighting was subdued, with a hint of the Town/Winter gallery the exploration orange, and a continuous background of life and death begins with the broadly soundscape of everyday life (snatches of modern discovery of Dorestad, initially conversation, animal noises, soundsof by accident in 1840. It then addresses play and work) was surprisingly effective. Death, imaginatively brought to life with The star object – the Dorestad brooch its careful display of human and animal – was joined, for me, by the variety skeletons, grave-goods, a sarcophagus of play equipment (including some and the use of ghost-like silhouettes of puzzling domino-like objects) and the adults and children projected over the luxury sword with a gilded hilt found display settings. The other themes are in 1969 and especially conserved for the Daily life (encompassing agriculture, exhibition. play, the role of the hearth, diet and crafts); Identity (encompassing horse- based elites and their equipment, royal hunting and the importance of the sword) and Treasury. This last theme set the famous Dorestad brooch (‘an icon of Dutch archaeology’) of c. 800 AD in context through comparison with manuscript art and other precious metalwork (both Merovingian and Carolingian) and by discussing the uses of such objects as clothing accessories and as liturgical furnishings for book covers and reliquaries. The gallery colour-coding of the sub-themes ‘Household work’, ‘Writing’ ‘Dorestad’s © M A Hall, courtesy stone well’, ‘Everything locked’ and Rijksmuseum van Oudheden ‘Private houses’ indicated that they too are part of the Treasury theme, the Harbour/Summer also sings with a reasoning for which seems opaque – they soundscape, varying from the fi rst surely would have more readily slotted by the inclusion of water-lapping, into the Daily Life theme? The one sea-bird and boat noises. The lighting serious omission, from the perspective also remains subdued, this time with of an international visitor, was the lack a blue tone, in harmony with the of a location map at the start of the superstructure of wooden jetties into exhibition. which the cases were set. The focus was on the four themes of Water, Market, Trade and Confrontations. These themes dealt with the infrastructure and management of trade (the jetties, the boats, the coinage, weights and measures and language), the goods traded (amber, Tating jugs and other ceramics, millstones, glass wares and storage containers) and the confrontations between Frisians and Franks (concluding c. 700 AD) and between Vikings and Carolingians (commencing in 834 AD) that bracketed the establishment and © Rijksmuseum van Oudheden demise of Dorestad as a fl ourishing emporium, explored through a The imaginative design set traditional selection of weapons and Frankish and
25 Scandinavian jewellery. Throughout References this gallery several interactives appealed Aaronovitch, D 2009 Voodoo Histories The to children of all ages and included Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping coin-minting, pot-fi xing, ice-skating on Modern History, London. bone skates, a jetties-and-boats jigsaw Burnstein, D (ed.) 2004 Secrets of the Code, and a press-button screen allowing the The Unauthorised Guide to the Mysteries Behind the Da Vinci Code, London. recreation of trading journeys to and Carruthers, M 2000 The Craft of Thought from Dorestad. The object highlights – Meditation, Rhetoric and the Making of included the various coin hoards, the Images 400–1200, Cambridge. millstones, glass and beads (including a Cherry, J 2002 ‘The Breaking of Seals’, spectacular gold foil decorated beaker) in Anderson, M and Tegnér, G (eds) and the rich variety of jewellery. Middelalderlige seglestamper I Norden, Roskilde. Close, F 2009 Antimatter, Oxford. Curle, A O 1923 The Treasure of Traprain, Glasgow. Eco, U 2001 Foucault’s Pendulum, London Knüsel, C J 2006 ‘“Of no more use to men than in ages before?” The Investiture Contest as a Model for Funerary Interpretation’, in Gowland, R and Knüsel, C J (eds) Social Archaeology of Funerary Remains, Oxford. Mamet, D 2002 Three Uses of the Knife: On the Nature and Purpose of Drama, London. Willemsen, A 2009 Dorestad Een Wereldstad © Rijksmuseum van Oudheden In De Middeleeuwen, Leiden.
The exhibition concluded with a short section called Imagery, exploring the FUTURE CONTRIBUTIONS afterlife of Dorestad, mainly in school Images are welcome with your text, but texts and imagery from the early 20th do not embed pictures in Word/text fi les. century, drawing on a rich popular Send pictures as separate high quality imagination about Dorestad (and in JPEG fi les. particular its sacking by Vikings). Linguistically challenged visitors like me Newsletter Editor niall@ can benefi t from an English in-gallery discoveryprogramme.ie guidebook, a translation of the exhibition text and labels. I certainly came away with a renewed and much fi rmer grip on Dorestad’s Carolingian fl ourishing, its importance to the Dutch sense of the past and a true, contemporary meaning of treasure. Go and see it!
© Rijksmuseum van Oudheden
Mark A Hall, Perth Museum & Art Gallery
26 The Society for Medieval Archaeology is seeking feedback from you on your views on the Society, its activities and in particular the journal, Medieval Archaeology, and will be asking you to complete an online questionnaire in the near future to help guide us into 2010 and beyond.
The following is a sample of the questions you will be asked.
Please check out the website in the next two weeks and complete the Questionnaire on-line, at: http://www.medievalarchaeology.org/
Many thanks for your kind and helpful co-operation.
How long have you been a member of the Society for Medieval Archaeology?
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If not – why not?
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What do you like most about the Medieval Archaeology journal?
Tell us what you would like to see changed about the journal.
Would you support the Society to change to two volumes of the journal a year? The Society is considering the pros and cons, including feasibility, of bringing the journal out twice a year rather than annually. As a reader, what is your preference?
Have you used the Society’s website?
What changes or additions might you like?
Have you applied for grants from the Society?
Do you fi nd the Society membership good value for money (e.g. subscriptions, discount on monographs, etc)?
Any other comments?
27 Did You Know? Volumes 1–50 of Medieval Archaeology are available online via the Archaeology Data Service (ADS). http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/catalogue/library/med_arch/
The latest Society Monograph is about to be published: The volume celebrates the Society’s 50th anniversary (established in 1957), and presents refl ections on the history, development and future prospects of the discipline. http://www.maney.co.uk/index. php/books/sma30/?back=1
To advertise conferences/events in the Newsletter, contact: Dr Oliver Creighton, Dept. of Archaeology, Laver Building, North Park Road, Exeter, Devon, UK EX4 4QE, or email [email protected]
For information on how to apply for a Society grant/award, see our website www.medievalarchaeology.co.uk/awards.htm
Joining the Society is easy.
Download an Application Form and a Direct Debit Form from the website, and post the pages to the Society for Medieval Archaeology, Maney Publishing, Suite 1C, Joseph’s Well, Hanover Walk, Leeds, LS3 1AB, England.
Individual membership: £25.00 / $45.00
Student membership: £15.00 / $27.00
Family membership: £25.00 / $45.00
Retired membership: £20.00 / $35.00
Overseas members paying in sterling should add £5 to their annual subscription to cover the additional cost of postage
Members receive a copy of the journal and the Society’s Newsletter, and subscriptions are valid for one year from 1st April, with the journal appearing in the Spring.
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