NETWORKS AND NEIGHBOURS Volume 2 :: Number 1 :: January 2014 Comparisons and Correlations GENERAL EDITORS Tim Barnwell Jason R. Berg Richard Broome Michael J. Kelly Networks and Neighbours is a refereed and peer-reviewed open-access, online journal concerned with varying types of inter-connectivity in the Early Middle Ages. Published biannually (July and January), the journal collects exceptional pieces of work by both postgraduate students and established academics with an aim to promote the study of how people and communities interacted within and without their own world and localities in the Early Middle Ages. We also welcome reviews of monographs published or re-released within the last five years, as well as conference reports and announcements about research inititaives related to the over-arching theme of ‘Networks and Neighbours’ within the early medieval world. An international, or rather post-national, and also extra- institutional, intellectual spirit is embodied in the journal N&N. Published + Distributed, 2014, by punctum books Brooklyn, New York – United States Email. [email protected] Web. http://punctumbooks.com Creative Commons License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ All content, including exclusive web content, is freely available at: http://networksandneighbours.org Contact: [email protected] Interior Design: Andrew C. Doty Cover Design: Mark Sullivan N&N is located at the University of Leeds, Institute for Medieval Studies, Le Patourel Room, 4.06 Parkinson Building, Leeds, UK LS2 9JT ISBN-13: 978-0615995380 NETWORKS AND NEIGHBOURS Volume 2 :: Number 1 :: January 2014 Comparisons and Correlations TABLE OF CONTENTS INVITED PAPER Slawomir Wadyl and Pawel Szczepanik A Comparative Analysis of Early Medieval North-West Slavonic and West Baltic 1 Sacred Landscapes: An Introduction to the Problems ARTICLES Rutger Kramer and Eirik Hovden Wondering about Comparison: Enclaves of Learning in Medieval Europe and South 20 Arabia – Prolegomena to an Intercultural Comparative Research Project Anthony Mansfield Lords of the North Sea: A Comparative Study of Aristocratic Territory in the North 46 Sea World in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries Marie Bønløkke Spejlborg Anglo-Danish Connections and the Organisation of the Early Danish Church: 71 Contribution to a Debate Mark Lewis Tizzoni Dracontius and the Wider World: Cultural and Intellectual Interconnectedness in Late 87 Fifth-Century Vandal North Africa BOOK REVIEWS Anna Dorofeeva Mary Garrison, Arpad P. Orbán and Marco Mostert (eds.), Spoken and Written Language: 106 Relations Between Latin and the Vernacular Languages in the Earlier Middle Ages, Utrecht Studies in Medieval Literacy 24 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013) Hugh Elton Hyun Jin Kim, The Huns, Rome, and the Birth of Europe (Cambridge University Press, 109 2013) Luca Larpi Nicholas J. Higham and Martin J. Ryan, The Anglo-Saxon World (New Haven and 112 London: Yale University Press, 2013) Evina Steinova Maddalena Betti, The Making of Christian Moravia (858-882): Papal Power and Political 115 Reality (Leiden: Brill, 2014) Catalin Taranu Leslie Lockett, Anglo-Saxon Psychologies in the Vernacular and Latin Traditions (Toronto: 118 University of Toronto Press, 2011) Phillip Wynn Damien Kempf (ed. & trans.), Paul the Deacon: Liber de episcopis Mettensibus, Dallas 122 Medieval Texts and Translations 19 (Leuven: Peeters, 2013) CONFERENCE REPORTS Katy Soar Senses of the Empire: Multisensory Approaches to Roman Culture 125 Evina Steinová Texts and Identities in the Early Middle Ages XVII 130 Catalin Taranu Indigenous Ideas and Foreign Influences - Interactions among Oral and Literary, Latin 134 and Vernacular Cultures in Medieval and Early Modern Northern Europe Hope Deejune Williard Late Literature in the Sixth Century, East and West 156 Zachary Guiliano Bulletin: Network for the Study of Caroline Minuscule 166 INTERVIEW Richard Broome, Tim Barnwell Interview with James Palmer 169 A Comparative Analysis of Early Medieval North-West Slavonic and West Baltic Sacred Landscapes An Introduction to the Problems Paweł Szczepanik and Sławomir Wadyl INTRODUCTION Research into space – especially space perceived to be sacred – and its role in culture, is a very important problem in the study of the past. It is worth noting, however, that archaeologists seldom attempt to develop their own methodology concerning the identification and description of sacred landscapes and objects. Instead, they resort to methodologies developed in other areas of the humanities, especially in the phenomenology of religion. However, such use of the conceptual instruments borrowed from other sciences – which in many cases seems intuitive - often leads to the creation of ‘scientific myths’ that are usually taken for granted and sometimes treated almost as paradigms in the scientific literature. The major aim of our paper is to present a comparative analysis of early medieval north-west Slavonic and Prussian objects and places which are interpreted in a sacral context. The interpretation of sacred objects and sacral landscapes is a very difficult and complex interpretive task with many methodological problems and inconsistencies, which this article will expose. Subsequently, the authors will consider the possibility of creating and using a framework of criteria which could be used to develop an anthropological interpretation of space among Slavic and Prussian cultures. Were there, for example, similar ways of valorising space in those societies? 2 PAWEŁ SZCZEPANIK AND SŁAWOMIR WADYL Modern ways of perceiving and valorising early medieval sacral objects are based mainly on information from medieval chronicles and folk culture. Elements of natural landscapes – holy groves, mountains, lakes, stones – and cultural landscapes that are associated with the category of sacrum will be the most significant points in our comparison. Analysis of archaeological sites and objects, especially those with a settlement and/or cultural context, which are most often connected to sacral space, will have a great importance. An exploration of this material, then, will allow us to create a model of the so-called sacred places in early medieval Slavonic and Prussian culture. SOME REMARKS ON THEORY AND METHODS OF STUDYING SACRED LANDSCAPES Contemporary approaches to the interpretation and understanding of sacrum as a category are radically different from the traditional approaches. In archaeological practice a ‘cult place’ is usually defined as space which has no obvious utilitarian function, or its function is unknown. This approach often leads to very complex arguments; where one space is often simultaneously described as both a place of communal cult activity and familial cult activity. It is precisely for this reason that the term ‘cult place’ should be connected to expressions of ritual rather than to a purely archaeological standpoint. Said another way, space, and more specifically the function of that space, need to be considered before passing judgments on its function. It is also worth remembering that sacral places, which played a significant role in the religious experience, were not necessarily the spaces where these ritual activities were performed.1 In archaeological practice concerning the diagnosis and interpretation of sacral places, archaeologists often still use the categories presented by Carsten Colpe in the 1970s.2 In Polish archaeology, however, recent work has begun to question these old categories.3 These new notions of sacral space see the actual places related to the sacral sphere as being characterised by at least one of two categories: repetition or revelation – uncovering or symbolic of extraordinariness. This This is a version of paper given on 17 May 2012 in Kaliningrad Museum of History and Art during the Sixth International Conference of the Natural Holy Places in the Baltic Sea Region. 1 We need to remember that Olympus has played such a role. It was the place where gods lived, not where cult activities were. See. P. Słupecki, ‘Miejsca kultu pogańskiego w Polsce na tle badań nad wierzeniami Słowian’, in W. Chudziak and S. Moździoch, (eds), Stan i potrzeby badań nad wczesnym średniowieczem w Polsce – 15 lat później (Toruń/Wrocław, 2006), pp. 68-69. 2 C. Colpe, ‘Theoretische Möglichkeiten zur Identifizierung von Heiligtümern und Interpretation von Opfen in Ur- und Prähistorischen Epochen’, in M. Müller-Wille, (ed.), Vorgeschicctliche Heligtümern und Opferplätze in Mittel- und Nordeuropa (Göttingen, 1970), pp. 18-39. 3 T. Makiewicz and A. Prinke, ‘Teoretyczne mozliwości identyfikacji miejsc sakralnych’, Przegląd Archeologiczny 28 (1980), pp. 57-83. Networks and Neighbours A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF EARLY MEDIEVAL NORTH-WEST SLAVONIC AND WEST BALTIC SACRED LANDSCAPES 3 approach assumes a phenomenological attempt of ‘understanding’ the reality of the past by ‘empathizing’ with its specificity. According to A. Posern-Zieliński, such a methodological approach is inappropriate for archaeological interpretation because archaeologists are incapable of empathising, which, after all, is completely unknowable.4 Although it is difficult to agree with such a pessimistic opinion, it is worth remembering that ‘archaic ontology seems to be a piece of human’s self-consciousness, not a step of it’.5 Archaeologists still often use Rudolf Otto’s conception of ‘numinous’ and Eliade’s notions concerning the morphology of ‘holiness.’ Meanwhile, G. Van der Leeuw’s or G. Widengren’s views on the subject seem to be underestimated, even though