Potters and pottery from afar: Some observations on long-distance contacts (original) (raw)
Offa's Dyke Journal 4, Special Issue: Borders in Early Medieval Britain
Offa's Dyke Journal, 2022
The contents of this special issue comprise the proceedings of a conference held over Zoom on the weekend of 11-12 July 2020. The event was originally planned to take place in Cambridge, but, as the unforeseeable events of 2020 began to unfold, it was soon realised that it would be necessary either to cancel the event or move it into digital space. The latter path was taken, making this conference part of the first wave of academic Zoom events that we have subsequently become so accustomed to. It was a steep learning curve, but hopefully a valuable learning experience for all concerned! The name of the conference was 'The Borders of Early Medieval England', reflecting the original intention to hold a multidisciplinary event that would consider the nature of 'borders' around and within England during the early medieval centuries. The event was planned as the culmination of my research fellowship in Robinson College, part of the purpose of which was to conduct research into Anglo-Welsh interaction in the region of the River Dee in the Middle Ages. The intention was to study processes of political, cultural and linguistic interaction in a regional border zone as a cohesive unit, moving beyond consideration of these areas as merely places where the boundaries or 'frontiers' of larger polities or cultural groups collided. There is a well-established historiography on this subject that Dr Lindy Brady helpfully recounts in her contribution to this issue, but studies of the Anglo-Welsh border (and of the other political/cultural borders of early medieval Britain for that matter) have not always kept pace with it. As it transpired, this research led me to reconsider the history of the entire Anglo-Welsh border zone in the early Middle Ages, along with the nature of the Anglo-Welsh interaction that took place not so much across it, but within it. My hope for the original conference was that it would help to put some of this work in perspective, allowing the experience of the early medieval Anglo-Welsh border to be compared with the experiences of other borders and borderlands around and within Anglo-Saxon England, from a range of historical, archaeological and linguistic perspectives. The speakers achieved this goal admirably and it proved a stimulating event. For the purposes of this special issue, the conference title has been altered to 'Borders in Early Medieval Britain', which was felt to convey more accurately the resulting contents after some of the original speakers decided not to publish their papers in this context. All the papers published in this issue began as presentations at the conference, with the exception of the excellent 'response' by Dr Lindy Brady which was commissioned to accompany the collection and provides reflection on it. I am grateful to Dr Brady for rising to the challenge and writing a thoughtful piece.
Typologies of the medieval cultural border
Roda da fortuna - Revista Eletrônica sobre Antiguidade e Medievo, 2017
This article seeks to explore the ways in which ideas about the peripheral, which drew on images from the Bible and from Graeco-Roman literature, were used in the Middle Ages to formulate other cultures. In this way, the border between the describing culture and the described culture often came to signify a border between the central and the peripheral, between the known and the exotic. I will here be dealing with a handful of features typical of the peripheral other in medieval text and thought. My aim is first of all to show how widely these features were applied across centuries, and secondly to show how similar descriptions of the peripheral could be even when describing very different peripheries.
Brit-art: Celtic Art in Roman Britain and on its Frontiers
In Celtic Art in Europe: Making Connections (eds) C. Gosden, S. Crawford & K. Ulmschneider, 315-324. Oxbow Books, Oxford., 2014
As is amply demonstrated in the Megaw’s extremely useful book Celtic Art, first published in 1989 and reprinted in 2001, designs recognisable as Iron Age or Celtic in character persist in Roman Britain, particularly in the north and the west where flourishing new regional art styles develop. Objects include horse-gear, as well as new varieties of other well-known Iron Age object types such as torcs. Recent surveys reveal that these objects are in fact more numerous than art made before the conquest (Gosden and Hill 2008, 2; Garrow et al. 2009). The influence of Rome can be seen especially in the use of enamels of multiple colours arranged in geometric patterns and brass, a Roman metal. However, although this paper is situated within a wider discourse of Romanisation, it is from the perspective not of how pre-Roman peoples became Roman but rather the role of art in the construction and renegotiation of identity. Building on recent research by Fraser Hunter (2006a; 2006b; 2008a; 2008b; 2010; 2012) and Mary Davis and Adam Gwilt (2008), which highlight regionality and diversity, it is argued that this art is not an historical fossil. Rather, through the making and wearing of these objects, people were actively working out how to live in the Roman world, or on its frontiers.
One of the most enjoyable moments of working with James on the Celtic Inscribed Stones Project occurred in the small Breton village of Bais. James, Kris Lockyear and myself had travelled there in the hope of inspecd(g two inscriptions found during excavations in the village but not seen since the 1980s. We found the woman who was supposed to be holding the stones and were delighted that they were safe and sound. The work of inspecting , reading and measuring had only just begun when we were asked if we would also like to see her 'other' stone. To our delight, the linen cupboard produced a third early medieval inscription. Since then, this good lady's garden (paved and decorated as it is with the slate slabs that once lined Merovingian-period graves) has produced a still further inscription. In spite of such new discoveries, the Breton corpus remains relatively meagre.l Moreover, despite the presence of Brittonic names, Insular palaeography, and Insular modes of epigraphic display, none of the Breton inscriptions can be pOinted to as commemorating one of the Britons who migrated to Brittany during the early Middle Ages. Such naming patterns and cultural traits became endemic in Brittany and are not indications of new arrivals. To find epigraphic evidence for Insular travellers to the continent one has to look further afield. This paper seeks to collect and analyse all the examples that can be found of such travellers from throughout Europe and the Mediterranean world in the period AD 350-800.2 Some may wonder at the inclusion of an article ranging from Croatia to Portugal in this volume, yet a discussion of the way early medieval Saxons, Britons and Scots used material culture need not apologise for its presence in a
Medieval Britain and Ireland in 2018
Medieval Archaeology, 2019
With thanks to M€ arit Gaimster, Pre-Construct Archaeology for sharing pre-publication text and images relating to the Westminster Abbey find, Charlotte Howsam for sharing her expertise on medieval book fittings, and Laura Burnett and Helen Geake for reading drafts of this note and for providing helpful comments. Any errors remain my own. 80 With thanks to John Cherry; see also Willis and Lewis 2018.