Shaping Buildings and Identities in Fifth- to Ninth-century England (original) (raw)
Related papers
2017
This thesis presents the first detailed and systematic examination of Anglo-Saxon ‘great hall complexes’. Characterised by their architectural grandeur and spatial formality, these rare and impressive sites represent a distinct class of high-status settlement that were primarily occupied during the later sixth and seventh centuries AD. Though their existence has been known to archaeologists since the mid-twentieth century, a series of recent and high-profile excavations has reignited the debate about these sites and necessitated the provision of a comprehensive study. Following an introductory account, the thesis begins with an archaeological review. This considers sixteen great hall complexes that are known from across the Anglo-Saxon realm. From this, a definition and broader characterisation of the great hall phenomenon is advanced. A series of four regional case studies represent the analytical core of the thesis. Focused on specific great hall complexes, and underpinned by comprehensive regional gazetteers, these investigations utilise a wide-ranging and multiscalar programme of spatial and chronological analysis in order to model the data. Particular emphasis is placed on the landscape context of sites, as is their interaction with wider hinterlands. The results are contextualised within a broader archaeo-historical framework, with original interpretations offered for each of the great hall complexes under consideration. It is concluded that great hall complexes likely operated as administrative centres and nodes of governance within broader socio-economic and politico-religious networks. It is also maintained that they fulfilled a range of social and symbolic functions – as emblematic displays of political authority that were emplaced within landscapes of power designed to legitimise and institutionalise emergent political hegemonies. Ultimately, it is argued, great hall complexes are to be understood as archaeological manifestations of the more overtly hierarchical society that was emerging in the sixth century.
This paper examines the character and significance of a cellared structure discovered during recent excava tions on the site of a later Anglo-Saxon settlement at Bishopstone, East Sussex. The structure in question formed a focal element within an estate centre complex administered by the Bishops of Selsey from c. AD 800, otherwise surviving in the celebrated pre-Conquest fabric of St Andrew's parish church. The excavated footprint of this cellared structure is examined in detail and conjectural reconstructions are advanced on the basis of comparative evidence garnered from historical and archaeological sources. The collective weight of evidence points towards a tower, pos sibly free-standing, with integrated storage/cellarage accommodated within a substantial, 2 mdeep subterranean chamber. This could represent a timber counterpart to excavated and extant masonry towers with thegnly/episcopal associations. The afterlife of this structure is also considered in detail on the grounds that it provides one of the most compelling cases yet identified of an act of ritual closure on a Late Anglo-Saxon settlement. Alongside being dismantled and infil led in a single, short-lived episode, the abandonment of the tower was marked by the careful and deliberate placement of a closure deposit in the form of a smith's hoard containing iron tools, agri cultural equipment and lock furniture. One of the few such caches to be excavated under controlled scientific conditions, it is argued that the contents were deliberately selected to make a symbolic statement, perhaps evoking the functions of a well-run estate centre.
Conceptions of domestic space in the long term – the example of the English medieval hall
The plan of the late medieval hall in England is well known from the evidence of buildings of the thirteenth century and later. However, examination of excavated timber buildings suggests that the main elements of the hall plan can be identified from at least the late tenth century. The persistence of the plan over a period of at least 600 years may obscure the fact that the conception of the hall and details of its form were in a state of continuous change. Instead of beginning with an examination of the form of the hall, the study starts by considering what the room represented in social terms. An appreciation of the changing conceptions of lordship, community and honour allows a more subtle analysis of the development of the hall in the period before 1200. A combination of written sources with excavated remains to elucidate complex problems is one of the distinguishing features of medieval archaeology.
An early medieval tradition of building in Britain
Arqueologia de la Arquitectura, 2012
Early medieval houses in Britain were largely constructed of timber. Various approaches have been adopted for interpreting the character of these buildings, since no standing structure survives. These include the study of water-logged timber, the reproduction of methods of working and the reconstruction of buildings, as well as the conventional analysis of the plans of excavations. The problems of identifying the ethnic affiliations of houses in Britain are particularly acute because the structural features which define the building traditions in England and Scotland have rarely been identified. However, it is argued that it is possible to identify a distinctive tradition of building in timber which persists from the fifth to the eleventh or even twelfth century, and is found throughout England and into southern Scotland.
Urban Spaces, Places, and Identity in Early Medieval Britain
2020
The British early medieval period (c. AD 400 – 1066) was an era of migration and cultural contact that has been underexamined. This paper is a comparative study of the archaeological record of three English cities: York, Lincoln, and Southampton. Utilizing a theoretical framework combining anthropological and archaeological thoughts on space, place, and the structure and role of cities with theories of group identity formation and transformation, this project examines the role of the built environment within and near these urban sites. The project pays special attention to wic sites associated with York and Southampton
Ritual and the roundhouse: a critique of recent ideas on domestic space in later British prehistory
In C.C. Haselgrove and R.E. Pope (eds) The Earlier Iron Age in Britain and the near Continent. Oxford: Oxbow., 2007
This paper offers a critique of recent work on British Iron Age cosmologies, which are seen as centred on sun worship and expressed through use of domestic space. The first part of the paper examines the methodologies which underpin the cosmological model and the problems inherent in the use of structuralist theory, formal analogy and narrative, advocating a move away from structuralism towards a contextualised prehistory of everyday life. Our current understanding of the orientation data is also assessed. In the latter part of the paper, an alternative model is proposed, drawing on the author’s doctoral research on prehistoric and Roman period roundhouses in north and central Britain. Alongside a degree of variation, spatial and structural analyses of a database of 1178 roundhouses point to the organisation of domestic space around centre/ periphery and front/back distinctions. Whilst the former appears to be a conscious organising principle, the latter seems to be more a result of the subconscious desire for light and contact, alongside the potential for privacy.
Medieval Archaeology, 2018
THE GREAT HALL complex represents one of the most distinctive and evocative expressions of the Anglo-Saxon settlement record, and is widely cited as a metaphor for the emergence of kingship in early medieval England. Yet interpretation of these sites remains underdeveloped and heavily weighted towards the excavated findings from the well-known site of Yeavering in Northumberland. Inspired by the results of recent excavations at Lyminge, Kent, this paper undertakes a detailed comparative interrogation of three great hall complexes in Kent, and exploits this new regional perspective to advance our understanding of the agency and embodied meanings of these settlements as 'theatres of power'. Explored through the thematic prisms of place, social memory and monumental hybridity, this examination leads to a new appreciation of the involvement of great hall sites in the genealogical strategies of 7th-century royal dynasties and a fresh perspective on how this remarkable, yet short-lived, monumental idiom was adapted to harness the symbolic capital of Romanitas.
Status, Power and Values: archaeological approaches to understanding the medieval urban community
This rapid survey of the material culture of Norwich explores the potential of the physical environment, and the products of excavation in the form of artefacts and ecofacts, to access the mentalities of town dwellers in the past. The richness of the historic environment of cities such as Norwich, both above- and below-ground, has long been self-evident. Antiquarian, art-historical and archaeological enquiry, however, has been slow to assess and synthesise the information beyond cataloguing and analogy. It is only in recent years, with the advent of new methodologies, together with increasingly sophisticated questioning of landscapes, sites, buildings and assemblages, that new insights into motives and intentions latent within the physical environment have become possible.