scholarly journals The Staffordshire (Ogley Hay) hoard: problems of interpretation

Antiquity ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 85 (327) ◽  
pp. 221-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leslie Webster ◽  
Christopher Sparey-Green ◽  
Patrick Périn ◽  
Catherine Hills
Keyword(s):  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
High Status ◽  
Gift Giving ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Northern European

The hoard presents us with a startling number of unfamiliar images from the Anglo-Saxon past, not least in the new icon of treasure that it presents. As the descriptions of treasure and gift-giving in Beowulf so vividly remind us, the gaining of treasure, and its corollary, gift-giving, were major preoccupations for Anglo-Saxons and their northern European contemporaries, whether Clovis, showering the crowds in Tours with gold solidi when he was created consul in 508, Oswiu attempting to buy off Penda before the Battle of Winwæd with what Bede (HE III.24; Colgrave & Mynors 1969: 288–91) described as an incalculable and incredible store of royal treasures or the huge Danegelds extorted by Vikings in the tenth and early eleventh century. But until July 2009, the picture presented by the archaeological evidence for Anglo-Saxon treasure could hardly have been more different: the material remains of treasure with which we are familiar come overwhelmingly from high-status burials, or as individual gold finds without context, most of them the result of relatively recent metal-detecting activity. Only one seventh-century Anglo-Saxon gold hoard exists, from Crondall in Hampshire, dated to c. 640; but that is essentially a coin hoard, the only non-numismatic items two small clasps which must have fastened the purse or satchel containing the coins.

scholarly journals From credit to debt: A political history of English sovereign finance and money from the seventh century to the seventeenth

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-60
Author(s):  
Nicolas Dorn
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sovereign Debt ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
Sovereign Credit ◽  
History Of ◽  
Early Modern Times ◽  
New Perspective

This article provides a new perspective on sovereign finance and money in England from pre- modern to early modern times. Re-reading the literature on sovereign fiscality through the lens of sovereign jurisdictions and religious authority, it describes two distinct forms of sovereign finance: the rise and fall of sovereign credit from the seventh to eleventh century, followed by sovereign debt developing from the eleventh century into ‘modern’ sovereign debt from the seventeenth century onwards. In the early Anglo Saxon period, sovereign credit was given and received in non-monetised forms. It was when sovereign jurisdictions became too wide for labour and bulky produce to travel that tax was monetised. However, the monetisation of credit undermined the very sovereign-subject relation on which sovereign credit was based. After the introduction of short-term sovereign debt by the Normans, for the next five hundred years, the two distinct fiscal mechanisms of sovereign credit and sovereign debt ran in parallel, although the latter was restrained by the church’s prohibition of usury. In the seventeenth century, sovereign credit and sovereign debt became conjoined elements within one fiscal system, rather than separate mechanisms.

scholarly journals “Health of the World”: The Symbolic Associations of Trees in Eleventh-Century England, in the Context of Landscape

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Ruten
Keyword(s):  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Belief System ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Religious Change ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Christian Conversion ◽  
Conversion Period ◽  
The World ◽  
Symbolic Meanings ◽  
Demand For Health

The Christianization of Anglo-­Saxon England in the seventh century CE was a momentous period of religious change which had many far­‐reaching effects. Anglo-­Saxon paganism had attached a set of sacred and symbolic meanings to various natural features in the English landscape. In this belief system, trees and groves were strongly associated with healing and defensive powers. This paper will argue that due to the persistent presence of once-­sacred trees and groves in the English landscape, combined with a continually widespread demand for health remedies, the pre-Christian associations of trees with healing and defense in England were not easily forgotten after the conversion period and in fact continued throughout the eleventh century. However, these pre-­Christian symbolic associations were effectively subsumed within the hegemony of a Christian ideological framework. A continual, bidirectional alignment of these symbolic associations of trees with elements of Christian symbolism, namely that of Paradise and that of the Cross, served to explain and legitimize their syncretic continuation within this Christian framework. These insights invite us to appreciate some of the complexity of the syncretism that occurred during the period of Christian conversion in Anglo-­‐Saxon England. They also invite us to further contemplate some of the lasting effects of this gradual syncretic process.

THE GOLD AND GARNET CHAIN FROM ISENBÜTTEL, GERMANY: A POSSIBLE PIN SUITE WITH ANGLO-SAXON PARALLELS

2016 ◽  
Vol 96 ◽  
pp. 1-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandra Hilgner
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
High Status ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Lower Saxony ◽  
State Museum ◽  
History Of ◽  
Loop Chain ◽  
And Function

The ‘Isenbüttel gold necklace’, now in the Lower Saxony State Museum in Hanover, was found almost a century ago in Lower Saxony, an area with no history of early medieval gold finds or richly furnished burials. As no parallels are known for the object, scholars have long debated the dating, provenance and function of this unique loop-in-loop chain, with its animal-head terminals and garnet cloisonné. Recent excavations of Anglo-Saxon cemeteries dating to the seventh century have, however, added new finds to the small corpus of objects known as ‘pin suites’, consisting of comparatively short pins perhaps designed to fix a veil or a light shawl in the collar area, with ornate pinheads, linked by chains. This paper focuses on Anglo-Saxon pin suites from high-status burials of the second half of the seventh century and seeks to set the finds group in its wider social and historical context, revealing the far-reaching relationships that existed between early medieval elites.

The Archaeological Investigation of Hadstock Church, Essex: An Interim Report

1976 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Warwick Rodwell
Keyword(s):  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Detailed Examination ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Interim Report ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Archaeological Investigation ◽  
Single Period ◽  
The Church

SummaryTotal excavation of the nave, crossing, and transepts of Hadstock church in 1974, together with a detailed examination of parts of the upstanding fabric, revealed that this well-known Anglo-Saxon building is not a single-period structure, as has long been assumed. Three periods of Anglo-Saxon work are now known, the earliest of which probably belongs to the pre-Danish era: it comprised a large, five-cell cruciform church which, it is suggested, may be part of the seventh-century monastery founded by St. Botolph, at Icanho. Rebuilding on a monumental scale took place in the early eleventh century and the possibility is discussed that this was Canute's minster, dedicated in 1020. The church was extensively repaired in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, following the collapse of the central tower. Subsequently the decline in the size and importance of Hadstock as a village saved the church from further extensive alteration.

The Burial of A Princess? The Later Seventh-Century Cemetery At Westfield Farm, Ely

2009 ◽  
Vol 89 ◽  
pp. 81-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sam Lucy ◽  
Richard Newman ◽  
Natasha Dodwell ◽  
Catherine Hills ◽  
Michiel Dekker ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
Isotopic Analysis ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
High Status ◽  
Anglo Saxon

AbstractThis paper reports on the excavation of a small, but high-status, later seventh-century Anglo-Saxon cemetery in Ely. Of fifteen graves, two were particularly well furnished, one of which was buried with a gold and silver necklace that included a cross pendant, as well as two complete glass palm cups and a composite comb, placed within a wooden padlocked casket. The paper reports on the skeletal and artefactual material (including isotopic analysis of the burials), and seeks to set the site in its wider social and historical context, arguing that this cemetery may well have been associated with the first monastery in Ely, founded by Etheldreda in ad 673.

The Roman Church in the Seventh Century: the Legacy of Gregory I

1974 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 363-380 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. A. B. Llewellyn
Keyword(s):  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Gregory The Great ◽  
Major Interest ◽  
Historical Tradition ◽  
The One

The posthumous reputation of Gregory the Great presents a sharp but possibly insufficiently appreciated contrast. On the one hand, there is the Anglo-Saxon historical tradition which, through the Carolingian world and the eleventh-century reformers, has prevailed to the present day. The Gregory of Aldhelm of Malmesbury and of the Anonymous of Whitby, is ‘the teacher of the English’, ‘our own St. Gregory’, ‘this apostolic saint of ours’ who ‘on the Day of Judgement … will bring us, the English nation whom he has taught, to present us to the Lord’. By the English mission he had brought the English into the community of Christian nations and was seen as the initiator of the new missionary apostolate which Bede's contemporaries were consciously perpetuating on the Continent; as the source for the life of St. Benedict he was of major interest to those who had made peculiarly their own Benedict's monasticism. He is in a sense the immediate founder of all things; in an age which was losing the perspective of the secular as its historical horizons shrank, he was a principal link in a new chain of authority and legitimacy which extended back to St. Peter. His legend and prestige as a founding authority spreads and assumes diverse forms in unlikely places.

A HIGH-STATUS SEVENTH-CENTURY FEMALE BURIAL FROM WEST HANNEY, OXFORDSHIRE

2015 ◽  
Vol 95 ◽  
pp. 91-118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helena Hamerow ◽  
Anni Byard ◽  
Esther Cameron ◽  
Andreas Düring ◽  
Paula Levick ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Political Development ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
High Status ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Prominent Feature ◽  
Dominant Group ◽  
Metal Detector ◽  
Grave Goods

In 2009, a metal-detector find of a rare garnet-inlaid composite disc brooch at West Hanney, Oxfordshire, led to the excavation of an apparently isolated female burial sited in a prominent position overlooking the Ock valley. The burial dates to the middle decades of the seventh century, a period of rapid socio-political development in the region, which formed the early heartland of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex. The de luxe brooch links the wearer to two other burials furnished with very similar brooches at Milton, some 10km to the east and onlyc1km from the Anglo-Saxon great hall complex at Sutton Courtenay / Drayton, just south of Abingdon. All three women must have been members of the region’s politically dominant group, known as theGewisse. The burial’s grave goods and setting add a new dimension to our understanding of the richly furnished female burials that are such a prominent feature of the funerary record of seventh-century England.

scholarly journals The Trumpington Cross in context

2016 ◽  
Vol 45 ◽  
pp. 7-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sam Lucy
Keyword(s):  
Seventh Century ◽  
High Status ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Contextual Associations

AbstractAn Anglo-Saxon gold and garnet cloisonné pectoral cross from a seventh-century bed burial at Trumpington, Cambridgeshire is the fifth such example to be found. Details of the contextual associations of the five crosses are used to argue that these artifacts, and other high status cross-shaped pendants, were overt Christian symbols, strongly associated with high status female burials of the later seventh century. That one of the five examples was associated with the burial of St Cuthbert is highlighted as an anomaly, and could indicate that the Cuthbert Cross may have been a gift, rather than a personal possession of the saint.

The Congresbury Carvings – An Eleventh-century Saint's Shrine?

2003 ◽  
Vol 83 ◽  
pp. 281-309
Author(s):  
Catherine M Oakes ◽  
Michael Costen
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Original Structure ◽  
High Status ◽  
Documentary Evidence ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Late Middle Ages ◽  
History Of ◽  
A Site

The discovery of a small group of sculpted fragments at Congresbury in Somerset seven years ago set in motion a period of research, reflection and analysis that has given rise to this paper. It opens with an account of the circumstances of their discovery and a description of their appearance. Then follows a proposed date and provenance. It is suggested that the quality of the sculptures and the evident scale of the monument to which they once belonged indicate a structure and a site of high status, possibly the shrine of the Welsh missionary saint Cyngar, whose cult enjoyed some popularity in the high and late Middle Ages. A review of the history of the site and evidence from its placename and from archaeological investigations corroborate this thesis.The style of the sculptures when compared with dated manuscript illuminations and with sculptural fragments surviving from Anglo-Saxon Wessex is in line with a late tenth- to mid-eleventh-century dating. The historical circumstances of Congresbury at this time further suggest that this date may be narrowed down to the period between 1033 and 1060. The original structure of the shrine to which the fragments may have belonged is considered in the light of contemporary documentary evidence and research carried out on the remains of comparable shrine structures.

The Stigmata in Medieval and Early Modern Europe

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolyn Muessig
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Introductory Overview ◽  
Devotional Practices ◽  
The Face ◽  
Biblical Commentaries

Francis of Assisi’s reported reception of the stigmata on Mount La Verna in 1224 is often considered to be the first account of an individual receiving the five wounds of Christ. The thirteenth-century appearance of this miracle, however, is not as unexpected as it first seems. Interpretations of Galatians 6:17—I bear the stigmata of the Lord Jesus Christ in my body—had been circulating in biblical commentaries since late antiquity. These works explained stigmata as wounds that martyrs received, like the apostle Paul, in their attempt to spread Christianity in the face of resistance. By the seventh century, stigmata were described as marks of Christ that priests received invisibly at their ordination. In the eleventh century, monks and nuns were perceived as bearing the stigmata in so far as they lived a life of renunciation out of love for Christ. By the later Middle Ages holy women like Catherine of Siena (d. 1380) were more frequently described as having stigmata than their male counterparts. With the religious upheavals of the sixteenth century, the way stigmata were defined reflected the diverse perceptions of Christianity held by Catholics and Protestants. This study traces the birth and evolution of religious stigmata as expressed in theological discussions and devotional practices in Western Europe from the early Middle Ages to the early seventeenth century. It also contains an introductory overview of the historiography of religious stigmata beginning in the second half of the seventeenth century to its treatment and assessment in the twenty-first century.

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