scholarly journals Beowulf and Archaeology: Megaliths Imagined and Encountered in Early Medieval Europe

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Howard Williams
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Medieval Europe ◽  
Manuscript Illustrations ◽  
Ancient Monuments ◽  
Social Memories

Since the mid nineteenth century AD, the poem Beowulf has long been a quarry for inspiration, analogy and insight for those exploring the archaeology of Early Medieval Britain and Scandinavia (Cramp 1957; Hills 1997; Webster 1998; Owen-Crocker 2000). The dialogue of archaeology and poem has been employed to explore a range of Early Medieval social practices and structures: the production and circulation of weapons and armour through inheritance and gift-giving, the role of vessels and feasting practices, hall-building and ceremony, the hoarding of treasure, and various dimensions of funerary practice including barrow-burial, boat-burial, and cremation. In discussing many of these practices, scholars have recently pointed to the sense of the past in the poem as a practice-orientated form of social memory. Synergies have been identified between heroic poetry and the ceremonial use of material culture, monuments, architectures, and landscapes identified in poetry and archaeological evidence as distinct but related technologies of remembrance within the hierarchical Christian Anglo-Saxon kingdoms that emerge during the mid to late seventh century AD (Williams 1998; 2006; 2011a; 2011b; Owen-Crocker 2000; Semple 2013). In this fashion, the assertions of legitimacy and identities by Early Medieval elites, including their claims to land, power and people, were performed through the ritualized reuse, appropriation and naming of ancient monuments and their deployment within rituals and oral performances, including poetry (Semple 2013; see also Price 2010). The locations and immediate environs of major later Anglo-Saxon churches and elite residences, and the maritime and land routes connecting them, provided the dramaturgical and ritualized settings and media by which social memories were transmitted and reproduced. Landmarks such as ancient monuments were actively integrated through reuse for a variety of functions from burial to assembly (Williams 2006; Reynolds and Langlands 2011; Semple 2013). In particular, Sarah Semple’s (2013) important interdisciplinary survey and analysis of Anglo-Saxon perceptions and reuse of prehistoric monuments from the fifth to the eleventh centuries AD, identifies the variegated and shifting perceptions of prehistoric monuments revealed by later Anglo-Saxon texts, manuscript illustrations, place-names and archaeological evidence (see also Semple 1998; 2004).

Connectedness with things. Animated objects of Viking Age Scandinavia and early medieval Europe

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julie Lund
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Small Group ◽  
Old Norse ◽  
Viking Age ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
The Social ◽  
Medieval Europe ◽  
Carolingian Empire ◽  
Medieval Christianity

AbstractThis article examines a small group of artefacts of the Viking Age that may have been perceived as animated objects. These specific weapons and pieces of jewellery appear in narratives in the Old Norse sources as named, as having a will of their own, as possessing personhood. In archaeological contexts the same types of artefact are handled categorically differently than the rest of the material culture. Further, the possible links between these perspectives and the role of animated objects in early medieval Christianity of the Carolingian Empire are examined through studies of the reopening of Reihengräber and the phenomenon offurta sacra. By linking studies of the social biographies of objects with studies of animism, the article aims to identify aspects of Viking Age ontology and its similarities to Carolingian Christianity.

scholarly journals Elitism and Status: Reassessing Settlement Hierarchy in Early Medieval England

2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 9-42
Author(s):  
Hana Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Hierarchical Model ◽  
Medieval England ◽  
Rural Settlements ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Social Functions ◽  
The Status ◽  
Source Of Information ◽  
Scholarly Attention

The complexities of identifying and understanding settlement hierarchy in early medieval England (c. 5th–11th centuries) is the focus of much debate. Within this field of enquiry, settlement arrangements, architecture, landholding patterns and material culture are commonly used in the identification of a range of settlement types. These include royal complexes, monastic institutions, towns and trading/production sites such as emporia. This same evidence is also used to interpret the status and role of these sites in early medieval England. This paper advances the current understanding of settlement hierarchy through an assessment of rural settlements and their material culture. These settlements have received comparatively less scholarly attention than higher profile early medieval sites such as elite, ecclesiastical and urban centres, yet represent a rich source of information. Through analysis of material culture as evidence for the consumption, economic and social functions which characterise rural settlements, a picture of what were inherently complex communities is presented. The findings further support the need to reassess settlement hierarchy in early medieval England and a new hierarchical model is proposed.  

‘Folk’ Cemeteries, Assembly and Territorial Geography in Early Anglo-Saxon England

2019 ◽  
pp. 64-90
Author(s):  
Stuart Brookes
Keyword(s):  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Southern England ◽  
Early Medieval Period

This chapter examines the evidence for open-air assembly places existing at cemeteries of the 5th and 6th centuries in eastern and southern England. Contrasts are drawn between the types of cemetery (i.e. primarily inhumation or cremation), and types of legal assembly taking place at these sites. A small number of associated sites are identified and discussed, but it is argued that in general ‘folk’ cemeteries were not reused by later Anglo-Saxon communities as places of legal assembly. Examination of the available evidence identifies some of the features of palimpsest landscapes and attempts to provide an explanation for their continued significance through the early medieval period. Particular emphasis is given in this discussion to the role of elite power, and its appropriation of the symbolic landscape.

The Julian Calendar and the Problem of the Equinoxes in the Early Middle Ages

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Philipp E. Nothaft
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Medieval Literature ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Observational Methods ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Early Middle Ages ◽  
Julian Calendar ◽  
Medieval Europe ◽  
Solar Astronomy

This chapter familiarizes readers with the ancient back-story of the Julian calendar and describes how one of the central problems inherent in this calendar—the drift of the equinoxes and solstices caused by an overestimation of the length of the tropical year—manifested itself in medieval literature until the end of the eleventh century. It also explores how the development of the computus genre in seventh-century Ireland was instrumental in preserving knowledge of the Western calendar’s Roman-pagan roots. The final two sections show how the existence of diverging traditions for the dates of the equinoxes and solstices in the Julian calendar created an important context for the practice of solar astronomy in early medieval Europe, which included the use of observational methods.

Becoming Messenian

2002 ◽  
Vol 122 ◽  
pp. 45-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nino Luraghi
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Religious Tradition ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Significant Extent ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Westward Expansion ◽  
Dark Ages ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Will

AbstractThe article is an enquiry into the identity of two groups who called themselves Messenians: the Helots and perioikoi who revolted against Sparta after the earthquake in the 460s; and the citizens of the independent polity founded by Epameinondas in 370/69 bc in the Spartan territory west of the Taygetos. Based on the history of the Messenians in Pausanias Book 4, some scholars have thought that those two groups were simply the descendants of the free inhabitants of the region, subdued by the Spartans in the Archaic period and reduced to the condition of Helots. According to these scholars, the Helotized Messenians preserved a sense of their identity and a religious tradition of their own, which re-emerged when they regained freedom. One objection to this thesis is that there is no clear archaeological evidence of regional cohesiveness in the area in the late Dark Ages, while the very concept of Messenia as a unified region extending from the river Neda to the Taygetos does not seem to exist prior to the Spartan conquest. Furthermore, evidence from sanctuaries dating to the Archaic and Early Classical periods shows that Messenia was to a significant extent populated by perioikoi whose material culture, cults and language were thoroughly indistinguishable from those documented in Lakonia. Even the site where Epameinondas later founded the central settlement of the new Messenian polity was apparently occupied since the late seventh century at the latest by a perioikic settlement. Some of these perioikoi participated with the Helots in the revolt after the earthquake, and the suggestion is advanced, based on research on processes of ethnogenesis, that they played a key role in the emergence of the Messenian identity of the rebels. For them, identifying themselves as Messenians was an implicit claim to the land west of the Taygetos; therefore the Spartans consistently refused to consider the rebels Messenians, just as they refused to consider Messenians – that is, descendants of the ‘old Messenians’ – the citizens of Epameinondas' polity. Interestingly, the Spartan and the Theban-Messenian views on the identity of these people agreed in denying that the ‘old Messenians’ had remained in Messenia as Helots. Messenian ethnicity is explained as the manifestation of the will of perioikoi and Helots living west of the Taygetos to be independent from Sparta. The fact that most Messenian cults attested from the fourth century onwards were typical Spartan cults does not encourage the assumption that there was any continuity in a Messenian tradition going back to the period before the Spartan westward expansion.

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.

scholarly journals Ceramics and Coastal Communities in Medieval (Twelfth–Fourteenth Century) Europe: Negotiating Identity in England's Channel Ports

2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 148-167 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Jervis
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Coastal Communities ◽  
Southern England ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Medieval Europe

Using the example of pottery imported into the Channel ports of southern England, an approach to examining the role of pottery in the emergence and mediation of coastal communities is proposed here. Building on recent scholarship, it is argued that it is no longer tenable to see pottery as a carrier of identity, or as part of a ‘cultural package’, with meaning emerging with identity as people interact with pottery within and without port environments. The study proposes that imported pottery found meaning in different ways, depending on the context of acquisition and use. Hence it mediated different forms of community and identity. The article ends with a consideration of the wider implications of this approach for ongoing studies of material culture, trade, and urban identities in medieval Europe.

“Let Them Make Him Duke to Rule that People”: TheLaw of the Bavariansand Regime Change in Early Medieval Europe

2012 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 865-899
Author(s):  
Jonathan Couser
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Regime Change ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
Medieval Europe ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Law

The early Middle Ages produced a series of law codes for the new “barbarian” kingdoms of Europe, which succeeded the western Roman Empire. These law codes were often inspired by the precedent and sometimes the content of Roman vulgar law as well as the customs of the respective peoples for whom they were written and the interests of their rulers. The making of law could often play a vital role in the stabilization of kingdoms, especially under new rulers. Early medieval secular lawmaking falls into three broad periods: the early royal laws of the Frankish, Burgundian, and Visigothic peoples in the fifth and sixth centuries; the interrelated composition of Lombard, south German, and perhaps also early Anglo-Saxon law in the seventh and eighth centuries; and the writing up of the last “ethnic” laws for peoples subject to Charlemagne's empire, such as Frisians and Saxons, in order to accommodate them into a multiethnic empire committed to the principle of personality of the law. The subject of this article, the law of the Bavarians (Lex Baiuvariorum, hereafter abbreviated “Lb”), belongs to the second of these stages. However, scholars have never reached consensus as to the date of its composition nor where it was created. This has inhibited the use of the Lb for any but they most general discussion of Bavarian society. This article will review the evidence for the Lb's date and place of composition, to suggest that we can plausibly identify them more precisely than has been done, and therefore argue that the distinctive features of this text can be tied to specific political needs.

scholarly journals Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Medieval Warhorse

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 100-119
Author(s):  
Carly Ameen ◽  
Gary Paul Baker ◽  
Helene Benkert ◽  
Camille Vo Van Qui ◽  
Robert Webley ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Cultural Significance ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approaches ◽  
Landscape Survey ◽  
Material Evidence

The warhorse is arguably the most characteristic animal of the English Middle Ages. But while the development and military uses of warhorses have been intensively studied by historians, the archaeological evidence is too often dispersed, overlooked or undervalued. Instead, we argue that to fully understand the cultural significance and functional role of the medieval warhorse, a systematic study of the full range of archaeological evidence for warhorses (and horses more generally) from medieval England is necessary. This requires engagement with material evidence at a wide variety of scales — from individual artefacts through to excavated assemblages and landscape-wide distributions — dating between the late Saxon and Tudor period (c. AD 800–1600). We present here a case study of our interdisciplinary engaged research design focusing upon an important English royal stud site at Odiham in Hampshire. This brings together several fields of study, including (zoo)archaeology, history, landscape survey, and material culture studies to produce new understandings about a beast that was an unmistakable symbol of social status and a decisive weapon on the battlefield.

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