Following the collapse of Roman Britain, early medieval England shows little evidence for complex hierarchy or supra-regional socio-political units for nearly two hundred years, until the turn of the 7th century, when the documented emergence of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms is seemingly confirmed by the sudden appearance of the first high-status settlements - the so-called great hall complexes. This book explores the role of great hall complexes in kingdom formation through an expansive and ambitious study, incorporating new fieldwork, new quantitative methodologies and new theoretical models for the emergence of high-status settlements and the formation and consolidation of supra-regional socio-political units. This study begins with a comparative analysis of all known great hall complexes, through which evidence is presented for a broad chronological development, paralleling and contributing to the development of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. The wider context of great hall complexes is then explored through a regional case study, charting the development of socio-economic power in the burials and settlements of the Upper Thames Valley, before situating the great hall complexes within this development. Ultimately, an overarching theoretical explanation is proposed for the emergence, development and abandonment of the great hall complexes, linking these sites with the development of a new elite ideology, the integration of new supra-regional communities and the consolidation of the newly formed Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.

Gaelic literati were an elite and influential group in the social hierarchy of Irish lordships between c. 1300 and 1600. From their estates, they served Gaelic and Old English ruling families in the arts of history, law, medicine, and poetry. They farmed, kept guest-houses, conducted schools, and maintained networks of learning. In other capacities, they were involved in political assemblies. This book presents a framework for identifying and interpreting the settings and built heritages of their estates in lordship borderscapes. It shows that a more textured definition of what this learned class represented can be achieved through the material record of the buildings and monuments they used, and where their lands were positioned in the political map. Where literati lived and worked are conceived as expressions of their intellectual and political cultures. Mediated by case studies of the landscapes of their estates, dwellings, and schools, the methodology is predominantly field based, using archaeological investigation and topographic and spatial analyses, and drawing on historical and literary texts, place-names and lore in referencing named people to places. More widely, the study contributes a landscape perspective to the growing body of work on autochthonous intellectual culture and the exercise of power by ruling families in late medieval and early modern Celtic societies.

Excavated plans of roundhouses may compound multiple episodes of activity, design, construction, occupation, repair, and closure, reflecting successive stages of a building's biography. What does not survive archaeologically, through use of materials or methods that leave no tangible trace, may be as important for reconstruction as what does survive, and can only be inferred from context or comparative evidence. The great diversity in structural components suggests a greater diversity of superstructure than was implied by the classic Wessex roundhouses, including split-level roofs and penannular ridge roofs. Among the stone-built houses of the Atlantic north and west there likewise appears to have been a range of regional and chronological variants in the radial roundhouse series, and probably within the monumental Atlantic roundhouses too. Important though recognition of structural variants may be, morphological classification should not be allowed to override the social use of space for which the buildings were designed, whether their structural footprint was round or rectangular. Atlantic roundhouses reveal an important division between central space and peripheral space, and a similar division may be inferred for lowland timber roundhouses, where the surviving evidence is more ephemeral. Some larger houses were evidently byre-houses or barn houses, some with upper or mezzanine floor levels, in which livestock might be brought in or agricultural produce stored. Such 'great houses' doubtless served community needs beyond those of the resident extended family. The massively-increased scale of development-led excavations of recent years has resulted in an increased database that enables evaluation of individual sites in a wider landscape environment than was previously possible. Circumstances of recovery and recording in commercially-driven excavations, however, are not always compatible with research objectives, and the undoubted improvements in standards of environmental investigation are sometimes offset by shortcomings in the publication of basic structural or stratigraphic detail.

In the eighteenth century sport as we know it emerged as a definable social activity. Hunting and other country sports became the source of significant innovations in visual art; racing and boxing generated important subcultures; and sport's impact on good health permeated medical, historical, and philosophical writings. Sporting Cultures, 1650-1850 is a collection of essays that charts important developments in the study of sport in the eighteenth century. Editors Daniel O'Quinn and Alexis Tadie have gathered together an array of European and North American scholars to critically examine the educational, political, and medical contexts that separated sports from other physical activities. The volume reveals how the mediation of sporting activities, through match reports, pictures, and players, transcended the field of aristocratic patronage and gave rise to the social and economic forces we now associate with sports. In Sporting Cultures, 1650-1850 , O'Quinn and Tadie successfully lay the groundwork for future research on the complex intersection of power, pleasure, and representation in sports culture.

This book is the result of the processing of the excavation data and of the pottery coming from the stratigraphy underneath the cathedral of Siena. The surveys were conducted between August 2000 and May 2003 by the Department of Archaeology and History of Arts of the University of Siena, with the scientific coordination of Prof. Riccardo Francovich and Prof. Marco Valenti and the collaboration of the Opera del Duomo di Siena. The ultimate goal is to trace a view of the settlement types and economic framework that has affected the hill of the Cathedral from the Classical age to the late Middle Ages, combining stratigraphic data and the study of materials. The limited planimetric extension of the excavations (often physiological to urban contexts) did not allow an investigation in open area, so the findings have often been compared with those coming from the deposits investigated in the immediate vicinity, both in front and below the Santa Maria della Scala, in order to obtain a more complete and articulated perspective on a diachronic context. The stratigraphy is developed over a time span ranging from the 7th century BC until the 20th century AD, unearthing a very structured sequence that represents a significant view in understanding the evolutionary dynamics of the urban fabric of Siena: in this regard, it is important to emphasize the fact that the chronological junction on which most attention is focused on is between the Augustian Age and the end of the 14th century, since the survey revealed that the archaeological deposit is better preserved in the time period between the two phases mentioned above and, as a result, the restitution of ceramics has been more complete. The settlement/economic dynamics developed over this extended period in different ways and this is what we are going to analyse: the goal is to develop a dialogue between stratigraphic deposit and material culture, with the aim of understanding the evolution of an urban reality, especially in those phases that led to the crisis of the "classical" city and its consequent transformation and reconfiguration between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages.

Modelling Christianisation breaks new ground by studying the underutilised archaeological material for the Christianisation of the medieval Kingdom of Hungary. Around the first Millennium, in present-day Central Europe, the political and religious landscape changed dramatically. With the Christianisation of the pagan societies on its borders, the Ottonian/Holy Roman Empire significantly expanded according to the principles of the Imperium Christianum. This process - Christianisation - frequently tied to 'the making of Europe', has long generated broad interest in scholarship. Although recent attempts have shown archaeology's potential to shed light on the subject, interpretations of Christianisation and state formation are still primarily dominated by historical narratives. Instead of concentrating on the upper echelons of society, the volume draws on the archaeological record relating to the Christianisation of the commoners - rural churches and field cemeteries - and more precisely (digital) archaeological archival data. This was subjected to geospatial analysis to uncover potential networks and clusters and to provide a different narrative about the course of Christianisation. Written evidence deals typically only with the topmost layer of institutions, such as the foundation of bishoprics, archbishoprics and some monasteries. Local churches, the smallest but most numerous elements of the church system, seldom appear in written sources; thus, theories about the development of the Church as an institution have often lacked direct evidence about the local church network. The approach taken here integrates this abundant data which provides information about the largest part of the population, otherwise absent in the written sources. It allows the reconstruction of a cultural landscape and lets us see the process of (institutionalised) Christianisation as a process of adaptation. Thus, it also offers a new interpretation for modelling Christianisation in newly emergent kingdoms.

The relics of medieval knights' manors still shape the landscape of Poland today. The anonymous hills contain the remnants of wooden buildings, sometimes ones of stone or brick, as well as numerous tiny artifacts, the trace of the households of the past. Called "grodziska stozkowate" (motte), unlike the region's castles they are not so often visited, but more often destroyed. This book depicts the architecture and daily life of a medieval knight's manor based on the findings of archaeological excavations carried on for half a century, supplemented by written sources. It describes buildings, household items, and the tools used by the people of the past, allowing for a clearer understanding of the lives of medieval knights and their family.

Trade before Civilization explores the role that long-distance exchange played in the establishment and/or maintenance of social complexity, and its role in the transformation of societies from egalitarian to non-egalitarian. Bringing together research by an international and methodologically diverse team of scholars, it analyses the relationship between long-distance trade and the rise of inequality. The volume illustrates how elites used exotic prestige goods to enhance and maintain their elevated social positions in society. Global in scope, it offers case studies of early societies and sites in Europe, Asia, Oceania, North America, and Mesoamerica. Deploying a range of inter-disciplinary and cutting-edge theoretical approaches from a cross-cultural framework, the volume offers new insights and enhances our understanding of socio-political evolution. It will appeal to archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, conflict theorists, and ethnohistorians, as well as economists seeking to understand the nexus between imported luxury items and cultural evolution.

Ethnographic studies trace the background to and impact of urbanisation and Christianisation, and the development of royal power, which stimulated the transition from the Viking age to the medieval period. Using the evidence of archaeology, poetry, legal texts and annals, this volume investigates the social, economic and symbolic structures of early Scandinavia at the time of the Viking expansion. The contributors provide an outlineethnography, covering dwellings and settlements, kinship and social relations, law, political structures and external relations, rural and urban economies, and the ideology of warfare. The topics are discussed through case-studies, illustrating the changing scholarly interpretations of this formative period in Scandinavian history. By addressing these key research questions, the contributions trace the background to and the impact of urbanisation and Christianisation, and the development of royal power, which stimulated the transition from the Viking age to the medieval period in Scandinavia. JUDITH JESCH is Professor in Viking Studies at the University of Nottingham. Contributors: LENA HOLMQUIST OLAUSSON, BENTE MAGNUS, E. VESTERGAARD, BIRGIT ARRHENIUS, STEFAN BRINK, LISE BENDER JORGENSEN, SVEND NIELSEN, FRANDS HERSCHEND, NIELS LUND, DAVID N. DUMVILLE, JUDITH JESCH, DENNIS H. GREEN.

The study of deserted villages abandoned during the last millennium in Europe has been the primary focus of archaeological interventions in rural settlements over recent decades. However, most of the hamlets and villages of medieval origin remain inhabited today and excavations in these small and medium-sized settlements are more unusual. The Archaeology of Medieval Villages Currently Inhabited in Europe focuses on these locations, giving examples of sites excavated in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, France, Scandinavia and Spain. The case studies highlight the diversity of problems and debates around this subject such as the meaning of the term 'village', the chronology beyond the last millennium with continuities, discontinuities and ruptures, the integration of research into residential and working areas, the role of local communities in research programmes and the need for multidisciplinary approaches to address all these issues. Deserted villages research along with currently-inhabited settlement excavation has the important potential to achieve long-lasting historical syntheses on medieval settlement networks in Europe. These five chapters offer challenging approaches to the above issues and proposals for future research in the field from Spain to the North Sea.

This study traces and analyses the evolution of domestic space in Maltese vernacular and 'polite' houses from medieval to contemporary times. The houses under review range from humble buildings of modest size, materials and design, like farmhouses or those for the less affluent towndwellers, to buildings of grand design, like townhouses and palazzi. Owing to the complex nature of the Maltese houses a combination of enquires and a variety of sources was necessary to achieve a holistic picture. This included fieldwork in different parts of the islands, extensive research work in local archives, libraries and museums, an analysis of a sample of literary sources, national censuses and works-of-art, as well as methods of spatial analysis (Space Syntax). One of the major achievements obtained in this research concerns the development of the native dwelling. The field surveys and archival research have demonstrated that the evolution of the native dwelling was very much influenced by the political, social and economic changes that occurred locally during the period under review. In particular, it was observed that architectural and stylistic changes in the elite houses occurred at a faster rate to suit fashion, in line with what occurred in other European countries, while changes in peasant houses were slower and more sporadic as these adhered to their vernacular idiom for a longer time. Houses often served as a symbol of class and social status. The dwelling's size and architectural style, the configuration of domestic space as well as the house furniture and contents were among the main indicators which, between the late Medieval Period and the first half of the 20th century, distinguished a wealthy from a poor dwelling. Class distinction did not occur only between houses, but also within the same building, especially in the elite dwellings. Gender was also another important aspect which directly affected the upper middle and elite Maltese houses, particularly at a time when men and women had fixed roles in society. However, the restricted space by which the lower class houses were normally characterized permitted instead the mixing of genders in work and leisure. A major shift in the relationship between the family and the house occurred in the second half of the 20th century, when the social and demographic changes of this period brought more balance between the social classes. Through the available evidence, particularly the national censuses, works-of-art, literary sources and travelogues, it was also possible to acquire knowledge about various aspects related to dining fashions, dress code, health and education in the Maltese houses. The results obtained from our Space Syntax investigations have been instrumental to acquire new knowledge and to understand better the social logic of space underpinning Maltese dwellings and settlements.

Medieval Birmingham: People and Places, 1070-1553, attempts to show through documentary and archaeological evidence how it evolved from a village into its present role as the second city of the United Kingdom. It looks at the lives of the Bermingham family, who owned the town and ruled the townsmen. It looks at their retinue, who held surrounding manors in the area. It tells of the various wars both served in - civil and overseas. The medieval period was a time when the Christian church had great power, and its role in the manor is told, examining the canons of the priory, the friars and the parish priests. Probably the most important element were the inhabitants of the town, for it was they that built it up through trade, and their lives, occupations and physical surroundings form the final section of the book.

An exceptional reference work to pilgrim and secular badges of the middle ages. This is the first major catalogue in English devoted to medieval badges. These fascinating objects provide us with a guide to the popularity of different cults and pilgrim centres, supplying evidence of the sometimes arduous journeys not only to famous and far-off sanctuaries like Compostela, but to native shrines such as that of St Thomas Becket at Canterbury, or the tombs of local, unofficial saints. Often mass-produced and sold in tens of thousands, pilgrim souvenirs offer pointers to fashion in contemporary precious jewellery. The secular badges include a wealth of non-religious imagery, playful and amatory, satirical, celebratory and heraldic. Illustrating nearly 800 items ofpopular medieval jewellery, the catalogue contained within the book describes previously unpublished finds retrieved from datable archaeological London waterfront deposits, and provides the basis of a chronological framework for future excavations. BRIAN SPENCER was the Senior Keeper at the Museum of London, with special responsibility for the Museum's collection of medieval everyday objects.

Echoes of the Middle Ages are all around us in Britain. Sites like the Tower of London, Hampton Court, and the castles of Scotland and Wales are mainstays of cultural tourism, Medieval institutions like the monarchy, monasteries, and universities are familiar to us, and we come into contact with the remnants of Britain's medieval past every day we drive past a castle on a hill or visit a local church. People today can come into direct contact with their medieval predecessors through the inspiring cross-section of later medieval finds that can now be found on display in museums across the country. In many ways, the medieval past has never been so present. The Oxford Handbook of Later Medieval Archaeology in Britain provides an overview of the archaeology of the later Middle Ages in Britain between AD 1066 and 1550. Sixty-one entries, divided into ten thematic sections, cover topics ranging from later medieval objects, human remains, archaeological science, standing buildings, and sites such as castles and monasteries, to the well-preserved relict landscapes which still survive. This is a rich and exciting period of the past and most of what we know about the material culture of the medieval period has been discovered in the past two generations. This volume provides comprehensive coverage of the latest research and describes the major projects and concepts that are changing our understanding of the later Middle Ages.

Trees were of fundamental importance in Anglo-Saxon society. Anglo-Saxons dwelt in timber houses, relied on woodland as an economic resource, and created a material culture of wood which was at least as meaningfully-imbued, and vastly more prevalent, than the sculpture and metalwork with which we associate them today. Trees held a central place in Anglo-Saxon belief systems, which carried into the Christian period, not least in the figure of the cross itself. Despite this, the transience of trees and timber in comparison to metal and stone has meant that the subject has received comparatively little attention from scholars. Trees and Timber in the Anglo-Saxon World constitutes the very first collection of essays written about the role of trees in early medieval England, bringing together established specialists and new voices to present an interdisciplinary insight into the complex relationship between the early English and their woodlands. The woodlands of England were not only deeply rooted in every aspect of Anglo-Saxon material culture - as a source of heat and light, food and drink, and wood and timber for the construction of tools, weapons, and materials - but also in their spiritual life, symbolic vocabulary, and sense of connection to their beliefs and heritage. These essays do not merely focus on practicalities, such as carpentry techniques and the extent of woodland coverage, but rather explore the place of trees and timber in the intellectual lives of the early medieval inhabitants of England, using evidence from archaeology, place-names, landscapes, and written sources.

Ringforts were an important part of the rural settlement landscape of early medieval Ireland (AD 400-1100). While most of those circular enclosures were farmsteads, a small number had special significance as centres of political power and elite residence, also associated with specialized crafts. One such 'royal site' was Garranes in the mid-Cork region of south-west Ireland. In 1937, archaeological excavation of a large trivallate ringfort provided evidence of high-status residence during the fifth and sixth centuries AD. The site had workshops for the production of bronze ornaments, with glass and enamel working as well as indications of farming. Pottery and glass vessels imported from the Mediterranean world and Atlantic France were also discovered. That trade with the Late Roman world is significant to understanding the introduction of Christianity and literacy in southern Ireland at that time. This monograph presents the results of an interdisciplinary project conducted 2011-18, where archaeological survey and excavation, supported by various specialist studies, examined this historic landscape. Garranes is a special place where archaeology, history and legend combine to uncover a minor royal site of the early medieval period. The central ringfort has been identified as Rath Raithleann, the seat of the petty kingdom of Ui Echach Muman, recalled in bardic poetry of the later medieval period. Those poems attribute its foundation to Corc, a King of Munster in the fifth century AD, and link the site closely to Cian, son-in-law of Brian Boruma, and one of the heroes of Clontarf (AD 1014). This study provides new evidence to connect the location of Rath Raithleann to high-status occupation at Garranes during the fifth and sixth centuries, and explores its legendary associations in later periods.

This book re-examines the history of the Carpathian-Danubian region during the eighth and the ninth centuries, to provide a synthetic historical overview of the region to the north of the Lower Danube in this period. Based on a critical and comparative analysis of archaeological, narrative and numismatic sources, the study presents a reconstruction of the socio-economic, ethnic, cultural, and political history of the area at a period during which nomadic peoples from the east including the Bulgars, Avars, and Khazars migrated here. The work is based on a comprehensive analysis of narrative and archaeological sources including sites, artefacts, and goods in the basin bordered by the Tisza river in the west, the Danube in the south, and the Dniestr river in the east, covering swathes of modern-day Romania, Moldova, Ukraine, Serbia, and Hungary.

Early Anglo-Saxon Christian Reliquaries presents a corpus and discussion of a group of Anglo-Saxon copper-alloy containers dating to the seventh and possibly eighth centuries, and variously described as work boxes, needle cases, amulet containers or Christian reliquaries. Seventy-one boxes, some incomplete or fragmentary, have been recorded from forty-nine sites across Anglo-Saxon England. A typology, material specification, drawings, design and construction principles are provided, and a nomenclature applicable to these containers is outlined. Catalogue entries give details of site location, description, decorative features and references. Three box types are identified, and a concluding discussion suggests that boxes of Types I and II had a Christian function and should be considered as reliquaries. Type III boxes had a secular function, and their purpose remains enigmatic.

In this book, Marianne Hem Eriksen explores the social organization of Viking Age Scandinavia through a study of domestic architecture, and in particular, the doorway. A highly charged architectural element, the door is not merely a practical, constructional solution. Doors control access, generate movement, and demark boundaries, yet also serve as potent ritual objects. For this study, Eriksen analyzes and interprets the archaeological data of house remains from Viking Age Norway, which are here synthesized for the first time. Using social approaches to architecture, she demonstrates how the domestic space of the Viking household, which could include masters and slaves, wives and mistresses, children and cattle, was not neutral. Quotidian and ritual interactions with, through, and orchestrated by doorways prove to be central to the production of a social world in the Viking Age. Eriksen's book challenges the male-dominated focus of research on the Vikings and expands research questions beyond topics of seaborne warriors, trade, and craft.

The small town of Buckley, in Flintshire, was the focus for a regional pottery industry for at least 600 years, from the medieval period to the mid-20th century. However, despite Buckley's impressive industrial past, a visit to the town today reveals little evidence to suggest the extent and importance of what was once a major industry supplying traditional earthenware. This book is based on the results of recent research and excavation which has enhanced our understanding of the Buckley potteries, identifying over 30 individual production sites from documentary and cartographic sources. It considers the factors which influenced the siting and development of the industry, how it changed through time and the reasons for its eventual demise. Few of the potteries have been the subject of archaeological excavation, and of those none have previously been published in detail. The book presents the results from excavations on the sites of four potteries, and includes a review of the evidence for others, including a gazetteer detailing the evidence for all of the potteries currently known. This volume contains contributions from Peter Davey, Leigh Dodd, Richard Hankinson, Bob Silvester and Sophie Watson.

"Mining in a Medieval Landscape" explores the history and archaeology of the late medieval royal silver mines at Bere Ferrers in Devon's Tamar Valley and examines their significance for mining history as a whole. Comparing their impact on the landscape with that of less intensive, traditional mining industries, this authoritative volume analyzes maps and documents together in light of recent archaeological field surveys, allowing the mining landscape to be reconstructed in remarkable detail.

Since 1985, Spanish archaeology has radically improved its organisation and effectiveness, supported by law and the transfer of powers to deal with archaeology from central to regional governments. There have been many excavations on development sites in towns and the countryside, but also new studies of rural landscapes and monuments. As in other European countries, this has produced a mountain of as yet undigested information about the history and archaeology of this fascinating country over four centuries. Now two Spanish archaeologists, aided by a large number of colleagues in Spain, France, Germany and Britain, have produced the first survey in either English or Spanish of the last 30 years of investigations, new discoveries and new theories. Chapters deal with the rural and urban habitat, daily life, trade and technology, castles and fortifications, the display of secular power and all three religions of medieval Spain: Islam, Christianity and Judaism. This is a major contribution to the archaeology of medieval Europe and a handbook for archaeologists and travellers.

In this extensively revised third edition of The Viking Age: A Reader, Somerville and McDonald successfully bring the Vikings and their world to life for twenty-first-century students and instructors. The diversity of the Viking era is revealed through the remarkable range and variety of sources presented as well as the geographical and chronological coverage of the readings. The third edition has been reorganized into fifteen chapters. Many sources have been added, including material on gender and warrior women, and a completely new final chapter traces the continuing cultural influence of the Vikings to the present day. The use of visual material has been expanded, and updated maps illustrate historical developments throughout the Viking Age. The English translations of Norse texts, many of them new to this collection, are straightforward and easily accessible, while chapter introductions contextualize the readings.

This wide-ranging study uses historical and archaeological evidence to consider humanity's interactions with the environment, fashioning agricultural, gardening and horticultural regimes over a millennium and a half. The discussions of archaeological finds of seeds from discarded rubbish including animal fodder and bedding show the wide range of wild species present, as well as cultivated and gathered plants in the diet of inhabitants and livestock. Pollen analyses, and studies of wood, mosses, and beetles, alongside a look at the local natural environment, and comparison with medieval written records give us a tantalizing picture of early Winchester. The earliest record is by AElfric of Eynsham in his 11th-century Nomina Herbarum. From medieval records come hints of gardens within the city walls, and considerable detail about agriculture and horticulture, and produce brought into the city. Wild fruit and nuts were also being gathered from the countryside for the town's markets and mills. At St Giles' Fair exotic imported spices and fruits were also sold. All these sources of evidence are brought together to reveal more fully the roles of agriculture and the environment in the development of Winchester.