The son of a watercolour artist, William Gershom Collingwood (1854-1932) studied at University College, Oxford where he met John Ruskin, whose secretary he later became and with whom he shared a wide range of interests. Collingwood travelled extensively, sketching as he went, and after studying at the Slade School of Art, moved to the Lake District where he wrote extensively about the Lakes, Icelandic sagas and Norse mythology, as well as publishing a biography on Ruskin in 1893. He was an accomplished artist, founding the Lake Artists Society in 1904 and serving as Professor of Fine Art at the University of Reading from 1905-11. His interest in art and Scandinavia prompted his research into the Pre-Norman Crosses of Cumbria and the North of England. In 1927 he published 'Northumbrian Crosses of the Pre-Norman Age', illustrated with his own drawings. He was also an accomplished musician, climber, swimmer and walker. His son was the noted archaeologist (a leading authority on Roman Britain), philosopher and historian R. G. Collingwood. This well researched biography provides a comprehensive account of the life and works of a nineteenth century polymath whose story should be better known.

Drying kilns, corn-dryers and malting ovens are increasingly familiar features in post-Roman, Anglo-Saxon and medieval archaeology. Their forms, functions and distributions offer critical insights into agricultural, technological, economic and dietary history across the British Isles. Despite the significance and growing corpus of these structures, exceptionally few works of synthesis have been published. Yet such a foundational study was produced by Robert Rickett as early as 1975: an undergraduate dissertation which, for the first time, assembled a gazetteer of drying kilns from across the British Isles, critically examined this archaeological evidence in the light of documentary research, and established a typology and uniform terminology for drying kiln studies. This pioneering and oft-cited dissertation is here published for the first time, providing a foundation for the future study of drying kilns in Britain, Ireland and beyond. A new introduction and notes by Mark McKerracher set the original work within the context of drying kiln research since 1975.

While historians know that history is about interpreting primary sources, students tend to think of history as a set of facts. In The Saint and the Count, Leah Shopkow opens up the interpretive world of the historian using the biography of St. Vitalis of Savigny (d. 1122) as a case study. This biography was written around 1174 by Stephen of Fougeres and provides a rich stage to demonstrate the kinds of questions historians ask about primary sources and the interpretive and conceptual frameworks they use. What is the nature of medieval sources and what are the interpretive problems they present? How does the positionality of Stephen of Fougeres shape his biography of St. Vitalis? How did medieval people respond to stories of miracles? And finally, how does this biography illuminate the problem of violence in medieval society? A translation of the biography is included, so that readers can explore the text on their own.

In recent years, major new archaeological discoveries have redefined the development of towns and cities in the Japanese archipelago. The uncovering of the plans of major port towns such as Sakai, Kusado Sengen and Ichijodani, and the revealing of early phases in the development of cities such as Kamakura and Hakata provide an important new resource in understanding the cultural and economic processes which shaped medieval Japan. This fully illustrated book provides a sampler of these findings for a western audience. The new discoveries from Japan are set in context of medieval archaeology beyond Japan by accompanying essays from leading European specialists. The global significance of Japanese medieval archaeology is assessed through comparing the development of towns in Japan and northern Europe. The medieval period in Japan and northwest Europe saw urban growth with towns not only providing centres of administration but also fostering economic development. The pressures which led to such growth, however, be they political or social, were universal in character. following basic requirements of food, shelter, security and spiritual nourishment, towns provided commercial infrastructures, transport and storage facilities, and the setting for trade, craft specialists and art. Chapters include 'The archaeology of medieval towns in Japan and europe: an introduction' (Brian Ayers and Simon Kaner); 'Permanent urban frameworks ('armature') and economic networks in northern France c.700 - c.1000' (Henri Galinie); 'Medieval urbanism and culture in the cities of the Baltic: with a comparison between Lubeck, Germany, and Sakai, Japan' (Manfred Glaser); 'The development of Hakata as a medieval port town' (Oba Koji); 'The establishment and transformation of Japan's medieval capital, Kamakura' (Oka Yoichiro); 'Ichijodani: the archaeology of a Japanese medieval castle town' (Ono Masatoshi); 'Japanese medieval trading towns: Sakai and Tosaminato' (Richard Pearson); and 'Medieval ceramic production in the aegean, 1100 - 1600 AD: some considerations in an east-west perspective' (Joanita Vroom).

The latest British Archaeological Association transactions report on the conference volumes at Beverley in 1983. Papers provide the latest thoughts on topics at Beverley Minster and in the surrounding area. Contributions include: Pre-Conquest Sculpture (J Lang); pre-13th century Beverley (R Morris & E Cambridge); 12th century sculpture from Bridlington (M Thurlby); Bridlington Augustinian church and cloister in the 12th century (J A Franklin); stained glass of Beverley Minster (D O'Connor); East Riding sepulchal monuments (B & M Gittos); St Peter's Church, Howden (N Coldstream); the Percy tomb workshop (N Dawton); architectural development of Patrington Church (J Maddison); Beverley in conflict: Archbishop Neville and the Minster Clergy, 1381-8 (R B Dobson); monumental brasses in the 14th and 15th centuries (S Badham); the misericords in Beveley Minster (C Grossinger).

Scholars each have their own rationale as to the 'site' of this momentous battle. Their thirst for recognition has created diverse arguments, some flooding the media, others proposing to the point of acrimony that they have this 'site'. The 'conundrum' is whether any identification of the 'site' is correct for all, apart from the circumspect, have taken assorted place-names similar to Brunanburh as their starting point. The author chose to disregard the place-name approach and look at the topographic references in the manuscript. The first references were maritime then latterly landscape leading to field-names which have a more stable base than the constantly changing place-names. He found inconsistences in various positions held by some scholars to that of historical record about Brunanburh. One major stumbling block was the phrase "on dingesmere" which has created controversy, some scholars totally dismissing it but the 'sea of noise' appears to have some scientific foundation. Obviously it had some special significance to the Anglo-Saxon's and their Christian allies and may well have been a kenning. Importantly, 'who were these allies?' The challenge for the author was to unearth the correct locale of these historic events. As an archaeologist he decided to interpret the topographic phrases in the manuscript evidence as material culture. The results were surprising.

In (Re)using Ruins, Douglas Underwood presents a new account of the use and reuse of Roman urban public monuments in a crucial period of transition, A.D. 300-600. Commonly seen as a period of uniform decline for public building, especially in the western half of the Mediterranean, (Re)using Ruins shows a vibrant, yet variable, history for these structures. Douglas Underwood establishes a broad catalogue of archaeological evidence (supplemented with epigraphic and literary testimony) for the construction, maintenance, abandonment and reuses of baths, aqueducts, theatres, amphitheatres and circuses in Italy, southern Gaul, Spain, and North Africa, demonstrating that the driving force behind the changes to public buildings was largely a combined shift in urban ideologies and euergetistic practices in Late Antique cities.

Excavations were carried out at the moated sites of Barrow Old Hall and Twiss Green, in Warrington, North West England, in the 1980s. Sub-manorial estates were established at these two sites by the fourteenth century, located near the boundaries of their multi-moated townships. Townships with multiple moats were a feature of parts of North West England and may have been the result of medieval assarting and the expansion of agriculture on to fringe or marginal areas, on the boundaries of earlier manors. It also owed much to the unusual tenurial arrangements of the region, whereby lords granted small estates out of their holdings, often to family members, to construct moated homesteads. This report presents the results of the excavations at these two small moated sites, including evidence for possible aisled halls at both sites, as well as a significant assemblage of medieval and early post-medieval pottery. There is also a full account of the finding of the remains of a timber bridge at Twiss Green and its full reconstruction; an illustration of which was previously published in the Shire Archaeology series book on Moated Sites in 1985. The publication of these excavations contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of the role and development of moated sites in this part of North West England and completes the outstanding analysis of moated sites excavated in the Warrington area.

Silver, Butter, Cloth advances current debates about the nature and complexity of Viking economic systems. It explores how silver and other commodities were used in monetary and social economies across the Scandinavian world of the Viking Age (c. 800-1100 AD) before and alongside the wide scale introduction of coinage. Taking a multi-disciplinary approach that unites archaeological, numismatic, and metallurgical analyses, Kershaw and Williams examine the uses and sources of silver in both monetary and social transactions, addressing topics such as silver fragmentation, hoarding, and coin production and re-use. Uniquely, it also goes beyond silver, giving the first detailed consideration of the monetary role of butter, cloth, and gold in the Viking economy. Indeed, it is instrumental in developing methodologies to identify such commodity monies in the archaeological record. The use of silver and other commodities within Viking economies is a dynamic field of study, fuelled by important recent discoveries across the Viking world. The 14 contributions to this book, by a truly international group of scholars, draw on newly available archaeological data from eastern Europe, Scandinavia, the North Atlantic, and the British Isles and Ireland, to present the latest original research. Together, they deepen understanding of Viking monetary and social economies and advance new definitions of 'economy', 'currency', and 'value' in the ninth to eleventh centuries.

The Eleanor Crosses begins in November 1290 with the untimely death in a Lincolnshire village of Queen Eleanor of Castile, beloved consort of King Edward I of England. A sombre journey of more than 200 miles must follow, to transport the queen's body to Westminster for burial -- the devastated king leading the way, walking beside the coffin of his all but constant companion during 36 years of marriage. With seasonal conditions adding even more miles to the cortege's route, the king determines that this journey will never be forgotten. He envisages a building project of unprecedented scale and imagination: the construction of an elaborate stone cross at the journey's start and at all eleven nightly stopping places, ending at the Thames-side village of Charing, in what is now the centre of London... Duly built, these crosses served as focal points for prayers for the queen's departed soul. They were also artistic masterpieces, the fruit of the skills of the finest craftsmen of the age. Today only three of the original twelve survive, but each cross has had its own story. Together they reveal much about major changes at key periods in British history, religious conflict, civil war and world war, as well as shifts in attitudes to the past. In The Eleanor Crosses, Decca Warrington tells this tale of survival and continuity over seven centuries, and also offers a new perspective on the remarkable life and death of the nowadays little-known queen whose legacy they are -- Eleanor of Castile, the woman who won the heart of one of England's most forceful and charismatic kings.

The Cumans, a people that inhabited the steppe zone in the medieval period and actively shaped the fate of the region from the Black Sea to the Carpathian Basin, have been primarily known to history as nomadic, mounted warriors. Some of them arrived in the Hungarian Kingdom in the midthirteenth century as a group of refugees fleeing the invading Mongol army and asked for asylum. In the course of three centuries they settled down in the kingdom, converted to Christianity, and were integrated into medieval Hungarian society. This study collects all available information, historical, ethnographic and archaeological alike, on the animal husbandry aspect of the complex development of the Cuman population in medieval Hungary. Although this medieval minority has been in the focus of scholarly interest in the past decades, no attempt has been made so far to study their herds using interdisciplinary methods. The research of faunal assemblages through archaeozoological methods has the potential to reveal direct, and by other means, unavailable information on animal keeping practices, although this source of evidence often escapes scholarly attention in Central and Eastern Europe. This book combines a primary scientific dataset with historical information and interprets them within the framework of settlement history in order to investigate the manifold integration process of a medieval community.

Childhood and Adolescence in Anglo-Saxon Literary Culture counters the generally received wisdom that early medieval childhood and adolescence were an unremittingly bleak experience. The contributors analyse representations of children and their education in Old English, Old Norse and Anglo-Latin writings, including hagiography, heroic poetry, riddles, legal documents, philosophical prose and elegies. Within and across these linguistic and generic boundaries some key themes emerge: the habits and expectations of name-giving, expressions of childhood nostalgia, the role of uneducated parents, and the religious zeal and rebelliousness of youth. After decades of study dominated by adult gender studies, Childhood and Adolescence in Anglo-Saxon Literary Culture rebalances our understanding of family life in the Anglo-Saxon era by reconstructing the lives of medieval children and adolescents through their literary representation.

Foreigners and Outside Influences in Medieval Norway results from an international conference held in Bergen, Norway, in March 2016, entitled 'Multidisciplinary approaches to improving our understanding of immigration and mobility in pre-modern Scandinavia (1000-1900)'. The articles in this volume discuss different aspects of immigration and foreign influences in medieval Norway, from the viewpoint of different academic disciplines. The book will give the reader an insight into how the population of medieval Norway interacted with the surrounding world, how and by whom it was influenced, and how the population was composed.

A sweeping epic of the Viking Age, Grettir's Saga follows the life of the outlaw Grettir the Strong as he battles against sorcery, bad luck, and the vengefulness of his enemies. Feared by many, Grettir is a warrior and also a poet and a lover. Unable to resolve the dispute that has outlawed him, he lives outside the bounds of family life and he roams the countryside, ridding Iceland and Norway of berserker warriors, trolls, and the walking dead. The saga presents a poignant story of medieval Icelandic society, combining details of everyday legal disputes with folklore and legend. With its scathing humor, explicit verses, and fantastic monsters, Grettir's Saga is among the most famous and widely read of Iceland's epics. In addition to Jesse Byock's lively new translation, this edition includes extensive maps, genealogies, illustrations, a chronology and glossary, as well as helpful notes, an up-to-date bibliography, and thorough introduction exploring the saga in the context of other works of Icelandic and medieval literature.
About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

This book investigates the archaeological evidence for crafts and production in early medieval Ireland, AD 400-1100, with a particular focus on the extensive excavated evidence from rural secular and ecclesiastical settlements. The volume firstly provides an overview of the social and ideological contexts of crafts and technologies in early Ireland. It then outlines the extant evidence specifically for iron-working, non-ferrous metalworking, glass, enamel and millefiori, bone, antler and horn, and stone working, and characterises each craft practice in terms of scale, outputs and implications for society. Tables provide additional information on wood craft and pottery. The book then provides a detailed review of the use of different materials in dress and ornament, touches on cloth and textile production, and explores how social identities were performed through objects and material practices. The book then provides a voluminous site gazetteer accounting for all evidence for craft and production on hundreds of early medieval settlements, with numerous tables of data, site plans, artefact drawings and photographs and an extensive bibliography. The book is based on the work of the Early Medieval Archaeology Project (EMAP), which was funded through the Irish Heritage Council and Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht's INSTAR programme, a collaborative research project carried out by University College Dublin and Queens University Belfast which reviewed all archaeological excavations in Ireland between c.1930-2012. This particular book, building on EMAP's previous studies of dwellings and settlements, and agriculture and economy, provides the baseline for a generation of studies of early medieval crafts and production in Ireland in its northwest European contexts.

This volume traces the lives, health, and diseases of Winchester's inhabitants as seen in their skeletal remains from the mid-third century to the mid-sixteenth century, a period of over 1,300 years. Although the populations of other British urban areas, York and London in particular, have been studied over an extended period, this volume is unique in providing a continuous chronological window, rather than a series of isolated studies. It is particularly notable for the large sample of Anglo-Saxon burials dated to the 8th - 10th centuries, which provide a bridge between the earlier Romano-British material and the later medieval samples. This study includes information on demography, physical characteristics, dental health, disease, and trauma collected from over 2,000 skeletons excavated from the Roman Cemetery at Lankhills and the Anglo-Saxon and medieval cemeteries of the Old and New Minster and Winchester Cathedral, as well as other Early Anglo-Saxon sites in neighbouring areas of Hampshire. The study establishes the underlying continuity of the population in spite of massive culture change between the Roman and Early Saxon periods, and delineates the increasing tendency to rounder skulls seen in the medieval period, a trend which is found in continental Europe at the same time. There were also significant differences through time in disease patterns and trauma. Leprosy, for example, is found only in post-Roman skeletons, while decapitations are seen only in Roman skeletons. Weapons injuries are confined to Anglo-Saxon and medieval individuals, although broken bones were common during the Roman period.

This research investigates the development of early medieval identities in the South West, through continuity and change in the insular material culture, the settlements, and ultimately in social identity. These cycles of change, brought about by influences within and outside the region, are evidenced through regional (macro-scale) and micro-regional (site-specific) assessments of the evidence. An overriding sense of long-term continuity is perceived in the ability of these insular identities to retain former traditions and develop their material culture, despite the apparent political domination by far-reaching social groups in the Anglo-Saxon and Norman periods. These traditions consist of all social practices and portable material culture, including the ceramics which make up a large proportion of these finds, and where an examination of developments in form and fabric have created a chronological framework that is more sympathetic to the archaeology of the region than the accepted broad periods of Early, Middle and Late Saxon, and which perhaps reflects a more accurate picture of social changes through time. The retention of prehistoric and Late Roman practices, in particular the former, is seen throughout all aspects of the archaeological evidence and is examined here through the themes of settlement hierarchies, exchange mechanisms and identity, and their spatial differentiation, with geographical determinism a deciding factor in the form and nature of communities. The project explores the development of Late Roman societies in an assessment of the impact of geographical determinism on identity, and the potential development of Atlantic and maritime identities within society as a whole.

The papers published here are developed from presentations made at a Manchester Centre for Anglo-Saxon Studies Conference entitled 'The Anglo-Saxons in their World' held in 2010. An eclectic collection of studies drawing on Latin, Old English and Old Norse texts, artefacts and archaeology, papers are groups into five themed sections: 'Chosen people in their place'; 'Life in Anglo-Saxon England'; 'Beyond the shore'; 'The Mediterranean and beyond'; and 'The North, The Universe', though other connections may be found. Two papers focus largely on early archaeology (Battaglia, Trzaska-Nartowski and Riddler) and King's study is also of an archaeological find. A majority of papers relate to the intellectual climate of the early Christian period in England (Larpi, Higham, Grocock, King, Cesario, Barker and to some extent Sebo). Several take evidence from later Anglo-Saxon manuscripts (Scragg, Hill, Frederick, Sebo). Fafinski attempts a chronological sweep beginning in the Roman period, and Banham from the seventh century to the eleventh.

Excavations at 1-2 and 3 Redcliff Street, Bristol, crossed a number of historic properties and revealed domestic and industrial remains dating from the establishment of the Redcliffe suburb in the 12th century through to the later post-medieval period. Cloth-dying was the dominant industry in Redcliffe in the 12th and 13th centuries, and the well preserved remains of dye-stuffs as well as leather shoes and off-cuts from a cobbler's workshop were recovered from water-logged pit fills. The pits also yielded the largest assemblage of pottery of its kind from the city to date. The presence of stone-built dye-vat hearths suggest that cloth dyeing continued into the 14th century, when a pair of substantial town houses were also built. Late 14th-century remains include a furnace for lead-bronze casting, which produced cauldrons, posnets and smaller items, including candlesticks, and heralded a new phase of industry that became the pre-eminent activity for the next 200 years. The reverberatory furnaces are amongst the earliest examples of this advanced form of furnace known in Britain. In the 17th century, historic properties were amalgamated to establish a sugar refinery. Other significant aspects of the site evidence include the re-use of architectural fragments from the medieval church of St Thomas, and a large assemblage of clay-pipe kiln material. The discussion and interpretation of the excavated remains is augmented by documentary and historical research which, combined with evidence from other excavations in Redcliffe, further enriches the story of the urban development and economic history of this important suburb of Bristol.

Medieval Jewelry and Burial Assemblages in Croatia analyzes the Croatian archaeological heritage from the 8th to the 15th century, consisting mostly of jewelry (earrings) findings from cemeteries. Stratigraphy is used to establish horizons and phases of material culture, as well as the structure of the burial chambers. All in comparison with materials from neighboring regions of Europe.

This volume presents nine articles (of which five are based on papers presented in the session Utilization of Brick in the Medieval Period Production, Construction, Destruction held at the EAA meeting in Helsinki in 2012) with topics ranging from applying natural scientific research methods such as OSL, AM and hXRF analyses, to the study of early brickmaking processes, to recent excavation discoveries and archaeological investigations of brick use in northern parts of continental Europe including the British Isles, Finland and Sweden."

'Bridgwater: Personality, Place and the Built Environment' traces the history and development of the town of Bridgwater as a physical entity from its origins to 1700. This includes not only the physical layout of the town as a whole, but also the plan and structure of its individual plots and buildings. These have been reconstructed through the hundreds of leases from the medieval period and sixteenth and seventeenth centuries preserved in the town's archives. Although the area around Bridgwater was settled in prehistory and Roman times, Bridgwater itself first appeared in the early eleventh century. In contrast to previous histories of the town, the book shows that rather than being the village depicted in the Domesday survey, Bridgwater was founded as a bridgehead burh by its Anglo-Saxon lord, Maerleswein. It was later promoted to Anglo-Norman borough c. 1200 by the Devon magnate, William de Brewer, who added the castle and parks as part of a planned aristocratic landscape. The book places the settlement and development of the town within the context of the wider changes in the landscape of Somerset, such as the colonisation and drainage of the Levels, the expansion of road and river communications and the urbanisation of Europe from the tenth century onwards. It also examines the effect of the late medieval urban crisis and the Reformation on the physical structure of the town.