his pdf of your paper in Medieval Rural Settlement belongs to the publishers Oxbow Books and it is their copyright. As author you are licenced to make up to 50 ofprints from it, but beyond that you may not publish it on the World Wide Web until three years from publication (November 2014), unless the site is a limited access intranet (password protected). If you have queries about this please contact the editorial department at Oxbow Books (editorial@oxbowbooks.com). Medieval Rural Settlement Britain and Ireland, AD 800–1600 edited by Neil Christie and Paul Stamper © Windgather Press 2012 ISBN 978-1-905119-42-4 Windgather Press is an imprint of Oxbow Books, Oxford  Contents Foreword vii Chris Taylor Contributors ix List of Figures xi PART I CONTEXTS, CHRONOLOGIES AND FORMS 1. Introduction: Medieval Rural Settlement Research. Emergence, Examination and Engagement 2 Mark Gardiner, Neil Christie and Paul Stamper 2. he Development of the Study of Medieval Settlements, 1880–2010 11 Christopher Dyer and Paul Everson 3. Methodological Approaches to Medieval Rural Settlements and Landscapes 31 Richard Jones and Della Hooke 4. he Prehistory of Medieval Farms and Villages: From Saxons to Scandinavians 43 Gabor homas 5. Seigneurial and Elite Sites in the Medieval Landscape 63 Oliver Creighton and Terry Barry 6. Town and Countryside. Relationships and Resemblances 81 Christopher Dyer and Keith Lilley PART II REGIONAL AND NATIONAL SURVEYS 7. South-East England: Forms and Diversity in Medieval Rural Settlement 100 Mark Gardiner 8. Central Southern England: ‘Chalk and Cheese’ 118 David A. Hinton 9. South-West England: Rural Settlements in the Middle Ages 135 Sam Turner and Rob Wilson-North 10. Wales: Medieval Settlements, Nucleated and Dispersed, Permanent and Seasonal 151 Bob Silvester and Jonathan Kissock 11. Ireland: Medieval Identities, Settlement and Land Use 172 Audrey Horning 12. he Midlands: Medieval Settlements and Landscapes 186 Richard Jones and Carenza Lewis 13. Cambridgeshire and the Peat Fen: Medieval Rural Settlement and Commerce, c. AD 900–1300 206 Susan Oosthuizen 14. Norfolk, Sufolk and Essex: Medieval Rural Settlement in ‘Greater East Anglia’ 225 Edward Martin 15. Northern England: Exploring the Character of Medieval Rural Settlements 249 Stuart Wrathmell with Rob Young 16. Scotland’s Medieval Countryside: Evidence, Interpretation, Perception 270 Chris Dalglish PART III RESEARCH METHODS Appendix: A Practical Guide to Investigating Medieval Rural Settlements 288 Carenza Lewis Bibliography 309 Index 353  CHAPTER 4 he Prehistory of Medieval Farms and Villages: From Saxons to Scandinavians Gabor homas Introduction: sources and approaches have witnessed revolutionary developments in our The vast majority of rural settlements occupied understanding of rural life in the British Isles over in the British Isles during the later Middle Ages the closing centuries of the irst millennium ad. he irst appeared in the landscape long before their key impetus has been a surge in new archaeological earliest recorded documentation: for england the data, particularly in the form of excavated early first significant historical horizon is Domesday medieval settlements, though, in the case of england, Book at the end of the eleventh century; but for any assessment also needs to acknowledge the many other regions – Ireland, Wales and Scotland important contribution made by ield-walking and included – sites of habitation went unrecorded for metal-detecting in locating settlements and deining signiicantly longer. consequently, those seeking to broader trends in settlement patterns. the past unravel the biographies of settlements, communities decade has also seen the completion of a series of and landscapes back into the early Middle ages innovative research projects harnessing new ieldwork must chiely rely upon material evidence locked up methodologies and inter-disciplinary approaches in the landscape, to be extracted and interpreted speciically aimed at unlocking the origins of regional using approaches drawn from archaeology and related diversity in the medieval countryside, from classic disciplines. What distinguishes these studies from nucleated landscapes of the english Midlands to those undertaken in the depths of prehistory, however, dispersed settlement patterns characterising such is that the early medieval landscape can be glimpsed regions as south-west england and Northern Ireland. from non-material perspectives including place-names as a result of these and other recent achievements, and historical sources. he process of integrating these archaeological approaches are becoming increasingly comparative strands of evidence poses particular central to studies of the early medieval landscape, challenges in the pre-Norman era, when historical helping to revitalise long-running debates and set sources are thin on the ground and generally bereft new research agendas. of the rich topographic detail characterising manorial this overview takes the opportunity to records and other later medieval documents. Yet, if highlight how these developments are transforming such endeavour often exposes the tensions existing archaeologists’ perceptions of the ‘prehistory’ of between diferent disciplinary perspectives, it also medieval farms and villages in Britain and Ireland. creates a dialogue from which modern researchers But it is irst necessary to note some words of caution. stand to gain a more sophisticated understanding of any study which attempts (as here) to cast the net how the landscape was experienced and imagined by over the entirety of the British Isles must confront early medieval people in their daily lives. strong regional contrasts in the character, quality and he past 30 years, and the past decade in particular, quantity of archaeological evidence which complicate 44 Gabor homas comparisons. ephemeral in character and notoriously Rural transitions and trajectories: diicult to ind using standard forms of archaeological prospection – field-walking, geophysics, aerial the creation of medieval landscapes photography – early medieval settlements remain he inal three centuries of the irst millennium an elusive category for many parts of Britain and aD constitute a period of radical socio-economic Ireland. as we shall see, commercial archaeology transformation in North-West europe and the has played a crucial role in populating the landscape British Isles were swept up by these changes. By with more sites and data, but only in those regions the end of the tenth century, england had emerged where relatively large windows of landscape have onto the european stage as a uniied feudal state, been opened up as a result of road and rail schemes, underpinned by a heavily exploited countryside and quarrying and housing developments.1 added to an expanding population. While Wales, Scotland this imbalance are major diferences in the physical and Ireland followed independent trajectories, they preservation of excavated settlements. at one end of too experienced many of the transformations seen the spectrum one can highlight sites which rank as in england: political centralisation, increasing social some of the best-preserved settlements in the whole of stratiication and the rise of new elites, intensiied early medieval europe – for example, the platform rath rural production and new forms of exchange and of Deer park Farms, co. antrim, Ireland, enjoying economic consumption.3 unrivalled organic preservation of house structures Understanding how these meta-narratives played and artefacts, through to the remarkable sequence themselves out in the countryside represents a of stone-walled longhouses at cille pheadair, on the considerable challenge, one which can only be met hebridean island of South Uist, cocooned under a by charting localised rural transitions through the protective coating of windblown sand.2 Yet such cases archaeological record and other sources such as place- are in the minority: typically, as in the case of most names. his section reviews relevant progress in this anglo-Saxon rural settlements, the evidence presents area, commencing with data-rich regions of British itself in a characteristically fugitive form – shadowy Isles, following with, by way of contrast, the highland impressions of groundfast timber buildings, often zone and especially the south-west of england where with only partially preserved ground-plans, which are of-site environmental sequences have been used to hard to phase and to interpret in either structural or enhance the more limited repertoire of excavated functional terms. Further constraining interpretation settlements. is the overarching problem of imprecise chronological frameworks for dating rural settlements. In the period (i) Anglo-Saxon England under review many regions of the British Isles were It is now well established that settlement patterns in aceramic (indeed, eastern england remains the only most parts of england were redeined during the later region where pottery can be used as a precise dating irst millennium aD. his redeinition accounts for the tool prior to the tenth century) and the problem is fact that the overwhelming majority of medieval farms exacerbated by the wide error margins in radiocarbon and villages have origins which, when investigated, can calibration for the later irst millennium aD. rarely be pushed back beyond the eighth century at the In order to counteract these imbalances and earliest (and many came into existence considerably to negotiate the bewildering regional diversity later); and for the fact that early anglo-Saxon characterising early medieval settlement archaeology occupation is frequently conined to sites which were in the British Isles, this survey takes a broad either abandoned or relocated over the seventh and comparative approach. More particularly, it will eighth centuries ad. early conceptualisations of this examine three themes designed to showcase how process, enshrined in the model known as the ‘Middle archaeologists have brought deeper meaning to Saxon Shift’, placed emphasis on environmental the early medieval countryside: transitions and triggers – a settlement drift from light, easily worked trajectories, interconnections and hierarchy and soils conined to plateaus and hilltops, to heavier, cultural diversity. It will conclude by considering more fertile soils in surrounding valleys.4 Over the future research themes and directions. past 30 years, an accumulating body of archaeological  4. he Prehistory of Medieval Farms and Villages: From Saxons to Scandinavians 45 information derived from an expanded geographic wood project.9 here it has been argued that villages base has allowed archaeologists to critique and aggregated at pre-existing foci (‘pre-village nuclei’, reine this model, leading to a more sophisticated forming part of a wider pool of dispersed farmsteads appreciation of chronological and regional variations populating the Middle Saxon landscape), rather in the transition to a more stable, and recognisably than in at de novo plantations, a hypothesis which medieval, settlement pattern.5 breaks new ground in explaining the origins of Field-walking surveys and, more recently, test- the mosaic settlement pattern of dispersed hamlets pitting in village cores have provided crucial evidence and nucleated villages characterising the medieval for examining the chronology and mechanisms landscape of Whittlewood, and indeed, many other associated with the emergence of medieval settlement parts of england’s central province (Figure 4.1). patterns, but excavation has also made a vital On the other hand, studies undertaken in other contribution by demonstrating that the socio- parts of the Midlands and eastern england, indicate economic changes seen at broad landscape scale also that nucleation could occur up to a century or more had direct impacts on the internal fabric of anglo- earlier.10 his long chronology takes on additional Saxon settlements and communities. although the signiicance when viewed against evidence for broader- two scales provide complementary perspectives on scale landscape change linked to rural and economic rural change over the later anglo-Saxon period, it is intensiication over the ‘Long eighth century’: the convenient to consider them in turn when reviewing exploitation of new environmental niches such as recent developments in understanding. wetlands and woodlands, the adoption of new forms research examining the emergence of regional of land management/ield systems, and increased variability in settlement patterns has been dominated levels of alluviation in river catchments such as the by a long-running debate on the origins of nucleated Upper hames.11 Situated thus, the emergence of villages and common ields in the english Midlands, nucleated villages in the english Midlands can be seen although it should be remembered that so-called as a distinct regional response to widespread socio- ‘champion countryside’ is an aberrant and relatively economic change which triggered rural developments late development. causal factors, chronology and across many parts of Middle Saxon england. process have all been placed under critical scrutiny as although recent research has placed increased the debate has evolved and the issue of causation, in emphasis on Middle Saxon developments as a particular, continues to polarise academic opinion.6 context for the origins of nucleated villages, the he one point on which there is general agreement is Late Saxon period is still acknowledged by many that the creation of nucleated villages proceeded over scholars as critical phase in the emergence of a drawn-out period, extending from the Middle Saxon medieval countryside. a study of Northamptonshire period until well beyond the Norman conquest. has proposed that, in a ‘Great replanning’ of the Many scholars would also accept that there were tenth century, existing nucleated settlements were regional and localised variations in the timing and substantially reconigured in association with the intensity of the process as experienced in diferent laying out of common ields. 12 Late Saxon settlement parts of england’s ‘central province’7 and, accordingly, replanning has been advanced for other regions of that grandiose theories on village origins are becoming champion countryside, including that examined by a increasingly untenable. In this sense, contrasting views major scheme of research at Shapwick, Somerset; an on whether village formation proceeded as a gradual ambitious programme of test-pitting targeting village process commencing before ad 850, or instead within cores across eastern england is yielding yet further a compressed ‘village moment’, conined to the period evidence for the same process, although preliminary after aD 850, arguably run the risk of drawing too results serve as a reminder that dispersed farmsteads sharp a distinction in the archaeological record.8 also came into existence at this time.13 One micro-region which appears to subscribe hese studies introduce a further intricacy in the to the later of the two chronological models is the debate on the origins of the medieval countryside: block of parishes straddling the Buckinghamshire/ whether nucleated villages and common ields came into Northamptonshire border examined by the Whittle- being at the same time? While some have argued that 46 Gabor homas Figure 4.1. he distribution of ‘pre-village’ nuclei and dispersed settlements before AD 850 in the Whittlewood area. (Source: Jones and Page 2006, Figure 30). the two form an umbilical relationship, others scholars two is likely, even though they do not appear at this have exercised more caution, perhaps unsurprisingly stage to have been contemporary, but we still do not given the diiculties of proving contemporaneity know what the relationship was’.16 between ield systems and adjacent settlements on turning attention to excavated sites, one of the key archaeological grounds.14 a complicating factor, insights gained by rural settlements being examined even in the few cases where the relationship between on a large scale is that the Middle Saxon repertoire Late Saxon settlements and surrounding ieldscapes evidently includes sizeable agglomerations with can be placed under direct examination, is whether planned layouts, as recognised at West Fen road, pre-conquest open ields of the type identiied at ely (cambridgeshire), catholme (Staffordshire) raunds (Northamptonshire) were cultivated in the and cottenham (cambridgeshire).17 these sites same way as medieval ields.15 One of the most recent and others of related character lend support to the contributions to grapple with this question argues contention (as also supported by studies of settlement that settlement nucleation and ield systems followed patterns) that some previous studies on the subject independent lines of chronological development, of village origins have placed undue attention on concluding that ‘the concentration of nucleated Late Saxon ‘manorialisation’ as an historical context settlement and common ields within the “central for settlement nucleation.18 a further aspect of the province” indicates that a connection between the diversity displayed by a proliferating range of Middle  4. he Prehistory of Medieval Farms and Villages: From Saxons to Scandinavians 47 Saxon rural settlements is the evidence for regional One of the corollaries of a more closely bounded variation in settlement form, as expressed in a series landscape is increased settlement stability, and this is of settlements located on the hames and trent a theme which inds clear expression in the excavated gravels sharing combinations of large enclosures with fabric of many later anglo-Saxon settlements. integrated trackways, as excavated at Little paxton relevant developments include a proliferating range (cambridgeshire) and Yarnton (Oxfordshire).19 of ‘service structures’ including latrines (both housed Most Middle Saxon settlements excavated on a and unhoused) and rubbish pits, denoting spatial large-scale exhibit subsequent phases of development restriction and the controlled discard of human and over the Late Saxon period; and those which can be domestic waste.23 Settlement stability also registers tightly phased (e.g. Flixborough) demonstrate marked in a variety of measures designed to prolong the transitions in lifestyle over the occupation sequence life of earthfast timber houses: innovations such as (see below). In some cases, as at cottam on the stone footings and narrow-aisled construction, and Yorkshire Wolds, this could involve multiple spatial evidence for the periodic repair, and sometimes total shifts suggesting that the theme of settlement mobility, reconstruction, of buildings.24 he desire to extend while perhaps more familiar in an early-to-Middle- the life of dwellings to encompass several generations Saxon context, persisted into the later irst millennium may again be taken as evidence for the emerging landscape.20 Other settlements evolved within a more importance of legally deined property in relation to stable spatial framework, although the sequence landholding and inheritance. might sometimes involve quite radical change. excavations at raunds (Northamptonshire), for (ii) Ireland example, have provided a striking archaeological an unprecedented surge in commercial archaeology visualisation of Late Saxon settlement replanning over the past decade, fuelled by a major programme in action: within a short period spanning as little of state-funded road-building, has been a catalyst as a single human generation (c. aD 900–950), for a fundamental reappraisal of rural life in early an existing ‘anglo-Scandinavian’ farm with Middle medieval Ireland.25 the archaeology revealed by Saxon antecedents was reconstituted to form an these excavations indicates that archetypal forms imposing manorial compound keyed into (along with of ‘early christian’ settlement enshrined in the an adjacent low-status settlement and also open ields) ringforts, cashels and crannogs which pepper the Irish a regulated framework of rectilinear plot boundaries landscape, form part of a much broader continuum of based on a standard unit of one acre (Figure 4.2); enclosed settlement embodying considerable regional excavations at nearby West cotton in fact reveal that and chronological diversity. he variability is now so the same transformation swept up whole tracts of the great that there have been calls to dispense with the Northamptonshire countryside.21 term ‘ringfort’, long the deining label applied to the Synthesis of settlement biographies of the type study of early Irish settlements, in favour of the more excavated at raunds has allowed chronological trends lexible substitute ‘enclosed settlement’.26 to be recognised in the morphology and internal his inlux of new archaeological data, augmented anatomy of later anglo-Saxon settlements relecting by zooarchaeological research and radiocarbon broader socio-economic change. One of the clearest dating, is promoting a more dynamic view of the is the appearance (from the seventh century onwards) early medieval Irish countryside. Whereas previous of rigidly defined settlement layouts employing scholarship tended to emphasise continuity across ditched enclosure systems, often displaying evidence the second half of the irst millennium, recent studies for repeated recutting and, in more dramatic cases, demonstrate that the period embraces key transitions extensive reconiguration and remodelling. 22 his in the physical character, lifestyle and economy of tendency points in the direction of a more closely Irish settlements, according with the statement that bounded landscape associated, on the one hand, with ‘the ninth and tenth centuries marked a watershed in more intensive forms of animal husbandry and, on economic, social and political terms and thus should the other, with growing social constraints imposed by signal the start of a diferent period of study for Irish legally proscribed deinitions of property. archaeology and history’.27 48 Gabor homas Figure 4.2. Reconstruction of plot divisions associated with the Late Saxon replanning of Raunds, Northamptonshire. (Source: Audouy and Chapman 2009, ig. 4.1) Underpinning this new paradigm is mounting this shift is the occupation of so-called ‘platform evidence for a pronounced shift in the agricultural raths’, characterised by an artiicially raised interior, economy of early medieval Ireland over the ninth and sometimes completed as a secondary modiication tenth centuries: a fragmentation of the former cattle- to a pre-existing enclosures, which (unlike earlier dominated regime and a turn to cereal cultivation single and multivallate ringforts) display a strong as an alternative strategy for amassing rural surplus. preference for arable soils. at the same time there he evidence for this comes from the convergence is a proliferation of unenclosed sites of the type of two archaeological tendencies: irstly, a decline represented at Knowth (co. Meath) in the ninth in the representation of cattle in zooarchaeological to eleventh centuries, typically, as here, occurring assemblages of the ninth to tenth centuries (mirrored in combination with souterrains and rectangular by increases in sheep and pig), a trend consistent with houses.29 the view that dairying was at this time joined by new another recent development associated with large- specialised forms of animal husbandry,28 and secondly, scale excavations in Ireland is the identiication of changes in settlement form suggesting that the desire ‘cemetery settlements’ in the category of raystown to contain and protect stock (arguably the most likely (co. Meath), which display certain ainities with function of the enclosures deining ringforts and the settlement archaeology of later anglo-Saxon cashels) ceased to be a primary consideration in the england, including palimpsests of re-cut enclosure construction of farms and homesteads. relecting systems and the phenomenon of unaccompanied  4. he Prehistory of Medieval Farms and Villages: From Saxons to Scandinavians 49 Figure 4.3. Conjectural reconstruction of Raystown, Co. Meath, c. AD 900. (Source: Seaver 2006, Illustration 11) burial within or adjacent to settlement enclosures and pastoral-oriented farming economies – has not (Figure 4.3).30 he extent to which these complex moved forward in the same way as it has for Ireland multi-functional sites might represent undocumented and lowland england. Notable exceptions include monastic establishments is a question which will no maritime zones such as atlantic and Northern doubt come under close scrutiny in future syntheses; Scotland where active coastal erosion has brought whatever the case, their existence hints at a much to light early medieval occupation, typically, as on more complex settlement hierarchy in early medieval the hebridean island of South Uist, as part of multi- Ireland that could have been predicted purely on the period sequences demonstrating long-term settlement basis of contemporary historical sources. continuity (albeit with changing architectural forms and economic regimes) stretching back into the Iron (iii) Britain’s Highland zone age and forwards into the later Middle ages.30 how has an appreciation of early medieval rural While some regions of Britain do indeed display transitions moved forward in areas which have not clear signs of long-term stability in settlement beneited from a surplus of excavated settlements? patterns, recent work in the counties of Devon and It must be admitted that our understanding of such cornwall has critiqued the generalisation that all processes in regions such as south-west england, Wales thinly populated areas of Britain’s highland zone and northern Britain – areas characterised by relatively represent fossilised relicts of ‘ancient countryside’. low population densities, dispersed settlement patterns to appreciate fully the dynamic character of these 50 Gabor homas english landscapes, it has been necessary to augment and aristocracy in the middle, bound together by a a limited number of excavated settlements with system of reciprocal obligations and services. political evidence for large-scale landscape change relected centralisation over the latter centuries of the irst in palaeoenvironmental sequences, ield-systems, millennium aD served to redeine the relationships territorial boundaries and place-names. these between these diferent ranks, leading to greater complementary sources converge on a widespread social diferentiation and inequalities of wealth. rural intensiication in land-use over the seventh to the settlement archaeology ofers a variety of perspectives ninth centuries ad connected to the introduction of on the theme of increasing social stratiication and its a regionally distinctive form of rotational agriculture physical expression in the early medieval countryside. known as ‘convertible husbandry’.31 according to Yet there remain strong imbalances in the character of current theories, this development was accompanied the evidence. across the British Isles, understanding by the creation of settlements bearing tre place-names is dominated by the upper echelons of the settlement and associated strip-cultivated ields which set the hierarchy – sites sharing relatively good documentary framework for the medieval countryside.32 coverage, prominence in the landscape (by virtue of One would very much like to know how these being sited next to churches or in striking topographic proposed changes influenced the internal fabric locales), and strong archaeological signatures, i.e. of settlements themselves, but the evidence in this comparatively rich finds assemblages, complex region of england is very limited. clear signs of a structural remains, etc. conversely, archaeologists are disruption in settlement patterns during the sixth and poorly informed about the character and frequency of seventh centuries is embodied in the abandonment lower status settlements inhabited by bond peasants of hillforts and promontories at the apex of the and the unfree, otherwise infrequently glimpsed in settlement hierarchy (e.g. tintagel, cornwall), sites place-names and historical sources. which may have declined in response to a disruption redressing this imbalance remains a pressing in the long-distance trading networks which formerly research priority, but we also need to consider whether fuelled a gift-exchange economy based upon luxury this gap is partly a modern construct arising from imports.33 a rupture lower down the social spectrum archaeologists’ tendency to polarise early medieval can also be seen in the abandonment of lowland settlements into discrete social categories, when in enclosures known as ‘rounds’ of which trethurgy reality the situation may have been rather diferent provides the classic excavated paradigm.34 Broad-scale given that the social composition of most high-status modelling of the historic landscape further suggests residences is likely to have included a servile element. that the foundation of local churches provided a key Below, some of the approaches to and problems of mechanism for the spatial redeinition of settlement interpreting settlement hierarchy are placed under the patterns between the seventh and ninth centuries, spotlight, again under broad regional headings. a template that certainly appears to it the post- abandonment sequence of tintagel.35 Yet, with the (i) Ireland, Western and Northern Britain exception of the cornish site of Mawgan porth and In celtic-speaking regions of the British Isles, the upland farms on Dartmoor, which provide a glimpse main thrust of work has involved attempts to deine of the rural scene at the very end of the millennium, social gradations existing at the upper and more visible the character of rural settlement during and in the end of the settlement hierarchy, expressed in various immediate aftermath of the phase of landscape forms of enclosed site – hillforts, coastal promontories, intensiication remains elusive in the extreme.36 ringforts, duns, rounds and crannogs. here it may be noted that bond and peasant communities, insofar as they formed discrete social enclaves in the landscape, Settlement hierarchy: producers, consumers appear to have occupied a broad and poorly deined and specialists repertoire of unenclosed sites, manifested variously early medieval society was stratiied and hierarchical in materially poor houses and souterrain complexes – a pyramid with kings at the apex, the unfree at the in Ireland, hut-groups in Wales and pitcarmick-type base and a broad spectrum of peasantry, specialists settlements in pictish Scotland.37  4. he Prehistory of Medieval Farms and Villages: From Saxons to Scandinavians 51 hillforts and other residences of power occupied in evidence of distributional patterns, as, for example, post-roman Britain betray their status in a consistent the tendency of high- and low-status ringforts to range of attributes: elaborate defences/enclosure co-occur at the edge of territories, but these theories systems and gateways, imported luxuries, fine have yet to be tested rigorously through ieldwork metalworking, the consumption and redistribution of and excavation.43 food-renders; sites such as Dunadd, argyll, Scotland, he excavation of Irish ringforts and crannogs also attest to a role in royal inauguration rituals and since the 1940s has provided a series of alternative public assembly.38 Yet, as we have seen, this visibility material criteria for examining the theme of settlement recedes in the transition from the post-roman to the hierarchy, with sites such as Lagore, Garranes and medieval settlement pattern, when the majority of Ballinderry producing an array of elite lifestyle hillforts and coastal promontories were abandoned signatures – ine metalworking, imported luxuries, in favour of unenclosed sites. he nature of elite prestige jewellery – echoing the range seen on settlement in the period after aD 800 becomes more excavated hillforts in post-roman Britain.44 recently, diicult to characterise, reliant as we are on glimpses there has been an attempt to extend comparisons obtained from a small, geographically and culturally across the social spectrum using a ranking system disparate sample including the Scottish sites of (loosely correlated to social scales given in the early Forteviot (perthshire), the Brough of Birsay (Orkney) Irish laws) employing intensity scores measured and the Welsh crannog of Llangorse (powys).39 On the across a series of economic activities, including other hand, any appraisal of this issue needs to take crop cultivation, animal husbandry and various into account the agency of monastic establishments forms of craft production.45 One of the important in redeining how aristocratic culture was articulated insights to emerge from this study is that crannogs, in the landscape; the recent publication of excavations hitherto conceptualised as an archetypal form of at the pictish monastery of portmahomack and other elite settlement, may in fact relate to a broad range comparable institutions in northern Britain has of social scales – a conclusion which echoes new created a new threshold for examining this issue.40 interpretations of island lakeside occupation based In Ireland, discussions of site hierarchy have been upon excavation and archaeological survey.46 framed in relation to early laws, providing as they do a detailed, if idealised, view of contemporary (ii) Anglo-Saxon England social stratiication spanning a multitude of subtle the recent explosion of archaeological data has gradations.41 traditionally, simple morphological opened up several new avenues for investigating criteria (the number of enclosures and the size of manifestations of settlement hierarchy in the anglo- the area enclosed) have been used as a basis for Saxon countryside. Yet, with this increasing diversity ranking ringforts, large trivallate examples being of sites come in-built ambiguities and problems of attributed to the upper – royal – end of the social interpretation: what categories of archaeological spectrum and small univallate examples to low- to evidence (buildings, portable material culture, middle-ranking farmers. Simplistic assumptions of economic resources, etc.) should we use to attribute this kind have been called into question by recent settlement status? and to what extent can the status scholarship emphasising the need to view sites and character of excavated sites be interpreted through within their landscape and territorial context. For the lens of contemporary literary sources?47 example, in a critical examination seeking to identify hese problems are felt most acutely in the poorly royal sites in Irish landscape, Warner has shown documented Middle Saxon period when the diversity that it is imperative to combine an appreciation of of excavated settlements expands to encapsulate a morphological characteristics (the number and scale range of consumer sites: emporia/wics, monasteries, of enclosures versus the size of the enclosed interior) royal vills and other aristocratic estate-centre with spatial relationships existing between ringforts complexes. Beyond the relative certainty of wics and and ritual mounds, early church sites, roadways and well-documented Northumbrian monasteries such lesser enclosures.42 Other studies have attempted as Whitby, Wearmouth and hartlepool, it is hard to to interpret hierarchical interrelationships on the characterise excavated settlements using established 52 Gabor homas Figure 4.4. Conjectural reconstruction of the hypothesised Middle Saxon tribute collection centre at Higham Ferrers, Northampton- shire. (Source: Hardy, Charles, and Williams 2007, pl. 5.3. Drawn by Pete Lorimer, © Oxford Archaeology) historical labels (minster, royal vill, etc.) as there is features a large stock enclosure, a series of timber a strong degree of overlap in their archaeological storehouses and barns and a malting oven used for signatures. his issue has now been examined in converting agrarian surplus into ale/beer (Figure exhaustive detail in relation to Flixborough, Brandon 4.4).50 On the basis of these attributes (in their and Northampton, Middle Saxon sites of high-status diferent ways all concerned with the controlled character which, depending upon viewpoint, might conversion of food-rent), there is a compelling case for be interpreted alternatively as secular and/or royal viewing the excavated complex as tribute-collection estate-centres with an ecclesiastical component, centre of a royal vill, the domestic component of pre-Viking monastic communities following a which has been tentatively identiied at the nearby site ‘secularised’ lifestyle of excess and conspicuous Irthlingborough. Moreover, it should be noted that consumption, or mutable entities which progressed the expanded corpus of Middle Saxon settlements through both of these states.48 So-called ‘productive also includes a broad base of producer sites which we sites’ identiied through metal-detecting complicate might expect to ind embedded within the territorial the picture still further, for although it is possible fabric of multiple estates.51 Under this category we can to rank them internally according to the size of include such sites as pennyland (Buckinghamshire) their metalwork and coinage assemblages, without engaged in specialised forms of stock-rearing, and excavation it is very diicult to interpret their social seasonally occupied coastal settlements such as character and role.49 ‘Sandtun’ (Kent), a tenurial outpost of the monastic While the broad pool of settlements dating from community of Lyminge which provisioned the latter the seventh to the ninth centuries aD ultimately with imported commodities, seafood and salt.52 deies rigid social/functional categorisation, headway as one progresses into the later ninth century and can be made by thinking about how sites functioned beyond, distinctions between high-status settlements, in relation to territorial infrastructure and systems on the one hand, and those occupied by the rural governing the exaction and circulation of royal peasantry, on the other, become more sharply tribute. a good case in point is the Northamptonshire deined in certain areas of the archaeological record. site of higham Ferrers, whose Middle Saxon phase One of the key social drivers behind this trend was  4. he Prehistory of Medieval Farms and Villages: From Saxons to Scandinavians 53 the burgeoning ranks of a lower aristocracy who supported by a rapidly expanding number of Late developed a common ‘seigneurial’ identity expressed Saxon thegnly complexes. he identiication of such in distinct codes of behaviour, material culture and sites with reference to an eleventh-century text, visual display.53 It is at precisely this time that rural GeÞyncðo, with its oft-quoted list of thegnly attributes settlements become increasingly diferentiated in – a church, kitchen, bell-house and enclosure terms of their zooarchaeological assemblages, a gate – is now well-rehearsed in relevant literature pattern which accords with the view that certain foods with a familiar line-up of protagonists: Goltho (particularly those procured through hunting and (Lincolnshire), portchester and Faccombe Netherton ishing) attained connotations of luxury and status.54 (hampshire) and Sulgrave (Northamptonshire).56 On the other hand, as borne out by the relatively here the opportunity is taken to showcase a recently undiferentiated range of portable metalwork found excavated case-study at Bishopstone (east Sussex) in association with tenth-to-eleventh-century rural which provides new insights into elite accommodation settlements, prestige jewellery and personal ornaments and lifestyles of the later Saxon era.57 Occupying of the type found in impressive quantities at Middle the slopes of a prominent chalk spur capped by St Saxon sites such as Flixborough and Brandon, appear andrew’s, one of the county’s best preserved pre- to have largely fallen out of favour as a means of conquest churches, the excavated complex irst comes expressing rank and social status amongst the Late into coherent view during the ninth century as a Saxon ‘thegnly’ classes.55 formally planned suite of timber buildings organised a possible explanation for the latter trend is that around an open courtyard, an arrangement shared by estate surplus was increasingly being diverted into the several contemporary thegnly residences, including aggrandisement of manorial residences as an arena for portchester (hampshire) (Figure 4.5).58 Individually, displaying rank and social exclusivity, a contention the buildings excavated at Bishopstone also conform Figure 4.5. Late Saxon manorial complexes displaying courtyard ranges: (A) Bishopstone; (B) Portchester; (C) Goltho; (D) West Cotton; (E) Springield Lyons; (F) Raunds. (Source: homas 2010, ig. 8.5) 54 Gabor homas Figure 4.6. Aerial view of excavations on Bishopstone village green, 2005, showing part of a later Anglo-Saxon high-status complex. A large timber hall can be seen to the right of the trench with a dense concentration of rock-cut pits below, some of which cut earlier structures. (Photograph © Gabor homas) to expectations of high-status accommodation: plots housing peasants and slaves are sometimes spacious halls, some with detached latrine structures, found on the periphery of manorial compounds, and most exuberant of all, a free-standing timber as revealed by large-scale excavations at Goltho and tower provided with an internally accessed cellar raunds.59 peasant settlements also appear in isolation. possibly used as a strong-room. On the eastern edge as one might expect, farms and hamlets occupying of this domestic compound was a dense concentration this social level, represented by the later tenth- to of rock-cut pits associated with the discard of eleventh-century occupation excavated at North domestic waste and human cess (Figure 4.6). While elmham (Norfolk) and the site of chestield near pit clusters are less typical of contemporary manorial Whitstable (Kent), lack the formality and structural compounds (and later Saxon settlements in general) range of contemporary thegnly residences, as relected this clear evidence for functional zoning should in their unstructured layouts and weakly deined be taken as a further expression of the spatial enclosure systems.60 formality characterising the upper echelons of the settlement hierarchy. Indications of Bishopstone’s Peopling settlements: tracking cultural privileged social status were also relected in the zooarchaeological record (most notably in respect to diversity in the early medieval countryside the consumption of pig and marine ish at levels well From the later ninth and in the tenth centuries the above the national average), and items of portable British Isles absorbed the full impact of a Scandinavian material culture, including a delicate casket with cultural diaspora which swept across the north-west decorative iron strapping and an elaborate set of door of europe and beyond into the North atlantic. he hinges contained in an iron hoard. result was the establishment of Norse colonies in the at the other end of the social spectrum, rectilinear Northern and Western Isles of Scotland, on the Isle  4. he Prehistory of Medieval Farms and Villages: From Saxons to Scandinavians 55 of Man, in coastal zones of north-west england and the one hand, to peaceful co-existence on the other.63 within urban enclaves on the east coast of Ireland; It is easy to appreciate the centrality of settlement in england the anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Mercia, archaeology to these debates. Unlike the english east anglia and Northumbria were colonised by Danelaw, many Scottish settlements have produced Scandinavians of predominantly Danish stock who alien longhouse architecture of a type distinguishable rapidly became assimilated within the countryside from the mainstream repertoire of native dwellings and in the expanding populations of nascent towns characterised by cellular forms. Furthermore, houses such as York and Lincoln. he investigation of these of this form are frequently accompanied by portable epoch-deining events has traditionally been guided by objects either made in Norway or else inluenced by historical, art-historical and place-name scholarship. Viking styles. But archaeology, with its rapidly expanding material Impressive as such evidence might irst appear, datasets, now increasingly interpreted with reference to there are manifold problems involved in attempting theoretically informed perspectives on ethnic identity to interpret these sites with speciic reference to and cultural interaction, has shifted the emphasis ethnic interactions between native and Norse away from simplistic questions of scale towards communities during the Viking age.64 to take an an understanding of the complex social processes example, the commingling of portable artefacts of which lie behind Scandinavian acculturation in the both native and Norse manufacture derived from British Isles.61 his section will examine how diferent contemporary stratigraphic contexts at sites such as sources of material evidence have been used to inform Buckquoy, Orkney (where longhouses are directly relevant debates, paying particular attention to the superimposed on native cellular structures) has challenges and complexities of determining the ethnic proved highly inluential in promoting the idea that composition of early medieval rural communities native and immigrant communities lived side by side archaeologically. harmoniously. Yet, given continuity of occupation, the indigenous pictish element to these assemblages is (i) Scotland and the Irish Sea zone just as likely to represent stratigraphic contamination the most powerful and enduring legacy of from pre-Norse horizons.65 Due attention also needs Scandinavian settlement in the British Isles is to to be given to issues of chronology. Several of the be found in the Northern and Western Isles of sites to have produced classic longhouse architecture Scotland and the Isle of Man where stable Norse – Jarlshof, Shetland, Quoygrew, Orkney – date to the colonies survived for hundreds of years after the Late Norse period (aD 950 and later) and thus do initial inlux of Viking immigrants. place-name and not bear direct witness to cultural interaction during linguistic evidence clearly points to the emergence the Viking age, but rather (like linguistic change) of a Norse-dominated cultural milieu within these an extended period of Scandinavian acculturation. regions, although these sources of evidence cannot Moreover, due to poor chronological resolution, it be calibrated closely enough to determine whether is impossible to determine whether indigenous and this rise to dominance was a drawn-out process Norse settlements co-existed at the same time, and by or alternatively a swift, directly imposed, cultural implication, whether the transition in architectural transition during the Viking age. he same regions traditions was a gradual or a swift process.66 have yielded some of the most spectacular testimony he results of a recent programme of excavations to Scandinavian settlement seen anywhere in the on the hebridean island of South Uist serve as a Viking world, including a corpus of richly furnished reminder that there is a strong regional dimension to pagan Norse burials and a concentration of silver the relationship between immigrant and indigenous hoards embracing such unprecedented collections of communities, further emphasising the fact that wealth as at Skaill, Orkney.62 Scandinavian acculturation in Scotland, and the he settlement archaeology of these regions, much British Isles more generally, cannot be reduced to a of it well preserved, by early medieval standards, has single, all-encompassing model.67 although classic been used to support radically divergent models of longhouse architecture (alongside Scandinavian Scandinavian acculturation, from ethnic genocide on material culture) is represented amongst the earliest 56 Gabor homas Figure 4.7. Conjectural reconstruction of a semi-subterranean house at Bornais, South Uist. (Source: Sharples 2005, ig. 107. Drawn by Ian Dennis, © Niall Sharples) phases of the site of Bornais, later occupational cannot be directly associated with establishment of a phases here and at the neighbouring site of cille hiberno-Norse colony on the Isle of Man triggered pheadair exhibit examples of semi-subterranean by the expulsion of the Vikings from Dublin in houses revetted into sand redolent of a blending aD 902.69 he basis for such a link is in any case of hebridean and Norse constructional traditions rendered questionable by the fact that the archetypal (Figure 4.7). he regional lavour of these hebridean urban dwelling found in hiberno-Norse towns in sites is further underscored by the direction of change Ireland more likely represents a native constructional taken by the rural economy in association with adaptation to the urban environment than an alien Norse acculturation. In accordance with Late Norse prototype.70 farmsteads excavated in caithness and the Northern as far as Ireland is concerned more generally, the Isles, changes to animal husbandry practices can be distinct lack of rural sites displaying clear evidence of detected alongside a marked intensiication in marine Scandinavian inluence is partly to be explained by the ishing, but on hebridean sites the emphasis shifted fact that hiberno-Norse assimilation was largely (as to beef-rearing instead of dairying, and the principal place-names and historical sources suggest) conined catch was herring, as opposed to cod, saithe and to urban centres such as Dublin, Waterford, Wexford ling.68 and Limerick and their immediate hinterlands. 71 the problems of understanding the ethnic recent commercial archaeology in Ireland, while connotations of rural settlements are no less acute conirming this general impression, has brought when one moves south into the Irish Sea. he frontiers to light a site at cherrywood (co. Dublin), which of the alien longhouse tradition may, on the evidence provides hints in its structures (including a Dublin of such Manx sites as Braaid, Marrown, and cronk ‘type 1’ house) and material assemblages (a fragment ny Merriu, have penetrated into this sphere of Viking of a Norwegian whalebone plaque) that the culture of activity, but, unlike more closely datable hoards and hiberno-Norse towns did indeed radiate out into the burials, the longhouse phase of these settlements rural hinterland.72 he other signiicant development  4. he Prehistory of Medieval Farms and Villages: From Saxons to Scandinavians 57 of recent years is an expansion of archaeological of Scandinavian immigrant populations, at least under information on fortiied Viking encampments known traditional approaches to recognising ethnic identity as longphorts, including the spectacular discoveries in the archaeological record. previous assertions made at Woodstown (co. Waterford) and a series that the stone-walled building complexes excavated of excavations in Dublin shedding light on an on upland sites such as ribblehead (N. Yorkshire) early Scandinavian enclave – possibly relating to and Simy Folds (co. Durham) represent english the historically attested longphort established in ad expressions of Norse longhouse architecture have not 841 – focused on the ‘Black pool’, from which the stood up to critical scrutiny; these structures (along town takes its name.73 he ethnic ailiations of the with bow-shaped timber halls found on other sites) Irish longphort can be examined in a way simply not are more correctly attributed to the regional diversity possible for the general run of rural settlements in indigenous to the later anglo-Saxon england, on Viking-age Britain, for they include male warrior which we are now much better informed thanks to burials yielding isotopic signatures consistent with an expanded number of excavated sites.77 an origin in Scandinavia or else in Norse colonies in In the past, the absence of ‘alien’ forms of Western Scotland. architecture in the Danelaw has been explained the sites of Meols on the Wirral peninsula in various ways: that the farms and residences of (Merseyside) and Llanbedrgoch, anglesey, provide Viking immigrants lie unexcavated beneath modern an impression of the direction taken by settlements villages; that in contrast to Scandinavian Scotland, in areas of Viking acculturation on the eastern there was a much greater degree of overlap between (British) seaboard of the Irish Sea, although the basis building traditions in anglo-Saxon england and for making generalisations is mitigated by a dearth the homelands of the immigrant community, in of early medieval settlement archaeology in these this case, southern Scandinavia; and that incoming regions.74 Both sites demonstrate long sequences of Danes exerted their political dominance by coercing activity and occupation, conirming the impression subjugated anglo-Saxon communities to construct that Vikings here (as in many parts of the British Isles) buildings for them. None of these theories provides implanted themselves within existing settlements and a convincing explanation when scrutinised against territorial structures. Of the two sites, Llanbedrgoch, the greatly expanded number of excavated sites that subject to modern scientiic excavation, provides and an understanding of the social mechanisms by far the best structural archaeology, including a characterising Scandinavian acculturation in other semi-subterranean house with central hearth and side parts of the British Isles. as recent studies have argued, benches providing a Welsh equivalent to the hybrid the real answer to this conundrum lies in the evidently constructional traditions recognised on Late Norse rapid assimilation of Scandinavian immigrants to sites in South Uist.75 In their cultural assemblages, anglo-Saxon cultural norms (as also seen in religious both sites demonstrate a strong maritime trade ailiation), resulting in the emergence of a hybrid dimension, with inds of ingots, weights and hack- ‘anglo-Scandinavian’ identity.78 silver, combined imported objects from Dublin the discovery of Viking-inspired ornamental and other centres of production demonstrating that metalwork on excavated settlements and by metal- these communities were keyed into Viking networks detector enthusiasts has played a crucial role in extending across the Irish Sea and further aield. hey helping to map the spread of this identity across the also share examples of so-called ‘Irish Sea’ metalwork – countryside, augmenting the evidence provided by roundel-decorated buckles and strap-ends, hexagonal place-names with which the metalwork corpus shares bronze bells and lobe-headed pins – relecting the a broadly complementary Danelaw distribution emergence of a distinct regional culture spread within (Figure 4.8). While material of Scandinavian the ambit of Norse acculturation.76 manufacture is rare from excavated settlements, the rapidly expanding corpus of metal-detector inds (ii) England recorded through the portable antiquities Scheme he settlement archaeology of the english Danelaw does include a growing contingent of Viking brooches has proved remarkably resistant to the identiication almost certainly transported across the North Sea by 58 Gabor homas Figure 4.8. Find locations of late ninth- to tenth-century Anglo-Scandinavian strap-ends shown against the background distribution of all contemporary strap-ends from Britain. (Source homas 2000, with additions)  4. he Prehistory of Medieval Farms and Villages: From Saxons to Scandinavians 59 female immigrants covering the social spectrum.79 densely populated regions of england and Ireland. Scandinavian acculturation is otherwise evidenced clearly, we need to harness alternative strategies. One by styles of brooch and belt-itting fusing Viking potential model is the targeting of currently occupied and native anglo-Saxon elements, a hybrid fashion village cores, as successfully deployed by a growing popularised across the Danelaw in both urban and number of university-led research projects in lowland rural environments.80 at cottam, a rare example england. although test-pitting faces limitations in of a metal-detected site sampled by excavation, it aceramic zones, allied with geophysics it nevertheless has even been possible to link the emergence of constitutes a useful methodology for pinpointing Scandinavian-inluenced metalwork styles with a archaeological features – structural footprints, localised settlement shift, suggesting that ‘anglo- boundary ditches, rubbish pits and graves – which Scandinavian’ identity was closely bound with new can provide crucial evidence for the embryonic history patterns of lordship.81 of rural settlements he latter site joins a growing corpus of excavated another part of the solution, addressing the settlements in the Danelaw ofering opportunities for diiculty of locating early medieval sites using standard investigating Scandinavian inluence on expressions of forms of prospection, lies with predictive modelling status within settlements – arguably a more proitable drawing upon historic landscape characterisation and line of enquiry than attempting to assign ethnic labels place-names. Studies of this kind have proliferated to their inhabitants. as long appreciated by historians in recent years in response to the current vogue for and place-name scholars, one of the primary landscape archaeology, but in most cases the models mechanisms underpinning Viking land-taking in generated remain to be tested by archaeological the Danelaw was the takeover of existing estates ieldwork. to take just one example, analysis of the by Scandinavian elites, a process which disrupted historical landscape of the western Sussex Weald and prevailing patterns of lordship and accelerated the neighbouring Surrey has identiied a distinctive class fragmentation of landholdings.82 he initiation of of arc-shaped boundary (deined by roads and streams) settlement nucleation at raunds, relected inter alia conjectured to represent pre-conquest settlement and in the establishment of an ‘anglo-Scandinavian’ farm land-use: targeting these features could bring much- with a high-status focus (subsequently revamped needed evidence to bear on the character of anglo- into the Late Saxon manorial compound with its Saxon settlement within the Andredeswald.84 long-range complex), is suiciently closely dated by Metal-detector inds recorded through the portable ceramics to speculate that the lord responsible for antiquities Scheme hold enormous potential for these aggrandisements, if not necessarily Scandinavian locating sites and reconstructing early medieval by descent, belonged to a landowning elite who must settlement patterns in england and Wales, yet the have directly proited from the changed political resource remains under-utilised. he Viking and anglo- circumstances triggered by Viking settlement in the Saxon Landscape and economy project hosted by the Danelaw.83 University of York has drawn attention to this potential and begun to address a series of methodological issues involved with interpreting metal-detector sites against Conclusions and future research directions other sources of archaeological data.85 considerable In summary, the archaeological resource for early uncertainty surrounds the characterisation of sites medieval settlement in Britain and Ireland is unevenly identiied through ploughsoil signatures (including distributed in the extreme. One of the imperatives of those falling within the so-called ‘productive site’ future research must be to generate more high-quality category) and how to relate them to conceptions of data for the black holes – the south-east lowlands settlement hierarchy and site function derived from of Scotland, Wales and north-west england, to excavated data.86 For this reason it is encouraging to see name some of the most obvious candidates. Future a new generation of scholars confront this issue head discoveries will doubtless come to light through on by targeting productive sites in eastern england commercial archaeology, but this mechanism will with an integrated survey methodology – combining never yield for these zones what it has for more ield-walking, metal-detecting, geochemical survey 60 Gabor homas and trial-trenching – previously applied to early together of such evidence from grey literature and medieval rural settlements in Denmark.87 unpublished excavation archives would provide the Moving on to issues of interpretation, the basis for a much richer appreciation of the ritual and settlement archaeology of the early medieval period symbolic life of the rural peasantry during an age of remains considerably under-theorised, especially religious transition. in comparison to contemporary cemeteries and In addition to looking inwards, the landscape landscapes studied from a christian/ideological context of early medieval settlements – how perspective. as seen, this imbalance is starting to be they articulated with routeways, boundaries and redressed by studies examining trends in settlement topographic settings – also deserves closer attention, morphology and timber building construction as harnessing the power of interdisciplinary perspectives a relection of broader socio-economic change.88 informed by place-names, historical and cartographic Yet, with the exception of a thought-provoking sources.94 More regional studies are also needed to examination of the origins of the english village viewed investigate the interplay between settlements and from the perspective of feudal power relations,89 little rural intensiication, particularly in relation to the attempt has been made to interrogate early medieval exploitation of specialised ecological niches such as settlements as ‘dynamic social arenas’.90 his situation wetlands and woodlands, an aim calling for a tighter could be remedied by harnessing spatial analysis and integration of zooarchaeological and environmental phenomenological approaches focusing on inter- assemblages in the process of site interpretation. relationships between buildings, viewsheds, access a preliminary study based on data gathered from points and movement through settlements. But if we extensive coastal surveys in eastern england certainly are to gain a more nuanced appreciation of the social highlights the potential of this approach, showing life of early medieval rural settlements it is important that, contrary to existing models of early medieval that analysis is extended beyond the conceptual wetland colonisation, viable settlement could be frame of structures and the built environment to a achieved before the construction of permanent sea consideration of who did what where – namely, the defences by weighting cereal production towards spatial context of daily activities. salt-tolerant barley.95 Of course, rural settlements and the daily travails Ultimately, the construction of more sophisticated of an agricultural existence were themselves ritualised interpretative models for early medieval farms and domains within early medieval society. It should be villages will depend upon situating the British Isles in remembered that during the period under review, the their european context; after all, the rural transitions ‘christianisation’ of early medieval Britain and Ireland examined in this chapter were responses to socio- was a long way from being fully actualised: long- economic trends of continental scale and magnitude. standing expressions of ‘folk magic’ and superstitious Beyond the arena of Scandinavian settlement where practice endemic to rural communities attuned to the issues of migration and ethnicity form a central focus natural world were evidently tolerated by the ledgling of study, native archaeologists working in the later church or else reassigned new meaning within a centuries of the irst millennium ad all too rarely christianised milieu.91 relevant here is a growing stray beyond national boundaries in seeking broader repertoire of isolated graves and unaccompanied comparisons and frameworks for interpreting rural cemeteries recovered from rural settlements of the settlements and landscapes. Such isolationism stands seventh to ninth centuries in both england and at odds with a period which is otherwise celebrated Ireland, evidence that, in the period before churchyard for expanding trade networks, the forging of dynastic burial was established as the norm, houses, property alliances between emergent european states, and the and the domestic sphere exerted a powerful inluence unifying inluence of christianity and monasticism. over the burial of certain individuals.92 hese human Studies which have attempted to bridge national burials belong to a wider spectrum of ritual deposits fault-lines96 serve as a reminder that we have much – in an anglo-Saxon context, dubbed ‘special deposits’ still to learn about how early medieval communities – now being recognised on rural settlements across native to the British Isles emulated, adapted and early medieval Britain and Ireland.93 he pulling resisted continental inluences, whether in relation to  4. he Prehistory of Medieval Farms and Villages: From Saxons to Scandinavians 61 the organisation of farms, the construction of houses, he Archaeology of Early Christian Ireland (London, and the logistics of rural production. 1996). recent Irish case-studies appear in a series of an overall assessment of developments in the ield publications by the National roads authority, e.g. J. over the past ten years indicates that the study of O’Sullivan and M. Stanley (ed.), Settlement, Industry early medieval rural settlements in the British Isles and Ritual (2006). Works speciically dealing with has reached a turning-point. One senses a growing Scandinavian settlement in these regions include: mood of self-relection amongst period specialists as J. Graham-campbell and c. Batey’s Vikings in they cast a critical eye over the past and turn attention Scotland (edinburgh, 1997), M. redknap’s The to the future. type-sites, models and paradigms Vikings in Wales (cardif, 2000), and the following inherited from the pioneering generations of the edited volumes: t. Larsen’s, he Vikings in Ireland discipline of medieval archaeology – from the origins (roskilde, 2001) and h. B. clarke, r. O’Floinn and of the english village to the economy of the Irish M. Mhaonaigh’s Ireland and Scandinavia in the Early rath – are in the process of being overturned and re- Viking Age (Dublin, 1998). evaluated in the wake of new data and new approaches For anglo-Saxon england, a. reynolds’ Later to interpretation. he next decade promises to be Anglo-Saxon England (Stroud, 1999) remains a deining era in early medieval settlement studies as fundamental source, while various aspects of the archaeologists apply themselves to understanding and rural scene will receive updated treatment in the interpreting the complexity and diversity which we Oxford Handbook in Anglo-Saxon Archaeology (edited now know to characterise the prehistory of medieval by h. hamerow, S. crawford and D. hinton, farms and villages. Oxford 2011). N. J. higham and M. J. ryan (eds), he Landscape Archaeology of Anglo-Saxon England Further reading (Woodbridge, 2010) contains several valuable papers an overview of early medieval settlements in celtic- on settlements, ields, farming and the environment. speaking regions of Britain and Ireland can be found S. rippon’s Beyond the Medieval Village (Oxford, in L. Laing’s he Archaeology of Celtic Britain and 2008), the latest in a long line of books to discuss the Ireland c. AD 400–1200 (cambridge, 2006) and in origins of the english village, provides an engaging contributions to p. Staford (ed.), A Companion to the synthesis with an extensive bibliography covering a Early Middle Ages: Britain and Ireland c. 500–1100 wide range of regional case-studies. For an overview (London, 2009) (nb. S. crawford, ‘Settlement and of metal-detected rural settlements see t. pestell and social diferentiation’, pp. 432–445). a further key K. Ulmschneider’s edited work Markets in Early source examining the rural landscape of mainland Medieval Europe: Trading and ‘Productive Sites’ 650– Britain is p. Fowler’s Farming in the First Millennium: 850 (Macclesield, 2003). Scandinavian settlement in British Farming between Julius Caesar and William the england is covered by the following edited volumes: Conqueror (cambridge, 2002). For more detailed D. M. hadley, and J. D. richards’s Cultures in examinations of Scotland, Wales and Ireland Contact: Scandinavian Settlement in England in the respectively, see S. Foster’s Picts, Gaels and Scots Ninth and Tenth Centuries (turnhout, 2000) and J. (edinburgh, 2004), N. edwards and a. Lane’s Graham-campbell, r. hall, J. Jesch and D. parsons’ edited volume Early Medieval Settlements in Wales Vikings and the Danelaw (Oxford, 2001). AD 400–1100 (Bangor, 1988) and N. edwards’ Notes 6. rippon 2008, 12–26. 1. For Ireland, see Kinsella 2010. 7. roberts and Wrathmell 2002, 124 and 144, ig. 2. Lynn 1991; parker pearson et al. 2004a. 1.1. 3. Wickham 2005. 8. rippon 2008, 13. 4. arnold and Wardle 1981. 9. Jones and page 2004. 5. hamerow 1991. 10. Brown and Foard 1998. 62 Gabor homas 11. he evidence is pulled together in rippon 2007 and 54. Sykes 2004, 2007. rippon 2010. 55. hinton 2005. 12. Brown and Foard 1998. 56. Williams 1992; Morris 1989: 227–274; reynolds 13. Gerrard with aston 2007; Lewis 2007; Lewis 2010. 1999, 112–134. 14. Jones and page 2006, 104. 57. homas 2010b. 15. parry 2006. 58. cunlife 1976. 16. Oosthuizen 2010, 130. 59. audouy and chapman 2009, 28–31; Beresford 17. Mortimer, regan and Lucy 2005; Mortimer 2000; 1975. Losco-Bradley and Kinsley 2002. 60. Wade-Martins 1980; allen 2004; Gardiner 18. reynolds 2003, 2005. forthcoming. 19. addyman 1969; hey 2004. 61. hadley and richards 2000. 20. richards 2002. 62. For a recent overview see hall 2007. 21. audouy and chapman 2009. 63. Barrett 2004. 22. reynolds 2003; hamerow 2010. 64. Discussed in Barrett 2008. 23. reynolds 2003, 130. 65. Graham-campbell and Batey 1997, 160–164. 24. Gardiner 2004; homas 2010b, 189–193. 66. Barrett 2008, 415–418. 25. O’rourke 2006. 67. Sharples and parker pearson 1999. 26. Fitzpatrick 2009; Kinsella 2010. 68. parker pearson et al. 2004a, 125–144. 27. Kerr 2007, 116. 69. For relevant sites see Wilson 2008, 87–104. 28. Mccormick 2008; Mccormick and Murray 2007. 70. Wallace 1992. 29. Kerr 2007; Mccormick and Murray 2007. 71. clarke 1998. 30. Seaver 2006. 72. Ó’Néill 2006; Johnson 2004, 66–70. 30 Sharples and parker pearson 1999. 73. Sheehan 2008; Simpson 2005; O’Donovan 2008. 31 rippon 2006; rippon 2008, 122–137. 74. redknap 2000: 69–87; Griiths, philpott and egan 32 turner 2006e; herring 2006. 2007, 58–76. 33 campbell and Lane 1994. 75. Sharples and parker pearson 1999. 34. Quinnell 2004. 76. Griiths 2004. 35. turner 2006d, 30. 77. coggins 2004; King 2004. 36. Bruce-Mitford 1997. 78. richards 2000. 37. For an overview see Laing 2006, 31–63; crawford 79. Leahy and patterson 2001; Kershaw 2009. 2006. 80. homas 2000. 38. alcock 1988; alcock 2003. 81. richards 2002. 39. aitchison 2006; Morris 1996; redknap and Lane 82. hadley 2006, 84–89. 1994. 83. audouy and chapman 2009, 51. 40. carver 2008; Lowe 2008. 84. chatwin and Gardiner 2006. 41. patterson 1994. 85. Naylor and richards 2006. 42. Warner 1988. 86. pestell and Ulmschneider 2003. 43. Stout 1991; Kerr 2007. 87. Davies 2010. 44. For overview see edwards 1990. 88. reynolds 2003; hamerow 2010; Gardiner 2004. 45. comber 2008. 89. Saunders 2000. 46. e.g. O’Sullivan et al. 2007. 90. hamerow 2010. 47. crawford 2006 91. pluskowski and patrick 2003. 48. Loveluck 2001; Blair 1996; Blair 2005, 204–211. 92. Zadora-rio 2003; hadley 2007; astill 2009. 49. Ulmschneider 2000; pestell and Ulmschneider 93. hamerow 2005; O’Sullivan 2008; homas 2008; 2003. parker pearson 2006. 50. hardy, charles and Williams 2007. 94. reynolds 2009. 51. Faith 1997. 95. Murphy 2010. 52. Williams 1993; Gardiner et al. 1991; thomas 96. See published proceedings of themed conferences 2010a. organised under the auspices of Ruralia, e.g. Klápšte˘ 53. Senecal 2001. 2002.