The Ancient Ways of Wessex tells the story of Wessex’s roads in the early medieval period, at the point at which they first emerge in the historical record. This is the age of the Anglo-Saxons and an era that witnessed the rise of a kingdom that was taken to the very brink of defeat by the Viking invasions of the ninth century. It is a period that goes on to become one within which we can trace the beginnings of the political entity we have come to know today as England. In a series of ten detailed case studies the reader is invited to consider historical and archaeological evidence, alongside topographic information and ancient place-names, in the reconstruction of the networks of routeways and communications that served the people and places of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex. Whether you were a peasant, pilgrim, drover, trader, warrior, bishop, king or queen, travel would have been fundamental to life in the early middle ages and this book explores the physical means by which the landscape was constituted to facilitate and improve the movement of people, goods and ideas from the seventh through to the eleventh centuries. What emerges is a dynamic web of interconnecting routeways serving multiple functions and one, perhaps, even busier than that in our own working countryside. A narrative of transition, one of both of continuity and change, provides a fresh and alternative window into the everyday workings of an early medieval landscape through the pathways trodden over a millennium ago.

This study reconstructs twelfth-century sculptural and architectural finds, found during the restoration of the Perpendicular Great Cloister of Christ Church, Canterbury, as architectural screens constructed around 1173. It proposes that the screens provided monastic privacy and controlled pilgrimage to the Altar of the Sword's Point in the Martyrdom, the site of Archbishop Thomas Becket's murder in 1170. Excavations in the 1990s discovered evidence of a twelfth-century tunnel leading to the Martyrdom under the crossing of the western transept. Construction would have required rebuilding the crossing stairs and the screens flanking the crossing. The roundels, portraying lions, devils, a 'pagan', Jews, and a personification of the synagogue, are reconstructed on the south side of the crossing as a screening wall framing the entrance to this tunnel. The quatrefoils with images of Old Testament prophets are reconstructed as a rood screen on the west side of the crossing. In the Martyrdom, a screen is proposed with perhaps the earliest known sculptural representation of Thomas Becket. The rood screen, located behind the Altar of the Holy Cross, would have provided a visual focus during Mass, monastic processions, and sermons, especially during Christmas and Holy Week. The row of prophets, pointing upwards at the Rood, would have functioned as the visual equivalent of the dialogue of the ‘Ordo prophetarum’ that predicted the Messiah as proof to Jews and other unbelievers of Christian redemption. The roundels, just around the corner on the south screening wall, can be interpreted as representing the unbelieving Other and forces of evil warning pilgrims to seek penance at the altar of the newly canonized St Thomas. In addition to this new interpretation, a catalog raisonné and an account of the discovery of the finds offers material for future research that has been unavailable to previous studies. All the finds were photographed by the author as the restoration progressed;16 pieces of which have since been lost, making some of the unpublished photographs essential evidence of the archaeological record.

This edited volume explores how (what is today) Scotland can be compared with, contrasted to, or was connected with other parts of Early Medieval Europe. Far from a ‘dark age’, Early Medieval Scotland (AD 300–900) was a crucible of different languages and cultures, the world of the Picts, Scots, Britons and Anglo-Saxons. Though long regarded as somehow peripheral to continental Europe, people in Early Medieval Scotland had mastered complex technologies and were part of sophisticated intellectual networks. This cross-disciplinary volume includes contributions focussing on archaeology, artefacts, art-history and history, and considers themes that connect Scotland with key processes and phenomena happening elsewhere in Europe. Topics explored include the transition from Iron Age to Early Medieval societies and the development of secular power centres, the Early Medieval intervention in prehistoric landscapes, and the management of resources necessary to build kingdoms.

Torre Abbey is one of the more impressive monastic sites in Devon, both as a ruin and as a conversion to a comfortable post-medieval mansion. Founded in 1196 as a house of the Premonstratensian ‘White Canons’, the church and the monastic buildings round the cloister were built soon after and not greatly modified in later medieval changes. Converted to domestic use after the Dissolution, the Abbot’s house and part of the cloister was for 300 years the home of the Cary family, and it continued as the home of their successors until 1930 when it was acquired by Torquay Borough Council. A major programme of excavation was undertaken on the church by the Exeter Museums Archaeological Field Unit in the 1980s, followed by a series of above-ground investigations of the historic building fabric. A later phase of museum reordering and redisplay led to further exploratory work by Museum of London Archaeology, and then by Oxford Archaeology. This report publishes the results of the excavations and building surveys, including the architectural development of the abbey church and claustral buildings, discoveries made in removing render from the walls of the monastic refectory, and changes made for the post-medieval mansion. Geophysical surveys suggest that much more remains to be discovered on the site. The finds include an impressive collection of worked stone from medieval monuments and architectural features, an important group of ceramic paving tiles, and tantalising remains of stained glass windows. This fully illustrated publication brings to a close a major enterprise in the 30-year investigation of the site and buildings under the auspices of the Torbay Council.

This book is the culmination of the author’s lifelong interest in the Roman to medieval transition in England and in the analysis of the historic landscape of Wessex. It begins with a focused, referenced, and critical exploration of the thorny, but crucial, issues of post-Roman personal and group identity, employing linguistic, historical, archaeological and toponymical evidence. A series of integrated studies seek to elucidate changes in the territorial organisation of the Wessex landscape, from Somerset to Hampshire, from the Roman period to the emergence of the historic counties. It is shown that the defined limits of the self-governed Roman civitates had a significant impact upon subsequent historical developments, not least on the early English settlements. In eastern Wessex - Berkshire, Hampshire and Wiltshire – the Roman boundaries broke down piecemeal, but continued to influence political developments and patterns of settlement into the seventh century. It is argued that those three counties acquired their medieval and later form only at the time of the Viking wars. In western Wessex, Dorset and Somerset, by contrast, the core of the territories of both the southern and northern Durotriges in the Roman period has persisted until the present day. The book also includes a re-examination of the formation and extent of the kingdom of the Jutes in southern Hampshire and on the Isle of Wight. The chronology, history and archaeology of the fifth century, set alongside the many changes of the later fourth century, and vital to our understanding of the momentous events of that time as Saxon control took hold in the east , are here the subject of a separate, detailed study. Place-names across Wessex with a bearing on the presence of the Britons, and the changing nature and distribution of archaeological sites in the fifth, sixth and seventh centuries, are discussed in their historical context.

Hadrian Cook’s new account of the New Forest in southern England provides an historical narrative of the occupation and use of a vast area that was, for centuries, important as a Royal Hunting Forest and subject to many contentious laws and regulations, but which includes much economically marginal land. Four critical themes are explored through time: the shaping of the natural environment into human prehistory; human intervention through natural resource management; governance and management of the forest over time, stressing pressures on resources and attempts at exclusion of certain social groups; and policies and designations to conserve the New Forest. Cook aims to reflect a complicated narrative around the evolution caused by changing management and economic objectives reflecting governance arrangements at different times. Once the domain of kings, the New Forest is today, in effect, open-access, largely state-owned land, famous for its pretty villages, mosaic of moorland and woodland, roaming horses and cattle, diverse wildlife and miles of open countryside. But this tranquillity belies a complex and contested history.

This edited volume sets out the work of a team of scholars from Northwestern University and the University of Southampton led by Matthew Johnson, in collaboration with the National Trust. Between 2010 and 2014, different members of the group carried out topographical, geophysical and building survey at four different late medieval sites and landscapes in south-eastern England, all owned and managed by the National Trust: Bodiam, Scotney, Knole and Ightham. Studies were also undertaken into documentary, map and other evidence. A particularly important element of the research was to synthesise and re-present the ‘grey literature’ at all four sites. This volume seeks to present this work and discuss its archaeological and historical importance. It places the four sites and their landscapes in their setting, as part of the wider landscape of south-east England. It discusses the importance of these places in understanding later medieval elite sites and landscapes in general, and in terms of their long-term biographies and contexts. Central to the volume are the linked ideas of lived experience and political ecology in presenting a new understanding of late medieval sites and landscapes.

Mary Magdalene and the Virgin Mary continue to intrigue and fascinate us to this day. Their appearances in the Bible are brief, piquing our curiosity and compelling speculation about the unknown years of their lives. This volume contains modern translations of plays performed during the late Middle Ages in England about the lives of the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene. These plays provide a link between canonical Scripture, apocryphal and gnostic materials from the first centuries of Christianity that survived secreted or in oral tradition, legendary materials that developed over the ensuing centuries, and contemporary medieval religious belief and practices. Materials from the N-Town Mary and other plays contain episodes about the childhood of the Virgin, her betrothal and marriage to Joseph, and her time after the death of Christ. The Digby Mary Magdalene begins with an account of the death of Mary Magdalene’s father, her subsequent fall into promiscuity, her redemption, her journey to convert Marseille and thus christianize France, her later years as a hermit and her death. These plays illustrate one way in which Biblical materials were available to lay people before the printing of the Bible. Reading these plays of the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene from the late Middle Ages increases our understanding of the history of the Marian and Magdalene traditions practiced in earlier centuries, as well as our understanding of what these women have come to represent today, shedding light on how their images have shaped the roles for women in the Church.

The Southampton brokage books are the best source for English inland trade before modern times . Internal trade always matched overseas trade. Between 1430 and 1540 the brokage series records all departures through Southampton’s Bargate, the owner, carter, commodity, quantity, destination and date, and many deliveries too. Twelve such years make up the database that illuminates Southampton’s trade with its extensive region at the time when the city was at its most important as the principal point of access to England for the exotic spices and dyestuffs imported by the Genoese. If Southampton’s international traffic was particularly important, the town’s commerce was representative also of the commonplace trade that occurred throughout England. Seventeen papers investigate Southampton’s interaction with Salisbury, London, Winchester, and many other places, long-term trends and short-term fluctuations. The rise and decline of the Italian trade, the dominance of Salisbury and emergence of Jack of Newbury, the recycling of wealth and metals from the dissolved monasteries all feature here. Underpinning the book are 32 computer-generated maps and numerous tables, charts, and graphs, with guidance provided as to how best to exploit and extend this remarkable resource.An accompanying web-mounted database (http://www.overlandtrade.org) enables the changing commerce to be mapped and visualised through maps and trade to be tracked week by week and over a century. Together the book and database provide a unique resource for Southampton, its trading partners, traders and carters, freight traffic and the genealogies of the middling sort.

This atlas is the definitive account in maps and words of the historic royal towns of Windsor and Eton. There has never been an account of the history of Eton town, and although Windsor Castle has been much studied, the last historical account of the town of Windsor was published as long ago as 1858.The atlas contains high-quality and original maps of the two towns at key periods between the twelfth and nineteenth centuries. At the heart of the atlas lies a detailed and minutely researched map showing all the major medieval and post-medieval features in the context of a large-scale map of the towns around 1870, using Ordnance Survey maps as a source. The substantial introduction to the history of these distinctive towns charts their development over eight centuries. The atlas is presented as a large-format, high-quality A3 folder, with maps and illustrations printed at A2, allowing clear detail to be seen.All the buildings, historic sites and streets named on the maps are comprehensively documented in a detailed gazetteer, covering the history of the sites and the many sources used in compiling the maps. The value of the atlas is enhanced by the inclusion of numerous colour illustrations, including early maps and views of the towns, many of them previously unknown.For the first time, new research by historians, archaeologists and cartographers has been brought together to compile this unique and original portfolio.

Situated in what now seems a remote corner of south-west Scotland, Wigtown was once an important county town. With its harbour and location at the lowest fording point of the River Cree, Wigtown was at one time part of a major network of land and sea routes, including a pilgrim route to Whithorn. The layout of the town is notable for its large market square, a reflection of its importance in the cattle trade in the medieval period. The town achieved burgh status in the thirteenth century, by which time it was an important trading centre, and the present arrangement of streets and burgage plots dates to this time. Today the principal access route is from the north, rather than through the East and West Ports which controlled access to the great market place. The burgh arms depict a three-masted sailing ship, demonstrating the importance placed on its maritime trade. This book examines both the town’s political history, as it passed between the earldoms of Wigtown and Douglas, and its economic history, as it competed with Whithorn, before its eventual decline in the later nineteenth century. The authors use the surviving buildings to examine the development of the town from the medieval to the modern period. This book is part of the Scottish Burgh Survey – a series funded by Historic Scotland designed to identify the archaeological potential of Scotland’s historic towns.

Excavations carried out by Oxford Archaeology in advance of the building of the Oracle shopping centre revealed a long sequence of development of the Kennet floodplain at Reading. This volume reports on the substantial evidence recovered for medieval and post-medieval water management, milling at the Minster Mill and St Giles Mill, the tanning, leather working and dyeing industries, and an unusual building interpreted as the 12th- to 13th-century cookhouse of Reading Abbey. The stories of two well-known Reading sites, the Oracle Workhouse and the Yield Hall, are followed from the medieval period up to the 19th century. Substantial specialist reports include pottery, glass, leatherworking, dendrochronology and clay pipes.

This volume contains the results of four archaeological projects undertaken within the historic suburbs of Bristol. Excavations at nos 26–28 and at nos 55–60 St Thomas Street were both within the 12th-century planned suburb of Redcliffe, just to the southeast of the medieval city. Investigations at Harbourside and at Cabot House, Deanery Road, were undertaken in the medieval district of Billeswick, to the southwest of the city centre and in the vicinity of Bristol Cathedral, formerly the church of the 12th-century St Augustine’s Abbey. However, it is the general lack of evidence for significant development at these sites throughout the medieval and post-medieval periods and up to the beginning of the 18th century that provides a common theme.The scarcity of evidence for medieval and post-medieval development at the Billeswick sites, Cabot House and Harbourside, is unsurprising as both were in the ownership of the abbey or cathedral throughout this period, and were clearly of value as undeveloped land, either as parkland (as at Cabot House) or meadow (i.e. Canon’s Marsh at Harbourside). The dearth of evidence from the St Thomas Street sites in Redcliffe was more unexpected, though this appears to corroborate documentary evidence suggesting that this part of the suburb remained something of a backwater into late post-medieval times. At nos 55–60, there was little evidence for anything more substantial than simple boundaries and timber structures, perhaps used for drying cloth, until the beginning of the 18th century. At nos 26–28 there was no evidence for tenements until late into the post-medieval period and the site may well have been part of a medieval grange. The development of the first substantial buildings at both St Thomas Street sites, of new streets and terraces at Cabot House, and of the ropewalks and later industrial development of Canon’s Marsh at Harbourside, all reflect the rapid expansion and building boom Bristol enjoyed in the 18th century, largely a result of the city’s involvement in the Atlantic trade.

The Guildhall has been the centre of the local government of the City of London since the 12th century. Major archaeological excavations took place between 1985 and 1999, and evidence from these is combined with historical and architectural analysis to create an integrated history of the Guildhall. Beginning with the first hall of the 12th century, the book describes later halls and precinct buildings from the 14th to the 20th centuries. Good organic survival preserved evidence in an 11th- and 12th-century parish churchyard and for a number of adjacent timber houses. This wide-ranging volume highlights other themes from the medieval and later periods, including evidence for medieval Jewish occupation, the cloth market of Blackwell Hall, inns, craft activity and two parish churches.

A collection of 10 essays on Early Welsh. Contents: The etymology of Welsh chwith and the semantics and morphology of PIE *k(w)sweibh- ( Peter Schrijver ); Rowynniauc , Rhufoniog : the orthography and phonology of /m/ in Early Welsh ( Paul Russell ); Old English literacy and the provenance of Welsh y ( Peter Kitson ); Two developments in medieval literary Welsh and their implications for dating texts ( Simon Rodway ); The structure and typology of prepositional relative clauses in Early Welsh ( Graham Isaac ); The dry point glosses in Oxoniensis Posterior ( Alexander Falileyev and Paul Russell ); The Old Welsh glosses on Weights and Measures ( Pierre-Yves Lambert ); Marwnad Cunedda a diwedd y Brydain Rufeinig ( John T Koch ); Are there elements of non-standard language in the work of the Gogynfeirdd? ( Peter Busse ); The Progressive in Ystorya Bown de Hamtwn ( Erich Poppe ).

This volume brings together the results of two evaluation and excavation projects undertaken by Oxford Archaeological Unit at Eynsham Abbey between 1991 and 1993. It reports on the medieval moated site and associated fishponds, the late Anglo-Saxon/medieval abbey, and finds, together with discussion.