Dec 20, 2018 - religious) who sanctioned the removal/relocation or destruction of such ... Case studies in Part II range from Sagalassos in Asia Minor (Jacobs discusses ..... theme of small finds (seals, glass, household objects), as well as a greater ..... it to osteologists, archaeologists and all students of the Viking Age.
Medieval Archaeology
ISSN: 0076-6097 (Print) 1745-817X (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ymed20
Book Reviews To cite this article: (2018) Book Reviews, Medieval Archaeology, 62:2, 424-469, DOI: 10.1080/00766097.2018.1535389 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00766097.2018.1535389
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Medieval Archaeology, 62/2, 2018
Book Reviews The Last Statues of Antiquity. Edited by R R R Smith & Bryan Ward-Perkins. 20 25 cm. xxxiii þ 410 pp, 212 b&w pls and figs. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. ISBN 978-0-19-875332-2. Price: £100.00 hb. The Afterlife of Greek and Roman Sculpture. Late Antique Responses and Practices. Edited by Troels Myrup Kristensen & Lea Stirling. 16 24 cm. vii þ 424 pp, 98 b&w pls and figs, 1 table. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 2016. ISBN 978-0-47211969-1. Price: £69.95 hb.
Combined, these two volumes provide fascinating insights into evolving attitudes to statuary in the Roman Empire across (and partly beyond) Late Antiquity: from changes in statue forms, dedicants, placements and audiences to altered mentalities in terms of the breaking up and reuse of ancient sculptures. The evidence presented enables important images to be generated of late-Roman period and late antique towns as arenas of display and/or non-display and allows us to ask more of the authorities (both secular and religious) who sanctioned the removal/relocation or destruction of such works and even of the ordinary folk who undertook such spoliation. But a key result of the first volume, The Last Statues of Antiquity, is to reveal that the ‘statue habit’ in Late Antiquity (and even earlier) was not very widespread and thus many cities and territories were not heavyweight participants in statuary display, or at least not in terms of honorific busts and images after the early Empire, even if those places are known to have been active and politically important in the late Empire — such as in Gaul, which has yielded just nine statues/bases for the period AD 284–450 (chapters 3–9 cover ‘Regions’). By contrast, the habit was old and persistent in Greece and the islands (270 known instances to the mid-5th century AD) and Asia Minor (c 490, extending into the 6th century AD), yet was also much pursued in North Africa (400 bases and statues, but ceasing from the early 5th century). Not all eastern provinces needed to be ‘statue active’: Egypt, important to the State for grain, marble and slaves, presents just 47 examples. This monograph is the main printed output of a major Arts and Humanities Research Council funded project, and a very successful work of collaboration across countries, museums and academic institutions; all leading to an impressive (free) searchable database, comprising some 1630 statue inscriptions and over 870 statuary pieces at . Various of the collaborators in data gathering and analysis appear as collaborators in the monograph in regional or city-based surveys (the latter cover chapters 10–17 and include Rome, Corinth, Lepcis and Gortyna) or in some of the analysis chapters (Chs 18–24) which explore themes such as ‘Women’, ‘Cultural Heroes’ and ‘Portrait Styles’. It is important to exploit all sections though, since both city and region surveys provide insights into location, patrons, reuse, local trends and loss. Key, indeed, is recognising who (individuals, authorities) persisted in the habit and why, but also asking what replaced statues and from when — here Ward-Perkins’ lucid concluding chapter discusses possible Christian 424 # Society for Medieval Archaeology 2018
DOI: 10.1080/00766097.2018.1535389
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influences (eg ‘distrust of three-dimensional ‘idols’, nudged patrons … towards being honoured in paintings or mosaics’ — p 306). The Afterlife of Greek and Roman Sculpture offers 14 contributions in addition to the editors’ detailed introduction. This stresses the need to understand the many lives of statuary — from inception and display (where, for how long, who for?) to possible relocation, re-carving, loss, discard, reuse, re-discovery, restoration and re-display (or else long-term storage). Papers consider diverse elements of these ‘afterlives’ under three main headings: Part I considers ‘Practices of Deposition and Reuse’, Part II offers ‘Regional Perspectives’ and Part III gathers four chapters under ‘Grand Narratives’. There is much excellent research and interpretation on offer here: within the latter section, Liverani also sees the ‘sunset of 3D’ as tied to Christian preference for paneltype portraiture; Stirling compares statuary display in late Roman-period public baths and elite houses, charting (mainly Christian) hostility against mythological imagery (especially nudes) in public venues; while Greenhalgh uses records by 18th- and 19thcentury travellers to show the enduring visibility of many statues in eastern and North African classical sites — these mainly, it should be stressed, long abandoned — until tourism, museum growth and robbing for settlement modernisation accelerated loss. Case studies in Part II range from Sagalassos in Asia Minor (Jacobs discusses 6th-century street statuary (re)display) and Corinth in Greece (Brown neatly considers the marking of ancient sculptures, notably busts, with crosses), to cityscapes in Sicily and late domus at Ostia in Italy, but include useful analyses of finds in frontier regions such as Roman Germany (with Kiernan’s excellent discussion of, in particular, the fates of JupiterGiant columns, owing varied agents of destruction or ‘closure’) and Moesia and Dacia on the Lower Danube (here, Alexandrescu’s preliminary overview highlights the common issue of materials now out of context, poor early excavation records and reliance on historical dates for ‘ends’). Those in Part I range from recognising earthquake damage at Antioch (Kristensen), to sculptural sacrifices to lime kilns in late Roman-period or postvilla contexts (Munro), and a clever reconsideration of the fragmentary remains/scraps of metal sculpture (such metal works will inevitably remain largely unknown in the Roman world) in Roman Britain (Croxford). This is certainly a book that I will mine and reuse! NEIL CHRISTIE
(University of Leicester)
Kingdom, Civitas, and County: The Evolution of Territorial Identity in the English Landscape. By Stephen Rippon. 18 25 cm. xxii þ 438 pp, 122 b&w pls and figs, 33 tables. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. ISBN 978-0-19-875937-9. Price: £85.00 hb.
The ambition of this important study is to trace the degree of continuity between IronAge tribal territories, Roman civitates and early Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. Hitherto, the most widely accepted model of Anglo-Saxon kingdom formation has been analogous to a football tournament, whereby a profusion of competing groups gradually coalesced into a handful of larger kingdoms which absorbed the territories of their weaker neighbours, until Wessex was finally declared the winner in the 10th century. This presupposes the familiar story that the landscape of 5th- and 6th-century Britain was highly fragmented in the vacuum that followed the departure of Roman authority, allowing this early medieval Game of Thrones to play out largely unencumbered by the regional structures that had gone before. Rippon’s approach to this question is to assemble a truly impressive body of mainly archaeological data, in a way which would have been impossible only a decade or two
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ago, but feasible now not least due to the profusion of developer-led excavations and the advent of the Portable Antiquities Scheme. He systematically maps these data through time in order to establish whether territories and boundaries persist or dissolve, as represented by distributions of everything from pottery styles and coins to burial traditions and the plan-forms of villas, laid against contextual information such as place-name evidence, land quality and topography. The last of these is key, since where political boundaries correspond to significant natural features — such as large rivers or escarpments — it can be impossible to untangle whether the same polity has endured, or whether a succession of unrelated leaders have repeatedly chosen the same obvious boundary for their state. Rippon largely sidesteps this riddle of environmental determinism by confining his study to an area of eastern England north of the Thames (essentially modern-day East Anglia, Essex, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire) that is relatively free of significant natural features. In so doing he establishes that the regional patterns of IronAge communities were not erased by the Roman Empire, but persisted to frame territorial structures into which the earliest Anglo-Saxon kingdoms embedded their identities. Within this, a significant finding is the genuine absence of archaeological evidence for diagnostically Germanic activity in the northern Thames Basin during the 5th and 6th centuries, pointing to the survival of a significant Romano-British kingdom around what would later become Essex and Middlesex. He also identifies a suite of ‘persistent places’ which recur on the same liminal sites as boundary-markers, such as hillforts, temples, votive sites, pottery kilns and markets. To this list could be added assembly places and execution sites, which have been argued to have defined the transition from one kingdom to another: the ‘persistent places’ of Pegsdon in Bedfordshire and Haddenham in the Fens are associated with a ‘Tingley’ and a ‘Mutlow Hill’, respectively. An obvious strength of this book is its transcendence of the time periods into which scholarship is usually divided: Iron Age, Roman and Anglo-Saxon. We all know that these are merely interpretative conveniences imposed upon the past so as to give us all something to hang on to, rather than risk drowning in a relativistic sea, but so often (myself included) we can see these as marking the limits of Medieval Archaeology’s jurisdiction. I do have, however, some grumbles: the price tag is unreasonably high; there are omissions and spelling mistakes within the (admittedly copious) bibliography; one paragraph (p 320) rejoices in no fewer than four ‘long, sinuous boundaries’; while Figure 13.4 made progressively less sense the more I stared at it. And the title of this book does not make it obvious that it confines itself entirely to East Anglia, and is hesitant to draw upon its findings to pronounce upon the degree of territorial continuity in other parts of Britain, meaning that if I was a student of Kent or Yorkshire I would risk feeling short-changed. But then this would be to miss the point. The facts now align towards there, in those places, the existence of profound continuities of identity and territory, if not of government, from the Iron Age to the Danish invasions. It is now up to scholars of other regions to build upon this excellent work. MICHAEL SHAPLAND
(University College London)
Die Rus’ im 9.–10. Jahrhundert. Ein arch€aologisches Panorama. (Studien zur Siedlungsgeschichte und Arch€aologie der Ostseegebiete. Band 14.) Edited by Nikolaj A Makarov. 23 30 cm. 540 pp, 295 colour and b&w pls and figs. Mainz: Wachholtz Murmann Publishers, 2017. ISBN 978-3-529-01374-4. Price: e59.00 hb. This substantial volume provides an overview of the archaeology of the early Rus’, a topic that is usually not readily accessible to a Western audience. The geographical area covered is vast, amounting to about 1,000 square kilometres (roughly three times the area of the British Isles); it is bordered by the lakes Ladoga and Beloye in the north, roughly the present-day Estonian/Russian and Latvian/Russian border and the southern Bug river in the west, a virtual east to west line c 200 km north of the northern Black Sea coast in the south, and a virtual north to south line c 250 km east of Moscow in the east. The book is in
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German, the translation of a Russian volume (arahjd, ff (ed), ec d IX–XI dera[: ah[ejkjubxecraz gayjhava. jcrda and ffljkjula: Lhedyjcnb edeha, 2012). The original book was supported by the Russian Foundation for Humanities in the framework of the ‘1150 Years of Russian Statehood’ programme, while the German translation was organised and supported by the Centre for Baltic and Scandinavian Archaeology (Schleswig, Germany) and the Academy of Sciences and Literature (Mainz, Germany). This extensive volume thus represents results from wide-ranging scholarly networks. A leading thought in setting up the book was to put the archaeological evidence at the centre of attention in the study of the early Rus’ and to view the results of other fields of research (mainly history) in relation to this material (p 13). The volume comprises six parts, with the first providing an overview of written sources and archaeology as a basis for research on the early Rus’ (pp 20–99); four parts covering the archaeology of distinct geographical areas within the territory of the Rus’ (the North-West, 100–69; the North-East, 170–249; the West, 250–307; and the South, 308–89), and the final part drawing conclusions on the formation of the Rus’ by considering space and power relations, including transport, trade, numismatic material, as well as the possibilities (and difficulties) of connecting archaeological and historical sources in this geographical and chronological setting (390–469). The four geographically focused parts build on contributions discussing selected sites and regions, and are written by authors from different institutions in Russia and the Ukraine, including the Russian Academy of Sciences (Institute of Archaeology, Moscow, and Institute for the History of Material Culture, Saint Petersburg), the State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, the State Historical Museum in Moscow, various institutions in Pskov in western Russia, and The National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. The authors are in many cases those researchers carrying out fieldwork at the discussed sites and regions, and thus readers receive first-hand information on not readily accessible fieldwork projects and wider regional syntheses. Discussed major sites and regions include Novgorod, Staraja Ladoga, Izborsk, Pskov (the North-West); Rostov, Timerevo, Suzdal, Beloozero (the North East); Gnezdovo, Polock (the West); Kiev and Cernigov (the South), as well as numerous sites and regions less well known to a western audience. Especially useful for those not readily familiar with the archaeology of the Rus’ are the overview maps and tables, including two maps of 9th- and 10th-century sites in the area of the Rus’, plus — produced specially for this German translated volume — one map of main sites and a table of the ‘cultures’ related to the Rus’, with their geographical and chronological specifications (pp 16–7). While the concept of ‘cultures’ might be rightfully questioned, for an orientation in previous literature about the Rus’, it helps to be familiar with the main spatial and temporal parameters of these groupings. The book features many high-quality illustrations, of finds (including many well-preserved organic objects), sites (with numerous historical excavation photos) and excavation plans. The rich bibliography (pp 475–540) will inform readers keen to engage with specific aspects in detail. The main overarching open questions relating to the archaeology of the early Rus’ are: (i) the nature, role and relative chronology of the two known centres/central areas, Novgorod (and earlier settlements, mainly Rurikovoe Grorodische and Staraja Ladoga) in the north, and Kiev in the south; and (ii) the amount and nature of Scandinavian influence on the formation of the early Rus’. While both themes will remain the subject of scholarly debates for many years to come, this book presents archaeological evidence and syntheses from a wide range of experts closely familiar with both sites and finds, and thus contributes considerably to our understanding of Rus’ formation. In order to determine if their first centre was in the Novgorod area or in Kiev, scientific dates, and their connection to archaeological stratigraphies, will doubtless play a key role in the future. Such dates are currently available for the Novgorod area, but largely missing for Kiev and other sites of the south. In summary, this richly illustrated volume, with a very reasonable price, is a significant addition to the library of any researcher interested in the archaeology of the early Rus’, as it provides a first-hand ‘archaeological panorama’ on this theme, which is a major part of the
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early medieval archaeology of eastern Europe, with far-reaching links to Scandinavia, as well as to the Byzantine and Arabic worlds. HAJNALKA HEROLD
(University of Exeter)
The Aghlabids and their Neighbors: Art and Material Culture in Ninth-Century North Africa. (Handbook of Oriental Studies. Section 1: The Near and Middle East. Volume 122). Edited by Glaire D Anderson, Corisande Fenwick & Mariam Rosser-Owen, with Sihem Lamine. 16 24 cm. xxxviii þ 688 pp, 220 b&w pls and figs, 10 tables. Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2017. ISBN 978-90-04-35566-8 (ISSN 0169-9423). Price: e189.00 hb. In 800 CE, the Abbasid Caliph Harun al-Rashid appointed Ibrahim b al-Aghlab to the hereditary emirate of the troubled region of Ifriqiya. Over the century that followed, Aghlabid rule in North Africa coincided with an extraordinary political, economic and cultural efflorescence, and its authority extended beyond the Maghreb and into the islands of the western Mediterranean. Nominally subordinate to the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad, Aghlabid Ifriqiya was effectively autonomous, and the period was something of a golden age in the region. Extensive trade networks bound Kairouan and Tunis to all of the shores of the Mediterranean and across the Sahara to West Africa. Expansive architectural programmes saw the foundation of dynastic cities and the construction of some of the most important buildings of the medieval Islamic West, including the Great Mosque of Kairouan and the Zaytuna Mosque of Tunis. And the Aghlabid court may even have been an important early landing spot for Ali b Nafi, ‘Ziryab’ (‘the Blackbird’) who would later revolutionise the Andalusi musical tradition from the court at Cordoba. Yet this world remains little known to European medievalists. The present volume seeks to redress this imbalance by bringing together a vast chorus of voices (in English and French) to celebrate the Aghlabids, and encourage their further study. In all of these aims, it succeeds admirably. The volume is divided into five parts of unequal length, each addressing different aspects of the Aghlabid polity, and often presenting different forms of evidence. Chapters in Part 1, ‘State Building’, provide the political overview of North Africa in the 8th and 9th centuries, through discussion of textual accounts of Africa in this period, the infrastructure and execution of domestic and foreign policy, and the importance of coins to the articulation of this power (it is also in this section that we learn of Ziryab’s singing at the Aghlabid court). Part 2, ‘Monuments’, focuses on the great architecture of the region. While particular attention is paid to the Mosques of Kairouan and Tunis, other chapters explore the development of Aghlabid epigraphy and African coastal fortifications of the 9th century. Part 3, ‘Ceramics’, examines the rich record of pottery production and distribution, both within Ifriqiya and across the western Mediterranean; several chapters address the economic (and demographic) links which bound Ifriqiya to Sicily and al-Andalus in particular. Part 4, ‘Neighbours’, is a particular highlight and places the Aghlabids in their wider social and political context. Chapters here examine relations between the rulers of Kairouan and emergent polities across the Maghreb. Like the Aghlabid state, these Berber polities of the 8th and 9th centuries have been much neglected, particularly in the Anglophone scholarship, and contributors here redress this imbalance admirably. The final section, labelled ‘Legacy’, consists of just two papers, these discussing a different Quranic manuscript of the Fatimid period and persuasively connects it to the Aghlabid intellectual and cultural traditions that had come before. This is a fine volume and a model for how collaborative publications of this kind should be put together. The 28 chapters (along with a generous introduction) are of a consistently high standard and are frequently genuinely inspiring to read. As the summary above may indicate, the overall range is impressively broad and the stated ambition of the editors — to set the Aghlabids simultaneously in their widest Islamic, Mediterranean and African contexts — has certainly succeeded. More might certainly have been said on the ties that bound the Aghlabid Maghreb to the lands of the Sahara and beyond (only a single chapter is oriented
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primarily to the south), but this volume does not claim to have exhausted the topic under consideration. As an elegant (collective) status quaestionis, on a much-neglected field, and a stimulus to further work, it is hard to imagine a more welcome book. ANDREW MERRILLS
(University of Leicester)
The Archaeology of Byzantine Anatolia. From the End of Late Antiquity until the Coming of the Turks. Edited by Philipp Niew€ohner. 20 26 cm. xii þ 464 pp, 173 colour and b&w pls and figs, 6 tables. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 2017. ISBN 978-0-19-0610463. Price: £94.00 hb. What a delightful and much-needed book! The archaeology of Byzantium strides courageously into Anatolia after many decades of focus around just a few key sites, such as Ephesus, Miletus, Pergamum or Sardis. Alongside various recent monographs and articles, usually concentrating on single sites, we finally have a volume that attempts a bold synthesis of evidence across Turkey, arranged into 14 themes and 24 selected sites. Archaeology in Anatolia is key to understanding the survival and transformation of Byzantium over almost a thousand years and is thus of interest to all scholars of the medieval Mediterranean and Black Sea. Yet until rather recently, Byzantium has been debated mainly on the basis of the textual evidence. Historians must now sharpen or even modify their views in the light of the material culture and the anthropological and environmental evidence. It is becoming increasingly clear that the Empire survived so as to provide mainly for the survival of Constantinople, the largest centre of medieval Christendom and hub of international exchange. Where towns were not needed, they were abandoned by the authorities; where they were needed, they were buttressed by the State and, ever more, by a powerful Eastern Church. This much is clear from the papers on fortifications, churches and monasteries, as well as from many case studies. However, there is much more to this book. Indeed, its coverage of key themes is substantial, from historical geography and transport and communication to rock-cut architecture and funerary archaeology. There are some gaps including environmental archaeology and human remains (although detail can be found on this respectively from H Baron & F Daim (eds), A Most Pleasant Scene and an Inexhaustible Resource: Steps Towards a Byzantine Environmental History, Mainz, 2017 and J R Brandt, E Hagelberg, G Bjørnstad & S Ahrens (eds), Life and Death in Asia Minor in Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine Times: Studies in Archaeology and Bioarchaeology, Oxford, 2017). Discussion of maritime archaeology is unfortunately absent as well, despite the spectacular work carried out by American scholars from their centre at Bodrum, and the recent Turkish excavations at Yeni Kapi in Istanbul (indeed, curiously, Constantinople is not included in the case studies). Elsewhere there are very good papers, but ones which occasionally needed more depth: thus the interesting paper on houses might have considered more humble and typical Byzantine dwellings such as have been unearthed at many sites, rather than concentrating on monumental architecture; economics are only directly dealt with in Morrisson’s excellent contribution on coins, although other papers are relevant here, such as Izdebski’s courageous essay on rural settlement, underlining the importance of the village to the Byzantine economy, despite a singular lack of study and excavation; likewise more could have come from the significant theme of small finds (seals, glass, household objects), as well as a greater analysis of coarse wares such as the economically significant pithoi discussed in the paper on pottery. It is a shame that only four Turkish colleagues have been included among the scholars working on Byzantine archaeology, although this will now probably change, given the recent regression in foreign funding to Turkey’s archaeology and the investment by the Turkish authorities in its own archaeology. However, all said, my impression of this highly significant work is extremely positive. It cannot be ignored by any future study of Anatolia between Late Antiquity and the coming of the Turks. Philipp Niew€ohner and his many colleagues
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are to be heartily congratulated for providing so much fundamental information that should help to set new and exciting research agendas. PAUL ARTHUR
(Universita del Salento, Italy)
A Geography of Offerings: Deposits of Valuables in the Landscapes of Ancient Europe. (Oxford Insights in Archaeology 3). By Richard Bradley. 13 20 cm. ix þ 222 pp, 29 b&w figs and tables. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2017. ISBN 978-1-78570-477-2. Price: £15.99 pb. This elegant, stimulating, dialogous book will hopefully appeal to all archaeologists, whatever their period persuasion. Richard Bradley argues through the lens of ritual and religious practice that human behaviours were linked by a sacralisation of landscape, consequently peppered with holy places. Such attitudes involved the committing of vast amounts of human-made objects to numinous places (both wet and dry, high and low and beneath) and many of these objects travelled vast distances before doing so (pp 110–123), often accumulating biographical itineraries and specific personalities of agency en route. What is striking is not their diversity so much as the extent to which they celebrated similar ideas — and dealt with similar concerns — over such enormous expanses of space and time: the whole of Europe (from Spain to Scandinavia and from the Balkans to Ireland) over the best part of 10,000 years. For the purposes of this journal, the relevance is Bradley’s coverage of the first millennium AD but in acknowledging that I do so with the proviso that the book has been written not to appeal to any one particular artefactual category or period of study but to encourage archaeologists to debate across the conventional boundaries of the discipline. So, while not primarily a medieval book, it is of huge relevance to any medieval archaeologists who study ritual/religion/magic/belief. The book’s structure helps escape disciplinary conventions, eschewing a chronological approach in favour of a thematic one that fuses an account of how the author journeyed from his early prehistoric specialism into a much wider timeframe and geographical compass. These three chapters bring the reader to the geographical heart of the book — a sequence of seven chapters dealing with contexts, varieties and continuities (often punctuated rather than absolute) of depositional acts, accumulating data and interpretative insight so as ‘to emphasise the distinctive places where specialised deposits are found and to investigate their settings in the ancient landscape, whether it was … during the Neolithic period or … during the later 1st millennium AD’ (pp 197–8). Several early medieval case studies are deployed, including in Chapter 8 a contrasting of archaeological and written evidence around the question of depositing precious artefacts, with an entree made through Wagner’s Ring Cycle; and in Chapter 10 an examination of Viking-Age practices around river crossings. These studies draw on the recent work of several leading scholars of early medieval Europe, including Lund, Carver, Myrberg Burstr€ om, Theuws and Leahy. As many readers will know, within medieval studies it is the early medieval period where a more prehistoric perspective is helping to drive a fresh understanding (see also the Scottish Archaeological Research Framework: ). Bradley’s analysis suggests that the issues his study brings to light evaporate around c AD 1000 and so the later-medieval centuries and spaces are not assessed. This also reflects a stillprevalent unwillingness by many later-medievalists (with notable exceptions) to engage with socially traditional approaches to ritual, made irrelevant to orthodox Christianity or swept up by it. But medieval Christianity is heterodox and syncretic and folds in older ways of doing. The practices illuminated by Bradley do not then evaporate but are modified and still detectable, as in the deposition of pilgrimage badges and souvenirs in rivers (but also in dryland settings), coin and votive offerings in and around churches, recourse to holy wells and the concealment of shoes and clothing items. With respect to the latter we tend only to see the later offerings, which accumulated after the attendant church had stopped cleaning the wells out.
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This book readily bears several readings either of its entirety or its discreet but connected parts and its compact, travel-anywhere size helps to facilitate that. It deserves to stimulate the debates it distils further and certainly beyond the first millennium AD. MARK A HALL
(Perth Museum)
Gemstones in the First Millennium AD. Mines, Trade, Workshops and Symbolism. International Conference, October 20th–22nd, 2015, Mainz. (RGZM – Tagungen Band 3). Edited by Alexandra Hilgner, Susanne Greiff & Dieter Quast. 21 30 cm. vii þ 324 pp, 202 colour and b&w pls and figs, 8 tables. Mainz: R€omisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum, 2017. ISBN 978-3-88467-271-6 (ISSN 1862-4812). Price: £44.00 pb. This volume brings together 14 papers (plus introductory chapters) and six short poster-based contributions on gemstone production, trade and use in first millennial Europe, Asia and Africa. This international perspective is important, as it highlights the potential for an articulation between artefact studies and the emerging idea of a Global Middle Ages. The proceedings emerge from a 2015 conference organised in association with an international framework project on early medieval production, trade and consumption of garnet. This volume provides a broader context for that project, featuring a wider range of authors, many of whom are familiar names at the top of their respective fields. Following an explanatory and contextualising preface, the volume is divided into three sections, each opening with an engaging introduction, followed by four or five more specialised papers. This model works well in binding together quite diverse contributions into a coherent discussion about raw material sources, trade networks, and biographies. Part 1 comprises six studies of gemstone mining and trade, covering trade networks in the North Sea (paper by Hamerow), Red Sea, Indian Ocean (Heldaas Seland) and South China Sea (Borrell). In addition it draws important insights on production from a study of contemporary garnet mining in Rajasthan (Larios). Notably, there are efforts to contextualise and integrate studies of the movement of gemstones within wider material networks, while Quast’s paper on Roman amber imaginatively draws comparative inspiration from reviewing evidence for the historical trade in beaver furs. Part 2 covers the working of gemstones, with case studies from the Frankish Rhineland (Burianek et al), Scandinavia (Ljungkvist et al), East Africa (Horton) and Fatimid Egypt (Morero et al). Particular focus here falls on the working of rock crystal, but mention should be made of Ljungkvist et al’s study of garnet-working in the manor area at Gamla Uppsala; here a focus on workshop assemblages has important implications for our understanding not only of finished products, but also issues around early medieval craft, economy and politics more widely. Part 3 moves on from issues of extraction, manufacture and trade to consider the consumption and use of gemstones, plus questions of symbolism, meaning and cultural significance. Following an introduction to symbolism and ‘meaning’ in gemstones as a whole (Sobkowiak), this section covers a lot of ground. It incorporates diverse studies of gemstones in a range of social contexts, including early medieval church settings (Beghelli), Sasanian seals (Ritter), Byzantine ‘magic’ (Bosselmann-Ruickbie) and Indian belief systems (McHugh), as well as an extensive survey of documentary and gemmological data from across the Roman and late antique world. This interdisciplinarity is to be applauded, as is the bridge built between the material-science perspective and more theoretical or experiential concerns. There follows a final section, comprising six poster contributions which, though short, are generally well developed and informative, as well as attractively illustrated. While not quite as well embedded into the volume’s overall framework as are the full-length contributions, their inclusion does furnish readers with a lively sense of the conference as a whole, and offers a welcome platform for new work. Overall this is an unusual publication, but one that makes an important contribution to our knowledge of craft and its intersections with economy, adornment, politics and belief. The
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volume’s strength is in the clear presentation of a diverse body of material. The section introductions work well, though one wonders whether a closing synthesis might have added further value to the exercise, taking the volume beyond that normally seen in conference proceedings. It is well produced, with high-quality colour illustrations and photographs throughout, which significantly enhance description and discussion of this highly visual material. In all, then, this is a valuable collection from which many readers will learn much, and it is much recommended to university libraries. STEVEN ASHBY
(University of York)
The Viking Age. A Time of Many Faces. By Caroline Ahlstr€om Arcini. 22 29 cm. vii þ 120 pp, 109 colour and b&w pls and figs, 3 tables. Oxford & Philadelphia: Oxbow Books, 2018. ISBN 978-1-78570-938-8. Price: £38.00 hb. This rather enigmatically titled volume presents a study of osteological data from a number of Swedish Viking-Age cemeteries. The style of communication is clever and appealing, and the underlying research is imaginative, while also being clearly and precisely presented. Based on an extensive body of osteological research (comprising c 1800 individual graves), the study is divided into seven chapters, each applying its own methodologies to the material, with the data interpreted from a particular thematic perspective. Thus, following a brief overview of the aims and framework of the study, its dataset of eight burial sites is introduced. These include three cemeteries in Skåne (Trinitatis, Vannh€og and Fj€alkinge), three on Gotland (Kopparsvik, Fr€ojel and Slite Torg) and two in the Stockholm-Uppsala region (Birka and Sk€amsta). Together these provide a broad cross section of the period, including everything from the gravefields of the cosmopolitan centre of Birka and the harbour at Fr€ ojel, to the farm cemetery of Sk€amsta and the possible military associations of Vannh€ og, near Trelleborg. Having reviewed the detail and context of each of these burial sites, the next five chapters look at the data from the perspective of a series of research questions. First (Chapter 3), the issue of mobility and migration is considered, driven largely by an extensive programme of strontium-isotope analysis applied to teeth from skeletons from a diverse range of contexts. The result, unsurprisingly, is that the scale and character of movement vary from place to place, but in undertaking such an extensive comparative exercise, the study provides an important first step. In Chapter 4, attention turns to the evidence for health, disease and trauma among these populations, with particular emphasis on the longevity of disabled and sick individuals, and determining the degree to which they were cared for and integrated into social communities. Chapter 5, entitled ‘Markers of Identity’, considers the distinctive Scandinavian practice of tooth-filing — a subject on which the author has written previously — and here it is treated systematically in terms of descriptive, contextual and comparative analysis, before proposing some suggestions as to the origin of the phenomenon. Chapter 6 briefly assesses the landscape context and demographic composition of the various graveyards, with a view to interpreting the particular social roles they may have played. The volume closes with ‘A Time of Many Faces’, which provides a synthetic overview of the whole, bringing together many of the volume’s key themes — notably religion, mobility, violence, and social structure — and attempting to give a sense of the diversity of life in the Viking Age: thus, to show us some of those faces. Throughout, data tables, graphics and appendices accompany discussion, assisting students of osteoarchaeology into any study of Viking-Age populations. There are also important attempts to interpret the osteological data with reference to material culture (eg Slavic pottery, coins). The volume’s presentation is lively, and the language not only clear and precise, but at turns actually rather lyrical. Importantly, this makes the material accessible not only to a wider audience of students and non-academics, but also to nonspecialist archaeologists. The schism between archaeological scientists and other students of the past — not just archaeologists but historians, art historians, linguists and scholars of the
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history of art — has far from disappeared (see, for example, responses to recent genetic studies of Viking-Age material in S Leslie et al, 2015, ‘The fine-scale genetic structure of the British population’, Nature 519, 309–14, or in C Hedenstierna-Jonson et al, 2017, ‘A female Viking warrior confirmed by genomics’, American Journal of Physical Anthropology 164:4, 853–60). Volumes such as this therefore have an important role to play. In all, this is a welcome publication that makes a significant contribution to the study of human populations (and individual lives) in the Viking Age. The book is accessible, well produced and nicely illustrated. There is much here to be excited about, and I recommend it to osteologists, archaeologists and all students of the Viking Age. STEVEN ASHBY
(University of York)
Medieval European Coinage. With a Catalogue of the Coins in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. 12. Italy (I) (Northern Italy). By William R. Day Jr, Michael Matzke & Andrea Saccocci. 20 25 cm. xxix þ 1135 pp, 78 b&w pls and figs, 80 Plate pages, 61 tables. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016. ISBN 978-0-521-26021-3. Price: £175.00 hb. Medieval European Coinage (MEC) is a series designed to present the coinages of medieval Europe, c AD 500–1500, in a comprehensive yet accessible fashion to an audience of specialists, researchers in related fields and students. The main vehicle for this project is the collection of the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, which has drawn very extensively on the coins acquired over many decades by Philip Grierson (1910–2006). This is the singlemost complete collection covering the whole of Latin medieval European coinage, and is outdone only by specialist collections for specific regions or countries of Europe (The Byzantine Empire is exempt from MEC since Byzantine coins were published systematically by Grierson himself from the collection of the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington DC). The foundation for the MEC series was laid by publication in 1986 of volume 1, entitled The Early Middle Ages, in which Grierson treated, with Mark Blackburn, all coins struck in the western European, post-Roman, tradition between c AD 500 and the 1st millennium AD. All other volumes are territorial, mapping onto the main regions of Europe (France, Italy, Iberia, the British Isles, Germany, the Low Countries, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, the Balkans, etc), and treat the subsequent period c AD 1000–c 1500. MEC 12 is very substantial indeed, running over more than 1000 pages relating to nearly 1,500 coins from the Fitzwilliam collection. It is authored by three eminent specialists on the respective areas which are covered in the volume: Genoa/Liguria/Piedmont; Lombardy; and the Veneto and North East. In the tradition of the series, the treatment is strong on numismatic typology, imagery, styles and legends, denominational structures and metrologies, on the political/dynastic dimension of coin issuance, and on the history of scholarship and collecting. Even if sections are devoted to hoards and other coin finds, the volume puts little emphasis on archaeology and coins in find contexts, and on related topics such as coin quantification, circulation and usage in the broadest sense. Neither should one expect to find in MEC 12 a monetary history, let alone a fiscal or financial history. In terms of sheer quantity of numismatic material MEC 12 is also dwarfed by the relevant volumes of the Corpus Nummorum Italicorum (CIN), published between 1911–17, which were based to a large degree on the royal Italian collection of the time: vol 2 (Piemonte, etc); vol 3 (Liguria, etc); vols 4–5 (Lombardia, etc); vols 6–8 (Veneto, etc). Nevertheless, MEC 12 will now be the first port of call and an indispensable reference tool for any researcher into the medieval coinage, archaeology and material culture of northern Italy, and of its political and economic history, since this volume provides as complete and accurate a picture as can possibly be achieved of the coins produced within these areas. MEC 12 covers the coinages of northern Italy from the Ottonian period onwards (AD 962–); it excludes, however, the subject matter of volume 1 of the CIN, the coins of the House of Savoy from mints in the Alpine area which are now overwhelmingly in France, reserved for
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the unpublished MEC 17. In MEC 12’s general Introduction (pp 1–29), the volume’s organisation is explained and the coinages and their historical contexts laid out. Politically and monetarily, this was an absolutely pivotal area of medieval Europe: it was the theatre of conflict between the papacy, empire and local interests, and saw some of the most sophisticated and economically dynamic polities; and it was also a laboratory for monetary innovation: the debased penny, the larger silver grosso (groat), and the new western gold of the 13th century, as much as the portrait coinages of the 15th, were all developed in these regions. Chapter Two covers initially the ‘royal’, ‘imperial’ and ‘pseudo-royal/imperial’ phase to the 12th century, when minting was confined to the penny, to the four mints of Pavia, Milan, Verona and Venice, and to (at times nominal) imperial and regal issuers (pp 30–73, pls 1–4). This represents a meticulous ordering of the series based on a considerable database of material combined with technical, stylistic and epigraphic criteria. The remainder of the chapter summarises subsequent ‘imperial’ coinages, minted in Lombardy at specific moments in time until the 1330s, yet the coins themselves are arranged in the later plates together with the other issues of the same mints. Piedmont is dealt with in Chapter Three: a complex network of mints and issuing authorities is in evidence — communal, episcopal and seigniorial (pp 93–248, pls 5–13). The complexity of the area is further underlined by coinage variety from the turn of the 14th century onwards, with silver Venetian-style grossi, gros tournois, Neapolitan-style gigliati, and gold florins all produced there, as well as impressive portrait testoni in Asti, Monferrat, and Saluzzo. Developments in neighbouring Liguria (pp 249–325, pls 14–22), dominated by Genoa, are more linear. Nevertheless, the communal and later ducal issues, produced in large quantities in often immobilised type, have required intricate numismatic work to put into good order. The bulk of the volume is dedicated to Lombardy (pp 326–547, pls 23–49), an area which boasted in a sense some of the most characteristic developments of the era. The iconographies and types are particularly remarkable, ranging from the imperial and civic styles which are combined at Bergamo or Como, the issues in the name of Ambrosius at Milan, or the strong seigniorial imprints left by the Visconti and Sforza at Milan or the Gonzaga at Mantua. In the last regional chapter (pp 548–667, pls 50–80) the dominant mints of Venice and Aquileia are easier to present since they were respectively ducal and patriarchal and have also been well treated in previous literature. Other coinages of the area are classified by clearly identifiable issuers — the counts of Gorizia or of Tyrol, for instance. Padua and Verona have important early communal and then seigniorial phases, but later suffer arrested developments as a result of Venetian expansion. The volume concludes with appendices and indices on coin finds, iconographies, legends, metrologies, glossaries and bibliographies, and concordances. JULIAN BAKER
(Ashmolean Museum, Oxford University)
Urban Consumption. Tracing Urbanity in the Archaeological Record of Aarhus c AD 8001800. (Jutland Archaeological Society Publications volume 94). By Jette Linaa. 22 27 cm. 240 pp, 170 colour and b&s pls and figs (plus 102 pottery sherd colour pls), 35 tables. Aarhus: Jutland Archaeological Society, 2016. ISBN 978-87-93423-06-0 (ISSN 0107-2854). Price: £29.00 hb. It is no bad thing to begin at the end: ‘This is a book covering 1000 years, which unavoidably leads to a consideration of time and its nature. We sometimes think of the past as a slower, calmer era, but reading this book will expose this as an illusion: the past is characterised by constant change’ (p 199). These lines neatly summarise Jette Linaa’s approach, where change provides the framework for her brilliant study of urban living in medieval Aarhus. Well-structured, clearly written and deeply thoughtful, this book will appeal to anybody interested in how medieval lives can be revealed. There is a lot of detail
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here, with early sections such as geographical scope and urban and rural sites (covering 80 pages) contextualising a highly developed analysis. The description of the nature of the evidence is well supported by extensive tables, maps, superb line drawings and, among assorted site photographs, extremely clear images of finds, mainly in the form of pottery vessels and fragments; there are also reproductions of contemporary paintings, though too few were directly referenced in the text. The development of Aarhus is structured into seven stages, dating from the earliest town, from c AD 7001050, to the onset of modernity. Here is the constant change Linaa seeks to explore and she does so by examining patterns of consumption, showing how particular pottery types occur around the town. Her analysis of materiality focusses mostly on pottery, although coins and cloth seals are also considered, and catalogues of form and ware-types (with detailed photographs of sherd surfaces and sections) appear at the end of the book. It is perhaps the ubiquity and resilience of pottery that makes it so useful in this sort of analysis but Linaa freshens up what might be just another study of ceramic distribution by relating the evidence to things that actually concerned the inhabitants of Aarhus, such as consumption, custom and, more fundamentally, cooking, eating, drinking and economic survival. The influence of the Church, the port and the town defences are also worked in, generating a clear narrative that properly traces ‘urbanity’ through the available evidence — the term ‘urbanity’ being offered as a mechanism for bringing people more explicitly into this analysis, as an answer to a perceived need to ‘take interpersonal relations seriously in historical archaeology’ (12). The Introduction sets out with admirable clarity the theories that underpin Linaa’s study and, beyond the seemingly inevitable references nowadays to Bourdieu and Latour, there are plenty of acknowledgements of the work of archaeologists across Europe and beyond for readers to follow up. While the opening section ably sets the scene, the conclusions bring everything together quite brilliantly: here, the urban context is explored in relation to the people who dwelt within it, including ‘Urban Strangers’ and ‘The Urban Poor’; known individuals appear here, along with street names and specific dwellings, as Linaa addresses her stated aim of placing ‘humans at the heart of history and to see how they coped with life as they knew it in ways that might shed light on our own’ (p 199). That is the concluding sentence of a marvellous final passage that reflects meaningfully on the purpose of archaeology and the limitations of its practice. Overall, in fact, the search for meaning is what drives this book and also what makes it stand out from other archaeological analyses. On finishing it, the reader might feel encouraged to change urbanity to humanity and Linaa would probably be happy with that. DUNCAN H BROWN
(Historic England)
The Archaeology of the 11th Century. Continuities and Transformations. (Society for Medieval Archaeology Monograph 38). Edited by Dawn M Hadley & Christopher Dyer. 18 25 cm. xv þ 309 pp, 27 colour pls and figs, 55 b&w pls figs and tables. London & New York: Routledge & The Society for Medieval Archaeology, 2017. ISBN 978-1-13820115-6. Price: £115.00 hb. This important if rather mixed volume constitutes the first sustained, multi-author contextualisation of the Norman Conquest of England in relation to physical and material change across the 11th-century decades. In the end it succeeds: the broad message is consistent, significant and convincing; but it hovers somewhat uneasily, as such volumes often do, between textbook and collection of original papers. The contents vary disconcertingly in substance and quality: four or five really substantial new contributions, a cluster focusing aspects of the authors’ previous work to develop effective insights into 11thcentury change, and a few where it is hard not to feel that we have seen/heard it all before. The timescale has also worked against some authors whose chapters — some submitted as far back as 2013–14 — can now look slightly dated.
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That said, much here is of great interest. The review of rural settlement by Oliver Creighton and Stephen Rippon draws on previously unassimilated excavations and is of major importance. They show that while some pollen sequences in northern England might point (if equivocally) to late-11th-century disruption, the distinctive ‘row-plan’ villages of that region mostly date from after AD 1150 and cannot plausibly reflect reconstruction after William I’s ‘Harrying’. In the south, the restructuring of villages into more intensive forms was part of a continuum spanning c AD 1000–1200. The new Norman aristocracy, they suggest, ‘showed little inclination to intervene in the machinery of everyday rural life’. Likewise, Mark Gardiner’s survey of ‘Manorial Farmsteads and the Expression of Lordship’ shows that, although manerium is a Norman word, elite rural houses and concomitant social pretensions evolved through the late 10th to 12th centuries. (One might add that excluding the grandest buildings, there is remarkably little sign that the Conquest changed gentry-level domestic architecture in any way: the formative developments were during c AD 940–1000 on the one hand and c AD 1150–1250 on the other). Even the castle — that classic symbol of Norman domination — appears rooted in longer-term modes of aristocratic display and local governance in relation to turriform origins (Michael Shapland) and urban settings (Michael Fradley). The thoughtful analysis of diet and cuisine by Ben Jervis, Fiona Whelan and Alexandra Livarda shows that good old English cooking remained the comfort food for most, even if an upturn in pork, chicken and eggs hints at Norman taste. Paul Everson and David Stocker show how ecclesiastical reform — along collegiate rather than monastic lines — was already in full swing under the mid-11th-century archbishops of York (though their architectural extrapolations venture somewhat beyond the bounds of caution). Indeed, it is hard to find much here that is purely Norman except the leper hospitals at Canterbury, Winchester and elsewhere, which Simon Roffey sees as a distinctive, short-lived initiative by Lanfranc and his contemporaries. A strength of the volume is the editors’ excellent introduction, which pulls together themes from these papers and much more. As they observe, this is one archaeological context where we know for certain that there really was an invasion. At times that is perceptible archaeologically, but most of the material reviewed here would give us no grounds for suspecting that the Battle of Hastings ever happened. It is other transitions and contrasts that stand out: between the 11th century and what preceded it; between eastern England and the rest; between the fluctuating patterns of contact with Scandinavia, the Low Countries, the Rhineland and France. Urbanisation, village nucleation, Church reform, the consolidation of aristocratic military elites and their homesteads, are all features of the mid-century decades, but it would be no less (or more) plausible to ascribe them to Cnut’s invasion than to William’s. One of the brightest and sharpest rays of light comes from a small and rather unimpressive-looking body of material, the lead-alloy disc-brooches discussed by Rosie Weetch. Before AD 1000 this fashion was embraced by eastern England, the Netherlands and Rhineland (one of many pointers to the inadequacy of ‘England’ as a monolithic cultural category), but during the 11th century it shifted from being distinctively regional to being distinctively urban: brooch wearing declined in the countryside but became a mark of town dwellers, notably in Lincoln and above all London. When we add in the urban castles, the monumentalisation of urban cathedrals and abbeys, and the establishment of toft-and-croft homesteads, it is the crystallisation of cities, towns and villages as distinct sociocultural entities that the document-deprived Martian archaeologist would chiefly infer. Venturing to propose anything like the Norman Conquest would depend on whether ‘invasion hypotheses’ were fashionable on Mars. JOHN BLAIR
(The Queen’s College, Oxford)
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Northern England and Southern Scotland in the Central Middle Ages. Edited by Keith J. Stringer & Angus J L Winchester. 16 24 cm. xvi þ 369 pp, 27 b&w pls and figs, 8 tables. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2017. ISBN 978-1-78327-266-2. Price: £60.00 hb. This stimulating volume has a deceptively simple title. It is much more than a study of two adjacent regions of medieval Britain over the course of four centuries. Most of its chapters originated in a conference, organised by the late Richard Britnell, which explored ‘shared elements in the development of socio-political institutions, landscape and agriculture on either side of the Anglo-Scottish Border’ (p xi). In the early 10th century, at the start of the period covered by this volume, the land between the Forth and Tyne rivers formed the northern part of Northumbria, while to the west, the territory from the Clyde to Cumbria south of the Solway was controlled by the kings of Strathclyde. By the end of it, the region was bisected by a national border much on its present line. Dauvit Broun poses one of the central questions: how did the Northumbrian people living north of the River Tweed come to identify themselves as Scots rather than English? The conference’s search for commonalities north and south of the border has been widened in this volume to explore differences as well as similarities, and the range of themes has been extended. The contributions by Broun and Keith Stringer cover kingship and identities, law, governance and jurisdiction, and both scholars demonstrate how differences of approach to the exercise of royal power and the administration of justice stimulated widening differences between the emergent kingdom of the Scots and the kingdom of England. Law and jurisdiction also had an important role in the divergence of the two kingdoms’ ecclesiastical arrangements: Janet Burton emphasises, on the one hand, the supranational perspective of the two regions’ monastic houses and, on the other, the struggle by Scottish bishops, eventually with papal validation, to establish their independence from York. Diversity is most evident in Fiona Edmonds’ and Simon Taylor’s exploration of languages and names (for this reviewer, one of the book’s highlights). Commonalities are flagged in Richard Britnell’s consideration of ‘shire’ or ‘multiple’ estates in northern England and southern Scotland, which seem to share more characteristics than do the estates and manors of northern England with those of southern England. Similarities of experience across the border also stand out in Richard Oram’s contribution on parishes and churches, and in Angus Winchester’s on shielings and common pastures. Even here, though, differences were generated by legislation: the English Crown’s approach to tithe payments from the 940s and the Statute of Merton’s impact on the status of England’s upland common pastures. David Ditchburn demonstrates that towns in northern England and southern Scotland were linked by their economies and by the migration of people from one town to another, and yet they came to be divided by what he describes as the ‘nationalisation’ of urban laws. Further evidence of diversity is present in the discussions by Philip Dixon and Chris Tabraham of fortifications either side of the border: a northern English fashion for stone hall houses, contrasted with late motte construction in Scotland and the erection of castles influenced directly by French exemplars through the Scottish Kingdom’s Norman settlement (a rather different experience from that in England). Another sort of diversity emerges in several chapters: differences of perception among historians and archaeologists whose parameters are England on the one hand or Scotland on the other, generating what Ditchburn calls the nationalisation of historiography — an issue considered extensively by Piers Dixon in his chapter on rural settlement. A fully integrated research programme on the archaeology of ‘Middle Britain’ — northern England and southern Scotland as a single area of study — would be a fitting recognition of Britnell’s aims in organising this conference. STUART WRATHMELL
(West Yorkshire Archaeology)
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The Friaries of Medieval London. From Foundation to Dissolution. (Studies in the History of Medieval Religion, Volume XLVI). By Nick Holder. 18 25 cm. xvi þ 363pp, 91 b&w pls and figs, 20 tables. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2017. ISBN 978-1-78327-224-2 (ISSN 0955-2480). Price: £50.00 hb. This study, based on the author’s 2011 PhD thesis, is an original, well-researched and readable account of a topic that has been crying out for detailed analysis for many decades. As vital elements in the topography of medieval London, the friaries were also part of the political and social landscape, housing parliaments, accommodating visiting royalty and burying some of the greatest in the land, in addition to their regular roles as places for worship and lay instruction. The academic neglect is surely at least partly because, although they are still commemorated in street names, a bridge and a train station, the friaries and their precincts have almost entirely disappeared from view. Nick Holder admirably restores them to a more worthy place in the metropolitan townscape. The book is fairly comprehensive in scope and includes the house of Crossed or Crutched Friars and the short-lived houses of Sackfriars and Pied Friars, as well as those of the main mendicant orders, although the two late-medieval Franciscan Observant houses at Greenwich and Richmond are omitted. The nine sites are dealt with individually, drawing on historical, topographic and antiquarian material including early maps, property and building surveys, 19th- and 20th-century observations of construction and demolition projects and, of course, more modern excavations, which are, alas, more numerous than extensive. Tables setting out the acquisition of plots and other resources based on primary records demonstrate the thorough research underpinning Holder’s interpretations. Work on the first, rather short-lived house of the Dominicans serves as a useful example here: the site seemed barely known but Holder manages to plot the precinct, built up from a series of donations in the 1220s and 1230s AD recorded in primary sources, and a putative plan for the friary church and the cloister as inferred from excavation and later use of the site. This approach greatly facilitates the reading of a biography of place and is adopted for the other houses in so far as surviving detail allows. The value of this kind of interdisciplinary approach is also obvious for the friary buildings. Unlike the majority of Britain’s friaries, the churches of the London houses were impressive architecturally; the size of their footprints, the richness of their decorative schemes and the generosity and status of their patrons are well attested from contemporary and postmedieval sources. And so they deserve to feature much more prominently in medieval studies. The Greyfriars’ church, for example, was the second largest church in the city, after St Paul’s; by any standards, even though almost nothing of it now exists, this should be a well-studied building. Aided by royal patronage there are plenty of documents, the footprint also surviving as Christ’s Hospital after the Dissolution. Far more is actually knowable about it as a place, rather than just a plan, than many much more frequently cited religious houses. In addition to individual site biographies, The Friaries of Medieval London offers an extensive discussion section. Comparisons of building programmes at the different houses are elegantly presented in tables setting out the timeframe for different stages of construction and reconstruction, and plans comparing both scale and feature details. There is also a useful comparison of precinct sizes, with some interesting speculation about the impact of other monastic orders in London on these — a topic that would repay further analysis. There are four other contributions in this section from different scholars: Mark Samuels on architecture and architectural fragments, Ian Betts on floor tiles and building materials, Jens R€ohrkasten on spiritual life and education, and Christian Steer on burial and commemoration. The book is extremely well designed and illustrated, in spite of the restrictions of the page size, which preclude large figures. Quite apart from the very real value of its content, The Friaries of Medieval London will serve as a useful model for further synthetic and comparative studies of religious houses, based on sound research and informed by a dynamic approach to reading urban topography. DEIRDRE O’SULLIVAN
(University of Leicester)
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The Oxford Handbook of Later Medieval Archaeology in Britain. Edited by Christopher M Gerrard & Alejandra Gutierrez. 18 26 cm. xlii þ 1058 pp, 213 b&w pls and figs. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 2018. ISBN 978-0-19-874471-9. Price: £110.00 hb. The Oxford Handbooks is now a well-established series (including Roman Britain and AngloSaxon Archaeology within it), offering, as the dust-jacket blurb says, ‘authoritative and up-todate surveys of original research in a particular subject area.’ Speaking personally, as someone who despairs of keeping up with the literature even in my main subject areas, let alone the vastly larger hinterland, I say hurrah to that. The Preface sets out the editors’ stall and provides an answer to what is meant by ‘later medieval’: AD 1066 to c 1550 (but why couldn’t those dates have been included in the title?). As for why such a survey is needed, they suggest it’s partly because of the exponential growth in the literature (and including data from developer-funded archaeology and metaldetecting), and partly generational — since almost all the polymathic founding fathers (Hurst and Platt among them) who at least once upon a time had the whole of Medieval Archaeology in their heads have now passed on, and it is time for the many more younger scholars from many counties and countries to survey and shape the subject. About 50 contribute here. A great fat book like this demands briskness in a short review, and so I will only note that the editors themselves set out that it is multi-disciplinary, embraces Europe, is unafraid of theory and uses all relevant data and techniques including science-based ones which are having such an impact. In particular it’s worth noting, and celebrating, that documentary records and the work of historians are seamlessly integrated — as it should be in the study of the Middle Ages, but isn’t always. The Handbook has ten thematic parts, each of a half-dozen chapters, and while ‘listing’ is reckoned bad form in a review, here I think it’s useful to rehearse what those parts are, with just a few square-bracketed glosses: Writing Later Medieval Archaeology [historiography, methods, perspectives]; The Medieval Countryside; Rural Settlement and Buildings; Living in Towns and Ports; Power and Display; Crafts, Industry, and Objects; The Archaeology of Religion and Belief; An Archaeology of the Senses [medieval perceptions of sound, smell and colour plus cooking and drinking]; Growing Up and Growing Old; and A Wider Context: Trade and Exchange, Europe and Beyond [principally Ireland, France, southern Scandinavia, Spain and Portugal]. Individually and collectively these are real troves, a notable point-in-time benchmark of research and understanding; each bibliography is good and full. Illustrations are plentiful, carefully chosen to complement the text; like the book’s headings and subheadings these draw in the curious skimmer, especially when encountering subjects outside one’s normal range: on page 518 a graph showing the exponential growth on medieval coin hoard discoveries since the 1970s; on p 738 graphs of reactions to civic smells based on John Stow’s late-16th-century Survey of London; and on p 970, 15th-century cone-shaped sugar moulds from Gran Canaria. The first thing that struck me when initially dipping in here and there, is how consistently accessible the chapters are: they can be read for pleasure, as well as to mine information or to grab a rapid overview of an unfamiliar topic. So much archaeological writing, especially coming out of universities, can be utterly unreadable (a style I have termed elsewhere ‘seminar room posturing’), and the editors deserve great credit for their achievement in largely making authors avoid it here. Most contributors manage an overview which assumes little previous knowledge; for instance, that on the architecture, furnishings and fittings of the medieval parish church is a masterly summary. Just occasionally some more background might have been supplied: the section on towns, for instance, while excellent on themes and approaches, is slight on the chronology of urban growth in the centuries either side of the Conquest (where one might begin with the companion H Hamerow et al, 2011, Handbook of Anglo-Saxon Archaeology, reviewed in Medieval Archaeology 56 (2012), 344–5), and at least a stab at the number of new town foundations.
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Continuing with some light carping, a few contributions slightly underplay what is already known. In ‘The Medieval Afterlife’, for instance, Simon Roffey claims that chantries and related memorial spaces have been ‘largely neglected’ by archaeologists. This disingenuously sets to one side both his own publications (which are referenced) as well as a rich vein of earlier publications — admittedly largely by non-archaeologists — including G H Cook (Mediaeval Chantries and Chantry Chapels, 1947), J T Rosenthal (The Purchase of Paradise, 1972) and G W Bernard’s excellent The Late Medieval English Church (2012). Inevitably, some recent publications evaded the authors’ notice; for instance, the conclusions in Bell and Beresford’s 1987 monograph on the church at Wharram Percy (cited here on p 610) have been considerably revised in the final Wharram monograph edited by Stuart Wrathmell et al, A History of Wharram Percy and its Neighbours (2012). Probably only a reviewer will systematically dip in and out of the book checking coverage of topics — such as only a little on fairs, which are not indexed. The head of the index — which runs to 61 pages — does carry a disclaimer that it is ‘not exhaustive’, however, I did spot some other curious omissions, such as woodlands and (under ‘pottery’) Stamford ware, while surely inconsequential objects such as pad-stones, peg-holes and pivot stones each get a single page reference. But it would be entirely wrong to end on this nit-picking demonstration of a reviewer’s due diligence. This is a very fine book, equally valuable to experts as to undergraduates. It will immediately establish itself as a key reference work, in my case to be shelved with just a half-dozen others on my windowsill in immediate reach. PAUL STAMPER
(University of Leicester)
Short Reviews Villa Magna. An Imperial Estate and its Legacies. Excavations 2006–10. (Archaeological Monographs of the British School at Rome, 23). Edited by E Fentress, C Goodson & M Maiuro, with M Andrews & A Dufton. 22 29 cm. xix þ 516 pp, 34 colour pls and figs, 295 b&w pls and figs, 21 tables. London: The British School at Rome, 2016. ISBN 978-0-904152-74-6. Price: £90.00 hb. Villa Magna was a Roman imperial winery, named in the letters of Emperor Marcus Aurelius in the later 2nd century AD, which continued to dominate its region into Late Antiquity and beyond. It was, therefore, as co-editor Elizabeth Fentress readily admits, hardly a typical site, and if its archaeology and history are key to understanding ‘the longue duree of central Italy’ (p 1), they do so from a particular perspective — that of those who wielded power. Fentress and her team situate Villa Magna in the context of an efflorescence of grandiose villas around Rome in the earlier 2nd century AD. The evidence for viniculture there sits rather oddly beside the villa’s clear material splendour (see, for example, plates 5.6–21) until we realise that the complex provided the ‘architectural setting for a rite that deliberately recalled the ancient ceremonies surrounding the harvest of Latium and, with it, the role of the emperor as priest, assuring the success of the vintage and the well-being of the farmers as well as the peace of the gods’ (p 208, see also p 446). The past, through the physical remains of the villa, continued to act on the present with the ‘revival’ of the site in Late Antiquity, when the ‘cella vinaria was reconstructed as a church and a dolarium created in the substructures of the old imperial residence’ (p 254; also p 443). One of the winery dolia was reused in this Byzantine-period structure, raising the possibility that there may have been a ‘heritage premium’ in new wine stored in old containers (p 444, p 451). The power of things from the past is also manifest in their destruction, in the ‘breaking up of statues and marble architectural elements’ (p 451, also pp 87–8). Throughout this volume, Fentress and her colleagues succeed in reconstructing the setting for elite power and in exploring the basis for that power. Narratives about the powerful invariably bring to mind those they dominated and exploited (or at least they should!). At Villa Magna, as so often, ideology, ancestry and tradition legitimised that domination.
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Fentress also tells us that one of the aims of the project was to ‘train young archaeologists in an international environment’ (p 1). There is much to be learned from this detailed and well-argued volume, not least, as countries increasingly look inwards, the benefits of this openness and generosity of spirit. JOHN MORELAND
(University of Sheffield)
The Lamps of Late Antiquity from Rhodes. 3rd–7th Centuries AD. (Archaeopress Archaeology). By Angeliki Katsioti. 21 29 cm. ii þ 669 pp, over 1100 (unnumbered) colour and b&w pls and figs. Oxford: Archaeopress, 2017. ISBN 978-1-78491-746-3. Price: £65.00 pb. This weighty volume is a detailed catalogue of c 1400 lamps of 3rd- to 7th-century AD date from excavations (especially rescue), chance finds and collections in the city, and immediate environs, of Rhodes. The material and context are useful in that this is an island site, one open to trade and cultural flows and fluctuations. Close analysis of forms, range, decor and availability over time enables, therefore, insights into changing fashion and usage, although deciphering this from lamps/sherds in stores rather than from scrutiny of stratified deposits prompts some caution in interpretation (the author highlights how many early excavations, such as under Italian rule, are largely undocumented, with most of their ceramics seemingly discarded). There is a useful overview (pp 6–21) of excavations and finds in Rhodes, which documents busy late antique phases in a somewhat contracted city; oddly, the ‘accompanying’ map and site listing come only on pp 559–568, with the site numbers not cross-referenced to the earlier text. This has clearly been a major labour of love and time in tracking down the materials and Angeliki Katsioti does a thorough job in compiling an informative and well-illustrated corpus. The catalogue is based around categories (eg ‘Corinthian’, ‘Attic’, ‘Knidian’), though some classifications are problematic, with origins not always secure and more local imitations to be expected (such as for ‘Asia Minor’-types, which dominate the Rhodes assemblage — pp 215–404 of this publication — and which were dominant products in the 6th- and 7th-century Aegean. Katsioti notes the need for more petrographic analyses and while some XRF and NAA (neutron activation analysis) studies have been done, their results, reported in Section E, are not hugely informative except for confirming sources in Asia Minor for most samples. Each section of the catalogue (Section B of the volume, covering pp 22–552) features an introduction on the material discussing chronologies, numbers, form-types, decoration and issues; there is then a concordance before each relevant example (eg for ‘B.2. Cypriot Lamps’, 149 examples/ fragments) is presented with photograph, description, size, findspot, bibliography and ‘remarks’); Sections D.3–6 comprise close-ups of base stamps/signatures and cross-sections. Section C’s ‘Epilogue — Conclusion’ re-iterates the problems of finds’ recovery and contexts, but tidily extracts broad sequences of markets and trade flows, noting local imitations taking over in the 5th century, subsequently ousted by imports from Asia Minor; Katsioti also addresses changes wrought through Arab expansion. The only disappointing aspect is the minimal discussion of decorative designs — in a single paragraph we hear that the range ‘does not vary from that of other major sites and covered the needs of the main systems of belief … As in other areas, an intended private, public or funerary use was clearly not a decisive factor in the choice of iconographic themes’ (p 555). NEIL CHRISTIE
(University of Leicester)
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Ritual Sites and Religious Rivalries in Late Roman North Africa. By Shira L Lander. 16 24 cm. xvii þ 279 pp, 27 b&w pls and figs. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017. ISBN 978-1-107-14694-5. Price: £75.00 hb. Between 300 and 600 CE, the religious topography of North Africa changed dramatically, and this febrile environment has been the subject of much important recent scholarship. Shira Lander’s thoughtful and well-illustrated study of the struggles over sacred space represents a valuable contribution to this debate. She argues persuasively that Christian (and perhaps Jewish) communities developed new sensitivities to the importance of sacred sites during this period and that this had important implications both for the articulation of group identity, and for the expression of conflict with other religious groups. As collective identities cohered around places of worship, churches, temples and synagogues became increasingly contested sites, both in the cities of North Africa and in the narratives which read meaning into this changing world. By distinguishing between the physical destruction or occupation of sacred sites (‘architectural dispossession’ in Lander’s terminology) and the rhetorical assertion of control or domination (‘spatial supersession’), this study provides a nuanced new perspective on a complex field. At the book’s heart are three extended analyses of specific religious oppositions. Chapter 3 examines internecine Christian conflict and looks primarily at the ‘Donatist’ schism of the 4th and early 5th centuries, but also considers tensions that followed the Vandal occupation of the AD 430s and the Byzantine invasion a century later. This includes fine discussions of the sectarian violence associated with the cult site of St Salsa in Tipasa and the 5th-century ‘Donatist’ martyr church in Ala Miliaria — both somewhat neglected in the literature. Chapter 4 discusses the conflict between Christianity (in its various forms) and the polytheistic cults, and notes that this opposition was probably more apparent to the former than to the latter, and was certainly less straightforward than many of our texts (and quite a lot of the early archaeological literature) would imply. The more compact Chapter 5 provides an elegant survey of the scattered evidence for Jewish communities; Lander here draws well on Karen Stern’s recent work, which itself helped complicate assumptions about distinct ‘Jewish’ and ‘Christian’ identities in later Roman-period Africa; Lander also tidily summarises the excavated synagogue sites at Hammam Lif and Lepcis Magna. ANDREW MERRILLS
(University of Leicester)
El monacat insular de la Mediterrania occidental. El monestir de Cabrera (Balears, segles V–VIII). (Studia Archaeologiae Christianae 1). By Mateu Riera Rullan. 21 30 cm. 658 pp, 428 colour and b&wpls and figs, 65 tables. Barcelona: Ateneu Universitari Sant Pacia, 2017. ISBN 978-84-947195-2-3. Price: e44.00 pb. This monograph inaugurates a new series, Studia Archaeologiae Christianae, within the Facultat Antoni Gaudı d’Historia de l’Esglesia, Arqueologia i Arts Cristianes Antoni Gaudi (FHEAG) and the Ateneu Universitari Sant Pacia (both in Barcelona, Spain). This first volume comprises the publication of a sizeable PhD thesis (submitted/presented in 2016 and directed by Dr Helena Kirchner, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona) dedicated to the study of late antique monasticism, specifically that which developed during the 5th to 8th centuries AD in the Balearic Islands — an area renowned for its well-preserved palaeoChristian basilicas and archaeological materials of this period. Centred on the archaeological analysis of a monastic complex located in the archipelago of Cabrera (near the large island of Mallorca), the study includes a physical and historical background plus a brief outline of the most important monasteries located in islands/islets of the western Mediterranean. Core is the description in Chapter 3 of the sites on Cabrera, Conillera and the Islet des Frares. As is well known, monasticism figured strongly in late antique and early medieval societies but
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also took on a withdrawn, physical landscape role: here the island location is detached and remote, and yet is not far removed from the large and well populated Mallorca. The Cabrera complex includes a coenobium and a series of hermitages; it drew on agricultural resources (adding terracing), quarries and freshwater, and a port or small harbour area, enabling it to draw on passing maritime commerce. The author in fact demonstrates that the settling of the monks on these small Mediterranean islands was part of a ‘trading diaspora’, with monks an active part of the acquisition, consumption and distribution of many goods arriving not only from the Mediterranean, but also from Atlantic contexts. Indeed, one of the most notable parts of the publication (Chapters 4 and 5) is the wellillustrated catalogue of ceramics, coins, marble work and glass items, which shows how dynamic this period was for local and long-distance trade and how monasticism engaged in this ‘business’ process — something Mateu Riera Rullera stresses in the Interpretation and Conclusions chapters. Many important — and generally new — data are presented here. In my opinion, this marks a valuable and fundamental approach to the archaeology of these (and other) islands in this transitional period, revealing how the relationship with the mainland(s) could be strong and, above all, to better recognition of the functioning and make-up of such late antique/early medieval monastic communities. PILAR DIARTE-BLASCO
(Juan de la Cierva Fellow, University of Alcala)
The S€osdala Horsemen and the Equestrian Elite of Fifth Century Europe. (Jutland Archaeological Publications Volume 99). Edited by Charlotte Fabech & Ulf Nasman. 26 29 cm 451 pp, 600 colour and b&w pls and figs, 7 tables. Moesgard: Jutland Archaeological Society, 2017. ISBN 978-87-93423-15-2 (ISSN 0107-2854). Price: 348 DKK hb. The S€ osdala style has long been referred to in all discussions of Migration Period art, as a precursor to the more familiar Style I, dated to the 5th century AD. The style is characterised by delicate punched ornament on silver or silver-gilt objects and is named after the findspot in southern Sweden where many fragments of decorated horse harness mounts were discovered in 1929 and 1930 (plus later digging in 1961). That was more or less all that was known about it until now, with the publication of this book, which forms a comprehensive and lavishly illustrated account of the site, its finds (a total of 247 separately numbered fragments, comprising mounts for a bridle and up to 13 saddles) and their significance. There is a careful exploration of the discovery of the finds and their immediate topographical and archaeological contexts, and detailed commentary on the history of research and (non-)publication of the finds. The dramatic destruction of horse equipment before its deposition in a pit on a gravel ridge is interpreted as an elite funeral ritual influenced by the burial practices of nomadic peoples from central and eastern Europe. The volume’s editors, Ulf Nasman and Charlotte Fabech, were the drivers of the project, but contributions also come from a number of specialists. There are several chapters (each with summaries in Russian) about horses (past and present) and detailed reconstructions of bridles and saddles with discussion of other early medieval horse equipment. The S€osdala finds are considered in the context of both western and eastern European parallels but with more focus placed on eastern and central Europe. There are some weaknesses: the illustrations are mostly photographs, with no detailed drawings of the artefacts; and the text is written in ‘Scandlish’, which to a native English speaker is awkward and at times obscure in meaning. My main critique, however, is the absence of reference to relevant contemporary British research, except in relation to horse genetics; thus, no reference is made to Anglo-Saxon horse burials and horse harnesses, notably the burial at Eriswell (Suffolk) of a horse still wearing its bridle. The punch motifs on the S€ osdala metalwork in fact resemble the range of stamp motifs found on 5th-century AngloSaxon pottery and the horse heads seen at S€osdala could be paralleled on both combs and buckles in Britain. It is the horse-head buckles which could be of most relevance: they are usually described as late Roman (and chronologically may be slightly earlier and/or
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contemporary with the S€osdala objects); they are distributed quite widely across England, with buckle plates decorated with punched and linear designs which have some similarity to the S€ osdala designs; the Quoit Brooch Style artefacts also have points of comparison with S€osdala, if only as another local metalwork style developing at the very end of the Roman period. Most of the above comments should demonstrate the wide relevance and interest of this substantial publication for all students of the Migration Period. Overall this is a welcome addition to our knowledge of that period, provoking thought on a number of different topics. CATHERINE HILLS
(University of Cambridge)
Tempo e preziosi. Tecniche di datazione per l’oreficeria tardoantica e medievale. (Ornamenta 6). Edited by Isabella Baldini & Anna Lina Morelli. 14 21 cm. 213 pp, 95 colour and b&w pls and figs, 2 tables. Bologna: Ante Quem, 2017. ISBN 978-88-7849-125-0. Price: e20.00 pb. This latest Ornamenta volume derives from papers presented at a conference at Bologna in 2014 and centres on issues of establishing chronologies for jewellery and dress items, primarily of high-status character, but looking also to more everyday dress fittings. Of the nine contributions (and 15 contributors), eight analyse late Roman-period to early medieval artefacts; the last one ventures into the 11th century and discusses a rare gold, filigree and gem-decorated ‘domical’ disc brooch recovered in excavations at a Canonica in the fortified site of Montieri (south-west of Siena). The penultimate paper, by Baldini, looks not at dress items, but an excavated hoard of gilded-silver kitchenware (notably seven spoons), found in a collapsed warehouse at 8th-/9th-century Classe, though with the spoons relating to a collection of items of the 6th and early 7th century, including (based on monograms and designs) one perhaps signifying attachment to King Theoderic’s court. Other papers variously consider modes of dating and interpreting objects, chiefly in Italian contexts, but also including Asolati’s reconstruction of the scattered components of a gold necklace with pendants, each containing coins of AD 324–50, found with other (since dispersed) treasure in Libya in the 1960s; and Vizcaıno Sanchez discusses diverse personal ornaments from Byzantine-period housing in the theatre at Cartagena in south-eastern Spain. Recovering such objects from controlled excavation helps much in assigning dates otherwise provided through cross-referencing of typology, and allows better understanding of personal roles. Sometimes the picture remains complex, such as for graves at Pisa’s Piazza dei Miracoli, where the archaeology and finds (notably here a ‘Byzantine-type’ buckle with hunt design) span periods of Byzantine to Lombard site occupation and include locals and newcomers (paper by Alberti and Baldassari). Fully ‘Lombard’ is the well-known Arcisa bow-brooch (at Chiusi Museum) of the first half of the 7th century, with distinctive ribbon, bird and heads decoration; scientifically analysed and a resultant reconstruction made, Pacini tentatively concludes this may be a very good copy of the original done before 1950! Also welcome was the paper by Hilgner (if with some awkward English; a fuller treatment is forthcoming) on garnet and developments in cloisonne design, noting changes in garnet supply and usage from the 7th century AD. NEIL CHRISTIE
(University of Leicester)
The Countryside of Aphrodisias. (Kelsey Museum Publication 15). By Christopher Ratte & Angela Commito. 15 21 cm. 168 pp, 135 colour and b&w pls and figs. Ann Arbor: Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, 2017. ISBN 978-0-9906623-5-8. Price: $19.95 pb. The Countryside of Aphrodisias may be a slim volume, but it packs a punch far greater than its size. It presents the results of five years of archaeological survey between 2005 and 2009 in the region surrounding Aphrodisias, an Anatolian city well known for its spectacular Roman and late antique architectural and sculptural remains. This publication is a
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condensed summary of a longer academic report (C Ratte and P D De Staebler (eds), Aphrodisias V. The Aphrodisias Regional Survey, Mainz, 2012), pitched also to the general public and tourists visiting the region. Well written, it is handsomely produced, almost every page has colour photographs, diagrams and plans. The book’s structure is broadly chronological, commencing with a preface establishing the scope of the book and a helpful chronological table to orient the lay reader. The first introductory chapter describes the location of the region within Anatolia and its particular topography, before offering an overview of the textual sources, and then setting out the approaches and methodologies used in the archaeological survey. The second chapter presents survey findings from the periods before the foundation of Aphrodisias, from the earliest evidence of human occupation until the Hellenistic period. The third (and longest) chapter focuses on the first major period of urban development at Aphrodisias, from the 2nd century BCE to the early 3rd century CE, and concomitant growth and activity in its surrounding countryside. A range of topics, often written by specialists who carefully balance detail and concision, are covered here: some consider settlement in and movement around the region, plus territorial boundaries and roads; others outline key economic activities, such as agricultural production (Ian Lockey) and marble quarrying (Leah Long); and others examine the infrastructural support — water supply and aqueducts (Angela Commito and Felipe Rojas) and cemeteries (Peter De Staebler et al). Late Antiquity (4th to 7th centuries CE) is explored in Chapter 4. A major programme of civic improvements within the city is outlined, followed by subsections focusing on the € u Dalgıc¸ considers the construction of churches, which formed important countryside. Olg€ landscape markers; notable are churches associated with local martyrs set just outside the gates of the newly rebuilt city wall. Churches in rural locations are then discussed and the range of rural settlements, from farmsteads to agricultural villages (and a possible monastery at Kocadere). Discussion of the large-scale abandonment of Aphrodisias in the 7th century is valuable, relating developments in the city to settlement in the countryside, which also seems to have declined around this same time, suggesting a genuine drop in the overall regional population. Chapter 5 covers the Middle Byzantine period (7th–11th centuries), when the city — one much-shrunken and lacking a major role — endured as the seat of a bishopric. The sixth chapter considers the region from the 12th century until the present day, touching briefly on Seljuk activity before discussing the Ottoman and modern periods, for which there is more evidence. The chapter concludes by reflecting on the future of the region, highlighting economic opportunities offered by tourism focused on Aphrodisias. The final chapter offers much extra: it lays out a recommended itinerary for a day-long driving tour; key sites and additional excursions are described in detail, including hikes to visit tumuli, fortified citadels, and the mountain summit of Baba Dag. The authors hope that their work will be ‘a launching pad for further exploration’ (p 137); certainly it will whet the appetites of many readers and visitors. NAOISE MAC SWEENEY
(University of Leicester)
In the Shadow of the Church. The Building of Mosques in Early Medieval Syria. (Arts and Archaeology of the Islamic World, Volume 8). By Mattia Guidetti. 20 27 cm. xiii þ 221, 13 colour pls, 59 b&w pls and figs. Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2016. ISBN 978-90-0432570-8 (ISSN 2213-3844). Price: e129.00 hb. The material, cultural and human costs of the current, unrelenting civil war in Syria will be felt for centuries. Destruction of cultural heritage, including religious architecture, has been a weapon deployed by all sides in Syria’s recent wars. This book on the rise of Islamic monumental religious architecture in the province of Syria (Bilad al-Sham) attests to a nobler attitude to cultural heritage in the past, showing the sophisticated negotiations of religious landscapes in the 7th to 12th centuries. Mattia Guidetti demonstrates the strategies used to
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create new religious buildings, sometimes topographically contiguous with old ones, at other times in new locations in relation to markets or administrative complexes. Guidetti stresses the different political contexts of early mosques in Syria: not all cities were alike, and there was no single model for the creation of religious buildings in the first Muslim Empire; Damascus emerged as a capital for Umayyad rulers, but there was rivalry between it and Jerusalem; the numerous monastic sites of Syria formed non-urban centres and Muslims created mosques in these too. The history of Syria played a role in legitimating the caliphate: it was celebrated in fad a(il literary traditions and in material form, with the restoration of some religious buildings _ the reuse of some earlier building materials. One chapter considers different approaches and to religious encounters, among early Christians and Jews or between Muslims and Christians in Egypt and at slightly later periods in al-Andalus and in Crusader-period Syria; another compares different uses of medieval spolia and offers ideas about how to understand it. Given the breadth of knowledge and research on display in this book, and how pertinent the observations made will be to art historians, archaeologists and historians of the Middle Ages broadly, it is a shame that the volume was not more carefully edited. Unfortunately, the language is opaque at times because of grammatical errors, missing words and infelicitous expressions, and the hand-drawn maps and plans are rather poor copies of published maps and plans. There are also basic errors which should have been picked up: it was not (Abd al-Malik I (d 705) who began the Great Mosque at Cordoba in AD 785/6 on the site of the earlier cathedral (p 39), but (Abd al-Rahman (d 788); Muhammad conquered Mekka in AD 630, not 622 (p 95); and the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem was destroyed in 1009, not 1010 (p 160). Nonetheless, this book is an excellent archaeology of scholarship, surveying ancient and antiquarian accounts and scraping back layers of hypothesis and interpretation to reveal complicated individual responses to the need for new religious architecture among the Muslim rulers of Syria. CAROLINE GOODSON
(University of Cambridge)
The Architectural Form of the Mosque in the Central Arab Lands, from the Hijra to the End of the Umayyad Period, 1/622–133/750. (British Archaeological Reports International Series 2790). By Thallein Antun. 21 30 cm. viii þ 205 pp, 117 b&w pls and figs, 6 tables. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports Ltd, 2016. ISBN 978-1-4073-1468-6. Price: £38.00 pb. This volume has a tight chronological and geographical focus: starting with the migration of the Prophet Muhammad and his followers from Mekkah to Madina in 622 CE and ending with the fall of the Umayyad Caliphate in 750 CE, this is very much an exploration of the early development of the mosque as part of the spread of Islam itself. Geographically, it covers the Arabian Peninsula and modern Syria and Iraq — however, the absence of maps showing either the extent of the study (and an explanation for its limits) or the location of the sites considered is a drawback to this work; having access to a good atlas of the Islamic world (or to Google maps) while reading it is thus necessary. Thallein Antun’s Chapter 2 covers the archaeological evidence for early congregational mosques, looking at published work for Wasit, Iskaf Bani Junayd, Kufa and Aqsa (Jerusalem) in some detail, and summarising buildings from Syria and Jordan. This is followed by a section on simple, rural mosques with limited archaeological exploration, and then by a very interesting section on the conversion of existing buildings to mosques. The latter addresses examples from places such as Hama and Umm al-Jimal, reflecting the focus of scholarship in Syria and Jordan rather than the practice of conversion itself. Chapter 2 ends with a brief review of possible influences on the architectural form of the mosque. Chapter 3 covers mosque architecture from literary sources, using the case studies of the Prophet’s mosque in Madina, and the mosques at Kufa and Damascus, while Chapter 4 compactly discusses some issues around early mosque architecture, such as the idea of a template for a mosque, and the way the mosque forms spread.
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The value of this monograph (a reworking of an Oxford DPhil) lies in the collection of data around the archaeological and literary evidence for early mosques, rather than as a narrative of development. The collected plans from a range of sources, the regional catalogue and the summary chronological tables for the structures covered in Chapter 2 will be extremely useful for anyone interested in early mosque architecture. RUTH YOUNG
(University of Leicester)
Recording Village Life. A Coptic Scribe in Early Islamic Egypt. (New Texts from Ancient Cultures). By Jennifer A Cromwell. 16 24 cm. xxiv þ 287 pp, 10 colour pls, 24 b&w pls and figs, 5 tables. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2017. ISBN 978-0-472-13048-1. Price: $90.00 hb. Aristophanes, son of Johannes, was a professional scribe who worked in the village of Djeme in the western Thebaid during the middle decades of the 8th century AD. Djeme was a large village of between 1500 and 2000 inhabitants, which developed around the Pharaonic temple of Medinet Habu; the site was excavated by teams from the University of Chicago in the 1920s. Djeme provides a unique glimpse of the changing world of Upper Egypt during the first generations of Islamic occupation, thanks to an unusual concentration of Coptic papyri and ostraca, which date from the early 7th to the later-8th centuries; among these is a dossier of more than 140 of Aristophanes’ documents, spanning the mid720s to late 750s AD, and these provide the focus of Jennifer Cromwell’s fine microhistory of a changing early medieval world. This is a study built on the firmest scholarly foundations and several appendices testify to Cromwell’s intimate familiarity with the texts of the dossier. Equally valuable are the sensitive discussions of tax collection in this village: Aristophanes’ records represent the last stage in a highly bureaucratised system, and illustrate the ways in which Islamic rule manifested itself on the ground, even in this Coptic-speaking and Christian region. By concentrating her study around Aristophanes, rather than the individuals or families for whom he wrote, moreover, Cromwell also draws out the intricacies of domestic life within the village (including multi-generational family squabbles over inheritance and property rights), and casts new light on the widespread practice by which children were pledged to monasteries upon their recovery from illness. The voluminous production of documentary texts in both Coptic and Greek from the early 7th century seems to have been catalysed by the Islamic occupation, yet had ceased almost entirely by the end of the 8th century. Cromwell explores this lettered interlude in a very accessible and illuminating way. ANDREW MERRILLS
(University of Leicester)
Essouk-Tadmekka. An Early Islamic Trans-Saharan Market Town. (Journal of African Archaeology Monograph Series — Volume 12). Edited by Sam Nixon. 22 30 cm. xxiii þ 422 pp, 259 colour and b&w pls and figs, 97 tables. Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2017. ISBN 978-90-0434614-7 (ISSN 2468-8266). Price: e125.00 hb. In this book, Sam Nixon presents his extensive research on the market town of EssoukTadmekka in Mali, an important centre in trans-Saharan trade connecting Qayrawan (Tunisia) and Wargla (Algeria) in North Africa with Gao (Mali) in the western Sudan from the 9th/10th to 14th/15th centuries AD. The town has been abandoned since the 15th century, but its ruins (including at least two mosques) caught the attention of explorers from the 19th century and were objects of study across the 20th century. Nixon’s project, which consisted of the survey of the town and excavation of three (small) trenches, fed into his PhD thesis (completed in 2008) and was subsequently extended until all the materials recovered
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had been analysed by relevant specialists. This resultant monograph is substantial and contains not only detailed accounts of the survey (Ch 4) and excavations in the town (Chs 6–9), but also individual chapters dedicated to inscriptions (Ch 5), chronology (Ch 10) architecture (Ch 11) and to the different finds: ceramics, glass artefacts and beads, goldprocessing and metalworking remains, coins and metals, faunal and plant remains and other miscellaneous artefacts (Chs 12–21). Nixon carefully discusses the archaeological evidence in combination with the historical accounts of Arab authors (these collected in Appendix A). Archaeological specialists will find the other numerous appendices (B–N) valuable, as they set out the full range of evidence collected and the methods employed. These appendices thus enable readers to focus on the main text and interpretations without extended intervening specialist entries, but with printed access to the latter available at the end of the volume (although in some cases cross-referencing to the relevant appendix, such as in Ch 12 on the ceramics, is not ideal). Combined, the volume clearly presents the results from Essouk-Tadmekka in the context of Islamic medieval West Africa. Besides an introduction (Part 1: Chs 1–3), the discussion and synthesis (Part 5, Chs 22–24 and Conclusion) frame and contextualise the whole research project and the evidence generated. It is worth noting that for all chapters Nixon is the main author or a co-author (except for Chapter 5, on the inscriptions, by Moraes Farias, Nixon’s predecessor in the study of Essouk-Tadmekka). In summary, the book is a great success. Although essentially an archaeological monograph, its compelling argument transcends the presentation of results and even the reconstruction of the cultural history of Essouk-Tadmekka itself to offer important and often revealing reflections on trans-Saharan commerce (including the gold trade), Islam in West Africa, Tuareg culture and history, and the transmission of technologies and ideas. It is therefore highly recommended to scholars and students interested in the history and archaeology of West Africa and of the Islamic world system in the Middle Ages. C CARVAJAL LOPEZ JOSE
(University of Leicester)
Le alte valli di Taro e Ceno tra fede e laicita: re, monaci e pellegrini. (DEA: Documenti ed Evidenze di Archeologia 6). Edited by Manuela Catarsi & Patrizia Raggio. 21 30 cm. 96 pp, 74 colour and b&w pls and figs. Bologna: Ante Quem & Soprintendenze ABAP Emilia-Romagna, 2017. ISBN 978-88-7849-121-2. Price: e21.00 pb. The main brief of this fairly slim volume appeared to be to examine the landscape impact of the foundation of the monastery of Bobbio, established by the Irish monk St Columbanus in the Parma-Piacenza Apennines, on lands granted by the Lombard Italian King Agilulf in AD 614. Eleven chapters (largely by the editors) draw, we are told, on excavations, surveys and findings conducted or overseen by the then Soprintendenza all’Archeologia dell’Emilia-Romagna. Less emphasis is set on history and key names (basic summaries on Columbanus and Agilulf are given by Raggio and Catarsi respectively in Chapters 1 and 2) and likewise on the standing abbey complex itself and the site location (each given three-page coverage in Chapters 4 and 5), and more weight goes to churches, dependencies and other monastic sites: thus, Chapter 11 covers the monastery of San Michele di Gravago (first cited in AD 744), while fairly detailed description and discussion are given of medieval churches (and burials) in the Val Vona (Ch 8); and the early medieval religious landscape is best treated in Chapter 6. Otherwise we learn nothing really of the landscape itself or the working population and their villages and products, or even the monks and pilgrims of the volume’s title, although Chapter 9 on roads does a fair job in showing Bobbio’s connectivity, including with the notable pilgrim route of the Via Francigena. Overall I felt that the archaeological treatment was too slight: Raggio’s coverage of roads does plot diverse main and subsidiary lines, but we are given no details on road forms — widths, angles, surfaces, etc. In fact most chapters would have benefitted from such extra detail: rare are plans of abbeys and churches (none are given for Bobbio itself or San Michele di Gravago), and excavation photos only really come in Chapter 8. It’s nice to get pretty views (we get five scenic ‘vedute’ alone in Chapter 6 and Chapter 10 has three
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‘panoramic’ photos), but these should surely supplement and not replace illustrations from the actual site-based studies of the Soprintendenza. In sum, a useful effort but not one with full coherence or sufficient depth to bring either period(s) or area alive. NEIL CHRISTIE
(University of Leicester)
The Sutton Hoo Story. Encounters with Early England. By Martin Carver. 16 25 cm. xiii þ 241 pp, 148 colour and b&w pls and figs. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2017. ISBN 978-178327-204-4. Price: £19.99 pb. Those of us who long taught with Martin Carver’s Sutton Hoo: Burial Ground of Kings? (Philadelphia, 1998) and who came to mourn both the book’s increasingly outdated interpretations and its passing out of print, will be very happy to have his much-changed The Sutton Hoo Story back in our classrooms. Still intact is the original book’s marvelous presentation of the history of the site and its many excavations; elsewhere, though, the volume presents ideas and interpretations that are quite different from those found in Burial Ground of Kings. Some of the updates are subtle changes of phrase, to bring the book in line with more current thinking: ‘Celtic’ field systems, for example, have been replaced by ‘IronAge’ ones. Other changes are more fundamental: the presentation of the origins of the English and the formation of early kingdoms, for example, reflect the last 15 years of scholarship on identity and early medieval history and myth-making. The Sutton Hoo Story also incorporates highlights from the painstaking research presented in Carver’s monumental 2005 volume, Sutton Hoo: A Seventh-Century Princely Burial Ground and its Context. Coffins in the earlier Burial Ground of Kings were constructed from planks, but now are fashioned from tree trunks; the ‘human sacrifice’ associated with Mound 5 has been demoted to a later execution burial; textiles recovered from the graves are given more space; and the animal remains have been re-thought. Discussions of the prehistoric and earliest medieval phases of the site, uncovered during excavations at Tranmer House, have also been added. The inclusion of these earlier burials in the revised book allows Carver to make thought-provoking comparisons between them and the site’s more famous mound burials. The presentation of the overall sequence of the site reflects new thinking as well. The important final chapter, which stands in place of the old volume’s list of unresolved questions, offers wide-ranging discussion of some of the possible meanings of Sutton Hoo, situated in two decades of new research and reflection, and it succinctly and beautifully places Sutton Hoo into conversation with other sites — Brandon, Bloodmore Hill, Snape, Spong Hill, Swallowcliffe Down, West Stow, as well as England’s wic sites. And it offers up new ideas about individual objects, the meaning of material culture more broadly, ritual practices, kingship and trade networks connecting Britain with the eastern Mediterranean, Francia and Scandinavia. ROBIN FLEMING
(Boston College, USA)
The Place-Name Kingston and Royal Power in Middle Anglo-Saxon England. Patterns, Possibilities and Purpose. (BAR British Series 630). By Jill Bourne. 21 30 cm. xii þ 167 pp, 89 colour and b&w figs, 4 tables. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports Ltd, 2017. ISBN 978-1-40731583-3. Price £44.00 pb. Taking its cue from a pioneering approach to -porp place names, this book posits that the Kingstons form a ‘family’ and share commonalities awaiting discovery. The thesis is presented in Part 1, prefaced by a very clear base map showing the location of all 70 known Kingstons (whether they are first attested before or after Domesday Book) and their marked pattern of proximity to a Roman or other early attested road. Part 2, ‘The Data’, profiles each Kingston, located within a 1st edition 1-inch Ordnance Survey map and accompanied by geographical
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location, early history, royal and ecclesiastical connections, appearance in charters and in Domesday Book. The argument is developed over six chapters, logically proceeding from ‘Background and Assumptions’ an overview of ‘The Place-Name Kingston’, ‘Patterns and Possibilites: Distribution and Communications’, ‘Interpreting the Patterns’, a special focus on ‘Kingston-upon-Thames’, and concluding with the question ‘What was a Kingston?’. All are seen to derive from one of two forms: cyningesþtun (53 out of 70) or cyningþtun (17), with later Scandinavianised forms including Coniston and Conington. The reference is always to a king. Analysis suggests that Kingstons had a close association with, and a specific function within, royal estates (p 55), but were not themselves — including Kingston-upon-Thames — villae regales. Their origins may go back to the petty kingdoms revealed in the 7th-century Tribal Hidage (mapped in figure 2, p 13), in the period preceding the emergence of the Heptarchy during the 8th century. Of the two subgroups, the later ‘road/string’ Kingstons, particularly marked in Wessex and the South, show signs of deliberate planning as markers of hegemony, building on the established norms of the ‘original’ Kingstons as places where ‘Kingston things happened’ (pp 79-80) — probably involving law enforcement and security of the king’s highway. The evidence overall is very challenging, but Bourne makes an admirable, thoughtprovoking attempt to approach her question from all conceivable angles — linguistic, archaeological, geographical and historical — using a range of techniques, including three types of statistical analysis which confirm the siting of almost all 70 cases in proximity to a Roman or other early highway. Her conclusions are powerfully suggestive rather than dogmatic, and the argument is very well illustrated by maps and diagrams throughout. K S B KEATS-ROHAN
(University of Oxford)
Farming Transformed in Anglo-Saxon England. Agriculture in the Long Eighth Century. By Mark McKerracher. 19 25 cm. þ 154 pp, 83 b&w pls and figs, 2 tables. Oxford & Havertown PA: Windgather Press, 2018. ISBN 978-1-911188-31-5. Price: £34.99 pb. Until relatively recently there was next to nothing that could be said about farming in the early medieval period, such was the dearth of evidence. Thankfully this has now changed, and Farming Transformed in Anglo-Saxon England brings together a good part of the wide range of evidence that now exists. McKerracher’s focus is exclusively archaeological, and as such this book should be read alongside Debby Banham and Rosamond Faith’s Anglo-Saxon Farms and Farming that explores the documentary material. Although the 5th and 6th centuries are considered, McKerracher concentrates on the 7th to 9th centuries (what has previously been referred to as the ‘long 8th century’) when the landscape and society in southern Britain were transformed through the creation of stable kingdoms and thanks to an expanding economy that included growing international trade. Geographically, data are drawn from two study areas that together almost form a transect across southern England, from Gloucestershire to Norfolk. Inexplicably excluded are Bedfordshire, Middlesex and Hertfordshire. Chapter 2 explores ‘Farm and Field’, providing an overview of the debates over when and why villages and open fields developed, and the archaeological evidence for the use of the heavy plough. Chapter 3 examines animal husbandry through faunal assemblages, with the focus on the proportions of cattle, sheep/goat and pig. The data are shown to be broadly similar across the study areas but with some interesting, possibly specialised, sites (such as Wicken Bonhunt in Essex), and some possible regional trends such as greater herd maturity over time in East Anglia and greater use of droveways and paddocks in the Upper Thames Basin and Ouse Valley (the shaded maps based upon ‘Inverse Distance Weighting’ should, however, be treated with great caution such is the very small number of sites that are used). Chapters 4 and 5 consider arable cultivation, including the evidence for specialised structures such as barns, granaries, ovens and mills, which increases dramatically from around the 7th century. Pollen is discussed extremely briefly, and there is a more thorough consideration of the evidence from
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charred cereals; but analysis here is simply based upon the presence of grains of a particular type, rather than calculating the percentages, which would be far more informative. Some interesting patterns do, however, emerge, notably greater crop diversity appearing from the 7th century as increasing areas of the landscape were exploited. Overall, Farming Transformed brings together a wide range of evidence and shows that, from the 7th to 9th centuries, there was expanded arable production, a proliferation of processing technologies, some specialisation in animal husbandry and diversification of crop regimes. The sites upon which the analysis is based are summarised in a very useful Appendix, but it is a shame that no index is presented. In summary, this is an important study that sheds fuller light on farming in Anglo-Saxon southern England across the ‘long 8th century’. STEPHEN RIPPON
(University of Exeter)
Water and the Environment in the Anglo-Saxon World. The Material Culture of Daily Living in the Anglo-Saxon World: Volume III. (Exeter Studies in Medieval Europe). Edited by Maren Clegg Hyer & Della Hooke. 18 25 cm. xv þ 261 pp, 42 b&w pls and figs, 3 tables. Liverpool: University of Liverpool Press, 2017. ISBN 978-1-78694-028-5. Price: £80.00 hb. This multi-disciplinary volume, edited by Maren Clegg Hyer and Della Hooke, is the third in a series exploring The Material Culture of Daily Living in the Anglo-Saxon World. It contains an introduction by the editors and nine chapters by eight contributors. Hooke offers two chapters, the first a useful overview of the contribution of charters, laws and place names to the wide range of terms for watercourses of different character, the variety of water-related activities and their use as boundaries. Her second chapter explores the sacred and mystical role of rivers, wells and springs over the period, exploiting similar evidence. Two chapters take a literary perspective: Jill A Frederick discusses water in Anglo-Saxon poetry, while Kelley Wickham-Crowley considers fens and frontiers in texts, augmenting her arguments with some archaeological material. Mark Gardiner, Hal Dalwood and Stephen Rippon offer fairly generalised archaeological perspectives: the first author on inland waterways and coastal transport; the second on water and trading settlements; and the last on marshes and other wetlands. The most innovative work presented here is that of Rebecca Reynolds, who usefully explores the archaeology of Anglo-Saxon marine and freshwater fishing, and Martin Watts’ worthwhile review of both the evidence for watermills and waterwheels and for the water-management systems with which they were integrated. In all, the volume summarises — and sometimes reprises — existing studies as well as some new research over the previous decade. In that, it provides a useful addendum to, but does not challenge, to my mind, John Blair’s magisterial edited volume on Waterways and Canal-Building in Medieval England (Oxford, 2007). SUSAN OOSTHUIZEN
(University of Cambridge)
Manx Crosses. A Handbook of Stone Sculpture 500–1040 in the Isle of Man. (Archaeopress Archaeology). By David M Wilson. 18 25 cm. þ 181 pp, 14 colour pls, 49 b&w pls and figs, 1 table. Oxford: Manx National Heritage with Archaeopress. 2018. ISBN 978-1784917-57-9. Price: £19.99 hb. This study considers the carved stone crosses of the Isle of Man produced between the 5th to mid-11th centuries. The volume consists of six discussion chapters supported by a suggested reading section and a list documenting each known sculpture on the island. The assemblage is composed of 205 pieces, principally upstanding and recumbent gravemarkers; of these, 35 have surviving inscriptions written to commemorate the dead, in ogham, Latin or runic script.
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David Wilson’s primary aim is to provide a modern synthesis of all previous discussions regarding the sculptural assemblage. He thus explores the wider context for the creation — and often the destruction and/or removal — of these sculptures, broadly considering the religious, political, social and economic climate throughout the early medieval period. He draws on the island’s archaeological discoveries, extant contemporary structures and later historical sources to achieve this. Key themes focus on the aesthetic influences of the sculptural assemblage, reflecting the Isle of Man’s location within the Irish Sea Region and the growing influence of the Church, evidenced through the appearance of ecclesiastical structures and/or settlements. Scandinavian settlement, particularly the manner in which it occurred, is also explored using the Manx-cross assemblage as a prominent class of evidence, specifically the appearance of Scandinavian/pagan symbolism and Scandinavian art styles on the monuments. Conversion of the Scandinavian settlers also features heavily, since Wilson argues that while the sculptural form did not alter, the decorative choices did, indicating both continuity and appropriation of native practices on the island. The discussion is supported by illustrations (generally of good quality), informatively integrated into the text, and refers frequently to the appended catalogue, which is a useful, albeit fairly basic, addition. However, while specific monuments and assemblages are used within these discussions, Wilson’s focus is on a more general island narrative and so some of the specificity of each monument is missing. The volume has no in-text referencing or footnotes; readers must rely on a suggested reading section instead. Wilson’s introduction does explicitly state that this is a book for the general public and is not purely academic, but the lack of references may frustrate some researchers. In summary, both general readers and academic scholars will find this a useful and interesting read, one that examines the sculptural assemblage as a whole and places it within the wider context of the island’s narrative. A companion volume that records and discusses each monument individually, within its immediate context, would be a welcome future addition. JOANNE KIRTON
(University of Chester)
Helg€o Revisited. A New Look at the Excavated Evidence for Helg€o, Central Sweden. By Helen Clarke & Kristina Lamm. 22 30 cm. xii þ 135 pp, 121 colour and b&w pls and figs, 5 tables. Schleswig: Zentrum f€ ur Baltische und Skandinavische Arch€aologie in der Stiftung Schleswig-Holsteinische Landesmuseen Schloss Gottorf, 2017. ISBN 978-3-947386-01-7. Price: e24.50 hb. The early medieval site at Helg€o, on Lake M€alaren in central Sweden, has drawn attention ever since excavation began in 1954. To date, research on Helg€o has produced 18 monographs and innumerable articles; the present volume, by authors with long experience within the Helg€o Project, offers a first critical synthesis of the site. Known for its exotic finds, like a 6th-century Buddha figure from the Swat Valley in India, numerous local cult-related objects and features, along with substantial workshop evidence, Helg€o has been key in the discussion and definition of central places. Early on, the term was associated with urban development, with Helg€o described as a ‘proto-town’ and a forerunner of Viking-Age Birka; current central-place theories provide a more complex interpretation of this type of settlement as political and ritual centres of regional organisation. Within this framework, Helg€ o, along with sites like Gudme in Denmark and Uppåkra in south-western Sweden, has been defined as a central place of supra-regional significance. However, a significant point, put forward here, is that the physical data demonstrate a change in status of Helg€o over time: its ‘golden age’ of great halls and workshops with large-scale production of jewellery, both in bronze and precious metal, falls within the 6th century; subsequently, activities in the main workshop complex (BG3) became focused on iron products and glass beads; by c AD 700 the site, which continues into the early 11th century, seemingly reverts to mainly agricultural usage. An explanation for this change is here tentatively flagged up with Old
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Uppsala, some 65 km up the Fyris river from Helg€o, where recent excavations of this iconic site (considered the cradle of the Svea Kingdom) have revealed a vast hall with workshops for high-status jewellery production, dating back to c AD 600 — the period that saw Helg€o declining. This could suggest the rise of a new elite and a transfer of central-place functions away from Helg€o. Further research will undoubtedly continue to debate the role and relationship of these sites. In terms of broader synthesis, Helg€o Revisited also discusses the workshop evidence, including for the production of steel, and the role of the site as a pagan cult centre from the late-Roman Iron-Age to the early Viking period. It also provides a previously unpublished appendix on the individual buildings. € MARIT GAIMSTER
(Pre-Construct Archaeology, London)
Heirs of the Vikings. History and Identity in Normandy and England, c 950–c 1015. By Katherine Cross. 16 24 cm. xiv þ 262 pp, 3 b&w pls and figs. Woodbridge & Rochester NY: The Boydell Press & York Medieval Press, 2018. ISBN 978-1-903153-79-6. Price: £60.00 hb. Heirs of the Vikings is a stimulating read for anyone interested in the Viking period and its aftermath, as well as medieval identity and ethnicity more specifically. This book is a comparative study of England and Normandy in the period between AD 950 and 1015, examining how Viking identity came to mean such different things in these two regions. England and Normandy were chosen for comparison as they experienced similar periods of Viking raiding in the 9th century and later conquests where Scandinavian minorities eventually ruled the existing communities. Katherine Cross’ examination of ethnic identity is carried out through detailed study and comparison of written sources from both regions, presented in five main chapters. The first of these compares genealogies from England and Normandy, showing how identities inherited from select ancestors were presented through the production of genealogies. Chapter 2 continues with the related theme of origin myths, arguing that the re-interpretation and rewriting of these myths were driven by political aims and contemporary ideas about ethnicity. The following two chapters both focus on hagiographical material and here Cross successfully illustrates how elites used this genre to express their Scandinavian past. Finally, in Chapter 5, land charters are used to examine the use of ethnonyms and the justifications adopted in order to claim territory. A potential problem with the study, and one raised by Cross herself, is to what extent the elite really did formulate wider ethnic identities. According to Cross, this was possible since the elite had the means to create important cultural artefacts and thus to influence the masses. Archaeological material is strikingly absent in the book, although its significance is acknowledged; the questions formulated may be difficult to answer through archaeology, but within a wider study this should play an important part, perhaps throwing new light on the role of non-elites. This book is highly relevant in today’s political climate, with increasing nationalism and focus on ethnic identities. Many such views draw on the past, going back to Anglo-Saxon, Viking or other ‘ethnic groups’ without deeper reflection. This book, in which Cross convincingly shows that past and seemingly well-known ethnic identities are the result of conscious creations by various members of the elite to further their own political and economic agenda, would be a useful read also for a wider audience. ALEXANDRA SANMARK
(Institute for Northern Studies, Perth College UHI)
Medieval Dublin XVI. Proceedings of Clontarf 1014–2014: National Conference Marking the Millennium of the Battle of Clontarf. Edited by Sean Duffy. 16 24 cm. 326 pp, 30 b&w pls and figs, 2 tables. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2017. ISBN 978-1-84682-604-7. Price: e24.95 pb.
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Unlike most of the other volumes in this useful series, this new collection of essays has a rather narrow focus on events, people and places linked to the 1014 Battle of Clontarf, especially the key figure of Brian Boru. Most papers comprise fairly detailed critiques of primary historical sources, focussing on personalities, Boru’s lineage and the place of the battle in medieval and more recent historiography. The collection begins with a lengthy paper by Bart Jaski on the rise of the Da Cais, demonstrating that the construction of Brian’s lineage was part of a ‘history making’ project in his own lifetime, long before the better-known works of propaganda of later centuries. Cathy Swift then takes an adventurous step into the tricky waters of modern DNA analyses of those claiming to be descendants of the clan/group. Edel Bhreathnach next reviews the battle from an 11th-century Dublin perspective, while Eoin O’Flynn offers a study of Brian’s ambitions to extend his rule, literally and figuratively, beyond his own kingdom; and a paper by Denis Casey addresses his relations with the church of Armagh. Two papers then set the battle in a wider Scandinavian context of changing polities and alliances; in a non-traditional take, Colman Etchingham argues that the principal victor of the battle was in fact Sitriuc, the Viking king of Dublin, who freed his kingdom from Gaelic lordship; Patrick Wadden meanwhile proposes that it should be seen as part of a more general struggle to assert Scandinavian authority in the western Atlantic. Further papers by Maire Nı Mhaonaigh, Paul McCotter and Marie Therese Flanagan address Brian’s reputation and the authority of his dynasty after his death, while others by Lenore Fischer and Meidhbhin Nı Urdail consider the role of Clontarf in Irish historiography from different angles. A concluding paper presents a digital project which identified a number of useful issues, not least the way in which a wider audience might benefit from some of the complex discussions presented by formal scholars. Andrew Halpin offers the only paper with substantial archaeological content — a review of the archaeology of the battle itself. He has not much to go on since there are only a couple of Viking-Age artefacts from the district; the location of the battlefield itself is uncertain, and even the place name is not associated with the conflict until a couple of generations after the event. Halpin’s review of the topography is thus necessarily speculative; and as the terrain is now largely covered in modern housing, the possibility of pinpointing the location seems unlikely. In lieu of this, he offers a useful and accessible discussion of the types of weaponry and likely style of combat deployed, with some interesting comments on the state of the art of warfare in 11th-century Ireland. Overall, this fairly dense collection represents much depth of scholarship; it might have benefitted from the use of abstracts to provide fingerposts to the individual contributions for less specialist readers. DEIRDRE O’SULLIVAN
(University of Leicester)
Ch^ateau et pouvoirs en Champagne: Montfelix, un castrum comtal aux portes d’Epernay. (Publications du CRAHM, Serie antique et medievale). By Annie Renoux. 23 29 cm. 455 pp, 201 colour and b&w pls and figs, 29 tables, Caen: Presses Universitaires de Caen, 2018. ISBN 978-284133-879-5 (ISSN 2491-8423). Price: e50.00 hb. This handsomely produced monograph reports on and contextualises the results of excavations at the castle at Montfelix, Champagne, located south of the city of Reims (northeastern France). Surviving now as a bare earthwork — unusually featuring two mottes — the site was methodically excavated between 1983 and 1995, targeting zones within the bailey, as well as defensive features. The area on and around the motte nord saw especially thorough investigation and the structural sequence here seems clear in comparison to the motte sud, whose character and relationship with the rest of the complex are less certain. Built in AD 952 by one of the ancestors of the counts of Champagne, Herbert, Count of Omois, the castle lay within a borderland context at the interface of the plain of Champagne and a more wooded district. It became the centre of a local castellany and was
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part and parcel of an aggressive process of encastellation, although it seems clear that this was not a principal residence but a subsidiary seigneurial site. The structural archaeological evidence is presented in a series of chronologically based chapters, prior to an extended treatment of the historical material, which develops into an engaging essay on the castle as part of a network of power embracing population centres and religious foundations. In terms of the site’s development, eight phases are discerned in a complex sequence involving timber- as well as stone-built structures. The account of the earliest timber phases is a superb example of joining the dots of postholes to recreate a nuanced sequence of timberbuilding development. By the 11th century the dominant structure was a stone first-floor hall with attached tower after the manner of Mayenne, Pays de la Loire. The castle was abandoned in the early 13th century but was outlived by its adjacent village. Overall, the treatment of stratigraphy and structures is impressive, richly illustrated and informed by rigorous consideration of comparanda. Within the specialist reports, the numbers and quality of aristocratic artefacts and ecofacts stand out, including equestrian equipment, gaming pieces and a characteristically high proportion of pig bone. As well as detailing a rich and idiosyncratic sequence of castle development, the report has much to say about the formation of the Champagne principality specifically and about networks of power in the landscape at different scales more generally, and can be regarded as a model of its sort. OLIVER CREIGHTON
(University of Exeter)
The Framing of Sacred Space. The Canopy and the Byzantine Church. By Jelena Bogdanovic. 19 26 cm. xl þ 411pp, 174 colour and b&w pls and figs, 7 tables. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 2017. ISBN 978-0-19-046518-6. Price: £38.99 hb. Canopies, centrally planned vaulted columnar structures, also known as ciboria, although essential spatial and symbolic units of the Byzantine church, have received little or rather superficial attention in the literature. Jelena Bogdanovic’s monograph offers the first comprehensive study of a microarchitectural unit of generic form and basic tectonic integrity with a vast geographical and chronological span (from Late Antiquity to c AD 1500 and throughout the Mediterranean to Russia and the Balkans) that stood at the heart of the Byzantine church’s structural core. She begins by examining the use of the term in textual sources and critically re-asserts its applicability in modern literature that largely shaped its definition. The multiplicity of materials and forms, in contrast to the generic inscriptions and repetitive painted and sculptured decoration of the canopy, are masterfully interpreted in Chapter 2. However, the book’s major contribution is the re-assessment of the canopy as a powerful signifier, which provided dominant performance frameworks for liturgical and paraliturgical services. By focusing case studies on (a) specific architecturally confirmed examples that range from Dura-Europos to St Sophia (Ch 3) and (b) diverse types of canopied installations (ie altar, tomb or ambo canopies, canopied phialai or imperial thrones) from Greece to Italy and the Near East (Ch 4), Bogdanovic shows the canopy as a carrier of various meanings. In this perspective, challenging the interior/exterior borderline, the space defined by canopies expands beyond the performed ceremonies to the unrepresentable and supraspatial realm of the Christian Church. Thus, the canopy becomes an ontological module, the symbol/ signifier of an overarching cosmic frame that could have any other underpinnings — ie sociological, or even socio-political — outside the strict church environment (cf Peter Berger’s The Sacred Canopy, New York, 1990). The final chapter (Ch 5) brilliantly highlights the potency of the canopy as a chameleon-like design concept that, being at the heart of the Byzantine domed-church design, asserts the links between late antique and medieval architecture. As such, the canopied unit was already proclaimed by followers of the British Arts and Crafts Movement, such as John Ruskin and William Morris (Morris, Gothic Architecture, 1893), with the invention
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of the arch — which resulted in canopied structures and, ultimately, the dome — hailed as the principal defining characteristic of Byzantine architecture. In this perspective, Bogdanovic’s comprehensive discussion of the canopy as a key domical structure-carrier of ideas becomes even more pivotal. Finally, I would note that the book is equipped with invaluable appendices and tables and excellent photographs that illustrate canopies and their contexts most eloquently. DIMITRA KOTOULA
(British School at Athens)
La villa e la pieve. Storia e trasformazioni di S. Giovanni in Ottavo di Brisighella tra l’eta romana e il Medioevo. (Documenti ed Evidenze di Archeologia 5). Edited by Chiara Guarnieri. 21 30 cm. 160 pp, 157 colour and b&w pls and figs, 1 table. Bologna: Ante Quem & Soprintendenza Archeologica dell’Emilia-Romagna, 2016. ISBN 978-88-7849-112-0. Price: e24.00 pb. This is an excellent, compact and highly informative analysis of a very distinctive church with a noteworthy context, architectural evolution and history of restoration. The earliest documentary reference is of AD 909 which cites the Plebs Sancti Johannis qui vocatur in Octavo — the latter name a reference to the site’s presence at the eighth mile on the Roman road linking Florence and Faenza, a connection handily re-inforced by the reuse as a column in the church nave of a massive 2.19 m high milestone of AD 375–8. Indeed, excavations by the local parish priest in the 1950s and 1960s (notably clearing the crypt which had been infilled in the 16th century) helped identify an underlying villa (or possible road station) whose remaining finds (redisplayed in rooms leading to the crypt — see Section 5) include at least ten substantial (1.4 m diameter) dolia, plus wine amphorae spanning the 1st to 4th centuries AD (see Section 2). While a few elements of the first church have been traced (marked also by some sculpted fittings of 9th- to 10th-century date — see Section 3.3), the main church fabric belongs to c AD 1100. The monograph contributors offer attentive reading of this and its stonework (Sections 3.1 and 4.3); there was also laser mapping of the crypt (3.2). Most revealing are the spoliated materials, which, besides the noted milestone and fragments of Roman epitaphs (Section 4.1), include a collection of reused columns and capitals, of date range 1st century BC to early 6th century AD (4.2). Despite their slightly uneven mix, the spolia is viewed for its quantity and quality as one of the most important examples of reuse for the whole region (pp 133–4); the claim is for materials from demolished/ruinous monuments from early medieval Ravenna, the former late Roman-period and Byzantine capital, giving thereby extra prominence to this Romanesque church at Brisighella. NEIL CHRISTIE
(University of Leicester)
Nonantola 5. Una comunita all’ombra dell’abate. I risultati degli scavi di piazza Liberazione (2015). (Insegnamento di Archeologia Medievale — Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici, Universita Ca’ Foscari di Venezia). Edited by Mauro Librenti & Alessandra Cianciosi. 21 29 cm. 102 pp, 120 colour and b&w pls and figs, 23 tables. Florence: All’Insegna del Giglio, 2017. ISBN 978-88-7814-827-7. Price: e25.00 pb. This latest Nonantola volume adds an important new layer to the studies undertaken on the medieval abbey, its habitat and its territory in a collaborative project between the Comune di Nonantola (in the province of Modena) and archaeologists from the University of Venice since 2001. While a sixth volume is in preparation, focussed on investigations within the abbey itself, this present publication is a compact but detailed and well-presented analysis of the evidence from excavations undertaken across c 1000 square metres in the habitat’s Piazza Liberazione in conjunction with repaving and services work here. In relation
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to location, while while Fig 1 offers a basic location map and outline plot of the borgo and its 14th-century circuit, there is no figure illustrating its relationship to the abbey — ie to show how it is ‘in the shadow’ of this — or to give names of streets or main buildings. The site was known to be important since sondages in 2004 identified part of a cemetery (182 burials) linked to the ‘lost’ church of San Lorenzo (demolished in the 15th century): the 2015 excavation uncovered 38 further burials (detailed in Chapter 2 as a fairly unhealthy group) but also c 70% of the church itself. While heavily robbed and without floor levels, the foundations for the second-phase (12th-century) church (25 m 11 m) survived; within was traced the robbed phase-one church (15 m 8 m) of the mid-11th century AD. Elsewhere in the piazza 9th- to 11th-century timber units (some with hearths) were identified, suggestive of an attendant village to the abbey, perhaps providing labour and craftworking. The building of the (parish) church of San Lorenzo clearly marked an expansion and formalisation of this community. Ceramics and faunal and other finds link mainly to the church periods and include five 10th- to 12th-century coins. NEIL CHRISTIE
(University of Leicester)
Malta and Water (AD 900 to 1900). Irrigating a Semi-Arid Landscape. (BAR International Series 2829). By Keith Buhagiar. 21 30 cm. xxix þ 283 pp, 321 colour and b&w pls and figs, 5 tables. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports Ltd, 2016. ISBN 978-1-4073-1629-1. Price: £47.00 pb. Malta has always been particularly dear to the British people, and its history and archaeology have helped maintain durable ties between our two countries. Keith Buhagiar’s book on medieval water management, both Arab and later, fruit of a PhD at the University of Malta in 2014 and the result of considerable fieldwork, is thus particularly welcome. Anyone studying the medieval and modern Mediterranean has only to learn from the rich analysis of water capture and deployment in the karst environment of the islands, common to many lands bordering the middle sea. Despite the obvious fact that life cannot exist without water, the archaeology of water remains a rather neglected field of research, especially in rural and semi-arid environments; such is largely because of the inherent difficulties in the study of pertinent and often aqueous evidence, coupled with a general lack of spectacular archaeological remains. The few scholars who have attempted to understand the importance of water management in the medieval Mediterranean have developed their knowledge largely through the textual evidence. Nonetheless, beginning with a careful appraisal of Malta’s geology, Buhagiar boldly tackles both the textual and the often enigmatic material evidence head on, despite difficulties of dating many rural testimonies and the lack of excavation of such vestiges. He begins by harnessing the rich documentary evidence for the later Middle Ages and modern times, with a view to retrogressive analysis, before progressing to illustrate the occurrence of perched aquifers and associated galleries and wells used for water capture since Antiquity, also presenting a synthesis of the evidence for Phoenician, Punic and Roman times. The material evidence is often correlated with specific place names, which has aided identification in the documents. The enormous efforts taken to provide for water in the semi-arid Maltese landscape certainly helped substantially in the development of later-medieval agriculture and the distribution of people and villages. Buhagiar suggests that specialised labourers were specifically brought in to the Maltese Islands, perhaps from Sicily by the Normans, who annexed the islands in AD 1127, and by later central administrations during the High Middle Ages. The Normans also likely installed the so-called giardini estates, which were intimately related to systematic water capture, designed to increase the islands’ agricultural potential. Indeed, there are many parallels with Sicily, which this author knows well, where qanat and other water-capturing systems had already been developed by the Arabs. Buhagiar’s insights are particularly valuable and create a firm base upon which to build future research projects, including the conservation of the cultural heritage, especially now that studies by Nathaniel Cutajar and Brunella
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Bruno are finally providing much-needed ceramic dating evidence for the Maltese Early Middle Ages. Thus, not only do the data in this impressive volume add to the increasing archaeological evidence to show the dynamic role of the Maltese Islands before, during and after the Knights, but it will be useful to anyone studying water management across the Middle Ages and early modern times throughout the Christian and Islamic Mediterranean. PAUL ARTHUR
(Universita del Salento, Italy)
Medieval Urban Landscape in Northeastern Mesopotamia. By Karel Novacek, Miroslav Melcak, Lenka Starkova & Narmin Ali Muhammad Amin. 21 29 cm. viii þ 210 pp, 173 colour and b&w pls and figs, 21 tables. Oxford: Archaeopress, 2016. ISBN 978-1-78491-518-6. Price: £38.00 pb. This is a welcome addition to the urban studies of Hidyab province, in what is now Iraqi Kurdistan. This research programme (2013–15) demonstrates the considerable potential of remote sensing in little-researched regions, here focused on urban centres from the Sasanian to the Ottoman periods. Building on CORONA satellite and other declassified imagery, the project also makes good use of early military aerial photos, more recent commercial imagery, as well as one Unmanned Aerial Vehicle survey (at Kona Makhm ur). Some 15 urban or quasi-urban settlements are presented, mostly along the eastern side of the River Tigris and along the Little and Great Zab rivers. Some were already known, some previously unlocated but identifiable by means of the historical record, and some whose names remain uncertain. A number were of considerable size, with al-Haditha covering more than 300 ha. The ‘urban’ centres are presented in a series of studies linking historical data, historical maps and illustrations and, where possible, field-survey data (sherd collections are illustrated, with an appendix); the related remote-sensing imagery is presented and interpreted through often excellent analytical plans. Associated sites include bridges, mausolea, monasteries, qanat (eg around Azza), cemeteries (eg Hasan Ghazi pass) and deliberately destroyed monuments, such as the shrine of Sultan ‘Abd Allah at al-Haditha (demolished in 2014). While very preliminary, this published report contains much of interest while raising many new questions on urban dynamics. Urban expansion in the 7th–8th centuries AD seems likely, perhaps to be associated with expanding irrigation. In places, monastic centres may also have remained important, notwithstanding Islamic dominance. Numerous qusur or ‘fortified residences’ within many urban settlements also invite further study; but whose residences these were remains unknown. Later-medieval urban decline also seems likely, although Arbil, al-Bawazij, Kusaf and Altın K€opr€ u, had longer histories. Such useful work by Novacek et al establishes essential foundations for future research. DAVID EDWARDS
(University of Leicester)
Encounters, Excavations and Argosies. Essays for Richard Hodges. (Archaeopress Archaeology). Edited by John Mitchell, John Moreland & Bea Leal. 21 29 cm. iv þ 359 pp, 210 colour and b&w pls, figs and tables. Oxford: Archaeopress, 2017. ISBN 978-1-78491-681-7. Price: £45.00 pb. Hagiography is a diverse genre. Medieval authors and artists used poetry and painting, narrative accounts, moralistic prose and precious-metal containers to celebrate a saint and encourage new followers to join in the community of his faithful. So too have many students, friends and collaborators of Richard Hodges invoked various forms to honour him in this Festschrift on his 65th birthday: rhyming verse, vintage photographs of excavations and of the man himself, effusive praise of his physique and facial hair, music tastes and prescient insights
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in archaeological theory; some of the full 30 contributors rehash old arguments, others flog personal agendas, while the best pieces are short jewel-like articles offered as votive gifts. This volume of ephemera, essays and articles is edited by John Mitchell, John Moreland and Bea Leal, the first two long-time collaborators of Hodges and the third a recent student; the title, in the apt words of one contributor, has ‘overtones of half-forgotten trysts and voyagings in a distant past’ (p 275); it was always going to be a mixed bag and it could have been more vigorously edited. The contributors are mostly academic archaeologists, plus historians and art historians, commercial archaeologists and a few others; they come from Europe, the USA and the UK. The essays cover archaeological theory and practice, early medieval economies and commerce, and sites from Scandinavia to Lebanon, with concentrations on Italy and Albania, where most of Hodges’ professional work took place. Some of these contributions really stand out and will carry the book beyond its laudatory purpose. Thus, several give dense, rich case studies: Carvajal Lopez on the Arabian Gulf, Reynolds on Butrint, Vaccaro on central Sicily, Vroom on Saranda (Albania), and Verhoeven and Dijkstra on Leiderdorp (Netherlands), which all bring new analyses of ceramics as evidence for cultural changes with the fall of the Roman West and the rise of Muhammad and Charlemagne, revealing local dynamics of resilience, with different strategies employed within the same site; the analysis of coarse wares and transport containers in their spatial and stratigraphic contexts provides the most convincing cases. Rovelli on the coinage systems of medieval Italy and Delogu on papal Rome are both exemplary individual approaches to the vexing problem of early medieval Italian economies. Symonds’ essay on Hodges, the recent past and future of archaeology, is not only hilariously peppered with tales of the earnest English archaeologists of the 1980s, their attire and shenanigans, but is also sharp on the ways in which Hodges’ Dark Age Economics (1982) and his rewrite of it (2012) beat with the pulse of broader trends in politics and scholarship. Like the best medieval hagiographic writing, this book in its diversity allows the finest quality of Richard Hodges to emerge — namely his enormous ambition for archaeology as a subject which could change the study of history, art history, premodern economy as well as contemporary society and developing economies. CAROLINE GOODSON
(University of Cambridge)
Crossing Boundaries: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Art, Material Culture, Language and Literature of the Early Medieval World: Essays Presented to Professor Emeritus Richard N Bailey, OBE, in Honour of his Eightieth Birthday. Edited by Eric Cambridge & Jane Hawkes. 23 29 cm. xv þ 299 pp, 131 colour and b&w pls and figs. Oxford & Philadelphia: Oxbow Books, 2017. ISBN 9781-78570-307-2. Price: £55.00 hb. This handsome volume is intended as a Festschrift to Richard Bailey, one of the key figures in the study of the early medieval art and architecture of northern Britain. A quick look at the full list of Bailey’s publications at the end of the volume reminds us of the breadth of his work — primarily on sculpture and other forms of Viking art, but also engaging in the study of Anglo-Saxon and Irish material from across Britain. His work has always been interdisciplinary and it is important to remember that he spent much of his academic life based in a department of English Language and Literature rather than in a department of Archaeology or History. This interdisciplinary dimension of his work underpins the papers brought together here. While the bulk of the contributions take art-historical approaches to individual items or assemblages of material, there are also papers on architecture (David Parsons; Eric Cambridge), charters (Lindsay Allason-Jones and David Heslop), hagiography (A I Doyle) and place names (Diana Whaley). Together the collection strikes the right balance between forming a reasonably coherent group of papers, yet having enough diversity to reflect the interests of the scholar being honoured.
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It is invidious to pick out individual papers; there is much of interest, although inevitably they range from heavyweight interventions to slighter pieces. Some contributors take well-known monuments or groups of monuments, such as Claire Stancliffe’s re Carragain’s consideration of the Santa assessment of the Ruthwell Cross or Eamonn O Sabina crucifixion pane; others present thorough analyses of lesser-known or new objects, such as Leslie Webster’s detailed analysis of a Mercian sword-pommel from Oxfordshire, and James Graham-Campbell’s consideration of a Viking-Age gold brooch from Norfolk. Purely on a personal level, I particularly enjoyed Jane Hawkes’ discussion of the iconography of the Cuthbert Coffin; the fact that this wonderful object is finally back on public display in Durham will allow readers to go and really look closely at this unique object. Helen Gittos’ exploration of a distinctive set of lead crosses from Bury St Edmunds is a case study in trying to understand a very particular and specific set of items through a wider analysis of their context, and showing how liturgical practices might be understood even in the absence of written evidence. I also got much from two papers on sculptural material: Nancy Edwards examines the crucifixion iconography of Welsh early medieval sculpture — a group of material which is lacking in the representation of biblical imagery; and Paul Everson and David Stocker consider the important collection of early sculpture from St John’s, Chester, arguing that the site should be understood as a merchants’ church based on parallels with similar sites the authors have previously identified on the east coast, such as Lythe (North Yorkshire). Overall, there is much here of interest to anyone with a broad interest in early medieval art and culture in Viking-Age Britain. There is perhaps less that is ground breaking but much that will consolidate, develop and enhance how we understand the early medieval world in the North. DAVID PETTS
(University of Durham)
From Bridgehead to Brewery. The Medieval and Post-Medieval Archaeological Remains from Finzel’s Reach, Bristol. (Oxford Archaeology Monograph No 27). By Ben M Ford, Kate Brady & Steven Teague. 22 30 cm. xxiv þ 296 pp, 199 colour and b&w pls and figs, 16 tables, plus CD-ROM (including film and 85 photos). Oxford: Oxford Archaeology Ltd, 2017. ISBN 978-0-904220-86-5. Price: £27.00 hb. Research into the archaeology of medieval Bristol has been quite a success story since the 1980s. To some extent this is because of the opportunities presented by large-scale redevelopment projects, but also because of the high standard of work achieved by the contractors working here, including Oxford Archaeology (OA) who are responsible for the volume under review. This concerns a large site, latterly that of the Courage Brewery, in the medieval Temple suburb on land defined to the north by a loop in the River Avon (‘Floating Harbour’). The archaeological sequence began in the 12th century AD with a large ditch, later known as the ‘Law Ditch’, which divided two large landholdings: the Redcliff Fee and the Temple Fee. Most of the site lay within the latter and a group of tenements either side of Temple Street formed the principal focus of the investigations. In addition, there was a more limited examination of the river frontage, where stood, in the postmedieval period, Finzel’s sugar refinery and the brewery. The sequence of medieval settlement revealed by the excavations is in many ways a classic example of urban development which bears close comparison with other sites in Bristol and elsewhere. It had the added bonus of the good preservation of organic materials by waterlogging, even down to human fleas and medieval maggots (fig 7.5). Large assemblages of artefacts and environmental materials allowed the changing character of activity on the site and of the status of the residents to be scrutinised. The publication is well organised with a thorough and detailed account of the stratigraphic and structural sequence followed by discussion of the more salient points and then summary overviews of the pottery, finds and environmental material. The quality of
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the accompanying plans and photographs is as high as one has come to expect from OA. The CD offers more detailed archaeological data, the documentary history, results of building recording and lots more site photos. There is also a short film of the excavation based on a time-lapse camera which, as we watch the rapid and jerky endeavours of the site staff, rather recalls the early years of movie making; however, although a little comical, this is a welcome addition to the record. In brief, this an authoritative and scholarly piece of work (apart from quite a number of typos), and is an example of how to publish urban archaeology; congratulations go to all concerned. PATRICK OTTAWAY
(Consultant, PJO Archaeology)
Steep, Straight and High. Ancient Houses of Central Lincoln. (Publications of the Lincoln Record Society, Occasional Series). By Christopher Johnson & Stanley Jones. 24 33 cm. xxvi þ 206 pp, 158 colour and b&w pls and figs, with CD-Rom. Woodbridge: The Lincoln Record Society & The Boydell Press, 2016. ISBN 978-1-910653-01-2. Price: £40.00 hb. Steep, Strait and High is the culmination of a remarkable 45-year programme of architectural and historical research, which started life as the ‘Survey of Ancient Houses’ project, sponsored by the Lincoln Civic Trust, and now continues as the ‘Survey of Lincoln’ project. The four existing fascicules of the Survey are well known to buildings specialists, and a particularly useful inclusion in this volume is a combined contents list for all four. A future ambition of a combined index of the volumes, would be warmly welcomed. The five Survey of Lincoln volumes parallel the great Royal Commission for Historic Monuments of England volumes on York, Salisbury and Stamford and are organised and presented in similar fashion: each section opens with a brief summary of the origins and characteristics of the street and each entry has its own historical summary, followed by an architectural description which identifies the most interesting and salient architectural evidence, supported in some cases by modern and historic photographs, hand-drawn and phased plans, cross and longitudinal sections and, occasionally, isometric reconstructions. While this volume could be said to be slightly less consistent than a conventional RCHME gazetteer, it also feels less constrained by its format. Properties such as Jew’s Court (3 Steep Hill) and Jew’s House (15 Straight and 1 Steep Hill) receive detailed attention and present new findings; and the treatment of post-medieval phases of buildings history varies more greatly, depending on the survival of fabric and sources. It is wonderful to have the property histories and architecture of other Lincoln gems, such as The Cardinal’s Hat and The Witch and the Wardrobe public house (no 21 Waterside North) in print. A particularly important aspect of the authors’ methodology is their ability to reconstruct lost urban houses such as Sibthorp House (nos 352–355 High Street) from the sources. Christopher Johnson and Stanley Jones’ achievement in the publication of this volume is considerable. I would perhaps have preferred a slightly longer introduction and conclusion, comparing the findings of Volume 5 with its predecessors. And what is now needed is a more thematic and interpretive overview of Lincoln’s buildings, set against the context of wider scholarship on the use and meaning of urban housing, as Roger Leech has recently provided for medieval and early modern Bristol. The Survey of Lincoln volumes demonstrate that this is a city with as rich an architectural history as any, which deserves to be better known and visited. KATE GILES
(University of York)
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Kirkstall Abbey. Volume II: The Guest House. Excavations 1979–86. (Yorkshire Archaeology No 12). Edited by Stuart Wrathmell. 22 30 cm. þ238 pp, 136 colour and b&w pls and figs, 29 tables. Leeds: West Yorkshire Advisory Service, 2018. ISBN 978-1-870453-50-9 (ISSN 0959-3500). Price: £30.00 hb. Kirkstall has always been overshadowed by its mother house, Fountains Abbey, yet its significance is greater because it is much more typical of Cistercian houses across Europe. It was a formative site in the development of monastic archaeology with two phases of modern research excavation: the first by Leeds City Museum in 1950–64 looking at the periphery of the cloister ranges, published with commendable speed; the most recent by the West Yorkshire Archaeology Service (now Advisory Service) (WYAS) on a series of buildings in the inner court of the abbey which began with the guest house from 1979–86. In 1987, WYAS produced an excellent review of the City Museum’s excavations entitled Kirkstall Abbey, Volume I; three decades on, Volume II has finally appeared. Its delay, inevitable on a project of this scale and complexity, has in some ways been to its advantage. Starting with the formation of the precinct and its water sources, to put the guesthouse and related buildings in context within the inner court in the western part of the enclosure west of the cloister ranges, the volume examines the excavated structures in a series of short chapters that deal with individual buildings that make up the whole. Given the complexity of the archaeology and the damage done to several buildings in the inner court in the conversion of the monastery to a public park, this is a sensible way of dealing with archaeology of almost urban intricacy. It also enables William St John Hope’s observations of 1893 to be included in areas that were badly damaged or destroyed. The result is a very clear exposition of the development of a complicated series of multiphase structures. Unlike cloister buildings, those of inner and outer courts were regularly remodelled, extended and reconstructed to suit changing needs. It is a shame that more excavation was not possible on the ancillary buildings which, with the exception of the western aisled hall, were only sampled. A greater regret is that the finds groups from the site — some of the most informative from any monastery — have been reduced to a finds catalogue because of ‘insufficient postexcavation funding to create a comprehensive record of their stratigraphic associations’. At the interface between religious and civil society this is a great disappointment, increased by the inclusion of a final chapter on this very subject. The penultimate chapter provides a very useful comparison of guest accommodation on Cistercian sites in England and Wales, which certainly shows a degree of consistency not usually found in the houses of other orders. The same conclusion could be drawn from the excavated guest-house complex at Ten Duinen in West Flanders, Belgium, and is of relevance to the current excavations at Morimond in Haute Marne, France. This remains a very important publication and Stuart Wrathmell, as both editor and principal author, has done a good job in difficult circumstances not of his making. GLYN COPPACK
(Archaeological and Historical Research, Goxhill)
Church Monuments in South Wales, c. 1200–1547. (Boydell Studies in Medieval Art and Architecture). By Rhianydd Biebrach. 18 25 cm. þ 211 pp, 4 colour pls and figs, 1 table. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2017. ISBN 978-1-78327-264-8 (ISSN 2045-4902). Price: £60.00 hb. This is the first full-scale study of the medieval funerary monuments of South Wales, an area little studied in this respect, and Rhianydd Biebrach’s book is a welcome contribution to growing scholarship on commemoration of this kind. The monuments — whom they commemorate, how they were commissioned and constructed, and the form
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they took — reflect the distinctive culture of South Wales, and for those unfamiliar with the region, Biebrach provides a contextual chapter, outlining the creation of the Welsh Marches and the patterns of settlement, ethnic identity and culture, economic activities and the Church. All these were important factors in the creation of monumental design and production. The author then reviews the historical scholarship and documentary evidence (notably wills for the medieval period, supplemented by the valuable evidence of antiquarian writers) and gives a chronological overview of surviving monuments, with statistical analysis and comparison with monuments of similar date from the English side of the River Severn. Biebrach guides readers through the commissioning of commemorative monuments, considering patrons in three main groups: clergy, gentry of knightly status or below, and the lower gentry (Ch 2); and the production and supply of materials for the creation of monuments (Ch 3). She also covers the decline of the native monument industry of South Wales in the mid-14th century and its impact on production. Chapter 4 turns to the expressions of spirituality, primarily those found in wills and in poetry, that lay behind the creation of commemorative monuments, and the design of those monuments, from crosses and semi-effigial slabs to effigies and what the author calls ‘the supporting cast’ of angels and saints; consideration is given to epitaphs and inscriptions, and the location of tombs within churches. Evidence for patronal involvement in the design of their tombs is limited, but what does survive forms the basis of Chapter 5, which opens up a wide-ranging discussion, across themes of image, identity, status and gender. The publisher is to be congratulated on a finely produced book, with high-quality colour and black and white images, and the author is to be thanked for an enlightening study. JANET BURTON
(University of Wales Trinity Saint David)
The Moated Medieval Manor and Tudor Royal Residence at Woking Palace. Excavations between 2009 and 2015. (SpoilHeap Publications, Monograph 16). By Rob Poulton. 21 30 cm. xviii þ 228 pp, 304 colour and b&w pls and figs, 53 tables. Dorchester: Surrey County Archaeological Unit, 2017. ISBN 978-1-912331-03-1. Price: £18.50 pb. This volume emerges from community engaged fieldwork which occurred between 2009 and 2016. The aim was to reveal the development of Woking Palace from the start of the 14th century to its demolition in the mid-17th century. The first part of the project involved excavations between 2009 and 2012; its success spurred the second stage of excavations in 2013–15. The monograph is the result of two equally important aims: firstly, the scholarly driven aim to discover the plan of the important Tudor palace, which passed from Margaret Beaufort to Henry VII in AD 1503; secondly, to optimise the site’s potential for heritage engagement with the local, and non-local, population. An interesting feature of the monograph is the detail of running a multiseason community excavation, including the recruitment of volunteers, the use of social media, and open days; statistics such as 949 visitors from schools alone pepper the introductory chapter. The second chapter provides a concise overview of the life of Woking Palace, the preceding manor, and the park. For a site with strong connections to the Crown throughout the high- to post-medieval period, there was surprisingly little archaeological evidence pre-dating the establishment of the moated site around AD 1200. From the late 12th to 16th centuries the manor at Woking was held by a succession of great families, including the Bassets and Hollands, and, finally, the Beauforts. From 1509, when the palace passed to Henry VIII, major alterations and improvements were instigated including bowling alleys in the gardens. The substantial Chapter Four delves into the 26 trenches opened, the phases and the context descriptions. Despite the comprehensive nature of the contents, the language, crisp colour figures and composite photographs make this chapter — and indeed the entire monograph — surprisingly clear and accessible. Chapters 6, 7 and 8 examine the range of artefacts discovered, with discussion again very well illustrated, with the high-resolution images showing fine details of items such as a gold pinhead with amethyst inlay.
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In summary, this monograph balances the essential detail of a complex, extensive excavation with accessible language and visual support. It provides a multi-faceted discussion of how the site transformed from moated manor to Tudor palace with ample park, to a site partially demolished over a number of years. The volume will be an enjoyable read for the numerous volunteers involved in the fieldwork and will interest a broad audience of archaeologists, historians and architectural historians, experienced or otherwise, interested in medieval Britain. SARAH KERR
(Trinity College Dublin)
Charterhouse Square: Black Death Cemetery and Carthusian Monastery, Meat Market and Suburb. (Crossrail Archaeology Series – 7). By Sam Pfizenmaier. 19 25 cm. xv þ 152 pp, 93 colour and b&w pls and figs, 33 tables. London: Museum of London Archaeology & Crossrail Limited, 2016. ISBN 978-1-907586-41-5. Price: £10.00 pb. This volume reports the part of Museum of London Archaeology’s (MOLA) Crossrail excavations which took place at Farringdon eastern ticket hall and Charterhouse Square, London, and revealed part of the West Smithfield cemetery. Known previously from documentary records alone, this cemetery was the slightly earlier of two emergency burial grounds opened in response to the Black Death in AD 1348–9 (the other was the betterknown and previously excavated East Smithfield). Sam Pfizenmaier presents here details of the 25 14th- and 15th-century skeletons recovered, and the results of scientific analyses, including the positive identification of Yersinia pestis, the pathogen responsible for plague. Notable also was the large ditch marking the southern boundary of the cemetery — the remains of Faggeswell Brook, which ran westward towards the Fleet, whose fill produced a significant assemblage of 16th-century material culture, including fragments of silk cloth of Italian or Spanish origin and a wonderful selection of leather shoes, some of which belonged to children. The latter phases of the site saw encroachment of the nearby Spitalfield meat market; construction of the Metropolitan underground line and 1930s’ cellars. This volume is expertly produced and very well presented. It reflects MOLA’s aims to bring their commercial work to a wide audience through their publication programme and it effectively tackles the challenge of being accessible to the non-expert and conveying the academic quality at the core of their work. Footnotes, for example, provide both extra technical detail for the researcher and explanations for the layperson where necessary. Section drawings are presented with photos of key finds placed in their stratigraphic context. I also particularly enjoyed the vignettes of contextual detail, for example forays into medieval medical theory and Tudor costume; however, the brevity of wider contextualisation of the evidence was a slight disappointment for me, as a researcher. This is an archaeological site report for the digital age — a visually engaging, concise and accessible volume tied in to a web-based digital project report archive where the finer detail and raw data can be found. It provides a taster of every aspect of the project, and an effective route through which MOLA’s work can reach a wide audience. ELIZABETH CRAIG-ATKINS
(University of Sheffield)
The Medieval Military Engineer. From the Roman Empire to the Sixteenth Century. By Peter Purton. 16 24 cm. xiv þ 351 pp, 30 b&w pls and figs. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2018. ISBN 978-1-78327-278-5 (ISSN 1746-9449). Price: £60.00 hb. Peter Purton, author of a masterful two-volume history of the medieval siege, has turned his attention to military engineers in this highly original new volume. It is ‘original’ because the focus is firmly on people as opposed to the technologies of military engineering, and not necessarily on noble commanders, as Purton is keen to stress the roles and agency of
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ordinary people with engineering skills — ditch-diggers and carpenters as well as celebrated polymaths. The scope of the engineering activities considered is broad, encompassing bridge building, artillery manufacture and use, siege-engine design and operation, and mining. Geographically, the focus is on Christian Europe, with occasional excursions into the Muslim world. This is primarily an historical treatment of military engineering, and a very scholarly one too, benefitting from the author’s familiarity with a remarkable range of European literature. The full range of material evidence for siege warfare — munitions from siege engines; war-damaged buildings; siege tunnels and castles — probably awaits a future project, but this ambitious study is a valuable step in the right direction. OLIVER CREIGHTON
(University of Exeter)
Building Stone Atlas of Sussex. By Roger Cordiner & Anthony Brook. 21 30 cm. viii þ 147 pp, 427 colour and b&w pls and figs. Worthing: Verite CM Ltd, 2017. ISBN 978-1910719-49-7. Price: £35.00 pb. The Weald of Sussex, a rich and diverse succession of sandstone and limestone outcrops, has supplied much of the easily carved dimension stone and rubble core for medieval ecclesiastical and defensive building projects throughout the county. Not only that, with much of the underlying geology of south-eastern England too soft to be worked, the use of Sussex stone extends far beyond its boundaries towards London. This much-needed book, the culmination of extensive and intensive research by the authors over a 20-year period, examines the building-stone fabric of over 302 extant medieval parish churches and ruins in the county, as well as the major priories such as Lewes and Boxgrove, together with Chichester Cathedral. The results are startling, revealing 41 types of building stone used in Sussex during medieval times. Of these, 25 are county based, with a further 16 recorded as coming in from further afield, including imports from the Continent such as the exotic Ditrupa worm-tube limestone from the Paris Basin and the highly prized Caen stone shipped in from Normandy. The importance of this first county building-stone atlas cannot be underestimated. Suitable for archaeologists of all periods, standing-building specialists, petrologists and local historians, this lavishly illustrated, easy-to-read corpus instantly attracts the reader’s attention. With each rock type a county map divided into 2 km grid squares, based on the Ordnance Survey National Grid, illustrates the outcrop’s locality and its use in ecclesiastical buildings; its geology and historic use are explained, accompanied by clear photographs of the rock’s character in extant walls to clarify its appearance. A useful glossary of geological and architectural terms is provided, as well as a listing of churches. There is also more than adequate geological detail to satisfy the thirst of the most ardent petrologist. Indeed, the succinct content and layout of this Sussex volume are such that it could form the basis around which a whole series of county-by-county building-stone atlases for the British Isles could develop. KEVIN HAYWARD
(University of Reading)
The Great Barn of 1425–27 at Harmondsworth, Middlesex. By Edward Impey, with Daniel Miles & Richard Lea. 19 25 cm. vi þ 89 pp, 31 colour and b&w pls and figs, 6 tables. Swindon: Historic England, 2017. ISBN 978-1-84802-371-0. Price: £20.00 pb. The Great Barn at Harmondsworth was built between 1425 and 1427 to store the demesne crops of a manor of Winchester College. Lost to the college in 1543, it remained in agricultural use until the 1980s. It was placed on the Heritage at Risk Register in 2006 and purchased by English Heritage in 2011. Edward Impey’s meticulously researched, engagingly written and modestly priced volume tells the story of a building described by
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Betjeman as a ‘cathedral’. He shows how barns such as Harmondsworth are at the heart of the story of medieval life, landscapes and production processes. This compact book’s focus is a detailed account of the design, construction and use of the Great Barn, gleaned from careful transcription and analyses of college and manorial records and later cartographic sources. The building is consistently linked back to its institutional function, and to its immediate landscape context. What could be slightly dry details of field systems, crop acreages and the processes of cultivation, harvest and processing are brought to life by Impey’s careful selection of examples from the minutiae of the sources. Timber-framed enthusiasts will also be delighted with the detailed analysis of materials and carpentry, supported by Dan Miles’ careful tree-ring dating and helpful isometric drawings. Impey’s comparison of the Great Barn with its peers not only demonstrates its national significance but also creates a research agenda for future work in the field. A final section on the post-medieval ‘biography’ of the barn reflects its ongoing use, meeting the needs of arable intensification following enclosure, until the decline in cultivation in the mid-20th century and its sale in 1986; the consequences of its sale to a public limited company and Historic England’s timely intervention are discussed. The volume ends, however, by noting the future threat of a third runway at Heathrow, which would run just 150 m from the site. While dismantling and re-erection elsewhere might be the Great Barn of Harmondsworth’s future fate, it would be a great shame if this oak cathedral was removed from the context and story of the landscape which Impey has so powerfully evoked in this volume. KATE GILES
(University of York)
Between Carpentry and Joinery. Wood Finishing Work in European Medieval and Modern Architecture. (Scientia Artis 12). Edited by Pascale Fraiture, Paulo Charruadas, Patrice Gautier, Mathieu Piavaux & Philippe Sosnowska. 22 30 cm. 270 pp, 163 colour and b&w pls and figs, 13 tables. Brussels: Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage, 2016. ISBN 978-2930054-28-5. Price: e50.00 pb. Archaeologists of standing buildings have long been aware of the importance of understanding the contributions of carpenters as well as those of stonemasons, and the pioneering work of Cecil Hewett and F W B (Freddy) Charles provided the foundations for much subsequent work. The new approach in this volume of essays is to focus on the work of joiners as well as carpenters; it demonstrates the range of research currently underway across parts of Europe and covers work on ceilings, floors, panelling, staircases, windows and doors from buildings in France, Austria and the Low Countries. Production values are high, with excellent line drawings and plenty of colour photographs to illustrate technical points. The date range is from the Romanesque period to the 19th century, and secular buildings dominate. The editors’ introduction provides the historiography of the subject, noting the minor place of joinery in architectural writing, and ending with the more technical works of the recent past, including those on dendrochronology, and a comprehensive bibliography of texts. Most chapters include a glossary of terms used and, in the case of translated chapters, these helpfully include both the original and the translated language. The volume’s first half deals with roofs or floors and ceilings with an equal number of papers for each of the two topics; the results of surveys within regions are presented, examining typologies of construction, or timber types and the use of dendrochronology for establishing dates. The second half is more varied, with a range including the study of wooden ‘nails’ or pegs with shaped heads and narrow wedges found on doors in Brittany from the 14th to the 18th century. The chapter on the timbers at St Martin’s church, Zaventem (Belgium), discusses the recently discovered Romanesque window frames still in place there; here it would have been valuable to have compared these with the English example at Hadstock, Essex. The question of making timber windows watertight is
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considered for a set of French casements with 15th-century examples less successful than later versions, which included weatherboards and more defined sills. The distinction between carpenters’ and joiners’ work is not always clearly drawn, particularly for medieval work. For the ceilings in French buildings it was the carpenters themselves who added the decorative finishes, including mouldings, to the beams supporting the ceilings since these timbers remained visible; as is noted, the role of the joiner only really emerged after the end of the medieval period in France. This particular chapter, by Emilien Bouticourt, is the only one to engage with the editors’ debate on distinguishing between the two types of timber-working; otherwise, for most of the papers, the authors have assumed that carpenters were responsible for the work they present. The subtitle, on wood-finishing work, does not really describe the contents, but the individual chapters are nonetheless a valuable addition to building studies. JENNIFER ALEXANDER
(Warwick University)
Clothing the Past. Surviving Garments from Early Medieval to Early Modern Western Europe. By Elizabeth Coatsworth & Gale R Owen-Crocker. 22 30 cm. xv þ 453 pp, 144 colour and b&w pls and figs, 2 tables. Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2018. ISBN 978-90-04-28870-6. Price: e215.00 hb. This book is a treasure. The impressive full-colour illustrations of each of the items make this a very special volume. The authors admit the rather eclectic choice of garments is personal and dictated by stories and biographies of the artefacts, as well as the availability of high-quality images, but that is no issue. The volume provides, literally, a head-to-toe catalogue of the early medieval to early modern wardrobe. It addresses material remains in detail, in so doing examining styles, fashion, construction (including weaving, sewing and decorative techniques), repair and recycling, and conservation and preservation. The Introduction provides a chronological chart, maps the geographical location of all the entries and discusses the differing circumstances of survival and afterlife of some of the garments. These derive from a range of contexts, from chance finds to burial or archaeological finds to treasuries. Some items have a prestigious pedigree, associated with particular saints, ecclesiastics or royalty, although they are not always contemporary with their associated owner — the custom of opening graves, redressing the corpse or adding and taking away textiles was not uncommon across Europe over this period. Others, either chance finds/survivals or recovered in excavations, tend to reflect a wider population. Among these are the Bocksten tunic (item 4.2), a woollen long-sleeved tunic, with flared skirt created by the insertion of gores front and back, and two similar woollen tunics from Greenland (4.3 and 4.4). Each catalogue entry features a brief biography of the owner (if known), followed by a description including materials, dimensions and technical details of manufacture, and, where relevant, iconography; some items have a detailed history of repair and restoration; and all have references for further reading. It is almost impossible to pick out examples to illustrate the wonders of this book — from the more mundane naalbinding socks from York (7.5) and Uppsala (7.6) to the exquisitely embroidered G€ oss Dalmatic (5.8) and the 15th-century Mi-parti Dalmatic now in Brunswick (seemingly made from different pieces of costly imported silk and probably pieces of linen silk mix made in northern Germany). The volume will certainly appeal to dress and costume historians, but also to historians in general, and anyone interested in cultural history. The garments tell a story that is much more than simply one of clothing: they are evidence of changing fashions, of the introduction of new techniques and materials, of the colours and textures of the past. The volume ends with an extensive index and glossary where many of the technical terms are defined and illustrated. This was no doubt a very enjoyable project for the authors, and their hard work will bring pleasure to many, many readers. MARY HARLOW
(University of Leicester)
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Also Received Mosaici funerari tardoantichi in Italia. Repertorio e analisi. (Archaeopress Archaeology). By Luigi Quattrocchi. 15 21 cm. iv þ 113 pp, 42 colour and b&w pls and figs, 1 table. Oxford: Archaeopress, 2018. ISBN 978-1-78491-799-9. Price: £20.00 pb. This is a compact and useful catalogue of the 60 attested (but not all extant) late antique (4th- to 7th-century) funerary mosaics in Italy — comprising (usually) floor panels and text, sometimes with geometric or decorative borders and sometimes with figurative mosaic imagery, such as doves, urns, chi-rho symbols (chrismoi), orans (a praying figure) or the Good Shepherd (North Africa was perhaps the main source for the mosaicists). Distribution is predominantly southern Italian, including Sicily and Sardinia, with Sardinia the main focus, featuring 33 examples from sites like Cagliari and Porto Torres. Most mosaics relate to tombs in either churches or catacombs (including 15 in Naples’ catacombs). Half of the burials belong in the 5th century AD, and these give an idea of the growing use of funerary basilicas as loci for elite funerary display. The author’s tidy end conclusions do not discuss how many of these are urban as opposed to suburban basilicas; and there was scope to question more who were buried in these privileged places, since not all texts name bishops or clerics. La ceramica di Cencelle nel Medioevo. I materiali rinvenuti negli scavi dell’ Ecole Franc¸aise de Rome (Settore III, 1994–1999). (Collection de l’Ecole Franc¸aise de Rome, 539). By Enrico Cirelli. 16 24 cm. vii þ 186 pp, 69 b&w pls and figs, 13 tables. Rome: Ecole Franc¸aise de Rome, 2017. ISBN 978-2-7283-1284-9 (ISSN 0223-5099). Price: e18.00 pb. The abandoned site of Cencelle was founded under Pope Leo IV in the 850s AD (reported in texts and by an extant gate inscription) as a fortress against Arab raiders, populated also by refugees from the port city of Centumcellae, destroyed a full 40 years before. Cencelle was a bishop’s seat into the 11th century, was contested as a port in the 13th, and in the 1290s was administered by the Templars; later decline saw abandonment by 1416. Excavations by the Ecole Franc¸aise from 1994–99 in diverse sectors (no plan is given of these) have been partially published; this slim volume considers just one of the excavation sectors (III), set close to the E gate, which featured two house units, two roadways and iron and ceramic workshops. Cirelli catalogues and analyses the main ceramics recovered, primarily of mid-13th- to late-14th-century date (earlier material was residual): archaic maiolica was a key find-type, but good weight also goes to common- and kitchen-wares and to a commentary on use; the end section covers fabrics and classes. The Knights Templar at War 1120–1312. By Paul Hill. 16 24 cm. xvii þ 246 pp, 17 colour pls, 41 b&w pls and figs. Barnsley: Pen and Sword Military, 2018. ISBN 978-1-47387-4923. Price: £25.00 pb. Aimed squarely at the popular military history market, this volume explores the military activities and accomplishments of the Knights Templar. Thirty-seven brief chapters cover campaigns, tactics, logistics and fortifications great and small. The geographical coverage extends beyond the Crusader kingdoms to consider (briefly) Iberia and the eastern frontiers of Europe, and the section on logistics and supply makes reference to some key sites in Britain, such as the commandery at Garway, Herefordshire. Consideration of material evidence is mainly limited to architecture, although effigies, frescoes and weaponry surface occasionally. The text is unreferenced, although brief thematic bibliographies are provided at the back.
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Medieval Life. Archaeology and the Life Course. By Roberta Gilchrist. 17 24 cm. xvi þ 336 pp, 18 colour pls, 80 b&w pls and figs, 14 tables/appendices. Woodbridge & Rochester NY: The Boydell Press, 2018. ISBN 978-1-78327-306-5. Price: £19.99 pb. A very welcome paperback version (but with no revisions to the 2012 original book) of the excellent and innovative exploration of the actual living of people in the English Middle Ages (11th–16th centuries) via an archaeological reading of ‘life course theory’. The core sections cover ‘Experiencing Age’, ‘Clothing the Body’, ‘The Medieval Household’, ‘The Medieval Church and Cemetery’ and ‘People and Things’ (objects from heirlooms to ‘special deposits’ to graffiti), and are supported by diverse examples of (often excavated) finds and imagery, and with useful appendices of key finds lists and a good, long bibliography (but not updated for this edition, thus omitting much new work on childhood especially). Gilchrist shows in strong detail throughout how much the archaeology can ‘talk’ and inform us of people of all ages and classes in this period. Excavation of the Late Saxon and Medieval Churchyard of St Martin’s, Wallingford, Oxfordshire. By Iain Soden. 21 29 cm. xii þ 84 pp, 47 colour and b&w pls and figs, 15 tables. Oxford: Archaeopress, 2018. ISBN 978-1-78491-766-1. Price: £25.00 pb. With a summary report previously published in SMA Monograph 35 (N Christie & O Creighton, Transforming Townscapes. From burh to Borough: The Archaeology of Wallingford, AD 800–1400, 2013, London, 284–86), this slim but highly informative volume marks the full publication of the 2003–04 excavations of part of the cemetery of the now lost church of St Martin, set at the central crossroads of Wallingford’s historic townscape. Work was challenging in the space, with much damage from 1960s shop building, and with visibility restricted. Excavated burials (comprising a total of 211 skeletons) span the late 10th to 14th centuries, with post-Conquest burials earth-cut, contrasting with diverse earlier tomb types which include stone-built cists; one pre-Conquest burial featured a pierced scallop shell. There is good detail here on the skeletal analysis, showing a high proportion of children and diverse pathologies including trauma and some tuberculosis. No trace of the late-Saxon church was found, but a mortar mixer should be related to this. 50 Finds from Worcestershire. Objects from the Portable Antiquities Scheme. By Victoria Allnatt. 17 23 cm. 96 pp, 150 colour pls. Stroud: Amberley Publishing, 2018. ISBN 978-1-44567670-8. Price: £14.99 pb. 50 Finds from Staffordshire. Objects from the Portable Antiquities Scheme. By Teresa Gilmore. 17 23 cm. 96 pp, 150 colour pls. Stroud: Amberley Publishing, 2018. ISBN 978-1-44567548-0. Price: £14.99 pb. A new pair of titles in this enjoyable and informative series of compact overviews of finds of all periods from within English counties, deriving from metal-detecting especially and analysed by PAS specialists and restored by key museums. These volumes are compiled by two of the corps of hardworking Finds Liaison Officers (here for West Staffordshire and South-West Midlands and Staffordshire and West Midlands respectively). While formats for the volumes are similar (though the Worcestershire volume offers a much fuller outline of the county’s diverse landscape), the objects illustrated (always with good, clear, colour images) and described can be quite different, yet each give a snapshot of life, dress, religion, economics, technology and/or art at diverse times. For early to late-medieval Worcestershire, entries range from a lead-alloy spindle whorl to a pyramid-shaped openwork mount for a ceremonial sceptre from near Tewkesbury, and a seal matrix from near Pershore. For Staffordshire, the famous 7th-century hoard inevitably gets an entry (its 4000 fragments here condensed to five images and two pages), but we also see Viking-Age silver cigar-shaped ingots from Lichfield, a papal bulla of the 1270s from Pattingham and Patshull and a heraldic harness mount of the 14th century from Longdon.
