Medieval Archaeology 68.2 now available

Posted On: December 24th, 2024

I’m very pleased to announce that issue 68.2 of Medieval Archaeology has now been published online and the print copy should be arriving with members shortly. The content in this issue includes seven original articles focusing on new research from Britain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Poland and Belgium covering both the early and late medieval periods.

The issue starts with an article by Christopher Scull, Linzi Everett, and Faye Minter on the 2021-2023 excavations at the early medieval settlement complex at Rendlesham in Suffolk. The aim was to investigate the development and chronology of the site, as well as its economy and environment. Extensive surveying and fieldwalking accompanied the open area excavations, which revealed the heart of the enclosed royal compound consisted of a timber great hall dating to the 7^th and early 8^th centuries. Its location on a promontory about the River Deben meant that it would have been a highly visible statement of power and status, the probable centre of the early East Anglian kingdom. The artefact assemblage included coins and traces of metalworking, whilst a significant faunal assemblage recovered from the site provided invaluable insights into husbandry practices with a high proportion of young animals, especially cattle and pigs, suggestive of seasonal culling and feasting.

Kevin Brown’s article reassesses the evidence for Anglian settlement in the Peak District. A revised chronology for barrow burials allows for a critical revaluation of grave good assemblages, and a comparison with cemeteries in the middle Trent valley, the heartland of Mercia. Brown argues that the Peak saw the expansion of indigenous settlement reach its zenith in the 3rd century, followed by a period of decline and then recolonisation in the 6th and early 7th century. He goes on to discuss how burials dating to the 6^th and 7^th centuries reflect vestiges of earlier Roman practices. The wearing of penannular and annular brooches along with the use of fine, wheel-turned pottery is interpreted as a native British tradition imbued with late Roman tastes, particularly visible in female-gendered burials. Brown concludes that earlier interpretations of late Anglian settlement in the Peak are no longer tenable.

Tomás Ó Carragáin, Kate Colbert, Gary Dempsey, Pat Meere, Griffin Murray and Diarmuid Ó Riain then explore the role of cross-slabs within and beyond the monastic centre of Clonmacnoise in Ireland. Drawing on the Digital Atlas of Early Irish Carved Stone (DAEICS), they present the first comprehensive analysis of two key cross-forms most closely associated with the site. The distribution of Type A slabs is interpreted as a material expression of Clonmacnoise’s pre-eminence in Connacht during the ‘long 8th century’. Type B slabs, dated from the 9^th to early 12^th century and found within Clonmacnoise’s hinterland, are often on documented outlying estates. Some have also been found in more distant locations indicating that carvers travelled at least 60 kilometres from their principal workshop. These outlying examples typically lack inscriptions and along with related monuments employing the same cross-form, tend to be found at sites that sought to associate themselves with Clonmacnoise, whilst they are notably absent from sites that claimed to be of equal or greater importance to the monastic centre.

Jan-Willem de Kort, Otto Brinkkemper, Jan van Doesburg, Bert Groenewoudt, Stijn Heeren, Mirjam Kars, Johan Nicolay, Bertil van Os, and Arent Pol then consider the early medieval pagan religious site at Hezingen, which they associate with an assemblage of metal-detected finds. The site is situated on hilltop in the landscape near an ancient road junction, and consisted of a row of posts and a large boulder. Gold coins and jewellery were deposited there at regular intervals over a period of around 100 years between the late 6^th and early 8^th century, along with whole or partial animal bodies. These are interpreted as ritual offerings linked to fertility rites. Nearby there was a high-status settlement with an enclosed ceremonial building which may have been connected to the site. Deposits at Hezingen ceased some decades before the area was officially Christianised in association with Charlemagne’s conquest of Saxon lands. This is interpreted as reflecting either the early Christianisation of the local elites or their abandonment of public pagan religious activities.

The focus then shifts to the north, where Johan Callmer, Ingrid Gustin, and Mats Roslund revisit Baltic Finnic and Scandinavian social interactions in the early medieval period. They argue that fur procurement and trading was the principal driver of interactions across the northern Baltic, rather than slavery. The roots of the fur trade are examined and it is argued that growing commercial demand in the Late Iron Age had a significant impact on interactions between the Baltic Finns, the Svear and the Sámi, reflected in a range of artefacts. They focus in particular on the presence of Scandinavian dress accessories in southwestern Finland and the discovery of Finnish and other eastern jewellery in the Mälaren area of Sweden. The trading centre of Birka emerges as the place where the largest quantity of jewellery from mainland Finland has been found, along with Baltic-Finnic pottery and evidence for the import of furs. Its rise and abandonment is connected with changes in interactions. In turn, the presence of Baltic-Finnic objects in northern Norway and Sweden is interpreted as reflecting the Sámi fur-trading network. With the establishment of Novgorod, the focus of the fur-trade shifted further east.

Joanna Dąbal and Dawid Borowka then analyse an assemblage of pilgrim badges dated to the late 14^th and early 15^th century, recovered from excavations on Granary Island in Gdańsk, north Poland. Focusing on the largest category of badges decorated with the enthroned Mary and Christ Child, their provenance is discussed and some are connected with Pomeranian workshops, most likely in Gdańsk itself (perhaps the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary). Others are traced to major shrines in neighbouring regions, particularly Aachen. One variant depicting a horseback rider holding a cross with the image of Christ before him is connected with the shrine of the Holy Blood located in the area of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern or Brandenburg. A final example depicting a male figure seated on a throne with a pastoral crook is linked with Thann. A consideration of the context of the finds, within levelling layers, suggests that they were discarded by the inhabitants of the main town. This calls into question their value and the identity of their wearers.

Finally, Natan Heidbüchel, Maxime Poulain and Wim De Clercq provide a highly novel approach to understanding indoor lighting in late medieval Flemish houses. It draws together the forms, types and functionality of late medieval lighting sources based on artefacts recovered from excavations in nine Flemish towns, dating from the late 14^th to the early 16^th century. Iconographic sources for interior illumination are also reviewed. This is followed by an experimental component where the impact of both artificial and natural light was analysed within a variety of late medieval houses at the Bokrijk open-air museum in Belgium. Illuminance and light diffusion of different types of windows, wall fireplaces and candlesticks were measured with a luxmeter. The results reveal a range of factors impacted on indoor illuminance, and that fireplaces were inadequate sources compared to candles and oil lamps. Windows proved to be the brightest indoor light sources, sufficient to illuminate interiors for a range of tasks. The findings are discussed in relation to social status, leading to the conclusion that leadlights were one of the major social markers in domestic windows indicative of aristocratic households until the second half of the 15^th century, when they became more common. This paper is also the winner of this year’s Editor’s Award.

The articles are followed by Medieval Britain and Ireland in 2023, which consists of the highlights of the Portable Antiquities Scheme and includes a research report on a rare pilgrim badge of St John Lateran, Rome. Finally, there are 19 book reviews of recent publications on medieval topics from across Europe, which will help readers keep up to date with the newest research in the field. I hope you all enjoy this volume and the editorial team look forward to bringing you the next one in the summer of 2025. This is my final issue for the journal, as Duncan Wright will be taking over as Editor with Katie Hemer as Deputy Editor.

Medieval Archaeology 68.2 can be accessed online here.

Aleks Pluskowski, Honorary Editor of Medieval Archaeology