| ISSN 1357-4442 | Editor: Simon Denison |
|---|
| BOOKS |
A London hospital and
a model report
by Chris Daniell
EXCAVATIONS AT THE PRIORY AND HOSPITAL OF ST MARY
SPITAL
Christopher Thomas, Barney Sloane and
Christopher Phillpotts
Museum of London, £32.00
ISBN 1-901992-00-4 pb
How many people slept in a medieval hospital bed? This is one of the questions thrown up by this report of the medieval hospital of St Mary's Spital in London, one of the largest in the country. The excavations of the hospital and priory in the late 1980s (by DGLA, forerunners of the Museum of London Archaeology Service) included the cemetery where 126 skeletons were discovered.
The final report is a model of how excavations should be written up, being clear, concise and informative. Excavation reports are not usually reviewed here, but this report claims a `new approach' by integrating many different strands of research in one volume: architecture, history, the way of life, dietary evidence, and the role of the priory/ hospital within London. This approach of in-depth discussion in a single volume works well. As one would expect, there is also the more normal reporting of pottery, small finds and skeletons. Unusually the report also covers what happened to the site from the Tudor period to the present.
Thematic essays are also included to analyse the findings, and they enliven an otherwise potentially dry report: essays on the living conditions within the hospital, medicinal plants and food supply are of particular interest as they put the hospital and medical practices into context. So, how many slept in a hospital bed? The answer is probably two, but at the Hotel-Dieu in Paris during times of plague three or four beds could be pushed together to accommodate 12 to 15 people.
Chris Daniell is the author of Death and Burial in Medieval England (Routledge, 1996)
Irish castles and a
troubled history
by Chris Tabraham
CASTLES IN IRELAND
Tom McNeill
Routledge, £35.00
ISBN 0- 415- 16537- 7 hb
It cannot be easy being an Irishman living in troubled, modern-day Ulster and writing about the medieval castles of Ireland. In a land where so much of the past may be seen in terms of the present, Irish castles, being for the most part English castles built on Irish soil, are, as Tom McNeill himself puts it, `unwelcome guests at the academic feast'. Their story is one where the Irish figure little. Small wonder that McNeill's book is the first large-scale study on the subject for over half a century.
In 12th and 13th century Wales, where the political situation was similar to that which befell Ireland after 1166, the native princes responded to the Anglo-Norman menace by building formidable castles. But the Irish lords, for whatever reason, by and large eschewed them. Even the castles built by the incomers, including mighty Trim, Ireland's finest, show defensive weaknesses, leading McNeill, a Senior Lecturer at Queen's University, Belfast, to proclaim that prestige not war lay behind their construction, thereby going against the traditional view. An added irony is that some of the militarily strongest castles, like Hugh de Lacy's Carlingford and King John's Limerick, were directed more at their fellow English than at Irish lords.
Only from about the middle of the 14th century did the Irish change their power structure to mirror that of their erstwhile adversaries. The widespread building of castles that followed, McNeill asserts, supports the growing historical evidence that the two sets of lords had come together, as much through the anglicisation of Gael as the gaelicisation of the `old' English. Arguably the most tangible symbol of this new order is the tower house, providing accommodation and security for the much smaller household of a lesser landholder in the later Middle Ages. Ireland can boast some of the best tower houses in Europe - and what is more, they are truly Irish.
Chris Tabraham, author of Scotland's Castles (Batsford, 1997), is a Principal Inspector at Historic Scotland
Essays from
prehistory's man of ideas
by Peter Rowley-Conwy
ECONOMY AND SOCIETY IN PREHISTORIC EUROPE
Andrew Sherratt
Edinburgh, £50.00
ISBN 0- 7486- 0646- 7 hb
A sense of excitement has always been part of Andrew Sherratt's archaeology. Many students he supervised in Cambridge in the 1970s will testify how a scheduled one hour tutorial could become an eight hour epic covering all sorts of uncharted ground, punctuated only by visits to the local Chinese restaurant when he needed refuelling. Sherratt has never lost his sense of excitement, and has become one of the most productive `ideas men' in contemporary British archaeology. Not only that, his ideas are usually good, often contentious - but never boring.
This volume brings together 20 of his key papers published between 1972 and 1995. Clearly and amusingly written, they give the reader an excellent way of tapping into the diversity of the last 25 years of European archaeology. A good many of the current ideas we now take for granted have come from Sherratt. Consider the `secondary products revolution', the suggestion that the use of animals for ploughing, pulling carts, wool and milk occurred much later than their initial domestication. This one has mostly stood the test of time, although it looks as if milk is being detached from the group and pushed further back into prehistory.
The idea that early farming was a kind of floodplain horticulture, as opposed to the once-prevailing model of shifting cultivation, is another one of his. Shifting cultivation systems found in the tropics are grossly inappropriate analogues for the European Neolithic, as in Europe there were more resilient cultivable soils and domestic animals. Oddly, shifting cultivation is making a minor comeback in the writings of some post-processualists; perhaps it's time Sherratt had another go at this.
Sherratt has always been fascinated by maps, and this book contains a fine assortment. They are used to track commodities from their sources, plot a huge variety of cultural groups, monitor human settlement in various environments, and more. My favourite is the map that presents the entire Copper Age as the spread of three groups of committed alcohol drinkers: Bell Beaker, Corded Ware, and Baden. Why did they all use cord decoration? Sherratt suggests it represents another intoxicant, the cannabis plant, later displaced by yet stronger brews of alcohol.
Dr Peter Rowley- Conwy is a Reader in Archaeology at the University of Durham
Encyclopaedia of
history from the sea
by Mark Lawrence
ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF UNDERWATER AND MARITIME ARCHAEOLOGY
ed James Delgado
British Museum, £29.95
ISBN 0-7141-2129-0 hb
With entries ranging from Nelson's Agamemnon to the Roman Fort at Zwammerdam, this encyclopaedia has appeal for anyone with interests in submerged cultural remains, be they drowned prehistoric settlements, sunken Roman harbours, shipwrecks or Mayan cenotes.
This is a comprehensive reference work, well written and illustrated, indexed and cross- referenced, and suited to the public and the profession alike. With over 500 topic headings, the book gives a stunning impression of the information that now exists about man's past activities from underwater and maritime archaeological sites.
Reading lists follow almost every entry. Subject lists by topic arrange sites by type, date and location. Legal issues, organisations, research themes and techniques employed by underwater professionals are also covered. Commercially exploited sites are included.
Numerous articles offer topic overviews, for example of the development of maritime archaeology in different countries, experimental archaeology or conservation. A glossary of nautical terms helps you determine futtocks from finials.
About to depart, as I write, for the 1998 expedition (run by the Queensland Maritime Museum) to the site of HMS Pandora, I went straight to the entry on this 24-gun frigate sent to recapture the Bounty and her infamous mutineers, which now lies beneath the coralline sand off the Great Barrier Reef along with 31 of her crew and four mutineers. The precise, illustrated summary including events leading to the site's formation is typical of many entries.
Mark Lawrence is a field officer with the Archaeological Diving Unit at St Andrews University
Return to the British Archaeology homepage
© Council for British Archaeology, 1998