Personal pasts: individualised and localised identities in Sussex in the early medieval period

Sarah Semple

Monument reuse is a well-recognised phenomenon of many eras and has broadly been interpreted as the product of attempts to legitimate power and forge connections between communities and the landscape. An increasing number studies focusing on regional and localised communities in the C5th-C8th show, however, that choices and uses of ancient remains can be highly diverse and individualised, influenced by the types of landscape and monument available and the needs of communities to articulate differing identities.

This paper explores the selection and use of ancient remains for funerary purposes in West Sussex C5th to C7th AD. The choices of monument for burial are explored within the wider context of the landscape as a place of inhabitation, communication and belief. Monument ‘re-use’ can be shown to relate to and reflect the wider life of communities within the South Saxon kingdom and form one part of the visible articulation of identity at a regional and perhaps even local level by means of landscape and topography.

  

Jon Finch

Awaiting synopsis

David Austin

Awaiting Synopsis

 

Identity in a Danelaw Village

Dawn Hadley

This paper explores the contexts within which villagers in a part of the Danelaw constructed aspects of their identities in the later Anglo-Saxon period. The identities of villages and their inhabitants can be explored on many levels, and were undoubtedly informed by, and expressed through, such contexts and media as manorial structure, parochial organisation, administrative structures (such as wapentakes), language, material culture (e.g. dress accessories, pottery, and the built environment) and the spatial organisation of settlements. All of these dimensions of village life in the Danelaw have been extensively explored, but the implications of only a few of these facets of later Anglo-Saxon life for the formation of local identities have received extended attention. Moreover, studies that have explored aspects of identity have tended to focus on discrete bodies of evidence, and, therefore, the contrasting impressions conveyed by differing bodies of evidence have received little comment. In this paper I shall discuss a group of inter-related settlements in the north-west corner of Lincolnshire in the vicinity of West Halton, where I have recently been conducting fieldwork. I shall outline the manorial, administrative, and ecclesiastical organisation within which the villages concerned were located, and will examine the ways in which the group identities of individual communities were articulated through, and shaped by, estate organisation, ecclesiastical status, material culture, place-names, settlement layout and landscape setting. I hope to demonstrate that contrary to some of our existing, quite static, models of late Anglo-Saxon society, that fluidity of organisation was an important aspect of this society and landscape, and that this has important implications for understanding the identities of villages and villagers in the region that forms my case-study. 

 

Awaiting Title

David Stocker

Based on a Lincolnshire study undertaken jointly by the speaker and by Paul Everson, this paper seeks to ask questions about the place of the church in the revolutionary landscape changes in England’s Central Settlement province in the 10^th/11^th century. It explore whether we can understand anything useful about contemporary perceptions of these landscapes by assessing ritual, as opposed to the social and economic landscapes.

 

Dress and identity in post-Conversion England: New Artefactual Perspectives

Gabor Thomas

Concentrating mainly on ornamental metalwork, this paper will explore new perspectives on portable artefacts as a window on social identity and cultural interaction in the period 800-1100 AD.   Among the themes to be considered is how the analysis of such finds can contribute to an understanding of cultural contacts between Anglo-Saxon England and her continental neighbours, with reference to Scandinavian settlement in the Danelaw and cross-channel relations between England and Frankia.  At home, evidence for regional and national identity as expressed in dress-styles will also be considered as a neglected source for examining of the growth of the Late Anglo-Saxon state.  Finally, key excavated assemblages will be set against the backdrop of metal-detected single finds to discern diachronic and regional trends in the production/consumption of metalwork, raising important implications for the ways in which contemporary settlements are interpreted in social and economic terms.   In addition to synthesising recent work in the field, discussion will also identify key questions towards framing a future research agenda. 

Communication and contact: a landscape approach

Andrew Reynolds

This paper will consider the various contexts of communication and  contact in early medieval societies, including places of assembly, judicial activity, and travel. The paper promotes an interdisciplinary approach and uses select case studies to illustrate individual themes. All too often archaeology and history deal with 'sites' and 'places' without attempting to reconstruct in physical terms the networks of communication that articulated individual communities and  social groups.

 

Matt Townend

Awaiting synopsis