Northwest Europe in the Early Middle Ages, c.AD 600–1150

Abstract

Christopher Loveluck's study explores the transformation of Northwest Europe (primarily Britain, France and Belgium) from the era of the first post-Roman 'European Union' under the Carolingian Frankish kings to the so-called 'feudal' age, between c. AD 600 and 1150. During these centuries radical changes occurred in the organisation of the rural world. Towns and complex communities of artisans and merchant-traders emerged and networks of contact between northern Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Middle and Far East were redefined, with long-lasting consequences into the present day. Loveluck provides the most comprehensive comparative analysis of the rural and urban archaeological remains in this area for twenty-five years. Supported by evidence from architecture, relics, manuscript illuminations and texts, this book explains how the power and intentions of elites were confronted by the aspirations and actions of the diverse rural peasantry, artisans and merchants, producing both intended and unforeseen social changes.

Crossing the ice: an Iron Age to medieval mountain pass at Lendbreen, Norway

“…The post-medieval and late medieval decline in the KDE distribution could, in part, relate to climatic deterioration during the Little Ice Age (Thun & Svarva 2018), and to depopulation during the well-documented impact of the fourteenth-century plague (Benedictow 2004; see above regarding the abandonment of summer farms). That the dates cluster in the Viking Age, particularly around AD 1000, is unlikely to be coincidental as it was a time of high mobility, emerging urbanism and increasing political centralisation in Scandinavia, and a period in which markets around the Irish, North and Baltic Seas were growing (Sindbaek 2012;Loveluck 2013;Ayers 2016;Skre 2017). The resulting demands on rural producers, and the need to transport outfield products, may explain the increased activity in the high mountains-a trend analogous to the Viking Age development of surplus tar production near shielings elsewhere in Scandinavia (Hennius 2018).…”

Andrew Tester , Sue Anderson , Ian Riddler & Robert Carr . Staunch Meadow, Brandon, Suffolk. A high-status Middle Saxon settlement on the fen edge (East Anglian Archaeology 151). 2014. xiv+439 pages, 251 colour and b&w illustrations, and 90 tables. Bury St Edmunds: Suffolk County Council Archaeological Service; 978-0-9568747-4-0 paperback £45.

“…Here, it would have been more balanced to have added reference to the significant number of cod caught and consumed in the ninth-century phases of the estate centre at Bishopstone, Sussex (Reynolds in Thomas 2010). Similarly, in interpreting the significance of small whale or dolphin bones at Brandon, it would have been useful to cite examples recovered from nonmonastic estate centres at seventh-to early eighthcentury Carlton Colville, Suffolk, and ninth-century Bishopstone, in addition to Flixborough, which is here assumed to have been a monastery for its entire seventh-to mid-ninth-century occupational history (following Blair 2011), despite the close similarities between Flixborough's later seventh-to eighth-century lifestyles to secular estate centres such as Carlton Colville and Portchester Castle, Hampshire (Lucy et al 2009;Loveluck 2013).…”

“…388-89, following Blair 2005), a region with influential links with Anglo-Saxon England and its Christian networks. Yet again, the Continental analogy is not balanced by even brief discussion of northern French sites, whether estate centres such as Serris, Seine-et-Marne or small monasteries, such as Hamage, Nord, which was published in interim form in French over the last two decades and referred to in publications in English over the last ten years (see Loveluck 2013).…”

Material Culture and Social History in Early Medieval Western Europe

“…23 Some Anglo-Saxon sites provide evidence of conspicuous consumption of drink and meat, especially from wild animals that required hunting. 24 Other studies of animal bones reveal the state of wool production and use of bones for tools and decoration. 25 In a study of the Tuscan settlement Poggio Imperiale, Marco Valenti and Frank Salvadori noticed that the distribution of meat as measured by surviving bones mapped over the site's structures indicated a stratified settlement where those with power received more meat than those without.…”

“…Pork and meat from hunted wild animals continued to mark the elite in the archeological record both in England and Frankish lands into the 11th century. 27 When surveying small artifacts, especially jewelry, over time in medieval Britain, David Hinton took a balanced approach among archeological finds, pictorial sources, and the written word, claiming that he would try to emphasize those sources which provide the most information. In the chapters on the early medieval period, he focuses on the elite and how they set themselves apart through rich forms of material culture such as gold and bejeweled adornments.…”