The Archaeology of Britain: An introduction from ... - waughfamily.ca

Early historic Britain
• 189 •
inhumations in enclosed cemeteries beside churches in the middle of villages. These were used
over many centuries, some to the present day.
There was probably a tradition of wooden sculpture amongst the Anglo-Saxons, and perhaps
among the other peoples of Britain, but only stone has survived. In the west, memorial stones of
post-Roman date show influence from Gaul, and in Scotland, carved stones are the most distinctive
monuments of the Picts, the earlier ones carrying symbols that clearly had a complex meaning
and predate later Christian examples (Ritchie 1989). Anglo-Saxon England produced architectural
sculpture, gravestones and free-standing stone crosses. The Mediterranean features of these crosses
are clear: figures of Christ and the saints, vinescrolls, interlace and inscriptions in Roman letters;
but the vines are inhabited by northern animals, and there are also inscriptions cut in runic letters
(Wilson 1984). Stone crosses became a feature of early medieval Ireland, and in England they
continued into the Viking period.
Churches
The building of churches may sometimes have meant no more than the dedication of an existing
timber hall to Christian worship. Benedict Biscop, however, founder of Jarrow and Monkwearmouth,
imported builders from France, because the crafts of building in stone, plastering, glazing
windows and tiling roofs had disappeared from Britain. Timber, wattle and daub or drystone
walls are the natural choice for northern builders, and the appearance of ashlar masonry and
glazed windows would suggest strong continental influence, even if we had no documentation
of the Conversion. Few, if any, early church buildings have been identified in Scotland (but see
Whithorn, below), Wales or south-west England, but many churches from eastern and southern
England can be shown to have been founded before the Norman Conquest, and to preserve part
of their original fabric (Cherry 1981). These churches have characteristic tall, narrow proportions,
round arches, small windows and towers, sometimes decorated with applied strips like those at
Earls Barton and Barnack. Most are not very large, but they were richly decorated with sculpture,
painting and embroidered hangings. Early churches survive as excavated foundations or as parts
of standing churches mostly in Kent and Northumbria, including St Augustine’s, St Martin’s and
St Pancras at Canterbury, and Jarrow, Monkwearmouth and the crypts at Ripon and Hexham in
Northumbria. The church at Brixworth, in Northamptonshire, shows the way in which Anglo-
Saxon builders reused Roman materials, in this case tiles for the arches. Foundations of Anglo-
Saxon cathedrals have been discovered at Winchester and at Canterbury, the latter nearly as large
as its Norman successor, but not underneath York minster. However, the great majority of
identified Anglo-Saxon churches belong to the tenth and eleventh centuries; these are discussed
further in Chapter 13.
Monasteries
Early monasteries do not present the classic plan of the medieval Benedictine house, with its
church, cloister and regular rectangular layout. Monastic houses seem to have been adaptations
of contemporary secular building and settlement types, and are therefore not always easily distinguishable
from them. Identification as a monastery depends either on historical sources, or on
peculiarities of plan or finds that are argued to be more monastic than secular in character.
In the west, and particularly in Ireland, the monasteries may be slightly better evidenced, with
clusters of round huts and small rectangular chapels, sometimes in remote and inconvenient
places (Figure 10.7). Tintagel in Cornwall used to be interpreted on this basis as the site of an
early monastery, but is now seen instead as a secular elite site (Thomas 1993). Whithorn in Galloway
has traditionally been associated with an early British bishop, St Ninian, and recent excavations
have shown occupation and burial for many centuries, beginning at least in the fifth century. One