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

Middle Ages: churches, castles and monasteries
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York and Lincoln 40+ and Exeter c.20 (Morris 1989, 178). These early parishes seem to have
been based around clusters of households, rather than on more ancient land-holding patterns,
the churches being established by ecclesiastical or secular authorities, often privately owned and
patronized by lords, as they were in the countryside.
The administration and character of the Church in England was reorganized to a considerable
degree as a result of the Norman Conquest. Anglo-Saxon dioceses (the ecclesiastical territories
under the jurisdiction of a bishop) were largely retained and new bishops’ sees were added in the
twelfth century, contemporaneous with the reorganization of the Church in Wales and Scotland.
The head of each diocese focused on an urban cathedral; these were a combination of two types
of institution. Some were monastic cathedrals based around a community of monks headed by a
prior, a form that had developed in Anglo-Saxon England, while others were secular cathedrals,
in which a chapter of canons was led by a dean, an arrangement more common in Normandy
and Brittany. Cathedral priories followed the rule of St Benedict, and their communities resembled
the usual Benedictine arrangement (below), albeit on a much grander and larger scale. The secular
cathedrals, in contrast, were staffed by prebends, priests who received a portion of the living. It
became common to have a group of additional resident priests who were accommodated within
the cathedral precinct, such as the Bedern at York, or the Vicars’ Choral at Wells. The latter was
built in 1348 and survives today as a planned street or terrace of individual houses, each with a
hall below and chamber above, with a common chapel and refectory at the ends of the street, and
a covered bridge providing direct access to the chapter house and cathedral church.
The medieval castle was the fortified residence of a lord. It served dual military and domestic
functions, the latter including the accommodation of the lord’s household and the administration
of the estate. It also acted as a strategic point for gaining and maintaining control over a hostile
territory. The castle was intimately linked with feudalism: a system of vassalage and land-holding
that bound different strata of society together through bonds of loyalty. The king was the greatest
overlord and landlord, and he rewarded his followers with lands, so that they owed him loyalty and
became his vassals. They, in turn, secured the loyalty of a group of followers through a process of
gift-giving. This system of reciprocity united medieval society, and ensured that armies could be
raised, while at the same time allowing the king to retain ultimate control over his people.
The first Norman castles to be built were strongholds along the progress of William the
Conqueror, starting on 28th September 1066. By the 1070/80s, the feudal system of military
service was laid down and lands were transferred from Saxon thegns to Norman barons. By the
time of Domesday Book in 1086, 20 per cent of land in England was held by the king, 50 per
cent by the lay baronage and 30 per cent by the Church. The barons had been rewarded for their
loyalty through gifts of land, and their status as lords entitled them to construct castles. The
castle became symbolic of the office of lordship and the favour of the king, but conversely, a
lord’s castle could be destroyed or confiscated at the king’s displeasure. Some 1,500 castles were
built following the Conquest, although approximately half of these were small timber and
earthwork constructions that had been abandoned by the early fourteenth century (Pounds 1990).
Scottish kings were strategic in their support of castle-building: they established new lordships
and associated castles where royal power was weakest, in the Highlands, Western Isles, Galloway,
Lanarkshire, along the upper Clyde and over the north-east lowlands. Conversely, the royal
stronghold of the south-east of Scotland saw few castles built.
The Normans also revitalized monastic life, introducing new continental orders and founding
abbeys and priories in association with castles, towns and rural manors. A monastery was an
exceptional medieval community, one that comprised celibate men or women who took religious
vows to follow a set of strict rules that governed their lifestyle. The form and organization of the
earlier Anglo-Saxon monasteries had been more fluid and diverse (seventh to ninth centuries),