INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this thesis is to examine the settlement patterns and cemetery evidence in the East Midlands, primarily in the Trent Valley region during the early Anglo-Saxon period. This region includes the counties of Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire.
Few written sources discuss this period and of the ones that exist, none is contemporary. Much of them are ambiguous and difficult to interpret. During most of the period, the region is effectively prehistoric.
To help with the interpretation of these sparse literary sources, Archaeology and the study of place-names are used. There are problems with these two disciplines, however. In archaeology, in particular, three problems need to be confronted: artifacts in this period are very hard to date with precision; it is very unclear what proportion of the originally extant spread of sites has now been discovered; and these data do not by themselves provide us with interpretations. For the latter many assumptions have to be made and the choice of the conceptual basis immediately affects our understanding of the period. For example, was the region the object of an invasion, or of infiltration or of internal social and political change? In the study of place-names, similarly, there are problems. The chronology of the usage of elements- -ingas, -tun and so on- is still a matter of dispute, and may never be resolved. Later changes (Scandinavian elements in particular) may well have replaced the forms of this early Saxon period. It is also very difficult to make any reconstruction based on the physical geography since it has changed in many places in the region. The geology, though, is stable and the years in between will have made no difference. The study of vegetation cover and land usage has caused many arguments with very mixed views.
THE METHODS
These underlying problems make our understanding of the transition from Roman to Saxon vague and as uncertain as a structure built on shifting sand. The objective of the present work is to establish a settlement pattern, the primary and the resulting colonisation of the area. At first I am adopting a standard model of the Anglo-Saxon settlement, such as employed in national surveys by Myres or Sawyer (Myres, 1969; Sawyer 1978). In this way, by superimposing the settlement patterns, with the Roman roads marked, on a relief map of the country, the routes of entry and the communication lines should appear. By examining the settlement sites, it may be possible to show what type of terrain and soil the Anglo-Saxons preferred and what the factors were that governed their choice of the site. By understanding this, it could help to solve the problem of the degree of agriculture that the Anglo-Saxons were using. From the settlement pattern, it may be possible to establish the nucleus of the kingdom of Mercia and possible even the nuclei of the other tribes which were the later provinces and sub-kingdoms.
This is the traditional mode of approach to the subject, and in a survey of this sort it has its merits, not least the offering of compatibility with other such regional surveys (eg. Welch, 1971, 1983; Hawkes, 1986). Whether this will prove useful in arriving at new concepts of the nature of the early settlements is very dubious.
Medieval archaeology, and early medieval studies in particular, have too long been innocent of any significant theorizing, and have in consequence lagged far behind in the development of a theoretical framework such as is now usual in prehistoric studies. In its place there has long been a system based on the understanding of the period of historians. Because of this "Historicism", the questions asked of archaeologists have been those commonly asked by historians of their quite different data. How did the invaders come? When were the initial invasions? Where was the initial point of invasion? Where did the invaders come from? All these questions (and others of similar historical slant) are the main element in the 19th and 20th century study of early Anglo-Saxon England, at least into the 1970s. Consider, for example, the work of Noel Myres, synthesized in his Anglo-Saxon Pottery and the Settlement of England (1969). Here, after analysing the various decorative and form elements of the ceramics (but not the fabrics or their inclusions), he summarizes the period in terms of historical phases of invasion, and discusses the pottery and metalwork in terms of named individuals ("the Age of Aelle of Sussex", or "the Age of Ceawlin of Wessex"). This is "Historicism", and Myres demonstrates his devotion to the method by his attempt to prove the validity of Bede's account from a one-on-one depiction of the pottery (Myres, 1970), and continued in this style right up to the publication of his final work (1986). Others have followed the same line. Sonia Hawkes' important study of buckles (Hawkes and Dunning, 1961) is based around an equation of Style=German=hostile to Rome. This is unhelpful, and probably not even true, and is a clear derivative of Historicism: compare her allusions to "Hengest" in her discussion. While the implausiblities of the approach were pointed out twenty years ago (Morris, 1974, 225-232), there has been little to serve as a counterweight to the historical method. A rare exception was Colin Renfrew's essay in the then-fashionable catastrophe theory (Renfrew, 1982), but this was very short and lacking any application of data. Arnold's identification of the need for this theoretical approach (Arnold, 1984, 6-20) is very sensible, but his attempt to carry this into practice in the rest of his work is vitiated by simple error and a lack of understanding (Dixon, 1984). Theoretical positions derived from prehistory and anthropology were discussed in the 4th Oxford Symposium, with the timely warning "against uncritical acceptance of one approach" (Rahtz, P., Dickinson, T. and Watts, L., 1980, 3).
This treatment, however, remains rare, and in most regions of Anglo-Saxon England, particularly north of the Trent, the quantity of data assembled and published is inadequate to serve as a basis for the more subtle applications, such as intrasite spatial analysis (Hietala, 1984), however valid such an approach would be to the larger excavations of settlements and cemeteries. To a large extent the subject remains in what Tilley called "an aristocratic tradition" with "elitist tenets" (Tilley, 1989, 106).
In the central part of this thesis I am making no attempt to introduce a theory or argue a political position. My aim is to assemble data from all accessible sources in the region. In the codifying of this I make certain more or less straightforward assumptions. Notably, that the greater the degree of similarity of two artifacts, the closer the date of manufacture. Furthermore, the greater the likelihood of a common place of origin. Though other conclusions are possible (see for example Clarke, 1968, 185), without this assumption neither classification nor chronology can be arrived at. Elsewhere, in the thesis I attempt to describe the state formation and the life styles of the region with the evidence of the archaeological data from the region.
THE REGION
The region under examination here corresponds to what was the eastern half of Mercia at its fullest extent under Wulfhere, AEthelred and AEthelbald. Mercia was probably centred around the Lichfield-Tamworth area of the West Midlands. Politically by the eighth century it extended to the River Thames in the south and included the area once occupied by the Middle Angles. The boundary of Mercia at this time ran north from London through the Fens in East Anglia to the Wash. The boundary was probably shared with the kingdom of Essex. Lindsey is included in Mercia even though it was a territory that was disputed between Mercia and Northumbria. It eventually became part of Mercia permanently around 690 (for this see Dornier, 1977, 43-52).
Lindsey's boundary with Mercia followed the River Trent from around Newark northwards. Mercia's boundary joined Northumbria at the River Humber and then ran west. It apparently followed the line of the Roman ridge and the post-Roman Grey Ditch across the Pennines through to North Derbyshire (Hunter-Blair, 1948, 121). West of the Pennines, the Mercian-Northumbrian boundary is somewhat difficult to define. The present day county of Shropshire seems to have been part of Mercia and was probably controlled by the Mercians by AEthelred's reign.
Offa's Dyke, which follows the modern boundary of Wales and England, is often though of as the western boundary of Mercia in the seventh century. Even though the Dyke and the course of it are later than the period under discussion, both the Hwicce and the Magonsaete occupied the lands west of the River Severn and may have been pushed westwards as a result of the expansion of the Mercians. Both of these tribes were absorbed by Mercia early in the seventh century.
The boundary from the River Severn ran east to the Upper Thames to the area of Dorchester. The area of the Hwicce, which is in the area of Worcestershire and part of North Gloucestershire, may have been colonised by the West Saxon westward migration. This area was an area of Mercian influence after the battle of Cirencester in 628 (Ingram, A.S.C., 628). The Upper Thames valley was controlled by the West Saxons and the earliest centre of development seems to have been in the Dorchester area. As the Mercians, under Penda and Wulfhere, expanded towards the Thames, the West Saxons are claimed to have changed their cultural centre by moving it to the Winchester area instead of Dorchester (Brownbill, 1912, 644). This area was the base for Mercia's westward expansion, and was included in Mercia in the Tribal Hidage by the paying of tribute to the kings of Mercia, presumably during Wulfhere's reign.
THE PERIOD
The period I will be discussing began with the Anglo-Saxon settlement in Britain, dated variously to the years around 400 and even to the late fourth century. Even though the history of the settlement of Britain is difficult to examine, I will attempt a brief summary of the evidence. Some of the evidence is continental and contemporary with the settlement but it is also very brief in its descriptions. Some examples of this evidence come from the Gallic Chroniclers and Zosimus. Later evidence, which is more detailed, comes from Gildas, Nennius, Bede and the Anglo-Saxon Chroniclers. All of these authors conflict in detail with one another so that if we try to integrate them together, it will be very difficult to make sense of the result (Myres, 1951a, 222-223). The archaeology of the settlement does not help to simplify the situation because the finds cannot be dated with sufficient precision to fit the apparent kaleidoscope of political change. An example of this is the artifacts that have "Germanic" styles along with "Roman" styles. According to the hypothesis put forward by Sonia Hawkes, this may have occurred because the Romans and the Romano-British employed the Angles, the Saxons and other Germanic tribes as mercenary soldiers. According to this view, these may have been employed as foederati and laeti in Britain before the actual settlement. This employment would then have led to an initially peaceful settlement of the Germanic tribes approved by the Romano-British (Hawkes, 1961, 40-41).
Tribal identity and racial purity during the migration period is a topic fraught with obscurity. The term "Anglo-Saxon" is used somewhat anachronistically hereafter to describe the Germanic invaders and settlers, and the period from the fifth century onwards is similarly called "Anglo-Saxon", without prejudging any assertions of continuity or lack of continuity in British institutions and population, and any distinction which may have been visible at the time between Angle, Saxon and Jute (or indeed Bructuar or Frisian) is for the moment ignored. The region covered by this thesis is attributed by Bede to the Angles (Giles, H.E., I, 15). In the area of the River Nene, which may have been the centre of the "Middle Angles", however there seems to be strong evidence of an earlier Saxon settlement (Leeds, 1970; Leeds and Atkinson, 1944, 127; Myres, 1954, 203). It may well be true that before the migration, the tribes which formed the migration (the Angles, the Saxons, the Jutes and the Frisians) passed through or jointly inhabited a small area of the Rhine delta in the northwest part of Germany and northern France (Myres, 1948, 454-457; Myres, 1951b, 61; Myres, 1951c, 67; Tischler, 1953, 3-4). After the migrations, the influences of the cultures on each other continued through contact in Britain. Bede seems to have over simplified the situation and it therefore seems to be more realistic not to seek to discriminate and therefore simply to use the term "Anglo-Saxon" at this stage.
THE SOLID GEOLOGY
The landscape of the East Midlands has been dramatically changed since the Anglo-Saxons migrated to this area. A reconstruction of the geography is important in understanding what influenced their choices of communication routes and settlements.
The area during this period was intersected by six major Roman roads: Ermine Street, Watling Street, Akeman Street, Rynield Street, the Icknield Way and the Fosse Way. In addition, there was a network of minor roads that had been established to connect these major roads. The minor roads were in the areas of sparse population and most probably decayed very quickly since the breakdown of government left no one in charge to keep up the maintenance of the roads. Also, the Romans established many towns along these major roads, for example Lincoln, the largest town in this area.
It is generally supposed that the landscape was more forested than it is now (Stafford, 1985, 8). If so, it would have considerably restricted the settlement pattern of sites in the area. The large forests which covered parts of this area were perhaps impassable to the early settlers and were probably avoided altogether. The areas of high elevation at the fringes of the Pennines were probably also avoided because of the poor soil condition.
Another area that, it seems, was heavily avoided was the marshy areas around the main river mouths of the area. The areas of flooding along the river valleys were also avoided by the settlers. The river valleys probably provided a route of entry into Britain for the settlers. Above the navigable points of the rivers, there were land routes which could be followed easily and were not surrounded by dense forests. This network of cultivated land between the hills and the marshes firmed the heartland of early eastern Mercia.
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