Early Medieval

Early Medieval Britain

Early Medieval Britain c.500-1000

Is there room for another general history of early medieval Britain? The answer is ‘yes, of course’ when it is as fresh and interesting as this one. Its USP is that it examines the history of the different peoples of…

Finds tray – Harold II

Coins of Harold II Godwinson (r. 1066), killed at the Battle of Hastings, are not common – the British Museum’s Portable Antiquities Scheme has recorded only 28 such single finds in 24 years. Even rarer are those minted in Harold’s…

Sutton Hoo, 1939

Shown here is one of Wagstaff’s images, with the ghostly outline of the ship, whose planks had eroded in the acidic soil, clearly visible. In the foreground, Basil Brown (wearing a hat) works in the ship.

Early medieval disc brooch

Crafted from copper-alloy, this early medieval disc brooch features a bird holding a branch (outlined above by Peter Reavill, Finds Liaison Officer for Shropshire and Hereford). The item is thought to date to between c.AD 800 and c.AD 1000, and…

The discovery of witches, Matthew Hopkins

This week: Halloween

It’s a scary thought for parents. After an enforced pause in 2020, Halloween spending is expected this year to return to something like pre-pandemic levels – which in 2019 stood at £474m in the UK alone, according to market analyst…

BELOW Three fragments of gold and silver from the Iona Hoard a cache of Viking Age character deposited c.986 and excavated in 1950.

Iona in the Viking Age: laying a ‘zombie narrative’ to rest

The traditional story of Iona’s early medieval monastery ends in tragedy and bloodshed, with the religious community wiped out by vicious Viking raiders. Increasingly, though, the archaeological and historical evidence does not support this persistent narrative, as Adrián Maldonado, Ewan Campbell, Thomas Owen Clancy, and Katherine Forsyth report.

OPPOSITE Fragment of a decorative copper alloy mount, with two crudely inscribed intertwined snake like beasts with biting heads, found at Aldwark, North Yorkshire.

The Viking Great Army

In AD 865, a Viking army landed in eastern England. For more than a decade, it raided across the country, but contemporary documents tell us little about it. Dawn M Hadley and Julian D Richards use the latest discoveries to track down the Army and see the changes it brought about, not just as raiders, but also traders and artisans who gave rise to an industrial revolution.

Offa of Mercia

This week: Monasteries

When the painter Stanley Spencer unveiled his masterpiece, 'The Resurrection, Cookham' (1924-27), The Times called it “the most important picture by any English artist in the present century”. In this famous, dreamlike composition, now one of the highlights at Tate Britain, Spencer imagines biblical figures rising up from the dead in the tranquil setting of the graveyard of his local church, Holy Trinity, nestling by the Thames in the Berkshire village where he lived.

Opposite Looking north east over recent excavations led by the University of Reading in the grounds of Holy Trinity Church, Cookham. Headed by Dr Gabor Thomas as part of the university’s Middle Thames Archaeology Partnership, the project’s findings are helping to illuminate the location of a long lost Anglo Saxon monastery, associated with a powerful 8th century queen.

A lost monastery revealed? Investigating an Anglo-Saxon community at Cookham

In the 8th century, Cookham minster was the focus of a decades-long power struggle between early medieval kingdoms, but over time the religious community’s location faded from memory, despite its association with a powerful Anglo-Saxon queen. Now excavations in Berkshire are thought to have brought its remains to light once more. CA Editor Carly Hilts spoke to Gabor Thomas about what has been found.

Left Like their modern counterparts, medieval calendars could be illustrated with temporally appropriate images. This leaf, from a lavish 15th century manuscript from Bruges, is decorated with an agricultural scene featuring peasants harvesting grain using sickles. Saints’ feast days are listed in the centre of the page.

Seasons, saints, and feast days

When exactly did we begin to lose touch with the natural cycle of the sun, the stars, and the seasons? Was it at the start of the Industrial Revolution, when people moved from land-based activities to working in factories?

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Current Archaeology 379

• Slate landscape of North-west Wales
• Anchor Church Caves
• Birdoswald: a Roman town on Hadrian’s Wall
• Middle-Saxon malting at Sedgeford
• The Sussex Archaeological Society
• The Long Man of Wilmington
• World Heritage sites in the UK