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1
Johnson, Christopher. "The priesthood in Anglo-Saxon England." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2013. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:21163779-5879-4da7-9582-7fd3b7a489f1.
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The Priesthood in Anglo-Saxon England explores the life and work of priests in England between the arrival of St. Augustine in 597 and the reforming Council of Clofesho of 747. It seeks to reposition priests within the consciousness of Anglo-Saxon historians by demonstrating the essential role which they played first in the conversion of the English, and then in the pastoral care which the English people received up to the reforms instigated by Archbishop Cuthbert at the 747 Council of Clofesho. The thesis draws on several trends in recent Anglo-Saxon historiography, notably focus in recent years on the role and function of monasteria. Sarah Foot’s work, Monastic Life in Anglo-Saxon England, c. 600 – 900, is the primary study in this area. Many historians working in this area have read Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica, the main narrative source for our period, in a predominantly monastic light. Close attention to the text of this and other works of Bede’s however demonstrates that priests were indispensable in the initial conversion and continued care of the people, particularly because of their ability to celebrate the sacraments. This thesis contends that monasteria increasingly gained control over pastoral care through their continued endowment and royal privilege. This effectively removed the cura animarum from the bishops, to whom it was theoretically entrusted. Following the example of Theodore and Bede, and on the prompting of his contemporary Boniface, in 747 Archbishop Cuthbert recognised the need to reform the structure of the church in Southumbria, particularly the relationship between the episcopate and the monasteria, and so restore the cure to its rightful place. He and his fellow bishops achieved this by redefining pastoral care along sacramental grounds, thereby excluding monks from its exercise, and putting the priest back at the heart of the church’s mission to the people of England.
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Church, Alan P. "Scribal rhetoric in Anglo-Saxon England /." Thesis, Connect to this title online; UW restricted, 1996. http://hdl.handle.net/1773/9320.
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Pengelley, Oliver C. H. "Rome in ninth-century Anglo-Saxon England." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2010. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:0228e2f8-e259-46b7-85fc-346437db4d60.
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This thesis explores the impact of Rome upon Anglo-Saxon politics, religion, and culture in the ninth century. From the Gregorian mission onwards, Rome helped shape the ecclesiastical and devotional contexts of Anglo-Saxon Christianity and occupied a central place in the imaginations of early English writers. Yet the extent to which these links continued into and throughout the ninth century remains obscure, with scholarship about religion and culture often treating the period as a hiatus. In political narratives, the ninth century is treated as a crucial period, and Roman involvement is most visible in this sphere. By redressing the imbalance between religion and politics, this thesis achieves a thorough appreciation of the part played by Rome in these various fields of experience, as well as showing how Anglo-Saxon writers located themselves and their pasts in relation to the city. It does so over the course of five thematic chapters, which progress from an analysis of the most fundamental issues to more imaginative ones. Chapter one examines contact and communication between England and Rome, arguing that the two areas were closely and constantly connected across the century. The second and third chapters explore the impact of Rome on religion and kingship respectively, finding that while Roman influence on the church was most pronounced in the first half of the century, in political terms the city played a significant and changing role throughout the period. Chapters four and five consider the position of Rome in Anglo-Saxon historical thought and geographical understanding, examining how writers continued to define their position in a wider Christian world with reference to the city and its past. This thesis argues that, in the ninth century, Rome continued to play an important role in English life, while also influencing Anglo-Saxon thought and experience in new and dynamic ways.
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Sowerby, R. S. "Angels in Anglo-Saxon England, 700-1000." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2012. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:60cb4d1f-505a-4ef9-8415-bc298f3cb535.
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This thesis seeks to understand the changing place of angels in the religious culture of Anglo-Saxon England between AD 700 and 1000. From images carved in stone to reports of prophetic apparitions, angels are a remarkably ubiquitous presence in the art, literature and theology of early medieval England. That very ubiquity has, however, meant that their significance in Anglo-Saxon thought has largely been overlooked, dismissed as a commonplace of fanciful monkish imaginations. But angels were always bound up with constantly evolving ideas about human nature, devotional practice and the workings of the world. By examining the changing ways that Anglo-Saxon Christians thought about the unseen beings which shared their world, it is possible to detect broader changes in religious thought and expression in one part of the early medieval West. The six chapters of this thesis each investigate a different strand from this complex of ideas. Chapters One and Two begin with Anglo-Saxon beliefs at their most theological and speculative, exploring ideas about the early history of the angels and the nature of their society – ideas which were used to express and promote changing ideals about religious practice in early England. Chapters Three and Four turn to the ways that angels were believed to interact more directly in earthly affairs, as guardians of the living and escorts of the dead, showing how even apparently traditional beliefs reveal changing ideas about intercession, moral achievement and the supernatural. Lastly, Chapters Five and Six investigate the complicated ways that these ideas informed two central aspects of Anglo-Saxon religion: the cult of saints, and devotional prayer. A final Conclusion considers the cumulative trajectory of these otherwise distinct aspects of Anglo-Saxon thought, and asks how we might best explain the changing importance of angels in early medieval England.
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Bedingfield, Marvin Bradford. "The dramatic liturgy of Anglo-Saxon England /." Woodbridge : the Boydell press, 2002. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb39279042h.
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Shields-Más, Chelsea. "The reeve in late Anglo-Saxon England." Thesis, University of York, 2013. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/5534/.
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The aim of this research is to build a picture of the reeve in late Anglo-Saxon England. This little-understood figure has traditionally received limited attention in scholarship, and this study attempts to rectify this, and to shed light upon this official and his impact on English society. Chapter One explores the nature and implications of the reeve’s role as an administrator in Anglo-Saxon government. The law codes emerge as a key source in determining how legislators saw the reeve fitting into and contributing to the mechanisms of the administration. Chapter Two looks at the reeve’s status in late Anglo-Saxon society, as well as both the nature of the reeve’s relationship with the king, as well as how he acted as a counterbalance to the powerful and influential ealdormen in the localities. Taking a step away from the reeve as a royal agent, Chapter Three focuses on the reeve as an estate manager for the private aristocratic lord. The nature of the reeve’s work on the late Anglo-Saxon estate, as well as how he was rewarded for that work, is explored. The resultant picture not only broadens our knowledge of the private reeve, but also how he fit into tenth- and eleventh-century English society. Chapter Four explores the manner in which the reeve is presented in late Anglo-Saxon homiletic discourse. Arguably, the increasing number of negative references to the reeve in these moralizing texts is reflective of his growing prominence and influence in late Anglo-Saxon England. The work of Archbishop Wulfstan of York is also examined: it is argued that despite the plethora of moralizing references to the reeve at this time, Wulfstan’s thinking represented a departure from this trend. The archbishop crafted a role for the reeve that was integral to the realization of his vision of a “holy society”.
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Hofmann, Petra. "Infernal imagery in Anglo-Saxon charters." Thesis, St Andrews, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/498.
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Bobo, Kirsti Ann. "Representations of Anglo-Saxon England in children's literature /." Diss., CLICK HERE for online access, 2004. http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/ETD/image/etd666.pdf.
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Arthur, Ciaran. "The liturgy of 'charms' in Anglo-Saxon England." Thesis, University of Kent, 2016. https://kar.kent.ac.uk/54689/.
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This thesis undertakes a re-evaluation of the concept of ‘charms’ in Anglo-Saxon culture, and reconsiders three core issues that lie at the heart of this genre: the definition of galdor as ‘charm’; the manuscript contexts of rituals that have been included in this genre; and the phenomenon of ‘gibberish’ writing which is used as a defining characteristic of ‘charms’. The thesis investigates the different meanings of galdor from the entire corpus of Old English before reconsidering its meaning in ritual texts. It then explores the liturgical nature of these seemingly unorthodox rituals, and argues that ‘charms’ were understood to be part of the Anglo-Saxon liturgy. The manuscript contexts of ‘charms’ indicate that Anglo-Saxon scribes did not distinguish between these rituals and other liturgical texts, and I take a case study of one manuscript to demonstrate this. Some rituals from the Vitellius Psalter have been included in editions of ‘charms’, and this case study reinterprets these texts as components of a liturgical collection. The Vitellius Psalter also reveals intertextual relationships between ‘gibberish’ writing in some of its rituals and exercises in encryption, suggesting that several texts encode meaning in this manuscript. The findings of this case study are then developed to reconsider the phenomenon of ‘gibberish’ writing that is used as a defining characteristic of ‘charms’, and it offers an alternative way of reading abstract letter sequences in ritual texts according to Patristic philosophies of language. This study does not aim to analyse every ritual that has been included in the corpus of ‘charms’ but each chapter will take case studies from a range of manuscripts that are representative of the genre and its sub-categories. The thesis challenges the notion that there was any such thing as an Anglo-Saxon ‘charm’, and it offers alternative interpretations of these rituals as liturgical rites and coded texts.
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Bobo, Kirsti A. "Representations of Anglo-Saxon England in Children's Literature." BYU ScholarsArchive, 2004. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/228.
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This thesis surveys the children's literary accounts of Anglo-Saxon history and literature that have been written since the mid-nineteenth century. Authors of different ages emphasize different aspects of Anglo-Saxon culture as societal need for and interpretation of the past change. In studying these changes, I show not only why children's authors would choose to depict the Saxons in their writing, but why medievalists would want to study the resulting literature.
My second chapter looks at children's historical fiction and nonfiction, charting the trends which appear in the literature written between 1850 and the present day. I survey the changes made in authors' representations of Anglo-Saxon England as children's publication trends have changed. I show how these changes are closely related to the changes made in popular conceptions of the past. My third chapter discusses the way in which children's retellings of Beowulf have placed the poem into a less culturally-dependent, more universal setting as they have separated the tale from its linguistic and cultural heritage. Children's authors have gradually removed the poem's poetic and linguistic devices and other cultural elements from their retellings, instead favoring a more courtly medieval setting, or even a generic universal one.
Children's literature is an important indicator of the societal values contemporary with its publication. Authors and publishers often write the literature to reflect their own ideologies and agendas more openly in children's literature than in other literature. As I show in this thesis, the attitudes toward Anglo-Saxon England which pervade children's literature of any age make it a particularly useful tool to those scholars interested in the study of popular reception of the Middle Ages.
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McKerracher, Mark James. "Agricultural development in Mid Saxon England." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2014. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:42a637f9-eac7-4a37-bc4b-20403dd7c974.
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Over the past decade, historians and archaeologists have become increasingly aware that the Mid Saxon period in England (7th-9th centuries AD) witnessed a transformation in agricultural practices. According to the emergent consensus, in contrast to the heavily pastoral, broadly subsistence-based mode of agriculture characteristic of the Early Saxon period (5th-7th centuries), Mid Saxon agriculture was geared towards higher levels of surplus production and placed a greater emphasis upon arable farming. The increased cultivation of bread wheat and the specialist production of sheep’s wool have been identified as particularly important innovations of this period. This thesis represents the first attempt to explore agricultural development in Mid Saxon England on a systematic archaeological basis. It considers settlement, zooarchaeological, and archaeobotanical evidence in detail, with a special emphasis on charred plant remains. The analyses utilize data gathered from excavation reports, published and unpublished, covering two case study regions: (i) the Upper/Middle Thames valley and environs, and (ii) East Anglia and Essex. In addition, a sub-assemblage of charred plant remains from a Mid Saxon monastic site at Lyminge (Kent) is studied at first hand. In this way, a series of agricultural innovations is identified in the archaeological record, including in particular: specialized pastoralism, an increased emphasis on sheep in some regions, an expansion of arable production, growth in fibre production, growth in cereal surpluses, a consequent investment in specialist storage and processing facilities, and a general diversification of crop spectra. These innovations were contingent upon, and adapted to, local environmental factors. The process of agricultural development is thought to have begun in the 7th century and continued through the 8th and 9th centuries, facilitated and stimulated by newly consolidated élite landholdings and, probably, a growing population.
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Tweddle, Dominic. "The pre-conquest sculpture of South-East England." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 1986. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.311589.
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Coates, Simon J. "Images of episcopal authority in early Anglo-Saxon England." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 1994. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/26404.
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This thesis is an attempt to indicate the importance attached to the episcopate within the early Anglo-Saxon Church and the diverse manner in which episcopal authority was defined. It explores the reason why the role, function and authority of bishops concerned both bishops themselves and others within the Church, and the purposes to which texts defining and describing the conduct of bishops were put. One purpose of the study is to seek to reassess the historical problem of the Christianisation and transformation of early Anglo-Saxon society. This transformation altered the structure of the way in which people thought about their lives. The figure of the bishop became one means by which this transformation could be explored, explained and understood. The episcopate became a locus of authority within a newly Christianised world. The extent to which texts concerned with defining episcopal authority used and explored models and ideas derived from earlier Christian tradition is explored. The introduction establishes some of the parameters of the thesis and shows how a monastic bias has been injected into the study of early Anglo-Saxon history by the writings of Bede and the Tenth-Century monastic reformers. An opening chapter analyses the sources used: hagiography, the writings of Bede and the decrees of church councils. It stresses in particular the need to approach hagiographical sources from a theoretical perspective. Chapter two delineates Bede's conception of the Church as an episcopal institution and shows the manner in which he was concerned to portray the conversion of the English people largely through the work of bishops. It also discusses the functions which Bede expected bishops to perform. Chapter three also on Bede focuses upon the manner in which, as a monastic writer, he conceived the ideal bishop to be both a pastor and a solitary heavily influenced by ascetic and monastic conceptions of the episcopal office.
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McKenney, Jenny. "Reconstructing Anglo-Saxon England in antiquarian writing, 1660-1735." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 2000. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp02/NQ53731.pdf.
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Cathers, Kerry. "An examination of the horse in Anglo-Saxon England." Thesis, University of Reading, 2002. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.271183.
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Bedingfield, M. Bradford. "Dramatic ritual and preaching in late Anglo-Saxon England." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2000. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:8ec8d938-7e4c-458c-8b7d-02f71dfcdc77.
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Visitatio, however, is driven by the same forces that drive equally dramatic liturgical commemorations year-round, climaxing in but not exclusive to the period around Easter. Beginning with an account of late Anglo-Saxon baptism, I examine the liturgy for the high festivals from Christmas to Ascension Day. For each chapter, I describe the liturgical forms for the day and their intended relationships with the participants, focussing on the establishment of dramatic associations between the celebrants and certain figures in the commemorated events. I then compare the liturgical forms with vernacular treatments of a particular festival, looking both for overt instruction and more subtle influence of the liturgy on the preaching texts. Anglo-Saxon preachers and homilists openly assumed the themes and symbolic images of the dramatic ritual in their attempts to make their congregations understand and take on Christian imperatives. Recursively, vernacular preaching helped solidify the meanings of the symbolic elements of the dramatic ritual and their significance to the lives of Christians. Anglo-Saxon appreciation of the dramatic potential of the liturgy was realized both in creative expansion of the liturgy and in the vernacular preaching texts that identified and enhanced this dramatic dynamic.
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Hough, Carole Ann. "Women and the law in early Anglo-Saxon England." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 1993. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.335867.
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Hall, Linda Tollerton. "Wills and will-making in late Anglo-Saxon England." Thesis, University of York, 2005. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/9859/.
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Ramirez, Janina Sara. "The symbolic life of birds in Anglo-Saxon England." Thesis, University of York, 2006. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/9897/.
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Beaumont, Naomi. "Mothers, mothering and motherhood in late Anglo-Saxon England." Thesis, University of York, 2006. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/10989/.
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Olson, Aleisha. "Textual representations of almsgiving in Late Anglo-Saxon England." Thesis, University of York, 2010. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/1111/.
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This thesis is a study of the textual representations of almsgiving in the homiletic and documentary sources of late Anglo-Saxon England. Almsgiving, a fundamental part of lay Christian devotional practice, has been primarily ignored by scholars as a subject for study in its own right, particularly in the Anglo-Saxon period. The aim of this thesis is to assess the textual references to almsgiving in the homilies, law codes, wills and charters of the tenth and eleventh centuries in order to determine first, how almsgiving was conceptualised by ecclesiastical authorities, and second, how almsgiving by the laity was understood to function in society. It examines the interdependence of alms-givers and alms-receivers, shedding light on the complementary relationship between rich and poor in society. It also utilises the anthropological concepts of reciprocal gift-exchange and secular display of wealth in order to contextualise the Anglo-Saxon sources within a wider cultural milieu. In doing so, this thesis demonstrates not only that almsgiving played a vital part in lay devotional practice, but also that references to almsgiving embedded in the documentary sources reflected a wide network of social practices and interactions. This in turn indicates the central social significance of almsgiving in late Anglo-Saxon England, and has important implications for the understanding of early medieval Christian piety.
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Naylor, John David. "An archaeology of trade in Eastern England, c.650-900 CE." Thesis, Durham University, 2002. http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/4219/.
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The project was an examination of trade through the regional survey and analysis of archaeological data from middle Saxon England. Much previous work had focused towards long-distance trade articulated through urban ports, and the thesis aimed to provide new methods for the study of the early medieval economy by placing these urban settlements within a regional setting. It examined trade within regions as a whole, rather than concentrating only on the archaeologically most visible, i.e. long-distance trade. A comparative, study area approach was adopted for analysis, with two regions (Kent and Yorkshire) chosen. Methodology was based on both detailed analysis of artefact distributions throughout the middle Saxon period, and comparative examination of individual site assemblages. As a result, networks of trade, and the movement of goods could be assessed, and individual sites placed within this context. Specific artefact groups were chosen which highlighted different aspects of trade (coinage, pottery, stone artefects, and metalwork), and other materials, both archaeological and historical, were utilised wherever possible. Both study areas were also discussed in the context of middle Saxon eastern England, in order to provide a broader interpretation of early medieval trade. These analyses showed that the early medieval economy was more complex than has been previously proposed, with distinct regional variations apparent. A number of sites were interpreted as inland markets, their positions suggestive of an overall political control of trade, and most coin rich sites were located close enough to the coast to easily gain direct access to long-distance coastal trade. The church may have been heavily involved. Much trade appears to have been centred around the movement of utilitarian goods, including stone, foodstuffs, salt and slaves, and royal interest in the regulation of trade focused on the large revenues available through tolls.
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Maddern, Christine Frances. "The Northumbrian name stones of early Christian Anglo-Saxon England." Thesis, University of York, 2007. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.542817.
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Billett, J. D. "The Divine Office in Anglo-Saxon England, 597-c.1000." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2009. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.596635.
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This dissertation traces the history of the Divine Office (the daily round of fixed services of psalmody and prayer) in England from the Augustinian mission to c.1000. After a chapter exploring early medieval developments in the Office on the Continent, the first part of the dissertation uses literary and manuscript evidence to refute as anachronistic the common assumption that English monks used from an early stage the form of the Office laid down in the Rule of St Benedict. Instead, a Roman form of the Office, perhaps first introduced in 597, came into widespread use by both monks and secular clergy in the seventh and eighth centuries. It was ‘pre-Gregorian’ in structure and content, differing from later Carolingian codifications of the Roman Office. Contrary to some earlier scholarly views, the Divine Office was maintained throughout the ninth century in the face of Viking invasions and a decline in learning. The reign of Alfred (871-99) was probably a watershed in the introduction from the Continent of new ‘Gregorian’ ways of singing the Roman Office. Only in the second half of the tenth century did Dunstan, Æthelwold, and Oswald, inspired by their study of ninth-century Frankish monastic reform texts, seek to implement a Benedictine Office liturgy in their monasteries. The second part refines a methodology for reportorial comparison of Office chant texts. A secular Office chant repertory from Lotharingia or Bavaria (preserved in tenth-century additions to Durham, Cathedral Library, A. IV.19, and in eleventh-century marginalia in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 41), perhaps transmitted to England under Alfred, was known in Wessex and perhaps also in Canterbury, and may lie behind some later English Benedictine Office books. Comparison of two fragmentary tenth-century English Office books (London, British Library, Royal 17. C. XVII, fols. 2-3 and 163-6, and Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawl. D. 894, fols, 62-3) with later English and Continental sources reveals two very different approaches to the establishment of a Benedictine Office liturgy in newly reformed English monasteries: the imitation of a Continental model (as in Royal 17. C. XVII, apparently from one of Æthelwold’s monasteries) and the adaptation of a local secular Office tradition for Benedictine use (as in Rawl. D. 894, from St. Augustine’s Canterbury). In both approaches, existing English traditions seem to have been preserved where possible.
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Roach, Levi Nyasha. "Meetings of the Witan in Anglo-Saxon England, 871-978." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2012. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.610012.
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Buckberry, Jo, and A. K. Cherryson. "Burial in Later Anglo-Saxon England, c. 650¿1100 AD." Oxbow Books, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/10454/4676.
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The overarching theme of the book is differential treatment in death, which is examined at the site-specific, settlement, regional and national level. More specifically, the symbolism of conversion-period grave good deposition, the impact of the church, and aspects of identity, burial diversity and biocultural approaches to cemetery analysis are discussed.
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Gittos, Helen. "Sacred space in Anglo-Saxon England : liturgy, architecture and place." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2002. http://kar.kent.ac.uk/10432/.
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Hemming, Eric Whiteside. "Wills and inheritance in late Anglo-Saxon England 871-1066." Thesis, Queen Mary, University of London, 1991. http://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/xmlui/handle/123456789/1446.
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In this thesis, the sources considered suitable for the study of inheritance were reviewed, and a theoretical model for a system of customary inheritance was developed. The study divides into two part seach relating either to the sources or to the model. The first part of the thesis re-evaluates the traditional divisions of sources for the study of inheritance and devises new divisions for use in this study. The second part of the thesis uses these new divisions in developing a model for the operation of inheritance and discusses the role of these sources in relation to that model. In place of the traditional division of source material for the study of inheritance, a system was devised consisting of two broad areas: Wills and Additional Documents. The area of Wills was divided into the following headings: Written Wills, Oral Declarations, Category A, B, or C Lost Wills, and Grants made while Dying. Additional Documents included the following material: Reference to an Inheritance, Reference to Property Descent, and Documents relevant to the nature of wills. The merits and limitations of these sources were discussed with reference to their preservation whether as single sheet contemporary copies or in cartularies. The theoretical model for a system of customary inheritance is relatively simple. The relationship between that system and the sources alters the traditional perspective on those sources with the result that the evidence from written wills is seen as supplemental rather than central to the study of inheritance. From this new perspective, it becomes apparent that the property donated inside wills represents only a portion of a donor's total possessions and that in the operation of the customary inheritance system, male donees are preferred as the recipients of landed property.
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Crane, David. "From Dark Earth to Domesday: Towns in Anglo-Saxon England." Thesis, Boston College, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/2345/bc-ir:104070.
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Thesis advisor: Robin FlemingThe towns that the Norman invaders found in England in 1066 had far longer and far more complex histories than have often been conveyed in the historiography of the Anglo-Saxon period. This lack of depth is not surprising, however, as the study of the towns of Anglo-Saxon England has long been complicated by a dearth of textual sources and by the work of influential historians who have measured the urban status of Anglo-Saxon settlements using the attributes of late medieval towns as their gage. These factors have led to a schism amongst historian regarding when the first towns developed in Anglo-Saxon England and about which historical development marks the beginning of the continuous history of the English towns. This dissertation endeavors to apply new evidence and new methodologies to questions related to the development, status, and nature of Anglo-Saxon urban communities in order to provide a greater insight into their origins and their evolutionary trajectories. It is the argument of this work that the emporia of the sixth through nine centuries were indeed towns and that the burhs founded by Alfred the Great and his heirs were intended from their inception to be towns and were quickly recognized as such by contemporaries. Two distinct methodologies are used to support these arguments: The first uses recent archeological and numismatic data related to the settlements in question to determine if the size and occupational make-up of their populations, the complexity and diversity of their economies, and their integration into regional and cross-Channel exchange networks sufficiently differentiated them from contemporary rural sites and places them in a distinct, urban category. The second methodology employs contemporary texts including the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, The Old English Orosius, and The Old English Martyrology to reveal the terms actually used by the Anglo-Saxons to describe their settlements and then compares those terms to the words used to describe places that the Anglo-Saxons would have definitively recognized as a town or a city, such as Rome or Jerusalem. Regarding the continuity of Anglo-Saxon towns, recent archaeological data is used to prove that the periods of time which have often been cited as breaks in occupation were actually moments of transition from one type of town to another. At London, for example, we can now see that there was no substantive gap between the end of the extramural emporium of Lundenwic and earliest evidence for secular settlement within the walls of the former Roman town during the ninth century when it was refortified as a burh. This indicates that we should trace the continuous history of many towns, like London, back beyond Alfred and his burhs, to the emporia and other settlements that preceded them. Another major theme that threads its way through this work is that the Anglo-Saxon towns were negotiated spaces defined by the interplay of different groups of people and different ideas. Kings and bishops certainly exerted a great deal of influence over the development of the Anglo-Saxon towns, but, by no means were they the only forces at work. The common craftsmen and traders who lived and worked in the towns and the lesser elites and royal officials who lorded over them shaped the physical and social environments of the towns, their regional and cross-Channel connections, and how their economies functioned. Different groups of foreigners also influenced the Anglo-Saxon towns through trade, evangelism, and, at times, violence. Moreover, in so much as any of these groups or individuals may have exerted a greater influence over the development of the Anglo-Saxon towns at one time or another, no single group--be it kings, bishops, elites, traders, craftsmen, or assorted foreigners--can ever be said to have been acting totally independently of the others. In short, this dissertation illustrates that the towns of Anglo-Saxon England were the products of complex networks that moved people, things, wealth, and ideas throughout regions and across seas
Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2014
Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
Discipline: History
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Bell, Tyler. "The religious reuse of Roman structures in Anglo-Saxon England." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2001. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:f631fee6-5081-4c40-af85-61725776cbf6.
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This thesis examines the post-Roman and Anglo-Saxon religious reuse of Roman structures, particularly burials associated with Roman structures, and churches on or near Roman buildings. Although it is known that the Anglo-Saxons existed in and interacted with the vestigial, physical landscape of Roman Britain, the specific nature and result of this interaction has not been completely understood. The present study examines the Anglo-Saxon religious reuse of Roman structures in an attempt to understand the Anglo-Saxon perception of Roman structures and the impact they had on the developing ecclesiastical landscape. In particular, the study reveals how we may better understand the structural coincidence of Roman buildings and early-medieval religious activity in the light of the apparent discontinuity between many Roman and early-medieval landscapes in Britain. The study begins by providing an overview of the evidence for existing Roman remains in the Anglo-Saxon period. It examines the archaeological and historical evidence, and discusses literary references to Roman structures in an attempt to ascertain how the ruins of Roman villas, towns and forts would have been perceived. Particular attention is paid to The Ruin, a poem in Old English which provides us with our only contemporary description of Roman remains in Britain. The first chapter concludes by examining the evidence for the religious reuse of Roman secular structures in Gaul and Rome, providing a framework into which the evidence in the subsequent chapters is placed. The examination the proceeds to burials on or associated with Roman structures. It shows that the practice of interring the dead into Roman structures occurred between the fifth and eighth centuries, but peaked at the beginning of the seventh, with comparatively few sites at the extreme end of the data range. The discussion is based on the evidence of 115 sites that show this burial rite, but it is very apparent that this number is only a fragment of the whole, as these inhumations are often mistakenly identified as Roman, even when the stratigraphy demonstrates that burial occurred after the ruin of the villa, as is often the case. The placement of the bodies show a conscious reuse of the ruinous architecture, rather then suggesting interment was made haphazardly on the site: frequently the body is placed either centrally within a room, or is in contact with some part of the Roman fabric. Some examples suggest that there may have been a preference for apsidal rooms for this purpose. Churches associated with Roman buildings are then examined, and their significance in the development of the English Christian landscape is discussed. Churches of varying status – from minsters to chapels – can be found on Roman buildings throughout the country. Roman structures were clearly chosen for the sites of churches from the earliest Christian period into the tenth, and probably even the eleventh century. Alternatives to the so-called proprietary model are examined, and their origins and development are discussed, particularly in reference to the continental evidence. The end of the study places the thesis into a wider landscape context, and introduces potential avenues of further exploration using GIS. The study concludes that there are a number of causes underlying the religious reuse of Roman buildings, each not necessarily exclusive of the other, and that the study of these sites can further any investigation into the development of the ecclesiastical topography of England, and the eventual development of the parochial landscape.
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O'Brien, Elizabeth. "Post-Roman Britain to Anglo-Saxon England : burial practices reviewed /." Oxford : British archaeological reports, 1999. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb37200352r.
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Anlezark, Daniel. "The Old Testament patriarchs in Anglo-Saxon England : Abraham and Noah." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1997. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.243465.
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O'Brien, Elizabeth. "Post-Roman Britain to Anglo-Saxon England : the burial evidence reviewed." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1996. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:e415687f-4964-4225-8bc3-23e4ab8e5e78.
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This thesis is the result of a decision to extend the approach used by me when examining Irish burial practices, to a review of the archaeological and documentary record for burial practices and associated phenomena in the transitional period from late/post-Roman Britain to Anglo-Saxon England. The study considers burial rites; the method of disposal of physical remains, the position and orientation of bodies, and burial structures and enclosures: grave-goods are only referred to when they are pertinent to a particular line of argument. My intention is to draw together the various aspects of burial of the Iron Age, Romano-British and Anglo-Saxon periods in order to look at the overall picture. Occasionally this may mean stating the obvious, but by noting and plotting distributions of various burial traits first in the Iron Age and Romano-British periods, and then comparing these traits with the Anglo-Saxon period some revealing results can be obtained. It was important to begin with the Iron Age since some minority practices current in the early Anglo-Saxon period had a continuous history from the pre-Roman period. They are of importance in demonstrating the continuities that existed alongside major changes. [continued in text ...]
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Rouse, Robert Allen. "The survival of Anglo-Saxon England in some Middle English texts." Thesis, University of Bristol, 2003. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.274663.
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Mui, Sian. "Dead body language : deciphering corpse positions in early Anglo-Saxon England." Thesis, Durham University, 2018. http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/12829/.
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This work provides a study of corpse positioning as an aspect of mortuary practice. The positional representation of the dead body is fundamental to the perception of death and the deceased, but this aspect of burial treatment has been overlooked and under-theorised in archaeological and anthropological scholarship. With an aim to explore the significance of the positioning of the corpse and its place within wider debates surrounding dying and death, this research examines burial positioning in inhumation graves in early Anglo-Saxon England, c AD 400–750. Bringing together 3,053 graves from 32 cemeteries, this thesis combines statistical methods, artistic reconstructions, typological analysis, grave artefacts, osteological data, literary sources, and representational art to produce a new and challenging examination of funerary remains. This work has identified a positional norm of supine deposition, extended legs, and arms positioned according to one of seven ‘main types’. Patterns and variations in burial positions were manifested as an interplay between conformity to this positional norm and variations beyond it: from the individual level to regional practices, and in relation to long-term changes through the early Anglo-Saxon period. The arrangement of the cadaver was intimately linked with the deceased’s social identity and relationship with other people, mediated by the bodily engagements that took place between the living and the dead in the mortuary performances. The positions of corpses can be argued through this new evidence to be comparable as a source to human representations in art, revealing a wider gestural repertoire in the early medieval world. This work has offered new and exciting insights into living and dying in early medieval England, and has set new agendas for studying body positions from archaeological contexts. This has far-reaching methodological and interpretive implications for the study of death and burial, in the past as well as the present.
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Lacey, M. E. R. "Birds and bird-lore in the literature of Anglo-Saxon England." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 2014. http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1431318/.
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This thesis presents an interdisciplinary approach towards understanding the ways in which Anglo-Saxons perceived the birds around them and the cultural associations with which we find them endowed in the literature. It focuses on closely examining the entire range of primary sources available to us in order to build as accurate and as complete a picture of Anglo-Saxon bird-lore as possible, and it stresses the indivisibility of observational experiences of birds and their cultural associations. As very little work has been done on birds in Old English, this thesis starts with the fundamentals: how were birds categorised, identified and differentiated? Such fundamental questions must be addressed if we are not to anachronistically impose our own understanding on the Old English evidence. My examination reveals that birds were primarily heard, rather than seen, and that this experience of birds is reflected in the literature, where descriptions focus on their calls, instead of their appearances. This aural primacy is stressed throughout the thesis. In the first half of the thesis I argue for remnants of an apparently ancient, and common Germanic, practice of augury in the literature of Anglo-Saxon England, in which the vocalisations of birds were held to contain prophecies and tidings of present import. I present arguments for this belief being grounded in observed experience, stressing the connection between bird-lore and the lived experiences of birds in the Anglo-Saxons’ environment. In the second half of the thesis, I demonstrate that Christian bird-lore was quite different, being steeped in symbolism and scholarly tradition rather than naturalistic observation, but that it had common ground in associating birds with divine knowledge. I subsequently show how the Christian traditions of birds interacted with pre-Christian bird-lore – both in terms of augury and in terms of Anglo-Saxon proto-scientific classification.
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Banham, Deborah Anne Reyner. "The knowledge and uses of food plants in Anglo-Saxon England." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 1990. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/272618.
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Klein, Stacy S. "Ruling women : popular representations of queenship in late Anglo-Saxon England /." The Ohio State University, 1998. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu148795159550358.
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Künzel, Stefanie. "Concepts of infectious, contagious, and epidemic disease in Anglo-Saxon England." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 2018. http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/50580/.
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This thesis examines concepts of disease existing in the Anglo-Saxon period. The focus is in particular on the conceptual intricacies pertaining to pestilence or, in modern terms, epidemic disease. The aim is to (1) establish the different aspects of the cognitive conceptualisation and their representation in the language and (2) to illustrate how they are placed in relation to other concepts within a broader understanding of the world. The scope of this study encompasses the entire corpus of Old English literature, select Latin material produced in Anglo-Saxon England, as well as prominent sources including works by Isidore of Seville, Gregory of Tours, and Pope Gregory the Great. An introductory survey of past scholarship identifies main tenets of research and addresses shortcomings in our understanding of historic depictions of epidemic disease, that is, a lack of appreciation for the dynamics of the human mind. The main body of research will discuss the topic on a lexico-semantic, contextual and wider cultural level. An electronic evaluation of the Dictionary of Old English Corpus establishes the most salient semantic fields surrounding instances of cwealm and wol (‘pestilence’), such as harmful entities, battle and warfare, sin, punishment, and atmospheric phenomena. Occurrences of pestilential disease are distributed across a variety of text types including (medical) charms, hagiographic and historiographic literature, homilies, and scientific, encyclopaedic treatises. The different contexts highlight several distinguishable aspects of disease, (‘reason’, ‘cause’, ‘symptoms’, ‘purpose’, and ‘treatment’) and strategically put them in relation with other concepts. Connections within this conceptual network can be based on co-occurrence, causality, and analogy and are set within a wider cultural frame informed largely though not exclusively by Christian doctrine. The thesis concludes that Anglo-Saxon ideas of disease must be viewed as part of a complex web of knowledge and beliefs in order to understand how they can be framed by various discourses with more or less diverging objectives. The overall picture emerging from this study, while certainly not being free from contradiction, is not one of superstition and ignorance but is grounded in observation and integrated into many-layered systems of cultural knowledge.
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Gowland, Rebecca Louise. "Age as an aspect of social identity in fourth-to-sixth- century AD England : the archaeological funerary evidence." Thesis, Durham University, 2002. http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/1007/.
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Felder, Kathrin Anne. "Girdle-hangers in 5th- and 6th-century England : a key to early Anglo-Saxon identities." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2015. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.700623.
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Hall, Alaric Timothy Peter. "The meanings of elf and elves in medieval England." Connect to electronic version, 2004. https://dspace.gla.ac.uk/handle/1905/607.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Glasgow, 2004.Ph. D. thesis submitted to the Department of English Language, University of Glasgow, 2004. Includes bibliographical references. Print version also available.
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Geake, Helen. "The use of grave-goods in conversion-period England c.600-c.850 A.D." Thesis, University of York, 1995. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/2461/.
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Taranu, Catalin. "The making of poetic history in Anglo-Saxon England and Carolingian Francia." Thesis, University of Leeds, 2016. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/13941/.
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This thesis explores the alternative mode of early medieval history-writing manifested in Anglo-Saxon and Carolingian vernacular poetic texts like Beowulf and the Waltharius. While such sources have long been recognized to contain historical elements, they are usually considered the preserve of literary or linguistic study, since they are primarily labelled as ‘legendary’ or ‘fictional’ due to their many mythical or fantastic elements. This thesis approaches them as historical narratives from the perspective of the textual communities involved in their making and reception, not in order to unpick the pieces of ‘true history’ from ‘fiction’, but rather seeking to reconstruct the vernacular theory of history that informs these texts. In doing this, the present investigation critiques the theoretical underpinnings of previous scholarly approaches to these texts that are based on modern categories (such as the dichotomy history/fiction or on the tandem Germanic-heroic)which misrepresent the attitudes of the creators and audiences of vernacular ‘heroic’ narratives. This thesis employs a series of new approaches drawing on cognitive linguistics, rhizomatic and diffraction theory, leading to a recategorization of these texts as ‘poetic history’, an alternative mode of constructing narratives about the past that is based on different source materials, works according to a different poetics, and fulfils different sociocultural functions from those of early medieval historiography written by ‘proper’ historians such as Bede or chroniclers. Hence, the individual chapters will focus on these issues by exploring the poetics, narrative content, historical evolution, and socio-cultural functions of poetic history.
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Adema, Kendra Mary Ann. "The brilliance of comitatus, aesthetics and society in early Anglo-Saxon England." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1999. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp01/MQ40461.pdf.
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Tristram, Hildegard L. C. "Diglossia in Anglo-Saxon England, or what was spoken Old English like?" Universität Potsdam, 2003. http://opus.kobv.de/ubp/volltexte/2006/697/.
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This paper argues that the texts surviving from the Old English period do not reflect the spoken language of the bulk of the population under Anglo-Saxon elite domination. While the Old English written documents suggest that the language was kept remarkably unchanged, i.e. was strongly monitored during the long OE period (some 500 years!), the spoken and "real Old English" is likely to have been very different and much more of the type of Middle English than the written texts. "Real Old Engish", i.e. of course only appeared in writing after the Norman Conquest. Middle English is therefore claimed to have begun with the 'late British' speaking shifters to Old English. The shift patterns must have differed in the various part of the island of Britain, as the shifters became exposed to further language contact with the Old Norse adstrate in the Danelaw areas and the Norman superstrate particularly in the South East, the South West having been least exposed to language contact after the original shift from 'Late British' to Old English. This explains why the North was historically the most innovative zone. This also explains the conservatism of the present day dialects in the South West. It is high time that historical linguists acknowledge the arcane character of the Old English written texts.
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Ross, Seamus. "Dress pins from Anglo-Saxon England : their production and typo-chronological development." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1992. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:3976b772-fccd-41fe-b8c7-f4ae08ac0295.
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This thesis examines the development, production and function of dress pins in Anglo- Saxon England. It proposes a dated typology for the mid-5th to the mid-llth century and notes the implications of this for discussions of contact and cultural interaction between England and other parts of Europe. Chapter 1 defines the parameters of the study, and describes the data that was assembled on Anglo-Saxon pins. An evaluation of the previous work on pins from Northern Europe (Chapter 2) is followed by an investigation in Chapter 3 of the methods and process of typological analysis. After arguing that one of the most important (and neglected) aspects of typological research is 'the process of study1 the chapter provides terminological definitions for the components of pins. Chapter 4 examines the problems, principal methods and developments in pin production and discusses how changes in method reflected changes both in fashion and metalworking techniques. Building on this, Chapter 5 defines the groups of pins that have been found on sites of the Anglo-Saxon period, including: (1) definition of the types and sub-types; (2) determination of their date ranges; (3) description of their distribution; and (4) suggestions about the origin of each type. In Chapter 6 the types are put into chronological order, to demonstrate which types existed simultaneously and how pins developed over time. The function of pins is considered in Chapter 7 and several tentative hypotheses are put forward. The final chapter draws a number of conclusions from the study including: (1) Anglo-Saxon pins display a great deal of insularity during all periods, but particularly in the 8th and 9th centuries; (2) while regionalism may have been a feature of 6th century pins, it ceases to be important by the 8th century when many finds from middle Saxon trading sites seem consistently to be the same types, suggesting that in addition to trade between England and the Continent and Scandinavia it is time to evaluate the micro-economic and information exchange networks in Anglo- Saxon England; (3) lastly it notes the problem of dissemination of artefactual analyses and the difficulties to be encountered in using typologies and it puts forward a preliminary proposal for the use of expert systems (computer programs that simulate human performance in specialist task areas) as a tool to distribute this information. An example of a knowledge base that might be used to disseminate the typology presented here, The Anglo-Saxon Pin Identification Assistant, is to be found in Appendix 2, as are several sample identification sessions.
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Ball, Charlotte Elizabeth. "'A creeping thing' : the motif of the serpent in Anglo-Saxon England." Thesis, University of Leicester, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/2381/40702.
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The image of the serpent is pervasive in the art and literature of Anglo-Saxon England. In Old English medical literature the serpent is by far the most frequently represented animal, often as an adversary of humans and human health. In poetry, too, the serpent appears often; although it is primarily about the exploits of its outlandish hero, Beowulf is littered with serpentine adversaries, including the dragon of the poem’s conclusive battle. In scriptural poetry, the Anglo-Saxon understanding of the biblical serpent is illuminated and elaborated upon, and in exegesis the serpent plays a key symbolic role as tempter, diabolical agent and heretic. Anglo-Saxon visual art is populated by a multitude of serpentine creatures, ranging from the snake-like zoomorphic interlace to the winged dragons of the Sutton Hoo helmet. It is generally agreed upon that the image of the serpent is symbolically charged, and there has been scholarly speculation on how the image of the serpent operated symbolically in each of these contexts. However, there has been no single study of the image across genres and across media. This thesis aims to survey and interpret the symbolic role of the serpent in a number of different, clearly defined contexts and look for common associations and continuities between them. In finding these continuities, it will propose a underlying, fundamental symbolic meaning for the image of the serpent in Anglo-Saxon England. It will argue that this fundamental meaning is death; the transience of mortal life, physical decay and transition.
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Fisher, Rebecca. "Writing charms : the transmission and performance of charms in Anglo-Saxon England." Thesis, University of Sheffield, 2011. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/14572/.
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This is a study of two groups of Anglo-Saxon charms: six charms for remedying theft; and six charms intended to staunch bleeding. The aim of this study is to build up a picture of the life of these charms and their recording, use, performance and transmission by examining the contents and manuscript context of the charms. I argue that by modifying methodologies presented in previous scholarship, it is possible to develop a new approach to Anglo-Saxon charms, enabling the scholar to reconstruct the ways in which an Anglo-Saxon might have recorded, transmitted and performed charms. I suggest that by taking into account the content of the charms and the way in which they are structured, one can investigate the manuscript context of the charms in order to reveal the worldviews and beliefs of the scribes, users and performers of the charms. The final chapter of the thesis explores the ways in which the charms relate to oral and literate culture, material culture and performance. Thus, I break down the modem dichotomies so often applied to charms, specifically oral/written, magic/religion, prayer/charm and male/female. By combining these investigations of charm content with manuscript context, I reconstruct the Anglo-Saxon experiences of charming.
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Niestrath, Sean E. "The Roman mission to Anglo-Saxon England Augustine to Whitby (597-663) /." Theological Research Exchange Network (TREN), 1994. http://www.tren.com.
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