West Midlands Regional Research Framework for Archaeology, Seminar 4: Crawford1
Research issues in the Post-Roman to Conquest period in Warwickshire
Sally Crawford
I. Introduction: the current state of knowledge.
The study of Anglo-Saxon England is characterised by a number of debates common to the whole country. These include questions about Romano-British survival, early Anglo-Saxon settlement, ethnic divisions and groupings, state formation, the impact of Christianity, processes of village formation and urbanisation, and land use. Warwickshire contributes to these debates through a relatively large number of sites, and our understanding of the county has benefited from a number of research projects, including Della Hooke’s work on the landscape of the West Midlands (Hooke1985 and 1996), Margaret Gelling’s work on place-name evidence (Gelling 1992), and, at a more local level, Steve Bassett’s work on the Wootton Wawen project (Bassett 1983-1991). Warwickshire boasts a few sites which are of national significance in these debates, such as Wasperton Anglo-Saxon cemetery, and sites which have the potential to answer some of the problems of the period, such as the palace sites at Hatton Rock and Long Itchington, and the production site at Bidford-on-Avon.
Data sources
Cemeteries
The best evidence for earlier Anglo-Saxon presence comes from the cemeteries (Ford 1996, 70). While many sites have only been identified from the presence of a single grave, a quartet of cemeteries in the Avon valley are known to have contained more than a hundred burials: Bidford, Alveston, Baginton and Wasperton (Ford 1996, Webster and Cherry 1973, Wilkins 1975, Wise 1991). In Warwickshire, there are examples of both inhumation and cremation cemeteries – at Churchover in 1823, for example, a shield boss and spear head were recovered, while the following year, a cremation urn and further skeletons were uncovered, indicating the presence of both rites within the same area (MacGregor and Bolick 1993:18).
The grave goods from the earlier Anglo-Saxon cemeteries show a ‘striking distribution’ of Anglian and Saxon brooches, which offer real insights into the ethnic affiliations and trade contacts of the settlers in this area (Gelling 1992: 34, Ford 1996: 96).
The re-emergence of Christianity in Warwickshire (if, given the possible survival of a Romano-British population, it ever disappeared) is not well understood. There are tantalising suggestions for the presence of elite 7th century ‘Final Phase’ burials in Warwickshire, the most convincing being the finds of a jewelled pendant and gold bracteate associated with burials, found at Compton Verney in 1774, and these burials may provide evidence for the Christianisation of the local elite (Crawford 2003). However, recent excavations at Compton Verney by the Warwickshire Museums Archaeological Services, undertaken with the 18th century discoveries in mind, have produced no further evidence for Anglo-Saxon presence.
More accessible as evidence for the emergence of an elite are the many burials which have produced great square-headed brooches - Ragley Park, Alveston, Baginton, Bidford-on-Avon, Offchurch, Wasperton - which, as both Margaret Gelling and John Hines have discussed, shed interesting light on the interface between Christianity and pagan burial practice, on the development of regional elites, and on the wider elite circle (Gelling 1992, Hines 1997).
Settlements
Settlement evidence for this period is sparse in Warwickshire. Excavations on a hill-top site at Broom, around 2 kilometres North West of Bidford-on-Avon, in 1993, have produced evidence for three large sunken-featured buildings and two possible post-built structures, which were only identified through a watching brief after excavation, and which produced pottery dated to the 6th century (Palmer 1999:197). Other Anglo-Saxon sites with sunken-featured buildings in Warwickshire include Baginton (Wilkins 1975:122) and Brandon Grounds (Bateman 1978, 8-9), both poorly recorded; Stretton-on-Fosse (unpublished), and Hatton Rock, where perhaps 3 sunken-featured buildings were seen in a pipe-trench excavation (Hirst and Rahtz, 1973:160-77). Post-built structures are known from Bidford-on-Avon and Alveston Manor (Webster and Cherry 1973, 163-4) and less certainly at Wooton Wawen (Barnie, Hirst and Rahtz 1974:70).
Ritual and elite sites
Blacklow Hill is one of the most enigmatic sites in the Anglo-Saxon corpus. Two burials and a series of findless pits suggest a ritual structure of a scale and layout not found elsewhere in Anglo-Saxon England, although parallels might be drawn with Slonk Hill, Sussex, and perhaps Yeavering, Northumberland (Blair 1995:18-19). Is it a temple? A full, published report is still awaited.
In addition to the exciting ‘pagan’ site at Blacklow Hill, and the suggestive evidence for high status, rich 7th century burials, Warwickshire also possesses at least one, and possibly two, palace sites, in the form of Hatton Rock and Long Itchington. The excavation of either of these sites could provide evidence of national importance. Hatton Rock, identified by aerial photography, was ‘excavated’ by means of a narrow pipe trench, in three days, with frozen ground and, on the third day, snow (Hirst and Rahtz 1973). However, this was enough to provide some desperately-needed information. Anglo-Saxon pottery was recovered, and the site would appear to be in a relatively good state of preservation. The excavators suggested that the site had at least two possible phases. The likelihood that building J was a church, associated with Roman brick and possibly Roman building stone, was mooted (Hirst and Rahtz 1973; 169). Hatton Rock has the potential to give us desperately needed evidence for the creation of, and function of, palace sites in this area, as well as providing extremely rare evidence about the earliest churches in the Midlands, and perhaps providing crucial information on the relationships between elites, Christianity, pre-existing landscapes, and the local society.
Productive and urban sites
Finding ceramic evidence for middle and late Saxon presence is a serious problem in Warwickshire and the West Midlands (though this problem is not one suffered by the neighbouring counties of Leicestershire and Northamptonshire). Sites in Warwickshire producing pottery in this period include: sherds found during the excavation of Romano-British enclosure ditches and surfaces at Chesterton Fields Farm (reported in West Midlands Archaeology 42, 1999:100-101), at Coton Park DMV, which produced late Saxon pottery (WMA 41, 1998:95), at Alveston Manor during recent excavations (Nigel Palmer, pers. comm.), at the possible palace site of Hatton Rock (8th/9th century pottery); the possible palace site at Long Itchington, where recent excavation in Area B2 of the Churchover to Newbold Pacey Transco gas pipeline revealed quantities of Roman combed flue tile, suggesting a hypocausted building nearby, as well as several Anglo-Saxon pottery sherds (Palmer 1999:118-9); and the minster site of Wootton Wawen (Hooke 1996:104).
Minsters and churches
Steve Bassett’s programme of research at the church Wootton Wawen, where Anglo-Saxon stonework survives, provides the benchmark for work of this kind. On the whole, though, evidence for the early church in Warwickshire is limited.
II. Gaps in knowledge
The question of what happened in the 5th century, as Germanic culture replaced Romano-British, is still a major area of discussion and disagreement. Was there continuity or cataclysm? The archaeology of Warwickshire has the potential to play a crucial part in answering this question, since two sites in the county – Wasperton and, possibly, Stretton on Fosse, provide almost incontrovertible proof of Romano-British mortuary culture being superseded by Anglo-Saxon culture within the same cemetery. Sampling of human bone for DNA, combined with high precision radio-carbon dating of the material from these two sites could make a significant contribution towards the advance of population studies in this region.
The question of Romano-British survival would also be helped by a systematic survey of settlements this county. Compared to other parts of the country, Warwickshire is desperately lacking in settlement evidence for the earlier Anglo-Saxon period. There have been no large-scale, open-area excavations of settlement sites at all, and current costs and attitudes towards excavation on the scale required to uncover an earlier Anglo-Saxon settlement make it unlikely that such an excavation will take place in the near future. This means that we know almost nothing about the shape and form of earlier Anglo-Saxon settlement in Warwickshire, or about the density of settlement distribution. It is not possible to make any meaningful comment on the extent of woodland in earlier Anglo-Saxon Warwickshire, and its impact on settlement patterns, nor about the location of earlier Anglo-Saxon settlement relative to Romano-British settlement.
Even without excavation, it might be possible to fill some of the gaps in our knowledge about earlier Anglo-Saxon settlement through systematic survey to locate and characterise settlements in this county. Both Keith Wade’s work in Suffolk and Williamson’s experiment in intensive fieldwalking in North West Essex demonstrate that systematic and focussed fieldwork can produce results, and does represent one way to find Anglo-Saxon settlements (Wade 1988, Williamson 1986).
The social organisation of the earlier Anglo-Saxon period is also one which would bear further research. The cemetery evidence supports the idea that there was a significant ethnic division within the county, with two separate groups based around the upper and lower Avon, which is echoed in the later documentary sources as a division between the tribes of the Hwicce and the Mercians (Hooke, 1996:100). Modern Warwickshire also straddles a religious divide: in the Later Anglo-Saxon period, Warwickshire was divided between the sees of Worcester and Lichfield, a division almost certainly reflecting the tribal differences in the county (Gelling 1992: 98). However, although a relatively large number of earlier Anglo-Saxon cemetery sites have been identified in the county, the majority of them were not excavated to modern standards, and there remains a disappointing publication backlog.
Middle and Later Anglo-Saxon Warwickshire are relatively poorly served by the available data. It can be argued that one of the biggest problems in this period is the lack of evidence for Middle and Late Anglo-Saxon presence. Two palace sites are known from this area, but neither have been excavated in detail, so questions about state formation, and the relationships between palaces, ecclesiastical sites and trading places cannot be answered by the evidence available. The Middle Saxon period is known for the ‘Middle Saxon Shuffle’, where old settlement sites appear to have been deserted and new ones founded, but the scant excavated evidence from Warwickshire can contribute little to our understanding of this phenomenon, nor even confirm whether it happened in the county.
The Later Anglo-Saxon period saw changes in the economy, increased craft specialisation, and urbanisation, but again, Warwickshire has relatively little to offer to the debate. Metal detecting to the East of Bidford-on-Avon has indicated a possible market ‘productive’ site (Palmer 1999:8), but detailed survey and excavation is needed if we are to understand how this site operated, and how it may have fitted into the ecclesiastical and elite political landscape around Bidford.
Settlement in Later Anglo-Saxon England was characterised by urbanisation and rural nucleation. Warwick itself was a town which grew on the boundary of two kingdoms, and was fortified by Aethelflaed in AD914 as part of the organisation of the burhs against the Danes (Hooke 1996:100). However, the town has produced disappointingly little archaeological evidence for its Anglo-Saxon past, not least because no large-scale excavations have been conducted in Warwick in recent decades. We know almost nothing about urbanisation within Warwickshire, nor about the impact of the Scandinavian presence in this county.
Some research into landuse and settlement patterns in this area has taken place, most notably W.J. Ford (1976) and Della Hooke (1985). However, such studies are severely hampered by lack of archaeological evidence. Our knowledge about all facets of agriculture in this period are extremely limited.
Environmental evidence for this period is in equally short supply. As the analysis of the Broom settlement evidence provoked the specialist to expostulate for the earlier Anglo-Saxon period, ‘we can not yet be sure of the intensity of the agricultural regime, or indeed if there was significant scrub regeneration from the preceding Roman period, and it is unlikely that these questions will be answered without corresponding pollen evidence.’ (Palmer 1999 p210). These reservations are equally true for the later Anglo-Saxon period.
III. Potential
Warwickshire missed out on the era of large-scale, open-area excavations in the 1970s which provide the springboard for research strategies in other regions.). However, numerous sites have been identified and catalogued, and, within the constraints of modern excavation practices, it continues to be possible to reconsider sites of known interest. Warwickshire Museums Archaeological Services undertook work at Compton Verney, for example, with the 18th century discoveries there in mind, and at Emscote, although no further evidence for Anglo-Saxon presence was found (Nicholas Palmer, personal communication). Excavation of pagan period cemeteries continues in Warwickshire, adding modern excavations to the corpus of known sites. The Warwickshire Museums Archaeological Services continued excavation at Bidford on Avon in 1990, for example, added valuable and reliable information to the data base. A number of excavation reports await publication, in particular Wasperton and Stretton-on-Fosse. These sites, once in the public domain, will help to improve our understanding of the period.
Modern excavation does favour the likelihood of an increase in our understanding of the environmental aspect of the Anglo-Saxon period. Discoveries such as the Anglo-Saxon enlosure ditches at Tiddington in 1988 are encouraging.
The West Midlands Portable Antiquitites Pilot Scheme is also making a very significant contribution to the distribution map of Middle and Late Anglo-Saxon presence in Warwickshire. Whilst middle to late Anglo-Saxon pottery is difficult to track down, metalwork of the period is being reported in growing numbers. Recent metalwork finds include: a 7th c gold clasp, probably from the cover of a religious book at Mancetter (Wise 1998, 84-85); a middle/late Anglo-Saxon brooch at Burmington (Bolton 1999:99-100); a middle/late Anglo-Saxon pin at Honington (Bolton 1999:115): a late Anglo-Saxon buckle frame from Long Compton (Bolton 1999:117); a middle/late Anglo-Saxon strap end from Shipston on Stour (Bolton 1999:123); a late Anglo-Saxon mount from Wishaw (Bolton 1999:132); a 6th century brooch, an 8th/9th century strapend and a 7th/8th century pin from Bidford-on-Avon (Bolton 1998:84); two 6th c sleeve clasps (near the known Anglo-Saxon cemetery) from Churchover (Bolton 1998:86); a late Anglo-Saxon stirrup mount from Maxstoke (Bolton 1998:93); and a late Anglo-Saxon stirrup mount from Toddenham (Bolton 1998).
IV. Research topics
Choices for research topics within this county are very similar to those in other parts of the country for this period (e.g. Brown and Glazebrook 2000, Williams and Brown 1999). For Warwickshire, as for other parts of England, there is a continuing need to understand more about population; settlement; land use changes; craft production; the impact of colonisation (Anglo-Saxon, Scandinavian and Norman); the impact of Christianity; the development of urban centres; and the definition of territorial and other boundaries (this last being particularly relevant in a county at the western edge of Anglo-Saxon settlement, apparently colonised by two different Anglo-Saxon ethnic groups). However, there are some areas which could be prioritised, and these are discussed below.
Cemeteries
Cemeteries in Warwickshire are providing food for thought, and are clearly going to continue to play a large part in our understanding of Anglo-Saxon/Romano-British interrelations, as well as providing evidence for intra-regional differentiation by Anglo-Saxon tribes. Margaret Gelling’s thoughts on the subject in 1992, that ‘a re-examination of the material from the cemeteries of this area [the Avon Valley] is a major requirement of modern Anglo-Saxon studies’, still holds true, and of all the suggestions for future research directions in Warwickshire, is the one that might most cheaply be done (Gelling1992:30). This said, evidence from Anglo-Saxon cemeteries in Warwickshire is sufficiently plentiful for it to form the basis for discussions of Anglo-Saxon penetration westwards, the Romano-British/Anglo-Saxon interface, and on tribal identities, settlement and communications. The known cemeteries provide ample information – as Gelling suggests (1992:34), further excavation is unlikely to alter the distribution maps; but a program of DNA analysis could yield very important results. Given the crucial evidence from Wasperton of Romano-British survival, a program of high precision C14 dating at selected sites is more relevant in this county than in most.