Neolithic Bows from Somerset, England, and the Prehistory of Archery in North-western Europe

1963 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 50-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. G. D. Clark
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
Metallurgical Industry ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Anglo Norman ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Norman Invasion ◽  
Major Cycle ◽  
North Western

The object of this paper is first to describe and reconstruct the halves of two Neolithic bows found in the course of peat-digging in the Somerset Levels during 1961 and second to put these in historical perspective in relation to the development of archery in north-western Europe. The outcome of comparative studies has been to show that the Somerset bows fall into the last quarter of the first major cycle in the history of the bow in this part of the world, one that lasted from the 9th to the 2nd millennium B.C., during which the bow was by far the most important weapon for both hunting and fighting. So soon as metallurgical industry had made swords and socketed spears available these weapons became predominant and indeed bows and arrowheads fade almost, if not in some areas wholly, from the archaeological record of this part of Europe. It was not until around A.D. 200–400 and, then only among the Teutonic peoples centred on Schleswig-Holstein and Denmark, that there is evidence for a revival in archery. So far as Britain is concerned, the use of the bow was reintroduced by the Anglo-Saxon invaders, probably reinforced by Danes. If the traditional source of the English Long Bow in Gwenth is correct, the weapon must be thought of as developing in the immediate wake of the Anglo-Norman invasion of the closing years of the 11th century. As a major weapon in English armies it lasted from the end of the 13th until the second half of the 16th century when it was effectively replaced by firearms.

Transformations of Identity and Society in Anglo-Saxon Essex

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Mirrington
Keyword(s):  
North Sea ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Cultural Affiliation ◽  
Profound Influence ◽  
North Western

Transformations of Identity and Society in Anglo-Saxon Essex: A Case Study of an Early Medieval North Atlantic Community presents the results of a comprehensive archaeological study of early medieval Essex (c.AD 400-1066). This region provides an important case study for examining coastal societies of north-western Europe. Drawing on a wealth of new data, the author demonstrates the profound influence of maritime contacts on changing expressions of cultural affiliation. It is argued that this Continental orientation reflects Essex’s longterm engagement with the emergent, dynamic North Sea network. The wide chronological focus and inclusive dataset enables long-term socio-economic continuity and transformation to be revealed. These include major new insights into the construction of group identity in Essex between the 5th and 11th centuries and the identification of several previously unknown sites of exchange. The presentation also includes the first full archaeological study of Essex under ‘Viking’ rule.

Myth and History in Celtic and Scandinavian Traditions

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
History Of ◽  
North Western

Myth and History in Celtic and Scandinavian Traditions explores the traditions of two fascinating and contiguous cultures in north-western Europe. History regularly brought these two peoples into contact, most prominently with the viking invasion of Ireland. In the famous Second Battle of Mag Tuired, gods such as Lug, Balor, and the Dagda participated in the conflict that distinguished this invasion. Pseudohistory, which consists of both secular and ecclesiastical fictions, arose in this nexus of peoples and myth and spilled over into other contexts such as chronological annals. Scandinavian gods such as Odin, Balder, Thor, and Loki feature in the Edda of Snorri Sturluson and the history of the Danes by Saxo Grammaticus. This volume explores such written works alongside archaeological evidence from earlier periods through fresh approaches that challenge entrenched views.

scholarly journals Bluetongue virus in Europe: the current epidemiological situation

2022 ◽  
Vol 78 (02) ◽  
pp. 6619-2022
Author(s):  
WIESŁAW NIEDBALSKI
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
Climatic Changes ◽  
Host Factors ◽  
Entire Country ◽  
History Of ◽  
Sporadic Cases ◽  
Vaccination Campaigns ◽  
First Time ◽  
North Western ◽  
The Mediterranean Basin

The article reviews the history of BT occurrence in Europe and its present status. It describes the distribution of BT in Europe before 1998, the emergence of BTV in southern and eastern Europe in 1998-2006 and the epidemiology of BT in north-western Europe after 2006. Up to 1998, sporadic cases of BT were noted in Cyprus, on the Iberian Peninsula and on several Greek islands. However, since 1998, probably due to climatic changes, BTV has spread northwards into the Mediterranean Basin, where five BTV serotypes (1, 2, 4, 9 and 16) have been identified. In August 2006, BTV passed for the first time latitude 50°N, and BT outbreaks caused by BTV serotype 8 occurred in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, France and Luxembourg. Mass vaccination campaigns implemented in Europe in the spring of 2008 quickly limited the spread of disease caused by BTV-8, and it was eradicated by 2011. However, after a 3-year break, in September 2015, BTV-8 re-emerged in Europe, in central France, and subsequently spread throughout the entire country. In the following years, BTV-8 outbreaks were found in Switzerland, Germany, Belgium and Spain. In addition to BTV-8 outbreaks, BTV serotypes 1, 2, 4, 9 and 16 have recently circulated in Europe. As revealed by phylogeographic inference, the recent spread of BTV in Europe is a consequence of climatic, landscape and vertebrate host factors

Feudal Modes

2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
David A. Hinton
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Leisure Activities ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Feudal Society ◽  
Anglo Norman ◽  
Chess Piece ◽  
Female Presence ◽  
Time To Learn

The trend away from ornamented brooches, rings, and swords that demonstrates changing social pressures and expression during the eleventh century was maintained in the first half of the twelfth. The Anglo-Norman aristocracy had considerable wealth for its castles and churches, but the spending power of the Anglo-Saxon majority was very much diminished by the impositions that followed the Conquest. Social relations among the former were based primarily on land, and although sentiments of personal loyalty were defined by oaths of fealty, there is no record of gift-giving from lord to retainer other than the increasingly formalized bestowal of arms. Towns were growing both in size and number, but only a few merchants were really rich, and the peasantry in the countryside was increasing in number but had decreasing opportunity for individual advancement. Excavations at castles and other baronial residences generally yield the evidence of martial appearance and activity that would be expected, like spurs, and slightly more evidence of wealth, with coins a little more profligately lost, than at other sites. There are also luxuries like gilt strips, from caskets of bone or wood, and evidence of leisure activities, such as gaming-pieces; chess was being introduced into western Europe, and appealed to the aristocracy because it was a complicated pastime that only the educated would have time to learn and indulge in. Furthermore, it could be played by both sexes, though ladies were expected to show their inferior skill and intelligence by losing to the men; it echoed feudal society and its courts; and it could be played for stakes. An occasional urban chess-piece find, not always well dated, shows that a few burgesses might seek to emulate the aristocracy. Other predominantly castle finds include small bone and copper-alloy pins with decorated heads that have been interpreted as hairpins, as at Castle Acre, attesting a female presence, but other personal ornaments are infrequent. Some pictures in manuscripts suggest that in the early twelfth century the highest ranks of the aristocracy were wearing brooches. These were probably conventional representations, however, as there are no valuable brooches or finger-rings in the archaeological record, as there had been earlier.

Linguistic ideology and the pre-modern English Bible

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-74
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Bell Canon
Keyword(s):  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Complex Nature ◽  
Sacred Text ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Linguistic Ideology ◽  
History Of ◽  
Linguistic Argument ◽  
Norman Invasion ◽  
The Prestige

Abstract Can the prestige of a language be an argument for the translation of a sacred text? Conversely, if a language is perceived as substandard, is that an argument against translation? In the history of the English Bible, scholars and theologians have argued both for and against a vernacular scripture, but the debate has not always been based on religious beliefs. Following the Norman Invasion of 1066, the translation debate shifted from the religious to the linguistic. In other words, the argument against translation became based on the perception that English was “too rude” to properly convey the complex nature of Holy Scripture. Reformers like William Tyndale protested this view, arguing that the linguistic argument against a Bible in the vernacular really masked an almost maniacal desire on the part of the ecclesiastical establishment to control the message. This paper takes a closer look at historical arguments for and against an English Bible from the Anglo-Saxon period through the Tyndale Bible.

Western Europe and Scandinavia

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurence Brockliss
Keyword(s):  
Government Policy ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Visual Representations ◽  
Childhood Studies ◽  
History Of Childhood ◽  
The Past ◽  
Sharp Focus ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Insight Into

Childhood in western Europe is obviously a vast topic, and this entry will approach it historically and largely chronologically. The study of childhood is still relatively new, and historians have sometimes struggled to construct a history of childhood, with very few firsthand accounts and limited archives. So many children left very few traces of their lives, and historians have had to piece together their history, not from diaries or archives but from court reports, visual representations, and childcare manuals. They have had to struggle to recapture the world of childhood in eras prior to 1800, when sources are especially limited. They, like others interested in childhood studies, have had to address the issue of how to define a child and what childhood is. They have had to contemplate the different historical meanings of the word child prior to 1600 and to resist the temptation to believe that childhood has inevitably improved through the centuries. They have also had to become aware of the dangers of historicizing a phenomenon that has few stable parameters and, in some cultures, may not even exist at all. In several languages there is no word for child; even in English, the word has drastically shifted its meaning over the centuries. These shifts need to be historicized in order to see both the continuities and the discontinuities between the past and the present that suggest that childhood has always been a time of suffering; children have always been the victims of perilous disease, parental neglect, government policy, war, etc. Concurrently, children have also always been the hope of the future, the focus of special love and attention. A historical perspective on European childhoods brings this insight into sharp focus.

II. —Decorated Initials in English MSS. from A.D. 900 to 1100

Archaeologia ◽  
1945 ◽  
Vol 91 ◽  
pp. 107-135 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Wormald
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Norman Conquest ◽  
Ample Evidence ◽  
The Past ◽  
Outline Drawing ◽  
History Of ◽  
Norman Invasion ◽  
Do So

A recent beautiful publication by Mr. Mynors of the MSS. in the Cathedral Library at Durham has raised an important point in the history of English illuminated MSS. Up to now there has been a tendency to regard the Norman Conquest as constituting a complete break with the past accompanied by the introduction of a new style of illumination. There is, of course, no doubt that in many spheres of life the Norman occupation of England did do away with many characteristics of Anglo-Saxon England. But this is not the whole story. A change in one department of life does not mean a revolution in another. In the realm of literature, for instance, Professor Chambers has shown that the Conquest did not interrupt the writing and development of vernacular prose. Mr. Mynors's book produces ample evidence to confirm a suspicion long held by some, but not uttered, that much of the ornament used by illuminators of English MSS. during the first fifty years after the Conquest is directly descended from motives in use in England long before the Norman invasion. To Mr. Mynors's evidence from Durham, examples of illuminated MSS. from Canterbury may be added in order to show that the famous outline drawing style of the English MSS. of the tenth and eleventh centuries had healthy descendants in the early years of the twelfth century. The best place to see this continuity is in the illuminated initials of these MSS. In order to do so it is necessary to examine the development of initial ornament in England during the tenth and eleventh centuries.

Historical Criticism of the Song of Dermot and the Earl

1938 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. F. O'Doherty
Keyword(s):  
Historical Criticism ◽  
Anglo Norman ◽  
History Of ◽  
Norman Invasion

‘The Song of Dermot and the Earl ’ is the title invented Mr. Goddard Orpen for the old Anglo-French poem which he edited, in 1892, from the sole manuscript in which it survives, among the Carew papers in the archiepiscopal library Lambeth Palace. As the Song is regarded generally as an important source for the history of the Anglo-Norman invasion Ireland, and as I have reached conclusions on that point serious different from those of the editor, I wish to submit my conclusions for examination.

Book Reviews

2006 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 89-112
Keyword(s):  
North Carolina ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
German Culture ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Chapel Hill ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of

Gavriel D. Rosenfeld, The World Hitler Never Made (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005)Reviewed by Sheri BermanTerri Givens, Voting Radical Right in Western Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005)Reviewed by David ArtSteinar Stjernø, Solidarity in Europe: The History of an Idea (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004)Reviewed by Aaron P. BoeseneckerDavid Monod, Settling Scores: German Music, Denazification, and the Americans, 1945-1953 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005).Reviewed by Ivan RaykoffPatricia Mazón and Reinhild Steingröver, eds., Not So Plain as Black and White: Afro-German Culture and History, 1890-2000 (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2005)Reviewed by Karen M. Eng

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