Regional identities Angles and Saxons?

Writing in the early eighth century, Bede described how three separate peoples— the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes—had settled in Britain some three hundred years earlier, and ever since the genesis of ‘Anglo-Saxon’ scholarship in the nineteenth century archaeologists have sought to identify discrete areas of Anglian, Saxon, and Jutish settlement (e.g. Leeds 1912; 1936; 1945; Fox 1923, 284–95). The identification of these peoples was based upon different artefact styles and burial rites, with most attention being paid to brooches. The degree of variation in the composition of brooch assemblages across eastern England is shown in Table 9.1. Cruciform brooches with cast side knobs, for example, were thought to have been ‘Anglian’, and saucer brooches ‘Saxon’ (although even in the early twentieth century Leeds (1912) had started to doubt the attribution of applied brooches to the West Saxons). In recent years, however, this traditional ‘culturehistorical’ approach towards interpreting the archaeological record has been questioned, as it is now recognized that, rather than being imported from mainland Europe during the early to mid fifth century, regional differences in artefact assemblages emerged over the course of the late fifth to late sixth centuries (e.g. Hines 1984; 1999; Hilund Nielsen 1995; Lucy 2000; Owen- Crocker 2004; 2011; Penn and Brugmann 2007; Walton Rogers 2007; Brugmann 2011; Dickinson 2011; Hills 2011). In early to mid fifth-century England, in contrast, it now appears that Germanic material culture was in fact relatively homogeneous, with objects typical of ‘Saxon’ areas on the continent being found in so-called ‘Anglian’ areas of England, and vice versa. The earliest material from East Anglia, for example—equal-arm, supporting-arm, and early cruciform brooches—are most closely paralleled in the Lower Elbe region of Saxony, with the distinctive ‘Anglian’ identity of EastAnglia onlyemerging through later contact with southern Scandinavia (Hines 1984; Carver 1989, 147, 152; Hills and Lucy 2013, 38–9). Indeed, many elements of the classic suite of early Anglo-Saxon material culture actually developed within Britain as opposed to having been created on the continent (Hills 2003, 104–7; Owen-Crocker 2004, 13), with new identities beingmade in Britain rather than being imported frommainland Europe (Hills 2011, 10).

Kingdoms and regiones: The documentary evidence

During the early medieval period eastern England was occupied by two major Anglo-Saxon kingdoms—the East Saxons and East Angles—alongside a region that Bede referred to as ‘Middle Anglia’. There has been a widespread assumption that Essex (‘the East Saxons’) and Suffolk and Norfolk (the ‘South Folk’ and ‘North Folk’ of East Anglia) were direct successors to these Anglo-Saxon kingdoms (e.g. Carver 1989, fig. 10.1; 2005, 498; Yorke 1990, 46, 61; Warner 1996, 4, plate 1; Pestell 2004, 12; Chester-Kadwell 2009, 46; Kemble 2012, 8; Gascoyne and Radford 2013, 176; Reynolds 2013, fig. 4), which would imply a strong degree of territorial continuity from at least the early medieval period through to the present day. There is, however, a recognition in the Regional Research Framework that regional differences within early medieval society across eastern England have seen little investigation (Medlycott 2011b, 58), something that the following chapters hope to address. This chapter will explore the documentary evidence for these early medieval kingdoms and their relationship to later counties, before turning to the archaeological evidence for Anglo- Saxon immigrants and their relationship to the native British population in Chapters 8–10. The clear differences between the Northern Thames Basin, East Anglia, and the South East Midlands that are still evident during the seventh to ninth centuries are outlined in Chapter 11. Finally, Chapter 12 explores the boundaries of the early medieval kingdoms, and in particular the series of dykes constructed in south-eastern Cambridgeshire.Table 7.1 provides a timeline of key historical dates for early medieval England, and key developments within the archaeological record. The earliest list of territorial entities is the Tribal Hidage. The original document has been lost—it only survives in a variety of later forms—but it is thought to have been written between the mid seventh and the ninth centuries (Hart 1970; 1977; Davies and Vierck 1974, 224–7; Yorke 1990, 10; Blair 1991, 8; 1999; Harrington and Welch 2014, 1). The Tribal Hidage lists at least thirteen peoples in and around eastern England, some of whom clearly occupied quite extensive areas, such as the East Angles (assessed as 30,000 hides), East Saxons (7,000 hides), and the Cilternsætna (4,000 hides).

The rural landscape of the Romano-British land-owning elite

Rural settlement in Roman Britain has been the subject of many previous studies (e.g. Rivet 1958; 1964; Thomas 1966a; Dark and Dark 1997; Taylor 2007a), although in the past there has been a tendency to assume that lowland regions were uniformly ‘Roman’ and characterized by villas. The construction of villas represents the conscious adoption of a distinctively ‘Roman’ style of architecture by the land-owning class, and rather than being ‘nouveaux riche’ (Russell and Laycock 2010, 111), they are more likely to have been descended from old elites within the pre-Roman kingdoms. The Latin term villa referred simply to a country house, and while in practice the vast majority appear to have lain at the centre of agricultural estates, it is in this true sense—of a country house—that the term is used here (Percival 1988). Most books on Roman Britain try to illustrate the distribution of villas and through simple small-scale maps such as these, and with knowledge of well-known sites such as Bignor and Chedworth, it is easy to draw three assumptions: first, that we know what a Roman villa is, second, that we can map their distribution quite easily, and third that they were a typical feature of lowland areas. All of these assumptions, however, can be questioned. The first—that we understand the nature of Roman villas—seems the most straightforward, although the amount of recent excavation is in fact surprisingly limited as scheduling has protected so many sites from development, andmost of the early work focused on the main residential building as opposed to its ancillary structures. The expansion in first ‘rescue’ and latterly developerfunded excavation has, however, led to a far greater range of rural settlements being excavated and rather than there being a clear divide between ‘villa’ and ‘nonvilla’ sites, we can see that there was a continuum, with low-status timber structures at one end of the scale, palatial houses at the other, and a large number of sites in the middle that meet some, but not necessarily all, of the criteria for being regarded as a villa.

Iron Age landscape, society, and regionality : The material culture

In his review of South East Britain in the later Iron Age, Hill (2007, 16) observed that ‘Since the 1980s, little attention has been given to large-scale social explanations and narratives in British Iron Age archaeology. Debates over core–periphery models, the interpretation of hillforts, and the nature of social organization, were—for good reason—eclipsed by a focus on the symbolic meanings of space, structured deposition, and ritual.’ He goes on to argue that British archaeology is in need of more ‘straightforward storyboards’ around which data can be arranged (Hill 2007, 16), and Brudenell (2012, 52) has similarly noted how ‘close-grained understandings have often been won at the expense of broader pictures . . . [and that] with a few exceptions, recent approaches have atomized the study of later prehistoric society, focussing on the specifics of the local social milieu at the expense of broader scales of social analysis’. There have been some ‘big picture’ studies—most notably Cunliffe’s (1974; 1978; 1991; 2005) Iron Age Communities in Britain—but all too often studies of this period have focused on specific counties, types of site, or artefact, and it is noticeable how little systematic mapping of data there was in three recent collections of papers (Gwilt and Haselgrove 1997; Haselgrove and Moore 2007; Haselgrove and Pope 2007). This study, in contrast, aims to shed light on one important ‘storyboard’: the territorial structures within which communities built their landscapes. The written history of Britain begins in the first century BC when we first get insights into its political and territorial arrangements, although as this was a period when the island was becoming embroiled in the political instability caused by the expansion of the Roman world, the trends seen then may not reflect the longer-term patterns of territorial stability or instability that preceded it. In 54 BC, for example, Caesar describes how his major opponents were a civitas (usually translated as ‘tribe’) who had recently surpassed the neighbouring Trinovantes as the paramount group in South East Britain (Gallic War, 20–1; Dunnett 1975, 8; Moore 2011).

Regionality under the new order: The seventh to tenth centuries

Around the late sixth century dress styles and burial practices started to change, with regionally distinctive sets of grave goods giving way initially to the greater uniformity seen in ‘final phase’ cemeteries before the regular deposition of artefacts ceased altogether in the late seventh century. It has been argued that this reflects how a common identity had started to emerge across Anglo-Saxon society, and that the change in the character of grave goods away from those expressing a strongly Germanic identity to ones with a more Romano-Byzantine character reflects how kings sought to legitimize their power through association with the Roman world (e.g. Geake 1997, 133–5; 1999b). This hypothesis, however, presents something of a paradox because, just as the archaeologically visible and regionally distinctive group identities expressed in material culture such as dress accessories disappeared, a new form of territoriality was emerging in the form of relatively stable kingdoms within which one might imagine the expression of identity was just as important. Indeed, many have argued that changes in the character of grave goods being deposited in ‘final phase’ cemeteries had less to do with secular identity and kingship and was instead associated with the spread of Augustinian Christianity, which was both a unifying cultural tradition and one with strong associations with the Roman world (e.g. Crawford 2004; Hoggett 2010, 107). It seems inherently unlikely that group identities will have disappeared just as stable kingdoms started to emerge, and it is therefore likely that identity was expressed in other ways. This is in fact exactly what we see if we look beyond the burial record: while eighth-century and later graves contain few expressions of identity, as Christianity dictated a uniform burial practice, the circulation of new forms of material culture, such as coinage and mass-produced pottery, was closely tied to particular political territories. This new material culture was associated with specialist forms of settlement that were closely involved in the circulation of coinage both in coastal emporia and in inland places that archaeologists have termed ‘productive sites’.

Anglo-Saxon colonization

Two strands of evidence can be used to map where Anglo-Saxon immigrants made their home in Britain: the distributions of Grubenhäuser and burials furnished with a distinctive suite of Germanic grave goods (which are referred to here as ‘Anglo-Saxon’ burials). Exactly who is buried within ‘Anglo-Saxon’ cemeteries is not altogether clear, as they may include both the immigrant population with their direct descendants and some native Britons (e.g. Arnold 1988; Hodges 1989; Härke 1990; 2002; Higham 1992; Scull 1995; Lucy 2000; Hamerow 2002; Hills 2003; 2007; 2009; 2011), and without major advances in scientific analysis we will never know whether some of those buried were ‘really just disguised Britons’ (Hills 1993, 15). Recent work on ancient DNA at Oakington, in Cambridgeshire, has established that both immigrants and natives were buried in this ‘Anglo-Saxon’ cemetery (Pitts 2016), but in order to determine how far Anglo-Saxon colonization extended across the landscape of eastern England we must rely upon more traditional archaeology. Of particular importance is the distribution of Grubenhäuser, as these distinctive structures had no precedent in late Roman Britain, suggesting that they were constructed and used by immigrant communities. Grubenhäuser are represented in the archaeological record as shallow(c.0.3–0.5m deep), sub-rectangular (c.3 by 4 m), steep-sided, and flat-bottomed pits above which was probably constructed a suspended wooden floor (e.g. Fig. 8.1; Tipper 2004). These distinctive structures have variously been called ‘huts’, ‘sunken huts’, ‘sunken featured buildings’, and ‘SFBs’, although all of these terms are problematic. The term ‘hut’ in particular led to an interpretation that they were crude hovels, whereas, now that examples have been reconstructed, we can see that they were substantial and impressive buildings (Fig. 8.2). The German term Grubenhäuser is used here specifically because it indicates that they were an alien formof architecture: although a number of Romano-British buildingswith sunken floors have been excavated, Tipper (2004, 7–11) has demonstrated that they represent an entirely different building tradition of cellars with revetted sides, entrance stairways, and floors associated with hearths and sunken storage jars (e.g. King Harry Lane in Verulamium: Stead and Rigby 1989).

Iron Age landscape and society The settlement patterns

That the character of settlement across Iron Age Britain was far from uniform is well known, although Hawkes’ (1931, fig. 1) plotting of the distribution of hillforts was not expanded upon for many years, with key studies such as Harding’s (1974) The Iron Age in Lowland Britain and the early edition of Cunliffe’s (1974) Iron Age Communities in Britain lacking distribution maps of settlement types. Cunliffe’s (1978, fig. 16.2; 1991, fig. 20.6; 2005, fig. 4.3) eventual mapping of four settlement character areas across Britain was therefore a seminal piece of work, although the whole of eastern England fell within a single zone characterized by ‘villages and open settlements’, while Bradley (2007, fig. 5.14) suggested that eastern England was a landscape of ‘open and wandering settlements’ (Fig. 3.1). In contrast, Hill (1999; 2007) has suggested that while the East Midlands and his ‘northern Anglia’ (Norfolk and northern Suffolk) were characterized by clusters of agglomerated settlements and large ‘open villages’, parts of his ‘southern Anglia’ (i.e. what is referred to here as the Northern Thames Basin) has ‘little evidence for densely settled communities’ in the Middle Iron Age. He suggested instead that the ‘apparently empty areas’ in ‘southern Anglia’ were ‘probably exploited economically and agriculturally in a much less intensive manner by relatively few permanent settlements . . . and, especially, by people visiting them’ (Hill 2007, 22). Hill’s (2007) view that ‘southern Anglia’ was a sparsely settled and peripheral area has not, however, stood the test of time and what is in fact striking is just how much Iron Age settlement has been discovered there through recent developmentled archaeological work. The most intensively investigated area, at Stansted Airport and the nearby new A120, for example, comprised a landscape littered with small enclosed farmsteads consisting of one or two roundhouses associated with a small number of four-post granaries (Havis and Brooks 2004; Timby et al. 2007a; Cooke et al. 2008). The character of these settlements is clearly suggestive of permanent occupation, while their density suggests that this was far from an empty landscape that was seasonally exploited by outsiders.

Conclusions

Territorial structures feature in many studies of the past, but are the focus of very few. While books on Iron Age Britain are full of references to ‘tribes’ and ‘kingdoms’, their boundaries remain poorly defined. Although regional variation within Iron Age material culture was marked, it has traditionally been thought that Romanization led to a homogenization of society, its artefacts, and its architecture. Our understanding of Romano-British territorial identities remains poor and most studies have simply provided the seemingly obligatory map showing the names of civitates with or without schematic dotted lines between them. Within early medieval scholarship there has been a greater focus on territoriality and in particular the origins and development of kingdoms, but few attempts have been made to map their boundaries or the socioeconomic zones that may have underpinned them. Overall, our understanding of territorial structures in Britain during the late prehistoric and early historic periods is very poor. Until the 1960s—when the ‘culture-historical’ paradigm prevailed—the Iron Age, Roman, and early medieval periods were seen as having been characterized by frequent disruptions to society brought about by invasions and migrations. From the 1970s the idea that there may have been far greater continuity in the landscape gained favour, just as the idea that cultural change had to be brought about by mass migration went out of fashion. Most of the narratives on what happened in the post-Roman landscape were, however, based upon anecdotal evidence from a small number of well-known sites—Barnsley Park, Frocester, Latimer, Rivenhall, and the like—and so The Fields of Britannia (Rippon et al. 2015) attempted to explore the extent to which there may have been continuity within the countryside through an analysis of pollen sequences and excavated field systems. This suggested a considerable degree of potential continuity in most lowland regions, making a prima facie case that many Romano-British farmers continued to work the land, albeit with a shift in emphasis from arable to pasture. Following on from this, Kingdom, Civitas, and County has considered whether there may also have been continuity in the socio-economic and territorial structures within which communities lived their lives.

The boundaries of early medieval kingship

In the past the study of early medieval kingdoms has mostly been a singledisciplinary activity based upon the extremely limited documentary sources, with boundaries back-projected from much later evidence (e.g. Bailey 1989, fig. 8.1). What is presented in this study, in contrast, is an attempt to have a more archaeologically and landscape-based discussion that includes using the distributions of cultural indicators such as artefact types, architectural forms, burial practices, and the locations of particular sites that appear to have been positioned in liminal locations. Three phases in the development of these kingdoms can be distinguished: • The fifth to sixth centuries (emergent kingdoms): the period of Grubenhäuser and Anglo-Saxon burials associated with a suite of material culture showing marked regional affinities. Anglo-Saxon kingdoms existed by the end of this period, and a broad consensus has emerged that they were formed through the amalgamation of a series of smaller regiones (e.g. Arnold 1988; Bassett 1989a; Yorke 1990; Scull 1993; 1999; Harrington and Welch 2014). This model—which Bassett (1989b) has compared to a football knock-out competition—is, however, based largely upon the fragmentary and very partial documentary record (see Chapter 7), and it does not explain the close correspondence of the boundaries between the fifth- to sixth-century socio-economic zones spheres identified here and those of the Iron Age and Roman periods. • The seventh and eighth centuries (mature kingdoms): a new suite of material culture (e.g. East Anglian and East Saxon coinage, and Ipswich Ware) whose circulation in part appears to have been restricted to the polities within which they were produced. The authority of the East Saxon kings had started to decline during the latter part of this period, although East Anglia survived. • The ninth century (the declining kingdoms): the East Saxon kingdom virtually disappeared and become a territory within Wessex. The distributions of later eighth- and ninth-century inscribed coinage, and distinctive artefact types such as silver wire inlaid strap ends, suggest that the East Anglian socio-economic sphere, and the kingdom that was based upon it, survived within the same boundaries that had emerged by the fifth and sixth centuries until it was overrun by the Danes in the 870s.

The Romano-British urban and religious landscape

There has been a long-standing tendency to divide Roman Britain into just two regions. This simplistic view goes back toHaverfield’s (1912) ‘civil’ and ‘military’ districts, and Fox’s (1932) ‘lowland’ and ‘upland’ zones, and the persistence of these binary characterizations contributes to the impression of homogeneity in Romano-British landscape character (Collingwood 1930; Frere 1967; Salway 1981, 4–5). Dark and Dark’s (1997) substitution of the term ‘villa landscape’ for ‘civil zone’, and ‘native landscape’ for ‘military zone’, simply reinforces this over-simplification. While there have been many discussions of local distinctiveness within the Romano-British landscape, this has all too often been within the context of modern counties (e.g. papers in Thomas 1966a), and Taylor’s (2007a) use of twenty-first century units of regional government was no better (his ‘South East’ region, for example, stretches from Kent to the foot of the Cotswold Hills and embraced regions of very different character in the Roman period). In An Imperial Possession Mattingly (2006) moves the debate on a long way, in discussing how three ‘communities’—military, civil (urban), and rural—interacted with each other in different regions, although his 621-page book, which is so rich in ideas, contains just fifteen very small-scale maps, reflecting how our understanding of regional variation in landscape character is not as well advanced as it is for the medieval period. The need to improve our understanding of regionality within Romano-British society across eastern England has recently been highlighted as a priority in the Research Framework for this region (Medlycott 2011b, 47); the following three chapters will hopefully go some way towards achieving that. The Roman Conquest brought about a transformation of lowland Britain as it was progressively drawn into the Roman world. One effect of this is an archaeological record that appears, at first sight, remarkably homogeneous, with the landscape apparently characterized by towns and villas, the economy seemingly dominated by market-based trade, and material culture increasingly using a relatively uniform repertoire of forms.