Kingdom, Civitas, and County: The Evolution of Territorial Identity in the English Landscape 0198759371, 9780198759379

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Kingdom, Civitas, and County

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KINGDOM, CIVITAS, AND COUNTY The Evolution of Territorial Identity in the English Landscape

STEPHEN RIPPON

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Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © Stephen Rippon 2018 The moral rights of the author have been asserted First Edition published in 2018 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: 2017954406 ISBN 978–0–19–875937–9 Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work.

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Preface and acknowledgements Landscape archaeology has traditionally focused on the physical components of the countryside, such as its settlements and field systems, while palaeoenvironmental evidence allows us to reconstruct land-use regimes. For scholars working within the historic period, however, there is another dimension to the landscape that has been studied: its territorial divisions. By the eleventh century Domesday Book tells us that the landscape was divided up into a hierarchy of administrative units ranging from the counties with which we are familiar today down to thousands of small ‘vills’ that were broadly equivalent in size to our ancient ecclesiastical parishes. The names of some of these counties commemorate the communities of an earlier age, when territories were ruled by kings who proclaimed an Anglo-Saxon identity such as the East Saxons (whose name is preserved by the county of Essex). The few written sources we have for the Roman period suggest that the landscape was similarly divided up into a series of large territories, known as civitates, that in South East Britain were related to pre-Roman kingdoms: a second-century inscription on the tombstone of a woman called Regina found at South Shields, for example, records that she came from the Catuvellauni, while in 54 BC Caesar describes how his major opponents were the civitas (which has been translated as ‘tribe’) known as the Catuvellauni, who had recently surpassed the neighbouring Trinovantes as the paramount group in South East Britain. Perhaps the most famous of these Late Iron peoples and Roman civitates were the Iceni, whose queen Boudica led a bloody revolt against the Roman government and whose Roman-period capital, at Caistor St Edmund near Norwich, was called Venta Icenorum. Archaeologists and historians of the Iron Age have written extensively about the pre-Roman peoples of Britain, while Romanists have regularly reproduced maps purporting to show where the civitates may have lain, and medieval historians have speculated about the boundaries of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. This, however, is an example of one of the great problems within archaeology (and history): its compartmentalization into discrete blocks of time that are divided by political events such as the Roman invasion of AD 43 and Honorius’ edict of AD 410 (which may or may not have actually referred to Britain). As the archaeological evidence from the Iron Age, Roman, and early medieval periods all seems very distinct one might ask what the problem is with such a compartmentalization of the past, to which the answer is that, while invasions can bring profound political change, we are now starting to appreciate that they rarely led to transformations of the landscape. In 2015, along with Chris Smart and Ben Pears, I published The Fields of Britannia, a major study of what happened to

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Preface and acknowledgements

the landscape of Britain when it ceased to be part of the Roman Empire. Palaeoenvironmental evidence and large numbers of excavations suggested that there was far greater continuity within the countryside at the end of the Roman period than was previously suspected. Whereas The Fields of Britannia looked at broad regional differences in land management, this book explores another facet of landscape history: whether there was continuity in the territorial units into which the landscape was divided. It has often been assumed that Romano-British civitates had their origins in the territorial divisions of the Iron Age, and there has been some speculation in the past about whether the kingdoms of early medieval England may have had their origins in the civitates of Roman Britain. What has been lacking from this debate, however, has been a diachronic perspective that involves the large-scale mapping of data-sets across the Iron Age, Roman, and early medieval periods. What is presented here is therefore an interdisciplinary study of artefactual, landscape, and documentary evidence across nearly two thousand years (from the Early Iron Age through to the eleventh century) that aims to explore potential continuities in territorial identities. I am extremely grateful to the many people who helped with my research, including staff at the Portable Antiquities Scheme (notably Sam Moorhead and John Naylor) and in the Historic Environment Records in Bedfordshire (Sam Mellonie), Buckinghamshire (Julia Wise), Cambridgeshire (Sally Croft), Essex (Nigel Brown and Maria Medlycott), Hertfordshire (Stewart Bryant and Isobel Thompson), Milton Keynes (Nick Crank), Norfolk (David Gurney), and Suffolk (Jude Plouviez). For discussing specific sites, landscapes, and sources, and supplying unpublished information, I would also like to thank Sue Anderson, Mark Curteis and Nick Wickenden (Chelmsford Museum), Mike Dawson (RPS Consulting), Charles Lequesne, Lynette Mitchell (University of Exeter), Penelope Walton Rogers, and Bob Zeepvat (Buckinghamshire Archaeological Society). For my analysis of Romano-British pottery I must thank Stephen Benfield (Colchester Archaeological Trust), Edward Biddulph (Oxford Archaeology), Paul Bidwell, Paul Booth (Oxford Archaeology), Nigel Brown (formerly Essex County Council), Stewart Bryant (formerly Hertfordshire County Council), Michael Fulford (University of Reading), David Gurney (Norfolk County Council), Andrew Peachey (Archaeological Solutions), Martin Pitts (University of Exeter), Jude Plouviez (formerly Suffolk County Council), Fiona Seeley (Museum of London Archaeology), Dan Stansbie (Oxford Archaeology/ University of Oxford), and Nick Wickenden (Chelmsford Museum). Finally, for permission to reproduce illustrations I would like to thank the following: Figure 2.1 (J. D. Hill, British Museum); Figures 2.12, 4.10, 5.2, 5.3 (Maria Medlycott, Essex County Council Historic Environment Service); Figure 4.1 (Alex Croom, Tyne and Wear Archives and Museum Service; and Administrators of the Haverfield Bequest); Figure 5.4 (Bob Zeepvat, Buckinghamshire Archaeological Society); Figure 6.2 (Nina Crummy and Hella

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Eckardt); Figure 6.3 (Chris Going); Figure 6.15 (Tim Pestell, Norfolk Museum Service); Figure 8.1 (Sam Lucy, Cambridge Archaeological Unit); Figure 9.1 (Historic England, John Hines, Tim Malim, and Maria Medlycott, Essex County Council); Figure 9.4 (Tom Moore and Network Archaeology; and Penelope Walton Rogers and the Anglo-Saxon Laboratory); Figures 2.4, 11.4, 11.7, and 11.9 (Portable Antiquities Scheme). The appendices for this volume can be found online via Open Research Exeter at .

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Contents List of figures List of tables List of appendices List of abbreviations

xi xvii xix xxi

1. Introduction: The evolution of territorial identities in the English landscape

1

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

43

3. Iron Age landscape and society: The settlement patterns

76

4. The Romano-British urban and religious landscape

104

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

138

6. Romano-British material culture

168

7. Kingdoms and regiones: The documentary evidence

199

8. Anglo-Saxon colonization

220

9. Regional identities: Angles and Saxons?

241

10. The native British

268

11. Regionality under the new order: The seventh to tenth centuries

286

12. The boundaries of early medieval kingship

317

13. Conclusions

328

Bibliography Index

357 431

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List of figures 1.1

1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9

2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 2.9 2.10 2.11 2.12 2.13

The major regions of Roman Britain, showing changes in the proportion of total land pollen that was accounted for by trees and shrubs in the Roman and early medieval periods. The distribution of selected Iron Age, Romano-British, and Anglo-Saxon material culture across the eastern England study area. Examples of major regions identified within the English landscape. Documented Iron Age and Anglo-Saxon polities in eastern England, and Domesday counties. The pays of eastern England. The chalk escarpment at Knocking Hoe in Shillington, Bedfordshire. An assessment of pre-modern agricultural land capability. The distribution of woodland and wood-pasture indicative -le ā h place-names against a background of topography. The distribution of woodland and wood-pasture indicative -le ā h place-names against a background of pre-modern agricultural land capability. Iron Age coin distributions: Gallo-Belgic A–C coins. Iron Age coin distributions: Kentish potins, British G, Gallo-Belgic E, and British L/‘Whaddon Chase’. Iron Age coin distributions: Addedomaros, Dubnovellaunus, Tasciovanus, Andoco, Dias, Sego, and Rues. Iron Age coin distributions: Cunobelin. Iron Age coin distributions: Icenian and Corieltavian. Iron Age coin circulation zones mapped against topography and pre-modern agricultural land capability. Early Iron Age pottery distributions. Middle Iron Age pottery distributions. The Late Iron Age Aylesford-Swarling culture compared to the distributions of Romano-British villas. Regionally distinctive styles of pottery form and repertoires in the mid first century BC. The distributions of Early and Middle Iron Age brooches, and Late Iron Age torcs and horse-fittings. The distribution of Iron Age triangular-shaped loomweights. The density of Iron Age triangular-shaped loomweights on excavated settlements.

5 14 17 18 19 24 25 34

35 48 49 51 53 54 55 59 61 62 64 66 67 68

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xii

List of figures

2.14 Later Early Iron Age pottery styles mapped against the Late Iron Age coin circulation zones. 2.15 Middle Iron Age pottery styles mapped against the Late Iron Age coin circulation zones. 2.16 Elements of the Aylesford-Swarling culture mapped against the Late Iron Age coin circulation zones. 3.1 Previous characterizations of Iron Age settlement across Britain. 3.2 Examples of the major Iron Age non-hillfort settlement types. 3.3 The scale of excavation sufficient to determine if a settlement is open or enclosed. 3.4 The distributions of Early Iron Age settlement types (open and hillforts) and Middle Iron Age hillforts. 3.5 The distributions of Middle Iron Age settlement types. 3.6 The distributions of Late Iron Age settlement types. 3.7 Examples of irregular-shaped Middle Iron Age enclosures. 3.8 The distribution of Iron Age pit alignments. 3.9 Iron Age dykes, Middle Iron Age hillforts on the chalk escarpment, and Middle Iron Age pottery from the South East Midlands. 3.10 Middle Iron Age hillforts, mid first-century AD pottery kilns, Romano-Celtic temples, early medieval dykes, and -le ā h place-names in south-eastern Cambridgeshire. 3.11 The distribution of Iron Age pit alignments, and Middle to Late Iron irregular-shaped enclosures mapped against the Late Iron Age coin circulation zones. 4.1 Second-century inscription on the tombstone of a freedwoman called Regina. 4.2 Previous reconstructions of the boundaries of the Romano-British civitates. 4.3 Millett’s civitas boundaries in eastern England. 4.4 The Roman road network across eastern England based upon the Antonine Itinerary and archaeological evidence. 4.5 Different attempts at mapping the distributions of Romano-British small towns. 4.6 The Romano-British urban hierarchy of eastern England. 4.7 Disaggregated distributions of small towns and local centres. 4.8 The distribution of rural Romano-Celtic temples against a background of topography. 4.9 The distribution of rural Romano-Celtic temples against a background of Iron Age coin circulation zones. 4.10 Reconstruction of the Romano-Celtic temple at Harlow. 4.11 Plan of the small town and temple complex at Harlow. 4.12 Plan of the Romano-British site at Harlowbury. 4.13 The ritual landscape at Pegsdon in Bedfordshire.

72 73 74 77 79 80 81 82 83 88 95 97

100

102 109 110 112 114 117 120 126 128 129 130 130 131 133

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5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7 5.8 5.9 5.10 5.11 5.12 5.13 5.14 5.15 5.16 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 6.7 6.8 6.9 6.10 6.11 6.12 6.13

6.14 6.15 6.16

List of figures

xiii

Different distributions of Roman villas published in 1990. Plan and reconstruction of the farmhouse at Great Holts. Plan and reconstruction of Chignall villa. Plan and reconstruction of the house at Wymbush. Plan of the house and detached bath house at Feltwell. The distributions of certain, probable, and possible villas across eastern England. Schematic representations of the major villa plan-forms in eastern England. Villa plans of winged-corridor layout in the North-Western Thames Basin. Villa plans with layouts other than winged-corridor forms in the North-Western Thames Basin. Villa plans in the North-Eastern Thames Basin. Villa plans in East Anglia. Villa plans with longitudinal corridor and aisled layouts in the South East Midlands. Villa plans of winged-corridor layout in the South East Midlands. The distribution of third-century and undated villa plan-forms. The distribution of first-century villas. The distribution of second-, third-, and fourth-century mosaics. The distributions of regionally distinctive Romano-British material culture. The distributions of regionally distinctive types of nail cleaners. The sources of pottery used at Chelmsford. The location of settlements producing the Romano-British pottery assemblages analysed in this study. Models accounting for different distributional patterns of Romano-British pottery. The distribution of sites producing selected vessels manufactured at Mucking. The distribution of sites producing Rettendon Ware. The distribution of sites producing Hadham Ware. The distribution of sites producing London-Essex Stamped Ware. The distribution of sites producing Pink Grog-Tempered Ware. The distribution of sites producing Horningsea Ware. The distribution of sites producing Wattisfield Ware. The distribution of sites producing Wattisfield Ware and the location of places that three current Romano-British pottery specialists have worked across eastern England. The distribution of sites producing Brampton and Pakenham Wares. Examples of Icenian rusticated decoration. The distribution of sites producing Icenian rusticated decoration.

139 142 143 143 144 148 155 157 158 159 160 161 162 164 165 166 169 171 173 175 176 177 178 179 183 184 185 187

188 189 190 191

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xiv

List of figures

6.17 The distribution of mid to late first-century pottery kilns in rural locations. 6.18 The distribution of sites producing pottery made in East Anglia. 7.1 Documentary evidence for the extent of the East Anglian and East Saxon kingdoms. 7.2 The East Saxon and East Anglian dioceses in c.850, with postulated boundaries based upon later medieval sources. 7.3 The Essex–Hertfordshire county boundary. 7.4 The Essex–Suffolk county boundary. 7.5 The Danelaw boundary and Danish place-names. 7.6 Reconstruction of the Dengie regio, referred to in a charter of c.706709. 7.7 The historic landscape around East Hanningfield and Rettendon. 8.1 Plan, section, and photographs of a Grubenhaus at Carlton Colville. 8.2 Reconstructed Grubenhäuser at West Stow. 8.3 The distribution of Grubenhäuser. 8.4 Simple distribution map of fifth- to seventh-century Anglo-Saxon burials. 8.5 Distribution of fifth- to sixth-century burials (excluding ‘final phase’ sites). 8.6 Distribution of high-status late sixth- and early seventh-century burials. 8.7 Distribution of ‘final phase’ burials. 9.1 Examples of Early Anglo-Saxon brooch types. 9.2 The significance of annular, circular plate, cruciform, and small-long brooches within excavated Early Anglo-Saxon grave assemblages across England. 9.3 The distribution of sleeve clasps. 9.4 Example of an East Anglian female grave (Tittleshall grave 13). 9.5 The distributions of Anglo-Saxon Grubenhäuser, fifth- to sixth-century burials, and the distinctively Anglian sleeve clasps, mapped against the suggested boundary zones of the major late seventh-century kingdoms. 10.1 Wheeler’s ‘sub-Roman triangle’ north of London. 10.2 Possible enclaves in southern Essex. 10.3 The distribution of place-names indicative of native British communities. 11.1 The distribution of Ipswich Ware. 11.2 The proportion of Middle Saxon pottery assemblages comprising Ipswich Ware. 11.3 The proportion of Middle Saxon pottery assemblages comprising Ipswich Ware on lower-status sites. 11.4 The distribution of Series B sceattas (excluding BII, BIIIa, and BZ). 11.5 The distribution of Series BII, BIIIa, and BZ sceattas. 11.6 The distribution of Series Q and R sceattas. 11.7 The distribution of Series S sceattas. 11.8 The distribution of East Anglian inscribed coinages.

193 196 205 208 210 211 214 216 218 221 222 223 228 230 233 238 249

251 256 259

267 269 282 283 288 289 296 298 300 301 302 304

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List of figures 11.9 11.10 12.1 12.2 12.3 13.1 13.2 13.3 13.4

The distribution of type A5 silver wire decorated strap ends. The location of emporia and productive sites. The location of early medieval dykes. The Cambridgeshire dykes. The Devil’s Dyke. Iron Age, Romano-British, and early medieval socio-economic zones across eastern England. Pre-modern agricultural land capability and the distribution of -le ā h place-names. The Chilterns south of Ivinghoe Beacon, Buckinghamshire, and the river Gipping at Causeway Lake in Baylham, Suffolk. Models for distinctiveness of regions and boundaries.

xv 305 306 322 323 326 334 343 346 350

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List of tables 1.1 The pays of eastern England. 1.2 Pre-modern agricultural land capability. 1.3 Traditional interpretations of the Iron Age, Romano-British, and early medieval regional-scale territories across eastern England. 1.4 The chronological framework used in this study. 2.1 The classification schemes for major types of Iron Age coins in circulation within the North-Eastern Thames Basin. 2.2 The political and geographical affinities of the major Iron Age coin series found across eastern England. 2.3 The proportions of Early, Middle, and Late Iron Age sites across eastern England that have produced triangular-shaped loomweights. 2.4 Analysis of the density of Middle Iron Age triangular-shaped loomweights. 3.1 The morphology of non-hillfort Iron Age settlement. 5.1 The criteria for identifying an archaeological site as a villa. 5.2 Identifiable villa plans from across eastern England. 5.3 Villa plan development by region and century. 5.4 Mosaics from the major towns of eastern England. 5.5 Summary of regional variation in the characteristics of Romano-British villas in eastern England. 6.1 The significance of Hadham Ware in sub-regional groups of varying distance from the kilns. 7.1 Timeline for the early medieval period with key historical dates and archaeological evidence. 8.1 Comparison of the number of post holes within Grubenhäuser across the three regions of eastern England. 9.1 Comparative sample of selected excavated cemeteries illustrating the contrasting brooch assemblages. 9.2 Characterization of brooch assemblages within the three regions of eastern England, comparing PAS finds with excavated assemblages. 9.3 Characterization of the excavated brooch assemblages from Great Chesterford, Linton Heath, and Bury St Edmunds, compared to the excavated brooch assemblages within East Anglia, the South East Midlands, and the Northern Thames Basin. 9.4 Comparison of the sleeve clasps recorded through the PAS and on excavated sites in East Anglia and the South East Midlands. 9.5 The composition of weapon assemblages across the three regions of eastern England, and a comparison with Härke’s (1990) national overview.

20 26 37 40 45 47 69 70 84 145 151 163 166 167 181 200 226 242 247

248 257 261

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xviii

List of tables

9.6 Positioning of shields within early Anglo-Saxon graves across the three regions of eastern England. 9.7 The relative proportions of spearhead types across the three regions of eastern England. 9.8 The proportion of cremation and inhumation across the three regions of eastern England. 10.1 The proportions of pollen derived from the four major land-use types as a proportion of Total Land Pollen (TLP) in the Roman and early medieval periods for upland and lowland regions across Britain south of Hadrian’s Wall. 11.1 The proportions of pottery from different sources in Middle Saxon assemblages across eastern England. 11.2 The Series B (excluding BII, BZ, and BIIIa) sceattas from across eastern England, with the distribution adjusted to take into account the varying sizes of the counties and the greater reporting of metal-detecting finds in some counties. 11.3 Series S sceattas from eastern England. 11.4 Analysis of the frequency with which parishes produce pre-Danelaw early medieval coins. 13.1 The scales of territoriality across eastern England. 13.2 Evidence for ethnic identity and territoriality in eastern England during the Iron Age, Romano-British, and early medieval periods. 13.3 Evidence for how clearly defined territorial identities and boundaries were across eastern England during the Iron Age, Romano-British, and early medieval periods.

263 264 264

272 290

299 302 308 331 347

353

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List of appendices The following Appendices are available online via Open Research Exeter (http://hdl.handle.net/10871/28775). 1. Iron Age loomweights from eastern England. 2. Excavated Iron Age non-hillfort settlements across eastern England whose morphology can be determined. 3. Site summaries: Middle Iron Age hillforts along the Chilterns and in south-eastern Cambridgeshire. 4. Site summaries: Late Iron Age oppida. 5. Site summaries: Romano-British towns, small towns, and local centres. 6. Bishops Stortford Romano-British larger local centre. 7. Site summaries: Romano-British villa plan-forms. 8. Romano-British pottery. 9. Site summaries: Early Anglo-Saxon royal burials. 10. Early Anglo-Saxon Grubenhäuser. 11. Early Anglo-Saxon cemeteries. 12. Comparison of Early Anglo-Saxon brooches from excavated cemeteries across all English counties.

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List of abbreviations ACS ADS APS AS ASC ASE BCCAS CA CAT CAU CBA CCCAFU DB Ess DB Herts DB Msex ECC ECCFAG ECCFAU EMCCF Gallic War HAT HE HER JNAS LESTA LTCP MOLA MOLAS MPRIA NAU NHDC OAE OAU

Airport Catering Site (Stansted Airport) Archaeology Data Service Archaeological Project Services Archaeological Solutions Archaeological Services & Consultancy Archaeology South-East Bedfordshire County Council Archaeology Service Cotswold Archaeology Colchester Archaeological Trust Cambridge Archaeological Unit Council for British Archaeology Cambridgeshire County Council Archaeological Field Unit Domesday Book, Essex (Rumble 1983) Domesday Book, Hertfordshire (Morris 1976) Domesday Book, Middlesex (Morris 1975) Essex County Council Essex County Council Field Archaeology Group Essex County Council Field Archaeology Unit Early Medieval Corpus of Coin Finds Julius Caesar’s The Gallic War (Edwards 1986) Hertfordshire Archaeological Trust Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People (Sherley-Price 1968) Historic Environment Record John Newman Archaeological Services London-Essex Stamped Ware Long Term Car Park Site (Stansted Airport) Museum of London Archaeology Museum of London Archaeological Service Middle Pre-Roman Iron Age Norfolk Archaeological Unit North Hertfordshire District Council Oxford Archaeology East Oxford Archaeological Unit

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xxii OE OSL PAS PCA Pausanias RCHME RIB RRSP S.0000 SCAU SCCAS TLP TVAS VCH

List of abbreviations Old English optically stimulated luminescence Portable Antiquities Scheme Pre-Construct Archaeology Pausanias’ Guide to Greece (Levi 1979) Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England The Roman Inscriptions of Britain (Collingwood and Wright 1955) Roman Rural Settlement Project (Smith et al. 2016) Charter number in Sawyer 1968 Surrey County Archaeological Unit Suffolk County Council Archaeological Service Total Land Pollen Thames Valley Archaeological Services Victoria County History

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1 Introduction The evolution of territorial identities in the English landscape

CONTINUITY IN THE LANDSCAPE This is a study of the territorial structures within which past communities managed their landscapes. Today, we live our lives within a complex hierarchy of administrative units that includes parishes, districts, counties, and nations, and while some of these are recent in origin, others are deeply rooted in the past: most parts of England, for example, still have counties that are direct successors to the shires recorded in Domesday and which still form the basis for our local government. These territorial entities are an important part of our history, giving communities a sense of place and identity, and this book will explore where this aspect of our landscape has come from: might county names such as Essex— meaning the ‘East Saxons’—suggest that they originated as early Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, and if so, what was the relationship between these kingdoms and the Romano-British civitates and Iron Age kingdoms that preceded them? The idea that the landscape all around us has a long and complex history is a familiar one. For a long time, however, continuity stretching back to the Roman period and beyond was thought to be rare. Archaeologists and historians have argued that once Britain ceased to be part of the Roman Empire, its economy collapsed, and it was not long before hordes of Angles and Saxons sailed across the North Sea and dispossessed the Britons of their land. This was thought to have marked the onset of the ‘dark ages’ before the flowering of a new era of civilization—the ‘Middle Ages’—a few centuries later. Although this was the view when Hoskins (1955) wrote his Making of the English Landscape, it is noteworthy that in the same year Finberg (1955) published a short paper speculating that there may have been considerable continuity within the landscape at Withington in Gloucestershire. Overall, however, while some Romanists saw a degree of overlap and continuity during the Anglo-Saxon colonization, most saw the fifth century as one of dramatic change reflected in the apparent desertion of most towns and villas, the collapse of market-based trade and manufacturing, and the introduction of entirely new forms of architecture, burial practice,

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2

Kingdom, Civitas, and County

and material culture (see Esmonde Cleary 2014, 3 for a historiography). By the 1960s, however, the role of migration in shaping cultural change was being questioned (e.g. Clark 1966; cf. Hawkes 1959) and, coupled with the new interdisciplinary techniques of landscape archaeology, attention started to focus upon the potential for continuities within the countryside. This included aspects of territoriality with Fowler (1975b), for example, suggesting that some villa estates may have survived through to the medieval period, and Jones (1979; 1981; 1985) arguing that territorial structures documented in later medieval Welsh law books might date back to the Roman period (or earlier) and that similar estates could be recognized in parts of England (see Gregson 1985 for a critique of this ‘multiple estate’ model). In Wessex, Bonney (1972; 1979) argued that the apparent relationship between Anglo-Saxon burials and parish boundaries suggested that the latter were Roman or earlier in date (but see Goodier 1984, Reynolds 2002, and Mees 2014), while some parish boundaries appeared to pre-date Roman roads and early medieval dykes (Fowler 1975b; Branigan 1977, 192–7; Leech 1982; Haslam 1984). On a larger scale, it has been argued that some Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and later counties may have originated in the Roman period, such as Kent, which it is argued grew out of the ‘tribal territory of the Cantii’, the kingdom of the South Saxons that is said to have ‘emerged in place of the civitas of the Regni’, while ‘the kingdom of the East Angles emerged in place of the civitas of the Iceni, and the kingdom of the East Saxons took over from the Trinovantes’ (Russell and Laycock 2010, 208). It has similarly been argued that Herefordshire and Shropshire replaced the territory of the Magonsaēte, and that the Middle Saxon kingdom of the Hwicce originated as the Iron Age tribe and Romano-British civitas of Dobunni (Hooke 1998, 74; cf. Gerrard 2013, 213; Whittock and Whittock 2014, 39). The most ambitious study of the potential survival of Romano-British civitates into the early medieval period was Dark’s (1994) Civitas to Kingdom, which argued that right across western Britain there was direct continuity from Romano-British administrative units through to early medieval kingdoms. Dark’s was, however, a book that was thin on detail, with Bassett (1995, 300), for example, observing that: Too many of his big ideas are presented with a minimum of detailed working-out or exemplification. To compound the problem, some of them form important new structural elements of his model on which further hypotheses are erected. Nowhere is this more obvious or more damaging than in Dr Dark’s efforts to discover the extent of territories. He is right to believe that medieval land units (and Iron Age and RomanoBritish ones too, if we can discern them) are a potentially invaluable historical source. But to employ them reliably, we have to first establish their boundaries’ courses as closely and accurately as possible. If we then find people at different periods whose land-units cover much the same area—which is the best one could hope for at this early date—the onus rest squarely on us to prove that the land units are the same by reason of, for example, the areas’ continuous use.

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Introduction

3

Throughout Dark’s book one is indeed struck by how little systematic data collection and analysis there is, with the relatively few distribution maps being small-scale, based upon previously published work, and of the simple ‘black dots on a white background’ type that fail to show potential relationships between the sites in question and aspects of landscape character such as topography. Of the postulated Catuvellaunian and Trinovantian civitates Dark (1994, 127) suggests the boundaries are ‘surprisingly easy to discern’, though he does not actually map them in any detail. Dark’s (1994) study was part of a continuity paradigm that emerged in the 1980s and which saw a profound change in how archaeologists viewed the fifth and sixth centuries, with mass folk migration being replaced by an Anglo-Saxon conquest achieved by a small warrior elite (e.g. Arnold 1988; Hodges 1989; Higham 1992; Dark 1994). Pryor (2004, 96, 214) went even further in suggesting that eastern England during the fourth to sixth centuries had ‘an essentially stable rural population existing in a political context that was changing quite rapidly’, with ‘no convincing archaeological evidence for “Dark Age” chaos, disruption or turmoil’, and that ‘Anglo-Saxon mass migrations into Britain never happened’. The way that many British archaeologists rejected the idea of mass migrations in the past is striking: Härke (1998, 20) suggested that it may result from a failure to engage with literature published in European languages, although the tendency for academic thought to be driven by paradigms during which one particular ideology quickly crowds out alternative views is more likely. Another example of the dogmatic nature of paradigm-based thought is the way that scholars in recent decades have failed to explore the influence that environmental factors may have had on human behaviour for fear of being labelled as ‘environmentally deterministic’. Academic ideas, however, have a tendency to go in and out of fashion and landscape historians such as Williamson (e.g. 2003; 2006a; 2013) and McCarthy (2013, 10–11, 14–30) have started to reassert the potential role that the natural environment may have had in shaping human behaviour. Overall, whereas the period up until the 1990s was characterized by opposing paradigms, there is now a growing acceptance that the end of the Roman period saw a combination of continuity and change, and that both the natural environment and social agency—including migration—have shaped these landscapes. The post-Roman period is an excellent example of this duality of continuity and change, as while those elements of society most strongly engaged with the money-based market economy—such as towns and villas—will have struggled to maintain their status after the late fourth century, across the wider rural landscape a greater degree of continuity seems possible. Continuity, however, does not necessarily mean that there was no change, but simply that change was relatively slow. Esmonde Cleary (1989, 158), for example, notes that ‘there is little evidence that the fifth century saw a significant decline in the global amount of land under cultivation in Britain’, and even Faulkner (2000, 142)—who argues for

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Kingdom, Civitas, and County

catastrophic collapse of Roman Britain during the fourth century—acknowledges that while ‘the grand old houses could not be maintained . . . agricultural activity continued’. The extent of this potential continuity in agricultural practices was revealed in The Fields of Britannia (Rippon et al. 2015) using two strands of evidence: palaeoenvironmental sequences that tell us about patterns of land-use, and the stratigraphic relationships between excavated Romano-British and medieval field systems.1 A key feature of The Fields of Britannia was its regional scale of analysis, and in response to Johnson’s (2007, 150) warning over the loose use of terms such as ‘region’, the definition used in both The Fields of Britannia and this study is as a discrete, well-defined, geographic area that possesses a topographical coherence. The Fields of Britannia regions were broadly speaking sub-divisions of the three ‘provinces’ which are so evident in medieval landscape character (Rackham 1986a; Roberts and Wrathmell 2000a; 2002; Rippon et al. 2015; Wrathmell 2017), but are very different from the three ‘drainage provinces’ that Williamson (2013) has recently discussed. The Fields of Britannia regions, and those used in this study, also embraced a series of smaller areas for which historical geographers have adopted the French term pays (e.g. Everitt 1986), although ‘country’, ‘district’, and ‘land’ are the more familiar English terms (e.g. the Black Country, the Lake District, Broadland, Breckland, and Fenland). The Fields of Britannia revealed that across most of lowland Britain, there was no widespread abandonment of agricultural land at the end of the Roman period, with most regions seeing no significant woodland regeneration (Fig. 1.1): the slight increases in tree pollen that can be observed may have been due to a failure to coppice woodland or lay hedges, which led to young saplings that had not previously grown to maturity and produced pollen now doing so. Potential continuity within the landscape was also revealed through the analysis of excavated field systems which showed that on around two-thirds of sites where late Romano-British boundaries are overlain by medieval field systems (as opposed to common land, woodland, or wetlands) they are on the same orientation, the figures being highest in East Anglia and the Central Zone. This suggests a degree of continuity in the existence of these fields, although there could have been a shift from arable to pasture, as long-term field observations at the Rothamsted Experimental Station have shown that woodland regeneration on former arable fields occurs within ten to thirty years if grazing ceases (Harmer et al. 2001), an observation supported by the analysis of sequential revised editions of Ordnance Survey maps (e.g. the Benfleet Downs in Essex: Rippon 2012c, 7). While it is possible that some Romano-British field systems may have been abandoned and then new fields laid out on exactly the same alignment, for example because their orientation was dictated by the underlying topography, there is

1

Fiona Fleming (2013; 2016) also studied potential continuity in settlement patterns in her thesis.

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5

Northern Uplands

North East Lowlands

Western Lowlands Roman n=27

Roman n=26

early medieval n=32

Roman n= 6

early medieval n=25

East Anglia

Upland Wales

Roman n= 31

early medieval n= 31

Roman n= 3

Lowland Wales

Roman n= 2

early medieval n= 9

early medieval n= 4

South East

early medieval n= 1

South West

0

150 km

Central Zone

Roman n= 16

early medieval n= 20

woodland

arable improved pasture Roman n=15

early medieval n=23

Roman n=26

early medieval n=17

unimproved pasture

Fig. 1.1. The major regions of Roman Britain, showing changes in the proportion of total land pollen that was accounted for by trees and shrubs in the Roman and early medieval periods: note that there is no evidence for a widespread woodland regeneration (source: Rippon et al. 2015, fig. 3.3, drawn by Chris Smart).

no evidence in the pollen record for such a widespread abandonment of agricultural land. The clearance of any regenerated woodland will also have been a destructive process, involving the grubbing up of tree stumps and dragging away of logs, and it is unlikely that the ephemeral remains of an earlier field system will have survived this. Overall, The Fields of Britannia suggests that in many areas Romano-British field systems were not completely abandoned, but instead continued in use in some form (albeit with a shift from arable to pasture in some cases).

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Kingdom, Civitas, and County

The Fields of Britannia was one of several projects to make use of the huge increase in archaeological data that followed the introduction of PPG16, including Bradley’s (2007) review of British and Irish prehistory, The Roman Rural Settlement Project (Smith et al. 2016), and the English Landscapes and Identities Project (see Gosden 2013 for a preliminary report). All of these ‘big data’ projects have carried out their analyses at a national scale, which has the great advantage of providing a broad overview, but the disadvantage that subtle local detail can be lost within the vast data-sets that have been compiled. There is even a danger that misleading conclusions will be drawn due to differences in how existing, often county-based data-sets have been compiled: one HER’s ‘villa’ may be another’s ‘substantial Roman building’, and so a map of ‘Roman villas’ drawn simply from sites classified as such in HERs will in part reflect how different people, in different counties, have interpreted their evidence. Kingdom, Civitas, and County is, therefore, one of two books—the other being Territoriality in the Early Medieval Landscape (Rippon forthcoming)—that sets out to explore the evolution of territoriality across an area—eastern England—that is large enough to allow for significant generalizations to be made, yet small enough to permit the in-depth analysis of specific sites, landscapes, and data-sets.

ETHNICITY, IDENTITY, AND TERRITORIALITY WITHIN THE LANDSCAPE This study covers the Iron Age, Roman, and early medieval periods when it has traditionally been argued that the regionally distinctive cultures of late prehistory were replaced first by the highly homogenized society of Roman Britain, and then a set of regionally distinctive identities expressed through different suits of Anglian and Saxon material culture. There is a long history of archaeologists dividing up peoples based upon their supposed cultural identities such as the Iron Age ‘Wessex’ culture and areas of ‘Anglian’, ‘Jutish’, and ‘Saxon’ settlement of the fifth to seventh centuries (e.g. Leeds 1936; 1945; Hawkes 1959). In this culture-historical paradigm, archaeologists thought that communities lived within homogeneous social groups that had defined territorial boundaries and saw socially accepted behaviours and material culture packages passed down through successive generations relatively unchanged. Giles (2012, 24), however, has argued that ‘archaeological cultures were the product of archaeologists identifying patterns in material culture (in time and space) rather than presenting any social reality as perceived by those groups’, and even in the socioevolutionary models that succeeded the culture-historical paradigm identity was seen as something that was innate and passed on from generation to generation (Giles 2012, 30). The issue of identity is inextricably linked to those of ethnicity and migration. The attribution of change in the archaeological record to migration and the idea

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that artefact styles could be used to identify discrete ethnic groups—an approach that characterized the reassuringly simple narrative of the ‘culture-historical’ paradigm—were first tarnished by Nazi Germany’s misuse of the past and then dismissed by the processual approaches of the New Archaeology. Although this has led to ethnicity being a subject that many archaeologists are uneasy with, it remains a concept that has to be explored. Jones (1997, x, 2) defines ethnic identity as ‘that aspect of a person’s self-conceptualization which results from identification with a broader group in opposition to others on the basis of perceived cultural differentiation and/or common descent’ (Jones 1997, xiii). Roymans (2004, 1) suggests that ethnicity reflects ‘aspects of relationships between groups which consider themselves and are regarded by others, as being culturally distinctive’, with differences expressed through language, material culture, oral traditions, and ritual acts. Smith (1986) and Revell (2016) list the elements of ethnicity as (1) having a collective name, (2) belief in a common descent, (3) a shared history, (4) a distinctive common culture, including language and rituals such as religion, (5) an association with a discrete territory, and (6) a sense of identity and solidarity with kin. Landscape and a sense of place and belonging are crucial in the formation of identity (Mullin 2011b, 4). Ethnicity is just one component of identity that can be expressed at the level of an individual and a group, the former’s including status and religion, and the latter’s including social ties such as kinship (e.g. Eckardt 2014, 6, 26). Some of these are inherent, such as the colour of one’s skin, while others may be a matter of choice, personal achievement, or determined by the wider group within which the individual lives, such as political allegiance. Identities are also interconnected: in eastern England during the fifth and sixth centuries AD for example, the weapons and brooches with which men and women were buried were simultaneously used to express their gender, their status, and their ethnicity (see Chapter 9). There are, however, many problems with studying ethnicity, not least the equation of ethnicity with race that has contributed to a reluctance on the part of many archaeologists to engage with the subject (Jones 1997, x, 2). There has also been a tendency to see ethnic groups in the past as homogeneous and unchanging units whose identity was portrayed through artefacts (a ‘normative’ approach), whereas social scientists now argue that ethnic identities were socially constructed and evolving (a ‘subjective’ approach, e.g. Roymans 2004, 2). Material culture is now seen as an active component in the creation and sustaining of identities, rather than passively reflecting them, although just because one community was explicitly using a particular artefact or motif to express their identity, this does not necessarily mean that outsiders will have understood what it meant (Eckardt 2014, 20, 61). A key theme within previous studies of ethnicity has been the emergence and persistence of boundaries between communities who forged separate identities for themselves. Barth (1969) has argued that the survival of such boundaries can be explained by the adaptation of communities to particular social or ecological

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Kingdom, Civitas, and County

niches, and that group identities develop in relative isolation or in competition with each other (and see Jones 1997, 73). The strongest affinity that most rural people will have had is with their immediate household and the land they farmed, although by the Late Iron Age written sources, inscribed coinage, and other material culture suggest that identities existed at a larger, regional scale. By the end of the early medieval period, however, life was lived within territorial structures whose boundaries were defined by administrators. Our earliest comprehensive record of such territoriality is Domesday Book, which describes how the landscape of England was divided up into a series of administrative units that included the historic counties with which we are familiar today. Across much of England this administrative structure is thought to have been formalized in the tenth century following the reconquest of the Danelaw, although in Wessex at least a system of ‘shires’ was much older: the Laws of King Ine (688–726), for example, describe how a man should pay a fine to his lord if he ‘steals into another shire’ (Attenborough 1922, 39, 49; Whitelock 1955, 368). Back in the seventh and eighth centuries there appears to have been a hierarchy of territorial units, with kingdoms sub-divided into districts variously referred to as regiones, pagi, and provinciae (Campbell 1979; Bassett 1989b, 17–21; Hooke 1998, 46–54). These kingdoms start to be documented in the late sixth century, and when described in the mid seventh to ninth-century Tribal Hidage they were very different in size. The largest was Wessex, covering most of central southern England, which was followed in size by Mercia, East Anglia, and then a series of middle-ranking kingdoms that included the East Saxons. The South East Midlands—which in the seventh century Bede referred to as ‘Middle Anglia’— comprised a series of far smaller peoples. The political geography of England at this time was, however, far from stable, and Bassett (1989b) has presented a widely accepted model whereby a multiplicity of smaller peoples had been gradually absorbed by the emerging more successful kingdoms, with the regiones documented at this time being districts within larger kingdoms. Following this model, the cluster of small kingdoms which made up ‘Middle Anglia’ were the last surviving remnants of an archaic landscape dominated by small autonomous communities. The Bassett model is one of unilineal development, with a large number of small territorial units being replaced by a few larger ones, and it suggests little potential continuity between the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and territories of roughly equivalent size in the Roman period known as civitates. The latter were the major units of Roman local government, and while most books on Roman Britain contain maps that purport to show their boundaries, these are small-scale, sketchy efforts that largely repeat Rivet’s (1958) early attempt based upon Iron Age coin distributions, a few scraps of Roman literary evidence, and what looks suspiciously like lines drawn roughly halfway between civitas capitals. McCarthy’s (2013) figure 3.1, for example, is a reproduction of Millett’s (1990) figure 16, whose caption states that the boundaries ‘generally follow’

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those of Rivet (1958): a map purporting to show civitas boundaries published in 2013 is therefore based upon a source that first appeared over fifty years earlier! The possibility of continuity in territorial arrangements from the Roman through to the early medieval period has recently seen much criticism. Gerrard (2013, 213), for example, argues that ‘suggesting that the Iron Age was inhabited by tribes that underwent no significant changes during the Late Iron Age or Roman period and were to re-emerge in some fashion in the fifth or sixth centuries stretches credulity’. It is, however, important to decouple the issues of whether there was continuity in territorial structures from the Iron Age through to the Roman period from what happened at the end of the Roman period: the territorial arrangements inherited by the Roman authorities in AD 43 may have been used as convenient administrative districts—many share their names with pre-Roman communities (e.g. Venta Icenorum, civitas capital of the Iceni)—but this does not mean that there was then continuity of these civitates through to the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. Williamson (2008, 13), for example, has argued that: A minority of historians and archaeologists believe that some at least of the Old English kingdoms were directly descended from Iron Age tribal territories and the RomanoBritish administrative divisions into which these developed: the East Saxon kingdom was thus the land of the Trinovantes by another name, East Anglia the old territory of the Iceni . . . Most, however, would probably follow the ideas developed by scholars like Steven Bassett, who have argued that the end of Roman rule was followed by a period of extreme political fragmentation (Bassett 1989b). Lowland England in the fifth and sixth centuries was thus divided into a myriad of diminutive tribal territories, each extended over tens rather than hundreds of square kilometres.

Both Gerrard and Williamson are right to criticize past scholarship for arguing in simplistic terms that Roman civitates became early medieval kingdoms, and three separate problems can be distinguished. First, there is a failure to engage with, and critically assess, primary data: all too often there is little systematic data collection, analysis, and presentation (e.g., see the critique of Dark 1994 earlier in this chapter). Second, the focus has been on political entities, as opposed to the social and economic structures that may have underpinned them: political structures come and go, but the socio-economic spheres within which people lived their daily lives in rural areas may have been more robust. Third, there is a view that territorial entities could exist, disappear, and then re-emerge with exactly the same boundaries without there apparently being any continuity. In various studies Williamson (2003; 2008; 2013) has argued that the natural environment had a profound effect on the cultural landscape. That it shapes agricultural practices is clear, and the recent analysis of Romano-British and early medieval faunal remains and charred cereals has shown the extent to which animal husbandry and arable cultivation were influenced by soil conditions (Rippon 2013b; Rippon et al. 2014; 2015), something that historians of

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Kingdom, Civitas, and County

the later medieval period have been aware of for many years (e.g. Kerridge 1967; Thirsk 1967; 1984; 1987). Williamson has also argued, however, that topography has had a profound effect upon territorial identities. He has divided England into three regions—or ‘drainage provinces’—within which he argues that ‘distinct ways of living were continued down the centuries, within strangely stable boundaries, to be manifested in medieval and even post-medieval times in particular inherited practices, settlement forms and dialects’ (Williamson 2013, 1). One of these ‘strangely stable boundaries’ runs along the Gipping and Lark valleys in Suffolk (Williamson 2006a, 90–1; 2008, 123–6; Martin 2007; Rippon 2007; 2008a; Martin and Satchell 2008; Barlow 2013) and is included in this study.2 Williamson (2013, 2) argues that these boundaries were ‘largely the consequence of environmental factors: of physical geography, of geology and hydrology, of soils and climate’, and that: It is easy to assume continuity, but the fact that social territories were often nested neatly within topographic units raises the possibility that these could be reconstituted in a similar form in successive periods, and that the location of their central places could likewise be re-established in the same general places, determined by such things as water supplies, or the existence of crossing points on rivers. (Williamson 2013, 105; italics added)

The crucial concept in Williamson’s hypothesis is that boundaries in landscape character were established, abandoned, and forgotten, and then entirely new and unrelated boundaries established in exactly the same place because the natural environment determined where they lay. In regions with significant upland areas, which seriously impede trade, exchange, and other social interaction, it is indeed likely that territorial boundaries will follow topographic features such as watersheds, but eastern England is not such a region: it is one of the flattest parts of Britain with few if any impediments to communication (the Gipping and Lark rivers do indeed flow through valleys, but the valley sides are so shallow that one does not break into a sweat when walking up them). It could, therefore, be argued that in topographically flat regions such as eastern England, where there were few if any major constraints on human behaviour, it is far less likely that such territorial boundaries will have disappeared only to then be reconstituted at a later date along exactly the same lines. Instead, if the boundaries between socio-economic zones in two periods were the same, then it is quite possible that there was some relationship—a degree of continuity—between the two. These two hypotheses—that ‘strangely stable boundaries’ reflect environmental determinism or potential continuity—are revisited in Chapter 13. 2 Others include the division between the Felden and Arden in Warwickshire (Roberts and Wrathmell 2000b; Dickinson and Hirst 2014), the Malvern Hills and the Welsh Marches (Bowden 2005, 52; Mullin 2011c), the Chiltern Hills (Roberts and Wrathmell 2000a; 2000b; Lambourne 2010), Bristol Avon (Whittock 2012; Whittock and Whittock 2014), and the Blackdown and Quantock Hills in Devon and Somerset (Rippon 2008a; 2012a; 2012b).

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The character of regional-scale ‘boundaries’, ‘borders’, and ‘frontiers’ that divided communities may have taken various forms: some see frontiers as relatively stable physical lines in the landscapes (e.g. Groenman-van Waateringe 1995; McWilliams 2011), while others have used the term ‘frontier’ (or ‘borderlands’) for large areas of sparsely settled land around the peripheries of more densely occupied areas (Lerner 1984, 67; Mullin 2011b). The former is the type of political frontier with which we are familiar today (with examples in the past including Hadrian’s Wall and Offa’s Dyke), while the latter is a broadly ecological and agrarian concept pertaining to land that is also referred to as ‘wilderness’ and ‘marginal’ (e.g. Postan 1972; TeBrake 1985). Boundaries between communities could also have been neutral locations for trade and exchange at either seasonal gatherings or permanent settlements that have variously been called ‘gateway communities’, ‘emporia’, and ‘ports of trade’ (e.g. De Atley and Findlow 1984a; 1984b; Jones 2011, 3). Where the boundaries between communities lay within sparsely settled wildernesses, there will initially have been no need to closely define them through the construction of fixed lines within the landscape, although over time, as resources became contested, agreement will have been needed as the landscape became parcelled up. This in itself did not mean that boundaries would inevitably become more stable—history is full of the conflicts and territorial expansions that result from agreements being broken—but in some cases at least boundaries did become remarkably stable: the Domesday counties of England, for example, were largely unchanged from the eleventh through to the twentieth centuries. Such permanence was largely due to the relatively stable society that created and maintained them: English counties were administrative structures created by a state-based society within which everyone needed to know where to pay their taxes and seek justice, and the same may well have been true of Romano-British civitates (Braund 1988b; Millett 1990, 99). By contrast, the kingdoms of Late Iron Age Britain and early Anglo-Saxon England were less stable political entities, and as such their boundaries are more likely to have changed over time, although this does not necessarily mean that the socio-economic worlds within which rural communities conducted trade and exchange fluctuated to the same extent. Herein lies a central argument of this study: that political and administrative units across different periods show some strong similarities was because they were superimposed upon underlying community-based socioeconomic spheres of interaction that were far more stable. UNDERSTANDING LANDSCAPES OVER THE LONGUE DURÉE This study aims to explore the origins and development of territoriality across eastern England from a long-term perspective. In studying the longue durée it straddles three periods—the Iron Age, Roman, and early medieval periods—that have usually been considered quite separately. We have learned societies and

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Kingdom, Civitas, and County

journals for each of these three periods, and university academics often specialize exclusively in prehistoric, Roman, or medieval archaeology. Even work that explicitly focuses on transition periods has had a tendency to be written from one particular perspective, such as what happened to Roman Britain (e.g. Esmonde Cleary’s (1989) The Ending of Roman Britain and Faulkner’s (2000) The Decline and Fall of Roman Britain), or where early medieval society came from (e.g. Hodges’ (1989) The Anglo-Saxon Achievement). For a scholar it is undoubtedly easier to focus on just one period and there are many benefits to having in-depth knowledge of just one data-set, but such an approach presents many problems: whenever one establishes boundaries—chronological or disciplinary—it is easy to assume that anything outside those boundaries is different, and this reinforces assumptions that transitions marked discontinuities. The focus here, however, is not on empires, political events, and military campaigns, but rather the socio-economic landscape within which rural communities lived their daily lives. In cutting across a series of traditional period boundaries the aim is to avoid the compartmentalization of research into chronological silos, and explore whether there are continuities in the landscape that have previously gone unrecognized because traditional scholarship has been focused within periods defined by political events (notably AD 43, 410, and 1066).

IDENTIFYING TERRITORIALITY IN THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL RECORD There are broadly three approaches towards identifying territoriality: first, using abstract theoretical models, second, projecting data from one period into another, and third, gathering empirical data from the period in question. The first of these was popular during the processual paradigm of the New Archaeology, and although the simplistic misuse of models such as Thiessen polygons (e.g. Hodder and Hassall 1971; Hodder 1972; 1975; Grant 1986) should have been consigned to the dustbin long ago, unfortunately this is not the case (e.g. Ross 2011, map 3; Driver 2013, fig. 8.10). Projecting data from one period to another is also problematic as it implies continuity without actually proving it, and so attention here is focused upon the third of these options: gathering empirical data from each of the periods in question, and then comparing these data-sets in order to establish whether there may have been continuities or discontinuities from one period to another. These data-sets include characterizing the morphology of 540 Iron Age phased settlement plans, the nature of 74 Romano-British urban centres, and plans of 66 Roman villas, all using primary source material (i.e. not relying upon previous interpretations). A database of 1,212,882 Romano-British pottery sherds provides new insights into marketing patterns, while for the early medieval period new analyses have been carried out

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of the distributions of Grubenhäuser and Anglo-Saxon burials, as well as regional variation in selected categories of material culture such as 5,782 brooches, 429 sleeve clasps, and 647 spearheads. Some of the distributions are clearer than others and it is sometimes only when layer upon layer of evidence is accumulated that patterns start to emerge. Documentary sources are of limited value in this period as while the likes of Caesar, Ptolemy, and the Tribal Hidage record the existence of discrete communities, they do not describe where their boundaries lay, and so it is to archaeological evidence that we must turn. Material culture reflects territoriality in different ways: some types of artefact were made and then largely circulated within a specific area, although through trade and exchange a few pieces will have travelled outside the region within which they were produced (e.g. Late Iron Age Icenian coins: Fig. 1.2.A). This outward movement can in itself be informative. It is noticeable, for example, how Romano-British coarse wares produced within East Anglia are found a long way to the north and west of their production sites, but not the same distances to the south: had the distribution of these vessels been based upon market principles, then they should have travelled the same distance in all directions, but that this was not the case suggests that there were social constraints on them moving south (Fig. 1.2.B; discussed in more detail in Chapter 6). That the same pattern is seen in the eighth to early ninth centuries AD—Ipswich Ware also travelled far more freely to the north and west of its East Anglian production centre than to the south— suggests some long-standing continuities in social and economic relationships (Fig. 1.2.D; discussed in more detail in Chapter 11). Some boundaries were also the location of places where deposition occurred. In prehistory it has long been known that the ritual deposition of metalwork was particularly common in liminal locations, while Romanists have long suspected that sites such as rural temples and pottery kilns lay close to territorial boundaries, and early medievalists have postulated that emporia occurred around the edges of early medieval kingdoms. Chronological compartmentalization of the past, however, means that many Romanists will not be familiar with the literature on early medieval emporia, and early medievalists may not realize how similar the distributions of these seventh- to eighth-century markets are to early Roman pottery production sites and Romano-Celtic temples. Such ‘persistent places’ and ‘strangely stable boundaries’ will be a major theme in this study. In the densely populated and intensively exploited landscape of today, it is essential that everyone knows to which administrative district they belong and we are therefore used to seeing fixed lines drawn on the landscape. This started to happen in prehistory, and monuments such as dykes may have been built in order to claim ownership of land or control movement across the landscape in contested places. Constructing such boundaries was about creating certainty: ‘what was once defined by memory, oral testimony and debate was now put beyond negotiation’ (Giles 2007, 114). Such monuments may also

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Kingdom, Civitas, and County

A: Icenian coins

B: RB coarse wares produced in East Anglia ? ?

0

400’ contour 300’ “ 200’ “ 100’ “ 50 km

C: C5–6 sleeve clasps

0

50 km

0

50km

D: C8–mid C9 Ipswich Ware

0

50 km

Fig. 1.2. The distribution of selected material culture that is suggestive of circulation within East Anglia: (A) Icenian coins, (B) Romano-British coarse ware pottery produced in that region, (C) fifth- to sixth-century ‘Anglian’ sleeve clasps, and (D) Middle Saxon Ipswich Ware (sources: as for Figs. 2.5, 6.18, 9.3, and 11.1).

have brought members of a social group together in a communal act of construction (Bowden and McOmish 1987; Hingley 1990; Bradley and Yates 2007; Sharples 2010; Giles 2012, 46). Such monumental constructions are, however, rare and most boundaries made use of natural divisions within the landscape. In 886, for example, the ‘Peace between Alfred and Guthrum’ agreed the areas of English and Danish control, the boundary running up the river Lea, over the Chilterns, and then along the river Ouse (Green 1884, 151). Rivers were commonly used as boundaries in the early medieval period, not because they were defensive features but because they were indisputable lines in the landscape. Using rivers as boundaries could, however, have had the effect of dividing communities: as most farmers wanted to live beside the best

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agricultural land, the most densely populated areas were usually lowland river valleys. In many cases the boundaries between communities were, therefore, the more sparsely settled watersheds between these valleys that comprised broad landscape zones that were porous to the movement of peoples, rather than fixed, discrete linear features that marked impermeable frontiers (e.g. Stoertz 1997, 40–1; Phythian-Adams 1999; Fenton-Thomas 2008; Giles 2012, Fig. 2.1; Wrathmell 2012; Williamson et al. 2013, 53–4).

DEFINING A STUDY AREA The study of the past has not only been fragmented by its traditional periodization (see the section ‘Ethnicity, Identity, and Territoriality within the Landscape’ earlier in this chapter), but also by its geographical compartmentalization. Archaeologists and historians have often worked at one of three scales: the national, county, and the parish. Outstanding pieces of research have been carried out at all three levels, and a particular characteristic of English scholarship is the amount of synthesis carried out at a county scale, for which eastern England—except Essex—is well represented3 (restricting research to particular counties is also made easier by the way that so many archaeological and historical databases are structured on a county basis). These three scales of research—national, county, and the parish—are, however, all problematic. National overviews can lack the depth of understanding of specific landscapes that working on a smaller scale can bring, while studying a county or a parish can lead to research failing to see the ‘bigger picture’. For this reason, a different—regional—scale of analysis was chosen for this study, which will allow a ‘big picture’ to emerge while also permitting the detailed analysis of individual sites and landscapes. In determining the area to be covered by this study the following aims were identified: • to explore whether it is possible to reconstruct the extent of several Iron Age kingdoms, Romano-British civitates, and early medieval kingdoms within which communities shaped their landscape, articulated economies, and used material culture to express identities; • to determine whether there was any relationship between territories in different periods;

3 e.g. Hodder & Stoughton’s ‘Making of the English Landscape’ series included Bedfordshire and Huntingdonshire (Bigmore 1979), Buckinghamshire (Reed 1979), Cambridgeshire (Taylor 1985), Hertfordshire (Munby 1977), Norfolk (Dymond 1985), and Suffolk (Scarfe 1972); Manchester University Press’s ‘The Origins of . . . ’ series included Hertfordshire (Williamson 2010; and see Rowe and Williamson 2013), Norfolk (Williamson 1993), and Suffolk (Warner 1996); and county-based historical atlases including Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire (Kirby and Oosthuizen 2000), Hertfordshire (Short 2011), Norfolk (Wade-Martins 1994), and Suffolk (Dymond and Martin 1989; 1999).

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16

Kingdom, Civitas, and County

• to assess the extent to which any continuity in territorial boundaries was determined by social agency or the natural environment; • to establish the relationship—if any—between these early territorial structures and the counties described in Domesday (and with which we are familiar today). No attempt is made to provide a definitive study of landscape and society in each period, but instead selected strands of evidence embracing portable material culture, architecture, and other aspects of landscape character will be pursued where they shed light upon territorial identities. Where possible, the strands are common to all three periods (e.g. pottery), although in some cases this has not been practical: the distributions of coins minted within particular territories tell us much about territoriality during both the later Iron Age and the early medieval periods, whereas the single Roman Imperial coinage tells us little about territoriality within the Romano-British landscape.4 For differences in the character of regions, and the boundaries between them, to be identified a study area needs to extend from one territory across and into another: even where a category of material culture circulated predominantly within the socio-economic sphere within which it was produced—the primary circulation zone—trade, exchange, and the movement of peoples and their possessions will usually lead to occasional objects travelling outside that region into the secondary circulation zone. In order to assess whether a density of findspots is suggestive of a primary or a secondary zone it is therefore necessary to compare both areas; hence the need for a study area that extends well beyond the likely extent of the territory in question. Another variable to consider when designing a study area is the amount of data collection that will be required. All too often published maps are based on out-of-date and recycled data: Gerrard’s (2013, fig. 7.3) map of ‘Anglian’ sleeve clasps is based upon Arnold (1997, fig. 7.5), which is in turn a copy of Parker Pearson et al. (1993, fig. 2), which is based upon data from Hines (1984) and so pre-dates the Portable Antiquities Scheme! In this study, however, the approach was to update published sources, or in many cases to start from scratch and gather the necessary data from primary sources. It was also regarded as important to contextualize key sites and findspots within their landscape setting, which meant visiting key places in order to understand their topography. All this meant that a regional—as opposed to a national—sized study area was chosen, based upon the nine historic counties of Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, and Middlesex (which broadly equate to the modern region of eastern England). This straddles Roberts and Wrathmell’s (2000a; 2002) ‘Central’ and ‘South-Eastern’ provinces, Rackham’s 4 There is some evidence for regional variation in patterns of coin loss over time (Moorhead 2010; 2015; Moorhead and Walton 2014) but this is yet to be explored to its full potential.

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Introduction A: Roberts and Wrathmell 2000a

17

B: Rackham 1986a ancient countryside

Northern and Western Province

planned countryside highland zone

Figure 1.4

C Pr en ov tra in l ce

Figure 1.4

South Eastern Province

0

0

200 km

C: Williamson 2013

200 km

D: Study Area North Sea drainage province

solid geology: chalk

Figure 1.4

Figure 1.4

Irish Sea Sea Irish drainage drainage province province

Thames Estuary and English Channel drainage province

0

200 km

Fig. 1.3. Examples of major regions identified within the English landscape: (A) Roberts and Wrathmell’s (2000a, fig. 1) provinces; (B) Rackham’s (1986a, Fig. 1.3) countrysides; (C) Williamson’s (2013, fig. 6) drainage provinces; and (D) the eastern England study area in relation to the chalk outcrops of southern Britain.

‘ancient’ and ‘planned’ countryside, Williamson’s (2013) North Sea and Thames ‘drainage provinces’ (Fig. 1.3), three Late Iron Age kingdoms (the Catuvellauni, Iceni, and Trinovantes), three Romano-British civitates (the Catuvellauni, Iceni, and Trinovantes), and two early medieval kingdoms (East Anglia and the East Saxons) (Fig. 1.4). EASTERN ENGLAND: A LAND OF FOUR PARTS The natural and cultural topography In terms of its geology, topography, drainage, soils, and ‘field capacity’ (the number of days a year when the soils are saturated: Hodge et al. 1984) eastern

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18

Kingdom, Civitas, and County B: Tribal Hidage

A: documented Iron Age polities

Wigesta South East Gyrwe Sweordora WestWixna Wixna Herstingas West East Willa Willa Unecung-ga Gifla Hicca

Tr in ov an te s

Iceni

n ta

ni llau

uve Cat

rn

e sa

ilte

t Eas

East Angles

ons Sax

Ch

0

25 km

0

25 km

C: Domesday counties A: Icenian coins

NORFOLK

HUNTINGDONSHIRE

SUFFOLK

CAMBRIDGESHIRE BEDFORDSHIRE

A GH IN CK BU

RE HI S RD FO T ER

ESSEX

H

E HIR

MS

400’ 300’ 200’ 100’

MIDDLESEX 0

50 km

Fig. 1.4. Documented polities in eastern England: (A) Iron Age kingdoms, (B) peoples recorded in the Tribal Hidage, and (C) Domesday counties.

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Introduction

19

England can be divided into three regions: the Northern Thames Basin, East Anglia, and the South East Midlands. As will be shown throughout this study, East Anglia and the South East Midlands also formed coherent regions in terms of their cultural history, while a persistent sub-division of the Northern Thames Basin (referred to here as the North-Eastern and North-Western Thames Basin) is evident from the Iron Age onwards. Each of these regions—while broadly similar in their character—can be sub-divided into a series of smaller districts (pays) that are mapped in Fig. 1.5, and whose character is summarized in Table 1.1. The Northern Thames Basin extends from the Thames estuary to the south and the North Sea in the east, across to the Chiltern Hills to the west (Fig. 1.6), and the Gipping and Lark valleys to the north. The latter are significant as although the underlying geology to the north and to the south of them is the same—Boulder Clay—the soils are significantly different with seasonally waterlogged loamy clays of the Beccles 1 Association to the north, and calcareous

24

23

18

25 19 28

22 20

29 21 27 10

30

17 8

31 32

15

26 16

9

7

14 6

11 13

3

5

1

4 2

12 0

Fig. 1.5. The pays of eastern England (see Table 1.1).

50 km

Pays

Surface geology

Soils Associations (Mackney et al. 1983) and field capacity (Hodge et al. 1984)

Topography

Eastern part of the Northern Thames Basin 1 Coastal Marshes

Alluvium

No soil formation until the later medieval period as within an intertidal environment.

Former saltmarsh, now reclaimed.

2 Eastern Essex Terraces

River terrace gravels sometimes capped with brickearths

Deep, well-drained silty soils (Hamble 2 and Low-lying terraces in the Rochford and Ratsborough) that are waterlogged under Dengie peninsulas in South East Essex, 100 days a year. dissected by the Crouch and Roach estuaries.

3 Thameside Terraces (Essex)

River terrace gravels and some chalk

Well-drained coarse loamy and sandy soils (Hucklesbrook and Hurst) that are waterlogged under 100 days a year.

Low-lying terrace gravels along the northern banks of the Thames estuary.

4 Rayleigh Hills

Gravels over Eocene Clay

Deep, fine, loamy soils over slowly permeable subsoils (Bursledon and Ratsborough) that are waterlogged 100–25 days a year.

Relatively high ground (c.70 m OD) rising sharply above the low-lying London Clay Basin to the west, and dipping gently to the east, where it is drained by the Roach catchment.

5 London Clay Basin (Essex)

London Clay

Low-lying clayland to the south of the Slowly permeable acidic clayey soils (Windsor) that are waterlogged 100–25 days Boulder Clay Plateau, between the Lea valley and the Rayleigh Hills. a year.

6 Southern Essex Hills

Claygate Beds

Slowly permeable loams and calcareous clayey soils (Essendon and Hanslope) on higher ground; slowly permeable seasonally waterlogged clayey soils in the intervening vales (Windsor). Soils waterlogged 100–25 days a year.

Complex landscape of hills and vales where the southern fringes of the Boulder Clay plateau are dissected by a series of rivers and streams draining south into the London Clay Basin.

7 Mid Essex Valleys and Tendring peninsula

River terrace gravels and Boulder Clay

Mixed soils, predominantly loam over slowly permeable clay (Hornbeam 3), with clayey soils in interfluvial areas (Hanslope) and well-drained silty loams over gravels in the valleys (Efford 2). Soils waterlogged under 100 days a year.

Broad terraces and floodplains of the Blackwater, Chelmer, and Colne valleys and the eastern fringes of the Boulder Clay.

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Table 1.1. The pays of eastern England.

8 South Suffolk Loams Glaciofluvial gravels

Well-drained loamy soils (Melford and Ludford) that are waterlogged under 100 days a year.

Low-lying areas within the Stour, Brett, and Gipping valleys.

9 Central Essex Boulder Clay Boulder Clay Plateau

Slowly permeable fine loamy/clayey soils (Hanslope) that are waterlogged 100–25 days a year.

Relatively low-lying plateau (c.30 to 60 m OD) with extensive flat interfluvial areas leading to poor drainage.

Boulder Clay

Slowly permeable calcareous clayey soils (Hanslope and Ragdale) that are waterlogged 125–50 days a year.

Relatively high plateau rising to c.90 to 100 m OD dissected by a series of gentlysided valleys draining south-east into the Stour.

10 High Boulder Clay Plateau (northern Essex/south-western Suffolk)

Western part of the Northern Thames Basin Riverine alluvium

Clayey soils (Fladbury 1) that are waterlogged 100–25 days a year.

Broad floodplain of the river Lea.

12 Thameside Terraces (Middlesex)

River terrace gravels

Well-drained coarse loamy and sandy soils (Hucklesbrook and Hurst) that are waterlogged under 100 days a year.

Low-lying terrace gravels along the northern banks of the Thames estuary.

13 London Clay Plateau London Clay (Hertfordshire)

Slowly permeable seasonally waterlogged acidic clayey soils (Windsor) that are waterlogged 100–25 days a year.

Plateau to the south of the Chiltern dip slope, between the Lea and Colne valleys forming the southern uplands of Hertfordshire.

14 Upper Lea Valley

Well-drained loamy soils (Ludford) that are waterlogged 100–25 days a year.

Broad low-lying valley between the dip slope of the Chiltern Hills and the London Clay plateau to the south.

15 Boulder Clay Plateau Boulder Clay (western Essex and eastern Hertfordshire)

Slowly permeable fine loamy/clayey soils (Hanslope) that are waterlogged 100–25 days a year.

Relatively low-lying plateau at c.30 to 60 m OD drained by a series of rivers (Rib, Quinn, Ash, and Stort) that drain south into the Lea.

16 Chiltern dip slope

Silty/loamy acidic soils over slowly permeable clay (Batcombe and Hornbeam), that are waterlogged 150–75 days a year.

Gentle eastern dip slope of the Chiltern Hills drained by a series of streams flowing southeast into the Colne (the Vale of St Albans) and the Lea.

Fluvioglacial gravels

Clay-with-flints

(continued )

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11 Lower Lea Valley

Pays

Surface geology

Soils Associations (Mackney et al. 1983) and field capacity (Hodge et al. 1984)

Topography District of sandy soils along the eastern coastal fringes of Suffolk, dissected by the Deben, Alde, Blythe, and Waveney estuaries.

East Anglia 17 Sandlings

Sand

Deep, well-drained sandy acidic/very acidic soils (Newport 4), that are waterlogged under 100 days a year.

18 North East Norfolk and Broadland

Glaciofluvial and aeolian drift and till, and estuarine wetlands

Well-drained coarse loamy soils (Wick 2–3), Low-lying landscape to the east of the Boulder Clay plateau. extensively dissected by the wetlands of Broadland; predominantly alluvial soils (Newchurch 2) with peat in some inland valleys; waterlogged 100–25 days a year.

19 South Norfolk

Boulder Clay fringes

South-eastern fringes of the Boulder Clay. Deep loamy soils with slowly permeable subsoils (Burlingham 3), and areas of heaver loamy clay in interfluvial areas (Beccles 1) that are waterlogged 100–25 days a year.

20 East Anglian Boulder Boulder Clay Clay Plateau

Relatively low-lying plateau at c.30 to 60 m Slowly permeable fine loamy/clayey soils (predominantly Beccles 1 and Burlingham 1) OD whose interfluvial areas suffer from particularly poor drainage. that are waterlogged 125–75 days a year.

21 Lark Valley

Boulder Clay

Well-drained loamy soils (Melford) that are waterlogged 100–25 days a year.

22 Breckland

Sand

Deep, well-drained sandy acidic/very acidic Flat, low-lying area east of Fenland, dissected by the Lark and Little Ouse valleys. soils (Worlington) that in places are calcareous (Methwold); waterlogged 100–25 days a year.

23 Good Sand Region (north-western Norfolk)

Chalky till and glaciofluvial drift

Deep, well-drained loamy soils (Barrow) that Fertile district in north-western Norfolk. are waterlogged 125–50 days a year.

24 East Anglian Heights Chalk

Shallow, well-drained calcareous silty soils (Newmarket 1–2) that are waterlogged 100–25 days a year.

Northern slopes of the Boulder Clay plateau around Bury St Edmunds and Newmarket.

The chalk escarpment rises some 60 m above the Cam valley and the fenland edge to c.120 m OD, but to the west there is no gentle dip slope as it is capped with Boulder Clay.

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Table 1.1. Continued

Glaciofluvial drift

Very mixed soils with well-drained loams (Burlingham 1 and Downham) and sands (Newport 4 Association) with peaty soils in low-lying areas (Isleham 2). Soils are typically waterlogged 100–25 days a year.

Low-lying area between the chalk hills and Fenland.

26 Chiltern Hills

Chalk

Shallow, well-drained calcareous silty soils (Upton, Wantage, and Sherborne) that are waterlogged 100–50 days a year.

Chalk escarpment with steep (scarp) slope to the north-west, and gentle (dip) slope to the south-east.

27 Cam Valley

River terrace gravels and chalky drift

Deep permeable calcareous fine loamy soils (Swaffham Prior, Wantage 2, and Milton) that are waterlogged 75–100 days a year.

Floodplain of the Cam within which lies Huntingdon, St Neots, and Bedford.

28 Fenland

Alluvium and peat

No soil formation until the later medieval period as was an unreclaimed wetland.

Extensive wetland at or just above sea level. Coastal areas have soils derived from the reclamation of saltmarshes and mudflats, while the inland backfens are covered in peat through which a series of small bedrock islands protrude (e.g. Ely).

29 South East Midlands Boulder Clay Boulder Clay

Slowly permeable calcareous clayey soils (predominantly Hanslope) that are waterlogged 75–25 days a year.

Low-lying clayland (c.30 and 60 m OD) between the Nene valley to the north/west and the Cam/Rhee valley to the east, dissected by the Great Ouse and its tributaries.

30 Great Ouse Valley

River terrace gravels

Well-drained fine loamy soils (predominantly Efford 1 and Sutton 1) that are waterlogged 75–50 days a year.

Floodplain of the Great Ouse within which lies Cambridge.

31 Greensand Ridge

Greensand

Well-drained sandy loams (Bearsted 1 and Frilford) that are waterlogged 100–25 days a year.

Marked ridge protruding through the Boulder Clay.

32 Jurassic Clay Vale

Jurassic Clay

Slowly permeable seasonally waterlogged clayey soils (Denchworth) that are waterlogged 125–50 days a year.

Clay vale drained by the Thame and other tributaries of the Thames.

25 Skirtland

South East Midlands

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24

Kingdom, Civitas, and County

Fig. 1.6. The chalk escarpment, which divides the Northern Thames Basin from the South East Midlands, at Knocking Hoe in Shillington, Bedfordshire, looking south-west (photo: author; see Fig. 4.13 for a view looking north-west).

clayey soils of the Hanslope Association to the south (Mackney et al. 1983). The Northern Thames Basin embraces southern Suffolk, all but the far north-western corner of Essex, all of Middlesex, southern Buckinghamshire, and all but the very far north of Hertfordshire. Rivers in the Northern Thames Basin drain south and east into the Thames, Crouch, Blackwater, and Stour estuaries, which are fringed by extensive marshlands. To the south the London Clay gives rise to very acidic, infertile, heavy soils, while to the north and west the Boulder Clay soils, while heavy, are more suited to agriculture. The South East Midlands are bounded to the south by the chalk escarpment and to the north-west by the watershed between the Great Ouse and the Nene valleys, an area of high ground known as Bromswold (a wald—or ‘wold’— being the Old English name for an area of high clayland: Fox 2000, 50; Partida et al. 2013, 18–19). The northern parts of this region are drained by the Cam and the Great Ouse, which flow north into Fenland, while to the south the river Thame drains south into the Thames. The soils are predominantly heavy, being derived from an extensive Boulder Clay plateau and outcrops of the underlying Gault Clay, although there are lighter soils in the major river valleys and on the infertile Greensand ridge that runs through southern Bedfordshire. East Anglia embraces northern and eastern Suffolk and the whole of Norfolk. It is a region of extremely muted relief, and rivers that either drain east into the Norfolk Broads and hence the North Sea or west into Fenland and hence the Wash. Central areas are capped by Boulder Clay, which includes the watershed between the two drainage systems. The chalk formation which underlies the Chilterns continues up the western side of East Anglia, although here its height has been much reduced due to the effects of glaciation, and it is largely sealed beneath drift deposits.

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Introduction

25

Pre-modern land capability (Fig. 1.7; Table 1.2) Determining the suitability of soils for modern agriculture is quite straightforward. The Land of Britain describes the situation in the 1930s with a series of county-based reports (Willatts 1937; Mosby 1938; Butcher 1941; Cameron 1941; Fryer 1941; 1942; Pettit 1941; Fitchett 1943) drawn together in Dudley Stamp’s (1948) ‘Classification of Land’. More recently, the former Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food’s (1979) map of ‘Agricultural Land Classification’ and the mapping of ‘Land Use Capability’ by the Soil Survey of England and Wales (Mackney 1979) combined the physical properties of topography, soils, and climate with the demands and technologies of current agriculture. Whilst these maps give an indication of some inherent properties of soils, such as the particularly intractable nature of the London and Jurassic Clays, in other

4

poor

3 2 1 0

good 50 km

Fig. 1.7. An assessment of pre-modern agricultural land capability taking into account the inherent properties of the natural environment (geology, topography, soils, and drainage) and past perceptions of agricultural potential (see Table 1.2 for sources used).

Table 1.2. Pre-modern agricultural land capability.

Geology

Soils

Possible pre-modern agricultural capability (for mixed arable/pasture farming) 1 = best, 4 = worst

Eastern part of the Northern Thames Basin Coastal Marshes

Alluvium

Waterlogged clayey soils

2–3

3

4: marshland, only embanked and drained in the later medieval period.

Eastern Essex Terraces

River terrace gravels in places capped with brickearth

Deep, well-drained silty soils

1–2

1

first-class arable land

1: fertile well-drained soils regarded as amongst the best in Essex (Vancouver 1795, 72–3; Marshall 1817, 170). No separate data in Darby (1952) for population and ploughteams, although the least wooded district in Essex.

Thameside Terraces (Essex)

River terrace gravels and some chalk

Well-drained coarse loamy and sandy soils

1–2

1

first-class arable land

2: light soils, but early agricultural writers talk of low fertility and being prone to drought and ‘burning up’ (Vancouver 1795, 86; Marshall 1817, 170; Collins 1978, 52). No separate data in Darby (1952).

Rayleigh Hills

Gravels over Eocene Clay

Deep, fine, loamy soils with slight seasonal waterlogging

3

3

mediumquality farmland

4: gravels give rise to very dry soil; yet where over clay, there is waterlogging (Vancouver 1795, 72–3). Large numbers of woodland place-names and extensive woodland and heathland as late as the eighteenth century, which suggests that in the past this was regarded as an agriculturally marginal area. No separate data in Darby (1952).

London Clay Basin (Essex)

London Clay

Slowly permeable seasonally waterlogged clayey soils

3

3

mediumquality farmland

4: early agricultural writers talk of very heavy clay (Vancouver 1795, 83–4; Marshall 1817, 171; Collins 1978, 50–2). Low density of population and plough-teams in Domesday (Darby 1952).

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Pays

Modern agricultural capability Agricultural Land Land Classification Capability Dudley Stamp’s 1 = best, 1 = best, (1948) 4 = worst 4 = worst ‘Classification (Mackney (MAFF of Land’ 1979) 1979)

Southern Essex Claygate Hills Beds

Slowly permeable seasonally waterlogged loamy soils over clay

3

2

mediumquality farmland

4: mixed soils, many heavy (Vancouver 1795, 60–1). Extensive woodland and heathland as late as the eighteenth century, which suggests that in the past this was regarded as an agriculturally poor area. No separate data in Darby (1952) for population and plough-teams, although relatively high amounts of woodland.

River terrace gravels and Boulder Clay

Mixed soils, predominantly loamy and clayey

3

3

good–to mediumquality farmland

2: a mixture of fertile well-drained soils in the valleys and heavier clays in the interfluvial areas (Vancouver 1795, 31–2, 42–6). No separate data in Darby (1952).

South Suffolk Loams

Glaciofluvial gravels

Well-drained loamy soils

2

1

good-quality arable land

1: fertile well-drained ‘rich loams’ (Young 1797, 3) that were well regarded by early writers (Marshall 1811, 407). High density of population and plough-teams in Domesday (Darby 1952).

Central Essex Boulder Clay Plateau

Boulder Clay

Slowly permeable seasonally waterlogged fine loamy/clayey soils

2

2

good arable land

3: heavy soils (though not as heavy as the higher Boulder Clay Plateau or London Clay), seen as being of moderate agricultural potential by early writers (Vancouver 1795, 12–30, 32–6; Young 1797, 3). Moderate to high density of population and plough-teams, and a well-wooded district, in Domesday (Darby 1952).

High Boulder Clay Plateau (NW Essex/ SW Suffolk)

Boulder Clay

Slowly permeable calcareous clayey soils

2

2

good arable land

4: very heavy soils, regarded as very difficult to farm (Vancouver 1795, 97–103; Marshall 1811, 408; Butcher 1941, 362–4): it was only post-medieval improvements to the drainage that made them productive (Butcher 1941, 362). Lower density of population and plough-teams in Domesday than on Boulder Clay to the north and south (Darby 1952). (continued )

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Mid Essex Valleys and Tendring peninsula

Pays

Geology

Soils

Modern agricultural capability Agricultural Land Land Classification Capability Dudley Stamp’s 1 = best, 1 = best, (1948) 4 = worst 4 = worst ‘Classification (Mackney (MAFF of Land’ 1979) 1979)

Possible pre-modern agricultural capability (for mixed arable/pasture farming) 1 = best, 4 = worst

Western part of the Northern Thames Basin Lower Lea Valley

Riverine alluvium

Clayey soils

unclassified

unclassified

No separate data in Darby and Campbell (1962).

Thameside Terraces (Middlesex)

River terrace gravels

Well-drained coarse loamy and sandy soils

unclassified

unclassified first-class arable land

London Clay Plateau (Hertfordshire and Middlesex)

London Clay

Slowly permeable seasonally waterlogged clayey soils

3

3

good grassland

2: light soils, but early agricultural writers talk of some being of low fertility and prone to drought (Middleton 1798, 18). High density of population and plough-teams in Domesday, and very little woodland (Darby and Campbell 1962). 4: ‘The most tenacious, obdurate and ungrateful soil known’ (Middleton 1798, 20): early agricultural writers generally talk of very heavy clay with low fertility (Willatts 1937, 136). Very low density of population and plough-teams, and a very well-wooded district, in Domesday (Darby and Campbell 1962).

Upper Lea Valley

Glaciofluvial gravels

Well-drained loamy soils

2–3

3

good generalpurpose farmland

1: fertile well-drained soils. No separate data in Darby and Campbell (1962).

Boulder Clay Plateau (western Essex and eastern Hertfordshire)

Boulder Clay

Slowly permeable seasonally waterlogged fine loamy/clayey soils

2

2

good arable land

3: heavy soils (though not as heavy as the higher Boulder Clay Plateau in NW Essex and SW Suffolk, the London Clay, or the clay-with-flints (e.g. Cameron 1941, fig. 7). Moderate to high density of population and plough-teams, and a wellwooded district, in Domesday (Darby 1952; Darby and Campbell 1962).

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Table 1.2. Continued

Clay-withflints

Silty/loamy slowly permeable soils with slight seasonal waterlogging

3

3

mediumquality farmland

4: very heavy soils which early agricultural writers talk of as being ‘cold, wet, and thereby produce a sour and coarse herbage’ and required much improvement before they could be cultivated (Malcolm 1794, 7, 18–19; Willatts 1937, 137). Very low density of population and plough-teams, and a very well-wooded district, in Domesday (Darby and Campbell 1962).

Sandlings

Sand

Deep, welldrained sandy soils

4

4

mediumquality land

3: dry acidic soils, but regarded more highly than Breckland (Young 1797, 4). Moderate to high density of population and plough-teams in Domesday (Darby 1952).

North East Norfolk and Broadland

Glaciofluvial and aeolian drift and till, and estuarine wetlands

Well-drained coarse loamy soils, extensively dissected by the wetlands of Broadland

1–3

1, 3

first-class arable land

1: early agricultural writers talk of these fertile loams as the best agricultural land in Norfolk (Kent 1796, 12; Young 1804, 3; Marshall 1811, 299). High density of population and plough-teams in Domesday (Darby 1952).

South Norfolk

Boulder Clay fringes

Deep loamy soils with slowly permeable subsoils

2

2

good arable land

2: regarded as good agricultural land, and superior to the claylands farther west (Kent 1796, 13). High density of population and plough-teams in Domesday (Darby 1952).

East Anglian Boulder Clay Plateau

Boulder Clay

Slowly permeable seasonally waterlogged clayey soils

3

3

good arable land

3: heaviest soils in Norfolk, seen as ‘very inferior’ to the districts further east (Kent 1796, 13), and ‘stiff and difficult’ (Mosby 1938, 96). In Suffolk these soils were not as heavy as the SW plateau (Young 1797, 3). Low to moderate density of population and plough-teams in Domesday, and the most-wooded region in Norfolk (Darby 1952).

Lark Valley

Boulder Clay

Well-drained loamy soils

2–3

4

good-quality arable

2: although not distinguished as a discrete district by early writers, these well-drained loamy soils form an important pays between the dry sands of Breckland and very heavy Boulder Clay of SW Suffolk. Moderate to high density of population and plough-teams in Domesday (Darby 1952).

Chiltern dip slope

East Anglia

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(continued )

Table 1.2. Continued

Possible pre-modern agricultural capability (for mixed arable/pasture farming) 1 = best, 4 = worst

Pays

Geology

Soils

Breckland

Sand

Deep, welldrained sandy soils

4

4

poor-quality land

4: very dry acidic soils, poorly regarded by early writers, who suggested it ‘ranks amongst the worst of all soils’ (Kent 1796, 14; Young 1797, 5; 1804, 2; Marshall 1811, 407). Very low density of population and plough-teams in Domesday (Darby 1952).

Good Sand Region (northwestern Norfolk)

Chalky till and glaciofluvial drift

Deep, welldrained loamy soils

3

3

good-quality arable

2: light and well-drained, referred to by early writers as the ‘good sand’ as opposed to ‘light sand’ of Breckland (Darby 1952, 150). Moderate density of population and ploughteams in Domesday (Darby 1952).

East Anglian Heights

Chalk

Shallow, welldrained calcareous silty soils

3

3

mediumquality grassland

2: light and well-drained, but prone to drought, which early writers saw as a disadvantage (e.g. Kent 1796, 13–14). Moderate density of population and plough-teams in Domesday (Darby 1952).

Skirtland

Glaciofluvial drift

Mixed soils with well-drained loams and sands, and peat in lowlying areas

2–3

3

mediumquality farmland

1: highly productive soils (Young 1804, 3; Mosby 1938, 96). High density of population and plough-teams in Domesday (Darby 1952).

Shallow, welldrained calcareous silty soils

2–3

3

good-quality arable

2: light and well-drained soils prone to drought, which early writers saw as a disadvantage (Vancouver 1794, 17; 1795, 104–5; Fitchett 1943, 154). Low to moderate density of population and plough-teams in Domesday (Darby 1952; Darby and Campbell 1962).

South East Midlands Chiltern Hills

Chalk

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Modern agricultural capability Agricultural Land Land Classification Capability Dudley Stamp’s 1 = best, 1 = best, (1948) 4 = worst 4 = worst ‘Classification (Mackney (MAFF of Land’ 1979) 1979)

River terrace gravels and chalky drift

Deep permeable calcareous loamy soils

2–3

2

good-quality arable

1: deep, fertile, well-drained soils (Vancouver 1794, 30–51). High density of population and plough-teams in Domesday (Darby 1952).

Fenland

Alluvium and peat

Deep stoneless organic rich clayey soils

1–2

1

first-class arable land

4: not drained until the later medieval and post-medieval periods. The Fenland islands, in contrast, offered good soils (Vancouver 1794, 138–9, 149–50).

South East Midlands Boulder Clay

Boulder Clay

Slowly permeable calcareous clayey soils

2–3

2–3

good-quality arable

3: heavy soils that required drainage (Vancouver 1794, 93), and where ‘field drainage is universally difficult . . . fertility is only moderate and the expenses of cultivation are high’ (Pettit 1941, 397). Moderate density of population and plough-teams in Domesday (Darby 1952).

Great Ouse Valley

River terrace gravels

Well-drained fine loamy soils

1–2

2

good-quality arable

1: Stone (1794) does not distinguish the soils of this district. No separate data in Darby and Campbell (1962).

Greensand Ridge

Greensand

Well-drained sandy loams

3

3

first-class arable land

4: Stone (1794) does not distinguish the soils of this district. No separate data in Darby and Campbell (1962). Infertile soils (Williamson 2003, 72). Lay outside the zone of villages and open fields, and had low arable yields and extensive heathland and woodland (Lewis et al. 1997, 39, 164, 187).

Jurassic Clay Vale

Jurassic Clay

Slowly permeable clayey soils

3–4

3

good grassland

3: heavy soils, largely pasture, but could be improved (Stone 1794, 8; Fitchett 1943, 160). Moderate density of population and plough-teams in Domesday (Darby 1952).

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Cam Valley

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cases they present the achievements of modern agriculture with its mechanization and use of chemical fertilizers. During the Iron Age, Roman, and early medieval periods, however, the capabilities of soils may have been very different: light soils afforded by geologies such as chalk, for example, were very attractive to the first farmers as they were easy to plough using the primitive equipment available at the time, but by the Iron Age—several millennia later—they were suffering from depleted fertility with the result that the thin, rubbly soils were relatively infertile and largely used for pasture (as was the case until the advent of modern farming methods and their associated use of fertilizers: Sharples 2010, 11–18, 22). Determining which soils would have been the most favoured for agriculture in the past is difficult, although an attempt is made in Table 1.2 and Fig. 1.7. For each pays Table 1.2 gives the soil type (described in more detail in Table 1.1), two modern quantitative assessments (with 1 as the best and 4 as the worst) based upon the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Food’s (1979) ‘Agricultural Land Classification’ and the Soil Survey’s assessment of ‘Land Use Capability’ (Mackney 1979). The next column gives Dudley Stamp’s (1948) qualitative ‘Classification of Land’, which is based upon assessments carried out in the 1930s and so pre-date the onset of modern intensive farming. The final column, however, summarizes the perceptions of earlier agricultural writers, and as such takes us back towards the periods we are interested in. The late eighteenthcentury reports prepared for the Board of Agriculture, for example, often provide qualitative accounts of the soils within particular districts,5 such as the high Boulder Clay plateau of south-western Suffolk that was described as ‘a much poorer country’ than the rest of the county (Marshall 1811, 408). This observation is repeated by Butcher (1941, 362–4), citing the early seventeenthcentury writer Reece, who observed that ‘the ground is so heavy [that] the best husbands without six strong horses in one plough will not till their land so that generally the country in winter time . . . is very foul’. Late eighteenthcentury accounts of the London Clay similarly describe it as ‘The most tenacious, obdurate and ungrateful soil known’ (Middleton 1798, 20), that it was ‘three horse land’ as opposed to ‘two horse land’ on the Boulder Clay and ‘one horse land’ on the Thameside terraces (Collins 1978, 51). Early accounts of the clay-with-flints that masks much of the Chiltern dip slope regarded it as ‘cold, wet, and thereby produces a sour and coarse herbage’ (Malcolm 1794, 7) and a ‘tough clay’ that was ‘exceptionally heavy’ (Willatts 1937, 137). It should be remembered, however, that qualitative judgements such as these are subject to the author’s own prejudices and those of the

5

Published in a series of county-based reports (Maxwell 1793; Malcolm 1794; Stone 1794; Vancouver 1795; Walker 1795; Kent 1796; Young 1797; 1804; 1807; Middleton 1798) that were summarized by Marshall (e.g. 1811; 1815; 1817).

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prevailing orthodoxies of the day, and this is clearly evident in Malcolm’s (1794, 18) account of Buckinghamshire, where his description of the claywith-flints on the Chiltern Hills as appearing ‘under good management as that soil is capable of ’ was part of his agenda to praise the farmers there for using enclosed fields, as opposed to the continued use of open fields in the clay vale to the north. An impression of agricultural productivity can also be gained through the mapping of information contained within Domesday Book (Darby 1952; 1977; Darby and Campbell 1962). Overall, there are certain areas of eastern England that can be regarded as having the best soils for pre-modern agriculture (and high densities of population and plough-teams in Domesday), notably in the major river valleys as well as the fertile loamy soils of South East Essex, South East Suffolk, North East Norfolk, and western Norfolk. There were also a series of districts with very poor soils (and low densities of population and plough-teams in Domesday), including Fenland (before it was reclaimed), the London Clay, the High Boulder Clay Plateau (in NW Essex and SW Suffolk), Breckland, and the clay-with-flints that masks much of the Chiltern dip slope. The exposed chalk on the Chiltern ridge would also have provided relatively poor soils, although on the western slopes a covering of more loamy material gave rise to better conditions.

Early medieval woodland Another indication of agricultural potential is the extent of woodland. Although pollen cores give a general impression of how wooded a landscape was in the past, such data do not exist for all areas and so the earliest comprehensive evidence that we have is Old English place-names and Domesday. The latter is a problematic source as some of the resources recorded at a place—such as salt pans and ‘pasture for sheep’—are known to have been in detached parts of that vill located a considerable distance away (Round 1903; Darby 1952, 247), and the same was true of woodland that in the later medieval period was also sometimes ‘enclaved’ (Rackham 1986b; Rippon 2013a). Within eastern England the major place-name elements that have been taken to indicate the presence of significant woodland include -lēah, which in the past was thought to indicate a wood or clearing within a wood but is increasingly regarded as ‘wood-pasture’ (Smith 1970b, 18–22; Hooke 2008). Although -feld has also been mapped as an indicator of woodland (e.g. Roberts and Wrathmell 2000a, figs. 24–6; Williamson 2003, fig. 20), or intercommoned pasture in liminal areas (Jones and Page 2006, 225), its original meaning was ‘open country’ and already within Old English a second use had developed referring to open fields (Smith 1970a, 166–8). A close analysis of the location of -feld names across eastern England certainly suggests that they occur in less marginal areas than the -lēah names, and so they are excluded from this study (Figs. 1.8–1.9).

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400’ contour 300’ “ 200’ “ 100’ “

0

50 km

Fig. 1.8. The distribution of woodland and wood-pasture indicative -lēah place-names (after Williamson 2003, fig. 20), against a background of topography.

SOURCES The archaeological record Eastern England is an ideal area for research into territoriality as throughout the Iron Age, Roman, and early medieval periods most areas have a continuous ceramic sequence (the exception—parts of the Northern Thames Basin in the early medieval period—is itself significant: see Chapter 11). Eastern England has also seen a long history of archaeological work, and while there has been extensive development-led fieldwork over the past thirty years, some places have seen far greater attention than others with particular hotspots being around Stansted Airport, Cambridge, and Bedford. There have also been a series of linear developments—both pipelines and road schemes—that provided the opportunity for archaeological observations in areas that have previously seen very little archaeological work (notably the claylands). There are some local

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pre-modern land capability 4 (poor quality) 3 2 1 (high quality) 0

50 km

Fig. 1.9. The distribution of woodland and wood-pasture indicative -lēah place-names (after Williamson 2003, fig. 20), against a background of pre-modern agricultural land capability (see Table 1.2 for sources used).

differences in the history of archaeological research, such as the long tradition of fieldwalking and reporting of metal detecting finds in both Norfolk and Suffolk that pre-dates the Portable Antiquities Scheme, but overall the whole region is rich in archaeological data. Documentary material There are a few literary sources that refer to the peoples of Britain during the Late Iron Age (e.g. Caesar’s De Bello Gallico) and Roman periods (e.g. Ptolemy’s Geography), and in some cases there is enough information to roughly locate where they were: Caesar states that the Catuvellauni, for example, were neighbours of the Trinovantes. There is nothing, however, in these accounts that tells us where the boundaries between these people lay. Roman itineraries allow us to locate most of the major towns, but they tell us nothing about the wider

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landscape. There are a few early medieval documentary sources for the East Saxon kingdom, including a small number of charters (Hart 1966; 1971; Yorke 1985; 1990; Bascombe 1987), although East Anglia and Middle Anglia are very poorly documented. The political history The political history of Eastern England is summarized in Table 1.3. During the Iron Age, three peoples are evidenced by their coins and by references in Roman literary sources: the Catuvellauni (in the North-Western Thames Basin, and under Tasciovanus (in the late first century BC) the South East Midlands), the Iceni (in East Anglia), and the Trinovantes (in the North-Eastern Thames Basin). During the Roman period administrative civitates were established, the names of which included the Iceni. In the early medieval period the region was occupied by the kingdoms of East Anglia and the East Saxons (possibly controlling the whole of the Northern Thames Basin), and a series of peoples in the South East Midlands. Boundary earthworks The evidence for man-made features that were constructed in order to mark boundaries is extremely limited, and comes in three forms. First, there are a small number of earthwork banks and ditches constructed on a monumental scale, usually referred to as dykes, which date to the Iron Age. Most appear to have been designed to define territorial boundaries on the district or pagi scale (e.g. along the Chiltern ridge and in central Norfolk), although Aves Dyke (close to the Buckinghamshire/Oxfordshire border) may mark the western boundary of the Catuvellauni (Chapter 3). Second, there are various dykes that appear to date to the early medieval period, most notably a series of substantial examples that run across the narrow stretch of lowland between the chalk escarpment and the wetlands of south-eastern Cambridgeshire and which may have marked the south-western boundary of the early medieval kingdom of East Anglia (Chapter 12). Third, there are a series of exceptionally long field boundaries that run along major watersheds and which appear to have marked the boundaries of early medieval regiones (Rippon forthcoming). Sites that may be indicative of boundary zones Various types of archaeological site appear to have been characteristic of liminal areas. During the Iron Age most hillforts appear to have been located centrally within territories, although in eastern Cambridgeshire there is a line of sites of very similar morphology running from the chalk escarpment across to the edge of Fenland that may relate to some form of frontier (Chapter 3). Several Romano-Celtic temples in potential boundary locations have produced very

Table 1.3. Traditional interpretations of the Iron Age, Romano-British, and early medieval regional-scale territories across eastern England. Early first century AD (Tasciovanus and Cunobelin) people capital

Eastern part of the Northern Thames Basin

Trinovantes

Trinovantes

Western part of the Northern Thames Basin

Catuvellauni

Topographical region

South East Midlands

?

East Anglia

Iceni

civitas

Romano-British capital

Colchester [Trinovantes?] (Camulodunum)

Colchester? (Camulodunum) St Albans (Verulamium)

Catuvellauni

St Albans (Verulamium)

Iceni

no single capital?

Catuvellauni

Iceni

6th-9th century kingdom

Domesday counties (traditional view)* Essex

East Saxons

Hertfordshire and Middlesex

possibly within the Catuvellaunian civitas

‘Middle Angles’

Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire, and Bedfordshire

Caistor St Edmund (Venta Icenorum)

East Angles

Norfolk and Suffolk

* This column represents the conventional wisdom: the conclusion of this study is a little different in places, for example that the boundary between the Trinovantes/ East Saxons and the Iceni/East Angles runs diagonally through Suffolk.

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Late first century BC people

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large amounts of Iron Age coinage, suggesting that they had late prehistoric origins (Chapter 4), while it is possible that some early Roman pottery kilns were located in liminal locations, including those very close to the aforementioned line of hillforts in Cambridgeshire (Chapter 6). These ‘persistent places’ are a recurrent theme in this study. A number of Anglo-Saxon burials may have been located on the boundaries of regio-type territories, and it is very noticeable that potentially royal seventh-century burials tend to occur around the margins of the East Anglian and East Saxon kingdoms (Chapter 8). During the ‘Middle Saxon’ period the emporium at Ipswich and a series of enigmatic ‘productive sites’ were often in liminal locations (including in the Gipping and Lark valleys) some of which may have been seasonal markets (Chapter 11). Various execution cemeteries have been located on boundaries, although these relate to regiones and hundreds (Reynolds 2009). Artefact and site-type distributions Some types of artefact were produced in distinctive styles that were clearly designed to express a specific identity (e.g. the inscribed Late Iron Age and early medieval coinages). While trade, exchange, and the movement of people (with their personal possessions) will have led to some artefacts finding their way outside the territory within which they were produced—and perhaps into areas where their symbolic meaning was lost—many did not, and the plotting of their distribution sheds light on the extent of the territory within which they were produced and primarily circulated. Other classes of material, such as some Romano-British coarse wares and Middle Saxon Ipswich Ware, were produced within a particular territory and, although not overtly expressing a particular identity, their circulation appears to have been in part socially embedded, which restricted their spread into some adjacent regions. Other aspects of the cultural landscape also reflect the particular ways that communities did things, including their traditional ways of structuring settlements and designing buildings. This study has generated a series of distribution maps based upon primary data such as these. In some cases published maps have been updated, although in most cases entirely original maps have been created. Key data sources were the published literature, the annual round-ups of archaeological fieldwork that many county journals contain, grey literature available through the Archaeology Data Service (ADS) and Historic Environment Records (HERs), and databases such as the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS), Celtic Coin Index, and Corpus of Early Medieval Coin Finds. The Roman Rural Settlement Project (RRSP) database was of particular value,6 although its regions—based upon Natural England’s National Character Areas (Natural England 2005; 2014)—are different from those

6

.

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used here.7 The work carried out in this study has been designed to avoid overlap with the RRSP, and to complement its analyses: the RRSP, for example, focused upon sites that have seen significant excavation, whereas in order to get the best possible impression of the overall distribution of villas a wider range of data was used in this study, including aerial photography and fieldwalking (even when analysing villa plans there are some excellent examples that have been revealed as cropmarks). The category of Romano-British material culture that was chosen for inclusion here—pottery—was also selected to avoid overlap with the RRSP. The ‘Town and Country in Roman Essex: Settlement Hierarchies in Roman Essex’ project also includes valuable data for sites in parts of the study area although its coverage was restricted to c.50 BC–AD 250 (Perring 2011).8 The data used in this study are summarized in a series of tables and online appendices, including those for Iron Age triangular-shaped loomweights (Appendix 1; Tables 2.3 and 2.4), Iron Age settlement morphology (Appendix 2; Table 3.1), Romano-British towns, small towns, and local centres (Appendix 5), Romano-British villas (Appendix 7; Tables 5.1–5.3), Romano-British coarse wares (Appendix 8), early Anglo-Saxon Grubenhäuser (Appendix 10; Table 8.1), burials (Appendix 11; Tables 9.1–9.3), brooches (Appendix 12) and sleeve clasps (Table 9.4), and Middle Saxon Ipswich Ware (Table 11.1). Note that bibliographic references that only appear in these Appendices (not in the printed book) are found in an expanded Bibliography that is also available online. Although this book is about landscape, it has been essential to understand individual sites, and while some detailed discussion has been provided in the relevant chapters, additional detail is provided in Appendix 3 (Iron Age hillforts along the Chilterns), Appendix 4 (Iron Age oppida), Appendix 5 (Romano-British small towns and local centres), Appendix 6 (Bishop’s Stortford), Appendix 7 (Romano-British villa plans), and Appendix 9 (early Anglo-Saxon royal burials). Blanks on the maps When thinking about distribution maps, careful consideration must be given to the blank areas. In many cases these simply reflect areas where there has been no metal detecting (e.g. extensive urban areas), soils that are not conducive to producing cropmarks, and the absence of archaeological excavations in many rural areas, including the greenbelt around London. There are, however, some circumstances where the absence of evidence is in fact evidence for absence, for example where there has been a large amount of fieldwork but no artefacts or sites of the particular period or type that is being mapped. An undervalued 7 e.g. the RRSP placed the Boulder Clay Plateau of Essex and eastern Hertfordshire in with East Anglian Boulder Clay even though culturally it has a very different landscape character (Williamson 2006a, 90–1; 2008, 123–6; Martin 2007; Rippon 2007; 2008a; Martin and Satchell 2008; Barlow 2013; Rippon et al. 2015). 8 .

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resource is that of archaeological evaluations and excavations that produced no evidence, which—if repeated over extensive areas—may be taken as evidence that a landscape was not extensively settled.9

THE STRUCTURE OF THIS BOOK The period terms that are used are in this book are outlined in Table 1.4. Chapter 2 explores the available written sources for the Iron Age that suggest that the North-Eastern Thames Basin was occupied by the Trinovantes, the

Table 1.4. The chronological framework used in this study. Period

Formal Informal sub-division sub-division Date initial Early

c.800–c.600 BC

later

c.600–c.350 BC

Iron Age Middle

c.350–c.50 BC

Late

c.50 BC to AD 43

Roman

AD

earlier Early Saxon

Middle early medieval Saxon

Late Saxon

later

43–410

Selected key character-defining features across eastern England Decorated post-DeverelRimbury Ware Darmsden-Linton and contemporary styles Scored Ware and Little Waltham-type pottery Aylesford-Swarling culture Urban hierarchy, money-based market trade, increasingly homogenized and ‘Romanized’ material culture and architectural styles

Fifth to sixth centuries

Grubenhäuser, and cremation and inhumation burials with grave goods Seventh ‘Final phase’ inhumation century cemeteries, imported coinage, and early sceattas Eighth to mid Secondary sceattas, ninth centuries international trade (emporia), mass-produced pottery (Ipswich Ware) Mid ninth to mid eleventh centuries

Viking incursions (start 840s; the Great Army in East Anglia 860s); reconquest of Danelaw from 911 (Hertford) to 918 (East Anglia)

9 e.g. the extensive excavations off Kiln Road in Thundersley that confirm the sparsely settled nature of the Rayleigh Hills in south-eastern Essex (House 2013).

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North-Western Thames Basin by the Catuvellauni, and East Anglia by the Iceni. By the early first century AD the social complexity of these communities suggests that they can be regarded as kingdoms. The distributions of Late Iron Age coins suggest four circulation zones focused on the North-Eastern and North-Western Thames Basin (Trinovantian and Catuvellaunian respectively), East Anglia (the Iceni), and the South East Midlands. The ceramic style zones proposed by Cunliffe are refined with reference to more recent research, while regional variations in the distributions of brooches, torcs, and horse-fittings are discussed. Triangular-shaped loomweights are not as ubiquitous as is often assumed, being far more common within the North-Eastern Thames Basin than elsewhere. Chapter 3 considers regional variation in Iron Age settlement patterns. Across the whole of eastern England most Early Iron Age settlements were unenclosed, while from the Middle Iron Age divergent forms of enclosed settlement emerged in the Northern Thames Basin and South East Midlands. The distributions of two types of boundary works—pit alignments and linear banks and ditches (dykes)— are also considered, with the former being particularly characteristic of the South East Midlands. Chapter 4 looks at the hierarchy of Romano-British settlements that had urban or at least central place functions, and while these are found scattered right across eastern England, important regional differences are found. A relationship between rural temples and territorial boundaries is also explored. In Chapter 5 what constitutes a ‘villa’ is considered and when mapped they are found to be more common in the Northern Thames Basin and the South East Midlands than in East Anglia. An analysis of their plan-form also reveals marked regional variations. Chapter 6 explores various aspects of RomanoBritish portable material culture and in particular coarse ware pottery whose distributions suggest that trade and exchange were at least partly socially embedded. Early pottery kilns appear to have been located in liminal locations. Chapter 7 provides a documentary-based discussion of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of eastern England: the East Saxons, East Angles, and the multiplicity of peoples in the South East Midlands that Bede referred to as the ‘Middle Angles’. Chapter 8 explores the extent of Anglo-Saxon immigration by looking at the distribution of Grubenhäuser and burials, with very different patterns being found in East Anglia (where they are scattered across all areas), the Northern Thames Basin (where they are largely restricted to coastal and estuarine districts), and the South East Midlands (where they are mostly found in river valleys). Marked differences in the size of the cemeteries also suggest regional differences in how communities were organized. Chapter 9 considers regional identities, and whether a meaningful distinction can be drawn between ‘Anglian’ and ‘Saxon’ areas. A key conclusion of Chapter 10 is that while the archaeologically visible material culture and written histories of eastern England are dominated by the immigrant Anglo-Saxons, there remained a substantial native population, most notably across large parts of the Northern Thames Basin. A variety of material culture—including brooches, sleeve clasps, and weapons—all show marked

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regional variations between East Anglia, the Northern Thames Basin, and the South East Midlands, the boundaries of which appear to have changed very little since the Roman period. Chapter 11 examines various categories of data that shed light on eighth- and ninth-century regionality, including the distributions of Ipswich Ware and early medieval coinage that were clearly determined by socially embedded exchange. Emporia and some ‘productive sites’ appear to have been the locations for trade and exchange, and they show a marked tendency to occur in liminal locations. Chapter 12 provides an overall discussion of this evidence for early medieval territoriality and considers the series of dykes in south-eastern Cambridgeshire that appear to have been constructed to mark the frontier between the East Angles and their neighbours to the south-west. Chapter 13 draws together the conclusions of this study. It will be argued that from the Early Iron Age onwards communities started to develop common identities at a regional scale, while in some areas smaller district-scale territories were focused upon the building of hillforts and were bounded by dykes. The boundaries between major regions ran through areas with poor soils that were sparsely settled. During the Middle Iron Age a range of social and economic interactions continued at a regional scale that led to communities expressing identities that were increasingly divergent. The construction of a line of hillforts in south-eastern Cambridgeshire is intriguing and hints at a higher level of societal organization. The Late Iron Age saw the emergence of relatively stable kingdoms that minted their own coins, and while two of these—the Catuvellauni and the Trinovantes—enthusiastically adopted the new Aylesford-Swarling culture, the Iceni did not. The boundaries of these Late Iron Age kingdoms were very similar to the socio-economic zones that had emerged during Early and Middle Iron Ages, and ritual deposition at certain places reinforced these boundaries. In the very early Roman period pottery production and Romano-Celtic temples were located in these same liminal zones. A major theme across the Roman period is that while there was a strong degree of cultural homogenization, there remained subtle differences in landscape character (such as the nature of the urban hierarchy and the design of villas), and in material culture production and distribution. These suggest that the socio-economic spheres within which communities interacted with each other during the Iron Age continued into the Roman period. It is possible that the Roman authorities used these existing socio-economic and political structures when creating their administrative civitates. In the early medieval period these same regional differences become even clearer, although this does not mean that civitates became Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, or that the boundaries between separate socio-economic spheres re-emerged in exactly the same place as they had been in during the Iron Age and Roman period due to the constraints imposed by topography. Instead, it is suggested that some of the social and economic ties that bound these regions together survived from the Roman through to the early medieval period, particularly in areas that did not see extensive Anglo-Saxon immigration.

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

INTRODUCTION 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;

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Moore 2011). Defining the area that was ‘Trinovantian’ from such references is impossible as they simply record the existence of this group rather than their extent, and so the rest of this chapter will explore what material culture tells us about Iron Age territoriality. Period nomenclature follows the traditional threefold sub-division of the Iron Age (e.g. Sealey 1996, 46; 2012, 37; Cunliffe 2005, 32), with a further division of the Early Iron Age proposed by Brudenell (2012, 149; see Table 1.4). This scheme works well in the regions defined topographically as the Northern Thames Basin and South East Midlands, although in East Anglia the ceramic sequence was until recently less well understood, and until the 1990s many sites were dated simply as ‘Iron Age’, or ‘Early to Middle Iron Age’. The situation is now improving, not only in terms of chronological precision but also in the recognition of regional distinctiveness (e.g. S. Percival 1999; Brudenell 2011), although sites published before this recent work remain less well-dated. Indeed, the need to improve our understanding of regionality within Iron Age society across eastern England has recently been highlighted as a priority in the Research Framework for this region (Medlycott 2011b, 32). THE TRINOVANTES, CATUVELLAUNI, AND ICENI: THE LITERARY EVIDENCE (FIG. 1.4) Various classical sources describe some of the peoples living in Britain during the Late Iron Age, although, of the groups named by Caesar at the time of his expeditions to Britain in 55 and 54 BC, only the Atrebates (in modern northern Hampshire), Trinovantes, and Cenimagni (‘Great Iceni’) are mentioned again in later sources (Rivet and Smith 1981, 373, 475; Davies 1999, 14–15). In 54 BC Caesar tells us that his principal allies were the Trinovantes, whom he regarded as until recently the most important group in Britain, but whose king had recently been killed by one Cassivellaunus, who historians have argued ruled the Catuvellauni (based largely on the similarity of the two names): the Catuvellauni are not explicitly mentioned until the second century AD (Gallic War, 20–1; Rivet and Smith 1981, 304–5; Creighton 2006, 22). The son—Mandubracius—of the Trinovantian king referred to by Caesar had fled to Rome for protection and was restored in 54 BC, and Cassivellaunus was forbidden from attacking the Trinovantes again. There were also several other peoples described by Caesar as lying north of the Thames—the Ancalites, Bibroci, Cassi, and Segontiaci (Gallic War, 20–1; Niblett 2001, 48–9; Sealey 2007, 34)—and the way in which the distribution of the earliest Trinovantian coins (‘Clacton’ type staters) is largely restricted to northern Essex and southern Suffolk opens up the possibility that southern Essex was occupied by one of these other groups (this area also has subtly different ceramic material culture throughout much of the Iron Age, which is discussed later in this chapter).

Table 2.1. The classification schemes for major types of Iron Age coins in circulation within the North-Eastern Thames Basin. Focus of distribution Date (Van Arsdell 1989)

Classification

c.125–100 BC

Gallo-Belgic A Large Flan

first imported coins

c.125–115 BC

Gallo-Belgic B

c.100–65 BC

Type

Van Arsdell 1989

Trin. Cat.

Comments produced by Ambiani in Gaul

first imported coins

X

produced by Caletes in Gaul

Gallo-Belgic C Abstract Design

later imported coins

X

produced by Suessiones in Gaul

c.100–90 BC

potins

Thurrock

Trinovantian A

X

produced in Kent

c.70–65 BC

British G

‘Clacton’

Trinovantian B

X

earliest Trinovantian coinage?

c.65–50 BC

Gallo-Belgic E

Gallic War

later imported coins

X

produced in Belgic Gaul

c.55–40 BC

British L

‘Whaddon Chase’

Trinovantian D, E, F

X

X

?Catuvellaunian copies of Gallo-Belgic coins

X

Addedomaros

c.40–30 BC

inscribed

Trinovantian I, J, & K

X

c.30–25 BC

inscribed

Trinovantian L

X

c.25–10 BC

inscribed

Trinovantian M, N, & O

X

Tasciovanus

c.25–10 BC

inscribed

Trinovantian P, Q, R, & S

X

Andoco, Dias, Sego, and Rues

c. AD 5/10–43

inscribed

Trinovantian T, U, V, W, & X X

X

Cunobelin

Dubnovellaunus

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Defaced Die

X

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In the past, the term ‘tribe’ has been widely applied to these Late Iron Age groups (e.g. Cunliffe 2005), although some scholars have used the term ‘kingdom’ (e.g. Allen 1944; Creighton 2006). The latter is used here as ‘tribe’ is loaded with ‘colonialist assumptions and potential anachronisms’ (Mattingly 2006, 59; and see Jones 1997, 51–2; Moore 2011), whereas kingdom is more appropriate for the degree of social complexity that is evident in Late Iron Age society across eastern England (e.g. highly stratified societies reflected in the burial and settlement records, the minting of coins, and the emergence of rulers whose powers were partly based upon hereditary claims). Some scholars have argued that as early as the Middle Iron Age communities developed territorial identities on a similar scale to those of the Late Iron Age (e.g. Cunliffe 2005), whereas Moore (2011, 334) has argued that the level of social organization at this date cannot be regarded as tribes or kingdoms in the sense of ‘hierarchical groups which exercised cultural and political hegemony over well-defined territories’. The evidence presented here supports Moore’s assertion, in that while communities appear to have developed regional scale identities through trade or exchange, there is no evidence for political entities of that extent. COIN CIRCULATION AMONGST THE CATUVELLAUNI, THE ICENI, AND THE TRINOVANTES A distinctive feature of later Iron Age Britain was the appearance of coinage, which will have had multiple functions, including as a means of exchange, storing wealth, and communicating political authority and legitimacy. The various systems for classifying Iron Age coins are summarized in Table 2.1 with their political and geographical affinities outlined in Table 2.2. The first coins circulated in Britain during the later Middle Iron Age (late second to mid first century BC) and comprised Gallo-Belgic issues, probably imported from the continent, followed by coins minted within Britain. The latter lack inscriptions that give their attribution to a particular group or ruler, although their distributions sometimes provide clues as to the region within which they were minted. During the Late Iron Age (the late first century BC to the mid first century AD) coins inscribed with the name of individual rulers appear, and while these were produced by a single political entity—the legend on the coins having a symbolic significance in communicating a leader’s legitimacy to rule (e.g. Fig. 2.4)—the coins often circulated beyond the area controlled by that individual into places where the inscription may have had little or no meaning but where the coin still had a base value. There are seven regional traditions of inscribed Iron Age coinage (Haselgrove 1987, fig. 4.3) many of which can be linked with kingdoms for which we have later documentary evidence, including the ‘East Anglian’ group whose distribution is focused on Norfolk and northern Suffolk and so clearly relate to the Iceni. Haselgrove’s (1987) ‘Eastern’ group is found in the

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Table 2.2. The political and geographical affinities of the major Iron Age coin series found across eastern England. Northern Thames Basin Coinage

South East NW-NTB (i.e. Catuvellauni) Midlands

NE-NTB (i.e. Trinovantes)

East Anglia (i.e. Iceni)

Gallo-Belgic B late second/early first century BC

Gallo-Belgic A

Gallo-Belgic C Kentish potins

British G/‘Clacton’ mid first century BC mid/late first century BC late first century BC early first century BC

Gallo-Belgic E

Norfolk Wolf

British L/‘Whaddon Chase’

Freckenham Type

Addedomaros

Boar Type

Dubnovellaunus

Tasciovanus Cunobelin

Celtic Head/ Crescent Types Anted and Ecen

Northern Thames Basin and clearly relates to the Trinovantes and Catuvellauni, and scholars such as Van Arsdell (1989, 8) have argued that these two groups cannot be distinguished numismatically, and so are referred to as the ‘eastern kingdom’ ruled over by ‘the House of Cunobelin’ (e.g. Rodwell 1976a; Mattingly 2011, fig. 3.2). Others, however, have suggested that it was quite late in the history of coinage that this region became politically unified, and that even then—under Cunobelin—its eastern and western parts retained a separate identity (discussed further below; de Jersey and Newman 2000; Curteis 2006; Kretz 2007; 2008). Late second to early first century BC: the earliest imports (Gallo-Belgic A–C) (Fig. 2.1) The earliest coins used in Britain were gold Gallo-Belgic A staters thought to have been produced in Gaul, perhaps by the Ambiani (Van Arsdell 1989, 4), although some may have been minted in Britain (Hill 2007, 24; Sharples 2010, 147) (Fig. 2.1). Their date is unclear: Curteis (2006, 3) suggests early second century, while Van Arsdell (1989, 4) argues for a late second-century date. They are found across South East Britain but particularly in Kent and the NorthEastern Thames Basin; very few are found in the South East Midlands and they are absent in East Anglia. The contemporary Gallo-Belgic B are also thought to have been produced in Gaul, possibly by the Caletes, although they may also have been minted in Britain (Hill 2007, 24; Sharples 2010, 147). They are found right across South East Britain, although their greatest density is in Kent, Surrey,

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Kingdom, Civitas, and County

A: Gallo-Belgic A

B: Gallo-Belgic B

0

50 km

0

50 km

400’ contour 300’ “ 200’ “ 100’ “

C: Gallo-Belgic C

0

50 km

Fig. 2.1. The distributions of early uninscribed Iron Age coins: (A) Gallo-Belgic A; (B) Gallo-Belgic B; and (C) Gallo-Belgic C (after Cunliffe 2005, figs. 6.2 and 6.4, and Curteis 2006, fig. 2, all updated with data from the PAS).

and the North-Western Thames Basin, whereas they are noticeably scarce in Essex and absent from East Anglia and the South East Midlands. The early firstcentury BC Gallo-Belgic C staters, perhaps the coinage of the Gallic Suessiones, are similarly found very widely across South East Britain and are also noticeably scarce in Essex, East Anglia, and the South East Midlands. Late second to early first century BC: the earliest British issues (Kentish potins) (Fig. 2.2) The earliest coinage that was clearly minted in Britain was cast bronze ‘potins’ produced in Kent during the late second (Curteis 2006, 5) or early first century BC (Van Arsdell 1989, 7, maps 9–10) (Fig. 2.2). They are found right across South East Britain, including in western Essex and eastern Hertfordshire, but as with

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B: British G

0

50 km

C: Gallo-Belgic E

0

50 km

0

50 km

D: British L / ‘Whaddon Chase’

0

50 km

Fig. 2.2. The distributions of later uninscribed Iron Age coins: (A) Kentish potins; (B) British G; (C) Gallo-Belgic E; and (D) British L/‘Whaddon Chase’ (after A: Curteis 2006, fig. 3; B: de Jersey and Newman 2000, fig. 1, and Curteis 2006, fig. 4; C: Cunliffe 2005, fig. 6.4, and Curteis 2006, fig. 2; D: Curteis 2006, fig. 5; all updated from the PAS).

Gallo-Belgic B and C, they are noticeably scarce in eastern Essex and southeastern Suffolk, suggesting that ‘the Trinovantian territory was outside the primary circulation area for potin issues and, therefore, their absence can help define Trinovantian territory at this time’ (Curteis 2006, 5, fig. 3). They are also scarce in western Hertfordshire and southern Buckinghamshire. Note that ‘Thurrock Type’ potins, which Van Arsdell (1989, 432) suggests were Trinovantian, are more likely of Kentish origin (Curteis 2006, 4). Overall, it would appear that between the Thames and the Wash there were four coin circulation zones in the late second and early first century BC: (1) the North-Eastern Thames Basin (which by the period of Caesar was occupied by the Trinovantes) within which Gallo-Belgic A were preferred; (2) the North-Western Thames Basin (which by the period of Caesar was occupied by the Catuvellauni) within

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which Gallo-Belgic B and C circulated; (3) the people occupying the South East Midlands (north of the Chilterns) amongst whom these various coinages circulated to a lesser degree; and (4) East Anglia, where people did not use coinage at this stage. Mid first century BC: the earliest Trinovantian coinage (British G/‘Clacton’ type staters) (Fig. 2.2) Around the second quarter of the first century BC gold staters started to be struck in Britain including the British G or ‘Clacton’ type whose distribution is focused in north-eastern Essex and southern Suffolk, suggesting they were struck by the Trinovantes (Van Arsdell 1989, 8; de Jersey and Newman 2000; Curteis 2006, fig. 4; Sealey 2012, 53) (Fig. 2.2). The distribution of the British G or ‘Clacton’ type staters clearly illustrates that we should not equate the Trinovantes with the modern county of Essex, but with a more broadly defined region, referred to here as the ‘North-Eastern Thames Basin’, that extended north of the Stour. It is noticeable that their distribution is largely complementary to that of the Kentish potins. The scarcity of British G/‘Clacton’ type staters in southern and south-western Essex is also noteworthy, raising the possibility that this area was occupied by one of the Segontiaci, Ancalites, Bibroci, or Cassi (Edwards 1986, 259–61; Sealey 2007, 34). Mid first century BC: later imports (Gallo-Belgic E) (Fig. 2.2) In the mid first-century BC British G/‘Clacton’ type staters were replaced by ‘Gallo-Belgic E’ coins imported from the continent, which may have been minted by Gallic tribes to finance their resistance to Caesar (Van Arsdell 1989, 6, maps 7–8) (Fig. 2.2). These are found across most of lowland Britain but have their greatest density in Kent and eastern Essex; once again, they are not found in significant numbers in East Anglia. There is a marked concentration in north-eastern Essex and south-eastern Suffolk, but also a significant number in southern Essex. Overall, it would appear that ‘Gallo-Belgic E’ coins had a greater circulation amongst the Trinovantes, a limited circulation amongst the Catuvellauni, and very little penetration into Icenian territory. Mid first century BC: resumed British production (British L/‘Whaddon Chase’ staters) (Fig. 2.2) In the mid first century BC British production resumed in the form of lightweight versions of imported Gallo-Belgic coinage, including British L/‘Whaddon Chase’ type gold staters that are widely found across South East Britain and particularly in Hertfordshire and Essex; far fewer examples have been recovered from the South East Midlands or East Anglia (Fig. 2.2). Stylistically,

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there are links between the ‘Whaddon Chase’ staters and the later issues of the Catuvellaunian ruler Tasciovanus, although the present distribution does not distinguish between Hertfordshire and Essex (Van Arsdell 1989, 14–15; Curteis 2006). Late first century BC: early inscribed coinage (Addedomaros, Tasciovanus, and Dubnovellaunus) (Fig. 2.3) In the late first century BC the first inscribed coinage was struck, during which three individuals appear to have ruled over the Northern Thames Basin: Addedomaros, Dubnovellaunus, and Tasciovanus (Fig. 2.3). The coins of Addedomaros appear to

B: Dubnovellaunus

A: Addedomaros

0

50 km

C: Tasciovanus

0

50 km

0

50km

D: Andoco, Dias, Sego, and Rues

0

50 km

Fig. 2.3. The distributions of early inscribed coinages of the ‘eastern kingdom’: (A) Addedomaros; (B) Dubnovellaunus; (C) Tasciovanus; and (D) Andoco, Dias, Sego, and Rues (after A: Van Arsdell 1989, maps 67–8, and Curteis 2006, fig. 6; B: Van Arsdell 1989, maps 69–70, and Curteis 2006, fig. 6; C: Curteis 2006, fig. 7; D: Curteis 2006, figs. 7–8; all updated with data from PAS).

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have been struck during the second half of the first century BC.1 Early distribution maps suggested that he was Trinovantian (e.g. Dunnett 1975, fig. 3; Crummy 1997, 20) and while it has recently been suggested that he was Catuvellaunian (e.g. Kretz 2008), stylistically his coins are similar to those of Dubnovellaunus, who we can be confident in suggesting was Trinovantian (discussed further below). That Addedomaros’ coins are also found in modern Hertfordshire as well as Essex raises two possibilities: that Addedomaros was a Trinovantian who also controlled the North-Western Thames Basin, or that his coins simply spread west through trade and exchange. Addedomaros appears to have been succeeded by Dubnovellaunus, who may have been the same ‘Dubnovellaunus’ who ruled in Kent (Kretz 2008). His coins have a more restricted distribution compared to those of Addedomaros, being largely found in eastern Essex and south-eastern Suffolk. To the west, the coins of Addedomaros were replaced by those of Tasciovanus, who appears to have ruled in the late first century BC (Creighton 2006, 22). He included the name of the place where he minted his coins, which was initially Verulamium, then very briefly Camulodunum, but thereafter just Verulamium. His coins have a relatively well-defined distribution extending from the Thames up to Fenland and the Nene valley: they are found across Hertfordshire and into western Essex (including a concentration in the Lea valley), although very few have been recovered from eastern Essex or East Anglia. Towards the end of Tasciovanus’ reign a series of coins appear bearing the names Andoco, Dias, Sego, and Rues. These may have been subordinates of Tasciovanus, ‘perhaps occupying small areas, or pagi, within his territory’ (Curteis 2006, 9), although Kretz (2007) speculates that Rues may in fact be Tasciovanus himself. Their coins have rather more restricted distributions compared to those of Tasciovanus, extending from the chalk escarpment south across the lowlands of Hertfordshire and the far west of Essex, suggesting that they were minted in the east of the Catuvellaunian territory, perhaps by Dias at Braughing, Andoco at Baldock, and Tasciovanus at Verulamium (Curteis 2006; Kretz 2007).2 Early first century AD: a unified eastern kingdom (Cunobelin) (Fig. 2.4) Around c. AD 5–10, the politics of South East Britain were transformed by the appearance of a single dominant political figure—Cunobelin—who reigned until shortly before AD 43 and appears to have ruled over both the Catuvellauni and the Trinovantes. Some have argued that Cunobelin was Catuvellaunian, as the Roman writer Cassius Dio states that his sons (Caratacus and Togodumnus)

1 Van Arsdell (1989, 349) suggests c.40–30 BC, Dunnett (1975, 12–13) argues he was ruling by c.15 BC, and Haselgrove (1993, 35) suggests c.30 BC to AD 10. 2 A similar phenomenon is seen in Dobunnic coin distributions, with the restricted distribution of those of Bodvoc suggesting he ruled a sub-division of the larger polity (Cunliffe 2005, 189).

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B: Cunobelin (Verulamium)

0

50 km

0

50 km

Cunobelin - Tasciovanus

C: Cunobelin (Camulodunum)

Cunobelin - Camulodunum

ikw1945

0

50 km

Fig. 2.4. The distributions of (A) all Cunobelin’s coins, and those minted at (B) Verulamium and (C) Camulodunum (after Creighton 2000, fig. 6.6, updated with data from the PAS), and examples of a Cunobelin coin where he declares himself son of Tasciovanus (PAS: 4DSCN5100) and with a CAM mint mark (PAS: CAM PAS SWYOR-4EDC75).

were Catuvellaunian, and on some of his coins Cunobelin declares himself to be the son of Tasciovanus (Rodwell 1976c; Hawkes and Crummy 1995, 7, 173; Sealey 1996, 62; Creighton 2000, 170). It is not clear, however, whether this was a genuine familial relationship or a political term to legitimize his right to rule, as there are three strands of evidence suggesting Cunobelin was in fact Trinovantian: first, Cassius Dio states that his seat lay at Camulodunum, and this is the only mint to be named on his coins; second, the earliest coinage of Cunobelin is found in the Trinovantian heartland of north-eastern Essex and south-eastern Suffolk, suggesting that it was only later in his reign that the Catuvellaunian areas farther west came under his control; and third, a coin hoard from Great Waltham indicates that Cunobelin was the direct successor to Dubnovellaunus (de Jersey and Wickenden 2004; Sealey 2012, 53). The coins of Cunobelin are found across a large part of South East Britain, but have their greatest density in

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Essex, southern Suffolk, Hertfordshire, and the South East Midlands (Fig. 2.4). Although this suggests that the Catuvellauni and the Trinovantes were now part of a single political entity, there is a marked difference in the distribution of those coins on which Cunobelin proclaims himself to be the son of Tasciovanus, which are mostly found in the west of his kingdom, and those coins bearing the mint mark of CAM, which are mostly found in eastern Essex and southern Suffolk (which is also where the earliest coins of Cunobelin—the ‘biga’ staters—are found: Kretz 2010). Overall, it appears that Cunobelin was Trinovantian in origin, that his roots lay at Camulodunum, where he first minted his coins, and that he later extended his rule over the Catuvellauni, where he legitimized his power by claiming to be the son of Tasciovanus. Coin circulation amongst the Iceni (Fig. 2.5) The earliest Icenian coinage—the Norfolk ‘Wolf ’ gold staters—were struck shortly after the Trinovantian British G/‘Clacton’ type staters in the mid first century BC (Davies 1999, 22). Some coins have an abbreviated form of the tribal name (Rivet and Smith 1981, 373). The vast majority of these and other Icenian issues are found in Norfolk, northern Suffolk, and north-eastern Cambridgeshire, with the most southerly locations to have produced significant numbers being the Gipping and Lark valleys (Fig. 2.5) (Webster 1978; Gregory 1992b; Martin 1999a, 86; Curteis 2006; Williamson 2006a; Rippon 2007; 2008a). Coin circulation amongst the Corieltavi (Fig. 2.5) Coins were minted by the Corieltavi from the second quarter of the first century BC (i.e. at the same time as the Trinovantian British G/‘Clacton’ type staters). They are found in large numbers across the East Midlands as far south as the Nene valley, with just a few isolated examples from the South East Midlands, East Anglia, and the

A: Icenian coins

B: Corieltavian coins

0

50 km

0

50 km

Fig. 2.5. The distributions of (A) Icenian (data from PAS) and (B) Corieltavian coins (Cunliffe 2005, fig. 8.13, updated with data from the PAS).

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Northern Thames Basin (Fig. 2.5) (Whitwell 1982, 31; May 1995; Cunliffe 2005, fig. 8.13). Although this is a distribution that complements that of Tasciovanus and Cunobelin, it is noticeable that the earlier issues probably associated with the Catuvellauni and Trinovantes only extended as far north as the Chilterns, suggesting that the communities living between the Chilterns and the Nene valley (i.e. in the South East Midlands)—where coin use was relatively limited before the late first century BC—were neither Corieltavian nor Catuvellaunian. DISCUSSION: DEFINING TERRITORIES IN THE LATE IRON AGE THROUGH COINAGE Bearing in mind the taphonomic factors which will have influenced these distribution maps of Iron Age coins, such as the longer history of reporting in East Anglia, and extensive urban areas such as Greater London that will have inhibited metal detecting, the spatial patterning is clear. By the Late Iron Age four coin circulation zones can be identified in eastern England, three of which relate to documented groups—the Trinovantes, Catuvellauni, and Iceni—while the fourth lay in the South East Midlands and is characterized by its lower level of coin use before Tasciovanus’ expansion (Fig. 2.6 and Table 2.2). These zones were not mutually exclusive, as a characteristic of Iron Age coinage is the extent to which issues circulated well beyond the regions within which they were minted, and there are particularly wide areas of overlap in the Upper Nene valley, Fenland, and the Gipping valley. Even with these less well-defined distributions, however, the coin circulation zones match very closely the four topographical zones of eastern England (East Anglia, the Northern Thames Basin, and the South East Midlands). Although it has been suggested that the whole of the Northern Thames Basin cannot be distinguished numismatically and so is referred to by some as the

Iron Age coin circulation zones EAST ANGLIA ANGLIA (Icenian) (Icenian)

SOUTH EAST EAST SOUTH MIDLANDS MIDLANDS

NORTH-EASTERN THAMES BASIN (Trinovantian) NORTH-WESTERN THAMES BASIN ( (Catuvellaunian)

0

pre-modern land capability 4 poor

50 km

3 2 1

good

Fig. 2.6. Suggested Iron Age coin circulation zones mapped against topography and premodern agricultural land capability.

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‘eastern kingdom’ (e.g. Van Arsdell 1989, 8; Mattingly 2011, fig. 3.2), during the late second and early first centuries BC there are some indications of two separate circulation zones which correspond to the areas later occupied by the Catuvellauni and the Trinovantes (i.e. the pre-inscribed coinages). In the mid first century BC (e.g. the reign of Addedomaros) there may have been some political unification, although fracture lines survived as the region was once again divided between Dubnovellaunus in the east and Tasciovanus in the west. It is noteworthy that the coins of Tasciovanus (and Andoco, Dias, Rues, and Sego) are rarely found to the east of the watershed between the rivers Lea and Roding, and that as late as the nineteenth century this area of high ground was covered by heathland and woodland (e.g. Waltham Forest, Harlow Common, and Hatfield Forest), so forming a natural boundary. An important site within this liminal zone is Harlow in the Stort valley, which is an example of how certain locations were a particular focus for Iron Age coin deposition (e.g. Curteis 2001; 2008). The 339 Iron Age coins from Harlow point to a site of considerable significance and have attracted extensive discussion (Allen 1965; 1968; 1969; Fitzpatrick 1985b; Haselgrove 1989; 2005). Of the inscribed issues, most are of Tasciovanus along with small numbers of Dias, Rues, and Andoco; the absence of Dubnovellaunus’ issues is very noticeable. A similar pattern is seen at Great Chesterford, in north-west Essex, from where fifty Iron Age coins have been recovered, with all but one of the inscribed issues being of Tasciovanus, Andoco, and Cunobelin where he claims to be the son of Tasciovanus (Medlycott 2011a, 262); the absence of issues of Dubnovellaunus is again very noticeable. The proportion of coins where Cunobelin includes the name of Tasciovanus (TASC/CVNO), thought to have been minted at Verulamium, as opposed to those with the Camulodunum mint mark (CAM/CVNO), is also very high at Harlow (77 per cent of the 255 coins of Cunobelin: Fitzpatrick 1985b, 51–6), while at Great Chesterford the figure is 86 per cent (six out of seven coins: Medlycott 2011a, 265). In contrast, at Camulodunum the figure is just 12 per cent (three coins: Hawkes and Hull 1947; Niblett 1985, fiche 3), and at Elms Farm in Heybridge just 1 per cent (one out of seventy-two coins: Atkinson and Preston 2015b, section 3.4). This may suggest that the TASC/ CVNO types were produced and circulated in areas where Cunobelin wanted to assert his legitimacy—implying that he was an alien power (Creighton 2000, 172–3)—with the boundary area being the Lea and Stort valleys or their eastern watersheds. The deposition of Iron Age coinage in boundary locations is well known, such as Evenley, Duston, Oundle, and Weekley in the central Northamptonshire watershed that appears to have marked the Catuvellaunian boundary under Tasciovanus and Cunobelin (Curteis 1996). The nature of coin deposition in these areas is also distinctive: while settlement-based assemblages are predominantly bronze, the coins found in remote locations include a higher proportion of gold issues where they may have been used for ceremonial gift exchange and ritual deposition (e.g. Curteis 2001, 52–4; Howgego 2013).

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There are some noteworthy differences in coin distributions within the NorthEastern Thames Basin, suggesting that communities to the north and south of that region had somewhat different social, economic, and political affinities (e.g. Kentish potins are found quite widely in southern Essex but not to the north, whereas the broadly contemporary ‘Clacton’ type staters are common in the north but rare in the south). This north–south difference is also reflected in locally produced Late Iron Age pottery, which in the south retained its shelltempering, in contrast to central and northern Essex, where ‘Belgic’ grogtempering dominated (discussed in the next section). It is possible that southern Essex was occupied by one of the unidentified peoples referred to by Caesar as living north of the Thames (the Ancalites, Bibroci, and the Cassi). There has been a tendency in the past to talk about the boundary between the Catuvellauni and the Corieltavi in a very simplistic way, implying that it was relatively unchanging (e.g. Todd 1973, 14). It is certainly true that the issues of Tasciovanus and Cunobelin are found in large numbers as far north as the Nene valley, but this is not the case with earlier coinages that appear to have circulated within Catuvellaunian areas. The northern boundary of the distribution of these Gallo-Belgic staters and the coins of Addedomaros, for example, lies along the chalk escarpment, suggesting that the Catuvellaunian homeland in the mid to late first century BC did not embrace the South East Midlands. Until it was absorbed by Tasciovanus, the area between the Chiltern Ridge and the southern watershed of the Nene appears to have been a separate district that lay between the early Catuvellaunian and Corieltavian territories, and this area also had a distinctive ceramic history up to and including the start of the Late Iron Age (discussed in the next section).

POTS, PEOPLE, AND MATERIAL CULTURE CIRCULATION ZONES Although the earliest coinage allows something to be said about socio-economic arrangements towards the end of the Iron Age, for earlier periods we must rely upon other material culture. There is a long history in Britain of mapping material culture, beginning with Crawford’s (1912, 184; 1921) use of simple distribution maps, and Fox’s (1923) seminal Archaeology of the Cambridge Region and (1932) The Personality of Britain, in which he developed the concept of the upland and lowland zones. Hawkes’ (1959, fig. 1) ‘British Iron Age provinces’ were another step forward, and his observation that cultural boundaries often fell within watershed zones and suggestion that eastern England could be divided between four regions—‘Norfolk and borders’, ‘Nene/Cambridge’, ‘Thames/Lea’, and ‘Chelmer/Ipswich’—are remarkably resonant with the finds of this study. The chronological sub-division of the British Iron Age into Early, Middle, and Late that also developed during the mid twentieth century was associated with

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the culture-history approach towards studying the past, and in particular the idea that cultural change was brought about through migration from the continent (e.g. Hawkes 1931; 1959; Allen 1944). Although such migrationist interpretive models have gone out of fashion, Brudenell (2012, 38) has observed that ‘in Iron Age studies . . . the “cultural school” of pottery studies was never completely abandoned, but rather repackaged’, with the new approach being ‘epitomised by the work of Barry Cunliffe, who defined a series of ceramic “style-zones” which he used to distinguish regional groupings’ (see Cunliffe 1968; 1974; 1978; 2005). A key feature of Cunliffe’s work was that he directly equated Middle Iron Age pottery styles with ‘tribal’ groups that are not actually documented until the Late Iron Age (e.g. Cunliffe 1978, fig. 7.22). Brudenell’s (2012) recent review of these ‘style-zones’ warned of several problems, including the relatively small number of sites that the zones were based upon, and that individual pottery assemblages can contain vessels in a variety of styles. The increase in development-led excavation means that there are now more assemblages to work with, although there remain very few large and well-published assemblages from the North-Western Thames Basin. There have also been methodological advances for the Early Iron Age, with Brudenell’s (2012) mapping of individual attributes (i.e. different fabrics, forms, and decorative elements) revealing differences between the topographically defined East Anglia, South East Midlands, and North-Eastern Thames Basin that correspond remarkably closely to the different areas of coin circulation described earlier. Note that as the majority of published pottery reports still use Cunliffe’s terminology, it is retained here, although the notion that pottery styles relate directly to ‘tribes’ is rejected. Initial Early Iron Age: West Harling-Fengate and Ivinghoe-Sandy styles (Fig. 2.7.A) At the start of the Early Iron Age, pottery of Cunliffe’s West Harling-Fengate style3 was used across much of eastern England, including around the edges of Fenland, across South East Cambridgeshire, East Anglia, and the North-Eastern Thames Basin, while in the South East Midlands vessels of Ivinghoe-Sandy style predominate (S. Percival 1999; Cunliffe 2005, fig 5.3; Brudenell 2012, 247–8). Cunliffe was able to include very few sites in the North-Western Thames Basin, but on the Chilterns (in northern Hertfordshire) we can now add various sites listed by Bryant (1995) as well as Baldock (Phillips 2009) that have affinities with the Ivinghoe-Sandy style, while Foxholes Farm in eastern Hertfordshire follows the West Harling tradition (Partridge 1989, 166). Overall, communities across most of eastern England used pottery of a broadly similar style (West

3 A term that is still a useful shorthand for the early decorated phase of Early Iron Age pottery in the region (Brudenell 2011, 19).

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B: Later Early Iron Age

West Harling-Fengate, and Ivinghoe-Sandy styles

Darmsden-Linton, Chinnor-Wandlebury, and East Anglian rusticated styles

West Harling -Fengate IvinghoeSandy 0

50 km

59

?

?

DarmsdenLinton East Anglian rusticated ChinnorWandlebury

Fig. 2.7. The distributions of Early Iron Age pottery of (A) the Initial Early Iron Age (‘West Harling-Fengate’ and ‘Ivinghoe-Sandy’ styles) and (B) Later Early Iron Age (‘DarmsdenLinton’, ‘Chinnor-Wandlebury’, and East Anglian Rusticated styles (sources: Cunliffe 2005, figs. 5.3 and 5.4, with the addition of Cra’ster 1961; O’Connor 1976; Drury 1978, 127; Martin 1988; 1993; Moss-Eccardt 1988; Partridge 1989; Martin et al. 1995, 346; 1997, 96; Wymer and Brown 1995; Malim 1997; Evans 1999; Cathie and Hill 2000; Ellis 2004; Dawson 2005; Armour 2007; Brooks 2007; Evans et al. 2007; Moore et al. 2007; Robertson 2007b; Phillips 2009; Burrow and Mudd 2010; Brudenell 2011; Craven and Brudenell 2011; Mackay 2011; Wilson et al. 2012; Adams and Schofield 2013; Atkins and Percival 2014; Biddulph and Brady 2015, 35; Evans 2016).

Harling-Fengate) during the Initial Early Iron Age, while in the South East Midlands and on the Chilterns pottery of the Ivinghoe-Sandy style was used (Fig. 2.7.A). Later Early Iron Age: Chinnor-Wandlebury, Darmsden-Linton, and East Anglian rusticated styles (Fig. 2.7.B) During the later part of the Early Iron Age (the sixth to early fourth centuries) greater regional differentiation emerged (Fig. 2.7.B). In the South East Midlands, and in particular the Chilterns, Cunliffe’s Ivinghoe-Sandy style was replaced by the geometrically decorated Chinnor-Wandlebury style (Bryant 1995; Cunliffe 2005; Sealey 2012, 37; Brudenell 2012, form N5; Bryant 2015, 56), while to the east pottery of the Darmsden-Linton style dominated (Cunliffe 2005, fig. 5.4; Brudenell 2012, form N4 and foot-ring and pedestal bases). Although Cunliffe includes a series of assemblages in Norfolk as belonging to the Darmsden-Linton style, the later Early Iron Age pottery in Norfolk and northern Suffolk is of a different tradition from that in southern Suffolk and Essex (Brudenell 2011, 21; and see Craven and Brudenell 2011; Sealey 2012, table 1). These East Anglian assemblages contain relatively little fine ware, the most distinctive vessels being jars rusticated by rows of fingertip impressions over the entire body of the vessel. Occasional sherds of this rusticated ware have been found in the far east of

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Cambridgeshire (e.g. Linton) but it appears to have been absent west of the Cam valley (Brudenell 2011, 21; 2012, fig. 6.25).4 Pottery of the Darmsden-Linton style is found right across Essex and southern Suffolk, with the northernmost occurrence being Barham in the Gipping valley (Sealey 2012, 43, 51). The highly decorated Darmsden-Linton bowls are, however, rare in the far south of Essex, where plain bowls were the norm alongside other distinctive attributes such as shell-tempering (Evans et al. 2016, 234).5 Although it is tempting to see the use of shell-tempering in southern Essex in a functional way, reflecting the availability of this material in coastal/estuarine locations, beach deposits containing shell are not restricted to the Thames estuary and are found all along the Essex coast in areas where the pottery is not shell-tempered.6 Overall, the later part of the Early Iron Age sees growing regionalization in pottery styles, with different attributes of fabric, form, and decoration seen in East Anglia (e.g. fingertip rusticated decoration), the NorthEastern Thames Basin (e.g. Cunliffe’s ‘Darmsden-Linton’ pottery, and Brudenell’s form N4 bowls and vessels with foot-rings and pedestal bases), the far south of Essex (shell-tempering), and the South East Midlands (Cunliffe’s ‘Chinnor-Wandlebury’ style, and Brudenell’s N5 type bowls). Middle Iron Age ceramic styles (Fig. 2.8) In the Middle Iron Age (mid fourth to mid first centuries BC) sand-tempering replaced flint and a new series of styles emerged within which a broad distinction can be drawn between bowl-dominated forms in the South East Midlands and jar-dominated forms farther east (Fig. 2.8) (Cunliffe 2005).7 North of the Nene valley the long-lived Scored Ware tradition dominates (Catherall et al. 1984, 31–5; Knight 1984, map 51; Gwilt 1997, 154–5), which is also found in the South East Midlands, although it typically forms a small proportion of otherwise

4 A single possible sherd from Fengate near Peterborough may in fact be from a beaker (Brudenell 2012, 249). 5 Shell-tempering predominates on many sites (Fox Hall Farm in Southend: Ecclestone 1995; North Shoebury: Wymer and Brown 1995; Rainbow Wood in Thurrock: Potter 1974; Rainham Squash and Snooker Club: Grassam 2009; and see Brudenell 2012, 236–7), while elsewhere it is simply recorded that it is present within unquantified assemblages (e.g. Chadwell St Mary: Manning 1962; Gun Hill in Tilbury: Drury and Rodwell 1973; Hadleigh: Brown 1987; High House, west Thurrock: Andrews 2009). The northern limit of shell-tempering appears to be the London Clay Basin, as it is absent at Chichester Hall, Rawreth (Drury 1977), Curry Hill, Rettendon (Dale et al. 2005), and Dry Street, Basildon (Brooks 2007). Although beyond the scope of this study, southern Essex demonstrates some differences in material culture during the Late Bronze Age, for example in the use of perforated clay slabs that are only found as far north as the Blackwater estuary (Champion 2014). 6 e.g. Asheldham (Bedwin 1991), Danbury (Morris and Buckley 1978), Heybridge (Newton 2008), and Maldon (Bedwin 1992; Robertson 2007a). 7 Although Cunliffe’s map contains no sites from northern Essex, we can now add that the Kelvedon, Little Oakley, the ACS site at Stansted Airport, and East of Little Dunmow Road (in Little Dunmow) assemblages were dominated by jars (Rodwell 1988, 86; Barford 2002, 128; Havis and Brooks 2004, 301; Timby et al. 2007a, CD p. 25).

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A: Middle Iron Age: Cunliffe’s styles

BOWL CONTINUUM bowl continuum assemblage Hunsbury-Draughton style

61

JAR CONTINUUM miscellaneous decorated jar assemblage Mucking-Crayford style

0

50 km

400’ contour 300’ “ 200’ “ 100’ “

Fig. 2.8. The distributions of (A) Cunliffe’s Middle Iron Age style zones and (B) Scored Ware (sources: Cunliffe 2005, figs. 5.8 and 5.9, with the addition of Catherall et al. 1984; Malim 1997; Kemp and Spoerry 2002; Atkins and Mudd 2003; Hounsell and Oetgen 2003; Thorpe et al. 2004; Sleap 2005; Bull and Davis 2006; Evans and Hodder 2006; Timby et al. 2007b; Webley 2007a; 2007b; Webley et al. 2007; Abrams and Ingham 2008; Luke 2008; Murphy 2008; Wright et al. 2009; Brown 2011; Lyons 2011a; 2011b; Crank 2016, 174).

largely undecorated bowl assemblages (e.g. Williams 1993, 223, 232; Williams and Zeepvat 1994, 386; Chapman 2007, 202; Brown et al. 2009, 54; Taylor 2009, 83; Walker 2011, 12; Brown 2012, 56; Carlyle 2012, 10). In the NorthEastern Thames Basin Darmsden-Linton Ware was replaced by sand-tempered jars. Once again southern Essex stands out as being different, with shelltempering continuing and a range of decorated jars of the ‘Mucking-Crayford’ style. Sealey (1996, 43, 50) has suggested that ‘along the Thames Estuary, the composition of MPRIA assemblages more closely resembles those of Kent, than of districts further north . . . [and] . . . there is much to be said for regarding south Essex along the Thames as isolated from the rest of the county by its London Clay hinterland’ (and see Evans et al. 2016, 374). This ceramic evidence for a separate socio-economic zone in southern Essex may also be reflected in the distribution of the earliest British coinage (e.g. the scarcity of Trinovantian ‘Clacton’ type staters, and the presence of large numbers of Kentish potins, discussed earlier in this chapter). In East Anglia a range of decorated vessels were used alongside predominantly plain jars and bowls (Brudenell 2013, 130). Unfortunately, we once again can say relatively little about the North-Western Thames Basin. Hertfordshire and Middlesex are blank on Cunliffe’s map, and until recently the only Middle Iron Age sites that had been recognized were in the far north and east of the region. At Foxholes Farm (Partridge 1989, 166–9) and Baldock (Phillips 2009, 48), for example, jars predominated, and from a series of

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more recently discovered sites across Hertfordshire it appears that the sandtempered pottery generally shares its affinities with Little Waltham in Essex, although very few of the sites are published (Thompson 2015, 119–22). The Late Iron Age: pottery associated with the ‘Aylesford-Swarling’ culture (Fig. 2.9) During the Late Iron Age there were profound changes in the material culture of South East Britain that—based upon Caesar’s account in the Gallic War (V, 12)—have been attributed to a migration of the Belgae from continental Europe (e.g. Hawkes and Dunning 1930). The significance of this migration is, however, unclear, as there is growing evidence for links between Britain and A: LIA cremation burials

B: LIA imported amphorae

(Cunliffe 2005, fig.7.6; Hill 2007, fig. 9)

Dressel 1B Iron Age contexts yielding Italian amphorae which may be either Dressel 1 or 2–4 (Fitzpatrick 1985a; Medlycott et al. 1995)

Goldhanger

South Weald Camp Linford

0

50 km

0

50 km

0

50 km

D: Romano-British villas

C: LIA Welwyn-type burials certain (Cunliffe 2005, fig. 7.6)

certain

probable (Cunliffe 2005, fig. 7.6)

probable possible (Hussen 1983, fig. 1) possible

possible (Hussen 1983, fig. 1)

0

50 km

Fig. 2.9. The distributions of different elements of the Late Iron Age Aylesford-Swarling culture: (A) cremation burials (Cunliffe 2005, fig. 7.6, and Hill 2007, fig. 9, with the addition of Biddulph and Brady 2015); (B) imported amphorae (Fitzpatrick 1985a; Cunliffe 2005, fig. 17.30; Medlycott et al. 1995); (C) Welwyn-type burials (Hüssen 1983, fig. 1; Cunliffe 2005, fig. 7.6); and (D) Romano-British villas (see Fig. 5.6 and Table 5.1 for criteria for the identification of the last-mentioned).

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mainland Europe before the alleged migration, including the circulation of Gallo-Belgic coins from as early as the late second century BC. During the second half of the first century BC other aspects of material culture in South East Britain show strengthening links to the continent, including imported high-quality wheel-thrown table wares (e.g. platters, cups, and beakers) and large numbers of amphorae from Italy that together testify to the consumption of wine and other practices related to feasting. Other aspects of this ‘Aylesford-Swarling’ culture included La Tène III style metalwork, the use of toilet instruments for personal grooming, cremation burials, some of which were particularly rich (‘Welwyn-type’ burials),8 and the development of large and complex settlements (‘oppida’) with central place functions such as specialist manufacturing (Fig. 2.9). Across the Northern Thames Basin Middle Iron Age hand-made sandtempered pottery was replaced by wheel-thrown grog-tempered wares of the ‘Belgic’ style. Thompson (1982) has identified nine zones within the ‘Belgic’ pottery of South East Britain, including North East Essex and southern Suffolk, South East Essex (south of the Crouch estuary), Hertfordshire and the Chilterns, and Cambridgeshire. North East Essex and southern Suffolk have what can be regarded as a typical ‘Belgic’ assemblage with grog-tempering throughout a wide range of vessel forms, a pattern also seen in Hertfordshire and the Chilterns, although here there are some distinctive local forms. The earliest production of ‘Belgic’ wares may have been in eastern Hertfordshire (e.g. Baldock and Foxholes Farm near Hertford in the second quarter of the first century BC, c.75–50 BC: Sealey 2007; Thompson 2015, 131), and it was not until the third quarter of the first century that it displaced Middle Iron Age pottery to the east, in North East Essex (c.50–25 BC). In South East Essex, in contrast, grog was largely restricted to funerary vessels, with shell-tempering continuing in hand-made domestic ceramics (Sealey 1996, 27–31, 57; Lucy and Evans 2016, 402–3). Adoption of the ‘Belgic’ style in the South East Midlands was relatively late: at Castle Hill in Cambridge ‘Belgic’ pottery came into use as late as c.15 BC, while at Wendens Ambo in the far north west of Essex Middle Iron Age type pottery continued in use up until the Roman Conquest (Sealey 2007, 30). At Caldecote Highfields in south-western Cambridgeshire ‘Belgic’ pottery was used for a while but the community there subsequently reasserted its ‘Middle Iron Age’ ceramic identity (Kenney and Lyons 2011). In East Anglia there was very little genuine ‘Belgic’ pottery, although there was limited local production that imitated some of these new vessel forms (e.g. Gill et al. 2001; Nicholson and Woolhouse 2016, 103–6). Hill (2002, 158) has shown, however, that only a limited range of the ‘Belgic’ repertoire was adopted and that 8

The distribution of Welwyn burials has been mapped on various occasions, with significant deviation between the large number of possible sites identified in Hüssen (1983), and the more up-to-date Cunliffe (2005, fig. 7.6): the latter is used here.

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‘communities appear to have adapted southern wheel turned ceramic traditions to fit within existing patterns of pottery use’ and that in part this reflects the lack of demand for exotic foodstuffs (Fig. 2.10; Hill’s hypothesis has been confirmed in more recently excavated assemblages such as Cedars Oak in Stowmarket: Nicholson and Woolhouse 2016). The mapping of amphorae imported into Late Iron Age Britain from central Italy provides another important indication of cultural identity in that it reflects areas where wine was consumed. Two forms of amphora reached Britain:

Fig. 2.10. Regionally distinctive styles of pottery form and repertoires in the mid first century BC, showing their much more limited range in East Anglia (source: Hill 2002, fig. 13.6, drawn by Sophia Jundi; © J. D. Hill).

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Dressel 1A dating to the mid second to early first centuries BC and mostly found in central southern England, and Dressel 1B dating to the mid to late first century BC and mostly found in the South East (Fitzpatrick 1985a). The latter are therefore broadly contemporary with the adoption of locally produced wheel-thrown ‘Belgic’ pottery, and by updating Fitzpatrick (1985a) and Cunliffe (2005),9 the distribution now extends across most of Essex and eastern Hertfordshire but not into western Hertfordshire10 or East Anglia. Even though Cunliffe (2005, fig. 17.30) omits a findspot from Mucking (Fitzpatrick 1985a, 325; Evans et al. 2016, 447, table 5.28), there are still far fewer findspots from southern Essex than elsewhere in the North-Eastern Thames Basin. Within the broad area that adopted the ‘Aylesford-Swarling’ culture Cunliffe (2005, fig. 7.2) has mapped a series of socio-economic zones that closely match those identified by Thompson (1982; 2015, fig. 6.4), including ones centred on Camulodunum (in north-east Essex), Braughing (eastern Hertfordshire), Verulamium (in western Hertfordshire), and Cambridge; southern Essex is shown as a separate zone, though without an identified centre. The northeastern Essex zone appears to have extended at least as far south as Heybridge at the head of the Blackwater estuary (which received some material imported from the continent) and as far west as the Roding valley (Thompson 2015, 64), and so corresponds to the core area within which coins with a Trinovantian affinity circulated. BROOCHES, TORCS, AND HORSE-FITTINGS (FIG. 2.11) Other forms of Iron Age material culture also demonstrate regional variation (Fig. 2.11). Brooches and how they are worn convey information on gender, ethnicity, age, and group membership, as well as the social and exchange networks that the individual had access to. During the Early and Middle Iron Age small numbers of brooches were imported into Britain from the continent, and in places local copies appear to have been made (Cunliffe 2005, 84–6, 100, 458, 462–3, 472, 501; Haselgrove 1997; Adams 2014). It is striking that Early Iron Age brooches are found right across eastern England, whereas in the Middle Iron Age they concentrate in East Anglia and the South East Midlands but are very rare in the Northern Thames Basin. This has been mapped by Adams (2014, maps 6.6 and 6.7) but not really discussed or correlated with 9

Sites that can be added to the distribution are Stansted Airport (Havis and Brooks 2004, 166), Buildings Farm in Great Dunmow (Lavender 1997), East of Little Dunmow Road in Little Dunmow (Timby et al. 2007a, CD p. 139), and Rivenhall (Rodwell and Rodwell 1993, 66) on the Boulder Clay plateau, as well as Slough House Farm in Great Totham (Wallis and Waughman 1998, 143), Tolleshunt Knights (Rodwell and Rodwell 1993, 66), and Little Oakley (Barford 2002, 128) in the east of Essex. 10 Some amphorae from Prae Wood, near Verulamium ‘may be Dressel 1’ (Fitzpatrick 1985a, 324), but the vessel from King Harry Lane at Verulamium has now been identified as southern Spanish (Fitzpatrick 1985a, 325).

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Kingdom, Civitas, and County B: Middle Iron Age brooches

A: Early Iron Age brooches

0

50 km

C: Late Iron Age torcs

0

50 km

0

50 km

D: Late Iron Age horse-fittings

0

50 km

Fig. 2.11. The distributions of (A) Early and (B) Middle Iron Age brooches (Adams 2014, maps 6.6–6.7), and Late Iron Age (C) torcs (Davies 2009, fig. 66) and (D) horse-fittings (Worrell 2007, fig. 2).

other facets of Iron Age landscape and material culture such as coinage, ceramics, and settlement morphology that are studied here. Another aspect of Late Iron Age material culture through which communities living in East Anglia appear to have expressed their identity is through torcs and ornamented horse-fittings (Martin 1999a; 1999b; Worrell 2007, fig. 2). Clay moulds for the production of Icenian horse harness-fittings from Waldringfield (Martin 1988, 68) and gold torcs from Ipswich (Davies 1999, 20) suggest that communities living in the Gipping valley regarded themselves as having an Icenian identity. LOOMWEIGHTS (FIGS. 2.12–2.13; TABLES 2.3–2.4; APPENDIX 1) The final category of material culture explored here—what has traditionally been regarded as triangular-shaped loomweights—is not one traditionally used to

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B: Middle Iron Age

?

?

?

0

50 km

0

50 km

0

50 km

D: unphased Iron Age

C: Late Iron Age

0

50 km

single find 2–9 fragments 10–20 fragments 21–50 fragments 51+ fragments numbers not specified absent: excavations over 1,000 m2 absent: excavations under 1,000 m2

0

200 mm

Fig. 2.12. The distribution of Iron Age triangular-shaped loomweights (sources: listed in Appendix 1), and an example from the Orsett Cock enclosure in Essex (Carter 1998, fig. 69; © Essex County Council).

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Kingdom, Civitas, and County 3,000 m2 or more per loomweight 1,001–2,999 m2 per loomweight 201–1,000 m2 per loomweight 200 m2 or less per loomweight absent

EASTANGLIA EAST ANGLIA

SOUTHEAST EAST SOUTH MIDLANDS MIDLANDS

?

NORTH-EASTERN THAMES BASIN

400’ contour 300’ “ 200’ “ 100’ “

NORTH-WESTERN NORTH-WESTERN THAMES THAMESBASIN BASIN

Iron Age coin boundary zones 0

50 km

Fig. 2.13. The density of Iron Age triangular-shaped loomweights on excavated settlements (sources: listed in Appendix 1).

discuss territoriality and identity as it is often assumed that they are a common find on Iron Age sites in southern Britain (Wild 1970, 63; Thompson 1979, 175; Poole 1991; Elsdon and Barford 1996, 332; McDonald 1997–2003; Niblett 1999, 122; Carew et al. 2006, 70; West 2008).11 These triangular-shaped objects typically have sides 15–21 cm long that are pierced at one or more corners; it is usually suggested that they were used as loomweights and experiments have shown that they are well suited to that function, while wear patterns suggest that strings were threaded through the holes (Major 1988, 94; Carter 1998, 106). The alternative interpretation is that they are thatch weights, but Elsdon and 11 Pyramidal examples have been found Norfolk, in Early Iron Age contexts at Valley Belt in Trowse (Ashwin and Bates 2000), and in Middle Iron Age contexts at Harford (Ashwin and Bates 2000) and Blackborough End (Lally et al. 2008). The fragments from Early Iron Age West Harling, in Norfolk, are described as ‘definitely not triangular’ (Clark and Fell 1953). This survival of earlier loomweight forms may be another example of the conservatism seen within East Anglian material culture.

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Barford (1996, 332) are surely right in rejecting this as these small lightly fired objects, typically weighing up to just 5kg, would not have survived the wind, rain, and frosts of a British winter. Poole (1995, 285–6) and Hancocks (2006), in contrast, have suggested that they were oven furniture on the basis that they are rarely found in association with other weaving equipment whereas they are commonly found in association with oven fragments, daub, and clay (although it is acknowledged that clay and daub are very common finds on Iron Age sites). There is, however, no positive evidence that they are indeed oven furniture—that some are burnt could simply be a product of their crude process of manufacture— and most examples are simply found dumped in secondary contexts. Fig. 2.12 shows the distribution of triangular-shaped weights from Early, Middle, and Late Iron Age contexts (based upon the sites in Appendix 1).12 This simple mapping is based on the minimum number of loomweights present but this can be skewed by enormous variations in the extent of excavations, and so Fig. 2.13 shows the number of weights in relation to the area excavated. In order to interpret the blank areas on these maps, Iron Age settlements that have been excavated but where no loomweights have been recovered are also shown, with a differentiation made between excavations of more and less than 1,000 square metres. The data are quantified in Table 2.3, Table 2.3. The proportions of Early, Middle, and Late Iron Age sites across eastern England that have produced triangular-shaped loomweights (based upon the sites in Appendix 1). Early Iron Age No. No. sites sites with without

Middle Iron Age No. No. sites sites with without

Late Iron Age No. No. sites sites with without

East Anglia

1 (14%)

6

2 (14%)

12

3 (21%)

11

South East Midlands (excluding Fen islands)

3 (19%)

13

9 (23%)

30

4 (9%)

39

South East Midlands (Fen islands)

0

4

4 (36%)

7

0

North-Western Thames Basin

1 (17%)

5

4 (33%)

8

9 (32%)

19

North-Eastern Thames Basin

8 (26%)

23

24 (40%)

36

27 (45%)

33

13 (20%)

51

43 (32%)

93

43 (29%)

105

Total

3

12 In a number of cases the loomweights from a multi-phase site are reported as a single group, in which case they have been attributed to sub-periods of the Iron Age based on the following principle: if ten loomweights on a site are dated simply to the ‘Middle to Late Iron Age’, but 80% of the features are Middle Iron Age and 20% Late Iron Age, then eight of the loomweights are assumed to be Middle Iron Age and two Late Iron Age. The analysis here is based on the number of loomweights, so if there are three fragments from the same weight, they are counted as one. Some reports simply refer to loomweight ‘fragments’ and so while the location of these sites can be mapped, they cannot be included in the statistical analysis of actual weights.

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which shows that triangular-shaped weights have been found on 20 per cent of Early Iron Age sites, 32 per cent of Middle Iron Age sites, and 29 per cent of Late Iron Age sites. There are very clear regional differences, with just 14 per cent of Early Iron Age settlements in East Anglia having produced triangular-shaped weights, compared to 26 per cent in the North-Eastern Thames Basin. In the Middle Iron Age the figures vary from 14 per cent in East Anglia to 40 per cent in the North-Eastern Thames Basin, while during the Late Iron Age, in the South East Midlands (excluding the Fenland islands) the figure is 9 per cent, in East Anglia 21 per cent, and the North-Eastern Thames Basin 45 per cent. The evidence from this analysis is clear: in every period, triangular-shaped weights were far more common in the North-Eastern Thames Basin than in other regions. In East Anglia and the South East Midlands (excluding the Fenland islands in the Middle Iron Age), they are actually found on relatively few sites. These regional differences become even clearer if the density of triangular-shaped weights is calculated for those sites whose excavated area is known (hence why the numbers of sites in Table 2.4 are usually lower than in Table 2.3), although it must be borne in mind that the proportion of features that are actually sectioned on different excavations will have varied from site to site. This analysis does, however, present a very similar picture, with the use of triangular-shaped loomweights being far more widespread in the NorthEastern Thames Basin compared to adjacent regions. In the Middle Iron Age they were also common on some Fenland islands although not necessarily on fen-edge sites (e.g. Fordham Road in Soham: Quinn and Peachey 2012; Knob’s Farm in Somersham: Collins 2009; Langdale Hale in Earith: Appleby et al. Table 2.4. Analysis of the density of Middle Iron Age triangular-shaped loomweights (based upon sites in Appendix 1 where the area excavated can be calculated). Sites with loomweights No. No. m2 per sites loomweights loomweight

All sites (those with and without loomweights) No. No. m2 per sites loomweights loomweight

East Anglia

2

5

4,660 m2

10

5

38,877 m2

South East Midlands (excluding Fen islands)

6

12

8,567 m2

27

12

17,665 m2

South East Midlands (Fen islands)

4*

36

636 m2

4*

36

636 m2

NorthWestern Thames Basin

4

6

6,554 m2

7

6

14,254 m2

North-Eastern Thames Basin

21**

72

1,862 m2

29

72

2,474 m2

* excludes the 1,648 fragments from the Hurst Lane Reservoir site on Ely (Evans et al. 2007) ** excludes the 498 fragments from Lodge Farm in St Osyth (Germany 2007a)

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2007; Yaxley: Brown 2008; Fig. 2.13). Within the North-Eastern Thames Basin triangular-shaped weights are also more common in coastal districts (Major 1982), which is in sharp contrast to the numerous Iron Age sites excavated at Stansted Airport and along the A120 in western Essex, where very few weights were found, with the notable exception of the high-status ACS site (Havis and Brooks 2004; Cooke et al. 2008).13 Overall, both in terms of the distribution of findspots and an analysis of the density of finds on excavations, triangular-shaped weights were a distinctive part of the North-Eastern Thames Basin’s material culture repertoire. The high densities found in coastal districts both here and in Fenland may reflect the importance of saltmarshes for grazing sheep, but there were also extensive coastal marshes in East Anglia where loomweights are rare. This may suggest that communities living in the North-Eastern Thames Basin were engaged in textile production to a greater extent than those living elsewhere, and while it is possible that loomweights in other regions were made of materials that have not survived within the archaeological record, this still points to regional differences in material culture use. DISCUSSION This chapter has explored various aspects of Iron Age material culture—pottery, brooches, and loomweights—whose regional patterning matches those seen in the distributions of coinage. Care must be taken in interpreting these distributions, and in particular the blank areas, as the urban area of Greater London in particular leads to few findspots of metalwork (due to the scarcity of metaldetecting finds), while the greenbelt around London has led to fewer large-scale excavations and hence diagnostic pottery assemblages. There is, however, still some very marked spatial patterning in Iron Age material culture. In his seminal work on Iron Age Communities in Britain Cunliffe (1991, 3) argued that ceramic style-zones which began to emerge around the sixth century BC may represent ‘incipient tribal groupings’ that, once established, were ‘maintained throughout the Middle Iron Age with little change’, and that ‘the broader regional groupings which it is possible to discern by the third century may

13

The typical settlement form in this area during the Late Iron Age was for irregular-shaped enclosures of c.0.5 ha, surrounded by modest ditches (c.2 m wide and c.1 m deep) associated with single roundhouses c.9–10 m in diameter. The ACS site was clearly different. It was larger (0.64 ha) than nearby settlements, its enclosing ditch (2.5 m wide and 1.6 m deep) was on a more defensive scale, the buildings were laid out in a seemingly planned fashion, there was a greater intensity of occupation, and one roundhouse was 15 m in diameter. The material culture from ACS also suggests that it was relatively high-status: there were Dressel 1A and 1B amphorae, shale vessels, and finger rings—none of which have been recovered from contemporary sites elsewhere in the region—while a hoard of Kentish potins was deposited in the large roundhouse. There was far greater evidence for textile production, with eighteen spindle whorls recovered from ACS, compared to one at LTCP(W) and none at the other five Late Iron Age settlements excavated in the area. ACS was the only site to produce loomweights, and while all of the other sites have produced briquetage (ceramic vessels used in salt production), the 752 g recovered from ACS compared to just 262 g from the other six sites combined (Cooke et al. 2008, table 6.8).

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indicate tribal confederations’. More recently he has made the link between pottery and ‘tribal’ areas even more clearly: It is reasonable to ask what, other than simple classificatory convenience, the style-zones may mean in social, economic and political terms. At the very least a style-zone represents a region within which communities maintained contact with each other and shared a range of values. They may also represent regions within which specialist products were distributed through embedded exchange. But it is possible that, in some cases, the conscious choice of decorating pottery in a distinctive manner took with it a sense of communal identity and the desire to distinguish self from others living in the neighbouring areas. In such a case pottery styles become a surrogate for ethnicity. (Cunliffe 2005, 88)

This use of pottery styles as a passive indicator of ethnicity is not, however, straightforward (e.g. Brudenell 2012). The production and exchange of ceramics with a particular style (which embraces a variety of facets such as fabric, form, and decoration) could reflect a variety of factors such as how communities expressed Iron Age coin distribution boundary zones 400’ contour 300’ “ 200’ “ 100’ “

EAST ANGLIA

SOUTH EAST MIDLANDS

NORTH-EASTERN THAMES BASIN Darmsden-Linton ?

East Anglian rusticated jars

?

NORTH-WESTERN THAMES BASIN

Chinnor-Wandlebury 0

50 km

Fig. 2.14. Later Early Iron Age pottery styles mapped against the Late Iron Age coin circulation zones.

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allegiances with particular people and places, including where the raw materials may have come from and where the vessels were manufactured, as well as being a conscious way of expressing social affinities to a particular group. During the latter part of the Early Iron Age what had been a series of relatively broad ceramic traditions was replaced by more regionally specific styles. This regionality in material culture is also seen throughout the Middle and Late Iron, when it is remarkable how closely they relate to the spatial patterning seen in Late Iron Age coin distributions. It is true that occasionally examples of the material culture produced in one region are found in another, but some movement of goods through trade/exchange and the movement of people is to be expected. In the South East Midlands the earliest Iron Age Ivinghoe-Sandy style pottery was replaced by the Chinnor-Wandlebury style (Fig. 2.14), and then in the Middle Iron Age by the use of Scored Ware vessels and Plain Ware bowls (Fig. 2.15). In contrast, although during the earliest Iron Age communities in both East Anglia and the Northern Thames Basin used pottery of the ‘West

boundary zones

EAST ANGLIA

NORTH-EASTERN THAMES BASIN

SOUTH EAST MIDLANDS

JAR CONTINUUM miscellaneous decorated jar assemblage Mucking-Crayford style

NORTH-WESTERN THAMES BASIN 400’ contour 300’ “ 200’ “ 100’ “

BOWL CONTINUUM bowl continuum assemblage Scored Ware Hunsbury-Draughton style

0

50 km

Fig. 2.15. Middle Iron Age pottery styles mapped against the Late Iron Age coin circulation zones.

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Harling-Fengate’ style, in the later Early Iron Age a division emerged roughly along the line of the Gipping and Lark valleys with the development of fingertip rusticated ware in East Anglia and Darmsden-Linton Ware in the Northern Thames Basin (Fig. 2.14). During the Middle Iron Age a sub-division within the eastern part of the Northern Thames Basin emerged, with shell-tempering and the distinctively decorated ‘Mucking-Crayford’ style in southern areas (Fig. 2.15). During the Late Iron Age the ‘Aylesford-Swarling’ culture spread across the Northern Thames Basin, making its earliest appearance in eastern Hertfordshire, from where it soon spread to the North-Eastern Thames Basin (Fig. 2.16). Aspects of the ‘Aylesford-Swarling’ package were also adopted in the South East Midlands, although perhaps rather half-heartedly, while in southern Essex shell-tempering persisted and East Anglia largely held out against this alien culture. While Davies (1999, 41) argues that the Boudican Revolt may have been ‘the point at which the tribe first became a recognizable and unified entity’,

oppida other major Late Iron Age settlement cremation burial(s) Dressel 1 amphorae which may be Dressel 1 or 2–4 Welwyn-type graves

?

?

possible Welwyn-type graves tentative Welwyn-type graves

?

?

?

400’ contour 300’ “ 200’ “ 100’ “

boundary zones

Linford

0

50 km

Fig. 2.16. Elements of the Aylesford-Swarling culture mapped against the Late Iron Age coin circulation zones.

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Hutcheson (2007, 369) suggests that this homogenization of material culture in the first century BC (e.g. Norfolk Wolf staters, silver coin hoards, and ornamented horse equipment) reflects ‘the coming together of the tribe—or federation of tribes—that the Romans subsequently labelled the Iceni’. Overall, there appears to have been a series of long-lived regional traditions in material culture that started to emerge during the Early Iron Age, and became clearer during the Middle and Late Iron Age. Although previously recognized through pottery styles, coin distributions, and the variable adoption of the ‘Aylesford-Swarling’ culture, it is remarkable that as new data become available, such as Adams’ (2014) work on brooches and the analysis of loomweights presented here, the fourfold division of North-Eastern and North-Western Thames Basin, East Anglia, and the South East Midlands becomes clearer and clearer. It is against this material culture background that we will now turn to aspects of the wider landscape as Chapter 3 explores regional variation in the form that Iron Age settlement took, and evidence for territorial boundaries within the landscape.

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3 Iron Age landscape and society The settlement patterns

INTRODUCTION 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

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CUNLIFFE 2005, fig. 4.3

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BRADLEY 2007, fig. 5.14

villages and open settlements open/wandering settlements hillfort-dominated zone mainly hillforts and enclosures enclosed homesteads small defended settlements strongly defended homesteads

0

200 km

HILL 2007, fig. 5

clusters of communities with agglomerated settlements and intense agricultural activities 0

50 km

Fig. 3.1. Previous characterizations of Iron Age settlement patterns in Britain, with the boundary of eastern England added (after Cunliffe 2005, fig. 4.3; Bradley 2007, fig. 5.14; Hill 2007, fig. 5).

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empty landscape that was seasonally exploited by outsiders. What is crucial in the context of this study, however, is not so much that ‘southern Anglia’ was in fact a densely settled region, but that the character of these newly discovered settlements is so different from that of East Anglia and the South East Midlands. REGIONAL VARIATIONS IN SETTLEMENT MORPHOLOGY Iron Age settlements in eastern England were very varied in form, ranging from large heavily defended enclosures (hillforts) through to open settlements that were not surrounded by any boundary feature that survives in the archaeological record (the possibility of a hedge or ephemeral wooden barrier cannot be ruled out). During the Early Iron Age, virtually all non-hillfort settlements were open,1 although from the Middle Iron onwards increasing numbers of settlements in the Northern Thames Basin and South East Midlands were defined by ditched enclosures with one of three main morphologies: rectilinear (usually square), oval, and irregular (Fig. 3.2). Figs. 3.4–3.6 show the distributions of these types for the Early, Middle, and Late Iron Ages based on the data in Appendix 2 (summarized in Table 3.1) that includes 540 phased settlement plans (note that some archaeological sites are multi-period and so are included more than once in this figure, for example because they have both Early and Middle Iron Age occupation). Only settlements are included, not small enclosures that were devoid of domestic occupation and appear to have been used for stock management.2 This mapping and quantification is only based upon sites where it is possible to determine whether a settlement was open or enclosed, and, if enclosed, what the morphology was. Plan A on Fig. 3.3, for example, shows a fictitious excavation with an open settlement in the south of Trench 3, an enclosed farmstead in the north of Trench 3, and other occupation features in Trenches 1–2. If, however, only Trenches 1 and 2 had been excavated (Plan B on Fig. 3.3), then nothing could be said about the settlement morphology as the recorded features could have lain within an enclosure, the southern ditch of which was recorded in Trench 1 (Plan C), or have been part of an open settlement beside a field boundary ditch or stock enclosure (Plan D): such a site may, therefore, appear on Figs. 2.7–2.8—showing the distribution of different ceramic styles—but not on Figs. 3.4–3.6, which show settlement type. If, however, occupation was found 1

At Gold Lane in Bedfordshire there is very little evidence for occupation within an enclosure that may simply represent the continued use of a Late Bronze site (Dawson 2004, 11). While individual roundhouses at Micklemoor Hill in West Harling, Norfolk, were surrounded by ditches, the settlement as a whole was unenclosed (Clark and Fell 1953). The 4-m wide and 0.8 m-deep ditch at Exning, in Suffolk, is more in keeping with a Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age hillfort (Caruth 2006). For Hunts Hill Farm in Essex, see note 4. 2 e.g. Highwood Farm in Great Dunmow, Essex (Timby et al. 2007a, 47–53); Lower Icknield Way in Drayton Beauchamp, Buckinghamshire (Masefield 2008, 23–35).

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Thorpe St Andrew

Salford

Lower Cambourne

Middle Iron Age

Late Iron Age

0

50 m

Conquest period

Orsett Cock

Fig. 3.2. Examples of the major Iron Age settlement types seen in eastern England: small open settlement (Thorpe St Andrew, Norfolk: Westmacott 2007, fig. 3), larger open settlement (Salford, Bedfordshire: Dawson 2005, fig. 51), irregular-shaped enclosure (Lower Cambourne, Cambridgeshire: Wright et al. 2009, fig. 7), and an example of an open settlement replaced by a rectilinear enclosure (Orsett Cock, Essex: Carter 1998, fig. 4).

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A

Kingdom, Civitas, and County

B

Trench 2

C Trench 2

Trench 1 Trench 2

Trench 1 Trench 1

D Trench 2

Trench 3

0

50 m

Trench 1

E

Fig. 3.3. A schematic representation of the scale of excavation sufficient to determine whether a settlement is open or enclosed.

along only part of a linear excavation—for example a pipeline or road—but no substantial enclosure ditches were recorded, then it can at least be classed as an open settlement (Plan E on Fig. 3.3). If substantial ditches were recorded either side of an area of occupation in such a linear excavation, then it would be possible to say that the settlement was enclosed, but unless there are cropmarks or geophysical results, nothing can be said about the morphology of that enclosure. The hillforts of eastern England are relatively few in number, slight in nature, and have seen very little large-scale excavation so there is limited evidence for their function. Cunliffe’s (1974; 1978; 1991; 2005) model of hillforts being the residences of the elite within society that controlled discrete territories has been widely criticized (e.g. see Sharples 2010), with evidence for high-status occupation being hard to find, and the defences seen more in terms of a symbolic enclosure of space (e.g. Bowden and McOmish 1987; Hingley 1990). From the available excavation evidence, however, it appears that hillforts in eastern

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Early Iron Age hillforts

?

? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ??? ? ?? 0

?

50 km

400’ contour 300’ “ 200’ “ 100’ “

0

50 km

0

50 km

?

Middle Iron Age hillforts

?

?

?

? ?

?

Fig. 3.4. The distributions of excavated Early Iron Age settlement types (open and hillforts) and Middle Iron Age hillforts (sources: listed in Appendix 2).

England broadly fit the developmental pattern seen across southern Britain as a whole, with relatively large hilltop enclosures containing limited evidence for occupation in the Early Iron Age, compared to more strongly defended sites during the Middle Iron Age that show more signs of settlement. The character of hillfort defences in eastern England also reflects the trend across southern Britain as a whole, developing from a simple wooden palisade, through a box-like structure with earth and rubble dumped between two parallel rows of timber, then a dumped rampart being built up behind a single timber wall, and finally a ‘glacis’ style of defence without any timber revetment of the bank.3 3

e.g palisade-type defences: Wilbury in Hertfordshire; box ramparts: Ivinghoe Beacon in Buckinghamshire and Maiden Bower and Ravensborough in Bedfordshire; timber-revetted earthen ramparts: Chipping Hill in Essex, and Wandlebury in Cambridgeshire; glacis-type ramparts: Cholesbury in

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open settlements

oval-shaped settlements

0

50 km

irregular-shaped enclosures

0

50 km

0

50 km

regular-shaped enclosures

0

50 km

Fig. 3.5. The distributions of excavated Middle Iron Age settlement types (sources: listed in Appendix 2).

IRON AGE SETTLEMENT IN THE NORTH-EASTERN THAMES BASIN (FIGS. 3.4–3.6) The North-Eastern Thames Basin is a region with a large number of excavated Iron Age settlements, although such is the pace of development-led archaeology that previous overviews are now out of date (Drury 1980; Drury and Rodwell 1980; Sealey 1996; Martin 1999a; 1999b). Altogether, there are ninety-seven Iron Age settlements where there are sufficient data to determine whether the site was open or enclosed, including twenty-seven Early Iron Age, forty Middle Iron Age, and thirty Late Iron Age. Buckinghamshire and Ambresbury Banks in Essex, along with the later phases of Chipping Hill, Maiden Down, Ravensborough, and Wilbury (Alexander et al. 1978; Rodwell 1993, 31; Bryant 1995, 21; Cunliffe 2005, 249–51).

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oppida

?

? ?

?

0

400’ contour 300’ “ 200’ “ 100’ “ 50 km

irregular-shaped enclosures

?

0

regular-shaped enclosures

0

50 km

50 km

?

?

?

?

?

0

50 km

Fig. 3.6. The distributions of excavated Late Iron Age settlement types (sources: listed in Appendix 2).

Early Iron Age: unenclosed farmsteads and small ‘hillforts’ During the Early Iron Age all non-hillfort settlement within the North-Eastern Thames Basin (including Hunts Hill Farm4) was unenclosed, with most sites characterized by scattered pits, post holes, roundhouses, and four-post structures that were probably raised granaries. Sites are mostly on lighter soils in the south and the east of the region, while fewer examples have been recorded on the heavier claylands. There were also a small number of hillforts that have been

4 The enclosed settlement at Hunts Hill Farm, in Upminster, which replaced an Early Iron Age open settlement, comprised an almost square enclosure S109, measuring c.29 by 30 m, and contained one large roundhouse and a smaller circular building: ceramically, it has been dated to the Early Iron Age, but the three radiocarbon dates are Middle Iron Age (Greenwood et al. 2006, 27–30; Howell et al. 2011, 44–6). Typologically, this is firmly of Middle Iron Age type.

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Table 3.1. The morphology of non-hillfort Iron Age settlement (based upon the data in Appendix 2). North-Eastern Thames Basin

Total

Open

Enclosed: rectilinear

Enclosed: irregular

Enclosed: oval

North-Western Thames Basin

South East Midlands

East Anglia

Total

EIA

27

21

61

33

142

MIA

40

25

146

27

238

LIA

30

27

78

25

160

Total

97

73

285

85

540

EIA

27 (100%)

21 (100%)

61 (100%) 33 (100%)

142

MIA

21 (52%)

19 (76%)

83 (57%)

27 (100%)

150

LIA

5 (17%)

7 (26%)

13 (17%)

16 (64%)

41

EIA

0

0

0

0

0

MIA

15 (38%)

4 (16%)

20 (14%)

0

39

LIA

25 (83%)

12 (44%)

27 (34%)

9 (36%)

73

EIA

0

0

MIA

0

2 (8%)

LIA

0

8 (30%)

EIA

0

0

4 (10%) 0

MIA LIA

0

0

43 (29%)

0

45

38 (49%)

0

46

0

0

0

0

0

0

4

0

0

0

0

0

dated to the Early Iron Age that are all univallate, ovoid in plan, and modest in size (c.2.4–5.0 ha).5 Little is known about the nature of the activity within them, although, where excavations have occurred within the interior, they have produced only very limited evidence of occupation. At Asheldham, for example, a small excavation in the centre of the hillfort revealed no evidence for Early Iron Age occupation, although a number of pits and post holes were found in trenches close to the ramparts, suggesting some occupation in a zone just inside the defences (Bedwin 1991, 17–23); this was also the case at Danbury (Morris 5 Asheldham (Bedwin 1991); Danbury (Morris and Buckley 1978); Prittlewell (also known as Fossett’s Farm Camp and Grove Field Camp) (Mepham 1930; the Scheduling description suggests an Early Iron Age date); Loughton (Morris and Buckley 1978, 24); Wallbury (Morris and Buckley 1978, 24). Ring Hill in Littlebury is undated but the style of the defences is thought to be Early Iron Age (Oswald 1999). A recent survey of the earthwork on the Langdon Hills found no evidence for a hillfort and the pottery previously assigned to the ‘Early Iron Age’ (Morris and Buckley 1978, 22) is now thought to be Bronze Age (Isserlin 1995a).

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and Buckley 1978). The function of these hillforts remains unclear, although it is striking how few and far between they were, suggesting that the vast majority of agricultural land must have been managed from other settlements. As such, it is tempting to see these hillforts as being of significance for an entire district, perhaps as communal meeting places, storage facilities, or refuges at times of unrest. Considerable resources will have been required to build them, suggesting some form of communal organization, and the act of constructing these monumental enclosures may itself have been of significance (Bowden and McOmish 1987; Hingley 1990; Sharples 2010, 116, 122). This concept of ‘potlatch’—‘the conspicuous consumption of labour and resources, as a means of defining communities and showing muscle power as well as wealth’ (Sharples 2010, 122; Giles 2012, 47)—could also apply to the construction of linear boundaries such as dykes (see the section on linear earthworks later in this chapter). Middle Iron Age: a move towards enclosure The tradition of open settlement in the North-Eastern Thames Basin continued into the Middle Iron Age, with twenty-one (52 per cent) of the settlements whose character can be determined being unenclosed, most of the rest being a new form of settlement: small, mostly rectangular, enclosed farmsteads measuring c.35 to 45 m (0.16 ha) with a single main roundhouse and occasionally a small number of ancillary buildings (a smaller roundhouse or four-post structure). These rectangular enclosed farmsteads account for 38 per cent of the excavated Middle Iron Age settlements in the North-Eastern Thames Basin whose character can be determined, and in various places open settlements were replaced by enclosures within a single excavated area.6 This pattern of small enclosed farmsteads is also found in southern Suffolk, reflecting how that area was very much part of the North-Eastern Thames Basin.7 In addition to these rectangular enclosed farmsteads there were also a smaller number of larger oval-shaped enclosed settlements covering c.0.6–1.4 ha that contained numerous substantial roundhouses and which account for 10 per cent of the excavated Middle Iron Age settlements whose character can be determined. Of the Early Iron Age ‘hillforts’, only Asheldham has evidence for continued use into the Middle Iron Age, although the scale of excavations at the other sites is so limited that the possibility of continued occupation cannot be ruled out. There is evidence for the construction of at least five new hillforts: Ambresbury Banks in Epping (Alexander et al. 1978),8 Chipping Hill in Witham (Rodwell 6

Ardale School, North Shoebury, Howell Farm in Great Totham, the Orsett Cock, and the Olympic Park in West Ham (Wilkinson 1988; Wymer and Brown 1995; Wallis and Waughman 1998, 109–21; Carter 1998; Powell 2012, 46–52). 7 Cedars Park in Stowmarket (Martin et al. 2000, 529; 2002, 231–2; 2003, 367; 2005, 128; 2006, 255); County Farm in Chilton, near Sudbury (Martin et al. 1998, 222–4; Martin 1999a, 49); Foxhall (Martin et al. 1992, 384–6; Martin 1999a, 62). 8 The glacis-style defences at Ambresbury, which lacked any evidence for timber box ramparts or revetment, are suggestive of a Middle Iron Age date.

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1993), Pitchbury in Great Horkesley (Morris and Buckley 1978), Shoebury Camp (Gifford and Partners 1999; Eddisford 2005; Mattinson 2005, 17–22), and Uphall Camp in Ilford (Greenwood 2001; Brown and Massey-Ryan 2004, fig. 44; Greenwood et al. 2006, 42–3). Two (Chipping Hill and Pitchbury) are similar to those of the Early Iron Age in being oval in shape and modest in scale (2.5–3.5 ha), and while partly lost to coastal erosion, the camp at Shoebury appears to have been similar. Uphall, in contrast, was vast, covering 24 ha. A hillfort may also once have existed on a hilltop overlooking the river Stour at Sudbury, in southern Suffolk, whose Old English place-name means ‘southern fort’; the pattern of roads around St Gregory’s church suggests the former presence of an enclosure of some 9 ha, within which excavations in 1989 produced evidence for Middle Iron Age occupation (Martin et al. 1990, 162–3; Martin 1999a, 62; Watts 2004, 588). The undated bivallate 5.25 ha enclosure at Clare, also in southern Suffolk, may be another hillfort (Martin 1999a, 59–62, fig. 3.8). There is greater evidence for domestic occupation within these hillforts than for the Early Iron Age, in the form of roundhouses, four-post structures, and pits (Asheldham, Chipping Hill, Shoebury, and Uphall Camp). As in the Early Iron Age, it is noticeable how these Middle Iron Age hillforts are relatively evenly distributed across the southern and eastern parts of the region, usually on locally high ground overlooking major estuaries and river valleys. While there is no need to evoke the traditional model of Middle Iron Age hillforts as elite residences controlling discrete territories (e.g. Cunliffe 1974; 1978; 1991; 2005), some function as district centres is indicated by their relatively regular spacing and the considerable effort that would have been required to construct their defences. In being visible from considerable distances they would have provided a sense of security and identity for the local population (Sharples 2010, 61). Late Iron Age During the Late Iron Age there is a decline in the number of identified settlements (Sealey 2016), although the trend towards rectilinear enclosure continues, such sites comprising 83 per cent of the excavated Late Iron Age sites whose character can be determined. There were relatively few open settlements, all in the north of the region. Of the enclosed settlements, all were now rectilinear and the majority contained a single main roundhouse. Several ‘hillforts’ saw continued or renewed occupation during the Late Iron Age (Chipping Hill, Pitchbury, and Uphall), although none of these appear to have been particularly high-status settlements. There was, however, a new type of settlement which emerges in this period that have in the past been termed ‘oppida’ (see Appendix 4 for short summaries of the evidence from each site). It is striking that no oppida have been identified in southern Essex, an area that appears to have also seen differences in coin circulation, ceramic styles, and fewer imported amphorae (Chapter 2).

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IRON AGE SETTLEMENT IN THE NORTH-WESTERN THAMES BASIN (FIGS. 3.4–3.6) Although a considerable amount of fieldwork has been carried out on the Late Iron Age oppida of the North-Western Thames Basin, much less is known about the rest of the Iron Age settlement pattern (Bryant 1995; 2011a; Hunn 1996). The known Iron Age settlements mostly lie on the chalky soils of the Chilterns or in the major river valleys to the south, leaving the Boulder Clay plateau, claywith-flints on the Chiltern dip slope, and the southern uplands (the London Clay) seemingly devoid of occupation, which may be a genuine reflection of the sparsely settled nature of these districts due to their particularly poor soils (Thompson 2015, 123). There is a total of seventy-three phased Iron Age settlements (i.e. where there are sufficient data to determine whether the site was open or enclosed), including twenty-one Early Iron Age, twenty-five Middle Iron Age, and twenty-seven Late Iron Age. Early Iron Age The excavated Early Iron Age settlements in the North-Western Thames Basin whose form could be characterized were all unenclosed. The series of hillforts on the Chilterns is discussed below. Middle Iron Age While the tradition of open settlement continued in the majority of cases (nineteen sites, 76 per cent), this region also sees the appearance of enclosures. In common with the North-Eastern Thames Basin, most of these were rectilinear, although there are also less regular forms that have some similarities with those seen in the South East Midlands (discussed later in this chapter), the most easterly of which are near Bishop’s Stortford in north-eastern Hertfordshire and the M11 Site at Stansted Airport in north-western Essex (Fig. 3.7; Cooke et al. 2008; Albion Archaeology 2014). These parallels between Hertfordshire and the South East Midlands are interesting as the earliest Early Iron Age pottery from Hertfordshire has parallels with the Ivinghoe-Sandy style of the South East Midlands rather than the West Harling-Fengate style that dominates farther east. The Middle Iron Age hillforts in the North-Western Thames Basin are all in peripheral locations, with a series along the Chilterns (discussed later in this chapter) and two— Danesfield (in Medmenham) and Taplow—close to the Thames. Limited excavations at Danesfield revealed several Middle Iron Age pits, ditches, and gullies within the interior of the hillfort (Keevill and Campbell 1991), and similarly very limited work at Taplow revealed at least one roundhouse within its interior (Allen et al. 2009).

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Cambourne

Bishop’s Stortford North

M11 Site, Stansted Airport

Scotland Farm, Dry Drayton

0

50 m

Fig. 3.7. Two irregular-shaped Middle Iron Age enclosures in the North-Western Thames Basin at ‘North of Bishop’s Stortford’ (after Albion Archaeology 2014, figs. 4–5) and the M11 Site at Stansted Airport (Cooke et al. 2008, fig. 5.4), alongside comparable sites in the South East Midlands at Cambourne (Wright et al. 2009, fig. 7) and Scotland Farm in Dry Drayton (Abrams and Ingham 2008, fig. 2.1; and see Ingham 2008 and 2010 for the Late Iron Age site to the north).

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Late Iron Age During the Late Iron Age, a particularly distinctive feature of the settlement pattern in Hertfordshire is a series of extensive, polyfocal, high-status settlements that have become widely known as oppida. Four definite examples have been identified, at Baldock, Braughing, Verulamium, and Welwyn, with possible examples in the Bulbourne valley (Ashridge and Cow Roast) and at Wheathampstead (see Appendix 4: Bryant and Niblett 1997; Bryant 2007). Although they individually vary in their nature, there is a common set of characteristics, with most sites having defensive dykes, imported pottery (Dressel 1A amphorae and Gallo-Belgic imports), other evidence for high-status occupation (e.g. the minting of coins), and rich ‘Welwyn-type’ burials. The nature of settlement beyond these high-status complexes is less clear. In places the tradition of open settlements continued (26 per cent), although there was a marked move towards enclosure, both rectilinear (44 per cent), as seen in the North-Eastern Thames Basin, and irregular (30 per cent), as typified the South East Midlands. IRON AGE SETTLEMENT IN EAST ANGLIA (FIGS. 3.4–3.6) Although there has been less excavation in East Anglia than in the other regions, the work that has been carried out is revealing Iron Age settlement spread right across the region (Martin 1989; Ashwin 1999). There is a total of eighty-five phased Iron Age settlements where there are sufficient data to determine whether the site was open or enclosed, consisting of thirty-three Early Iron Age, twentyseven Middle Iron Age, and twenty-five Late Iron Age. Early Iron Age The thirty-three Early Iron Age settlements whose character can be determined were all unenclosed.9 Sites are scattered right across the region, and typically consisted of scattered roundhouses, four-post structures, and pits.10 East Anglia noticeably lacks the small univallate hillforts that are found across the Northern Thames Basin, although the potentially enclosed settlement at Exning, on the southern edge of the region, and whose 4 m-wide ditch was just 0.8 m deep, may be Late Bronze Age or Early Iron Age (Caruth 2006).

9

For a long time the best-known Early Iron Age site was at Micklemoor Hill in West Harling (Breckland), but this has in fact turned out to be far from typical as several individual roundhouses were surrounded by individual circular banks and ditches just c.25 m in diameter (Clark and Fell 1953): these are regarded here as part of an open settlement as the ditches surround individual roundhouses rather than the settlement as a whole. 10 e.g. Cauldron Field in Feltwell, Snarehill in Brettenham, and Redgate Hill in Hunstanton (Davies 2009, 90); to which we can add the unpublished sites at Brandon Road in Swaffham (Barker et al. 2005), Longdell Hill in Easton (Boyle 2004), and Cringleford Park and Ride near Norwich (Watkins 2006).

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Middle Iron Age During the Middle Iron Age all twenty-seven of the non-hillfort settlements that have been excavated were once again open (e.g. Heard 2016).11 Some sites are characterized only by pit groups, with D. Robertson (2004, 515) arguing that ‘while the pits might represent a settlement site, this seems unlikely given the low density of features and their widespread distribution’, and that ‘pit digging may only have taken place occasionally and/or seasonally’. On many more recently excavated sites, however, these pits are associated with the post holes of roundhouses and/or four-post structures, and it may be that these ephemeral features were missed in earlier excavations. The later Middle Iron Age saw the construction of five or six substantial enclosed sites that are the closest Norfolk comes to hillforts (Davies 2009, 95–100). Two are characterized by their near perfect circular shape, quite unlike the Essex sites. The earliest—Bloodgate Hill in South Creake—is univallate, c.3.5 ha, and dates to the third century BC (Penn 2006), while the possibly second-to first-century BC bivallate enclosure at Warham is impressive in terms of the scale of its defences, but at just c.1.5 ha is under half the size of the smaller Essex hillforts (Gregory and Gurney 1986, 14–16, 22–6). Limited survey and excavations suggest little occupation within the interiors of these two forts.12 Two small undated forts are sub-rectangular in plan: the partially bivallate 2.5 ha enclosure at Holkham, and the 1.5 ha univallate enclosure at Narborough13 (Davies et al. 1991; Davies 2009, 96). Only the bivallate enclosure at Thetford, covering around 6 ha in a bend in the river Thet, was on a similar scale to the hillforts in the Northern Thames Basin: it was occupied in the Middle Iron Age and very small-scale excavations within the interior revealed a few features indicative of occupation (a pit, gully, and a few post holes: Davies et al. 1991, 3–30). It is possible that the enclosure at Bawsey, near Kings Lynn, has an Iron Age origin as a number of finds of that date have been recovered from the site (Davies 2009, 99). The substantial double ditch excavated at Recreation Way in Mildenhall, Suffolk, may relate to a hillfort due to the scale of the two ditches (8.9 and 6.8 m wide, and 3.0 and 2.9 m deep: Havard and Holt 2012): these are on a far larger scale than the small domestic enclosures found across the Northern Thames Basin and South East Midlands, which were typically 3–5 m wide and 0.8–1.2 m deep. It is striking that all these possible hillforts lie in the 11 A possible exception is a rectilinear enclosure at Valley Belt in Trowse, one side of which measured 55 m, although the small part of the interior that was excavated was devoid of occupation (Ashwin and Bates 2000). 12 At South Creake a fieldwalking survey produced just six Iron Age sherds, while a geophysical survey carried out under good conditions revealed little evidence for occupation; a metal-detector survey produced no finds (Penn 2006, 5–8). At Warham, limited trenching in the interior produced very few finds (Davies et al. 1991, 59–61). 13 Davies (2009) gives the area as 6 ha but this is incorrect as the accompanying plan and more detailed description in Davies et al. (1991, 66–8) clearly show.

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west of East Anglia, and the only potential example in the eastern half of Norfolk is the 6.2 ha enclosure at Tasburgh, for which the prevailing view is that it dates to the late ninth century AD or later (Davies et al. 1991, 31–58). Late Iron Age During the Late Iron Age there is a mix of open (64 per cent) and enclosed (36 per cent) settlements, all of the latter being rectilinear. Many sites are similar in character to those of the Middle Iron Age: unenclosed scatters of pits and other occupation-related features, sometimes associated with ditched trackways and field systems within which there was scattered occupation. A number of farmsteads, however, follow the trend towards enclosure seen much earlier in the Northern Thames Basin (e.g. Warham, Wighton, and Thornham) and Gregory and Gurney (1986, 32) note the similarity in these sites, including their plan and elevated hillslope locations, suggesting that ‘they represent a group of structures, the builders of which intended them to be similar, perhaps because they were intended to fulfil similar functions’. A series of other sites also in northern and western Norfolk known only from cropmarks have very similar forms (Alby, Bintree, Bodham, and Great Massingham), although a very similar enclosure at Heacham has produced a surface scatter of ‘Iron Age’ pottery (Gregory and Gurney 1986, 32). We can now add Spong Hill to this group of Late Iron Age rectangular enclosures (Rickett 1995, 10). A series of sites in Breckland are suggestive of a focus for high-status activity. At Barnham a large (c.1 ha), roughly square-shaped double-ditched enclosure was constructed during the Late Iron Age which is far larger than the small (c.0.25 ha) univallate enclosures in north-west Norfolk: the range of finds suggests a ritual as opposed to domestic function, which was also the case at the bivallate enclosure at Fison Way, in Thetford, just 7 km to the north (Gregory 1992a; Martin 1999a, 60–2; 1993, 21). The Iron Age fortified site that lies beneath Thetford Castle, coin moulds from Thetford, and the large number of Icenian coins from the area, suggest that this part of the Little Ouse valley may have been a political focus for the Iceni. Davies (2009) has identified two other possible polyfocal sites where he postulates ‘suggested oppida’: Caistor St Edmund and Saham Toney/Ashill. Each is characterized by a large amount of coinage and metalwork found through metal detecting, and Saham Toney (like Thetford) has produced coin moulds. Although little Iron Age material has been found from beneath the later Roman town (Bowden 2017, 21), the nearby Roman temple has produced large numbers of Icenian coins and may have been a ritual focus analogous to Folly Lane near Verulamium and Gosbecks near Camulodunum (Creighton 2006, 142). Each of these complexes covers several square kilometres, although a lack of excavation means that they remain ill-understood (although see Bates 2000 for the limited excavations at Saham Toney). Their emergence, however, may be part of a

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broader pattern within Late Iron Age East Anglia of a convergence in practices with those seen in the Northern Thames Basin (also reflected in the appearance of rectangular enclosures around settlements, and the adoption of some components of the ‘Belgic’ ceramic suite). IRON AGE SETTLEMENT IN THE SOUTH EAST MIDLANDS (FIGS. 3.4–3.6) Iron Age settlements in the South East Midlands have seen a considerable amount development-led excavation, meaning that the published overviews (e.g. Knight 1984; Bryant 1995; Dawson 2000b; 2004) are increasingly out of date. It was once thought, for example, that open settlements were rare in this region, although it now appears that they were common. There are 285 phased Iron Age settlements where there are sufficient data to determine whether they were open or enclosed, including 61 Early Iron Age, 146 Middle Iron Age, and 78 Late Iron Age. Early Iron Age During the Early Iron Age all of the non-hillfort settlements in the South East Midlands were open,14 occasionally with evidence for small enclosures probably used for corralling livestock. In addition to a line of hillforts along the Chiltern edge (discussed below), there were several hillforts in the lowlands, of which the most substantial were at Danesborough (2.4 ha) and Mowsbury (5.8 ha), both in Bedfordshire (Berry 1926; Dring 1971; Dawson 2000b, 118). A probable hillfort at Brill, in Buckinghamshire (Farley 1989), also dates to this period but its size is unknown. The small hillforts/defended enclosures at Galley Hill (0.7 ha) and the Lodge (0.8 ha) near Sandy, in Bedfordshire, may also have been constructed in the Early Iron Age (Dyer 1971; Dawson 1995, 171; Archer and Abrams 2006). Along with Danesborough, Mowsbury, and the sites near Sandy, Brill forms a pattern of widely spaced defended sites that is similar to that in the North-Eastern Thames Basin, and is in sharp contrast to East Anglia, where such sites are absent. The function of these hillforts is, however, unclear. A limited excavation of c.110 m2 at the centre of Sandy Lodge revealed no occupation (Dyer 1971), while very small-scale trenching at nearby Galley Hill revealed a single pit and a post hole (Archer and Abrams 2006); the other hillforts have not seen excavations within their interiors.

14 The unpublished irregular-shaped Enclosure V at Rectory Farm, Great Shelford, may date to the Early Iron Age, as 145 sherds of that date were retrieved from the enclosure ditch, although the roundhouse that lay within the enclosure was associated with ‘later Iron Age pottery’, suggesting that the Early Iron Age material may have been residual (Evans 2008, 166–8).

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Middle Iron Age Although it has traditionally been assumed that enclosed settlements predominated in this region during the Middle Iron Age (e.g. Williams and Zeepvat 1994, 54), recent development-led work away from cropmark sites has revealed large numbers of open settlements that comprise 57 per cent of the 146 excavated sites. The character of these open settlements changes little, consisting of scattered pits, roundhouses, and four-post structures, occasionally within the context of ditched field systems. Some sites show a marked linearity, and while this could represent a distinctive sub-regional tradition, it is unlikely that all of the roundhouses were occupied at the same time and the linear arrangement could reflect the way that a small settlement shifted location over time.15 While the Early Iron Age tradition of open settlement clearly continued into the Middle Iron Age, there was also a marked shift towards enclosure (43 per cent of sites), a transition that is evident at places such as Pennylands (Williams 1993, fig. 24) and Stagsden (Dawson 2000a). A distinctive feature of Middle Iron Age enclosures in the South East Midlands, compared to the Northern Thames Basin, is their irregular shape (Evans and Hodder 2006, 317; Brudenell and Evans 2007, 62; Evans 2008, 170), a good example of which is Lower Cambourne, in Cambridgeshire, where two conjoined irregular-shaped enclosures lay adjacent to a trackway that formed part of a larger rectilinear ditched field system (Fig. 3.2; Wright et al. 2009). In fact, the majority of Middle Iron Age settlement enclosures in the South East Midlands were irregular in plan, occurring individually and in clusters. The most southerly examples in the Middle Iron Age were found on the Chilterns (e.g. Butterfield Green, in Luton: Luke et al. 2007). Square/rectangular enclosures are less common, although they are found in large numbers to the west of Fenland, where Brudenell and Evans (2007, 62) have suggested that formalized sub-square enclosures are a ‘type-fossil’ of Middle Iron Age Scored Ware-using communities along the south-western fen-edge, in contrast to inland areas to the south, where more irregularly shaped compounds were more common (Evans and Hodder 2006, 321–4). There are a large number of hillforts within the South East Midlands that date to the Middle Iron Age, of which those on the Chilterns and running from the chalk hills of south-eastern Cambridgeshire to the edge of Fenland are discussed below. Three other hillforts—located more centrally within the region—date to this period: Aylesbury (Farley and Jones 2012), Danesborough (Berry 1926; Atkins et al. 2014, 6), and the 2.8 ha Caesar’s Camp, which is undated but 15

e.g. Bancroft (Williams and Zeepvat 1994), Oxley Park West (Brown et al. 2009), Pennylands (Williams 1993, fig. 24), and Tattenhoe Park (Taylor 2010), all near Milton Keynes in Buckinghamshire, and Salford in Bedfordshire (Dawson 2005).

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probably belongs to this period as the ramparts are of dump construction (Hawkes and Dunning 1930, 258; Dyer 1971, 9; Bryant 1995, 21–2; Dawson 1995, 171; Dawson 2000b, 118; Archer and Abrams 2006, 18). Unfortunately, there have not been any excavations within Caesar’s Camp or Danesborough, although Aylesbury appears to have contained extensive occupation. Late Iron Age At many sites across the South East Midlands the tradition of open settlement continued into the Late Iron Age (17 per cent of the seventy-eight sites in the database), although the trend towards enclosure continued, as seen at Little Common Farm in Cambourne, where a single roundhouse and associated pit were replaced by an irregular-shaped enclosure (Wright et al. 2009). The majority of enclosures were irregular in plan, often showing continuity from the Middle Iron Age (e.g. Prickwillow Road and Wardy Hill in Ely: Atkins and Mudd 2003; Evans 2003). Many sites, however, saw the construction of square or rectangular enclosures, such as at New Whimple, in Cambridgeshire, where an open settlement comprising three roundhouses was superseded by a square enclosure (Price et al. 1997, 12–20). In many cases, however, enclosures are more sub-rectangular than square, and are clearly different in morphology from the contemporary enclosures in the Northern Thames Basin. The enclosure ditches were also often less substantial than those in the Northern Thames Basin: at Farmstead 5 in the Biddenham Loop, for example, a rectilinear enclosure was defined by a ditch just 1 m wide and 0.5 m deep (Luke 2008). No oppida have been recognized within the South East Midlands, although several sites may have served as communal centres: the defences at Wandlebury hillfort were strengthened (Anon 1992; French 2004; Webley 2005), and while the multivallate Stonea Camp may at least in part belong to this period, extensive fieldwalking and trenching revealed little evidence for occupation (Malim 1992; Jackson and Potter 1996). DEFINING SPACE ON A LANDSCAPE SCALE Pit alignments (Fig. 3.8) Pit alignments were a long-lived tradition dating from the Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age16 through to the Middle Iron Age17 (Fig. 3.8) (Bryant and Burleigh 1995, 92; Rylatt and Bevan 2007; Phillips 2009, 66, 152). They can sometimes be traced for several kilometres, and at least some pits contained wooden posts that will 16 e.g. Biddenham Loop, Beds (Luke 2016); Stoke Hammond and Gayhurst Quarry, Bucks (Edgeworth 2006; Chapman 2007); Eynesbury in Cambridgeshire (Ellis 2004). 17 e.g. Biddenham Loop, Beds (Luke 2008, 121–6); Fenny Lock, Bucks (Ford and Taylor 2001); Hall Farm in Westley, Suffolk (Beverton 2011).

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Iron Age coin circulation boundary zones

PIT ALIGNMENTS excavated cropmark (certain) 400’ contour 300’ “ 200’ “ 100’ “

cropmark (possible) 0

50 km

Fig. 3.8. The distribution of Iron Age pit alignments, showing their marked concentration in the South East Midlands.

have increased their visual impact, although it may have been the act of creating pit alignments that was most significant, as there is sometimes no evidence of any attempt to keep them open through re-cutting (Pollard 1996; Luke 2008, 32; 2016, 137). Their design—a series of discrete pits as opposed to a continuous ditch—might indicate that they were not intended to inhibit movement, suggesting that they were of symbolic significance (although in some cases there is an associated natural watercourse).18 As many pit alignments have been located through aerial photography, their distribution is heavily biased towards areas of lighter soils, notably river gravels, although excavation shows that they were also occasionally found on heavier 18

e.g. St Ives in Cambs (Pollard 1996); Salford and Castle Mill Airfield in Beds (Bedfordshire Archaeological Service 1995; Pixley and Preece 2002; Dawson 2005); Biddenham in Beds (Barker and Luke 2007; Luke 2008, 32; Luke and Barber 2008; Barker et al. 2010).

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soils, such as Eltisley in Cambridgeshire (Cambs HER 02403). Bearing in mind this bias, however, it is clear that pit alignments were not found right across eastern England, being particularly common in the South East Midlands as far south as the Chilterns.19 The three stretches of Middle Iron Age segmented ditch at Harston Mill in the Cam valley are surely part of this tradition of land division, marking the eastern edge of its core area (O’Brien 2016). There are far fewer sites in East Anglia than in the South East Midlands, with just a single excavated site in Norfolk at Bittering (Ashwin and Flitcroft 1999), although the National Mapping Programme has revealed several sites showing up as cropmarks.20 There are also very few sites in Suffolk—a single Middle Iron Age example excavated at Hall Farm in Westley (Beverton 2011) and four possible sites identified as cropmarks—all of which are within or to the north of the Gipping and Lark valleys.21 There is just a single possible example in the North-Western Thames Basin, at Wheathampstead,22 and no recorded examples in the North-Eastern Thames Basin. Overall, pit alignments were clearly an approach towards land division that was most common in the South East Midlands, adopted to a certain extent in East Anglia, but rejected in the Northern Thames Basin. Linear earthworks (dykes) (Fig. 3.9) Linear earthworks are a well-known feature in Iron Age Britain, although they are more characteristic of some areas (e.g. Salisbury Plain: Bradley et al. 1994; Bowden et al. 2015, 72–5; the Yorkshire Wolds: Bevan 1997; Stoertz 1997; Fenton-Thomas 2008; Giles 2012) than others, and only a small number are known in eastern England. In East Anglia, Black Ditches runs north–south from the floodplain of the Lark south across Cavenham and Risby Poor Heaths and up the edge of the High Boulder Clay Plateau (West 1985, 3, 170, figs. 2 and 4; Warner 1996, 67). With the ditch to the west, it would have blocked access into the Icenian heartland from the west, and although excavations in 1992 revealed no direct dating evidence, a parallel ditch contained Late Iron Age pottery (Davies 1996, 77). The Devil’s Ditch in Garboldisham (c.3.2 km long), Launditch in Mileham (c.6 km long), and Panworth Ditch in Ashill (c.1.8 km long) all lie in central Norfolk and also have their ditches to the west (Davies 1996, 75–6;

19 Ashwell: HertsHER 766, 2415, 7892; Radwell: HertsHER 12744; Wallington: HertsHER 2721; Hartfield: . 20 Belton-with-Browston (NorHER43544); Brancaster (NorHER 27066); East Ruston (NorHER 38713); Hanworth (NorHER 38480); Hopton-on-Sea (NorHER 43529); Postwick-with-Witton (NorHER 52042; 52047; 52048); Stiffkey (NorHER 31440); Watlington (NorHER 36706). 21 Covehithe (SuffHER084); Great Saxham (SuffHER SXG013); Ramsholt (SuffHER RMS003); Levington (SNH005). The ‘pit alignment or trapezoidal arrangement of large pits/postholes’ at Clare is not convincing as a true pit alignment (SuffHER CLA018). 22 Wheathampstead: HertsHER 16868.

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POTTERY

7. BELSAR’S HILL

Hunsbury-Draughtonstyle bowls other bowl-dominated assemblages

Launditch

Scored Ware

Panworth Ditch

Devil’s Ditch

6. ARBURY

7

Black Ditches

?6

5 3

4

2 Aves Ditch

?

1 selected hillforts

400’ contour 300’ “ 200’ “ 100’ “

1. MAIDEN BOWER

0 2. WILBURY HILL

50 km

5. WAR DITCHES

4. WANDLEBURY

3. BOROUGH HILL

0

150 m

Fig. 3.9. The distributions of Iron Age dykes, Middle Iron Age hillforts along the Chiltern ridge and in south-eastern Cambridgeshire, and Middle Iron Age ‘Scored Ware’ and other assemblages dominated by bowls (Cunliffe’s (2005), fig. 5.9 ‘Bowl Continuum’). Hillfort plans: Arbury (Evans and Knight 2002, fig. 2); Belsar’s Hill (Hall 1996, fig. 79); Borough Hill, Sawston (Anon. 1992; John Samuels 2003, fig. 3); Maiden Bower (Pollard and Hamilton 1994, fig. 3); Wandlebury (French 2004, fig. 3); and Wilbury Hill (Applebaum 1949, fig. 1).

Chester-Kadwell 2009, 58). Launditch appears to have been constructed during the Iron Age (Ashwin and Flitcroft 1999), and Devil’s Ditch and Panworth Ditch are morphologically very similar and so may also date to this period (WadeMartins 1974; Davies 1996, 76; 2009, 94–5). These dykes all lie on the high ground that runs north–south through central East Anglia (note that Bichamditch and Fossditch—shown as Iron Age dykes on Davies 2009, fig. 62—are probably early medieval: see Chapter 12). There are also a series of linear ditches along the Chiltern Hills which fall into three categories: first, several long ‘contour dykes’ which flank the Bulbourne valley and are collectively known as the ‘Grim’s Ditch’; second, a series of seven

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shorter ‘cross-ridge’ dykes that run across the Icknield Way on the Chilterns (e.g. Dray’s Ditches and Mile Ditches); and third, a series of dykes running roughly parallel to the Icknield Way to the east of Baldock (Bryant 1995, 26; Bryant and Burleigh 1995; Burleigh 1995, 106–7). Bryant and Burleigh (1995) argue that the cross-dykes divide up the Chiltern landscape into a series of roughly equal-sized territories, but unfortunately most of them are poorly dated: some post-date Bronze Age barrows, and excavations at Grim’s Ditch in Ivinghoe (Davis 1981; Davis and Evans 1984), Berkhampsted (Last 2001), Dray’s Ditches in Streatley, and Mile Ditches in Royston have established an Iron Age date (Dyer 1961; Burleigh 1978–80; Bryant 2015, 60). Dyer (1961, 39) suggests that Dray’s Ditches formed the ‘southern boundary of a tribal territory’, although this is a problematic concept in two related ways: first, it is unclear whether social structures in the Early Iron Age can be classed as ‘tribal’, and second, there are so many of these dykes on the Chilterns that they can at most have divided the landscape into territories equivalent in size to the early medieval regiones and pagi documented in Anglo-Saxon charters (see Chapter 7). Just to the west of the study area, in north-eastern Oxfordshire, lies the west-facing Aves Ditch, which runs for 4.2 km to the east of the Cherwell and which is dated to the second quarter of the first century AD. Sauer (2005, 30–6) has suggested that along with the South Oxfordshire Grim’s Ditch, Aves Ditch marked the south-western boundary of the Catuvellauni, and the Cherwell valley does indeed appear to mark the western limit of the distribution of Cunobelin’s coins (e.g. Salway 1981, 60; Branigan 1987, 27–8). Substantial dykes such as these have been interpreted in various ways, and while in recent years they have been seen as largely symbolic structures, Sauer (2005, 37) has recently reiterated the case for them having had a defensive function. Hillforts and territorial boundaries Although some Early and Middle Iron Age hillforts are spread across the landscape in a way that suggests they served as central places for districts perhaps on the scale of early medieval regiones, others occur in liminal zones that—based upon the distributions of coinage, pottery styles, and settlement morphologies—may have been major territorial boundaries. The first of these runs along the Chiltern Hills (Fig. 3.9),23 and while the function of these hillforts 23 Boddington Camp (Pollard and Hamilton 1994, 16); Cholesbury Camp (Kimball 1933; Bryant 1995, 22); Southend Hill (Cotton and Frere 1968); Maiden Bower (Pollard and Hamilton 1994; Bryant 1995, 22); Ravensburgh (Dyer 1976), which may have replaced the Early Iron Age promontory fort at Sharpenhoe Clappers (Dix 1983); Wilbury Hill (Applebaum 1949; Bryant 1995, 22), which may have replaced an underlying earlier less substantial enclosure (Pollard and Hamilton 1994, 16); and Arbury Banks (Bryant 1995, 24; Dawson 2000b, 118).

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is not always clear, there is evidence for occupation within Arbury Banks (Dawson 2000b, 118), Maiden Bower (Pollard and Hamilton 1994), and Wilbury Hill (Applebaum 1949). The fine-ware bowls of Chinnor-Wandlebury type found at Maiden Bower (Matthews 1976, 161), Ravensburgh (Dyer 1976, 157), and Wilbury Hill (Applebaum 1949, 42), and the near circular plans of Cheddington, Maiden Bower, and Wilbury, which are similar to the plans of the South East Cambridgeshire hillforts (discussed below), suggest links between the communities constructing these Chiltern Hills hillforts and the South East Midlands. This line of hillforts along the Chilterns might be paralleled with those on the chalk escarpments around Wessex, where Sharples (2010, 68–9) has suggested that they lay on an important environmental boundary between the densely settled areas—the domesticated and partitioned landscape—and the relatively untamed ‘wilderness’. This essentially environmental/ecological explanation for the location of hillforts does not, however, fit the second line of hillforts in the South East Midlands—in South East Cambridgeshire— which runs perpendicular to the chalk escarpment down to the Fenland edge (Figs. 3.9–3.10; see Appendix 3 for a short summary of the evidence from each site). These seemingly contemporary hillforts, with broadly similar circular plans, appear to form a line running across the narrow stretch of lowland— the Wilbraham–Swaffham corridor—between the chalk escarpment to the south and Fenland to the north. White (1963, 18) has argued that the South East Cambridgeshire forts were Icenian as their mostly circular form can be paralleled at South Creake and Warham in Norfolk, although this can be rejected as the East Anglian forts are in fact later in date. Malim (2005, 37) has argued that this line of hillforts formed the boundary between the Catuvellauni and Iceni and while this is cannot strictly be true—these groups are not documented until several centuries later—the pottery assemblages from Arbury, War Ditches, and Wandlebury do suggest that the affinities of the communities who built and occupied these forts were with the South East Midlands (French 2004, 38; Webley 2005, 44–5; Pickstone and Mortimer 2012). Overall, the line of Middle Iron Age hillforts in South East Cambridgeshire appears to form a relatively coherent group in both their dating and design. That they run from high ground down into the lowlands—as opposed to running along the ridge of high ground—suggests that their location is not simply reflecting topography or ecology. Instead, they appear to have been designed to control the narrow communication route from the lowlands of the South East Midlands up into East Anglia between two sparsely occupied areas (the high Boulder Clay plateau and Fenland). Their inhabitants appeared to have looked west—towards the South East Midlands—for their socio-economic contacts, and the circular form of most of these hillforts is paralleled at Maiden Bower and Wilbury Hill on the Chilterns (Pollard and Hamilton 1994; Bryant 1995, 27).

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Kingdom, Civitas, and County hillfort mid first-century pottery kiln Romano-Celtic temple

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Fig. 3.10. The location of Middle Iron Age hillforts, mid first-century AD pottery kilns, rural Romano-Celtic temples, early medieval dykes, and -leah place-names (indicative of woodland or wood-pasture) in south-eastern Cambridgeshire.

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CONCLUSIONS Chapters 2 and 3 have explored different aspects of Iron Age landscape and material culture. What has emerged is that for much of the Iron Age the four topographically defined regions of eastern England—East Anglia, the NorthEastern and North-Western Thames Basin, and the South East Midlands—each had a distinctive pattern of coin circulation, pottery styles, and settlement forms, while other cultural traits—such as brooch-wearing, textile production, and digging pit alignments—were also characteristic of some areas more than others. The character-defining features of these zones can be summarized thus: • East Anglia: appears to have been a distinct region throughout the Iron Age in terms of its material culture (e.g. the rusticated pottery style, wearing of brooches and torcs, use of metal horse-fittings, and its limited engagement with coinage until minting its own issues), predominantly open settlement, and the decision not to adopt the ‘Aylesford-Swarling’ cultural package (a conservatism that is also seen in the late adoption and small scale of its hillforts and enclosed farmsteads). In the Late Iron Age this region was occupied by the Iceni, who do not appear to have had major oppida on the scale of Camulodunum or Verulamium, although high-status foci may have existed at Thetford, Saham Toney, and Caistor St Edmund (the last going on to become the Romano-British civitas capital). Reference to the Cenimagni (‘Great Iceni’) suggests the region may have been sub-divided (with another area occupied by the ‘lesser Iceni’), and the distribution of certain forms of material culture—notably torcs—as well as Middle Iron Age hillforts and Late Iron Age square-ditched enclosures, does suggest an east–west division with a more stratified settlement pattern and more obvious material wealth in the west. • North-Eastern Thames Basin: a region with distinctive material culture (e.g. Darmsden-Linton pottery, and some of its own coinage), particularly strong evidence for textile production, a settlement pattern characterized by a trend towards regular-shaped enclosures, adoption of the ‘Aylesford-Swarling’ package, and a series of high-status Late Iron centres. The character of this region was more clearly distinguishable from East Anglia to the north than from the North-Western Thames Basin to the west, and there are strong hints of a north–south sub-division (with southern Essex being subtly different in many ways). In the Late Iron Age it was occupied by the Trinovantes, whose capital was at Camulodunum. • North-Western Thames Basin: in the Early and Middle Iron Ages it appears distinct from both the Trinovantian area to the east and the South East Midlands to the north, although these differences are not particularly clear due to a lack of data. Probably the first area to adopt the ‘Aylesford-Swarling’ culture, and became heartland of the Catuvellauni, whose capital was eventually at Verulamium.

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• South East Midlands: relatively distinct throughout the Iron Age in terms of its distinctive material culture (e.g. use of Scored Ware pottery), settlement pattern (characterized by irregular-shaped enclosures), and construction of pit alignments. Fell under the control of the Catuvellaunian kingdom in the late first century BC (under Tasciovanus), but appears to have had a separate identity in the Early and Middle Iron Ages. These archaeological data, along with the few scraps of documentary evidence that survive, suggest that eastern England was divided into a series of discrete regions within which communities developed their own ways of doing things: they produced pottery vessels with different forms and decoration, and chose to surround their settlements with differently shaped enclosures (e.g. Fig. 3.11). These were areas within which ideas and identities were shared, and where different repertoires of material culture were produced and circulated. By the Late Iron Age these communities clearly shared distinct identities, including social and political affiliations, reflected in their inscribed coinages. Whether they should be regarded as separate ‘ethnic’ groups is less clear, although following Jones’s (1997, xiii) definition of ethnicity as ‘that aspect of a person’s self-conceptualization which results from identification with a broader group in opposition to others on the basis of perceived cultural differentiation and/or common descent’, a case can be made. Establishing where the boundaries between these areas lay is not easy, as distinctive artefact types that were produced within one region also spread

A: pit alignments and irregular enclosures

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0 excavated cropmark (certain) cropmark (possible)

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Fig. 3.11. The distribution of Iron Age material culture and landscape features characteristic of (A) the South East Midlands (pit alignments and irregular-shaped enclosures) and (B) East Anglia (rusticated pottery, Icenian coins, torcs, and horse-fittings) compared to Late Iron Age coin circulation zones.

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into adjacent areas, for example through trade and exchange. There are, however, certain sites that appear to be indicative of liminal locations such as Harlow. There is no evidence for linear boundary works equivalent to Hadrian’s Wall or Offa’s Dyke, although the line of hillforts in eastern Cambridgeshire— which blocked the Wilbraham–Swaffham corridor—may have controlled access through the narrow stretch of lowland that linked East Anglia and the South East Midlands. Another line of hillforts was constructed along the Chilterns, although this may have had more to do with locating central places on the boundaries between different ecological zones. In most cases, indeed, it appears to have been sparsely settled areas that formed the boundaries between Iron Age peoples and their socio-economic territories, such as the extremely heavy soils of the High Boulder Clay Plateau (a situation that is also seen elsewhere in Britain, for example on the Blackdown Hills, in South West England, which appear to have formed the boundary zone between the Dumnonii and the Durotriges: Rippon 2008a; 2012a). It would appear that communities in the Fenland islands looked south and west towards the South East Midlands rather than east towards the more distant East Anglia: a number of Middle and Late Iron settlements are bounded by irregular-shaped enclosures (a characteristic feature of the South East Midlands), and they lie outside the main distribution of horse-fittings and torcs. Within these broad regions there are also sub-regional differences in material culture and settlement form. One example is southern Essex with its long tradition of shell-tempered pottery and differences in coin circulation, while another is between eastern and western East Anglia, reflected, for example, in the greater stratification within the settlement hierarchy and the deposition of gold torcs in the west (Hutcheson 2007, fig. 1; Davies 2009, fig. 66). There is also a marked concentration of later Middle Iron Age gold coin hoards in the west of Norfolk, although this breaks down in the first century BC, when silver coin hoards, later Gallo-Belgic (type E) and Icenian coinage (e.g. Norfolk Wolf staters), are found right across East Anglia (Hutcheson 2007, figs. 2 and 3; Worrell 2007, fig. 2). Whether the series of linear earthworks running roughly north–south down East Anglia’s central watershed (e.g. the Launditch) divided these communities is unclear, but along with the way that there appear to have been separate highstatus centres in the Late Iron Age—Saham Toney and Thetford in the west and Caistor St Edmund in the east—is intriguing. Overall, there appears to be good evidence for the existence of territories and community identities at several scales. From the later part of the early Iron Age regional-scale distinctions started to develop between the South East Midlands, East Anglia, the North-Eastern Thames Basin, and perhaps the North-Western Thames Basin. The boundaries between them were porous and diffuse, and often correspond to high ground. Within these regions there were sub-regional distinctions, and at an even more local scale we postulate territories associated with central places such as hillforts that in places may have been associated with linear earthworks.

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4 The Romano-British urban and religious landscape

REGIONAL VARIATION IN THE LANDSCAPE OF ROMAN BRITAIN There has been a long-standing tendency to divide Roman Britain into just two regions. This simplistic view goes back to Haverfield’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),1 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.

1 A notable exception is Charles Thomas’s own paper on Dumnonia, which rightly recognizes the important boundary in landscape character along the Blackdown and Quantock Hills.

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BECOMING ‘ROMAN’ 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. This is a process that has been widely described as ‘Romanization’ (e.g. Haverfield 1912; Millett 1990; Woolf 1997), although the concept has come under sustained attack as it implies that Roman culture was superior to native ones, that there was ‘deliberate policy on the part of the empire to reconcile its subjects to colonial rule’, and that native communities were the passive recipients of Roman culture (Mattingly 2011, 38, 203). There have been more subtle views of Romanization, such as Millett’s (1990) emphasis on the way that many aspirational provincial elites wanted to engage with the Roman world, and Haselgrove’s (1990, 46) argument that there were various ways in which communities reacted to becoming part of the Roman world, with the eventual outcome being that ‘even within a single province, the form and degree of change varied between different groups and regions’. Indeed, Revell (2016, 26) observes that ‘there are limited, if any, instances of anyone referring to themselves as Romanus/a within the epigraphic record of the western provinces’, and that where people do express an ethnic identity, it is at a more local level (an example is Regina, the Catuvellaunian, discussed later in this chapter). Haselgrove (1990, 46) and Mattingly (2011, 38) similarly argue that in stressing uniformity the concept of Romanization neglects local diversity, such as the continuation of existing traditions within indigenous societies. In their provocative book UnRoman Britain, Russell and Laycock (2010), for example, have tried to portray Roman Britain as far less ‘Roman’ than previously thought, but the impression is given of a Roman Britain that was still broadly uniform in its character: there is not a single map showing the distribution of primary evidence, but if there had been, a far more sophisticated argument could have been developed that Britain was Roman to a variable degree (see Chapters 4–6). Just as ‘Romanization’ is falling out of fashion, so the concept of ‘identity’ is increasing its profile (e.g. Jones 1997; Crummy and Eckardt 2008; Mattingly 2011; Giles 2012; Gosden 2013; Eckardt 2014; Revell 2016). There is a growing awareness that partly hidden beneath a thick veneer of seemingly uniform material culture and landscape character, Romano-British communities—like their prehistoric ancestors—had multiple identities, of which being ‘Roman’ may or may not have been one. Chapters 2–3 have shown that by the Late Iron Age communities across eastern England had created a series of regionally distinctive identities that manifested themselves in different settlement patterns and burial practices, separate coinages, and the adoption of elements of the ‘Belgic’ Aylesford-Swarling package that ranged from enthusiastic through to half-hearted. In Chapters 4–6 we will

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therefore explore what happened to these regional identities during the Roman period through the development of urbanism, the location of rural temples, the construction of villas, and the production and circulation of material culture. ROMANO-BRITISH TERRITORIALITY: CIVITATES, VICI, AND PAGI Introduction A key component of Roman Imperial governance was local self-administration based upon ‘civitates’: ‘cities’ in the sense of peoples, not places, which included an urban administrative centre as well as an extensive rural hinterland (Braund 1988b; Reynolds 1988; Millett 1990, 65). These civic centres were equipped with the infrastructure required for this administrative role, such as the basilica where the members of the land-owning elite that populated the senate and council of the civitas met. These civitas capitals also provided other public facilities such as places to purchase goods, bathe, and worship, as well as being centres for tax collection. When the Roman Empire expanded, towns were established in two ways: directly, by founding colonies, of which Camulodunum is an example, and indirectly, through encouraging local initiative (Hanson 1988). Official support for the latter is reflected in the provision of planned street grids and public buildings in the later first century AD, and it has been argued that urban development in Britain was given a further stimulus by the Emperor Hadrian in the early second century (Wacher 1995, 378–407). The extent to which these major towns, and the civitates that they were the centres of, were newly created or evolved from earlier entities has seen much discussion (e.g. Millett 1990; Creighton 2006, 73; Perring and Pitts 2013). It is striking that all three of the major Roman towns of eastern England lay close to important native centres (Camulodunum, Verulamium, and Venta Icenorum), which probably had the effect of legitimizing the status of the new Roman ruling class through evoking ‘the memory of kings’ (e.g. Creighton 2006, 124–42). It is often assumed that civitates cemented Iron Age ‘tribal identities’ (e.g. Laycock 2008, 81, fig. 32), and Perring (2002, 216) has gone as far as to map the distribution of different fourth-century styles of mosaics and other architectural features (e.g. tower finials) against a background of supposed Iron Age tribal areas based upon coin distributions. If civitates did develop ‘from the previous framework through the impact of an essentially laissez-faire administration on society’ (Millett 1990, 99), then their boundaries may indeed have been the same as those of the pre-Roman communities that they replaced, although this continuity hypothesis has been challenged in recent years, with Mattingly (2006, 358) arguing that: Maps often portray late Iron Age Britain as carved up into a series contiguous ‘tribal’ territories, corresponding exactly with the civitates recognized by Rome. The sizes of

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these implied territoria are vast—most being equivalent to at least two modern counties. This conventional picture of massive civitas units is more problematic than generally admitted . . . for instance, the widely assumed correspondence between Iron Age coin ‘territories’ and the Roman civitates does not stand close scrutiny. To some extent the post-conquest civitates were simply a matter of administrative convenience and we cannot assume exact territorial or social correlation with pre-existing Iron Age groups.

Part of Mattingly’s (2006, fig. 10) concern is that some of Roman Britain lay outside the control of civilian civitates, which he argued included western Norfolk, the South East Midlands, and Fenland, while others have noted that civitas boundaries may have changed over time, as some early civitates were subdivided (e.g. the Durotriges: Frere 1987, 194; Fulford 2006). Some historians have even rejected the idea that there were discrete civitates ruled from a single capital (e.g. Laurence 2001, 88–90), although this extreme view is rightly seen as ‘unconvincing’ in a recent discussion (Smith et al. 2016, 403). The lack of actual data and the constant recycling of civitas maps published long ago are also part of the problem: McCarthy 2013, fig. 3.1, for example, is a reproduction of Millett 1990, fig. 16, whose caption states that the boundaries ‘generally follow’ those of Rivet 1958, meaning that a map purporting to show civitas boundaries published in 2013 is based upon a source that first appeared over fifty years earlier. There are, therefore, broadly two schools of thought with regard to civitates: first, that they formed a series of administrative territories that covered the entire province based upon pre-existing social structures (e.g. Branigan 1976; Millett 1990), and second, that there was a more complex pattern, with some civitates directly related to Iron Age communities, other civitates that were not (having been created during the Roman period), and some areas under military or state control. Setting to one side for the moment the issue of change during the course of the Roman period, there are some basic observations that can be made about the late first century AD. First, we know that there was a class of major towns within Britain that served as administrative centres—taking basilica–forum complexes as indicative of this status—and the considerable distances between these towns suggests that they administered substantial territories: within eastern England only Venta Icenorum (Caistor St Edmund), Camulodunum2 (Colchester), and Verulamium (St Albans) could have been civitas capitals during the early Roman period, assuming that the provincial capital of London will not also have served that function. Second, the provision of carefully planned street grids at major towns such as these suggests official involvement in their foundation, and the analysis of artefact assemblages has led Pitts (2014) to argue that Camulodunum and Verulamium were part of a coordinated programme of 2

Although the Roman name for Colchester was Colonia Victricensis, and by the late Roman period it was probably known as Colonia (Rivet and Smith 1981, 294–5, 312–14; Wacher 1995, 112), Camulodunum is used here for convenience.

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town creation (which also included London) under the governor Ostorius Scapula in c. AD 48–9. Third, the proximity of the new towns at Camulodunum and Verulamium to native capitals suggests a strong relationship between the Late Iron Age elite and the newly created Romano-British civitates: if the Roman authorities wanted a break with the past, they would surely have established their towns in different locations. This impression of continuity is reinforced by the Late Iron Age to early Roman elite burials at Folly Lane (Niblett 1999; Thompson 2015) and Stanway (Crummy et al. 2007). Fourth, the names of many civitates also make the connection between native and Roman: Venta Icenorum (Caistor St Edmund, near Norwich), for example, was the ‘market of the Iceni’ (Rivet and Smith 1981, 492). The second-century inscription on a tombstone of a freedwoman called Regina found at South Shields records that she came from the Catuvellauni3 (RIB No. 1065; Fig. 4.1), which suggests both that the Catuvellauni would have been a discrete people that were known by others within Roman Britain, and that Regina regarded this heritage as partly defining her identity. That these community identities survived into the late Roman period is shown by a lead ingot stamped with the name of the Iceni found on a shipwreck off the coast of Brittany and which probably dates to the second half of the fourth century (Russell and Laycock 2010, 94). Overall, it seems clear that following the conquest Roman Britain was divided up into a series of territories whose names often related to pre-Roman peoples, although some areas may have lain outside this system of civilian administration, such as the vast wilderness of Fenland, which it has long been argued was an Imperial estate (Rippon 2000, 127–33; Mattingly 2006). These civitates will have included the Iceni, whose capital lay at Venta Icenorum, and the Catuvellauni, whose capital lay at Verulamium. It has long been assumed that there was a separate civitas of the Trinovantes (e.g., see Fig. 4.2), although opinions have differed as to where their capital lay: Wacher (1995, 207–8) argued for Chelmsford, largely on the basis of the place-name (Caesaromagus), although the consensus has been Colchester, which Ptolemy attributed to the Trinovantes (Black 1995, 25–6; Gascoyne and Radford 2013, 77, 100; Fulford 2015, 59; cf. Wickenden 1996, 91). In contrast, Smith et al. (2016, 403) note that there is no evidence for a civitas of the Trinovantes, although, in such a poorly documented period, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. It is worth noting that the Trinovantes, albeit not a civitas of that name, are one of the peoples referred to by Ptolemy and Tacitus in the early second century, and are also mentioned by Orosius, writing in the early fifth century (although he was probably using earlier sources: Rivet and Smith 1981, 77–8, 475). The early foundation of Colonia Victricensis was as a colony, and it may have been that the intention was that 3

D(is) M(anibus) Regina liberta et coniuge Barates Palmyrenus natione Catvallauna an(norum) XXX (To the spirits of the departed [and to] Regina, his freedwoman and wife, a Catuvellaunian by tribe, aged 30, Barates of Palmyra [set this up]).

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Fig. 4.1. The second-century tombstone of a freedwoman called Regina found at South Shields recording that she came from the Catuvellauni (RIB No. 1065; photo: © Arbeia Roman Fort and Museums, Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums; transcription of inscription: reproduced by permission of the Administrators of the Haverfield Bequest).

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Kingdom, Civitas, and County RIVET 1964

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Fig. 4.2. Previous reconstructions of the boundaries of the Romano-British civitates (Rivet 1964, fig. 9; Millett 1990, fig. 16; Jones and Mattingly 1990, map 5.11; Mattingly 2006, fig. 10).

Verulamium was to serve as the civitas capital of both the Catuvellauni and the Trinovantes following the unification of these two peoples under Cunobelin. Equally, there may originally have been separate civitates for the Catuvellauni and the Trinovantes—based at Verulamium and Camulodunum—but over the course of the Roman period the latter were absorbed within the former, although this goes against the trend seen elsewhere in Roman Britain of the larger civitates being sub-divided (e.g. the probable promotion of Ilchester to civitas status: Fulford 2006). Overall, there is simply insufficient documentary

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and epigraphic material to determine whether the Trinovantes were a separate civitas with Colchester as its capital, although, as will be shown in this and the next two chapters, the community living within the North-Eastern Thames Basin appears to have maintained a distinct identity during the Roman period. Civitates Whilst it is logical that civitates would have had clear boundaries, as an

essential prerequisite of efficient tax collection and the administration of justice is that everyone knew within which jurisdiction they lay, mapping them has proved difficult. Mattingly (2006, 358) has observed that the ‘correspondence between Iron Age coin “territories” and the Roman civitates does not stand scrutiny’, although, whereas our distributions of Iron Age coins are real, and increasingly well-defined (due to the reporting of finds through the PAS), we do not have any Roman maps showing civitas boundaries with which to compare, only increasingly out-of-date reconstructions based upon the flimsy evidence available back in the 1950s. Reconstructing the political geography of Roman Britain began with Rivet’s (1958) Town and Country in Roman Britain, and similarly sketchy maps have been reproduced ever since (Fig. 4.2). Rivet’s starting point was the civitates listed in Ptolemy’s Geography, whose capitals can be located through inscriptions and other written sources such as the Antonine Itinerary (discussed below). He also made use of Iron Age coin distributions, as well as suggesting that certain types of site—notable rural temples and small towns—may have been located on territorial boundaries, serving as both religious sanctuaries and market places. While these various strands of evidence no doubt contributed to Rivet’s thinking, it must also be said that many of his boundaries look suspiciously as if they have simply been drawn halfway between civitas capitals, and this extremely simplistic approach has been adopted ever since: these boundaries cut across the natural lie of the land and look utterly unconvincing (e.g. Figs. 4.2–4.3). What is clear from these earlier attempts at mapping civitas boundaries is that no attempt has been made to think about their likely relationship to the landscape: Fig. 4.3, for example, shows Millett’s (1990, fig. 16) boundaries of the Iceni, Trinovantes, and Catuvellauni plotted against the topography of eastern England, showing how illogical they are, cutting across the grain of the landscape. If civitates existed—and the balance of evidence is that they did—then can we be any more precise than that? Roman administrators will logically have required that every citizen knew within which jurisdiction they resided irrespective of whether tax was paid in cash or in kind (Branigan 1987, 26; Reynolds 1988, 34; Millett 1990, 149), and these boundaries must therefore have been clearly defined. In many cases the easiest solution will have been to use existing boundaries that were familiar to local communities and/or natural features within the landscape. Rivers are an obvious choice, and throughout much of later prehistory ritual deposition was focused in just such liminal locations (e.g. Bradley 2000; 2007). In the Roman world rivers were seen as deities, with crossing them being a

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Kingdom, Civitas, and County

Iceni Fenland

Lark

t

High Boulder Clay Plateau

ing

pp

en

pm

Gi

alk

ar esc

Ch

Trinovantes

Orwell Estuary

Catuvellauni

400’ contour 300’ “ 200’ “ 100’ “

0

25 km

Fig. 4.3. Millett’s (1990, fig. 16) highly schematic mapping of civitas boundaries in eastern England superimposed upon topography, showing no logical relationship between them.

mighty undertaking, making them an ideal choice as a boundary (Braund 1996, 15–19). The seasonally flooded wetlands with which rivers were often associated will also have been sparsely settled, and such areas would therefore have provided relatively uncontested territorial boundaries. Watersheds are another natural feature within the landscape that could have been used in this way, both because they are visually prominent and because their exposed location and poor soils meant that they were also often sparsely settled. Overall, Roman practice across the empire and specific evidence from Britain, such as place-names (e.g. Venta Icenorum) and inscriptions (e.g. the tombstone of Regina), make it clear that there were a series of districts associated with preRoman communities. Some areas may have lain outside the system of civilian control, but these are most likely to have been wilderness areas, such as the possible Imperial estate in Fenland, or districts rich in minerals such as the Weald. Past attempts to draw civitas boundaries should, however, be dismissed,

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and the evidence of Iron Age coin distributions put to one side, and instead the focus moved to three strands of evidence: first, where such boundaries would logically have been located, such as sparsely settled wetlands and watersheds; second, Romano-British sites that are suggestive of liminal locations (such as rural temples); and third, regional variations in the distribution of Romano-British settlement patterns, architectural styles, and portable material culture that might reflect local identities. Although some have argued that certain artefact types directly relate to civitates, such as late Roman metalwork that according to Laycock (2008, 124) represents ‘some form of tribal identification system’ used by civitas-based militia, interpreting such material in this way is difficult as it may simply reflect the marketing networks of particular industries (this is discussed further in Chapter 6). Pagi Based upon analogy with elsewhere in the western Empire, civitates will

have been divided up into a series of smaller districts known as pagi, with literary and epigraphic evidence from Gaul suggesting that they were usually administered by magistrates appointed by the authorities running the civitas to which they belonged (Johnson 1975). Unfortunately very little is known about pagi in Britain (e.g. Frere 1975, 6), although a writing tablet from London refers to an area of woodland located in ‘the pagus Dibussu in the civitas of the Cantiaci’ (Tomlin 1996). Some of the larger small towns that had the status of a vicus may have been the centres for administrative sub-divisions of the civitates (Burnham and Wacher 1990, 39; Mattingly 2006, 287, 355): for example, stamps on mortaria found at Castor and South Shields refer to a potter called Cunoarda who worked at ‘vico Durobrivis’ (Chesterton near Water Newton: Johnston 1975, 75–7), and it is possible that some of the larger pagus centres such as this were promoted to civitas status (Johnston 1975, 77; Burnham and Wacher 1990, 39–40; Fulford 2006). In the later Roman period it is possible that civitas capitals in Britain went into decline and that smaller towns assumed some of their tax collection functions (Millett 1990, 147–51). Late Roman legal texts suggest that some local government functions, such as tax collections, were carried out from mansiones whose primary function was to service the cursus publicus (Imperial post), and this may have been the case in previous centuries (Black 1995, 63). To date it has not been possible to map any pagi, although Thomas (1963; 1966b) has suggested that the medieval hundreds in Cornwall may have their origins as Romano-British pagi. THE ROAD NETWORK AND ANTONINE ITINERARY Before turning to an analysis of regional variation in the urban hierarchy of eastern England during the Roman period, it is necessary to say a few words about the road network that linked them. The roads used in this study (e.g. Fig. 4.4) are

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Kingdom, Civitas, and County major town small town PE

PYE ROA D

AY SW Y AR WA DD LD NIE ICK

Brampton

Water Newton (Durobrivae)

Icklingham (Camboritum)

Godmanchester (Durovigutum)

VI

Irchester

A

Cambridge (Duroliponte)

DE

VA N

A

L AT W T

400’ contour 300’ “ 200’ “ 100’ “

EE

R ST

IC

AY W

Dunstable (Durocobrivis)

VERULAMIUM

STANE STREET ERMINE STREET

G

Dorchester

Coddenham (Combretovium)

Braughing

IN

D

EL

AY W

E NI

Great Chesterford

Fenny Stratford (Magiovinium) Baldock

I KN

Scole (Villa Faustini)

K

IC

Towcester

Alchester

LD

VENTA ICENORUM

CAMULODUNUM

Harlow

ROADS in Antonine Itinerary (Jones and Mattingly 1990, 23–8)

Chelmsford

other roads (identified through archaeological evidence) Icknield Way

LONDON 0

50 km

Fig. 4.4. The Roman road network across eastern England based upon the Antonine Itinerary (Jones and Mattingly 1990, 23–8) and archaeological evidence (Margary 1955; Wade-Martins 1977; Moore 1988; Rippon 1991; Gurney 1994; Going 1996; Malim 2000a; Rippon et al. 2015, fig. 4.10).

based upon Margary’s (1955) Roman Roads in Britain, with additional information from published aerial photography (e.g. Wade-Martins 1977; Going 1996, 95–7), excavations (e.g. Stocks 2008), and historic landscape analysis (e.g. Rippon 1991; Rippon et al. 2015, fig. 4.10), much of which has been used in a series of county-based studies.4 The road network is one of the few aspects of the Romano-British landscape for which there is contemporary documentary evidence, the most notable being the Antonine Itinerary (Rivet and Smith 1981; Jones and Mattingly 1990, 16–42; Black 1995). This describes fifteen routes within Britain and refers to some of the major places along them, although some 4

Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire: Malim 2000a; Essex: Rippon 1991; Going 1996, fig. 1; Hertfordshire: Thompson 2011; Norfolk: Wade-Martins 1977; Gurney 1995a, fig. 6.1; Suffolk: Moore 1988, fig. 3; Plouviez 1995, fig. 7.1.

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significant roads—and the places along them—are not included, such as Stane Street, which ran from Camulodunum to Baldock. Most of the routes in eastern England can be reconstructed quite easily,5 but what is not clear is the course taken by Route V from Venta Icenorum to Duroliponte (Cambridge) as there is no known road linking the two and the only place mentioned—Camborico— cannot be located with any certainty (although Icklingham is the most likely contender). The location of Durolitum, which lay midway between Londinium and Caesaromagus is also unclear, although the distances given (fifteen Roman miles from London and sixteen Roman miles from Chelmsford) would place it in Romford, where Roman occupation has recently been found adjacent to the road (see Appendix 5). Further along the same road, Ad Ansam—which lay between Camulodunum and Coddenham—presumably lay on the banks of the Stour in Stratford St Mary, although very little Roman material has been recorded there. The oft-mapped Chelmsford to Chigwell road (Going 1996, route K) is rejected as there is no actual evidence for it (this route appears to have been invented as a way of dealing with discrepancies in the distances given in the Antonine Itinerary). RECONSTRUCTING THE URBAN HIERARCHY: MAJOR TOWNS, SMALL TOWNS, AND LOCAL CENTRES One of the most distinctive facets of the Romano-British landscape was its network of towns. While there had been a small number of central places with some urban characteristics during the Late Iron Age—the so-called ‘oppida’—it was only during the Roman period that a highly urbanized landscape developed. The urban characteristics of the major towns are clear: they were substantial settlements with high density occupation and an economy that was not based primarily upon agriculture, but instead supplied services for surrounding areas in the form of manufacturing and social provision (such as bathing and religious worship). Planned street grids and public buildings such as a forum–basilica suggest official involvement in their development. Alongside these major towns was a series of smaller settlements commonly called small towns. There has been a common assumption that they served as market centres (e.g. Wickenden 1996, 90). Perring and Pitts (2013, xv) have recently put forward an alternative view of

5 Routes II, VI, and VIII all headed north-west from London along what is now called Watling Street via Sulloniacis (Brockley Hill), Verulamium (St Albans), Durocobrivis (Dunstable), Magiovinto (Dropshot near Stony Stratford), and on to Lactodoro (Towcester) and beyond. Route IX headed northeast from London via Durolitum (unlocated: discussed below), Caesaromagus (Chelmsford), Canonio (Kelvedon), Camulodunum (Colchester), Ad Ansam (a river crossing on the Stour, possibly Stratford St Mary), Conbretovio (Coddenham), Sitomago (?Wenhaston), and ending up at Venta Icenorum. Route V also heads north-east from London through Caesaromagus, Colonia (Colchester), Villa Faustini (?Scole), and then Venta Icenorum, before heading south-west to Duroliponte (Cambridge), and then north west to Durobrivae (Water Newton).

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Romano-British urbanism, describing major towns as ‘alien places of government where the exercise of power made an exaggerated call on available resources’, suggesting that they were not conceived as market centres for their surrounding areas, but instead saw rural surpluses flowing towards them as a result of taxation in an asymmetrical relationship that did not rely upon any reciprocal exchange. They similarly question the role of small towns as markets, suggesting that this idea is based too heavily upon analogies with medieval towns (e.g. Brown 1995b), arguing instead that they were ‘centres of taxation and consumption, towards which rural surpluses were directed’ (Perring and Pitts 2013, 4). The idea that even small towns may have had administrative functions, such as tax collections, has much to commend it and this may have been a function of the mansiones (referred to earlier), although a close examination of the archaeological evidence from eastern England reveals not only a range of service provision (e.g. bath houses and temples) and large and small-scale industry, but also evidence for market-based trade (e.g. buildings and open spaces that probably served as market places, and artefacts such as steelyards). Identifying the urban hierarchy in Roman Britain is far from easy. Previous overviews (e.g. Rodwell and Rowley 1975; Smith 1987; Burnham and Wacher 1990; Millett 1990, 143–51; Mattingly 2006, 286–91) reveal broad agreement on what were the major public towns and larger ‘small towns’ (Fig. 4.5), although it is unclear whether Chelmsford was a civitas capital or a small town. The seemingly simple criterion of possessing defences is, however, problematic, reflected in the c.80 ha site at Baldock being left undefended, in contrast to far smaller places that were enclosed (e.g. at Brampton, where just c.6 ha was defended). The greatest disagreement, however, is at the lower end of the scale, where ‘small towns’ merge with ‘substantial roadside settlements’, and there is considerable disagreement as to which sites should be included (Fig. 4.5). Jones and Mattingly (1990, map 5.12), for example, include Brockley Hill, Enfield, Fleet Marston, Welwyn, Billericay, Chigwell, Wickford, Long Melford, Wixoe, and Wimpole as ‘small towns’, whereas Millett (1990, fig. 61) does not, but Millett includes Ware, which Jones and Mattingly exclude; Burnham and Wacher (1990) do not include any of these. Smith (1987) was far more inclusive of smaller roadside settlements,6 while more recent fieldwork is adding even more sites.7 A crucial problem is the quality of the evidence. In the best cases, both the layout and character of a settlement are known through aerial photography,

6 Although several of his examples—including Fring (Norfolk)—can be dismissed as simply being agricultural settlements. 7 e.g. Billericay, Coggeshall, Radwinter, and Romford (in Essex), Crownthorpe, Ditchingham, Dunton, Fincham, Great Walsingham, and Narford (in Norfolk), and Felixstowe, Hacheston, and Icklingham (in Suffolk), which were excluded from Smith (1987), presumably because they did not lie on major roads.

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Romano-British urban and religious landscape Burnham and Wacher 1990; Wacher 1995 Water Newton (Durobrivae)

Brampton

A

Brampton Water Newton (Durobrivae Durobrivae) (Durobrivae)

Godmanchester (Durovigutum Durovigutum) (Durovigutum) VIA

DE VA N

A

Towcester

Irchester

Cambridge (Duroliponte) (Duroliponte Duroliponte)

Baldock Braughing Braintree Harlow

Dorchester VERULAMIUM

COLCHESTER

CHELMSFORD

LONDON

Staines

CAISTOR ST EDMUND Venta Icenorum) Icenorum (Venta

Godmanchester (Durovigutum Durovigutum) (Durovigutum)

Great Chesterford Alchester

B

Millett 1990, fig. 61

CAISTOR ST EDMUND Venta Icenorum) Icenorum (Venta

Irchester

117

0

C

Brancaster

Jones and Mattingly 1990, map 5.12

50 km

Brampton

Cambridge (Duroliponte) (Duroliponte Duroliponte)

Scole (Villa Favstini) Faustini) Ixworth [Pakenham]

Towcester Hacheston Sandy Coddenham Fenny Stratford Great (Combretovium Combretovium) (Combretovium) (Magiovinium Magiovinium) Baldock (Magiovinium) Chesterford Braughing Braintree Alchester COLCHESTER Dunstable Great (Durocobrivis Durocobrivis) (Durocobrivis) Dunmow Kelvedon Harlow Chelmsford Heybridge Dorchester VERULAMIUM

Staines Staines

major town small town

LONDON

0

50 km

400’ contour 300’ “ 200’ “ 100’ “

Caister-on-Sea

Water Newton Icklingham

Godmanchester Irchester

Cambridge

Towcester

Scole Pakenham] Hacheston

Sandy Sandy Wimpole

Wixoe Long Coddenham Great Melford Baldock Chesterford Braughing Braintree Alchester Dunstable Great Fingringhoe Dunmow Kelvedon Fleet Marston Harlow Heybridge Chelmsford Dorchester Enfield Wickford Chigwell Billericay Brockley Hill Fenny Stratford

Staines

LONDON

0

50 km

Fig. 4.5. Different mappings of Romano-British small towns in eastern England that were all published within a few years (Burnham and Wacher 1990, fig. 1; Wacher 1995, fig. 1; Millett 1990, fig. 61; Jones and Mattingly 1990, map 5.12).

geophysical survey, and excavation, which results in its urban character being clear. Elsewhere, however, the evidence may comprise individually small-scale archaeological observations spread across an existing town which otherwise obscures its Roman predecessor, or scatters of artefacts recovered from fieldwalking and metal detecting in farmland. Should, for example, a scatter of artefacts covering c.30 ha be regarded as a small town because it is as extensive as other known Roman towns? Or will this scatter of artefacts in part reflect refuse disposal and cemetery-derived material beyond the edge of a settlement that was actually far smaller and not necessarily possessing urban characteristics? The problem is most acute at the lower end of the hierarchy, where two types of settlement merge: what has traditionally been regarded as ‘small towns’ whose economic base was non-agricultural activity (manufacturing,

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commerce, and other service provision), and larger settlements whose primary economic base was just agriculture (what can be referred to as ‘villages’). Indeed, rather than a rigid urban hierarchy with sites falling into discrete types, there was a long and continuous spectrum ranging from major towns down to substantial rural settlements within which some of the population had a non-agricultural means of subsistence. The aim of this chapter is to explore whether there are regional variations within this settlement hierarchy, although even the seemingly simple task of producing a map of sites with urban characteristics is extremely complex. It is impossible to use existing published definitions as different scholars have used different criteria with regard to what constitutes a town, both in the national overviews (discussed earlier) and in county-based studies.8 In Essex, for example, Going (1996, fig. 1) maps ‘enclosed small towns’, ‘unenclosed small towns’, and ‘possible small towns’, while in Suffolk Plouviez (1999) maps ‘small towns’ and ‘villages’, and in Norfolk Gurney (1994) defines sites as ‘defended towns’ and ‘large villages’. To this terminological confusion we can also add the use of ‘roadside settlement’ (Smith 1987; Allen et al. 2015), ‘nucleated settlement’ (Allen et al. 2015), and ‘local centre’ (e.g. Hingley 1989, 111–20). In this study an attempt has therefore been made to apply a standard set of criteria and definitions across the whole of eastern England that takes into account the very variable data that we have to work with, and although a place’s possible legal status is taken into account, the emphasis is upon the character of the settlement and how it functioned within the wider landscape: • Size: of the settlement as a whole (excluding cemeteries), not just the defended area. There is not necessarily a direct correlation between increasing size and urban status as some larger sites appear to have a low density of occupation. • Defences: only a small number of settlements were defended, but this does indicate a place of strategic importance. • Streets: in addition to the main through road(s), the presence of side streets is suggestive of a higher-order settlement. A distinguishing feature of the major towns (the civitas capitals, etc.) is that the streets were laid out on a carefully planned grid, implying official involvement, while at lower-order sites the streets appear to have been created in a piecemeal fashion. • Density of occupation: urban tenement plots will typically be long and narrow, and contain a main building and a rear yard, although a lower density of occupation will be found around the fringes of the settlement. Sites without a very high density of occupation could still have other urban characteristics (such as being a centre for manufacturing and commerce). 8

Bedfordshire: Dawson 2007; Buckinghamshire: Radford and Zeepvat 2009; Essex: Going 1996; Wickenden 1996; Medlycott and Atkinson 2012; Hertfordshire: Niblett 2011; Norfolk: Gurney 1994; 1995a; Suffolk: Moore 1988; Plouviez 1995; 1999.

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• Manufacturing: the production of pottery, the smelting and smithing of iron, bronze working, and the working of animal products (hides, bone, and horn) are all evidenced. A distinction can be drawn between sites with large-scale production, for example where there were so many pottery kilns that production must have been for regional consumption (e.g. Brampton and Water Newton), and places with a few kilns that would have only served the local community. • Marketing and other commercial activity: evidence for commercial activity includes specialized market buildings (macellum: e.g. Braughing), open spaces that may have functioned as a market (e.g. Braintree and Great Chesterford), roadside shops, and artefacts such as steelyards and weights.9 That most major towns, small towns, and local centres also have evidence for manufacturing (discussed earlier) implies that the goods produced there were also at least in part marketed there. • Other service provision: includes public bath houses (e.g. Brampton, Braughing, Chignall, and possibly Saham Toney) and temples (Baldock, Chelmsford, Great Chesterford, Crownthorpe, Harlow, Heybridge, Hockwold, Kelvedon, Thornborough, Walsingham, and Water Newton). • Administrative role within local and provincial government: includes a basilicalike structure at Godmanchester, and mansiones that may have played a role in local administration and tax collection in addition to providing accommodation for official travellers (Smith 1987, 11–19; Burnham and Wacher 1990, 36–8; Black 1995). Based upon these criteria, sites have been attributed to one of the following types: • Major towns: very extensive defended settlements with dense occupation fronting onto a planned grid of streets that includes shops and market places, other service provision, manufacturing, and administrative functions. The list for eastern England comprises the provincial capital at London, the colony at Camulodunum, municipium at Verulamium, and civitas capital at Venta Icenorum. The size of Godmanchester and Water Newton and their substantial public buildings suggest that they had assumed a significant role in local government, and the planned street grid at Cambridge may be indicative of official involvement too, although it failed to develop into a major town. • Small towns: extensive settlements that may or may not have been defended, with dense occupation fronting onto a network of streets that in most cases appear to have developed in a piecemeal fashion (as opposed to having been 9

The list is now considerably longer than when Smith (1987, 95) was able to list just Harlow and Ware, and now includes Baldock, Billingford, Cheshunt, Camulodunum, Crownthorpe, Fleet Marston, Great Chesterford, Hacheston, Icklingham, Little Waltham, and Verulamium.

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laid as a planned grid). These sites also have evidence for manufacturing and other commercial activity, as well as service provision such as bath houses and temples, and administrative functions such as a mansio. • Local centres: substantial roadside settlements of varying size and character, but which all have evidence for a non-agricultural economic base that included manufacturing, marketing, and other service provision. These have been divided up into ‘Larger’ (>10 ha) and ‘Smaller’ (6–10 ha) sites to reflect the great diversity within this group of sites. Fig. 4.6 shows the distribution of these seventy-four sites based upon the evidence summarized and discussed in Appendix 5. Where sites have not seen recent published overviews, more thorough research was carried out, which included mapping all the findspots and excavations recorded in the HER, and examples of this work—at Bishop’s Stortford and Harlow—are included in Appendix 6 and Rippon (in press) respectively. A broader range of settlements

major town

Brancaster

small town larger local centre

Toftrees (Dunton)

Great Walsingham /Wighton Brampton Billingford

smaller local centre

Kempstone

Narford

Fincham Denver

Water Newton (Durobrivae)

Caister-on-Sea

Saham Toney Crownthorpe

Hockwold Brettenham Icklingham (Camboritum)

Tort Hill, Sawtry Godmanchester

(Durovigutum) Cambridge (Duroliponte)

Irchester

Towcester

Olney

Sandy Kempston

Fenny Stratford (Magiovinium) Thornborough Alchester Fleet Marston Dorchester

400’ contour 300’ “ 200’ “ 100’ “

Horseheath

Baldock

Great Chesterford

Needham

Scole (Villa Faustini) Pakenham

Wimpole

Long Melford

Wixoe Radwinter

VENTA ICENORUM Ditchingham Long Stratton

Wenhaston (Senomagus?) Hacheston

Stoke Ash

Coddenham (Combretovium) Ipswich Capel St Mary Ad Ansam?

Felixstowe

Bishop’s Great Stortford Dunmow Coggeshall CAMULODUNUM Braughing Braintree Welwyn Harlow Little Waltham Kelvedon Ware Cow Leaden Roast ROADS Heybridge Cheshunt Roding in Antonine Itinerary Chelmsford VERULAMIUM (Jones and Mattingly Chigwell Billericay 1990, 23–8) Enfield Brockley Hill Wickford other roads (identified (Sulloniacae) Romford through archaeological (Durolitum?) evidence) Old Ford Brentford LONDON Icknield Way Staines Dunstable (Durocobrivis)

0

50 km

Fig. 4.6. The Romano-British urban hierarchy of eastern England based upon the criteria proposed in this study (see Appendix 5 for detail on each site). Note the sparsity of sites in East Anglia.

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have been included than in the Roman Rural Settlement Project, as the latter focused upon places that have seen large-scale excavations (published or available as grey literature), whereas some sites have been included in this study that are only known through piecing together a wider range of evidence, including fieldwalking, metal detecting, aerial photography, small-scale piecemeal observations, and unpublished/non-online archives in HERs (e.g. Capel St Mary in Suffolk, and Coggeshall and Wickford in Essex). The inclusion of this far wider range of evidence has been particularly important in establishing regional variations in the extent and character of the urban settlement hierarchies.

THE URBAN HIERARCHY IN EASTERN ENGLAND The North-Eastern Thames Basin The North-Eastern Thames Basin has an urban hierarchy that was typical of lowland Roman Britain, with a major town at Camulodunum, and at least one and possibly three small towns (Chelmsford, probably Harlow, and perhaps Wixoe). Heybridge appears to have started off as a small town but failed to develop and went into decline from the mid second century, becoming little more than a smaller local centre focused upon its temple. In addition there were at least nine larger local centres (Billericay, Bishop’s Stortford, Braintree, Chigwell, Harlow, Heybridge, Kelvedon, Long Melford, and Wickford) and seven smaller local centres that were all substantial roadside settlements (Capel St Mary, Coggeshall, Leaden Roding, Great Dunmow, Little Waltham, Radwinter, and Romford). Most of these settlements started to develop in the first century, although those at Coggeshall and Great Dunmow started in the second century presumably as a result of increased demand for market-based trade. Billericay, Kelvedon, Long Melford, and perhaps Radwinter declined from the late third century, and that these sites were spread across various parts of the region suggests a general decline in economic activity. There is a marked concentration of villas around most of these small towns and local centres. Most previous maps of the distribution of small towns (Fig. 4.5) show them to have been absent in the south of this region, which is noteworthy, as the character of this area was also different during much of the Iron Age. Although Billericay and Wickford could be regarded as larger local centres, based upon present evidence both have a rather rural feel to them. The absence of a small town in the Dengie peninsula might be accounted for by the lack of recent archaeological work in that area, although it is surely significant that there have been no antiquarian discoveries of masonry buildings and tessellated pavements that have been so common across the rest of the region. Substantial buildings and tessellated pavements should also have been spotted even without professional archaeological observations during the building of the extensive urban areas of Southend-on-Sea, Benfleet, Basildon, and Thurrock. The other area where small

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towns and local centres are noticeably absent is on the High Boulder Clay Plateau between the Stour and the Gipping and Lark valleys, which supports a wide range of other evidence for this having been a sparsely settled area. The North-Western Thames Basin The urban hierarchy in the North-Western Thames Basin was not significantly different from that farther east. The region was dominated by Verulamium, while, of the small towns, Braughing lay wholly within the North-Western Thames Basin, and Baldock and Dunstable lay on the Chilterns boundary zone with the South East Midlands. In the east of the region there were a large number of local centres (Cheshunt, Ware, Welwyn, Brockley Hill, Staines, and possibly Cow Roast and Enfield) with notable concentrations of villas around all of these urban settlements. In contrast, the area west of Watling Street has far fewer local centres, with the only potential example—Cow Roast in Northchurch— primarily focused on iron production. Western Hertfordshire is an area that— like southern Essex and south-western Suffolk—had very poor soils and it may well have had a relatively low rural settlement density. East Anglia East Anglia is a region that was traditionally seen as having relatively few small towns, with just a single example—Brampton—identified by Burnham and Wacher (1990, fig. 1) and five—Brampton, Coddenham, Hacheston, Ixworth (also known as Pakenham), and Scole—listed by Millett (1990, fig. 61). There are, however, a series of extensive sites usually identified through surface scatters and chance finds that appear to have been at least partly non-agricultural in their character, although they are difficult to interpret (hence Gurney’s (1994; 1995a) description of them as ‘shadowy settlements’, following Todd 1970). The published plans of selected sites (e.g. Gurney 1995a; Plouviez 1995) shows them as covering up to c.30–50 ha, which would make them far larger than the small towns and local centres across the rest of eastern England, although it is not clear how densely occupied they were and whether the ‘site’ area includes cemeteries and scatters of material that could be indicative of intensive manuring (a concern also expressed in Smith et al. 2016, 223): Gurney (1995a, fig. 62) shows Billingford, for example, as covering c.35 ha, whereas a more detailed account of metal detecting at the site suggests that the occupied area covered just c.8 ha (Wallis 2011, 5). The publication of extensive excavations within several sites (e.g. Billingford, Hacheston, and Scole), as well as a critical assessment of material from the surface scatters and small-scale excavations elsewhere (e.g. Great Walsingham and Wenhaston: see Appendix 5), does suggest that they performed some industrial, commercial, and religious functions, although the scale of this activity remains unclear. Only around half of the small towns and local centres in East Anglia were associated with villas,

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although this simply reflects the scarcity of villas across central and eastern East Anglia (Chapter 5). That the pattern of urban development within this region was clearly different from the Northern Thames Basin is, however, reflected in the small size of its civitas capital Venta Icenorum (c.14 ha) compared to Camulodunum (c.43 ha) and Verulamium (c.81 ha). Venta Icenorum has traditionally been seen as ‘small and impoverished, with a weakened local aristocracy lacking interest in the material and social attributes of Roman life’ (Bowden 2017, 21). That Icenian society failed to embrace the urban way of life may also explain there being just one possible large stone-built courtyard townhouse within Venta Icenorum and very few mosaics (the only excavated example being in the bath house, although loose tesserae suggest there were mosaics elsewhere: Bowden 2011, 54). That the forum was abandoned in the third century ‘seems to attest to the local population’s lack of commitment to the mores of Roman urbanism’, and Bowden (2011, 60) described its rebuilding in the fourth century as an ‘aberration’. This stunted development of the civitas capital—relative to others in southern and eastern Britain—contrasts with the large numbers of fourth-century coins from local centres across East Anglia which suggest that they were still flourishing as minor market towns (the traditional interpretation of the large numbers of fourth-century coins is that they are indicative of the rural nature of these sites: Davies and Gregory 1991; Ashwin and Tester 2014, 12). There is another aspect of these ‘shadowy’ East Anglian sites that deserves discussion: their distribution. Whilst examples are found right across East Anglia, they were far more common in the west than in the east. The only site in north-eastern Norfolk is Brampton, and while this appears to qualify as a small town, it is very striking that no substantial roadside settlements have been located in its hinterland. This may be yet another example of how the character of landscape and society in the east of East Anglia was different from that in the west, as seen in the Iron Age. Overall, the landscape of East Anglia was less urbanized than the Northern Thames Basin, although there were a series of substantial settlements that appear to have performed certain central place functions. The South East Midlands At first sight the scatter of small towns and local centres across the South East Midlands looks similar to those across the rest of lowland Roman Britain, although, when it is examined in detail, there are some differences compared to East Anglia and the Northern Thames Basin. Across the South East Midlands there are a relatively large number of particularly extensive defended small towns—Great Chesterford, Cambridge, Godmanchester, Water Newton, and Fenny Stratford—that are distributed relatively evenly across the landscape at important road junctions. The planned street grids in Cambridge, Fenny Stratford, and possibly Water Newton, and major public buildings in Godmanchester

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and Water Newton, suggest some form of official involvement. These large defended small towns are a continuation of the pattern seen to the west at sites such as Irchester, Towcester, Alchester, and Dorchester-upon-Thames, and seem to be particular characteristic of the East Midlands. Apart from these small towns, however, it is striking how few in number and small in size the local centres were (compared to the Northern Thames Basin), with the low density of occupation within them suggesting a very ‘rural’ character. Overall, it appears that unless more local centres await discovery, commercial activity within the South East Midlands was relatively concentrated within a small number of substantial small towns, in contrast to the Northern Thames Basin, where it was scattered more widely across the landscape. Discussion: regional variations on the urban landscape Across eastern England, the Roman period saw the development of a network of major towns, small towns, and local centres. Previous discussion of the ‘towns’, ‘small towns’, and ‘roadside settlements’ of Roman Britain has focused on the character of these sites, but there has been very little attention paid to their geographical context, and, far from being evenly spread across the landscape, there appear to have been some marked local and regional variations in where they are found. All these sites shared certain characteristics: they were extensive, on major roads, had occupation of a non-rural character, and residents who were engaged in industrial production and commercial activity. In deciding whether or not a small town or a local centre was ‘urban’ we should not compare them to major towns such as Camulodunum, as these were settlements of a very different character (just as, in the medieval period, local market towns were not simply smaller versions of London: see Brown 1995b). Equally, we should not include nucleated agricultural settlements—villages—in the same category as nucleated settlements whose primary functions were commercial, although in practice there may not have been a clear division between settlements at this lower end of the scale (e.g. Burnham 1995, 11–12). Categorizing sites as small towns, larger local centres, or smaller local centres is not easy as the nature and quality of the data vary enormously from site to site, with some having seen extensive excavation, and others largely known from aerial photography and/or surface collection. What is presented here should be regarded as a first attempt and not a final statement. A key feature of virtually all of the sites is that there is evidence for at least one substantial building (in the form of roof and hypocaust tile, and often tesserae and painted wall plaster), although the lack of excavation means that the nature of these buildings is usually unclear. There is a tendency to regard them as mansiones, but there are other possibilities, including private houses, bath houses (as at Brampton, Braughing, and Chignall), and temples (as at Baldock, Chelmsford, Great Chesterford, Crownthorpe, Harlow, Heybridge, Hockwold, Kelvedon, Thornborough, Walsingham, and

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Water Newton). Several sites appear to have seen economic specialization (e.g. iron-smelting at Cow Roast, and pottery production at Brampton and Water Newton), although most if not all had other central place functions (e.g. the bath house, iron-working, and leather-working at Brampton). In the context of this study it is the distribution of the small towns and local centres that is particularly interesting. A wide variety of factors will have influenced the location of individual sites, including pre-existing settlements10 and early Roman forts, which, although some suggested examples have proved to be illusory,11 have been confirmed in other locations.12 Thereafter, many local centres and small towns were closely associated with the infrastructure of the imperial post (a mansio or mutatio), which will have been one factor in the relatively regular spacing of so many sites (see Millett 1995, figs. 4.1–4.2 and table 4.1). Market forces will also have encouraged roadside settlements to spread out across the landscape which can be seen without the need to apply the rigid principles of ‘central place theory’ used elsewhere (e.g. Hodder and Hassall 1971; Hodder 1972). One way in which these small towns and local centres might shed light on Romano-British territoriality is the way that the settlement hierarchies appear to have differed from region to region. To a certain extent this is apparent in previous mappings of small towns, which suggested a marked scarcity of sites in East Anglia (Fig. 4.5), and while we can probably now add Coddenham (in a border location), Icklingham, and Scole to this list, it does appear that East Anglia had a lower density of major nucleated settlements compared to the Northern Thames Basin and South East Midlands (Fig. 4.6). The regional differences become much clearer, however, when the distribution of small towns is disaggregated from that of the local centres, which were particularly dense across most parts of the Northern Thames Basin, present in reasonable numbers in western parts of East Anglia, but were relatively few in the South East Midlands and the eastern parts of East Anglia (Fig. 4.7). Meade (2010, 8) has suggested that ‘In Late Iron Age Britain there was a network of communities who would have reacted in many different ways to the new rulers, according to their perceptions of identity, in particular those related to status and power. For example, some of the Romano-British population chose to live, not in the Roman style, planned, civitas capitals, dominated by a tribal elite, but in “small towns”.’ She goes on to argue that these small town dwellers ‘showed resistance to both tribal elite, and Roman ideals’ (Meade 2010, 8), although this cannot have been the whole story: not everyone could have lived in major

10

e.g. Colchester, Baldock, Braughing, Great Chesterford, Kelvedon, Saham Toney, and Verulamium. e.g. Kelvedon (Rodwell 1988; cf. Eddy 1982, 10; 1995). 12 e.g. Billingford (Wallis 2011), Coddenham (Plouviez 1995), Camulodunum (Gascoyne and Radford 2013), Fenny Stratford (Neal 1987), Great Chesterford (Medlycott 2011a), Pakenham (Plouviez 1995), Saham Toney (Gurney 1995a), and Water Newton (Mackreth 1995). 11

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All towns and local centres

Major and small towns

VIA

VIA

DE

DE

VA N

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ERMINE STREET

0

50 km

0

major town small town larger local centre smaller local centre

Local centres

50 km 400’ contour 300’ “ 200’ “ 100’ “

ERMINE STREET

0

50 km

Fig. 4.7. The disaggregated distributions of small towns and local centres across eastern England: note how the South East Midlands is dominated by a large number of small towns and relatively few local centres, whereas East Anglia has very few small towns but a larger number of local centres (especially in the west).

Roman towns, as there needed to be a substantial rural population in order to generate surplus food for the non-productive sectors of society, and in turn those farming communities needed the provision of local services. The regional variation in urban hierarchies across eastern England would, therefore, appear to be the outcome of a mixture of social ideals and economic reality. It is well known that many major small towns tend to occur roughly halfway between civitas capitals and while this may in part reflect where Roman forts had been constructed, it is also possible that they were located on socio-economic boundaries. In proposing this model, Hodder (1975, 72) drew upon primarily anthropological literature, although a parallel for trading sites being located in liminal locations can also be drawn with early medieval ‘emporia’ and ‘productive sites’ (see Chapter 11). Within eastern England there are several sites in what appears to have been boundary zones such as Dunstable, Baldock, and Great

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Chesterford on the chalk hills that divided the former heartland of the Catuvellauni and the unnamed peoples to the north, and Coddenham and Icklingham in the Gipping and Lark valleys (to which it might be possible to add Ipswich and Felixstowe), which divided the Trinovantes from the Iceni. Harlow and Bishop’s Stortford lie on what may have been the border area between the Trinovantes and the Catuvellauni.

RELIGIOUS SITES IN THE LANDSCAPE It has long been argued that rural temples may also have lain on territorial boundaries, acting as both religious sites and market places: Frilford and Woodeaton, for example, lay on the likely boundary between the Catuvellauni and the Dobunni,13 Brigstock between the Catuvellauni and the Corieltavi, and Harlow between the Catuvellauni and the Trinovantes (Rivet 1964, 134, 146; Hodder 1972; 1975; Burnham and Wacher 1990, 40; Millett 1990, 148; Curteis 1996; 2001; Laycock 2008, 118). It is well known that temples and tombs of historically significant figures were located on boundaries (e.g. de Polignac 1995, 32–41; Alcock 1996, 118–28), and Pretzler (2007, 103) argues that the identity of every polis was ‘closely connected with its memorial landscape’. In second-century Greece, for example, the travel writer Pausanias tell his readers of the Amphiareion at Oropus and the temple of Dionysus at Eleutherae on the border between Attica (Athens) and Boeotia, the sanctuary of Apollo Latous on the boundary between Megara and Corinth, and the Hermaeum on the border of Messenia and Arcadia (Pausanias 1.34.1–5; 1.38.3; 1.44.10; 2.35.2). Although Black’s (2015) recent discussion has focused on the idea that Romano-Celtic temples, especially urban ones, had a hinterland that they served—essentially seeing them as central places—rural temples were far from evenly spread across the landscape, with many lying close to the regional boundaries suggested by the circulation of Late Iron Age coinage (Figs. 4.8–4.9). A classic example is Harlow (Fig. 4.10), on the eastern (Essex) bank of the river Stort (the following summary is based upon the detailed evidence mapped in Figs. 4.12–4.13, and described in detail in Rippon in press). Harlow’s large Late Iron Age coin assemblage is suggestive of an important ritual site with Catuvellaunian affinities (Chapter 2). In the late first century a Romano-Celtic temple was constructed on Stanegrove Hill, which lay just to the south of where the Roman road from Braughing to Chigwell crossed the river Stort (France and Gobel 1985; Bartlett 1988; see Black 2015 and Curteis 2015 for the latest 13 To which we can now add Bourton Grounds in Thornborough (Bucks) (Green 1965; Johnson 1975; Wilson 2017), a classic square-shaped Romano-Celtic temple consisting of a cella and ambulatory. The date of its construction is unclear, although the coins are predominantly third to fourth century; nearby roadside occupation dates from the mid first century AD.

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rural temple ?

North Creake

Stonea Brigstock Haddenham

Lackford

Cottenham ? Bottisham ? Great Wilbraham

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? ?

Hinxworth Pegsdon ?

?

Great Blakenham

Great Chesterford

Ashwell

? Barkway

? Oughtonhead

Thornborough

Flamstead Witham Woodeaton

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ROADS in Antonine Itinerary (Jones and Mattingly 1990, 23–8)

Harlow

Frilford 400’ contour 300’ “ 200’ “ 100’ “

other roads (identified through archaeological evidence) Icknield Way 0

50 km

Fig. 4.8. The distribution of rural Romano-Celtic temples across eastern England mapped against a background showing topography.

discussions). An extensive scatter of Romano-British occupation has been recorded to the north, east, and south of Stanegrove Hill. Although many of the excavations were carried out in hurried conditions and have not been published, the available information allows the character of the occupation to be identified as extensive, dense, and largely non-agricultural, and is suggestive of a small town spread over c.40 ha. The artefacts from one site—Holbrook’s—were, however, unusual and included evidence for industrial production along with large numbers of Late Iron Age coins and early Roman brooches, and votive objects including three miniature axes, two bronze leaves possibly from a headdress, three bronze letters of a type believed to have been bought by worshippers to nail onto leather or wood in order to construct votive messages, a lead curse, and a highly decorated pewter vessel. This evidence has led some scholars to interpret Holbrook’s as an industrial area producing votive goods for visitors to the Stanegrove temple (Conlon 1973, 38; Burnham and Wacher 1990, 187), although Fitzpatrick (1985b) has noted that no examples of these objects were found at the extensively excavated Stanegrove Hill. Overall, it is very difficult to interpret what is clearly a

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rural temple ?

Iron Age coin distributions boundary zones

North Creake

Stonea Brigstock Haddenham Cottenham ? Bottisham ?

Swaffham Prior

Great Wilbraham ? ?

Hinxworth ? Pegsdon ?

Great Blakenham

Great Chesterford

Ashwell

? Barkway

? Oughtonhead

Thornborough

Flamstead Witham Wood Lane End

400’ contour 300’ “ 200’ “ 100’ “

ROADS in Antonine Itinerary (Jones and Mattingly 1990, 23–8)

Harlow

other roads (identified through archaeological evidence) Icknield Way 0

50 km

Fig. 4.9. The distribution of rural Romano-Celtic temples across eastern England mapped against a background showing Iron Age coin circulation zones.

very important site and assemblage, and there is no reason to assume that the site retained the same function over the course of its life. The large number of Late Iron Age coins, first-century Roman brooches, and votive artefacts are all indicative of a ritual site, and that no examples of these votive objects were found at Stanegrove Hill does suggest a second early Roman temple at Holbrook’s (which then went of use to be replaced by domestic occupation). Interest in Harlow does not, however, end there, as to the east of the Pincey Brook—at Harlowbury—another discrete area of dense, high-status occupation has been identified (Fig. 4.11). Roman buildings have been recorded here since the early nineteenth century and the site is scheduled as a Roman villa, although some of the evidence could possibly be interpreted as a temple. Aerial photography has revealed the cropmarks of a square building c.40 by 40 m, with a second rectangular building c.40 m to the west that measured c.10 by 50 m (SAM 24860; Masefield 1997a–c; Ingle and Saunders 2011, fig. 3.12). In 1990 a

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Fig. 4.10. Reconstruction of the Romano-Celtic temple at Stanegrove Hill in Harlow, Essex. (Brown 2000, fig. 56; © Essex County Council).

Pishiobury Park

occupation

60m 55m

River Stort

burials

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isolated finds

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area of fieldwalking survey

Holbrooks Holbrook’s

no evidence Holbrook’s Factory north of gasworks

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3663 River Way

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Goulds Timber Yard

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railway cutting

Priory Avenue

Stafford House

2006, Trench 18

2066, Trench 20

area of geophysical survey (anomalies that excavation has shown are not Romano-British have been excluded)

rook ey B

Vinter HouseHarlow Mill

1997, Trench 20

1997 Trench 11 2006, Trench 7 1997 1997, Trench 1 Trench 15 1997 Trench 18 1997, Trench 17

Pinc

Harlow Mill

2006, Trench 2

Edinburgh Way HARLOWBURY

48

Darlington’s Garage 0

500 m

1 km

Fig. 4.11. Plan of the small town at Harlow, in Essex, and the possible temple site at Harlowbury to the west (details of the various sites can be found in Rippon in press).

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HARLOWBURY 2006, Trench 2

1997, Trench 20

1997 Trench 11 2006, Trench 7 1997 1997, Trench 1 Trench 15 1997 Trench 18 1997, Trench 17

area of geophysical survey 2006, Trench 18

2066, Trench 20

NB geophysical anomalies that excavation has shown are not Romano-British have been excluded.

area of fieldwalking survey

0

500 m

1 km

Fig. 4.12. The Romano-British site at Harlowbury, west of Harlow in Essex, showing fieldwork undertaken up to 2015 (see Rippon in press for details).

fieldwalking survey was carried out which revealed a concentration of tile and some tesserae corresponding to the cropmark complex (Bartlett 1991). A particularly important find during the fieldwalking was a large fragment of a limestone column. It has an unfluted circular surface that has been worked to a very high-quality finish which is at an angle of 5 from the vertical, and ‘using the B:1 height to diameter ratio that seems to apply to most larger columns

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recovered in Britain and is common in other parts of the Empire, gives a height of 4 metres’ (typescript report, Harlow Museum). The column fragment is preserved within Harlow Museum and measures 0.49 m across (suggesting a diameter of c.0.5 m, as not quite half survives), and 0.16 m thick: it does indeed have a very fine polished surface with no evidence for fluting. The column fragment would appear to be far larger than those associated with porticoes around the fronts of villas, and hints at the presence of a more substantial building. Extensive geophysical survey shows that the building lay to the north of a trackway marked by two substantial roadside ditches and whereas to the east of the substantial building this takes a sinuous line, to the west it is dead straight and perhaps even monumental in its scale. Overall, the building at Harlowbury is difficult to interpret, but the plan (a square structure), substantial masonry construction and tessellated pavements, limestone column, and what appears to be a monumental approach from the west are suggestive of a temple. It is worth noting that the western approach road heads directly towards Pishiobury, where various Romano-British burials have been found (Hull 1963a, 142–3). Harlow, therefore, appears to have been an important ritual centre from the Late Iron Age through to the Roman period, with at least one and possibly three temples (not all necessarily contemporary): it was a ‘persistent place’ indicative of a liminal location within the landscape. This is not, however, the only Late Iron Age boundary with evidence for Romano-British ritual sites. To the north, on the Trinovantian–Icenian boundary, a possible temple or shrine exists at Great Blakenham on the southern slopes of the Gipping valley near Coddenham, where a surface scatter includes pottery, large amounts of metalwork, including 163 coins, 38 brooches, and possible fragments of an altar (SuffHER BLG004). A pronounced line of sites lies on or just below the Chilterns that includes two Romano-Celtic temples—at Ashwell End in Hertfordshire (Burnham et al. 2007, 278–80; Burleigh 2015) and Great Chesterford in Essex (Medlycott 2011a)— and possible sites at Barkway, Hinxworth, and Oughtonhead near Hitchin (Burleigh 2015, 99–101, 103–8, 109–10). Petts (2003) has noted the tendency for ritual deposition of metalwork in Roman Britain to occur in wet places, continuing a long tradition of this practice in prehistory, and an example is at Pegsdon in Shillington (Bedfordshire) at the foot of the chalk escarpment. Fieldwalking and metal detecting have yielded large amounts of Iron Age and Romano-British metalwork (Fig. 4.13), which includes a hoard of 127 Roman gold aurei (the latest of which is dated to Titus, AD 78–9), a series of deposits of Roman silver denarii (the latest of which was minted under Hadrian in AD 128), and a Late Iron Age copper-alloy mirror and silver Knotenfibel brooch (Burleigh and Megaw 2007; Burleigh 2015, 103–8). Other material is suggestive of an extensive Late Iron and Roman cemetery (Burleigh 2015). Crucial to understanding this site, however, is its landscape context. It is located in a small, low-lying basin, the wetness of which is reflected in current

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extent of enclosure complex (Burleigh & Megaw 2007, fig. 2)

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approx. extent of wetland

mirror burial

Knocking Knoll Long Barrow

125 m

Pegsdon Common Farm

A

Knocking Knoll

Tingley Barrow

0 55 m

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Ickn

ield

Way

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C

Fig. 4.13. The prehistoric, Romano-British, and early medieval ritual landscape at Pegsdon, Bedfordshire, including (A) the view north-east from Knocking Knoll towards the long barrow (photo: author), (B) the location of key sites in their landscape context (after Burleigh and Megaw 2007), and (C) the view north-west from the head of Knocking Knoll dry valley looking down to the site at Pegsdon Common Farm (photo: author).

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Ordnance Survey mapping, which shows blue water-filled ditches and the dark colour of the soils evident when the area is ploughed (Fig. 4.13.C). This bog was clearly of great importance, lying immediately below the chalk escarpment upon which still stand the very prominent Neolithic long barrow at Knocking Knoll and the Bronze Age bowl barrow at Tingley, which lie just to the west of the Icknield Way (Dyer 1964). The rounded spur at Knocking Knoll is a natural outcrop of chalk, but has the appearance of a massive barrow. There is even greater chronological depth to the use of this landscape as at least two Early Anglo-Saxon barrow burials (one male, one female) were excavated in the nineteenth century near to where some Roman cremation burials were found (Dyer 1964, 75; Meaney 1964, 39). Another Anglo-Saxon burial may have been discovered on the nearby hills, as a pottery assemblage now in Hitchin Museum, said to have come from a ‘tumulus on Pegsdon Downs’, contains two sherds similar to ‘small vessels found in Anglo-Saxon graves’ (Bedfordshire HER 413 and 414). Overall, this liminal location was clearly of great significance during various periods, and communities kept returning there in order to bury their dead and make other ritual deposits. To the north-east of Pegsdon, on the opposite side of the Hitchin gap, lies the recently discovered temple site at Ashwell (mentioned earlier), and the RomanoCeltic temple at Great Chesterford, which lies at the head of a line of sites that runs down into the lowlands of south-eastern Cambridgeshire—across the Wilbraham–Swaffham corridor—close to the line of Middle Iron Age hillforts between Sawston and Belsar’s Camp (Fig. 3.9). The Great Chesterford temple lay 1 km outside the Roman small town on high ground overlooking the Granta valley. It has a long history of excavation, and, as with Harlow, its development began in the Late Iron Age after which a classic square-shaped Romano-Celtic temple was constructed consisting of a cella and ambulatory (both with tessellated floors) set within a precinct. Like Harlow the temple was constructed in the mid to late first century and used until the late fourth century (Miller 1995; Medlycott 2011a, 130–67). A substantial circular building—possibly a temple— lies just 15 km to the north of Great Chesterford at Mutlow Hill in Great Wilbraham (Neville 1842; Rodwell 1980, 570). Another Romano-Celtic temple, comprising a circular enclosure set within a rectangular enclosure, lies 8 km to the north at Gallows Hill in Swaffham Prior, just south of the Devil’s Dyke (Bray and Malim 1998; Malim 2006). Its origins are unclear and may have lain within the Late Iron Age, and then developed over the course of the later first and second centuries AD. Just to the south west, at Whiteland Springs in Bottisham, excavations revealed the sill beams of two concentric square or rectangular structures, while a geophysical survey revealed a small rectangular building surrounded by a rectangular ditched enclosure: excavations showed that the gated entrance was aligned with a causeway in the inner enclosure ditch (CambsHER 10396). At nearby Cottenham the cropmarks of a double rectangular enclosure have produced over a hundred coins and a miniature ‘votive’

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axe (Taylor 1980, x). On the Fenland island of Haddenham, a second-century Roman shrine comprised an octagonal structure within a rectangular enclosure (Evans and Hodder 2006, 327–417): like Mutlow Hill, Haddenham reused a Bronze Age barrow, possibly providing an example of Romano-British communities legitimizing their claim to the land through associating themselves with monuments perceived to be those of their ancestors (Eckardt et al. 2009, 85). At the Grange, on the Fenland island of Stonea, a classic square-shaped Romano-Celtic temple with a cella and ambulatory was built in the mid second century (Jackson and Potter 1996, 214–23). Altogether, these sites represent a remarkable concentration of ritual activity in exactly the same area of the landscape that saw the construction of the line of Iron Age hillforts that may have marked the boundary between the Iceni and communities living in the South East Midlands (Chapter 3). There was also a series of early Roman pottery kilns (Chapter 6), and in the early medieval period the boundary between the East Angles and the Middle Angles was marked by the construction of a series of monumental dykes (Chapter 12). There is potentially another element to this concentration of Romano-British ritual sites in what appears to have been a long-lasting liminal zone. The Bartlow Hills are the largest Roman burial mounds in Britain, lying in the Granta valley, which dissects the chalk hills just 8 km east of Great Chesterford. They were constructed in the late first and second centuries, and lay next to a poorly understood villa (Astin et al. 2007; Eckardt 2009). Although it has been said that Romano-British barrows are found across the South East of Britain, and in particular in Cantiacian, Catuvellaunian, and Trinovantian territory (e.g. Struck 2000, 88; Eckardt et al. 2009), their distribution is far from evenly spread, being particularly common within the South East Midlands but absent in East Anglia (the group of four barrows at Rougham stands above the Lark valley on the Icenian/Trinovantian boundary: Dunning and Jessop 1936, fig 2; Struck 2000, fig. 9.3). While other facets of high-status burial—such as the inclusion of banqueting vessels and weapons, and burial with a stone mausoleum or similar monument—are found more widely across lowland Roman Britain, these are again absent from East Anglia (Struck 2000, figs. 9.4 and 9.5). There is also just a single example from the North Thames Basin14—on Mersea Island, now dated to the mid second century (Benfield and Black 2013)—although the Lexden Tumulus, on the fringes of the Camulodunum oppidum, is Late Iron Age (Foster 1986). Several examples of impressive Roman barrows are found along the chalk escarpment, including the group at Stevenage (Herts), Langley (Essex), and a cluster in the Granta valley that includes the Bartlow Hills, Shudy Camp, Linton Heath, Hildersham, and Little Abington. Two richly furnished cremation burials, very similar to those within the Bartlow Hills, have been excavated at 14 Dunning and Jessop’s (1936, 49) inclusion of Little Shelford on Foulness can be dismissed, as these are burials inserted into a salt production mound known as a ‘red hill’ (see Pollitt 1953, 68).

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Stansted DCS Site and the way that other features avoid them suggests that they were also once covered by barrows (Havis and Brooks 2004, 249–50, 253–4). Another rich burial, ‘beneath a small mound’, was excavated in the nineteenth century at nearby Takeley Street (Hull 1963a, 185). Overall, it is possible that this distinctive type of monument was particularly common amongst communities who had a Catuvellaunian identity, and some may lie in liminal locations.

CONCLUSIONS The development of an urban hierarchy and the construction of Romano-Celtic temples are two components of the traditional concept of ‘Romanization’. What is striking, however, is that, when examined more closely, the distribution of urban and religious sites across eastern England was far from uniform, and the spatial patterning that is emerging through recent discoveries suggests that territorial identities established during the Iron Age continued through into the Roman period. It is striking, for example, that urban hierarchies within the Northern Thames Basin, East Anglia, and South East Midlands were subtly different, with East Anglia having a markedly less well-developed tradition of urbanism than the other two, while the South East Midlands seemingly had fewer but larger small towns. These differences help to build up a picture of how the Romano-British landscape and society were not uniform in character, which will be continued in Chapter 5 with a discussion of villa architecture. There is also a marked tendency for urban and religious sites to occur in boundary zones such as the small town at Coddenham and possible temple at Great Blakenham in the Gipping valley, which appears to have marked the boundary between the Iceni and the Trinovantes. The western boundary of the Trinovantes—with the Catuvellauni—appears to have lain close to the Lea– Stort valleys, which provided the location for the important temple and associated small town at Harlow as well as the larger local centre at Bishop’s Stortford. The major small town and nearby temple at Great Chesterford lay in the Granta valley, which was close to where Trinovantian, Icenian, and Catuvellaunian territories may have met. North of Great Chesterford lay the small town of Cambridge, in the Cam valley, and a very marked line of Romano-British temples that extended onto the Fenland islands. On their own this may be regarded as interesting, but it cannot have been a coincidence that they lay just a few kilometres north-east of the line of Middle Iron Age hillforts that includes Sawston, Wandlebury, War Ditches, Arbury, and Belsar’s Hill, and a series of early Roman pottery kilns discussed in Chapter 6. The chalk escarpment may have marked the northern boundary of the Catuvellauni before they expanded into the South East Midlands under Tasciovanus, and this landscape zone was the location of the substantial small towns of Baldock and Dunstable as well as a

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series of rural temples. Farther west, a line of four temples (Frilford, Woodeaton, Thornborough, and Brigstock) and four major small towns (Alchester, Towcester, Irchester, and Water Newton) may mark the boundary of the Catuvellauni after their expansion under Tasciovanus and Cunobelin. These sites do not seem to have been randomly distributed across the landscape, but were located in places of particular significance.

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5 The rural landscape of the Romano-British land-owning elite RURAL HOUSES OF THE 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 (e.g. Fig. 5.1) 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, and most 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. The second assumption—that we can easily map the distribution of villas—is more problematic, particularly when using evidence from aerial photography,

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villa: certain (Millett 1990, fig. 48) villa: probable (Millett 1990, fig. 48)

Yorkshire

villa in Jones and Mattingly (1990, map 7.6) but not Millett (1990, fig. 48)

East Anglia

Pembrokeshire

0

100 km

Fig. 5.1. Two different distributions of Roman villas published in the same year: while Millett (1990, fig. 48) distinguishes between ‘certain’ and ‘probable’ villas, Jones and Mattingly (1990, map 7.6) map many more villas in places such as East Anglia but do not distinguish sites with different clarity of evidence.

fieldwalking, and smaller-scale excavations. In the light of these two problems— the fragmentary evidence that we have to work with, and a lack of clarity as to whether or not a site should be regarded as a villa—it is not surprising that a comparison of published maps shows no consensus on the distribution of villas (Fig. 5.1). This leads on to the third common assumption about Romano-British villas: that they were a typical feature of lowland areas. Dark and Dark’s (1997, 43–75) description of lowland Britain as the ‘villa landscape’ is misleading, as villas were characteristic of some, but not all, areas. It has long been recognized, for example, that there were extensive areas where villas either developed

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relatively late or not at all, such as the chalk downland of Salisbury Plain, the wetlands of Fenland, southern Essex,1 and the well-wooded Weald. Such areas have been interpreted in the past as Imperial estates (the property of the emperor) or ager publicus (land that was held by the Roman state: Collingwood and Myres 1937, 224; Richmond 1955, 130–1; Salway 1970, 10; Rodwell 1978a, 78; Frere 1987, 226), although in some cases this hypothesis can be challenged, as there is little direct evidence from inscriptions, because a very small number of villas have recently been discovered in some of those areas (e.g. Salisbury Plain: McOmish et al. 2002, 104–7), or because some villas had earlier origins than was previously thought (Leech 1982). It has also been argued that ‘villa’-like buildings might be expected on Imperial/state land, albeit as the residences of estate officials (Millett 1990, 120; Mattingly 2006, 371). The strongest case for Imperial/state land is Fenland. In Roman law new land that was brought into cultivation for the first time would have been the property of the Roman state (Salway 1970, 10; cf. Todd 1989, 14), and in Fenland the sudden expansion of settlement and salt production in the second century is very striking and suggestive of an external stimulus. The two substantial settlements at Stonea and Chatteris are more in keeping with some form of official centre than a villa or small town, and major engineering works such as the Car Dyke and a series of canals that linked fen-edge settlements with the major tidal estuaries all point to a major investment in resources (Rippon 2000, 127–33; Fincham 2002; Mattingly 2006, 384–5). Beyond these possible Imperial estates, villas do not appear to have been spread evenly across the landscape, with there being noticeably fewer examples in East Anglia (e.g. Fig. 5.1). It has also long been recognized that there are significant changes in the distribution of villas over time, with distinct concentrations of later first-century examples in the vicinity of Camulodunum and Verulamium, in contrast to the late Roman period, when the greatest investment appears to have been on the Cotswolds (e.g. Rivet 1969b, fig. 5.7; Webster 1969, fig. 6.2). Such patterning can be accounted for in a variety of ways, such as shifts in general economic prosperity, patterns of land-holding (including the size of estates), and agricultural productivity, although there is another possibility: that it is a reflection of the extent to which communities chose to display their wealth and status through particular forms of architecture (e.g. Sargent 2002).

IDENTIFYING A ‘VILLA’ Identifying what constitutes a ‘villa’ is far from straightforward as within the Romano-British countryside there was a continuum from simple timber-built 1 The recent publication of the excavations at Mucking discusses past claims that there was a villa there, and convincingly shows that there is no evidence for such a structure (Lucy and Evans 2016, 431–3).

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farmsteads with thatched roofs through to palatial stone-built country houses with underfloor heating and tessellated floors. Great Holts, in Essex, lies close to the middle of this spectrum (Fig. 5.2; EssHER 14127; Germany 2003, 4). It was first identified through fieldwalking as a concentration of roofing and hypocaust tile, and as such could easily have been identified as a villa, although excavation showed that this material came from a small stone-built bath house that was attached to a substantial timber-built aisled house. The excavator suggests that the central space was not a large open hall but sub-divided into up to twelve private rooms (Germany 2003, 33–40), and along with a single small projecting wing Great Holts has the appearance of a timber-built house that was designed to look like a villa. With the exception of the bath house, however, it lacked the embellishments that stone-built villas had and, in addition to its timber walls, there was no underfloor heating, opus signinum, tessellated floors, glazed windows, or painted wall plaster. Despite the entire site being excavated, just a single tessera was found and this was from the vicinity of the bath house that was built from reused material (and so the tessera could also have been brought to the site from elsewhere). Overall, while the scatter of tile found during the fieldwalking was suggestive of a villa, excavation suggests that the farmhouse was not quite of that status and when it is compared to other buildings within the local area—such as the stone-built courtyard villa at Chignall St James (Fig. 5.3)—it was clearly in a different, lower league. A contrast can be drawn between Great Holts and two other sites that sit close to the middle of the farmstead–villa spectrum. At Wymbush in Loughton, Buckinghamshire, a scatter of building stone and roof tile discovered through fieldwalking led to the excavation of a well-built stone house that initially consisted of a simple block of three rooms that was then extended through the addition of a corridor at the front and a two-room wing on one side (Fig. 5.4; Mynard 1987, 82–90; Zeepvat 1988). The house at Wymbush (22 m long and 11 m wide) was slightly smaller than Great Holts (27 m long and 15 m wide) but more substantial in character, having stone walls (walls 0.75 m thick), an opus signinum floor in at least one room, elaborately painted wall plaster, and a ceramic tiled roof. Overall, the builders of both Great Holts and Wymbush clearly aspired for their houses to appear ‘Roman’, but the latter was further along the spectrum towards being a villa in terms of the materials used. At Feltwell, in Norfolk, we can edge a little further along the spectrum. Here, a slightly larger stone-built house (35 m long and 14 m wide) comprised six rooms fronted by a corridor (Fig. 5.5; Gurney 1986, 1–48). The walls were again substantial (0.8 m thick), covered in painted wall plaster, and the floors consisted of a yellow mortar; a single piece of window glass was also found. A tiled flue in one wall suggests that a hypocaust was planned, although there is no evidence that it was ever finished, while to the south of the house there was a detached bath house.

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100

415

N

N

414

414

94

N

O

105

M 802

93 4178

717 716

4161

553

715

496

835 724/731 836 723 837 722 521 838 741 839 740

4172

92

481

635 479 478

642

503 494

643

786

506

F E

A

4120

D

562

507 464

493

500

634

Well K

554

559

463

515

416

567

4114 557 555

462

476 475 492

789 4111

459

461

477 394

G

B

460

591

517

4121

458

514 513

L

81

471

510

529

516

4118

508

480

4116

4119

541 794

97 77

416

790

639

H

78

558

561

547 571

797 519

661

498

I

4112

491

560 656

88

87

468

4115

C

102 85/86

4167

565

465

J

466

4117

467 787

548

786

566

788 550

640

4113 646 647

785

0

10 m

0

10 m

651

Fig. 5.2. Plan of the farmhouse at Great Holts in Boreham, Essex, with an interpretation of the possible interior layout (after Germany 2003, figs. 26 and 28), and reconstruction drawing by Peter Froste (Brown 2000, fig. 60; © Essex County Council).

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32

34 33

? baths 41 29

31 42 30

28 27 26 25

40 39

0

20 m

20

21

23

22

24

Fig. 5.3. Plan (derived from cropmarks) and reconstruction of Chignall villa, in Essex (after Clarke 1998, Cover and fig. 71; © Essex County Council).

0

10 m

Fig. 5.4. Plan and reconstruction of the house at Wymbush in Loughton, Buckinghamshire: the plan-form, opus signinum floor, and elaborately painted wall plaster suggest that this can be regarded as a villa (after Mynard 1987, figs. 27–8; © Buckinghamshire Archaeological Society).

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363

354

364

362

171 172

Room 2

290 355

Room 3

Room 4

358

356

Room 5

359

357

Room 6

360

hearth 173

Blocked ?flue 366

174

s1

361

169

353

168

365

167

?door way Room 1 (Corridor)

371

352

350 modern drain 170

s2 A

0

50

10 m s1

20

B Iron Age ditch 25

42

24

s3

22

21

19

23

Cold Plunge T

62

202

201

T 262

213 21

211

T 210 214

s2

26 212 s3

27 29

28

207

30 60 27 208

42 215

200

40

T 199 198

181

293

203

332 182 288

s4 Caldarium

Stokehole 41 s4

Tepidarium

204

Frigidarium

64 66

293

208

31 Entrance

180 332

206

51

34 37

209

205

330

331

C

35

32 33

36

20

s2

52

Fig. 5.5. The house and detached bath house at Oulsham Drive, Feltwell, in Norfolk: the plan-form, mortar floor, painted wall plaster, and window glass suggest that this can be regarded as a villa (after Gurney 1986, figs. 7 and 10; © Norfolk Museum Service).

These three houses at Great Holts, Wymbush, and Feltwell were all clearly built in a Roman style and incorporated elements of villa architecture, but none is unequivocally a Roman villa, as they lack tessellated pavements and underfloor heating in the houses themselves. In order to map the distribution of villas we need to decide whether all or any of these structures should be included and to that end the definition of a villa used here is a residential building of Roman design, stone construction, and with a minimum of mortared floors, plastered walls, and a tiled roof. In Table 5.1 this range of archaeological evidence is correlated with residential buildings of different character and status, and on this basis Great Holts is not regarded as a villa—the house was timber—whereas Wymbush and Feltwell just fulfil the criteria. The second key problem when trying to map the distribution of villas is the character of the archaeological evidence with which we have to work. Although the sites at Great Holts, Wymbush, and Feltwell were all completely excavated, this scale of investigation is unusual and most sites have only been partially uncovered. Simply mapping excavated sites that we can be certain were villas, however, leaves many unanswered questions, such as whether the apparent scarcity

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Table 5.1. The criteria for identifying an archaeological site as a villa. Component Evidence plan detail

row-plan

roofing

Least ‘Romanized’

Evidence

X

X

X

X

corridor(s) and wing(s)

thatch

X

X

X

X

tiles

wall timber construction

X

X

X

X

stone

X

X

X

painted wall plaster

X

X

X

opus signinum

X

X

glazed

wall covering

none

earthen floor construction

X

Most ‘Romanized’

window glass

none

heating

none

X

hypocaust

floor covering

none

X

tessellated pavement

interpretation

examples

farmstead highly minor Romanized villa farmstead

villa

substantial villa

Great Holts Wymbush Feltwell (Fig. 5.2) (Fig. 5.4) Fig. 5.5)

of sites in East Anglia (e.g. Fig. 5.1) reflects the fact that very few villas were ever built there, or a different history of archaeological fieldwork compared to other areas (cf. the Chilterns, which have seen a long history of excavation due to the research interests of a small number of individual archaeologists: Branigan 1967; 1968; 1969; 1971; Neal 1974; 1974–6; Rook 1983–6; Neal et al. 1990). One way forward is to look at not only excavated sites but also aerial photography and surface collections, although fieldwalking data must be treated with extreme caution. In Norfolk, for example, Scott (1993) identifies 217 possible villa sites, although the vast majority of these have only produced a scatter of tile. Once again, however, there is a spectrum of evidence: at Great Dunham, for example, a scatter of Roman material included only roof and box-flue tile (NorHER 4188), whereas Topcroft has produced opus signinum, wall plaster, hypocaust tile, roof tile, and tesserae (NorHER 10194). The common assumption that medieval parish churches which include Roman brick within their fabric are indicative of a nearby villa (e.g. Wickenden 1988, fig. 61: Church End in Great Dunmow and Great Easton; and see EssHER 1282) is not a criterion used here, as the material may have been brought in from elsewhere. Some villas also show up well as cropmarks (e.g. Lidgate in Suffolk: St Joseph 1973, 245; Wilson 1974a, 258), although it should be noted that claylands tend not to have been

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flown as often as areas with lighter soils. The distinctiveness of their building materials—notably tessellated pavements and hypocausts—means that large numbers of villas were initially discovered by antiquarians and, as such, the distribution of known sites will not be as skewed towards areas of modern development as are other types of archaeological site. While East Anglia has seen far greater fieldwalking than other regions, this in part compensates for the lower intensity of recent development-led excavations. A third and related problem in mapping the distribution of villas is the quality of the databases we have to work with. Although all HERs are now available online through the Heritage Gateway, to simply search for ‘villa’ is to rely upon other people’s interpretation of often complex data. At Stanley Hall in Pebmarsh, Essex, for example, the following evidence was used by the HER officer to identify the site as a ‘villa’ (EssHER 9356): Roman settlement investigated after initial discovery by a farmer during deep ploughing in 1959. In 1962 more substantial work was carried out. Part of a timber building was revealed, a layer of carbonized wood presumably marking the position of a beam, with two post-holes nearby. Pottery suggested C3 occupation. Tiles turned up by ploughing imply a tiled roof. To the north of the building, a ditch was located . . . Surface finds also included hypocaust tile and a very late mortarium fragment . . . Colchester Museum records report traces of a timber-framed building with gravel court and Romano-British rubbish pits, C3 and C4 pottery and tile. This is all contained in one large field south-east of Stanley Hall. According to OS field report 1976, a slight scatter of Roman building debris comprising tile, brick, and pottery sherds was seen in fresh ploughsoil over an area c.80m diameter.

There is actually very little evidence here for a villa, and in this study it is not regarded as such. In order to map the distribution of villas it was therefore essential to be consistent across the entire study area, and to use primary data rather than rely on the interpretations of other archaeologists. The starting point here was therefore the HERs for each county which were searched for ‘villa’, ‘mosaic’, ‘tessera’, and ‘tessellated pavement’. This resulted in many sites in Scott’s (1993) Gazetteer being excluded such as Ringland, in Norfolk (Scott 1993, No. 155), for which the HER entry states: This site has previously been interpreted as a Roman villa site, see NorHER 11711 for details. However this interpretation was based on only a small section of the site being visible on the aerial photographs; the area of cropmarks located to the south of the field boundary that dissects the site. This area taken in isolation does have the appearance of a villa. However when the rest of the site is taken into consideration, that identified from additional vertical aerial photographs (S1–S2), then the ditches would appear to be part of a much wider enclosure complex, possibly a Roman farmstead and associated fields. (NorHER 50602)

In other cases, Scott’s (1993) sites that have been excluded lay within roadside settlements or small towns, or were duplications of single sites (which often

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comes about because some villas are variously referred to by the parish within which they lay and one or more local names).2 The ADS was also searched, although this revealed very little new data. Once a list of potential sites had been compiled, it was time to decide where on the settlement continuum (Table 5.1) a particular place may have fallen. If a site has only produced unstratified ceramic roof and hypocaust tile, then the threshold was regarded as having not been crossed, as it may have come from a small bath block attached to a timber house (as at Great Holts) or have been brought to the site as rubble to spread across a farmyard. If, however, there is a large unstratified assemblage of masonry building debris, hypocaust and roof tile, tesserae, and wall plaster, then the site is classed as a ‘probable’ villa, as even here there is the possibility that it comes from a temple, mansio, or roadside settlement. If there is relatively little material, or there is only opus signinum and painted wall plaster but no tessera, then it is regarded as ‘possible’. The threshold for defining a villa, and the criteria for defining a site as certain, probable, and possible, have therefore been set fairly high but are designed to embrace the evidence from surface collection as well as aerial photography and excavation.

REGIONAL VARIATION IN THE DISTRIBUTION OF VILLAS The distribution of what are regarded as certain, probable, and possible villas is shown in Fig. 5.6, which clearly shows that they were not evenly distributed across the whole of eastern England. The largest numbers were found in the Northern Thames Basin and the South East Midlands, where there is a marked propensity for villas to occur in clusters around towns and some local centres. There are, however, some notable gaps in the distribution: first, on the heavier clay soils, and second, across large parts of central and eastern East Anglia, where the soils are relatively light and have seen extensive aerial photography (e.g. Tremlett 2011). The scarcity of villas on the heavier claylands does appear to be a genuine phenomenon: although clay soils generally produce poorer cropmarks than lighter soils, we would expect the stone foundations of villas to show up very well (e.g. Lidgate: St Joseph 1971, plate xxxv; 1973, 245; Moore 1988, 50), and the claylands have also seen the same level of antiquarian interest as other areas, and as much extensive fieldwalking. The focus of villas on the lighter soils may therefore reflect two phenomena: first, that these areas reflect where the Late Iron Age elite had lived, and second that the agricultural heartlands of Roman Britain remained in these areas. The scarcity of villas across eastern East Anglia cannot be explained by the fertility of the soils, as the 2

e.g. ‘Ashdon’ in Scott (1993, No. 4) is ‘Great Copt Hill’ in the VCH Ess III, 44, and ‘Great Bowser’s Farm’ in RCHME 1916, xxiv. That the last two are the same site is shown by the plans given in both sources.

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A

villa: certain villa: probable villa: possible

400’ contour 300’ “ 200’ “ 100’ “

0

50 km

Fig. 5.6. The distribution of certain, probable, and possible villas across eastern England based upon the criteria laid out in Table 5.1, against a background showing (A) topography and (B) pre-modern agricultural land capability, suggesting that the scarcity of villas in eastern Norfolk cannot be explained by the quality of the soils.

mix of clays, loams, and sands in these districts give rise to very fertile agricultural land (Fig. 5.6), and metal detecting has produced large amounts of both Iron Age and Roman coinage from the area (Walton 2012). Instead, the scarcity of villas from eastern East Anglia must be seen in the context of a society that was also lukewarm towards urban living (see Chapter 4). If we assume that investing wealth in the construction of a villa was one manifestation of conspicuous consumption in order to demonstrate status, then their scarcity across the fertile soils of eastern East Anglia suggests a society within which social standing was expressed in ways other than architecture, such as the ownership of livestock. Just as in the Late Iron Age, when only some components of the ‘Belgic’ Aylesford-Swarling cultural package were adopted, it appears that during the Roman period many Icenian communities were similarly selective about which elements of ‘being Roman’ they wanted to adopt.

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B villa: certain villa: probable villa: possible

4

poor

3 2 1

good

0

50 km

Fig. 5.6. Continued.

REGIONAL VARIATION IN VILLA ARCHITECTURE Villas have often been seen as reflecting conspicuous consumption as ‘in-group values evolved from being collectivist to become more individualistic’ (Martins 2005, iii). There are, however, two views of how status comes about: the ‘structuralist’ perspective argues that social class, power, and privilege are derived from inequalities within resource ownership and life opportunities, and status is an outcome of birth, marriage, and inheritance, whereas the ‘constructivist’ perspective is that status is an aspirational phenomenon in which consumption by an individual is consciously planned in order to acquire a particular identity. When related to the construction of villas, Martins (2005, 8) asks whether people ‘chose to convey status through villa ownership because they were already powerful, through inheritance, or was status, and therefore power, acquired because society in Britain in the Roman period embraced the idea that prestige could be conveyed through the medium of architectural display’. In practice, however, we should not

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think of this as either/or, as people from a privileged background could become even more wealthy through careful estate management, just as they could blow the family fortune through inept behaviour. The architecture of Roman villas is, therefore, not simply a passive reflection of wealth, but an active expression of personal choice, aspiration, and identity (e.g. J. T. Smith 1978) which is reflected in regional variation in architectural styles. Although it has been noted previously that aisled houses appear to have been particularly common in central-southern England and the eastern Midlands (Hadman 1978, fig. 61; Perring 2002, 51–79), and hall-type houses were characteristic of the Cotswolds (D. J. Smith 1978, figs. 59 and 60; Millett 1990, fig. 87), relatively little attention has been paid to regional variation in the more common types of villa plan. Another problem with these earlier studies is that they simply mapped the occurrence of a particular plan-form without assessing the relative significance of that type within its regional context. For example, in Region X there may be 10 examples of plan-type A, whereas in Region Y there may be only 5, on which basis it appears that plan-type A was more common in Region X than in Region Y. If, however, we look at all the villas in Region X, we find that there are 40 other sites with different plan-types, resulting in Type A forming 20 per cent of the total villa plans (10 out of 50); in Region Y, in contrast, there are only 5 other villas with different plan-types, resulting in Type A forming 50 per cent (5 out of 10). Bearing in mind the small sample sizes, although there are numerically fewer Type A villas in Region Y, that architectural form is actually more significant compared to Region X. While a large number of certain, probable, and possible villas are known, relatively few have been excavated on a sufficiently large scale to reveal their layout, although this study has identified 66 buildings with usable plans (excluding sites where only the bath house has been excavated: Table 5.2). This includes villas discovered in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries for which there are plans in RCHME and VCH volumes, sites known only from aerial photography,3 and a small number of geophysical surveys.4 For sites with a fairly complete plan, the following typological scheme has been used (Fig. 5.7): 1. Hall houses (including aisled halls): in their simplest form, hall houses comprise a single room open from ground to roof which was heated by an open hearth (a ‘simple aisled hall’), but which often saw small rooms created by partitioning off parts of one or both ends (‘modified aisled 3

e.g. Childwickbury and Radwell in Hertfordshire (Wilson 1974, plate XXVII; Stevenson and Reed 1999, fig. 23); Daws Heath in Essex (Clack 1992, 67); Lidgate in Suffolk (Wilson 1971; Moore 1988, fig. 26); Rectory Farm in Emberton, Buckinghamshire (Milton Keynes HER 6201); Saunderton Lee in Buckinghamshire (St Joseph 1965, plate XXI.2); North Pickenham in Norfolk (Norfolk HER 20934); also parchmarks at Mill End, Buckinghamshire (Farley 1983). 4 Hadstock/Linton in Essex/Cambridgeshire (Rodwell 1976b; Ette and Hinds 1993); Hethersett in Norfolk (Butler 2011); Manton Lane in Bedfordshire (Smalley 2012); Mill End in Buckinghamshire (Farley 1983; Eyers and Hutt 2012).

Table 5.2. Identifiable villa plans from across eastern England. Site

Date

Plan-form

Evidence

References

published excavation plan

Neal 1974–6

cropmark plan

Stevenson and Reed 1999, fig. 23

published excavation plan

Rook 1983–6

NORTH-WESTERN THAMES BASIN Boxmoor (Herts) Childwickbury (Herts)

late C1/early C2–mid C2

winged-corridor

mid C2–late C3

winged-corridor

date unknown

winged-corridor

Dicket Mead, Building 1 (Herts)

early C3–mid C4

longitudinal-corridor

Dicket Mead, Building 2 (Herts)

early C3–mid C4

longitudinal-corridor winged-corridor

late C2/early C3–mid C4

winged-corridor house as part of courtyard villa

published excavation plan

Neal 1974

Gorhambury (Herts)

late C1/early C2–mid C4

winged-corridor

published excavation plan

Neal et al. 1990

Kings Langley (Herts)

C2–C4

courtyard-corridor

published excavation plan

Branigan 1967, 154; Wardle 1982

mid C2–early C3

longitudinal-corridor

early C3–late C4

double longitudinal-corridor

late C1–mid C2

row plan

mid C2–late C4

winged-corridor

date unknown

Latimer (Bucks)

Lockleys (Herts) Mill End, Hambledon (Bucks) Minsden Farm, Langley (Herts)

published excavation plan

Branigan 1971; Stevenson and Reed 1999, fig. 23; Grassam 2009, fig. 2

published excavation plan

Ward-Perkins 1938

winged-corridor

parchmarks/geophysics

Farley 1983; Eyers and Hutt 2012

aerial photograph in HER

HertsHER 17260

published excavation plan

Neal 1974–6

published excavation plan

O’Neil 1945; Saunders 1961

date unknown

winged?

late C1–mid C2

row plan

mid C2–mid C4

winged-corridor

late C1–mid C2

row plan

mid C2–mid C4

winged-corridor

Radwell (Herts)

date unknown

winged-corridor

cropmark plan

Wilson 1974a, plate XXVII

The Rye, High Wycombe (Bucks)

late C2–mid C4

winged-corridor

published excavation plan

Hartley 1959

Turners Hall Farm (Herts)

C1–2

winged-corridor

published excavation plan

S. [Simon] West 2015

Northchurch (Herts) Park Street (Herts)

(continued )

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mid–late C2 Gadebridge (Herts)

Table 5.2. Continued Date

Plan-form

Evidence

References

Yewden House 1, Hambledon (Bucks)

late C1–C2

row plan

C2–C4

winged-corridor

published excavation plan

Cocks 1921

Yewden House 2, Hambledon (Bucks)

C4

aisled

published excavation plan

Cocks 1921; Eyers 2011

NORTH-EASTERN THAMES BASIN Arlesford (Ess)

date unknown

courtyard-corridor (+ rear longitudinal-corridor)

published excavation plan

Hull 1963a, fig. 9

Brixted, Finchingfield (Ess)

date unknown

longitudinal-corridor

published account

Hull 1963a, 129–30

Capel St Mary (Suff)

mid C1–C3

longitudinal-corridor

published excavation plan

Minter and Plouviez 2015, fig. 174

postulated early form

longitudinal-corridor

postulated later form

courtyard-corridor

cropmark plan

Clarke 1998

Daws Heath, Thundersley (Ess)

date unknown

double longitudinal-corridor

cropmark plan

Clack 1992, 67

Gestingthorpe (Ess)

C2–mid C4

aisled hall

published excavation plan

Draper 1985

late C1–mid C2

aisled hall

mid C2–mid C3/mid C4

double longitudinal-corridor

published excavation plan

Barford 2002

date unknown

courtyard-corridor

published excavation plan

Hull 1963a, fig. 34

late C1/early C2–late C2

courtyard-corridor

late C2–C4

winged

late C1/early C2–late C2

longitudinal-corridor + wings

published excavation plan

Rodwell and Rodwell 1986

early C3–C4?

winged-corridor?

date unknown

longitudinal-corridor?

published account

EssHER 8709

published excavation plan

Luke et al. 2010

published excavation plan

Alexander et al. 1968; Lisboa 1995

Chignall St James (Ess)

Little Oakley (Ess) Ridgewell (Ess) Rivenhall Building 1 (Ess)

Rivenhall Building 2 (Ess) Warren’s Farm, Great Tey (Ess) SOUTH EAST MIDLANDS Ampthill Road, Shefford (Beds) Arbury Road, Cambridge (Cambs)

mid C2–late C3

aisled hall

C2–C3

aisled hall

C4

aisled hall + wings

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Site

Bancroft (Bucks)

late C1/early C2–mid C3

aisled hall

late C3–mid C4

winged

published excavation plan

Williams and Zeepvat 1994

mid C4–late C4

winged-corridor

Blacklands Farm, Gayhurst (Bucks)

C3–C4

longitudinal-corridor?

published excavation plan

Neal and Cosh 2009b, fig. 27

Hadstock (Ess)

date unknown (broadly C2–C4)

winged-corridor house as part of courtyard villa

published excavation plan

Buckler 1851; Ette and Hinds 1993

Hemley Mill, Saunderton (Bucks)

mid C2–C4

longitudinal-corridor

published excavation plan

Branigan 1969

published excavation plan

Mynard 1987, 30–2

published excavation plan

A. W. 1849

mid C2–C3/4?

longitudinal-corridor?

C2–C4

winged

Ickleton Building 2 (Cambs)

C4

aisled hall

Litlington (Cambs)

date unknown

courtyard?

published sketch plan

Kempe 1836

Little Wymondley (Herts)

early C2–late C3

aisled

excavated

Went and Burleigh 1992; Curteis 1994–6; Hunn 2001

Orton Longueville School (Hunts)

C3

aisled hall

published excavation plan

Dakin 1961

Rectory Farm, Emberton (Bucks)

date unknown

double longitudinal-corridor

aerial photograph

Milton Keynes HER 6201

Rectory Field, Godmanchester (Hunts)

C2–C4

aisled hall

C4

aisled hall

published excavation plan

Frend 1968; 1978; Green 1978; Haigh 1984

Rushey Meadow, Great Staughton Building 1 (Hunts)

C4

winged-corridor

Rushey Meadow, Great Staughton Building 2 (Hunts)

C4

winged-corridor

published excavation plan

Greenfield et al. 1994

Saunderton Lee (Bucks)

date unknown

winged-corridor

aerial photograph

St Joseph 1965, plate XXI.2

Stantonbury, Great Linford (Bucks)

late C2–late C4

aisled hall

published excavation plan

Mynard 1987, 97–104

Tingewick (Bucks)

date unknown

longitudinal-corridor?

aerial photograph

BucksHER 86

Totternhoe (Beds)

C4

longitudinal-corridor house as part of courtyard villa

published excavation plan

Matthews et al. 1992

Wendens Ambo (Ess)

early/mid C2–C4

courtyard-corridor

published excavation plan

Hull 1963a; Hodder 1982; ECCFAG 1995 (continued )

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Holne Chase, Bletchley (Bucks) Ickleton Building 1 (Cambs)

Table 5.2. Continued Site

Plan-form

Evidence

References

late C2–early C3

row plan

early–late C3

winged-corridor

published excavation plan

Mynard 1987, 82–90; Zeepvat 1988, 111–16

Caistor St Edmund (Norf)

date unknown

corridor (or wingedcorridor)?

published sketch plan

Smith et al. 2016, fig. 6.27

Castle Hill, Ipswich (Suff)

late C2–C4

courtyard-corridor?

published excavation plan

Reid Moir and Maynard 1932; Moore 1988, fig. 28; Harding 2003

Cedars Park, Stowmarket

late C2–C3

corridor

published excavation plan

Nicholson and Woolhouse 2016, fig. 50

Den Beck, Appleton (Norf)

C2–early C4?

aisled?

published excavation plan

Gregory 1982, fig. 5

Fring (Norf)

date unknown

aisled?

cropmark plan

Gregory 1982, fig. 6

Gayton Thorpe North Building (Norf)

C2 –C4?

courtyard-corridor

Gayton Thorpe South Building (Norf)

C3 –C4?

winged-corridor

published excavation plan

Atkinson 1928–9; De Bootman 1998

early C2–late C3

aisled (timber)

late C3–early C4

aisled (stone)

published excavation plan

Webster 1987

date unknown

winged-corridor

cropmark plan

Wilson 1971; Moore 1988, fig. 28

Wymbush, Loughton (Bucks)

EAST ANGLIA

Landwade, Exning (Suff) Lidgate (Suff) North Pickenham (Norf)

date unknown

winged-corridor

cropmark

NorHER 29034

Oulsham Drive, Feltwell (Norf)

C4

longitudinal-corridor

published excavation plan

Gurney 1986

Pakenham (Suff)

C2–C4

winged (no corridor)

published excavation plan

Moore 1988, fig. 28

date unknown

winged-corridor

date unknown

courtyard-corridor

published excavation plan and aerial photograph

Atkinson 1892–3; Wilson 1974a, plate XXVI; Browne 1979, plate IV.B

early C2–C2

longitudinal-corridor

published excavation plan

C2–late C4

winged-corridor

Maynard and Brown 1936; Moore 1988, fig. 28

Reach Bridge, Swaffham Prior (Cambs) Stanton Chair (Suff)

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Romano-British landscape of the land-owning elite simple row plan

155

simple row plan converted into winged-corridor

simple aisled hall

modified/developed aisled hall

longitudinal corridor (front and rear corridor) longitudinal corridor (front corridor)

winged-corridor (with longitudinal corridor at the rear)

winged-corridor (corridor flush with wings)

winged-corridor (wings project beyond corridor)

H-plan double winged-corridor

courtyard-corridor

0

50 m

Fig. 5.7. Schematic representations of the major types of villa plan in eastern England.

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halls’), or were built in that composite way from the start (‘developed aisled halls’) (Smith 1997, 23–45; Cunliffe 2013). These correspond to Collingwood’s (1930, 129) term ‘basilican house’, which is no longer used. The large open space—analogous to an Iron Age roundhouse or the hall in a medieval house— implies a more communal style of living compared to the vast majority of other villa plans that were dominated by small, private rooms. 2. Simple row plan: a single rectangular block of individual rooms (Richmond’s (1969, 52–3) ‘cottage house’). 3. Longitudinal-corridor: a single row of rooms with a corridor running the full length of the house at the front and/or the rear. 4. Winged-corridor: a row of rooms with a short corridor running between two projecting wings at the front of the house; the wings may or may not have projected beyond the line of the corridor. 5. Courtyard-corridor: a continuous corridor running both between and along the sides of the projecting wings. Discussion The available villa plans from eastern England are listed in Table 5.2, illustrated in Figs. 5.8–5.13, and described in Appendix 7. In total there are 66 buildings (including six sites5 with two houses in the same complex). In Table 5.3 the plans of each site occupied during the first to fourth centuries are attributed to the six plan-types used here. Overall there are 137 phased plans, along with 20 villas where there is clear evidence of their plan-form but no dating evidence. These villa plans are spread across all regions, although the largest numbers are in the South East Midlands (47) and the North-Western Thames Basin (55) with only moderate numbers in East Anglia (27) and the North-Eastern Thames Basin (27). There are just 12 first-century plans, but 41–2 for each of the second to fourth centuries. Although the sample sizes are small, there do appear to have been some significant differences in villa plans between regions, which in Fig. 5.14 are mapped for the third century. In the North-Western Thames Basin there is a very clear emphasis on winged-corridor plans, while aisled plans were most significant in the South East Midlands in the second and third centuries. In the North-Eastern Thames Basin longitudinal-corridor plans seem to have been favoured.

THE CHRONOLOGY OF VILLA DEVELOPMENT It is well known that there was a cluster of villas built in the hinterland of Verulamium during the first century AD, including Boxmoor (Neal 1974–6), 5

Dicket Mead, Gayton Thorpe, Great Staughton, Ickleton, Rivenhall, and Yewden.

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Romano-British landscape of the land-owning elite LOCKLEYS, WELWYN (after Ward-Perkins 1938, plate LXX)

BOXMOOR, HEMEL HEMPSTEAD (after Neal 1974–6, figs. XXXIV and XXXV)

157

THE RYE, HIGH WYCOMBE (after Hartley 1959)

PARK STREET, ST. STEPHEN’S (after O’Neil 1945, figs. 3 and 6)

YEWDEN BUILDING 1, HAMBLEDEN (after Cocks 1921, plate XIII, with phasing based upon the description on pp.144–8)

NORTHCHURCH (after Neal 1974–6, figs. V and VI) GORHAMBURY, ST. STEPHEN’S (after Neal et al. 1990, figs. 48, 56, and 73) YEWDEN BUILDING 2, HAMBLEDEN (after Cocks 1921, plate XIII, with phasing based upon the description on pp.144–8)

MILL END, HAMBLEDEN (conjectural sequence, from parchmarks, after Farley 1982, fig. 5; Eyers and Hutt 2012, figs. 2 and 4)

CHILDWICKBURY (after Reed and Stenson 1999, fig. 23)

late 1st century 2nd century 3rd–4th century conjectural corridor

TURNER’S HALL FARM (after West 2015, fig. 10.4)

0 0

50 m 50 feet

100 feet

150 feet

Fig. 5.8. Villas with a winged-corridor layout in the North-Western Thames Basin (for sources, see Table 5.2).

Lockleys (Ward-Perkins 1938), Park Street (O’Neil 1945), Gadebridge (Neal 1974, 7–9), and possibly Gorhambury (Neal et al. 1990) (Fig. 5.15). Another cluster lay around Camulodunum (Rodwell 1978b), including Little Oakley (Barford 2002), Rivenhall (Rodwell and Rodwell 1986; 1993), Capel St Mary (Minter and Plouviez 2015, 450–1), and possibly White Notley (Rodwell 1978b,

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Kingdom, Civitas, and County KINGS LANGLEY (after Wardle 1982; HertsHER 510)

LATIMER, CHENIES (after Branigan 1971, figs. 1–18; Grassam 2009, fig. 1)

GADEBRIDGE PARK, HEMEL HEMPSTEAD (after Neal 1974, fig. 4)

DICKETS MEAD, WELWYN, BUILDING 1 (after Rook 1983–6, figs. 2, 8, and 9)

DICKETS MEAD, WELWYN, BUILDING 1 (after Rook 1983–6, fig. 11)

RADWELL (after Wilson 1974, plate XXVII; Stevenson and Reed 1999, fig. 23)

late 1st century 2nd century 3rd–4th century conjectural corridor 0 0

50 m 50 feet

100 feet

150 feet

Fig. 5.9. Villas with layouts other than winged-corridor forms in the North-Western Thames Basin (for sources, see Table 5.2).

30). The way that these early Romano-British villas cluster around the Late Iron Age centres and Roman civitas capitals of Camulodunum and Verulamium and the more general correlation between villas and areas of the landscape with particularly rich Welwyn-type burials and imported amphorae suggest a strong degree of continuity in the landed wealth of the social elites (Fig. 2.9).

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Romano-British landscape of the land-owning elite LITTLE OAKLEY (after Barford 2002, figs. 12 and 14)

159

RIVENHALL BUILDING 1 (after Rodwell and Rodwell 1986, fig. 71) late 1st century 2nd century 3rd–4th century conjectural corridor RIVENHALL BUILDING 2 (after Rodwell and Rodwell 1986, fig. 23)

DAWS HEATH, THUNDERSLEY (from aerial photograph: Clack 1992, 67)

HILL FARM, GESTINGTHORPE (after Draper 1985, fig. 4) ARLESFORD (after Hull 1963, fig. 9)

CHIGNALL ST JAMES (interpretation of cropmark plan: Clarke 1998, fig. 71)

RIDGEWELL (after Hull 1963, fig. 34)

0 0

50 m 50 feet

100 feet

150 feet

Fig. 5.10. Villa plans in the North-Eastern Thames Basin (for sources, see Table 5.2).

During the second century villas started to be built across all three regions, including East Anglia, although the highest-status sites—which saw investment in the greatest numbers of tessellated pavements—were still in the vicinity of Camulodunum and Verulamium. Gayton Thorpe, on the western fen-edge in

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FRING (after Gregory 1982, fig. 6)

GAYTON THORPE (after Atkinson 1928–9, plate III)

DEN BECK, APPLETON (after Gregory 1982, fig. 5)

LIDGATE (after Moore 1988, fig. 28) LANDEWADE, EXNING (Webster 1987)

late 1st century 2nd century 3rd–4th century conjectural corridor

PAKENHAM (Moore 1988, fig. 28)

OULSHAM DROVE, FELTWELL (after Gurney 1986, fig. 7)

STANTON CHAIR, IXWORTH (after Moore 1988, fig. 28)

NORTH PICKENHAM (transcribed from aerial photograph in NorfolkHER 20934)

0 0

50 m 50 feet

100 feet

150 feet

Fig. 5.11. Villa plans in East Anglia (for sources see Table 5.2).

Norfolk is, in this respect, anomalous in having at least two and probably three second-century mosaics (Neal and Cosh 2002, 215–17). It is, however, the distribution of fourth-century mosaics that is the most interesting (Fig. 5.16), as these appear to have been a particular phenomenon of the South East Midlands and the North-Western Thames Basin. From all the villas across

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HEMLEY MILL, SAUNDERTON (after Branigan 1969, fig. 2)

161

STANTONBURY (after Mynard 1987, fig. 34) RECTORY FIELD, GODMANCHESTER (after Frend 1978, fig. 1)

WYMBUSH (after Mynard 1987, fig. 27)

ICKLETON (after A. W. 1849, f.24)

LITLINGTON (after Kempe 1836)

ARBURY ROAD, CAMBRIDGE (after Alexander et al. 1968): NB scale on published plan BLACKLANDS, GAYHURST (after Neal and Cosh 2009, fig. 27)

TINGEWICK (after BucksHER 86)

BANCROFT BUILDING 7 (after Zeepvat 1994, fig. 67) 0 0

50 m 50 feet

100 feet

150 feet

BANCROFT BUILDING 1 (after Zeepvat 1994, figs. 87 and 94) TOTTERNHOE (after Matthews et al. 1992, fig. 2)

late 1st century 2nd century 3rd–4th century conjectural corridor

Fig. 5.12. Villas with longitudinal corridor and aisled layouts in the South East Midlands (for sources, see Table 5.2).

East Anglia and the North-Eastern Thames Basin there is a single possibly early fourth-century mosaic (Castle Hill Farm in Whitton, in the Gipping Valley: Neal and Cosh 2002, 288), while across the South East Midlands and NorthWestern Thames Basin they were a common feature (Neal and Cosh 2002,

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HADSTOCK, ESSEX [NOW LINTON, CAMBS] (1850 excavation from Neville 1851, f. p.28; cropmarks from Ette and Hinds 1993, fig. 3; 1993 excavations from Ette and Hinds 1993, fig. 10)

RECTORY FIELD, GODMANCHESTER (after Green 1978, fig. 36)

cropmarks

1850 excavation (approx. location)

Neville’s ‘villa’ in GREAT CHESTERFORD (after Hull 1963, fig. 23; and see Medlycott 2011, 227)

1993 excavation (approx. location)

WENDENS AMBO (Hull 1963, plate XXIX.B; Hodder 1982, fig. 1; and ECCFAG 1995, fig. 15)

GREAT STAUGHTON 1 (Greenfield et al. 1994, fig. 2)

SAUNDERTON LEE (conjectural sequence from aerial photograph, after St. Joseph 1965, plate XXI.2)

GREAT STAUGHTON 2 (Greenfield et al. 1994, fig. 2)

ICKLETON (after A. W. 1849, f.16) REACH BRIDGE, SWAFFHAM PRIOR (after Atkinson 1892–3, fig. 1, and published aerial photograph Wilson 1974, plate xxvi) late 1st century 2nd century 3rd–4th century conjectural corridor 0 0

50 m 50 feet

100 feet

150 feet

Fig. 5.13. Villas with a winged-corridor layout in the South East Midlands (for sources see Table 5.2).

43–70; 2009a, 45–73). This pattern of investment in fourth-century mosaics is also seen in the major towns (Table 5.4): in Camulodunum there are thirty-nine dated mosaics, of which just one is late third or early fourth century and two possibly early fourth century, while in Verulamium there are forty-two dated

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Table 5.3. Villa plan development by region and century (based upon the data in Table 5.2). Region

Plan type

C1

C2

Date C3

C4

unknown

North-Western Thames Basin row plan

4

4 (25%)

0

0

0

aisled hall longitudinal-corridor

0 0

0 1 (6%)

0 4 (29%)

1 (7%) 4 (27%)

0 0

courtyard-corridor winged-corridor

0 3

1 (6%) 10 (63%)

1 (7%) 9 (64%)

1 (7%) 9 (60%)

0 3

winged

0

0

0

0

0

totals

7

16

14

15

3

North-Eastern Thames Basin row plan

0

0

0

0

0

aisled hall longitudinal-corridor

1 2

2 (29%) 3 (43%)

1 (20%) 2 (40%)

1 (25%) 1 (25%)

0 4

courtyard-corridor winged-corridor

1 0

1 (14%) 0

0 1 (20%)

0 1 (25%)

3 0

winged

0

1 (14%)

1 (20%)

1 (25%)

0

totals

4

7

5

4

7

East Anglia row plan

0

0

0

0

0

aisled hall longitudinal-corridor

0 0

2 (25%) 2 (25%)

2 (25%) 1 (13%)

2 (25%) 1 (13%)

1 0

courtyard-corridor winged-corridor

0 0

2 (25%) 1 (13%)

2 (25%) 2 (25%)

2 (25%) 2 (25%)

0 3

winged

0

1 (13%)

1 (13%)

1 (13%)

0

totals

0

8

8

8

4

South East Midlands row plan

0

1 (9%)

1 (7%)

0

0

aisled hall longitudinal-corridor

1 0

5 (46%) 2 (18%)

6 (40%) 3 (20%)

3 (21%) 4 (29%)

0 2

courtyard-corridor winged-corridor

0 0

1 (9%) 1 (9%)

1 (7%) 2 (13%)

1 (7%) 4 (29%)

2 2

2 (14%)

0

winged

0

totals

1

1 (9%) 11

2 (13%) 15

14

6

0

0

Overall totals row plan

4 (33%)

5 (12%)

aisled hall longitudinal-corridor

2 (17%) 2 (17%)

9 (21%) 9 (21%) 7 (17%) 8 (19%) 10 (24%) 10 (24%)

1 6

courtyard-corridor winged-corridor

1 (8%) 5 (12%) 4 (10%) 4 (10%) 3 (25%) 12 (29%) 14 (33%) 16 (39%)

5 8

winged totals

0 12

3 (7%) 42

1 (2%)

4 (10%) 42

4 (10%) 41

0 20

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Kingdom, Civitas, and County

VILLA PLANS DATED TO THE THIRD CENTURY aisled longitudinal-corridor winged-corridor courtyard-corridor undated

Iron Age coin distribution boundary zones 400’ contour 300’ “ 200’ “ 100’ “

0

50 km

Fig. 5.14. The distribution of third-century and undated villa plan-forms (for sources, see Table 5.2).

mosaics, of which two are late third or early fourth century, three possibly early fourth century, and three fourth century.

CONCLUSIONS The discussion in this chapter has shown that there was not a single ‘villa landscape’ across eastern England, but instead there were marked regional variations in the distribution and plan-forms of villas as well as the periods in which they saw the greatest investment (Table 5.5). It is striking how few villas there were in East Anglia, and, as was the case with urban settlements, they were more common in the west than the east, perhaps reflecting two pagi within the Icenian civitas. Other areas that lacked large numbers of villas included the claywith-flints capped Chiltern dip slope, London Clays of the Northern Thames

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CAMULODUNUM

? ?

VERULAMIUM

Iron Age coin distribution boundary zones 400’ contour 300’ “ 200’ “ 100’ “

0

50 km

Fig. 5.15. The distribution of first-century villas, showing how they concentrated around Camulodunum and Verulamium.

Basin, and the high Boulder Clay Plateau, and as there is no reason to suppose that any of these were Imperial/state land, it is tempting to suggest that it simply reflects the lower agricultural productivity of these particularly heavy soils (Fig. 1.7). Another district that lacked villas, however, was eastern East Anglia; yet this was an area with extremely good soils, and so here there must have been a social explanation for the absence of villas, such as land-owners choosing to display their wealth and status through other means. It is also noteworthy that southern Essex saw little villa construction, and as this district was consistently different from the rest of the North-Eastern Thames Basin during the Iron Age, this may also have been a discrete pagus. There are other differences across eastern England suggesting that communities had subtly different identities. Later first-century villas are a feature of the hinterlands of Camulodunum and Verulamium but not Venta Icenorum, and although villas went on to develop across most of eastern England and were

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166 C2

Kingdom, Civitas, and County No. 1 2

C3

No. 1 2

C4

No. 1 2

3

3

3

4+

4+

4+

?

Iron Age coin distribution boundary zones 400’ contour 300’ “ 200’ “ 100’ “

0

50 km

Fig. 5.16. The distribution of second-, third-, and fourth-century mosaics (from Neal and Cosh 2002; 2009a; 2009b).

Table 5.4. Mosaics from the major towns of eastern England. C1? C1/C2 C2 C2/C3 C3 C3/C4 C4? C4 Reference Camulodunum Verulamium

4 1

27

2

3

1

2

19

4

10

2

3

Neal and Cosh 2009a, 83–141 3

Neal and Cosh 2009b, 307–52

provided with mosaics in the second and third centuries, both the North-Eastern Thames Basin and East Anglia were virtually devoid of fourth-century tessellated pavements. This was in sharp contrast to areas farther west where investment in mosaics continued into the fourth century. There are also subtle differences in the plan-forms of villas, with winged-corridor plans dominating

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Table 5.5. Summary of regional variation in the characteristics of Romano-British villas in eastern England. Northern Thames Basin North-Eastern North-Western

East Anglia

South East Midlands

density

abundant

scarce

abundant

distribution

widespread but avoiding heaviest clays

mostly in the west

widespread but avoiding heaviest clays

favoured plan-form

longitudinal corridor

winged-corridor

mixed

aisled

1st century villas

yes

yes

no

no

4th century mosaics

very rare

abundant

none

abundant

abundant

the North-Western Thames Basin and aisled halls in the South East Midlands. The plan-form of villas will reflect the wealth of their owners, how they wanted to portray themselves to others, and the behavioural norms within the owner’s peer group (just as in the eighteenth century Tory land-owners favoured the Baroque style and Whigs moved towards neo-Palladianism). These perceptions of what a high-status country house should look like will therefore reflect a combination of aspirations, current fashions, and local traditions. The large open aisled halls, for example, suggest a more communal social structure compared to other villa plans, and it may not have been a coincidence that there were more circular Romano-British buildings in the South East Midlands than in East Anglia and the Northern Thames Basin (Smith et al. 2016, fig. 3.6). Overall, these different facets of the villa landscape suggest that the fourfold division in community identities—in East Anglia, the North-Eastern and North-Western Thames Basin, and the South East Midlands—which emerged over the course of the Iron Age was still discernible in the Roman countryside.

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6 Romano-British material culture INTRODUCTION The apparent adoption of a relatively uniform repertoire of material culture by Romano-British communities is one reflection of what in the past has been referred to as ‘Romanization’ (e.g. Haverfield 1912; Millett 1990), and as Eckardt (2014, 127) has noted, ‘public and academic perception has perhaps had a tendency to focus on the homogenizing influence of Roman trade and, within the theoretical framework of Romanization, to look for uniformity rather than local diversity’. The concept of Romanization has, however, recently come in for much criticism (e.g. Mattingly 2006; 2011; Revell 2016), one problem being that there is far more regional variation in artefact styles than was once thought (e.g. Fig. 6.1). Dress accessories, for example, will reflect current local communal traditions, family heirlooms, religious beliefs, and what is currently fashionable, as well as wealth and status (Swift 2000b, 27–9). Regionality is clearer in the early Roman period, after which it was replaced by greater uniformity (e.g. hairpins: Cool 2000), although it is still present in some classes of later Roman material (e.g. military buckles and belt-fittings: discussed further below). While many forms of artefact were used very widely across Roman Britain, such as certain types of brooches (Bayley and Butcher 2004, figs. 166–79; Mackreth 2011) and toilet instruments (e.g. Eckardt and Crummy 2008), there were some regionally specific variants. ‘Polden Hill’ brooches, for example, were largely used in the West Midlands and the West Country (Bayley and Butcher 2004, fig. 171), rear-hook brooches in East Anglia (Plouviez 2008; 2014, 35–6), and the ‘Head Stud’ type in Yorkshire and the East Midlands (Pearce and Worrell 2014, fig. 6). Walton (2012, 37–41) has even identified some marked regional differences in coin loss. Some have argued that regionally distinctive styles of artefact were used to directly signal a particular tribal or civitas identity. Laycock (2008, fig. 51), for example, has mapped stylistic variation in late fourth-century belt-fittings and argued for distinct types that he believes were related to the putative Icenian, Trinovantian, Catuvellaunian, and Corieltauvian civitates. The ‘Corieltauvian’ type, for example, is characterized by zoomorphic protrusions, such as bird

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Belt-fittings: abstract geometric incised decoration

Belt-fittings: rows of dots and circles 0

Hairpins: Group 3

Hairpins: Group 6

Finger rings inscribed ‘TOT’

Mosaic school: Corinium

Cellared rooms

Mosaics: Durnovarian

Brooches: Polden Hill

Belt-fittings: human heads

Brooches: headstud

200 km

Belt-fittings: zoomorphic decoration

Fig. 6.1. Examples of regionally distinctive Romano-British material culture: belt-fittings (Laycock 2008, fig. 5), hairpins (Cool 1990, figs. 15–17), finger rings inscribed ‘TOT’ (Daubney 2010, 112), early Roman ‘Polden Hill’-type brooches (Bayley and Butcher 2004, fig. 172), ‘Head Stud’-type brooches (Pearce and Worrell 2014, fig. 6), mosaic schools (Millett 1990, fig. 72), and cellared buildings (Perring 2002, 216).

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Kingdom, Civitas, and County

heads, the Catuvellaunian/Trinovantian type by rows of dots or circles, while the ‘Icenian’ type included human heads and dolphins, which it is suggested were transformed so that they resemble the Celtic-style boar heads that were a common motif on Late Iron Age Icenian coins (Laycock 2008, 118). He suggests that the examples of each regional type do not appear to have been made by a single workshop, indicating that there were various local production sites manufacturing goods according to regionally stylistic norms. Although Laycock (2008, 124) associates these types directly with civitates, suggesting that they formed ‘some form of tribal identification system’ used by civitas-based militias, an alternative hypothesis is that these and other regionally distinctive artefact types simply reflect the patronage of particular craft traditions and the marketing networks of those industries. In this alternative model, distinctive suites of material culture will still have circulated within a defined geographical area and Daubney, for example, postulates that a distinctive type of late second- to third-century finger ring inscribed with the letters ‘TOT’ was produced and circulated within the Corieltauvian civitas, suggesting that ‘ancient boundaries, whether official or engrained in the minds of generations of locals, may still have determined the sphere of influence of local markets and cult centres’ (Daubney 2010, 112). Eckardt (2014, 127–52) has argued along similar lines for brooches. An important distinction can be made between material culture that was designed to be seen and as such could have been used explicitly to express a particular regional or ethnic identity (e.g. hairpins, brooches, and belt-fittings), and other artefacts that will not have been on public display, such as toilet instruments (e.g. nail cleaners, tweezers, and ear scoops). That these private artefacts also demonstrate regional variation is crucial: Eckardt and Crummy (2008, figs. 29–31), for example, have shown that certain distinctive types of nail cleaners have very restricted distributions, with early Roman ‘Baldock’ types mostly found across what is referred to here as the Northern Thames Basin, and early Roman ‘bone-disc’ and late Roman ‘grooved-collar’ types mostly found in Gloucestershire and the Upper Thames Valley (Fig. 6.2). Eckardt and Crummy (2008, 68, 92) go on to argue that although these regionally distinctive distributions correspond to the area thought to have been the civitates (the Catuvellauni/ Trinovantes and Dobunni respectively), this may have been due to two different factors: in the later Roman period it probably reflects the marketing pattern of individual workshops, while in the early Roman period it was due to the adoption of new habits of personal grooming by the social elite (toilet instruments being largely found in Welwyn-type graves). These studies which argue that regionally distinctive artefact types simply reflect the marketing structures of individual workshops are, however, making an important assumption: that Romano-Britons were passive actors, acquiring whatever material culture was available to them. There is, however, another possibility: that Romano-Britons were more active players, and that they had a greater role in actively selecting— or rejecting—the products of particular workshops or regions.

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171

Baldock Variant 1

1 2 3 4 5 6 Baldock type variants 1,2 &4 Baldock query/ variant 3 Baldock Variant 2

Baldock Variants 3 & 4

3

Bone disc nail cleaner 1 2 3

Variant 1 Variant 2 Query 1

4

1 2 ?

2

?

Grooved-collar nail cleaner

Variant 1

1 2 3

Fig. 6.2. The distributions of various regionally distinctive types of nail cleaners (Eckardt and Crummy 2008, figs. 29–31).

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Kingdom, Civitas, and County MAPPING ROMANO-BRITISH POTTERY PRODUCTION AND SUPPLY

In the absence of region-specific Roman coinages equivalent to those of the Iron Age and Anglo-Saxon kingdoms (Chapters 2 and 11), and as Romano-British artefacts associated with personal adornment have been discussed elsewhere (e.g. Cool 1990; Swift 2000a; 2000b; Crummy and Eckardt 2008), the focus of this chapter will be on ceramics in order to complement the discussions of Iron Age pottery (Chapter 2) and ‘Middle Saxon’ Ipswich Ware (Chapter 11). The apparent uniformity of Romano-British pottery and an emphasis within past studies on the major regional industries and the influence of the command economy (e.g. Evans 2013) make it easy to assume that it tells us little about territorial identities. A closer examination of the evidence, however, is showing that ‘while much of the populace was subject to a progressively homogenizing supply of food-related pottery vessels, the use of such technologies was negotiated within social practices drawing on the integration of both local and cultural elements’ (Pitts 2008, 493; and see Pitts 2010). There has been much debate over the nature of pre-modern economies, with ‘modernists’ or ‘formalists’ seeing them as working along broadly the same market-based principles with which we are familiar today, and ‘primitivists’ or ‘substantivists’ arguing that economic relationships were socially embedded and that this prevented them from operating in a purely market-based way (Mattingly 2011, 125; Perring and Pitts 2013, 5). Most studies of Romano-British ceramic production and supply have, however, been dominated by three aspects of market-based trade—continental imports, the large-scale fine-ware industries, and the role of towns (e.g. Tyers 1996; 2004; Perring and Pitts 2013)—along with the ‘command economy’ (procurement by the army). In contrast, the possibility that locally produced coarse wares may have been favoured within, or excluded from, some regions—as was the case in both the Iron Age and the early medieval periods—has seen less attention despite the early observations of Hodder (1974). Patterns of pottery supply have been published for various Romano-British sites. At Caesaromagus (Chelmsford), for example, it is striking that while large numbers of vessels arrived from as far afield as Poole Harbour in Dorset (c.230 km away), Oxfordshire (c.140 km), and the Lower Nene Valley (c.120 km), there was apparently no significant input from East Anglia, including major production centres such as Wattisfield that lay just c.90 km away (Fig. 6.3; Going 1987, figs. 52–9; Wickenden 1992, figs. 51 and 55). The same is seen in Camulodunum (Symonds and Wade 1999, 488–99), and in Londinium, where pottery was imported from South Devon, c.190 km away, but not East Anglia (Jones 1980, figs. 43–5; Wilmott 1982; Dyson 1986, 125; Miller et al. 1986).1 1 Unfortunately, recent published excavations within the City of London do not contain quantified pottery reports, and there is no corpus of late Roman pottery to complement Davies et al. (1994) for the

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Vessel equivalents