This volume brings together a series of case studies of spatial configurations of power among the early medieval societies of Europe. The geographical range extends from Ireland to Kosovo and from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean world and brings together quite different scholarly traditions in a focussed enquiry into the character of places of power from the end of the Roman period into the central middle ages. The book's strength lies in the basis that it provides for a comparative analysis of the formation, function and range of power relations in early medieval societies. The editors' introductory chapter provides an extended scene setting review of the current state of knowledge in the field of early medieval social complexity and sets out an agenda for future work in this topical area. The regional and local case studies found in the volume, most of them interdisciplinary, showcase detailed studies of particular situations at a range of scales. While much previous work tends to focus on comparisons with the classical world, this volume emphasises the uniqueness of early medieval modes of social organisation and the need to assess these societies on their own terms.
List of Illustrations List of Tables Notes on Contributors Preface and Acknowledgements 1: Jayne Carroll, Andrew Reynolds and Barbara Yorke: Power and Place in Europe in the Early Middle Ages 2: John Baker: Meeting in the Shadow of Heroes? Personal Names and Assembly Places 3: Stuart Brookes: 'Folk' Cemeteries, Assembly and Territorial Geography in Early Anglo-Saxon England 4: Levi Roach: Locating Meaning in Later Anglo-Saxon England: Meeting-Places of the witan, 924-1016 5: Marie Ødegaard: Cooking-Pit Sites as Possible Assembly Places: Lunde in Vestfold, South-East Norway-A Regional Assembly Site in the Early Iron Age? 6: Halldis Hobaek: Viking Age and Medieval Assemblies in Western Norway: Approaches to Identification of Sites 7: Lars Jørgensen, Lone Gebauer Thomsen and Anne Nørgaard Jørgensen: Accommodating Assemblies, as Evidenced at the 6th-11th-Century ad Royal Residence at Lake Tissø, Denmark 8: Frode Iversen: Houses of Representatives? Courtyard Sites North of the Polar Circle: Reflections on Communal Organisation from the Late Roman Period to the Viking Age 9: Alexandra Chavarría Arnau: Churches as Assembly Places in Early Medieval Italy 10: Julio Escalona: Community Meetings in Early Medieval Castile 11: Wendy Davies: The Language of Justice in Northern Iberia before ad 1000 12: Ian Wood: Luxeuil in the Merovingian Kingdom 13: Elizabeth Fentress and Caroline Goodson: Structures of Power: From Imperial Villa to Monastic Estate at Villamagna, Italy 14: Felix Teichner: Ulpianum-Nyeuberge-Pri,sthine: Places of Power on the Plain of Kosovo 15: Andrew Seaman: Power, Place and Territory in Early Medieval South-East Wales 16: Patrick Gleeson: Making Provincial Kingship in Early Ireland: Cashel and the Creation of Munster 17: Egge Knol: Living Near the Sea: The Organisation of Frisia in Early Medieval Times 18: Christopher Scull: Archaeology and Geographies of Jurisdiction: Evidence from South-East Suffolk in the 7th Century 19: Rory Naismith: Mints, Moneyers and the Geography of Power in Early Medieval England and its Neighbours 20: Andrew Reynolds: Spatial Configurations of Power in Anglo-Saxon England: Sidelights on the Relationships between Boroughs, Royal Vills and Hundreds 21: Susan Oosthuizen: Property and Governance: Making the Anglo-Saxon Agricultural Landscape Index
Jayne Carroll is Associate Professor and Director of the Institute for Name-Studies at the University of Nottingham, and Honorary Secretary of the English Place-Name Society. She has published on Old English and Old Norse language and literature, although her current research focuses upon place-names in England. She was Principal Investigator on the AHRC-funded project, The Place-Names of Shropshire, and has been Co-Investigator on a number of Leverhulme Trust-funded interdisciplinary projects, including Travel and Communication in Anglo-Saxon England, and Flood and Flow: Place-Names and the Changing Hydrology of English and Welsh Rivers. Andrew Reynolds is Professor of Medieval Archaeology at the UCL Institute of Archaeology. His research focuses on interdisciplinary approaches to social complexity and social organisation in early medieval Europe, particularly Anglo-Saxon England. Barbara Yorke is Professor Emeritus of Early Medieval History at the University of Winchester and a Honorary Professor in the Department of Archaeology, UCL. Although primarily an early medieval historian she has always been interested in the interdisciplinary dimensions of the period. She is the author of Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England (1990), Wessex in the Early Middle Ages (1995) and The Conversion of Britain (2006) and is currently contributing historical chapters to various archaeology-based projects, including the Staffordshire hoard, the Prittlewell princely burial and Lordship and Landscape in East Anglia.
Reviews for Power and Place in Europe in the Early Middle Ages
this volume is an important step towards a more complex and nuanced understanding of the political articulation of early medieval Europe and, without doubt, will open and promote new lines of work and discussion. * Jose Carlos Sanchez Pardo, University of Santiago de Compostela, The Medieval Review *
