by Tim Pestell
FIGURE 8.2. Thiessen polygon interpolation, showing the environmental pays of Kent and their relation to early estate-centres, as defined by Everitt (1986).
These general functional characteristics of settlement appear to be supported by inland settlement also, and the tentative case for a continuity of central-place functions from Romano-British territorial organisation seems unavoidable. Central to this interpretation of the settlement pattern of early Kent is a bridging argument, linking reoccurring observed phenomena rather than verified empirical data. An example of this line of argument is offered by the settlement of Eastry, though it could just as easily be Faversham, Milton Regis or Maidstone. Eastry appears as a Roman road-side settlement occupying the cross-roads of the Richborough-Dover road (Margary 100 or Stane Street) and a prehistoric trackway from Sandwich to Wootton (O’Grady 1979, 114). Roman finds are also known from the immediate environs (ibid., 113) and a Roman cemetery at Walton (Gibben 1902) indicates a level of pre-Saxon settlement. A number of Early AngloSaxon cemeteries and burials surrounding the village at Updown (‘Cemetery III’: Hawkes 1974; 1976; 1979), Buttsole (‘Cemetery I’: Meaney 1964, 113; Hawkes 1979), Eastry Mill (‘Cemetery IV’: Hawkes 1979) and at Eastry House* (‘Cemetery II’: Hawkes 1979), are testimony to a substantial local population, often linked to an inferred AngloSaxon villa regalis. The latter suggestion relies on the validity of some Late Anglo-Saxon documentary evidence detailing seventh-century events having occurred at Eastry (Hasted 1799, iv, 216) and the association of the place-name with the modern settlement (cf. Arnold 1982b, 121). ‘Eastry’, documented as Eastorege in a ninth-century charter, has been interpreted as ‘the eastern district capital’ (Hawkes 1982, 75) and is taken to indicate both the existence of administrative sub-districts in Late Anglo-Saxon Kent and the importance of the settlement within the royal estate system. The latter argument has prompted the identification of Eastry Court Farm as a potential Anglo-Saxon administrative centre or royal residence (Hawkes 1979, 95) despite little archaeological justification (Arnold 1982b, 135; Parfitt 1999, 50) and suggested the association of Eastry with the unnamed twelfth-century great church listed in the Domesday Monachorum (Tatton-Brown 1988, 107). The correlation of Iron Age, Romano-British and Anglo-Saxon archaeological complexes, topographic suitability, place-name evidence, historical allusions and early ecclesiastical associations all indicate a form of ideological, if not necessarily physical, continuity.
The above example could be restated for a number of different settlements and it seems clear, certainly from the point of view of early ecclesiastical centres and villae regales, that an association with the Roman past was deliberately fostered. Roman precedents are known by Sturry (Rigold 1972; Brookes 1998); Faversham (Philp 1965, l11; Jessup 1970, 189; Detsicas 1983, 131–3; Everitt 1986, 109–12); Milton Regis (Kelly 1978, 267; Detsicas 1983, 81), Lyminge (Kelly 1962, 205; Detsicas 1983, 143–4), Wye (Detsicas 1983, 84, 97 etc.) and Wester Linton, near Maidstone (Detsicas 1983) among others. The influence residual Romano-British finds had on the siting of early churches is equally apparent as is demonstrated by the association of Roman buildings with churches at Lyminge (Detsicas 1983, 143–4), and the minster foundations at Reculver and Richborough for example (Gem 1995, 42; Bushe-Fox 1928, 34–40).
If the Romano-British settlement pattern prejudged the distribution of later economic centres, the routes of communication themselves constrained the flow of wealth through the kingdom. Certainly, restrictions on movement and exchange and the importance placed on negotiated places of social interaction are implicit in documentary sources. Evidence, particularly from palynology, stresses the importance routes of movement took in the construction of social space. Roads are seen as delimiting boundaries (e.g. Hooke 1985, 58), operating as hundredal meeting places (ibid., 102) and provide functional benefits to military and economic endeavours. Movement along the defined routes, on the other hand, must be seen with respect to contemporary social conditions. The Kentish law-codes of the seventh century offer some evidence of concerns for the movement of people and goods. The wording of the Laws of Æthelberht, and particularly those of Wihtred and of Ine of Wessex, stress the importance of roads for movement throughout the kingdoms, with heavy penalties being exacted for unannounced travel off the established routes of communication. Specific laws protecting travellers on roads from robbery, such as is evidenced by Æthelberht 19 and 89 on the other hand, suggest both the importance safe transit through the kingdom held for the king, and that highway crime was sufficiently common-place it required explicit measures for it to be suppressed.
Given the high number of laws dealing with foreigners, strangers and traders (e.g. Æthelberht 19; Hlothere and Eadric 15; Wihtred 4 and 28) it is conceivable that these measures indicate increasing levels of royal control placed on the movement of people and goods through the kingdom; an observation many commentators have associated with taxation (e.g. Carver 1993; Reynolds 1998a, 237). Certainly, other evidence suggests that systems of taxation were becoming more widespread during the mid seventh and eighth centuries (such as the Tribal Hidage: Davies and Vierck 1974, 136–41), but just how much the archaeological pattern of coin loss, for example, can be taken to represent top-down legislation or bottom-up decentralised trading, is debatable. Given the hypothesised economic constraints of the period, wherein goods of inelastic demand were traded in order to bear the costs of transport through sufficient profit, and the environment with little state provisioning of public goods and uncertain and dangerous transport patterns, it is suggested that it was in the interest of traders themselves to restrict alienable exchange to areas protected by law-codes and higher authorities, i.e. roads, fairs and markets.
Distributional patterns of consumption
The characterisation of the period in terms of increasingly exploitative relationships between dependent social classes, offers a further hypothesis by which to compare the differential distribution of commodities among communities accessing common distribution networks. Attempts at investigating mortuary evidence to explain economic concepts of accessibility and consumption of goods, and their use to express wealth (accumulation), social standing (differentiation) and cultural position (where possessions ‘flag’ certain cultural discourses) are well attested in archaeological practice. Recent distributional methods differ in their attempt to quantify the interment of commodities, with respect to units of economic consumption, such as individuals, households, or communities (Loveluck 1994 and 1996; Hirth 1998).
FIGURE 8.3. Trend surfaces produced from the average number of imported artefacts interred with each individual in Early Anglo-Saxon cemeteries of East Kent. The interp lated surfaces were produced in ARCVIEW on the basis of an inverse distance weighting (IDW) regression function from the twelve closest sampled points.
Trend surfaces derived from counts of foreign or local objects within cemeteries, and the percentage of the interred population with such goods, reinforce an impression of wealthy coastal communities, particularly along the Wantsum and Dover coasts (Fig. 8.3). Inland redistribution, by contrast, focuses mainly along the Dover-Canterbury road, also identified as a major routeway by the distribution of Early Anglo-Saxon cemeteries. To the south and west of the kingdom, a noticeable fall-off in the amount of both imported and locally proven-anced material further demonstrates the polarisation of wealth along the Thames estuary/Continental axis. An immediate impression gained from these regression models, is the stark contrast between imported artefact consumption prior to and after ad 600. Although the distribution pattern for both periods is roughly similar, with particular conspicuous consumption visible among the communities of the eastern and northern coasts (including a particular dense cluster in the Canterbury environs), the sharp decline after 600 in the deposition of imported goods suggests a changing role in the mobilisation of these objects. Sonia Hawkes (1970, 191; 1982, 72 and 76) has suggested that the later sixth century witnessed increasing royal control over foreign exchange contacts from the b
asis of inferred military components in the communities of Sarre and Dover. That these overtly military phases are followed by a period of decreased material consumption, despite evidence from documentary sources and coin finds to the contrary, suggests imposed change in the social role of objects.
The pattern of supply and demand underlying the differential consumption of wealth during the sixth and seventh centuries, can be compared with the patterns of seventh-to ninth-century coin finds in East Kent (Fig. 8.4). The generally coastal distribution of areas of high coin loss fit well with the model of important coastal trading suggested by the distribution of imported goods and media of exchange such as weights and measures (
The lack of coin finds near the estate centres of the Swale and Holmesdale, by contrast, suggest an interpretation of differential regional access to the means of exchange. Despite the lack of clear Early Anglo-Saxon cemetery evidence from the Swale region from which to extrapolate a model of local consumption, the density of Anglo-Saxon estate centres in this region, and the clear pan-environmental structure of these settlements, suggests an economic basis operating primarily through non-monetary means. By contrast, the communities of the Dover and Wantsum coast and their immediate hinterland, such as Eastry and Northbourne/Great Mongeham and indeed Canterbury itself, can be recognised both to access foreign commodities from the sixth century, and as peaks of coin loss in the seventh. The coincidence of coin finds in this area with the pattern of earlier imported good deposition suggests that these regions probably engaged in limited price-making markets. The model of the highly fragmented nature of Middle Anglo-Saxon markets, meant that only communities with direct access to alienable trade could engage in monetary exchange.
FIGURE 8.4. Trend surface of Early Medieval coin finds in East Kent. Surface produced from coins c. 500-899 listed in the EMC up to 6 July 2001 in ARCVIEW at IDW12 regression.
That areas of particularly low coin loss can in some cases be equated with known important Late Anglo-Saxon estates, such as the regio and minster of Milton or the lathe of Wye discussed by Everitt and Jolliffe respectively (Everitt 1986, 302–32; Jolliffe 1933), raises the possibility that these areas can be identified as regions where exchange through the estate mechanism restricted active participation in price-making markets. In contrast to the monetary zone of alienable exchange identified along the eastern margin, the inland ‘productive’ site of Hollingbourne offers the only comparable example of such negotiated exchange in the west. The location of this settlement at the important cross-roads of routeways linking the historically discrete territories of East and West Kent, the denns between the settlements of the Swale and their Wealden appurtenances, and the environmental junction of the pays of Chart, Holmesdale, Downland and Weald, all single out its suitability for localised trading. Beyond favourable topographical criterion, Hollingbourne’s importance, as is probably the case with the ‘productive’ sites of Reculver and Richborough, may well be related to the ecclesiastical foundations of the seventh century. Church involvement in the resettlement of Richborough and Reculver have already been mentioned, and it is possible that Hollingbourne represents an ecclesiastical foundation, without substantial Early Anglo-Saxon precedent, as part of the original minsterland of Maidstone of which it is a named dependency in the Domesday Monachorum (Everitt 1986, 332).
A comparison between the regression models of Early Anglo-Saxon consumption and Middle Anglo-Saxon coinage demonstrates the importance of ‘new’ sites within the pattern of controlled exchange. Unlike communities close to the estate centres and coastal sites of the Early Anglo-Saxon period which demonstrate both high numbers of imported goods and Middle Anglo-Saxon coin losses, those of Rich-borough, Reculver and Hollingbourne are unremarkable in their consumption of wealth during the earlier period. By contrast, the almost unparalleled number of sceatta and tremissis finds at the two coastal sites (Rigold and Metcalf 1984, 258–60) and the clear peak of coin loss at Hollingbourne, may well be indicative of large-scale monetary exchange on a scale only achievable by, and under the protection of, institutions such as the Church.
Conclusions
The Middle Anglo-Saxon economic development of the kingdom of East Kent, of which ‘productive’ sites are only one phenomenon, can be related both to the topographical attributes of the region and local issues of consumption and exchange. A comparison between Early Anglo-Saxon centres of wealth consumption and the distribution of Middle Anglo-Saxon coin finds in East Kent presents clear implications for the interpretation of developing settlement hierarchies. Important similarities in the geographical structure of Early Anglo-Saxon consumption and later manorial organisation stress, not least, the importance corridors of communication took in structuring the social and economic landscape. Significantly, these same roads and routeways are seen as central to the structure of Early Anglo-Saxon mortuary structures.
That the pattern of Middle Anglo-Saxon estate centres finds close correlation with these same places, suggests at the least a continuity of integrated regional production from the earliest phases of settlement. As one of the criteria governing wealth circulation, access to focal points within the spatial network of routes, can also be argued to underlie differential patterns of consumption within these interred communities. The fall-off curves in imported good deposition within Early Anglo-Saxon cemeteries indicate the importance of specific coastal settlements for the redistribution of these objects, as has been suggested by other lines of historical and archaeological enquiry, and may well provide evidence of so-called ‘gateway communities’ discussed in geographical anthropology. Of importance, nevertheless, is the recognition of substantial change in the mobilisation of these resources after 600, with particular foci of consumption being suggested at known Middle Anglo-Saxon estate centres during the later seventh century. In support of these patterns of exchange, trend surfaces of seventh to ninth-century coin finds indicate the importance of coastal location for active engagement in alienable exchange. In addition, areas of few coin finds and certain sites of unusually high coin-loss possibly reflect local responses to the framework of large-scale institutional exchange and associated restrictions.
* Recent excavations in the immediate vicinity of this burial suggests that this may actually be an isolated burial (Parfitt 1999, 52).
CHAPTER 9
Exceptional Finds, Exceptional Sites? Barham and Coddenham, Suffolk
John Newman
The large number of non-ferrous metal finds of all periods recovered by metal-detector users and reported, in East Anglia at least, over the last twenty-five years has prompted a far reaching reassessment by archaeologists, historians and numismatists of how past social and economic systems functioned. In particular for the seventh-to ninth-century period, a number of apparently exceptional site assemblages have been recorded from eastern and southern England that are now collectively called ‘productive’ sites. But are these site assemblages exceptional or is their study and interpretation thrown off-balance by the wealth of material recovered, in what is often an intensive but largely unsystematic method? Finders will, after all, inevitably concentrate on ‘productive’ areas with a consequent lack of detector searches across ‘non-productive’ parts of the countryside. Much as the spectacular discoveries at Sutton Hoo caused a major revision of previously held ideas about the later pagan period following their excavation in 1939, the ‘productive’ site phenomenon of the seventh to ninth centuries needs to be set against existing data for that respective period, in order to be fully assimilated in what must be an environment of continual research and revision.
Historians would probably say that there should be little surpris
e caused by the wealth of post-Roman archaeological material that has been recovered over the last two decades. These are the traces of an Anglo-Saxon society which by the seventh century had developed to a level of sophistication capable of supporting various major developments that must, to some extent, be reflected in the archaeological record. These developments included the emergence of kingdoms, with their ability to collect, concentrate and distribute resources; and the foundation and growth of the early Church with similar abilities to control resources as society in general supported both secular and clerical elite groups. Inter-linked with the growing power of these groups, the ever-increasing importance of both internal and international trade can also be seen through the foundation of the trading ports or wics and more common use of gold and, subsequently, silver coinage with general standards of weight and purity accepted across north-western Europe. How these developments might be reflected in the archaeological record is crucial to the interpretation of the so-called ‘productive’ sites.
