Markets in Early Medieval Europe

by Tim Pestell

  From this comparative evidence, Barham is clearly exceptional for its metalwork assemblage. The key to this outstanding quality may, at first, appear elusive but an examination of historical sources indicates that Barham was a major estate of four carucates belonging to Ely Abbey in the Late Anglo-Saxon period (Hart 1966, 67). While this acquisition by Ely Abbey was late in the Anglo-Saxon period it does, perhaps, indicate the presence of a large estate at Barham which may well have had some pedigree by the tenth century. It was, moreover, an estate that had escaped fragmentation and which may have belonged to the Church or a powerful local family in the Middle Anglo-Saxon period.

  FIGURE 9.4. Sceatta finds from Suffolk showing the number of coins known from each site (source: Suffolk SMR).

  Within south-east Suffolk, where survey and excavation work has located and characterised a number of Middle Anglo-Saxon sites, Barham and Coddenham can therefore be seen to be extraordinary for their range and size of respective metalwork assemblages. Not only does it seem justifiable to call them ‘productive’ sites; they also appear to be in a productive Middle Anglo-Saxon landscape. As Fig. 9.4 shows, sceatta finds are concentrated in the Orwell estuary/lower Gipping valley end of the Gipping/Lark corridor, which so conveniently links sea-borne access to the Continent and south-east England with the agriculturally rich Fen-edge in west Suffolk. The metalwork finds from the ‘productive’ sites in eastern England emphasise external contact as much as status and wealth with Frisian sceattas and Merovingian-and Celtic-derived artefacts. Therefore, it should perhaps be of little surprise that exceptional sites developed where commerce, contact and control could so easily be exercised as at Barham and Coddenham, natural nodes on major communication routes. By way of further comparison it is also interesting to note that the Gipping valley has yielded a high number of Iron Age coins, again emphasising a corridor of economic activity and contact. This corridor is still of economic importance, having been highlighted for modern-day growth along the A14 between Cambridge and Ipswich.

  In conclusion, Barham and Coddenham have produced exceptional assemblages which rise above an almost obscured, but nonetheless present, domestic level of activity on each site. It is easiest to interpret and accept the wealth and range of material recovered from Barham and Coddenham if they are put into a local context as part of a complex social and economic hierarchy, where central places regulating the collection and redistribution of resources were to become ever better established from the mid seventh century. At the top of this hierarchy, in economic terms at least, must come the growing wics or trading ports and it is worthy of note that Barham, Coddenham and Ipswich must have co-existed in the late seventh century before Coddenham and then Barham slipped back to a more simple, rural, existence. A link to estates controlled by the Church can also be discerned at Coddenham, with its possible minster status, and, possibly, at Barham. The early Church is now seen as a major influence on Middle Anglo-Saxon economic development and here it is worth noting that Walton Castle at Felixstowe on the Suffolk coast, now destroyed by the sea, may also have been a ‘productive’ site. It has been argued that Walton Castle was the site of Dommoc, the first seat of the bishops of East Anglia (Rigold 1961, 55) and recent research indicates that the ‘Woodbridge Hoard’ of sceattas comes from Felixstowe (Newman 1996, 217). There is, in addition, an antiquarian collection of Anglo-Saxon finds from around Walton Castle (West 1998, 38). Walton may, therefore, constitute another ‘productive’ site at Felixstowe. Like Barham and Coddenham, this ‘productive’ site will only be better understood once the complex nature of Middle AngloSaxon society is acknowledged, and when these exceptional sites are seen against systematic survey results which help to illuminate the complete settlement hierarchy for the period.

  Acknowledgements

  Many thanks to Emma Parker for producing a presentable text and to Sue Holden for preparing the figures.

  CHAPTER 10

  Six Middle Anglo-Saxon Sites in West Norfolk

  Andrew Rogerson

  Introduction

  Twenty-five years of archaeological effort in Norfolk, expended in recording finds of all periods made by fieldwalkers and metal-detector users, have been used to recover ‘invaluable information about economic, political and social developments’ (Ulmschneider 2000a, 101). In Norfolk, for the most part, little of this information would have been forthcoming from formal archaeological excavation on its own. The time is now ripe for attempting to interpret the meaning of what is an immense body of new, and almost entirely unpublished, data held in the county Sites and Monuments Record. Most periods from the Bronze Age onwards might benefit from such work, but a transformation in the size of the Middle Anglo-Saxon dataset makes it especially suitable for analysis. More than 1,200 ‘sites’, separate geographical entities, have so far yielded finds of Middle Anglo-Saxon date. One masterful but not widely circulated paper (Andrews 1992) clearly showed the potential of the material then available for the study of the whole range of settlement types, but was of necessity very brief. As brevity governs this paper too, and although only markets, fairs and ‘productive’ sites are under consideration, the area of just one of the seven district councils in Norfolk, the Borough of King’s Lynn and West Norfolk, has been chosen for examination (Fig. 10.1).

  The selected area, a local government entity created in 1974, comprises i43,000ha (approximately 27 percent of Norfolk), 102 civil parishes, and covers three complete Domesday hundreds and most of a fourth, half of a fifth and part of a sixth. It has the greatest variety of soil types within the seven council districts; in the west are peats and silts of the Fen basin, with Breckland sands in the south, mixed sands, clays and carstone in the centre (the West Norfolk Lowland), and in the north the Chalk Scarp which forms the northern and western boundaries of an upland zone of mixed but predominantly light soils known as the Good Sands (Corbett and Dent 1993).

  FIGURE 10.1. Location map of sites discussed in the text.

  The study area has been slightly more abundant than elsewhere in most major categories of Middle Anglo-Saxon finds, as the following rather blunt statistics indicate. Totals of sites on which some of the main categories of finds have been recorded, with the county total in brackets, are as follows: pottery 236 (658), coins 49 (158), brooches 41 (176), pins 56 (200), and strap fittings, i.e. predominantly strap-ends, 59 (179). Thus, it is only in the case of brooches that West Norfolk’s proportion of the county total of sites falls below 27 percent. This relative abundance is enhanced when the substantial zone of low-lying peat-covered Black Fen in the southern part of the district, which was uninhabited throughout the Early Middle Ages, is taken into account. A clear indication of the level of wealth in the upland part of the west of the county is given by an early ninth-century hoard of six silver disc brooches found by accident in the churchyard at Pentney, about nine kilometres south-east of Bawsey (Wilson 1984, 96 and fig. 120; Webster and Backhouse 1991, 229–31).

  Although there are wide variations in the numbers of recorded episodes of field survey and metal-detecting across the county (Gurney 1997), it is evident that the relative frequency of finds in each area is real and will not be altered to any great degree by further work. The same holds true for sites that might be regarded as in some way ‘productive’. At present in other parts of the county there are few such places, only Burgh Castle, Caistor St Edmund, Thetford (Andrews 1995, 26–7), Middle Harling (Rogerson 1995), Hindringham and Quidenham being contenders.

  Within West Norfolk six places stand out as exceptional or ‘productive’; Bawsey, Burnham, Congham, Rudham, West Walton and Wormegay. Brief archaeological summaries of these six will follow, while the historical backgrounds of each, and of other important Middle Anglo-Saxon sites in the county, are discussed by Tim Pestell elsewhere in this volume. That these six places are outstanding vis-à-vis others in the area can be seen from the following simple figures: Middle Anglo-Saxon coins have been recorded in twenty-nine out of a total of 102 West Norfolk parishes, of whic
h thirteen records are of a single coin. It should be noted that all of the single coin and many of the non-coin parishes have been subjected to recorded metal-detecting, often on a considerable scale and over long periods. (This is not to suggest, however, that further outstanding sites may not be identified in the future, both in previously unexplored places and in those where metal-detecting has hitherto gone unreported and unrecorded.)

  Bawsey

  This site is the most ‘productive’ in Norfolk. Settlement within the modern parish is severely reduced, although decline set in during the later Middle Ages. Bawsey featured in the first list of Norfolk deserted villages and at Domesday was a mere berewick or dependency of nearby Glosthorpe, which features in the same list (Allison 1955; 120, 127, 143 and 147). The Anglo-Saxon site lies four kilometres east of King’s Lynn and sits on a very pronounced and striking hill capped with glacial sand and gravel, a peninsula thrusting out into the valley of the River Gaywood. Now a minor watercourse, this drained west into the Wash on the north side of what is now King’s Lynn. Open water lay very close to the site in the Middle Anglo-Saxon period. The hill is entirely given over to arable farming except for a small area of grass at the highest point, at 15m OD, surrounding the ruined Norman parish church of St James (Fig. 10.2).

  Since 1984 metal-detecting by Mr Steven Brown has enabled the recording of over fifty Anglo-Saxon coins, almost all dating from the late seventh to mid ninth century, as well as of very numerous metalwork finds of the same date-range, including six styli. Numerous coins, including two late seventh-century tremisses, found by another person in the 1980s are unfortunately unconfirmed, and remain unexamined by numismatists. Three Iron Age gold torcs (including two found in the i940s) show some pre-Roman specialised use of the site, but a small Romano-British settlement on the northern slope, represented by finds of pottery, tiles and coins is unexceptional. Early Anglo-Saxon material is quite sparse, but the site has yielded many tenth-to thirteenth-century finds. A systematic fieldwalking survey has yet to be attempted, but sufficient quantities of Ipswich Ware sherds have been recovered to indicate that much of the hill-top and slopes was occupied with some intensity in the eighth and ninth centuries. Middle Anglo-Saxon finds are, in the main, restricted to a ditched enclosure recorded by aerial photography and subjected to trial trenching in 1998. However, they do occur outside the enclosure down to the base of the northern slope, i.e. close to the River Gaywood.

  FIGURE 10.2. Bawsey: an aerial view of the site from the north-west, 17/7/89. (Photograph: D. A. Edwards, Norfolk Museums and Archaeology Service)

  In late 1989 a summary of finds was prepared for publication (Blackburn, Rogerson and Margeson unpublished) and in i998 the Channel Four television programme Time Team carried out geophysical survey and excavations in the form of trial trenches. In view of the hope that a report on the results of all work so far conducted will soon be published, no further details will be given here. Seven objects from the site were exhibited at the British Museum in i99i (Webster and Backhouse 1991, 231–2).

  Burnham

  The substantial medieval and modern village of Burnham Market lies on the Chalk Scarp some three kilometres south of the north Norfolk coast. The Middle Anglo-Saxon site is situated above the five metre contour immediately north and east of the village on both sides of the Goose Beck, a stream draining through the village and east into the River Burn which flows north off the Good Sands plateau into the North Sea. The stream and its junction with the river, at a point where its valley begins to widen out towards the estuary, seem to be the focus of the settlement. It is probable that a safe haven for coastal traffic was available here in the Anglo-Saxon period, although scientific work on valley sediments is yet to be conducted.

  Three modern civil parishes join within the Middle Anglo-Saxon site, Burnhams Market, Norton and Overy; a small portion of another, Burnham Thorpe, enters the south-eastern corner. Burnham Market is made up of four former ecclesiastical parishes, Burnhams St Andrew, Sutton, Ulph and Westgate. An eighth former parish, Burnham Deepdale lies on the coast to the north-west. This present day complexity is reflected in Domesday Book, which gives the name Burnham in seven entries. Thorpe is alone in not being so named.

  The site was discovered by Mr John Smallwood and his A-level pupils from King Edward VI School, King’s Lynn, who carried out fieldwalking from i983. In addition to Romano-British building debris and a few Early Anglo-Saxon sherds, considerable quantities of Middle Anglo-Saxon pottery, including several Continental imports, were recorded. In i990 when, with this author’s encouragement, metal-detecting was begun by Mr David Fox and Mr Philip West, it soon became apparent that this was an exceptional site. Very large amounts of fifth-to seventh-century metalwork, including material of Continental origin, betoken intense activity with a strong funerary element. Prolific eighth-and ninth-century metal finds include pins, hooked tags and strap-ends. The Middle Anglo-Saxon coin assemblage of fifteen coins begins with a Series Va sceatta (670–80) and ends with a denier of Louis the Pious (822–40). The latest sceatta is a Series R derivative (730–50), while a Beonna protopenny of the moneyer Wilred (c. 760), though the subject of a coroner’s inquest, is of questionable provenance.

  A systematic fieldwalking programme of sufficient extent to identify the boundaries of the pottery spread associated with this ‘productive’ site has not yet been carried out. At present the main area of metalwork and pottery at the confluence of the Burn and Goose Beck appears to extend to six hectares. On the other hand, recent excavations carried out by the Norfolk Archaeological Unit to the east and south-east of this site in advance of development have considerably extended the known areas of Middle Anglo-Saxon occupation. However, no coins and few metal finds were recorded, and it is clear that these interventions were located outside the main settlement. The largest excavation, to the north of St Æthelbert’s, the ruined former parish church of Burnham Sutton, showed that Middle Anglo-Saxon activity was present only at the southern end, i.e. close to the church and not continuous with the ‘productive’ site lying c. 400m to the north-west.

  Congham

  Middle Anglo-Saxon Congham sits next to the very small modern village, just above the twenty-metre contour line at the foot of the Chalk Scarp, on the sandy soil of the West Norfolk Lowland. Heavier clay soils occur to the west. The River Babingley, which flows westwards into the Wash, is two kilometres to the north, but a minor watercourse rising at a spring immediately north of the site feeds into the river. The western, lowland, branch of the Icknield Way, a prehistoric trackway which was used as a route in the Roman period (Gurney i993), passes through the site. A Romano-British masonry building, probably a villa, lies next to the above-mentioned spring just east of the northern end of the site. The Domesday entry is unremarkable, and three churches in the Middle Ages (All Saints’, St Andrew’s and St Mary’s) need not, by Norfolk standards, indicate any special status.

  Finds of Ipswich ware were recorded in the late i960s, while Early and Middle Anglo-Saxon metalwork was first recovered in the mid 1970s. A small-scale excavation by Keith Wade in 1970 revealed the clay floor and post-holes of a Middle Anglo-Saxon building (Webster and Cherry 1972, 157). Since 1993 a very detailed metal-detector survey has been carried out by Mr John Wells and Mrs Pat Wells. This has recorded Middle Anglo-Saxon metal finds in a one kilometre long band aligned north-north-west to south-south-east, which appears to follow the general line of the Icknield Way. The three churches lie strung out along the western edge of the finds area. In common with most of the other sites discussed here a detailed fieldwalking survey has not yet been attempted, but yet again small-scale and casual collections of Middle Anglo-Saxon potsherds have shown that occupation debris is present in all areas yielding metalwork and coins, suggesting that the site may have covered as much as ten hectares. A wider and more abundant spread of Early Anglo-Saxon metal finds is evidence for the presence of cemeteries involving both cremation and inhumation.

  The quality and rang
e of Middle Anglo-Saxon metalwork are not particularly exceptional although the total of finds is large. The post-Roman coins, on the other hand, form an interesting group. Eight sceattas begin with Series BII (700–i0) and end with a Series R derivative (730–50). There are three tremisses, of Goademar II of Burgundy (524–32), Dorestad (sixth century) and Quentovic (midseventh century), as well as a Merovingian denier of the first half of the eighth century. The Continental numismatic theme ends with a gold Carolingian coin. In contrast only one sherd of Continental imported pottery has been reported.

  Rudham

  This is in reality two geographically discrete sites. The substantial paired villages of East and West Rudham lie at 50–60m OD in a valley of one of the River Wensum’s upper tributaries, in the open Good Sands country. Thus, although this land drains east towards Great Yarmouth and sits on the wrong side of the county’s central watershed (Williamson 1993, 14–19), it is emphatically a part of the north-west Norfolk uplands. On the boundary between the two parishes south of the modern villages an unexcavated Roman masonry building is situated on arable land, and a possible Roman road approaches from the north-east. A Roman main road, the Peddars Way, runs on a north-west to south-east alignment about six kilometres to the west (Gurney i993).