scholarly journals A Double-edged Sword: Swords, Bodies, and Personhood in Early Medieval Archaeology and Literature

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 542-566 ◽  
Author(s):  
Duncan Sayer ◽  
Erin Sebo ◽  
Kyle Hughes
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Viking Age ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Form Part ◽  
Medieval Archaeology

In Anglo-Saxon and Viking literature swords form part of a hero's identity. In addition to being weapons, they represent a material agent for the individual's actions, a physical expression of identity. In this article we bring together the evidence from literature and archaeology concerning Anglo-Saxon and Viking-age swords and argue that these strands of evidence converge on the construction of mortuary identities and particular personhoods. The placement of the sword in funerary contexts is important. Swords were not just objects; they were worn close to the body, intermingling with the physical person. This is reflected in the mortuary context where they were displayed within an emotive aesthetic. Typically, swords were embraced, placed next to the head and shoulders, more like a companion than an object. However, there are exceptions: graves like Birka 581 and Prittlewell show sword locations that contrast with the normal placement, locations which would have jarred with an observer's experience, suggesting unconventional or nuanced identities. By drawing on literary evidence, we aim to use the words of the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings to illuminate the significance of swords in mortuary contexts and their wider cultural associations.

Early medieval and medieval - Wendy Davies, Guy Halsall & Andrew Reynolds (ed.) People and Space in the Middle Ages (Studies in the Early Middle Ages). 368 pages, 52 illustrations, 2 tables. 2006. Turnhout: Brepols; 978-2-503-51526-7 hardback. - Catherine E. Karkov & Nicholas Howe (ed.). Conversion and Colonization in Anglo-Saxon England. xx+248 pages, 25 illustrations. 2006. Tempe (AZ): Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies; 978-0-86698-363-1 hardback £36 & $40. - Penelope Walton Rogers. Cloth and Clothing in Early Anglo-Saxon England, AD 450–700. xx+290 pages, 177 b&w & colour illustrations, 7 tables. 2007. York: Council for British Archaeology; 978-1-902771-54-0 paperback. - Rachel Moss (ed.) Making and Meaning in Insular Art. xxiv+342 pages, 255 b&w & colour illustrations, 2 tables. 2007. Dublin: Four Courts; 978-1-85182-986-6 hardback £60. - Andrew Saunders. Excavations at Launceston Castle, Cornwall (The Society for Medieval Archaeology Monograph 24). xviii+490 pages, 344 b&w & colour illustrations. 2006. London: Maney; 978-1-904350-75-0 paperback. - Julian Munby, Richard Barber & Richard Brown. Edward Ill’s Round Table at Windsor: The House of the Round Table and the Windsor Festival of 1344. xiv+282 pages, 24 b&w illustrations, 16 colour plates, 8 tables. 2007. Woodbridge: Boydell; 978-1-84383-313-0 hardback £35. - Reviel Netz & William Noel. The Archimedes Codex. xii+306 pages, 42 illustrations. 2007. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson; 978-0-297-64547-4 hardback £18.99.

Antiquity ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 81 (313) ◽  
pp. 826-826
Author(s):  
Madeleine Hummler
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Round Table ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Early Middle Ages ◽  
Renaissance Studies ◽  
Medieval Archaeology ◽  
The Middle Ages ◽  
Insular Art

The Fiery Pacific: Volcanic Eruptions and Settler-State Theatricality in Oceania, 1780–1900

2014 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 362-392
Author(s):  
Diana Looser
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Performance Studies ◽  
Art History ◽  
Volcanic Eruptions ◽  
The Body ◽  
Red Color ◽  
Form Part ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Grand Opera ◽  
The City

In the closing scene of René-Charles Guilbert de Pixérécourt's melodramaLa Tête de mort; ou, Les Ruines de Pompeïa(1827), audiences at Paris's Théâtre de la Gaîté were presented with the spectacular cataclysm of an erupting Mount Vesuvius that invaded the city and engulfed the hapless characters in its fiery embrace. “The theatre,” Pixérécourt writes, “is completely inundated by this sea of bitumen and lava. A shower of blazing and transparent stones and red ash falls on all sides…. The red color with which everything is struck, the terrible noise of the volcano, the screaming, the agitation and despair of the characters … all combine to form this terrible convulsion of nature, a horrible picture, and altogether worthy of being compared to Hell.” A few years later, in 1830, Daniel Auber's grand operaLa Muette de Portici(1828), which yoked a seventeenth-century eruption of Vesuvius with a popular revolt against Spanish rule in Naples, opened at the Théâtre de Monnaie in Brussels. The Belgian spectators, inspired by the opera's revolutionary sentiments, poured out into the streets and seized their country's independence from the Dutch. These two famous examples, which form part of a long genealogy of representing volcanic eruptions through various artistic means, highlight not only the compelling, immersive spectacle of nature in extremis but also the ability of stage scenery to intervene materially in the narrative action and assimilate affective and political meanings. As these two examples also indicate, however, the body of scholarship in literary studies, art history, and theatre and performance studies that attends to the mechanical strategies and symbolic purchase of volcanic representations has tended to focus mainly on Europe; more research remains to be undertaken into how volcanic spectacles have engaged with non-European topographies and sociopolitical dynamics and how this wider view might illuminate our understanding of theatre's social roles.

Transformations of Identity and Society in Anglo-Saxon Essex

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Mirrington
Keyword(s):  
North Sea ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Cultural Affiliation ◽  
Profound Influence ◽  
North Western

Transformations of Identity and Society in Anglo-Saxon Essex: A Case Study of an Early Medieval North Atlantic Community presents the results of a comprehensive archaeological study of early medieval Essex (c.AD 400-1066). This region provides an important case study for examining coastal societies of north-western Europe. Drawing on a wealth of new data, the author demonstrates the profound influence of maritime contacts on changing expressions of cultural affiliation. It is argued that this Continental orientation reflects Essex’s longterm engagement with the emergent, dynamic North Sea network. The wide chronological focus and inclusive dataset enables long-term socio-economic continuity and transformation to be revealed. These include major new insights into the construction of group identity in Essex between the 5th and 11th centuries and the identification of several previously unknown sites of exchange. The presentation also includes the first full archaeological study of Essex under ‘Viking’ rule.

The Maaseik embroideries

1984 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 65-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mildred Budny ◽  
Dominic Tweddle
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Form Part ◽  
The Church ◽  
Made In ◽  
The Middle Ages

Among the relics in the treasury of the church of St Catherine at Maaseik in Limburg, Belgium, there are some luxurious embroideries which form part of the so-called casula (probably ‘chasuble’) of Sts Harlindis and Relindis (pls. I–VI). It was preserved throughout the Middle Ages at the abbey church of Aldeneik (which these sister-saints founded in the early eighth century) and was moved to nearby Maaseik in 1571. Although traditionally regarded as the handiwork of Harlindis and Relindis themselves, the embroideries cannot date from as early as their time, and they must have been made in Anglo-Saxon England. Indeed, they represent the earliest surviving examples of the highly prized English art of embroidery which became famous later in the Middle Ages as opus anglicanum.

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