Presidential Address: The Historical Bearing of Place-Name Studies; England in the Sixth Century

1939 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 1-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. M. Stenton
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Address ◽  
Large Body ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Place Names ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
New Evidence

During the last twenty years, the study of English place names has placed a large body of new evidence at the service of those who are interested in the earliest phases of Anglo-Saxon history. It may at once be admitted that the study has sometimes shown its vitality by becoming controversial, and that much of the evidence may be interpreted in more than one way. It is gradually becoming clear that when all the available material has been collected and discussed, there will remain a very large number of place-names of which no conclusive interpretation is ever likely to be given.

Presidential Address

1941 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 1-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. M. Stenton
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Address ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Place Names ◽  
Anglo Saxon

The place-names which illustrate the character of Anglo-Saxon heathenism have a special claim on the attention of historians. To scholars such as Bede, who wrote when English paganism was still within the range of living memory, it was a detestable superstition, which could not be ignored, but should not be described. Eighth-century writers, and, in particular, Bede, have preserved the names of a number of heathen gods, and recorded the occasion of a number of heathen festivals; they refer to temples, to idols, to altars, and to sacrifices, and their language suggests the existence of different ranks within the heathen priesthood. But it is only a dim impression of the pagan foreworld which can be recovered from their writings, and the points at which it can be reinforced by quotation from later authorities are very few.

Mathematical Issues Arising From the Directed Mutation Controversy

Genetics ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 164 (1) ◽  
pp. 373-379
Author(s):  
Qi Zheng
Keyword(s):  
Mathematical Reasoning ◽  
Large Body ◽  
Directed Mutation ◽  
The Past ◽  
New Evidence

Abstract During the past 14 years or so a large body of new evidence that supposedly supports the directed mutation hypothesis has accumulated. Interpretation of some of the evidence depends on mathematical reasoning, which can be subtler than it appears at first sight. This article attempts to clarify some of the mathematical issues arising from the directed mutation controversy, thereby offering alternative interpretations of some of the evidence.

Human faces with pointed ears: exploring lycanthropy in Early Anglo-Saxon England

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Lisa Brundle ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Contextual Information ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
East Anglia ◽  
Historical Texts ◽  
Human Element ◽  
Human Faces ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Literate Society

In Early Anglo-Saxon England, Style I anthropomorphic and zoomorphic motifs played a key role in shaping identity and communicating ideas in a non-literate society. While the zoomorphic designs are well discussed, the meaning of the human element of Style I remains underexplored. This paper addresses this imbalance by examining a rare and overlooked group of anthropomorphic images: human faces with small, pointed ears depicted on fifth- to sixth-century female dress fittings recovered from archaeological contexts in eastern England. This paper identifies quadrupedal creatures as a stylistic parallel within the menagerie of Style I, including equine, lupine and porcine creatures. Although it is difficult to identify the character/s depicted with ears, there are notable affinities between the anthropomorphic masculine face with pointed ears and the ancient Germanic practice of warriors donning wolf and bear pelts. The facial motif with pointed ears appears on feminine metalwork within East Anglia, the historic region of the sixth-century Wuffingas (Little Wolf) dynasty – Wuffa being Wolf and the -ingas suffix meaning ‘people/descendants of Wuffa’. This paper explores this rare design with contextual information from pictorial and historical texts of shapeshifting and considers the relationship between this motif, the object, and the wearer/user.

The Progress of English Place-Name Studies since 1901

Antiquity ◽  
1961 ◽  
Vol 35 (140) ◽  
pp. 281-285
Author(s):  
Bruce Dickins
Keyword(s):  
Emeritus Professor ◽  
Place Names ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
The West ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
University Of Cambridge ◽  
The University

In this article, Professor Bruce Dickins, Emeritus Professor of Anglo-Saxon in the University of Cambridge and sometime Director of the Survey, takes the opportunity of the publication of two general surveys of English Place-Names and of three volumes of the West Riding Survey, to discuss the development of English Place-Name Studies in the last sixty years. The books he here discusses are:–THE ORIGIN OF ENGLISH PLACE-NAMES by P. H. Reaney. London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1960 (second impression 1961). pp. x + 278. 32s. net.ENGLISH PLACE-NAMES. By Kenneth Cameron. London, Batsford. 1961. pp. 256 and 8 plates. 30$. net.THE PLACE-NAMES OF THE WEST RIDING OF YORKSHIRE. By A. H. Smith. Parts I-III (English Place-Name Society, Vols. XXX-XXXII). Cambridge, University Press, 1961. pp. xii + 346 + map, pp. xii + 322 + map, pp. xiv + 278 + map. 35s. net per volume.

THE ANGLO-NORMAN ABBEY CHURCH OF ST ALBANS AND THE AISLELESS NAVE OF ITS CRUCIFORM PREDECESSOR: THE MATERIAL EVIDENCE

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Jill A Franklin
Keyword(s):  
Conclusive Evidence ◽  
Diagnostic Feature ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Existing Building ◽  
Cruciform Structure ◽  
Anglo Norman ◽  
First Time ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
Material Evidence ◽  
Solid Walls

Within the Romanesque abbey church at St Albans (Hertfordshire), the vestiges of an earlier structure have been identified for the first time. A hitherto unrecorded feature in the transept, noted by the author in 2017, indicates that, at some stage, the nave lacked its existing arcade piers and instead had solid walls. The implications of this are considerable, calling for a thorough reassessment of the building’s history. For now, it is important to record the primary evidence, so as to make it available for further research. This article aims to provide a concise account of the evidence and a summary of what it might mean. According to the thirteenth-century chronicler, Matthew Paris, the existing church was begun in 1077 and completed in 1088. New evidence indicates, however, that the Romanesque building, with its aisled nave and presbytery, was preceded by a cruciform structure without aisles. The inference is that the existing building contains the fabric of this unaisled predecessor. The obvious conclusion – that it therefore represents the lost Anglo-Saxon abbey church – does not follow without question; as yet, excavation has yielded no conclusive evidence of an earlier church on the site. The critical diagnostic feature presented here for the first time adds substance to the view that the remodelling of unaisled buildings was not uncommon in the post-Conquest period, including large as well as minor churches, as identified long ago at York Minster and, more recently, at Worksop Priory.

Food from the Water: Fishing

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Reynolds
Keyword(s):  
Fish Consumption ◽  
Aquatic Environments ◽  
Place Names ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Isotope Evidence ◽  
Do So

Fishing and fish consumption in Anglo-Saxon England has always garnered the interest of historians and archaeologists. However, very often, much of the research has been considered in isolation from other findings. In order to gain as full a picture as possible of what fishing and fish consumption meant to the Anglo-Saxons it is necessary to gather all forms of evidence and examine them together. This chapter will endeavour to do so by combining zooarchaeological and material (fish hooks and net sinkers as well as weirs) data alongside recent discussions of isotope evidence to uncover who within Anglo-Saxon England consumed fish, but also to discover if there were regional and chronological variations in fish consumption. Place-names and iconographic representations of fish may help further understand the changing perceptions of fish, if indeed people’s view of fish and aquatic environments were changing. While this chapter is unlikely to answer fully all the questions surrounding fishing and fish consumption in Anglo-Saxon England, it will shed some light on what information we are currently able to extract from the data of this fascinating area of Anglo-Saxon life.

Water in the Landscape: Charters, Laws and Place Names

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Della Hooke
Keyword(s):  
Local Identity ◽  
Place Names ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Rivers And Streams ◽  
Territorial Boundaries

As one of the essentials of life, water was never far away from early medieval consciousness. Access to sources of water might influence the demarcation of territorial boundaries, especially of the small estates that were emerging in this period, and the location of settlement. The documentary records that survive provide insights as to how the Anglo-Saxons and sometimes, too, their predecessors, viewed their surroundings. Many place-names contain references to water and might help to provide a picture of the landscape and how it was used. In this period, fishing weirs and mills were increasing in number and find mention in both names and the documents; some rivers were also valuable lines of water communication offering routes for the transfer of both people and goods. On a smaller scale, the names given to local watercourses might reflect the nature of the rivers and streams themselves or hint at the nature of the countryside around and its local wildlife. They might also express a sense of local identity but were often coined by travellers and administrators. Some of these aspects of water and the environment of Anglo-Saxon England will be explored here.

The Vikings in England: a review

1975 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 181-206 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gillian Fellows Jensen
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Life Time ◽  
Present Review ◽  
Place Names ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Domesday Book ◽  
First Time

In the preface to F. M. Stenton's collected papers Lady Stenton notes that the publication ofAnglo-Saxon Englandin 1943 marked the culmination of a life-time spent largely preparing for and writing a book in which ‘place-names, coins and charters, wills and pleas, archaeology and the laws of the Anglo-Saxons were all for the first time adequately used to produce a balanced narrative, supported by Domesday Book and the twelfth-century charters which made it easier to understand the earlier material’. Indeed, with the exception of archaeology, Sir Frank had been actively engaged in all these fields of research, as is revealed by the list of his published works, and it seemed unlikely at the time that it would ever be necessary to make major adjustments to the view of the Scandinavian settlements that he presented. Only twelve years had passed, however, when voices of dissent began to arise and the first of three papers that were to herald two decades of controversy about the Vikings in England was published. The present review examines the most significant contributions to the ensuing debate and considers whether it has, in fact, been necessary to depart substantially from the views held by Stenton.

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