The Boy with Two Heads, by Julia Newsome

Trifolium Books UK, publishers of Kathleen Herbert's fourth novel Moon In Leo (reviewed here) and my own Paths of Exile, have now published a third title.

The Boy With Two Heads, by Julia Newsome (ISBN: 978-0-8568104-4-1), is a time-slip young adult novel about the ancient Olympics in Classical Greece.

Here's the cover copy:

It all starts in Athens.
In 432 BC, they think Themis is dead. Suzanne, who is on a school trip in 2010, is drawn through thousands of years to keep him alive. Will Themis’ destiny be death or glory in the Games of the 87th Olympiad? Will Suzanne regain control of her life, or will her mind be occupied forever by the past, while her body lies in hospital in present-day Cumbria?


“This book transported me effortlessly back to ancient Greece, vividly evoking its sights, sounds and even smells. And I found that young people’s issues have hardly changed in 2,400 years!”
Marion Clarke, fiction editor

“A wonderful story which brings the ancient Olympics to vibrant life and links them to contemporary young people. You can almost smell Greece, and there is a lovely equivalence of teenage feelings and humour, then and now. I couldn’t put it down and didn’t realize how much I had learnt until after the enthralling climax.”
Philippa Harrison, former Managing Director of Macmillan and Little Brown UK

More information on the Trifolium Books blog. Available to order now from bookshops (including Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk), or direct from the publisher (contact details via the Trifolium website, here).

I think an e-book version is planned in due course.

More about the book and the author on the author's blog, here.

Empire of the Moghul: Raiders from the North, by Alex Rutherford. Book review.

Headline 2010. ISBN 0-7553-5654-6. 496 pages. Review copy supplied by publisher.

Raiders from the North is set in what is now Central Asia and northern India in 1494-1530, and follows the career of Babur, first of the Moghul Emperors. Most of the main characters are historical figures, including Babur, his mother Kutlugh Nigar, grandmother Esan Dawlat, sister Khanzada and son Humayun, Shaibani Khan of the Uzbeks and Shah Ismail of Persia. Babur’s military commander Wazir Khan, adviser Baisanghar and friend Baburi are based on historical figures.

Babur is only twelve years old when his father, ruler of the small mountainous kingdom of Ferghana in Central Asia, is killed in a freak accident. With the help of his wily grandmother Esan Dawlat and loyal commander Wazir Khan, Babur is able to claim his inheritance and is fired with ambition to build an empire to equal or exceed that of his mighty ancestor Timur (Tamburlaine). But the plots by ambitious relatives and grasping viziers start almost immediately, not to mention external threats from the ruthless Uzbek warlord Shaibani Khan and the powerful Shah Ismail of Persia, both of whom have territorial ambitions in central Asia. If Babur is even to survive, let alone found an empire, he will need all the cunning and military skill he can muster.

Raiders from the North is the first in a planned series of five novels about the six Moghul emperors, who ruled a vast empire based in what is now northern India in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. The Moghul dynasty has become a byword for luxury, power and unimaginable riches, and has given rise to modern phrases such as ‘movie mogul’. Babur’s rise from precarious ruler of a small mountain kingdom to founder of a great empire, via battle, treachery and a spell as a landless bandit, is the stuff of legend. One could hardly ask for a more dramatic or exotic setting for historical fiction.

So I was surprised to find that Raiders of the North seemed somewhat ‘flat’. Perhaps I had set my expectations too high given the drama of the underlying history. The novel is apparently based largely on Babur’s autobiography, the Baburnama, and that may be part of the explanation, as I felt the novel read like a mildly fictionalised biography. Babur was a pleasant enough central character, but he always seemed distant. I always felt I was reading about him, rather than being drawn into his story. Part of this may be the episodic structure, which can feel rather repetitive – battle, victory, treachery, battle, defeat, battle – as poor Babur slides up and down the snakes and ladders of ambition, frequently ending up almost back at square one. No doubt this reflects the history; the career of a successful warlord attempting to conquer a region of fractious independent tribes is likely to feature a lot of battle, victory, defeat and treachery in a series of successes and setbacks. Sometimes a pattern like this can capture my imagination (Nigel Tranter’s Robert Bruce trilogy comes to mind), but not so much in this case. Another contributory factor may be the clumsy dialogue. When characters in the middle of a desperate winter campaign say things like,

“Let’s pause under cover of these trees and eat some of the dried meat we still have in our saddlebags while we send some scouts ahead”

it doesn’t do a lot for creating a sense of tension and urgency, at least not for me. Overall, the style reminded me of Tim Severin’s Viking novel and Alison Weir’s novel about Lady Jane Grey, Innocent Traitor. It’s interesting that both of these were novels written by established authors of non-fiction, and it turns out that ‘Alex Rutherford’ is the pen name for a husband-and-wife team of established non-fiction authors. Luckily, the historical setting of the Moghul Empire is interesting in its own right, so the flat style matters less than it might have done with less exotic subject matter. A straight biography of Babur would probably be a good read; I may see if I can find one.

A map at the front is invaluable for following Babur’s progress through his far-flung territories. A useful Historical Note at the back of the book summarises the underlying history and historical characters, and a list of endnotes organised by page number gives the historical background to specific incidents. Ironically, the Historical Note, where the author(s?) describe travelling in Central Asia to research the novel, comes to life more vividly than much of the text.

Mildly fictionalised biography of Babur, first of the Moghul emperors in fifteenth/sixteenth-century India and Central Asia.

February recipe: Lamb and chick pea curry

Spices and root vegetables make this simple curry a warming winter meal. It can be made with lamb or venison, and the vegetables can be varied according to taste and availability. If using dried chick peas, remember to soak them in advance. The curry can be frozen, so you can make a double quantity and freeze half for an instant ready-meal later.

Serves 4

Lamb and chick pea curry

4 oz (approx 125 g) chick peas
8 oz (approx 250 g) lamb (or venison), cubed
1 onion
6 oz (approx 150 g) cooking apple
1 lb (approx 450 g) vegetables (swede*, parsnip, turnip, leek, celery)
2 cloves garlic
1 teaspoon (1 x 5 ml spoon) ground cumin
1 teaspoon (1 x 5 ml spoon) ground ginger
2 teaspoons (2 x 5 ml spoon) ground coriander
4 oz (approx 100 g) chopped tomatoes
2 oz (approx 50 g) sultanas or raisins
Approx. 0.5 pint (approx 250 ml) water or stock

Soak the chick peas overnight in cold water. Rinse the soaked chick peas, put in a saucepan with plenty of water, bring to the boil and simmer for 1 – 1.25 hours until cooked. Drain.

Cut the lamb or venison into pieces about 1.5 cm (approx 0.5”) cubed.

Peel and chop the onion. Peel, core and chop the cooking apple. Peel and chop the vegetables. Peel the garlic.

Fry the lamb or venison in cooking oil over a medium heat until browned.

Add the chopped onion, apple and other vegetables and fry gently for a few minutes until starting to colour. Stir in the crushed garlic.

Stir in the spices and mix well. Add the chopped tomatoes, cooked and drained chick peas and dried fruit. Pour in the water or stock, season with salt and black pepper, and bring to the boil.

Simmer over a low heat approx 1 – 1.25 hours until the meat and vegetables are cooked.

Serve with rice and mango chutney.

Can be frozen.

*Short for ‘swedish turnip’. This is the English name; in Scotland the vegetable is called ‘neep’ (as in the dish ‘neeps and tatties’), and in North America I think it is called ‘rutabaga’.

Old English personal names

Old English personal names look unfamiliar to modern eyes, because only a few examples remain in common use today, mostly in their Middle English spellings (for example, Edward, Edmund, Alfred, Edith). However, Old English personal names follow a fairly straightforward pattern.

Two-element names

Old English seems to have had a stock of words that were considered suitable for forming names, often words that had positive connotations such as happiness, riches, strength, courage, power, wisdom, security, nobility and so on. Perhaps the idea was to bring good fortune to the recipient, or perhaps it was just more appealing to call a baby something nice.

Old English personal names are commonly formed by combining two components from this stock of name-words.

• Some name elements were used only for the first part of a name, e.g. Aethel- (noble, royal), Ead- (happy, rich, fortunate)


• Some name elements were only used for the second part of a name, e.g. –weard (guardian, protector)


• Some name elements could be used in either position, e.g. ric (strong), swith (strong), wine (friend), wald (power), here (army), hild (battle), burh/burg (stronghold), raed (counsel, wisdom)

The second element was usually a word of masculine gender in men’s names and feminine gender in women’s names, but not always.

Single-element names

Single-element names are based on a single word, rather than a combination of two. Masculine names commonly end with –a, e.g. Penda, Adda, Imma. This can be confusing to speakers of modern English, as we are used to the Latin convention of –a denoting a feminine ending. This confusion is reinforced by later Latinised forms of Old English women’s names such as Hilda (from Old English Hild). In Old English a single-element name ending in –a is more likely to be a man’s name.

Some two-element names can be shortened to single-element names, e.g. names such as Cuthbert or Cuthwulf could be shortened to Cutha. Hild may be a shortened form of a two-element name (see below).

Single-element names tend to be less common in the written sources than two-element names. Two-element names may have been more popular among the upper classes, and to have become more common over time (although caution is in order, given the scarcity of early sources).

Family connections – alliteration

There were no surnames in Old English. People were identified by a single personal name. Family connections could be signalled by alliteration, i.e. by choosing names within a family that all began with the same letter. Several examples of this can be seen in royal genealogies:

• The seventh-century king of Mercia, Penda, had a father called Pubba or Pybba (Historia Brittonum ch. 60) and a son called Peada (Bede Book III ch. 21);


• The seventh-century Northumbrian prince Hereric had two daughters called Hild and Hereswith (Bede Book IV ch. 23);


• The genealogy of the West Saxon kings in the Anglian Collection lists a succession of eight kings with names beginning with C-, Cerdic, Creoda, Cynric, Caewlin, Cuthwine, Cuthwulf, Ceolwald, Cenred;


• In the ninth and tenth centuries, the West Saxon king Aethelwulf had sons called Aethelbald, Aethelbert, Aethelred and Alfred (later The Great); Aethelred had sons called Aethelwold and Aethelhem; Alfred had sons called Edward and Aethelweard and daughters called Aethelflaed, Aelfthryth and Aethelgifu; Aethelflaed had a daughter called Aelfwyn (Asser, Life of Alfred Part II; Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 919 AD).

Family connections – common name element

Another way to indicate family connections was by using one of the elements of the father’s and/or mother’s name as an element in the child’s name. Where the shared name element was the first one, it would automatically produce alliteration as well. Again, several examples can be seen in royal genealogies:

• The seventh-century Northumbrian prince Hereric was married to a lady named Breguswith. They had two daughters called Hild and Hereswith (Bede Book IV ch. 23). Hereswith has a name combining the second element of her mother’s name (-swith) and the first element of her father’s name (Here-). It is quite possible that Hild was originally called Hildiswith (taking the second element of her mother’s name and a first element that alliterated with her father’s name), which was shortened to Hild for some reason;


• The seventh-century kings of Northumbria were (successively) the brothers Oswald and Oswy, who also had other brothers called Oswine, Oswudu, Oslac and Offa (Historia Brittonum ch. 57). Oswy had a daughter called Osthryth (Bede Book III ch. 11);


• The seventh-century king of East Anglia, Raedwald, had a son called Eorpwald (Bede Book II ch. 15), whose name contains the same second element as his father’s name (-wald);

Some name elements were extremely widespread over a long period of time. For example, Aethel- names appear in the royal family of Kent in the sixth century (Aethelbert, Aethelburh) (Bede Book II ch. 9), Northumbria in the seventh century (Aethelferth) (Bede Book I ch. 34), Mercia in the seventh century (Aethelred) (Bede Book III ch. 11), Wessex in the ninth and tenth centuries (see above), and East Anglia in the seventh century (Aethelwald, Aethelthryth) (Bede Book III ch. 22; Book IV ch. 19). It is perhaps not surprising that a name element meaning ‘noble, royal’ was so popular among families who claimed royal status.

Sometimes both alliteration and common name elements seem to be in use in the same family. For example, the seventh-century king of East Anglia, Raedwald, had one son called Eorpwald (Bede Book II ch. 15), who has the same second name-element as his father, and another son called Raegenhere (Bede Book II ch.12), whose name alliterates with that of his father. If we did not have Bede’s History to tell us that both Raegenhere and Eorpwald were the sons of Raedwald, there would be nothing in their names to connect them with each other. Whether the different name patterns reflected different family connections (for example, perhaps Raegenhere and Eorpwald were the children of two different marriages), family traditions (Raedwald had a brother called Eni; perhaps there was a tradition of having names in R- and E- in each generation), or just resulted from idiosyncrasy, is open to interpretation.

In Paths of Exile, I sometimes used alliteration and common name elements when choosing names for the fictional characters to signal family relationships (obviously, I retained the names of historical figures). For example, Eadwine’s name is recorded, and the name of his nephew Hereric is recorded, but Hereric’s parents are unknown. I chose the name Eadric for the fictional character of Hereric’s father, Eadwine’s elder brother in the novel, because the two name elements in Eadric link to the two known names (Ead- shared with Eadwine, and –ric shared with Hereric). I chose the name Heledd for Hereric’s mother, a fictional princess of the neighbouring Brittonic kingdom of Elmet, because it alliterated with Hereric’s name. Hereric’s name is thus imagined as alliterating with his mother’s name and sharing a second name-element with his father’s name. (It is, of course, entirely possible that Hereric was the son of a sister of Eadwine and a man called H-something or Here-something. I picked the first combination for storytelling reasons).


References
Anglian Collection, available online
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, available online
Asser, Life of Alfred, available online
Bede, Ecclesiastical history of the English people. Translated by Leo Sherley-Price. Penguin Classics, 1968, ISBN 0-14-044565-X.
Historia Brittonum, available online

Hoar frost

Jack Frost displaying his artistic talents. Very cold weather with clear skies and no wind allows lovely feathery hoar frost crystals to grow on surfaces exposed to the air, such as plant stems.


Hoar frost on plant stems at the base of a hedge...


... and on an isolated plant at a field edge


Close-up of feathery ice crystals.

King of Kings, by Harry Sidebottom. Book review

Penguin, 2010, ISBN 978-0-141-03230-6. 469 pages.

Second in the Warrior of Rome series, King of Kings follows on from Fire in the East (reviewed here earlier). Emperor Valerian, the Imperial officials Macrianus the Lame and his two sons, and the Persian ruler Shapur are historical figures. Ballista, the central character, is based on a historical figure about whom little is known. Other major characters are fictional. King of Kings is set in 256–260 AD, in the Eastern Mediterranean and what is now Syria.

Marcus Clodius Ballista, originally a noble hostage from the northern tribe of the Angles and now a senior Roman army officer, was one of the few survivors of the siege of Arete (recounted in Fire in the East). Bringing disastrous news to the Imperial court at Antioch, Ballista falls foul of the sinister official Macrianus the Lame and his slimy son Quietus, as well as the arrogant patrician Acilius Glabrio who blames Ballista for his brother’s death at Arete. The Empire is beset with difficulties, many of which are blamed on the cult of Christianity, and in the east the powerful Persian king Shapur is threatening war. But the greatest threat comes from within Rome itself...

King of Kings picks up at the moment where Fire in the East left off, with Ballista and his companions fleeing for their lives from the sack of Arete. The opening sequence gives a good idea of what to expect; there is no shortage of military adventure and gruesome battle scenes in King of Kings, from pirate raids to full-scale campaigns against the Persians. Political intrigue plays a larger role in King of Kings than in the earlier novel, as Ballista has to deal with fanatical Christians in Ephesus and the back-stabbing (literally as well as metaphorically) machinations of the Imperial court. A few quiet periods between assignments, when Ballista is out of Imperial favour, provide glimpses of Ballista’s home life, with his intelligent and politically astute upper-class Roman wife Julia and their two adored children.

Ballista’s position as an outsider to Imperial Rome comes over strongly in King of Kings. As well as the impenetrable etiquette and protocol of the court itself, he also finds Roman domestic customs alien and sometimes disturbing. Many among the Imperial court look down on Ballista as a barbarian, and even Julia insults him as such during a marital row. The closest members of Ballista’s household are also foreigners – Calgacus, the old Caledonian slave from Ballista’s northern homeland; Demetrius, the intellectual Greek secretary with a weakness for the occult; and Maximus, or Muirtagh of the Long Road, the tough Irish ex-gladiator bodyguard. For all that Ballista holds a senior position within Roman society as a high-ranking military officer, he is not part of it. As an outsider, he (and therefore the reader) is well placed to observe the flaws in the Imperial system, with power concentrated in the person of the increasingly infirm Valerian – a sympathetic, if rather pathetic, figure – and consequently vulnerable to misuse by corrupt officials who manipulate the Emperor for their own ends. Indeed, the main villain is so obviously evil that he is almost a cartoon caricature, cackling over the hero’s powerlessness while explaining the next step in his nefarious plan, which is all very well in a Bond film but I found it a bit disappointing here. If the portrayal bears any resemblance to reality, no wonder Rome managed to get itself into the mess of the ‘Third-Century Crisis’.

As with Fire in the East, King of Kings doesn’t so much reach an end as take a brief pause for breath before Ballista’s adventures continue in the next instalment. I am finding the series faintly reminiscent of Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe novels, partly because of Ballista’s position as an outsider, partly because of the frequent and dramatic battle scenes, and partly something about the style (it’s a toss-up at present whether the no-nonsense Irish bodyguard Maximus reminds me more of Russell Crowe in Gladiator or Sergeant Patrick Harper). On reaching the Historical Afterword at the back, it turns out that one of the Sharpe echoes was intentional.

The narrative is told in third person, mainly by Ballista but also by other characters as occasion dictates, so the reader sometimes knows things that Ballista doesn’t know. The style is mostly straightforward modern prose, liberally sprinkled with archaic terms (explained in a glossary at the back, although I found most of them could be worked out from context), and with a fair helping of modern four-letter words. I found the pace rather uneven, speeding along during the fight sequences and then seeming to drag during the episode of persecuting Christians in Ephesus. This may be intentional, as Ballista himself is much more at home with military command than with a civilian governor’s job. I wonder if the Ephesus episode was covered at such length because it has some wider significance, perhaps setting up for something in a later book?

The Historical Afterword at the back outlines some of the history underlying the novel, and a map at the front is useful for following Ballista’s journeys. A list of characters at the back may also be helpful for keeping track of who is who, although I never needed to refer to it.

Military adventure, gruesome battles and political intrigue as the third-century Roman Empire clashes with the mighty Persian Empire in the Near and Middle East.

Late- and post-Roman Binchester

I recently posted about the headquarters building in Late and/or post-Roman York, and by happy coincidence the current edition (February 2012) of Current Archaeology magazine has an interesting article on late and post-Roman Binchester. Post-Roman activity at Binchester was recognised in archaeological excavations in the 1970s and 1980s, and a new excavation programme has added new evidence.

Location

The Roman fort of Vinovia, modern name Binchester, is located slightly north of Bishop Auckland, where the main Roman road to the north, Dere Street, crosses the River Wear.

Map link: Binchester

So Binchester is north of the legionary base at York, and south of the frontier forts along Hadrian’s Wall.

Brief description

The first fort on the Vinovia site was a large fort built in timber in around AD 70-80, which would coincide roughly with Agricola’s campaign in Caledonia (roughly, what is now Scotland north of the Firths of Forth and Clyde). It was replaced by a smaller fort built in stone in the second century, and it is the remains of this smaller and later fort that are visible today.

The stone fort has the characteristic ‘playing card’ shape of a rectangle with rounded corners. Dere Street ran through the middle of the fort, and the praetorium (commanding officer’s house) has been identified in archaeological excavations. A large vicus (civilian settlement) developed outside the fort and has been identified east of the fort and along the line of Dere Street to the north-west and south-east.

The commanding officer’s house and baths suite

The baths suite attached to the commanding officer’s house was one of the first structures on the site to be discovered, when part of the hypocaust collapsed under the weight of a farm cart in the early nineteenth century. The commanding officer’s house and baths suite were excavated in the 1970s and 1980s. This excavation found that the house had undergone a startling change of use in the early fifth century; it went from being a palatial residence complete with expensive decorated wall plaster to industrial use. Furnaces were built in the west wing, and evidently used for ironworking since they were surrounded by iron slag. In the south wing, a flat platform with a drain along one side was built using stone recycled from demolished structures, and a large associated dump contained large amounts of cattle bones showing butchery marks, including cattle skulls with poleaxe holes in the forehead. The south wing of the commander’s house was presumably now being used an abattoir. Radiocarbon dates place this phase in the early fifth century.

The industrial use of the commander’s house clearly continued for some time, as another stone platform was later built on top of this abattoir deposit. Parts of Roman walls were incorporated into the later platform, and post-holes may have supported a timber structure, consistent with the original building having become partly or entirely ruinous by this time and being replaced by a timber structure. This second platform was associated with more animal bone, and fragments of worked antler, bone, jet and shale, implying a sizeable craft industry.

The dating of this phase of industrial use is uncertain. However, a burial in the debris from the collapse of the roof of the associated baths suite was radiocarbon dated to about AD 550. The burial was of an adult woman, and she had been buried with grave goods including a string of beads, a pottery bowl and a copper-alloy brooch in the shape of a reversed ‘S’ with birds’ heads for the terminals, a type normally assigned to the early English (‘Anglo-Saxon’) period of the late fifth to early sixth century - so the stylistic date from the brooch is broadly consistent with the radiocarbon date. This indicates that the baths suite had gone out of use and collapsed at some time before the burial was made in approximately the middle of the sixth century. Radiocarbon dating of samples from other burials without grave goods on the fort site gave dates between AD 600 and AD 1000, suggesting an early medieval cemetery on the site.

Much of the stone used to build the early English church at nearby Escomb was re-used Roman stone. Escomb is only a mile or so south-west of Binchester (see map links), and Binchester Roman fort and/or its vicus may have been the source for much of the stone (Escomb Church official site). Escomb church was probably built in the late seventh century, suggesting that at least some of the buildings at Binchester were regarded by then as a convenient quarry.

It is interesting that burials were made at Binchester in the period after the church at Escomb was built. One might have expected that after the conversion to Christianity the people of the area would be buried in the churchyard at Escomb, which is not far away. Perhaps the Binchester fort site also had a church or chapel with an associated cemetery. Or perhaps the female burial in the remains of the bath suite was that of an important individual, whose grave then became the focus for a cemetery for a local or family group that continued in use as a traditional burial place in parallel with the church at Escomb.

Recent excavations

For information on the recent excavation programme, see the project website, and the excavation blog (updated regularly in season).

Excavation in the east corner of the fort identified a possible barrack or stable block, with patches of paved floor associated with pits lined with stones or clay. Some of the pits had associated gullies, and one was connected to a pit in the rampart of the fort that could have acted as a water storage reservoir. As with the commander’s house, the pits were associated with many fragments of animal bone.

Excavation in the vicus east of the fort identified a substantial building that may have been a bath-house. Like the barrack/stable block inside the fort, this building also contained large stone-lined pits (one was 6m, approximately 20 feet, across and occupied almost an entire room), together with fragments of animal bone, jet and shale.

The Binchester Blog says that a radiocarbon date from a pit in the fort had a 50% probability of being later than AD 400, whereas a sample from a pit in the vicus area had a 2% probability of being later than AD 400 (see Day 33, 2011).

Exactly what industrial activity the pits represent is not yet certain. However, the pits and the large volume of associated animal bone would be consistent with a substantial leather-producing industry. Tanning requires a lot of soaking of animal skins in water and various other chemicals to soften the hide, remove the hair and convert the skin into leather.

The pits in the vicus and barrack/stable block are currently interpreted as tanning or possibly flax-retting pits, suggesting a substantial industry busily processing large numbers of animals into leather goods and worked bone and/or antler objects. Industrial and craft activity on a substantial scale implies in turn either that there was a large population in the vicinity, or that the fort was supplying a wider area than its immediate region.

Interpretation

The radiocarbon date from the vicus sample, with only a 2% chance of being later than AD 400, fits easily with a substantial leather- and bone-processing industry serving a market well beyond its immediate area, for which the most obvious candidate is the Late Roman Army. It is easy to imagine that Binchester fort could have been converted to a production and supply base, taking in large numbers of animals on the hoof from a considerable area and processing them into dried meat, leather, glue, bone tools and so on to supply army units. If the building in the vicus was indeed a bath-house, it might be a convenient candidate for conversion to leather processing, since bath-houses by definition have water supplies and drains that can be adapted to industrial use for processes requiring large volumes of water.

If more radiocarbon dates confirm the initial result of a later date for the pits inside the fort, it may indicate that industrial activity continued after the end of formal Roman administration, but possibly moved to a location within the fort rather than in the vicus. If industrial activity did continue on a large scale into the post-Roman period, this is potentially interesting, as on first sight it may appear inconsistent with the mud-huts ‘Dark Age’ stereotype of post-Roman Britain. Perhaps it could indicate a powerful local ruler, controlling the livestock resources of a wide area and perhaps with a large (very large?) warband getting through a lot of beef and leather for their own use. Perhaps it could indicate that there was still a commercial economy of sorts, so that an industrial centre could obtain raw materials and sell finished products as part of a wider market. Perhaps it could indicate a regional or even province-wide government, able to operate on the same sort of scale as the previous Roman administration. The school of thought that sees Vortigern as a ruler over all or most of the former Roman province, able to oversee large-scale population movements from one end of the province to the other, would have no difficulty in accommodating centrally-organised large-scale supply chains. Depending on the exact dates, it might even fit with Ken Dark’s theory of a revival of the post of Dux Britanniarum in the late fifth / early sixth century, with authority spanning most or all of the ex-Roman military sites between York and Hadrian’s Wall (Dark 2002).

If Binchester fort was the seat of a local ruler, or the centre of a substantial industrial operation, one might perhaps have expected whoever was the boss there to move in to the commander’s luxury house as a symbol of status, rather than convert it to industrial use. Perhaps there was no boss as such, and the activity represents a sort of giant co-operative of semi-independent craftsmen and traders, or perhaps the local boss was a relatively low-status overseer for an external owner, not considered important enough to be assigned a luxury residence. Or perhaps a new residence for the boss was built elsewhere in the fort and has not yet been identified, like the ‘chieftain’s hall’ built on the site of the granary at Birdoswald.

One thing that strikes me about the post-Roman activity at Binchester, Wroxeter, Birdoswald and in the principia at York is the apparent ease with which formerly impressive high-status buildings were converted to humdrum industrial uses or demolished. The baths basilica at Wroxeter became a builders’ yard and bakery, the principia at York acquired non-ferrous metalworking hearths and a lot of animal bone in the cross-hall, a barrack-building at Birdoswald had re-used an inscribed stone from the commander’s house, and at Binchester the commander’s house was turned into an iron-working site and an abattoir. Looking at Roman remains from a twenty-first-century viewpoint, it seems slightly surprising that such impressive structures were apparently not preserved as symbols of past glory. Perhaps this reflects a straightforward pragmatism on the part of late- and post-Roman decision-makers, who looked at the structures they inherited with an unsentimental eye and put them to whatever use seemed most practical and/or profitable in current circumstances. I wonder if it could also reflect a conscious rejection of aspects of Roman Imperial identity and hierarchy, perhaps as a symbol of a break with the past and the establishment of a new social order. It reminds me a little of the Dissolution of the Monasteries, an episode when a change in political power structures resulted in many formerly important high-status buildings (abbeys, priories, associated churches) being demolished and the materials sold off, leaving evocative ruins for later ages to marvel at and mourn.




References
Binchester Blog
Binchester excavation project site
Dark K. Britain and the end of the Roman empire. Tempus, 2002. ISBN 0-7524-2532-3.
Escomb Church official site

Map links
York
Binchester
Escomb Scroll north-east from Escomb using the arrows on the map to see Escomb church and Vinovia/Binchester Roman Fort on the same screen.