Post-Roman York: Fishergate
In between, the historical record is a blank. There are no definite references to York
between the fourth century and the seventh century, although there are one or
two snippets whose meaning is less than clear (see earlier post on Post-RomanYork: the documentary evidence
for a summary of the documentary records).
Evidence from archaeology provides some clues that may help to fill in
the gap. In earlier posts I have discussed the headquarters building,
the Anglian cremation cemeteries at The Mount and Heworth,
the inhumation cemetery at Lamel Hill,
and the possible Anglian cemetery at Castle Yard.
The cemetery evidence reviewed in the previous posts indicates that people were dying and
being buried in the region around York in the centuries after the end of Roman
administration. What of the living? It is a curious feature of early medieval
England that the dead are much more visible in archaeology than the
living. The early English (‘Anglo-Saxon’)
funerary customs of cremation and accompanied inhumation left cemeteries of
distinctive pottery cremation urns, brooches, beads and weapons for modern
archaeology to find and recognise. By
contrast, early ‘Anglo-Saxon’ settlement sites tend to leave a few post-holes
and/or foundation trenches and a scatter of unglamorous domestic debris such as loom weights, spindle whorls
and bits of bone. Such slight traces are
prone to damage by later ploughing or other disturbance, easily missed without skilled
excavation, difficult to date and difficult to interpret, particularly in small
excavations as the significance of a group of post-holes may only be recognised
when they are seen in relation to one another over a wide area. Even when post-holes and foundation trenches
have survived intact and have been excavated over a large enough area to
reveal sufficient of a pattern to be
recognised as a building, they preserve at best only the ground plan, which may
or may not give much of an idea of the original superstructure (as discussed in
an earlier post on the possibilities of timber architecture).
Material culture using perishable organic materials such as bone, wood,
textiles and leather often does not survive at all – bone disappears in acid
soil, wood, textiles and leather decay to nothing except in exceptional
circumstances such as a waterlogged site.
Readily dateable artefacts such as coins and pottery are rare or absent
until around the beginning of the eighth century, making dating difficult
unless sufficient organic material has survived to allow radiocarbon analysis. So identifying early medieval life is something
of a challenge.
Nevertheless, there is some evidence of people living (as
well as dying) in the York area in the early medieval period. The best-known example is the site at 46-54
Fishergate, excavated by York Archaeological Trust in the 1980s (Kemp 1996).
Evidence – 46-54
Fishergate
Fishergate is on the east bank of the River Foss, outside
the southern walls of the Roman fortressThe arrow shows the approximate location of 46-54 Fishergate. Zoom out to see the site in relation to the rest of York.
In 1985-1986, redevelopment of the site of a former glass
factory at 46-54 Fishergate provided an opportunity for archaeological
investigation, carried out by York Archaeological Trust (Kemp 1996 p5). Archaeological deposits had survived on about
half the site, in the south-eastern corner, underneath a Victorian factory
building with shallow foundations (on the rest of the site, modern factory
foundations had removed the archaeological deposits). Excavation revealed traces of ditches, pits
and possible structures dating to around the seventh to ninth centuries.
Possible boundary markersA curving ditch ran from north to south across the site, narrow and shallow (approximately 0.4 m wide and 0.45 m deep) at the north end and becoming broader and deeper towards the south (approximately 2.1 m wide and 0.7 m deep). The bottom of the ditch contained a layer of silt deposited in standing or slow-moving water, and a notable absence of remains of insect species that normally live alongside human habitation, although conditions would have been expected to preserve them. This is interpreted as indicating that the ditch was dug, perhaps to mark a boundary, and then the site left uninhabited for a year or more, long enough for a diverse community of invertebrates to become established naturally.
On top of this silty layer, the ditch had filled up with
loamy soil interspersed with charcoal, containing animal bones, debris from
antler-working, slag, fragments of glass and a 24-cm length of gold wire. The ditch fill also contained traces of
whipworms (human intestinal parasites), indicating the presence of latrine
waste. So the ditch appears to have
become a sort of giant linear rubbish pit for domestic and craft-working waste.
Part of a comb made from antler, dated to the seventh or eighth century, and a
coin dated to around 700-735 were also found in the ditch fill; the coin was
much worn, suggesting that it had been in circulation for a long time before it
ended up in the ditch (Kemp 1996, p 18-23).
A line of six large pits ran westward from the south end of
the ditch. Three of the pits contained
animal bones, antler-working debris and human parasite eggs, and one also
contained a bone sword guard dated to the first half of the 8th century. These
may be a line of rubbish pits marking a boundary (Kemp 1996 p. 23-24).Possible structures
To the west of the curving ditch and north of the line of pits, groups of post-bases (shallow post-holes, possibly the foundations for padstones) and foundation slots indicated traces of several possible structures.
Structure 1 was rectangular, 5.5m wide and between 14m and 19m long (the exact length is uncertain because one end of the structure was underneath an unexcavated baulk), oriented with the long axis roughly north-south. A shallow slot running part way across the structure east-west may be the foundation slot for a beam supporting an internal partition that would have separated off a smaller chamber at the northern end. No traces of any timbers remained (Kemp 1996 p 27-31).
A second group of post-bases and slots was interpreted as
another rectangular structure 5.5m wide and at least 13m long (only 13m was excavated, so the actual length
is unknown), oriented with its long axis east-west (Structure 2). Like
Structure 1, there was a crossways slot part-way across the structure,
consistent with an internal partition separating off a smaller chamber at one
end (in this case the east end). Four
coins dated to approximately 700-735 were found in the fill of the slot,
indicating that the timber was removed and the slot filled some time after this
period.
A third possible structure was represented by a single line
of post-bases with a blank area adjacent; if the post-bases represent one wall
and the blank area the building interior , the structure would also have been
5.5 m wide and at least 11m long, with the long axis east-west. The area where the western wall would have
been had been extensively disturbed, which would have destroyed any
traces. However, the area where the east
wall would have been had not been so disturbed and no traces of a wall were
seen, so this may not be a structure (Kemp 1996 p 34).
Other groups of slots and post-holes may represent the
remains of more structures, but the traces were too fragmentary to interpret
(Kemp 1996 p 36-37).
Dating
All of these possible structures, the curving ditch and the
rubbish pits were sealed underneath an extensive charcoal-rich layer,
indicating that they all belong to the same period.
Dating evidence is limited.
Some artefacts could date to the mid to late seventh century, and the earliest coins found on the site date to
the early eighth century (approximately 700-735). Coins of an earlier type from
the period between 670 and 700 were absent. The findings are consistent with a
foundation date for the Fishergate settlement in the late seventh or very early
eighth century (Kemp 1996 p 66). Pottery types characteristic of the late ninth
and tenth century, which are abundant on the Coppergate site elsewhere in York,
were almost absent from the Fishergate site, suggesting that the site at
Fishergate was not occupied during this period (Kemp 1996 p 83). The settlement
may have shifted to Coppergate in the mid ninth century, abandoning the
Fishergate site. It has also been
suggested that the site at Fishergate replaced an earlier (mid sixth to mid
seventh century) settlement further west on the same gravel moraine at
Heslington Hill (Spall and Toop 2008).
Finds
The Fishergate excavation represents part of a larger settlement, but the size of the settlement is unknown (Kemp 1996 p 75). It was hypothesised that the settlement could extend along the east bank of the River Foss, perhaps covering 10-25 hectares, maybe as much as 65 hectares, which would be comparable with known eighth-century manufacturing and trading sites at Ipswich, London and Hamwic (near Southampton) (Kemp 1996 p 75-77; Tweddle et al 1999 p 193). However, recent excavations at Fishergate House and Blue Bridge Lane, just south of the 46-54 Fishergate site, suggest much lower density of occupation in this area, and the Fishergate settlement is now suggested to be much smaller than originally thought, perhaps 4 hectares or so (Spall and Toop 2005).
Interpretation
The debris in the ditch and rubbish pit fills indicates that
the 46-54 Fishergate site was concerned with various crafts, including
textiles, fur production and the working of leather, wood, bone, antler and
various metals including iron, lead and copper.
The length of gold wire (someone must have cursed when they realised
they had lost that!) may indicate that precious metals were also worked on the
site, perhaps making jewellery. The
pottery and stone from elsewhere in Britain and overseas suggests that
Fishergate had regional and international contacts. The most obvious interpretation is of
Fishergate as a centre of manufacturing and trade in the eighth century, a
smaller version of the known manufacturing and trading sites (wics) known at
Ipswich, London and Hamwic near Southampton (Kemp 1996 p 64).
The curving boundary ditch, which was dug and the site then
apparently left uninhabited for a year or more, may indicate that the
Fishergate settlement was deliberately planned and marked out as a site for
development before the actual settlement was built. This would be consistent with some sort of
‘official’ planned development, perhaps by a landowner who marked out the site
and then permitted/ persuaded people to move into it and establish craft
workshops and dwellings. The animal
bones were less diverse than those typically found on self-sufficient rural
village sites such as West Stow, which may suggest that the food supply at
Fishergate was restricted, perhaps provided or controlled by a central
authority (Kemp 1996 p 74). This is consistent with the possibility that
Fishergate was a specialist manufacturing/trading centre controlled by a lord,
who provided its inhabitants with access to a restricted range of food, perhaps
obtained as food rents from other sites (Kemp 1996 p 74).
York was called Eoforwic or Eoforwiccastre in Old English
(Eoforwic was later turned into Jorvik by Norse speakers, and then further
shortened over time to eventually become the modern name of York). The –wic element in place names is commonly
associated with sites engaged in trading and/or specialist production, which
would fit the evidence from the Fishergate excavation very well.
An account of the Life of St Liudger refers to a colony of
Frisian traders based in York in the early eighth century (Kemp 1996 p 65).
This would fit well with the suggested foundation date for Fishergate, and the
imported material at Fishergate from across the North Sea in Germany, northern
France and the Low Countries.
If Fishergate was only about 4 hectares in size as recently
suggested, this is much smaller than known –wic sites such as Ipswich or Hamwic
(about one-tenth the size). This may
suggest that it was a different type of site – perhaps a foreign enclave,
established especially for the early eighth-century Frisian traders mentioned
in the Life of St Liudger? Or perhaps it
was intended to be bigger and for some reason did not develop to the same size
as Ipswich or Hamwic. Or the Fishergate
site could be one of several sites scattered in and around Roman York. Various traces of possible structures and
pits have been identified in and around the Roman city (Tweddle et al 1999 p
191-199). The traces are generally insubstantial and the date range wide (often
no closer than some time between the Roman and Anglo-Scandinavian periods), so
it is impossible to say whether these represent other settlements contemporary
with the Fishergate site or traces of habitation from different periods,
perhaps shifting from place to place. If
there were several small contemporary settlements, could they have added up
between them to something resembling a London-sized –wic, but that for some
reason was dispersed across multiple sites?
Conclusion
The Fishergate site provides clear evidence for domestic
occupation, craft working and regional and international trade on a substantial
scale from approximately the late seventh century to approximately the mid ninth
century. By this time York has
reappeared in the historical records as a royal and ecclesiastical centre (see
earlier post on the documentary evidence)
and as the location for a group of Frisian traders mentioned in the Life of St
Liudger. It would make sense for an
important royal and ecclesiastical centre to have a trading and manufacturing
population nearby to do the work and provide necessary goods. The levying of tolls and/or taxation on trade
and manufacture may have also made a substantial contribution to the economy,
especially if Fishergate was part of a larger settlement or a component of a
network of related sites dispersed around the environs of the Roman city of
York.
Since York evidently had royal and ecclesiastical
significance by 627 when King Edwin (Eadwine) of Northumbria chose the city for
his baptism and built a church there (Bede Book II Ch. 14), it seems likely
that there was also a working population in the area. If the
suggested foundation date for Fishergate is correct, such a population was not
based there in the early seventh century. If Fishergate was indeed a newly
established planned settlement, it may have replaced one or more earlier sites
in the vicinity that carried out some of the same sorts of activity. Developing
a new site to do something that already happens locally, perhaps on a larger or
more organised scale, is an easier proposition than starting from scratch. The suggested mid-sixth to mid-seventh
century settlement at Heslington Hill may represent such an earlier site. Some of the sites represented by the other
fragmentary remains in York that have not been closely dated may also belong to
the seventh century, and other sites may have existed that have not (yet) been
identified, but (obviously, unless further evidence turns up) this cannot be
substantiated*.
References
Bede, Ecclesiastical history of the English people. Translated by Leo Sherley-Price. Penguin Classics, 1968, ISBN 0-14-044565-X.Kemp RL. Anglian settlement at 46-54 Fishergate. Council for British Archaeology/York Archaeological Trust, 1996. ISBN 1-872414-70-2.
Spall C, Toop N. Blue Bridge Lane and Fishergate House. Excavation Period 3: Anglian settlement. 2005. Available online
Spall C, Toop N. Before Eoforwic: new light on York in the 6th and 7th centuries. Medieval Archaeology 2008;52. Abstract available online
Tweddle D, Moulden J, Logan E. Anglian York: a survey of the evidence. Council for British Archaeology/York Archaeological Trust, 1999. ISBN 1-902771-06-0.
*Paths of Exile is
set in 605-606, much earlier than the date suggested for Fishergate. My speculation is that ad hoc seasonal
trading was already established near the Roman fortress at York long before the
Fishergate settlement was founded. The
river and anything that remained of the Roman harbour infrastructure would have
offered a convenient site for traders from across the North Sea to arrive in
the summer with goods to buy and sell, especially if (as I also speculate) the
old Roman fortress was still a royal power centre and thus a likely market for
luxury imports. My speculation is that the York area also formed a
convenient site for local seasonal trading fairs where agricultural and craft
produce could be exchanged, the sort of place where farmers and part-time
craft-workers might trade a sack of grain for a new cauldron, or a couple of
piglets for a dagger, or a length of woven cloth for a colourful new brooch or
string of beads, perhaps under the protection of a local lord who could provide
some sort of security so that one could be reasonably confident of not being
mugged at market (although what happened on the way home may have been another
matter). I have placed Eoforwic in 605
at the site of a (fictional) nobleman’s hall on the opposite side of the River
Foss to Fishergate, between the Rivers Foss and Ouse and south of the Roman
fortress.