tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post6686150793797342252..comments2023-11-29T07:39:34.401+00:00Comments on Carla Nayland Historical Fiction: Post-Roman York: Castle Yard cemeteryCarlahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11901028520813891575noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-30477002854960059402012-09-05T11:49:28.056+01:002012-09-05T11:49:28.056+01:00Tenthmedieval - the reconstruction of the ship bur...Tenthmedieval - the reconstruction of the ship burial chamber in the Sutton Hoo Visitor Centre has the hanging bowl hanging up on a peg on the wall of the chamber (see my photo in the <a href="http://carlanayland.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/hanging-bowls-what-were-they-for.html" rel="nofollow">hanging bowl post</a>, so it doesn't seem to be seen as a container for ashes in that instance. Its fellow, found intact in excavations when the visitor centre was built, was a cremation container, though, as was the thin bronze bowl whose frgaments were in one of the robbed mounds. My interpretation is that exotic foreign copper-alloy bowls became used as fashionable cremation containers for high-status individuals as a posh replacement for the ceramic cremation urn, and that when inhumation burial came into fashion the exotic copper-alloy bowls were deposited along with the body as grave goods.Carlahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11901028520813891575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-67476419554829007102012-09-05T10:47:51.156+01:002012-09-05T10:47:51.156+01:00"This was based on Mounds 5 and 6 at Sutton H...<i>"This was based on Mounds 5 and 6 at Sutton Hoo (both cremation burials under mounds, one of which was in a thin-walled bronze bowl that could have been a hanging bowl), and the cremation burial in a hanging bowl found under the visitor centre at Sutton Hoo. There is weak evidence that these burials pre-date the ship burial, so the rite seemed appropriate for a high-status cemetery at the end of the sixth century."</i><br /><br />What a lot of mileage I'm getting from having read that site report! The big ship burial at Sutton Hoo did indeed contain a bronze bowl which may have been a bearer for the ashes. But, adding weight to your theory, so probably did the other ship burial (which may even have been bigger, but was robbed) and I think three of the smaller mound burials there, which the excavator thought were earlier, since he (Martin Carver) believes that the ship burials were the last and grandest in the sequence. In all these cases, since they were robbed, we're going not on the actual objects but on tiny fragments of precious metal that could have belonged to such an object, left behind in the grave or the robbing trenches. But as long as they have been correctly identified, Sutton Hoo in its full form would fit perfectly with what you suggest here!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-14644018085812543982012-09-05T10:38:37.151+01:002012-09-05T10:38:37.151+01:00Yes, the Harrowing (or Harrying) of the North.
Yes, the Harrowing (or Harrying) of the North.<br />Carlahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11901028520813891575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-21549656452052192712012-09-05T02:58:49.232+01:002012-09-05T02:58:49.232+01:00Reasonable inference is certainly better than noth...Reasonable inference is certainly better than nothing!<br /><br />Didn't William, in fact, end up ruthlessly suppressing a Northern uprising some years later? And he might well have anticipated some such, given the context you note.Rickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16932015378213238346noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-90947800765241093782012-09-02T17:53:40.931+01:002012-09-02T17:53:40.931+01:00Reasonable inference is often about all there is i...Reasonable inference is often about all there is in this period. I do like to start from something, though :-)<br /><br />The size of the castle may reflect using the area between the two rivers as a convenient ready-made bailey that only needed fortifying across the neck. That might have dictated a larger-than-average size. Or possibly the size reflects its importance, if William saw it as a sort of northern capital and major military base. Given that Anglo-Scandinavian York hadn't taken overly kindly to assorted southern English kings, he may have been anticipating a mailed-fist approach to the north and was getting the necessary infrastructure built to do it.Carlahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11901028520813891575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-2852695574074896072012-09-01T15:20:58.540+01:002012-09-01T15:20:58.540+01:00Only on re-reading the post did I see the note at ...Only on re-reading the post did I see the note at the end. Certainly 'reasonable inference' is a sufficient standard for literary use.<br /><br />On Billy's castle, I retract my skepticism! The castle compound was larger than I expected.Rickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16932015378213238346noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-65036402275517214962012-08-21T16:12:15.289+01:002012-08-21T16:12:15.289+01:00I suspect that's a question that can't be ...I suspect that's a question that can't be answered from the available evidence. Roman cemeteries with mausolea or above-ground stone sarcophagi would have been clearly visible, so their location could have been observed even without digging and turning up bones. I mentioned the many possible reasons why a cemetery site might be re-used in the post about the cremation cemeteries at The Mount - anything from continuity of use for religious, official or traditional reasons to simple practical convenience of geography or the standing monuments getting in the way of other uses. You takes your choice....<br /><br />The 'hundreds of houses' comes from Wikipedia, and I haven't followed up the reference. It's by no means impossible, though. The Norman motte and bailey occupied the area from the confluence of the rivers Foss and Ouse up to about Castlegate/Coppergate. If you assume that the area right down at the confluence (beyond modern Bishopgate Street/Tower Street) was not used for housing because it was too subject to flooding for anyone to build houses on it (an assumption), there's an area roughly 300m by 200m between the rivers, the line of modern Tower Street/Bishopsgate Street, and Castlegate/Coppergate/King Street that could have been suitable for housing.<br /><br />The excavated tenth-century Anglo-Scandinavian houses at Coppergate occupied plots 5.5m wide, and the houses themselves were about 15m long plus a back yard. I'm not sure how big the yards were. If you assume about 25m for total length of plot (a guess on my part) you get around 140 m2 per plot. To put that in context, Victorian back-to-back terraces had a density of about 150 houses per hectare (1 hectare is 100m x 100m), so that works out to about 66 m2 each, i.e. the Coppergate Anglo-Scandinavian houses were about half as tightly packed as a Victorian back-to-back. <br /><br />If the area between the rivers, Tower Street/Bishopgate Street, and Castlegate/Coppergate was filled with Anglo-Scandinavian Coppergate-style housing before William arrived, you could fit roughly 420 plots of 140 m2 each into the area. Obviously, that's a very rough guess! But 'hundreds of houses' disappearing under William's castle wouldn't be beyond the bounds of possibility. Carlahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11901028520813891575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-43493766919493783562012-08-20T18:54:40.647+01:002012-08-20T18:54:40.647+01:00I suppose that the underlying (ahem!) question is ...I suppose that the underlying (ahem!) question is whether the site was used in Anglian times because it retained traditional associations, or simply because it was conveniently located and not much use for anything else.<br /><br />(And the intermediate case where you know a place was a burial ground because digging there turns up bones - and so use it the same way, but with no particular sense of 'hallowed ground' or felt link with the earlier use.)<br /><br /><br />Not related to the main point, but did Billy the Bastard's motte & bailey castle really cause demolition of 'hundreds' of homes? Medieval urban house lots weren't spacious, but how big was that first-generation castle? Rickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16932015378213238346noreply@blogger.com