Post-Roman York: summary

Late Roman York was an important military, political and ecclesiastical centre in the fourth century.  Anglian York was a royal and ecclesiastical centre in the early seventh century.  What happened in between? 

In this sequence of posts, I have briefly summarised some documentary and archaeological evidence that may help to sketch out a picture of York in the post-Roman centuries: 

• the documentary evidence;
• the headquarters building;
• the Anglian cremation cemeteries at The Mount andHeworth;
• the inhumation cemetery at Lamel Hill;
• the possible Anglian cemetery at Castle Yard;
• the craft-working and possible trading settlement at Fishergate.

I have also discussed the ‘Anglian Tower’, built at an unknown date between late Roman and Anglo-Scandinavian York.

In this post I will try to draw the information together.

York as a political and ecclesiastical centre

One aspect that strikes me is the similarity between York at either end of the gap in the documentary record. 

In Late Roman Britain, York was an important centre of ecclesiastical (a bishop of York attended an international church council in 314), military (base of the Sixth Legion and probably of the high-ranking military commander the Dux Britanniarum), and political (the civilian city on the west bank of the Ouse was a colonia, the highest rank of Roman city) power.

When York next appears in documentary records in the early seventh century, it was an important centre of ecclesiastical (seat of the bishop of York and intended by Pope Gregory to become an archbishopric) and royal (chosen by King Edwin (Eadwine) of Deira/Northumbria as the site for his baptism and that of much of the Northumbrian aristocracy) power.  Although military and political power were (in theory) separate under Roman administration, in early medieval Britain both were effectively subsumed under royal authority, as kings were both political and military leaders. 

So York seems to have held broadly similar status on either side of the three-century gap in the historical record.  This could be pure coincidence.  It is possible that Roman York was to all intents and purposes deserted in the fifth and sixth centuries, and that King Eadwine and Bishop Paulinus established their new church and bishopric in a grass-grown ruin that meant nothing to either of them except that Pope Gregory had specified the location.  Even this minimalist interpretation, however, requires that someone at least knew which particular grass-grown Roman ruin Pope Gregory meant, implying that the name of Roman York had been remembered.

More likely, in my view, is that York remained inhabited in some form throughout, and that its political, military and ecclesiastical roles were either retained – no doubt much modified according to changing circumstances – or at least remembered.

Continued habitation in some form is consistent with the archaeological finds, which (although fragmentary) span the gap in the documentary records between them:

• in the early fifth century, someone left a large quantity of young pig bones in the headquarters building, perhaps the debris from a Roman-style luxury feast;
• in the fifth to sixth century, someone was interring their dead in cremation cemeteries at The Mount and Heworth;
• possibly in the seventh to eighth century, someone was interring their dead in an inhumation cemetery at Lamel Hill;
• someone deposited an early seventh-century hanging bowl at Castle Yard;
• at some unknown date between the late fourth and mid ninth centuries, someone built the Anglian Tower;
• in the late seventh to mid ninth centuries, people were living and working on the production of craft goods at Fishergate, by which date York has reappeared in the documentary records.

The environment of post-Roman York

Such continued habitation would be very different from the densely populated urban environment of Roman York. The complex Roman mercantile economy with its network of specialist producers relied on safe transport over long distances, sufficient stability to make long-term investments such as learning specialist skills worthwhile, and a reliable means of exchange so that specialist producers could obtain the means of living that they did not produce for themselves. The economy was already declining in Roman Britain in the late fourth century, undermined by internal power struggles, political purges, raids, piracy, and successive troop withdrawals as a parade of would-be emperors ‘borrowed’ the British garrisons to have yet another try at grabbing the top job via a military coup. When the Empire officially gave up on Britain, in the shape of Emperor Honorius’ letter telling the civitas governments to look to their own defences, the cessation of Imperial funds would have been one more blow to an economy already struggling. People living in late- and post-Roman York would have had to adapt to increasingly erratic supplies at local markets and a near absence of long-distance trade. Increasingly, if you wanted something you would have to grow it or make it yourself, or make something you could arrange to swap for it with someone nearby.

City populations would probably have been less well equipped than rural populations to weather this change. Rural populations who already grew food for their own use and to sell to the city could still eat if trade collapsed, even if they could no longer buy useful manufactured goods; city populations would have lacked both the skills and the land area to grow enough food to feed themselves.  York may have been better placed than many cities to manage the issue of land availability, if the withdrawal of troops by successive usurpers reduced the city’s population and also freed up vacant land that could be converted to cultivation.  If York was very lucky, it may also have had access to military supplies or supply contracts for a while, which could perhaps have been used to smooth the transition. However, even if York fared better than average (which is speculation on my part), the city population would be expected to decrease from its peak as people moved away or died, and to settle eventually at a density sufficiently low to be roughly self-sustaining on the amount of land available. Post-Roman York is probably best thought of as sparsely populated, with settlement dispersed around the city and perhaps also shifting from place to place to make the best use of available land and surviving structures.

Social structure in post-Roman York

The presence of the elaborate hanging bowl at Castle Yard, and perhaps also the pigs in the headquarters building (if they represent the remains of luxury feasting) suggest that some people in post-Roman York had access to expensive luxury goods, and whoever built the Anglian Tower clearly controlled considerable resources. These are consistent with the presence of local rulers or chieftains, perhaps similar to whoever built the post-Roman timber halls in the old Roman fort at Birdoswald. York may have been a permanent base for a local ruler, or perhaps one of several bases visited on a rotating basis by a ruler with a larger territory (or both at different times).

Whether permanent residents or seasonal visitors, such rulers would presumably have needed a working population in and around York to provide for their needs; people who grew crops on areas of open ground, grazed livestock on grass and scrub among the ruins, scavenged for raw materials to work into craft products for use or exchange, built simple houses against convenient standing walls or where space allowed, interred their dead in cremation or inhumation cemeteries according to religion or family custom, and dumped their rubbish on waste ground or in convenient derelict buildings. Such activity would be consistent with the deposits of ‘dark earth’ that separate Roman from medieval archaeological deposits on some sites in York, which would form as rubbish and perishable materials rotted down.

Conclusion

So my suggested model for post-Roman York is one of a sparse and more or less self-sufficient resident population, producing what they needed to support themselves and a small group of visiting or resident aristocrats. This model offers a mechanism whereby York could have retained its status as a political centre if visited (even if only occasionally) by the local rulers, and as an ecclesiastical centre if some of the population continued to follow Christian beliefs and to maintain links with Christians elsewhere in Britain.

Although this model allows for some continuity of occupation and status between Roman York in the early fifth century and Anglian York in the early seventh century, there is a striking apparent change. In the early fifth century York was controlled by Roman officials. In the early seventh century it was controlled by an early English (‘Anglo-Saxon’) king. How might that political transition have come about?  More on that in another post.

The Boy With Two Heads, by JM Newsome. Book review

Trifolium Books UK, 2012. ISBN 978-0-9568104-4-1. 364 pages. Also available as an e-book. 

Disclaimer: Trifolium Books UK also publish my novel, Paths of Exile. They didn’t ask me to review The Boy With Two Heads, and although I heard of The Boy With Two Heads through them, I don’t think that has affected my opinion.

The Boy With Two Heads is a time-slip novel for young adults, set in ancient Greece in 432 BC and modern Athens and Cumbria (northern England) in 2010. Phidias, master sculptor, architect and engineer, and his brother Panainos, master painter, are historical figures who play important roles in the historical storyline. The main character in the historical storyline, Themis, a young athlete competing in the ancient Olympic Games, is fictional, as are all the characters in the modern storyline. 

In 432 BC, Themistocles (Themis), a twelve-year-old boy living in Athens, is training to compete in the boxing at the Olympic Games to be held later that year, when an accident leaves him unconscious with a serious head injury. In 2010 AD, Suzanne is a fourteen-year-old girl on a school trip to Athens, with athletic ambitions of her own. A road accident on exactly the same spot as Themis’ accident 2,400 years earlier leaves Suzanne in a coma. Somehow her spirit is drawn back through time to keep Themis alive. With the ‘wrong’ spirit inhabiting his body, Themis has no memory of anything before his accident and has to learn about his life all over again, with occasional bewildering glimpses into 21st-century medical technology. Suzanne, unconscious most of the time, sees glimpses of Themis’ life in visions. Gradually, it becomes apparent that Themis is the target of a mysterious plot against his life. Will he survive to compete at the Olympics?  And will Suzanne’s spirit be released back to her, or will she remain trapped in the past for ever? 

As regular readers may know, I am not well attuned to time-slip novels.  I almost always find that I get interested in one storyline, usually the historical one, at the expense of the other (for example, in The House on the Strand, reviewed here earlier).  Unusually, in The Boy With Two Heads I found the modern storyline as intriguing as the historical one.  I read the book twice, and although I picked up some links and cross-references between the two storylines second time round, I still found myself reading it as two separate narratives. Which is not how time-slip novels are meant to be read, so bear in mind that I won’t have appreciated the time-slip aspect of the novel.

The modern storyline has a powerful sense of suspense – will Suzanne make a recovery?  It brilliantly captures the sudden disorienting shock of a serious accident in a city far from home, and the anxiety and fear felt by Suzanne’s friends and family. The author also makes very effective use of modern communication tools such as blogs and Facebook – second nature to modern teenagers – to tell the modern story from several viewpoints, in an ingenious variation on the epistolary novel. 

The historical storyline forms a larger share of the novel than the modern storyline. It is excellent on historical detail, especially as Themis has lost his memory and has to learn about his life and world all over again, so the reader gets to learn it with him. Anyone looking for a painless way to gain a detailed picture of classical Greek housing, food, clothing, travel, athletic training, religion, bronze casting, and the immensely intricate engineering and artistry that went into creating a giant statue of Zeus with ivory skin, gilded robes and glowing eyes, will love this book.  Not to mention the description of the ancient Olympic Games, with the athletes’ oath, the opening and closing ceremonies, the vast tent city housing the competitors, trainers, spectators and hangers-on, and the athletic competitions themselves, culminating in Themis’ boxing bout.

The pace is steady, and I found less of a sense of suspense in the historical storyline than the modern one, because it was not initially clear to me that there was more at stake than Themis getting his memory back.  Having lost his memory, Themis is not aware that he has qualified to compete in the Olympics, and I did not pick up on the seriousness of the plot against him until well into the novel. 

Characterisation is lively, especially that of the cheerful, rotund and rather irreverent Panainos. There are some neat parallels between young people’s issues and dilemmas in the two storylines – some things don’t change much in 2,400 years.  I have a suspicion that Ancient Greece was probably nastier than its portrayal here, but there are limits on what can reasonably be put into a young adult novel, and in any case an athlete from a prosperous family was probably more sheltered than most.

A list of characters is useful for keeping track of the cast, especially minor figures, and a glossary explains the Greek terms used in the text. Both of these are at the back, so it is worth bookmarking them for easy reference.  There is a map of Athens at the front, and maps of ancient Olympia and the sailing route to it at the back, all useful for following the characters’ movements. A brief Author’s Note outlines some of the historical background, and there is more information on the author’s blog.

Time-slip novel for young adults set at the Olympic Games in ancient Greece in 432 BC and in modern Britain.

November recipe: Spiced liver and bacon

 

Lamb’s liver is nutritious, delicious, quick to cook and (compared with most other types of meat), inexpensive.  I can’t think why it isn’t more popular.  Liver is traditionally partnered with bacon and onions.  This recipe adds garlic and spices for a dish to warm up a cold autumn evening. 

 

If possible, marinate the liver for several hours or overnight.  I usually put the sliced liver in the marinade while cooking dinner the previous evening and leave it in the fridge overnight.  If you forget or don’t have time, just skip the marinating step.  I think it makes the liver a little bit nicer, but it isn’t essential.  I prefer streaky bacon, but it works just as well with back or collar bacon. 

The spicy fried liver and bacon goes well with a plain green vegetable, such as chard, spinach or green cabbage, and creamy mashed potatoes.  If using chard, the central stalk can be cut out, sliced like celery, and fried along with the onions.

Spiced liver and bacon (serves 2)

5 oz (approx 125 g) lamb’s liver

1 Tablespoon (1 x 15 ml spoon) olive oil

1 Tablespoon (1 x 15 ml spoon) cider vinegar or wine vinegar

1 Tablespoon (1 x 15 ml spoon) milk
1 large onion

3 oz (approx 75 g) smoked bacon

1 large clove garlic

1 teaspoon (1 x 5 ml spoon) paprika

1 teaspoon (1 x 5 ml spoon) ground cumin

Cut the liver into thin slices.  Put the sliced liver in a bowl and add the olive oil, wine/cider vinegar and milk.  Season with salt and black pepper and stir thoroughly.  Cover the bowl and leave to marinate for several hours or overnight, if possible.

Cut the bacon into thin strips.

Peel the onion and slice thinly.  Peel and crush the garlic.

If using chard as the accompanying vegetable, cut out the central stalks and cut into slices.

Fry the sliced bacon in cooking oil over a medium heat for 2-3 minutes to brown. 

Lower the heat and add the sliced onion and chard stalk (if using). Fry over a low heat until soft.

Stir in the crushed garlic and spices.

Add a little more cooking oil, increase the heat to medium, and add the sliced liver and marinade.  Fry for 2-3 minutes until the liver slices are browned.

Serve immediately with creamy mashed potatoes and a green vegetable.

Post-Roman York: Fishergate

York was an important military, ecclesiastical and political centre in Late Roman Britain.  In the early seventh century it was under royal control of the Anglian (‘Anglo-Saxon’) kings of Deira, and later in the seventh century it developed into a major ecclesiastical centre and the seat of an archbishopric, a status it holds to this day. 

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 fortress

Map link

The 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 markers
A 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

Finds from the Fishergate site included ironsmithing slag, debris from copper- and lead-working, woodworking and leatherworking tools, and bones from beaver and pine marten consistent with preparation for furs (Kemp 1996 p 71).Food remains included animal bone (mainly cattle), fish bones, barley, wheat, rye, apples, sloes, hazelnuts, eggs and possibly peas (Kemp 1996 p 71). Sherds of Ipswich-ware pottery indicate contact with East Anglia, and fragments of stone were identified from Cumbria, Wensleydale, Swaledale and the Yorkshire Wolds (Kemp 1996 p 72-73). Lava querns for grinding grain into flour and pottery sherds imported from Germany and northern France/the Low Countries indicate contact across the North Sea (Kemp 1996 p 73).

Size
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.

October recipe: Tomato chutney

Tomato plants are eternal optimists.  As the nights draw in and the temperature starts to drop in autumn, the plants continue to set fruit, presumably in the hope that there will still be just a little bit more of summer to come.  So come October and the end of the growing season for another year, there are almost always some tomatoes on the plants that have not ripened fully or at all.  Sometimes green tomatoes will ripen indoors on a sunny windowsill, but it takes a long time and is rather a hit-and-miss process. 

One way to make use of the last few unripe tomatoes is to turn them into chutney.  Chutney is easier to make than jam or jelly, because it does not have to set.  I make several batches most years.  This quantity makes two large jars.

Tomato chutney

1.5 lb (approx 700 g) tomatoes, green, red, or partly ripe (or a mixture)

1 lb (approx 450 g) cooking apples, after peeling and coring

8 oz (approx 250 g) onions

2 oz (approx 50 g) sultanas

8 oz (approx 220 g) demerara sugar

0.5 pint (approx 300 ml) malt vinegar

1 teaspoon (1 x 0.5 ml spoon) whole pickling spice*

A piece of clean undyed muslin, about 3 inches (approx 7 cm) square

 

Scald the muslin in boiling water and leave to cool.  When cool, put the pickling spice in the centre and tie the opposite corners together in pairs to make a Dick Whittington-style bundle.  It doesn’t have to be muslin: the key requirements are that it should be undyed (you don’t want dye leaching out into the chutney); cotton (synthetic fibres might not take kindly to the heat); clean (for obvious reasons).

Chop the tomatoes into pieces of the size you would like to find in the finished chutney.  I aim for pieces roughly 0.5 – 1 cm (0.25 – 0.5 inch) cubed.

Peel and core the cooking apples.  If using windfalls, chop out any bruised pieces.  Chop into pieces the same size as the tomatoes.

Peel the onion, and chop into pieces the same size as the tomato and apple.

Put the tomatoes, onion, apple, sultanas, spice bag and vinegar into a large saucepan.  (Note: I am told that copper or brass pans should not be used for chutney.  I use aluminium or stainless steel pans).  Bring to the boil.

Add the sugar and stir until dissolved.

Reduce the heat and simmer until the fruit and vegetables are soft and the chutney is thickened.  I test by pulling a wooden spoon through the chutney.  If the bottom of the pan is visible behind the spoon, before the chutney flows back into the gap, I reckon the chutney is done.  This stage usually takes about 45 minutes for me; it may be longer or shorter depending on your pan and cooker.

Remove the pan from the heat. Fish out the spice bag and discard it.

Pour the chutney into clean glass jars.  I find the easiest way to do this is to pour it into a heatproof jug first, then pour from the jug into the jars.

Seal the jars immediately.  I use cling film and then a screw-top lid.  I prefer to use jars with plastic lids for chutney, as the vinegar will corrode metal lids eventually.

Store in a cupboard for three months or so before eating to allow the flavour to develop.  It will keep for several years, as I know from having once found a forgotten jar at the back of a cupboard five years later (it was fine).

 

*Pickling spice is sold in UK grocers.  It’s a mixture of various whole spices, including dried chillies, black peppercorns, mustard seed, whole coriander seed, dried bay leaves, cloves, ginger and mace.  You could make your own mix of whole spices if you prefer. 

The Road to Rome, by Ben Kane. Book review

Arrow, 2011.  ISBN 978-1-8480-9016-3. 540 pages.

Third in the Forgotten Legion trilogy, The Road to Rome is set in Egypt, Asia Minor, North Africa and Rome in 48 to 44 BC, against the background of the Roman civil wars and the plot against Julius Caesar.  Caesar, Decimus Brutus* and Marcus Antonius (Mark Antony) are important secondary characters, and various other Roman senators and military officers have minor parts.  The main characters are fictional.

Romulus, ex-gladiator and runaway slave, has escaped from a battle in distant India and is making his way homeward to Rome in search of his twin sister Fabiola, accompanied by his friend Tarquinius, the last Etruscan soothsayer.  Reaching Alexandria, they are forcibly recruited into Caesar’s legions during a desperate battle for the city.  If Romulus survives the fighting, he risks execution if anyone finds out he is a runaway slave.  Meanwhile in Rome, Fabiola is the mistress of wealthy senator Decimus Brutus, and is seeking revenge on Caesar, the man she believes raped her mother and who once tried to rape her.  As Caesar gains a monopoly of power in Rome, Fabiola sees her opportunity in the plotting of a group of disaffected senators – but an ill-judged affair with Marcus Antonius and a feud with a street thug place her in great personal danger.  As the storm-clouds gather over Rome, Romulus, Tarquinius and Fabiola all find their paths leading them to the Senate on the fateful Ides of March…

The Road to Rome is the third book in the trilogy that began with The Forgotten Legion (reviewed here earlier), describing Romulus’ adventures with Crassus’ ill-fated invasion of Parthia and then serving the Parthians in Central Asia, and continued in The Silver Eagle (reviewed here earlier) as Romulus fights battles in India and joins a wild beast hunter procuring animals for the Roman arena in East Africa.  Like the first two, The Road to Rome is a larger-than-life all-action adventure.  The narrative cuts back and forth between the storylines involving the different lead characters, and every chapter ends on a cliffhanger with one or more of the main characters facing deadly peril.  It reminded me of an action film in book form.

Caesar’s campaigns in the civil war provide the opportunity for numerous graphic blow-by-blow battle scenes, especially in the first two-thirds of the book where Romulus is fighting with Caesar’s legions across Roman North Africa and Asia Minor.  Readers who want to imagine fighting scythe-wheeled chariots or battle elephants will find much to enjoy.  A wild beast fight against a rhinoceros in the arena provides another spectacular set-piece action sequence.  In the last third or so of the book, the scene switches to Rome and the conspiracy against Caesar.  Even in Rome, street brawls and gang warfare provide plenty of scope for violent action.

A big plus for me was that there seemed to be much less mysticism in The Road to Rome than in the previous two books (especially The Silver Eagle, which I thought tipped over into historical fantasy).  The characters believe in gods and omens, and Mithraism is present as a sort of first-century freemasonry, but there is little in the way of actual supernatural events.  Another big plus for me was that although the civil wars lasted four years, the book doesn’t artificially compress events, instead making use of the ‘Three months later’ technique to skip over time periods that are not directly related to the plot.

The book is written in modern English, e.g. Fabiola thinks of Marcus Antonius as ‘…an alpha male from his head to his toes….’, with a sprinkling of Latin terms.  Readers unfamiliar with the period may like to bookmark the useful glossary at the back of the book that explains the Latin terms.  I only found the glossary after I finished the book, although that didn’t matter as I found I either recognised the terminology or could work it out from context.

A map at the front shows Europe and Asia, though oddly it doesn’t show the locations of some of Romulus’ important battles such as Thapsus and Ruspina.  A helpful Author’s Note summarises some of the underlying history and explains where fictional events and characters have been slotted in.  Most of the plot threads from the preceding instalments have been resolved by the end, though one question remains open and there may be potential for another adventure (though not for all of the characters) in the future.

All-action historical adventure set against the background of the civil wars and the plot to assassinate Caesar in first-century Rome

  

*A relative of Marcus Brutus, of ‘Et tu Brute?’ fame, who also makes an appearance as a minor character.

September recipe: Autumn pudding

This is a variant on the traditional summer pudding, which I make with blackcurrants in season (see recipe here). By September the season for most of the summer berries is over. However, in most years there are blackberries in the hedgerows, and cooking apples start to ripen about now. Apple and blackberry is a traditional combination in hot puddings such as fruit pies and crumbles. So I decided to try it in a variation of summer pudding, before the temperatures drop and the nights draw in, and found that it worked very well.  Here’s the recipe.

A good autumn (or summer) pudding needs decent white bread – I’m afraid blotting-paper sliced white just doesn’t cut it.  I included a recipe for white bread in the summer pudding recipe here.

Like summer pudding, autumn pudding itself contains no fat if you use my bread recipe (apart from the very small amount in the flour), so you’re entitled to a free hand with the cream.

Autumn pudding (serves 6)

12 oz (approx. 350 g) blackberries

12 oz (approx. 350 g) cooking apples, after peeling and coring

6 oz (approx. 150 g) sugar

Approx. 4 fl. oz (approx 120 ml) apple juice

8 oz (approx 250 g) good-quality white bread, a day old

Pouring cream to serve

Wash the blackberries. If you picked them wild out of a hedge, evict the spiders, beetles and other startled wildlife.

Peel and core the cooking apples, and chop them roughly.

Put the chopped apple, apple juice and sugar in a saucepan and simmer for 15-20 minutes until the apples are soft. Add the blackberries and simmer another 3-4 minutes.  Remove from heat.

Cut the bread into slices about 0.25-0.5 inch thick (about 0.5-1 cm thick).

Cut a piece from one slice to fit the bottom of a 2 pint (approx. 1 litre) pudding basin.  Reserve enough bread slices to cover the top of the pudding basin, and put them to one side.

Cut the remaining slices into fingers and fit them around the sides of the basin.  Cut off any bread that sticks out above the top of the basin.  Fill in any gaps with small pieces of bread.  Some people find it easier to dip the bread in the blackberry and apple mix first, as this helps it to adhere to the sides of the basin and gives it an even colour. 

Pour in the fruit and sugar mixture.  It doesn’t matter whether it’s still hot or has cooled down.

Cover the top of the fruit mixture with the reserved slices of bread.

Put a small saucer or plate on top, ideally one that is just a little smaller than the top of the pudding basin. Weight it down with something heavy.  I use a plastic milk carton full of water, which weighs about 1.25 lb (approx 600 g), and this seems to work quite well.

Stand the weighted pudding overnight in the fridge, on a plate or tray just in case any juices spill out.

Next day, serve the pudding cut into wedges, with plenty of cream to pour over it.  If you’re feeling really confident, you can turn the pudding out onto a plate before serving it.  I generally just scoop the servings out of the pudding basin.

Any left over will keep in the fridge for several days, though once cut it will start to collapse (and it would therefore be a good idea to leave it in the basin, rather than turning it out, if you’re intending to eat it over several days).

It won’t freeze, though you can make it with frozen fruit.

I usually expect to get six to eight portions out of this quantity, but it depends how big a portion you like.