ESTONIAN ACADEMY
PUBLISHERS
eesti teaduste
akadeemia kirjastus
PUBLISHED
SINCE 1997
 
Archaeology cover
Estonian Journal of Archaeology
ISSN 1736-7484 (Electronic)
ISSN 1406-2933 (Print)
Impact Factor (2022): 1.0
COASTAL LANDSCAPES AND EARLY CHRISTIANITY IN ANGLO-SAXON NORTHUMBRIA; pp. 79–95
PDF | doi: 10.3176/arch.2009.2.01

Author
David Petts
Abstract
This paper explores the ways in which coastal landscapes were used by the early church in Anglo-Saxon Northumbria. The coastal highways were a key element of the socio-political landscape of the Northumbrian kingdom, with many key secular and ecclesiastical power centres being located in proximity to the sea. However, the same maritime landscapes also provided the location of seemingly remote or isolated hermitages. This paper explores this paradox and highlights the manner in which such small ecclesiastical sites were, in fact, closely integrated into a wider landscape of power, through case studies exploring the area around Bamburgh and Holy Island in Northumberland and Dunbar in southern Scotland.
References

AHAC – ‘Anonymous Life of St Cuthbert’ in Colgrave, B. (ed. and trans.). Two Lives of Saint Cuthbert. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1940.

Alcock, L.1989. Bede, Eddius, and the Forts of the North Britons. Jarrow Lecture, Jarrow.

ASC        – Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Ed. and trans. G. N. Garmonsway. Dent, London, 1972.

Aspinall, A., Bettess, F. & Connell, R. B. 2000. Alnmouth. – Archaeologia Aeliana, 28, 137–146.

Bidwell, P. & Speak, S. 1994. Excavations at South Shields Roman Fort. Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle.

BKSYAlcuin. The Bishops, Kings and Saints of York. Ed. P. Godman. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1998.

Blair, J. 2005. The Church in Anglo-Saxon Society. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Bogucki, M. 2004. Viking Age ports of trade in Poland. – EJA, 8: 2, 100–127.

Brown, P. 1971. The rise and function of the Holy Man in late antiquity. – Journal of Roman Studies, 61, 80101.
doi:10.2307/300008

Brown, P. 1995. Authority and the Sacred: Aspects of the Christianisation of the Roman World. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Bullough, D. 1981. Hagiography as patriotism: Alcuin’s York Poem and the Early Northumbrian Vitae Sanctorum. – Hagiographie, cultures et sociétés. Eds E. Patlagean & P. Riché. Centre de Recherche sur L’Antiquité tardive et le haut moyen âge, Université de Paris, Paris, 339–359.

Cambridge, E. 1995. Archaeology and the cult of St Oswald in pre-conquest Northumbria. – Oswald: Northumbrian King to European Saint Paul Watkins. Eds C. Stancliffe & E. Cambridge. Stamford, Watkins, 128–163.

Campbell, E. 1996. The archaeological evidence for external contacts: imports, trade and economy in Celtic Britain AD 400–800. – External Contacts and the Economy of Late Roman and Post-Roman Britain. Ed. K. R. Dark. Boydell Press, Woodbridge, 83–96.

Charlton, D. B. & Day, J. C. 1976. Upper Redesdale, Northumberland: an archaeological survey. – Archaeology in the North. Northern Archaeological Survey. Eds P. Clack & P. Gosling. University of Durham, Durham, 228–242.

Coggins, D. & Fairless, K. 2003. The old church of St Mary, Brignall, near Barnard Castle. – Durham Archaeological Journal, 17, 25–41.

Colgrave, B. 1940. Two Lives of Saint Cuthbert: a Life by an Anonymous Monk of Lindisfarne and Bede’s Prose Life. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Collins, G. 1767. Great-Britain’s Coasting Pilot: in Two Parts. Being a New and Exact Survey of the Sea-coast of England and Scotland (first published 1693). Mount and Page, London.

Cramp, R. 1984. Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture: County Durham and Northumberland. British Academy, London.

Cramp, R. 2005. Wearmouth and Jarrow Monastic Sites. Vol. 1. English Heritage, Swindon.

Cramp, R. 2006. Wearmouth and Jarrow Monastic Sites. Vol. 2. English Heritage, Swindon.

Daniels, R. 1988. The Anglo-Saxon monastery at Church Close, Hartlepool, Cleveland. – Archaeo­logical Journal, 145, 158–210.

Daniels, R. 1999. The Anglo-Saxon monastery at Hartlepool, England. – Northumbria’s Golden Age. Eds J. Hawkes & S. Mills. Sutton, Stroud, 105–112.

Fowler, P. 1992. A chapel and its context: Ebb’s Nook, Beadnell, Northumberland. – Archaeology North, 4, 9–13.

Hawkes, J. & Mills, S. (eds). 1999. Northumbria’s Golden Age. Sutton, Stroud.

Haywood, J. 1991. Dark Age Naval Power: A Re-assessment of Frankish and Anglo-Saxon Seafaring Activity. Routledge, London.

HEBede: Ecclesiastical History of the English People (rev. edn.). Eds B. Colgrave & R. A. B. Mynors. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1991.

Herity, M. 1989. Early Irish hermitages in the light of the Lives of Cuthbert. – St Cuthbert, His Cult and Community to AD 1200. Eds G. Bonner, D. Rollason & C. Stancliffe. Boydell Press, Woodbridge, 45–64.

Herity, M. 1995. Studies in the Layout, Buildings, and Art in Stone of Early Irish Monasteries. Pindar Press, London.

Hindmarch, E. & Melikian, M. 2008. Baldred’s Auldhame: an early medieval chapel and cemetery. – Church Archaeology, 10, 97–100.

Hodges, R. 1989. Dark Age Economics. Duckworth, London.

Hodges, R. 2000. Towns in the Age of Charlemagne. Duckworth, London.

Hope-Taylor, B. 1977. Yeavering: Anglo-British Centre of Early Northumbria. HMSO, London.

HSC Historia de Sancto Cuthberto. Symeonis Monachi Opera Omnia. Ed. T. Arnold. 1882-5, i. Longman & Co, London, 190–214.

Kemp, R. 1996. Archaeology of York: Anglian Settlement at 4654 Fishergate, York AY7/1, York. Archaeological Trust, York.

King Harald’s Saga. Trans. M. Magnusson & H. Palsson. Penguin Books, London, 1966.

Kramer, E. (ed.). 2000. Kings of the North Sea: AD 250–850. Tyne and Wear Museums, Newcastle.

Lang, J. 1991. Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture: York and Eastern Yorkshire. British Academy, London.

Lang, J. 2001. Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture: Northern Yorkshire. British Academy, London.

LE – Symeon of Durham Libellus de exordio atque procursu istius, hoc est Dunhelmensis, ecclesie. Ed. and trans. D. Rollason. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 2000.

Levison, W. 1946. England and the Continent in the Eighth Century. Clarendon Press, Oxford.

Loveluck, C. & Tys, D. 2006. Coastal societies, exchange and identity along the Channel and southern North Sea shores of Europe AD 600–1000. – Journal of Maritime Archaeology, 1, 140–169.
doi:10.1007/s11457-006-9007-x

Mainman, A. 1993. Archaeology of York: Pottery from 46–54 Fishergate AY16/6, York. Archaeo­logical Trust, York.

Okasha, E. 1999. The inscribed stones from Hartlepool. The Anglo-Saxon monastery at Hartlepool, England. – Northumbria’s Golden Age. Eds J. Hawkes & S. Mills. Sutton, Stroud, 113–125.

O’Loughlin, T. 1997. Living in the ocean. – Studies in the Cult of St Columba. Ed. C. Bourke. Four Cou’rts Press, Dublin, 11–23.

O’Sullivan, D. 2001. Space, silence and shortage and Lindisfarne: the archaeology of asceticism. – Image and Power in the Archaeology of Early Medieval Britain. Eds H. Hamerow & A. MacGregor. Oxbow, Oxford, 33–53.

Peers, C. & Radford, C. A. R. 1943. The Saxon monastery of Whitby. – Archaeologia, 89, 27–88.

Perry, D. & Blackburn, M. 2000. Castle Park, Dunbar: two thousand years on a fortified headland. (Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. Monograph Series, 16.) Edinburgh.

Rollason, D. 2003. Northumbria 5001100. Creation and Destruction of a Kingdom. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Stancliffe, C. 1989. Cuthbert and the polarity between pastor and solitary. – St Cuthbert, His Cult and His Community to AD 1200. Eds G. Bonner, D. Rollason & C. Stancliffe. Boydell Press, Woodbridge, 21–44.

Stocker, D. 2000. Monuments and merchants: irregularities in the distribution of stone sculpture in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire in the tenth century. – Cultures in Contact: Scandinavian Settlement
in England in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries. Eds
D. Hadley & J. Richards. Turnhout, Brepols, 179–212.

Trench-Jellicoe, R. 1991. A recent Viking-age sculptural find from Tynemouth Priory. – Archaeologia Aeliana, 19, 71–78.

VSCBede ‘Life of St Cuthbert’. Two Lives of Saint Cuthbert. Ed. and trans. B. Colgrave. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1940.

VSM –Sulpicius Severus ‘Life of St Martin of Tours’ Early Christian Lives. Ed. and trans. C. White. Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1998.

VSW       – Vita Wilfridi. Life of Wilfrid, The Age of Bede. Ed. and trans. D. Farmer. Penguin, Harmonds­worth, 1988.

Weatherhead, R. 1993. Anglian cross fragments found in East Lothian. – Transactions of the East Lothian Antiquarian and Field Naturalists Society, 22, 53–61.

Westerdahl, C. 2002. The cognitive landscape of naval warfare and defence. Toponymic and archaeo­logical aspects. – Maritime Warfare in Northern Europe. Technology, Organisation, Logistics and Administration 500 BC – 1500 AD. Eds N. Jørgensen, J. Pind, L. Jørgensen & B. L. Clausen. National Museum, Copenhagen, 169–190.

White, R. 1984. Finds from the Anglian monastery at Whitby. – Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, 56, 33–40.

Wooding, J. 1996. Communication and commerce along the western sealanes, AD 400–800. (British Archaeological Reports (International Series), 614.) Oxford.

Wooding, J. 2000a. Introduction. – The Otherworldly Voyage in Early Irish Literature. Ed.
J. Wooding.
Four Courts Press, Dublin, xi–xxviii.

Wooding, J. 2000b. Monastic voyaging and the navigation. – The Otherworldly Voyage in Early Irish Literature. Ed. J. Wooding. Four Courts Press, Dublin, 226–245.
Back to Issue