Danes in Wessex by Ryan Lavelle Simon Roffey

Author:Ryan Lavelle, Simon Roffey [Ryan Lavelle, Simon Roffey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Archaeology, History, Medieval, Europe, General, Great Britain
ISBN: 9781782979340
Google: GG3fCwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Oxbow Books
Published: 2015-11-30T03:10:09+00:00

Figure 8.1. View of Portland and its harbour from Ridgeway Hill. (Photograph © Bob Ford 2004, http://www.natureportfolio.co.uk)

Boyle notes the geographical significance of the site in terms of both the royal and the legal landscape; this is a matter which warrants further reflection. The Ridgeway burials seem to have been close to Broadwey, which in 1066 consisted of small (assessed at six hides or less) thegnly and royal estates, recorded with the rather common place-name ‘Wey’.106 Cullifordtree Hundred, in which they stood, seems to have been dominated by royal estate organisation, both at Portland and at Sutton Poyntz.107 The latter of these was linked to a multiple estate unit, focused on Dorchester, recorded as providing a night’s farm, a render which seems to have been linked with royal authority.108 Furthermore, the coastal location is surely not coincidental. The view of the coast from the hill is striking. That very fact, alongside the fact that the first Viking raid on Wessex took place c.789 at Portland, a place visible from the Ridgeway Hill, surely links to the symbolism of the execution of ship crews, especially given that Æthelweard, as we have noted, recorded this event in such detail (and, when he wrote of the event, may have experienced another attack on Portland in 982).

In this geographical context, II Æthelred’s reference to those who arrive at a muð (clause 2) deserves consideration. In 1943, Francis Magoun noted, with regard to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle’s 896 entry, which also used the term, that the Old English muð seems to have had wider connotations than just an ‘estuary’; it could also signify the entrance to a port, i.e. the area of water leading from an estuary,109 in fact just the kinds of bodies of water that Einhard had recorded Charlemagne as defending.110 The qualities of the natural harbour to the west of Portland, whose role in Olympic sailing events partly necessitated the 2009 excavation in advance of the building of a relief road, may have made it one such muð. That Portland and its harbour, and indeed a distance beyond, were within visual contact of the Ridgeway burials is worthy of note (see Figure 8.1),111 and the execution site’s closeness to the source of the River Wey, whence the muð came, at Upwey, at the foot of the Downs just over a kilometre away may have had symbolic importance in terms of a determination of the control of the landscape.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.