Markets in Early Medieval Europe by Tim Pestell & Katharina Ulmschneider

Author:Tim Pestell & Katharina Ulmschneider
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HISTORY/Europe/Medieval
Publisher: Casemate Publishers & Book Distributors, LLC

CHAPTER 12

Middle Anglo-Saxon Lincolnshire: An Emerging Picturex

Kevin Leahy

Recent years have seen a revolution in our knowledge of the Early Medieval period in Lincolnshire. An increase in archaeological excavations and the work of metal-detector users has produced large numbers of finds and previously unknown sites.* This paper will look at the overall picture presented by these finds and will then go on to look in detail at one ‘productive’ site and attempt to place it in context.

The distribution maps (Figs 12.1–12.3) show all Anglo-Saxon and Viking metalwork from Lincolnshire known to the writer as of December 2000. This includes i, i86 metal-detector finds, with additional information from the Lincolnshire County Sites and Monuments Record. A problem inherent in all distribution maps is whether the pattern revealed represents an historical reality or merely concentrations of fieldwork. The figure shows a fairly good coverage, but with some areas where finds are lacking or sparse. These lie along the coastal margins, around the Wash and inland to the south of Lincoln; all are marshland areas where the Domesday Survey recorded a low population (Darby i977, 87–94, figs 34–6). A further gap in the pattern of finds, in the central section of the Wolds, may correspond to an area of woodland at Domesday (ibid., 193, fig. 64). It appears then, that the recorded pattern of metal-detector finds is providing us with a credible distribution of Anglo-Saxon metalwork in Lincolnshire from which we can begin to discuss settlement patterns.

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