Stonehenge
Stonehenge is one of many rings of standing stones built by the ancient peoples in Britain, in this case on the Salisbury Plain. More is known about Stonehenge in particular than other stone circles because it was so well preserved that real archaeological work has been done around it. A ‘henge’, in archaeological terms, is a large enclosure. It appears that the first ‘henge’ at Stonehenge involved no stones at all, but was an earthwork, composed of a ditch, a bank, and a series of dug holes called the ‘Aubrey holes, all begun around 3100 BC. The Aubrey holes are round pits dug into the chalk of the plain, each about a meter wide and deep, with steep sides and flat bottoms. These holes form a circle a little less than a 100 meters in diameter. In a way, then, Read more…
Gerald of Wales
We are talking about Gerald of Wales because, as a churchmen, he exemplifies the tensions and complicated nature of the relationship between the Welsh and Norman church in the Middle Ages. Gerald was the grandson of Gerald of Windsor and Nest, a princess of Deheubarth, who established Carew Castle after the Norman Conquest of this region of Wales. Thus he was mixed Norman and Welsh descent, and as our daughter writes in her senior thesis, “His Welsh ancestry meant he could act Norman” and side with the Normans but never be accepted as fully Norman. He himself “decried” both Normans and Welsh for despising him, arguing that his uncertain identity left him accepted by neither culture. At the same time, he spoke French primarily, and Latin as a churchman, with only a little Welsh, and overtly participated in Norman efforts Read more…
Rewriting the Dark Ages
A new theory has been working it’s way through the archaeological literature that there was no Saxon ‘invasion’ of Britain after the fall of Rome. The theory states that “9th century Anglo-Saxon propaganda distort [ed] the records for the turbulent 5th and 6th centuries. . . . Rather than Briton versus Anglo-Saxon – as in the myth of Arthur – was it simply a murderous struggle between rival British warlords?” http://www.archaeology.co.uk/articles/rewriting-the-age-of-arthur.htm The theory, at least in this article, is based on a lack of primary sources of the era. This is an interesting argument, but there are a number of sources that suggest it isn’t accurate. First: written evidence, which the article claims to be scarce, is far more prevalent than at first appears–it’s just that the sources are not necessarily British. This site on the ruin and conquest of Britain, details, Read more…
The Pelagian Heresy
The Pelagian heresy is an important part of any discussion of religion in Wales during the era formerly known as the Dark Ages. Pelagius was a British monk, born around 350 AD, who moved to Rome and was a contemporary of St. Augustine. His crucial fault was that he believed that the notion of original sin–that all men were condemned because of the actions of Adam–was false. Unfortunately, our primary source of his writings are not the writings themselves, but the reaction to them on the part of his opponents. He was condemned as a heretic by Augustine, whose teachings became predominant in the church. http://www.brojed.org/IE/pelagius.php; for a list of primary sources: http://www.earlychurch.org.uk/pelagius.php The two differing paths are: Augustine: 1. Death comes from sin, not man’s physical nature; 2. Infants must be baptized to be cleansed from original sin and those who die without Read more…
Heroic Fantasy in Dark Age Wales
I was invited to guest post about my book, The Last Pendragon. at http://keithcblackmore.com/blog/ Come check it out 🙂
Working Archaeology in Wales
Archaeologists are always working on new projects in Wales. A shortage of workers and funding inhibit the work, but the Dyfed Archaeological Trust conducted seven different digs, mostly using volunteer labor, in 2010. A look at their page is a good review of what ‘real’ archaeology is like: lots of digging, frustration, and grunt work, interspersed with occasional finds. http://www.cambria.org.uk/ They worked on: Fan Barrow Excavation 2010 Capel y Groes 2010 Pantybutler Round Barrows 2010 Tir y Dail Castle, Ammanford Dig Diary July 2010 Upper Newton Roman Villa at Wolfscastle, Pembrokeshire – Dig Diary 2010 Wernfawr Dig Diary 2010 Nevern Castle Summer Excavation 2010 Nevern Castle Spring Excavation 2010 Each of these is a fascinating study in luck and circumstance (and hard work). There are four archaeological trusts in Wales (Dyfed, Gwynedd, Glamorgan-Gwen, and Clwyd-Powys), found here: http://www.archwilio.org.uk/ Gwynedd’s digs Read more…
Roman Villa found near Aberystwyth
Thirty years ago, aerial photographers from Cambridge University noted something odd about the layout of a field near the village of Abermagwr near Aberystwyth. They were doing a flyover during the summer, and because of the dry conditions, there were unexplained cropmarks in a field. At the time, they noted, “a double-ditched rectangular enclosure, with traces of a possible building within.” http://www.coflein.gov.uk/en/site/405315/details/NANT+MAGWR+ROMAN+SITE,+ABERMAGWR,+POSSIBLE+ROMAN+VILLA/ No excavations were undertaken until this summer. Researchers can now confirm that they are “the remains of a much-robbed late Roman villa. The Abermagwr villa had all the trappings of established villas in south Wales and southern England, including a slate roof and glazed windows. It was roofed with local slates, but these were pentagonal, cut with five sides and a fine point to form a highly decorative roof, common amongst villas in south-west England and the Isle Read more…
Danish Bones Found in Oxford
There’s a new article in The Oxford Student which describes a recent find of bones, determined to have belonged to Danes and the result of a massacre ordered by King Ethelbert in 1003 AD. It sheds some light on an early period in British history and points to something that is easy to forget as you work your way through the Early Middle Ages: that the “Saxons” from literature and mythology were not monolithic, but comprised of different ethnic groups and nationalities. What this find reveals is that the Saxons, who now controlled most of England, murdered their Danish neighbors. From a Welsh perspective, these groups might seem one and the same, but they weren’t. In the Oxford article, it states: “Vikings’ skeletons found underneath one of St John’s quads are the remains of a violent “ethnic cleansing” over 1,000 years ago. Read more…
Myth and Religion in the Dark Ages
While many fictional accounts of the Dark Ages describe conflict between pagan religions and Christianity, that seems to be a product of the medieval mind, rather than an accurate analysis of Dark Age religion. For there to be conflict there must be a power relationship as well as organization, and for both the pagans and the Christians in Wales in 655 AD, there were neither. When the Romans conquered Wales in 43 AD, although Rome was not Christian at the time (Emperor Constantine didn’t convert until 311 AD), the legions systematically wiped out the reigning religion of Wales at the time, which was druidism. Why did they do this? The Romans themselves were pagans, with a pantheon of gods and goddesses. Why did they not simply incorporate the native gods into their own religion as they did in most other places, Read more…
Women in Celtic Myth
Women in Celtic societies had more freedom and autonomy than women in feudal Europe. It is not surprising, then, that women play an important role in Celtic myth, beyond the wives, lovers, and mothers of male gods. Within Celtic myth, warrior goddesses such as Babd, Aoifa, and Scathach have a significant role; Don (Danu in Ireland) was the mother goddess, giving birth to male and female goddesses such as Gwydion and Arianrhod. The Irish word, Tuatha de Dannan means “Children of Danu”, the equivalent of the Welsh “Sons of Don” as popularized in Lloyd Alexander’s The Book of Three series. Note that their children are not referred to as “Sons of Beli” or “Bile”, who was her husband and the god of death. Also among the Welsh is Cerridwen, keeper of the cauldron of knowledge. Within Irish mythology, the Morrigan, Read more…
Women in Celtic Society
It is a stereotype that women in the Dark Ages (and the Middle Ages for that matter) had two career options: mother or holy woman, with prostitute or chattel filling in the gaps between those two. Unfortunately, for the most part this stereotype is accurate. The status and role of women in any era prior to the modern one revolves around these categories. This is one reason that when fiction is set in this time, it is difficult to write a self-actualized female character who has any kind of autonomy or authority over her own life. Thus, it is common practice to make fictional characters either healers of some sort (thus opening up a whole array of narrative possibilities for travel and interaction with interesting people) or to focus on high status women, who may or may not have had more autonomy, but their Read more…
Update on King Arthur’s ’round table’ in Chester
Yes–slacking off today. But I did find this interesting piece on King Arthur’s round table by Keith Fitzpatrick-Mathews. It is a much more lengthy rebuttal than mine (https://sarahwoodbury.com/?p=1186), but makes many of the same points (also see, https://sarahwoodbury.com/?tag=king-arthur). Fitzpatrick-Mathews also takes to task Christopher Gildow’s article entitled “Top Ten Clues to the Real King Arthur”. What’s particularly great is the exchange between the two in the comments at the end. Worth a read for anyone who thinks King Arthur might have really existed. http://badarchaeology.wordpress.com/2010/07/19/king-arthur’s-round-table-discovered-in-chester/
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