Britain in the Middle Ages: An Archaeological History. Francis Pryor
trade. At the time we put the presence of this exotic material down to the Church. There was good evidence that the ruined church at North Elmham, known locally as the Old Minster, which stood just outside the excavations, might in its early stages have been the minster church* of the Saxon see (or seat of the bishop) of the diocese of Elmham, which incorporated most of the northern part of the kingdom of East Anglia (i.e. most of Norfolk). When the dig had finished and all the finds were assessed, it became clear that North Elmham had produced about 30 per cent of all the imported sherds of pottery known from Norfolk. I had chosen the right dig to take part in.
It would now appear that we may not have been wrong in assuming a link with the Church. Other important places and ‘productive’ sites, such as Barking Abbey (Essex), Burgh Castle and Caister-on-Sea (Norfolk), have produced exotic imports and are known to have had links to the Church. So, rather like the links to the ruling elites, it would appear that the Church also wanted its slice of the action, and probably took an active part in encouraging trade: God and Mammon shared the same interests.
So far, evidence for the vigorous trade in Middle Saxon southern Britain comes from coins and other metal objects, from Ipswich Ware and from imported pottery such as Tating Ware; but what were the other products being traded? I have already mentioned wool in the Thames Valley, and there are good indications that wool and indeed finished cloth were important commodities produced and manufactured in rural British sites. In modern terms the farmers of Middle Saxon England were ‘adding value’ in a significant fashion to their basic product, wool. The evidence for this comes from several sites, including Shakenoak in the Upper Thames, where sceattas (those early silver Saxon coins) were found associated with loomweights. Clear evidence that the trade was not always just for money, and involved the exchange of imported goods as well, comes from the Anglo-Saxon village at West Stow in the sandy Breckland of north Suffolk.31 What makes West Stow so interesting is its early date. Middle Saxon Ipswich Ware only makes its appearance in the village’s final phase, and it declines in importance during the seventh century. During this time families moved off the sandy knoll where the original settlement was positioned, probably towards the church of the existing village of West Stow nearby.
West Stow was a pioneering excavation by Stanley West, who successfully achieved what we are trying to do at Flag Fen in Peterborough. He excavated the village in 1965–72 and then set about reconstructing it, using authentic techniques. It became a major visitor attraction, and is growing in popularity year on year. Somehow he managed to obtain support from the local authorities, and this has made all the difference to the operation. I go there regularly in the springtime, and having lived with sticky, wet Fenland clay all winter, it makes a wonderful change to stand on warm, dry sand and listen to the wind in the Scots pines, or watch siskins feed on alder cones in the damp valley at the bottom of the knoll. It can be a magical spot.32
The excavations at West Stow produced a large number of finds, many of which were metal, and although this is a site where coins are rare because of its early date, it is hard not to imagine that had it been systematically worked over by competent detectorists, it would have proved very ‘productive’ – to reuse that slightly distasteful term. So was it a trading centre of some sort? A quick glance through the list of finds might suggest that it was. No fewer than thirteen buildings produced fragments of querns made from a volcanic lava which occurs in central Europe. There was abundant evidence for weaving, not just the familiar fired-clay loomweights, but an iron ‘weaving batten’ – a tool used to beat down and compact the threads. Trade was well under way by the late sixth century, when pottery made by an important group of regional workshops based around Lackford appears at West Stow. Other objects, such as the fine bronze brooches, together with glass and amber beads, found on bodies in the cemetery, suggest that many of the inhabitants could afford exotic finery. In the late phases trade with the outside world was expanding. We see this not just in the quantities of Ipswich Ware being brought to the site, but in very upmarket and unusual things, such as a cowrie shell and two silver miniature shields, probably worn around the neck as pendants.
There is nothing at West Stow to suggest that the inhabitants had access to, or controlled, any unusual resource such as salt or ore. Stanley West is convinced that this prosperous community earned its wealth by farming and by selling the surpluses it produced, such as wool (cloth), hides, meat and so forth. It’s quite possible that they sold slaves as well – an unpleasant trade for which there is good archaeological and documentary evidence in Saxon times. It’s hard not to conclude that it was this pattern of trading essentially rural products that was taken forward into the eighth and ninth centuries. In other words, by the mid-seventh century exchange and commerce were an integral part of rural life, and provided the goods that were traded from the emporia and ‘productive’ sites – many of which would have housed people who were also making and producing things.
If the economy at West Stow seems to have been mainly centred around wool, cloth and hides, other later sites show signs of greater specialisation. Sometimes the specialised production was encouraged by a local church; in other instances it seems to have been private enterprise by landowners and farmers. I’ve already mentioned Keith Wade’s site at Wicken Bonhunt in Essex, which produced many pig bones, suggesting that it specialised in the production of pork. Very close to where I am currently writing, a group of Fenland sites on the silty banks of tidal creeks surrounding the Wash were most probably cattle farms specialising in beef.
These cattle stations, as they might be called in Australia, were first revealed by Bob Sylvester and his colleagues of the Fenland Survey around 1984 when they spotted scatters of Ipswich Ware lying on the surface (being dark, it shows up quite well in dry weather, when the silty soil turns pale).33 Contrary to popular opinion, the Fens are not all boggy areas, and the so-called ‘Marshland’ soils around the Wash are naturally well-drained; they mainly consist of Iron Age tidal silts, which are actually quite porous because the individual particles of silt are halfway in size between sand and clay, so there are spaces for the water to pass through. This silty soil is very fertile – my vegetable garden grows sprouting broccoli the size of small trees – and it also makes excellent cattle pasture, being sufficiently dry on the surface to prevent foot problems in most animals.
Bob’s work was particularly important because it shows how archaeology can be used to extend and amplify the historical record. It has long been known from documentary sources that the silty marshland west of King’s Lynn was a very wealthy area. This wealth derived mainly from livestock, especially sheep, but salt was also extracted from the creeks around the Wash, and the proximity of the prosperous and growing port of King’s Lynn certainly aided this process. If we rely on documentary sources alone, it would seem that the wealth of the region began to increase from the time of Domesday (1086) until the thirteenth century, by when it was a very prosperous area indeed. There were, however, no reasons to suppose that Marshland was particularly important in Saxon times until Bob Sylvester and Andrew Rogerson started methodically to survey the Norfolk parish of Terrington St Clement.
I first met Andrew when I was working at North Elmham in 1970, and I knew him to be an imaginative but essentially hard-nosed specialist in early medieval archaeology. He was never one to jump onto bandwagons, and he scrupulously avoided exaggerated claims, which is why I well remember his huge enthusiasm about discoveries at a site named Hay Green, just outside the village. It was the scale that was so extraordinary. Andrew and Bob revealed a vast scatter of about a thousand Ipswich Ware sherds along the banks of an extinct tidal creek, or roddon. From the air you can see a network of pale, silt-filled roddons snaking their way across the landscape. At ground level they show up as low silty mounds which would have been where Middle Saxon communities placed their homes, their farms and their stockyards. This was the land that rarely flooded, even after the heaviest rains.
Bob and Andrew found Ipswich Ware across thirteen fields, covering about seven hectares (over seventeen acres) and extending along the roddon for a distance of 1.5 kilometres. This was a truly massive spread, but what was even more interesting was that Hay Green was almost entirely Middle Saxon – there was only very little later material,