Britain in the Middle Ages: An Archaeological History. Francis Pryor
a long view of the past. This extended perspective partly reflects the imprecision of current dating methods – for example, radiocarbon dates are often accurate only to two or three centuries – but it also results from theoretical approaches that have been adopted by prehistorians since the 1960s. In the last four decades of the twentieth century prehistorians became less interested in one-off events and turned their attention to the gradually evolving processes of social change.
There was also a move away from a straightforward, or functionalist, view of the past. This new approach laid greater emphasis on the roles of symbolism, ritual and structure within the processes of change. Other post-modern approaches have been highly influential. Archaeological evidence, for example, lends itself readily to deconstruction. The result has been a long-term or strategic overview of the past which non-specialists find appealing, because it is often relevant to current issues, such as the development of political authority or the role of religion within society. I think these are positive trends, because archaeology must be relevant to modern life, or it will not survive for long.
It would perhaps be useful if at this stage I gave an indication of my long-term view of the human past. I will take an essentially British perspective. The story begins with Prehistory, which can be subdivided into three: Early Prehistory, being everything from the arrival of the first humans about half a million years ago until the appearance of Homo sapiens, around 40,000 years ago; Middle Prehistory ends with the introduction of farming about 5000 BC, or slightly earlier; Late Prehistory extends through the Neolithic and most of the Bronze Age, until the early first millennium BC, after which we are in the Iron Age and the next of my three main periods, Antiquity.
In Britain and France, Early Antiquity ends with the arrival of the Roman Empire, but in north-western Europe outside the Roman Empire there is a seamless transition into Middle Antiquity in the early centuries AD. Late Antiquity starts in the latter part of the Roman period and ends sometime around 600–650, when major social, economic and political changes begin to happen.
The last of my three eras is the Modern Period. Its Early phase starts in Britain around AD 650 with the start of the Middle Saxon period. This was a time of rapidly growing trade networks and the emergence of the first early medieval European states. Soon we have the establishment of the first true post-Roman towns. It ends around 1350 with the Black Death (1348). The Middle Modern or ‘Transitional’ Period ends around 1550, the date that most archaeologists regard as the close of the Middle Ages; this book will be about the Early and Middle Modern periods, as defined here. The Late Modern Period starts around 1550 and extends until the present. I should also add here that I regard currently fashionable attempts to define a new ‘post-industrial’ era as being premature. We are far too close in time to view our culture with any clarity at all. Maybe historians in a hundred years’ time will have acquired suitable perspective. Maybe.
| Period | Start Date | Events |
| Early Prehistory | 500,000 years ago | Humans in north-western Europe |
| Middle Prehistory | 40,000 years ago | First Homo sapiens |
| Late Prehistory | 5000 BC | Farming introduced |
| Early Antiquity | 750 BC | Iron and the Iron Age |
| Middle Antiquity | 100 BC | The Roman Empire |
| Late Antiquity | AD 300 | Post-Roman times |
| Early Modern | AD 600–50 | Carolingian Empire Arab Empire. Early Middle Ages |
| Middle Modern (or ‘Transitional Period’) | AD 1350 Black | Death, Later Middle Ages, Reformation |
| Late Modern | AD 1550–present | Industrial/agricultural ‘revolutions’ etc. |
I described how I would divide up my ‘long view’ of the human past because it provides at least partial justification for why I do not regard the Middle Ages as being ‘Middle’ at all. The term was first used in the Renaissance to describe the period between the Classical world and that of the Renaissance. This was a perspective which viewed that Classical world through modern eyes. That way of looking at the past has little or nothing to do with hard historical or archaeological reality. It has more to do with value judgements about art, literature and knowledge than the development of human culture or society.
Historians generally end the Middle Ages with the Battle of Bosworth (1485), whereas archaeologists, who, Paul Stamper believes, are more attuned to the material world, tend to continue it for another half-century, into the 1540s and the Dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry VIII. Again, some historians and many lay people see the Middle Ages as starting with the Norman Conquest, but I want to extend them back in time to include the earliest kingdoms of Saxon England and the Scandinavian (Viking) presence. I also want to bridge the gap between the world of written history and that historical (but not archaeological) twilight zone the Dark Ages, which had certainly come to an end by AD 650. The Synod of Whitby, which sorted out the direction the Church in Britain would take for the next millennium, took place in 664. It also makes little sense to ignore the early-tenth-century survey and reapportionment of the countryside – one of medieval archaeology’s most important contributions to the study of the period. This great survey, which happened in the decades after 900, provided the essential framework for subsequent developments.
The term ‘Middle Ages’ suggests a time between two other ages which were marked by major social and cultural advances. Being betwixt and between, the Middle Ages are often portrayed as a period when nothing much happened. As I researched this book I realised that this is very far from the truth. I am in no doubt that the centuries of the Middle Ages were the time when the modern world was actually conceived and started the process of development, at first slowly, but latterly with gathering pace. This was when Britain moved from the realms of Late Antiquity into a more familiar world: roads and parishes became fixed; institutions such as the Church and local government came into being and industry became truly industrial, with manufacturing starting to be organised on a national basis. Midway through the period international trade had become routine.
For too long the Middle Ages have been portrayed as a period of slow progress, characterised by feudalism and superstition. Certainly that was the impression I gained at school. Industry was seen as small in scale, farming was held back by the manorial system, and life in town was hidebound by guilds and, of course, the repressive power of the Church. More recently, archaeology has shown that the Middle Ages were far from static. The Church did not exert a dead hand. There was real progress, which happened remarkably swiftly. The latest archaeological evidence shows beyond any doubt that Britain was an integrated part of Europe in the four centuries before the Norman Conquest. This has been a major revelation that I will discuss at some length in the first three chapters of this book. It seems now that the Reformation and the Renaissance were natural processes that had to happen if the progress made in the medieval period was to continue.
I am not alone in bemoaning some current perspectives on the Middle Ages which see the period as somehow irrelevant to the modern world because (it is said) very little actually changed. This view has it that the developments that were to lead to the modern world took place during and after the Renaissance. As I hope this book will show, nothing could be further from the truth. However, despite those reasons to the contrary, I shall continue to use the term ‘Middle Ages’, because it’s a label that has stuck, and besides, my term ‘Middle Modern’ has too many ‘M’s and is confusingly similar to the one it tries to replace.
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