Itinerancy, Ritualisation and Excavating Understanding

Abstract

The nature of the societies and social, ideological and political frameworks that filled the voids left by the demise of the Roman Empire in the 5th century AD – both within and beyond the Empire’s boundaries – is one of the most pressing debates about lateand post-Roman Europe. One fundamental topic within that debate is the nature and character of ruler’s residences and the Gleeson, and the Thomas and Scull’s articles on early medieval royal residences in Ireland and southern Britain respectively, are welcome approaches to understanding the material manifestations of early medieval rulership. Comparative approach is the key, for there has been a tendency to assume a uni-linear socio-evolutionary model of political development, rather than considering the multiple pathways by which early European communities were transformed during this crucial period. In these two articles the authors set about using archaeology to challenge and build models for how kingship operated within particular siteand landscapebased case studies. Each paper brings about important new perspectives. Thomas and Scull’s study of great hall culture in southern Britain has at its heart detailed observations from welldocumented Anglo-Saxon power centres at Lyminge and Rendlesham. In particular the fine-grained analysis from well excavated and documented material sequences is particularly welcome as is the focus on skilled practitioners and the communities of practice that led to the quite astonishing feats of architectural expression at great hall complexes. Here, there can be little doubt about neither the importance of material expressions of rulership as a specific strategy of consolidating power bases, nor the importance of archaeology for understanding the socio-political and socio-economic basis of power. Similarly, Gleeson’s observations on the 9th–10thcentury phase of Knowth as a ‘very tangible expression of the practicalities of a system of royal taxation and governance based on render and tribute’ is a convincing example of how archaeology can help pin down the material underpinnings of how kingship operated in its specifics, and the very base levels of storage and surplus accumulation that allowed kings to rule. Reading through these two articles, two areas for further thought sprung to mind: the nature (and the presence) of itinerancy and the divides (or lack of) between residence and ritual.