A long awaited second edition of Hinton’s 1990 survey of the findings and contributions of archaeology to English history, this volume comes from the pen [sic] of a major contributor to this field: Hinton’s listings in the catalogue of the New York Public Library take us back to 1974, with his catalogue of metalwork in the Ashmolean. He is very much the person to offer this extensive summary of work in a field where new finds are regularly being set against the background of old ones. As an indication of both academic and popular interest in archaeology, a goodly share of the entries in the book’s 66-page bibliography have been written since 2000, and this is without the discovery of any great new site like Sutton Hoo.
The archaeologist has three main data bases or kinds of artifacts that are the stock in trade: coins, pot shards, and burials (in cemeteries or not). And in a general survey of what we have learned from so many finds in these categories, as well as from so much else at a lesser level in terms of quantity if not necessarily of quality, a summary or general survey can be offered in terms of the artifact under discussion, or its location, or as a find that bespeaks a chronological progression in terms of manufacture and circulation. Hinton has chosen to set out the material in terms of chronology, with each chapter devoted to the finds of a century, beginning with the fifth and ending with the fifteenth. The chapter titles give a glance at what is to come: “Kings and Vikings” for the ninth century, “Dearth and Death” for the fourteenth, etc. And though it is never explicitly mentioned, the book really can be thought of as two separate presentations. The first, for the early centuries, concentrates almost exclusively on artifacts, that being mostly what has survived. The latter sections, beginning with twelfth century, enlarge their reach to look more at buildings, trade, and social structure, as we move into what is an archaeological survey of social and economic history. And throughout, there is attention paid to links between England and the Continent, whether we are counting coins and brooches or noting construction at sea ports and boat building.
The story opens with a tale of decline: the decline of population in the fifth century, a few imports, scattered indications of Roman or post-Roman Christianity. Perhaps by the sixth century there were some indications of a turn toward better times: dyke building that indicates a move toward political stability if not consolidation, coins and other items from across the Channel, and--of great interest and value (for their grave goods)--the dead, singly or with much company. As we move to the seventh century, marked by the establishment of Christianity (with church building a major enterprise), we find physical signs of social class and socio-economic hierarchy, based on the remains of buildings and the quality of jewelry. Seventh- and eighth-century Northumbria seemed to be wealthier than the emerging kingdoms of the South, an assessment based on the widespread distribution of fairly similar artifacts from sites scattered across much of the land. No great new sites to report and many similarities reflecting wealth, trade patterns, and the technology of the day.
Change comes, albeit slowly. By the eighth century we find estates given to and belonging to the Church, the early appearance of water-mills, more trade with the Continent, and the decline of Northumbria when set against the rise of Wessex and Mercia. Hinton warns against taking the ninth-century accounts of Viking depredations at face value, given who wrote the sources and whose wealth was at premium value for the raiders. And despite the Vikings, there was urban growth, traceable in London, York, and Winchester, and physical remains point to the early days of what we can think of as urban gentry. Over the next centuries the main lines of inquiry are much the same: urban growth, castles (under the Normans), large-scale crafts and manufacture (the cloth trade), coin hoards, and more links with France and its neighbors.
The switch in the book from a heavy reliance on buried artifacts to the application of archaeology to social history comes with the chapter on the twelfth century: “Community and Constraint.” As we move to the central or high Middle Ages many familiar aspects of life make an appearance: stone walls and bridges, signs of women’s work, suburbs as an indication of urban growth, domestic construction patterns, traces of diets and health, and more information about economic life and guilds. Of note, the great political upheavals of the fourteenth century--two depositions, the plague, the risings of 1381, and the costs of the war in France--leave little on the archaeological record, at least not much beyond the excavation of so many burial sites and a look at what grave goods went along with the bodies. Hinton ends the by-the-century survey with a look at indications of population loss into the fifteenth century in a time of “reduced circumstances.”
It is a learned and impressive survey, looking at a vast treasury of artifacts and mining a vast number of mute objects for what considerable light they shed on the conditions and longevity of life at many points on the circle of wealth and power, along with what they tell of English contacts with other realms and kingdoms. Large numbers always catch the eye: fierce fighting with or against the Vikings or other causes gives us 51 skulls separated from their bodies, or 32 young men in a common grave near Oxford with the fatal wounds seemingly inflicted from behind. However, to balance the high rates of infant mortality and death in battle, Hinton offers that “anyone getting beyond the age of seventeen had a decent chance of reaching thirty-five” (136). But, come the plague in 1348, this was hardly the rule: “a large pit containing at least fifty bodies of children, young men, women, and a few older people” (233), as “mass burial” became a necessity.
Less morbid big numbers come from information about some of the coin hoards and other objects that have been found, though the reasons behind their burial are hard to determine. Why were there 600 items, including 74 sword-pommels, dated from the seventh century, buried in Staffordshire (57)? Though the 14,000 pennies of the thirteenth century and found at Colchester were of full value, the several hundred counterfeit coins, in imitation of Henry III pennies, would have given a huge return if they had gone into circulation and their maker escaped conviction. Smaller numbers for more exotic or unusual finds: the wreckage of a ship by the Severn, the stones of the church of St. Oswald at Gloucester, a pottery kiln at Thetford, a mysterious gold strip inscribed with Latin texts, glazed jugs found at Oxford, or a boat found in the marshes near Graveney. All can be numbered among the many finds that have come to us--large and small, unusual, unique, or but one out of many--thanks to academic and antiquarian curiosity that goes back for centuries.
A few criticisms. While Hinton’s explanations of the volume’s 54 illustrations are always perceptive, some of the illustrations are too dark for clarity and some of the sites or ground plans of a rural or urban layout make the changes over time a bit difficult to distinguish. And given that we are following some common objects across all of England over so many centuries, a few maps (e.g., major coin hoards, or early parish churches, or early guild halls), would be helpful. To some extent a very detailed index helps, as we search for information about horseshoes or field systems or birds of prey.
These are small quibbles with a book that gives us a synthetic presentation of work in a field that is, by its very nature, disbursed in terms of place, time, and artifacts. The variety of found objects, of ground plans of churches and of villages, of housing styles, of personal decorations, and of much more is presented in a volume that reflects so much dedication to digging or scrapping on the site, reconstruction in the laboratory, and the scholarly summation and synthesis presented here. Hinton, now professor emeritus at Southampton, now adds this oversight volume to his impressive c.v., a major contribution to our ability to sum up recent work in a field of perennial interest.