Fortified Settlements in Early Medieval Europe: Defended Communities of the 8th-10th Centuries

Fortified Settlements in Early Medieval Europe: Defended Communities of the 8th-10th Centuries
ISBN-10
1785702386
ISBN-13
9781785702389
Category
History
Pages
352
Language
English
Published
2016-08-31
Publisher
Oxbow Books
Authors
Neil Christie, Hajnalka Herold

Description

Twenty-three contributions by leading archaeologists from across Europe explore the varied forms, functions and significances of fortified settlements in the 8th to 10th centuries AD. These could be sites of strongly martial nature, upland retreats, monastic enclosures, rural seats, island bases, or urban nuclei. But they were all expressions of control - of states, frontiers, lands, materials, communities - and ones defined by walls, ramparts or enclosing banks. Papers run from Irish cashels to Welsh and Pictish strongholds, Saxon burhs, Viking fortresses, Byzantine castra, Carolingian creations, Venetian barricades, Slavic strongholds, and Bulgarian central places, and coverage extends fully from north-west Europe, to central Europe, the northern Mediterranean and the Black Sea. Strongly informed by recent fieldwork and excavations, but drawing also where available on the documentary record, this important collection provides fully up-to-date reviews and analyses of the archaeologies of the distinctive settlement forms that characterized Europe in the Early Middle Ages.

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