 We welcome to this session on archaeological perspectives on reform and revolution material culture in the long 11th century. So, we've got quite a long session today. I hope you can all stay with us for as much as you can. We've basically got, oh sorry Paul, we've got really three sessions, three papers in a row, a break for discussion, another three papers, a break etc etc. Rwy'n gweld ni'n gyfrifio ar y byddol 12 oed. Maen nhw'n amser chi'n cael eu gweld yr ysgol, ond rwyf ymyn yn ei fawr. Rydyn ni wedi gweld ei wneud yn ei gaf, ond rwy'n credu cael ei cynnig, na fydd canol o'r ffordd dda i wych i chi'n mynd i ddosbwyntent. Wrth tan ni'n gwybod mewn mwy fwy sefyllfa at ymryd o'r rhai ystafell ac rwy'n creu eu fit yn ymryd. Rydyn ni'n gallu'n cael ei wneud a ti'n wneud. We're due to finish at five o'clock today so it's quite a a long one. Anyway just I was just going to say a few words as an introduction and then Alex was going to say something as well. This is a session put together by Alex myself and Peter Jam and we're really looking at how material culture changes or doesn't change through this this kind of time period we call the long 11th century. Now obviously for some of us the 11th century has a there's a fundamental political change in the middle of it and for others it probably doesn't. So in England for example there's a tendency for archaeologists to kind of see 1066 as a division in something fundamentally before that date and after that date in terms of the material culture which of course isn't the case things do kind of trundle through especially for most people in the in society. So we thought it would be quite nice to look at the European perspective on this time period and see what we learn and of course we're talking about the a long 11th century so we're not just talking about the 11th century itself but the end of the 10th and maybe going on quite later. So I'll hand over to Alex because you might probably have something more to add to that and then also she's got a gift for us all. Now I don't have too much to add but just to let you all know that I had a project with Naomi Sipes and with Michael was involved and several people here were involved over the past two years called Archaeologies of the Norman Conquest and though we had to say Norman Conquest in it to get the money from English funders we're really interested in that long duray that Michael's talking about looking at what happens before and through and after and we're very keen to get for future projects to get European involvement and perspective so we can see what we're seeing in England if it's if it is particular to England and the Normans or whether we're part of much bigger European trends and processes so to help us parse that out. So as we start planning future projects to follow on from this one it would be great to have the input of people beyond the British Isles and so what I have is some bookmarks which I'll leave up here and feel free to take one away with you and it has our social media our Twitter and Facebook and our website which you can follow along with to see what's going on and please do get in touch with me um which my email is also on the the website if you're interested in um in participating in kind of any future endeavors that we that we follow on and that's all I wanted to say about that but the bookmarks will be here throughout the session. Okay and Peter Shann is going to moderate this session um at sort of lunch time and I'm starting so here we go um few things are synonymous um with the long 11th century as the Romanesque art style but what is meant by Romanesque when discussing archaeological um metal small finds so the aim of this paper is to explore this and examine the art sources influencing them now I should say here that a lot of what I'm going to say is very much indebted to the work of others and some might jump up and say oh I said that anyway so we'll um I'm trying to bring it a little bit um together here so metal small finds in the Romanesque art style are rare archaeological discoveries well so it seems within the portable antiquity scheme database of 1.4 million archaeological small finds discovered by the public in England and Wales most of these being metal detective finds just 8200 date to the period between about 1050 and 1200 of which over half of them are coins oh I didn't want to do that quite yet how'd you go back sorry good okay a free text search of the portable antiquity scheme database for Romanesque reveals just under 400 items a small proportion of the total number of non pneumostatic items dating to the 11th century and the 12th centuries this perhaps is not surprising for how does the romanesque actually manifest itself in material culture within the portable antiquity scheme database of finds using the term romanesque are no less than 37 different object types from amulet to vessel readily apparent is the problem and problematic nature of the term romanesque especially in how it's interpreted and then used now this is a kind of strange example but on the left you see a seal matrix and from Telford in the west midlands which has upon it two small windows either side of the supplicant priest at the bottom described by the recorder as romanesque so bang it pops up and of course that's not what we're looking for at all looking at a selection of so-called romanesque objects together as here their variation sorry what am I having there sorry looking at a selection of so-called romanesque objects together as here highlights their variation in form and function top left is a mount perhaps a book fitting from Crawley in West Sussex described as having zoomorphic head in a romanesque style in the centre is a gilded copper alloy strip found at Lake and Heath Suffolk it's perhaps from a box and is said to show romanesque influences top right described as romanesque is a pin from Chiseldon in Wiltshire its apex is in the form of an open jawed beast from which a tongue like shank protrudes bottom left is a zoomorphic buckle frame of romanesque appearance from Gloucestershire and an object type I'll discuss in a little bit more depth um very soon and bottom right is a silver gilt zoomorphic mount from Billingston Kent no exact parallels have been found but it's been suggested that the animal could be a fragment from a zoomorphic romanesque buckle so what do they have in common well within the protoblanticity scheme database are some objects presumed to be romanesque that turn up on a relatively regular basis of which most plentiful are buckles and it's these I'm going to look at today the buckles include an aforementioned type coined by Andrew Rogerson and Steve Ashley as gaping mouth beast buckles they identified two main types both consisting of an integral frame and a hollow animal head reckoned to be a lion's head although that's not always the case through which a strap would have passed in type one so the top left the strap enters the mouth of the animal and is looped back on the underside the end being fixed by rivets or stitching it's iron pin not surviving in this example pivots in an eight aperture at the base of the head and it's ends rest on a straight outside edge of the trapezole frame type two buckle so bottom left functioned in a conventional manner that's to say the strap was either looped over the bar frame or was riveted into place and attached to the bar the pin looped around the bar rested on top of the animal's head where sometimes there's a a molded notch the free end of the strap would have entered the mouth before then being pierced by the pin now Rogerson and Ashley presume that these buckles may have had a specialist function but made no conjecture on what that might be and indeed we still don't really have any idea none have been found within a discrete archaeological context though an example from Ludham Norfolk found in 1988 was dated by the late Sue Margeson to the 12th century on stylistic grounds according to rogerson and Ashley the animal head being decidedly a romanesque appearance and not unlike those appearing on many small items of metalwork as well as architectural stone sculpture and manuscript illuminations indeed the 1984 exhibition of English romanesque art at the Hayward Gallery displayed a number of objects with similar beast heads amongst these bottom right there's even a gaping mouth mouth beast buckle found near to the abbey of Barry St Edmonds and then the original function of these objects was said to be unknown the other finds include zoomorphic needlehead from winchester on the left and a finale with no archaeological provenance thought to be from a shrine also commonly described as romanesque are moulded buckle frames with paired confronted beasts these appear chunky and have a thickened frontage three of the examples i'm shown here from cambridgea hamshire and norfolk have moulded zoomorphic pairings variably thought to be wyverns lions or dogs apparently on some buckle frames represented top right and by that from beth's thought nottinghamshire are stylised beast heads thought to be bears or dogs in this case that hold in their mouths a strap bar of note is that the frame in this case is decorated with the short tail scrolls though hard to see in this image perhaps imitating fur now the motive of paired confrontational beast has a long history with classical origins and eastern influences also they're known on Byzantine textiles for example at the top and also in the bay of tapestry of the 11th century so they're both of the 11th century date here related to molded molded buckle frames with paired zoomorphic features are open work examples which are comparatively chunky and also shown with two facing beasts very similar to what we have seen before our buckle frames on the left from Worcester and Gloucestershire on the right however it's something a bit more special this open work buckle frame from Margaret March Dorset has projecting from the front of the frame three moulded animals probably dogs jeffy can date this object to the 11th or 12th century now these open walk zoomorphic designs can be likened and I gather here you know in very general terms to that found on romaness sculpture ivory carvings and some metal work including as shown here the Gloucestershire candlestick the Nicholas Crozier both in the victorian albert museum and carved stone capitals at the abbey de fleurie associated with buckle pay buckle frames with paired beasts are buckle plates showing a scene of three figures the combination has been found on an example that was discovered at Bungae Norfolk on the top left so they're both together which obviously shows that they're contemporary with each other an almost identical scene appears on buckle plates from burswick east Yorkshire and Hannington and Wilkshire so these are both on the bottom sorry on the top and bottom right and bottom left is an open work example from Poddington in Bedfordshire all these buckle plates show a forward facing seated or enthroned figure flanked by two others John Cherry believed the scene to be religious in nature and there are parallels with examples found at Ruffin in Denbyshire in Wales and near Berghead Moray in Scotland thought to show a coronation perhaps of the Virgin Mary alternatively Steve Ashley in a forthcoming publication suggests that the image may represent Henry II or Christ in Majesty with attendant angels or possibly both typically Romanesque also it would seem are backward facing beasts a common type is represented here by examples from Ilum Staffordshire and from Jillingham in the case of the latter the recorder described the animal as a lion has some garden with head turned backwards within a frame with a tail that curves around itself the field in which the animal sits has been stippled using small punching and then gilded the punching presumably reflecting the light examples have been dated from the 8th century through to the 13th century top right is an an open work example from Bin Brook in Lincolnshire appearing to show a backward facing lion or leopard but perhaps the dots on its coat suggest the latter besides appearing on buckle frames similar beasts also appear on so-called standing animal buckles which is on the bottom right and this is an example from Cliff in Kent now the the motif of a backward facing beast often with its tail curled around its body is relatively common in Romanesque art famously such beasts appear in the biotabastry on the top left but also bossam right sorry button left on a sculpture fragment in All Saints Church Lathbury in Buckinghamshire dated to about 1090 to 1100 earlier in date and with a more complex arrangement of beasts other lions on the canterbury censor cover which is on the right variations of this motif have been of a wider application in art from the late Anglo-Saxon period into the Romanesque including on other small finds recorded with the Paul's plantivity scheme important in this respect are lion designs found on stripped strap mounts on the left generally dated to the late Anglo-Saxon period but are more likely to be post 17 sorry 1070 based on the art's historical evidence and the Priests is recorded over 150 of these maybe even more examples in illuminated manuscripts include a lion in Oxford Bodleian Library Junius 11 which is on the top right dating to about 1000 and another Oxford Bodleian Library manuscript doos 296 on the right so the bottom right of the mid 11th century and the latter is a good parallel for the design on the pierce record is stripped strap mounts with the beast looking upwards a number of other buckle plates are recorded with similar zoom or flick designs an interesting open work example top left from market lovington and wiltshire appears to show a wolf or some such pinning down another creature and biting its head bottom left is showed a lion on an open work strap end from long man east Sussex and such designs are also found on strap ends such as those on the right and near Garboldisham and North Elm and both in Norfolk so you can see these designs everywhere really now something rather different is offered by a distinctive buckle type with three long prongs or bars reckoned to be late 12th century to early 13th century in date on the left is a complete example found at Gussage St Michael in Dorset others are more fragmentary see the one on the right from Alveston and Wiltshire related on the bottom right is a buckle though fragmentary from Chezioidon Somerset though this form is close to that found on some fourth century so Roman buckle plates important for us is the arches between the prongs are sometimes described as evoking Romanesque arcading similar arches could be found on a buckle complete with frame and plate on another from Alveston in Wiltshire and this is considered to be the form by the form of the frame is probably later in date than Romanesque examples and so style alone doesn't seem to be enough to date some of these objects for what it's worth similar arcading is found on the romanesque cathedral at Durham left and in illuminated manuscripts on the right is shown a scene from the life and miracles of said Edmund in the people Morgan library through examining just romanesque buckles it of course not possible to comprehensively determine what makes small metal finds romanesque however it is clear that some attributes make an object more likely to be romanesque than not zeomorphic features including whole beasts particularly lions do seem to be a feature of romanesque muscle work these stylised animals are notable for their extentiated features typically the head which is sometimes humanized and proportionally thin bodies but also the extent to which these animals can can talk their bodies typical is the posture of backward facing beasts or the fact that they can wrap themselves with their own tails on some objects it's the way these animals work together that makes them romanesque typical is a pairings of beasts and those that face each other or even do completely the opposite but then there are attributes such as the arcading on some buckle plates that had nothing of the above but just feel romanesque and it's with that warning as some of these designs have a long life indeed indeed the romanesque art style has a life beyond the long 11th century making the 11th century very long thank you