Carlisle: A Frontier and Border City 1138853798, 9781138853799

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Contents
List of figures
Preface
Acknowledgements
1 The setting
The physical setting
Frontiers and borders
2 An emerging frontier
The cultural setting
Frontier development in lower Germany and Britain
Carlisle: the early forts and annexe
Serving the forts: a military settlement
Conclusion
3 Luguvalium: fabric and townscape
Towards urbanization
The military and administration
The developing townscape
Belief in Roman Carlisle
The hinterland
4 Luguvalium: people and economy
People
The social mix
The economy – food and health
The economy – manufacturing
The economy – exchange
5 Late Roman Carlisle to the Kingdom of Northumbria
A wider context
The church
The end of Luguvalium and beyond
Rheged and the decay of Luguvalium
St Cuthbert and Northumbria
Northumbria: the wider picture
6 Carlisle and an emerging new frontier
Eadred and the transition to Viking settlement
Cumbria – a frontier kingdom?
The nature of Carlisle
The Norman Conquest
7 The Norman takeover
Changing lordship
Symbols of power – the Castle and the church
A developing town
The people of Carlisle
The economy
8 A border city
The border during the thirteenth century
The Anglo-Scottish wars to 1328
The border
Symbols of power – the Castle and the church
The town and its governance
The people and economy
Aftermath
9 Conclusions
The landscape
Frontiers and borders
England and Wales
Urbanization
Carlisle in Europe
Index

Citation preview

Carlisle

Carlisle charts the city’s emergence as an urban centre under the Romans and traces its vicissitudes over subsequent centuries until the high Middle Ages. Arguably, the most important theme that differentiates its development from many other towns is its position as a ‘border’ city. The characteristics of the landscape surrounding Carlisle gave it special significance as a front-line element in the defence of the Roman province of Britannia and later at the frontier of two emerging kingdoms, England and Scotland. In both cases, it occupied the only overland route in the west between these two kingdoms, emphasising the importance of understanding its landscape setting. This volume sheds light on the processes of urbanization under the Romans beginning with a fort, developing into a major nodal hub and ending as the capital city of the local tribe, the Carvetii. The story continues with the collapse of Roman rule and the city’s re-emergence first as a monastic centre, then as a proto-town in the period of Anglo-Scandinavian settlement. Finally, the Norman Conquest confirmed Carlisle’s importance with the establishment of a castle, a diocese, and an Augustinian Priory, as well as the granting of specific rights to the citizens. Carlisle uses a combination of archaeological discoveries and historical data to explore the history and legacy of this fascinating city. Mike McCarthy, FSA is Emeritus Senior Lecturer in Archaeology at the University of Bradford, UK. From 1977 to 2001, he was Director of the Carlisle Archaeological Unit.

Cities of the Ancient World

Cities of the Ancient World examines the history, archaeology and cultural significance of key cities from across the ancient world, spanning northern Europe, the Mediterranean, Africa, Asia and the Near East. Each volume explores the life of a significant place, charting its developments from its earliest history, through the transformations it experienced under different cultures and rulers, through to its later periods. These texts offer academics, students and the interested reader comprehensive and scholarly accounts of the life of each city. Damascus – Ross Burns Miletos – Alan Greaves Aleppo – Ross Burns Gyeongju – Sarah Milledge Nelson Thebes – Nicholas Ryan Rockwell

Forthcoming: Cádiz – Benedict Lowe Ebla – Paolo Matthiae Palmyra – Michael Sommer Elis – Graham Bourke Carthage – Dexter Hoyos Memphis, Babylon, Cairo – David Jeffreys and Ana Tavares Paphos – Scott Moore Antioch – Andrea De Giorgi and Asa Eger Salamis – Giorgos Papantoniou

Frontispiece:  Marble bust of Hadrian from Tivoli, c.125–130 ad. (© The Trustees of the British Museum)

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Carlisle A Frontier and Border City

Mike McCarthy

First published 2018 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2018 Mike McCarthy The right of Mike McCarthy to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: McCarthy, Michael R. (Michael Robin), author. Title: Carlisle: a frontier and border city / Mike McCarthy. Description: Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2017. | Series: Cities of the ancient world | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017001763 | ISBN 9781138853799 (hardback: alk. paper) | ISBN 9781315722559 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Carlisle (England)—History. | Carlisle (England)— Antiquities. | Excavations (Archaeology)—England—Carlisle. | Romans—England—Carlisle. Classification: LCC DA690.C335 M368 2017 | DDC 942.7/89—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017001763 ISBN: 978-1-138-85379-9 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-72255-9 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by codeMantra Visit the eResources: www.routledge.com/9781138853799

Dedicated to Catherine, my dear wife, companion, colleague, and critic

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Contents

List of figures Preface Acknowledgements 1 The setting The physical setting 1 Frontiers and borders 12

xi xiv xvi 1

2 An emerging frontier The cultural setting 22 Frontier development in lower Germany and Britain 26 Carlisle: the early forts and annexe 32 Serving the forts: a military settlement 37 Conclusion 45

22

3 Luguvalium: fabric and townscape Towards urbanization 54 The military and administration 56 The developing townscape 59 Belief in Roman Carlisle 70 The hinterland 73

54

4 Luguvalium: people and economy People 79 The social mix 82 The economy – food and health 85 The economy – manufacturing 94 The economy – exchange 97

79

x Contents 5 Late Roman Carlisle to the Kingdom of Northumbria A wider context 108 The church 111 The end of Luguvalium and beyond 113 Rheged and the decay of Luguvalium 115 St Cuthbert and Northumbria 120 Northumbria: the wider picture 125

108

6 Carlisle and an emerging new frontier Eadred and the transition to Viking settlement 136 Cumbria – a frontier kingdom? 141 The nature of Carlisle 143 The Norman Conquest 147

136

7 The Norman takeover Changing lordship 152 Symbols of power – the Castle and the church 155 A developing town 163 The people of Carlisle 167 The economy 167

152

8 A border city The border during the thirteenth century 182 The Anglo-Scottish wars to 1328 184 The border 188 Symbols of power – the Castle and the church 191 The town and its governance 196 The people and economy 203 Aftermath 211

182

9 Conclusions The landscape 216 Frontiers and borders 218 England and Wales 219 Urbanization 222 Carlisle in Europe 224

216

Index

229

Figures

Frontispiece: Bust of Hadrian iii 1.1 Map of northern Britain locating Carlisle 2 1.2 Street plan of Carlisle city centre 4 1.3 The physical geography of northern Cumbria 6 1.4 A simplified soilscape of northern Cumbria 9 1.5 A simplified soilscape of land north of Carlisle 11 2.1 Crop marks of a defended enclosure, at Cargo, west of Carlisle 23 2.2 Map of the Roman frontier on the Rhine in the late first century ad 27 2.3 Map of Hadrian’s Wall 31 2.4 Map showing the Roman forts at Carlisle and Stanwix 33 2.5 The main features of Roman Carlisle in the late first and early second centuries 34 2.6 Excavated evidence for the Carlisle fort in its earliest phase 35 2.7 The earliest phase of timber ‘strip-buildings’ at Blackfriars Street 38 2.8 Late first-century ‘strip-buildings’ at Blackfriars Street 39 2.9 Mid-second-century buildings, at Blackfriars Street 40 2.10 Plan of the ‘praetorium’ in the ‘official zone’ of The Lanes 41 2.11 Reconstruction of the ‘praetorium’ wall 42 2.12 Plan of the possible mansio in the ‘official zone’ of The Lanes 43 2.13 Map locating zones in late first- and second-century Carlisle 46 3.1 Map of Carlisle in the third and fourth centuries 55 3.2 Plan of the praetentura of the fort in the third century 57 3.3 Plan of third/fourth-century ‘strip-buildings’ at Blackfriars Street 60 3.4 Schematic plan showing the development of a third- and fourth-century property in Keay’s Lane 62 3.5 Plan of the latest phase of the house in Keay’s Lane in the fourth century 63

xii Figures Distribution of Roman burials along Botchergate 64 Corinthian capital from a public building in Carlisle 66 Timber building foundation types in the fort annexe in the late first century 67 3.9 Stone head, probably a goddess, from the fort at Carlisle 71 3.10 Stone head of a ram-horned god, from the fort at Netherby 72 4.1 One of several round-houses under excavation at the Cumberland Infirmary 86 4.2 Plough-marks sealed by a Roman clay platform at Stanwix 87 4.3 Roman bronze model of a ploughman with a team of cattle, Piercebridge 88 4.4 Cartwheel discarded in a barrel-lined pit at Keay’s Lane 89 4.5 Gold coin (solidus) of Valentinian II from Scotch Street 100 4.6 Distribution of late third- to late fourth-century coins outside the principia 101 5.1 The possible location of Roman provinces in fourthcentury Britain 110 5.2 Map of places mentioned in the text 112 5.3 Map locating former Roman roads and areas with ruined stone buildings 119 5.4 A reconstruction of the location of the monastery 122 5.5 The eighth-century Lowther cross, near Penrith 123 5.6 The early eighth-century cross at Bewcastle 123 5.7 Pit at Castle Street lined with timbers from a tree felled between ad 770 and 803 124 5.8 Map of places mentioned in the text 125 6.1 Carlisle Cathedral, formerly the Augustinian Priory church 138 6.2 Tenth-century crosshead at Workington 139 6.3 Tenth-century thistle brooches from Flusco near Penrith 140 6.4 Map of Cumbria as a demographic crossroads 141 7.1 Plan of Liddel Strength made by William Roy in 1793 153 7.2 Carlisle Castle, a possible developmental sequence 156 7.3 Carlisle Castle: the keep behind curtain walls built on an earlier ringwork 156 7.4 Carlisle Castle: the Captain’s Tower, gatehouse to the inner ward 158 7.5 Aerial view of Carlisle Cathedral, formerly the Augustinian Priory 160 7.6 The truncated nave and south transept of the aisled twelfth-century Augustinian Priory church 161 7.7 Reconstruction of the Priory and St Cuthbert’s church area 162 7.8 Map locating the royal forests of Cumbria in the twelfth century 170 7.9 Penny of Stephen from the Carlisle mint, c.1136–45 171 7.10 Profiles of twelfth-century gritty ware pots from Carlisle 174 3.6 3.7 3.8

Figures  xiii Map of places affected by raids carried out by Robert Bruce in Cumbria 187 8.2 The Anglo-Scottish border 189 8.3 Aerial photograph of the Anglo-Scottish border (the ‘Scots Dike’) 190 8.4 Carlisle, plan of the Dominican Friary 196 8.5 Plan of Carlisle, drawn c.1550–60 197 8.6 Map showing the size of the religious precincts in Carlisle 198 8.7 Redness Hall, later the Guildhall, a late fourteenthcentury building 199 8.8 Well lined with timbers felled in the late thirteenth century, Keay’s Lane 201 8.9 Industrial pits, probably tan pits, Keay’s Lane 202 8.10 Skeletons in the cemetery of the Dominican Friary 204 8.11 Penny of Henry III from the Carlisle mint, 1247–9 205 9.1 Changing functional roles for Carlisle: schematic representation 223 8.1

Preface

It was as an ‘offcomer’ that I first set foot in Carlisle in 1977. At that time, a succession of opportunities arose for investigating the buried remains not just of a town that had been a key stronghold on the Roman frontier (the frontispiece shows the Roman Emperor Hadrian, a key influence on Carlisle’s history), but a place visited by St Cuthbert and which was at the centre of a territory fought over through many subsequent centuries by Danes, Norse, English and Scots. The cover of this book is taken from the Kelso Charter of 1159 and depicts two Scottish kings, David I who had significant interests in Carlisle (left), and Malcolm IV. It was my good fortune to be in the right place at the right time, because I arrived when the discipline of urban archaeology, as we now know it, was taking off. It was the right place, because whilst many county towns were employing archaeologists to investigate their urban past in advance of development, Carlisle promised to be a little different in the sense that it was a ‘border city’ in what was then a seriously under-researched northern England. I recall thinking that the story of Carlisle probably followed a slightly different trajectory to towns in the Midlands or south of England with which I was more familiar, and so it has proved. Of course, there are similarities, but some of the events that have shaped British history have directly impacted on Carlisle in a way that would be difficult to discern in other towns. It was the right time, because the main funding for archaeology then, the Ministry of Public Buildings and Works, later the Department of the Environment and later still English Heritage in its various manifestations, was actively seeking opportunities to investigate towns north of the Humber and the Dee. As a result, large-scale urban excavations were possible, and the chance to recruit a historian to research the national archives, funded by the Department of the Environment, was seized. It was also the right time because Carlisle has significant deposits of waterlogged remains, and one of the key research themes of modern archaeology, that of ‘environmental sciences’, was rapidly developing and opening up a host of new research directions. Carlisle now boasts a substantial archaeological archive and historical narrative that encompasses a fort and settlement on the very edge of the

Preface  xv Roman Empire, and a town at the interface between two embryonic kingdoms, England and Scotland. Whilst this archive and related observations form the foundation for this book, unquestionably future archaeological discoveries and historical research will modify interpretations offered here. That is the way of research. The primary theme of this book is not to dwell on the age of industrialization, but rather to look at its roots. In tackling this, I have generally eschewed the option of reciting a string of ‘facts’ or simple descriptions of archaeological sites or artefacts. Of course, these have a role, but I have been more concerned to place these in a wider contextual setting in order to understand how they might illustrate aspects of life in the past. From time to time, this approach has allowed me to make use of comparisons that cross cultural and disciplinary boundaries. Examples include frontier development along the Rhine, or urban populations in Roman Italy and France. It is a risky approach, not least because what gave rise to particular social, economic or other themes in place A may be so different to those in place B that any such comparison is unwarranted. My rationale for this is straightforward. On the one hand, I make absolutely no claim that what happened elsewhere in Europe, or at a different point in time, necessarily applies to Carlisle or Cumbria, but on the other hand, I do believe that a knowledge of better-documented societies can prompt scholars to ask a wider range of questions in situations where direct evidence may be more circumscribed. With that caveat in mind, the use of cross-cultural comparanda seems to me to be entirely legitimate. It opens the window to admit other ways of thinking about the data. Mike McCarthy Keighley, West Yorkshire, 2017.

Acknowledgements

A book like this could not have been written without a substantial input from a wide variety of individuals working over a long period of time. Amongst these are included archaeological and scientific colleagues from the former Carlisle Archaeological Unit (later Carlisle Archaeology Ltd), and the universities of Bradford, Durham, York, Leeds, Sheffield, Newcastle, Lancaster and Glasgow; English Heritage in its various former guises, including the Ancient Monuments Laboratory; and Historic Scotland. Former staff at Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery, as well as elected members and staff of Carlisle City Council’s former Planning, Treasurers, Legal and Leisure Departments, were extremely helpful, especially in the 1970s and early 1980s, periods when fieldwork was especially active. Similarly, much useful advice and assistance was gratefully received from Cumbria County Council, especially the former County Archivist the late Mr Bruce Jones; and Mr Denis Perriam, local historian. Successive Deans and Chapters of Carlisle Cathedral, Bursars and Surveyors to the Fabric were equally encouraging. An important foundation to this work deserving special mention is Dr Henry Summerson’s Medieval Carlisle, the preparation of which was supported by English Heritage and which subsequently gave rise to other important contributions. This is the key baseline study of historical sources to which future scholars are directed, especially for the period between the eleventh and sixteenth centuries. I am also grateful to Dr Nick Hodgson, who kindly provided views on an earlier paper now subsumed in Chapters 2 and 3. Archaeological excavations and historical research at Carlisle could not have been undertaken without generous and continuing support from English Heritage in its present and former guises. Over many years, Carlisle City Council contributed in various ways to the investigation of Carlisle’s past, as did other institutions including the Society of Antiquaries of London, the Marc Fitch Fund, the Twenty Seven Foundation, The Dean and Chapter of Carlisle Cathedral, and the Manpower Services Commission. Developers have also played their part, and it is a pleasure to record my thanks to Marks and Spencer plc, Building Design Partnership and Donaldsons, Mr A.L. Daines, and Laings Ltd, as well as many others. Work on this

Acknowledgements  xvii book had to be suspended for a period, and that it was possible to continue is due to Mr David O’Regan and his colleagues at Leeds General Infirmary who provided me with a way out at a difficult time, and I am extremely grateful to them. Finally, I must record my special thanks and appreciation to my wife, Catherine Brooks, for her support, encouragement, attention to detail and numerous helpful editorial suggestions and improvements in the preparation of this book. I wish to record my gratitude to the following for images included here. First, special thanks are due to Lesley Collett for the line drawings in Figures 1.1–1.5, 2.1–2.10, 2.12–2.13, 3.1–3.6, 3.8, 4.6, 5.1–5.4, 5.8, 6.4, 7.2, 7.7–7.8, 8.1–8.4, 8.6 and 9.1. Thanks also to Edgar Bolton who drew Figure 2.11. The Ordnance Survey (Southampton) was the source of Figure 1.3. The soilscapes in Figures 1.4 and 1.5 I owe to Cranfield Soil and AgriFood Institute, University of Cranfield. Oxford Archaeology Ltd kindly consented to the use of Figures 2.4–2.6, 3.1–3.2, 3.6 and 4.6. The Trustees of the British Museum gave permission for the Frontispiece and Figures 4.3, 5.5 and 6.3. Figure 7.1 is reproduced by kind permission of The Society of Antiquaries of London, and the photograph was supplied by The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland. Figure 8.3 is also reproduced by kind permission of The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland. The British Library consented to the reproduction of Figure 8.5. Figures 7.5 and 8.7 were provided by the Historic England Archive. The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, kindly provided Figures 7.9 and 8.11. Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery, Carlisle, provided Figure 3.10. Cumbria County Council, Carlisle Library, consented to the reproduction of Figure 7.6. The Duke of Roxburghe kindly gave permission to reproduce the cover image of the Kelso Abbey Charter, which was supplied by the National Library of Scotland.

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1 The setting

In tourist and promotional literature, Carlisle is sometimes referred to as ‘The Border City’, an advertising ploy highlighting a unique selling point. It draws attention to the idea that Carlisle is, and was, in some sense different from many other middling county towns and is worth a visitor’s attention. Whether or not the casual visitor will find anything much that is not replicated many times over in other historic towns is a moot point, as castles, museums, cathedrals, guildhalls, pleasant coffee shops and the like are standard tourist fare. So, what is it that makes a ‘border’ town? Is it something tangible that can be visited, seen, touched and appreciated? Or is it subtler, deeper, something in the psyche of the people or in its setting? This chapter explores an important facet about Carlisle and what places it in a different category to the run-of-the-mill English town. This is its location. Historically, Carlisle’s location on the border between two nations has been a vital element in its success, but equally important is its role in Carlisle’s political and economic fortunes.

The physical setting The bald facts concerning the location of Carlisle can be stated very briefly. It lies just 14.5 km south of the border that separates England from Scotland. It is on the M6/M74 motorways, the main north-south route between England and Scotland, and on the A69 trunk road linking Newcastle u ­ pon Tyne with lands to the west of the Pennine uplands, including the A74 route to Stranraer and thence to Ireland. It also has an important railway station on the West Coast Main Line from London to Glasgow. Carlisle is in the Eden valley, and a few miles to the south lies the Lake District. For many people, this is enough to locate Carlisle, but that is about all (Figure 1.1). It does nothing to shed light on the reasons why Carlisle today is the principal town in Cumbria (the old counties of Cumberland and Westmorland), and it offers no clues about Carlisle’s role in the past. Yet, such a cursory description is what many scholars accord to historic towns or other places they have studied. Where explanations of location are offered, phrases such as ‘strategic importance’ and ‘economic advantage’, and a road and river intersection, tend to be invoked, but there is something inherently

2  The setting

Figure 1.1  M  ap of northern Britain locating Carlisle. Source: Drawn by Lesley Collett.

unsatisfactory about such descriptors, not least because there is always a reason why a settlement, whether farm, village, or town, is where it is, and why it survived – or collapsed. Whatever driving factors lay behind pre-industrial settlement growth and development, one must surely have been proximity to sufficient resources to enable it to survive in an age before the advent of mechanized transport and electronic communications. A modern analogy is that of retail or commercial premises, for which the mantra is always that of ‘location, location, location’. Just as situation or ‘footfall’ can have a significant impact on the ability of a shop or commercial premises to cover its costs and make a profit, landscape resources also had a direct bearing on the viability of all kinds of settlements, at least in their formative years. In Foot’s discussion of Anglo-Saxon charters, for example, she noted that ‘an essential prerequisite for the foundation of any religious house was the permanent possession of an adequate landed endowment for the collective support of the community’,1 a point that could be made of any Roman villa or a host of other types of sites. Williamson has also recently drawn attention to the importance of topography, soils and weather in the settlement of early medieval England, whilst both Morris and Roberts have noted the sizes of some monastic communities and the implications this has for understanding resources and estates. 2 Towns are much more complex institutions, of course, but the same principles apply in their early stages of growth.

The setting  3 The importance of location is self-evident in a range of political, cultural and economic contexts.3 In this chapter, we are concerned primarily with geographic contexts, an area rarely subject to much critical examination in Britain with regard to pre-industrial societies except where strategic military or economic advantage is concerned. The work of economic historians and historical geographers, notably those with a sense of landscape and the relationship between settlement and locally available resources, has tended to lead the field.4 More recently, three studies have appeared arguing that location was a key factor shaping local economies and wider political concerns in Roman Britain and early medieval England, as well as shedding light on the economic dynamics in the urban hinterland. 5 For previous generations of scholars, however, urban location was unquestionably secondary to politics or economics. Sjoberg, for example, argued that the origins and forms of pre-industrial cities across the world share a number of common strands, and he included ecology as a locational factor, along with economic and political structures as salient elements.6 He argued that whilst environmental factors tended to set limits to the places towns could occupy, they did not in themselves determine the locations, which were more closely tied in with anthropogenic issues. Sjoberg’s line is echoed by many analysts. For example, the very influential Auguste Lösch was very clear in his belief that the location of towns in the landscape is largely a function of economics, although he conceded that political, social and ‘natural’ factors had a role to play, albeit a minor one.7 Likewise, Richardson, whilst arguing that cities are not just a function of trade but emerge out of the interaction of natural, social and cultural environments,8 made it clear nonetheless that the production and marketing of non-agricultural goods was the dominant force. Indeed, to many scholars, economics was overwhelmingly the pre-eminent driver determining settlement location and urban growth. Central place theory, a particularly influential economic model, even asserts that the ‘natural endowment of a region’, that is the fertility of the soil and mineral resources, ‘has no immediate effect on the development of central places’.9 As historians in the past have frequently overlooked locational factors, archaeologists have often been guilty of according them less attention than is warranted, despite the largely forgotten lessons of Mackinder or Fox in the earlier twentieth century. Fox, in his influential work The Personality of Britain, cited the natural environment as a partial explanation for the distribution of certain monuments and artefacts.10 Today, archaeologists in East Yorkshire, the Fens or the Somerset Levels, for example, are acutely aware of the importance of physical background as a major factor in understanding settlement dynamics.11 Insofar as Cumbrian history and archaeology are concerned, the looming presences of the Lakeland massif and the Pennine uplands have always been difficult to ignore, but the subtleties and detail of topography and soil type, although recognized in the surveys of Higham and Jones and in Bewley’s assessment of settlement on the Solway Plain, are often overlooked.12

4  The setting Whilst not disputing the importance of economics with regards to urban location, my aim here is to suggest that for some places, Carlisle included, environmental factors have been insufficiently appreciated as a key strand in their growth and development.13 In considering this, we need also to remember that Carlisle has long boasted the sobriquet of ‘the border city’, a fairly accurate descriptor that emphasizes the idea that it is a place ‘on the edge’ and not just ‘another town’. This was because it was a town at the limit of the Roman province of Britannia, not to mention the Empire, and it lay in disputed territory between the developing kingdoms of England and Scotland between the ninth and twelfth centuries. From then on, Carlisle was a border town not dissimilar to Berwick-upon-Tweed and Roxburgh. The geography of the medieval town is still apparent in its layout (Figure 1.2). The core lies between the Castle at the northern end and the railway station in the south. The city walls can still be seen, albeit in a much

3

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Figure 1.2  Street plan of Carlisle city centre. Source: Drawn by Lesley Collett.

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The setting  5 repaired and modified form, next to the street West Walls on the west side, whilst Lowther Street fossilizes the position of the eastern defences. Within this defensive envelope, English Street–Scotch Street and Castle Street, together with most of the other streets, are of medieval origin. Beyond the walls are medieval and Roman suburbs in Caldewgate, Botchergate and Rickergate, the latter leading to the important crossing of the River Eden. The Roman and medieval settlements at Carlisle were all located at the same place on the River Eden, a short distance above the present-day tidal limits of the Solway Firth. They are not visible, being buried beneath streets and buildings. The historic centre is on the southern side of the River Eden, on a sandstone bluff in the angle between the Eden and its tributary, the River Caldew. Directly opposite, on the northern bank, is the ancient village and modern suburb of Stanwix. We need to look at the natural setting in a little more detail against the backdrop of history. Carlisle is on the northern edge of the North Cumberland Plain, which is hemmed in by uplands and the sea (Figure 1.3). About 24 km to the east is the western scarp of the Pennine chain, mostly comprising Carboniferous limestone covered by extensive moorlands and blanket bog; it forms the ‘backbone’ of England, some 500–600 m in height, rising to 893 m at Cross Fell. About 40 km to the south is the massive mountainous dome of volcanic rocks and slates forming the Lake District, rising to over 600 m at Carrock Fell near Penrith and peaking at 978 m at Scafell Pike. To the west is the Irish Sea, and to the north the Solway Firth, a huge estuary or arm of the Irish Sea dividing England from Scotland. In macro-topographic terms, the Pennines, the Lake District and the Irish Sea/Solway Firth effectively enclose the North Cumberland Plain, cutting off northern Cumbria from the rest of England. The physical nature of the region is likely to have shaped a wide range of attitudes, from political allegiances to economic and social issues, including a sense of isolation from the rest of the country.14 The North Cumberland Plain itself is distinctly unimpressive, being a gently undulating, heavily glaciated and low-lying landscape, mostly below 200 m and often less than 100 m above ordnance datum. Many of the streams and rivers tend to be slow and sluggish, displaying few of the geomorphological characteristics associated with major, actively eroding river systems such as the Eden or the Tyne. The southern shore of the Solway Firth is fringed by a wide intertidal zone and extensive salt marshes, whilst the Solway itself is mostly very shallow and clogged up with mud flats and sandbanks separated at low tide by narrow channels. It is possible to cross the Solway on foot at low tide, but the tides are fierce and local knowledge is needed. The configuration and position of the shorelines along the Solway and Irish Sea have also been subject to sea-level change, but the extent of this in the past two millennia is difficult to assess. Archaeological evidence suggests that the present coastline on the southern side of the Solway is close to that existing during the Roman occupation,15 but on the other hand, the extent and configuration of salt marshes and flats, essentially

6  The setting

Figure 1.3  T he physical geography of northern Cumbria. Source: Contains Ordnance Survey data. © Crown copyright and database right 2016. Drawn by Lesley Collett.

marine alluvium, around Rockcliffe, near the River Lyne and the point at which the Rivers Esk and Eden debouch into the inner Solway, may have been different in former times.16 The climate of northern Cumbria is varied, with extremes of temperature and precipitation brought about by the dramatic changes in topography. As a generalization, it is relatively cool and wet, but the differences in relief result in a number of smaller sub-climatic zones, amongst which are

The setting  7 the coastal belt, the Lake District Mountains (the wettest place in Britain), the Pennine uplands, the Eden valley and the North Cumberland Plain, and the coast including Carlisle. Annual rainfall is variable, ranging from 700–1,000 mm on the North Cumberland Plain to over 3,000 mm in the Lake District.17 Just as the macro-topography will have impacted on a range of cultural values, micro-climatic zones have also contributed to economic variation. Another key variable in the environmental setting of Carlisle and northern Cumbria is soil. This is crucial because it is the point at which, to paraphrase Roberts, the needs of the population interact with the natural environment.18 In other words, soils provide the growing medium for plants, and plants sustain life. The nature of soil determines both the range of plants grown and the potential yield. Soils vary a great deal in their qualities and should not be assumed by scholars who are not themselves farmers to be equally capable of supporting the same agricultural regimes. Understanding the capability of soils in pre-industrial times is problematic, not least because the use of fertilizers, underdrainage and improved strains of plants have altered and generally improved soil structures, especially since the mid-eighteenth century. However, on the assumption that some basic soil properties are unlikely to have changed to any great extent, soil maps today can be used to assess agricultural potential in earlier times, albeit in a generalized way. For example, the impermeable nature of glacial till today was similar under Norse farmers, Romano-British farmers, and their prehistoric antecedents. Again, light, free-draining sandy soils today were essentially the same in the past. In northern Cumbria, the potential for arable cultivation was often severely constrained because the dominant soils are stagnogleys or glacial till, blanketing the landscape in a huge arc to the south of Carlisle as well as lands to the north, as shown on Figures 1.4 and 1.5. Understanding the nature and distribution of these soils in combination with topography is fundamental to an appreciation of the strategic importance of Carlisle and its hinterland over long periods of time. The soil map of northern Cumbria, published by the University of Cranfield, shows a very complex palimpsest of soil types (represented in a simplified form in Figure 1.4). The essential point is that to the south-east and west of Carlisle are tracts of good-quality free-draining soils, whilst to the south and north are extensive areas of seasonally waterlogged soils on an impermeable base. The latter are boulder clays or related soils containing a significant clay component. These soils are extensively represented on the North Cumberland Plain where, in the Middle Ages, much of the land was occupied by Inglewood Forest. Nowadays, we recognize that such soils require underdrainage in order to maximize their potential, but despite earlier crude attempts, it only became widespread practice after a few major landowners began programmes of land drainage in the eighteenth century. Amongst these were Dr Robert Graham and then his grandson, Sir James

8  The setting Graham, of Netherby near Longtown, the latter introducing ceramic drains on their estate.19 Ancient ploughs could cope with boulder clays, but such heavy, cold, wet soils would certainly have inhibited cereal cultivation, not least because without adequate drainage the growing seasons would have been more restricted. The areas of better land include prominent landscape features such as eskers, free-draining sandy and gravel mounds left over from the last glaciations and often found in large groups, but most importantly, well-drained sandy loams and typical brown earths, mainly found in the sheltered Eden valley corridor and fringing the base of the Pennine scarp, as well as extending west of Carlisle towards Burgh-by-Sands. 20 A few other smaller pockets are also found in north Cumbria, for example, near Aspatria, Torpenhow, Stainton and Lamonby. The value of these soils is that they are capable of growing wheat, barley, oats, rye and some pulses, many of which have been found in Roman archaeological deposits in Carlisle. Cereal crops, especially spelt wheat and barley, probably thrived both in the Eden valley and some of the smaller islands of better-quality soils elsewhere in the county, and provided a broader resource base than was available in other places. The difference between the Eden valley and areas of poorer soils including the uplands is well illustrated in the sixteenth century. In the former, arable fields tended to be larger and the farming regimes mixed, whilst in the uplands they were smaller and focused on livestock (sheep on higher ground and cattle on lower ground), with rye, barley (bigg) and oats forming the basis of both human and animal feed. 21 To the north of Carlisle is the strip of land between the Pennine uplands and the Solway Firth where the nature of the soils is generally poor (Figure 1.5). The better soils are represented by relatively narrow bands of fluvial alluvium along the valleys of the Lyne and Esk, and there are islands of slightly better soils around the village of Rockcliffe, but the dominant types are seasonally waterlogged stagnogleys and peat mosses which were very poor agriculturally. The western part of the corridor today includes the extensive Rockcliffe Marsh, a silty marine alluvium suitable only for seasonal livestock grazing, but this does not appear on early maps, and so may be a post-medieval development. To the east are very extensive tracts of stagnogleys, with the occasional moss rising to an upland moorland landscape near Bewcastle. The agricultural economy is now, and probably always has been, geared towards livestock, especially dairy herds, because most soils are classified as having severe to minor limitations affecting the choice of crops and their management techniques. 22 This thinly populated unspectacular landscape had limited agricultural value in pre-improvement days, but as a routeway between England and Scotland it was crucial. Wetlands and peat mosses are present in abundance, particularly in the north of the county, although they are not as evident today as they would have been in the past. Some, such as Wedholme Flow, Glasson Moss, Scaleby Moss, Walton and Bolton Fell Moss and Solway Moss, form

Figure 1.4  A simplified soilscape of northern Cumbria. Source: Based on soilscapes data © Cranfield University and the Controller of HMSO 2016. Redrawn with permission, by Lesley Collett.

10  The setting extensive raised or intermediate mires, but there are many smaller examples, including basin mires, valley and blanket mires in the Eden valley and its tributaries, as well as in the Pennine uplands. In medieval and more recent times, mires, together with fells, marshes and moorland, often known collectively as ‘waste’, formed a valuable part of the resources of communities in those areas. They and their environs were used for pasturage, peat was dug for fuel, bracken was collected for cattle bedding, and reeds for thatching and in recent times for burning, the ash being used for soap-making. The cartulary of the Cistercian monastery at Holm Cultram, in the northwest corner of the North Cumberland Plain, shows that the neighbouring mosses were probably exploited for peat used to fuel salt production on the Solway coast; some may also have been grazed. Peat was extracted at Burgh-by-Sands and Drumburgh, also for salt production, but elsewhere many mires remained unreclaimed and unimproved until the turn of the nineteenth century. 23 Topography, climate and soil were all important factors aiding the longterm fortunes of Carlisle, as was the case in the growth and development of many pre-industrial towns. Whilst I will argue later on that these continued to be important, it was not always the case elsewhere. Sometimes one factor, such as communication routes, was dominant, and political or military issues or simple seigniorial ambition could also be among the main stimuli to growth. York, for example, has long been a nodal point for communication and settlement. It lies in the middle of the largest valley in northern England, the Vale of York being some 40 km wide between the chalk of the Wolds to the east and the magnesian limestone belt to the west. It lies at the point where the York moraine is cut by the River Ouse. The moraine is well-drained and provides good agricultural land, but is surrounded by peats, carr landscapes and glacial clays. 24 Roman and later York occupies the moraine on both sides of the Ouse. Ancient York, in summary, was not only situated at a good natural communication node, but it had access to a variety of landscapes capable of providing the resources needed to sustain the city. Another example, Corbridge in Northumberland, was a town that owed its prominence under the Romans to its position at the junction of a major road (Dere Street) crossing the River Tyne, and location just 4.8 km south of Hadrian’s Wall. In the Middle Ages, the focus of settlement shifted about a kilometre eastwards, and its status was that of an inland market town of middling importance. No doubt this was in part because the foci of Anglo-­ Scandinavian estates were a short distance to the east, and because the border had moved many miles northwards to the Tweed. However, it was the landscape that contributed much to Roman and medieval Corbridge’s success. Both Roman and later settlements were probably supplied from farms in the Tyne valley, which incorporates a linear band of relatively deep, easily worked, fertile alluvial soils, up to a kilometre wide at Hexham. The valley floor is fringed with a complex array of glacio-fluvial brown earths

Figure 1.5  A simplified soilscape of land north of Carlisle. Source: Based on soilscapes data © Cranfield University and the Controller of HMSO 2016. Redrawn with permission, by Lesley Collett.

12  The setting recognized since the mid-nineteenth century as one of the more productive landscapes in Northumberland. 25 Further north, a third town, Roxburgh, founded by David I between 1115 and 1124, was a communications hub at the junction of the Rivers Tweed and Teviot in an agriculturally rich landscape. Despite becoming an internationally well-known commercial centre, it was beset by problems and was gradually overtaken by Berwick-upon-Tweed, an estuarine town from the late thirteenth century. 26 York, Corbridge, Roxburgh, Berwick and other towns survived not just because of economic advantage, but because they could be locally resourced with crops, livestock, building materials and fuel from within their immediate hinterlands. Many towns founded de novo by the king and various secular and ecclesiastical lords in the Middle Ages were in a similar position, but as some discovered, and as Beresford pointed out, ‘planting a town was different from planting a hedge. A hedge might grow anywhere, but a town’s fortunes were not independent of its geographical position’, and lords’ ambitions sometimes outstripped their judgement of the economic potential of their sites. 27

Frontiers and borders It has already been asserted that Carlisle is located in frontier or borderland territory. These are terms that need some brief clarification, as the words can be used interchangeably. Today, states are defined by lines on a map and man-made barriers. However, those lines on the map are the product of centuries of political evolution and jostling for territory, and they are far from being static and immutable even now, as the news output makes clear on a daily basis. The distinction between ‘borders’ and ‘frontiers’ has exercised political theorists and geographers for decades and is partly wrapped up in ideas of nationhood, national identity and of ties that bind communities together and separate them from others. Archaeologists are not immune from the debate in that they have also sought to identify cultural commonalities, although this time through the most detailed dissection of material culture in order to pigeonhole cultural or social groups. It is one of the ways archaeologists seek to impose order on the great mass of data they accumulate. 28 This is not the place to pursue such debates except to note that geographers have made the distinction between borders and frontiers. To many geographers, ‘borders’ are ‘linear’ and ‘static’, 29 dividing territories and countries from each other, as is the case with modern international borders, by lines on the ground and on maps. 30 Borders may not have ethnic or linguistic significance, but they distinguish between political, administrative and military interests. Crossing a border is to cross a line which today may be marked by a checkpoint with passport control.

The setting  13 ‘Frontiers’, by contrast, are neither static nor restrictive in the movements of people. The key point about frontiers is that they are ‘zonal’; they consist of territories that can be very extensive, lying between the core lands of two political entities.31 For northern Britain, both definitions apply at different periods in its history. What is interesting about Carlisle is that initially it was a town on the very edge of the vast Roman Empire, and later it was caught in the crossfire between two emerging states from the ninth or tenth centuries on. In that regard, Carlisle is special and different from many other towns in the UK. When the Romans began the serious business of conquest in ad 43, they were effectively expanding the Empire. Expansion had been a concern of Augustus, and it continued to exercise several later emperors. In the first century, the Rhine and Danube came to embody frontiers whilst Britain itself was a frontier, because it can be argued that the governor Gnaeus Julius Agricola saw the conquest of the whole island as part of his remit. He certainly extended his campaigns into northern Scotland, which was made possible by his unusually long governorship ending in ad 83. It was his successor, possibly Sallustius Lucullus, that Domitian ordered to withdraw from Scotland, a decision probably implemented no later than the summer of ad 88.32 There has been much discussion about the reasons and the stages of withdrawal which will not be rehearsed here, except to say that the emperor’s need for legionary and auxiliary troops to fight the Chatti and then the Dacian wars was probably decisive. 33 There is a growing consensus around the idea that Domitian’s decision to withdraw was prudent given the circumstances at the time, but it had consequences. For example, an acceptance that the limits of Roman authority would not include the whole island of Britain posed questions: where was the line to be drawn, and how was it to be defined? In the absence of any documentary record, the answer may lie in roads and bridges, because Tacitus refers to them in Germany in the context of Tiberian action. 34 Roads and bridges were essential for military deployment, should it be necessary. In northern Britain, the landscape offered two possible options for building roads facilitating rapid troop movements: the Forth-Clyde isthmus, and a line drawn between the River Tyne and the Solway Firth. The latter emerged as the preferred option, and by the early second century, troops were concentrated on a line that has come to be known as the ‘Stanegate’; it was here that Hadrian began the construction of the Wall in 122. Apart from a brief period in the 140s and 150s, Hadrian’s Wall acted as the boundary of the Empire until it was abandoned around the turn of the fourth and fifth centuries. The efficacy of Hadrian’s Wall as a barrier to movement is difficult to judge. Scholars have long identified the presence of Roman goods in the Scottish borders as indicating contact between groups on either side, although it is fair to point out that the scale of movement appears to be less than that across the Rhine in Free Germany or north of the Danube. It can

14  The setting also be noted that Hadrian’s Wall cut across agricultural land, as demonstrated by plough-marks sealed below the Wall and ditch counterscarp bank at Stanwix (see also Figure 4.2), Denton, Wallsend and elsewhere, good evidence that its construction disrupted farming practice, and by implication, settlement patterns, along the Wall corridor.35 In Cumbria, Jones and Walker argued that the Wall stimulated development as an explanation for the farmsteads on the Cumberland Plain, but so far there is insufficient excavated data to support or refute the suggestion. In Northumberland, a reassessment of the archaeological evidence suggests that there were different responses to the building of Hadrian’s Wall. To the north, for example, there are few sites, other than in North Tynedale, where pottery of the second century ad or later has been found, but what this means in terms of settlement, or micro- or regional economies, is difficult to gauge. Post-Wall-construction depopulation seems to be ruled out because pollen diagrams fail to register any increase in arboreal grains, implying the continued use of the landscape in some form, perhaps at a lower economic level than hitherto. 36 Whilst the archaeological evidence does suggest that some sites north of the Wall may have been abandoned around the time of the building programme, there is little indication of a zone cleared of settlement, although it cannot be dismissed.37 South of Hadrian’s Wall, on the other hand, the picture is different, with the discovery of more villas, as well as an extensive ‘ladder-style’ settlement not unlike a small town and incorporating at least one public building, domestic enclosures and industrial activities, at Sedgefield, Co. Durham. 38 From the abandonment of Hadrian’s Wall until the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the idea of a ‘border’ or ‘frontier’ here, in either of the geographic definitions outlined earlier, is scarcely appropriate. From the seventh to ninth centuries, much of the land was occupied by the kingdom of Northumbria, whilst in the tenth and eleventh centuries the kings of Strathclyde and the Cumbrians, with the kings of the Scots, regarded the line of the modern A66 trans-Pennine route, including perhaps the River Eamont near Penrith, as the southern extent of their territories west of the Pennines. In 1092, William II (Rufus) seized Carlisle when he ousted the king of the Scots’ representative, Dolfin, but a few years later, David I took it back and turned it into a Scots stronghold, which it remained until his death in 1153. Four years later, Henry II recovered Carlisle for England, and resisted William the Lion’s attempt to reclaim it in 1173–4. Clearly the lands of Carlisle were hotly contested, see-sawing between the crowns of England and Scotland, until in 1237 Henry III and Alexander II signed the Treaty of York, which should have settled the matter. That was not the end of the story, however, for Scottish barons, including the Bruces of Annandale, continued unsuccessfully to entertain ideas of retrieving lands in Cumbria during the Anglo-Scottish wars of the fourteenth century. The line agreed in 1237, extending from the River Sark on the Solway north-eastwards through Liddesdale to the Tweed valley, remained the

The setting  15 border, and there it has stayed until the present day. It was confirmed by Edward III in the Treaty of Edinburgh in 1328. It is one thing to define a state by a line on the ground, but it is quite another to say what that meant to the people on either side. The fact that borders are acknowledged by the ruling classes does not in itself mean that the people felt more strongly disposed to the state or its rules. Stringer and Summerson have convincingly shown, for example, that the people of northern England and southern Scotland had much closer links with each other than to their kings.39 The linkages were manifest in terms of landholdings, marriages and day-to-day contacts with a wide range of individuals. Many landholders had extensive estates widely distributed on either side of the border. Robert de Ros, for example, held lands distributed between Traquair, Sanquhar, Haltwhistle, Linstock and Stanwix, whilst Robert Bruce, lord of Annandale, held lands in Low Ireby and Glassonby.40 Lanercost Priory had interests in Lothian; Holm Cultram Abbey had interests in Dumfriesshire, Melrose and Carlisle. At the level of the elites, there was a network of close alliances, but there was also a commonality of estate holding amongst the community of lesser gentry, with titles such as sheriffs, thanes and drengs, in Cumbria, Northumberland, Teviotdale and Lauderdale. State boundaries could not alter deeply rooted family, landed and commercial interests, nor did they respect agricultural interests.41 Carlisle, Roxburgh and Berwick continued to act as important markets for people on the other side of the border. One could go further, and assert that the strength of a cross-border identity must have made the actual Anglo-­ Scottish border appear at best an inconvenience, if not of negligible importance. From the fourteenth century on, the frontier lands between the Tweed, Annandale and Nithsdale were officially designated as Marcher territories, overseen by Wardens appointed by the kings of both England and Scotland. In north-east England, the natural topography allows for north-south passage along two main routes (the present A1 and A68) and multiple minor routes between Northumberland and Lothian. In the west, however, the topography provides a much tighter constraint upon north-south passage. Here there is only a narrow corridor at the head of the Solway Firth, between the lower reaches of the Eden valley, across the Lyne and then the Esk and Sark near Longtown, and into Dumfriesshire (Figure 1.5). As has been seen earlier, this area is dominated by very low-lying, seasonally waterlogged soils and mosses which were very poor agriculturally and could impede passage in the days before effective field drainage systems were widely adopted.42 This narrow corridor between the Eden valley and the Rivers Lyne and Esk invested Carlisle with a particular strategic importance. Recognized by the Romans, it may be one reason why such a large military presence was concentrated in Carlisle and Stanwix. Hadrian’s Wall would also have sealed off this routeway quite effectively, aided no doubt by the outpost

16  The setting forts at Birrens and Netherby. Battles fought at the northern end would have given the victors an important strategic advantage.43 Knowledge of this corridor could also be a reason why Northumbrian kings were keen to colonize the area in the later seventh century. Similarly, the protracted disputes between the kings of the Scots and Strathclyde on the one hand, and the kings of England and their representatives, the earls of Northumbria, on the other, for control of this strip of land are also better understood as a battle to control routeways in the days before a formal linear border had been defined and agreed. The Normans doubtless also recognized this, and it is probably no accident that determined that the northern end of the ‘potestas’ of Carlisle under Ranulf Meschin was the River Esk, and where the barony of Liddel was created. Whereas elsewhere in Cumbria, as in Allerdale and Copeland, it is thought that the early twelfth-century baronies reflect a pre-Conquest territorial division, Carlisle was subdivided at an early date, with new fees being carved out within it at Burgh-bySands, controlling a key fording point across the Solway.44 In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, we have become used to highspeed travel along carefully engineered motorways, or on trains and in the air, to the extent that it is easy to forget the reality of getting from A to B in the days before mechanization. Similarly, it is easy to overlook the difficulties faced by farmers in the past when we go through ‘improved’ landscapes with large, rectilinear fields, barely distinguishable one from another and sized and shaped for tractors and combine harvesters rather than oxen and horses. Earlier generations of historians and antiquaries understood the importance of the natural setting. When William Hutchinson published his History of the County of Cumberland in 1794, an important component was the land, its agricultural potential, climate and topography. Hutchinson lived at a time when the ability of most people to survive was governed to a greater or lesser degree by the natural environment: what kind of agricultural regime the land round about was capable of supporting; the interaction of soil and weather on pasture, grain crops and the length of the growing season; and the agricultural calendar. These things mattered.

Notes 1 Foot 2006, 87. 2 Williamson 2013; Morris 1977; Roberts 2008. 3 Good examples are Southampton, Cork, Ribe, Madrid, Tongeren, Cirencester. 4 Thirsk 1984; Beresford 1967; Barrow 1989; Roberts 2008. 5 McCarthy 2013; Williamson 2013; Gaffney et al. 2007. A good example of the use of soil maps is the Dutch East River Project (Willems 1986). 6 Sjoberg 1960, 85. 7 Lősch 1954. 8 Richardson 1969, 170. 9 Christaller 1966, 45. 10 Fox 1932.

The setting  17 11 I have considered this in greater detail in McCarthy 2013, Chapter 1. 12 Higham and Jones 1975, 1985, 1–2; Bewley 1994. The slightly idiosyncratic writings by the late Richard Bellhouse on Roman forts along the Cumberland coast also display a keen sense of site location. 13 But see Winchester 1987; Miller 1975; Barrow 1989. 14 This point was not lost on James Wilson as long ago as 1901 (Victoria County History 1901, 221–3). 15 Jones 1980, 87–102. 16 Kilgour 1979. Research on the inner Solway northern and southern shorelines has been more limited than elsewhere. See Jardine 1980; Tooley 1980. 17 The variations in relief across northern Cumbria are probably a good indication that climatic differences in the past were as marked as they are today. Although it is not possible to reconstruct climate history in detail at present, it is clear from recent work that there were a number of episodes of flooding and increased mire wetness, some of which could have impacted on settlement patterns and agricultural regimes. For Bolton Fell and Walton Mosses, some 24 km north-east of Carlisle, see Barber et al. 1994. For the Tyne catchment, see Macklin 1999. For Malham, see Swindles et al. 2009. 18 Roberts 2008, 132. 19 Jarvis et al. 1984, 135–9. In this context the working of the Netherby estate is of particular interest. When Dr Robert Graham took possession of his estates in 1757, the land was almost wholly unreclaimed bog. Hutchinson, citing Pennant, described the people as ‘idle and bad’ and yields low (Hutchinson 1794, II, 534–5). The local economy was turned around with the use of liming and manuring, and ceramic tile drains, by Robert, but especially Sir James, second baronet, working closely with his agent, John Yule. The effect was to improve soil structure and fertility as well as extending the growing season (Spring 1955; Spence 1980; Mawson 1980). In this the Grahams were following other major Cumbrian landowners such as the Curwens and Howards, but their efforts shed an interesting light on the quality of the land, as well as the attitudes of local farmers in the early days of Cumbrian agricultural improvements. All was not bad, however, for both Arthur Young’s and Hutchinson’s accounts of High Hesket and farms near Penrith were encouraging (Hutchinson op. cit.; Young 1771). 20 Jarvis et al. 1984, 249–53, 302–5. 21 Humphries 1993, 38, 60; Winchester 1987, Chapter 4. 22 Kilgour 1979, 4–5. It is too simplistic to suppose that certain areas were agriculturally marginal or very productive solely on the basis of soil properties. By the 1790s many farmers in the Eden valley or Inglewood, for example, were adopting a more nuanced approach adopting mixed regimes and adapting their methods to suit the soils on their land, as is evident from the travels of both Arthur Young and Hutchinson (Young 1771; Hutchinson 1794). In the north Dr Robert Graham’s tenants on his Netherby estate were described unfavourably by Hutchinson as ‘still retaining a smack of feudal manners; scarce a hedge to be seen and a total ignorance of even coal and lime’ (ibid. II, 534–5). 23 Hodgkinson et al. 2000, 135–45; Winchester 1987, 81–96, 138. 24 Radley 1974, 10–11; Addyman 1984, 7–11. 25 Craster 1914; Hellen 1972; Jarvis 1977; Jarvis et al. 1984. 26 Martin and Oram 2007 27 Beresford 1967, 105; Tait 1936, 352–3. 28 An important contribution is that of Isaac 1987. 29 Parker 2007. 30 See McCarthy 2008 for references and a discussion.

18  The setting 31 Parker (2007, 80) suggests further subtle subdivisions of the terms border and frontier, but these are omitted from the present discussion for the purposes of clarity. See also Kristof 1970, 134–5. 32 Tacitus, Histories, 1.2: ‘perdomita Britannia et statim omissa’. Southern (1997) has also drawn attention to the point that nearly a millennium later in 1072 William I made a similar decision not to attempt a conquest of Scotland when he decided not to cross the ‘Ford’ (Forth), because he would gain ‘no advantage from it’. In this case, William came to an agreement with Malcolm Canmore (Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, D, E s.a.1072). 33 Hanson 1987; Southern 1997; Birley 2004. 34 Tacitus, Annals, 1.50; 2.7; Tacitus, Germany, 29.4. 35 Smith 1978; Bidwell 1999, 84, 166–8. 36 Hodgson et al. 2012, 214–16. 37 Ibid., 217–18. 38 Wilson 2009, 236. 39 Stringer 1994; Summerson 1993. 40 Stringer 1994, map B. 41 Barrow 1989, 8–15. 42 In the early nineteenth century in the parishes of Arthuret and Kirkandrews-­ on-Esk some 21,000 acres, in all, were in the ownership of the Grahams of Netherby, near Longtown. Sir James Graham (1792–1861) was an improving landlord who, faced with slovenly farming practices, set out to invest heavily in over 1,000 miles of land drains, and upgrading roads, bridges, farm buildings and equipment, as well as seeking better tenants (Spring 1955). Graham’s colossal enterprise is striking testimony to both the poor quality of the land on his estate, which straddles the whole of the narrow corridor north of Carlisle, as well as the attitudes of his tenants. Lands to the south around Rockcliffe and Kingstown, as well as to the north, were probably in a similar condition. See also Caird 1852. 43 The battle of Armterid (=Arthuret) was fought in ad 573, probably in the vicinity of Arthuret, Netherby and Carwinley. The battle of Solway Moss (1542) is unlikely to have been fought in a moss in November, despite its name. The battle site is more plausibly identified with better and firmer ground closer to Arthuret church. 4 4 Barrow (1975, 124–6), Sharpe (2006, 43–7) and Roberts (1991) have also noted a distinct ring of late–by place-names encircling Carlisle. The names have personal names reflecting individuals of French, Breton and Flemish descent, suggesting, perhaps, that in the aftermath of William Rufus’s seizure of Carlisle, foreign knights were granted lands there. Roberts also noted a marked absence of names between vills on the north bank of the Eden, apart from Etterby, and a grouping around Arthuret (ibid., Figure 1). The absence of early names may be a reflection of the poor quality of the land in this narrow corridor.

References Addyman, P.V. 1984. ‘York in its archaeological setting’, in Archaeological Papers from York Presented to M.W. Barley, eds. P.V. Addyman and V.E. Black, 7–21. York. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. 1967. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (trans. G.N. Garmonsway). London and New York. Barber, K.E., Chambers, F.M., Maddy, D., Stoneman, R. and Brew, J.S. 1994. ‘A sensitive high-resolution record of late Holocene climatic change from a raised bog in northern England’, The Holocene 4 (2): 198–205.

The setting  19 Barrow, G.W.S. 1975. ‘The pattern of lordship and feudal settlement in Cumbria’, Journal of Medieval History 1: 124–6. Barrow, G.W.S. 1989. ‘Frontier and settlement: which influenced which? England and Scotland 1100–1300’, in Medieval Frontier Societies, eds. R. Bartlett and A. Mackay, 3–22. Oxford. Beresford, M. 1967. New Towns of the Middle Ages. London. Bewley, R.H. 1994. Prehistoric and Romano-British Settlement in the Solway Plain, Cumbria. Oxford. Bidwell, P. 1999. Hadrian’s Wall 1989–1999: A Summary of Recent Excavations and Research. Newcastle upon Tyne and Kendal. Birley, A.R. 2004. ‘Britain 71–105: advance and retrenchment’, in Roman Rule and Civic Life: Local and Regional Perspectives, eds. L. De Ligt, E.A. Hemelrijk and H.W. Singon, 97–112. Amsterdam. Caird, J. 1852. English Agriculture in 1850–51. Reprinted 1968. Cambridge. Christaller, W. 1966. Central Places in Southern Germany (trans. D.W. Baskin). Englewood Cliffs. Craster, H.H.E. 1914. A History of Northumberland Volume X: The Parish of Corbridge. Newcastle upon Tyne and London. Foot, S. 2006. Monastic Life in Anglo-Saxon England c.600–900. Cambridge. Fox, Sir C. 1932. The Personality of Britain: Its Influence on Inhabitant and Invader in Prehistoric and Early Historic Times. Cardiff. Gaffney, V., White, R.H. and Goodchild, H. 2007. Wroxeter, the Cornovii and the Urban Process. Journal of Roman Archaeology Supplementary Series 68. Portsmouth. Hanson, W.S. 1987. Agricola and the Conquest of the North. London. Hellen, J.P. 1972. ‘Wheelhouses in Northumberland’, Agricultural History Review 20 (2): 140–54. Higham, N.J. and Jones, G.D.B. 1975. ‘Frontiers, forts and farmers: Cumbrian aerial survey’, Archaeological Journal 132: 16–53. Higham, N.J. and Jones, G.D.B. 1985. The Carvetii. Gloucester. Hodgkinson, D., Huckerby, E., Middleton, R. and Wells, C.E. 2000. The Lowland Wetlands of Cumbria. Lancaster Imprints North-West Wetlands Survey 6. Oxford. Hodgson, N., McKelvey, J. and Muncaster, W. 2012. The Iron Age on the Northumberland Plain: Excavations in Advance of Development 2002–2010. Newcastle, Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums Archaeological Monograph 3. Newcastle upon Tyne. Humphries, A.B. 1993. Agrarian Change in East Cumberland 1750–1900. Unpublished PhD, University of Lancaster. Hutchinson, W. 1794. The History of the County of Cumberland, 2 volumes. London. Isaac, B. 1987. ‘The meaning of the terms limes and limitanei’, Journal of Roman Studies 77: 125–47. Jardine, W.G. 1980. ‘Holocene raised coastal sediments and former shorelines of Dumfriesshire and Galloway’, Trans. Dumfriesshire Galloway Natural History. Archaeological Society 55: 1–59. Jarvis, R.A. 1977. Soils of the Hexham District. Memoirs Soil Survey Great Britain, England and Wales. Harpenden. Jarvis, R.A., Bendelow, B.V.C., Carroll, R.I., Furness, D.M., Kilgour, I.N.L. and King, S.J. 1984. Soils and Their Uses in Northern England. Soil Survey England and Wales Bulletin 10. Harpenden.

20  The setting Jones, G.D.B. 1980. ‘Archaeology and coastal change in the north west’, in Archaeology and Coastal Change, ed. F.H. Thompson, 87–102. London. Kilgour, I.N.L. 1979. Soils in Cumbria II: Sheet NY36/37 (Longtown). Soil Survey Record 59. Harpenden. Kristof, L.K.D. 1970. ‘The nature of frontiers and boundaries’, in The Structure of Political Geography, eds. R.E. Kasperson and J.V. Minghi, 126–31. London. Lősch, A. 1954. The Economics of Location. New Haven and London. McCarthy, M.R. 2008. ‘Boundaries and the archaeology of frontier zones’, in Handbook of Landscape Archaeology, eds. B. David and J. Thomas, 202–9. Walnut Creek. McCarthy, M.R. 2013. The Romano-British Peasant: Towards a Study of People, Landscapes and Work during the Roman Occupation of Britain. Oxford. Macklin, M.G. 1999. ‘Holocene river environments in prehistoric Britain: human interaction and impact’, Quaternary Proceedings 7: 521–30. Martin, C. and Oram, R. 2007. ‘Medieval Roxburgh: a preliminary assessment’, Proceedings Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 137: 357–404. Mawson, D.J.W. 1980. ‘Agricultural lime burning – the Netherby example’, Transactions of Cumberland Westmorland Antiquarian Archaeological Society 2 ser. 80: 137–151. Miller, E. 1975. ‘Farming in Northern England during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries’, Northern History 11: 1–16. Morris, C.D. 1977. ‘Northumbria and the Viking settlement: the evidence for land-holding’, Archaeologia Aeliana 5 ser. 77: 81–104. Parker, B.J. 2007. ‘Towards an understanding of borderland processes’, American Antiquity 71 (1): 77–100. Radley, J. 1974. ‘The prehistory of the Vale of York’, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal 46: 10–22. Richardson, H.W. 1969. Regional Economics: Location Theory, Urban Structures and Regional Trade. London. Roberts, B.K. 1991. ‘Late-by names in the Eden valley, Cumbria’, Nomina 13 (1989–90): 25–39. Roberts, B.K. 2008. ‘The land of Werhale – landscapes of Bede’, Archaeologia Aeliana 5 ser. 37: 127–60. Sharpe, R. 2006. Norman Rule in Cumbria 1092–1136. Cumberland Westmorland Antiquarian Archaeological Society, Tract Series 21. Sjoberg, G. 1960. The Preindustrial City. Texas. Smith, G.H. 1978. ‘Excavations near Hadrian’s Wall at Tarraby Lane, 1976’, Britannia 9: 19–57. Southern, P. 1997. Domitian, Tragic Tyrant. London and New York. Spence, R.T. 1980. ‘The Graham clans and lands on the eve of the Jacobean pacification’, Trans. Cumberland Westmorland Antiquarian Archaeological Society 2 ser. 80: 79–102. Spring, D. 1955. ‘A great agricultural estate: Netherby under Sir James Graham, 1820–1845’, Agricultural History 29 (2): 73–81. Stringer, K. 1994. ‘Social and political communities in European history’, in Nations, Nationalism and Patriotism in the European Past, eds. C. Bjørn, A. Grant and K.J. Stringer, 9–34. Copenhagen. Summerson, H. 1993. Medieval Carlisle: The City and the Border from the Late Eleventh to the Sixteenth Century. Cumberland Westmorland Antiquarian Archaeological Society Extra Ser. 25. Kendal.

The setting  21 Swindles, G.T., Blundell, A., Roe, H.M. and Hall, V.A. 2009. ‘A 4,500 year proxy climate record from peatlands in the north of Ireland: the identification of widespread summer drought phases’, Quaternary Science Review 30: 1–13. Tacitus, Annals. 1956. Tacitus: The Annals of Imperial Rome, ed. M. Grant. Harmondsworth. Tacitus, Germany. 1999. Tacitus: Agricola and Germany, trans. and ed. A.R. Birley. Oxford. Tacitus, Histories. 1997. Tacitus: The Histories, trans. and ed. W.H. Fyfe and D.S. Levine. Oxford. Tait, J. 1936. The Medieval English Borough. Manchester. Thirsk, J. ed. 1984. The Agrarian History of England and Wales Volume V 1640–1750. Regional Farming Systems. Cambridge. Tooley, M.J. 1980. ‘Theories of coastal change in north-west England’, in Archaeology and Coastal Change, ed. F.H. Thompson, 74–86. London. Victoria County History. 1901. The Victoria County History of Cumberland, ed. J. Wilson (1901–5). London. Willems, W.J.H. 1986. Romans and Batavians: A Regional Study in the Dutch Eastern River Area. Amersfoort. Williamson, T. 2013. Environment, Society and Landscape in Early Medieval England: Time and Topography. Woodbridge. Wilson, P.R. 2009. ‘Roman Britain in 2008. Northern counties’, Britannia 40: 235–40. Winchester, A.J.L. 1987. Landscape and Society in Medieval Cumbria. Edinburgh. Young, A. 1771. A Six-Months Tour through the North of England. 2nd edition. London.

2 An emerging frontier

The cultural setting The names of pre-Roman political units (tribes) in northern Britain and Scotland are known mainly from Ptolemy’s Geography. However, much uncertainty surrounds the ways in which they worked and the nature of intertribal relations. Certainly, the concept of a border as we know it today is unlikely to have existed, although it is easier to envisage lands regarded as ‘core’ territories, especially in the context of kinship structures. These issues are not clarified by the archaeology. In Cumbria, the majority of upstanding monuments and artefacts belong to the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age, the Mayburgh Henge, Penrith, and Castlerigg and Long Meg stone circles, for example, but the pre-Roman Iron Age has so far proved to be elusive. A small number of defended sites such as Castle Crag, Thirl­ mere, and the earthworks at Aughertree Fell, Caldbeck, on the fringes of the uplands can be identified, and a handful of possible farmsteads in the lowlands, as at Dobcross Hall, but they are relatively few and far between.1 There is also little in the aerial photographic record that stands out as typically Iron Age in date, unlike its northern neighbour, Dumfriesshire. The absence of pottery in Cumbria and the relatively few metal finds of indisputably Iron Age date also add to the uncertainty. Close to Carlisle at Cargo, overlooking the River Eden, is a multivallate enclosure for which an Iron Age date can be argued on morphological grounds (Figure 2.1). 2 The situation in Carlisle is no clearer. Geophysical survey in front of the Castle revealed the presence of two concentric ditches that appear to be earlier than the Roman fort, 3 but whilst their significance remains uncertain, plough-marks found below the earliest Roman remains at several sites in the town, including the fort at Annetwell Street and Blackfriars Street, are evidence of pre-Roman cultivation in the area.4 Other settlements that may be Iron Age in date include one immediately north of Hadrian’s Wall at Burgh-by-Sands, and another at Scotby Road, Carlisle, as well as some of the small unenclosed farmsteads on the Cumberland Plain. 5 Bog bodies tentatively attributed to the Iron Age have been found at Scaleby Moss and near Seascale,6 and stone heads are also known.

An emerging frontier  23

Figure 2.1  C  rop marks of a defended enclosure, perhaps a hillfort, overlooking the River Eden at Cargo, west of Carlisle. Source: Drawn by Lesley Collett.

The scarcity of Iron Age sites in Cumbria stands in marked contrast to the situation in Dumfriesshire. Here, sites characteristic of the period are abundant. Hillforts are well represented, and some, such as Castle O’er in the valley of the White Esk and The Moyle near Dalbeattie, are very substantial in size. The former is associated with an extensive series of boundary earthworks, possibly related to cattle ranching. The most impressive is undoubtedly the mighty six-hectare Burnswark, which dominates Annandale.7 In some instances, it is clear that hillforts, as well as smaller defended sites, contained

24  An emerging frontier round-houses, some of which were relatively large, although the scale of investigations and quality of the internal earthworks are generally not good enough to say much about their internal layout, function or chronology. An exception is Castle O’er, where round-houses appear to be disposed on either side of an axial street, some overlying parts of the defences.8 In this case, domestic activity seems to be present, but without further excavation, economic links, ritual activities and the ways in which the corrals were used remain unclear. Where there is dating evidence, the occupation extended into the first millennium ad, and is therefore contemporary with early Roman Carlisle and the Flavian advances northwards. Smaller enclosed settlements, probably the homes and farmsteads of people slightly lower down the social scale than those responsible for constructing hillforts, are also well represented. In Nithsdale and further west, there are stone-walled enclosures containing one or two round-houses,9 as well as extensive palimpsests of linear features and settlements on aerial photographs, but to the east, the architectural tradition appears to be largely confined to timber, notwithstanding the availability of stone. Living areas were located within ditched enclosures, the purpose of which may have had more to do with managing livestock and deterring cattle-rustling than defence. Of course, there are exceptions. The settlement at Boonies was surrounded by an unusually large bank, but lacked evidence of a rampart breastwork or strongly defended entrance.10 Crannogs, or dwellings on man-made islands in lochs, constitute another type of Iron Age settlement; these are, however, confined to lands west of the River Nith, and there are no crannogs known in Cumbria. Inadequate though the excavation data is, four points are worth mentioning. The defended sites of Dumfriesshire clearly represent a considerable investment in labour and time and are sufficiently elaborate to allow the conclusion that they represent an element of society with coercive power. This hints at an elite or aristocracy, presumably with a chief or headman, whilst the apparent dearth of such sites south of the Solway could be interpreted as indicating a different, perhaps flatter, social structure. Second, there are small concentrations of high-quality late La Tène and Roman Iron Age decorated metalwork from lands to the west of the Nith, such as the remarkable Torrs pony cap, the Balmaclellan mirror, a decorated mount from the same place and a massive terret from Wheatcroft near Castle Douglas. This was all expensive stuff, symbols of rank to be displayed at royal, chieftainly or aristocratic levels. Concentrations of such items are, however, not currently known either east of the Nith or in Cumbria.11 Third, although the relationships between the sites in Dumfriesshire are not understood,12 nevertheless the range is impressive, which cumulatively indicates the variety of responses adopted by local communities exploiting ecological niches in a landscape of generally limited agricultural potential. Exactly how that translates into social structures and economic ties across society is difficult to fathom, but it is a warning that a ‘one size fits all’ cultural model may not be appropriate.

An emerging frontier  25 Finally, the quality of the soils and the productive capacity of the land as it might have been before the agricultural improvements of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries tend to favour an economy generally biased towards livestock. Cereal agriculture was certainly practised, as aerial photographs of field systems testify,13 but this does not of itself demonstrate a preference for arable farming. On the contrary, where farmers could grow cereals they did, but livestock was almost certainly a key indicator of wealth in pre-­ agricultural improvement days, as was also the case in Ireland, parts of which are topographically very similar to the lands fringing the Solway coast.14 A more speculative point concerns the pre-Roman perception of these landscapes. Carlisle is in the middle of an area embracing the head of the Solway Firth. It is a watery landscape, comprising the estuary and its rivers, the Annan, Kirtle, Sark, Esk, Lyne, Eden, Petteril and Caldew, as well as extensive mosses, Nutberry, Solway, Scaleby and Walton, Wragmire, Wedholme Flow and numerous smaller examples, some now reclaimed. In addition, as noted in Chapter 1, there are wide tracts of land with limited agricultural potential in pre-industrial times, including extensive areas of seasonally waterlogged glacial till which must have contributed to the dankness of the terrain for much of the year. Such landscapes are widely associated with Celtic religion, and it is tempting to link it to the concentration of stone heads in the general vicinity of Carlisle, a distribution matched by dedications on altars to local deities including Belatucadros, Cocidius, Maponus and others.15 Some place names also incorporate the names of Celtic deities, including Carlisle itself (Luguvalium = strong in the god Lug); other deities include Maponus (= Lochmaben and Clochmabenstane, Gretna), Esus or Hesus (= Aesica, Great Chesters) and Cocidius (fanum Cocidi, the temple of Cocidius = Bewcastle). There are a number of other river and stream names, and the interesting settlement suffix -dunum, as in Uxellodunum (= Stanwix).16 What is lacking so far are hoards, or even single objects, from rivers. The nearest to Carlisle is the hoard of ironwork from Carlingwark Loch, Kirkcudbrightshire, many miles away, whilst a copper alloy cauldron was found in a bog at Black Moss, Bewcastle, in 1907.17 The cauldron is almost identical to that containing the second-­ century ad Carlingwark hoard, but is probably late Iron Age in date. In north-eastern England, stone heads are also found in the Tyne valley at Corbridge and elsewhere, whilst altars dedicated to native deities also occur, although more sporadically.18 Apart from the small multivallate hill fort at Warden, near Corbridge, the settlement pattern was one of small rectilinear enclosures but with no known power centres.19 The idea that settlements north and south of the Tyne differ both in size and complexity can no longer be sustained in the light of more recent work, but the Tyne valley seems to have been regarded as a boundary under the Romans, as observed by Braund. There are numerous references in classical sources attesting to the divinity of rivers, 20 and they were widely accorded cult status; they had their own priests, received sacrifices and were attributed with

26  An emerging frontier other anthropomorphic characteristics. That the River Tyne was one such river is suggested by the altars to Neptune and the Ocean at Newcastle upon Tyne and to a river deity at Chesters. 21 Similar sculptural and epigraphic evidence is not yet known from Carlisle or the Solway area. Cumbria is clearly not alone in the north for its associations with stone heads, but it is also the nature of the landscape that invites the suggestion that the lands around the Solway may have had some special, perhaps even sacred, quality of the kind that might attract periodic visits. Was the Carlisle area the centre of an existing polity, that of the deer people (= the Carvetii), 22 and is it stretching credulity to suppose that horned gods, an image that occurs widely in the north-west, represent the personification of a Carvetian deity (see Figure 3.10)?23 All this is of course speculative, but if lands around the head of the Solway had been accorded some special status, this might well have attracted people and assemblies, as is known from elsewhere in the pre-Roman Iron Age, 24 although whether or not this was a factor in the Romans’ decision to locate a fort there is not known.

Frontier development in lower Germany and Britain The political structure of northern England and southern Scotland in the late Iron Age is directly evidenced only by Ptolemy’s Geography and occasional hints in Tacitus. There is no clue as to territorial boundaries other than the possibility that major rivers functioned in this way. We cannot, therefore, be at all certain of the northward extent of the Brigantes or of the southern extent of the Votadini on the eastern side of the country. But, even if we knew where territorial limits lay, we would still be unable to say what they meant to people at the time. Indeed, one of the lessons to be taken from Caesar is that polities could be dynamic; a ‘tribe’ at one date was not necessarily the same at a different date, say fifty or a hundred years later. We can only presume that the Romans advancing northwards under the Flavian governors were faced with a number of warlike peoples between the Tyne and Tweed or Forth in the east, and the Solway to the Clyde in the west. Either the governor Vettius Bolanus or his successor, Q. Petillius Cerialis, commenced the subjugation of the Brigantes in ad 69–71. 25 In the latter year, Cerialis was deployed to Britain by Vespasian fresh from the Civilan revolt in the Netherlands (see pp. 28); he had direct experience of the kind of ‘frontier’ problems the Romans were anticipating in Britain. Although it is difficult to draw any conclusions from his time on the Rhine and apply them to Britain, it is worth briefly examining the evolution of the Roman occupation of the lower Rhineland, as it illustrates the way in which the Romans adapted to the idea of a frontier in the first century ad (Figure 2.2). In Germany, Rome had pursued an expansionist policy since the days of Julius Caesar in 58–7 bc, but it was under Augustus and his stepson, Drusus, in 12 and 11 bc that the lower Rhineland was finally incorporated into Gaul

An emerging frontier  27

Figure 2.2  Map of the Roman frontier on the Rhine in the late first century ad, locating places, tribes and major roads (grey lines). Source: Drawn by Lesley Collett.

and brought under firm military control 26 by way of military conquest followed by a strong military occupation and a policy of encouraging civilian involvement in local affairs. This in its turn brought with it greater access to a wider range of food and material goods. Legionary fortresses were established on the Fürstenberg at Xanten (Vetera) and on the Hunerberg at Nijmegen, and then on the adjacent Kops plateau. Other military installations were added, but the key locations at Xanten and Nijmegen were also developed as important civilian communities. At Nijmegen, an attempt was made to establish an important settlement for the indigenous Batavi by creating an Oppidum Batavorum, a roughly 20-hectare enclosure centred on the Valkhof. It was densely occupied, and seems to have had a regular internal layout from the late Augustan period. 27 Around ad 17, a limestone monument was erected, perhaps symbolizing the establishment of a new civitas as well as a victory by Germanicus. Clearly, both Augustus and Tiberius recognized the importance of bringing the native population ‘on side’ in order to achieve stability. At this stage on the lower Rhine, the Roman intention seems to have been to create both the military and administrative machinery whereby the warlike and unpredictable Batavi

28  An emerging frontier could be controlled. Whether or not the oppidum was a success as a means of integrating Batavians with Roman authority is open to question, because whilst elites seem to have occupied positions of authority, there are hints that the rest of the population were Gallo-Roman immigrants rather than locals. Indeed, they may have been deliberately moved into the area. In the early first century ad, we get little sense that the Rhine was the limit of Rome’s expansionist intentions, and it looks as though the ultimate intention was to continue north towards the Elbe and perhaps the Baltic coast. However, in ad 47, according to Tacitus, 28 Claudius vetoed further northern campaigns by his commander, Corbulo, against the Germans, thereby turning the Rhine into the de facto frontier. Meanwhile, a number of places on the Rhine and on its southern side had emerged as nodal hubs, acquiring a new status within a developing administrative framework as civitas capitals, pagi and informal markets. Amongst these, a military base at Tongeren became the civitas capital of the Tungri, Bavay (Bagacum) served the Nervii, and Cassel (Castellum Menapiorum in the Nord de Calais) the Menapii. Near the coast, the focus of the Cananefates was at Voorburg (Forum Hadriani). Many secondary centres or vici were also established, including places such as Wijster and Elst, the centre of the important local cult of Hercules. Farms also proliferated from the mid-first century ad on, presumably in response to an expanding economy, although there remained a heavy reliance on imported foods. 29 As Roymans and Vermeulen have observed, the process of urbanization was slow, a reflection of the alien nature of urban life to these northern tribes, but the reality was that the Romans were increasingly a major presence in the land and their needs and attitudes percolated down the social hierarchies. 30 Then in 69–70 came the revolt of Julius Civilis during the struggle for the imperial throne following Nero’s death. It was quashed by Cerialis, but not before the Oppidum Batavorum at Nijmegen was destroyed. Thereafter the pace of Roman activity increased, not least in Batavian territory. New roads were built, as were new forts and a new town at Nijmegen.31 The stationing of Legio X Gemina on the Hunerberg, with extensive canabae populated by a variety of craftsmen doubtless servicing the military, must have had a significant economic impact, but the civitas Batavorum was refounded on a different site to the west of the earlier oppidum. The designation of the lower Rhine district from Cologne to the coast as the province of Germania Inferior raised its status and there was an increasing reliance on regional food production rather than imports. 32 At some point between 82 and 90, Cologne became the provincial capital, followed at around ad 100 by Trajan’s upgrading of Nijmegen to a municipium. It was renamed Ulpia Noviomagus and had the right to hold a periodic market, a nundina, thereby improving its economic and social prospects. In summary, whilst the Rhine was a prime target of Roman interests from the time of Augustus, the crucial period in defining the frontier was between Claudius’s prudent decision to stop at the Rhine in ad 47 and

An emerging frontier  29 the reign of Trajan. At this point, a developing economy, the process of urbanization, and, one assumes, a society benefiting from these were accompanied by the removal of many of the legionary garrisons to Dacia in about 103–4. This alone demonstrated the stability of the province and justified Trajan’s confidence in the ability of the Batavians to govern themselves. The extent to which the removal of significant elements of the frontier garrison impacted on the local economy is unclear, but by the mid-Antonine period, it must have been doing well because the town of Ulpia Noviomagus was walled in stone, had a regular grid layout and contained a number of public buildings including baths and temples, and possibly a forum, macellum and amphitheatre.33 Two important factors can be identified that affected the process of frontier development: geography and tribal attitudes to the Romans. In geographical terms, the Rhine is a very large river with a number of channels, mainly the Waal as well as the River Maas, flowing into the North Sea. It is a predominantly low-lying, damp, glaciated landscape with a temperate, maritime climate that in the past and at the present day is given over to livestock or mixed farming in the north, but with arable land in Limburg, Belgium and northern France. The Rhine was, therefore, a good point at which to stop. Roman knowledge of what lay beyond the Rhine may have been very limited. Few Greek or Roman explorers had penetrated northwards along the North Sea coast beyond the delta, and the peoples who lived there were seen as ‘barbarians’. We get an impression from Strabo, Caesar and Tacitus that they were viewed as uncivilized, nomadic, not living in towns but in forests and mountains, and warlike and belligerent. Tribal attitudes are less easy to discern, however, but the archaeology of ‘native’ sites can provide an indication of the rapidity with which different groups adapted to the Roman presence through artefactual assemblages, building styles and numbers of farms. Within the lower Rhine area, the picture is varied. Some tribes, such as the Ubii and Tungri, were located on good arable lands exploited by numerous farms and villa estates. Others, including the Batavi and Cananefates in the damp lowlands of the Rhine, had landscapes more suited to livestock and mixed farming, and were less readily converted. They expressed their dislike of the Romans in the revolt led by Civilis in 69–71, burning Nijmegen in the process. To these peoples, the Romans made concessions in the form of tax waivers and guaranteed positions serving in the Roman army, and started the process of urbanization all over again. Frontier formation in the lower Rhineland was not straightforward. It progressed by fits and starts, some peoples readily adapting to Romanization and others less so. Some initiatives worked, others failed. So, when Q. Petillius Cerialis arrived in north Britain as governor in 71 after quelling the revolt of Civilis, he came armed with good relevant experience in dealing with both pro-Roman and potentially hostile factions amongst the native population. His main achievement seems to have been establishing a

30  An emerging frontier firm military presence in the form of a chain of forts from York across the Pennines to Carlisle. Whether or not he went any further north is unclear, but his experience on the Rhine may have taught him that if the policy of endless expansion were to be pursued, it needed a stable base and a compliant native population. In the event, in his three-year tenure as governor, he could only do the initial groundwork. Tacitus’s account of the campaigns of a later governor, Agricola, contains no hint that the progress of conquest would be halted. Indeed, Tacitus makes it clear that Agricola, and possibly his successor, may well have had the conquest of the whole island of Britain in mind, but Domitian decided, probably in 86 or 87, to withdraw from Scotland, 34 echoing Claudius’s instruction to Corbulo about 40 years earlier. From that point on, the question became how and where the limits of Roman authority were to be drawn. No river of comparable magnitude to the Rhine existed in the north, although there were the great arms of the sea represented by Firths of Clyde and Forth and the Solway Firth and Tyne estuary, both with relatively short land routes between, a factor that would be advantageous. The latter route was eventually selected. Troops were gradually withdrawn from Scotland from the late 80s and throughout the 90s, many congregating along the Solway-Tyne corridor which, in the reign of Trajan, became a de facto border with a number of small forts linked by a road, the Stanegate. However, there is no evidence to suggest that the concentration of troops along this line represented anything more than a practical decision. Troops withdrawing from Scotland had to go somewhere. Some were redeployed abroad, but others were needed to protect the province further south.35 The idea of a frontier or border may, therefore, have emerged out of practical necessity once the original plan of total conquest had been abandoned. The choice of this line could have been made easier because it linked two places emerging as nodal hubs on the main north-south routes, Carlisle and Corbridge. Notwithstanding Cartimandua’s pro-Roman stance in her disputes with her husband Venutius in the 60s, more ‘troubles’ erupted at the beginning of Hadrian’s reign, although whether they originated in Brigantia or further north is uncertain. They were dealt with by Q. Pompeius Falco, whose victory culminated in the issue of coins bearing the image of Britannia in 119. Taken at face value, they show that the north was far from placid, a view reinforced in north-west England by the number of forts, implying an ever-present threat of hostilities. It was, perhaps, in response to these hostilities that Hadrian ordered the building of a wall ‘eighty miles long to separate the barbarians and the Romans.’36 Hadrian visited Britain probably in June–July 122 from the German frontier. He arrived with substantial military support including the Sixth Legion from Xanten and 3,000 legionaries from Spain, a detachment of the Praetorian Guard, the Horse Guards, senior senators, the household of his wife Sabina, and his secretariat. It was an operation that must have occupied the existing governor, Pompeius Falco, for some time

Figure 2.3  Map of Hadrian’s Wall. Source: Drawn by Lesley Collett.

32  An emerging frontier beforehand, but it must also have been a hugely impressive demonstration of power to the people of north Britain.37 Details of where Hadrian went in Britain have not been recorded, but the consensus amongst scholars is that he spent some time in the Tyne-­Solway corridor. The bridge across the Tyne, the Pons Aelius, named after him suggests that he was present during its building. It is also possible that he visited other parts of the frontier, including perhaps Carlisle, although that is entirely speculative. At all events, the outcome was the construction of a massive stone curtain wall between Wallsend and Birdoswald and its continuation west to Bowness-on-Solway as an earthen bank (Figure 2.3).38 Along the wall were small fortified gates at intervals of a Roman mile and turrets every third of a mile, whilst on its northern side was a substantial ditch. Some of the soldiers involved in the construction must have been temporarily housed in existing forts along the line, but before the work was completed, a new set of forts was built, including one directly opposite Carlisle on the north bank of the Eden at Stanwix. By 130, there was a new addition, the Vallum, a broad flat-bottomed ditch on the south side of the wall. In the west, the wall terminated at Bowness-on-Solway, but a defensive system continued down the coast perhaps as far as Ravenglass, with milefortlets containing barracks and turrets and linked by a palisade. As no such arrangement is present on the east coast, the implication is that sea-borne hostilities from the west or Scotland were anticipated. To the north, an outpost fort at Netherby on the River Esk defended the northern end of the land corridor at the southern end of which lay Hadrian’s Wall, Stanwix and Carlisle. By any standards in the ancient world, the building of Hadrian’s Wall was an extraordinary feat of logistics and engineering achievement. 39 Although there has been much debate as to how Hadrian viewed the functioning of the Wall, it represented the strongest possible statement that the emperor could make about where he saw the limits of Roman authority. Beyond it, as the author of his biography tells us, were the barbarians. It formalized and strengthened the Stanegate frontier of Trajan, and will have helped control the numbers of people wishing to cross the line. It was the northern limit of Rome’s interest in the province for less than twenty years, until in ad 139 the new emperor, Antoninus Pius, commissioned his then-governor, Q. Lollius Urbicus, to build a new wall between Bo’ness on the south side of the Forth and Old Kilpatrick on the Clyde (the Antonine Wall). Hadrian’s Wall was abandoned and the garrisons moved north.

Carlisle: the early forts and annexe In north Britain, Carlisle (Luguvalium) originated as one fort amongst many established during the governorships of Q. Petillius Cerialis and Gn. Julius Agricola, and it was effectively incorporated into the Hadrianic frontier across the Eden at Stanwix (Figure 2.4). Given that, it follows that the archaeology of Carlisle, evident in a tentative plan of a growing settlement (Figure 2.5), should reflect the evolution of the frontier.

An emerging frontier  33 400

3

Stanwix Fort 570

n

R.

e Ed

Ha

dr ia

n’ s

W al l

5

m

u Vall

Fort

5

560

R.

Urban Area

w lde

Ca

Figure 2.4  Map showing the Roman forts at Carlisle and Stanwix. Source: Adapted from Zant 2009. Drawn by Lesley Collett.

It was almost certainly Cerialis who ordered the building of the first fort, in the angle between the confluence of the Rivers Eden and Caldew, in ad 72–3. This fort was then occupied until the mid to later fourth century, albeit modified on a number of occasions40 with the line of the southern defences being progressively moved southwards, signalling an increase in the internal area. The south gate (porta praetoria) and rampart, the west rampart, the intervallum road (via sagularis) and barracks have been excavated, as well as parts of the main east-west road (via principalis) and northsouth road (via praetoria), parts of the headquarters building (principia) and commanding officer’s residence (praetorium), and other structures including a workshop (fabrica) (Figure 2.6).41 This fort is important for several reasons. First, a number of dendrochronological (tree-ring) dates, together with finds of coins and pottery,

34  An emerging frontier

Figure 2.5  T he main features of Roman Carlisle in the late first and early second centuries. Source: Adapted from Zant 2009. Drawn by Lesley Collett.

establish beyond doubt that it was built of timbers felled in ad 72–3. In the absence of any other signs of earlier activity, these dates appear to settle the controversy as to when the Romans first arrived in Carlisle and under which governor. It was Cerialis and not Agricola.42 Second, the sequence of recorded and well-dated archaeological events provides an invaluable chronological framework against which activities elsewhere in Carlisle and further afield can be assessed. Third, the excavation yielded stylus- and ink-based writing tablets as well as other epigraphic items, supplying important additional detail enabling us to identify some military units. Fourth, a clear picture of construction techniques and the use of space within the fort has emerged for the late first- to mid-third-­ century phases, thanks to excellent preservation in waterlogged ground.43 Cumulatively, these data represent an exceptionally well-preserved and wide-ranging archive which enables us to make comparisons with data

An emerging frontier  35

Figure 2.6  Excavated evidence for the Carlisle fort in its earliest phase. Source: Adapted from Zant 2009. Drawn by Lesley Collett.

elsewhere in northern Britain. The main fort, however, was not the only one in Carlisle. There are strong hints of others, as at Spring Gardens Lane in Botchergate and at Cummersdale, although the dating and relationships of these await clarification.44 The main fort was demolished around ad 103–5, after which there are signs of a partial abandonment, but it was rebuilt (Fort 2), probably in 105 according to the assemblages of samian ware and an unworn coin of 106. The time gap between demolition and rebuilding was sufficiently short as to raise questions about precisely what the Romans intentions were, and hints at a lack of clear thinking. The decision to abandon the fort could have fallen in the governorship of Neratius Marcellus, in which case his successor, whose name is unknown, may have been responsible. The overall context, however, must have been the final stages of withdrawal from Scotland to the Tyne-Solway, a problem originating with Domitian’s decision to rein back taken in 86 or probably 87. It resulted in the line of forts along the Stanegate. Fort 2 (Period 4a) comprised a similar, although not identical, layout to that of the previous phase.45 Barracks were rebuilt, albeit in slightly

36  An emerging frontier different positions to before, but the central range remained basically the same, as were the main road positions. The metalled roads had wattle-lined drains, whilst the central range included a headquarters built of posts, with wattle panels as infill, covered with plaster. Very little of the principia plan has been exposed, but it was separated by a narrow road from another building to its east. The only room of this building so far exposed has been tentatively identified as a possible workshop or fabrica inside which were timber boxes let into the floor, parts of a baker’s peel and a basket. The principia and fabrica fronted the main east-west road, on the opposite side of which were barracks and another fabrica, containing a great deal of leatherworking waste, mostly from shoes, as well as a fair amount of foodstuffs in the form of cereal grains, figs and wild plants, perhaps the residue of soldiers’ meals. Insect fauna suggest a relatively dirty environment. Fort 2 was reorganized in the mid-Hadrianic period (Period 4b). The basic plan of the central range was retained, but the layout south of the via principalis was different. Roads were resurfaced, and new wattle-lined drains and wooden water pipes linked by junction boxes were inserted. Rooms in the principia may have served as weapon stores. The adjacent fabrica continued in use and was associated with much smithing detritus and pieces of armour, including articulated limb and neck guards and plate armour together with weaponry, leather shield covers, shoes, leather and metalworking waste. It is thought that some at least of the armour had probably been discarded as worn out. South of the via principalis, the earlier barracks were demolished and replaced by new barracks and a new fabrica containing much metalworking detritus, many bolt-, arrow- and spearheads and parts of a ballista mechanism. The buildings of the Hadrianic fort (Period 4) were demolished in the 140s, but the roads in Period 5 were retained in use and resurfaced in places, one being equipped with ceramic drains; otherwise there is little evidence that a normal fort occupied the site. This phase in the history of the fort is not understood, but the retention of roads and the presence of three small timber buildings perhaps indicate a continuing ‘official’ use for the site, although its nature is unclear. Generally, soils associated with faunal taxa indicative of damp ground and abandonment, including nettles and rushes, are widely attested over the top of the demolished remains of Period 4. Immediately south of the main fort lay an annexe (Figure 2.5) in which miscellaneous repair, maintenance and presumably ‘servicing’ activities took place, as indicated by the remnants of leatherworking, tents and other items, scrap military metalwork and accommodation for livestock, perhaps prior to being butchered.46 Part of the annexe ditch has also been examined, and was found to contain timbers felled in ad 77–8 and a writing tablet dated 7 November 83.47 The annexe was probably established shortly after the fort was built in the early to mid-70s, but continued to function with modified layouts well into the first half of the second century. An area devoted to potting, including two updraught kilns, and other features thought to belong

An emerging frontier  37 to a more extensive area of activity located in Fisher Street may have lain within the annexe. Wasters recovered point to two phases of potting on this site, the earliest being datable to the Flavian-Hadrianic periods.48

Serving the forts: a military settlement Forts, especially those such as Carlisle serving multiple functions, could not and did not exist in isolation, as scholars in lower Germany have long appreciated. Troops and their horses had to be fed and supplied, building materials had to be obtained and prepared for construction, and roads had to be built for the rapid movement of people and goods, all of which resulted in a great deal of activity in the immediate vicinity of the fort, and this may be the origin of the extra-mural vici. Carlisle differed from other forts in the early stages in that its geographical position conferred logistical advantages, but here the military landscape was the basis of a subsequent townscape. In this it is possible to recognize the emergence of a number of broad zones from the late first century. One of the earliest signs of such activity has been found to the south at Blackfriars Street, where the frontage of the main road was lined with closely spaced, gable-end-on-street ‘strip-buildings’ dating from the late 70s ad (Figure 2.7).49 Initially, two of these resembled open-ended timber structures, one with a central row of posts, perhaps intended for the storage of equipment or vehicles. 50 They were reconstructed in the late first century, probably as housing, but this time with a combination of earth-fast posts, sill-beams and clay floors with traces of hearths (Figure 2.8). Further changes followed in which it is thought that a storage function, although not necessarily for grain, predominated for a time, because a number of buildings with substantial clay-and-cobble foundations probably supporting timber-framed structures, including one partially buttressed, lined the street (Figure 2.9). By the mid to late second century, these were superseded, initially by an abandonment phase and then by ‘strip-buildings’ with ‘craft’ or industrial-­ related functions. At no point in the sequence can property boundaries as such be identified, but we have the impression of a very busy crowded area in which the usage of buildings and plots changed fairly rapidly. Such a pattern is entirely consistent with an expanding frontier settlement acting as a logistical hub for neighbouring military units as well as hosting wider responsibilities. Meanwhile, on the eastern side of Carlisle (The Lanes), an entirely different pattern of activities has been revealed (Figure 2.5). I refer to this in terms of excavation site names, the northern and southern Lanes, because they reflect very different aspects of the settlement at precisely the time when the Roman frontier was becoming a reality. Two functional zones can be recognized. At the northern end, the layout resembles neither a conventional fort nor anything that may be construed as ‘civilian’ in nature, and

38  An emerging frontier

Figure 2.7  T he earliest phase of timber ‘strip-buildings’ at Blackfriars Street. Source: Adapted from McCarthy 1990. Drawn by Lesley Collett.

yet the scale and construction techniques used point to some form of military involvement. For that reason, it is referred to as an ‘official zone’. By contrast, the layout of the southern Lanes is a more conventional non-­ military arrangement of properties and workshops. At the northern end, the first real identifiable structural activity took the form of a ditched enclosure represented by an insubstantial V-shaped ditch containing twigs and the remains of a slighted bank. On the inner lip was a line of stake-holes, perhaps from a rampart revetment. 51 The enclosure

An emerging frontier  39

Figure 2.8  Late first-century ‘strip-buildings’ at Blackfriars Street. Source: Adapted from McCarthy 1990. Drawn by Lesley Collett.

resembles a temporary camp overlooking the crossing point of the Eden, but also, conceivably, providing tented accommodation for the garrison engaged in building the main fort. This phase is undated, there being no associated artefacts, but is thought on stratigraphic grounds to have been earlier than the reign of Hadrian, perhaps late first or very early second century ad. The ‘camp’ was succeeded by a phase of levelling and ground preparation works for a large building, here called a ‘praetorium’ (Figures 2.5 and 2.10).52

40  An emerging frontier

1

2

Building

3

4

internal surface road surface posts/stakes

Figure 2.9  Mid-second-century buildings, probably for storage, at Blackfriars Street. Source: Adapted from McCarthy 1990. Drawn by Lesley Collett.

A single range was uncovered, but there could have been others in unexcavated areas below Scotch Street. The range uncovered was 10 m wide, and was traced for a distance of over 50 m. The walls were very carefully constructed with sill-beams into which studs were tenoned. The wall infill consisted of a double thickness of wattle panels sprung into the studs (Figure 2.11).53 Similar techniques are only known in military contexts in Britain and on the Continent. At least seven rooms were identified, one of which was originally floored with boards resting on timber joists, whilst the others were probably earthen-floored. One room was exceptionally long, at 18 m, whilst the rooms to either side, although not precise equivalents, are nevertheless sufficiently close in character to suggest a ‘mirror image’ layout. Within the destruction material was found a stone hypocaust pila hinting at a heated room somewhere nearby, as well as lumps of molten lead which could be from roofing material or other fittings such as lead pipes. The purpose of this building could not be identified, but from its scale and the care with which it was built, an official function related to

An emerging frontier  41

Figure 2.10  Plan of the ‘praetorium’ in the ‘official zone’ of The Lanes. Source: Drawn by Lesley Collett.

accommodation, perhaps for the governor, is not implausible. 54 On its eastern side was a metalled road slightly less than five metres wide, whilst to the west were fragmentary traces of a timber, clay-floored building. Eventually it was deliberately dismantled and the remains burned. Few datable finds were associated with it, but pottery included two examples of Central Gaulish samian ware and Hadrianic or early Antonine Black Burnished wares, hinting at a date during the second quarter of the second century. If this dating is correct, the military and political context within which the ‘praetorium’ existed was the formative stages of the frontier: that is to say, the period of troop withdrawal from Scotland prior to being redeployed to, amongst other places, the Solway and the Tyne corridor; the ‘troubles’ of the governorship of Falco; and the building of Hadrian’s Wall itself. These were very busy times with many operational complexities almost certainly requiring the presence of senior provincial personnel, and perhaps even Hadrian himself for a short time in 122. Throughout this critical period, the locational advantages of Carlisle as a logistical hub would doubtless have been greatly appreciated. The ‘praetorium’ was dismantled and burned, an event followed by the erection of less substantial, sill-beam-based timber buildings, of which two ranges aligned east-west and north-south were identified. Their function remains unclear, although a military context seems likely. Thereafter, two more timber buildings were erected at the west end of the site, one being a substantial open-ended structure measuring at least 15 m by 6–6.5 m. Eventually,

42  An emerging frontier

Figure 2.11  Reconstruction of the ‘praetorium’ wall. This construction technique is part of the evidence for the northern Lanes being designated an ‘official zone’. Source: Drawn by Edgar Bolton.

all these features were covered by soil deposits up to 30 cm deep formed through a combination of deliberate dumping and natural accumulation. The eastern perimeter of the excavated site was different. Here an impressive timber building, originally interpreted as a temple or more likely a mansio, is tentatively attributed to a late phase in the ‘official zone’ (Figure 2.12).55 Whereas all the other buildings in the northern Lanes had been framed structures, this was constructed from earth-fast timbers set in interconnecting foundation trenches over a metre deep. The building plan exhibits unusual features, including a western façade formed by four timber columns. The northern and southern sides each comprised ranges with at

An emerging frontier  43 least seven rooms, whilst in the centre was a cella- or entrance hall-like structure pierced by opposed eastern and western entrances, behind which was an open area also lined with columns. Broadly contemporary with these, but a short distance to the east at Spring Gardens Lane, a large V-sectioned military ditch, some 4 m wide and 1.3 m deep, was located (Figure 2.5). This also suggests the presence of an important military element, but the excavation was too limited in scale to clarify further details. Pottery in the ditch fill suggests a pre-Hadrianic date, but further work is needed in order to clarify its function. 56

Figure 2.12  P  lan of the possible mansio in the ‘official zone’ of The Lanes. Source: Drawn by Lesley Collett.

44  An emerging frontier To summarize, the ‘official zone’ was characterized by at least two impressive structures, the ‘praetorium’ and the temple/mansio, as well as other buildings of probable military origin. The dating of this sequence in the northern end of The Lanes is problematic. There is a clear stratigraphic and/or spatial relationship between many of the elements, although the temple/mansio poses difficulties. The ‘praetorium’ is associated with small quantities of pottery that could be Hadrianic in date, but little material was found within the possible barracks and mansio/temple structure capable of providing a more nuanced chronology. It is likely to be mid-second century in date, but it was blanketed by an accumulation of soils and artefactual material characteristic of an abandonment phase of mid- to late-Antonine date (see Chapter 4). We now turn to the southern Lanes, where the overall layout was quite different. The earliest feature was an unenclosed round-house thought to be early Roman rather than pre-Roman in date. 57 There followed various ill-defined activities and the construction of roads leading from the east and from the south to the river crossing along what is now Scotch Street. A number of street frontage properties were built, comprising spacious hedged and ditched enclosures within which rectilinear buildings constructed from earth-fast posts and adjacent yards were laid out. 58 One building contained deposits of animal feed in a wooden box let into a floor, whilst another was associated with offcuts of wood, the species of which suggest the manufacture of wooden items of equipment. The general appearance resembles generously sized plots in which farming, manufacturing and domestic activities took place. Associated pottery implies a commencement date in the 80s or 90s, perhaps broadly contemporary with the ditched enclosure or temporary camp to the north, but in a later phase the timbers in one building indicate a construction date in or after ad 93–4.59 The dating context of these is similar to the sequence represented by the possible ‘praetorium’ to temple/mansio described above. A further broad parallel is the presence of an abandonment phase during which quantities of pottery, animal bone and soils containing seeds blanketed many of the early deposits. Precise dating of these is impossible, but a mid-­second-century date is indicated by the ceramic assemblages.60 To the south of the modern city centre and Roman settlement core, there are traces of early activity defined by lengths of V-sectioned military-style ditches two metres deep near Mary Street and Botchergate.61 Nearby, but on the Botchergate frontage, there were a number of late first- and early second-­century cremations. In the Hadrianic period, the cremations were succeeded by intensive industrial activity in a planned industrial quarter with regular fenced plots aligned on the street frontage containing a variety of buildings, some open-fronted and perhaps partially open to the sky, as well as yards, hearths and wells. The relationship between the fort-like complex and this industrial zone is not clear, but the development of the latter extends at least 0.75 km south of the core of the town. It was engaged in both

An emerging frontier  45 primary processing and manufacturing objects, represented by iron slags and much hammerscale, the residue of smithing, as well as lead slags, lead spills, crucibles and lumps of galena thought to have come from the north Pennine orefields.62 This industrial activity seems to have commenced in the reign of Hadrian and to have operated throughout much of the second century, after which it ceased to function. Zant raises the important question of where the stimulus for all this industrial activity originated, and reminds us that much mining and production was undertaken under official supervision.63 This phase (2a in Botchergate) is likely to have been associated with the building of the Hadrianic frontier, but a more intensive phase (2b) followed in the Antonine period, when the fort and other core areas show signs of abandonment. It is conceivable that Carlisle continued to act as a form of logistical hub, but in this instance supplying goods to the Antonine Wall garrisons. Although there are hints that industrial works may have taken place on both sides of the main road south, on the western side two other features have been noted. Firstly, at Collier Lane, archaeological deposits resemble middens or the remains of refuse disposal. Second, and adjacent to the middens, is a large linear earthwork thought to be the base for an aqueduct.64 It began life as a bank, some six metres wide at the base (20 Roman feet), but it was later substantially enlarged.65 It was carefully constructed on the crest of the slope leading down to the river Caldew and was surmounted by a row of large posts, some associated with gullies, suggesting that whatever timber feature existed on the top needed bracing. The date of construction of this earthwork is tentatively placed in the first half of the second century, but it continued to function and must have been a significant topographic feature into the fourth century. Otherwise, the southern end of Carlisle comprised a linear cemetery strung out along what is now Botchergate and London Road.

Conclusion The basic evolution of Carlisle may be summarized as a fort, evolving into a nodal hub, which became a civitas capital. From being one fort amongst many in the campaigns of Cerialis and Agricola, Carlisle acquired a number of activity zones (Figure 2.13). South of the fort and annexe (1, 2) was a zone of closely spaced, gable-end-onstreet ‘strip-buildings’ (3) to the south, and an official zone (4) to the east, adjacent to which were relatively spacious buildings within enclosures (5). Further south was an industrial zone (6) in the half-century or so up to the building of Hadrian’s Wall. On that basis, Carlisle can be characterized as a logistical hub. Administrative functions are hinted at by the presence of a centurio regionarius there, whilst the taking of a census amongst the people of Annandale by a prefect from Vindolanda hints at other administrative and organizational activities at certain key points in the north. The physical

46  An emerging frontier advantages of Carlisle’s location meant that it was well placed to act as a strategic focus and possibly as a supply base for regiments in the west. During the process of withdrawing from Scotland, there seems to have been a massing of troops, which in turn provided an economic and social magnet attracting a range of traders in foodstuffs and equipment, as well as craftsmen and farmers. Other consequences for Carlisle probably included a gradual increase in population coupled with economic growth, whilst the demand for grain and livestock must have expanded substantially. Alongside this must have been a significant ecological impact affecting woodlands and plant communities, thus changing the appearance of the landscape. However, growth is unlikely to have gone unchecked because of the ‘troubles’ that brought Pompeius Falco to Britain at the outset of Hadrian’s reign. If this was relatively short-lived, an even bigger hiatus extending

Figure 2.13  Map locating zones in late first- and second-century Carlisle. Source: Drawn by Lesley Collett.

An emerging frontier  47 over nearly two decades resulted from Antoninus Pius’s decision in 139 to abandon Hadrian’s Wall and relocate the frontier northwards to a new frontier line, the Antonine Wall. It was a move that probably resulted in an abandonment of much of the main fort in Carlisle, as well as some of its extra-mural zones.66 These may be marked by soil spreads accumulating over earlier remains on many sites, and yet industrial activities along Botchergate seem to have continued. However, before this there can be little doubt that Carlisle was a very busy place, attracting people from local communities, albeit dominated by the military garrison in the fort, regiments passing through from Scotland, and those engaged on building programmes including Hadrian’s Wall.67 Whether or not it was endowed with any official status at this time is not known, but the geographical advantages it possessed are unlikely to have been lost on men like Hadrian and their governors. However, as there is nothing in the archaeological record pointing to the outward signs of civic functions, we may conclude that Carlisle was unquestionably much more than a fort, but it had probably not yet graduated to chartered town status.68

Notes 1 Carrock Fell may be Iron Age in date, but no round-houses are known inside the enceinte and there is no convincing dating. 2 McCarthy 2002, 45. 3 Zant 2009, 30. 4 Charlesworth 1978, 115, where she also suggests that this finding ‘strengthens the case for a pre-Roman settlement on the peninsula’ formed by the junctions of the rivers Eden, Caldew and Petteril; McCarthy 1990, 13–4. 5 Esmonde Cleary 1999, 333; Haselgrove 2002, 55–7; McCarthy 2002, 45–6. 6 Turner 1988, 1989. 7 Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland 1997, 129–30. 8 Ibid., Figure 73. 9 Cowley 2000, 171–2. 10 Jobey 1974. 11 It may be pure chance that none have been found. It is worth noting that discoveries of earlier Bronze Age metalwork, including some gold in Cumbria, as well as hillforts in eastern Dumfriesshire, imply a society with access to significant resources. 12 A hierarchical pattern representing different levels of wealth and status in an interlocking network of settlement sites is a perfectly plausible interpretation accounting for the variety of settlement types in Galloway (contra Wilson 2001, 76). 13 Ard-marks, and ards, have been found at Milton Loch and Lochmaben. Querns are also known at Milton and Dowalton Lochs and Trusty’s Hill. 14 Lucas 1989, 12–15. 15 Ross 1967; Fairless 1984; Coulston and Phillips 1988. 16 Other names around the head of the Solway recorded in literary sources or with British derivations include Isca (= R. Esk), Ituna (= R. Eden), Anava (Annan) and Serch (= R. Sark). Stanwix, with its -dunum place-name element, is also close to early sites at Stainton and Cargo. In addition there are -pol or pow names, both referring to streams, in Dumfriesshire and north Cumbria (Armstrong et  al.

48  An emerging frontier

17 18

19

0 2 21

2 2 3 2

4 2

5 2

6 2 27 8 2 9 2 0 3

1950, 465, 468; Coates and Breeze 2000, 281–8). An interesting casual discovery is the top of a massive altar found at Burnfoot Farm, Longtown, about 1997. The site is very close to the point at which the River Esk enters the Solway Firth, a short distance downstream from the fort at Netherby. The nature and location of this find is reminiscent of temples to oceanic and river gods, but so far geophysical survey has been inconclusive as to its archaeological context (Linford, P. and Linford, N. 2001). Davenport 1996. The cauldron, which was not found associated with any other objects, has been repaired many times. Most stone heads cannot be linked with any specific deity, but one of the five ‘Celtic’ heads from Corbridge is janiform, one of the heads having horns. Altars at Corbridge refer to Apollo Maponus and Maponus on his own, as well as Vitiris and Veteris. See RIB 1965; Phillips 1976. At Carrawburgh, Coventina is associated with a well. Frodsham 2004, 43–4; Haselgrove 2002, 57–65. Traces of pre-fort occupation at Corbridge were noted in the early excavations and by Richmond and Gillam (Knowles and Forster 1909; Richmond and Gillam 1955, 224). It should also be noted that plough-marks have also been recorded at Corbridge as well as at Carlisle, but the dating of these is problematic. Hodgson et al. 2012, 210–11; Braund 1996, 15, 19. RIB 1965, 1319–20; Coulston and Phillips 1988, 35; Braund 1996. Braund notes that the religious status of rivers ‘was not just a matter for Greeks and poets, but a concern of Romans too both at the frontier and at the centre of power’. The act of crossing rivers, bridging them or sailing on them was regarded as a big undertaking. A pre-Roman origin for the Carvetii has not been established. It could be a Roman creation, but if so, it does not rule out the possibility of an earlier tribal grouping. The -dunum place-name at Stanwix is of interest in this regard. See n. 16. This suggestion may be entirely fanciful because horned gods, sometimes identified with Cernunnos, are a pan-European phenomenon. However, we should be wary of suggesting that presence of horned heads in, say, Gaul, had the same meaning for local people as they may have had in Cumbria. The concentration of sculptured representations in northern Britain is of interest. See also Edwards 2006. See also Keller and Staubach 1994 and Creighton 2006. At least nine out of 16 civitas capitals were built on or relatively close to tribal centres, including Brough-on-Humber, Canterbury, Chichester, Cirencester, Dorchester (Dorset), Ilchester, Leicester, Silchester and Winchester. Carlisle may yet be added to this list. Another area in Cumbria that may have been attributed with sacral qualities is that centred on Penrith, where a combination of the Mayburgh/ Eamont Bridge sites, a concentration of dedications to Belatucadros, the church of Ninekirks and the monastic site at Dacre all lie within a short distance of one another. As with Carlisle, Penrith also enjoyed natural advantages as an intersection of north-south and east-west routeways, hence the need for the fort and vicus, and a later castle at Brougham. There are increasing numismatic hints that the early forays into Brigantia and Scotland were made by Bolanus, and that he may also have resolved the uprising of Venutius rather than Cerialis, but the issue remains unresolved. See Shotter 2000. Carroll 2001; Lendering and Bosman 2012. Van Enckevort and Thijssen 2003; Willems and Van Enckevort 2009, 19 et seq. Tacitus, Annals, 11: 19. Ibid. See also Cavallo et al. 2008, 77–8. Roymans 1995; Vermeulen 1995.

An emerging frontier  49 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 4 4 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52

53

54

Willems 1986; Roymans 1995, 57; 2004; Carroll 2001. Cavallo et al. 2008, 78. Willems 1986, 262. Tacitus, Histories, 1.2. Forts along the Stanegate in the west include Carlisle, Brampton, Nether Denton, Throp, Carvoran and Haltwhistle Burn. SHA 1991, 11.2. Birley 2000, 123–41. There is a substantial literature on Hadrian’s Wall extending back to the sixteenth century (Birley 1961). The basic text followed today is Breeze and Dobson 2000. Hill 2010. Frere 1990, 320–1; McCarthy 2002. See also Caruana 1992, 105–9. Zant 2009. An important part of the site remains unpublished, although draft texts are lodged with Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery. But see n. 25 with regard to Bolanus. The mid and late Roman sequences were also revealing, although in these phases there was less organic survival. Esmonde Cleary 1996, 405; 1998, 381–2. These are not as well preserved as the main fort. Zant 2009, 163–201. McCarthy 1991. Caruana 1992. Johnson and Anderson 2008 is very brief with regard to the pottery, but Swan et al. 2009, 593–4, contains more detail. McCarthy 1990. One building was not unlike those uncovered at the Red House fort, Corbridge, for which see Hanson et al. 1979. See also Hodgson 2008, 48. Period 3 in the site phasing. The phasing is based in part upon the work of John Zant, but the interpretation offered here is that of the present writer. The ‘praetorium’ (Period 4) refers to Building D1560 in the site phasing. Black, who regards the type site as Inchtuthil, points out that the term is inadequately defined in the literary and epigraphic sources except that it implies use by high-ranking officers. For the Carlisle building he prefers the more neutral word ‘mansio’ (Black 1995, 23–4). However, taking account of the exceptional care with which the building was constructed and what little is known of the plan, usage by a senior official seems entirely plausible. Some scholars may take exception to the use of the word ‘praetorium’ in this particular context, but my intention is simply to signify the presence of an important structure to which I attribute an official function greater than that of a mansio. The walls were extremely carefully prepared. Oak ground sills were laid in wide but shallow construction trenches, parts of which had been backfilled, partly with offcuts and wood-shavings, to ensure that the sills were level. The sills were linked together by a combination of scarfed and dovetail joints. The principal uprights were mortised and tenoned into the sills, whilst the wall infill comprised double-thickness, vertically aligned wattlework panels which had been sprung into the uprights through notches in the sides. Finally, the wattle was coated in daub and covered with a thin coating of white plaster on both internal and external surfaces. No trace of other colours was recorded amongst the plaster fragments. Similar building techniques are recorded in the fort (Zant 2009, 423–4), as well as at Valkenburg in the Rhine delta, Verulamium, London and Colchester. Features that may be associated with this building have been located at 42–48 Scotch Street, including a monumental-sized base. Its function is

50  An emerging frontier

55

56 5 7 58 59 0 6 61 62 63 4 6 5 6 6 6

7 6 68

unclear, but it probably belonged to the first half of the second century ­(Giecco 2004, 62). Black (1995, 24) suggested that this too was a mansio, because the square building plan with opposed doors does not work so convincingly for a temple. The ranges of rooms to either side could be intended as overnight accommodation. The jury is out on the interpretation. Esmonde Cleary 1994, 263. McCarthy 2000. Little useful datable material can be associated with this phase. Ibid. The enclosures and buildings represent a quite different element in the urban layout to those discovered at Blackfriars Street, which were tightly packed along the street frontage. Ibid. Ibid. Esmonde Cleary 1999, 333; Giecco et al. 2001. Mack et al. 2011, 92–8. Zant et al. 2011, 106–8. McCarthy 2002, 85. Zant nd. Very little is known of the outpost fort at Netherby. That it may have originated in the Flavian period is probable but uncorroborated, but it is thought to have formed part of the Hadrianic defensive system (Breeze and Dobson 2000, 84). The interconnectedness of the north is becoming increasingly clear as a result of discoveries of writing tablets at Vindolanda, Carlisle and London. On the basis that the Roman state in the first and second centuries was always keen to advertise its superiority and the benefits of ‘Romanness’, it is fair to assume that had Carlisle been elevated to civitas capital status it would have boasted some of the trappings that went with it, as was probably the case at Aldborough. There is no sign of that scale of investment. We can discount the ‘official zone’ as being civic in nature, partly because none of its buildings were permanent, and the whole zone was ultimately replaced by others of a manifestly humbler and domestic appearance.

References Armstrong, A.M., Mawer, A., Stenton, F.M. and Dickins, B. 1950. The PlaceNames of Cumberland. Cambridge. Birley, A.R. 2000. Hadrian the Restless Emperor. London and New York. Birley, E. 1961. Research on Hadrian’s Wall. Kendal. Black, E.W. 1995. Cursus Publicus: The Infrastructure of Government in Roman Britain. British Archaeological Reports, British Series, 241. Oxford. Braund, D. 1996. Ruling Roman Britain. London and New York. Breeze, D.J. and Dobson, B. 2000. Hadrian’s Wall. 4th edn. London. Carroll, M. 2001. Romans, Celts and Germans: The German Provinces of Rome. Stroud. Caruana, I.D. 1992. ‘Carlisle: excavation of a section of the annexe ditch of the first Flavian fort, 1990’, Britannia 23: 45–109. Cavallo, C., Kooistra, L.I. and Dütting, M.K. 2008. ‘Food supply to the Roman army of the Rhine delta’, in Feeding the Roman Army: The Archaeology of Production and Supply in NW Europe, eds. S. Stallibrass and R. Thomas, 19–30. Oxford.

An emerging frontier  51 Charlesworth, D. 1978. ‘Roman Carlisle’, Archaeological Journal 135: 115–37. Coates, R. and Breeze, A. 2000. Celtic Voices, English Places. Studies of the Celtic Impact on Place-Names in England. Stamford. Coulston, J.C. and Phillips, E.J. 1988. Corpus Signorum Imperii Romani: Great Britain 1:6 Hadrian’s Wall West of the North Tyne and Carlisle. Oxford. Cowley, D. 2000. ‘Site morphology and regional variation in the later prehistoric settlement of south west Scotland’, in J. Harding and R. Johnston eds., 167–76. Creighton, J. 2006. Britannia: The Creation of a Roman Province. London and New York. Davenport, J. 1996. ‘The Bewcastle cauldron’, Trans. Cumberland Westmorland Antiquarian Archaeological Society 2 ser. 96: 228–30. Edwards, B.J.N. 2006. ‘The ‘caput’ Carvetiorum and the putative god of the tribe’, Trans. Cumberland Westmorland Antiquarian Archaeologial Society 3 ser. 6: 221–6. Esmonde Cleary, A.S. 1994. ‘Roman Britain in 1993’, Britannia 25: 261–291. Esmonde Cleary, A.S. 1996. ‘Roman Britain in 1995’, Britannia 27: 389–438. Esmonde Cleary, A.S. 1998. ‘Roman Britain in 1997’, Britannia 29: 365–432. Esmonde Cleary, A.S. 1999. ‘Roman Britain in 1998’, Britannia 30: 319–86. Fairless, K.J. 1984. ‘Three religious cults from the northern frontier region’, in Between and Beyond the Walls: Essays on the Prehistory and History of Northern Britain in Honour of George Jobey, eds. R. Miket and C. Burgess, 224–42. Edinburgh. Frere, S.S. 1990. ‘Roman Britain in 1989: I. Sites explored’, Britannia 21: 304–64. Frodsham, P. 2004. Archaeology in the Northumberland National Park. CBA Research Report 136. York. Giecco, F. 2004. 42– 48 Scotch Street, Carlisle, Cumbria. Wardell Armstrong ­Archaeology CP51/2004. Nenthead. Archaeology Data Service, York. doi:10.5284/ 1033342. Giecco, F., Zant, J., Craddock, G. and Wigfield, N. 2001. Interim Report on Archaeological Excavations between Mary Street and Tait Street, Botchergate, Carlisle. Unpublished. Carlisle Archaeology Ltd Client Report 15/01. Carlisle. Hanson, W.S., Daniels, C.M., Dore, J.M. and Gillam, J.P. 1979. ‘The Agricolan supply base at Red House, Corbridge’, Archaeologia Aeliana 5 ser. 7: 1–97. Harding, J. and Johnston, R. eds. 2000. Northern Pasts: Interpretations of the Later Prehistory of Northern England and Southern Scotland. British Archaeological Reports, British Series 302. Oxford. Haselgrove, C. 2002. ‘The Later Bronze Age and the Iron Age in the Lowlands’, in Past, Present and Future: The Archaeology of Northern England, eds. C. Brooks, R. Daniels and A. Harding, 49–69. Architectural and Archaeological Society of Durham and Northumberland Research Report 5. Durham. Hill, P. 2010. The Construction of Hadrian’s Wall. Stroud. Hodgson, N. 2008. ‘The development of the Roman site at Corbridge from the first to third centuries ad’, Archaeologia Aeliana 5 ser. 37: 47–92. Hodgson, N., McKelvey, J. and Muncaster, W. 2012. The Iron Age on the Northumberland Plain: Excavations in Advance of Development 2002–2010. Newcastle, Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums Archaeol. Monograph 3. Newcastle upon Tyne. Jobey, G. 1974. ‘Excavations at Boonies, Westerkirk, and the nature of RomanoBritish settlement in Eastern Dumfriesshire, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 105 (1972–4): 119–40.

52  An emerging frontier Johnson, M. and Anderson, S. 2008. ‘Excavation of two Romano-British pottery kilns and associated structures at Fisher Street, Carlisle’, Transactions of Cumberland Westmorland Antiquarian Archaeological Society 3 ser. 8: 19–35. Keller, H. and Staubach, N. eds. 1994. Mythos, Bildkunst und Dichtung in der Religions und Sozialgeschichte Alteuropas. Institut für Frühmittelalterforschung der Universität Münster. Münster. Knowles, W.H. and Forster, R.H. 1909. ‘Corstopitum, report on the excavations 1908’, Archaeologia Aeliana 3 ser. 5: 305–424. Lendering, J. and Bosman, A. 2012. Edge of Empire: Rome’s Frontier on the Lower Rhine. Rotterdam. Linford, P. and Linford, N. 2001. Burnfoot Farm, Longtown, Cumbria. Report on a Geophysical Survey August 2000. English Heritage Centre for Archaeology Report 27/2001. Lucas, A.T. 1989. Cattle in Ancient Ireland. Kilkenny. McCarthy, M.R. 1990. A Roman, Anglian and Medieval Site at Blackfriars Street, Carlisle: Excavations 1977–9. Cumberland Westmorland Antiquarian Archaeological Society Research Series 4. Kendal. McCarthy, M.R. 1991. The Roman Waterlogged Remains and Later Features at Castle Street, Carlisle: Excavations 1981–2. Cumberland Westmorland Antiquarian Archaeological Society Research Series 5. Kendal. McCarthy, M.R. 2000. ‘Prehistoric settlement in northern Cumbria’, in J. Harding and R. Johnston eds., 131–40. McCarthy, M.R. 2002. Roman Carlisle and the Lands of the Solway. Stroud. Mack, I., Powell, A., McDonnell, G. and Murphy, S. 2011. ‘The metallurgical residues’, in J. Zant et al., 92–8. Metzler, J., Millett, M., Roymans, N. and Slofstra, J. eds. 1995. Integration in the Early Roman West. Dossiers d’Archéologie du Musée National d’Histoire et d’Art 4. Luxembourg. Phillips, E.J. 1976. ‘Unfinished Roman sculptures in North Britain’, Archaeological Journal 133: 50–6. RIB. 1965. The Roman Inscriptions of Britain. I. Inscriptions on Stone, R.G. Collingwood and R.P. Wright. Oxford. Richmond, I.A. and Gillam, J.P. 1955. ‘Some excavations at Corbridge 1952–1954’, Archaeologia Aeliana 4 ser. 33: 218–52. Ross, A. 1967. Pagan Celtic Britain. London. Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland. 1997. Eastern Dumfriesshire: An Archaeological Landscape. Edinburgh. Roymans, N. 1995. ‘Romanization, cultural identity and ethnic discussion. The integration of lower Rhine populations in the Roman Empire’, in Metzler et al. eds., 47–64. Roymans, N. 2004. Ethnic Identity and Imperial Power: The Batavians in the Early Roman Empire. Amsterdam. SHA. 1991. Scriptores Historiae Augusta Colloquium. Nova Series. Bari. Shotter, D. 2000. ‘The Roman conquest of the north-west’, Transactions of Cumberland Westmorland Antiquarian Archaeological Society 2 ser. 100: 33–53. Swan, V.G., McBride, R.M. and Hartley, K.F. 2009. ‘The coarse pottery (including amphorae and mortaria)’, in The Carlisle Millennium Project: Excavations in Carlisle 1998–2001. Volume 2 The Finds, C. Howard-Davis, 566–659. Oxbow/ Lancaster Imprints 14. Oxford.

An emerging frontier  53 Tacitus, Annals. 1956. Tacitus: The Annals of Imperial Rome, ed. M. Grant. Harmondsworth. Tacitus, Histories. 1997. Tacitus: The Histories, trans. and ed. W.H. Fyfe and D.S. Levine. Oxford. Turner, R.C. 1988. ‘A Cumbrian bog body found in Seascale Moss in 1834’, Transactions of Cumberland Westmorland Antiquarian Archaeological Society 2 ser. 89: 21–4. Turner, R.C. 1989. ‘Another Cumbrian bog body from Scaleby’, Transactions of Cumberland Westmorland Antiquarian Archaeological Society 2 ser. 88: 1–8. Van Enckevort, H. and Thijssen, J. 2003. ‘Nijmegen – a Roman town in the frontier zone of Germania Inferior’, in The Archaeology of Roman Towns: Studies in Honour of John S. Wacher, ed. P. Wilson, 59–71. Oxford. Vermeulen, F. 1995. ‘The role of local centres in the Romanization of northern Belgica’, in Metzler et al. eds., 183–98. Willems, W.J.H. 1986. Romans and Batavians: A Regional Study in the Dutch Eastern River Area. Amersfoort. Willems, W.J.H. and Van Enckevort, H. 2009. Ulpia Noviomagus, Roman Nijmegen: The Batavian Capital at the Imperial Frontier. Journal Roman Archaeology Supplementary Series 73. Portsmouth. Wilson, A. 2001. ‘The Novantae and Romanization in Galloway’, Transactions of the Dumfriesshire Galloway Natural History Archaeological Society 3 ser, 75: 73–131. Zant, J. 2009. The Carlisle Millennium Project: Excavations in Carlisle 1998–2001. Volume 1: Stratigraphy. Oxbow/Lancaster Imprints 14. Oxford. Zant, J. nd. ‘Excavations at Collier Lane, Carlisle: provisional phasing (archive report)’, unpublished manuscript, Carlisle Archaeological Unit. Zant, J., Miller, I., Murphy, S. and Hughes, V. 2011. ‘Archaeological excavation on a Roman cemetery, industrial site and medieval suburb at 53–55 Botchergate, Carlisle, 2001’, in Carlisle: Excavations at Rickergate 1998–9 and 53–55 Botchergate 2001, ed. R. Newman, 71–130. Cumberland Westmorland Antiquarian Archaeological Society Research Report 2. Bowness-on-Windermere.

3 Luguvalium Fabric and townscape

Towards urbanization By the time the Antonine Wall was abandoned around 160 and Hadrian’s Wall was reoccupied, the idea of urbanization, that is, concentrations of people with important economic, social and administrative structures, was well established across Britain as it was in lower Germany and elsewhere. In the province of Gallia Belgica, scholars have drawn attention to the rapid growth of towns, whilst peoples of the neighbouring province of Germania Inferior may have been slower to adopt urban life. In Britain, tribes in the south-east were embracing many urban features based on Roman models from the time of Augustus on, and by the end of the first century ad, three British coloniae and a network of civitas capitals were established, as well as numerous smaller towns. In northern Britain, however, the process of urbanization was much more protracted because firm military control was maintained, so leaving less room for municipalization and self-government. The need for such control is arguably a reflection of an unstable situation manifested in the belligerence evident at the start of Hadrian’s reign, and implied further north in the later second century. A common prerequisite for municipalization was a good natural resource base, including land suitable for arable agriculture as well as livestock, as in Gallia Belgica where the adoption of Roman ways of life proceeded fairly rapidly, assisted by fertile loess soils. In the north of England, lands east of the Pennines are generally much better endowed than those to the west, the notable exception being the fertile soils of the Eden valley which extend along the south side of the Solway towards Burgh-by-Sands.1 Another useful precondition for urban life is that local societies should have a relatively well-­developed social structure, but this is difficult to envisage in north-west England, where the Iron Age still remains largely invisible in terms of field monuments and artefacts. Finally, although not in itself a prerequisite for town growth, the process of urbanization could be aided if the area already held some significance for local people, as would be the case with devotional or ceremonial activity, meetings of tribal leaders or connections with ancestors.2 As shown in Chapter 2, Carlisle in the first quarter of the second century was a very busy place with widespread connections, all enhanced by the

Luguvalium: fabric and townscape  55 Wall-building programme. It must have been adversely affected in 139 when the Wall was abandoned in favour of the Antonine Wall, but then the fortunes of Luguvalium should have revived when Hadrian’s Wall was reoccupied from about 160. Unfortunately, the archaeological evidence is not sufficiently precise to allow us to chart this phase in its history in any detail, but it seems to show the fort site to have been in abeyance in the late second century, whilst a hiatus or abandonment phase characterizes much of the northern (‘official’) end of The Lanes zone. Similarly, it is not entirely clear when some of the buildings in the core area of Blackfriars Street were reoccupied after a hiatus there in the Hadrianic and early Antonine periods. If Carlisle in the later second century appears to be a little out of focus, as it were, from the early third century, the situation is clearer. From this time, most sites show signs of intensive activity, and the earlier pattern of zonation had disappeared (Figure 3.1). The fort was revived, but elsewhere in the core areas and the northern and southern Lanes areas, there is much evidence of domestic life and conceivably some civic pride. Insofar as

Figure 3.1  Map of Carlisle in the third and fourth centuries. Source: Adapted from Zant 2009. Drawn by Lesley Collett.

56  Luguvalium: fabric and townscape it is possible to judge, geophysical survey in the Cathedral precinct hints at a dense pattern of stone buildings, perhaps ‘strip-buildings’. 3 The situation at Corbridge, which theoretically could have been a parallel for Carlisle, is similarly confused.

The military and administration The one constant feature of Carlisle from its earliest inception to the late Roman town was the Roman army, but the apparent abandonment of the fort in the Antonine period is an unresolved problem. Apart from a small number of timber buildings, none of which have any especially military characteristics, it seems to be devoid of internal features until, in the early third century, the fort was both enlarged and rebuilt in stone.4 It was enlarged by moving the defences southwards a short distance, thereby taking in part, if not all, of the former annexe. The western rampart may also have been reconstructed very slightly to the west of the earlier defence, but this time with a stone revetment wall separating it from the intervallum road. The position of two of the main internal roads, the viae praetoria and principalis, remained unchanged, but a new headquarters was erected over its predecessor. Between the central range and the southern defences, the land was mainly occupied by barracks, but they were oriented east-west rather than north-south as in previous phases (Figure 3.2). The headquarters building, of which only one corner was exposed, had a colonnade on its southern side, but not enough is known about the internal arrangements to add useful further detail. South of the via principalis, into which new wooden drainpipes were inserted, lay two east/west-aligned buildings of uncertain function, but adjacent to them, and on either side of the via praetoria, were four barracks, each with eight double rooms. In its initial phase, this stone fort lasted until around the turn of the third and fourth centuries, the precise date not being known. After that, modifications to individual buildings were made. 5 The internal layout of the headquarters now included a room with a hypocaust and a toilet inserted against an external wall. The pit for the latrine contained waterlogged plant remains, mostly food taxa. The end of this phase of activity can be dated by pottery and coins to around the mid-fourth century, after which further modifications took place, extending its life into the early fifth century, when the headquarters were a particular focus of activity. The walls show further signs of modification, including traces of what may be a portico or lean-to timber structures. Relatively large numbers of coins, butchery waste and pottery were found on and embedded in the adjacent road surfaces. There seems to have been a conventional military use for the fort up to the turn of the third and fourth centuries, but thereafter, it is possible that soldiers’ wives and families were also present, although there are no specific signs of ‘chalets’ as at Housesteads or Wallsend and Birdoswald. The lack of certainty on this point is emphasized by the scarcity of anything

Luguvalium: fabric and townscape  57

Figure 3.2  Plan of the praetentura of the fort in the third century. Source: Adapted from Zant 2009. Drawn by Lesley Collett.

distinctly female in the finds assemblages, many of the items recovered, such as earrings, bangles and hairpins, belonging just as easily to males as females. By the same token, there is little that is distinctly military either, so that the nature of the occupancy must remain uncertain. It seems fair to conclude, however, that at the very end, strict military discipline had collapsed and that parts of the fort, as around the headquarters, were being used for other purposes, including a possible market function.6 Some of the post-holes and post-settings in the road may have been shanty leantos around which butchery waste and coins accumulated, not dissimilar to those at the bath house in Wroxeter.7 Clearly, the military retained a strong presence in Carlisle from the early third century, but by this time, its status had been upgraded to the rank of civitas capital, which meant that a town council assumed responsibility for administering the territory of the Carvetii. The evidence for this new status is firstly a milestone found at Langwathby, near Penrith, set up in the second year of Alexander Severus’s reign, ad 223, recording a distance of 19 miles from the ‘…civitas Carvetiorum Luguvalio’.8 Second, at Frenchfield Farm, near the fort at Brougham (Brocavum), another milestone refers to the Res Publica Civitas Carvetiorum, whilst a fourth-­ century tombstone from Old Penrith (Voreda), on the road between Carlisle

58  Luguvalium: fabric and townscape and Brougham, commemorates Flavius Martius Seniori who is described as a quaestor of the civitas Carvetiorum, that is to say, Luguvalium.9 Exactly when this upgrade in status occurred is uncertain. Theoretically, it could have been almost any time between the later second century and ad 223, but a likely context lies in the reigns of either Severus or his son, Antoninus (Caracalla), during which new military arrangements in northern Britain were put in place. Arising out of this, the army ceded administrative control of the northern civitates, which were put on the same footing as others further south. The civitas of the Carvetii will have comprised the community and its lands (territorium) with Luguvalium as its capital.10 The location of the tombstone and milestones suggests that its core territory was the Eden valley, but Birley has argued that it may have extended southwards into the Lake District because a third milestone, at Middleton-in-Lonsdale, records a distance, 53 miles. No places are mentioned, but 53 miles is the distance from there to Carlisle.11 Whether the Carvetii also extended westwards towards the coast is not known, but if not, Papcastle near Cockermouth is increasingly showing signs of being more extensive and complex than a fort and vicus arrangement, and could have fulfilled a similar role in the west. A civitas capital was a chartered town ranking slightly lower than a colonia or municipium, although in practice such distinctions are unlikely to have made much difference to the local populace on a day-to-day basis. As a chartered town, it would have had some public spaces and buildings and served as the administrative centre for its territory. It was the place where local and state taxes were paid and where judicial proceedings were heard, as well as being a market for traders and the locus for leisure facilities and local cults. As the territorial capital, there would have been an important administrative function undertaken by a council (ordo), membership of which was usually drawn from the local elites. Theoretically, the council was run by two senior and two junior magistrates (duoviri iuridicundo and aediles), with financial help provided by quaestors and a council of 100 decurions. However, whilst such numbers may have obtained in some of the southern British civitates, it is highly unlikely to have been enforced on the northern frontier, as the qualification for membership was based on property or wealth, the visible manifestations of which are conspicuously lacking in the archaeological record in the north-west. Indeed, it is difficult to see how most northern civitates could have returned as many as 100 of even moderately wealthy individuals! One must assume, therefore, that the overall numbers were smaller and the qualifications for membership relaxed to include retired military personnel and traders.12 The magistrates were responsible for adjudicating in the courts, ensuring that everyone paid their taxes as well as providing for public services including water supply (aqueducts), public buildings, games and the observance of religious duties and festivals. There is very little evidence for the working of local government anywhere in Roman Britain, but one of the very few examples

Luguvalium: fabric and townscape  59 of named individuals and their office is a now-lost tombstone from Old Penrith which reads: ‘d m fl martio sen in c carvetior questorio vixit ann xxxxv martiola filia et heres… ponen…curavit’ (To the spirits of the departed and to Flavius Martius Seniori in the community of the Carvetii, of quaestorian rank, who had lived 45 years Martiola his daughter and heiress had set this up).13 Despite difficulties with this inscription, given the reference to an office and the tribal name, Flavius Martius Seniori can be identified as a quaestor in the civitas Carvetiorum.14 As with other civitates, that of the Carvetii probably embraced other lesser administrative units including vici and possibly pagi. Vici in northern Britain were built-up settlements adjacent to forts, with simple networks of roads, lanes, the occasional public building and numerous ‘strip-buildings’. They seem to have been civilian communities administered by magistrates of the vicani, and they had their own territorium. Some of the vicani are memorialized on tombstones, as at Old Carlisle, Vindolanda and Housesteads, but there will certainly have been others at Brougham and Maryport as well as other Wall forts.15

The developing townscape Within the space of a few months in ad 72–3, as we saw in Chapter 2, the landscape of Carlisle was transformed from being a damp, scrubby place, perhaps a ‘native’ farm and a few fields, into a large building site in which a permanent fort was constructed. Outside the fort, a number of zones emerged, most or all of which will have serviced the fort. One of these zones was at Blackfriars Street (see Figure 2.13, zone 3), part of the core settlement where in the mid to late second century, a hiatus or abandonment phase of soils and silts has been identified covering the sites of earlier Roman houses. It was broadly contemporary with a relocation of military personnel to the Antonine Wall. Then, probably late in the second or early in the third century, several ‘strip-buildings’ were built with their gable ends abutting the main road from the south (Figure 3.3). They each appeared to have a narrow room on the frontage spanning the width of the property, behind which was a variety of internal subdivisions. Floors in Building 1 were boarded on joists. Building 2 may also have had boarded floors in places, but it also had a passage down one side and large clay oven towards the rear. A narrow gap separated it from the next property, Building 2/3, the internal layout of which is not known. Occupancy of all three seems to continue through the third century into the fourth.16 Another abandonment phase followed, with traces of a fire in Building 1, and accompanied by soil, or probably midden, deposits containing residual pottery. Further reconstruction of ‘strip-buildings’ followed, and in the late

60  Luguvalium: fabric and townscape

Figure 3.3  Plan of ‘strip-buildings’ dating to the third-fourth centuries at Blackfriars Street. Source: Adapted from McCarthy 1990. Drawn by Lesley Collett.

fourth or early fifth century a new roughly metalled side road was inserted between Buildings 1 and 2. In its final phase, Building 2 was rebuilt again, constructed of posts set in holes, and an oven was inserted into the rear.17 Close by at Carlisle Cathedral, the same main road from the south has been identified, also with parts of buildings fronting it. Here, the late Roman archaeological sequence is similar to that at Blackfriars Street, showing that the declining standards of occupancy at both sites were essentially the same. 18

Luguvalium: fabric and townscape  61 Another area in The Lanes on the eastern side of Carlisle underwent a transformation between the late second and early third centuries (see Figure 2.13, zones 4–5). At both northern and southern ends, an abandonment phase, thought to be contemporary with that found on Blackfriars Street, comprised dumps of soil with pottery and animal bones that can be attributed to the mid-to-late Antonine period. At the southern end, the density of buildings at the intersection of two main roads seems to have increased on previous phases. As at Blackfriars Street, the new buildings were based on clay-and-cobble footings, probably supporting framed structures, some of which had boarded and joisted floors. Most were probably ‘strip-buildings’ combining domestic with craft- or farming-related functions, to judge by numerous re-floorings, hearths and a double-flued oven.19 Also associated were seeds of cultivation and cereal grain, as well as seeds of grapes, figs, and herbs and spices such as coriander, suggesting the presence of human waste and animal fodder. 20 Insect remains support this general conclusion, with human fleas and lice and beetles typical of stable manure deposits. Heathland taxa point to the importation of plant material, including peat, for use as fuel or as turf for animal bedding or even roofing material. 21 Along the road to the east, dumps of soil and animal bone, midden-like in character, were found, incorporating very young or neonatal sheep and pigs, perhaps evidence that they were being raised in the locality, together with cattle bones doubtless representing beasts brought in for slaughter. 22 At the northern end, the abandonment phase covering the ‘official area’ referred to above was now occupied by a group of buildings with domestic and agricultural functions, beginning in the late second or early third centuries (Figure 3.4).23 The evolution of this landscape, which can be followed through to the end of the Roman occupation, was centred on a substantial timber-built ‘strip-building’, some 26–28 m long by 5.9 m wide (Figure 3.4a,b). 24 Aligned east-west, it contained at least five rooms, some of which had floors of carefully prepared clay, and was flanked by a road on its southern side. At some point the eastern room was demolished in order to allow room for another timber building aligned at right angles. 25 This was shorter in length, but the spacing of the posts suggests a barnlike structure, perhaps with a wide door such that livestock or carts could enter. A third smaller building opposite the ‘strip-building’ also had a wide entrance on its north side facing the road. 26 Taken together, this complex looks as though it contained a house serviced by a metalled trackway and accompanied by two other agricultural buildings. Eventually they were demolished, although probably not all at the same time, to be replaced by a new structure, this time with stone footings (Figure 3.4c,d). 27 This property is a house with associated yards and other structures. It began as a single-range, north/south-aligned building measuring 15 m by 6.5 m, divided into three equal-sized spaces, the centre space being further divided by central partition. It was later enlarged by the addition of two rooms on its eastern side forming short projecting wings,

Figure 3.4  S chematic plan showing the development of a third- and fourth-century property in Keay’s Lane. Source: Drawn by Lesley Collett.

Luguvalium: fabric and townscape  63 probably flanking an eastern entrance (Figure 3.5). The central room was remodelled into a single ‘hall-like’ space, whilst to the west a corridor was added. Subsequently, a new projecting square room was added at the southern end of the corridor, containing a hypocaust with masonry pilae served by an external praefurnium. Heat was channelled between the pilae through an arched opening and upwards along vertical voids in the walls. A masonry foundation may have supported an external stair to an upper room above the hypocaust. Later still, a small additional room abutting the praefurnium was added.

Figure 3.5  Plan of the latest phase of the house in Keay’s Lane in the fourth century. Source: Drawn by Lesley Collett.

64  Luguvalium: fabric and townscape Externally, and abutting it at right angles, was a timber lean-to shed that was itself replaced by a timber, clay-floored ancillary building. 28 Its north wall was open-sided on to a lane. The house also had a yard to its west and was separated from adjacent properties by metalled lanes and fence posts. In the yard, there was a stone-lined well at least 10 m deep. The complex resembles the dwelling of a townsman whose fortunes gradually improved over time, to judge by the various additions made to the building. On its northern side in Law’s Lane, parts of an adjacent property included timber buildings based on padstones. These may have been ‘ancillary’ structures to a house that probably lay beyond the area investigated, although it could have been the house from which two fine bronze jugs, found in Sewell’s Lane in the nineteenth century, originated. 29 On its southern side south of Keay’s Lane was an open area containing a tree. In the late second or early third century, the former industrial zone along Botchergate was abandoned and the land used as a linear cemetery (Figure 3.6). Although the total number of burials now known from Carlisle exceeds 100 with a cremation to inhumation ratio of about 2:1, it is difficult to recognize trends over time, largely because many discoveries in the

Figure 3.6  Distribution of Roman burials along Botchergate. Source: Adapted from Zant 2011. Drawn by Lesley Collett.

Luguvalium: fabric and townscape  65 nineteenth century were poorly recorded. The burials include cremated ashes deposited in a small hole without accompanying features; ashes placed in a pot but with no evidence of a pyre with a pit directly below to catch bone and other items; and inhumations in wooden, lead or stone coffins. So far, there is no evidence for elaborate mausolea, although some sculpture found in the nineteenth century shows that above-ground memorials were present as well as tombstones. In the first instance, burials were positioned close to the Botchergate frontage, but when industrial activity commenced in the early second century, they were confined to land at the rear. Then when the industrial activity ceased, burials along the frontage were resumed. The cemetery extended south of the core settlement from around the old gaol for a distance of nearly a kilometre on both sides of Botchergate. In addition to a variety of housing, Roman townscapes usually included major public buildings, amongst which a forum, basilica, baths, a market hall and temples located towards the centre were common features. A large Corinthian capital found in Carlisle30 is probably from one such building (Figure 3.7). This pattern of public buildings, found across the Roman Empire, is not fully replicated in the frontier zone of northern England. There are no positively identified fora or basilicae. Market halls are unknown (unless Site XI at Corbridge functioned in that way) and temples are few. Bath houses are known at Carlisle, however, and can be predicted at Corbridge. Similarly, many towns from the later second century onwards were enclosed by defences with substantial gates, but there is no solid evidence to support the idea that Roman Carlisle, or indeed Corbridge, was ever completely enclosed.31 In The Lanes area, however, excavations have revealed part of a bank and very broad flat-bottomed trenches, tentatively identified as an unfinished rampart and ditches and attributed to the third century.32 These features resemble the early stages of constructing defences which were then discontinued, perhaps because of the considerable expense involved. A number of vici, including Catterick which appears to have been a town, have traces of enclosures, but their function remains unclear.33 In the north-west, the scarcity of standard elements in the Roman urban architectural repertoire probably reflects the relative poverty of the area compared with other parts of Britannia. Yet there are hints of public buildings. The bath house under the market was certainly large enough to have been a public building, and another may have been present near West Walls and Blackfriars Street. 34 It would have been served by an aqueduct, which was a public facility. A large stone building below the gardens of Tullie House Museum, Abbey Street and Paternoster Row adjacent to the fort has been identified as a mansio, but a macellum or market hall is an equally plausible interpretation. Temples may also have been present. As has been noted, architectural fragments are further indicators of public buildings, but cumulatively the impression is that Carlisle had a relatively modest appearance compared with the much larger and more ostentatious public buildings in other civitas capitals. No trace of an amphitheatre has been

66  Luguvalium: fabric and townscape

Figure 3.7  Corinthian capital from a public building in Carlisle. Source: Photo by author.

found, but some provision for games is likely given the nodal importance of Carlisle/Stanwix in the frontier zone. Modest such buildings may have been, but they testify to a degree of civic pride, blossoming perhaps after the granting of chartered status. The appearance of Carlisle and a sense of what it would have been like to live there were determined in part by building materials. From the outset until the late second or early third centuries, Carlisle was largely timber-built. Timber was available from mature and younger trees a short distance away, whilst coppiced underwood could be obtained in the immediate vicinity. The main species used in the earliest phase of the fort were coppiced alder and willow, doubtless derived from easily accessible river valleys nearby. In the subsequent phase, however, mature trees, some over one metre in diameter and centuries old when felled, were obtained from land a little further away, as shown by a combination of pollen and dendrochronology.35 Three main sources of wood can be identified: woodland, where trees are left to grow without interference; wood pasture, where mature trees are left but livestock are allowed to graze; and alder and willow carr coppice in the river valleys. Of these, the most valuable were mature, straight-grained oaks, but stocks of this resource also needed conserving for future use. By

Luguvalium: fabric and townscape  67 contrast, quick-growing alder, willow and hazel would replenish every five to six years. Building a fort required considerable knowledge of the properties and characteristics of timber and woodlands, and it has become evident that the army knew exactly what it needed and where and how to obtain the necessary supplies. The impact of the Romans would certainly have been to deplete local stocks, but it is unlikely that they would have engaged in a wholesale destruction of the timber and wood resource because that would have prejudiced future needs. Trees were converted into usable timber for principal load-bearing posts and studs, sill beams, gate thresholds, tie beams and boards by splitting and sawing, highly skilled jobs. Some of this work was done in the woods in order to reduce the weight of timber to be moved to its ultimate destination in the fort, but final trimming and joint cutting was undertaken on-site prior to assembly. Few such trimmings were found in the fort, but a carpet of offcuts was found associated with an early ditched enclosure in The Lanes. 36 The construction of a permanent fort took time to complete, and excavation has demonstrated that it proceeded in stages. In one building at the intersection of the via praetoria and via principalis, for example, the main timbers were felled in the summer of ad 83, but the smaller posts were not felled until the following winter. 37 Many buildings were of framed construction in which studs were tenoned into sill beams (Figure 3.8). In some cases, beams were jointed together with saddle joints. Wall infill comprised panels of wattle, sometimes set vertically between the studs, as in the ‘praetorium’ (see Figure 2.11)

Figure 3.8  Timber building foundation types in use in the fort annexe in the late first century ad. Source: Adapted from McCarthy 1991. Drawn by Lesley Collett.

68  Luguvalium: fabric and townscape and the fort. Non-military buildings were built of posts set in foundation trenches, also with wattle infill, 38 whilst others had posts, some resting on stone pads. Some buildings, almost certainly of framed construction, were based on foundations of clay mixed with river cobbles, sometimes laid in horizontal courses, 39 the clay serving to lift the sills away from the damp ground. It is likely that most timber buildings were originally covered in mud or plaster as a protection against the elements, but it very rarely survives. The ‘praetorium’ in the northern Lanes, another building at the Cathedral, and the large public building identified at Paternoster Row and Abbey Street retained traces of white plaster, sometimes with painted decoration, although no decorative schemes have survived. Elsewhere, a possible example of weatherboarding was found in the northern Lanes.40 Floor materials were commonly earth, clay or stone, but there are a number of examples at Blackfriars Street and the southern Lanes of joists bedded in clay that would have supported boards. It was not unusual for ‘strip-­ buildings’ to have had a variety of flooring materials, presumably reflecting specific functions of the rooms. Opus signinum, which is essentially concrete with tile incorporated into the mix, has been recorded occasionally, but there are no examples of tessellation or mosaics.41 The most common roofing material is clay tiles (tegulae and imbrices) in the fort, but otherwise shingles (wooden tiles) could have been used. A single example of a shingle is known at Carlisle, but they are also known from Vindolanda.42 Otherwise thatch or turf is the most likely form of roofing on ‘strip-buildings’ outside the fort, not least because it was relatively cheap. Roof furniture includes a ceramic chimney pot in a late Roman ‘strip-­building’ at Blackfriars Street, whilst an antefix, perhaps from the end of a roof ridge, shows that an element of decoration was present.43 Many buildings will have been fairly dark inside, but they will have had window openings, sometimes glazed, including in ‘strip-buildings’. Sometimes windows were simply closed with wooden shutters, a possible example of which was found in the fort.44 No examples of window grilles have been found. Doors, including the fort gates, were made of boards, with the inner post of the door having projections (harrs) at the top and bottom fitting into sockets on the threshold and lintel. Internal doors could have been made of wattle set into a frame. Latch-lifters, locks and keys are also known. Stone was widely used throughout Roman Carlisle. There is a hint of usage in the Hadrianic period at Blackfriars Street, but it only seems to have become more widely adopted from the early third century, when the fort was rebuilt in stone.45 Domestic architecture followed suit, but the extent to which walls in stone were carried to eaves level is unclear. The nearest known quarries exploited by the Romans occur upstream in the valleys of the River Eden and its tributaries, the Irthing, the Gelt and the Caldew, but there were probably others whose traces have been obliterated.46 Inscriptions cut into the rock-faces in the Eden and Gelt valleys show that soldiers from the legions XX Valeria Victrix, II Augusta and VI Victrix

Luguvalium: fabric and townscape  69 were involved in quarrying.47 Two colours of sandstone, grey (Kirklinton) and red (St Bees), were used. Stone architectural fragments comprise one of the main sources of information about civic buildings, including the capital (Figure 3.7), clearly from a substantial structure, column drums, a shaft with a column base, and stone drains; but the possible public buildings such as a mansio or macellum near Tullie House Museum and the bath house under the Market are the only ones we can be reasonably sure of. The use of stone for grave monuments, altars and sculptures from the mid-­ second century has prompted the suggestion that a sculptors’ workshop existed in Carlisle, supplying the local market including Old Carlisle and Bowness-on-Solway.48 Evidence for the heating of buildings in Roman Carlisle is similarly limited. Two late Roman properties on Scotch Street had central heating systems (hypocausts), as did the bath house below the Market. In the fort, central heating was present in a late phase of the headquarters, whilst in The Lanes stone pilae suggest the presence of a hypocaust, perhaps associated with the ‘praetorium’. Other hypocausts certainly existed in domestic contexts, as in The Lanes (Figure 3.5), at 66–8 Scotch Street, English Street and elsewhere.49 Another fundamental requirement was the provision of water. Some properties had wells or stone tanks, for example a stone-lined well in The Lanes, and traces of an aqueduct have been tentatively identified in Collier Lane, close to Botchergate. 50 No evidence for the actual water channel survived, but indirect evidence for piped water is apparent in the lengths of ceramic and wooden pipes found in the via principalis of the fort and the presence of bath houses. When St Cuthbert visited Carlisle in ad 685, his biographers tell us that he was shown a fons (fountain) of Roman workmanship, which could only have worked if there was a piped water supply. 51 The disposal of domestic waste is a perennial problem, especially in urban situations. Some rubbish naturally accumulated, especially where there were patches of weeds and where people and vehicles were not constantly passing. In the southern Lanes in the early second century, many of the artefactual remains were found not in buildings or yards in constant use, but next to property boundaries where there were both hedges and weeds. Signs of human excrement, animal dung and associated rotted straw from stables or byres must have been abundant. Much of this material is capable of being recycled as manure in gardens or fields, but the widespread occurrence of human and animal-related waste, including beetles and parasites, as well as food debris such as seed pips from human faeces and animal manure, suggests that some remained in weed-infested nooks and crannies. It may convey an unfavourable impression to present-day observers, but in the past and in many recent societies, village and urban populations were less sensitive to the results of bodily functions than we are today. Communal toilets, of which a good example survives at Housesteads, may have existed in the fort or in the bath house, but ordinary domestic buildings were not normally provided with latrines.

70  Luguvalium: fabric and townscape

Belief in Roman Carlisle Belief in the gods and spirits was fundamentally important in ancient societies; religion was polytheistic, not bound by any coherent doctrine or theology. The Romans imported a family of gods who were recognizable by their appearance and their attributes. To the ‘man in the street’, the individual farmer, shopkeeper, town councillor, craftsman and slave, local divinities rooted in local traditions, landscapes and beliefs must have been at least as vital to their wellbeing as those introduced by the Romans. We know little about local divinities, most of which are known from only a single inscription or stone sculpture, but it is clear from their names, and from the fact that Roman and local deities were sometimes paired, that they reflected themes that were important to the people of the time. Amongst these were fertility, water, and war. Some divinities were widely attested, such as Lug (represented in the name ‘Luguvalium’), whose name occurs from Ireland to southern France. Another is Cernunnos, the ‘horned god’, probably imported from Gaul. A number of stone sculptures depicting deities have been found in forts, including that at Carlisle; Figure 3.9 shows a female head from Carlisle, carved in relief, 52 and Figure 3.10 depicts a ram-horned god found at Netherby. 53 Wooden sculptures and carvings may also have been used to depict deities, but these are less likely to survive. In Britain, there are only a handful of wooden figures, such as that from Ballachulish, Scotland, 54 but large numbers have been recovered from certain sanctuaries in Gaul.55 To the Celtic and the Roman mind, gods of one sort or another existed everywhere, in the sky, the air, rivers, sea, lakes, mountains, woods, and in homes, crops and livestock, and around every corner. Gods, nymphs and sprites needed worshipping and treating with respect if good luck or divine aid was to be forthcoming; this was sought in many ways ranging from daily, perhaps even casual, rituals in honour of the household gods, to elaborate ceremonial occasions and events or entertainments held in honour of a particular deity. The religious pantheon was both wide-ranging and elusive, and it is difficult attributing specific qualities to individual ‘native’ gods, because in the Celtic and Roman worlds deities could embrace a number of characteristics. A warrior god, for example, could also be a god of fertility. Another problem is that native religion lacked any form of architectural expression capable of being recognized in the archaeological record. The main Celtic foci of worship tended to be natural features such as woods, individual trees, wetlands (lands fringing the Solway Firth perhaps) and rivers (such as the Eden), as well as the sky, the moon, sun and soil, rather than a building such as a temple. A central feature in most ancient belief systems was the idea of fertility, which is hardly surprising in a pre-industrial society utterly dependent for life on the harvest, weather and the fruits of the earth. Under the Romans, one area in which this manifested itself was in the form of stone reliefs of mother goddesses, the deae matres, found in both military and

Luguvalium: fabric and townscape  71

Figure 3.9  Stone head, probably a goddess, from the fort at Carlisle. Source: Photo by author.

non-military contexts in Carlisle. They are usually depicted as a row of three draped, slightly sinister-looking women sitting in a row, holding symbols such as a distaff, fruit or a knife, but they can also appear singly or with a child. Comcomitant with this idea is that of the seasonal festivals, Beltane, Samhain, Lugnasad and Imbolc, and whilst the celebration of these is admittedly not specifically attested in Cumbria, they were doubtless ingrained into local traditions. One of the most common and well-known of the ‘native’ gods in Cumbria is Belatucadros, who seems to have had a focus of belief at Brougham, near Penrith. As inscriptions and images tell us, he was clearly associated with

72  Luguvalium: fabric and townscape

Figure 3.10  S tone head of a ram-horned god, from the fort at Netherby. Source: ©Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery.

Mars and possessed martial values, as was another god worshipped locally, Cocidius, whose shrine was at the Roman fort of Bewcastle, also known as Fanum Cocidi. The place-name Luguvalium, meaning something like ‘strong in the god Lug’, also sounds like an embodiment of martial values. 56 The evidence for religious practice amongst the civilian population in the north is elusive, but the army was particularly good at holding festivals and parades, making dedications to the supreme being Jupiter Optimus Maximus and his consorts, and to the deified emperor who was the personification of the state in whose name the army acted. Another feature of Roman towns and forts across the empire was the calendar of festivals, sometimes painted or inscribed on walls or even cast in bronze and affixed to public places, as reminders of the next event. The fact that none are known in Britain is probably an accident of survival, but in militarized areas such as the north, and towns like Carlisle and Corbridge in particular, some form of publicly displayed calendar is quite probable.

Luguvalium: fabric and townscape  73 Dedications to the classical pantheon, especially Jupiter, Minerva, Mars and Mercury, or the eastern god Mithras, are found in forts and in the towns of Carlisle and Corbridge, usually on altars. The only temple we can be reasonably sure of in Carlisle is a mithraeum, but it is so far evidenced only by the discovery of the base of a sculpture inscribed ‘Deo Cautes’, Cautes being one of the god’s torch-bearing attendants. 57 Other temples may well have been present, including one dedicated to Hercules who is attested several times, but almost as prolific are statuettes and reliefs of the genii loci, the spirits of the place, and the matres and genii cucullati, all of which could have been placed in niches on walls in the streets or in homes.

The hinterland So far, the emphasis has been on the Roman town of Carlisle, but because urban communities do not exist in isolation, there needs to be a consideration of the Roman countryside. The distinction between town and countryside in the ancient world was, in any case, often blurred. Townspeople may have been involved with jobs in the fields as much as within the built-up area, and people from rural communities would also visit the town to pay taxes, sell goods and replenish supplies, ensuring constant traffic of wheeled vehicles and pack animals along the roads. Townspeople needed the products of farms, minerals and other resources, but country-dwellers needed access to both the greater range of goods available in towns and the socializing and leisure opportunities they provided. We are now beginning to assess these relationships in places where there has been intensive archaeological survey, as in Italy or the Low Countries. The hinterland contains other forts together with their vici, thought to be mainly populated by non-military personnel, and a number of rural farms, the precise form, numbers and distribution of which were probably dictated by landscape and environmental factors as well as proximity to Carlisle and major road systems. Thus, Higham and Jones long ago undertook aerial surveys that revealed relatively large numbers of settlements and grouped them according to their topographic setting. 58 They included (i) the Solway Plain embracing the valleys of the Annan and Nith; (ii) the Eden and Petteril valleys; (iii) the western coastal plain; (iv) the upper valleys of the Eden and Lune; and (v) the Lakeland massif itself. Large numbers of univallate and multivallate enclosed farmsteads were recorded, often occupying relatively dry land such as sand and gravel eskers, some with fragmentary traces of field systems. 59 On morphological grounds, Higham and Jones concluded that the majority of sites identified were of Roman date, but their difficulty was, and remains, a relative lack of excavation, unlike landscapes in the hinterland of the frontier along the lower Rhine. As a consequence, it is extremely difficult to distinguish them from Iron Age sites. Amongst the key places are Silloth, Wolsty Hall, Dobcross Hall and Crosshill, Penrith, together with

74  Luguvalium: fabric and townscape the Cumberland Infirmary. None of these places yielded large artefactual assemblages. At Crosshill, where a substantial amount of the interior and lengths of ditch were exposed, only three sherds of samian ware and 156 coarse ware sherds were recovered;60 there was very little metalwork or glassware. Equally extensive work at the Cumberland Infirmary site (see Figure 4.1), not far from the main Carlisle fort, also produced only small amounts of pottery and other items, as did the Silloth farm. Without further large-scale work, the inescapable conclusion is that if all the farmsteads identified by Higham and Jones are indeed Roman in date, there was a degree of cultural resistance to the adoption of Roman material culture. To that extent, the cultural hinterland of Carlisle south of the Solway was not dissimilar to that north of the Solway coastlands, where, as at Boonies or in Northumberland, very small assemblages of artefacts were recovered. We should also distinguish between upland and lowland sites. Upland sites are different morphologically from those of lowland Cumbria. They are well known in the upper reaches of the Lune and Eden valleys and on the limestone terrain around Kirkby Stephen, Crosby Garrett, Ravensworth and Waitby. The primary building material was stone, used for dykes and for circular and sub-rectangular buildings. Many clearly represent farmsteads which, from their locations, probably represent livestock-raising communities utilizing paddocks, although where the landscape allowed, small patches of arable and hay pastures can be envisaged. In Lakeland, the density of sites seems to tail off, but where they can be identified, larger enclosures up to five hectares in size, and drove roads associated with livestock management, are known.61 It is one thing to classify sites morphologically, but there has been no consideration of other related issues. For example, where, if at all, did power reside apart from the Roman army? Was the economy the sole preserve of the army, or did favoured individuals or families emerge amongst the Carvetii who were able to exert some influence over economic and social trends? How was political power acquired and exercised at local levels? Although we can posit regional diversity, as Higham and Jones did, how it worked in practice is less clear. Elsewhere in Roman Britain, we are beginning to identify possible regional specialization in more intensively investigated areas such as the Thames valley, the Fens and its fringes, or East Anglia, where local specialisms involving sheep, horses, dairying, mixed farming and arable can be suggested on the basis of archaeological evidence combined with topography, soils and aspect.62 Regional specialisms must have existed in the hinterland of Carlisle and elsewhere in Cumbria, including arable, dairying, sheep and mixed farming, as well as other jobs such as mining or potting. How did they interact? Were there informal markets and fairs, and how were transactions carried out? To what extent was Carlisle and Cumbria monetized? Was there a tacit cultural resistance to adoption of Roman ways and goods?

Luguvalium: fabric and townscape  75 Finally, there is the question of centuriation, that is, a deliberate programme of land allotment attached to a specific town, in which plots were clearly defined and allocated. Attempts have been made to identify a centuriated pattern of land, especially, but not only, around Carlisle, but so far they are unconvincing except as fossil relicts of the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century enclosure awards, and possibly the use of Inglewood Forest.63 The possibility that there were centuriated areas around Carlisle and other forts cannot be excluded, but clear archaeological evidence has not so far been forthcoming.

Notes 1 The better-endowed lands east of the Pennines may have been one of the underlying factors for the success of Aldborough. 2 Sacred sites in the landscape were probably factors underlying the development of towns such as Colchester and Verulamium, but they could also have applied to Carlisle, as noted in Chapter 2. There is also an interesting ‘coincidence’ of sites associated with religion around Brougham and Penrith. Cumulatively they span a considerable period of time, but they signify a folk tradition that it was a ‘special’ area. Monuments include the Mayburgh henge, the sites forming King Arthur’s Round Table, perhaps Long Meg and her Daughters, the church at Ninekirks, the site of which may have early Christian associations, and the early monastic site at Dacre. The local Romano-Celtic deity, Belatucadros, was especially popular at Brougham. 3 McCarthy 2014, 201, 239. 4 Zant 2009, Period 6a. 5 Ibid., Period 6b. 6 Ibid., Period 6c. 7 Barker et al. 1997. 8 Edwards and Shotter 2005. 9 RIB 1965, 933. 10 See useful discussions in Frere 1967, 203–10; Salway 1981, 574–84, 588–93; Mattingly 2007, 260–3. 11 Birley 1953; Wright 1965, 224; Edwards and Shotter 2005. 12 At Nijmegen two decurions were tradespeople. Willems and Van Enckevort 2009, 125. 13 RIB 1965, 933. 14 There is an element of doubt about this tombstone because the text is Camden’s transcription. The doubt centres on the letters ‘SEN’, translated as ‘senator’, which might refer to a junior non-commissioned officer (RIB 1965, 310). Salway (1965, 246–7) prefers to see it as part of the cognomen rather than a rank, however. 15 RIB 1965, 899, 1700, 1616 respectively. 16 McCarthy 1990. 17 Ibid. 18 McCarthy 2014. 19 In buildings excavated in Old Grapes Lane and Lewthwaite’s Lane. McCarthy 2000, 31–42. 20 Huntley 2000. 21 Kenward et al. 2000.

76  Luguvalium: fabric and townscape 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 4 4 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63

Stallibrass et al. 2000. Keay’s Lane, Period 10. Keay’s Lane, Building D 591. Keay’s Lane, Building B 1309. Keay’s Lane, Building C 1998. Keay’s Lane, Period 11; Building C 2000. Keay’s Lane, Building D 594. Toynbee 1964, 325; Charlesworth 1978, 121. In Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery, Carlisle. The idea that Carlisle was a walled town is based on a misinterpretation of the Life of St Cuthbert, who was shown the ‘murum civitatis’ by Waga, the reeve. It seems likely that he was probably shown stone walls in the fort and the town, rather than city walls, notwithstanding Burnham and Wacher’s (1990, 54) dismissal of the present writer’s contention that the town was never completely enclosed. See also Hodgson 2008, 74. McCarthy 2000, 44–7. Burnham and Wacher 1990, 61. Cited in Charlesworth 1978, 121. Darrah 2009, 781–2; McCarthy 1995. Keay’s Lane, Period 3. Darrah 2009, 781–2, Building 4656. At Old Grapes Lane and Castle Street. McCarthy 1991, 2000. At Blackfriars Street and Lewthwaite’s Lane. McCarthy 1990, 2000. McCarthy 2000, 27, Figure 20. McCarthy 1990, 31–2. The building in which this was found can be attributed to the Hadrianic or early Antonine period, and could be interpreted as having had a storage or some official function. Howard-Davis 2009, 813. Taylor 1990, 299–300; Padley et al. 2000, 111–12. Darrah 2009, 793–4. McCarthy 1990, 33. Many quarries in the vicinity of Hadrian’s Wall cannot be dated. See Pearson 2006, 46–51; Hill 2010. RIB 1965, 998–1016. Phillips 1976a, 1976b; Coulston and Phillips 1988. Charlesworth 1978, 120–2, 131. McCarthy 2002, 85; Zant nd. Zant 2009, 203, 255; Frere 1991, 235; Colgrave 1940, 122–3, 243–5. Henig 2009, 870–1. Both are in Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery, Carlisle. Green 1986, 13–4; Armit 1997, 87–9. At Fontes Sequanae near Dijon, and Chamalières, Puy-de-Dôme, France. Green 1986, 150–2; 1997, 470. Ross 1967, 463–6; 1997, 433. RIB 1965, 943. Higham and Jones 1975, 1985. More recently this has been refined by the Rural Settlement in Roman Britain Project carried out by the University of Reading and Cotswold Archaeology. Higham and Jones 1985, 71–80. Wild 1983, 66–70. Higham and Jones 1985, 93–5. See for example Draper 2006; Oosthuizen 2006; Hesse 2011. Richardson 2008.

Luguvalium: fabric and townscape  77

References Armit, I. 1997. Celtic Scotland. London. Barker, P., White, R., Pretty, K., Bird, H. and Corbishley, M. 1997. The Baths Basilica at Wroxeter: Excavations 1966–90. English Heritage Archaeological Report 8. London. Birley, E. 1953. ‘The Roman milestone at Middleton in Lonsdale’, Transactions of Cumberland Westmorland Antiquarian Archaeological Society 2 ser. 53: 52–62. Burnham, B.C. and Wacher, J. 1990. The ‘Small Towns’ of Roman Britain. London. Charlesworth, D. 1978. ‘Roman Carlisle’, Archaeological Journal 135: 115–37. Colgrave, B. 1940. The Two Lives of St Cuthbert. New York. Coulston, J.C. and Phillips, E.J. 1988. Corpus Signorum Imperii Romani: Great Britain 1:6 Hadrian’s Wall West of the North Tyne and Carlisle. Oxford. Darrah, R. 2009. ‘The structural wood’, in Howard-Davis 2009, 781–801. Draper, S. 2006. Landscape, Settlement and Society in Roman and Early Medieval Wiltshire. British Archaeological Reports, British Series 419. Oxford. Edwards, B.J.N. and Shotter, D.C.A. 2005. ‘Two Roman milestones from the Penrith area’, Trans. Cumberland Westmorland Antiquarian Archaeological Society 3 ser. 5: 65–77. Frere, S.S. 1967. Britannia. London. Frere, S.S. 1991. ‘Roman Britain in 1990: I. Sites explored’, Britannia 22: 222–92. Green, M.J. 1986. The Gods of the Celts. Godalming. Green, M.J. 1997. ‘The gods and the supernatural’, in The Celtic World, ed. M.J. Green, 465–88. London. Henig, M. 2009. ‘The Roman sculptural stone’, in C. Howard-Davis, 869–72. Hesse, R. 2011. ‘Reconsidering animal husbandry and diet in the northwest provinces’, Journal of Roman Archaeology 24: 215–48. Higham, N.J. and Jones, G.D.B. 1975. ‘Frontiers, forts and farmers: Cumbrian aerial survey’, Archaeological Journal 132: 16–53. Higham, N.J. and Jones, G.D.B. 1985. The Carvetii. Gloucester. Hill, P. 2010. The Construction of Hadrian’s Wall. Stroud. Hodgson, N. 2008. ‘The development of the Roman site at Corbridge from the first to third centuries ad’, Archaeologia Aeliana 5 ser. 37: 47–92. Howard-Davis, C. 2009. The Carlisle Millennium Project: Excavations in Carlisle 1998–2001. Volume 2 the Finds. Oxbow/Lancaster Imprints 14. Oxford. Huntley, J.P. 2000. ‘The plant and wood remains’, in M.R. McCarthy, 71–9. Kenward, H., Allison, E.P., Dainton, M., Kemenés, I.K. and Carrot, J.P. 2000. ‘The insect and parasite remains’, in M.R. McCarthy, 81–3. McCarthy, M.R. 1990. A Roman, Anglian and Medieval Site at Blackfriars Street, Carlisle: Excavations 1977–9. Cumberland Westmorland Antiquarian Archaeological Society Research Series 4. Kendal. McCarthy, M.R. 1991. The Roman Waterlogged Remains and Later Features at Castle Street, Carlisle: Excavations 1981–2. Cumberland Westmorland Antiquarian Archaeological Society Research Series 5. Kendal. McCarthy, M.R. 1995. ‘Archaeological and environmental evidence for the Roman impact on vegetation near Carlisle, Cumbria’, The Holocene, 5(4): 491–5. McCarthy, M.R. 2000. Roman and Medieval Carlisle: The Southern Lanes. Excavations 1981–2. Department of Archaeological Sciences, University of Bradford, Research Report 1. Carlisle.

78  Luguvalium: fabric and townscape McCarthy, M.R. 2002. Roman Carlisle and the Lands of the Solway. Stroud. McCarthy, M.R. 2014. ‘A post-Roman sequence at Carlisle Cathedral’, Archaeological Journal 171: 185–257. Mattingly, D. 2007. An Imperial Possession: Britain in the Roman Empire 54 bc to ad 409. London. Oosthuizen, S. 2006. Landscapes Decoded: The Origins and Development of Cambridgeshire’s Medieval Fields. Hatfield. Padley, T.G., Richardson, C., Shotter, D., Price, J. and Cottam, S. 2000. ‘The finds’, in M.R. McCarthy, 93–122. Pearson, A. 2006. The Work of Giants: Stone and Quarrying in Roman Britain. Stroud. Phillips, E.J. 1976a. ‘A workshop of Roman sculptors at Carlisle’, Britannia 7: 101–8. Phillips, E.J. 1976b. ‘Unfinished Roman sculptures in North Britain’, Archaeological Journal 133: 50–6. RIB. 1965. The Roman Inscriptions of Britain. I. Inscriptions on Stone, R.G. Collingwood and R.P. Wright. Oxford. Richardson, A. 2008. The Roman Surveyors in Cumberland. Privately printed, Carlisle. Ross, A. 1967. Pagan Celtic Britain. London. Ross, A. 1997. ‘Ritual and the Druids’, in The Celtic World, ed. M.J. Green, 423–44. London. Salway, P. 1965. The Frontier People of Roman Britain. Cambridge. Salway, P. 1981. Roman Britain. Oxford. Stallibrass, S., Allison, E.P., Nicholson, R.A. and Harding, C.M. 2000. ‘The animal, bird, fish and human bones’, in M.R. McCarthy, 85–92. Taylor, J. 1990. ‘The Roman pottery’, in M.R. McCarthy, 197–311. Toynbee, J.M.C. 1964. Art in Britain under the Romans. Oxford. Wild, F. 1983. ‘The Penrith farm samian ware’, in ‘The excavation of two Romano-­ British farm sites in north Cumbria’, N. Higham and G.D.B. Jones, Britannia 14: 66–67. Willems, W.J.H. and Van Enckevort, H. 2009. Ulpia Noviomagus, Roman Nijmegen: The Batavian Capital at the Imperial Frontier. Journal of Roman Archaeology Supplementary Series 73. Portsmouth. Wright, R.P. 1965. ‘Roman Britain in 1964: II. Inscriptions’, Journal of Roman Studies 55: 220–28. Zant, J. 2009. The Carlisle Millennium Project: Excavations in Carlisle 1998–2001. Volume 1: Stratigraphy. Oxbow/Lancaster Imprints 14. Oxford. Zant, J. nd. ‘Excavations at Collier Lane, Carlisle: provisional phasing (archive report)’, unpublished manuscript. Carlisle.

4 Luguvalium People and economy

Over the heather the wet wind blows I’ve lice in my tunic and a cold in my nose. The rain comes pattering out of the sky, I’m a Wall soldier; I don’t know why. The mist creeps over the hard grey stone, My girl’s in Tungria; I sleep alone… —‘Roman Wall Blues’, W.H. Auden, 19371

People How many people lived in Luguvalium? Is it possible to arrive at even a crude estimate in the absence of any reliable data? The short answer is that we have no idea as to numbers, and any estimates we may make can only be in broad orders of magnitude. The archaeology makes it clear that for part, if not most, of its life, Luguvalium was a busy place in Cumbria. Much of the activity was at the behest of the army, undertaken either by serving personnel or civilians acting for the army in one capacity or another. So much is clear, but as that does not get us very far, we need to look a little further at the wider picture, starting with Italy. This was the heart of the Empire, but even here, estimating population numbers is a hotly disputed subject. This is partly because the people of the urban area and its rural territorium were regarded as a single entity – the civitas, the community – whereas today we would distinguish between those living within the built-up urban area and those living in villages outside. It is also partly because until recently the extent and chronological development of many ancient urban and rural sites had not received the detailed attention that is needed in order to generate any figures. This is important because all settlements, of whatever kind, fluctuate in size over decades and centuries. In Italy, regional surveys have yielded a rich harvest of new data, including many settlements of all kinds that were not previously known. It may be objected that comparisons with Italy are inappropriate, because it was in

80  Luguvalium: people and economy many respects very different to Roman Britain. On the other hand, it does provide a useful comparative scale against which Romano-British evidence can be judged. With the exception of Rome, which at its most populous may have housed about a million people, it is estimated that a handful of major Italian cities, including Ostia and Capua, may have housed some 25,000–30,000 people each, whilst other large cities such as Pompeii and Beneventum could have accommodated around 12,000–15,000 at their peak. Below this, there were approximately 400 or so smaller towns, including administrative and other regional centres, for which it is estimated that population levels may have been of the order of 2,000 each. 2 Gubbio, for example, is a relatively modest-sized town in the remote Apennines for which Malone and Stoddart were able to suggest a figure of about 4,000–5,000 people, or about 200 per hectare. It had an amphitheatre seating 6,000, but it is not clear whether this was intended to accommodate only the urban population or people from the wider territorium. 3 In Gaul, the figures are not significantly different; Woolf calculated, for example, that large towns including Lyon and Vienne could have had around 20,000–30,000 inhabitants, with many secondary urban centres accommodating about 3,000.4 Speculative though these figures may be, their value is in establishing orders of magnitude and criteria against which we can consider other factors. For example, one estimate for the total urban population (those living in the built-up areas) in Italy in early imperial times is around 2.25 million, whilst in the remote province of Britain, far from the wealthy Mediterranean world, a recent assessment places the overall population of the province at 3.6 million.5 Figures such as these seem almost ludicrously low by the standards of our own day, yet they are important because they necessarily affect our view of the way in which the economy and society functioned.6 Insofar as the urban area of Carlisle is concerned, it is impossible to arrive at any figure that is at all reliable, and it will in any case vary with the time period being considered. However, on the assumption that gross variations in population numbers bore some relation to military priorities, the following points are relevant. One high point must have been from the late 80s to 139–40 ad, when the military component at Carlisle would have been boosted by other military personnel either on their way back from Scotland or being employed on building frontier works. By the same token, it can be argued that a reduction in numbers followed when Hadrian’s Wall was abandoned and large numbers of soldiers were deployed to the Antonine Wall between 139 and about 160. In theory, the numbers of people should have revived when the latter was abandoned and Hadrian’s Wall was once again reoccupied, but in this instance, the archaeological evidence of hiatuses in the sequences of many Carlisle sites does not support that contention. Later, following the Severan campaigns in the early third century and the granting of civitas status, a prolonged period of peace should have

Luguvalium: people and economy  81 resulted in an economic upturn and hence demographic growth. There are hints that this may have occurred. Finally, in the mid to late fourth century when military interest on the northern frontier gradually waned, there must have been a period of decline and emigration, although the timing and progress of this is unclear. There was activity around the headquarters in the fort in the late fourth and early fifth centuries, but what that represents in terms of numbers of people remains uncertain. Taking Carlisle and Stanwix as one, the theoretical total military complement from the 120s ad was two auxiliary infantry regiments, each numbering around 500 men. If that is a fair estimate, there were approximately 1,000 military personnel in all. Many will have been redeployed, probably in the north, after 139 when the Wall was abandoned, but from about 160 the garrison at Stanwix was upgraded to that of a milliary ala, thus increasing its ‘paper’ complement to around 1,000 men, although on the other hand, the Carlisle fort was apparently not occupied at that time. When the Carlisle fort was rebuilt in the early third century, the theoretical military component could have risen to about 1,500, but with the caveat that the actual strength may have been different. Not only were detachments seconded from their home bases elsewhere, but as a strength report from Vindolanda makes clear, at any one time, some men were on sick leave whilst others were brigaded elsewhere on courier duties or with the staff of senior administrative officials.7 A figure for the civilian component of the population is pure guesswork, not least because Roman Carlisle lies buried beneath the streets of the modern town so that the total number of buildings cannot be counted. The best visual impression of a mid- to late-Roman town is Corbridge, where the exposed remains combined with aerial photographs provide evidence of a great many stone-built structures, some of which look like ‘strip-buildings’ although others are more elaborate in plan, as well as features reminiscent of agricultural activities.8 Carlisle was probably similar, with the central or core area being densely occupied by buildings, but what proportion of these were fully or partly lived in, as opposed to being purely industrial, agricultural or storage premises, is another matter.9 The Botchergate industrial suburb probably accommodated some people from the late first century, but then it was largely abandoned about a century later at the turn of the second and third centuries, although the land continued to be used for refuse disposal and burials. Similarly, there were probably people resident in the northern suburb of Rickergate and perhaps to the west near Caldewgate, although we have no knowledge of these so far. At present, the best guess for the population of Roman Carlisle is that it could have included about 1,500 military personnel at its peak, to which an uncertain number of civilians serving the army in various capacities should be added. A total figure of about 2,000–2,500 is not implausible, and is consistent with estimates of population elsewhere.

82  Luguvalium: people and economy

The social mix Unfortunately, direct evidence for the people of Luguvalium is lacking, because unlike York, London or Cirencester, there is a lack of skeletal and isotopic data which could shed light on issues such as stature, diseases, health and diet. We are left with epigraphy as a source for viewing the ethnic make-up, but this is of course biased towards those who could afford to commission tombstones or dedicate altars. Names on altars and grave monuments show people originating from across the Empire, although some have Latinized names, such as Aurelia Aureliana whose tombstone was found in Carlisle,10 that offer no clue as to their family origins. Amongst those from overseas is Flavius Antigonus Papias, buried in Carlisle in the fourth century, described as a ‘civis Grecus’, a citizen and perhaps native of Greece.11 Other examples from north Cumbria include Titullinia Pussitta, a Raetian woman from the Alps who is commemorated on a tombstone from Netherby; a Batavian from the Netherlands, a Lower Pannonian from Croatia and a North African are attested at Old Carlisle near Wigton; and a Dacian from Romania at Burgh-by-Sands.12 In the Hadrian’s Wall zone alone, 60 individuals with names of German origin are known from inscriptions.13 We can also note the places of origin of regiments, especially in the first and second centuries, as indicators of soldiers from overseas. There were cohorts of Lingones from Gallia Belgica at Carlisle and Spaniards at Netherby, for example; Marsacians from the Rhine delta and Gauls were stationed at Old Penrith, Plumpton Wall; and there were cohorts of Frisians, and later Moors from Morocco, at Burgh-by-Sands (Aballava).14 A cohort of Tungrians, a Germanic tribe from Belgium, was stationed at Housesteads,15 Auden’s setting for the poem at the head of this chapter. The injection of a substantial population of mixed ethnic background was an inevitable consequence of an army of occupation, which must have added a great deal of colour and variety to daily life. A corollary of any campaign of conquest is the need to keep troops on the ground fed, watered and equipped. It was a role played in many places by both the army and its official suppliers, and traders (negotiatores) cashing in on opportunities as they arose. One such trader may have been Domitius Tertius, to whom a letter was sent when he was at Carlisle, and who was probably the same man as the brewer Domitius Tertius recently attested in London.16 Tacitus tells us that London in the time of Boudica was ‘frequented by an abundance of merchants’, and in the early third century M. Aurelius Lunaris, possibly a wine shipper from Bordeaux, was a sevir Augustalis in Lincoln and York.17 The governor or procurator on their visits will have injected a further element of diversity, but the most exotic occasions must have been imperial visits. Hadrian, Severus and his family, Constantius and Constantine the Great all spent time in the province, with Severus dying in York. It is not impossible that Hadrian visited Luguvalium, and although there is no evidence to support the idea, such a reconnaissance

Luguvalium: people and economy  83 would be entirely consistent with what is known of Hadrian’s character. Imperial visits were exotic occasions creating huge logistical problems for the governor, not least in accommodating the emperor’s and his wife’s entourage, the bodyguards and administrative staff, all or most of whom may have come from distant corners of the Empire, not to mention in Hadrian’s case at least 8,000 legionaries and detachments from the Praetorian and Horse Guards.18 Ethnic variation must have been a noticeable feature in the first and second centuries ad, but diversity was not necessarily constant throughout the length of the Roman occupation. Initially, regiments stationed in the north were recruited overseas, but during the latter part of Roman occupation, many were made up of Britons, if not north Britons. The first 100–120 years was probably the period of greatest demographic diversity, when scholars can expect to find cultural attributes alien to the indigenous population, including dress, attitudes, language and diet. The core population, however, will have been made up from people born locally, doubtless with deep local family roots, sometimes identifiable epigraphically as people of presumed Celtic origin with Romanized names. They may have included people such as Tancorix at Old Carlisle and Rianorix at Maryport, and some of those dedicating altars to Belatucadros such as Baculo and Audagus at Brougham.19 The majority of these will doubtless have had some engagement in farming, whether as farmers themselves or using farming products for the manufacture of various goods. Together with general labourers and the landless poor, they were near or at the bottom of the social ladder. Below the level of social elites, and apart from soldiers on active service, most of the inhabitants of Luguvalium will have been at the poorer end of the social spectrum, as was the case in all Roman towns. They would have included people earning a living including local merchants, others converting agricultural products into food and other goods (bakers, butchers, brewers, leatherworkers, bone-workers and weavers), shopkeepers, pedlars, carters, dyers, potters, wood turners, blacksmiths and bronze workers, as well as labourers and slaves, and retired soldiers, many with wives and children. Some farmers with land close to the town may have lived there. Many of the properties attested in Carlisle, as in Corbridge, were ‘strip-buildings’ typical of the artisanal rather than the ruling element, but there were others below that level, such as the landless poor, and widows. A manacle found at Castle Street suggests the presence of a prisoner or slave. Simple cremation burials in the linear cemetery flanking the Roman predecessor of Botchergate, and near Spring Gardens Lane, are the remains of those too poor to have been accompanied by memorials or grave goods. Other cremations were better equipped, with ashes placed in pots set in pits and sometimes accompanied by glassware. One had an iron knife, others had Italian oil lamps. Two were accompanied by wooden boxes containing an array of coarse pottery vessels. All these are attributed to the late first and early second centuries and represent at least 46 men, women and juveniles.

84  Luguvalium: people and economy If the pre-Roman peoples of Cumbria had a relatively flat social structure, as suggested earlier, the absence of any developed form of hierarchy probably meant that there was no obvious pool of indigenous families sufficiently wealthy or influential to form a council (ordo), at least in the early years of occupation. On the other hand, during the second century we can reasonably expect some individuals and families to have had sufficient means and motivation to undertake civic responsibilities. Some could have been retired members of the army, and others landowners or even traders, but direct or even indirect evidence for these people is elusive. Wealth is often reflected in architectural terms, but there are no mosaics or villas west of the Pennines comparable to those in East Yorkshire, and probably few individuals who could afford vessels such as the Sewell’s Lane copper alloy relief-decorated flagon now in the British Museum.20 Items such as a gold ring inscribed ama me and a bronze lamp in the form of a head of Hercules, 21 both casual finds from English Street, or houses equipped with hypocausts such as those in Keay’s Lane (see Figure 3.5) or Scotch Street, however modest in size, seem to have been exceptional. Few graves have been excavated, although the Botchergate cemetery contained at least four lead coffins, normally an indicator of wealth, and the occasional stone sarcophagus.22 There are no elaborate mausolea, and tombstones advertising familial pride and wealth, such as those of the second-century ‘lady with a fan’, Aurelia Aureliana, and the three-year-old Vacia, are less common. 23 On the other hand, there must have been sufficient demand, both in Carlisle and in neighbouring vici, to support a local sculptor’s workshop from the Hadrianic or Antonine periods into the third century, suggesting that there was a market for such memorials, albeit modest in scale compared with other Romano-British towns. 24 Public buildings, on the other hand, which were usually privately funded, were certainly present. The bath house under the market was large enough to have been a public facility, and another may have been present near West Walls and Blackfriars Street. 25 Such facilities must have been served by a piped water supply carried on an aqueduct. As mentioned previously, a substantial earthwork located in Collier Lane, Botchergate, is thought to be part of such an aqueduct. A large stone building below the gardens of Tullie House Museum, Abbey Street and Paternoster Row, adjacent to the fort, may have been a mansio, but a macellum or market hall is an equally plausible interpretation. Architectural fragments, including the Corinthian capital (Figure 3.7), are further indicators of public buildings, but taking all the evidence together, the buildings of Carlisle were relatively modest affairs compared with the much larger and more ostentatious public buildings in other civitas capitals, reflecting the means of the population. The indications of rubbish disposal adjacent to the putative aqueduct also suggest that, for some periods, attention was given to keeping the urban centre clean. One urban element lacking is an amphitheatre, but there is likely to have been some provision for games, given the relative importance of Carlisle/Stanwix in the frontier zone.

Luguvalium: people and economy  85

The economy – food and health The real driver of the economy in the north was the Roman army. The quartering of thousands of troops and their horses must have imposed considerable strains on the local population, who may at times have had to endure the commandeering of vital resources, the disruption of farming practices and the imposition of new obligations. The arrival and continued presence of the army must have completely redrawn the social and the economic landscape. 26 Initially, the army would have been supplied from bases further south, but it must have become clear very quickly that utilization of local resources was a necessity. Wherever there was a fort, there was a regiment needing supplies. This simple fact dominated the northern economy for the entire period of Roman occupation. We can see this operating at Vindolanda, where correspondence provides details of links with other places in the north including Luguvalium (Carlisle), Coria (Corbridge), Coria Textoverdorum, Bremetenacum (Ribchester), Eburacum (York), Cataractonium (Catterick), Isurium (Aldborough), Vinovia (Binchester), Londinium (London) and Lindum (Lincoln).27 Some of these contacts include the movement of goods by cart, as for example from Catterick. 28 This exceptional archive also shows how the garrison was involved in every aspect of life on the frontier. It is worth dwelling on this briefly. Soldiers went on patrol, maintained weapons and armour and undertook courier duties between forts. They obtained food supplies such as meat, cereals, eggs, wine, fish sauce, fruit, honey, olives, eggs, salt, oil and vegetables, as well as cooking, baking bread and brewing Celtic beer, and sourcing animal fodder. They handled cash, carried out clerical duties, collected fuel, repaired clothing and footwear, blankets and bedding, and sent away for luxury items such as pepper and spices. They had an involvement with medical matters, including administering treatments and medication from time to time. Horse and cart gear had to be maintained, and they might be required to drive carts to deliver or collect goods. Soldiers might be involved in candle-making, smithing (iron, bronze, goldwork), building and carpentry, quarrying stone, potting, mining lead or silver, administering justice within the garrison and with non-military personnel, and conducting censuses. They would certainly have meetings with senior personnel such as the governor, and take part in festivals and social activities including hunting. It is an impressive list, showing that there must have been daily interaction with the native population. There is no reason to believe that Vindolanda was in any way exceptional, so we may confidently suppose that the life of the Carlisle garrison was similar, if not more varied and busier due to its nodal position. Forts such as Carlisle and Vindolanda were not self-contained entities. They were clearly part of an extensive military network in regular contact with each other, and closely tied in to local communities where the underlying economy, as elsewhere in the Roman world, was based on farming. The precise nature of the agricultural regimes will have varied from area to area, depending on

86  Luguvalium: people and economy soils, aspect and topography (see Chapter 1). Thus the Eden valley, with its good, well-drained soils could have supported arable agriculture, with spelt wheat and barley as the dominant cereal crops, whilst other parts with poorer soils might have placed a greater emphasis on livestock-­rearing supplemented with the hardier barley and oats. A similar situation prevailed in Gallia Belgica and Germania Inferior, where the Treveri and Tungri specialized in cereal crops exploiting the loess soils, whilst the Batavi on poorer land had a mixed farming regime, dominated perhaps by cattle, but with some barley or oats as their main crops. Forts were magnets for the indigenous peoples. Whether or not they had prominent military roles, Romano-British towns acted in the same way, as centres of production and consumption in which the native population was perforce engaged. That they did so in Carlisle from an early date may be indicated by the presence of round-houses, a pre-Roman architectural form, at the Cumberland Infirmary site (Figure 4.1), which lies about half a kilometre west of the main Carlisle fort and is attributable to the late first century ad. 29 A primary function of the economy was the provision of an adequate diet. Staple foodstuffs based on grain and livestock are well represented in the archaeological record, but there is also evidence for imported items such as wine or fish sauce, whilst the introduction of new ceramic forms implies

Figure 4.1  O  ne of several round-houses under excavation at the Cumberland Infirmary. Source: Photo by author.

Luguvalium: people and economy  87 new methods of food storage, preparation and consumption. The extent to which these impacted on levels of health and nutrition is hard to quantify, but it cannot be ruled out. The cereal staple of the military diet was wheat and barley, but oats and rye were also grown, probably for bread, beer and a pottage perhaps mixed with legumes. For the poorer sections of society, as for those in medieval England, the main source of their calorie intake could have been loaves and pottage made from oats, rye or barley, all of which were considered to be inferior to loaves made from good-quality bread wheat (T. aestivum) imported from elsewhere in the province. 30 Another staple of the poor was probably oatcakes baked into cakes on a griddle. We also know that barley was fed to cavalrymen’s horses. 31 Fields in which cereals were cultivated are known at Stanwix, where traces of ploughing have been found sealed below an extensive clay platform, perhaps a cavalry parade ground associated with the Hadrian’s Wall fort (Figure 4.2), although it is not known what was grown there.32 Scenes such as that represented by the Piercebridge ploughman would have been very familiar (Figure 4.3).33 The fertile Eden valley with its light free-­ draining soils, and similar tracts west of Carlisle towards Burgh-by-Sands, are the most likely places for cultivation of spelt wheat (T. spelta) and barley (Hordeum). Barley, oats (Avena) and rye (Secale cereale) for human

Figure 4.2  Plough-marks scored into clay subsoil and sealed by a Roman clay platform at Stanwix. Source: Photo by author.

88  Luguvalium: people and economy

Figure 4.3  Roman bronze model of a ploughman wearing a hooded cloak with a team of cattle, Piercebridge, Co. Durham. Source: © The Trustees of the British Museum.

and animal consumption could also have been grown on the heavier soils in the vicinity. The excavations at the Cumberland Infirmary yielded waste products resulting from primary cereal processing, harvesting, threshing, winnowing and sieving.34 The destination of this grain remains unknown, but the options include a bulk-storage facility such as a granary, bakers or individual households in Carlisle, as implied by the frequent discovery of querns. At all events, further refining probably took place prior to its conversion into food. 35 No bakeries have yet been positively identified in Carlisle, although ovens in Building 2 at Blackfriars Street may have been used for baking bread at some point.36 How much land was required for the cereal crops needed to supply the people of Carlisle is impossible to quantify, but the economic implications of any concentration of people, all of whom need to be fed and housed, are considerable. One example can be cited. Grain needed harvesting, which meant back-breaking work with scythes and sickles. Some processing is

Luguvalium: people and economy  89

Figure 4.4  Cartwheel discarded in a barrel-lined pit at Keay’s Lane. Source: Photo by author.

likely to have taken place at the farm before it was carted to the town, as has been seen at the Cumberland Infirmary. We can envisage times when there was a constant procession of wheeled vehicles or packhorses into Carlisle along roads and tracks from rural farms. A cartwheel from one such vehicle was found discarded in a barrel-lined pit in excavations at Keay’s Lane, Carlisle (Figure 4.4).37 Further processing of grain was then required in order to remove weed seeds such as corncockle, and inedible fragments. Rotary and beehive querns were used to grind the grain into flour, but it is not clear where the grain was stored prior to grinding. A constant supply of grain was needed by the bakers who served the townspeople; soldiers generally looked after their own needs. The scale at which bakers operated was probably small, to judge by the querns found, and certainly very different to the well-known examples in Pompeii or Ostia. Most from Carlisle were hand-operated, but there are occasional fragments of some that may have been mechanically driven.38 Querns must have been obtained either from suppliers, as in the case of those made of Niedermendig lava imported from the Eifel region of Lower Germany, or possibly directly from quarries of Penrith sandstone and Millstone Grit.

90  Luguvalium: people and economy Another dietary staple was meat, chiefly beef, although pork, and much more rarely, venison, mutton, lamb and goat, were consumed from time to time. In Carlisle, the bones of cattle dominate on all Roman sites, frequently accounting for over 80 per cent of bone assemblages. They were Celtic shorthorns, of which the nearest modern equivalent is the Dexter. Juvenile and sub-adult beasts were bred for consumption, but the majority of bones found in excavations came from relatively old female cows that had reached the end of their lives as breeding stock, but which had been used for traction, as shown by the splaying of feet bones, found both in the fort and in the town.39 Carcasses were also a source of hides, bones for their marrow and for making into pins, combs and handles, as well as blood and sinews. The other main livestock domesticates were sheep and/or goats, and pigs. Mutton was eaten, but at no point under the Romans did it form a significant part of the diet, although within the fort soldiers had access to lamb on occasion.40 Pork in the form of juvenile and sub-adult pigs was also favoured by the army, but whilst pigs had few other uses than for meat, sheep were bred for dairy products such as milk for cheese, and their bones could also have been used for manufacturing objects. There is little evidence for sheep being bred for wool, although shearing would have been carried out in the countryside, the wool being transported in bales on carts. Where exactly livestock originated, and the sizes of the herds and flocks, are important questions with regard to the economy of Carlisle. Cattle needed herdsmen and sheep needed shepherds; cowherds and shepherds occupied specialist positions in the local community in later times, and probably under the Romans as well. When ready for slaughter, some beasts may have been culled on the farm, but some, perhaps the majority, of cattle and sheep could have been driven to market, and then slaughtered and processed. Lands in the vicinity, perhaps on the Solway Plain and the poorer soils, could have been and probably were utilized, but Stallibrass has also suggested that cattle were brought to Carlisle on the hoof from lands to the north of Hadrian’s Wall, much as happened with cattle droving in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries.41 The landscape of the Scottish borders is well suited to both cattle and sheep grazing, and the complex of enclosures attached to the hillfort of Castle O’er in the valley of the White Esk, Dumfriesshire, may well have been one such ranch in the early first millennium ad.42 Bone assemblages at both the fort and town of Carlisle bear a number of congenital traits suggesting a similar breeding population, as well as signs of being driven to Carlisle on the hoof.43 Some calf and sheep bones may also show signs of droving. Pigs, however, were probably locally raised; they could easily have been bred within the town, in gardens or waste places.44 Livestock generated a range of other jobs, with butchers, for example, dismembering carcasses, evidenced by cut marks on the bones, but there were also tanners, cobblers and leatherworkers dealing with hides, as well as wool producers, spinners, weavers, and in a few places, cloth finishers. Premises for working and storage were also needed for each of these

Luguvalium: people and economy  91 operations. Customers might include individual soldiers responsible for their own kit, as well as the townsfolk who might not always have had the skills to meet all their own needs. The diet of the native Romano-Britons in Cumbria is particularly difficult to assess because rural sites tend to be based on acidic soils unfavourable to the preservation of bones and organic materials. To begin to appreciate this, we have to revert to other sources on peasant diet. This example, from comments made by Sir William Petty about Irish peasantry in 1672, is not intended to represent the Romano-British peasant’s diet, but as an example of the limited range of food available to the poor in later times: The diet of these people is milk, sweet and sour, thick and thin, which also is their drink in summer time, in winter small beer or water… Their food is bread and cakes; potatoes from August to May, mussels, cockles and oysters if near the sea; eggs and butter made rancid by keeping in bogs. As for flesh, they seldom eat it, notwithstanding there is a great plenty thereof, unless it be one of the smaller animals, because it is inconvenient…to kill a beef which they have no convenience to save. So it is easier for them to have a hen or rabbit than a piece of beef of equal substance…45 This Irish analogy is far from being exact, but it makes the point that those at the bottom of the social spectrum had a more restricted diet than those at the top. Leaving aside the facts that potatoes were unavailable in Roman Carlisle and that shellfish barely feature in the archaeological record, the essential point is that Irish peasantry subsisted on a diet of grainbased products (bread and cakes), dairy products (milk, butter, cheese, eggs) and beer or water. Despite the presence of cattle, beef was rarely consumed because whilst a single beast provides a great deal of meat, at the level of peasant families it was too valuable to use and was reserved for celebrations. If the core diet appears unappetizing, if not grim, to our tastes, we can add a range of other foods, illustrated by references to both cereal- and animal-based products in correspondence from Vindolanda,46 as well as discoveries of seeds of wild and imported fruit and vegetables in archaeological contexts such as ditches, pits, wells, drainage gullies, and floor and yard deposits. Research here shows a degree of dietary diversity introduced by the Romans, which benefited all elements of the social spectrum. Van der Veen has shown that there is archaeological evidence of at least 60 food plants, even though some species are represented by only a handful of examples.47 Some, such as olives, wine, grapes and figs, were imported from overseas, but many were probably collected locally as wild plants. It is a fair assumption that poor preservation probably understates the extent to which they cultivated edible plants in gardens in both rural and urban communities. Large plots were not necessarily needed, but domestic cultivation

92  Luguvalium: people and economy in gardens could have given the poorer sectors access to some foods requiring no outlay of resources, yet providing variety. Gardening must also have acted as a buffer to starvation for less fortunate households, especially when harvests were poor or failed. They could have provided leguminous peas and beans, pulses such as lentils and vetch, and fruits including apples, pears, plums and damsons, as well as vegetables, notably beetroot, rape, cabbage, turnip, carrots, celery, parsnips, asparagus and some nuts. Native and exotic condiments included coriander, black pepper, fennel and parsley, and seasonal wild fruits and nuts also contributed to the diet.48 Such diversity in the diet not only reflects new ways of preparing and cooking food, but it increases the range of nutrients, especially vitamins and minerals, available to a wider segment of the population.49 That range is not present to the same extent in the archaeological record at Carlisle as in other places in Roman Britain, but taxa recovered from numerous excavations clearly demonstrate the consumption of both wild and cultivated plants. The food supply to Carlisle had to be sufficient to meet the needs of the population, the garrisons, the rest of the community and their livestock. Everybody was affected by seasonal fluctuations in the nature of the food available, although for the richer members of society, this was mitigated by access to imported foodstuffs. Nutrition studies offer useful insights that allow us to form a broad view about the nature of the population and its energy and dietary needs. For this we can divide the people of Roman Carlisle into two broad categories. There were those who were very or extremely active, that is to say the majority of juveniles, adolescents and adults, and those who were inactive and unproductive, the very young (babies and infants) and the elderly or infirm. In general terms, the nutritional needs of both groups are slightly different. Clearly, getting an adequate diet is vitally important because it is the provider of energy and nutrition, and enables people to survive and work. For the poor and middling classes in the ancient world, most occupations and lifestyles required a great deal of energy. A simple example is that of ploughing, a job that would almost certainly have been undertaken by some of those living in Carlisle. A plough team might comprise a ploughman, holding the plough in the furrow as shown in the Piercebridge model (Figure 4.3), another person leading the draft animal(s), and, perhaps, a group of other people following behind creating a tilth with spades and/or rakes. The time taken to do this was variable because of differences in soil types and micro-topography, but the energy required was considerable. It was an arduous job, although the people involved would be used to it. If the rule of thumb, cultivate an acre of land a day, is anywhere near accurate, a plough team might expect to walk several miles a day in good weather conditions. Medieval data puts it into perspective; the minimum distance a bondsman with a holding of about 30 acres (12 ha; a virgate) might be expected to walk when ploughing just half his land (15 acres, 6 ha), the

Luguvalium: people and economy  93 remainder being in fallow, could be about 193 km. His Romano-British counterpart had a similar task. As has been seen, an important source of energy was grain, a staple of many modern and ancient peasant economies. Using data obtained from literary and epigraphic sources, and comparing it with twentieth-century Greek peasant households, the consumption of grain in what might be a typical household in the Graeco-Roman world has been estimated.50 According to this, and allowing for adjustments to take account of different sources of nutrition, the relative proportions of different foods was estimated at 65 to 70 per cent grain and 20 to 25 per cent fruit, vegetables and pulses, with the remaining 5 to 15 per cent comprising wine, meat and oils. 51 Clearly such figures cannot be uncritically extrapolated to Carlisle, not least because there are significant climatic and cultural differences as well as issues of availability and affordability, but they provide a basis for thinking about what may have been needed to sustain a population in which manual work was the norm. Grains, vegetables and fruit provided carbohydrates, especially important for the physically active, whilst fats and proteins would have been obtained from meats, eggs, nuts, seeds and dairy products. Many of the key vitamins and minerals needed to sustain a healthy life are present in this range of foods. Of these, meat is frequently highlighted as a dietary staple, although as noted earlier, it was not necessarily a regular part of the diet for most of the townspeople and rural communities. In many peasant communities, meat consumption was often limited in scale apart from festivals and major celebrations. Even so, the range of foodstuffs available and their nutritional benefits in theory provided what the people of Carlisle needed. The one caveat is that famine and food shortages were endemic in the ancient world, so that there was extra pressure on the food-producing community to ensure a good crop. A certain amount of forward thinking was essential; at the start of the year, farmers would need to anticipate their consumption of grain, seed corn, livestock requirements for breeding, dairy products, consumption and traction, taxes, rents and debts, as well as grain losses to vermin or mould, in order to try and offset the effects of adverse weather and poor harvests. Then after harvest, attention would turn to the disposal of surpluses, either to the market or to rectifying deficits accrued as a result of purchases or hunger.52 There is some evidence of malnutrition in Roman Britain; isotope studies on skeletal remains of young children, whose calorific requirements are lower than adults, from Dorchester-on-Thames indicate a degree of environmental stress, perhaps due to malnutrition or dietary deficiencies. 53 At Dorchester in Dorset, similar studies also indicate malnutrition in children, who displayed signs of anaemia, rickets and scurvy. 54 Few adult skeletal remains have been found in Carlisle, but where they have been recovered signs of nutritional disorders are evident, including vitamin C deficiencies. Elsewhere, better evidence has been found in the wealthy Roman town

94  Luguvalium: people and economy of Cirencester (Corinium), for example, whose affluent elite, clearly represented by well-appointed houses and fine tombstones, was served by a larger population of poor and middling-rank people including slaves, labourers, tenant farmers, shopkeepers and craftsmen. In this mixed population, Calvin Wells identified substantial numbers of poorer people, whose skeletal remains exhibit evidence of strains being placed repeatedly on specific parts of the body, suggesting heavy manual occupations, as well as signs of vitamin C deficiency. 55 Isotopic analysis can also indicate dietary diversity, revealing both plant and animal proteins. 56 At Poundbury in Dorset, for example, late Romano-British skeletons of higher-status people in lead coffins, and sometimes mausolea, were shown to have had diets containing much marine food, whilst those lower down the social scale, buried in wooden coffins, had a largely terrestrial diet. If there is a lesson for Carlisle in this, it is that the diet of the poorer natives in the town and its hinterland may not have been as varied as that of the military, especially the senior officers and their families, but it would be unwise to conclude that it was nutritionally impoverished. 57

The economy – manufacturing Some aspects of the economy are difficult, if not impossible, to reconstruct in Roman Britain. The nature and terms of transactions, prices and ownership of property, or sentimental value invested in places or things, are cases in point, although in Italy and some other provinces epigraphic, literary, artistic and historical sources can sometimes yield additional insights into such matters. In Britain, our source is archaeology, and artefacts can be especially revealing. Each object contains within it a basic record of the raw materials out of which it was made and the processes used in its manufacture, and in some cases the uses to which it was put can be reconstructed. In other words, biographies of artefacts can shed light on the economy. In ancient societies, the metal trades were almost as important as the food supply, or as information technology is today. The army, for instance, relied on iron and bronze for its weaponry and body armour, much of the maintenance of which was undertaken in-house, often inside the fort itself. In the central range of the Carlisle fort in the Hadrianic period, the workshop next to the headquarters contained extensive smithing residues in the form of charcoal, hearths, oven bases, hammerscale, and some 22 kg of slag from one building, as well as a cache of partly worn-out armour. 58 In the annexe south of the fort, copper alloy offcuts from helmets may indicate further activity entailing the repair and maintenance of military equipment.59 Almost everyone, irrespective of their status, needed equipment made of iron and copper alloy. Buildings required metalwork, including nails and other internal fittings. Vehicles and draught animals also needed iron and bronze fittings and trappings. The list of metal artefacts is extensive, but

Luguvalium: people and economy  95 is worth quoting in order to make the point. There were agricultural tools (ploughshares, hoes, mattocks, shears, reaping hooks, sickles, scythes, spades and shears), woodworking tools (chisels, saws, hammers, mallets, planes, awls, punches, adzes), fittings and fastenings for boxes and furniture (locks, latch-lifters, hinges, angle brackets, staples, nails), personal items (rings, brooches, buckles, razors), fittings for buildings (door furniture, suspension chains), equipment for food preparation (jugs, saucepans, bowls, knives, cleavers, flesh hooks, ladles, handles for wooden buckets), lamps, writing equipment (styli, seal boxes), cart fittings (iron tyres, nave hoops, linch pins) and horse and livestock equipment (bits, harness fittings, bells, ox goads). Many of these reflect aspects of life near where they were found, but behind each one is a story of raw material procurement, processing and manufacture. In Carlisle, as in most other towns in the Roman Empire, most metal objects were made of iron or copper alloy (bronze), lead and pewter (an alloy of lead and tin), but silver and gold items do occur, although much less frequently. The supply mechanisms by which iron bars, lead pigs and ingots of other metals reached Carlisle is unclear, but there must have been frequent cartloads of the raw material from mines in the north Pennines, and perhaps the heart and western fringes of the Lake District, to Carlisle and other forts, where they would be turned into objects by smiths and other metalworkers in the fort and in the town. Part of the manufacturing process was carried out at the mines; quarrying, crushing and washing of iron ores, for example, probably took place at or close to the mines, prior to smelting and forging.60 Bronze objects resulted from a similar process, but with the two complications that an alloy had to be produced, with tin or lead being added to copper, and that many items were cast in moulds. One of the most important raw materials for metalworking was fuel, mostly wood and charcoal, but occasionally coal and possibly peat. Ironworkers in particular would probably need assistance in maintaining heat at the appropriate temperatures and in the collection and delivery of considerable quantities of fuel. Metalworkers needed working space for forges/furnaces and fuel stocks, as well as access to water and storage, and partially roofed and/or open-sided buildings. The remains of these, and traces of smelting and smithing, have been recovered from the industrial suburb of Botchergate.61 They included hearths or furnace bases for smelting ores, lead slag and silver-rich galena, the latter hinting that the ores were brought to Carlisle from the North Pennine orefields.62 Pottery is also a trade highly visible in the archaeological record. It is found in large quantities on many Romano-British sites, but unlike many parts of Britain there is little evidence that the native population in Cumbria used ceramics during the preceding Iron Age. The arrival of the Romans, with their need for pottery vessels, represented a significant addition to the range of economic drivers in the north-west. The implications were important, because from the very beginning domestic pottery vessels signalled different methods of storing foodstuffs, cooking and preparing meals, as

96  Luguvalium: people and economy well as social practices reflected in tablewares such as fine-ware beakers or the fine red-gloss samian bowls and plates. The absence of any local pottery tradition in Cumbria meant that the Roman army had to set up their own workshops on arrival; the kilns discovered in Fisher Street just outside the fort are probably part of that phase.63 Thereafter, until the earliest years of the second century, locally made products account for at least 61 per cent of vessels discovered, much of the remainder being made up of imported tablewares, amphorae, and the weighty, grit-studded mixing bowls ­(mortaria) used in food preparation. As with much else, the military market shaped the supply of pottery to Carlisle. Other local pottery suppliers were established, as at Scalesceugh about nine kilometres south of Carlisle, at the same time as a surge in industrial activity along Botchergate in the second century. The military market is also evident in the appearance of the ubiquitous utilitarian jars and dishes made of Black Burnished wares (BB1) imported from Dorset and from Rossington Bridge, south Yorkshire, from the Hadrianic period to the fourth century. Other domestic wares brought in over long distances include the mortaria from workshops at Verulamium (St Albans) and Mancetter-­Hartshill in the Midlands. By about ad 160–80, the potteries at Brampton and Fisher Street appear to have ceased production, but the local market continued to be supplied by workshops at English Damside, adjacent to the river Caldew, until around ad 240. Thereafter, local products, although undoubtedly present, become difficult to distinguish from the mass of other regional imports, amongst which were products from Colchester, Corbridge, Wilderspool, Mancetter-Hartshill and Cologne, as well as other uncertain sources. An interesting inclusion in the third-­century ceramic repertoire is the appearance of Ebor wares from York. These are imitations of North African casseroles, bowls and lids, introduced, as Swan suggests, by the army, specifically Legio VI Victrix, during and following the northern Severan campaigns.64 During the third century, the balance of foreign and regionally imported wares seems to have shifted. Whereas in the first century or so of Roman Carlisle a great deal of the pottery was locally manufactured, apart from some mortaria and Gaulish samian wares, by the mid-third century the majority of wares were imports from other parts of the province. Samian ware imports had fallen away to be replaced by fine wares from the Nene valley, Oxfordshire and the New Forest.65 By this time, even local pottery workshops had ceased operating, as dull utilitarian wares were being imported from the Crambeck and Yorkshire calcite-gritted ware workshops in East Yorkshire. Some trades, such as those reflected by metal objects and pottery, have a high archaeological profile simply because they are inorganic and they survive. Other trades are less well represented because their products are organic and normally perish. The trade in fleeces to weavers, and ultimately finished cloth products to shopkeepers and the army, must have been robust because clothing, containers (sacks), packing, covers (blankets) and

Luguvalium: people and economy  97 mattresses were in daily use by all sectors of the population, and they wear out, tear and rot very easily, leaving little archaeological trace. Part of the demand could be met from domestic industry, spinning of wool and weaving at home, for example, but fulled and dyed cloth will probably have depended on specialist facilities of which we have almost no evidence in the northern frontier zone. In theory, fulleries and dye works could be located in many rural communities, but the restricted distribution of fuller’s earth deposits in Jurassic beds in the Cotswolds and the southeast suggests that transport of such a heavy item, essentially a clay, further afield would be expensive. Unless this was organized by the army, and in the absence of much evidence for wealth amongst the local elites, we may envisage a trade in fulled cloth.66 Carlisle had leatherworkers, as is shown by the quantities of offcuts preserved in first- and second-century contexts. As with textiles, there will have been a constant demand for leather goods such as tents, garments, footwear, and a wide variety of straps and belts, shield covers, sheaths, bags and other containers, which wear out with use. There will have been no shortage of cattle and sheep hides, but it is unclear how the leather trades were organized, especially as they embraced a range of specialist workers including slaughterers, butchers, tanners and cobblers. Another by-product of livestock rearing is the manufacture of bone objects, usually dress-­accessories such as pins, as well as combs, handles, spoons, scoops, inlay for boxes and dice and counters for gaming. Bone object manufacture is often represented by offcuts and splinters, such as those found in the suburbs of Roman Winchester, but not so far from Carlisle, although such manufacture is most likely to have taken place locally.67 Wooden objects often require little more than a sharp knife and a polelathe to manufacture, but the making of bowls, buckets, barrels, chests, troughs, tools, furnishings, combs, baskets and other items often requires knowledge of the specific properties of different woods and the experience of specialist woodworkers. There is some evidence that woodworkers were operating in the southern Lanes around the turn of the first and second centuries ad.68 Related trades include wheelwrights and cart manufacturers, who would need components of wood, leather, metal and rope, whilst the building trades included carpenters as well as labourers. There were in addition doctors, goldsmiths, sculptors, innkeepers, shopkeepers and glass-workers, evidence for some of which survives. Some of these trades may have been practised by retired soldiers capitalizing on their skills acquired in service, and a great many would have operated out of ‘strip-buildings’.

The economy – exchange So far we have looked at actual trades that can be implied by the discovery of artefacts, but the basic mechanisms of buying and selling, whether of finished or part-finished articles, raw materials or basic subsistence items, also need consideration. Transactions in the Mediterranean provinces were

98  Luguvalium: people and economy often conducted through specialist markets and fairs, the timing of which was regulated. Most of the evidence relates to Italy and the North African and Middle Eastern provinces, but although our knowledge of these in Britain is lacking, this does not mean that they were absent. They were an integral part of the Roman world, and widely reflected in public buildings, epigraphy, historical and literary sources. It is difficult to conceive of Britain in the Roman world without markets and fairs, but few market halls (macella) like that at Wroxeter have been identified in Britain. Such an interpretation may, however, suit the large stone building in Carlisle outside the fort which has been tentatively suggested as a mansio, and it may also apply to Site XI at Corbridge. However, we need not necessarily imagine large formalized markets, such as the meat markets (forum boarium) or pig markets (forum suarium) found in Italy and other provinces, but rather less formal, local and regional, or interregional, fairs in the Roman frontier zone. They would have had the same social and economic functions, lubricating relationships between military and civilian personnel. They might have been held weekly, quarterly or even annually, each attracting different categories of client, ranging from local peasants to international merchants. Periodic fairs (nundinae) were held every eight or nine days in Italy. The town of Nijmegen in lower Germany, for example, was granted the right to hold nundinae, probably by Trajan early in the second century, but fairs were probably common across the Empire for low-level transactions and celebrating religious festivals.69 Such events taking place at regular intervals can easily be envisaged in towns and vici in northern Britain, and perhaps at rural locations where goods were exchanged, although not necessarily for cash. Regional fairs held at wider intervals, and where merchants from other parts of the province bought and sold goods not readily available locally, were probably also part of the annual calendar. The extent of the economic zones surrounding major settlements is difficult to assess, but they will have varied depending on the economic sector under consideration. For all that the army could and did supply its own troops, the slow pace of transport and the absence of refrigeration meant that food supplies for native and military consumption were necessarily localized. Vegetables, fruit, grain and soft cheese were probably obtained from within a fairly narrow radius around Carlisle, perhaps eight or nine kilometres, whilst meat, if delivered on the hoof rather than as carcasses, could have come from considerably further away, as one scholar has suggested.70 Most essential non-food commodities, including domestic pots, textiles, iron, lead, stone, wood, turf, peat, coal, leather, wool, bone and antler, and agricultural equipment, may have been obtainable within a radius of about 90 km. Other luxury items, olives, grapes, wine and fish products, and some glass and pottery tablewares, were imported from many places in the Empire. At the poorer end of the social spectrum, purchases may have been made at the gates of estates, whilst others bought from hucksters and pedlars

Luguvalium: people and economy  99 with pack animals, or street traders operating from roadsides or temporary booths. For those who could afford it, buying and selling was also undertaken from shops (tabernae) lining roads leading to the centres of towns. Shops can be difficult to recognize archaeologically, especially where they are represented only by wall foundations. The majority of buildings recognizable in Roman Carlisle and in the vici of neighbouring forts are known by the generic description of ‘strip-buildings’, and it seems clear that many of these functioned as tabernae with the room closest to the street functioning as a shop and/or workshop, and the rooms behind used as living and/ or storage areas.71 ‘Strip-buildings’ are present throughout Britain and in the majority of Roman towns, from London and the coloniae to municipia, civitas capitals, small towns and rural areas.72 If exchange took place at a variety of locations, as suggested above, what was the vehicle for exchange transactions? The most commonly cited means was the use of coinage, because coins are frequent finds on Roman excavations. In southern Britain and parts of the Midlands, the use of coinage preceded the arrival of the Romans, but this was not the case in the north. Across most of the territory of the Brigantes, the use of coinage as a medium of exchange had to be learned from the period of Roman conquest in the early 70s, but the speed with which it was adopted by the indigenous population is unclear. On the one hand, the sheer numbers of coins of the emperor Vespasian in Carlisle and across the north generally tends to support the idea that they were in daily use right from the beginning, but that may simply reflect the presence and pay of soldiers. The use of cash for exchange purposes may have been largely confined to the community of soldiers, using low-value denominations. We know how much legionaries were paid, 100 denarii at four-monthly intervals, but there will have been periodic deductions. Indeed, an ‘I owe you’ dated 7 November 83, found in the annexe ditch at Carlisle, was drawn up between two soldiers of Legio XX Valeria Victrix and referred to this exact sum.73 Within the fort, a group of seven copper alloy issues found wrapped in linen near the western rampart is thought to represent the contents of a soldier’s purse lost in ad 78.74 The presence of coins in early deposits does not of itself imply that a fully monetized economy was operating, but over time the habit of using cash must have taken hold in Carlisle amongst the non-military population, although the nature of monetary transactions, as opposed to simple exchanges of goods, is not known. It is impossible to assess because the pattern of coin usage over the entire period of Roman occupation, as judged by the numbers of finds, was by no means even.75 There were fluctuations in the supply of coins. Those from the reign of Marcus Aurelius to about ad 260, for example, are much less frequent than for earlier reigns, whilst the first half of the third century was a period of rampant inflation, mirrored in the abandonment of many low-value copper alloy denominations and the debasement of the denarius. On the other hand, coins of the late third century are very common and include many forgeries, some perhaps even being

100  Luguvalium: people and economy

Figure 4.5  G old coin (solidus) of Valentinian II from Scotch Street. Source: Photo by author.

made in the fort itself. Fourth-century issues of the house of Constantine and the late Roman emperors Valentinian I, Valens and Gratian are also relatively frequent finds, but issues of later emperors are very rare. What is worth noting, however, is the frequency with which coins are found in towns, forts and extra-mural vici, compared with the less common occurrence on rural sites in Cumbria. The majority of coins discovered are low-value copper alloy or brass issues, asses, dupondii, sestertii, nummi and smaller denominations, as well as the third-century double denarii (antoniniani) and earlier silver denarii. Gold coins such as aureii and solidi are extremely rare, although a solidus of Valentinian II was found sealed inside a hypocaust in Scotch Street ­(Figure 4.5).76 Money was supplied in pay chests by the central authorities for troops’ salaries, discharge bounties and equipment, and as such it is a reflection of the nuances of state policy, military activity, and variations in the supply of silver. Once paid, money was circulated into the local economy

Luguvalium: people and economy  101

Figure 4.6   Distribution of late third- to late fourth-century coins outside the principia. Source: Adapted from Zant (2009). Drawn by Lesley Collett.

through purchases, contracts and customs payments, only to be recouped by the state through taxation. Coins mirror a range of transactions and reflect the buoyancy of markets and economic trends involving the wider community, about which we have little information in Britain. An exception to this is that the numbers of coins found on any one site, leaving aside the possibility of coin hoards or coins as votive offerings, may reflect specific activities such as buying and selling where street traders or areas given over to fairs and markets operated. A good example of this at Carlisle is the large numbers of coins found in late fourth-century road surfaces adjacent to the principia in the fort (Figure 4.6), prompting the question, was this the focus of street-trading similar to that noted in Newcastle and Wallsend?77

Notes 1 Quoted in Higgins 2014, 123. 2 Morley 1996, 181–2. 3 Malone and Stoddart 1994, 184–6. 4 Woolf 1998, 137–8. 5 Millett 1990; some scholars are more conservative in their estimates. See also Mattingly 2007, 368. Carrington has also attempted estimates for Roman Chester (2008, 21–2). 6 McCarthy 2013, 34. Ultimately, all estimates of the Romano-British population will need adjusting in the light of the Roman Towns Project and the Roman Rural Settlement Project.

102  Luguvalium: people and economy 7 Bowman and Thomas 1994, no. 154, 90–8. 8 Bishop and Dore 1988, 4, 11–12, 139, Figure 5; Hodgson 2008, 73–4. 9 It is likely that many buildings served multiple purposes, combining domestic accommodation with storage, industrial or retail functions. 10 RIB 1965, 959; Phillips 1976, pl. XV. 11 RIB 1965, 955. 12 Ibid., 984, 902, 894, 897 and 2046 respectively. 13 Birley 1980, 110. 14 RIB II 1990, 2411.107; RIB 1965, 976–9, 919, 929, 882 and 2042 respectively. 15 RIB 1965, 1578–80, 1584–6, 1591. 16 Tomlin 2016. 17 Tacitus, Annals, 14.33. 18 Birley 2000, 125. 19 Birley 1980, 113; RIB 1965, 908, 862, 773–4. 20 Toynbee 1964, 325; Charlesworth 1978, 121. 21 Charlesworth 1978, 122–3, 130–1. 22 Ibid., 124–7; Coulston and Phillips 1988, 497. 23 Phillips 1976, pls. XII, XIIIB and XV; RIB 1965, 959, 961. 24 Phillips 1976. 25 Cited in Charlesworth 1978, 121. 26 A useful introduction is Stallibrass and Thomas 2008. 27 Bowman and Thomas 1983; 1994. 28 Bowman and Thomas 1994, no. 343, 321–9. 29 McCarthy 2000; Esmonde-Cleary 1994, 263; 1998, 382. 30 A useful discussion of medieval grain consumption is provided by Stone 2006, 11–22. 31 Tomlin 1998, 41–55. 32 Other evidence for arable farming comes from Carlisle itself, where ploughor ard-marks, undatable in themselves, have been found beneath the earliest Roman occupation levels at several sites, e.g. Annetwell Street (Charlesworth 1978, 115) and Blackfriars Street (McCarthy 1990, 13–14). 33 Fowler 2002, 186–92. This appears to be an ard rather than a plough, the ard being the most common and widespread type of cultivating implement in Roman Britain, particularly in the north. It is pulled by two cattle, one male and one probably female, so the whole scene is probably of symbolic significance rather than a simple representation of rural life. 34 Huntley and Stallibrass 1995, 24. 35 Much debate has taken place as to how cereal remains and weeds of cultivation in archaeological assemblages should be interpreted. See Stevens 2003. 36 McCarthy 1990, 56–60, 370. Bakeries were a ubiquitous feature in towns across the Roman world. Examples in Britain at Silchester and Caerwent are noted in Mac Mahon 2005, 64. 37 The photograph shows the nave with protruding spokes, and fragments of the rim (felloe) are visible at the sides against the barrel. McCarthy et al. 1982, 85–7. 38 Shaffrey 2009, 877. Fragments of querns that may have been from a geared mill are also known at Botchergate, Carlisle (Howard-Davis and McPhillips 2011, 91). 39 Stallibrass 2000, 86, 88–9; Evans et al. 2009. 40 Stallibrass 2000, 89. 41 Stallibrass 2008. Droving was an established part of agricultural life in Republican and Imperial Italy, with pastores moving flocks and herds from the high pastures in the Apennines to Rome and other towns. See also Frayn 1979, 35–7. 42 The dates are radiocarbon determinations. Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland 1997, 78–82.

Luguvalium: people and economy  103 43 Stallibrass 2000, 88–9; Evans et al. 2009, 904. 4 4 Neonatal pig bones and insect assemblages suggest pig-breeding in the southern Lanes (Stallibrass 2000, 88–9; Kenward et al. 2000). 45 Cited in Clarkson and Crawford 2001, 15. Observations by travellers such as Arthur Young, and data in the Statistical Accounts, also present a picture of a largely grain- and vegetable-based diet, although there were regional variations. Whilst this does not necessarily mean that the Romano-British poor followed the same practices, it makes the point that cattle were extremely valuable resources, capable of yielding a great deal of meat. 46 Bowman and Thomas 1994; 2003. 47 Van der Veen 2008, 95; Hesse 2011, 221. 48 Van der Veen 2008, Table 1. 49 Ibid., 101–2. 50 Foxhall and Forbes 1982, 71–2. For an earlier study based in part on Columella and the dietary needs of peasants, see Evans 1980, especially 147 et seq. Carrington has also considered this with regard to Chester (2008, 22). 51 Foxhall and Forbes 1982, 71–2; Gallant 1991, 66–7. 52 Mørch 1994, 110. 53 Fuller et al. 2006. 54 Redfern et al. 2012, 1252. 55 Wells 1982. 56 Richards et al. 1998, 1249–50. 57 McCarthy 2013. The presence of fruit and vegetables in the archaeological record does not, of itself, mean that they formed significant parts of the diet. Clarkson and Crawford (2001, 82) noted that the early nineteenth-­century Statistical Surveys in Ireland demonstrated that vegetables were scarcely known in some areas such as Tyrone. Both osteological and isotopic analyses of Romano-British skeletal remains elsewhere in Britain are providing revealing insights into nutrition and the quality of diets. See also Cool 2006. 58 Zant 2009, 226–37. 59 McCarthy 1991; Padley 1991. 60 McCarthy 2013, 95–100. 61 Zant et al. 2011. 62 Murphy 2011, 111–2. 63 Swan et al. 2009, 593. 64 Ibid., 643. 65 Ibid., 605–7. 66 McCarthy 2013, 110–5. 67 Rees et al. 2008, 182–94. 68 McCarthy 2000; Hall 2005, 117. 69 De Ligt 1993, 91–105. 70 Stallibrass 2008. A number of theoretical models for agricultural production and urban development have been advanced. One to which Roman Carlisle may approximate is that of Von Thunen, according to whom the production of perishable goods would be located closest to the town, timber and wood for fuel a little further away, arable agriculture even further away, whilst livestock ranching would be the most distant, because animals can walk. A weakness of this model is that topography, climate and soil quality are highly variable, but it is nonetheless a useful reminder that in ancient societies perishable foods are most likely to be obtained locally because of the lack of refrigeration, whilst other non-perishable items would easily survive longer journeys. This is evident, for example, in ancient Rome, and in seventeenth-­c entury London, where market gardens servicing the city developed in the outer fringes, whilst cattle were driven on the hoof from great

104  Luguvalium: people and economy

71 7 2 73 74 75 76 7 7

distances along drove roads (Fisher 1962; Victoria County History 2004; Frayn 1979, 35–7). Mac Mahon 2005. For Carlisle see McCarthy 1990; also geophysical surveys of the Cathedral precinct in Schmidt and Hamilton 2009, and at St Mary’s Gate in Neal nd. Tomlin 1992. Shotter 2009, 679. The coins include two asses, three dupondii and two sestertii. For further comments on coins, see Chapter 7, n. 60. Keevill et al. 1989. Zant 2009, 357, 463–4; Shotter 2009, 684.

References Birley, A.R. 1980. The People of Roman Britain. Berkeley and Los Angeles. Birley, A.R. 2000. Hadrian the Restless Emperor. London and New York. Bishop, M.C. and Dore, J.N. 1988. Corbridge: Excavations of the Roman Fort and Town 1947–80. English Heritage Archaeological Report 8. London. Bowman, A.K. and Thomas, J.D. 1983. Vindolanda: The Latin Writing Tablets. Britannia Monograph 4. London. Bowman, A.K. and Thomas, J.D. 1994. The Vindolanda Writing Tablets: Tabulae Vindolandenses II. London. Carrington, P. 2008. ‘Feeding the wolf in Cheshire: models and (a few) facts’, in S. Stallibrass and R. Thomas eds., 19–82. Charlesworth, D. 1978. ‘Roman Carlisle’, Archaeological Journal 135: 115–37. Clarkson, L.A. and Crawford, E.M. 2001. Feast and Famine: Food and Nutrition in Ireland 1500–1920. Oxford. Cool, H.E.M. 2006. Eating and Drinking in Roman Britain. Cambridge. Coulston, J.C. and Phillips, E.J. 1988. Corpus Signorum Imperii Romani: Great Britain 1:6 Hadrian’s Wall West of the North Tyne and Carlisle. Oxford. De Ligt, L. 1993. Fairs and Markets in the Roman Empire: Economic and Social Aspects of Periodic Trade in a Pre-Industrial Society. Amsterdam. Esmonde Cleary, A.S. 1994. ‘Roman Britain in 1993’, Britannia 25: 261–91. Esmonde Cleary, A.S. 1998. ‘Roman Britain in 1997’, Britannia 29: 365–432. Evans, E-J., Howard-Davis, C. and Bates, C. 2009. ‘The animal bone’, in C. Howard-­Davis, 903–20. Evans, J.K. 1980. ‘Plebs Rustica II’, American Journal of Ancient History 5: 134–73. Fisher, F.J. 1962. ‘The development of London as a centre of conspicuous consumption in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries’, in Essays in Economic History Volume 2, ed. E.M. Carus-Wilson, 197–207. London. Fowler, P. 2002. Farming in the First Millennium ad. British Agriculture between Julius Caesar and William the Conqueror. Cambridge. Foxhall, L. and Forbes, H.A. 1982. ‘The role of grain as a staple food in Classical Antiquity’, Chiron 12: 41–90. Frayn, J. 1979. Subsistence Farming in Roman Italy. London. Fuller, B.T., Molleson, T.I., Harris, D.A., Gilmour, L.T. and Hedges, R.E.M. 2006. ‘Isotopic evidence for breastfeeding and possible adult dietary differences in Late/ Sub-Roman Britain’, American Journal of Physical Anthropology 129: 45–54.

Luguvalium: people and economy  105 Gallant, T.W. 1991. Risk and Survival in Ancient Greece: Reconstructing the Rural Domestic Economy. Oxford. Hall, J. 2005. ‘The shopkeepers and craft-workers of Roman London’, in A. Mac Mahon and J. Price eds., 125–44. Hesse, R. 2011. ‘Reconsidering animal husbandry and diet in the northwest provinces’, Journal of Roman Archaeology 24: 215–48. Higgins, C. 2014. Under Another Sky: Journeys in Roman Britain. London. Hodgson, N. 2008. ‘The development of the Roman site at Corbridge from the first to third centuries ad’, Archaeologia Aeliana 5 ser. 37: 47–92. Howard-Davis, C. 2009. The Carlisle Millennium Project: Excavations in Carlisle 1998–2001. Volume 2 The Finds. Oxbow/Lancaster Imprints 14. Oxford. Howard-Davis, C. and McPhillips, S. 2011. ‘Other finds’, in ed. R. Newman, 89–92. Huntley, J.P.H. and Stallibrass, S. 1995. Plant and Vertebrate Remains from Archaeological Sites in Northern England. Architectural Archaeological Society Durham and Northumberland Research Report 4. Durham. Keevill, G., Shotter, D.C.A. and McCarthy, M. 1989. ‘A solidus of Valentinian II from Scotch Street, Carlisle’, Britannia 20: 254–5. Kenward, H., Allison, E.P., Dainton, M., Kemenés, I.K. and Carrot, J.P. 2000. ‘The insect and parasite remains’, in M.R. McCarthy, 81–3. McCarthy, M.R. 1990. A Roman, Anglian and Medieval Site at Blackfriars Street, Carlisle: Excavations 1977–9. Cumberland Westmorland Antiquarian Archaeological Society Research Series 4. Kendal. McCarthy, M.R. 1991. The Roman Waterlogged Remains and Later Features at Castle Street, Carlisle: Excavations 1981–2. Cumberland Westmorland Antiquarian Archaeological Society Research Series 5. Kendal. McCarthy, M.R. 2000. Roman and Medieval Carlisle: The Southern Lanes. Excavations 1981–2. Department of Archaeological Sciences, University of Bradford, Research Report 1. Carlisle. McCarthy, M.R. 2013. The Romano-British Peasant: Towards a Study of People, Landscapes and Work during the Roman Occupation of Britain. Oxford. McCarthy, M.R., Padley, T.G. and Henig, M. 1982. ‘Excavations and finds from The Lanes, Carlisle’, Britannia 13: 79–89. Mac Mahon, A. 2005. ‘The shops and workshops of Roman Britain’, in A. Mac Mahon and J. Price eds., 48–69. Mac Mahon, A. and Price, J. eds. 2005. Roman Working Lives and Urban Living. Oxford. Malone, C. and Stoddart, S. 1994. Territory, Time and State: The Archaeological Development of the Gubbio Basin. Cambridge. Mattingly, D. 2007. An Imperial Possession: Britain in the Roman Empire 54 bc to ad 409. London. Millett, M. 1990. The Romanization of Britain. Cambridge. Mørch, H.F.C. 1994. ‘Agricultural landscapes: a geographer’s considerations on the past’, in Landuse in the Roman Empire, ed. J. Carlsen, 107–113. Rome. Morley, N. 1996. Metropolis and Hinterland: The City of Rome and the Italian Economy 200 bc to ad 200. Cambridge. Murphy, S. 2011. ‘Evidence for metalworking processes’, in R. Newman ed., 108–13. Neal, D.S. nd. ‘Roman and medieval remains at Castle Street and Fisher Street, Carlisle: excavations in 1977’, unpublished manuscript. Carlisle.

106  Luguvalium: people and economy Newman, R. ed. 2011. Carlisle: Excavations at Rickergate 1998–9 and 53–55 Botchergate 2001. Cumberland Westmorland Antiquarian Archaeological Society Research Report 2. Bowness-on-Windermere. Padley, T.G. 1991. The Metalwork, Glass and Stone Objects from Castle Street, Carlisle, Fascicule 2. Cumberland Westmorland Antiquarian Archaeological Society Research Series 5. Kendal. Phillips, E.J. 1976. ‘A workshop of Roman sculptors at Carlisle’, Britannia 7: 101–8. Redfern, R.C., Millard, A.R. and Hamlin, C. 2012. ‘A regional investigation of sub-adult dietary patterns and health in Late Iron Age and Roman Dorset, England’, Journal of Archaeological Science 39: 1249–59. Rees, H., Crummy, N., Ottaway, P.J. and Dunn, G. 2008. Artefacts and Society in Roman and Medieval Winchester: Small Finds from the Suburbs and Defences 1971–1986. Winchester Museums Archaeological Report. Winchester. RIB. 1965. The Roman Inscriptions of Britain. I. Inscriptions on Stone. R.G. Collingwood and R.P. Wright. Oxford. RIB. 1990. The Roman Inscriptions of Britain. II. Instrumentum Domesticum (Personal Belongings and the Like). Fascicule 1: The Military Diplomata; Metal Ingots; Tesserae; Dies; Labels and Lead Sealings (RIB 2401–2411). R.G. Collingwood and R.P. Wright. Eds. S.S. Frere, M.M. Roxan and R. Tomlin. Gloucester. Richards, M.P., Hedges, R.E.M., Molleson, T. and Vogel, C. 1998. ‘Stable isotope analysis reveals variations in human diet at the Poundbury Camp cemetery site’, Journal of Archaeological Science 25: 1247–52. Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland. 1997. Eastern Dumfriesshire: An Archaeological Landscape. Edinburgh. Schmidt, A. and Hamilton, K. 2009. ‘Geophysical survey at Carlisle Cathedral Close 2000’, Trans. Cumberland Westmorland Antiquarian Archaeological Society 3 ser. 9: 216–21. Shaffrey, R. 2009. ‘The other worked stone’, in C. Howard-Davis, 873–87. Shotter, D. 2009. ‘The Roman coins’, in C. Howard-Davis, 679–86. Stallibrass, S. 2000. ‘The animal bone’, in M.R. McCarthy, 85–9. Stallibrass, S. 2008. ‘The way to a Roman soldier’s heart: a post-medieval model for cattle droving to the Hadrian’s Wall area’, in TRAC 2008: Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference, Oxford, eds. M. Driessen, S. Heeren, J. Hendriks, F. Kemmers and R. Vissor, 101–12. Oxford. Stallibrass, S. and Thomas, R. eds. 2008. Feeding the Roman Army: The Archaeology of Production and Supply in NW Europe. Oxford. Stevens, C.J. 2003. ‘An investigation of agricultural consumption and production models for prehistoric and Roman Britain’, Environmental Archaeology 8: 61–76. Stone, D.J. 2006. ‘The consumption of field crops in late medieval England’, in Food in Medieval England: Diet and Nutrition, eds. C.M. Woolgar, D. Serjeantson and T. Waldron, 11–22. Oxford. Swan, V.G., McBride, R.M. and Hartley, K.F. 2009. ‘The coarse pottery (including amphorae and mortaria)’, in C. Howard-Davis ed., 566–659. Tacitus, Annals. 1956. Tacitus: The Annals of Imperial Rome, ed. M. Grant. Harmondsworth.

Luguvalium: people and economy  107 Thomas, R. and Stallibrass, S. 2008. ‘For starters, producing and supplying food to the army’, in S. Stallibrass and R. Thomas eds., 1–17. Tomlin, R.S.O. 1992. ‘The Twentieth Legion at Wroxeter and Carlisle in the first century: the epigraphic evidence’, Britannia 23: 141–58. Tomlin, R.S.O. 1998. ‘Roman manuscripts from Carlisle’, Britannia 29: 31–84. Tomlin, R.S.O. 2016. Roman London’s First Voices: Writing Tablets from the Bloomberg Excavations 2010–14. Museum of London Archaeology Monograph 72. London. Toynbee, J.M.C. 1964. Art in Britain under the Romans. Oxford. Van der Veen, M. 2008. ‘Food as embodied material culture: diversity and change in plant food consumption in Roman Britain’, Journal of Roman Archaeology 21: 83–109. Victoria County History. 2004. A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 12, Chelsea, ed. P.E.C. Croot. London. Wells, C. 1982. ‘The human burials’, in Romano-British Cemeteries at Cirencester: Cirencester Excavations II, eds. A. McWhirr, L. Viner and C. Wells, 135–201. Cirencester. Woolf, G. 1998. Becoming Roman: The Origins of Provincial Civilization in Gaul. Cambridge. Zant, J. 2009. The Carlisle Millennium Project: Excavations in Carlisle 1998–2001. Volume 1: Stratigraphy. Oxbow/Lancaster Imprints 14. Oxford. Zant, J., Miller, I., Murphy, S. and Hughes, V. 2011. ‘Archaeological excavation on a Roman cemetery, industrial site and medieval suburb at 53–55 Botchergate, Carlisle, 2001’, in R. Newman ed., 71–130.

5 Late Roman Carlisle to the Kingdom of Northumbria

A wider context In previous chapters, we have examined the growth of Carlisle and considered the townscape and aspects of its social and economic make-up. With resident garrisons in the town and across the river at Stanwix, the future of Carlisle in the late third century must have seemed secure, and the northern frontier zone in general relatively quiet. Many of the garrisons in northern forts were engaged in rebuilding, repairs and maintenance, according to the testimony of inscriptions, tasks that would not have been possible had there been signs of trouble. On the other hand, the extent to which peace meant prosperity is difficult to judge, not least because archaeology can only chart broad fluctuations in the economy, whilst the nuances of day-to-day life at the level of the peasantry and urban working poor are irrecoverable. What, for example, are we to make of the very low numbers of mid-third-century coins – say, from the 230s to about 270 – on archaeological sites? Does it mean that people were more than usually careful with their change, or does it signify an economic shift towards exchange in kind – essentially barter? From the 270s, the purchasing power of the radiate dropped so low that forgery became widespread, including in the army. How did that affect the farmer and the artisan? Such questions are difficult to answer at present. On the one hand, a degree of stability seems possible in Carlisle because the fort continued to be occupied throughout the third century, and some forts on Hadrian’s Wall show clear signs of neglect and signs of peaceful conditions. Where forts were abandoned, however, a significant impact on the local economy in the immediate vicinity would certainly follow, because there would be no incentive for the non-military population in the vicus to remain when the food market and other services created by the military disappeared. The allegedly peaceful conditions of the third century, then, depend on what is meant by peaceful. In the sense of an apparent absence of hostilities, it may well be true. But in the sense of prosperity across the urban and rural populations, there may be room for doubt. Other problems in assessing the third century include the quality of our dating tools. There are no tree-ring dates, coins of the early to mid-third

Late Rome to Northumbria  109 century are few, and pottery is only attributable to very broad date ranges, which means that our ability to date archaeological events is reliant on tools that are, at best, very crude. Similarly, the interpretation of archaeological deposits in terms of the duration of occupation or abandonment is difficult, not least because well-preserved waterlogged deposits are absent.1 It was different in the fourth century, when raiding from the north and Ireland is attested. Some forts abandoned in the third century were reoccupied, the army was reorganized, and there were reductions in the size of many units, although the precise timing and impact of this is not understood and may have commenced earlier. However, the presence of units known as numeri on inscriptions, as at Burgh-by-Sands, or a new form of barrack accommodation known as ‘chalets’, suggests that some forts were smaller than hitherto, but neither numeri nor ‘chalets’ are known at Carlisle. The military reforms of the early fourth century must have had consequences not just for the army, but for the civilian population as well. An auxiliary infantry unit, for example, formerly comprising a unit with a ‘paper strength’ of 500, could be reduced in number to around a quarter or even a fifth of its former size. Smaller units meant smaller captive markets for traders. How did settlement in the north react to this, if at all? Accounts of ‘trouble’, in which the Picts, Caledonii, the Scots and Attacotti were participants from 360 on, almost certainly affected the frontier zone. 2 Some of these disturbances affected ‘places (loca) near the frontiers’, and although we are not told where, Carlisle on the main western land route is unlikely to have escaped.3 Because some raids must have been seaborne, involving tribes from Ireland and the Continent, the instability in Britain portrayed by late Roman writers was part of the widespread movement of peoples and disaffection with the Roman state, culminating in the great migrations of the late fourth, fifth and sixth centuries. It certainly focused attention on the frontier defences, as we can see that Theodosius ‘protected the frontiers with sentries and forts’, followed by the actions of Magnus Maximus in 3824 and later in 398–9 involving Stilicho, both against the Picts.5 What seems reasonably certain is that many units withdrawn from Britain by Stilicho in 402 did not return. However, it is inherently unlikely that Stilicho, or slightly later the British usurper Constantine III and Honorius, anticipated the complete collapse of Roman rule, and withdrew all the troops from the frontier zone. Some units may have left voluntarily to seek their fortune overseas, but others amongst the limitanei could have remained behind and merged with the indigenous farming population. Finally in 410, the emperor Honorius, presumably in answer to a request, wrote to the cities of Britain to look to their own defence. It was a plea to the citizens and not to military personnel, and is widely taken to be the de facto end of Roman rule in Britain. From the reign of Diocletian, the northern frontier defence force (limitanei)6 was under the command of the dux Britanniarum; the other interesting development was the reorganization of the civil administration

110  Late Rome to Northumbria of Britain, entailing the carving-up of the two Severan British provinces (Britannia Superior and Britannia Inferior) first into four, of which the northern area became Britannia Secunda (Figure 5.1); then, at some point before 369, a fifth sub-province named Valentia, probably a subdivision of Britannia Secunda, was added. Details of the way in which the northern provinces were divided and the location of Valentia is unclear, but the Notitia Dignitatum, an early fifth-century list of military and civilian commands across the Empire, tells us that a consularis governed Valentia. As the more senior governor, it is fair to suppose that he was based at York, whilst a praeses might have been appropriate for the remainder, perhaps

Figure 5.1  T he possible location of Roman provinces in fourth-century Britain (Valentia is not shown). Source: Drawn by Lesley Collett.

Late Rome to Northumbria  111 located in the north-west.7 Another point of interest is that the Notitia refers to Stanwix (Petriana) but not Carlisle (Luguvalium), the implication being that military matters were devolved to the Hadrian’s Wall fort. We do not know when this took place because the Notitia is a compilation of documents, not all of which were up-to-date. However, if this was the case, it would surely have represented a milestone in the history of Carlisle, because a key plank of Carlisle’s success had always been the existence of a substantial military market for a variety of goods and services. The removal of soldiers from the fort in Carlisle, coupled with the reduction in unit sizes, signalled a crack in the basic underpinning of Carlisle’s economic raison d’être. The only way in which such a crack could be repaired would be for a vibrant and buoyant rural economy to realign itself, but there is no sign of that happening in the north-west, and it is unlikely to have been possible in the under-populated fastnesses of the Roman frontier. If the north-west was one of the new provinces, Carlisle as an existing civitas capital would be a clear candidate for its capital. In that case, we would expect the presence of such a senior official as a governor to be reflected in the archaeology, specifically in terms of building remains, architectural fragments and artefacts. Yet despite extensive excavations and antiquarian collecting during the Victorian building boom, very little has been found that fits such a scenario, although the central range of the fort, the principia and praetorium could have been utilized.8 It is, however, dangerous to rely on negative arguments.9 It is not inconceivable that the centre of power shifted elsewhere, away from Carlisle. Other possibilities for a provincial governor’s base include Brougham (Brocavum), lying at the junction of major north-south and east-west roads, and in the middle of landscapes that held sacred associations.10 Papcastle (Derventio)11 also had good communications to Carlisle and the coastal forts, especially Maryport (Figure 5.2). Whilst Brougham and Papcastle may ultimately prove to be ‘red herrings’, by raising the issue I am questioning the idea that just because Carlisle had been a major Roman town in the north-west, it therefore continued to fulfil that role in the late fourth century. It may not have been the case, because the priorities of the governor and the dux were probably different to earlier periods, and external threats certainly more pressing.

The church One aspect of late Roman Carlisle that has attracted attention is Christianity. When Charles Thomas wrote that Carlisle as ‘a walled civil settlement’ at the western end of Hadrian’s Wall was a strong candidate for a bishopric in the frontier zone, it was in the context of the arrival of an exotic faith to a remote imperial province towards the very end of Roman rule. He was certainly being speculative, because there was only a single tombstone available on which to base his assertion, but at the time it placed Carlisle, in a remote corner of a remote province, into the wider picture of the Christian

112  Late Rome to Northumbria

Figure 5.2  Map of places mentioned in the text. Source: Drawn by Lesley Collett.

diaspora.12 Since then, no new evidence has emerged from Carlisle to support his claim, but there is an increasing body of structural remains and artefacts attributed to the fourth century in northern Britain.13 It was a time during which Christianity became officially recognized and spread rapidly around the Empire, but it was also a transitional period when an exotic Middle Eastern cult was being transformed into a world religion. Christianity was underpinned by faith and doctrine, but it was also characterized by a mixture of pagan and Christian ritual, the use or adaptation of existing buildings, ceremonies and regalia, and a variety of different interpretations of the gospels.14 The tombstone of the Greek citizen Flavius Antigonus Papias, mentioned in Chapter 4, was found in the Botchergate/London Road cemetery in the nineteenth century.15 It is attributed to the fourth century and is usually taken to be Christian because it bears the phrase ‘who lived 60 years plus minus’ (more or less), which has caught the attention of scholars because this phrase is often, but not always, associated with Christian burials. The Greek connection is also of interest given the importance of Greece in the early Christian world. He may have been a Christian, but we cannot be certain on the basis of this formula alone.

Late Rome to Northumbria  113 No other tombstones in northern Britain are unambiguously Christian, however, although elsewhere in the frontier zone there are a number bearing the formulae ‘dis manibus’ or ‘titulum posuit’, pagan formulae which are also used in Christian contexts, as Handley has noted;16 examples are known at Brougham, Old Penrith and Cawfields.17 Other symbols of the Christian faith, such as the chi rho monogram and fish, occur less frequently and usually on portable objects. Some buildings have been claimed as, and may have been, churches, as at Vindolanda, Housesteads and Birdoswald, but of these only the Vindolanda example is represented by a complete plan and is reasonably convincing.18 Finally, we have the personal testimony of St Patrick, who was brought up at Bannavem Taburniae, and whose father and grandfather were a priest and a deacon respectively. The location of St Patrick’s childhood home is a matter of controversy, but given his subsequent career in northern Ireland, the Hadrian’s Wall fort of Birdoswald (Banna) seems to the present writer to be more convincing than other loca in the Midlands and south-west.19

The end of Luguvalium and beyond In late Roman Carlisle, modifications were made to the internal arrangements in the fort. Initially the occupation was unquestionably military, barracks being partly rebuilt following conventional lines and a portico being added, before being abandoned in the 320s. 20 The principia or headquarters had a hypocaust inserted in the early fourth century, and other lesser modifications were carried out including new drains being inserted into the roads, which were resurfaced. The date when the fort was finally evacuated by the army is unclear, however. Some barracks are thought to have been deserted in the 330s, but other buildings such as the principia continued in use, associated with coins of 330–5 and mid to late fourth-century pottery. 21 In its final stages, there are indications of timber buildings being erected on the roads, perhaps as lean-tos against the principia walls, as well as large numbers of coins and animal bones, mostly of cattle, being dropped on the road surfaces. This is probably the phase (6c) that represents the transition from fort to a different non-military role in the late fourth and early fifth centuries. 22 It is broadly contemporary with the Notitia Dignitatum which, as will be recalled, omits Carlisle from its list of commands, but if it dates from between 395 and 408, as suggested by Mann, this tends to support the idea that the fort was abandoned by the military in the late fourth century before the Notitia entry was compiled. 23 At this stage, perhaps from as early as the 380s to the mid-fifth century on the evidence of coins and pottery, the principia, with its lean-to stalls and sheds in the roads, resembled more of a market than a functioning headquarters building. It is a situation matched elsewhere, most famously at Wroxeter, but also at Newcastle. 24 Overlying all this were accumulations of ‘dark soils’.

114  Late Rome to Northumbria Beyond the fort, the town of Luguvalium presents a mixed picture, in which some properties at the northern end of The Lanes centred on Scotch Street display signs of increasing prosperity in the third and fourth centuries, as at Keay’s Lane, but fading out perhaps in the 370s or 380s. At the southern end, coin assemblages for the second half of the fourth century are poorly represented, and Parchment Crambeck and calcite-gritted pottery, normally considered typical of this period, is also minimally represented. On the opposite side of Scotch Street is a centrally heated building with a coin list extending up to the 390s and showing clear signs of re-flooring thereafter, so extending its probable life well into the fifth century. Elsewhere, at Blackfriars Street and the Cathedral close to the centre, there are also suggestions of fifth-century activity, albeit at a low level. 25 The overall picture is one of a settlement gradually contracting in size, almost on a plot-by-plot basis. If the military garrison in Carlisle was reduced in scale, there will have been an adverse impact on the urban economy generally. As noted earlier, smaller garrisons meant reduced demand for goods and services, but the effects could have been gradual, perhaps extending over decades from around 350 on. Meanwhile, in the fort, the numbers of Constantinian and Valentinianic coins recovered suggest that pay chests continued to arrive, as did regionally imported pottery from kilns in East Yorkshire and further south after around 360. The quantities on all sites in Carlisle were never especially large, but a grouping of late wares, including Nene Valley colour-coated wares, Crambeck products, Oxfordshire red-slipped wares and a handful of others around the principia lend weight to the idea of a market. 26 The fifth to early seventh centuries in Carlisle constitute a significant gap in our knowledge. Few artefacts have been identified. From Carlisle, there is a single fragment of Anglo-Saxon pottery as well as a glass vessel, but despite extensive excavations, it is striking that it has so far revealed very little cultural material, unlike royal or aristocratic sites in Scotland or Bernicia, where finds of metalworking, local and imported pottery, loom weights, pins, beads and Germanic glassware are standard items in assemblages. Taken at face value, it could be argued that this absence implies a run-down, derelict site with no special status at this time. This may be true, but it should also be borne in mind that a key location, the Castle interior, has not been investigated at all. It is entirely possible that with the departure of the Roman army, parts of the fort interior were occupied by emergent leaders, as may be the case at Birdoswald, exercising some form of authority over a now-scattered population. Elsewhere in Cumbria, the archaeology of the fifth to seventh centuries is equally invisible. A handful of radiocarbon dates for miscellaneous aspects of land-use, and the very small number of artefacts, such as a fifth-­century penannular brooch from Mealsgate and a seventh-century gilt bronze mount from Crosthwaite similar to metalwork moulds at the Mote of

Late Rome to Northumbria  115 Mark, are insufficient to base any conclusions about local societies. 27 The most important work has been that at Fremington, near Brougham, and Shap, both of which yielded Anglo-Saxon buildings, including a number of sunken-floored buildings (Grubenhäuser) and post-built ‘halls’ found in association with ‘Middle-Saxon’ loom weights, pottery and other items. 28 Both sites are attributed to the seventh or eighth centuries. On the other hand, W.G. Collingwood’s excavations at Ewe Close, near Kirby Stephen, a place once regarded as a potential royal site in the Lyvennet Valley, failed to find anything other than a small collection of Roman and prehistoric material, so that its significance in this context must be questioned. 29 Yet if the equation of Lyvennet with the Llwyfenydd of early Welsh poetry is accurate, as Williams believed, something of interest was taking place on the limestone uplands of the northern fringes of the Lake District at an early date.30 On the northern side of the Solway Firth, this period is better represented. At Castle O’er in Dumfriesshire, detailed survey combined with limited excavation of this Iron Age hillfort has revealed multiple phases of activity, with radiocarbon dates implying occupation continuing as late as the fifth or sixth centuries ad.31 A similar sequence may also be discerned at Bailiehill, a short distance to the south.32 The impressive hillfort at Tynron Doon, north-west of Dumfries, has commanding views over the Nith valley and has produced an Anglo-Saxon gold bracteate as well as ironwork, amongst which is a knife that resembles the typical angle-backed Anglo-­Saxon type, as well as thistle-headed pins, blue-ribbed beads and other less diagnostic objects. Traces of burning (vitrefaction) were also observed, as well as the remains of smithing activities.33 The tiny defended hilltop at Mote of Mark, overlooking the estuary of the Urr Water and visible from the former Roman fort of Maryport on a clear day, has produced quantities of Germanic glass, Gaulish pottery and industrial metalworking detritus, mostly of sixth- and seventh-century date, leading Alcock to suggest that if not a princely stronghold, it may be the residence of a jeweller. 34 Another possible candidate for activity on topographic grounds is the hillfort of Ward Law, dominating both the Nith estuary at Caerlaverock, and in prehistoric times the Lochar Water. Its strategic potential is considerable, and he who held Ward Law also controlled access inland by way of the River Nith.

Rheged and the decay of Luguvalium Current understanding of the archaeology of post-Roman Cumbria and Dumfries and Galloway emphasizes the cultural differences on either side of the Solway Firth, as was also the case in the Iron Age. Historians and other scholars of an earlier generation, however, lacked both the insights of modern archaeology and an appreciation of the social and economic importance of landscapes, thus allowing them to regard the two areas as being

116  Late Rome to Northumbria essentially the same. This, in turn, allowed the propagation of Arthurian stories in which the borderlands were the scene of Arthur’s final battle at Camlann, or Merlin’s stamping ground was in the fastnesses of the wetlands around the head of the Solway Firth near Arthuret and Netherby. Similarly, it allowed those who look to early Welsh poetry as a key primary source to perpetuate the idea of a kingdom called Rheged and its great king Urien rampaging across the north in a blaze of blood and glory. For some, the kingdom of Rheged not only embraced both shores of the Solway, but extended southwards into Lakeland or beyond. The stories of both Arthur and Urien evoke a sense of wonder and mystery, being so heavily mythologized from the days of Geoffrey of Monmouth on. Arthur and Urien are not dissimilar in that they come across as charismatic Britons leading their devoted followers to victory after victory against the invading Saxons, but there is little grounded in solid evidence. That is not to say that they are completely fictitious, because there may be kernels of truth in the stories about Urien. The hard archaeological evidence contains little if anything to substantiate claims of kings in Cumbria. The primary evidence for Rheged lies in the poems of the bard known as Taliesin, thought to have lived in the late sixth or early seventh century. Originally transmitted orally, the earliest of the surviving poems were written in the ninth to tenth centuries, over three hundred years later than the events they purport to celebrate. They tell of the Gwŷr Y Gogledd, the ‘Men of the North’ whose lineages and exploits provided models for kings in Wales and which eventually came to have such a profound influence on medieval romantic literature. The purpose of the poems was to praise and celebrate the ancestors of these kings, and so they should be judged less as historical documents but rather as part of a literary tradition. That alone should deter us from accepting too readily the tales recounted. If they are questionable as ‘evidence’ for Urien or Rheged, they are nevertheless ‘evidence’ that the ideas of a polity called Rheged, and the exploits of kings and their families in the north in the distant past, were circulating and providing material for Welsh bards and their royal clients in later centuries. Rheged poses a problem in that scholars, in the absence of other data, have had to grasp at straws and assume that the word signifies a territory. This has resulted in endless speculation as to the meaning of vague geographical references in the texts in an attempt to locate it. 35 A favourite is the phrase ‘tra merin Regit’ (= across the sea of Rheged), which is thought to refer to the Solway Firth, thus providing a link with Cumbria and even more tenuously with Carlisle. Indeed, Carlisle has almost become synonymous with Rheged. Locating Rheged in the north-west is convenient for scholars who would otherwise have a gap in the political geography of the time.36 There is no doubt that such a kingdom could have been located in a part of Cumbria, perhaps even the fertile Eden Valley, but equally there is no reason why it could not have been north of the Solway straddling one

Late Rome to Northumbria  117 or more of the many valleys, or it could even have been confined to quite a limited area such as the Rhinns of Galloway, as the present writer has suggested.37 There is no corroborative evidence for the location at all, but the archaeology, as noted above, tends to favour one side or the other of the Solway Firth. Finally, the word Rheged may not signify a territory at all. Is it conceivable that it refers to a people, or a confederation of peoples?38 In the end, whatever the word means, we have to acknowledge that there was a polity of some sort in Cumbria, but we cannot identify it with the name Rheged, and even less can we define it geographically. Associated with this shadowy kingdom is Urien who, with his son Owain, is celebrated in the poems of Taliesin as well as in the Northern History of Nennius. Urien is represented in the poems as one of the most famed British commanders of his day, and if we believe the panegyrics, he was regarded almost as highly as King Arthur, with whose stories he became entwined in medieval literature. According to the poems Urien, like Arthur, was not just a king. He was a king of kings, the arbennic (chief or leader), 39 ‘he restrains chieftains’,40 and ‘kings of every tribe, all to you [Urien] are bound’.41 Eventually, according to the Northern History42 but not other sources, he was assassinated, probably between the 570s and 590s, whilst blockading the Bernician enemy at Lindisfarne. Urien’s sons were Owain and Rhun, the latter allegedly a cleric who is said to have participated in the baptism of Edwin of Northumbria in York, according to the Northern History and the Welsh Annals.43 Amongst his grandchildren was Royth, but Nennius and the Durham Book of Life also refer to a princess, his great granddaughter Rieinmelth, the daughter of Royth. She was said to have married Oswiu, king of Bernicia, in the late 620s, and by him she had a son, Ahlfrith, who ruled Deira as a sub-king until his death in about 664.44 The consequence of this marriage was important because it resulted in the unification of two royal houses, Bernicia and Royth’s territory, which was that of his grandfather, Urien.45 Later, after Rieinmelth’s death, Oswiu married a second time to the Deiran, Eanfled, thereby facilitating the unification of Bernicia with Deira. Oswiu thus emerges as a key figure in that he united with Bernicia with two other northern polities, those of Urien/Royth and Deira, thus creating an extensive single dynastic overlordship.46 Finally, embedded in the literature about Rheged and Urien, Carlisle is sometimes referred to as being a focal point. Superficially, Carlisle appears to fit the bill because of its earlier Roman history, its religious role from the seventh century and its location, but the links drawn by earlier generations of historians are a complete confection. Carlisle, ‘Luel’ or ‘Lugubalia’ are not mentioned in a single source associated with Rheged or Urien, and so far there is no archaeological evidence in its favour.47 However, we know that in 685 St Cuthbert visited Queen Iurminburg of Northumbria in Carlisle (see p. 121), where she was staying in her sister’s monastery while her husband waged war.48 Given that it was usual for queens to retire to

118  Late Rome to Northumbria their home territory at times of extremis, her presence in Carlisle suggests a strong family connection; she could therefore have been a member of a Cumbrian royal family. The lands or territory from which she came would have become part of the king of Northumbria’s patrimony, and it was within the See of Lindisfarne, of which Cuthbert had just been ordained bishop.49 Iurminburg can, therefore, be seen as a link between Carlisle and the Northumbrian dynasty. It also raises the question of whether such links extended back to the marriage of the Northumbrian Oswiu and Rieinmelth about sixty years earlier. It is worth reflecting on what Carlisle may have looked like in the fifth to early seventh centuries following the collapse of Roman authority and the withdrawal of the army. It is an important digression, because it affects the way in which we view the claims made about it with regard to Rheged/ Urien and to the later monastic complex of St Cuthbert. Over a long period of time, probably beginning in the later fourth century, the former Roman town became derelict. Buildings were abandoned, timbers rotted, roofs fell in, and weeds, insects and a variety of other wildlife took over, creating new micro-ecosystems. Dereliction was a prolonged process, during which the mechanics of decay are likely to have been rapid in the first few years before slowing down and stabilizing. Stone buildings could last for considerable periods of time, although their timber elements would collapse within a generation or so, but roof spaces, ledges and sills, walls and yard surfaces were all ripe for colonization by fauna and flora. Each building will have varied slightly from its neighbour, depending upon aspect, exposure to the sun and prevailing wind and rain. Over time, rain penetration and frost damage will have opened up cracks in walls and ground surfaces, and collapsing roofs and walls provided more habitats for fungi, woodlice and insects, as well as opportunistic weeds, brambles and shrub and tree seedlings. A casual inspection of derelict land today shows the speed with which colonization takes place, with plants exploiting every possible niche. In the time that elapsed since last used in, say, the early fifth century, timber buildings will have decayed much more rapidly than stone ones, creating ever-deeper deposits of decaying timber interspersed with leaves and a range of plants and fauna. 50 Eventually, and probably within the time period between the Roman withdrawal and the late seventh century, their sites would have become earthworks. Figure 5.3 shows areas of Carlisle within which derelict Roman stone buildings were located, the larger area encompassing the fort and public building on its southern side, and the smaller area including a bath house. The extent of these areas is hypothetical, and there may have been others. During these processes, soils formed, based on vegetation reflecting the underlying nutrient-poor or phosphate-rich parent materials of rotted timbers, metalled roads and heaps of rubble. They represent deposits of ‘dark earth’ accumulated by natural means. Later, further deposits of ‘dark earth’ were deposited, but this time they included an artefactual component

Late Rome to Northumbria  119

Figure 5.3  Map locating former Roman roads and broad areas (stippled) within which ruined stone buildings were located. Source: Drawn by Lesley Collett.

suggesting that it was carted in from elsewhere and dumped, perhaps for gardens or allotments. The accumulation of ‘dark earths’ could be a multi-­ phase process. ‘Dark earths’ are known from several sites in Carlisle. In the fort, overlying the latest buildings in the central range and on the western side, were significant deposits. 51 At St Mary’s Gate, some 120 metres to the east of the Cathedral, excavations revealed a deposit up to one metre deep of what is fairly certainly ‘dark earth’ overlying Roman levels. 52 At the Cathedral, late Roman deposits were cut through by the post-holes of a two-phase timber structure apparently unrelated to the underlying Roman buildings; these post-holes were themselves covered by two deposits of ‘dark earth’. The thin, lower part probably represents a mineralized residue following the chemical and biological breakdown of timber structures, and will have

120  Late Rome to Northumbria been made up of matter derived from rotted vegetation, timber, wattle, daub, eroded sandstone, mortar and charcoal. The upper part of the deposit differed in colour, texture and thickness, and appears to be a single deposition, probably of anthropogenic origin. If so, it implies activities in the vicinity. The date of the ‘dark earth’ at the Cathedral is not in doubt, as part of a human skeleton buried in it yielded a radiocarbon date of ad 420–570.53 Not everywhere in Carlisle has yielded convincing evidence of ‘dark earth’, however. At Blackfriars Street there was no trace of it, and although it was thought to be present in parts of The Lanes, other explanations are possible in this instance. Similarly, at 66–8 Scotch Street, a late Roman town-house equipped with a hypocaust containing a gold solidus of Valentinian II (388–92) (Figure 4.5) was overlaid by a layer of Roman concrete (opus signinum) and other surfaces, 54 indicating fifth-century activity here but with no overlying ‘dark earth’. At 42–8 Scotch Street, however, ‘dark earth’ deposits were recorded overlying late Roman deposits. 55 The visitor approaching Carlisle from the south along the old Roman road in the early seventh century may, therefore, have seen a site resembling ruins in a landscape so familiar from paintings, drawings and prints from the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, rather than a Tennysonian ‘many-tower’d Camelot’. In those parts of the old Roman town formerly occupied by timber buildings, the visitor would have seen open land, perhaps some cultivated plots, scrub and waste ground, with earthworks here and there fossilizing the position of earlier buildings, much as is the case with deserted medieval villages. When the time came to build a monastery in the later seventh century, it is conceivable that the decision as to where to locate it was determined by practical considerations. A concentration of stone buildings in the fort could have acted as a deterrent to building there, but elsewhere, apart from a handful of stone buildings such as the bath house near the market and one or two others, most buildings were probably built largely or entirely of timber, and by the time of St Cuthbert’s visit most traces of these will have decayed, leaving much of the former town unimpeded by stone ruins. Those that survived became a useful quarry. The land on the southern side of the fort was relatively unimpeded and accessible for building purposes. 56

St Cuthbert and Northumbria An important source for the seventh to ninth centuries is the Two Lives of St Cuthbert.57 They are basically hagiographies intended as memorials to a man who clearly made a great impression on contemporaries by his humility, piety and visionary powers. The Lives amount to propaganda intended to boost the promotion of the Lindisfarne community’s cult of Cuthbert. The first Life or Vita was probably compiled between 699 and 705, less than twenty years after the saint’s death in 687, by an anonymous author.

Late Rome to Northumbria  121 The second was written by Bede, perhaps around 720–1. Both Vitae, but especially the first, could have been informed by eyewitnesses. The two biographies tell us that, as has been mentioned above, in the year he was appointed bishop of Lindisfarne (685), Cuthbert went to Carlisle (‘Luel’, ‘Lugubalia’) to counsel Queen Iurminburg of Northumbria, who was staying in her sister’s monastery there awaiting the outcome of the war between her husband King Ecgfrith and the Picts. The anecdote in both Vitae focuses on what the bishop did whilst awaiting news from the battlefield, as well as performing his episcopal duties. The Anonymous Life is the more succinct account. In this, Waga the reeve (civitatis praepositus) explained something of the ‘city wall and well formerly built in a wonderful manner by the Romans’. The author then recounts St Cuthbert’s vision about the outcome of the battle. Bede’s Life rephrases the account slightly, recounting that ‘when the citizens were conducting him to see the walls of the city and a marvellously constructed fountain of Roman workmanship’, he received his vision about the battle. For present purposes, the important point is that there were clear signs of Carlisle’s Roman past in evidence, and we may surmise that the remains amounted to more than a few foundations, perhaps even buildings surviving to some height. There is no archaeological indication that the Roman town was surrounded by walls, so that the words ‘murum civitatis’ cannot mean city walls but simply stone walls, some being still visible as late as the early twelfth century, as William of Malmesbury recounts. 58 The question is then, which walls? As noted earlier, many buildings in mid- to late Roman Carlisle were based on foundations of clay and cobbles or stone footings supporting timber superstructures, perhaps of framed construction. These are unlikely to have merited comment, even if they were recognizable and not overgrown by turf or scrub. The exceptions were stone-built public buildings and those in the fort. It was probably some or all of these that were shown to Cuthbert by the reeve Waga. With regard to the fons or fountain, the presence of bath houses and a putative aqueduct testifies to the presence of a piped water supply that would be needed for such a feature. No structural remains of the early monastery have been found so far, but the locations of the parish church of St Cuthbert and the Cathedral provide a hint that it lay in that general area (Figure 5.4). Excavations in 1988 west of the present Cathedral nave located some objects and graves of eighthand ninth-century date, but no signs of the monastic church. Geophysical survey has given a tentative hint that part of the complex lies at the southern end of the Cathedral precinct and below the Crown and Mitre hotel. 59 It has identified what appears to be the south-west corner of a substantial stone anomaly east of, and seemingly aligned with, the Cathedral at the former St Mary’s Church site. It is not clear, however, whether this anomaly might represent part of a church rather than an earlier Roman building.60 The monastic site will also have included a range of other buildings and

122  Late Rome to Northumbria

Figure 5.4  A reconstruction of the location of the monastery. The possible monastic church lies east of the present Cathedral. Source: Adapted from McCarthy 2014. Drawn by Lesley Collett.

functional areas, including possibly a second church, cells, a hall, guest house, workshops, garden plots, storage buildings and a cemetery. The cemetery is the only feature identified to date that may be associated with it, although of the relevant radiocarbon dates, the most that can be said is that three burials span the eighth to tenth centuries at two standard deviations, whilst another belongs to the tenth or eleventh centuries. At present therefore the cemetery, yielding few pre-Anglo-Scandinavian objects, cannot be positively associated with the monastic complex, and the Cathedral nave area could have been peripheral to the main monastic focus. Other indicators include three cross fragments attributed to the eighth to early ninth centuries, discovered in the nineteenth century at numbers 2 and 3 The Abbey and St Cuthbert’s Lane (Figure 5.4).61 These fragments are important because crosses were widely used as indicating places of Christian worship, as for example the eighth-century Lowther and Bewcastle crosses (Figures 5.5 and 5.6). Although the Cathedral excavation was very small in area, it did produce as many as sixteen stycas, small, low value, copper alloy coins dating from the late eighth century to the reign of Osberht about 855. Taken with previous finds, a significant proportion of the stycas known from Carlisle are found within or very close to the Cathedral precinct.62 Over 25 years

Figure 5.5  T he eighth-century Lowther cross, near Penrith. Source: © The Trustees of the British Museum.

Figure 5.6  T he early eighth-century cross at Bewcastle. Source: Photo by author.

124  Late Rome to Northumbria ago, Metcalf noted that a high proportion of Northumbrian stycas are found on ecclesiastical sites, raising the question of how monastic sites functioned in relation to trade and exchange.63 Other finds of this date in the general vicinity of the Cathedral include a sceat, while small amounts of metalwork, glass and other objects are mostly distributed on the western side of Carlisle, between Annetwell Street and Blackfriars Street, with one or two outliers. To that list we could add an early eighth-century series Z sceat64 and a Beneventan gold tremissis struck after 774,65 both coins being allegedly found near Carlisle in the 1870s. Given the huge number of stycas that were produced, especially in the 840s and 850s, if coin loss is a reliable guide (over 60 known at the time of writing), it is difficult to avoid Metcalf’s conclusion that important monasteries, such as Carlisle, were doubling up as centres of trade and exchange, in effect functioning as proto-markets. Elsewhere in Carlisle, there are few structural remains of this period known archaeologically. These include a foundation trench for a timber building at Blackfriars Street, and three timber-lined pits dated dendrochronologically to the eighth century at Blackfriars Street, Castle Street (Figure 5.7) and Crown and Anchor Lane.66

Figure 5.7  Pit at Castle Street lined with timbers from a tree felled between ad 770 and 803. Source: Photo by author.

Late Rome to Northumbria  125

Northumbria: the wider picture By the late seventh century, Carlisle was established as one of the major monastic and royal centres in the north-west. The only other one of which we can be certain is Dacre, mentioned by Bede in the early eighth century,67 but there were almost certainly others. For example, the list of grants made to the community of St Cuthbert included in the Historia Sancto Cuthberto suggests Holm Cultram and lands near Cartmel in north Lancashire as a major centre.68 Elsewhere, Anglian sculpture from places such as Brigham, Lowther, Penrith, Workington and Hoddom (Figure 5.8) may indicate others.69 However, in the absence of texts and surviving churches it is hard to know what exactly sculptures on their own originally signified, especially as many, such as Bewcastle and Ruthwell, are in relatively remote areas. Such places need not have been monastic, but simply places where non-­ monastic priests (sacerdotes or clerici) based in minsters, came to officiate, preach and teach local communities.70 Whatever remnants of a Christian tradition may have survived in the far west from the fourth century, the actions of Oswald, Oswiu and their successors brought Cumbria fully into the Roman church during the seventh century. One implication of this with regard to Carlisle concerns the monastic church itself. A notable feature of the Northumbrian church is

Figure 5.8  Map of places mentioned in the text. Source: Drawn by Lesley Collett.

126  Late Rome to Northumbria the degree of architectural uniformity across wide geographical areas over a relatively short time-scale. It would not be surprising, therefore, to find that Cumbrian monastic complexes were similar to the better-known examples east of the Pennines, even allowing for variations based on local circumstances and the extent of their endowments. The very act of building in stone was also innovative in a part of the country where these skills had died out over two centuries earlier. Where did the building skills come from for quarrying, cutting and shaping stone, preparing the mortar mixes and designing the monastic complexes? The early date of the monastery in Carlisle shows that it belonged to the wave of church-building in the north inspired by leading figures such as Benedict Biscop and Wilfrid, adopting Gallic models and importing ideas and craftsmen. A number of major monasteries were built on or close to Roman ruins that provided a readily accessible source of building materials including columns, as at Carlisle, but their use in a construction programme would still have required someone with the appropriate experience and skills. Such people must have come from outside the area, perhaps the Northumbrian heartland in the Tyne valley. As a minimum, we can expect a church of basilican plan, perhaps with a western tower in conformity with other major churches of the late seventh century. Indeed, if any one place in the west had a claim to parity with, say, Jarrow or Hexham, it was Carlisle, if only because of its supposed royal connections in the persons of Rieinmelth and Iurminburg. Its building and fitting-out must have had a considerable local impact. The church came to resemble a state in its own right, with its hierarchy, ceremonial, body of traditions and with the pope as its head. It was superimposed upon the kingdom of Northumbria, which was made up of a variety of ethnic and political entities. The pope delegated responsibilities to his archbishops, bishops, abbots and abbesses as its leaders. Many of these in the seventh and early eighth centuries were, if not members of royal families themselves, then members of the aristocracy. As Blair has remarked, Wilfrid ‘went around in royal state’ according to Iurminburg.71 Even the austere St Cuthbert, for all that he may have longed for the solitary life, was probably high-born. Kings were surrounded by the aristocracy, many of whom probably owed their position to the king. They too were at least nominally Christian, some founding monasteries of their own, although not necessarily for altruistic reasons, as Bede realized. A dim view of the hierarchy can be gleaned from passing references in Bede, Eddius and other works. There were sub-kings (sub-reguli), patricians, counts and ministers (comites and ministri), the latter being the equivalent of thegns and gesiths.72 All were undoubtedly wealthy and influential, undertaking administrative and coordinating duties in the regiones, probably some form of administrative sub-division. Cities, fortresses and villages are referred to by Eddius Stephanus.73 At the centre of royal estates (territoria) were the villae regiae, between which the royal family moved periodically, and to which dependent lesser settlements (viculi), providing a variety of rents and services, were attached. The estates were managed by reeves, of whom one, Waga, is known

Late Rome to Northumbria  127 by name.74 The size of these estates will naturally have varied depending on local circumstances, but they could be extensive. That at Carlisle was said to extend for 15 miles around,75 although the source for that may be later. Whilst members of the royal family, and possibly the aristocracy as well, could be regarded as itinerant as they moved from place to place on their estates,76 lower down the social scale freemen and bondsmen had to be permanently settled because they were tied to the land. Wherever their lords might be, fields still had to be ploughed and crops harvested, livestock fed and watered, fences repaired, buildings maintained, tools mended, essential raw materials such as fuel, iron ore and copper obtained, carcasses butchered, hides tanned, wool spun and woven, and families fed and housed. More burdensome were the dues owed to social superiors in terms of labour services, hospitality and food rents, all of which meant the production of surpluses. This must have applied to estates in Cumbria as much as it did in the core lands of Northumbria. Ordinary people were doubtless impressed by stone buildings and the richness of vestments, books, precious metals and the liturgy, but whether any of this cut much ice on a practical day-today basis with the farmer in his field, or the shepherd on the fells, is a moot point. For some it did matter, because Bede noted complaints about remote places that owed tribute to bishops who rarely visited, yet took money without any pastoral care.77 In the end, two things bound people together in Anglo-Saxon England, lordship and kindred.78 Kin groups were defined biologically. The ties were those of blood, and could be invoked both on celebratory occasions as well as in law. The law must have been customary, as Northumbrian kings are not known to have codified their rules. Archaeology can offer a restricted view of life in the seventh to ninth centuries in northern England. At the apex stands the site of Yeavering, Northumberland, which was clearly of royal status to judge by the layout, scale and architecture. The associated cultural material was very sparse, however, and quite unlike Continental sites, but the site provides a setting in which we can view kings, assemblies and the interaction between royal secular activity and ritual.79 Whether such buildings existed in or near Carlisle is not known, but its undoubted importance as a royal foundation suggests that they did, although no traces have been discovered to date. That aside, archaeology alone cannot usually distinguish between the nuances of social class from the ground plans of buildings. In Cumbria outside Carlisle, very little structural evidence has been excavated so far. The best example is at Fremington near Brougham, where four sunken-floored buildings, a possible post-built hall and a kiln have been attributed to the seventh or eighth centuries. The overall buildings and finds assemblages suggested to the excavators ‘a small-scale, moderately low status, rural settlement’.80 Another timber hall has been located at Shap, tentatively dated to the seventh or eighth centuries albeit on the slenderest of evidence, whilst a third site at Whinfell near Brougham may also belong to the same period.81 Further south at Bryants Gill in Kentmere, north of Kendal, traces of a settlement of similar date have also been identified.82

128  Late Rome to Northumbria The Cumbrian record is very thin, and is hardly a basis from which to reconstruct any picture of rural settlement, so recourse has to be made to sites elsewhere in Northumbria, such as Thirlings in the Milfield Basin, Northumberland, Cottam, East Yorkshire, or the monastic site at Hartlepool. These show a clear preference for post-built rectangular buildings, the plans of which were based on a double square module with opposed doors, often with signs of internal partitions and sunken-floored buildings.83 At Cottam and Cowlam, East Yorkshire, extensive excavations revealed a settlement, perhaps part of a multiple estate, with an overall date range extending from the eighth century into the Anglo-Scandinavian period, associated with coins, copper alloy personal and dress-related objects, a buckle, iron knives, stone and bone objects including comb fragments and evidence for grain and livestock processing, but no signs of manufacturing.84 Compared with Fremington and Shap, the finds assemblages at Cottam/Cowlam were substantial, but whether any conclusions can be drawn from this in terms of lifestyle, for example, or permanent or seasonal occupation at the Cumbrian sites is unclear. Most of the artefacts known from Cumbria of seventh- to ninth-century date could fit within two or three museum showcases, a pathetically small number. It is partly a reflection of an aceramic society, but also of acid soils which tend to erode or destroy much cultural material in the ground, and a landscape with a significant element of grass cover not always conducive to aerial photography and the recognition of timber buildings.85 But it is also a reflection of a society like that in Ireland, where excavations on crannogs show that a high proportion of material goods were made of organic materials.86 The Irish evidence is instructive, especially where waterlogged deposits survive, and suggests that it would be unwise to prejudge the Cumbrian Iron Age or early medieval period without further consideration. Another major source for the period is the law codes that begin to appear from the seventh century ad in the British Isles.87 There are no Northumbrian law codes, but a number survive from the seventh and eighth centuries in Ireland. Of course there will have been many points of difference between societies in Ireland and Northumbria, but there are also a number of common factors at the poorer end of the social spectrum, including dependence on land, climate and other environmental issues, kindred, secular and ecclesiastical lordship, food rents, labour services and feuding and warfare.88 In both Ireland and Northumbria, the main centres of population were monasteries functioning essentially as ‘holy cities’, the core populations of which were clergy. They were supported by substantial numbers of lay people tilling the land, servicing the church, making things and generating a surplus, so that the monastic complex acted as both an economic and a social focus even when peripatetic ruling families and lords were not present. Whilst we cannot apply the Irish law codes to Northumbria, they do shed an interesting sidelight on the condition of the free and the unfree, often in ways that are beyond the capabilities of archaeology.

Late Rome to Northumbria  129

Notes 1 For some of the problems see Breeze 2011. 2 For reductions in size, see Wilmott 2000; Brigstock 2010. Some form of Saxon/ Pictish cooperation against Roman and later British groups from the 360s to the late fifth century cannot be ruled out. See Dumville 1989. 3 Ammianus, 20.1. 4 Ibid., 28.3.7. 5 Miller 1975a. 6 There has been some confusion about the meaning of the term limitanei. Isaac (1987, 146) concluded that it simply meant soldiers serving in an area commanded by the dux, and that they performed duties that were essentially of a policing nature. 7 Dornier 1974; Hassall 1976; Salway 1981, 392–6, 411. If the fifth province was in the north-west, Carlisle as the civitas capital could have been raised to the status of provincial capital, but we know too little about the military and administrative priorities of the time to be certain. Other possibilities must include Brocavum (Brougham) near Penrith because of its location at the intersection of two major roads. 8 Part of the principia has been excavated, but despite refurbishments, and the presence of new water-pipes inserted into the via principalis, there is nothing to suggest the presence of a high-profile Roman official. See Zant 2009, 305–26. 9 York, with its strong imperial associations extending from the family of Severus to Constantius I and his son, Constantine the Great, must also have had very high-quality buildings, yet apart from the walls of the colonia and fortress, little is known of the architectural splendour that other imperial capitals, such as Trier, boasted. A case can be made for the civitas capital of the Brigantes, Aldborough (Isurium Brigantum), being an imperial venue. The collection of late Roman mosaics at Aldborough is impressive, and geophysical surveys show that there was a large community there (M. Millett, pers. comm.). 10 Brougham was the focus of a cult dedicated to Belatucadros, but the fact that a number of other sacred sites are nearby, such as the Neolithic monuments at Eamont Bridge, the eighth-century monastic site of Dacre and the church at Ninekirks amongst others, highlights the significance of the area. Eamont Bridge is where Athelstan chose to meet the king of the Scots and others in 926. In about 1172–3, Brougham became the centre of a manor of Hugh de Morville. 11 The place-name may be derived from a personal name, Pabo, commemorated in the Harleian genealogies, and whose floruit probably lay in the sixth century. Miller 1975b, 106–10. 12 Thomas 1971, 11–13; 1981. 13 The picture is complicated by the fact that the Christian church in the fourth century had few fixed positions with regard to theology, liturgy or architectural form, thereby rendering unequivocal assertions that certain archaeological remains represent Christians untenable. As purpose-built structures, churches were unknown before the reign of Constantine, most of those known being modifications of existing buildings. Also muddying the waters is the idea that specifically Christian formulae for use on tombstones, or modes of burial, were also evolving out of existing practices. McCarthy 2009. 14 Ibid. 15 RIB 1965, 955 16 Handley 2001. 17 RIB 1965, 786–7, 934. 18 Birley et al. 1999, 20–6. 19 Wilmott 1997, 408 and 2000, 13–23, discusses the final stages of the fort.

130  Late Rome to Northumbria 20 21 22 23 24

25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 4 4 45 46 47

48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55

Zant 2009, Periods 6b and 6c. Ibid., Period 6b phase 4. Ibid., Period 6d–e, 352–61. Mann 1976. At Wroxeter the market was not found in a military context, but around the baths basilica, but the point remains that lean-tos encroaching on major public spaces signals a decline in the level of urbanization (Barker et al. 1997). At Newcastle the military context is secure (Bidwell and Snape 2002, 277). See also Collins 2009. McCarthy 1990, 2014. Swan et al. 2009, 606–7. A useful summary is Newman’s wide-ranging survey of the Early Medieval period in the north-west (Newman 2006). Oliver et al. 1996, 127–69. Collingwood 1908. Williams 1987, xlv. Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland 1997, 79–82, 167. Ibid. Ibid.; Williams 1971. Alcock 1983. McCarthy 2011. Other identifications such as erechwydd (= fresh water) or Goddeu (= woods), with specific parts of the north west in the Lake District, are so far-fetched as to verge on fantasy. McCarthy 2003; Clarkson 2010. McCarthy 2003. McCarthy 2011, 14–15. Williams 1987, 57, 7 and note. Ibid., 56, 4 and note. Ibid., 65; Clancy 1998, 89. Nennius, cap. 63. Ibid., cap. 63; 46. Ibid., cap. 57; Stancliffe 1995, 57. Stancliffe 1995, 57. For a recent analysis of the dynastic links see Rollason 2003, 88; Clarkson 2010, 123–6. The lack of either historical reference to Carlisle or archaeological evidence is by no means decisive. One requirement for the stronghold of a sixth-century king would be a good defensible position, comparable to the Mote of Mark, Dumfriesshire, or Bamburgh, Northumberland. The best equivalent in Carlisle is the site of the Roman fort and the medieval Castle on a bluff overlooking the Eden and Caldew. Although extensive excavations in front of the Castle failed to uncover anything to substantiate claims for a post-Roman citadel, no work has been undertaken in either the inner or outer wards of the Castle, which is probably the most likely location. Colgrave 1940. See Rollason 2003, 44–5, citing Richard of Hexham who thought that the boundary between the Lindisfarne and Hexham sees extended in the west to Wetheral and Carlisle. A contemporary account of neglect is in Eddius’s Life of Wilfrid (Colgrave 1985, cap. 16). Zant 2009, 363–9. Neal nd. McCarthy 2014. Keevill et al. 1989. Giecco 2004, 38–9, 69.

Late Rome to Northumbria  131 56 The question of why some Northumbrian monastic sites were built where they were has been considered by Bidwell (2010). They include Wilfrid’s church at Hexham and the monastery at Jarrow, both close to good sources of readymade building material at the Roman sites of Corbridge and South Shields respectively. The context is that one of the most time-consuming and expensive processes in the erection of a stone building was the quarrying and dressing of stone. Much effort could be saved by robbing ruined Roman buildings, as is evident at Hexham and Jarrow. However, there is also an argument for suggesting that both the centre of Corbridge and the fort at South Shields may have been royal sites, and thus unavailable for stone robbing. 57 The text here follows Colgrave 1940. 58 William of Malmesbury visited Carlisle, where he saw a dedication to Mars Victor and a ‘triclinium’, perhaps a room with an apsidal end. Tomlin has suggested that an altar found in 1989 may be the one that William saw (Thomson et al. 1999, 157–8). The date of William’s visit is not clear, but he was writing and revising the texts of his northern tour from the mid 1120s and, possibly, the 1130s (ibid., xli). See also Tomlin and Annis 1989. 59 McCarthy 2014. 60 GSB Prospection 2010. McCarthy 2014 has argued in favour of a church because the alignment of the anomaly is consistent with an east/west-oriented building, rather than the earlier Roman street plan. 61 Bailey and Cramp 1988, 84–6; Weston, 2000, 114, 146. 62 Booth 1997; Blackburn 2003; Gannon and Zant 2009, 686. 63 Metcalf 1987; Palmer 2003. 64 Rigold and Metcalf, 1984, 249. 65 Metcalf 1960–1. 66 McCarthy 1990; 1991, 48–50; Taylor and Webster 1984. 67 Bede, IV, 32. Excavations from 1982, currently unpublished, revealed traces of the monastic site including structural remains coins, a stylus and other personal items of eighth/ninth-century date (Youngs and Clark 1982, 171–2; 1985, 167; 1986, 127–8). 68 Craster 1954, 182. 69 Bailey and Cramp 1988, 3. For Hoddom see Lowe 2006. 70 See the debate in Blair 1995. 71 Blair 2006, 136; Colgrave 1985, cap. 24. 72 Colgrave 1985, cap. 17. 73 Ibid., cap. 39. The context of his remark was a royal progress through northern Bernicia to Coldingham. A useful summary of these issues is in Rollason 2003, 172–5. 74 Colgrave 1940. In his translation of Eddius, Colgrave (1985) renders the word ‘praefecti’ as reeve, e.g. caps. 18, 38. 75 History of St Cuthbert; Armstrong et al. 1950, xxii. 76 Eddius describes Ecgfrith progressing ‘...with great pomp and rejoicing through cities, fortresses and villages...’ (..civitates et castellas, vicosque..). 77 Blair 2006, 155. 78 A useful summary is in Loyn 1962, 292–8. 79 Blair 2006, 56, 275–6. 80 Oliver et al. 1996, 168. 81 Heawood and Howard-Davis 2002. 82 Dickinson 1985. 83 A useful summary is Wilmott 1997, 221–4. 84 Richards 2013. 85 In many parts of Britain pottery is frequently a good indicator of the proximity of settlements dating to between the seventh and nineteenth centuries. 86 There are crannogs on the north side of the Solway.

132  Late Rome to Northumbria 87 Laws were aimed at all social classes, and some look as though they were responses to specific cases brought to the king’s attention. Ine’s code, in common with many other early texts, is mainly concerned with compensation arising from theft, failing to prevent cattle wandering into neighbours’ property, cutting trees in a wood without permission, fighting, quarrelling, committing homicide, and so on, but the penalties are graduated according to the value (wergild) attached to each social rank – slaves, gesiths, ceorls, ealdormen, priests, abbots. The aim was to provide a basis for obtaining redress for an injured party. Clearly much of this is beyond the scope of archaeological enquiry, yet such law codes provide an invaluable insight into the way in which early kingdoms operated and especially the place of the church in society, as well as shedding a different light on the lives of people at the time. Whereas archaeology can inform us about such matters as building construction techniques, settlement layout, fields, boundaries, and technological processes, the law codes tell us what they meant to the people of the time. A row of post-holes separating a dwelling from open land may be regarded as a fence, but in Ine’s code, for example, we learn that ceorls were required to fence their premises and prevent grazing offences. 88 The Irish laws provide an astonishing amount of detail, which gives them real force in casting light on the ordinary working family and the economic and socio-political contexts within which they lived. The content ranges from what might be viewed as trivial to serious transgressions, covering issues about which people at the time, individually and collectively in assemblies, were exercised. They are of particular value because they touch upon matters of common concern to historians and archaeologists, which cannot always be taken at face value. Analysis of large numbers of excavations shows that documentary and archaeological records are not always in agreement (O’Sullivan et al. 2014). However, one very clear message is that there was an acute awareness of the specific ‘environmental’ and physical factors affecting the way in which farmers coped on a day-to-day basis. This is only to be expected of people, from king to slave, whose survival depended on the land and forces of nature.

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Late Rome to Northumbria  135 Palmer, B. 2003. ‘The hinterlands of three southern English emporia: some common themes’, in T. Pestell and K. Ulmschneider eds., 48–60. Pestell, T. and Ulmschneider, K. eds. 2003. Markets in Early Medieval Europe: Trading and ‘Productive’ Sites 650–850. Macclesfield. RIB. 1965. The Roman Inscriptions of Britain. I. Inscriptions on Stone, R.G. Collingwood and R.P. Wright. Oxford. Richards, J.D. 2013. ‘Cottam, Cowlam and environs: an Anglo-Saxon estate on the Yorkshire Wolds’, Archaeological Journal 170: 201–71. Rigold, S.E. and Metcalf, D.M. 1984. ‘A revised check list of English finds of sceattas’, in Sceattas in England and on the Continent: The Seventh Oxford Symposium on Coinage and Monetary History, eds. D. Hill and J.M. Metcalf, 245–68. British Archaeological Reports, British Series 128. Oxford. Rollason, D. 2003. Northumbria, 500–: Creation and Destruction of a Kingdom. Cambridge. Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland. 1997. Eastern Dumfriesshire: An Archaeological Landscape. Edinburgh. Salway, P. 1981. Roman Britain. Oxford. Stancliffe, C. 1995. ‘Oswald, most holy and victorious king of the Northumbrians’, in Oswald: Northumbrian King to European Saint, eds. C. Stancliffe and E. Cambridge, 33–83. Stamford. Swan, V.G., McBride, R.M. and Hartley, K.F. 2009. ‘The coarse pottery (including amphorae and mortaria)’, in C. Howard-Davis, 566–659. Taylor, J. and Webster, L.E. 1984. ‘A late-Saxon strap-end mould from Carlisle’, Medieval Archaeology 28: 178–81. Thomas, C. 1971. The Early Christian Archaeology of North Britain. Oxford. Thomas, C. 1981. Christianity in Roman Britain to ad 500. London. Thomson, R., Mynors, R.A.B. and Winterbottom, M. eds. 1999. Gesta Regum Anglorum. Oxford Medieval Texts Volume I. Oxford. Tomlin, R.S.O. and Annis R.G 1989. ‘A Roman altar from Carlisle Castle’, Transactions of Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society 2 ser. 89: 77–92. Weston, D.V.W. 2000. Carlisle Cathedral History. Carlisle. Williams, J. 1971. ‘Tynron Doon, Dumfriesshire: a history of the site with notes on the finds 1924–67’, Transactions of the Dumfriesshire and Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian Society 3 ser. 48: 106–20. Williams, Sir I. 1987. The Poems of Taliesin. Medieval and Modern Welsh Series Volume III. Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. Wilmott, T. 1997. Birdoswald: Excavations of a Roman Fort on Hadrian’s Wall. English Heritage Archaeological Report 14. London. Wilmott, T. 2000. ‘The late Roman transition at Birdoswald and on Hadrian’s Wall’, in The Late Roman Transition in the North, eds. T. Wilmott and P. ­Wilson, 13–23. British Archaeological Reports, British Series 299. Oxford. Youngs, S. and Clark, J. 1982. ‘Medieval Britain in 1981’, Medieval Archaeology 26: 164–227. Youngs, S. and Clark, J. 1985. ‘Medieval Britain in 1984’, Medieval Archaeology 29: 158–230. Youngs, S. and Clark, J. 1986. ‘Medieval Britain in 1985’, Medieval Archaeology 30: 114–198. Zant, J. 2009. The Carlisle Millennium Project: Excavations in Carlisle 1998–2001. Volume 1: Stratigraphy. Oxbow/Lancaster Imprints 14. Oxford.

6 Carlisle and an emerging new frontier

…the king went to Northumbria, restored the city which in British is called Cairleu, and in Latin Lugubalia, and built a castle there. This city, like some others in the region, had been destroyed by the Danes 200 years earlier and had remained deserted to that time. —John of Worcester1

Eadred and the transition to Viking settlement The period spanning the late seventh to early ninth centuries witnessed the flowering of the Christian church. It was represented by large numbers of monasteries distributed across the kingdom in which was based a new, literate, educated class of churchmen, but which also stimulated a literary and artistic renaissance. In the west, the renaissance is manifest today not by churches because none survive, unlike east of the Pennines, but by stone sculpture. At the time, western monastic houses would also have had decorated religious texts, some fine metalwork, decorative woodwork and tapestries, as well as painted walls. When the Vikings began raiding from the 790s, captured York in 867, began settling, and killed the last kings Osberht and Aelle, Northumbrian dominance of northern politics ended and the role of the church began to diminish. The monastic institutions were like honeypots to the raiders engaged in plundering and pillaging, and then in 875, a new sociopolitical phase began when the Viking army of Halfdan settled and over-wintered. 2 This coincided with the life of Eadred, an abbot of Carlisle, also known as Lulisc. He is referred to in the Historia de Sancto Cuthberto, but he comes to our attention because as a member of the Lindisfarne community, he helped it relocate to Chester-le-Street in 875–83. 3 There are several versions, but the basic story is that Eadred had a vision whereby St Cuthbert instructed him to persuade the Danish army to accept the election of Guthred, son of Hardacnut, as king of the Danes.4 Essentially, this is a miracle story about the intervention of St Cuthbert at a particularly difficult time in northern politics. Eadred’s success is measured by the community receiving extensive lands between the Tyne and Wear. 5 Beyond that, the

Carlisle and an emerging new frontier  137 role of Carlisle in the story of Eadred is not clear. He clearly spent a good deal of time in eastern Northumbria dealing with the Danes and Guthred, as well as taking the body of St Cuthbert on its wanderings, including to Workington in Cumbria. In short, he was not only abbot of Carlisle, but he was sufficiently senior and respected to play a prominent part in Anglo-­ Danish politics in eastern Northumbria. It is difficult to reconstruct the events of the mid to late ninth century, but a reason for involvement in the east may be a reflection of other events, including the Danes driving Tilred, abbot of Heversham and Alfred, son of Beorhtwulf, back to the east. From the Carlisle perspective, however, the essential point is that whilst the anecdotes about Eadred tell us very little about the monastery, they do affirm its continuing existence in the late ninth century. Whether it was ever attacked by the Danes is an open question. Anywhere that might yield loot was fair game, especially by the thuggish Ivarr the Boneless before his death in 873. We can at least be sure that it was never deserted, however, as the twelfth-century chronicler, John of Worcester, recorded under the year 1092 (quoted at the head of this chapter).6 That this could not have been the case is convincingly shown by archaeological excavation at the Cathedral revealing a Viking-age cemetery.7 By the time these burials took place, it was not the Danes but Norse Vikings who were particularly active in Cumbria, as is clear from the proliferation of place-names with Scandinavian elements, a large collection of sculpture, and a group of weapon burials at Cumwhitton.8 In Carlisle, the twelfth-century Cathedral (Figure 6.1) was built on top of the cemetery which contained inhumations dated by radiocarbon assay, as well as associated high-quality metalwork and other items, to the late ninth and tenth centuries. The assemblage is made up of items with strong Hiberno-Norse affinities, as well as coins of Athelstan and Ethelred II, but no weaponry, such as swords, spears, shields or knives which would be associated with warriors, was found. However, only a small sample of what was probably a much more extensive cemetery has been uncovered to date, so the absence of weapons is not in itself conclusive. Amongst the artefacts was an unusual gold wirework toggle probably from a clothing fastener, several parts of copper alloy belt suites (buckles and strap-ends), pins and a scale-pan, iron coffin fittings, a domestic knife, a silver-topped pendant whetstone (an unusually fine object that had been used not just for sharpening iron objects but had itself also been in contact with some other silver item),9 an antler comb and a single fragment of Torksey Ware pottery, probably made in the kilns at Torksey, Lincolnshire. The only object likely to be of Scandinavian origin is the whetstone, which was of phyllite, found in western Norway and the Northern Isles, but many of the other objects can be matched with finds elsewhere in Cumbria, the Isle of Man and the Western Isles. Details of the form and decoration of some buckles reveals subtler links with the Carolingian world, including so-called ‘spur’ buckles worn just below the knees to fasten cross-gartering, fashionable amongst

138  Carlisle and an emerging new frontier

Figure 6.1  Carlisle Cathedral, formerly the Augustinian Priory church, from the south-west. Source: Photo by author.

the military who were copying Carolingian clothing.10 The iron coffin fittings are reminiscent of those found at Repton, Newcastle, York, Ripon and Dacre, where high-ranking individuals with similar cultural affinities were present.11 What these objects tell us is that inhabitants of a community with Hiberno-Norse links were being buried in Carlisle in the early tenth century, precisely the period when the Vikings were expelled from Dublin in 902 and settled in various parts of northern England. The burials at Cumwhitton, about 14 km south-east of Carlisle, produced very different assemblages.12 There were six burials, four thought to be male and two possible females, found in close proximity, as well as other finds distributed in the plough-soil. Amongst the finds are a Berdal brooch, a Børre-style buckle, a sword, spearheads, a key, a folding knife, numerous beads and fragments of an antler comb. The female graves included oval brooches, a silver-bound wooden-handled knife, beads, a key with traces of a maple box, a linen smoother, shears, a drinking horn and sundry other items. Piles of textiles may also have been included. The male graves included jewellery, swords, knives, whetstones, ‘spur’ buckles, an axe, shield, spurs, a drinking horn and a silver styca. The burials date to the early tenth century. Some probably had Scandinavian origins, suggested by forms of dress and associated objects, and others could have had connections with

Carlisle and an emerging new frontier  139

Figure 6.2   Tenth-century crosshead incorporated into the foundations of the twelfth-century church at Workington. Source: Photo by author.

the ‘great army’ and the Danelaw, as well as the indigenous people of the area. As at Carlisle, the individuals buried here were not members of the peasant community, but rather belonged to an elite group. At Workington, excavations have yielded further traces of churchyard burials complementing the evidence of the sculpture (Figure 6.2), whilst other weapon graves and discoveries of looted silver are attested at Hesketin-the-Forest, Aspatria and Flusco near Penrith (Figure 6.3).13 These finds, together with excavations, are an important addition to the corpus of Hiberno-Norse material in Cumbria and cumulatively present a picture of widespread settlement by relatively high-ranking first- or second-generation immigrants from the Viking world around the Irish Sea, the Northern and Western Isles and Scandinavia. Where were they settling? The place-name evidence suggests coastal communities and marginal lands, but in the absence of evidence for wholesale takeovers of land, it seems as though they fitted in wherever they could, acquiring land peacefully. The implication of the barony name Copeland is frequently cited – Viking incomers purchasing land (Copeland = kaupa land = bought land), perhaps using loot of the kind represented in the Cuerdale hoard.14 Workington, in Copeland, may be an example of this; it had been an Anglian place of worship but it was

140  Carlisle and an emerging new frontier

Figure 6.3  Tenth-century thistle brooches from Flusco near Penrith. Source: © The Trustees of the British Museum.

taken over, presumably by Norse incomers, to function as an estate centre, to judge by the sheer quantity of tenth/eleventh-century sculpture found there.15 The fact that it failed to develop as a major site in the post-­Conquest period is probably due to the poor quality of the soils in its immediate hinterland. Egremont, on the other hand, emerged as the baronial centre for Copeland in the twelfth century, probably because, like Cockermouth, it had greater agricultural potential. Other hints of pre-Norman settlement patterns may be detectable within later secular and ecclesiastical land divisions, and the presence of pre-Conquest institutions such as ‘cornage’ suggests that the location and extent of estates were not completely eliminated by the Normans.16 Place names with the Danish -by element also point to settlement in the Eden valley, but in this case, as Roberts has argued, many may result from Norman settlement.17 Place names and sculpture, aided by these important recent finds at Carlisle, Cumwhitton and Workington, make the Viking presence highly visible. They seem to have effected a radical shake-up of society and

Carlisle and an emerging new frontier  141 economy, injecting new life into small rural communities as well as bigger centres such as Carlisle. One of the consequences of the Viking raids and settlement was to accelerate the interests of the church away from monastic sites to parishes. They destroyed the old political classes, but stimulated the growth of new political and economic forces.

Cumbria – a frontier kingdom? Within this maelstrom of change, Carlisle and Cumbria in general represented a ‘cultural cross-roads’. In addition to the indigenous population of British and (to a more limited extent perhaps) Anglo-Saxon descent, new peoples came from Ireland, the Western Isles, Strathclyde and the Danelaw (Figure 6.4). The Irish Sea and Western Isles are represented archaeologically by metalwork, Scandinavia generally by Norse place-names and a handful of objects, the Danelaw by sculptural affinities and -by place names, and

Figure 6.4  Map of Cumbria as a demographic crossroads. The arrows indicate the directions from which settlers arrived from the late ninth century – Strathclyde, the Tyne valley, the Danelaw and the Irish Sea zone. Source: Drawn by Lesley Collett.

142  Carlisle and an emerging new frontier Strathclyde and eastern Northumbria by reference to the nature of Norse and Danish activities emanating from the activity of the ‘great army’ and the Norse of Govan penetrating to the south of the Solway into Cumbra Land. In the tenth and eleventh centuries, it is difficult to speak of borders or frontiers. The politics are confused and the evidence is slight, but there is a case for viewing Cumberland as a buffer between emerging Scottish and English identities. It was not exactly a ‘no-man’s land’, but more a territory at the interface of, and fluctuating between, two emergent kingdoms. Cumbria conforms to the classic idea of a frontier as a broad zone.18 Carlisle today is in Cumbria in England, but the county name has also been linked to Strathclyde. The word derives from the Old English word Cumer, or in Welsh Cymru, meaning ‘one who lives within the border’.19 The interests of the king of the Scots, Constantine I, extended south of the Solway, perhaps to Eamont Bridge near Penrith where he and others submitted to the English king Athelstan in 927. In the same year, Athelstan annexed the former kingdom of Northumbria, although we do not know where its boundaries were except on the west. Given that such meetings were frequently held on boundaries, we might conclude that the Eamont, and possibly Dunmail Raise in Lakeland, were recognized as boundaries. To the north lay the kingdom of the Scots and its two subkingdoms, Strathclyde and the Cumbrians. Both were quite distinct and emerged once the Northumbrian royal line had been killed off and the royal site on Dumbarton Rock destroyed in 870. Ultimately, however, both were subject to the king of the Scots. 20 By the first half of the tenth century, the name ‘Cumbria’ was identified with the lands around Carlisle, but the choice for ancient authors as to which words to use in a wider context, Cumbria or Strathclyde, may have depended on whether they were writing from a Northumbrian, English or Scottish background. 21 Smyth thought that whether or not Strathclyde and Cumbria were separate kingdoms was ‘of little importance’, however, because the dominant character of the region was Norse; but such a view is unsustainable because viewed more widely, Cumbria north of the Eamont and Dunmail Raise was effectively a buffer or frontier zone separating the kingdom of the Scots from Anglo-Saxon England. 22 Understanding its role in the key formative years of state formation is certainly not unimportant from the point of view of national politics. Moreover, we can be sure that the shaping of Carlisle’s and Cumbria’s economic and social trajectories could well have been influenced by political and administrative considerations. The invasions by Edmund, Athelstan’s successor, in 945, and later Ethelred II’s laying waste to nearly all Cumberland in 1000, rather laconically recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, would be implausible had Strathclyde and Cumbria been a single kingdom. Otherwise, little is known about the kingdom of Cumbrians except for the names of a number of kings. They include Owain (c. 915–37), present at Eamont Bridge in 927 and possibly at Brunanburh in 937; Donald (941–5), expelled by Edmund who then ceded the Cumbrians to Malcolm king of

Carlisle and an emerging new frontier  143 Scots; and Malcolm II (973–97). The last kings of the Cumbrians were Owain the Bald, who may have died at the battle of Carham in 1018, and Malcolm II’s grandson Duncan, the last king, after whose death Strathclyde and the Cumbrians were incorporated into a single kingdom of Scotland.

The nature of Carlisle If the tenth century in Cumbria south of the Solway is difficult to characterize, we now turn to the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Winchester has suggested that the Norman baronies north of the Lake District were created in the twelfth century by using existing territorial boundaries, those of wards and deaneries, civil and ecclesiastical land divisions respectively. 23 Unlike the southern baronies such as Kendale, the northern baronies had -­land names, Coupland, Westmorland and Gilsland, the -land element implying, perhaps, that they were carved out of a larger entity, that of Cumbra Land. Gospatric’s Writ, a legal document granting rights and privileges to one Thorfynn mac Thore roughly in the period 1055 to 1070, refers to ‘all the lands that were Cumbrian’. 24 In the twelfth century, the ward known as Cumberland is thought to have embraced almost all of northern Cumbria, extending from the Wampool in the west to the Solway, to the Pennine scarp in the east and the Eamont in the south. 25 Cumberland thus excluded Allerdale, but significantly it included all the royal demesne. The geographical and historical heart of this area was Carlisle, the administrative hub throughout the Roman occupation and a royal monastic estate from the seventh century. Although there is no supporting archaeological evidence so far, the idea that it continued to act as a regional hub in the tenth and eleventh centuries, perhaps as a royal or seigneurial caput, is not implausible. It is where Dolfin, conceivably with a title such as ‘lord of Carlisle’ and Malcolm III’s representative in the south, had his base when the Normans ejected him in 1092. 26 A few years later, the future David I, who made Carlisle one of his bases, was styled ‘Prince of the Cumbrians (but) not in truth lord of the whole region’ (princeps Cumbrensis non vero toti Cumbensi regioni dominabatur). 27 Finally, it was close to a number of settlements with carl (= OE ceorl) names, such as Carleton, which are frequently found near royal estate centres. We now have a basis for considering the nature of the population and settlement of Carlisle. The first point to note is that whilst from the historical point of view Carlisle was at the centre of a kingdom, the kingdom of the Cumbrians, in the early to mid-tenth century, it was also the home of a significant elite community with strong links to the Scandinavian world. Other similar elites are represented by the burials outside Carlisle, as at Cumwhitton, Hesket and Aspatria, as well as by the numerous sculptures in the county. The ‘world view’ of these people should not be underestimated. Scandinavian and Scottish elites had very wide contacts with the Rus at Novgorod, with Normandy and with the English court from the reign of

144  Carlisle and an emerging new frontier Athelstan on. Constantine II (900–43) dealt directly with Athelstan, as did Kenneth II with Edgar. When Athelstan took over Northumbria and went to Eamont Bridge, he will have been accompanied by a substantial household, including military men, priests and scribes. Another example is Malcolm III, who was probably brought up at the court of Edward the Confessor. Malcolm was married first in about 1065 to a member of the Norwegian royal house, Ingibjorg, and then in 1070 to Margaret, Edgar Atheling’s sister, who was herself brought up with the Magyars in Hungary. As a result, he was very familiar with the workings of both the Norwegian and the English courts, the latter under Edward the Confessor, William the Conqueror and William II. Contacts and networks such as this were not restricted to kings, however, but extended to other senior figures in the royal household. The Gospatrics are a case in point; Gospatric I was earl of Northumberland before he fell out with William I and defected to Malcolm in 1068. Slightly later, the future David I of Scotland was brought up at the court of Henry I, and made earl of Huntingdon. English courts probably included Danish jarls as well as Norman-French counts, doubtless performing specific duties or swearing oaths of fealty in return for fiefs. The point is that kings, and members of royal households whether lay or ecclesiastical, in England, Scotland, Scandinavia, Germany and central Europe were all in the mainstream of European culture, enjoying wide personal, political, economic and religious contacts. As such, they could not but have been fully aware of trends taking place towards state formation and governance across Europe. The courts of Athelstan and Edward the Confessor, for example, comprised, in addition to clerics, a number of high-ranking titled officials who were substantial landowners, making up the witenagemot, essentially the government, that was supported by a raft of lay and clerical secretaries. Amongst the main governmental concerns were security and defence, including against potentially rebellious earls, as well as collecting revenue, administering justice and religious education. 28 Many had their own personal bodyguards, some of whom may have been mercenaries, perhaps even Vikings. All these factors condition our approach to the question of what Carlisle may have been like in the eleventh century. One member of the elite was Dolfin, who occupied Carlisle before 1092. We do not know what Dolfin’s caput in Carlisle looked like because it has not been located, but a case can be made for the site now occupied by the Castle. Like Edinburgh and Roxburgh, or the palatii in Germany, Poland and central Europe, Carlisle Castle on its rocky promontory resembles many central and north European royal sites. They began life as rock-girt ‘strongholds’ rather than the more classical layout favoured by the Carolingians. They were heavily defended by ramparts and ditches, and almost always associated with ecclesiastical sites, usually bishops’ sees. 29 In Germany, and doubtless elsewhere, they were supported by significant settlements housing craftworkers. Outside the Ottonian site of Tilleda, for example, nearly

Carlisle and an emerging new frontier  145 200 Grubenhäuser were associated with manufacturing areas, the layout of which sometimes displayed indications of planning. In Scotland, the royal borough of Dunfermline may have been planned with regular-sized plots associated with craftsmen.30 The palatii would have included halls where the king or lord presided over meetings, and bedchambers for the king and queen. There might be an oratory for private prayer, and at least one church for public occasions and ceremonial, whilst space may have been designated for assemblies, and perhaps a market. Buildings accommodating leading retainers and their servants, as well as other buildings for storing tribute or food renders would have been required. None of this would be possible without an appropriate level of agricultural activity in the countryside and a population providing it. The contacts of the kings of the Cumbrians and the Scots would certainly have provided models that could have been emulated at Carlisle by Dolfin. The royal church and associated buildings at Dunfermline may well have been modelled on Edward the Confessor’s monumental Westminster Abbey, consecrated in December 1065. It has been argued that the earliest castle at Carlisle, of 1092, is represented by the rampart and ditch of the inner ward, but there is no archaeological evidence beyond its shape, and the fact that the twelfth-century curtain wall is on its crest. The earliest ‘castle’ may, therefore, have been a ringwork rather than a motte and bailey, but whether it was the creation of William II, or part of Dolfin’s caput reused by the Normans, is not clear (see Chapter 7).31 Beyond Dolfin’s residence we can envisage a settlement of craft-workers, two parish churches, and possibly private proprietorial churches. There is no evidence for Viking attacks or destruction in Carlisle, or at other Cumbrian monastic sites, but if Carlisle followed wider trends during the ninth and tenth centuries, significant changes in ecclesiastical life might be expected.32 Some scholars see such trends as a process of secularization of Anglo-Saxon minsters, in which economic and social factors played an important part, and it is in that context that some brief discussion of what happened to the monastic complex, and the emergence of Carlisle as a proto-town, is required (see Chapter 7). Suffice it to say here that written records point to two intramural parishes by the late eleventh century, although there is currently no archaeological evidence for either. There may also have been an unconsecrated proprietary church later dedicated to St Alban near the future market place. The presence of at least two churches itself implies a population of reasonable size, and a form of market, supporting a lordly presence, based perhaps in the former Roman fort. It is likely that there existed in Cumbria a variety of markets of different sizes. They were not necessarily founded or controlled by kings, but could arise naturally as a mechanism where communities exchanged goods and gossip. The presence of estate centres, however, whether royal, aristocratic or ecclesiastical, would certainly have been a significant stimulus, because these were places to which the local peasantry would congregate when

146  Carlisle and an emerging new frontier paying dues, and to which traders from afar would naturally gravitate. Carlisle fits well into this category because it had been a royal monastic site from the seventh century and also housed an elite, perhaps aristocratic, social stratum from the late ninth century. We have already noted the concentration of copper alloy stycas in the vicinity of the Cathedral that could be viewed as reflecting a market lying between the former monastic site and a hypothetical lordly or royal caput at the Castle. The question is what do the stycas represent? They were low-value coins that could be given as alms to the poor and as payment of fines or tribute, as well as for exchanges of less than the value of the silver penny, finds of which are extremely rare west of the Pennines. The only mint operating in the former Northumbria was at York, so coins had to arrive, if not in official chests, in the purses and bags of traders. We cannot assume from the presence of stycas and the occasional Anglo-Saxon silver penny that Cumbria or Carlisle had a monetized economy. Indeed, it has been argued that Anglo-Saxon England never attained a fully monetized state, and the use of coins was only ever one of a number of ways of exchanging goods. 33 This would work for elites and farmers, but landless labourers and the poorest of the poor needing just a loaf of bread would depend on alms handed out at a market or at the gates of a monastery or church. The charter of Henry II does not mention a market, but Gospatric’s Writ, thought to belong to the years 1055–70, grants ‘toll and team’ to Thorfynn mac Thore over all the lands in Cardew and Cumdivock. ‘Toll and team’ was the right to take a payment on cattle or goods sold within an estate, and the right to hold a court in which men accused of wrongful possession of cattle or goods could prove their honesty. In other words, the Writ is proof not only of exchange outside officially designated markets, but also that the practice long predated the Norman Conquest.34 The presence of a lordly centre, two or possibly three churches and a market is sufficient to indicate a significant settlement providing goods and services, although we cannot speculate on numbers of people or its layout. A single wattle building, tentatively identified as of Scandinavian type, was excavated in Lewthwaite’s Lane, Scotch Street, and is comparable with examples in Dublin and elsewhere.35 On the opposite side of Scotch Street, a small group of mid to late Saxon objects was found at the site of the former chapel of St Alban.36 Craft-working is attested by a gold parting crucible found opposite the Castle at Annetwell Street, and a clay mould for a ninth-century Trewhiddle-style strap-end from Crown and Anchor Lane in a pit dated by dendrochronology to ad 771–816; near this pit, a late tenth/eleventh-century cloisonné enamelled disc brooch was recovered. 37 Overall, however, the number of objects is very small, but they are widely distributed across the town centre, and of a quality to suggest that there was a significant settlement, the remains of which are either buried beneath the historic core or else have been destroyed by later construction works.

Carlisle and an emerging new frontier  147 What all this adds up to is this: contrary to John of Worcester, quoted at the head of this chapter, when the Normans arrived in Carlisle they found not a deserted site, but a place that had political status; it was an aristocratic if not a royal stronghold, and it was accompanied by some of the attendant facilities. However, it would be stretching any definition of the word ‘town’ to view Carlisle as a northern equivalent to Lincoln, Norwich or York. Not only did these and other places have nearly 200 years of urbanization behind them by the late eleventh century, but Domesday Book shows that they also had growing populations reflected in the numbers of parishes, in emerging institutions such as the cnihtengilds (knight’s gilds) at London, Winchester and Canterbury, and gilds of thegns as at Cambridge, as well as mints, earthen defences, markets, a host of specialist craftsmen and thriving trade networks. Rather, as indicated earlier, Carlisle appears to have been closer to the Scottish and north or central European idea of a stronghold and church generating external trade, served by a peasant population. Whereas it used to be thought that Carlisle and the first Scottish towns were created in the early twelfth century, it is now becoming apparent that some burghs, Perth, Edinburgh, Dunfermline and Roxburgh for example, were already exhibiting expansive traits long beforehand. 38 In Perth, radiocarbon dates point to activity in the late tenth and early eleventh centuries, although the precise nature of the settlement there is uncertain.39 For these places in which exchange and socializing were important features, and for Carlisle as well, ‘proto-town’ is probably a better description, if only because they did not yet have the institutions of local government. The Normans were to change all that.

The Norman Conquest Having landed at Pevensey on 28 September 1066, William, Duke of Normandy, was crowned king of England on Christmas Day at Westminster Abbey. At the time, his kingdom may have had no northern border, but there was a buffer zone, formerly the kingdom of the Cumbrians, presided over on behalf of the king of the Scots, Malcolm III, by Gospatric’s son Dolfin. It probably extended as far south as Stainmore, so that possession of Carlisle gave Malcolm access to lands south of the Solway, as well as to the western flank of William’s kingdom in north Yorkshire by way of the trans-Pennine route across Stainmore. Possession of Carlisle was also highly desirable for the king of England, because it denied Scottish access to Norman territories in England. In 1092, William II (Rufus) took Carlisle, driving out Dolfin and built the castle.40 Thus the frontier zone retreated northwards, although David I of Scotland later recaptured Carlisle, turning it once again into Scottish territory. When David died at Carlisle in 1153, Henry II took it back under English control, where it has since remained.

148  Carlisle and an emerging new frontier

Notes 1 See McGurk 1998, 62–3. 2 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ms A s.a.875; ms E s.a.876. 3 History of St Cuthbert, 1882–5. 4 Johnson South 2002, 87–94. See also Woolf 2007, 78 et seq. 5 Eadred occurs in the History of St Cuthbert, where he is referred to as Eadred Lulisc. He was not only involved in raising of a Viking, Guthfrith (or Guthred), to the kingship of Northumbria, but also in the granting of estates in the northeast to the Vikings, roles which raise interesting questions about the relationship of senior ecclesiastics to the army of Halfdan. See Aird 1997, 30–2, 35–9; Hart 1975, 139. It has been suggested that Symeon may have mistakenly attributed Eadred to Carlisle on the grounds that that his name does not occur amongst the names of abbots in the ninth-century Liber Vitae (Briggs 2004, 65, n.17). 6 McGurk 1998, 62–3. Neither the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle nor Symeon have anything to say about this. 7 That John’s statement is misleading is implicit in the discovery of a Viking-age cemetery at the Cathedral (McCarthy 2014). 8 Paterson, Parsons et al. 2014. See also McCarthy and Paterson 2014; Bailey and Cramp 1988; Bailey 1980. 9 Paterson and Tweddle 2014; Paterson, Tweddle et al. 2014. 10 Walton Rogers 2014; Thomas 2012. 11 Ottaway 2014, 224–6. 12 Paterson, Parsons et al. 2014. 13 McCarthy and Paterson 2014; Paterson, Parsons et al. 2014. 14 Fellows-Jensen 1985, 417; Griffiths 2010, 52. 15 McCarthy and Paterson 2014. 16 Griffiths 2010, 52–9; Winchester 1987, 14–19. 17 Roberts 1991. 18 See Chapter 1. 19 Williams 1952, 74. 20 Phythian-Adams 1996, 77–87. See also Rollason 2003, 249–59. 21 Woolf 2007, 152–4. Smith (1986, 22–9) points out that names were very important in antiquity. Collective names are a sure sign and an emblem of ethnic communities, by which they distinguish themselves and evoke shared memories and a sense of common history uniting successive generations. 22 Smyth 1984, 229–30. 23 Winchester 1987, 14–19. 24 Phythian-Adams 1996, 110. 25 Ibid., 111. 26 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, E, s.a.1092. See Phythian-Adams 1996. For Dolfin, see Summerson 1993, 47–9. Dolfin is not credited with the title ‘lord of Carlisle’, but given that this was what Ranulf le Meschin was called, it is not implausible. 27 Cited in Oram 2004, 63. 28 Barlow 1970, 167. 29 Urbaňczyk 2010; Herold 2012. 30 Dennison 2005; Mackechnie 2005. 31 McCarthy 1990, 11, 28. 32 Blair 2006, 292–367. 33 Naismith 2012. 34 Stenton 1961, 101, n.1–2.

Carlisle and an emerging new frontier  149 35 McCarthy 2000, 42–3. A mid-to-late Roman date for this building cannot be ruled out, but the similarity to Viking-age buildings in York, Durham and Dublin was striking. 36 Ibid., 48. 37 Bayley 2008; Taylor and Webster 1984; Cracknell 2000, 118–9. The cloisonné enamelled disc brooch is the most northerly example in Britain, other examples being known in the south-east and in Denmark (Buckton 1986). A combination of these and the metalwork from the Cathedral tends to support the contention of Ten Harkel et al. (2016, 68) that ‘new cosmopolitan fashions’ were widespread. 38 Duncan 1992, 463 et seq. 39 Hall et al. 2005. 40 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, E s.a.1092.

References Aird, W.M. 1997. ‘Northern England or southern Scotland? The Anglo-Scottish border in the eleventh and twelfth centuries and the problem of perspective’, in Government, Religion and Society in Northern England 1000–1700, eds. J.C. Appleby and P. Dalton, 27–39. Stroud. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. 1967. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, trans. G.N. Garmonsway. London and New York. Bailey, R.N. 1980. Viking Age Sculpture. London. Bailey, R.N. and Cramp, R. 1988. The British Academy Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture in England. Volume 2 Cumberland Westmorland and Lancashire North of the Sands. Oxford. Barlow, F. 1970. Edward the Confessor. London. Bayley, J. 2008. ‘Medieval precious metal refining: archaeology and contemporary texts compared’, in Archaeology, History and Science: Integrating Approaches to Ancient Materials, eds. M. Martinón-Torres and T. Rehren, 131–50. Walnut Creek. Blair, J. 2006. The Church in Anglo-Saxon Society. Oxford. Briggs, E. 2004. ‘Nothing but names: the original core of the Durham Liber Vitae’, in The Durham Liber Vitae and its Context, eds. D. Rollason, A.J. Piper, M. Harvey and L. Rollason, 63–85. Woodbridge. Buckton, D. 1986. ‘Late 10th and 11th century cloisonné enamelled brooches’, Medieval Archaeology 30: 8–18. Cracknell, P. 2000. ‘Enamelled disc brooch’, in M.R. McCarthy, 118–19. Dennison, E.P. 2005. ‘Living in medieval Dunfermline’, in R. Fawcett, 1–26. Duncan, A.A.M. 1992. Scotland: The Making of a Kingdom. Volume 1. Edinburgh. Fawcett, R. 2005. Royal Dunfermline. Edinburgh. Fellows-Jensen, G. 1985. Scandinavian Settlement Names in the North-West. Copenhagen. Griffiths, D. 2010. Vikings of the Irish Sea: Conflict and Assimilation ad 790–1050. Stroud. Hall, M., Hall, D. and Cook, G. 2005. ‘What’s cooking? New radiocarbon dates from the earliest phases of the Perth High Street excavations and the question of Perth’s early medieval origin’, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 135: 273–85.

150  Carlisle and an emerging new frontier Hart, C. ed. 1975. The Early Charters of Northern England and the North Midlands. Leicester. Herold, H. 2012. ‘Fortified settlements of the 9th and 10th centuries ad in central Europe: structure, function and symbolism’, Medieval Archaeology 56: 60–84. History of St Cuthbert. 1882–5. Historia Sancto Cuthberto, in Symeonis monachi Opera omnia, ed. T. Arnold. 2 volumes, Rolls Series. London. Johnson South, T. ed. 2002. Historia Sancto Cuthberto: A History of Saint Cuthbert and a Record of his Patrimony. Anglo-Saxon Texts 3. Cambridge. McCarthy, M.R. 1990. A Roman, Anglian and Medieval Site at Blackfriars Street, Carlisle: Excavations 1977–9. Cumberland Westmorland Antiquarian Archaeological Society Research Series 4, Kendal. McCarthy, M.R. 2000. Roman and Medieval Carlisle: The Southern Lanes. Excavations 1981–2. Department of Archaeological Sciences, University of Bradford, Research Report 1. Carlisle. McCarthy, M.R. 2014. ‘A post-Roman sequence at Carlisle Cathedral’, Archaeological Journal 171: 185–257. McCarthy, M.R. and Paterson, C. 2014. ‘A Viking-age site at Workington, Cumbria: an interim statement’, in In Search of Vikings, eds. S. Harding, D. Griffiths and E. Royles, 127–36. London and New York. McGurk, P. ed. 1998. The Chronicle of John of Worcester. Volume III. Oxford. Mackechnie, A. 2005. ‘The royal palace of Dunfermline’, in R. Fawcett, 101–38. Naismith, R. 2012. Money and Power in Anglo-Saxon England: The Southern English Kingdoms. Cambridge. Oram, R. 2004. David I: The King who Made Scotland. Stroud. Ottaway, P. 2014. ‘The ironwork’, in M.R. McCarthy, 224–7. Paterson, C., Parsons, A.J., Newman, R.M., Johnson, N. and Howard-­Davis, C. 2014. Shadows in the Sand: Excavation of a Viking-Age Cemetery at Cumwhitton, Cumbria. Lancaster Imprints 22. Lancaster. Paterson, C. and Tweddle, D. 2014 ‘Gold and silver; copper alloy’, in M.R. McCarthy, 208–10, 211–22. Paterson, C. and Tweddle, D. with Evans, A. and Gaunt, G. 2014. ‘The pendant whetstone’, in M.R. McCarthy, 227–9. Phythian-Adams, C. 1996. Land of the Cumbrians. A Study in British Provincial Origins ad 400–1120. London. Roberts, B.K. 1991. ‘Late –by names in the Eden valley, Cumbria’, Nomina 13 (1989–90): 25–39. Rollason, D. 2003. Northumbria, 500–1100: Creation and Destruction of a Kingdom. Cambridge. Smith, A.D. 1986. The Ethnic Origin of Nations. Oxford. Smyth, A.P. 1984. Warlords and Holy Men: Scotland ad 80–1000. Edinburgh. Stenton, F.M. 1961. The First Century of English Feudalism 1066–1166. Oxford. Summerson, H. 1993. Medieval Carlisle: The City and the Border from the Late Eleventh to the Sixteenth Century. Cumberland Westmorland Antiquarian Archaeological Society Extra Series 25. Kendal. Taylor, J. and Webster, L.E. 1984. ‘A late-Saxon strap-end mould from Carlisle’, Medieval Archaeology 28: 178–81. Ten Harkel, L., Weetch, R. and Sainsbury, V. 2016. ‘An early medieval polychrome-­ enamelled brooch from Flaxengate, Lincoln: Continental fashions in an Anglo-­ Scandinavian town’, Medieval Archaeology 60 (1): 57–71.

Carlisle and an emerging new frontier  151 Thomas, G. 2012. ‘Carolingian culture in the North Sea World: rethinking the cultural dynamics of personal adornment in Viking-Age England’, European Journal of Archaeology 15 (3): 486–518. Urbaňczyk, P. 2010. ‘From a stronghold to a town – the Polish case’, in Making a Medieval Town: Patterns of Early Medieval Urbanization, eds. A. Buko and M.R. McCarthy, 15–26. Warsaw. Walton Rogers, P. 2014. ‘Textiles and leather on metalwork’, in M.R. McCarthy, 223–4. Williams, I. 1952. ‘Wales and the North’, Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society Ser 2, 51: 73–88. Winchester, A.J.L. 1987. Landscape and Society in Medieval Cumbria. Edinburgh. Woolf, A. 2007. From Pictland to Alba 789–1070. Edinburgh. Zant, J. 2009. The Carlisle Millennium Project: Excavations in Carlisle 1998–2001. Volume 1: Stratigraphy. Oxbow/Lancaster Imprints 14. Oxford.

7 The Norman takeover

1092. In this year king William with a great army went north to Carlisle, and restored the town and built the castle; and drove out Dolfin, who ruled the land there before. And he garrisoned the castle with his vassals; and thereafter came south hither, and sent thither a great multitude of churlish folk [peasants] with women and cattle, there to dwell and to till the land. —Anglo-Saxon Chronicle1

During the twelfth century, the Norman impact throughout Britain was revolutionary in both scale and long-term effects. In the political sphere, Cumbria was transformed from being an Anglo-Scottish frontier buffer zone into an English border territory. The Normans affected all aspects of life, political, economic, social, religious and military, but in physical terms, the events of the twelfth century also determined the shape and appearance of the city for centuries to come. Hitherto our sources have largely been archaeological with occasional texts, but now they become more varied, with a far greater variety of texts and two great monuments in the Castle and Cathedral, as well as archaeology and its associated disciplines. This combination allows us to chart the growth of urbanization, as was attempted in earlier chapters for the Roman town.

Changing lordship During the eleventh century, Scots and English relationships in the former kingdom of Northumbria were complex, with kings of both vying for control of lands that were fiercely independent. Gospatric, who had bought the English earldom of Northumbria in 1067, fled after a failed revolt a few months later. In 1070, he resisted an invasion of the north by Malcolm III, but in the end, he defected to Scotland, where he was granted lands and the earldom of Dunbar by Malcolm III. 2 Later, William the Conqueror stripped him of the earldom of Northumbria at the Treaty of Abernethy in 1072. The 1080s and 1090s saw steady attempts by both kings to strengthen their positions in Northumberland and Cumberland,

The Norman takeover  153 and in 1091, Malcolm invaded northern England by way of Cumbria and besieged Durham. This provoked William II (Rufus) to retaliate, but they came to terms in which the king of Scots became William’s ‘man’. William, in return, promised to restore lands that had formerly belonged to him, but then reneged on the promise. Scholars dispute what happened next, but the outcome was William’s seizure of Carlisle in 1092, ejecting the Scot, Dolfin, in the process. When Henry I succeeded to the English throne in 1100, he had a northern problem. In his eyes, successive Scots kings, Malcolm III, Alexander I and Edgar, had been consistently unreliable and at times hostile neighbours, so new baronies were created, including Burgh and Liddel. The latter is of particular interest because the heavily defended motte and bailey on a bluff overlooking the Liddel Water, known locally as Liddel Strength, guards the northern land approaches to Carlisle (Figure 7.1). 3 It was also in Henry’s interests to cultivate his friend David, earl of Huntingdon, who was the third son of Malcolm and Queen Margaret. David was, as it were, ‘one of us’. He inherited Strathclyde and Cumbria from Edgar, and held the title ‘Prince of

Figure 7.1  P  lan of Liddel Strength made by William Roy (1793). Source: By kind permission of The Society of Antiquaries of London. © The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland.

154  The Norman takeover the Cumbrians’,4 but he was also a familiar of the English court where he had spent much of his youth when not on his English estates, and he seems to have got on well with the English king. He was a crucial ally of Henry, who visited Carlisle in 1122 with David in attendance, and ordered the construction of stone defences. Henry was in a position to exert pressure to secure David’s elevation to the kingship of Scotland when his brother Alexander died, and David was crowned at Scone in 1124. That was not the end of the problem. There were many subsequent disputes, in the course of which David shored up his position in Scotland by creating baronies with his own supporters in place, including the Bruces in Annandale. One of the most serious political distractions in the latter part of his reign came with the protracted war between Henry I’s daughter Matilda, who was Henry’s nominated successor as well as David’s niece, and Stephen of Blois, who had acted quicker and secured the English crown for himself. David supported Matilda in this row, but eventually he was defeated at the Battle of the Standard in 1138, after which he went to Carlisle, of which he retained control. 5 Another distraction was the question of the primacy of the English church over that of Scotland. This particular row had been provoked in part by David himself who, wishing to see the Scottish church as independent of England, had created a diocese at Glasgow with bishop John in charge. Carlisle was included in John’s territory. Henry responded in turn by creating a diocese in Carlisle with his own man Athelwold, already the prior of the new Augustinian house, as his bishop. Matters came to a head after the Battle of the Standard, when negotiations involving a papal legate took place at Carlisle in 1138. Eventually in 1148 and 1149, Carlisle hosted further high-level religious and secular events, attended by, amongst others, Henry of Anjou, the future Henry II, along with Ranulf le Meschin, son of the former lord of Carlisle, and Henry Murdac, archbishop of York. David (see front cover, left) was now acknowledged as the undisputed king of the Scots, whose territory extended at least as far south as the Ribble in Lancashire. Throughout the first half of the twelfth century Cumbria, and Carlisle in particular, occupied a pivotal role in the Anglo-Scottish territorial disputes. Indeed, along with Roxburgh and Edinburgh, Carlisle was a key Scottish holding, with the Castle and nascent town hosting great political and religious events. From the time he entered into his inheritance as Prince of the Cumbrians sometime between 1107 and 1113, David treated Cumbria, and Carlisle in particular, as his own property, so that when he became king it continued within his patrimony, the Castle effectively functioning as a royal palace. However, Henry I and Stephen also regarded Carlisle and Cumbria as part of their patrimony, with the sheriff as their representative overseeing administrative affairs and the collection of taxes. Carlisle was an important and busy place, with schemes afoot including construction works for the Castle, the city walls and the Augustinian Priory. It enhanced its position by becoming a focus for buying, selling, socializing and fiscal

The Norman takeover  155 and judicial issues. By 1130, it had burgesses, who would normally have been granted rights and privileges, but they had to wait until 1158.

Symbols of power – the Castle and the church One of the most visible manifestations of power in the twelfth and thirteenth century was the Castle. For the Normans, royal castles were not just military strongpoints; they were also the centres of administration, and in some cases royal residences. In Carlisle, it was a centre of military operations, as when David was preoccupied with Galloway. It was the place from which the sheriff collected dues from those parts of the county in which he had jurisdiction, at which justice was delivered, and at which high-level diplomatic negotiations might take place and where distinguished visitors would be received. It could also provide shelter for local people in the event of a siege. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle tells us that when William II arrived in Carlisle in 1092, he ‘built the castle’, but what kind of castle was it? Of the royal castles in the north, only York (1068) and Newcastle upon Tyne (1080) pre-dated it. William did not spend long in Carlisle, so the assumption is that he ordered an earthwork construction capable of being built fairly rapidly. There were two kinds of earthwork castles: a ‘motte and bailey’ in which a mound was surmounted by a timber tower enclosed within ditches and ramparts, as at York and Newcastle; or a ringwork, comprising ramparts and ditches enclosing an area containing a range of timber buildings. Mottes are very sparsely represented in Cumbria, although there are a large number in Dumfriesshire, where they are probably mid-to-late twelfth century in date. There is no sign of a motte at Carlisle, however, so it is probably safe to assume that the castle took the form of a ringwork, located on a steep bluff overlooking the confluence of rivers Eden and Caldew and within the retentura of the former Roman fort, the remains of which were visible in the twelfth century according to William of Malmesbury. The evidence for a ringwork is slight and consists of the scale and shape of the very substantial bank/rampart on which the later stone curtain walls were constructed, and the very large ditch, which is curved, outside it (Figure 7.2a). The precise shape and height of the bank and ditch varies, partly due to some remodelling in later times in the inner ward, but the southern length of ditch and bank facing the town (Figure 7.3) can be interpreted as incorporating a ringwork defensive system reused when the stone castle was built. Within the ringwork, one can envisage timber buildings serving the sheriff as the official charged with fiscal and administrative duties for Carlisle and Cumbria. No other features can be attributed to this phase of works. It is thought that William’s castle replaced Dolfin’s stronghold; as such, it was a highly symbolic choice, sending a strong message to the Scots. A ringwork would have represented a cheaper solution for William Rufus, not known

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Figure 7.2   Carlisle Castle, a possible developmental sequence: (a) ringwork, perhaps eleventh century; (b) the early stone castle of Henry I and David I set within the ringwork; and (c) the later twelfth-century castle. Source: Adapted from McCarthy et al. 1990, 28. Drawn by Lesley Collett.

Figure 7.3   Carlisle Castle: the keep behind twelfth-century curtain walls that appear to be built on the remnants of an earlier ringwork. Source: Photo by author.

to have been a castle builder, who simply took over the site of Dolfin’s residence and enhanced it. 6 In the first half of the twelfth century, a stone keep was added7 and a stone gatehouse at the south-eastern corner of the enceinte (Figure 7.2b). The stone keep is probably work initiated in 1122, when Henry I visited Carlisle and ordered the building of a castle with towers (castello et

The Norman takeover  157 turribus).8 It is also possible that a large ditch, colloquially known as the ‘city ditch’, separating the promontory on which the Castle stands from the town may belong with this phase (although it could be slightly later). The ditch was 16 m wide and at least 3.25 m deep, and would have been accompanied by a bank, no trace of which now survives. Excavations have yielded inconclusive results in terms of chronology; the point from which the primary ditch was dug is not known, and there is no dating evidence from the earliest fills.9 Whether the ditch belongs to the timber castle of William II or the stone castle of Henry I and David I is still unclear. Traces of timber structural features in the bottom of the ditch may relate to a wooden bridge. Later, in 1135, David I is said to have ordered a very strong keep and the town walls to be raised higher;10 at the same time, or perhaps under Henry II, a new gatehouse and curtain walls were built (Figure 7.2c). At all events, the construction programme will have been slow, and may have extended into the reign of Henry II. The location and bulk of the twelfth-century Castle dominated the settlement to the south. It included the immensely strong, square keep or great tower set within an inner ward, defined by the earthen banks retained from the earlier ringwork (Figure 7.3), and the first stone gatehouse to the east.11 The keep has three floors, all divided by a stone spine wall which is Tudor in its present form. The barrel-vaulted ground floor, lit by splayed windows, was entered through a door which gave access to a straight mural staircase to the first floor. At some point a fore-building was added, providing additional access to the first floor where, together with the second floor, the principal rooms were located. These included space for receiving guests and ceremonial events, holding meetings and smaller spaces that could have been appropriate to royal domestic quarters. It includes a possible kitchen and an intramural chamber. The keep is remarkably plain in its present state with few architectural details dating to the twelfth century, but in its heyday, it was doubtless richly adorned with tapestries and other expensive materials befitting a king. The inner ward was entered through the stone gatehouse at the south-eastern corner of the Castle, but little now survives of this, although a painting of 1791 by Robert Carlyle shows a blocked archway.12 The Castle was intended as a royal centre with a wider function than simply that of a ceremonial focus. It was a clear statement of power and focus for official business, but the spaces for which we have any information limit the numbers of magnates and entourages who could be accommodated. Whether or not the Castle was regarded as an important military focus is unclear, because up to the second quarter of the twelfth century, it may not have comprised more than a ditched and banked enclosure with a keep and stone gatehouse. Similarly, the extent to which it also served as a royal residence is unclear. The account of David’s death there may suggest that it did, but more persuasive is the variety of spaces and facilities on the second floor, which suggest an element of domesticity for a restricted household.13

158  The Norman takeover The size of the Castle is such that it must have required a continuous building programme extending over many decades. In the mid-twelfth century, the entrance was remodelled and a new gatehouse to the inner ward, now known as the Captain’s Tower, was built (Figure 7.4). In addition, a new outer gatehouse, known as de Ireby’s Tower, was constructed, perhaps in 1167–8. The other key feature of the Castle almost certainly initiated by Henry I and David is the curtain walls (Figures 7.2c and 7.3). The wall circuit is complete and has been modified many times, although there are a number of lengths that can be associated with the early defensive works. The extended area of the Castle would in addition have accommodated a significant force to service and repair/maintain buildings. Amongst these, as excavation south of the de Ireby gatehouse has demonstrated, is a timber building, which was succeeded by a larger structure measuring at least 14 m by 10 m. It was identified by post-pits that had contained posts up to around 60 cm in diameter. These structures are attributed to the midto-late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries respectively, because the earliest phase overlies a penny of William II associated with red ‘gritty’ pottery characteristics of the time. Close by are traces of ironworking.14 The Castle was a crucial part of Carlisle, important not just as a symbol, but as the English crown’s defender of its border. That the frontier was ‘soft’ in the mid-twelfth century is shown by the wars of Stephen and Matilda, but its vulnerability is also shown in the invasion of Cumbria and attempt

Figure 7.4  Carlisle Castle: the Captain’s Tower, gatehouse to the inner ward. Source: Photo by author.

The Norman takeover  159 on Carlisle in 1173–4 by the Scottish king, William the Lion. That he was unsuccessful is because of the size of the English field army and its superiority in terms of equipment and heavy cavalry. Arguably, it was the threat from Scottish raids that was a major unifying force for the citizens, but if so, it was not that the raids were conducted by Scots, with whom there were close ties, but more the destructive effects the raiding had on food supplies, livestock, seed corn and trading opportunities. It might be thought that the Castle would have been a major deterrent to the Scots, but as Strickland has noted, comparatively little offensive action emanated from Carlisle, or indeed other northern castles.15 Invading armies could come and go, as William the Lion did in 1173–4, taking castles in the Upper Eden valley without the Carlisle garrison so much as stirring. It was the threat of the English army under Richard de Lucy that persuaded him to abort his siege and retreat back into Scotland.16 Castle garrisons were generally small, a mere handful of knights or men-at-arms, a wholly inadequate force with which to ensure the safety of the surrounding countryside, but with the help of the citizens, it was enough to withstand short sieges. Henry I reinforced his claim on lands south of the Solway in 1122 by approving the foundation of an Augustinian priory, now Carlisle Cathedral (Figure 7.5).17 By this time Carlisle also had two parishes, St Mary’s and St Cuthbert’s. The king obtained a dispensation from Pope Calixtus II whereby Athelwold, the first prior, could hold his post in conjunction with another office, possibly at Nostell Priory, West Yorkshire. The earliest building work recorded is that attested in the Pipe Roll of 1129–30, so that we can attribute a start to construction in the mid-to-late 1120s.18 Henry’s choice of location for the Priory was not just that it was a pre-­ existing religious site, but that it may have been available as relatively uncluttered land, albeit with the parish church of St Mary.19 Possible constraints about such a location may have been the old Roman road, now fossilized by the line of Blackfriars Street leading towards the Castle, and the presence of the Anglo-Scandinavian cemetery. The solution to this was to divert the road along St Cuthbert’s Lane, and build over the cemetery. Construction work for the twelfth-century Priory probably extended over two broad phases, which are visible in the fabric at the present day (Figure 7.6). The first phase, corresponding approximately to the first fifteen years of Athelwold’s time, comprised the stone church, whilst the second phase, in the latter part of Athelwold’s priorate and his position as bishop of Carlisle, witnessed its remodelling. The church was laid out across the cemetery; initially it had an aisleless nave eight bays in length and probably an aisleless choir with north and south transepts, each containing a single apsidal-ended chapel. However, the later plan, as revealed by excavation, geophysical survey and the existing fabric in the crossing, clearly reflects a change in which the aisleless arrangement was converted into an aisled church. 20 C.J. Ferguson, a Victorian surveyor to the Cathedral, is said to

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Figure 7.5  Aerial view of Carlisle Cathedral, formerly the Augustinian Priory. At the bottom left St Cuthbert’s parish church is visible. Source: © Historic England Archive, Aerofilms Collection.

have located the west end, noting a four-order western door and pilaster buttresses. 21 Little can be seen of the early phase above ground, but the architectural affinities of the second phase are distinctively Romanesque in style (Figure 7.6), and the bases of the nave arcade piers have claws reminiscent of those at the royal church of Melbourne, Derbyshire, which was very familiar to Athelwold. A possible context for the change in plan is his elevation to a position in which he combined the priorate with the bishopric, a process that was completed in, or shortly after, 1133. An aisled church would have provided him with a more splendid setting appropriate to his newly enhanced status, but it would also emphasize the strong message that Henry I was sending to David I, now king of the Scots, and his bishop, John of Glasgow, whose diocese had briefly included Carlisle. It was also a message reinforced in the form of the Castle keep, which closely resembles other great towers at Bamburgh and Richmond, but is not matched in

The Norman takeover  161

Figure 7.6  T he truncated nave and south transept of the aisled twelfth-century Augustinian Priory church, from Billings (1840). Source: Courtesy of Cumbria County Council, Carlisle Library.

Scotland. 22 Similarly, the message would not have been lost on the bishop of Durham, a former diocesan of Carlisle, and whose claim extended back to the community of St Cuthbert. Little is known of the plan of the rest of the Priory in the twelfth century, but Figure 7.7 is offered as a tentative reconstruction. The visible stonework in the area of the cloister today is entirely of thirteenth-century

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Figure 7.7  Reconstruction of the Priory and St Cuthbert’s church area in the mid to late twelfth century. Source: Adapted from McCarthy 2014. Drawn by Lesley Collett.

and later date, but a stone-built chapter house may be indicated by two Romanesque capitals, now in the Prior’s Tower. Timber buildings probably sufficed for most of the claustral buildings, a reflection perhaps of the absence of a bishop as a driving force in the diocese for nearly fifty years after Athelwold’s death. The parish of St Mary probably originated before the Normans arrived. It is mentioned in a writ-charter of Henry I dated to the period 1121–7, a time when building work on the Priory was in its initial phases. In this, the king granted to ‘St Mary and the canons of Carlisle all the churches and land that had belonged to Walter the priest’. 23 The church of St Mary and Walter’s living were clearly part of Henry I’s endowment to the Priory. There are no traces of a pre-priory parish church incorporated within the fabric

The Norman takeover  163 of the Priory church today, and geophysical survey inside the Cathedral has failed to locate sub-floor structural remains that could be interpreted as such. Taken at face value, the implication is that the construction of the Priory took place on an open site and did not involve the demolition of an earlier church. Indeed, as the existing St Mary’s church would have been needed until such time as the Priory building work was completed, the original St Mary’s must have been located elsewhere, perhaps beyond the east end of the priory where geophysical anomalies are tentatively interpreted as the earlier monastic church (see Chapter 5). If this is correct, it means that for much of the twelfth century there were two churches in the priory precinct: one was the original St Mary’s parish church surviving from Viking days, if not the Cuthbertian monastery, whilst the other was the new Priory church itself. At some point, perhaps the late twelfth or early thirteenth century, the old church of St Mary must have been demolished. Adjacent to the Priory is the parish church of St Cuthbert. 24 This had a complex history, beginning with a deed of about 1130 recording the gift by Waltheof, son of earl Gospatric (and brother of Dolfin), of his dwelling house next to St Cuthbert’s. 25 Later, Bishop Athelwold’s charter of about 1150 also makes reference to the parish of St Cuthbert. Such early attestations, as Summerson intimated, can be construed to indicate a pre-1092 date for that church, and so push back the origins of the parish into pre-Norman times. 26 Its skewed alignment to the conventional east-west line commonly adopted by churches, and its location next to the main access route from the south to the Castle, are also indicative of an early origin. Finally, from the eleventh century, and possibly earlier, there was an additional place of worship, a predecessor of the medieval chapel of St Alban. The chapel itself was unconsecrated, but had a frontage on Scotch Street and rights of burial. 27 Part of it has been investigated and found to comprise three cells, a western tower, a nave and a square-ended chancel, together with a cemetery. Although there were no surviving floor deposits, more than one constructional phase was recognized, and it may have started out as a two-cell church. The site was dated by pottery, with twelfth- and thirteenth-­century wares associated with the foundation deposits. 28 However, as Summerson and Jones have both pointed out, given that it is most unlikely that a chapel with burial rights would have been permitted after the foundation of the Priory in 1122, a pre-Norman origin can be assumed. 29

A developing town From the mid 1120s, Carlisle would have resembled a large building site, as royal initiatives ultimately leading towards full urbanization gathered pace. First, the building of the great tower at Carlisle Castle and its fitting-­out would have required considerable manpower and a wide range of skills, some of which would have been imported into the area. Second, the construction of the Augustinian Priory church would have required greater

164  The Norman takeover skills, because the architectural aspirations and knowledge needed for building high with arcades were more demanding than those required for the squat but massive bulk of the Castle. As if that was not enough, the construction of the city defences was an added burden. Economic growth was an inevitable corollary of such projects. The starting point for accelerated growth would have been William Rufus’s seizure of Carlisle and the building of the first castle, but an important boost must have been the arrival in 1106, if not earlier, of Ranulf le Meschin, a Norman from the Bessin. He was appointed to the lordship of Carlisle and Cumberland, whilst other lesser French and Flemish families were recruited to take up newly created lordships on either side of the Solway.30 Their significance in Cumbria has usually been assessed from the political and administrative viewpoint, but arguably it goes beyond that, because Ranulf and his colleagues came from Normandy and Flanders, where the process of urbanization had been progressing for some time. By the turn of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, places such as Caen, Bayeux and Falaise in Ranulf’s home territory had market squares, were being encircled by walls, and were rendering annual taxes to the ducal exchequer, as indeed were towns throughout the dukedom. 31 The Norman immigrants brought valuable practical experience to Carlisle and other northern lordships in a remote part of the kingdom where the development of urban life, as understood in Normandy, was slow and patchy. Their legacy survived in Carlisle street names, such as the vicus Francorum, as well as a dozen or more place-names like Botcherby.32 Carlisle was not alone. Growth and change was taking place elsewhere in Cumbria. In Penrith and Kendal, for example, sculpture provides a basis for believing that there was a pre-urban core, whilst place-names such as Kirkby Kendal (Cherchebi in Domesday Book), and in Penrith the Old English ‘Burrowgate’, fossilizing the word burh, within the street pattern around St Andrew’s Church, provide tantalizing hints of early activity. Penrith and Kendal were probably administrative and military hubs as well as estate centres and places of exchange and socializing. They were, in essence, proto-towns. At Cockermouth, a charter of 1210 confirms certain privileges, clearly burghal in nature, showing that its foundation must lie in the mid-to-late twelfth century, as may also be the case at Egremont. 33 In short, the Norman impact was not confined to Carlisle, but extended to the whole of Cumbria. Whereas Kendal and Penrith may have emerged from Anglo-­Scandinavian cores, texts suggest that Cockermouth was probably a town planned de novo, laid out in relation to the Castle in the twelfth century. Cockermouth displays little sign of a pre-burghal core, and in its early phases it may be have been a polyfocal settlement. Papcastle, the former Roman settlement of Derventio, is very close by and could have formed one of several pre-Norman foci, because that was where all settlements in the barony of Allerdale owed their dues, even though the mother church lay a mile away at Brigham.34 Others in the immediate vicinity, such as Carlton, Ureby

The Norman takeover  165 and St Helens, may also reflect ancient pre-urban settlements. In the west, Egremont was the main focus of the barony of Copeland, but it lies close to the important ecclesiastical site of St Bees. There are slight hints in the tenurial structures of two nearby settlements that may antedate the Norman arrival.35 If a visitor had been able to visit Carlisle in 1091, the year before the Norman arrival, and then revisit a century later, they would have received very different impressions. In the first instance, at the northern end, the visitor would have seen a stronghold located on the rocky bluff, set amongst surviving Roman ruins. Nearby to the south were three churches, none of them very large, and a street plan of which the main elements followed the Roman layout, with one road leading directly to the lordly stronghold at the north end, and another road towards the crossing of the Eden, together with a collection of houses and workshops along the street frontages. A century later, however, the visitor would have been confronted with a massively built stone castle on the site of the former stronghold, a large Augustinian priory church in red sandstone incorporating the parish of St Mary, perhaps with a timber claustral range, the parish church of St Cuthbert, and the small but unconsecrated chapel of St Alban. The accompanying churchyards were probably used as much for trading, games and other secular activities as they were for burials. There were new street names, vicus Bochardi (English Street), vicus Piscatorum (Fisher Street), vicus Francorum (? southern end of Castle Street), and vicus Ricardi (Scotch Street); these were lined with a variety of houses, behind which were open spaces used as gardens and a variety of domestic and manufacturing-­related functions.36 There were also some vacant spaces behind the main street frontages, two of which were to be occupied by friars from the 1230s on. The Roman road fossilized by Blackfriars Street, probably extant in the eleventh century, had been diverted along St Cuthbert’s Lane. The evidence for the twelfth-century townscape is otherwise sparse. A substantial building based on timbers in large post-pits was found immediately north of the ‘city ditch’, adjacent to a road leading to the mid-twelfthcentury Castle gate.37 Elsewhere, excavations on the eastern side of Carlisle in The Lanes uncovered significant areas of the medieval townscape. Here, there is no evidence for activity between the late Roman period and the twelfth/thirteenth centuries, so this area may have remained unoccupied. However, there is a hint that earthworks formed by stone buildings, such as the late Roman stone house in Keay’s Lane, may have influenced the position of burgage tenements. There was a correspondence, for example, between a late Roman metalled lane, with its adjacent stone house, and the medieval Keay’s Lane. Hodgson’s Court may also have been relatively early, but other lanes, including Union Court and Law’s Lane, are probably no earlier than the thirteenth century or later. Excavations suggest that the frontage of Scotch Street (medieval Rickergate) was fully built-up by the beginning of the thirteenth century, but the land behind, extending as far as the city walls on Lowther Street, was occupied by pits, timber-lined wells

166  The Norman takeover and small buildings based on earth-fast posts, wooden sill beams and stone post-pads. Some were probably used for human occupation, whilst others were ancillary structures probably used for livestock, perhaps including pigs, stabling and workshops with yards and storage facilities. Open spaces could have been used as gardens from time to time.38 On the western side of Blackfriars Street was open land, apart from the church and churchyard of St Cuthbert, whilst its eastern side now formed the back lane of tenements facing onto English Street. Many properties on the main streets were burgage tenements, long narrow plots containing timber and possibly cob-built houses belonging to the wealthier citizens, and between some of which narrow lanes or vennels provided access to the rear. However, it is possible that there were gaps or undeveloped land along some of these streets. Jones has suggested that the deed of 1201 recording the church of St Alban refers to some open ground, although that seems unlikely given the prominence of its position. 39 In the town centre, the roads divided along the vici Francorum and then Hibernicorum towards the Irish Gate, and along the vicus Ricardi (Scotch Street) and thence to the bridge over the Eden. At the point where the roads divided was an open space used as a market. Some of the roads and back lanes were metalled, but wear and tear will have taken their toll, resulting in potholes, and in the absence of roadside drains, muddy conditions in bad weather, providing scope for opportunistic weeds to colonize. Surrounding the town were stone walls pierced by three gates and a defensive ditch.40 Land-ownership was varied; individual burgesses held much of it, but some also formed parts of the estates of the abbeys of Holm Cultram, Jedburgh, Melrose, Holyrood, St Leonard’s at York, and Hexham. Much of the land in Castle Street was owned by the Augustinian Priory.41 Outside the city walls, suburbs were developing from the twelfth century along the present Botchergate, Caldewgate to the west, and outside the Scotch Gate. Suburbs tended to house some of the less pleasant crafts or those carrying a fire risk. Also in the suburbs, placed a suitable distance from the walls, was St Nicholas’s leper hospital, which may have originated as a royal foundation in the twelfth century.42 It certainly existed by 1200, when it had brothers and sisters including a chaplain, and was in receipt of various endowments including property in the town. In 1293, the hospital was granted to Hugh de Cressingham, who drew up a set of rules concerning the management of the house. From these it is possible to envisage a walled enclosure, probably entered by way of a gatehouse, containing a chapel, accommodation for male and females, a common refectory, gardens, separate accommodation for the chaplain, storehouses and a cemetery.43 In 1295, the hospital was attacked and burned by the Scots. Two years later, de Cressingham was dead, but the hospital was rebuilt, although its position outside the walls was vulnerable. There are hints of a second hospital dedicated to the Holy Sepulchre, possibly located near the gates of the Cathedral in the thirteenth century, but little is known of it.44

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The people of Carlisle A royal presence in the Castle, a bishop and a protracted building programme ensured a population of some size, growing through the twelfth century. As construction work tended to be seasonal in nature, some people may have been transient, resulting in fluctuating numbers of people during any one year. It was a diverse population. Local people mixed with others of Scandinavian extraction from the tenth century on, as well as others moved from further south, possibly St Godric’s home territory which was Lincolnshire or Norfolk, by William II.45 As has been seen at the head of the chapter, William moved a large number of peasants, with their wives and livestock, northwards to Carlisle, ‘there to dwell and to till the land’. There were also Scots, Irish, French and Flemish immigrants, some doubtless attracted by trade connections, but also members of the entourages of lords such as Guerri le Fleming and Richard le Rydere, who were given lands in or near Carlisle. Finally, there were craftsmen and others from different parts of the country undertaking specialist building work or supplying goods or labour in the large building programmes. If the population was ethnically varied, the languages spoken must have been equally diverse. Firstly, people from other parts of Britain may have had different accents and dialects, a problem that could lead to difficulties in understanding. Second, people of Hiberno-Norse origin were certainly present from the late ninth or early tenth century, including relatively high-status people probably speaking a version of Old Norse, to judge by runes written in Old Norse recognized on three stones forming part of the twelfth-century priory church. The most well-known inscription reads ‘Dolfin scratched these runes on this stone’, whilst a newly discovered inscription reads ‘Rognvaldr’;46 the third example consists of only three letters and is difficult to interpret. These inscriptions add weight to the suggestion by Parsons that ‘a form of Scandinavian’ was spoken by part of the local populace, and to Jesch’s analysis of the ethnic composition of the community in Carlisle.47 This was made more complex with the arrival of Normans, speaking Norman French, and Flemings, whilst traders from Ireland may have communicated in Gaelic. Carlisle could, therefore, have had a number of sub-communities defined in part by the dialect or the language they spoke.

The economy Demographic diversity must have helped accelerate the process of urbanization in Carlisle as elsewhere in England. By the end of the century, many towns had in common most or all of the following: a charter, burgesses, a market and an annual fair, a mint, defences, a varied economic base, a judicial role and economic and religious institutions. Shire towns had these in embryonic, if not developed, form before 1066, but it was the Norman

168  The Norman takeover Conquest that stimulated borough development all over the country. In the north, however, it was slower to develop, and in the north-west it was even slower. Between 1092 and 1250 in the north-west, just seven boroughs were created, but in the north-east there were as many as 33.48 Part of this disparity can be attributed to physical geography, and part was doubtless a consequence of the direction in which the two areas faced, the north-east looking towards the European North Sea markets, whereas the north-west faced underdeveloped Ireland. But there were other factors constraining development, one being the distance from centres of power – south-­eastern England, and the central belt of Scotland, especially Stirling, Lothian and Fife. Even so, the fact that Carlisle in the late twelfth century could boast many features typical of towns illustrates the speed at which it developed from being an embryonic or ‘proto-town’ in 1100 to a fully fledged urban community in 1200. As we have seen, the building programmes initiated by Henry I in 1122 would have attracted a wide range of craftsmen, such as masons, carpenters, rope suppliers, blacksmiths, locksmiths, carters and suppliers of charcoal, lead, lime and sand. Other miscellaneous categories would have included clerks to record expenditure, quarrymen, stonemasons, charcoal burners, scaffolders, general labourers, barrowers, painters and plasterers. As it is unlikely that there was sufficient accommodation for this army of craftsmen, we must suppose that many new houses were built and that there was a surge in food and drink supplies. Nor were such building programmes the only economic boost. Royal visits by Henry I, David I and Henry II, ceremonial occasions such as the knighting of Henry of Anjou in 1149 and important meetings involving the papal legate and archbishop of York or other events presided over by bishop Athelwold, brought with them the panoply of government, comprising leading members of the lay and ecclesiastical aristocracy, together with their clerks, squires, grooms, cooks and numbers of other retainers, not to mention horses and carts. At such times, Carlisle must have been bursting at the seams, and it must have been to the benefit of the community, whose economic base would have strengthened and diversified as a result. The surviving documentary records make no mention of a market in the twelfth century, but we can take it as read that there was one, probably extending back into pre-Norman times when Carlisle was a royal stronghold. Certainly from 1158 when the charter was granted, the existence of a market is implied, because in it the king granted the freedom to have a Gild Merchant, the main function of which was to control trade and uphold standards.49 The earliest mention of a fair is in 1180, but like the market, we should assume that it was a much older institution, whether or not it had been formally recognized. The Gild Merchant with its own treasury was made up of burgesses, amongst whom were the more affluent and successful landowners in the town. The presence of burgesses and gildsmen was an important sign that

The Norman takeover  169 Carlisle was on the way to self-government. As in most other towns in Britain, burgesses craved the authority to control and handle their own finances, and work for the good of the community free of royal officers, and ultimately self-government. However, Henry II, mindful of the fragility of the English crown’s position on the northern frontier and his experience of urban communes in France, was reluctant to allow Carlisle to become too powerful by electing its own mayor, an event that did not take place until 1231.50 Attempts were made by the burgesses to control their own fee farm in the reigns of Richard I and John, but they were unsuccessful, perhaps because of Carlisle’s importance as a military and administrative hub. 51 John’s tallage of 1210, a fiscal levy on royal demesne lands, was exceptionally heavy, but the fact that it was collected at all is a striking testimony to growing prosperity in the town. Carlisle had become perhaps the largest centre of employment possibilities and trade in the north-west, with the ability to attract farmers, merchants, craftsmen and suppliers of raw materials, along with pedlars selling goods to its markets. Under the Romans, the army had been its lifeblood. Now it was the economy. In theory, many of the raw materials, produce and goods, would have been local, but as Summerson has stressed, successive kings did the economy of Carlisle no favours at all by designating large areas of Cumbria as royal forest. Much of the Pennine uplands and Lake District fells came into this category, as well as the lowlands, with the most extensive area, Inglewood Forest, extending between the Eden and Solway Firth in the north, to the Irish sea as far south as the Derwent at Workington, the River Gelt in the east, and a series of shorter stretches from Bassenthwaite to the Crowdundale Beck near Blencarn (Figure 7.8). 52 Royal forests took up great swathes of Carlisle’s immediate hinterland, including the entire Eden valley as far south as Edenhall and the whole of Allerdale and Burgh Barony. 53 Inglewood is a very distinctive landscape containing few villages, but including a good deal of woodland on poor clay soils more suitable for grazing. In addition, much of upland Cumbria was also under forest law. This was important because lands under forest law were administered separately from non-forested land. Designated forests were not only reserved for hunting red, fallow and roe deer and wild boar, but they were subject to close control by forest courts and a range of officials, foresters, verderers and woodwards, whose job was, in modern parlance, to micro-manage the landscape, including the levying of fines, often for the most minor transgressions. The royal forests were under the direct control of the Warden of the Forest, appointed by the king, to whom all profits accrued. In short, the markets of Carlisle did not benefit except on the rare occasions when the king gave timber for building in Carlisle, as after the great fire of 1291. The imposition of forest law meant that Carlisle’s trading hinterland was directed more towards Scotland than in its immediate neighbourhood in Cumbria, and historians cite links with Roxburgh, Kelso, Melrose,

170  The Norman takeover

Figure 7.8  Map locating the royal forests of Cumbria in the twelfth century. Source: Adapted from Parker 1905. Drawn by Lesley Collett.

Jedburgh and Holyrood. 54 In archaeological terms, however, it is difficult to recognize this. Pottery assemblages contain very few examples of wares imported to Carlisle, whilst the manufacture of most other archaeologically-­ recovered artefacts, coins excepted, cannot be linked with a specific town or village. Coins and pottery symbolize two ends of an economic spectrum, relevant to Carlisle and many other towns. If the forests and their separate administrative and judicial systems were a disadvantage to the citizens of Carlisle, a real boon was the acquisition of a mint from which cash would have been fed directly into the local economy. The establishment of a mint was probably one of the immediate consequences of the visit to Carlisle by Henry I and David, then earl of Huntingdon, in 1122. It began with the opening up of the lead mines at Alston on the border of Cumberland and Northumberland, where the incentive was not so much the lead, which was needed for building projects in Carlisle as well as the metal trades, but the extraction of silver for coining in mints at Carlisle, Corbridge, Hexham, Newcastle upon Tyne and Durham. By 1123–4/5, the Carlisle mint was producing Henry I type 14 pennies. By 1129/1130, production seems to have increased, as payments due for the farm of the mint from the burgesses of Carlisle recorded in the first Pipe Roll imply. Under Stephen, production continued for a short time (Figure 7.9), but then David I, now king of the Scots, diverted Alston silver resources to fund his expansionist programmes in Scotland. From

The Norman takeover  171

Figure 7.9  Penny of Stephen from the Carlisle mint, struck by the moneyer Howard c.1136–45. Left: obverse; right: reverse. Source: © The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

1141, the design of coins minted at Carlisle, Berwick, Roxburgh, Perth and Aberdeen were based on Scottish dies rather than, as earlier, English dies. 55 From 1158 to 1180, the Pipe Rolls show a strong link between the Alston mine and the Carlisle and Newcastle mints, with the moneyer, William FitzErembald, having workshops in both places. Shortly thereafter, he fell into debt as his rents rose, and he was unable to repay over £2,400 he owed. Eventually in 1179/1180 he lost his tenure, and direct royal management took over in 1183–5 with a new moneyer, Alan, who leased the Carlisle mint until it ceased production in 1207. The reason for closure was probably a pragmatic decision related to the fall in silver production from its peak of about 1–1.1 tonnes to just 700 ounces a year in the early years of the thirteenth century. 56 Details of the Carlisle mint and its location are not recorded, although it is possible to reconstruct aspects of it from sources describing the operation of the London mint.57 Silver was probably extracted at the mine and converted into bullion bars. These were delivered to Carlisle where they would be assayed for fineness and hammered into thin flat blanks. The blanks might then be annealed before being struck into coin using centrally produced iron and steel-capped dies and a ‘pastry-cutter’ device. Particular attention was paid to the fineness of the metal, which tended to be around 93 per cent silver during the twelfth century. There can be little doubt that the Alston mines and the Carlisle mint contributed significantly to David’s programme of urban and monastic expansion in Cumbria and Scotland, but the mint’s contribution to English currency after the 1158 recoinage is uncertain. Some scholars have argued that it was considerable, but the latest estimate is that it was probably negligible. Indeed, the evidence of Carlisle coin find-spots and

172  The Norman takeover their presence in hoards suggest that most of its products probably remained in the north, where they were fed directly into the local economy, probably through weekly markets, by the moneyers themselves. 58 Carlisle probably only ever had one moneyer at a time during the twelfth century, but whilst that might suggest a relatively small operation compared with London, it also understates the scale of the money-making process. It was not a one-man operation. Two processes took place at the lead mines. The first involved crushing and washing the ore so that it could be graded before it was smelted and refined to produce ‘fertile’ lead – that is, lead still containing silver. The second process entailed separating the base metal from the silver, which was cast into ingots for transportation. 59 This took place in a building in which was incorporated a smelting hearth and a number of ‘bins’ used as storage containers for charcoal, bone and galena (lead ore). At the mint, the moneyer would have employed specialists for manning the forge, hammering out the ingots, cutting them into shape and striking them with iron and steel-capped dies. Their equipment included tables for hammering the ingots, a range of hammers, shears, tongs, balances and ‘pastry-cutter’ punches, as well as facilities for heating the metal. Some moneyers probably struck the coins themselves, especially at the smaller mints like Carlisle and Corbridge, but they were also responsible for collecting and paying for new dies, probably from London, and exchanging coin in the markets nearby. Someone, perhaps the moneyer or another official, will have kept track of the amount of silver received from the mine and the number and weight of the coins produced. Coinage was as much a symbol of wealth in the twelfth century as it is today. The production process was of great interest to the king, who steadily increased control over it, as shown in references from Anglo-Saxon law codes and legislation under the Norman and Angevin kings. As a medium of exchange, coins not only facilitated trade, but enabled everyone to pay their taxes and rents. Almost everybody used coins, yet they are a rarity in archaeological assemblages of the Middle Ages.60 The conclusion is that they were highly valued and were carefully looked after. Pottery, on the other hand, is extremely common. Pottery was associated with the poor, and earthenware vessels, in contrast with metalware, are rarely mentioned in documentary sources. Potting was an occupation of the smallholder, villein or cottager. The very ubiquity of pottery is a sign that it was a low-value commodity. Yet it can also be viewed as one of the most visible aspects of the economy, due to its ability to survive in most soil conditions. In the late Anglo-Saxon period throughout much of England, the local production of pottery vessels is an economic indicator characteristic of the emerging boroughs, along with the manufacture of utilitarian objects. The supply of earthenware cooking pots, bowls, sometimes jugs or pitchers, and storage vessels was met by communities who included potters. This was not the same in northern Britain, much of which was aceramic prior to the twelfth century. Here, societies must have made extensive use

The Norman takeover  173 of wooden trenchers, bowls, troughs, barrels and boxes, as well as leather containers, with the implication that some culinary and domestic practices in the north must have differed to those further south. The extent to which metalwares were used is difficult to assess because they were relatively expensive, but they were also capable of being melted down and recycled, so often do not survive in the archaeological record. The earliest locally made pottery vessels in Carlisle are rough, handmade, gritty wares found at the village of Rickerby, about a kilometre from Carlisle Castle. They were found in a ditch terminal, a pit, and a corn-­ drying kiln that yielded three radiocarbon dates. The dates, taken from charcoal and cereal grains, extended from the late ninth to the thirteenth centuries, perhaps centred on the early eleventh century.61 If these dates are reliable, pottery was being made close to Carlisle perhaps as much as a century before the accepted date, but the technology and detailed characteristics of the pottery are unlike other northern gritty wares which are typical of the twelfth century in Carlisle and across northern England.62 At present it is impossible to decide whether the Rickerby pottery was a one-off experiment or not, so that the idea that the use of ceramic containers was a Norman innovation must stand.63 The widespread use of good-quality wheel-thrown gritty ware cooking pots and glazed jugs is a particular feature of twelfth-century Carlisle, just as it was elsewhere, in Cockermouth, the Penrith area, Market Brough and Appleby-in-Westmorland.64 In Carlisle, the main fabrics were heavily gritted oxidized (red and orange coloured) wares, the most frequently occurring forms being cooking pots or jars, often soot-blackened from being heated by an open fire, and clear leadglazed, strap-handled jugs which are usually undecorated (Figure 7.10). Forms that occur commonly in other parts of the country, such as bowls, are less common in Carlisle assemblages; and other items, lamps for example, are very unusual. Potting is not a one-man trade, especially where supplying a local market is concerned. There are several stages involved, from digging clay, transporting it, obtaining appropriate filler such as grits or sand, preparing the clay body, constructing vessels, drying and firing. It involves gathering and stockpiling a fair amount of fuel. Potting can, therefore, involve a number of people, each of whom may have different responsibilities. Ultimately the pots would be sold, probably by taking them to market. It is difficult to get a sense of the scale at which twelfth-century producers operated in Cumbria, but a scenario in which a potter’s family supplied ceramics to a very local market for, perhaps, one or two generations, as a secondary or seasonal occupation, may not be too far-fetched. According to this model, local assemblages would contain wares displaying minor technological variations, reflecting individual members of the family, but all are essentially part of a single local ‘tradition’. Carlisle almost certainly had pottery kilns supplying the local market in the twelfth century, although they have not been located, as may Penrith, Kendal, Cockermouth,

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Figure 7.10   Profiles of twelfth-century gritty ware pots from Carlisle. 1–3: Unglazed cooking pots or jars and 4–6: partially glazed jugs. Source: After McCarthy and Brooks 1992.

Appleby and Egremont.65 Across the Pennines, a different situation applied in York and Hartlepool, for example, neither of which had urban kilns in the twelfth century, and which appear to have been supplied from production centres in the rural hinterland.66 It is difficult to account for this difference, but it is worth bearing in mind that pottery production and use in twelfth-century Cumbria was an innovation that accompanied the growth of towns. East of the Pennines, pottery had not only been made and used for considerable periods long before the twelfth century, but the settlement pattern included many more nucleated villages than in the west.

The Norman takeover  175 A healthy pottery industry can be seen as a marker of a society and an economy gaining in confidence. Why might that be? As potters were clearly manufacturing for a market beyond the needs of their own households, there must have been a demand for cheap, versatile, containers, and that demand was sustainable. However, it also shows that the labour was there to undertake it. In some communities, potting may have been the sole or predominant occupation, but in the twelfth century it need not be thought of in that way, because it could be classifiable as a secondary occupation, undertaken on a seasonal basis at those times of the year when the farming calendar slackened off. It was a trade in which batch production, that is to say dozens if not hundreds of vessels, could be fired at any one time, an output far greater than most other crafts. Being employed in the potting trade represented an additional income stream for the poor, and is sometimes associated with other non-subsistence trades such as iron mining or salt production, as around the fens in Roman times, or of charcoal burning, iron mining and smithing around medieval Rockingham Forest or the Forest of Dean. If the absence of pottery in pre-Norman Cumbria was a cultural choice, its growing popularity in the twelfth century testifies not only to a growing population, but an acceptance that ceramic containers were a useful addition to the domestic assemblage. That, in turn, had implications for the nature of foodstuffs that could be stored, as well as for the preparation and cooking of food. The use of pottery vessels increases the range of cooking methods because they can be put either directly on burning embers or very close to them, whereas that clearly does not apply to wooden or leather containers. The scarcity of bowls in the ceramic repertoire of Cumbria is noteworthy. Elsewhere, as in East Yorkshire, the East Midlands or East Anglia, bowls are standard components of a potter’s repertoire, and they may have been used as containers for the preparation and/or consumption of liquid or semi-liquid foods, as in the case of the small inturned-rim St Neots Ware bowls with hollow handles. In the later Middle Ages and subsequently, bowls are commonly associated with dairy products. Given that much of the Cumbrian landscape has either poor-quality soils or is part of an upland landscape or both, cattle and sheep must have been central to the local economy, so the relative lack of ceramic bowls presumably indicates the continued use of wooden troughs and barrels for dairying. Another absence in archaeological assemblages so far is imported pottery from continental Europe, but it would be unsurprising to find small quantities brought across in the baggage trains of French or Flemish lords. Direct archaeological evidence for other twelfth-century trades is scarce. One reason for this is that many items are difficult to date except in very broad terms, and in some places there has been a degree of reworking of archaeological deposits in the past so that objects from different periods can be mixed up together. Equally, however, details of shape and

176  The Norman takeover manufacturing techniques did not always change to any great extent over relatively long periods of time. In some cases, the best evidence for manufacturing is workshop ‘waste’ products, or features cut into the ground that were utilized in the manufacturing process. So furnaces, slags, crucibles from smithing and other metalworking, as found on the northern side of the ‘city ditch’, together with such finds as offcuts from leather-working and bone-­working, and bones exhibiting butchery marks, constitute direct archaeological evidence for the local economy at this time. Taking account of Carlisle’s growing population, we can also confidently predict a number of occupations, such as building trades including masons, carpenters, possibly tilers, thatchers and glaziers; turners and coopers making wooden casks, barrels, plates, trenchers and knife handles; and basket-­makers producing containers, possibly fish traps and other items that required woven elements. Textile workers used yarn probably spun in a domestic context, but dyers were also essential to the manufacture of cloth for clothing, blankets, and hangings, doubtless using the wool of locally-­ bred sheep. Clothiers and tailors probably also handled finer-quality wool imported from elsewhere in the country or the continent. Leather industries included tanners, bleachers, shoemakers and makers of shields, sheaths, bags and other containers, apparel, saddles, belts and tack. Metal trades would have included smiths making everything from nails to knives and weaponry; workers in copper alloy making dress accessories, brooches, finger rings, furniture mounts and horse equipment; and lead workers making sheet lead roof covering as well as window cames. It is possible that there was also a goldsmith. Bone-workers would have produced combs, pins, spoons, gaming pieces, skates and handles. Although most properties are likely to have been sparsely furnished, there would nevertheless have been some demand for chests, tables, benches, stools, doors and window frames. Food trades, represented by millers, bakers, brewers, butchers and farmers, would have been much in evidence. An equally vital component in the community were those providing transport, carters, wheelwrights and others making, repairing and maintaining carts that transported everything from grain to building stone, metal ores, fleeces and bales of wool. Much of this would have been undertaken by gild members, many of whom would have had a hands-on role with their particular craft, but they would have been assisted by a small army of apprentices, journeymen and general assistants, often drawn from their own families. The list is endless. What it does, however, is illustrate very clearly the buoyancy of Carlisle’s economy at the end of the twelfth century.

Notes 1 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle E Ms, in Anderson 1908, 108–9. 2 For Gospatric see Aird 1998. 3 Little is known about Liddel Strength, a formidable motte and bailey (Curwen 1910). Today it is largely forgotten, and lies in a very remote location. It

The Norman takeover  177 comprises substantial ditches, ramparts and a high motte, as shown in Figure 7.1 (Roy 1793, pl. XXIII), but remains uninvestigated archaeologically. The scale of the defences and the choice of Liddel as a barony probably in the early twelfth century reflect the need for defences at both ends of the north-south land corridor. Liddel was essentially an outpost defence for Carlisle in a not dissimilar way to the nearby Roman fort at Netherby in earlier times. 4 David was Cumbrensis regionis princeps, in which capacity his holdings excluded Galloway and Carlisle, the latter being the lordship of Ranulf Meschin, formerly vicomte of the Bessin in Normandy and appointed lord of Carlisle, a post he held from 1106 or earlier to 1120. See Oram 2004, 63. 5 Ibid., 12.1 6 It has been asserted that Carlisle was of normal motte and bailey type (Colvin 1963, 35). If this was the case, the motte would have been entirely removed when the keep was constructed, probably by David I. Although not impossible, such a scenario led McCarthy et al. (1990) to propose the idea of a ‘ringwork’. 7 McCarthy et al. 1990, 11, 28. Dendrochronology dates have been obtained from two boards in the ceiling of a newel staircase in the keep. The tree from which the boards were cut was felled no earlier than ad 1038 (CRL-D09 and CRL-D10). It was suggested that they formed part of William II’s castle and were re-used in the twelfth-century rebuilding (Arnold et al. 2004). 8 Historia Regum, 267. 9 Zant 2009, 396 et seq., 472–4. 10 Skene 1867, 212, cited in McCarthy et al. 1990, 119, where there is a full illustrated description of the Castle. 11 See McCarthy et al. 1990; also Goodall 2004. 2 Jefferson 1838; also McCarthy et al. 1990, 27. 1 13 See Dixon 2002 for a discussion on keeps. 14 Zant 2009, 373 et seq., 686; Building 7653 in Phase 8a and Building 7399 in Phase 8b. 15 Strickland 1989, 183 et seq. 16 Ibid., 190. 17 A comprehensive gazetteer describing the principal elements of the Cathedral and associated buildings is in Weston 2000. 18 A detailed assessment of the early Priory can be found in McCarthy 2014. 19 This close association between the Priory and the parish church is part of a widespread pattern in which Augustinian houses were established on the site of an earlier parish church. In many such cases the functions of the parish church were absorbed into the priory church itself, occupying, as at Carlisle, the eastern end of the nave. 0 Billings 1840. 2 21 Carlisle Patriot 4/10/1895, discussed in McCarthy 1996, 42–3. 2 Goodall 2004. 2 3 Sharpe 2006, 58–9. 2 4 The present church was rebuilt in 1778, but it occupies the site of an earlier 2 church which was burnt down during a disastrous fire in 1391 but must have been rebuilt again. A further programme of rebuilding took place in the reign of Elizabeth. 5 Cumbria Record Office DRC2/1. 2 6 Summerson 1993, 31. 2 27 The earliest record of the chapel of St Alban is in 1201. It fell out of use during the Reformation. 8 Gaimster et al. 1989, 174. A short unpublished assessment of the pottery was 2 made by M.L. Hird and C.M. Brooks. See also Jones 1990 for further comment on St Alban’s church.

178  The Norman takeover 29 Summerson 1993, 32; Jones 1990, 166. The archaeological evidence for a pre-Norman origin is so far inconclusive. 30 Summerson 1993, 18 et seq.; see also Roberts 1989–90, 25–8. Sharpe 2006, 43–6, has recently proposed that Ranulf may have been appointed earlier by William Rufus. 31 Gauthiez 2010. 32 Old French Bochard. See Roberts 1991; Summerson 1993. 33 Hall 1977. 34 Winchester 1979, 35. 35 Leech and Gregory 2012; see also Winchester 1979, 51–4. 36 For street names see Jones 1976. 37 Zant 2009, Period 8b, 378–80. 38 McCarthy 1981, 48–9. 39 Jones 1990, 164. 40 The gates are referred in the Pipe Rolls from 1165. 41 Summerson 1993, 84 et seq. 42 Wiseman 1995; Summerson 1993, 88–9. 43 Wiseman 1995, 97–8. 4 4 Summerson 1993, 165–6. 45 Reginald of Durham’s Life of St Godric relates that when on a visit to Carlisle he was recognized by kinsmen; cited in Summerson 1993, 17. 46 Barnes and Page 2006, 289–92; Barnes 2010, 12. This Dolfin should not be confused with Dolfin the Scot who was ejected by William Rufus in 1092. Dolfin was a common name at the time. 47 Parsons 2001, 305; Jesch 2015. 48 Daniels 2002, 186–9. 49 Summerson 1993, 59. 50 Ibid., 60; Tait 1936, 162. 51 Summerson 1993, 94. 52 Parker 1905. 53 Winchester 1987, 22. 54 Summerson 1993, 76–7. 55 Oram 2004, 193. 56 Allen 2007, 273. 57 Allen 2012. 58 Summerson 1993, 68; Allen 2012, 251, 377. 59 Blanchard, 1981, 1992. 60 See also Chapter 4 and n. 75 above. The question of why coins are more common finds in some periods than others is important. Issues include the supply of silver, the varied efforts made by the Roman imperial authorities to ensure the delivery of pay chests to the army, and the financial pressures on medieval kings to finance their life-styles and military campaigns. 61 See Masser 2006, 69–70. Radiocarbon dates include: feature 17 (ditch) ad 980–1170 2σ (GU 10639); feature 29 (debris from corn-drying kiln in pit) ad 890–1030σ (GU 10640); feature 72 (base of corn-drying kiln) ad 890–1220σ (GU 10641). The dates were obtained from grain and charcoal and indicate pre-twelfth-century activity, but they do not, in themselves, date the pottery. 62 McCarthy and Brooks 2006, 70–1; 1992, 34. 63 Ibid. The earliest dated pottery from Carlisle itself occurs in a pit dated by dendrochronology to 1162–7 close to the Castle at Annetwell Street. 64 McCarthy and Brooks 1992, 21–37. 65 The ‘regional ceramic traditions’ identified in McCarthy and Brooks 1992, 34–6, should be revised to ‘local ceramic traditions’. According to this, potters

The Norman takeover  179 working in all or most burgeoning urban centres in Cumbria from the midtwelfth century to the mid/late thirteenth century supplied only their immediate locality. Thereafter, some production centres expanded to supply wider areas, possible examples being the Eden valley or the coastal plain. These may be referred to as ‘regional traditions’. 6 6 For York see Mainman and Jenner 2013; for Hartlepool see Vince 2010, 243–6.

References Aird, W.M. 1998. St Cuthbert and the Normans: The Church of Durham 1071–1153, Studies in the History of Medieval Religion. Woodbridge. Allen, M. 2007. ‘Henry II and the English Coinage’, in Henry II: New Interpretations, eds. C. Harper-Bill and N. Vincent, 257–77. Woodbridge. Allen, M. 2012. Mints and Moneyers in Medieval England. Cambridge. Anderson, A.O. 1908. Scottish Annals from English Chroniclers: ad 500 to 1286. London. Arnold, A.J., Howard, R.E. and Litton, D. 2004. Tree-ring Analysis of Timbers from Carlisle Castle, Carlisle, Cumbria. English Heritage Research Department, 25/2004. Portsmouth. York: Archaeology Data Service. doi:10.5284/1033961. Barnes, M.P. 2010. ‘A new runic inscription from Carlisle Cathedral’, Cumberland Westmorland Antiquarian Archaeological Society Newsletter, 64: 12. Barnes, M.P. and Page, R.I. 2006. The Scandinavian Runic Inscriptions of Britain. Runrőn. Runologiska bidrag utgivna av Institutionen főr nordiska språk vid Uppsala universitet 19. Uppsala. Billings, R.W. 1840. History of Carlisle Cathedral. Carlisle. Blanchard, I. 1981. ‘Lead mining and smelting in medieval England and Wales’, in Medieval Industry, ed. D. Crossley, 72–84. Council for British Archaeology Research Report 40. London. Blanchard, I. 1992. ‘Technical implications of the transition from silver to lead smelting in twelfth century England’, in Boles and Smeltmills, eds. L. Willies and D. Cranstone, 9–11. Historical Metallurgy Society, Occasional Publication 3. Colvin, H.M. 1963. ‘The Norman kings 1066–1154’, in The History of the King’s Works, ed. H.M. Colvin, vol. 1, 19–50. London. Curwen, J.F. 1910. ‘Liddel Mote’, Transactions of Cumberland Westmorland Antiquarian Archaeological Society 2 ser. 10: 91–107. Daniels, R. 2002. ‘Medieval boroughs of northern England’, in Past, Present and Future: The Archaeology of Northern England, eds. C. Brooks, R. Daniels and A. Harding, 185–200. Architectural and Archaeological Society of Durham and Northumberland Research Report 5. Durham. Dixon, P. 2002. ‘The myth of the keep’, in The Seigneurial Residence in Western Europe ad c.800–1600, eds. G. Meirion-Jones, E. Impey and M. Jones, 9–13. British Archaeological Reports International Series 1088. Oxford. Gaimster, D.R.M., Margeson, S. and Barry, T. 1989. ‘Medieval Britain and Ireland in 1988’, Medieval Archaeology 33: 161–241. Gauthiez, B. 2010. ‘The evolution of towns in the duchy of Normandy in the 11th to 15th centuries: an essay in historical geography using material and quantitative data’, in Making a Medieval Town: Patterns of Early Medieval Urbanization, eds. A. Buko and M.R. McCarthy, 81–103. Warsaw.

180  The Norman takeover Goodall, J.A.A. 2004. ‘The great tower of Carlisle Castle’, in Carlisle and Cumbria: Roman and Medieval Architecture, Art and Archaeology, eds. M.R.  ­McCarthy and D. Weston, 39–62. British Archaeological Association Conference Transactions 27. Leeds. Hall, R. 1977. ‘An early Cockermouth charter’, Transactions of Cumberland Westmorland Antiquarian Archaeological Society 2 ser. 77: 75–81. Historia Regum. 1882–5. Historia Regum, in Symeonis monachi Opera omnia, ed. T. Arnold. 2 volumes, Rolls Series, London. Jefferson, S. 1838. History and Antiquities of Carlisle. Carlisle. Jesch, J. 2015. ‘Speaking like a Viking: language and cultural interaction in the Irish Sea region’, in In Search of Vikings, eds. S. Harding, D. Griffiths and E. Royles, 51–60. London and New York. Jones, B.C. 1976. ‘Medieval Carlisle’, Transactions of Cumberland Westmorland Antiquarian Archaeological Society 2 ser. 76: 77–96. Jones, B.C. 1990. ‘St Alban’s Church and Graveyard, Carlisle’, Transactions of Cumberland Westmorland Antiquarian Archaeological Society 2 ser. 90: 163–81. Leech, R. and Gregory, R.A. 2012. Cockermouth, Cumbria: Archaeological Investigation of Three Burgage Plots in Main Street. Cumbria Archaeological Report 3. Bowness-on-Windermere. McCarthy, M.R. 1981. ‘Aspects of archaeology in Carlisle’, in Approaches to the Urban Past, eds. P. Clack and S. Haselgrove, 37–54. Durham University Department of Archaeology Occasional Reports 2. Durham. McCarthy, M.R. 1996. ‘The origins and development of the Cathedral church at Carlisle’, in The Archaeology of Cathedrals, eds. T. Tatton-Brown and J. Mumby, 31–45. Oxford University Committee for Archaeology Monograph 42. Oxford. McCarthy, M.R. 2014. ‘A post-Roman sequence at Carlisle Cathedral’, Archaeological Journal 171: 185–257. McCarthy, M.R. and Brooks, C.M. 1992. ‘The establishment of a medieval pottery sequence in Cumbria, England’, in Everyday and Exotic Pottery from Europe: Studies in Honour of John G. Hurst, eds. D. Gaimster and M. Redknap, 21–37. Oxford. McCarthy, M.R. and Brooks, C.M. 2006. ‘The finds’, in A.P. Masser, 70–1. McCarthy, M.R., Summerson, H.R.T. and Annis, R.G. 1990. Carlisle Castle: A Survey and Documentary History. English Heritage Archaeological Report 18. London. Mainman, A. and Jenner, A. 2013. Medieval Pottery from York. The Archaeology of York 16/9. York. Masser, A.P. 2006. ‘The medieval village of Rickerby: excavations at Rickerby House, 2001–2’, Transactions of Cumberland Westmorland Antiquarian Archaeological Society 3 ser. 6: 61–76. Oram, R. 2004. David I: The King who Made Scotland. Stroud. Parker, F.H.M. 1905. ‘Inglewood Forest’, Trans. Cumberland Westmorland Antiquarian Archaeological Society 2 ser. 5: 35–61. Parsons, D. N. 2001. ‘How long did the Scandinavian language survive in England?’, in Vikings and the Danelaw: Proceedings of the Thirteenth Viking Congress, eds. J. Graham-Campbell, R. Hall, J. Jesch and D.N. Parsons, 299–312. Oxford. Roberts, B.K. 1991. ‘Late –by names in the Eden valley, Cumbria’, Nomina 13 (1989–90): 25–40.

The Norman takeover  181 Roy, W. 1793. Military Antiquities of the Romans in North Britain. London. Sharpe, R. 2006. Norman Rule in Cumbria 1092–1136. Cumberland Westmorland Antiquarian Archaeological Society Tract Series 21. Kendal. Skene, W.F. 1867. Chronicles of the Picts, Chronicles of the Scots and Other Early Memorials of Scottish History. Edinburgh. Strickland, M. 1989. ‘Securing the north: invasion and the strategy of defence in twelfth-century Anglo-Scottish warfare’, Anglo-Norman Studies 12: 177–98. Summerson, H. 1993. Medieval Carlisle: The City and the Border from the Late Eleventh to the Sixteenth Century. Cumberland Westmorland Antiquarian Archaeological Society Extra Series 25. Kendal. Tait, J. 1936. The Medieval English Borough. Manchester. Vince, A. 2010. ‘The petrology of some medieval pottery from the Tees Valley’, in Hartlepool: An Archaeology of the Medieval Town, R. Daniels, 243–6. Tees Archaeology Monograph Series 4. Hartlepool. Weston, D.V.W. 2000. Carlisle Cathedral History. Carlisle. Winchester, A.J.L. 1979. ‘Cumbrian Historic Towns Survey’, unpublished report. Kendal. Winchester, A.J.L. 1987. Landscape and Society in Medieval Cumbria. Edinburgh. Wiseman, W.G. 1995. ‘The hospital of St Nicholas, Carlisle and its masters; part 1 – the period up to 1333’, Transactions of Cumberland Westmorland Antiquarian Archaeological Society 2 ser. 95: 93–110. Zant, J. 2009. The Carlisle Millennium Project: Excavations in Carlisle 1998–2001. Volume 1: Stratigraphy. Oxbow/Lancaster Imprints 14. Oxford.

8 A border city

The border during the thirteenth century By the late twelfth century, kings of England had set their mark on the north. They were increasingly enforcing their authority to the extent that Carlisle was changed from being an essentially royal and military frontier hub into a border city acting as a gateway community between the kingdoms of Scotland and England. Even so, Henry II was reluctant to grant the burgesses of Carlisle self-governing status, because the implications of devolution might cause further problems later. One of the factors shaping the future of Carlisle was the fact that the crown was reliant upon the loyalty of its barons and knights, not something that could be taken for granted, as the wars between Stephen and Matilda had amply demonstrated. In the north, the king had limited control over his estates, especially as many landowners had properties in England and Scotland and had ties in both courts, as historians have pointed out. Amongst them were the Bruces, the Balliols and the Umfravilles, who did not necessarily think of themselves as specifically English or Scottish.1 As Holt said, the border did not really exist in a social sense, but was a unit on its own.2 The king could exercise direct control only through his own estates, of which the royal forests are an example. In Cumbria, they were very extensive and represented a major source of revenue over which the king had direct control (see Figure 7.8). The application of forest law and the profits from them were overseen by royally appointed forest commissions of justices, verderers, regarders and others. Forests also extended into upland areas, as in the Lake District or Pennines, but these were chiefly private ‘free-chases’ rather than royal forests, and were not subject to forest law. 3 The population density of forests generally may not have been very great, and their economic potential was limited by soil quality and topography to pastoralism, but livestock sold through the markets in Carlisle for leather, meat and fleeces and other byproducts, including cloth, would have been much in demand. Eyres, that is the circuits or itineraries of royal justices, conducted later in 1292/3 make this plain in the cases brought before them.4

A border city  183 As a royal town, Carlisle and the lands immediately around it were part of a royal demesne, which meant that as with the forests, any profits went straight to the exchequer by way of the sheriff residing in the Castle. Carlisle and the royal forests were very important to the king, but for much of the rest in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries he relied on the loyalty of his northern barons and knights who controlled vast swathes of the landscape. Whilst Henry II managed to balance their interests with his, John failed lamentably. When he ascended the throne John spent more time on progresses around the northern counties than any of his predecessors, and in the process managed to unite most of the barons against him, culminating in his humiliation at Runnymede in 1215.5 It was as though John patrolled his northern territories to enforce his authority and extract every last penny from even the most minor infringements of law. In 1216, so exasperated were the citizens of Carlisle that they handed the city over to the king of the Scots, Alexander II! The following year, Alexander was persuaded to hand it back, however, and twenty years later he signed a treaty at York with Henry III, renouncing his claims in the northern counties in return for £200-worth of land ‘outside the towns where there are castles’. The English king had, as Duncan has said, ‘bought him off’.6 The treaty allowed Henry III to lose interest in the north-west, and for the next half century or so life was relatively peaceful, with the king being able to rely on his officials and the people of Carlisle rather than the unpredictable loyalties of his barons and knights. It was not to last; Carlisle remained vulnerable. By the early thirteenth century, Carlisle was a fully fledged medieval town except in one important respect: it lacked a key privilege that many other towns enjoyed, notably that of self-government. From the point of view of the crown, Carlisle was economically fragile. Not only was there a failure to invest in the Castle, but it was local men, especially the bishop, Hugh of Beaulieu and the sheriff, who were instrumental in advancing the local case for ameliorating the economic impact of royal forests on Carlisle, as well as ensuring that some, at least, of the funds made available by the king were allocated to upgrading the royal demesnes. The question of whether or not the citizens could have self-government was eventually settled by 1237, by which date, under the auspices of the Treaty of York, the English crown could feel reasonably secure. In short, it allowed the burgesses to elect a mayor to speak on their behalf rather than answer to the king through a royal official, and it must have been about this time that the town acquired a common seal. Essentially the king had bought the loyalty of the people of Carlisle, a tactic not unknown even today, just as he had bought off Alexander II. Thereafter, and notwithstanding the Barons’ War, Carlisle and much of the north enjoyed a lengthy and relatively untroubled period, during which the town was able to prosper. The king, ever mindful of the vulnerability of Carlisle, granted murage tolls to the citizens to maintain the city defences on six occasions in the mid-to-late

184  A border city thirteenth century, and he retained the ability to become involved in civic affairs should the need arise. It was, after all, a royal town on the border with Scotland, and the king’s man, the sheriff, continued to live in the Castle. The king might well have been wary, not least because the pool of people with the ability to administer the funds and pay salaries to those charged with overseeing financial or judicial administration was probably very small. On the other hand, Carlisle was probably little different to other medieval towns, in many of which local governance was an evolving art. In response to petitions from the citizens of Carlisle, and further interference by the sheriff in the affairs of the town, Edward III confirmed the town in its liberties in 1352 because ‘the city is situated on the frontier of Scotland to be a defence and refuge of the adjacent parts against the Scots, the king’s enemies and that it is now wasted and more than usually depressed as well by the mortal pestilence lately prevalent in those parts as by frequent attacks of the said enemies’.7 Edward not only acceded to all the citizens’ demands, but emphasized the extent and nature of their privileges; Carlisle was a border city in which many of the local elite held property, and the king relied on them for support against the ever-present threat from the Scots at a time when his attention was being diverted to France. The king may have been the head of state, symbolized by the Castle and his officers, but the actual governance of the north was exercised by the lords and burgesses who had personal and family interests there.

The Anglo-Scottish wars to 1328 From the late thirteenth century, Carlisle found itself at the centre of a bitter Anglo-Scottish dispute that flared into war from 1296, an understanding of which is important in the context of Carlisle becoming a ‘punch-bag’ for the Scots. The wording of the Treaty of York with regard to the question of whether the Scottish kingdom was wholly independent of Westminster, or whether the English crown could legally exercise an overlordship or suzerainty, was ambiguous. As to the other question of where the border was located, that was not resolved either. It was complicated. The king of the Scots, Alexander II, died without a male heir in 1286, leaving a disputed succession in which many leading Scottish families were embroiled. Eventually it was agreed that the succession should fall to Alexander’s infant granddaughter, Margaret (the ‘Fair Maid of Norway’), and that six Guardians would rule during her minority. Margaret died in 1290, after which Edward I tried to impose his alleged feudal authority over the Scots, but he met with resistance. Of the two main claimants to the throne, John Balliol was crowned at Scone in 1292, thereby overriding the claim of his rival Robert Bruce, earl of Carrick. Balliol turned out to be weak and ineffective and acceded to Edward I, who insisted that he (Edward) had priority and that the Scots had to pay him homage, much to their fury. Balliol was deposed, and Scottish magnates

A border city  185 made a treaty with Philip IV of France for military assistance. Edward saw this as an act of rebellion. In 1296, the war began with an unsuccessful attack by Scottish earls on Carlisle, followed by a raid into the surrounding countryside. Edward I responded by capturing Berwick and removing the stone of Scone and other precious items to Westminster, a high-handed action that provoked anger amongst the Scots who, in the following year, rose in a rebellion led by William Wallace. Wallace defeated Edward at Stirling, but the tables were turned when he met and lost to Edward in open battle at Falkirk in 1298. The English king then marched through Scotland by way of Ayr and Lochmaben before arriving in Carlisle, where he issued a summons for a muster in 1299, as well as distributing the estates of some Scottish magnates amongst his followers. Those of the Bruces in Annandale were left alone. In 1300, Edward mounted a campaign into Galloway from Carlisle, but his muster was relatively unsuccessful because only 40 knights presented themselves, and many of his magnates either failed to appear or sent deputies instead.8 The knights were supported by the household cavalry, thus bringing the total number of mounted troops to about 850, out of about 9,000 fighting men in all. The figures were interesting not because the campaign was disappointing and inconclusive, but for the indirect light it casts on Carlisle at that time. Carlisle’s normal population at the end of the thirteenth century is unlikely to have exceeded 2,000–2,500 people, so that a gathering of 9,000 troops would have swamped the town. Not only that, but provisioning the army required supplies to be sent to Carlisle from various places, including Ireland by way of Skinburness, and this too will have taken up quite a lot of land. Provisions included some 3,000 quarters of wheat, 2,000 quarters of oats and 200 tuns of wine. Also, huge baggage trains were required to follow the army with their supplies as well as equipment. The logistical challenge was daunting, although Edward’s team was certainly not inexperienced in such matters.9 On this campaign, Edward reached the Cree estuary not far from Loch Ryan before returning to Carlisle. A few weeks later, he went to Dumfries and agreed a truce. In the following year, 1301, Edward devised a new two-pronged campaign into Scotland, in which he led an army from Berwick whilst his son Edward, Prince of Wales, led another army from Carlisle. For the second year running, large numbers of soldiers, including over 7,000 foot soldiers, mustered at Carlisle, with the prince at their head. This too was a campaign with a limited outcome,10 but Edward I continued to prosecute the war in Scotland, as well as discussing issues about the way in which the Scots were governed and questions of Scottish law. By 1304, Scotland was effectively conquered and many of the leading men submitted to Edward, but a key issue was left unresolved. It dogged the next 20 years or so and concerned the fact that Scotland was not acknowledged as a kingdom, but merely a part of England, ‘a land’, as Wales had been in the 1280s. Then in February 1306, John Comyn, lord of Badenoch, was murdered by Robert Bruce, earl

186  A border city of Carrick, an act provoked by Edward’s dismissive attitude to Bruce and to Scotland. Edward handled the situation badly, and Bruce himself could have behaved better, but it culminated in his rising in revolt, usurping the throne, and having himself crowned as king at Scone a few weeks later. This led to divisions amongst the Scots, some of whom violently opposed him (the Comyn-Balliol group) and defeated him in battle twice. Bruce fled to Ireland, but later returned to his own land in Carrick. An army mustered at Carlisle under the command of the Prince of Wales in 1306, the king being ill. Edward was at Lanercost Priory from the end of September, where he remained until the following March, and from where he issued a summons to a parliament to be held at Carlisle. As the Lanercost Chronicler wrote, ‘…the king of England caused all the chief men of England who owed him service to attend at Carlisle with the Welsh infantry.’11 Afterwards, he went with his army to Burgh-by-Sands, where he died on 7 July 1307. The immediate consequence was that the Prince of Wales, having first mourned his father’s body at Burgh, was then proclaimed king in Carlisle Castle, before hastening to London for his coronation. Edward II was king for two decades, during which he utterly failed to follow up his father’s efforts in Scotland, but even in 1314, after his humiliating defeat to Bruce at Bannockburn, he continued to insist on his overlordship over the Scots. He thus left Bruce, now King Robert I, no option but to maintain pressure by raiding and harrying the northern English counties. The raids penetrated Northumberland, Durham, Cumberland and Westmorland, and continued almost every year until 1322. They created terror and havoc, causing widespread destruction, the burning of houses, churches and stored crops and crops still in the fields, as well as looting, driving cattle across the border, indiscriminate murder and the extraction of large sums as ransoms against further attacks. Particularly badly affected were the lands around Carlisle, including its breadbasket, the Eden valley, as well as the Tyne valley around Hexham and Corbridge. The only real riposte to this seemingly unending harassment would have been to defeat the Scots in open battle, but even if Edward had been minded to respond, he had no answer to the Scots’ hit-and-run approach, against which large armies and castles were ineffective. Safely ensconced in the south, and with a parliament far removed from the conflict zone, the English king had lost control. Bruce personally led his forces into Cumbria (Figure 8.1). In the summer of 1315, he laid siege to Carlisle for ten days, deploying siege engines in the western suburb, Caldewgate, but the weather was against them. When soldiers and the siege engines became bogged down in mud, he gave up and went on the rampage, wasting the suburbs and harrying the surrounding countryside. To add to the woes, Britain was hit by two to three years of appalling weather that prevented crops germinating and grass from growing, leading to a great murrain of cattle. It was a European-wide phenomenon that caused great distress everywhere. The English crown remained adamant about its claim to Scotland, however.

A border city  187

Figure 8.1  Map of places known to have been affected by raids carried out by Robert Bruce in Cumbria. Adapted from Summerson 1993. Drawn by Lesley Collett.

Despite being crowned, Robert I was not without problems of his own. He had a continuing dispute with the church. He and his supporters had been excommunicated and placed under an interdict by the pope because he was viewed as an obstacle to peace, a key desire of the pope. In 1320, the Scots responded with the Declaration of Arbroath, which was sent to the pope in an attempt to secure his support for their cause. It pointed out, amongst other things, that Edward I had committed numerous outrages against the Scots, that king Robert was supported by all the people, and that ‘…as long as but a hundred of us remain alive never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule’. It was not enough to persuade the pope, who refused the support requested. The impact of the Scots’ raiding in the north and Edward II’s failure to respond at all effectively outraged the northern magnates. In 1322–3, Sir

188  A border city Andrew de Harcla, sheriff of Cumberland and very active in rallying support in Cumberland both for himself and for the king, mustered 113 men at arms, 1,435 hobelars (light cavalry) and 2,069 foot soldiers for a campaign to be led by Edward II into Scotland. It failed to get off the ground. In the course of these preparations de Harcla realized, as the Lanercost Chronicler put it, that the king ‘neither knew how to rule his realm nor was able to defend it against the Scots who year by year laid more and more waste’.12 De Harcla, who had meanwhile been made earl of Carlisle, reached a secret peace treaty with Robert Bruce at Lochmaben in January 1323. The Lanercost Chronicler noted that ‘the poor folk, middle class and farmers in the northern parts were not a little delighted that the king of Scotland should freely possess his own kingdom on such terms that they themselves might live in peace’. Clearly, they had no particular loyalty to the English crown and simply wanted to end the devastation. However, when de Harcla informed the king, he was arrested and executed for treason in March 1323. This treaty would have given Robert what he had wanted all along, and it would have curtailed the war. Eventually, Edward II was murdered by his queen, Isabella, with her lover Roger Mortimer, in 1327, and his young son was crowned Edward III. Bruce once again attacked Northumberland, but the teenage Edward III, doubtless on the advice of his magnates, made peace with the Scots under the Treaty of Edinburgh in 1328. Under the terms of this treaty, which significantly was signed at Edinburgh, the English crown finally conceded that Robert owed no homage to England, and that Scotland was an independent and sovereign country. Robert Bruce had finally got what he had always fought for, but within a few months he was dead.

The border The two treaties, York in 1237 and Edinburgh in 1328, together with the codification of the laws of the Borders in 1249 defining existing practices with regard to local cross-border disputes, to all intents and purposes settled the question of the independence of Scotland as a separate sovereign nation.13 Neither treaty addressed the question of where the border was located. The simplest explanation was that everybody knew where it was and there was no need to spell it out, but Barrow long ago pointed out that adjustments to the line were made periodically, perhaps reflecting specific issues as they arose.14 Nowadays, the border exists as a line on the map and on road signs at Gretna and Carter Bar, but in the Middle Ages it was less a linear boundary and more a deep frontier zone, extending from the Solway Firth to the Tweed at Berwick. The actual line ran along the small River Sark, thence to Kirkandrews-on-Esk, Liddesdale, and over the Cheviots near Kirk Yetholm, meeting the Tweed at Carham and thence to Berwick (Figure 8.2). Much of the western and eastern sections follow river valleys, but the central sector takes an irregular route over the high Cheviot uplands. From the borderers’ perspective, however, it was almost an irrelevance, and they

A border city  189

Figure 8.2  T he Anglo-Scottish border. Adapted from Barrow 1966. Drawn by Lesley Collett.

took little notice of it. On either side of the line, the lands were divided into three sections known as the Eastern, Middle and Western Marches, each governed by a Warden on behalf of the English and Scottish governments. In the West March, lands around the Sark and Esk came to be known as the ‘debateable lands’, a term first used around 1450, when Scots ambassadors put out a proclamation to the effect that all claimers and challengers to the lands called ‘Batable’ should behave themselves. It included the baronies of Canonbie, the location of a priory of Augustinian canons, and Kirkandrews-on-Esk.15 The Anglo-Scottish border is an entirely artificial construct. It is neither natural, nor was it defensible except for limited stretches. There is no wall, one length of ditch – the Scots Dike, linking the Sark to the Esk (Figure 8.3) – and very few castles. On the English side, Liddel Strength continued to be

190  A border city

Figure 8.3  Aerial photograph of the Anglo-Scottish border (the ‘Scots Dike’, in the trees) from the River Sark to the River Esk. © The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland.

occupied (see Figure 7.1). In 1281–2, it comprised a wooden hall with two solars, cellars, a chapel, a kitchen, a byre, a grange and a wooden granary. Orders were given in 1300 for the repair of the pele and palisades, but it was destroyed in 1346 by David II, son of Robert Bruce. Thereafter its history is obscure, except that there are indications of a pele tower in the inner ward.16 It is possible that Liddel, and later Netherby under the Grahams, continued to provide a focus for local communities, but the evidence is slim. The border itself was not patrolled, and tolls were only levied at towns on or close to the border, as at Roxburgh, Berwick and Carlisle. Grazing lands, properties and routeways did not respect the border, and there is little evidence that anybody took much notice of it.

A border city  191 The economic value of the landscape in both the English and Scottish West March is very limited; it was primarily used for grazing. In the west, the most productive Scottish area lay between the Sark and Annan, where mixed farming regimes would have been possible in pre-improvement days on the brown forest soils, but otherwise the narrow valley floor of the Liddel Water is the only other similar environment. The remaining parts of the English and Scottish West March are uplands, with peats and thin, seasonally waterlogged soils best suited to sheep and small numbers of cattle. The English side of the border, from the Sark in Arthuret parish at the mouth of the Esk as far as Bewcastle and Kershope Forest, is covered in stagnogleyic soils; in pre-improvement days, sheep and small numbers of cattle would have been the mainstay of the farming economy. There is one small island of better-drained soils around Arthuret parish church on the edge of the Solway. From the English point of view, a border along the Sark and Esk placed Carlisle, some nine miles to the south, in English territory, and in so doing vested both Carlisle and England with a strategic advantage in that they controlled one of the western routes into Scotland, the narrow land corridor by Rockcliffe to the Sark, Eskdale and then Liddesdale. The other routes entailed crossing the Solway, at the ‘waths’ of Burgh-by-Sands and Bowness to Dornock and Annan respectively.

Symbols of power – the Castle and the church By the thirteenth century, the city of Carlisle resembled, in its street plan at least, that of the sixteenth century and the present day. It continued to be dominated by the Castle and the church. The Castle was a formidable expression of English royal power and determination, and by 1200, the basic layout we see today – a strong keep, a heavily defended inner ward and an equally strongly defended outer ward – was in place. There will also have been various timber buildings in both wards, but we hear little about these until the mid-thirteenth century. From the brief time when Alexander II held Carlisle in 1216–7 until the middle of the thirteenth century, the Castle was neglected. Documentary sources show that miscellaneous repairs were made periodically, but the king lost interest. When Walter Mauclerc was put in charge of the Castle in 1222, he occupied an impregnable position, becoming first sheriff of Cumberland with direct responsibility for the Castle, then bishop of Carlisle, and lastly the Treasurer of England, a series of roles that enabled him to increase his personal wealth at the expense of keeping up repairs. The king entrusted the Castle to Mauclerc, but royal interest waned after he had signed the Treaty of York in 1237 because the Scottish threat was, he thought, removed. A report on the Castle in 1256 shows that Mauclerc had done little. Its condition was very dilapidated, towers were on the verge of

192  A border city collapse and needed repointing and reroofing, windows were blown out, timber buildings, kitchens, granaries, bakeries, stables and bridges were all in dire need of repair, and it had no real military function, notwithstanding the fact that it was where the sheriff, the exchequer and a gaol were located.17 The story of neglect continued for decades. In 1296, war broke out. William Wallace attacked, catching the citizens off guard, but although he was unsuccessful, this served to focus Edward I’s attention on Carlisle’s military value. From 1299–300, the Castle’s fortunes revived briefly when it became a depot for supplies during the campaigns into Galloway of 1300. A purpose-built granary was erected in the outer ward to store grain from the Castle’s mills, and wine was stored there, as were siege engines. The Castle was heavily used, and it was where the queen stayed whilst Edward was accommodated in the Priory. The parliament of 1307, numbering perhaps as many as 400, was almost certainly held in a great timber-built, shingle-roofed hall. It sat next to a great chamber with garderobes, pantry, butteries, and separate accommodation for knights, clerks and the royal household. New stone buildings were erected in the inner ward, and the defences were rejuvenated with new springalds (attack engines) and palisades. The ditches were cleaned out, and excavation across the so-called ‘city ditch’ confirms that it was recut not earlier than the mid-thirteenth century.18 Thereafter, any defensive function the ditch may have had was gradually eroded as, in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, a great deal of rubbish accumulated, to be followed by the encroachment of property boundaries and buildings in the later fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.19 On the other hand, it is unclear as to whether the ditch was ever intended as defensive, except perhaps in its earliest phases, and it may have been seen as defining the liberties of the town from those of the crown. The first edition of the Ordnance Survey map dated 1865 defines the ‘City Boundary’ immediately north of the site of the ditch. Today, films and television have accustomed us to thinking that formidable castles invariably housed a substantial garrison, but that was almost never the case at Carlisle, certainly not from the thirteenth century on. Castles were not only very expensive to build, but equally expensive to maintain. Similarly, garrisons were a drain on resources and an expense that could be spared in times of peace. For much of the thirteenth century, garrisons at Carlisle seem to have comprised fewer than ten soldiers, only increasing gradually in the years leading up to the Scottish raids from 1314 on as the Scottish threats became more apparent. At the end of 1314, for example, there were 9 knights, 87 men-at-arms, 45 hobelars and some 395 foot soldiers, but this was not a force that could take the field and meet an opposing army in pitched battle. 20 Essentially, for much of the time after 1314, the Castle functioned as a base for locals seeking safety, as a place from which cavalry could sally forth to confront raiders, and very importantly, as defensible space for the storage of provisions and munitions. In

A border city  193 1315, before Bruce could lay siege, the Castle served a useful role as a base for weaponry – attack engines (springalds) – and the gates were closed and barred. Land in front of the defences was cleared to give defenders a clear line of fire. The main problem for Carlisle was not so much defending it as feeding the people within the walls. Stores were held in the Castle, the Priory and the Dominican Friary, but on more than one occasion the city was said to be without provisions. The king sent money, but never enough, and as if to add to the misery, there was a prolonged and widespread famine. By the early 1320s, stresses were abating, but the Castle fabric had suffered. Storms and high winds affected many buildings, whether stone or timber, which was exacerbated by long periods of neglect. Amongst these was the outer gate, but the curtain wall on the western side of the outer ward was in a particularly bad state. By 1321, 40 feet of the wall had collapsed, and a further 120 feet was in imminent danger of falling down, so that a determined attacker could have just walked in. Some £220 was spent on repairs in 1321–2, but it was not enough. As Summerson has said, Carlisle was ‘practically indefensible’. 21 Three months after de Harcla’s execution, a truce was made with the Scots and a new constable of the Castle, Antony de Lucy, was appointed with a brief and some money to make repairs. He seems to have done something, although it remains unclear as to how much he actually achieved. It continued to suffer from a piecemeal attitude to maintenance and wholly inadequate funding, so that both woodwork and stonework became unusable. In 1345, it was said that ‘all the houses of the castle are ruinous except for two little towers and one little room’. Around the same time, an inventory records the Castle’s treasures, amongst which were ‘three decrepit tables, a six-gallon pot, two bronze bells, 17 old crossbows without cords, a lock without a key for the New Tower and a broken trebuchet’!22 For all its formidable appearance in the twelfth century and today, the Castle in the fourteenth century was therefore in a very sorry state. Numerous surveys were undertaken on the condition of the Castle which, had they been acted upon, would have mitigated a poor situation. The problem lay not so much with the surveyors as with the crown and the sheriffs who had control of the finances. From the time of Henry III on, the crown spent pitiful amounts, except when Edward I was present in 1300 and 1307. Edward II’s interests lay elsewhere, and much of Edward III’s reign was preoccupied with France. Even when money was allocated to the sheriff for repairs and maintenance, it is by no means certain that it was all spent wisely or according to the latest surveys. From being a mighty symbol of royal power in the early days, the Castle declined to become little more than a quartermaster’s store. Carlisle had ceased to be a front-line springboard against the Scots. At the end of the twelfth century, the Augustinian Priory consisted of an impressive stone church and probably a stone chapter house, but other claustral and ancillary buildings were probably timber-built. By this time

194  A border city the parish church of St Mary had probably moved into the Priory nave, the old church having been demolished. During the thirteenth century, the Priory precinct witnessed great change. If the Castle was neglected, the church expanded. First, the Priory choir, aisles and much of the north transept were knocked down, and the nave was lengthened and extensively remodelled. Second, the canons’ stalls were removed from the nave and crossing, and placed in the newly extended choir. Third, the ranges around the cloister were replaced by stone buildings, including a vaulted undercroft below the dormitory, another vaulted undercroft below the refectory, and the west range. 23 It is possible that a stone gatehouse, a predecessor of the present Tudor gatehouse, was also added. Some of the most visible work included a realignment of the axis of the church, the new choir being enlarged with a central axis slightly north of the original. Reconstruction probably commenced under Bishop Hugh of Beaulieu, but it lasted decades, as did all major church building programmes. No sooner had it been completed than a great fire in 1292 destroyed the choir roof and the arcades, as well as large sections of the town. The upshot was that rebuilding the choir and east end had to begin all over again, a programme that also lasted for several decades in the fourteenth century. When Edward I resided there temporarily in 1307, much of the Priory church would have been ruinous. It is likely that work was interrupted periodically due to the wars and severe periods of famine, but by the mid-fourteenth century, masonry and piers had been reused and a new high roof, comprising some 67 trusses linked by a ridge-piece and purlins and lean-to triforia roofs, was installed. Tree-ring dates testify that the timbers for both were felled about 1355. 24 The glazing of the east window, similar in quality to York, Selby and Lincoln, with which it is often compared, was probably undertaken in the decade 1340–50. 25 Then another disaster occurred when, in 1380, the bell tower was ‘blown down by a great wind’, presenting yet more problems for the prior, the canons and the bishop. 26 Although responsibility for the fabric of the Priory was normally that of the canons, it was also in the interests of the bishops, whose throne was there, for the works to be completed, but they lived at Rose Castle, about eight km away. From the time of Hugh of Beaulieu on, they seem to have devoted much attention to their diocese, within which they had a wide jurisdiction encompassing wills, marriages and tax-raising powers. 27 The bishops were mostly northerners, as were the canons, and they generally had good relations with the townsfolk, although there were disputes periodically. Not all bishops and priors were equally assiduous in their duties. Adam of Warwick served the church in Carlisle for many years, but by the time he retired from the priorate in 1304, he had been condemned for exercising no discipline, ruling by favouritism, ignoring the chapter and disposing of Priory property and keeping the profits for himself, following a visitation by the bishop, John de Halton. 28 We are left to wonder whether some bishops, like their royal counterparts the sheriffs, regarded their responsibilities as personal banks!

A border city  195 Even so, their very presence, together with synods held in the town, was beneficial because they not only attracted prelates from other areas, but they also brought in litigants and petitioners, and, therefore, money. Many citizens left money or goods in their wills to the Priory, and sometimes specifically for its fabric. Further changes to the religious landscape had occurred in the mid-­ thirteenth century with the arrival of mendicant orders of monks. There were four main orders of which the Franciscans and Dominicans were the principals. Both were present in Carlisle, although not, as Summerson has noted, anywhere else in the diocese. Penrith and Appleby hosted houses of Austin friars and Carmelites respectively, but Cockermouth and Kendal had none. 29 The Franciscans, also known as the Friars Minor or Grey Friars, arrived in Kent in 1224, but by 1240 they had established houses at 34 towns in England. They arrived in Carlisle in 1233, and occupied a large plot extending from what is now English Street back to the eastern city walls on Lowther Street between the present Bank Street and Devonshire Street. The fact that they were able to occupy a large plot of land inside the walls near the southern gate is of interest in that it shows that there must have been significant parts of the walled area unoccupied and available for building at that time. Unfortunately, virtually nothing is known of the layout of the Franciscan Friary, the site of which is indicated on a plan of about 1550–60 (Figure 8.5, bottom right). The Dominicans, known as the Black Friars, also arrived in England in 1224, and by 1260 they had 36 houses in most of the same towns as the Franciscans. They also arrived in Carlisle in 1233, and were granted land, first outside the walls, probably in the suburb of Botchergate, but then in 1238 they were relocated to a plot adjacent to St Cuthbert’s Church between the present Blackfriars Street, West Walls and Head’s Lane, suggesting that this too was unoccupied at the time. The king provided timber from Inglewood forest for the building programme. The Friary was affected by fire in 1292, and although it is unclear as to the extent of damage caused, the presence of wooden piles made from trees felled in the years 1293 ± 9 suggest that the church was burnt. 30 The surviving walls indicate at least two phases of building, but few details of the layout can be reconstructed from the archaeological remains. However, the sixteenth-century plan contains a useful illustration of the Dominicans’ house, which appears to have had a double cloister (Figure 8.4; detail of Figure 8.5, bottom left). The Friary precinct seems to have been enclosed by a close-boarded fence, except at the points where claustral buildings abutted West Walls and at two other places on Head’s Lane. The entrance to the precinct was through an arched opening rather than a gatehouse near the corner of Blackfriars Street and Head’s Lane. Visitors would have first arrived at the church and its cemetery; fragments of walling and graves were found in excavations (Figure 8.10). The map shows a quadrangular courtyard, in which a western range with a cloister walk projects north towards Blackfriars Street, with a smaller, subsidiary cloister fronting West Walls. The

196  A border city

Figure 8.4  Carlisle, plan of the Dominican Friary: (a) as shown in the British Library plan (Figure 8.5) and (b) as reconstructed following excavations in 1977–9. Adapted from McCarthy 1990. Drawn by Lesley Collett.

friars were popular members of the local community within which they lived and worked, unlike many other monastic orders who were more remote. They were teachers and confessors and lived a simple life amongst the townspeople, even if occasionally there were tensions with the secular clergy. Their popularity is attested by wills. Summerson notes, for example, that of 119 recorded wills, some 62 included gifts to the friaries, most being divided between the Franciscans and Dominicans. 31 Religious life was also visible in the form of chantries, of which that dedicated to St Alban seems to have been the only one occupying space independently of the Priory or parish churches. By the mid-fourteenth century, the chapel of St Alban was about two hundred years old at least, but although it had a priest, a document of 1356 tells us that it was still unconsecrated.32 Even so, it was still in use at the end of the century, and wills show that money was bequeathed for masses, glass, and in one case, for the repair of the bell tower.33 Other chantries existed in St Cuthberts Church, as well as in St Mary’s Church.

The town and its governance The layout of Carlisle as shown on the British Library plan of c.1550–6034 probably differed in only minor detail from that of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries (Figure 8.5). The plan is a bird’s-eye view, which explains the distortion of perspective. Although it cannot be regarded as accurate in all respects, there is a fair amount of detail, including the Dominican Friary, the Cathedral, the Castle, the city walls, buildings in the market place and

Figure 8.5  Plan of Carlisle, drawn c.1550–60. British Library Ms Cotton Augustus I.i.13. © The British Library Board 2016.

198  A border city the ‘dog-leg’ arrangement of streets around the site of St Alban’s chapel, as well as gardens and lands behind the frontages, all of which strongly suggests that the cartographer was very familiar with the town centre. The rendering of the main street frontages is pretty uniform, although looked at closely there is detail that looks real, although its reliability remains uncertain. Unfortunately, it is devoid of anything in the suburbs beyond the envelope of the city walls. The plan conveys the impression that much of the walled area was not built up, but that does not mean it was unused. The Castle is at the top of the plan, and the English Gate, with its triangular citadel built by Henry VIII’s architect, von Haschenperg, in the 1540s at the bottom. The layout of streets and lanes is very similar to that of the present day, so that it is easy to recognize locations (compare Figure 1.2). All the main streets are represented, as well as many lesser streets such as Head’s Lane, Long Lane, St Cuthbert’s Lane and Rosemary Lane, and narrower lanes on the eastern side. Some minor lanes or vennels can be shown through excavation to have been present, although not all; Keay’s Lane, Law’s Lane and Hodgson’s Court are not depicted. The plan conveys a picture of a populous place, with the market cross, stocks and market stalls – probably the Shambles – in the centre, but it also shows

Figure 8.6  Map showing the size of the religious precincts in Carlisle. Adapted from Summerson 1993. Drawn by Lesley Collett.

A border city  199 just how much of the city’s walled area had been occupied by the church (Figure 8.6). The Priory precinct, taking up a sizable part of the town centre, lies adjacent to the parish church of St Cuthbert, which was itself next to the Dominican Friary. The Franciscans occupied a prominent site on English Street within a few yards of the town centre, and the chapel of St Alban had a fair-sized plot on Scotch Street. By the mid-thirteenth century, church land took up perhaps around 20 to 25 per cent of the walled area; in addition, the church also owned a considerable number of individual properties distributed throughout the town centre. Apart from the Castle and churches, all other buildings were of timber, the use of stone and brick not being widely adopted until the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. As the only surviving building is Redness Hall (the Guildhall), any insights into the buildings of medieval Carlisle must rely on archaeological and documentary sources. Redness Hall is a two-storey, timber-framed jettied building erected by Richard Redness, facing the market on the corner of Fisher Street (Figure 8.7). In the early fifteenth century, it was acquired by the Council, who used it for meetings of the gilds of shoemakers, skinners, glovers, tanners, tailors, weavers, butchers, smiths

Figure 8.7   Redness Hall, later the Guildhall, a late fourteenth-century half-­ timbered building. Photo taken in the 1960s. Reproduced by permission of Historic England Archive.

200  A border city and merchants. Less affluent people may also have lived in less opulent, but nonetheless framed and jettied buildings, perhaps not unlike those surviving in Goodramgate, York. The archaeological evidence for medieval buildings is restricted to foundations, such as the partial remains at 42–48 Scotch Street, based on shallow cobbled foundations, attributed to the twelfth century. 35 On the corner of Lewthwaite’s Lane and Scotch Street, excavations revealed a three-bay structure with its gable end on Scotch Street, with corner posts based in substantial post-pits and access from the side. It was interpreted as a hall but it was relatively modest in size, measuring only approximately 10 m by 5 m. The walls are likely to have comprised short ground sills with stud and wattle infill, and the building is attributed to the late twelfth or thirteenth century.36 More details were recovered from Keay’s Lane and the corner of Castle Street and St Mary’s Gate, where excavations revealed a sequence of buildings. Initially, parts of timber buildings with traces of plank floors, associated with leatherworking as demonstrated by hides with attached hair and fly pupae, were identified. These buildings were destroyed, and the remains overlaid by a soil deposit up to 40 cm deep containing thirteenth-­ century pottery.37 In the next phase, parts of four buildings were found, employing a mixture of foundation techniques including timber sills, rough stone sills, and stone pads. Industrial activities were represented by iron and copper alloy waste, suggesting the presence of metalworkers; interestingly, one sample of mercury was also recovered. One building had an oven, and a cesspit in which two barrels, one on top of the other, had been used as a lining, and which contained the remains of faecal material, indicating the position of a garderobe or toilet. These and adjacent structures were also destroyed by fire, the evidence for which comprised charcoal, traces of fallen beams, and burnt daub with wattle impressions. A second major fire followed later. The associated pottery is consistent with the idea that the fires were those of 1292 and 1391, respectively. Land on the eastern side of Carlisle was intensively used. Burgage tenements were laid out, the position of some possibly determined by existing earthworks formed by collapsed Roman remains. The earliest may belong to the mid to late twelfth century, according to documentary sources, but pottery finds show that activity intensified during the thirteenth century. The principal buildings were located on the street frontages, whilst the ‘backlands’ remained open but intensively used. In these areas, there were the remains of ancillary structures incorporating sill beams, principal posts placed on stone pads, earthen floors and hearths. Some may have been used for domestic occupation, but others were probably workshops or accommodation for animals. A number of wells have been found in this area. One, in Old Grapes Lane, was lined with timber felled between 1193–6, 38 whilst another, in Keay’s Lane, also had a timber lining but dated to 1288–9 ± 9 (Figure 8.8). Other wells are known, including one adjacent to the ‘city ditch’ on Annetwell Street, lined with timber dated to 1162–70. 39 A number of straight-sided rectangular and circular pits at Keay’s Lane

Figure 8.8  Well lined with timbers felled in the late thirteenth century, at the rear of a property in Keay’s Lane. Photo by author.

202  A border city

Figure 8.9  I ndustrial pits, probably tan pits, adjacent to Keay’s Lane. Photo by author.

appear to represent a tannery, perhaps late thirteenth to fourteenth century in date (Figure 8.9).40 The ‘city ditch’ dividing the town from the Castle received substantial dumps of rubbish, including ceramics, leather objects and woodworking waste, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. It was recut, apparently to similar dimensions as earlier, probably in the thirteenth century, but it became once again a dumping ground for rubbish, including smithing waste, leatherwork, dead dogs, cats skinned for their fur and butchery waste.41 In the mid-to-late fourteenth century, tenements encroached on the ditch from the southern side with fences forming property boundaries, and a building, perhaps an outbuilding belonging to a smithy, fronting Annetwell Street. The living conditions in Carlisle are attested by waterlogged deposits, as in the town ditch in Rickergate,42 as well as in wells and pits elsewhere in the town which frequently contain much faecal material as well as housefly eggs and larvae. Clearly some pits were used as cesspits, but many also contain industrial detritus, leather or butchery offcuts, grain seeds, and other animal-based food waste. Alongside these were weeds of cultivation and other weeds including dock, sedges and plantain. Cumulatively, the waterlogged material provides evidence for a range of habitats, showing a town with weed-infested nooks and crannies, with mud, dampness and rotting human and animal waste. To modern senses it would have been decidedly unpleasant, but to contemporaries Carlisle was probably little different to many other medieval towns, including Hull, York and London.

A border city  203

The people and economy The size of the population in Carlisle in the twelfth century must have fluctuated seasonally with the ongoing building programmes, but there is little evidential basis for attributing numbers. The earliest indications for the population come with the Poll Tax returns for 1377.43 These record 678 men and women over the age of 14 in the Rickergate, Botchergate and Caldewgate wards, together with 17 in the Priory and friaries. On the assumption that some will have evaded the collectors, and that children and the very poor were not counted, a total population estimate in the order of 1,400–1,500 people might seem appropriate. If that number appears to be low, it should be remembered that the tax was collected only eight years after a visitation of the plague, and less than thirty years after the devastating Black Death of 1349, during which Carlisle is known to have been badly affected. Similarly, with the combination of the Scottish raids and the murrain of cattle and harvest failures earlier in the century, it will be apparent that population levels took a long time to recover.44 For later periods, the muster roll of 1524–5 indicates a population then of around 1,700, increasing to perhaps around 1,800 by the 1560s.45 With regard to the general health of the population, as in any medieval town, key factors are likely to have included relative density of population, customs of personal hygiene, water supply, proximity to livestock, drainage, poor obstetrics, the accumulation of waste, heavy manual labour, pollution from industrial processes and dietary excess for some but dietary deficiencies in others. It is easy to see how such factors could lead to gastric problems, dental problems such as abscesses, caries and periodontal disease, all of which were widespread in Britain, fractures and repetitive strain injuries, rickets, infectious diseases and joint diseases. Human remains are a good source of information on such matters. In Carlisle, the only really useful sample to date has been the excavation of some 214 skeletons found in the cemetery of the Dominican Friary (Figure 8.10).46 Friars’ churchyards generally were popular places for interment, and there is no reason to believe that the Carlisle Blackfriars’ cemetery is anything other than representative of the population generally, except perhaps for the very poor. Excavations in the cemetery mostly revealed sub-adults and adults, predominantly male and below the age of 50. The excavated sample suggested high mortality rates at the age of around 20–25, but it is difficult to know how typical this was. They had dental problems, caries and abscesses, as well as fractures, joint diseases (arthritis), and spina bifida, and a possible example of Paget’s disease was recognized, whilst Harris Lines in some may be indicative of environmental stress.47 The Friary sample is small but contains nothing that is unexpected for a medieval urban population, subject to the normal wear and tear of daily life in a pre-industrial urban setting. It is likely, however, as Roberts and Cox said, that the ‘most significant variable affecting health was socio-economic status’.48

204  A border city

Figure 8.10  S keletons in the cemetery of the Dominican Friary. Photo by author.

At its apex, Carlisle society was dominated by merchants, many of whom passed their interests down to their descendants, forming dynasties of merchants and mayors. Amongst these were the Boltons, the Tebays, the Croftons, the Harringtons, the Grinsdales and the Aglionbys. Other prominent citizens included moneyers at times when there was a mint in the city. One of the economic boosts for the twelfth century was the presence of a mint using ores from the Alston mines, although minting in Carlisle was discontinued in 1207, but there was a brief revival during Henry III’s recoinage in 1247–50 when a mint was once again established (Figure 8.11).

A border city  205

Figure 8.11  P  enny of Henry III from the Carlisle mint, struck by the moneyer Ion in 1247–9. Left: obverse; right: reverse. © The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

On this occasion, the citizens of Carlisle, along with a number of other towns, were asked to nominate four moneyers, four die-keepers and two assayers, who were to report to London where they would be sworn in. Allen has noted that where it is possible to identify the moneyers, they seem to have been prominent citizens who were, presumably, elected. The system set up by the king and his brother Richard of Cornwall, who administered the process, was subject to abuse, and in 1250 many moneyers, including those from Carlisle, had to return their dies to London, thereby closing the mints. During the Carlisle mint’s period of operation, it is unlikely that the Alston mines were the source of the metal, not least because the veins had been worked out some years earlier, and the silver blanks and dies will have been supplied centrally. For a very short period new coin will have been fed into the local economy, and doubtless the moneyers, and possibly a handful of others, may have profited, but it was short-lived. Thereafter, the relatively quiet conditions will have favoured economic growth and encouraged merchants to strengthen their links with other parts of the country. A valuable economic source for other professions is found in taxation returns. The Lay Subsidies were property taxes levied to enhance royal revenue raised on the payment of a tenth or a fifteenth of the value of laymen’s moveable goods, the rate depending on whether they lived in a town or village. The poorest people were exempt. Unfortunately, although many returns for Westmorland and Cumberland are extant, the rolls for Carlisle itself are incomplete.49 Even so, they provide a useful impression of the wider hinterland. In Westmorland for example, at Kirkby Thore, there was a reeve, an agent, a farrier, a smith and a shepherd, whilst elsewhere there were shepherds and tailors, emphasizing the importance of sheep, and hence the textile trade. Millers, herdsmen, smiths, carpenters and masons are also

206  A border city found. In rural Cumberland, some 60 shepherds, 16 herdsmen and three ‘coltherds’ (herders of horses) are mentioned, as well as glovers, tanners and skinners serving the textile and leather trades. There were also three doctors. In the Carlisle suburb of Rickergate, two shearers and two dyers were recorded. Elsewhere there were slaters, bakers, carpenters, salters, charcoal burners, fowlers and many others representing small-scale rural industry related to food, textiles, building, animal husbandry and the metal trades. Some occupations are also represented in the archaeological record by wooden bowls, handles and bungs found in The Lanes, for example, the product of turners. Potters are attested archaeologically by a kiln and wasters behind Scotch Street. Cobblers and other leatherworkers are represented by a wide range of shoe types, belts, straps, sheaths, scabbards, parts of saddles, a purse, and from the town ditch adjacent to Rickergate, a leather water carrier. 50 Metalworkers in iron, lead and copper alloy are indicated by iron slag, galena ore and crucibles, as well as finished artefacts including clothing accessories such as bronze buckles, brooches, pins and lace tags, knives and weaponry such as daggers and arrowheads, tools including axe heads and shears, fixtures and fittings, keys and locks, latch lifters and hinges, and horse gear including horseshoes, bits, buckles and pendants. Bladesmiths making swords and spurriers producing spurs will have thrived, particularly during the Anglo-Scottish conflicts. Goldsmiths were almost certainly present at times, as were bone-workers making pins, dice, spindle whorls, buttons, combs and weapon handles. Textiles were in constant demand, fuelling the crafts of shearers, spinners, dyers, possibly fullers, and weavers, selling their cloth to tailors, a surname well represented in written sources; the presence of members of the elite may also have stimulated the mercers’ trade in finer cloths. A number of craftsmen worked in construction. The two principal construction materials were stone and timber, but the likely prevalence of mudor cob-walled buildings, also known as ‘clay dabbins’ and built around crucks, for the poorer social sectors should not be underestimated, not least because a number still survive in rural Cumbria, albeit from the post-­ medieval period. Where stone was used, it was either the grey Kirklinton sandstone or the red St Bees stone, worked by masons, carvers and wallers, aided by mortar- and lime-makers. Timber construction also involved a good many general labourers, and woodsmen cutting and preparing wood, whether for timber-framed buildings such as Redness Hall, or for the crucks used in cob-buildings. Carpenters would cut joints for ground sills, studs, wall plates, braces, mullions, purlins, ridge beams, rafters, and assemble them, sometimes off-site, whilst daubers applied mud and whitewash to wattle-and-daub infill panels, and in a few cases, perhaps, plasterers were required. Roofers too were needed, not just for building the frame but for fixing coverings, which were probably mainly wooden shingles or thatch in Carlisle, as there is little evidence for ceramic roof furniture. Fireplaces, doors and window shutters were also needed. A key item will have been

A border city  207 rope, rarely found in archaeological deposits, but necessary in the hauling process as well as in construction. In addition to locally based craftsmen, others will have been brought in from outside, such as architects working on specific commissions in the Priory and the Castle, but only one is known by name, the Durham architect John Lewyn, who worked on the Castle between 1378 and 1385. 51 Glaziers too could often be itinerant, like the makers of floor tiles, setting up their workshops where their products were required. The market was restricted because glazed windows, like decorative tiled floors, were relatively expensive. In Carlisle, glazed windows were probably limited to the Priory, St Cuthbert’s Church, and a few buildings in the Castle, although wealthier burgesses may also have had glazed windows. The name of only one glazier is known, Master John the Glazier of Carlisle, who provided windows for Edward I’s lodgings at Lanercost in 1306. 52 This lengthy list of occupations is compiled on the basis of artefacts found in archaeological excavations and direct historical attestation. Carlisle certainly had the potential to be a thriving, successful urban community given the opportunity, as in the thirteenth century, but then the Anglo-Scottish conflicts, followed by famine and disease, must have taken their toll. Carlisle’s luck ran out once again as yet more hostilities broke out with Scotland, but more importantly the Black Death arrived. 53 The plague hit Carlisle in mid to late 1349, and affected rich and poor alike. Calculating the scale of mortality with any accuracy is impossible, but at least a third of the population, and possibly more, died. The result was that rents went unpaid, lands were untilled, mills, pastures, fisheries and meadows could not be rented out, the sheriff’s receipts show shortfalls and revenue generally was down. Living conditions did not help: ‘the air was corrupted and tainted by dung and manure heaps and much other filth put in the streets and the lanes’.54 Other plagues followed in 1369, 1379–80 and again in 1391, all doubtless exacerbated by poor harvests for which bad weather was probably a prime cause. But life continued. The great east window in the Priory church was produced and installed, an astonishing achievement given the circumstances. Documentary sources tell us that trade was maintained with Ireland in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, especially for wheat and wine, and with the east coast ports of Newcastle and Hull, and the major entrepôt of York. It has also been suggested that one of its main markets was the Scottish Borders, notwithstanding the frosty relations between the two crowns, with horses, cattle, ironwork, cloth, wool and foodstuffs being especially prominent items of trade.55 This may well have been the case, not least because much of Cumbria south of Carlisle was royal forest from which the burgesses were unable to benefit. According to that scenario, traders in Carlisle would have had little option but to look north. However, the archaeological record does not, indeed cannot, confirm that point, for the simple reason that most of the traded staples between Scottish markets

208  A border city and Carlisle cannot be sourced archaeologically. We can identify the animals from which leather goods were made, but we cannot say where they were raised, whether in Scotland or England. Similarly, we can identify knives, tools and other metalwork and be confident of the manufacturing processes, but we cannot say whether they were made north or south of the border. Wool, textiles and salt, key items likely to loom large in the dealings of merchants, rarely survive, but even supposing an object could be identified as specifically Scottish, the question remains, so what? One or two items on their own have no statistical value in themselves. On the other hand, coins and pottery can be sourced, coins because we can identify the mints at which they were struck, and pottery because the clays and minerals from which they were made can sometimes be located. The incidence of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Scottish coins occurring as site finds in northern English towns is negligible. Indeed, Scottish coins were not always regarded as legal tender in England, as for about 30 years after Henry II’s recoinage of 1180–2 they could be rejected as unacceptable. They came back into favour in the later years of John, and thereafter were considered as acceptable currency, even after the recoinages of 1247–50 and 1279–80. 56 In Carlisle, however, no Scottish coins of this period have been found at the time of writing, whilst in Cumbria generally the relatively small number of hoards recorded mostly contain a mixture of English and Scottish issues. The largest hoard found was from outside Carlisle, near Rickerby, and was deposited around 1352. It contained about 2,300 pence, chiefly of Edward I, Edward II and Edward III, although with a fair number of the Scots king Alexander III. 57 By this date, coins were used by all sectors of society for the payment of fines, taxes and small-scale transactions. In the early fourteenth century, money was overwhelmingly struck as pennies, with halfpennies and farthings representing a very low proportion of mint outputs. A problem with coinage, however, is that whereas coins are relatively common on Roman sites, they are much less prolific as finds on medieval sites. Only a small number have been found in large-scale investigations in Carlisle over more than thirty years, a pattern that could be replicated many times across the country. On the one hand, their relative scarcity probably reflects the value with which people at the time placed on their cash and the need to look after it, but on the other hand the infrequency of site finds also seriously understates the role coinage played in the economy. To put this into perspective, it is worth citing some examples of mint output. The number of coins produced in any one year could vary enormously, but over 12 months from 30th September 1300 to 29th September 1301, the mint at Newcastle produced £12,666-worth of coinage, amounting to some 3,065,172 pennies, reckoned at 242 pence to the pound. In the following year, the totals fell to £3,007 or 727,694 pennies. The combined output of pennies at all English mints, excluding Berwick, for the decade spanning 29 September 1299 to 29 September 1310 amounted to some 203,849,246 pennies. It is true that

A border city  209 this was a decade when the king’s expenditure rocketed during the wars with the Scots, but such figures, when combined with money already in circulation, make it absolutely clear that England was operating as a largely monetized economy. 58 This caveat is because other forms of non-monetary exchange were almost certainly operating informally at local levels. If coins, as site finds, cannot be used to reconstruct economic trends and trading patterns, pottery is different. Pottery vessels are extremely common on all kinds of sites, from hamlets and villages to manor houses, castles, monastic establishments and towns. Furthermore, because the places or areas in which pottery was produced can sometimes be located through the identification of rocks or heavy minerals in the clay fabric, we have a mechanism for elucidating economic trends affecting all social sectors, but especially poor and middling classes unable to afford the more expensive metalware. Pottery production centres had proliferated in the twelfth century in towns and rural areas, but over time, and certainly by the mid to late fourteenth century, the numbers of production sites dwindled, with demand being met by a smaller number operating over wider areas.59 During the thirteenth century, the Carlisle red gritty wares began to be replaced by more lightly gritted and sandy fabrics, and a fashion for more highly decorated glazed jugs can be identified from the mid-thirteenth to the mid-fourteenth centuries.60 The amount of sand added as temper to the clays diminished, and preferences for grey, partially or fully reduced wares became widespread, until smooth green-glazed Late Medieval Reduced Grey wares, usually undecorated, dominated the market from the late fourteenth century through the fifteenth centuries. At the same time, the numbers of ceramic cooking wares in use seems to have declined, leaving glazed jugs and bung-hole cisterns as the principal types used in Carlisle and more widely in Cumbria, together with other less common forms like urinals.61 Kilns and industrial waste attributed to the late fourteenth century by archaeomagnetic dating have been found west of Scotch Street, but details of this particular production centre and its likely duration are not yet available.62 Another possible kiln site in Castle Street has been tentatively identified by wasters and possible kiln debris.63 The picture outlined above is one of an industry made up of many small concerns supplying a localized market, evolving into a more sophisticated system operating over a wider geographical area. A little pottery was also imported from outside Cumbria. Insofar as it possible to tell, the majority of these regional imports originated either in the north-east, perhaps Newcastle, or in Yorkshire. There is little to suggest importing of Scottish pottery, even though Carlisle traders in other goods are known to have frequented markets in places such as Melrose, Kelso and Berwick. Similarly, the products of kilns supplying the castles of Caerlaverock and Lochmaben64 in south-west Scotland are not known from Carlisle. What can we deduce from all this about the direction and nature of trade? First, that despite references to the importation of Irish goods for Edwardian

210  A border city armies, sea-borne import and export trade in the west was probably limited. Carlisle’s geographical position, at the head of the shallow and silty Solway Firth which was difficult to navigate, was well placed to defend the kingdom in the west by land routes, but it lacked the advantages of east coast ports where ships could unload directly on to quays and into warehouses on the sea front, and which also faced the rich Continental ports along the North Sea littoral from the Baltic to France. In the west, north of Chester where Continental imports probably arrived if not directly from France, then by way of transhipment from Ireland or Bristol, imports are very rare finds, except at the ecclesiastical site of Whithorn in Scotland which yielded a range of French and Spanish wares.65 In Carlisle’s pottery assemblages, for example, and despite extensive archaeological work, there is a noticeable dearth of imported pottery from France and the Low Countries. A single fragment of Saintonge Ware and another possible north French sherd are attested from Castle Street, and another has been identified at the St Nicholas’s hospital site,66 but there are none from The Lanes, Scotch Street, the Dominican Friary, the Priory or the Castle environs. Edwardian castles in south-west Scotland show a similar low count of imported wares, as at Caerlaverock, the Scottish equivalent of Edward I’s base at Skinburness, or Lochmaben, a Bruce stronghold. This contrasts with ports on the east coast, including Berwick, Newcastle, Scarborough, Hull, Boston, Lynn and Great Yarmouth, where imported Continental wares regularly occur, sometimes forming up to 10 per cent or more of assemblages. Their wares originated from coastal communities along the North Sea, from the Low Countries including the Rhineland to northern and south-western France, and customs accounts show that pots always formed parts of mixed cargoes, along with such commodities as wine, wool, cloth, hides, salt, metalwork and raw materials. North Sea trade was clearly very vigorous, and hundreds of pots were frequently present in mixed cargoes. Even so, the concentration of finds is heavily biased towards the ports of entry, although in recent years it is becoming increasingly clear that imported vessels do appear on both inland urban and rural sites, if in relatively small numbers.67 How was trade organized? In the thirteenth century, the town’s commerce was organised through the merchant gilds, whose job it was to control the trade of a town on behalf of its members. Most were leading members of local society and were merchants or artisans of one sort or another. They cooperated in order to enforce fair prices and uphold standards, as in the base of bread and ale. But gild merchants also had a significant social role whereby they looked after their elderly and infirm members and their widows. Many were friends, their families intermarrying and building loyalties, enabling some to aspire to greater office. This mutual cooperation was an important step in the evolution of urban government, but whilst merchants continued to dominate the city hierarchy, there are signs that individual craft gilds were also developing the power to act cooperatively.

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Aftermath By the time the Anglo-Scottish wars broke out, Carlisle had gradually established itself as an important administrative and economic focus in north-west England. With the exception of visits by Edward I and his entourage, Carlisle suffered during the fourteenth century first because of devastations and losses incurred by Robert Bruce, and by successive harvest failures in the second decade and visitations of the plague from 1349 on, and then further disputes during the Wars of the Roses. Population levels fell and may not have recovered to their thirteenth-century levels until the sixteenth century.68 Following the settlement of the Anglo-Scottish border, and despite Carlisle retaining its role as a key border city, king and parliament lost interest until Henry VIII, alarmed at possible alliances between Scotland and France, commissioned an architect, von Haschenperg, to upgrade the English Gate and the Castle defences. Although Carlisle remained a focal point, especially during the Civil War, the reality of life was that local families (Border reivers) controlled the landscape along the length of the border. By the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the county town of Carlisle had declined to become little more than a focus of genteel life, a military and political backwater only briefly acquiring something of its former strategic significance during the ’45 rebellion. Real change occurred in the nineteenth century with the construction of the canal and the railways and the development of heavy industry. By this time, although the street plan of the city centre shown on the Elizabethan map (Figure 8.5) remained essentially unchanged, lengths of the city defences were demolished, former backlands behind main street frontages were colonized by housing occupied by the very poor, and frontages were taken up by hotels, commercial premises, inns, stables, banks, offices and workshops; in the suburbs, manufacturing industry developed. It was a significant change, with new issues emerging as priorities not previously acknowledged, especially sanitation and public health, policing, education and other public amenities. These issues were grasped by city councillors spurred on by an evolving sense of civic responsibility. Carlisle now revolved less around social respectability in a medieval setting to a focus of industrialization and commercialism as a key nodal hub linking England and Scotland and the east and west coasts. Carlisle had a strategic role in north Britain throughout its history from Roman to Victorian times, although its importance ebbed and flowed.

Notes 1 Stringer 1995, 88. 2 Holt 1961, 208–9. 3 Ibid., map 2. See also Parker 1905; Winchester 2004. 4 Summerson 1993, 143–4. 5 Holt 1961, 196.

212  A border city 6 Duncan 1992, 533–4. 7 Summerson 1993, 28.1 8 Prestwich 1988, 484–5. 9 Ibid., 486–7. 10 Johnstone 1946, 77–80. 11 Chronicle of Lanercost, 182. 12 Ibid., 240–1. See also Summerson 1993, 230–56 for a detailed account of the de Harcla episode. 13 Duncan 1992, 538. 14 Barrow 1966, 21–2. The most comprehensive physical description of the border in recent times is by Mack (1924), in whose hefty book is described in detail the 110-mile line taken by the border from the Sark to the North Sea. 15 Mack 1924; Jack 2004, 295–6. 16 Curwen 1910 contains a useful summary. 17 McCarthy et al. 1990, 128–30. 18 Zant 2009, 399. 19 Ibid., 406–10. 20 McCarthy et al. 1990, 136. 21 Ibid., 139. 22 Ibid., 141. 23 For a detailed description of the precinct see Weston 2000. See also Alexander 2004; Simpson 2004. 24 Simpson 2004. 25 O’Connor 2004. 26 Summerson 1993, 355. 27 Ibid., 155. 28 Tout 1913, xxix. 29 Thompson 1913, 160–2. 30 McCarthy 1990, 78. 31 Summerson 1993, 360. 32 There is a case for believing that St Alban’s Church was established at a much earlier date. 33 Summerson 1993, 356. 34 BL Cotton Ms Aug I.i.13. 35 The assessment report (Giecco 2004) suggests activity taking place in the twelfth century, but it yielded no evidence for the layout of burgages. See also Shaw 2010. 36 McCarthy 2000, 51–2; Building LEL A 669. 37 Neal nd., phases A–C. 38 McCarthy 2000, 48–9. 39 McCarthy and Brooks 1992, 24. 40 McCarthy 1981, 49. 41 Zant 2009, 397–406. 42 Zant et al. 2011, 21. 43 Kirby, J.L. and Kirby, A.D. 1958, 110–17. 4 4 A detailed assessment of the inadequacies of the poll tax is in Summerson 1993, 302–9. 45 Ibid., 508–15. 46 McCarthy 1990, 77–8. 47 Henderson 1990, 330–55. 48 Roberts and Cox 2003, 285. 49 Fraser 1966, 131–58. 50 Mould 2011, 53–4. 51 Summerson 1993, 321.

A border city  213 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68

Ibid., 206. Ibid., 258–62. Ibid., 279–81. Summerson 1995. Allen 2012, 349. Richardson and McCarthy 1991, 295–8. The figures are based on Allen 2012, Table C.2. McCarthy and Brooks 1988, 59–96. McCarthy and Brooks 1992, 24–9. Ibid., 28–9, 31. Giecco 2004. Jope and Hodges 1955, 97, 99, 101–2. Laing 1999, 198–206; Macdonald and Laing 1974–5, 150–3. Clarke 1997. Neal nd; Brooks 1999, 103–4. A useful introduction is Davey and Hodges 1983. See also Summerson 1993, 506–15

References Alexander, J. 2004. ‘The construction of the Gothic choir of Carlisle Cathedral and the evidence of the masons’ marks’, in M.R. McCarthy and D. Weston eds., 106–26. Allen, M. 2012. Mints and Moneyers in Medieval England. Cambridge. Barrow, G.W.S. 1966. ‘The Anglo-Scottish Border’, Northern History 1: 21–42. Brooks, C. 1999. ‘The medieval and post-medieval pottery’, in C. Howard-Davis and M. Leah, ‘Excavations at St. Nicholas Yard, Carlisle 1996–7’, Transactions of Cumberland Westmorland Antiquarian Archaeological Society 2 ser. 99: 102–6. Chronicle of Lanercost. 1913. The Chronicle of Lanercost 1272–1346, trans. Sir H. Maxwell Bt. Glasgow. Clarke, J. 1997. ‘The later medieval pottery’, in Whithorn and St Ninian: The Excavation of a Monastic Town 1984–91, ed. P. Hill, 510–18. Stroud. Curwen, J.F. 1910. ‘Liddel Mote’, Transactions of Cumberland Westmorland Antiquarian Archaeological Society 2 ser. 10: 91–107. Davey, P. and Hodges, R. 1983. Ceramics and Trade: The Production and Distribution of Later Medieval Pottery in North-West Europe. Sheffield. Duncan, A.A.M. 1992. Scotland: The Making of a Kingdom. Volume 1. Edinburgh. Fraser, C.M. 1966. ‘The Cumberland and Westmorland Lay Subsidies for 1332’, Transactions of Cumberland Westmorland Antiquarian Archaeological Society 2 ser, 66: 131–58. Giecco, F. 2004. ‘42–48 Scotch Street, Carlisle, Cumbria’, Wardell Armstrong Archaeology CP51/2004. York: Archaeology Data Service. doi:10.5284/1033342. Henderson, J.D. 1990. ‘The human skeletal remains’, in M.R. McCarthy, 330–55. Holt, J.C. 1961. The Northerners: A Study in the Reign of King John. Oxford. Jack, S.M. 2004. ‘The “Debatable Lands”, Terra Nullius and natural law in the sixteenth century’, Northern History 41 (2): 289–300. Johnstone, H. 1946. Edward of Carnarvon 1284–1307. Manchester. Jope, E.M. and Hodges, H. 1955. ‘The medieval pottery from Castle Street’, in R. Hogg, ‘Excavations in Carlisle, 1953’, Transactions of Cumberland Westmorland Antiquarian Archaeological Society 2 ser. 55: 79–107.

214  A border city Kirby, J.L. and Kirby, A.D. 1958. ‘The poll tax of 1377 for Carlisle’, Transactions of Cumberland Westmorland Antiquarian Archaeological Society 2 ser. 58: 110–117. Laing, L. 1999. ‘The finds’, in I. MacIvor and D. Gallagher, ‘Excavations at Caerlaverock Castle 1955–66’, Archaeological Journal 156: 196–206. McCarthy, M.R. 1981. ‘Aspects of archaeology in Carlisle’, in Approaches to the Urban Past, eds. P. Clack and S. Haselgrove, 37–54. Durham University Department of Archaeology Occasional Reports Paper 2. Durham. McCarthy, M.R. 1990. A Roman, Anglian and Medieval Site at Blackfriars Street, Carlisle: Excavations 1977–9. Cumberland Westmorland Antiquarian Archaeological Society Research Series 4. Kendal. McCarthy, M.R. 2000. Roman and Medieval Carlisle: The Southern Lanes Excavations 1981–2. Department Archaeological Sciences University of Bradford Monograph 1. McCarthy, M.R. and Brooks, C.M. 1988. Medieval Pottery in Britain ad 900–1600. Leicester. McCarthy, M.R. and Brooks, C.M. 1992. ‘The establishment of a medieval pottery sequence in Cumbria, England’, in Everyday and Exotic Pottery from Europe: Studies in Honour of John G. Hurst, eds. D. Gaimster and M. Redknap, 21–37. Oxford. McCarthy, M.R., Summerson, H.R.T. and Annis, R.G. 1990. Carlisle Castle: A Survey and Documentary History. English Heritage Archaeological Report 18. London. McCarthy, M.R. and Weston, D. eds. 2004. Carlisle and Cumbria: Roman and Medieval Architecture, Art and Archaeology. The British Archaeological Association Conference Transactions 27. Leeds. MacDonald, A. and Laing, L. 1974–5. ‘Excavations at Lochmaben Castle, Dumfriesshire’, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 106: 124–57. Mack, J.L. 1924. The Border Line: From the Solway Firth to the North Sea along the Marches of Scotland and England. Edinburgh and London. Mould, Q. 2011. ‘The leather from the medieval defensive ditches’, in Zant et al., 38–54. Neal, D.S. nd. ‘Roman and medieval remains at Castle Street and Fisher Street, Carlisle: excavations in 1977’, unpublished manuscript. Carlisle. O’Connor, B. 2004. ‘“The dim shadowing of things which should be”: the fourteenth century doom in the east window of Carlisle Cathedral’, in M.R. McCarthy and D. Weston eds., 146–74. Parker, F.H.M. 1905. ‘Inglewood forest’, Transactions of Cumberland Westmorland Antiquarian Archaeological Society 2 ser. 5: 35–61. Prestwich, M. 1988. Edward I. London. Richardson, C. and McCarthy, M. 1991. ‘A mid fourteenth century coin hoard from Rickerby, Carlisle’, Transactions of Cumberland Westmorland Antiquarian Archaeological Society 2 ser. 91: 295–8. Roberts, C. and Cox, M. 2003. Health and Disease in Britain: From Prehistory to the Present Day. Stroud. Shaw, P. 2010. Analysis of Plant Microfossil Remains in their Stratigraphic Sequence from 42–48 Scotch Street, Carlisle. Unpublished MSc. thesis, University of Durham.

A border city  215 Simpson, G. 2004. ‘The chancel roof of Carlisle Cathedral: its architectural and historical context’, in M.R. McCarthy and D. Weston eds., 127–45. Stringer, K. 1995. ‘Scottish foundations: thirteenth century perspectives’, in Uniting the Kingdom? The Making of British History, eds. A. Grant and K.J. Stringer, 85–96. London and New York. Summerson, H. 1993. Medieval Carlisle: The City and the Border from the Late Eleventh to the Sixteenth Century. Cumberland Westmorland Antiquarian Archaeological Society Extra Series 25. Kendal. Summerson, H. 1995. ‘Athelwold the Bishop and Walter the Priest: a new source for the early history of Carlisle Priory’, Transactions of Cumberland Westmorland Antiquarian Archaeological Society 2 ser. 95: 85–91. Thompson, W.N. ed. 1913. The Register of John de Halton, Bishop of Carlisle 1292–1324. Canterbury and York Society. London. Tout, T.F. 1913. ‘Introduction’, in W.N. Thompson ed., i–xliii. Weston, D.V.W. 2000. Carlisle Cathedral History. Carlisle. Winchester, A.J.L. 2004. ‘Moorland forests of medieval England’, in Society, Landscape and Environment in Upland Britain, eds. I.D. Whyte and A.J.L. Winchester, 21–34. Society for Landscape Studies Supplementary Series 2. Birmingham. Zant, J. 2009. The Carlisle Millennium Project: Excavations in Carlisle 1998–2001. Volume 1 Stratigraphy. Oxbow/Lancaster Imprints 14. Oxford. Zant, J., Miller, I., Mould, Q. and Howard-Davis, C. 2011. ‘The northern defences of medieval Carlisle: excavations at Rickergate, 1998–9’, in Carlisle: Excavations at Rickergate, 1998–9, and 53–55 Botchergate, 2001, ed. R. Newman, 5–69. Cumberland Westmorland Antiquarian Archaeological Society, Cumbria Archaeological Research Report 2.

9 Conclusions

There was not so much a problem in the north, as successive northern problems, each with distinct characteristics, but all with the same geographical background which made the country north of the Trent more difficult to access and more difficult to govern. —Holt 1961, 194

In this book, there are three central themes. First, and key to the others, is the physical context of Carlisle – that is, the landscape and natural environment on which all social classes in pre-industrial times were absolutely dependent for their very existence. Second, arising directly out of the first, is the frontier or border between what became two nation states, England and Scotland. Because of Carlisle’s location, it was subject to claim and counterclaim between the two states as they struggled to establish their own identity and create a sense of nationhood. In this regard, it was by no means unique in western Europe. The frontier or border symbolizes that struggle. Finally, there is the theme of urbanization, the ways in which specific elements in the landscape and the natural environment, combined with bigger political issues, resulted in the emergence of an urban community, the fortunes of which ebbed and flowed.

The landscape In the ancient world, cities had very close relationships with their landscapes, but rarely were they entirely dependent on them and equally rarely did landscapes, or more accurately ‘environmental systems’, determine the long-term fortunes of cities. All settlements were deeply embedded in their landscapes because they set the parameters of human action, although over time, aspects of them could be circumvented or mitigated by technological advance, political power and communal effort, whether enforced or voluntary.1 For most places, the precise details of the relationships between landscape and settlement are necessarily site-specific, but the general principles were set out by Clarke. 2

Conclusions  217 In the case of Carlisle, the relationships may be summarized as: • • • •

strategic, political and possibly religious value attaching to location; exploitable faunal, floral and mineral resources around Carlisle and in greater Cumbria generally; a hinterland with the potential for nucleated settlement patterns in certain areas, but with more extensive lands appropriate to dispersed patterns; wetlands in north Cumbria and the head of the Solway compatible with indigenous belief systems.

The strategic and political value of Carlisle is evident in its position at one end of a narrow land corridor at the innermost point of the Solway Firth linking the north Cumberland Plain and Eden valley with routes north into the Scottish borders (Chapter 1 and Figure 1.5). There are other routes northwards, but they involve fording the unpredictable Solway sands by way of ‘waths’ or fords from Burgh-by-Sands and Bowness-on-Solway to Annan and Dornock respectively. Any aggressor from either the south or north would need to control both routeways, traversing which would require local knowledge. The Romans recognized this, with their forts at Carlisle/Stanwix, Burgh-by-Sands and Bowness-on-Solway, and the outpost forts at Netherby (Castra Exploratorum) and Birrens (Blatobulgium). Later, the famed battle of Arthuret in 573 can be seen as an attempt to win control of the land route by British kings, and a century later the establishment of a major monastery by Ecgfrith or Oswiu of Northumbria at Carlisle in the 670s or 680s fulfilled a similar objective. The importance of the routeway is further underlined in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries by the Scot, Dolfin, being in possession of Carlisle, and his subsequent ejection by William II who promptly built a castle to control that route. Early in the twelfth century, baronies were created based at Liddel Strength, adjacent to Netherby, and at Burgh-by-Sands, and estates were granted to the Bruce family, then loyal to the English crown, in Annandale. Thus, the twelfth-century arrangements effectively replicated those of the Romans a millennium earlier. In short, he who controlled Carlisle also controlled the key western land route between lands north of the Solway and those to the south. The key sites at the northern end of this corridor, Netherby and Liddel, to which we should add Annan, never achieved the same prominence as Carlisle. This was due, in part at least, to the nature of the landscape. In the north, Netherby and Liddel were surrounded by soils of very limited potential apart from pastoralism and few other natural resources. We may envisage an Iron Age and possibly Romano-British society based around cattle-raising in Annandale and the valleys of the White Esk and the Black Esk. Poor though the agricultural quality of the lands was, the low-lying, wet landscapes surrounding the inner Solway Firth are also typical of areas

218 Conclusions favoured in the context of pre-Roman Iron Age religious practices. In the south, the area around Carlisle included zones of good, well-drained soils suitable for arable farming, especially in the relatively sheltered Eden valley, as well as much more extensive poorly drained, seasonally waterlogged soils more suitable for livestock. Similarly, iron, lead, peat and coal resources were available, whilst potting clays, timber and wood were abundant.

Frontiers and borders The nature of the landscape not only placed physical constraints upon traffic moving north and south, but it also separated societies, as can be inferred for example by the numbers and range of Iron Age settlements in eastern Dumfriesshire compared with their absence in Cumbria. Moreover, it can be argued that a combination of landscape and cultural factors had a significant influence on the interest of the Romans, and subsequent political forces, in Carlisle and the land-route northwards. For much of Carlisle’s history, the frontier or border has been a key theme. In the past, however, the problem was that it was many days’ travel, whether the centre of government was in York or London, or indeed in Edinburgh. Under the Romans, Britannia contained a ‘core’ and a ‘penumbra’, the latter incorporating the northern counties of England. It took some time for the Romans to penetrate these remote fastnesses, but eventually they called a halt, withdrew, and established a frontier zone between the Solway Firth and the Tyne estuary around the turn of the first and second centuries ad. The Roman frontier emerged at this time probably as a practical solution to the problem created by abandoning the idea of total conquest. As was noted in Chapter 2, the retreating soldiers had to go somewhere, and the Tyne-Solway corridor was the best place south of the Forth-Clyde isthmus. From the military and administrative point of view, Carlisle, already a nodal hub, must have seemed like an obvious location from which materials and supplies needed by the frontier garrisons could be coordinated. South of the frontier works, a vast zone extending south about as far as the Humber was seemingly administered by the military authorities based at York, a situation that may have lasted until the early third century when new civilian authorities, including those of the Carvetii, assumed control of their territories. By this time, Carlisle, along with the enlarged fort at Stanwix, could well have been a key command centre for the Wall garrison, a role that owed much to its geographical location. Thereafter, it probably maintained this role until the later fourth century, after which it became redundant when the Roman Empire fell apart. For the following 200 years or so, virtually nothing concrete is known from any source, but then from the late seventh century, the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria once more put Carlisle in the spotlight. It was no longer a frontier settlement, but in a geographical sense it was centrally located within a Northumbrian kingdom spanning the northern counties

Conclusions  219 and Scottish borders from sea to sea. As well as housing a royal monastery, its strategic importance commanding the western north-south land route is unlikely to have been lost on the Northumbrian kings. The influx of Danes and Norse in the ninth and tenth centuries removed Northumbrian supremacy, but the real battles for the north lay not between Anglo-Saxon and Norseman, but between Athelstan king of England, seeking to consolidate his authority in the north, and the descendants of Kenneth MacAlpin, whose aim was to extend the Scots’ holdings south of the Tweed and the Solway. As both English and Scots needed to control the routeways, it was inevitable that Carlisle and its lands should attract particular interest. Far from destroying Carlisle, it is probable that the Scandinavians capitalized on it. By the eleventh century, it was important enough for Dolfin, representing the king of the Scots, to have a stronghold there. Ultimately it was a Norman, William II, who ejected Dolfin in 1092, after which it reverted to the Scots only for brief periods thereafter. Under the Norman and Angevin kings, the crown took a good deal of interest in Carlisle, but its grip on the evolving town and its revenues were gradually weakened and devolved to the citizen body in the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries. It rarely again took centre stage, except on those few occasions when external threats became critical. After the death of King John in 1216, the interest of English kings in Carlisle waned, especially after the Treaties of York and Edinburgh ostensibly settled the Scottish question. At the level of the state, the frontier/border question was unquestionably important, and Carlisle was periodically allocated resources, but the extent to which loyalty to either crown percolated down the social scale is hard to gauge. It is revealing that when in 1323 Sir Andrew de Harcla presented the draft treaty, he hoped Robert Bruce and Edward II would endorse it to the people of Carlisle and his peer group with a view to securing peace; the reaction, summarized by the Lanercost Chronicler, was that ‘the poor folk, middle class and farmers in the northern parts were not a little delighted that the king of Scotland should freely possess his own kingdom on such terms that they themselves might live in peace’. 3 In other words, it could be said that they were heartily sick of constant squabbling between kings about whose land it was. What they mostly craved was a settled life, and what mattered was less which monarch they owed allegiance to, but more how they would survive individually and collectively.

England and Wales Much has been made in this book about Carlisle as a frontier/border town, but it is worth digressing briefly to consider the parallel situation of Wales. Wales can legitimately be claimed as a frontier land; although no formal border existed with England, there was a broad swathe of land extending south from the Dee to the Severn estuary known as ‘the Marches’, a term adopted and used from the thirteenth century on.

220 Conclusions Under the Romans and medieval kings, no distinction was made between what is now England and Wales, both being regarded as falling within the province of Britannia or the kingdom of England respectively. From the topographic point of view, however, there is a sense in which Wales under Roman rule may have been regarded as frontier territory. It did have precious mineral resources valued by the Romans, but it was far from the centre of power and very mountainous, and thus difficult to administer. In the first century ad, tribes in Wales were frequently uncompliant to Roman rule, requiring a very heavy military presence, but by the third century, this was steadily being reduced so that by the fourth century, on current evidence, there may have been as few as six occupied forts. The extent to which Welsh tribes were absorbed into the standard administrative structure of civitates ruled from a ‘capital’ is unclear. Only two are known, Caerwent for the Silures and Carmarthen for the Demetae,4 although there are a number of ‘small towns’ such as Cowbridge and Abergavenny. No major foci datable to the Roman period have been identified in the lands of the Ordovices or Deceangli, but vicani in the extra-mural settlements outside forts such as that at Caernarfon could well have had delegated responsibilities, although there is no specific supporting evidence. Whilst there is no hint of a separate administrative structure for Wales, we must assume that fiscal and administrative duties were undertaken from the forts. In the aftermath of Roman rule, we have evidence for the emergence of kingdoms in the sixth century. The links these had with their Iron Age/ Roman antecedents are unclear, but unlike elsewhere in Britain, these polities had a very long life extending well into the Middle Ages. Insofar as it is possible to think of borders or frontiers, the eastern lands of Powys, Brycheiniog and Morgannwg marched with the powerful English Mercia, from which they were separated by Offa’s Dyke. What is not clear is how the Dyke functioned. It does not appear to be a single unitary monument, but seems rather to comprise lengths built at different times, perhaps by different kings or estate owners. At the time of writing, its status as a major political boundary is questionable. For the post-Roman centuries, historical and archaeological records are patchy, but the overall picture is one of unstable Welsh kingdoms, especially in the face of continuing pressure from the powerful Gwynedd seeking to exert control over the other kingdoms. It was a tendency particularly manifest in the late eleventh century in the person of Gruffudd ap Llywelyn, king of Gwynedd. Gruffudd, who died in 1063, also sought to build alliances with the English court of Edward the Confessor, which was itself riven by factions and rivalries. He and his successor, Bleddyn ap Cynfyn king of Powys and Gwynedd, were probably viewed as a threat to English lands.5 To the Normans, who inherited the difficulty of how to deal with the western parts of Britain, the problem was not so much defining and maintaining a border, but exerting control over a mountainous terrain and a plethora of rebellious kingdoms and principalities where warfare was a

Conclusions  221 normal means of settling disputes. In order to do that, William I created marcher earldoms at Chester, Shrewsbury and Hereford under the able and experienced Hugh of Avranches, Roger of Montgomery and William fitz Osbern. Interestingly, it was a disposition broadly mirroring the Roman solution of having strong military bases and urban communities at Chester, Wroxeter and Caerleon. All three earldoms were long-established English burhs which were developed as bases for expansion and expressions of Norman power. There was no political border as such, but the earldoms marched with Welsh kingdoms, and it was from them that English influence emanated. The conquest of Wales was not completed until 1295, but that did not signal the development of a land unified legally, or in terms of customary practice, linguistic and obligatory practice. On the contrary, these differences persisted long after the conquest by Edward I was complete. The pattern of lordships in the marcher lands in the later Middle Ages, for example, reflected a pre-Edwardian pattern of holdings and rivalries. Urbanization was a late development, over half the towns being founded between 1270 and 1310, as was the use of coinage. There were no mints in Wales before the reign of William II, when pennies were struck at Cardiff, Rhuddlan and St Davids, so that the habit of using money had to be learned. Feudal obligations took time to gain acceptance, and traditional ties of lordship and kinship remained strong. The complexity and unpredictability of Welsh politics also meant that relationships with the Normans could be complex, as became apparent with Llywelyn ap Gruffudd in the mid-­ thirteenth century. This brief excursus into Wales is to illustrate the point that under the Romans and Normans, there were two deep frontier zones in Britain. In the west, Chester and Caerleon served as key nodal hubs under the Romans, as did Carlisle, York and possibly Corbridge in the north. From the tenth and eleventh centuries, Carlisle may have begun to take on a similar role again, but this time English kings were faced with concerted opposition from an increasingly strong Scottish monarchy. This was not the case in Wales, which was disunited. Chester, Shrewsbury, Hereford and later Chepstow and Monmouth, assumed roles as ‘gateway’ communities commanding access into the Welsh interior, just as Carlisle did into Scotland. The use of the military was a characteristic of many frontiers in their early stages of evolution, and it was perhaps inevitable given that in many frontier societies local politics were frequently unstable and unpredictable, whilst the tactics of conquest and occupation could be brutal. Despite this, militarization did not inevitably lead to a rapid and successful conquest, as we see along the Rhine or in Britain. The conquest of Wales took the kings of England over 200 years to achieve. In other words, in frontier societies, remote from the centres of power, there were often deep-rooted interests and local rivalries amongst elite families whose loyalties did not necessarily coincide with those of their kings. The result was decades, if not centuries, of distrust.

222 Conclusions In Wales, there were, and still are, pockets of Englishness, as in Pembrokshire, resulting in a duality of identity, a ‘them and us’ mentality that was manifest in laws, traditions, language and institutions. In Wales, such divisions were aided by topography and landscape quality, the influence of which tended to mitigate against strong centralized leadership. In addition to militarization, marcher territories needed a range of strong inducements to bring them into line and facilitate integration. Castles were not just military strongholds but served as centres of fiscal and judicial authority. New religious foundations appeared, first Benedictine then Augustinian, in towns where they buttressed the authority of the monarch, as did the appointment of bishops as senior members of the court aiding and advising the king. A particularly important tool was economic; enhancing and encouraging trade through granting privileges to the burgesses, investment in property and the endowing of new churches by Norman magnates such as the de Lacys in Hereford, all stimulated economic growth and immigration to the town from rural areas.6 It is striking that of all the Welsh towns listed by Beresford, only one was established before the reign of William I, but a high proportion were in Anglo-Welsh marcher territory created in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.7 The Welsh Marches were subject to their own laws and represented royal acceptance that, from the perspective of Westminster, Wales was a problem on its own and had to be administered differently. In Scotland too, despite the Treaty of York, the same idea was adopted on both sides of the border from the later fourteenth century. Deeply rooted in society, marches shaped the institutions of governance and economics in Wales and Scotland.

Urbanization The city of Carlisle’s fortunes waxed and waned through these centuries, but always its prosperity or otherwise followed imperial or state interest in the north. It is very doubtful as to whether anyone ever set out to ‘found’ a town in Carlisle in the same way as in some civitates further south or in the thirteenth century. Its growth and development was essentially an ‘organic’ process, reflecting the needs of the state and its enforcer, the army or the crown. As the Roman Empire and the kingdoms of England and Scotland shared, at least in the west, a broadly common frontier/border line, it is, perhaps, not surprising to find that Carlisle’s basic roles under the Romans find parallels in the medieval period. They are illustrated in Figure 9.1. An important factor underlying the process of urbanization is the ability of local communities to administer their territories. During the first and second centuries, opportunities for this and for ‘urban’ life generally were limited, given the tight military grip on the north. Accordingly, and with the indifferent quality of the landscape in the west in mind, economic opportunities and incentives for entrepreneurship are likely to have been constrained. Thus we see a lack of private investment, the outward

Conclusions  223

Figure 9.1  Changing functional roles for Carlisle: schematic representation. Source: Drawn by Lesley Collett.

manifestation of which was public facilities, which arrived later and were more modest in scale and aspiration than elsewhere in the province during the third century. By the time self-governing status had been conferred on groups such as the Carvetii, some individuals or families must have built up that experience and acquired sufficient resources to fund the public works, albeit on a modest scale.

224 Conclusions The withdrawal of the Roman army and the collapse of Roman rule signalled the end of urban life. New beginnings returned, however, with the establishment of a monastery in the ruins of the former town. Monasteries and royal patronage were magnets for trade and employment, so that by the time the Norse and Danes arrived in the mid to late ninth century, Carlisle was in the early stages of acquiring the trappings of urban life: royal interest, an ecclesiastical presence, and an economic and social focus probably manifest in the form of markets. The incomers may have reorganized matters to suit themselves, but there is no sense in which the settlement of Carlisle was downgraded, let alone abandoned. It was the Norman kings who provided the key boosts to Carlisle, and by the later twelfth century, much of the institutional apparatus of a truly urban community was in place, to be followed by self-governing status in 1237. Carlisle’s changing roles are summarized in Figure 9.1.

Carlisle in Europe In Germany, the Roman intention from the time of Augustus had been to advance northwards towards the Elbe, but first Claudius and then Vespasian, perhaps realizing that their forces would be overstretched, consolidated a frontier along the Rhine. In Britain too, the Romans had intended to conquer the whole island, but then in the late first and early second centuries they ended up with a frontier between the Tyne and the Solway Firth. In the Rhineland, there was a prolonged process of pacification. It was not without problems, as became apparent in the years 69–71, but ultimately the granting of privileges, access to markets, and the growth of new settlements seems to have worked, and the province of Lower Germany settled down to a relatively quiet period of peace and prosperity throughout the second and early third centuries. At the time of the Civilan revolt, an uprising led by Venutius, husband of Queen Cartimandua, arose in northern Britain. The new emperor, Vespasian, responded by despatching Cerialis as governor, fresh from his victory over Civilis, with the brief, presumably, to either continue the conquest of Britain in Brigantian territory, or to continue the task of settling the north, if his predecessor Vettius Bolanus had already done some of the basic groundwork.8 In establishing a frontier zone, a primary need was to ensure sufficient supplies for garrisons stationed there, both in the Rhineland and in Britain. Although it has been suggested that the disposition of forts might imply a need to protect certain cereal-growing areas such as East Yorkshire and the Eden valley, unlike Lower Germany there is little evidence in northern Britain for the growth of a network of settlements which could fulfil that requirement.9 The military appear to have remained in firm control of the north, and probably not to have delegated administrative control to the local population until the early third century.10

Conclusions  225 One of the means by which pacification was achieved was the encouragement of urbanization. In northern Britain in the early days, it is really only apparent east of the Pennines at York, perhaps complemented by the development of Aldborough as the civitas capital with administrative and judicial duties from the reign of Hadrian. A loose comparison may be made with Xanten and Nijmegen. Elsewhere in the north, the process of urbanization was slow to take off. Many vici emerged outside the gates of forts, but there are few archaeological signs of urban planning, monumentality and municipal buildings anywhere during the first and second centuries. Carlisle had served as a key logistical node in the early second century, but in the mid-Antonine period its fate was uncertain, although the twenty-year abandonment of Hadrian’s Wall and the consequent loss of markets must have been a factor for decline. Carlisle’s fortunes revived under Severus as a newly designated civitas capital. For all that it was the administrative centre for the civitas, with its attendant prestige and responsibilities, Carlisle did not acquire the architectural splendour that must have graced other towns of similar status. Archaeological excavations have discovered relatively few signs of significant wealth, whilst investment in public buildings, an important feature of other chartered towns, seems to have been limited. Indeed, in the context of Roman towns generally Carlisle appears to have been decidedly ordinary and unremarkable, an impression that seriously understates its crucial role to the army and the people who lived there and in the vicinity. In a sense Carlisle was a victim of its geographical location. The landscape of the north-west is much more rugged, the climate less good and the natural resource base poorer than that of southern Britain. It is a long way from York, not to mention London, and it faced westwards towards the silt-clogged Solway Firth and the edge of the known world, not eastwards towards the rich continental communication routes to the Mediterranean. Even so, within the local context, Roman garrisons represented captive markets for local agricultural products and access to a wide range of regionally and internationally imported goods. Following the collapse of Roman rule, Carlisle and Cumbria were left with ruins, a depleted population and doubtless a folk memory that things and places had once been different. The frontier zone became an irrelevance and new powers emerged, strongly supported by a new force, the church. Extensive land allotments were granted to the church in northern England, but it was secular power that increasingly determined the course of events from the later ninth century on. Many former royal estates and markets, including such distinguished places as Jarrow and probably Carlisle, were downgraded, as it were, to parish church status. What is not so clear is what royal and seigneurial power centres looked like on the ground. In the south and the Midlands, the defended towns of Wessex and Mercia represent this power, but royal or lordly residences are less in evidence. Those that are known do not appear to have been defended, and places that might

226 Conclusions count as proto-castles or strongholds are not known. Nevertheless, there is a good deal of evidence for relatively dense populations and a surge in economic activity. There are also suggestions of planned urban layouts, although that may sometimes be slightly illusory, as for example where former Roman walled areas and their gates dictated the positions of some major roads. In Scotland, trends towards urbanization came rather later. Archaeological indications of pre-twelfth-century urban cores are so far very slight, but power centres were emerging, as at Forteviot, Scone, St Andrews and Edinburgh, although they did not all develop in the same way.11 Elsewhere in Europe, however, north of the former Roman Empire, the lands of the Slavs, Germans and the Balts are yielding increasing evidence for the emergence of proto-states from the late ninth and tenth centuries, based upon local centres. Some were ‘strongholds’ or defended rock-girt sites associated with kings, magnates and bishops, using Christianity to shore up their power. A great many had extra-mural suburbs closely linked with long-distance trade, as the important markets at Kaupang and Birka, Szczecin, Poznan, Kalisz, Lübeck, Kracow and elsewhere testify. States were emerging in which kings, together with the church, manipulated the ‘drivers’ of power, especially long-distance trade along the great European rivers or the coasts.12 Towns were also connected to the development of seigneurial power. Some of these centres, as on the south Baltic coast, involved the importation of settlers to work alongside locals, actively promoting the Christian faith, the creation of larger administrative divisions, developing territorial lordships, and integrating them into wider economic networks. Many of these formed the basis for the later growth of the towns in the Hanseatic League.13 A problem in Europe is in characterizing and labelling these early settlements in their early stages. What exactly were they? The term proto-town is sometimes used, because a cluster of important features are found together, including a royal palace, a major church and bishop’s palace, a market place and regular housing plots. They are found from Kracow to Oslo and from Bruges to Hedeby in the tenth to thirteenth centuries, but the question of when they became ‘towns’ has been long debated. What we appear to see is a continuous, almost organic, process, driven by kings consolidating power ensconced in strongly defended secular ‘strongholds’, and supported by the church in which bishops exercised considerable authority from their palaces. Both church and state attracted long-distance trade so that during the twelfth century and thirteenth centuries, townspeople came to demand and receive delegated powers and obligations with regard to such matters as the control of revenues and charters setting out the rights of citizens, tolls and other matters down to the size and nature of their tenements. Most of the features in north European towns have not been found in Carlisle, but from what we can see, parallels with central and northern Europe may not be inappropriate. We can reasonably postulate a ‘stronghold’

Conclusions  227 in the late eleventh century, without being too specific about what it comprised, and a number of churches. Early tenth-century graves and a scatter of finds suggest the presence of fairly high-ranking people. A handful of objects hint at some long-distance contacts, but it would be stretching things far beyond the present evidence to argue for a high volume of long-­ distance contact. Even so, implications to be drawn from the metalwork at the Cathedral, or the cloisonné enamelled disc brooch in The Lanes, find echoes in conclusions by Ten Harkel and others that a new economic landscape in the tenth century stimulated interests in, and contacts with, a wide range of places in Britain and Europe.14 Carlisle seems to have been part of that milieu. Later, the Norman kings provided a number of economic, religious and military boosts, and whilst Carlisle did not achieve full self-governing status until 1237, by the late twelfth century it had a charter and many of the rights other boroughs enjoyed, bringing it firmly within the definition of a town across northern Europe. Thereafter its fortunes were decidedly mixed, due largely to the impact of the Anglo-Scottish wars and the poor weather and plagues of the fourteenth century, but also to flagging royal interest in times of peace. The story of Carlisle does not end there. It continued to act as a main hub for social and economic affairs in subsequent centuries, and its citizens improved the transport links between England and Scotland in the period of industrialization in the nineteenth century. The development of heavy industry for the railways, and the manufacture of such things as biscuits and metal boxes, consolidated its position, whilst its political role as the county town of Cumbria remains untouched. In its early days, it was landscape that helped shape Carlisle’s fortunes. Today, the role of landscape is in its tourism potential.

Notes 1 See Fabech 1994. 2 Clarke 1967, 83 et seq., but especially 123–30. 3 Chronicle of Lanercost, 242–3. 4 Recent work around Aberystwyth (Davies and Driver 2012) cautions us not to rule out the possibility of other as yet undiscovered administrative foci. 5 A useful introduction is Davies 1982. 6 Lobel 1969, 4–5. 7 Beresford 1967, 340, 642–4. 8 Shotter 2000, 189–90. 9 Ibid., 192–3. 10 An exception to this may prove to be the core lands of Brigantia around Aldborough and the legionary fortress at York. 11 Crawford 2001, 380–1. 12 Urbaňczyk 2010; Müller 2010. 13 Müller 2010. 14 McCarthy 2000, 118–9; 2014; Ten Harkel et al. 2016.

228 Conclusions

References Beresford, M.W. 1967. New Towns of the Middle Ages. London. Chronicle of Lanercost. 1913. The Chronicle of Lanercost 1272–1346, trans. Sir H. Maxwell Bt. Glasgow. Clarke, D.L. 1967. Analytical Archaeology. London. Crawford, B. 2001. ‘Alba: the kingdom of Scotland in the year 1000’, in Europe Around the Year 1000, ed. P. Urbančzyk, 271–87. Warsaw. Davies, J.L. and Driver, T.G. 2012. ‘Abermagwr Romano-British villa, Ceredigion, mid Wales: interim report on its discovery and excavation’, Archaeologia Cambrensis 160 (2011): 39–49. Davies, W. 1982. Wales in the Early Middle Ages. Leicester. Fabech, C. 1994. ‘Society and landscape: from collective manifestations to ceremonies of a new ruling class’, in Mythos, Bildkunst und Dichtung in der Religions und Sozialgeschichte Alteuropas, eds. H. Keller and N. Staubach, 132–55. Institut für Frühmittelalterforschung der Universität Münster. Münster. Holt, J.C. 1961. The Northerners: A Study in the Reign of King John. Oxford. Lobel, M.D. 1969. ‘Hereford’, in Historic Towns: Maps and Plans of Towns and Cities in the British Isles, with Historical Commentaries, from Earliest Times to 1800, Vol. 1, ed. M.D. Lobel. London and Oxford. McCarthy, M.R. 2000. Roman and Medieval Carlisle: The Southern Lanes. Excavations 1981–2. Department of Archaeological Sciences, University of Bradford, Research Report 1. Carlisle. McCarthy, M.R. 2014. ‘A post-Roman sequence at Carlisle Cathedral’, Archaeological Journal 171: 185–257. Müller, U. 2010. ‘Case study 3: trading centres – Hanseatic towns on the southern Baltic coast. Structural continuity or a new start’, in Trade and Communication Networks of the First Millennium ad in the Northern Part of Central Europe, eds. B. Ludowici, H. Jøns, H. Kleingärtner and M. Hardt, 115–40. Neue Studien zur Sachsenforschung I. Hanover. Shotter, D. 2000. ‘Petillius Cerealis in Northern Britain’, Northern History 26 (2): 189–98. Ten Harkel, L., Weetch, R. and Sainsbury, V. 2016. ‘An early medieval polychrome-enamelled brooch from Flaxengate, Lincoln: continental fashions in an Anglo-Scandinavian town’, Medieval Archaeology 60 (1): 57–71. Toolis, R. 2017. The Lost Dark Age Kingdom of Rheged. Oxford. Urbaňczyk, P. 2010. ‘From a stronghold to a town – the Polish case’, in Making a Medieval Town: Patterns of Early Medieval Urbanization, eds. A. Buko and M.R. McCarthy, 15–26. Warsaw.

Index

Page numbers in italics refer to illustrations Agricola, Gnaeus Julius (Roman governor) 13, 30, 32, 34, 45 Aldborough 85, 225 Alexander I (king of Scotland) 153, 154 Alexander II (king of Scotland) 14, 183, 184, 191 Alexander III (king of Scotland) 208 Alexander Severus (Roman emperor) 57 Allerdale 16, 143, 164, 169 Alston lead/silver mines 170–1, 204, 205 Anglian sculpture 125, 139–40, 139 Anglo-Saxon: charters 2; Chronicle 142, 152, 155; coins 124, 128, 138, 146; crosses 122, 123; England 127, 142, 146, 172; law codes 172; minsters 145; pottery 114, 115, 172; settlement 115, 127–8, 141 Anglo-Saxon Carlisle: coins 122–4, 137, 146; crosses 122, 122; monastery 117, 118, 120, 121–4, 122, 125–6, 137, 146, 163, 217, 219, 224; pottery 114; settlement 122, 124, 124, 146, 167, 218–19 Anglo-Scandinavian/Viking-age: burials 137–9, 143; crosses 139–40, 139; settlement 10, 128, 37, 139, 140, 164 Anglo-Scandinavian (Viking-age) Carlisle: cemetery 122, 137–8, 139, 159, 227; disc brooch 146, 227; Norse runes 167; pottery 137; settlement i, 146–7, 167 Anglo-Scottish border (see also Scots Dike) 1, 2, 10, 14–15, 16, 158, 182, 184, 188–91, 189–90, 211, 216, 218, 219 Anglo-Scottish wars 14, 184–8, 206, 207, 211, 227 Annan 6, 191, 217

Annan, River 25, 73, 191; Annandale 14, 15, 23, 45, 154, 185, 217 Antonine Wall 32, 45, 47, 54, 55, 59, 80 Antoninus Pius (Roman emperor) 32, 47 Appleby-in-Westmorland 173, 174, 195 Arthuret 11, 112, 116, 191, 217 Aspatria 8, 139, 143 Athelstan (king of England) 137, 142, 143–4, 219 Athelwold (prior and bishop) 154, 159, 160, 162, 163, 168 Augustus (Roman emperor) 13, 26, 27, 28, 54, 224 Balliol family 182, 184, 186 Batavi, Batavians 27–8, 27, 29, 82, 86 Bede 121, 125, 126, 127 Bernicia 114, 117 Berwick-upon-Tweed 4, 12, 15, 171, 185, 188, 189, 190, 208, 209, 210 Bewcastle 8, 25, 31, 72, 112, 125, 191; Bewcastle Cross 122, 123, 125 Birdoswald 31, 32, 112, 113, 114 Birrens 16, 31, 217 Black Death/plague 203, 207, 211, 227 Boonies 24, 74 borders see frontiers and borders Botcherby 164, 187 Bowness-on-Solway 31, 32, 69, 191, 217 Brigantes, Brigantia 26, 30, 99, 224 Britannia i, 4, 30, 65, 110, 110, 218, 220 Bronze Age 22 Brougham 57–8, 59, 71, 83, 111, 112, 113, 115, 127

230 Index Bruce, Robert (Robert I, king of Scotland) 15, 184, 185–8, 187, 190, 193, 211, 219 Bruces of Annandale 14, 154, 182, 185, 210, 217 Burgh-by-Sands 8, 10, 16, 22, 31, 54, 82, 87, 109, 153, 169, 186, 187, 191, 217 Burnswark 23 Caerlaverock 115, 209, 210 Caldew, River 4, 5, 25, 33, 45, 55, 68, 96, 119, 122, 155, 162, 198 Cananefates 27, 28, 29 Cargo 22, 23 Carleton 143 Carlisle (see also Anglo-Saxon Carlisle; Anglo-Scandinavian Carlisle; medieval Carlisle; Roman Carlisle; Stanwix): as a border city i, xiv, 1, 4, 12, 13, 182, 184, 211, 216, 218, 219, 222; Citadel 4, 197, 198; climate 6–7, 10; ‘dark earth’ deposits 113, 118–20; geographic setting 5–10, 6, 9; location 1, 2, 4, 6, 9, 11, 30, 31, 37, 41, 46, 110, 112, 117, 125, 141, 170, 187, 189, 216, 217, 218, 225; pre-Roman cultivation 22 Carlisle Castle i, 4, 4, 22, 114, 136, 144, 145, 146, 147, 152, 154, 155–9, 156, 158, 160, 163–4, 165, 167, 173, 183, 184, 186, 191–3, 194, 196, 197–8, 198, 199, 202, 207, 210, 211, 217 Carlisle Cathedral (Augustinian Priory church) 4, 56, 60, 68, 114, 119–20, 121, 122–4, 122, 137, 138, 146, 152, 159–64, 160–2, 166, 196, 197, 227; Augustinian Priory i, 138, 154, 159–64, 160–2, 165, 166, 167, 192, 193–5, 196, 198, 199, 203, 207, 210 Carlisle streets 4–5, 165, 191, 196–8, 197, 211; Abbey Street 4, 65, 68, 84; Annetwell Street 4, 22, 124, 146, 200, 202; Blackfriars Street 4, 22, 34, 37, 38–40, 46, 55, 59–60, 60, 61, 65, 68, 84, 88, 114, 120, 124, 159, 162, 165, 166, 195; Botchergate 4, 5, 35, 44–5, 47, 64–5, 64, 69, 81, 83, 84, 95, 96, 112, 166, 195, 203; Caldewgate 5, 81, 166, 186, 203; Castle Street 4, 5, 83, 124, 124, 165, 166, 200, 209, 210; Collier Lane 45, 69, 84; English Street 4, 5, 69, 84, 165, 166, 195,

199; Fisher Street 4, 37, 96, 165, 199; Head’s Lane 195, 198; Keay’s Lane 62–3, 64, 84, 89, 89, 114, 165, 198, 200–2, 201–2; Law’s Lane 64, 165, 198; London Road 45, 112; Lowther Street 4, 5, 165, 195; Old Grapes Lane 200; Paternoster Row 65, 68, 84; Rickergate 4, 5, 81, 165, 202, 203, 206; Scotch Street 4, 5, 40, 44, 69, 84, 100, 100, 114, 120, 146, 163, 165–6, 199, 200, 206, 209, 210; Sewell’s Lane 64, 84; Spring Gardens Lane 34, 35, 43, 83; St Cuthbert’s Lane 122, 159, 162, 165, 198; St Mary’s Gate 119, 200; The Lanes 37–43, 41, 43, 44–5, 46, 55, 61–4, 65, 67, 69, 114, 120, 165, 206, 210, 227; West Walls 4, 5, 65, 84, 195, 196 Carolingian, Carolingians 137–8, 144 Cartimandua (queen of the Brigantes) 30, 224 Carvetii i, 26, 57–9, 74, 218, 223; civitas capital at Carlisle (Luguvalium) 45, 57–9, 65, 225 Castle O’er 23, 24, 90, 115 castles (see also Carlisle Castle; Liddel Strength) 155, 159, 164, 183, 186, 189, 192, 209, 210, 222; motte and bailey castles 145, 153, 155; ringwork castles 145, 155, 156, 157 Celtic religion 25–6, 70–2, 217, 218 Cerealis, Q. Petillius (Roman governor) 26, 28, 29–30, 32–3, 34, 45, 224 Chester-le-Street 136 Chesters 26 Cirencester 82, 94 Civilis, Civilan revolt 26, 28, 29, 224 Claudius (Roman emperor) 28, 30, 224 Clyde, Firth of 13, 26, 30, 32, 218 Cockermouth 58, 140, 164, 173, 187, 195 Cologne 27, 28, 96 Constantine I (king of the Scots) 142 Constantine II (king of the Scots) 144 Constantine III (Western Roman emperor) 109 Constantine the Great (Roman emperor) 82 Constantius (Roman emperor) 82 Copeland 16, 139–40, 143, 165 Corbridge 10, 12, 25, 30, 31, 56, 65, 72, 73, 81, 83, 85, 96, 98, 170, 172, 186, 221

Index  231 crannogs 24, 146 Cumberland 1, 16, 142, 143, 152–3, 164, 170, 186, 188, 191, 205, 206 Cumbria xv, 1, 5, 6–8, 6, 9, 14, 15, 16, 22, 23, 24, 26, 71, 74, 79, 82, 84, 91, 95, 96, 100, 114, 115, 116, 117, 125–6, 127, 128, 137, 139, 141–3, 141, 145–6, 152, 153, 154, 155, 158, 164, 169, 170, 171, 173, 174, 175, 182, 186, 187, 206, 207, 208, 209, 217, 218, 225, 227 Cumbria-Scotland land corridor or routeway 4, 8, 15–16, 32, 191, 217–18 Cumbrians, kings/kingdom of 132–3, 141–3, 145, 147, 153–4 Cumwhitton 137, 138, 140, 141, 143 Cuthbert, St xiv, 69, 117, 118, 120–1, 125, 126, 136–7, 161 Dacia, Dacian 13, 29, 82 Danelaw 139, 141 Danes xiv, 136, 137, 219, 224 David I (king of Scotland) xiv, 12, 14, 143, 144, 147, 153–4, 156, 157, 158, 160, 168, 170, 171 David II (king of Scotland) 190 ‘debateable lands’ 189 Deira 117 dendrochronology (tree-ring dating) 33–4, 36, 44, 66, 67, 108, 124, 124, 146, 194, 195, 200, 201 Dolfin 14, 143, 144, 145, 147, 152, 153, 155, 156, 163, 167, 217, 219 Domesday Book 147, 164 Domitian (Roman emperor) 13, 30, 35 Dornock 191, 217 Drumburgh 10, 31 Dumfries 115, 185 Dumfriesshire 15, 22, 23–4, 90, 115, 155, 218 Durham 14, 88, 153, 161, 170, 186, 207 Dunfermline 145, 147 Eadred (bishop of Carlisle) 136–7 Eamont Bridge 141, 142, 144 Ecgfrith (king of Northumbria) 121, 217 Eden, River 5, 6, 6, 11, 22, 23, 25, 32, 33, 34, 39, 46, 55, 68, 70, 119, 155, 165, 166, 169, 170, 189; valley 1, 7, 8, 10, 15, 54, 58, 68–9, 73, 74, 86, 87, 116, 140, 159, 169, 186, 217, 218, 224

Edgar Atheling 144 Edgar (king of England) 144 Edgar (king of Scotland) 153 Edinburgh 144, 147, 154, 188, 189, 218, 226; Treaty of 15, 188, 219 Edward I (king of England) 184–6, 187, 192, 193, 194, 207, 208, 210, 211, 221 Edward II (king of England) 186, 187–8, 193, 208, 219 Edward III (king of England) 15, 184, 188, 193, 208 Edward the Confessor (king of England) 144, 145, 220 Edwin (king of Northumbria) 117 Egremont 140, 164, 165, 174 England i, xv, 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 10, 14, 15, 16, 25, 26, 30, 54, 65, 87, 127, 138, 142, 144, 146, 147, 153, 154, 167, 168, 172, 173, 182, 185, 186, 188, 191, 195, 208, 209, 211, 216, 218, 219–22, 225, 227 Esk, River 6, 6, 8, 11, 15, 16, 25, 32, 189, 190, 191; Black Esk 217; White Esk 23, 90, 217 Ethelred II (king of England) 137, 142 Falco, Q. Pompeius (Roman governor) 30, 41, 46 Flemish settlers 164, 167, 175 Flusco 139, 140–1 Forth-Clyde isthmus 13, 218 France xv, 29, 70, 169, 184, 185, 193, 210, 211 Fremington 112, 115, 127, 128 frontiers and borders (see also AngloScottish border; Antonine Wall; Carlisle, as a border city; Hadrian’s Wall; Roman Empire, frontier on the Rhine; Scottish borders; Stanegate; Welsh Marches) i, xiv, xv, 10, 12–16, 22, 26, 29, 30, 32, 37, 41, 45, 47, 58, 65–6, 80–1, 84, 85, 97, 98, 108, 109, 111, 113, 136, 141–2, 147, 152, 158, 169, 182, 184, 188, 216, 218–22, 224, 225; definitions of 12–13 Gallia Belgica 54, 82, 86 Galloway 115, 117, 155, 185, 192 Gaul, Gauls 26–7, 70, 80, 82 Gelt, River 68, 169, 170 Germania Inferior/Lower Germany 26–30, 37, 54, 86, 89, 98, 224

232 Index Germany 13, 26–7, 37, 54, 89, 98, 144, 224 gilds 147, 176, 199–200, 210; Gild Merchant 168 Glasgow 1, 154, 160 Gospatric (earl of Northumberland) 143, 144, 146, 147, 152, 163; Gospatric’s Writ 143, 146 Graham family of Netherby 7–8, 190 Gratian (Roman emperor) 100 Great Chesters 25, 31 Gretna 11, 25, 188 Grubenhäuser (sunken-floored buildings) 115, 127, 128, 145 Hadrian (Roman emperor) iii, xiv, 13, 30–2, 39, 41, 45, 46, 47, 54, 82–3, 225 Hadrian’s Wall 2, 10, 13–14, 15–16, 22, 30–2, 31, 33, 41, 45, 47, 54–5, 59, 79, 80–1, 82, 87, 90, 108, 111, 113, 218, 225; Vallum 32, 33 Harcla, Andrew de 188, 193, 219 Henry I (king of England) 144, 153–4, 156–7, 156, 158, 159, 160, 162, 168, 170 Henry II (king of England) 14, 146, 147, 154, 157, 168, 169, 182, 183, 208 Henry III (king of England) 14, 183, 193, 204, 205 Henry VIII (king of England) 198, 211 Hesket-in-the-Forest 139, 143 Hexham 10, 126, 166, 170, 186 Hiberno-Norse 137–9, 167 Hoddom 125, 125 Holm Cultram 10, 15, 125, 125, 166, 187 Honorius (Roman emperor) 109 Housesteads 31, 56, 59, 69, 82, 113 Hugh of Beaulieu (bishop of Carlisle) 183, 194 Hull 202, 207, 210 Inglewood Forest 7, 75, 169, 170, 195 Ireland, Irish 1, 25, 70, 91, 109, 113, 128, 141, 167, 168, 185, 186, 207, 209–10 Iron Age (see also Celtic religion) 22–6, 54, 73, 95, 115, 217–18, 220; crannogs 24, 128; in Cumbria/northwest England 22, 23, 25, 54, 73, 95, 115, 128, 218; hillforts 22, 23–4, 23,

25, 90, 115; in north-east England 25; round-houses 24; in Scotland 22, 23–4, 25, 115, 217–18; settlements 22, 24, 218; stone heads 22, 25, 26 Irish Sea 5, 139, 141, 141, 169 Isle of Man 137 Italy xv, 73, 79–80, 94, 98 Iurminburg (queen of Northumbria) 117–18, 121, 126 Jarrow 126, 225 Jedburgh 166, 170 John (bishop of Glasgow) 154, 160 John (king of England) 169, 183, 208, 219 John of Worcester 136, 137, 147 Kelso 169, 209 Kendal 127, 164, 173, 195 Kenneth II (king of Scotland) 144 Kenneth mac Alpin (king of Scotland) 219 Kirkandrews-on-Esk 188, 189 Lake District (Lakeland) 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 58, 73, 74, 95, 115, 116, 142, 143, 169, 182, 187 Lanercost 187, 207; Lanercost Chronicler 186, 188, 219; Priory 15, 186, 207 Langwathby 57 law codes 128, 172 Liddel 6, 9, 16, 153, 189, 217; Liddel Strength 153, 153, 189–90, 217; Liddel Water 153, 191; Liddesdale 14, 188, 189, 191 Lincoln 82, 85, 147, 194 Lindisfarne 117, 118, 120, 121, 136 Lochmaben 25, 185, 188, 209, 210 London 1, 82, 85, 99, 147, 171, 172, 186, 202, 205, 218, 225 Longtown 8, 15 Lowther 125, 125; Lowther Cross 122, 123 Lyne, River 6, 8, 11, 15, 25 Magnus Maximus (western Roman emperor) 109 Malcolm II (king of Scotland) 142–3 Malcolm III (king of Scotland) 143, 144, 147, 152–3 Marcus Aurelius (Roman emperor) 99 Maryport 59, 83, 111, 112, 115

Index  233 medieval Carlisle (see also Carlisle Castle; Carlisle Cathedral): Augustinian Priory see under Carlisle Cathedral; ‘city ditch’ 157, 165, 176, 192, 200, 202; city walls and gates 4–5, 4, 154, 157, 164, 165, 166, 183, 195, 196, 196–7, 198–9, 211; coins 170–2, 171, 204–5, 205, 208; Dominican Friary (Blackfriars) 193, 195–6, 196, 198, 199, 203, 204, 210; English Gate 198, 211; Franciscan Friary 195, 196, 198, 199; Guildhall (Redness Hall) 199–200, 199; layout 4–5; living conditions 166, 202, 207; mint 170–2, 171, 204–5, 205; population 167, 185, 203–7, 211, 219; pottery 158, 163, 170, 173–4, 174, 200, 209, 210; Scotch Gate 166; skeletal analysis 203; St Alban’s Church or Chapel 145, 146, 163, 165, 166, 196, 198, 198, 199; St Cuthbert’s Church and parish 121, 122, 159, 160, 162, 163, 165, 166, 195, 196, 198, 199, 207; St Mary’s Church and parish 121, 159, 162–3, 162, 165, 194, 196, 198; St Nicholas’s hospital 166, 210; suburbs 5, 166, 186, 198; tannery 200–2, 202; trade 207–8, 209–10 medieval coins and mints (see also medieval Carlisle, coins, mint) 167, 170–2, 205, 208–9, 221 medieval pottery 172, 173–5, 208, 209, 210 Melrose 15, 166, 169, 209 Meschin, Ranulf 16 Middleton-in-Lonsdale 58 Mote of Mark 115 Neolithic 22 Netherby 6, 8, 9, 11, 16, 31, 32, 70, 72, 82, 112, 116, 190, 217 Newcastle upon Tyne 1, 26, 31, 101, 113, 138, 155, 170, 171, 207, 208, 209, 210 Nijmegen 27, 27, 28, 98, 225 Nith, River 24, 73, 115; Nithsdale 15, 24 Norman Conquest i, 16, 140, 146, 147, 167–8 Normans 16, 140, 143, 144, 145, 147, 152, 155, 162, 164, 165, 167, 172, 173, 219, 220, 221, 222, 224, 227

Norse xiv, 7, 137, 140, 141, 142, 167, 219, 224 North Cumberland Plain 5–7, 6, 10, 14, 22, 217 Northern Isles 137 Northumbria 128, 136, 137, 142; earls/ earldom of 16, 152; kings/kingdom of 14, 16, 117–18, 121, 126–7, 142, 144, 146, 152, 217, 218–19 Norway, Norwegian 137, 144, 184 Notitia Dignitatum 110–11, 113 Old Penrith 57, 59, 82, 113 Ostia 80, 89 Oswiu (king of Northumbria) 117, 118, 125, 217 Papias, Flavius Antigonus 82, 112 Papcastle 58, 111, 112, 164 Patrick, St 113 Pennines 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 14, 30, 45, 54, 84, 95, 126, 136, 143, 146, 147, 169, 174, 182, 225 Penrith 5, 6, 9, 14, 22, 57, 71, 73, 89, 112, 123, 125, 139, 140, 142, 164, 170, 173, 187, 195 Picts 109, 121 Piercebridge ploughman 87, 88, 92 place-names 72, 137, 139, 141–2, 164 Pompeii 80, 89 proto-town i, 145, 147, 164, 168, 226 radiocarbon dating 114, 115, 120, 122, 137, 147, 173 Rheged, kingdom of 116–18 Rhine, River 13, 26, 27–9, 27, 30, 73, 82, 221, 224 Rhineland 26–7, 29, 210, 224 Ribchester 85 Rickerby 173, 208 Rockcliffe 6, 8, 11, 191; Marsh 8 Roman army and soldiers (see also Roman Carlisle, army and soldiers) 13, 28, 29, 30–2, 45, 47, 58, 68, 72, 74, 79, 80–1, 82–3, 84, 85, 96, 99, 108–11, 218, 224, 225; auxiliary units 13, 81, 109; Horse Guards 30, 83; Legio II Augusta 68–9; Legio VI Victrix 30, 68–9, 96; Legio X Gemina 28; Legio XX Valeria Victrix 68–9, 99; Praetorian Guard 30, 83 Roman Carlisle (see also Carvettii; Stanwix): aqueduct 45, 65, 69, 84,

234 Index 121; army and soldiers 36, 39, 47, 56–7, 67, 79, 81, 82, 83, 85, 87, 89, 90, 91, 92, 94, 96, 97, 98, 99, 108, 109, 113, 114, 118, 169, 218, 224, 225; bath houses 55, 65, 69, 84, 118, 120, 121; cemetery, cremations and tombstones 44, 45, 46, 55, 64–5, 64, 81, 82, 83, 84, 112; coins 30, 35, 56, 57, 99–101, 100–1, 108–9, 113, 114, 120; Cumberland Infirmary site 74, 86, 86, 88, 89; economy and diet 86–93, 94–101; fort i, 22, 26, 30, 32–7, 33–5, 39, 45, 46, 47, 55–7, 55, 57, 59, 67–9, 70, 71, 74, 81, 84, 85, 86, 90, 94, 95, 96, 98, 99, 100, 101, 101, 108, 109, 111, 113–114, 118, 119, 120, 121, 145, 155, 217, 218; fort annexe 34, 36–7, 45, 56, 67, 94, 99; health 93; industrial zone 44–5, 46, 47, 64, 65, 81, 95, 96; living conditions 69; location 5, 41, 45–6, 218, 225; Luguvalium 25, 32, 54, 55, 58, 70, 72, 79, 82, 83, 85, 111, 113–14, 115; metalworking 36, 44–5, 94–5; as nodal hub i, 30, 37, 41, 45–6, 66, 85, 143, 218, 221; ‘official zone’ 38, 40–4, 41–3, 45, 46, 55, 61; population 46, 79–84, 85, 92, 93, 94, 99; possible mansiones 42–3, 43, 44, 65, 69, 84, 98; pottery 33, 41, 43, 44, 56, 59, 61, 74, 83, 95–6, 98, 109, 113, 114; ‘praetorium’ 34, 39–41, 41–2, 44, 67, 68, 69; public buildings 55, 58, 65–6, 66, 68, 69, 84, 118, 121, 223, 225; religion and Christianity 70–3, 71, 111–13; round-houses 44, 86, 86; ‘stripbuildings’ 37, 38–40, 45, 56, 59–60, 60, 61, 68, 81, 83, 97, 99; suburbs 5, 81, 95; temples 42, 44, 65, 73; town and civitas capital 4, 13, 37–47, 46, 54–6, 55, 57–69, 79, 80–1, 82, 83, 84, 88, 89, 90, 92, 94, 95, 97, 99, 108, 111, 114, 118, 120, 121, 152, 222, 223, 225; trade 46, 58, 82, 96, 97, 99, 101; vici 37, 84; writing tablets 34, 36 Roman coins (see also Roman Carlisle, coins) 30, 99–101, 108 Roman Empire xv, 4, 13, 26–8, 32, 65, 72, 79, 82, 83, 95, 98, 110, 112, 218, 222, 226; frontier on the Rhine xv, 13, 26–9, 27, 30, 73, 221, 224

Roman pottery (see also Roman Carlisle, pottery) 14, 74, 95–6 Romano-British: agriculture (see also Roman Carlisle, Cumberland Infirmary site; Piercebridge ploughman) 85–6, 87–9, 87, 90, 91–3; settlements in Cumbria 73–4, 91 Rome, population of 80 Roxburgh 4, 12, 15, 144, 147, 154, 169, 171, 190 royal forests/forest law 169–70, 170, 182–3, 207 Ruthwell 125, 125 Sark, River 11, 14, 15, 25, 188, 189, 190, 191 Scandinavia, Scandinavian 137, 138, 143–4, 146, 167, 219 Scotland i, xv, 1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 9, 11, 13, 14, 15, 22, 26, 30, 32, 35, 41, 46, 47, 70, 80, 114, 143, 144, 145, 147, 152, 154, 159, 161, 168, 169, 170, 171, 182, 184, 185–6, 188, 191, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 216, 219, 221, 222, 226, 227 Scots Dike 189, 190 Scottish borders 13, 90, 207, 217, 219 Septimius Severus (Roman emperor) 58, 82, 225 Shap 115, 127, 128 Skinburness 185, 210 soil types 2, 3, 7–12, 9, 11, 15, 16, 25, 54, 74, 86, 87–8, 90, 91, 92, 128, 140, 169, 175, 182, 191, 217, 218 Solway (see also Tyne-Solway corridor): Firth 5–6, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 24, 25, 26, 30, 31, 54, 70, 74, 112, 115, 116–17, 125, 141, 142, 143, 147, 159, 164, 169, 170, 187, 188, 191, 210, 217, 218, 219, 224, 225; Moss 8, 25; Plain 3, 73, 90; Spain, Spaniards 30, 82 St Bees 69, 165, 206 Stainmore 147 Stainton 8, 187 Stanegate 13, 30, 32, 35 Stanwix 5, 15, 31, 187; pre-Roman cultivation 14, 87, 87; Roman fort/ Hadrian’s Wall 14, 15, 25, 32, 33, 66, 81, 84, 87, 87, 108, 111, 217, 218 Stilicho 109

Index  235 Stephen (king of England) 154, 158, 170, 171, 182; war with Matilda 154, 158, 182 Strathclyde 14, 16, 141, 141, 142, 143, 153

Norse) 136–42, 144, 145, 163; army (‘great army’) 136, 139, 142 Vindolanda 31, 45, 59, 68, 81, 85, 91, 113 Votadini 26

Tacitus 13, 26, 28, 29, 30, 82 Theodosius (Roman emperor) 109 Tongeren 27, 28 Trajan (Roman emperor) 28, 29, 30, 32, 98 Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery 65, 69, 72 Tungri, Tungrians 27, 28, 29, 79, 82, 86 Tweed, River 10, 12, 14, 15, 26, 188, 189, 219 Tyne, River 1, 5, 10, 13, 25, 26, 30, 32, 136, 189, 218, 224; valley (Tynedale) 10, 14, 25, 126, 141, 186, 189 Tyne-Solway corridor 30, 32, 35, 41, 218, 224

Waga the reeve 121, 126–7 Wales 116, 185, 186, 219–22 Wallsend 14, 31, 32, 101 Welsh Marches 219, 222 Western Isles 137, 139, 141 Westmorland 1, 143, 186, 205 Whinfell 127 Whithorn 210 Wilfrid, St 126 William I (the Conqueror; king of England) 144, 147, 152, 221, 222 William II (Rufus; king of England) 14, 144, 145, 147, 153, 155–6, 157, 158, 164, 167, 217, 219, 221 William the Lion (king of Scotland) 14, 159 William of Malmesbury 121, 155 William Wallace 185, 192 Workington 9, 125, 125, 137, 139–40, 139, 141, 169, 170 Wroxeter 57, 98, 113, 221

Urbanization (see also proto-town) i, 28, 29, 54, 147, 152, 163–4, 167, 216, 221, 222–4, 225, 226 Urien (king of Rheged) 116, 117, 118 Valens (Roman emperor) 100 Valentinian I (Roman emperor) 100 Valentinian II (Roman emperor) 100, 100, 120 Venutius (king of the Brigantes) 30, 224 Vespasian (Roman emperor) 26, 99, 224 Vettius Bolanus (Roman governor) 26, 224 vicus, vici 28, 37, 58, 59, 65, 73, 84, 98, 99, 100, 108, 225 Vikings (see also Anglo-Scandinavian/ Viking Age; Danes; Hiberno-Norse;

Xanten 27, 27, 30, 225 Yeavering 127 York 10, 12, 30, 82, 85, 96, 110, 110, 117, 136, 138, 146, 147, 154, 155, 166, 168, 174, 183, 194, 200, 202, 207, 218, 221, 225; Treaty of 14, 183, 184, 188, 191, 219, 222 Yorkshire 3, 84, 96, 14, 128, 147, 159, 175, 209, 225