Early Medieval Defended Communities Across Europe (Oxford, 8-10 febrero 2013)

Early Medieval Defended Communities Across Europe: Fortified Settlements of the Eighth to Tenth Centuries AD
A weekend event to be held at Rewley House, 1 Wellington Square, Oxford

While much archaeological and historical attention goes on the defence of the later Roman world and on the development of medieval castle, too often the intervening early medieval period is overlooked or misunderstood in terms of its settlements, populations and defence. Were defended communities typical in the early Middle Ages? How far was there a direct continuity from late Roman into early medieval in terms of hilltop villages and fortifi ed sites? What new sites emerged and why? Who controlled these sites? How ‘feudal’ were the landscapes of 8th- to 10th-century Europe?
This weekend conference brings together a number of experts who have excavated or studied fortifi ed sites in a variety of kingdoms, polities and regions. We aim to assess how developed our understanding of these sites is, how they were articulated and designed, their contents in terms of populations and structures, and their role in the landscape.

PROGRAM

FRIDAY 8 FEBRUARY 2013

6.15pm Registration

7.00pm Dinner

8.15pm-9.15pm The Irish Cashel: enclosed settlement, fortified settlement or settled fortification? Evidence from on-going excavations at Caherconnell, Co. Clare, Western Ireland
MICHELLE COMBER

SATURDAY 9 FEBRUARY 2013

8.15am Breakfast (residents only)

9.15am The early medieval Irish rath, dún and crannog: social, ideological and defensive aspects of enclosure
AIDAN O’SULLIVAN

10.15am Royal courts and defended settlements in early medieval Wales
ANDREW SEAMAN

11.15am Coffee/tea

11.45am The ‘royal’ architecture of Pictland: new perspectives and new fieldwork on the hillforts, palisades and lowland settlements of eastern and northern Scotland
GORDON NOBLE

12.45pm Lunch

2.00pm The resistance, rebellion and submission of urban communities: England and northern France from the 9th to 11th
centuries
RYAN LAVELLE

3.00pm Tea/coffee

3.30pm Wessex burhs: Wallingford in context
NEIL CHRISTIE

4.30pm Fortified settlements of the 9th and 10th centuries AD in central Europe
HAJNALKA HEROLD
5.30pm Break/free time

7.00pm Dinner

8.15pm-9:15 pm Monumental expression and fortification in Denmark at the time of King Harald Bluetooth
ANNE PEDERSEN

SUNDAY 10 FEBRUARY 2013

8.15am Breakfast (residents only)

9.15am Fortified settlements of the 8th to 10th centuries AD: the case of Tuscany, Italy
MARCO VALENTI

10.15am Fortified settlements in the Byzantine south Balkans and Aegean, 8th to 10th centuries: features and contexts
ARCHIE DUNN

11.15am Coffee/tea

11.45am Did the Vikings need walls? Charting settlement forms and space in north west Europe, AD 800-1100
DAVID GRIFFITHS

12.45pm Lunch and course disperses

Contributors

DR NEIL CHRISTIE

DR MICHELLE COMBER
Lecturer, Centre for Irish Studies, National University of Ireland, Galway

DR ARCHIE DUNN
Teaching Fellow in Byzantine Archaeology, University of Birmingham

DR DAVID GRIFFITHS
Director of Studies in Archaeology, OUDCE

DR HAJNALKA HEROLD

DR RYAN LAVELLE
Senior Lecturer in Medieval History, Department of History, University of Winchester

DR GORDON NOBLE
Lecturer in Archaeology, Department of Archaeology, University of Aberdeen

DR AIDAN O’SULLIVAN
Senior Lecturer, School of Archaeology, University College Dublin

ANNE PEDERSEN
Senior Researcher, Department of Danish Medieval and Renaissance, The National Museum of Denmark

DR ANDREW SEAMAN
Lecturer, Department of History and American Studies, University of Canterbury

MARCO VALENTI
Associate Professor, Department of Archaeology and Art History, University of Siena, Italy

Directors of Studies

DR NEIL CHRISTIE
Reader in Archaeology, School of Archaeology and Ancient History, University of Leicester

DR HAJNALKA HEROLD
Research Associate, Vienna Institute of Archaeological Science, University of Vienna, Austria

More info: www.conted.ox.ac.uk