Britain in the Middle Ages: An Archaeological History, by Francis Pryor

Britain in the Middle Ages: An Archaeological History,
by Francis Pryor;
Harper Perennial, 2006, $24.99.

It was the worst of times—life was said to be nasty, brutish and short. Even the words, such as medieval, let alone dark ages, are taken to mean any awful sort of society, squalid, ignorant, oppressive and dull. According to some it lasted from the dawn of mankind until the end of the Menzies Era.

And it was the best of times, of devoted craftsmen building soaring cathedrals, unquestioning, irradiating and seamless Catholic faith, jolly millers, a co-operative, organic society where all ranks worked together for the greater good until the horrors of the Reform-ation and then capitalism split it asunder.

Or—surprise, surprise—it might have been a lot like any other time. This last is the undramatic picture of the Middle Ages depicted in Francis Pryor’s Britain in the Middle Ages, which follows on his earlier books Britain BC and (early) AD (reviewed in Quadrant in April 2006).

The amazingly intensive archaeological work of the past fifty and especially the last twenty or so years has brought to life and better understanding this period of nearly 1000 years, replacing centuries of guesswork and ideological hopefulness.

What were the Middle Ages? The definition I was taught at school seems as good as any—the millennium between the fall of Rome and Columbus crossing the blue in 1492. Others Eurocentrically put the end as the invention of printing a few decades before Columbus. Pryor opts for the more specifically English dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII in the 1550s.

Conventionally the Middle Ages have been divided into the early period, the so-called “Dark Ages” and the later period beginning in the eleventh century, in the Anglo-Saxon world specifically with the Norman conquest of England in 1066. Pryor’s big point, however, is to bring the Dark Ages back from obscurity to become much more a normal part of British history:

“Britain and north-western Europe reinvented themselves in the centuries after the fall of the western Roman Empire—those inappropriately named Dark Ages … The result was what some have seen as the first European Economic Community, when long-distance trade and communication flourished, and Carolingian Europe was stimulated by new ideas from the emerging Islamic empire … This period set changes afoot that would last right through the Middle Ages and into our own time.”

The “dark” label came from there being few written or other records in most countries. The not altogether welcome arrival of the Normans brought more written bureaucracy to the British Isles, though the records were mostly those of princes, prelates and plutocrats.

Archaeology has pulled up the blinds, showing in fair detail what early medieval town and country were like, especially when matched to the very few records. The new light suggests that people lived reasonably well when reading and writing were at best confined to a few of the brightest monks. Farms were farmed quite shrewdly according to the dictates of nature and the market, elites rose and sometimes fell, towns and villages formed and faded, towns and ports traded vigorously. Roads were not necessarily mud and slush, but often maintained Roman roads, sometimes the basis of modern British roads.

Britain, like early Australia, traded wool with its neighbours and imported manufactures and wine. Trade was busiest around the North Sea, but merchants also dealt as far away as Istanbul and Baghdad—at the time the great, very populous imperial capitals.

Pryor’s message in this as in his earlier books is that life in England at least went on, with mostly steady progress—for want of a better word—from long before the Romans arrived in 44 AD, with nothing like the damage, disruption and distress that were once thought to have accompanied the great historical headlined changes. Social change was steady, usually in reaction to circumstances and mostly for the better.

Writing specifically about England—Scotland and Wales are barely mentioned, despite the title—Pryor divides the pre-Norman era into early Saxon, from the Roman exit in 410 AD to 650 AD, when Catholic Christianity was officially established; an intermediate period; and late Saxon from 850 to 1066, when Danish influence was strong.

Danes and Norwegian raided, invaded and settled, mainly in the north and east and especially in the ninth century, but the contest was not really settled until the Normans arrived and put both in their place. Pryor, however, sees much fairly peaceful settlement and useful cohabitation along with occasional carnage. He doubts that the Scandinavians wore horned helmets or would have thought of themselves as Vikings.

The fate of towns between the Roman withdrawal and the Normans has been subject to centuries of conjecture, often the belief that pagan Anglo-Saxon raiders devastated them. Recent archaeological and DNA evidence has demolished the old Anglo-Saxon-hordes story altogether.

In his earlier books Pryor had suburban settlements of Ancient Britons developing outside the Roman walls. Here, he expands on this with trading settlements developing outside the walls—where the ancients seemed to prefer to live. These were the Saxon “wics”, as in Ipswich, Hamwic (now Southhampton) and the biggest of all, Lundenwic. In Latin, they were “emporia”. They were more ramshackle than the orderly Roman towns, but possibly also more lively. The Viking incursions cut this development short, with a return to the walled Roman towns and the rise of Alfred the Great’s fortified burhs. Rival Danish burhs followed. (Pryor says Alfred was a good king, unifying the Saxons against the Danes, but also a great image polisher and spin-master.)

He also says the rise and rise of London was one of the big stories of the time, with people steadily flowing in from the surrounding south-east.

The shires, with borders little changed until 1974, go back well into the Saxon periods, some to the sixth century. The feudal organisation of power and obligation followed not far behind. Pryor cautions against the term “feudal system”, but allows “feudalism”. He says there was too much variation at any one time and over time for the concept of “system” to apply.

Medieval open field farming, while common, was not universal and depended on conditions. This was the practice of annually parcelling out into strips one very large field, with good and not so good land shared among the peasants, who did some jobs communally. In a severely stratified society, they might also have to work part-time on the lord’s demesne (or proprietorial farm). The overall system in each district was the “manor”, from which villages developed.

The second half of the book, from 1066, has fewer revelations that change history, but much detail, about buildings, street plans, waste disposal, shoe fashions and shoe-making, even insects.

While the Norman influence was profound, especially on the elite and the language, it is also easily exaggerated, Pryor says. Life went on, with not a lot of violence, apart from the “harrying of the north”, after the quick English defeat at Hastings, which was partly due to the endemic Saxon