Urban monasteries in England.

Urban monasteries in England. ALAN HARDY, ANNE DODD Anne (Barnes) Dodd (c. 1685–1739) was the most famous English news seller and pamphlet shop proprietor in the 18th century. In 1708, she married a Nathaniel Dodd, who had purchased a stationer's license. & GRAHAM D. KEEVIL. Aelfric's Abbey:excavations at Eynsham Abbey Eynsham Abbey was a Benedictine monastery in Eynsham, Oxfordshire in England. King Aethelred allowed Aethelmar to found the abbey in 1005. After the Norman Conquest the abbey was reopened in 1086. The abbey flourished until the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1538. , Oxfordshire 1989-92 (Thames Valley This article is about the Thames Valley in southern England. For New Zealand's Thames Valley region, see Thames Valley, New Zealand, or for the ITV region in the United Kingdom, see ITV Thames Valley. Landscapes Vol. 16). xxv+636 pages, 179 figures, 71 b&w photographs,150 tables. 2003. Oxford: Oxford Archaeology; 0-947816-91-7 hardback49.95 [pounds sterling]. BRUNO BARBER & CHRISTOPHER THOMAS. The London Charterhouse(MoLAS MoLAS Museum of London Archaeology Service Monograph 10). xii+126 pages, 92 figures, 26 tables. 2002.London: Museum of London Archaeology Service The Museum of London Archaeology Service (MoLAS) is a Registered Archaeological Organisation (RAO) with the Institute of Field Archaeologists (IFA) and is a self-financing part of the Museum of London, providing a wide range of professional archaeological services to clients in ; 1-901992-23-3 paperback14.95 [pounds sterling]. On two medieval urban monastic sites, each completely different incharacter, origin and historical development, here are two excavationreports, each equally different in style, approach and format. Eynsham Eynsham Abbey, on the edge of the (now) village of Eynsham, some10km west of Oxford, originated as an important but not well-documentedminster some time before AD 864. It was established in a populated zone,and falls into place as one of a number of contemporaneous foundationsin the upper Thames valley. The excavations were undertaken between 1989and 1992 and covered an area of roughly 2000[m.sup.2]. In later medieval terms, the excavations exposed the southern halfof the claustral claus��tral?adj.Variant of cloistral. area, including the southern cloister cloister,unroofed space forming part of a religious establishment and surrounded by the various buildings or by enclosing walls. Generally, it is provided on all sides with a vaulted passageway consisting of continuous colonnades or arcades opening onto a court. walk and thecircular lavatorium, part of the west range, the central portion of therefectory and kitchens to the south. The main interest of theexcavations and the report lies, however, in the earlier medievalperiod. The excavated sequence began in the sixth and early seventhcenturies with dispersed sunken-featured buildings. Occupation continued through the later seventh and eighthcenturies, and then, some time around the mid- or later eighth century,the area took on an altogether more organised appearance. Boundaries(pit alignments replaced by fences) defined plots around two or morepost-built buildings, all adopting a consistent NNW-SSE alignment thatwas maintained for the next three centuries. Occupation intensified inthe tenth century, with activities spreading beyond the confines of alarge ditched enclosure. Two or more phases of timber buildings wererepresented by dense post-hole clusters and by a unique collapsedplaster wall. The rich finds assemblages are suggestive of suggestive ofDecision making adjective Referring to a pattern by LM or imaging, that the interpreter associates with a particular–usually malignant lesion. See Aunt Millie approach, Defensive medicine. intensifieddomestic activity, agricultural production and cloth production. Duringthis period, the little documentary evidence A type of written proof that is offered at a trial to establish the existence or nonexistence of a fact that is in dispute.Letters, contracts, deeds, licenses, certificates, tickets, or other writings are documentary evidence. that survives reveals areligious community maintaining its existence in the face of thedepredations of successive kings that reduced their original, massive,300 hide endowment by more than 90 per cent. And then, in 1005, the minster was re-founded--the last EnglishBenedictine re-foundation before Cnut's invasion. Under AbbotAelfric, monks replaced secular clergy, the new abbey became a leadingcultural centre; and with the introduction of the Benedictine Rule camenew stone communal buildings and a basic claustral layout. Herein liesthe greatest significance of this site, and the excellent monographreporting it: it provides the most extensive evidence yet for apre-Conquest English claustral plan. The ruling alignment of the oldminster was retained, probably via the survival of the church, but thetimber buildings and their enclosures were swept away and replaced.Within the excavated area was the south walk of a new, enclosed,cloister, a large communal hall- possibly the refectory--an attacheddomestic block with a cellar and drainage, a range to the south withprobable craft functions, and a further building to the northwest. Apair of mortar mixers of the type familiar from Northampton was foundwithin the probable cloister garth and, to the south, a large eastwestboundary ditch was probably the vallum monasterii. The vigour of the newly refounded abbey did not, it seems, longoutlive out��live?tr.v. out��lived, out��liv��ing, out��lives1. To live longer than: She outlived her son.2. Aelfric or its patron Aethelmaer, and the erosion of its estatesresumed. Reformed in the 1070s, Eynsham was again re-founded in 1109 andafterwards rebuilt in the Norman Romanesque style, with a new claustralplan on a completely different alignment. The peak of its post-Conquestprosperity came in the early thirteenth century. In 1217, there was aroughly five-fold expansion of the precinct, a species of emparkmentinvolving the purchase and clearance of occupied properties anddiversion of a road. Dissolution came in 1538, by which time thepost-Conquest community of twenty to thirty monks had been reduced toten. Demolition of most of the monastic buildings soon followed. London From the first generation of English medieval monastic foundations,to the very last: the London Charterhouse was founded in 1371 by SirWalter Manny Manny may refer to:In nobility: Baron Manny, a title in the Peerage of England Walter de Manny, 1st Baron Manny (died 1372), soldier of fortune and founder of the Charterhouse People with the given name Manny: Manny (given name) , soldier and courtier. The site lay east of the Fleet Riveroutside the city and impinged upon burial grounds for victims of theBlack Death. The area was already colonised by other religiousinstitutions. The principal aim of the monograph is the reporting of excavationand prior evaluation of areas (together c. 300[m.sup.2]) to the west ofthe great cloister on the west side of the inner court. However, theopportunity was taken to place these in context by summarising theprincipal conclusions of other fieldwork around the precinct, includingsurveys of the extensive surviving medieval and Tudor building rangesand a reassessment of Professor Grimes' work on the great cloisterand main conventual buildings. The excavations showed that, before theCharterhouse Charterhouse[Fr.,=Chartreuse], in London, England, once a Carthusian monastery (founded 1371), later a hospital for old men and then a school for boys, endowed in 1611. The school, which became a large public school, was removed (1872) to Godalming, Surrey. W. M. , the area had been quarried, with sporadic dumping ofhousehold and industrial wastes. Reclamation followed. The Black Deathcemeteries lay nearby but were not as extensive as expected from earlierresearch. Construction of the first permanent buildings of theCharterhouse commenced in 1371 and further parcels of land weresuccessively acquired. The work was slow, funding precarious, and thecells around the cloister were individually 'sponsored'. Bythe end of the century, the buildings were unfinished and the precinctstill unenclosed and, in 1402, the house was taken into royalprotection. The fifteenth century saw better progress and the gradualcompletion of the essential elements of the precinct: the chapterhouse,frater Fra´tern. 1. (Eccl.) A monk; also, a frater house.Frater housean apartament in a convent used as an eating room; a refectory; - called also a fratery ltname>. , little cloister, great cloister and the piped water supply. Onthe low-lying western side of the precinct (around the excavated areas),a programme of works was commenced to raise ground levels, complete theprecinct wall and build a second wall to sub-divide the inner court.Around 1500, a new range of stone or stone- and timber-framed buildingswas constructed, of uncertain use but possibly for agricultural orrelated service functions (despite the proximity of urban markets, thefish-ponds, orchards and gardens continued to contribute to thehouse's economy). This building, and a new section of precinctwall, may have been contemporary with a major renovation of the innercourt. Monastic life came to an end in 1537. Fittings and furnishingswere stripped and, for some years, buildings were used as royalstorehouses. In 1545 the site was sold and converted into a fineup-to-date urban mansion based on the former inner court. The cellsaround the great cloister were demolished and it was turned into awalled formal garden. In 1611, Thomas Sutton purchased the estate andfounded a secular hospital and school. Publication style Both monographs are exceptionally well produced, attractive, usableand thoroughly professional volumes that will be welcomed by anyone withan interest in English monasticism monasticism(mənăs`tĭsĭzəm, mō–), form of religious life, usually conducted in a community under a common rule. or in either of the locales. Theymake a fascinating contrast in publication styles. The Eynsham volume could almost be represented as the product of abygone age. A short introductory section (Part 1) lays out thedocumentary evidence, Part 2 describes the excavations in detail (about130 pages), Part 3 deals with finds (pottery, building materials,skeletons and botany) over about 300 pages and, after a brief review ofsurvey evidence from around the precinct, Part 5 draws all the threadstogether for an extensive synthesis. Appendices follow, and the volumecloses with a bibliography and an index of epic proportions. Thismonograph is the last word on a little-explored but important site. Thespecialist and scientific contributors add their material with fullsupporting data--to the extent of over half the volume--and thediscussion takes it all on board (and is still a good read). The overallflavour of the volume is perhaps accurately reflected by the index inwhich (for example) no less than 25 species of birds are indexedindividually. This is obviously a tribute to the wealth of the excavatedfaunal material. But is it also a problem for the volume as a whole? Notnecessarily, in this reviewer's opinion: the price remainsattractive, and experience suggests that, with the vagaries ofarchaeological fieldwork, readers may even, in time, be glad to find alearned account of snipe snipe,common name for a shore bird of the family Scolopacidae (sandpiper family), native to the Old and New Worlds. The common, or Wilson's snipe (Capella gallinago), also called jacksnipe, is a game bird of marshes and meadows. or woodcock woodcock:see snipe. woodcockAny of five species (family Scolopacidae) of plump, sharp-billed migratory birds of damp, dense woodlands in North America, Europe, and Asia. remains to hand on theirbookshelves. The contents of the volume are evidence-led. Herein,though, may lie the cause of a minor complaint from devotees ofpost-Conquest precinct planning. The monastic church (almost unknownarchaeologically) does not appear in the index, and discussion of it hasto be hunted down. It could also be argued that there is an intermediatescale missing from the plans in the volume--that of the inner precinct,that lies between the excavated area plans, and those of the massiveouter precinct and its relation to Eynsham itself. To view the generalrelationship between pre- and post-Conquest claustral areas, recoursemust be had to small-scale detail in plans covering a wide area. The London monograph is not supposed to be free standing at all. Itis the second of the Museum of London Archaeology Service series on thereligious houses of medieval London. Extensive specialist reports anddocumentary evidence are summarised or reproduced in part and integratedinto the narrative; supporting data and the full reports are availablein archive form. Particular parts of the precinct, and its later phases,are to be published elsewhere in greater detail. The style throughout isplanets apart from the Eynsham volume, a product of the governmentreport tradition rather than an academic monograph: soft covers, logoson the front, not the back, numbered sub-sections, sans serif Short horizontal lines added to the tops and bottoms of traditional typefaces, such as Times Roman. Contrast with sans-serif. typeface.Is this a problem? Again, not in this reviewer's opinion: theresult is a succinct summary of a major (but not particularly wellknown) religious house at a bargain price, drawing together the salientpoints of a complex history of investigations, bringing them up to dateand announcing the impending arrival of further studies. The curiosityof this volume is that the excavations around which it is built appearto be among the least interesting of the many within the precinct; butno matter. They are contrasting reports but both completely appropriate to thevery different contexts of the respective investigations. Illustrationsin both range from competent to excellent; special mention must be madeof the use of extra colours in the Eynsham volume and particularly themetalwork and other artefact See artifact. illustrations; also of the usefulthree-dimensional reconstructions of the Charterhouse and the generalhierarchy of plan-scales in that volume. The Eynsham volume, with itsaccount of the pre-Conquest minster and abbey, should be mandatoryreading for all cathedral archaeologists and anyone with any interest inthe pre-Conquest Church--or in pre-Conquest secular settlement--it addssignificantly to the literature that explores the grey area between thetwo. The London volume will be welcomed by anyone with an interest inthe Carthusian order, or in urban monasticism, or in medieval London. Nigel Baker, Shrewsbury, UK