Keith Fitzpatrick-Matthews
North Herts Museums, Museums, Department Member
- Neolithic Archaeology, Bronze Age (Archaeology), Roman Britain, Iron Age Britain (Archaeology), Post-Roman Britain, Neolithic Britain and Ireland, and 53 moreMuseums, Immaterial Culture, History, Anthropology, Archaeology, Classics, Prehistoric Archaeology, Classical Archaeology, Onomastics, Personal Names, Place Names, Medieval Studies, Landscape Archaeology, Material Culture Studies, Roman History, Medieval Archaeology, Archaeological Method & Theory, Historical Archaeology, Archaeology of Identity, Archaeological Theory, Anthropology of Gender, Symmetrical Archaeology, Feminism, Late Roman Britain, Roman Archaeology, Old Welsh, Arthurian Britain, Nennius, Claudius Ptolemy, Ptolemaic Geography, Cosmography Of Ravenna Anonymus Periplus, Celtic Studies, Historia Brittonum, The end of Roman Britain, Roman Place Names In UK, Brittonic Place-names, English Place Names, Welsh Place-names, Scottish Place Names, Toponymy, Roman Geography, Insular Celtic, Early Medieval Scotland, Placenames, Archaeology of Ritual and Magic, Magic and the Occult (Anthropology Of Religion), Votive offerings, Tradition, Ritual, Archaeology/witchcraft/Magic, Archaeology of Occult Practices, Dmitri Shostakovich, and Arthurian Studiesedit
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The dates and purposes of Offa’s Dyke and Wat’s Dyke have long been a subject of debate among historians and archaeologists. This paper examines and critiques several of the more unusual claims made over the past century. Prominence is... more
The dates and purposes of Offa’s Dyke and Wat’s Dyke have long been a subject of debate among historians and archaeologists. This paper examines and critiques several of the more unusual claims made over the past century. Prominence is given to the use of ancient literature and widespread misunderstandings of scientific dating techniques, both of which have been used to suggest a Roman date for the origin of the dykes close to the modern Anglo-Welsh border.
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The placename Hitchin is usually regarded as being an Anglo-Saxon ‘tribal’ name in origin. However, it lacks a convincing Germanic etymology. Ekwall proposed a Celtic derivation; although he was on the right track, his suggestion does not... more
The placename Hitchin is usually regarded as being an Anglo-Saxon ‘tribal’ name in origin. However, it lacks a convincing Germanic etymology. Ekwall proposed a Celtic derivation; although he was on the right track, his suggestion does not work for phonological reasons. Instead, this new proposal is that it was an ethnonym, ‘the pig-breeders’, for which archaeological evidence is adduced.
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The Historia Brittonum remains a textual puzzle because of its variant recensions; printed editions generally present conflated versions of the text. The Harleian Recension is usually thought to represent the version closest to the... more
The Historia Brittonum remains a textual puzzle because of its variant recensions; printed editions generally present conflated versions of the text. The Harleian Recension is usually thought to represent the version closest to the original. The present approach to its textual history uses cladistics to recognise characteristics shared between recensions. These determine those of ancestral groups and indicate the points at which different recensions split off, demonstrating that the work grew by accretion. The Harleian Recension is shown to be a late development. All existing printed editions of the work are defective: every reading must be based on judging the position of all witnesses on the cladogram. Where the readings of the Chartres and Edmundine Recensions agree against the others, they take precedence. The earliest recoverable form of the text is the recension of 829×30, here termed 'Merminian'.
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The ancient town of Baldock occupies a shallow bowl in the hills that run west-southwest to east-northeast through North Hertfordshire, a northeastern extension of the Chilterns (Figure 1). It lies close to the source of the River Ivel,... more
The ancient town of Baldock occupies a shallow bowl in the hills that run west-southwest to east-northeast through North Hertfordshire, a northeastern extension of the Chilterns (Figure 1). It lies close to the source of the River Ivel, which flows northwards to join the Bedfordshire Ouse, but is not situated on a river. It is also at a road junction, with pre-Roman tracks from Braughing, Verulamium, and Sandy converging with the line of the Icknield Way to the southeast of the springs. It seems to have functioned as a local market centre, with evidence for small-scale craft production, although osteological evidence suggests that a proportion of the townspeople were agricultural labourers. Even so, there is evidence from all periods of a degree of personal wealth and literacy that places at least some of the inhabitants in the upper strata of Romano-British society. This view of the town contrasts with Stead’s (1975, 128) dismissive comment that the town resembled an overgrown Litt...
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Introduction The Roman amphitheatre at Chester was discovered in 1929 and has since been a subject of fascination, speculation and controversy. Following a major excavation that uncovered the northern two-fifths in the 1960s 1 , it was... more
Introduction The Roman amphitheatre at Chester was discovered in 1929 and has since been a subject of fascination, speculation and controversy. Following a major excavation that uncovered the northern two-fifths in the 1960s 1 , it was long assumed that there was little more to be said about the site. However, when the present writer began work on a Research Agenda for the site during the 1990s, it rapidly became apparent that there were many questions left unanswered, not least about the late Roman and post-Roman history of the site. In an attempt to deal with some of these questions, Chester City Council approached English Heritage in 2000 for permission to undertake small-scale excavations. As a result, English Heritage commissioned the City‟s Archaeological Service to undertake fieldwork, which has lasted for four seasons, from 2000 to 2003.
The post-Roman Britons of the fifth century are a good example of people invisible to archaeologists and historians, who have not recognized a distinctive material culture for them. We propose that this material does indeed exist, but has... more
The post-Roman Britons of the fifth century are a good example of people invisible to archaeologists and historians, who have not recognized a distinctive material culture for them. We propose that this material does indeed exist, but has been wrongly characterized as ‘Late Roman’ or, worse, “Anglo-Saxon.” This pottery copied late-Roman forms, often poorly or in miniature, and these pots became increasingly odd over time; local production took over, often by poorly trained potters. Occasionally, potters made pots of “Anglo-Saxon” form using techniques inherited from Romano-British traditions. It is the effect of labeling the material “Anglo-Saxon” that has rendered it, its makers, and its users invisible.
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The Historia Brittonum remains a textual puzzle because of its variant recensions; printed editions generally present conflated versions of the text. The Harleian Recension is usually thought to represent the version closest to the... more
The Historia Brittonum remains a textual puzzle because of its variant recensions; printed editions generally present conflated versions of the text. The Harleian Recension is usually thought to represent the version closest to the original. The present approach to its textual history uses cladistics to recognise characteristics shared between recensions. These determine those of ancestral groups and indicate the points at which different recensions split off, demonstrating that the work grew by accretion. The Harleian Recension is shown to be a late development. All existing printed editions of the work are defective: every reading must be based on judging the position of all witnesses on the cladogram. Where the readings of the Chartres and Edmundine Recensions agree against the others, they take precedence. The earliest recoverable form of the text is the recension of 829×30, here termed 'Merminian'.
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Like so many places in England, the village of Pirton is first mentioned in Domesday Book, where it is called Peritone. Other medieval spellings of the name include Piriton, Pyriton, Puriton and Pyrtone. These spellings show that the name... more
Like so many places in England, the village of Pirton is first mentioned in Domesday Book, where it is called Peritone. Other medieval spellings of the name include Piriton, Pyriton, Puriton and Pyrtone. These spellings show that the name contains the Old English words pirige, 'a pear tree', and tūn, 'an enclosed dwelling or farm'. As we shall see, archaeology helps take the story of the community much further back in time. At the time of Domesday Book, which was compiled in 1086, the manor was held by Ralph de Limesy, a landowner who also had holding in the lost Hainstone (perhaps near Ashwell), Caldecote and Amwell. Before the death of Edward the Confessor in January 1066, it had belonged to Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury. It was a big place, with 25 villeins, a priest, 29 bordars, an English knight, a freeman and 12 cottars liable to pay tax (Domesday Book was compiled to help King William I work out how much tax he could extract from the population). A villein was an ordinary villager who farmed land in the community's field; a bordar was another villager who had less land than a villein, while a cottar was someone who lived in a cottage, usually farming someone else's land. Working out how many people this entry implies is not an exact science. It has been estimated that the returns may omit up to 25% of households as being below the taxable threshold. This means that the total of 68 individuals listed might be short by as many as 17 households, so we should be thinking in terms of up to 85 households. The next question is over the size of a household. Historians used to suggest 3½ people in each but this figure is now thought to be too small and that the average ought to be about 5. This would give a population for Peritone of up to 425 people. The village from the hills near Highdown
Summary catalogue entries for the burials discussed in The Perils of Periodization by K J Fitzpatrick-Matthews & R Fleming.
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A reassessment of the list of civitates in Chapter 66a of the Historia Brittonum is attempted through the establishment of a reliable text as it is preserved in a number of versions. Analysis of each name is attempted by working back to... more
A reassessment of the list of civitates in Chapter 66a of the Historia Brittonum is attempted through the establishment of a reliable text as it is preserved in a number of versions. Analysis of each name is attempted by working back to its hypothetical Brittonic original. Some names attested in Classical and early medieval sources are readily identifiable and can be identified with Roman or Romano-British sites; some names have survived into more recent times and can also be identified with known sites, although some remain difficult. Of particular interest is a group named after real or legendary characters known from other literature. The list proved influential and its history can be traced to the notorious forgery De Sitû Brittaniæ ascribed to Richard of Cirencester; its importance lies in its hints at the nature of antiquarian speculation in early medieval Wales.
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The landscape at Baldock forms a distinctive embayment that appears completely enclosed by hills. I argue that this was one of the principal reasons for its dense concentration of prehistoric activity, the other being the springs of the... more
The landscape at Baldock forms a distinctive embayment that appears completely enclosed by hills. I argue that this was one of the principal reasons for its dense concentration of prehistoric activity, the other being the springs of the River Ivel. In particular, the evidence for Neolithic occupation and ritual activity points to the importance of the springs from the fourth millennium BC onwards.
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Baldock has an unusual sequence of fifth-century (and later) deposits that have allowed its sub-Roman history to be explored. This in turn has led to the recognition of new pottery fabrics that have enabled the dating to be extended to... more
Baldock has an unusual sequence of fifth-century (and later) deposits that have allowed its sub-Roman history to be explored. This in turn has led to the recognition of new pottery fabrics that have enabled the dating to be extended to sites across the town and its hinterland.
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Talk given to the Hertfordshire Villages Group in March 2014
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A reassessment of the parts of the Ravenna Cosmography that deal with Britain, including a text worked out from first principles; there is an appendix containing the Notitia Dignitatum, along with a text that is more accurate than any of... more
A reassessment of the parts of the Ravenna Cosmography that deal with Britain, including a text worked out from first principles; there is an appendix containing the Notitia Dignitatum, along with a text that is more accurate than any of the printed editions.
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An attempt to produce a reliable text of the Historia Brittonum as conceived by its original authors. As explained in the introduction, it attempts to reconstruct the earliest state of the text that can be recovered without entering into... more
An attempt to produce a reliable text of the Historia Brittonum as conceived by its original authors. As explained in the introduction, it attempts to reconstruct the earliest state of the text that can be recovered without entering into hypotheses about the ultimate archetype. It's based on what I call the Merminian Recension (because it was produced for the court of Merfyn Frych), which is the earliest state of the Historia I can be confident about. It also includes sections added by later recensions, again in the earliest state I can reconstruct for each addition.
One surprise: it's not _Historia Brittonum_ but Genealogia Brittonum. Given that so many people haven't yet accepted that we shouldn't be referring to it as 'Nennius', I don't expect anyone to take my reconstructed title seriously.
One surprise: it's not _Historia Brittonum_ but Genealogia Brittonum. Given that so many people haven't yet accepted that we shouldn't be referring to it as 'Nennius', I don't expect anyone to take my reconstructed title seriously.