The Age of Sutton Hoo: The Seventh Century in North-western Europe

Martin Carver

Boydell Press, 1992 - History - 406 pages

The Age of Sutton Hoo runs from the fifth to the eighth century AD - the age which separates the fall of the Roman Empire from the emergence of the nation-states that have endured down to the present day. This is a dark and difficult age, where hard evidence is rare, but glittering and richly varied: 'myths, king-lists, placenames, sagas, settlements, runic inscriptions, palaces, belt-buckles, post-holes, middens and graves, ' says the editor, 'are all grist to our mill.'. This volume celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of the discovery of that most famous burial of the early middle ages: the great treasure now in the British Museum, unearthed from the centre of a ninety-foot-long ship buried in the sand beneath a mound on remote Suffolk heathland at Sutton Hoo. It also marks the end of the major campaign of excavations carried out there over the past decade, which involved the widest possible range of disciplines. The scholars whose work is gathered here represent, together with Martin Carver's concluding chapter summarising the results of the latest excavations, the current state of knowledge about this extraordinary site; that it still has secrets to reveal is shown by the last-minute discovery of a striking burial of a young noble with his horse and grave goods.

Contents

• structures of power and society in early East Anglia: 3
• The Late Roman and AngloSaxon Settlement Pattern in the Sandlings: 25
• the current state of knowledge: 39
• A Chronology for Suffolk PlaceNames: 53
• Beowulf and the East Anglian Royal Pedigree: 65
• Kings Gesiths and Thegns: 75
• Burial Practice in Seventh and EighthCentury England: 83
• The SeventhCentury Cremation Burial in Asthall Barrow: 95
• AngloSaxon Symbolism: 131
• the AngloSaxon weapon: 149
• Royal Power and Royal Symbols in Beowulf: 167
• Christianity in Sixth and SeventhCentury Southumbria: 175
• AngloSaxon Vocabulary as a Reflection of Material Culture: 185
• western and northern Britain: 205
• The State of Pictland in the Age of Sutton Hoo: 217
• Frankish Hegemony in England: 235
• Royal Burials among the Franks: 243
• The Undiscovered Grave of King Clovis: 255
• an Austrasian perspective: 265
• Denmark in a European: 279
• a Norwegian centre in a: 301
• an update: 315
• Human sacrifice in the Late Pagan Period in NorthWestern Europe: 331
• POSTSCRIPT: 341
• Bibliography: 373

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Age of Sutton Hoo: The Seventh Century in North-western Europe
• Editor: Martin Carver
• Edition: illustrated, reprint
• Publisher: Boydell Press, 1992
• ISBN: 0851153615, 9780851153612
• Length: 406 pages
• Subjects: History / Europe / General; History / Medieval; Social Science / Archaeology