The Tribal Hidage, attributed to the 7th century, records the named groups and polities of early Anglo-Saxon England and the taxation tribute due from their lands and surpluses. Whilst providing some indication of relative wealth and its distribution, rather little can be deduced from the Hidage concerning the underlying economic and social realities of the communities documented. Sue Harrington and the late Martin Welch have adopted a new approach to these issues, based on archaeological information from 12,000 burials and 28,000 objects of the period AD 450–650. The nature, distribution and spatial relationships of settlement and burial evidence are examined over time against a background of the productive capabilities of the environment in which they are set, the availability of raw materials, evidence for metalworking and other industrial/craft activities, and communication and trade routes. This has enabled the identification of central areas of wealth that influenced places around them. Key within this period was the influence of the Franks who may have driven economic exploitation by building on the pre-existing Roman infrastructure of the south-east. Frankish material culture was as widespread as that of the Kentish people, whose wealth is evident in many well-furnished graves, but more nuanced approaches to wealth distribution are apparent further to the West, perhaps due to ongoing interaction with communities who maintained an essentially ‘Romano-British’ way of life.

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• List of Plates
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Chapter 1: The Early Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms of Southern Britain: evidence and questions
  • Introduction
  • The kingdoms in the written sources (text by Martin Welch, edited by Barbara Yorke)
  • Research questions
    • What are the data?
    • What is the landscape context of that data?
    • Why is the data located within this context – what were the criteria behind site location selection?
    • How can this evidence be explained and interpreted – is this evidence of wealth creation and state formation?
  • Methodology
  • Overview of the contents of this volume
• Chapter 2: The Early Anglo-Saxon Census
  • Southern Britain south of the Thames and the archaeological data
  • The database
    • Data-quality assessment
    • The dating framework
  • The sites
  • Populating the landscape
    • These individuals and their graves
    • Phasing the burials
  • The artefacts
    • Type
    • Provenance
      • Regional
      • Kentish; Saxon; Anglian; Wessex
      • Romano-British
      • British West
      • Curated/Roman; Curated/Jutlandic
      • Kentish/
      • Imported
      • Imported/
    • Position in grave
    • Material component
    • Object weights
  • Findspots and their contents
  • Other datasets used
    • Late Roman sites
    • Place-name evidence
  • Concluding remarks
• Chapter 3: The Environmental Context of Southern Britain
  • Introduction
  • Mapping the evidence
  • The geology of southern Britain
  • Definitions of landscape units
  • Soil types and fertility: the mapping of land use potential
  • A new definition of landscape units in southern Britain
  • Climate
  • Rivers and floodplains
  • Palaeo-environmental evidence
  • Woodland
• Chapter 4: Travelling and Using the Land- and Sea-Scapes
  • Coastal erosion and tide patterns
  • Changes to the southern coast of Britain
  • Roads, droveways and trackways south of the Thames
  • Agricultural practices
  • Pastoral practices
  • The environmental evidence from selected excavation reports for southern Britain
    • The Upper Thames Valley and chalklands to the south
    • Central chalk lands to the south coast
    • The eastern area of the Thames, the Weald and the coast
    • The western area
  • Conclusions
• Chapter 5: Sites, Locations and Soils
  • Introduction
  • Theories of site location
  • Settlement and wealth in the three kingdoms
    • Kent
    • Wessex
    • Sussex
  • What was the spatial relationship between early cemeteries and their parent settlements?
    • Case study: The Lower Ouse Valley, East Sussex
  • Where were the sites with the earliest artefactual evidence?
  • What are the spatial relationships of the cemeteries and settlements to routeways and other topographical features?
  • What kinds of soils do the cemetery/settlement communities occupy for their resource base and how does this compare with those occupied by the Later Roman sites? Were there spatial and temporal variations in site selection criteria?
    • Roman sites
    • Early Anglo-Saxon complexes
  • What relationships can be determined between the place-name data and the phase A and early phase B sites (AD 450–600)?
  • Conclusions
• Chapter 6: Surrey: A Case Study
  • Surrey in the documentary sources
  • The archaeological evidence
  • Conclusions
• Chapter 7: A Common Wealth in Iron?
  • Introduction
  • Sources of iron ore
  • The regional settlement pattern and proximity to iron ore deposits
  • The processes of iron working
  • Iron working in Roman Britain
  • Iron working in the Western Roman Empire
  • Iron working in the northern European Barbaricum in the study period (AD 450–650)
  • Iron working in southern Britain AD 450–650 and later
  • Discussion
• Chapter 8: Community Wealth in Iron Compared
  • Iron case study 1: shield bosses (AD 450–700)
  • Iron case study 2: swords (AD 450–700)
  • Iron case study 3: knives (AD 450–700)
  • The iron-wealth over time and space (AD 450–700)
    • Phase A comparative study
    • Phase B comparative study
    • Phase C comparative study
  • Conclusions on the value of iron in the study region and period
• Chapter 9: A Restricted Wealth in Copper Alloys?
  • European copper alloy production
  • Copper alloy production in Britain
  • Weights of copper alloy artefacts
  • Community access to copper alloy material over time and space
    • Phase A comparative study
    • Phase B comparative study
    • Phase C comparative study
  • Copper alloy case study 1: buckle loops and plates
  • Copper alloy case study 2: bowls and escutcheons
    • Phase A distribution of copper alloy bowls
    • Phase B distribution of copper alloy bowls
    • Phase C distribution of copper alloy bowls
    • Sheet vessel fragments
    • Escutcheons
  • Conclusions on copper alloy bowl distributions
• Chapter 10: Esoteric Materials: Amber, Amethyst, Gold and Silver
  • Case study: amber beads
  • Case study: amethyst beads
  • Conclusions concerning amber and amethyst bead usage and distribution
  • The role of precious metals: gold and silver
  • Gold
    • Phase A gold distribution
    • Phases B and C gold distribution
  • Silver
    • Phase A silver distributions
    • Phase B silver distributions
    • Phase C silver distributions
  • Conclusions
• Chapter 11: External Forces? A Review of the Frankish Influence within Southern Britain
• Chapter 12: The Frankish Data Examined
  • Research questions
  • Phase A Frankish data
    • Frankish artefacts in Kent and Surrey
    • Isle of Wight
    • Westwards from the East Sussex coast
    • Central Wiltshire and the Salisbury Plain
    • Upper Thames Valley
    • Conclusions relating to Phase A
  • Phase B Frankish data
  • Phase C Frankish data
  • Frankish weapon burials
  • Conclusions
• Chapter 13: Synthesis: Beneath the Tribal Hidage
• Bibliography
• Plates