Description
Book SynopsisIn all of the literature on Anglo-Saxon England, rarely has the question of social class been confronted head-on. The Anglo-Saxon Elite: Northumbrian Society in the Long Eighth Century draws upon recent research into topics such as religious practice, emotions, daily life, and intellectual culture to investigate how the aristocracy of Northumbria maintained social dominance over wider society. Moreover, this monograph suggests that the crisis that brought an end to Northumbria as an independent kingdom was the product of the social contradictions produced by the ruling class as social domination developed over time. The analysis is divided into three broad parts – production, circulation, and consumption – both as a nod to Marxist historiography and also to signal a commitment to a methodology that situates the subject within a global context.
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements
Abbreviations
Introduction
1. The Aristocracy’s Appearance
Introduction
1. Nouns for aristocrats: labels
2. Aristocrats as warriors
3. Aristocratic Women
4. Social Mobility? The cases of Imma and Caedmon
5. The crystallization of the aristocracy: the Durham
Liber Vitae Conclusion
2. Production: Classes and Class Relations
Introduction
1. Concepts and Definitions
2. Why is the eighth century a ‘long’ one?
3. Forces of Production and Means of Production, at Sherburn (N. Yorks)
Conclusion
3. Circulation
1. Land donation
2. Circulation, Coins and Coinage
Conclusion
4. Time, History and Class through narratives
Introduction
1. History and Ideological reproduction
2. Narratives, Form and Content
3. The past and its senses in Anglo-Saxon Society: the vernacular and Latin
4. Bede and his works
5. The
Historia Regum Conclusion
5. Consumption: Aristocratic Eating
Introduction
1. Types of evidence available
2. Fasting and Feasting
3. Flixborough
Conclusion
6. The End: Death
Introduction
1. Death as a form of time reckoning
2. Periods, Chronology and their meaning in Archaeology
3. Clerics, jewellery and status
4. Wills: reproduction through death
5. Rites of Death
Conclusion
Conclusion
Index
List of Figures
