Start Date
5-3-2024 10:40 AM
End Date
5-3-2024 11:50 AM
Disciplines
History
Subjects
Church history, Middle Ages -- Social aspects, Witham River (England), Witham Valley (England)
Abstract
This paper, using proven archeological evidence, time-specific literature, and references on monastic life, local tradition, and social concepts of mythology, draws a clear connection between the prevalent European Iron Age practice of ritual votive and weapon deposition into bodies of water and the state of Christianity in middle ages Great Britain. The ceremonial county of Lincolnshire, particularly the Witham Valley, is featured heavily for its high concentration of deposition and monastic sites in a verifiably close distance of each other. The paper explores the possibility that the existence of these pre-Christian ritual sites remained relevant throughout the Roman period through the practice of syncretization, and eventually became intrinsically associated with the land, until the construction of monasteries and the determination of land use during the middle ages was affected by the spiritual connotations the ritual-associated land maintained. The second half of the paper focuses on selected writings of the Christian era that featured weapon deposition as well as prominent plot elements that suggested a non-Christian influence as evidence that these practices remained relevant enough in the consciousness to be worthy of inclusion in works such as the Arthurian Cycles and several Old English poems. Through an analysis of these literary works, the archeological and geographical make-up of the monastic landscape, and the cultural contexts of both medieval and pre-Roman Britain, this paper argues that ritual deposition was a spiritually and socially significant aspect of Britain's history that had an observable impact on the religion, ritual, literature, and local lore of the British middle ages.
Keywords: Weapon deposition, Votives, River Witham, Witham Valley, Lincolnshire, Arthurian Legends, Swords, Ecclesiastical History, Monastic Architecture, Archaeology, British Archaeology, British Christianity, Rivers, Fiskerton Causeway, Causeways, Old English Poetry
Part of the panel: Preserving the Past through Contemporary Beliefs
Moderator: Professor John Ott
Creative Commons License or Rights Statement
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Included in
Marshlands and Monasteries: The Impact of Weapon Deposition on Medieval British Christianity
This paper, using proven archeological evidence, time-specific literature, and references on monastic life, local tradition, and social concepts of mythology, draws a clear connection between the prevalent European Iron Age practice of ritual votive and weapon deposition into bodies of water and the state of Christianity in middle ages Great Britain. The ceremonial county of Lincolnshire, particularly the Witham Valley, is featured heavily for its high concentration of deposition and monastic sites in a verifiably close distance of each other. The paper explores the possibility that the existence of these pre-Christian ritual sites remained relevant throughout the Roman period through the practice of syncretization, and eventually became intrinsically associated with the land, until the construction of monasteries and the determination of land use during the middle ages was affected by the spiritual connotations the ritual-associated land maintained. The second half of the paper focuses on selected writings of the Christian era that featured weapon deposition as well as prominent plot elements that suggested a non-Christian influence as evidence that these practices remained relevant enough in the consciousness to be worthy of inclusion in works such as the Arthurian Cycles and several Old English poems. Through an analysis of these literary works, the archeological and geographical make-up of the monastic landscape, and the cultural contexts of both medieval and pre-Roman Britain, this paper argues that ritual deposition was a spiritually and socially significant aspect of Britain's history that had an observable impact on the religion, ritual, literature, and local lore of the British middle ages.
Keywords: Weapon deposition, Votives, River Witham, Witham Valley, Lincolnshire, Arthurian Legends, Swords, Ecclesiastical History, Monastic Architecture, Archaeology, British Archaeology, British Christianity, Rivers, Fiskerton Causeway, Causeways, Old English Poetry
Part of the panel: Preserving the Past through Contemporary Beliefs
Moderator: Professor John Ott