Medieval Archaeology 48

Seeks to draw attention to some hitherto overlooked references to brooches in Old Irish legal texts. The references include Old English and Pictish words for brooches. The article examines the extent to which the borrowed terminology reflects an appreciation of English and Pictish brooch-types different from the Irish pseudo-penannular of the eighth century.

A reconstruction of the landscape around the `Abbot's Fish House' at Meare. The interdisciplinary approach includes both historical and landscape evidence. The techniques of historic landscape characterisation allows a series of distinct `landscape character areas' to be identified which reflect the impact that both lordship and the community had on the area. These wetlands appear to have been highly valued, both materially and symbolically. Key to the successful utilisation of this landscape was the control of water for navigation, fishing, flood prevention and powering mills -- both exploitation of its natural occurrence and its manipulation in the form of canals.

Reports on the discovery of a twelfth-century stockaded farmstead without obvious excavated parallels. At that time it is likely that the Perceton lands were run by a steward resident in the farmstead, in the name of the absentee landowner. In the early fourteenth century the land became the principal residence of a member of the Stewart family. The old stockade was removed and a moat excavated, probably around a new manor house. In the late 1400s following a period of absorption in larger estates the site again became a principal residence. This resulted in the building of a new mansion, mainly lying to the south of the excavated area. This was demolished in the 1720s, when another new owner constructed the present Perceton House. On a general note it is suggested that this type of site may be common, but rarely visible except as a cropmark, which without excavation may be mistakenly classified as prehistoric. Includes

The excavation of a cliff-top site on Ulster's north coast showed that what had been taken for a small fifteenth- or sixteenth-century castle had a more complex history. An early phase may have been a prehistoric or protohistoric promontory fort which was re-used as a base for a small detachment of troops in the sixteenth century. Shortly after 1600 it was chosen as the site for a castle by Sir Randall MacDonnell, later Earl of Antrim; it was built to serve as an administrative centre rather than as a military or residential place. This shows how such medieval structures continued to be built in Gaelic-speaking Ulster and Scotland, and were seen as part of the organisation of estates in a medieval fashion even at this date. Includes

Reviews the evidence for royal sites or `palaces' in London between AD 650 and 850, with particular reference to recent reappraisals of archaeological investigations in the Cripplegate area of the City and at the Treasury, Whitehall.

Numerous short, separately authored summaries of excavations, survey work and the activities of groups, relating to medieval archaeology in Britain and Ireland in 2003. Arranged alphabetically by country; within countries by county; and within counties by town or parish. With introduction and a section on specialist group reports. Also includes