Roman Infrastructure in Early Medieval Britain: The Adaptations of the Past in Text and Stone (The Early Medieval North Atlantic)

Early Medieval Britain was more Roman than we think. The Roman Empire left vast infrastructural resources on the island. These resources lay buried not only in dirt and soil, but also in texts, laws, chronicles, charters, even churches and landscapes. This book uncovers them and shows how they shaped Early Medieval Britain. Infrastructures, material and symbolic, can work in ways that are not immediately obvious and exert an influence long after their creators have gone. Infrastructure can also rest dormant and be reactivated with a changed function, role and appearance. This is not a simple story of continuity and discontinuity: It is a story of adaptation and transformation, of how the Roman infrastructural past was used and re-used, and also how it influenced the later societies of Britain. Cover 1 Table of Contents 8 List of Abbreviations 10 Acknowledgements 12 Prologue 14 I. Frameworks: From Historiography to the Principal Terms 22 1. Infrastructure 22 2. Governance Resource 24 3. Continuity 27 4. Re-Use 33 5. City 36 II. Movements: Charters and Roman Transport Infrastructure 44 1. Writing Roads Down: Roman Roads in Documentary Practice 44 2. The Eastern Charters 50 2.1 Source Introduction 50 2.2 Roads and Bridges in Boundary Clauses 52 2.3 State of Maintenance 62 2.4 Obligations and Burdens 65 3. The Western Charters 72 3.1 Source Introduction 72 3.2 Roads in Western Charters 75 3.3 Alienation 79 4. Conclusions 82 III. Accomodations: Roman Urban Spaces in Post-Roman and Early Medieval Britain 84 1. A Very Long Goodbye: Recognising Roman Urbanism in Britain 84 2. Urban Spaces in the Sub-Roman Period (c. 382-c. 442) 88 2.1 Transformations of Roman Towns in Britain 88 2.2 409/410 – the Year(s) Nothing Happened? 92 2.3 Candidates for Limited Urban Survival 95 2.4 Coins and Urban Spaces 99 2.5 Problematising the Shift 101 3. Urban Spaces in the Pre-Conversion Period (c. 442-597) 109 3.1 Tax-Gathering and Re-Use of Roman Towns 109 3.2 Limited Urban Functions and the Idea of Multifocal Governance 114 4. Urban Spaces in the Conversion Period and the Times of Bede (597-735) 121 4.1 The Strategies of Activation 121 4.2 Sources of Authority 129 4.3 Between ‘Continuity of Place’ and ‘Urban Continuity’ 132 4.4 Perceiving Roman Urban Spaces 135 5. Conclusions 141 IV. Spaces: The Church and What Rome Left 144 1. Tinkering with the Past: the Church and the Inheritance of Rome 144 2. Law and Space 145 2.1 Regulating the Role of the Church 145 2.2 Acquiring and Granting Space 147 3. Symbolical Geographies 156 3.1 The ‘Christian Foundation Legend’ and Roman Remains 156 3.2 Recreating Rome 163 3.3 Reoccupying Urban Spaces as Ecclesiastical Capitals 175 4. Memory and Infrastructure 182 4.1 Whithorn and Remembering Rome 182 4.2 Wilfrid and the Importing of Memory 186 5. Conclusions 193 Epilogue 196 Bibliography 200 List of Maps 9 1 Post-Roman Britain 6 2 Post-Roman West and important places mentioned in the text 7 List of Figures 9 Fig. 1-3. The phases of the creation of the symbolical landscape in Kent 175 Early Medieval Britain is more Roman than we think. The Roman Empire left vast infrastructural resources on the island. These resources lay buried not only in dirt and soil, but also in texts, laws, chronicles - even charters, churches, and landscapes. This book uncovers them and shows how they shaped Early Medieval Britain. Infrastructure, material and symbolic, can work in ways that are not immediately obvious and exert an influence long after the builders have gone. Infrastructure can also rest dormant and be reactivated with a changed function, role and appearance. This is not a simple story of continuity and discontinuity: it is a story of transformation, of how the Roman infrastructural past was used and re-used, and also how it influenced the later societies of Britain. Mateusz Fafinski. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. Electronic Reproduction. Baltimore, Md Available Via World Wide Web.