[...]... restricting medieval developments One of the important questions about artefacts is their role in shaping differences between different regions, or in creating integration To examine this, the book reviews the whole of mainland Britain. 3 A long-standing role of artefact interpretation has been to consider whether there are things so distinctive and so numerous that they must have left their place of origin... This distinction seems to have applied in the remarkable recent discovery at Patching, West Sussex, of twenty-three gold and twenty-seven silver coins, two gold rings, and a quantity of scrap silver, including a silver chape from the end of a leather scabbard, and bits of broken Adapting to Life Without the Legions 11 Fig 1.3 The two gold rings and the silver scabbard-chape from the Patching hoard,... now has to be explained why fresh coins were not added to them over the years, since whoever owned the Patching hoard had been able to acquire some Patching may represent something more akin to the Traprain Law hoard than to any in Roman Britain Not only do its pieces of silver bullion seem to be deliberate units of a weight system,10 but the two gold rings may have been intended as coin-substitutes—they... it 8 Adapting to Life Without the Legions On the other hand, the amount of gold extracted from Dolaucothi in central Wales is unlikely to have been enough to account for all the jewellery at Thetford and Hoxne; the gold coins known as solidi were certainly not minted in late Roman Britain, yet more than 500 were in the latter hoard alone All the silver coins—nearly 15,000 at Hoxne—were minted abroad... visible and a direct reflection of social standing Kitchenware is rarely mentioned, except when the food and drink prepared or stored in it changed in ways that affected lifestyles in a major way—or, admittedly inconsistently, 2 Introduction when its distribution provides substantial evidence of availability, trading patterns, or purchasing power, serving as a model for other products In the same way, things... and disunity Because the emphasis of the book is on the artefacts that people used in order to show their affiliations and status,2 it says little about such things as household items Locks and keys, for instance, were in most periods primarily functional; important as they are for showing the need for security in medieval buildings, they were rarely made with an eye on what people were going to think... the Romans’ abandonment, and therefore less likely to insist on retention of their established ways of talking and doing things.30 Cremations were usually in urns, of shapes and with decoration that also hark back to north Germany and Scandinavia, notably faces and stamped animals, birds, and what look like oared ships These regional distributions are not without overlap, but it has been pointed out that... sudden death and other afflictions Informal as such things may appear, they are an indication of the mindset of their time, and if it is true that they were falling out of use in the early part of the sixteenth century, they present a way of seeing how some of the changes made during the Reformation could have been acceptable.18 Change and the reasons for it are a main focus of debate in medieval studies.19... major source of information used in this book has also increased in quantity in the last thirty years, as many newly printed texts of documents and commentaries upon them have been published Poems, histories, inventories, and expenditure accounts may all contain information about the buying, selling, and use of objects, some more directly than others, but all allow inferences to be drawn about the... alliances, perhaps through a marriage and a dowry payment A hoard like Patching represented success, showing that here was someone whom overseas kings were anxious to cultivate by sending him gifts, or who was able to get gold and silver in return for slaves and other booty won in raids.15 Patching is near a large cemetery at Highdown, in which are burials containing objects that, before the hoard was . Communities in North-West Europe 400–900 Helena Hamerow GOLD AND GILT, POTS AND PINS Possessions and People in Medieval Britain DAVID A. HINTON 3 3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp Oxford University. regions, or in creating integration. To examine this, the book reviews the whole of mainland Britain. 3 A long-standing role of arte- fact interpretation has been to consider whether there are things.