This PDF ile of your paper in ASSAH 15 belongs to the publishers Oxbow Books and is their copyright. As author you are licenced to make up to 50 offprints from it, but beyond that you may not publish it on the World Wide Web or in any other form. Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History 15 Edited by Sally Crawford and Helena Hamerow Oxford University School of Archaeology Published by the Oxford University School of Archaeology Institute of Archaeology Beaumont Street Oxford Distributed by Oxbow Books 10 Hythe Bridge Street, Oxford, OX1 2EW, UK Tel: 01865 241249 Fax: 01865 794449 Distributed in North America by The David Brown Book Company PO Box 511, Oakville, CT, 06779, USA www.oxbowbooks.com © Oxford University School of Archaeology and individual authors, 2008 ISBN 978 1 905905 10 2 ISSN 0264 5254 A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library Cover image: Belt buckle from Updown, Eastry, Kent. Courtesy of Martin Welch. Typeset by Oxbow Books Printed in Great Britain by The Short Run Press, Exeter Foreword Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History is an annual series concerned with the archaeology and history of England and its neighbours during the Anglo-Saxon period. ASSAH offers researchers an opportunity to publish new work in an interdisciplinary and multi-disciplinary forum which allows for a diversity of approaches and subject matter. Contributions which place Anglo-Saxon England in its international context are as warmly welcomed as those which focus on England itself. Papers submitted to ASSAH must be comprehensible to non-specialist readers. They must, furthermore, conform to the journal’s house style. A copy of the style-sheet is available on-line, at: http://web.arch.ox.ac. uk/assah. A hard copy can be obtained from the Editors. All papers are peer-reviewed. The Editors are grateful to the contributors to this volume for their prompt and eficient responses, and to those peer reviewers who have taken the time to read and comment upon the papers in this volume. Thanks also go to the Marc Fitch Fund and to SLR Consulting for generous subventions towards the costs of the publication of this volume of ASSAH. All papers for consideration for future volumes should be sent to the Editors: Dr. Helena Hamerow and Dr. Sally Crawford (Helena.hamerow@arch.ox.ac.uk, Sally.crawford@arch.ox.ac.uk) ASSAH Series Editors Institute of Archaeology 34–6 Beaumont Street Oxford OX1 2PG Contents List of Contributors Martin Welch Report on Excavations of the Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Updown, Eastry, Kent vii 1 Laurence Hayes and Timothy Malim The Date and Nature of Wat’s Dyke: a Reassessment in the Light of Recent Investigations at Gobowen, Shropshire 147 Steven Bassett The Middle and Late Anglo-Saxon Defences of Western Mercian Towns 180 Simon Draper The Signiicance of Old English Burh in Anglo-Saxon England 240 Jane Kershaw The Distribution of the ‘Winchester’ Style in Late Saxon England: Metalwork Finds from the Danelaw 254 D. M. Hadley Warriors, Heroes and Companions: Negotiating Masculinity in Viking-Age England 270 Contributors Steven Bassett Department of Medieval History, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT Simon Draper The Victoria County History for Gloucestershire, Gloucestershire Archives, Clarence Row, Alvin Street, Gloucester GL1 3DW Dawn Hadley Department of Archaeology and Prehistory, University of Shefield, Northgate House, West Street, Shefield S1 4ET Laurence Hayes SLR Consulting, Mytton Mill, Forton Heath, Montford Bridge, Shrewsbury SY4 1HA Jane Kershaw Institute of Archaeology, University of Oxford, 34–36 Beaumont Street, Oxford OX1 2PG Timothy Malim SLR Consulting, Mytton Mill, Forton Heath, Montford Bridge, Shrewsbury SY4 1HA Martin Welch Institute of Archaeology, University College London, 31–34 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PY Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History 15, 2008 The Distribution of the ‘Winchester’ Style in Late Saxon England: Metalwork Finds from the Danelaw Jane F. Kershaw The ‘Winchester’ style captures the foliate and zoomorphic motifs characteristic of English art from the mid-tenth to eleventh centuries. Traditionally, the style has been seen as a southern English phenomenon, closely tied to the reformed monastic communities in which it was thought the style originated. New inds of metalwork, largely recovered through metal-detecting, encourage a re-evaluation of the style’s distribution and signiicance. Discoveries of strap-ends and other dress items in the ‘Winchester’ style show that the style permeated much further north and east than was thought. These items demonstrate that the style was applied to an array of secular artefacts, of varying quality. This paper outlines the appearance of the style on common dress items and ittings, revealing the widespread distribution of ‘Winchester’ style metalwork within the Danelaw. It presents evidence for the production of the style within the Scandinavian area of settlement and relates its appearance and use to broader questions of social and cultural identity. Introduction The ‘Winchester’ style refers to the art produced under the inluence of monastic reform in Anglo-Saxon England from the mid-tenth to eleventh centuries. Although chiely used to describe a distinct type of illuminated manuscript, the term can also refer to ornamentation adorning contemporary stone and ivory carvings and metalwork. Traditionally, the Winchester style has been viewed as a southern English phenomenon, predominantly produced within an ecclesiastical milieu. It is the argument of this paper that new inds of metalwork, uncovered through recent excavation and metal-detecting and recorded by the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS), signiicantly alter this picture. It is now apparent that the Winchester school crossed the Danelaw boundary and appeared on secular dress accessories, most notably strap-ends. This has implications for our understanding of both the Winchester style and its context and distribution, and social and cultural interaction within the Danelaw. In particular, a study of Winchester-style metalwork contributes to the increasing scholarly interest in how the form, decoration and distribution of material culture was used by inhabitants of the Danelaw to construct and express social identity.1 Traditional Approaches to the Winchester Style Illuminated manuscripts in the Winchester style are distinguished by a number of stylistic and technical features, many, but not all, of which derive from Continental traditions. Most recognizable is the appearance of heavy borders illed with lorid Carolingian-derived acanthus leaves, which frame expertly drawn, colourful igures.2 The igures themselves are also Continental in origin, inspired by models from Rheims and Metz, with luttering drapery and occasionally enlarged hands.3 Outline drawing is a further feature of this school, alongside elaborate initials decorated with foliage, interlacing stems and biting animal heads, a motif familiar in Anglo-Saxon art of the ninth century.4 Classic Winchester-style ornamentation is seen in a number of tenth-century manuscripts, but it is in the Benedictional of St Æthelwold, produced in Winchester itself around 971–984, with its acanthus-illed gold bar frames and vividly coloured igures, that the culmination of the style is best seen.5 There has been some debate about whether the term ‘Winchester School’ is a misnomer for a style with a much broader southern inspiration and spread. This is particularly the case concerning the provenance of Winchester-decorated manuscripts, which have been linked to monastic houses in the south, south-west and The Distribution of the ‘Winchester’ Style in Late Saxon England: Metalwork Finds from the Danelaw east of England, including Canterbury, Ely, Bury St Edmunds and Glastonbury.6 More recently the provenance of other media in the style has also come under scrutiny, particularly by Hinton, who has called into doubt evidence that has traditionally ascribed textiles, paintings and metalwork to the monastic see.7 Few scholars, however, including Hinton, deny the overall inluence of Winchester on artistic developments in tenth- and eleventh-century English art and many have conirmed the West Saxon capital as the true home and focal point of the style.8 Winchester-style ornamentation has been identiied not just on illuminated manuscripts but on a wide variety of other media, some of which is only gradually coming to light. Zarnecki has drawn attention to the acanthus motifs typical of the School used to decorate church capitals and bases, as in the chancel arch of St Mary’s Church in Bibury, Gloucestershire, highlighting rare examples of manuscript-inspired stone carving.9 Figural carvings in ivory have received the most scholarly attention. As early as 1924, Brøndsted recognized an early eleventh-century walrus crozier handle found at Alcester, Warwickshire, as displaying relief-carved acanthus leaf and animal igures characteristic of the School.10 A number of miniature walrus ivory carvings have also been demonstrated to be in the Winchester style.11 Perhaps the most famous of these, a triangular panel depicting two addorsed angels with enlarged hands and luttering drapery, has igures which are closely paralleled in the Charter of the New Minster, from Winchester.12 From this brief description of some of the more traditional objects displaying Winchester ornamentation, it is clear that they share two of the key characteristics of the illuminated manuscripts: they have a southern distribution, arguably relecting a Winchester focus, and come from a predominantly ecclesiastical milieu, hardly surprising since the art was intimately associated with Benedictineinspired monastic reform. The southern provenance of the Winchester style and its role in bringing a new spirit to English monasticism has, on the whole, set the tone for scholars’ understanding and interpretation of the art form. It is this understanding which, I argue, needs to be revised in light of recent inds of metalwork. In contrast to the distinctive igural styles of the ivories and manuscripts, metalwork in the Winchester style is principally identiied through the display of Carolingian-derived foliage, which, on more elaborate examples, is inhabited with confronted pairs of naturalistic birds or quadrupeds.13 The repertoire of Winchesterstyle metalwork can encompass a variety of motifs, but characteristic of the School is symmetrically-arranged foliage executed in openwork and high relief with open, bifurcating tendrils ending in lobed volutes and a central stem which springs from an inverse animal mask.14 Inhabited foliage motifs contain animals or birds with long necks, backward-turned heads and biting or gaping jaws.15 Recent inds of metalwork of Carolingian date from Germany suggest that the treatment of these 255 motifs, including the inhabited vine scroll and bird motifs, may have developed from Continental rather than Insular sources and irmly root the cultural origins of the Winchester style, as it appeared on metalwork, in Carolingian traditions.16 Metal objects in the Winchester style have yet to receive the attention commanded by manuscripts and ivories. Indeed, twenty years ago, the tenth and eleventh centuries were thought to represent a ‘massive lacunae’ in surviving metalwork.17 Before the advent of metaldetecting, metalwork that had survived in England had come predominantly from urban or church-based excavations, and had been overwhelmingly ecclesiastical in nature. In 1964, David Wilson was able to identify only a handful of metal objects that displayed acanthus motifs in the late tenth-century Winchester style, most of which were liturgical items with a Continental provenance. Among these items were mounts from a crozier at Cologne Cathedral, with classic Carolingian-derived foliates, and the frame of a portable alter, now in the Musée de Cluny, with igures close in style to the igures of St Peter and St Michael in the New Minster Liber Vitae, produced at Winchester around 1031.18 A cruet, or small jug, with panels depicting pairs of birds with biting, upward-turned beaks, irst discussed by Kendrick, and three copper-alloy censer covers, now in the British Museum, were also included in Wilson’s small corpus.19 Examples of secular metalwork in the Winchester style have, until recently, been much rarer. A small group of secular, utilitarian items with Winchester-style ornamentation was identiied by Kendrick over sixty years ago. Three strap-ends and a mount shared common decorative motifs typical of the style which, Kendrick argued, irmly placed them in a tenth-century tradition. 20 Other objects now assigned to the Winchester style include a small number of artefacts which are entirely without zoomorphic elements, but which retain the typical acanthus design. A strap-end from a burial at Bowcombe Down on the Isle of White, originally identiied erroneously as a late-Roman artefact, belongs to this category, as does a quadrangular bronze mount from Southampton.21 A copper-alloy strap-end displaying uninhabited foliage from Meols in Cheshire offers a further antiquarian example of this category.22 More recent inds from excavations have slightly expanded this small catalogue. An oval copper-alloy mount recovered from Shakenoak villa in Oxfordshire, originally published as Romano-British, is now thought to date to the tenth or eleventh century on account of its symmetrically-placed bipeds and foliage.23 An elaborate series of relief-decorated strap-ends with Winchesterstyle decoration have been uncovered from the extensive excavations at Winchester itself.24 These strap-ends display both inhabited and uninhabited foliage but among the group is an item from a mid-tenth century grave believed to be the inest example of all strap-ends decorated in the style.25 It displays very inely executed pierced openwork 256 Jane F. Kershaw with stylized foliage and paired, symmetrical biting birds, which can be compared to the creatures and foliage in the border of the dedication page in a copy of Bede’s Lives of Cuthbert, produced in the south-west of England in the 930’s.26 Two other strap-ends from Winchester, both with uninhabited symmetrical plant patterns, and a buckle with roughly applied paired birds, relect simpliied versions of the Winchester style and post-date the examples with inhabited foliage.27 Three out of the four objects in Kendrick’s corpus come from eastern England: the mount from Thetford, and the Ixworth and Wilbury Hill strap-ends, from Suffolk and Hertfordshire respectively.28 By and large, however, the Winchester style as depicted on known items of metalwork appears to have a southern distribution, with the inest examples of the style coming from Winchester itself.29 It is perhaps not surprising then that scholars have characterized ornamental Winchester-style objects as, like the manuscripts, a purely southern English phenomenon. Wilson saw the motifs on objects produced by the Winchester School as ‘a style of south-east England in the irst half of the tenth century’ with metalwork from this period virtually absent in the north and sculpture at northern ecclesiastical centres such as Durham displaying little in the way of tenth-century ornament.30 The boundary with the area of Scandinavian settlement in England, the Danelaw, was thought to mark the most northern and easterly limits of the Winchester style. In spite of his own evidence for the presence of the Winchester style in the east of England, Kendrick argued that the Viking presence actively stiled the development of ‘Christian’ art which had lourished ‘in the victorious West Saxon districts of England from which the Danes had been expelled’. There was no doubt in Kendrick’s mind that, had there not been such a settlement, ‘the acanthus would have lourished…and there would have been a Northumbrian ‘Winchester’ style. It was the Vikings who put back the clock’.31 Recent Discoveries of Winchester-style Metalwork from the Danelaw Such views are now increasingly undermined by new inds of metalwork from regions which were once part of the Danelaw. These stray inds, recovered by metaldetecting and recorded by the Portable Antiquities Scheme, require that we re-examine earlier assumptions about the Winchester style. Small, utilitarian, secular items of metalwork, predominantly strap-ends but also single examples of a mount and hooked-tag, reveal a northern and easterly rural distribution within the Danelaw. They bear testimony to the versatility and widespread popularity of the Winchester style in late Saxon England and are suggestive of the broad qualitative range of artefacts to which the style was applied. Gabor Thomas’ doctoral thesis irst drew attention to the easterly spread of his Class E, category 1 Winchester type strap-ends, dated on stylistic grounds to the tenth-century.32 He noted seventeen examples of this tongue-shaped type, which displayed either pure Winchester acanthus foliage, inhabited foliates or devolved, stylised scroll, found north of the Danelaw, a concentration greater than that from the ‘traditional heartland’ of the style.33 In addition to providing evidence that the Winchester style circulated in the Danelaw, Thomas has raised the possibility that it was also manufactured there.34 The following discussion of inds now recorded on the PAS database largely conirms Thomas’ indings and offers an interpretation of their importance in the context of Scandinavian settlement in the Danelaw. It is, of course, important to highlight the problems inherent in interpreting metal-detected inds. Different land-use patterns between eastern and western England have resulted in a wealth of inds being recorded from the eastern counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Lincolnshire, where most land is arable and metal-detecting widespread, but signiicantly fewer from central and western England, where pastoral farming is the norm. As we shall see, Winchester-style objects within the Danelaw reveal very clearly this eastern bias. Further, metal-detected items are stray inds recovered from the topsoil (or ploughsoil) and thus lack an archaeological context and associated stratigraphy possessed by items uncovered in urban or rural settlement excavations. In some cases, their indspots are not precisely recorded, and make reference only to a ind locale of one square kilometer. Nonetheless, as chance inds, metal-detected items also beneit the overall archaeological record, balancing out the bias towards traditional areas of focus: burials, settlements and hoards.35 In addition to the strap-ends recorded by Thomas in 2000, sixty-ive further items decorated in the Winchester School style have been found in the Danelaw territories from metal-detecting activity alone: twenty-seven from Norfolk, sixteen from Lincolnshire, nine from Suffolk, three inds from both Cambridgeshire and Nottinghamshire, two from Leicestershire and Northamptonshire and single inds from Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Derbyshire (Fig. 1). The vast majority of these inds, sixty-three, are strap-ends, with one hooked-tag and one mount. The corpus is substantially expanded when antiquarian discoveries, artefacts in Historic Environment Records (HERs) – formerly known as Sites and Monuments Records (SMRs) – and inds from excavations are taken into account. An antiquarian ind of a bone strap-end from Leicester and excavated strap-ends from Middle Harling and Thetford in Norfolk and the Lloyd’s Bank and Coppergate areas of York, together with a brooch also excavated at Thetford, clearly display the Carolingian-inspired Winchester style but have not been considered here.36 A number of strap-ends appear on regional HERs, some of which are also published in county archaeological journals.37 This essay is, however, concerned predominantly with stray inds recently recorded by the Portable Antiquities The Distribution of the ‘Winchester’ Style in Late Saxon England: Metalwork Finds from the Danelaw 257 Strap-end ◆ Hooked-tag ▲ Mount County Border Danelaw Boundary 0 25 50 kms N LINCS NORTH SEA NOTTS LINCOLNSHIRE ◆ NORFOLK NORTHANTS CAMBRIDGESHIRE ▲ SUFFOLK Figure 1. Map showing the distribution of Winchester-style metalwork within the Danelaw Scheme. The items are displayed and illustrated on the Scheme’s database (available at www.inds.org.uk) and are referred to here by their PAS ‘Find-ID’. Where good quality illustrations or digital photographs of the objects exist, they have been included although, regrettably, many images displayed on the PAS database are not suitable for publication. It should also be emphasized that objects recorded by the Scheme are not necessarily representative of the wider corpus of Danelaw inds and that the total number of such items is much larger than current PAS records suggest. The Danelaw inds make up a diverse group and display the full repertoire of Winchester-style motifs. Finds can have double- or single-sided decoration, be cast in copperor lead-alloys, executed in both openwork and high-relief and can have plain or embellished surfaces. Although many items are now worn or corroded, it is clear that they display varying levels of artistic skill and craftsmanship. A small number of inds are artistically accomplished, with masterful examples of Winchester-style acanthus foliates, occasionally inhabited by naturalistic birds or animals. Most examples, however, lack the zoomorphic element and display only a heavily debased and schematic tree scroll pattern. There are also a number of rare and ‘one off’ inds, discussed further below. A small group of strap-ends from the Danelaw comprise inds with reined and skillful Winchester-style ornament, although none can be said to parallel the high caliber of decoration found in Anglo-Saxon manuscripts in the manner of the inest strap-end from the Winchester group. The most complicated Winchester-style inhabited-foliage design in the Danelaw corpus appears on an incomplete copper-alloy strap-end from Tunstall, Suffolk (SF4115, Fig. 2). On both the front and back of this object, back-toback birds with backwards-angled wings lanking a central rosette sit on branches stemming from a central trunk. Below them, two lower branches run around the back of a quadruped, probably a lion, depicted in proile with its head turned backwards and its tail in its mouth. While the top arrangement on this strap-end is typical of the Winchester School, the proiled lion may be Romanesque in inspiration. If this were the case, the Tunstall ind could be one of the latest strap-ends in the Winchester series and only the second artefact of its type to show Romanesque inluence; the other example, also with a proiled lion-like creature, comes from Hindolveston in Norfolk.38 Jane F. Kershaw 258 0 1 2 3 4 5 cms Figure 2. Strap-end from Tunstall, Suffolk (drawing by Donna Wreathall, copyright Suffolk County Council) Another strap-end with inhabited foliage comes from Hinckley in Leicestershire (LEIC-0C2B81, Fig. 3). This object has scalloped edges, a central stem issuing from a basal bulb and a spherical protrusion at the terminal. Bifurcating tendrils of leshy acanthus leaves emanate from both ends. Positioned in the middle is a pair of confronted animal heads, with rounded ears, small bored eyes and triangular-shaped faces. These cat-like masks are addorsed in typical Winchester-style fashion and their treatment can be paralleled on a number of other Winchester-style pieces, including one of the liturgical bronze censer covers, from London Bridge, and an unprovenanced bone comb, both discussed in detail by Wilson.39 The animal heads are also paralleled by those on another Leicestershire object, a bone strap-end from Highcross Street in Leicester. This object depicts four full-face animal masks, two with contorted bodies emanating from a central inverted mask and the others with deeply drilled eyes and issuing tendrils.40 The Hinckley strap-end demonstrates that Danelaw inds depict motifs which it well into the known repertoire of Winchesterstyle ornament, and suggests that some elements of the style could be common to both ecclesiastical and secular metalworking traditions. Other strap-ends with inhabited foliage include a number of cast lead examples. The terminal end of a fragmentary lead strap-end from Hibaldstow in Lincolnshire depicts a pair of confronted birds with conjoined beaks (NLM- Figure 3. Strap-end from Hinckley, Leicestershire (photo courtesy of the Portable Antiquities Scheme) Actual length 40mm. 419320). Another lead object, from Hatcliffe in North East Lincolnshire, displays a pair of addorsed birds perched either side of a veined central stem (NLM5373). Little detail survives on the birds’ heads or bodies but it appears as if foliage springs from their wings to scale the sides of the front panel and terminates at the attachment-end, itself decorated by a row on punched-dots. Another strap-end belonging to this group is a complete item from Lissington, another Lincolnshire ind (LIN-D17C35, Fig. 4). The Lissington strap-end, although somewhat crudely executed, displays classic Winchester-style inhabited foliage, namely The Distribution of the ‘Winchester’ Style in Late Saxon England: Metalwork Finds from the Danelaw a pair of confronted lizard-like creatures positioned within symmetrically-arranged bifurcating acanthus foliates, which emanate from a central spine. Other strap-ends depict well-executed Winchester-style foliates without the zoomorphic element. Characteristic of the ornament on this group of inds is a clearly deined central stem springing from an inverse animal mask or plain trefoil feature and off-shooting tendrils ending in scrolled terminals, most features of which are seen on strap-end 1060 from Winchester.41 An incomplete copper-alloy item from Barton-le-Clay in Bedfordshire is perhaps the most elegant of such inds in the Danelaw corpus (BH-7E3CD7, Fig. 5). It has scalloped edges and double-sided moulded decoration consisting of an inverse animal mask protruding from the terminal, central spine and open tendrils. Although no animals or birds inhabit the foliage, a zoomorphic inluence in the pattern of the tendrils, emphasized by a complex openwork pattern, is discernable. A further Danelaw ind decorated with ine Winchester-style foliates comes from Hindringham in Norfolk (NMS-F7A7C1). Although Figure 4. Strap-end from Lissington, Lincolnshire (photo courtesy of the Portable Antiquities Scheme) 259 worn, this item has double-sided counter-relief decoration consisting of two sets of pendant cinqefoils with elongated foliates and is, unusually, gilded. Far more numerous among Danelaw inds are strapends with classic Winchester-style features in devolved or simplistic forms. The ornament on this group of artefacts is a simpliied version of plant scroll decoration and lacks zoomorphic features. It is identiiable chiely through a symmetrical and regular openwork pattern, a good example of which is seen on an elongated strap-end from Silk Willoughby, Lincolnshire (NLM 4546, Fig. 6). The animal-head masks on these objects are often missing, or, in some instances, substituted by plain, raised triangular features (for instance, SWYOR-7DF7B5). Typically, the central stem is only subtly, if at all, deined. The acanthus scrolls are also debased, the ends appearing simply as a series of opposed sub-rectangular bosses running parallel along the edge of the strap-end, good examples of which can be seen on terminal fragments from Honnington in Lincolnshire and Croxton Kerrial in Leicestershire (NLM4781; NLM6142). On some examples, however, the foliate motifs are more developed. On a strap-end from Nottinghamshire, for instance, these appear as bifurcating tendrils which emanate from two bulbs along the central spine (LEIC-15A500). On other inds foliate motifs are given extra emphasis by leaf- or crescent-shaped openwork perforations, as on an example from Pitsford, Northamptonshire (NARC2638, Fig. 7). Although these are clearly devolved items, the more elaborate examples have double-sided moulded decoration and were clearly meant to be seen on both sides. Plant decoration and engraving in a symmetrical layout is present on both sides of a now-broken strap-end from Burnham Market, Norfolk, and an example from Seething, also in Norfolk (NMS97; NMS-1D99B4). Artefacts from this group could also be embellished and examples of gilded strap-ends are discussed further below. Figure 5. Strap-end from Barton-le-Clay, Bedfordshire (photo courtesy of the Portable Antiquities Scheme) Jane F. Kershaw 260 0 5 cms Figure 7. Strap-end from Pitsford, Northamptonshire (drawing by Mark Roughley, courtesy of the Portable Antiquities Scheme) 0 1 2 cms Figure 6. Strap-end from Silk Willoughby, Lincolnshire (drawing by Marina Elwes, courtesy of the Portable Antiquities Scheme) It should be apparent, therefore, that while this group of inds display only stylised and debased motifs, they were not necessarily ‘low quality’ pieces. The worn nature of these stray inds can make it dificult to judge just how competently a strap-end was originally rendered. On an item from Suffolk, for instance, a series of piercings in imitation of an openwork design are irregularly spaced, though this may be because they were set around a now-indiscernible motif (SF-F83BF8). However, a small number of Danelaw inds do seem to display a further level of debased ornament. The Winchester style as it appears on these items is entirely schematic; it is recognizable chiely through crude circular openwork patterns, sometimes only roughly symmetrical in layout, and occasionally by the remains of raised bosses representing tendril ends, as on a strap-end from Mautby in Norfolk (NMS-70301, Fig. 8). On a rectangular fragment of a strap-end from Gunthorpe in Norfolk the raised bosses have been subject to a further Figure 8. Strap-end from Mautby, Norfolk (photo courtesy of the Portable Antiquities Scheme) debasement and appear simply as notches around the edge of the decorated panel and attachment end (NMS-89DD25). The openwork pattern on this item is crudely cast, consisting of three roughly oval-shaped perforations. On the face of the strap-end, punched ring designs appear at random in between the openwork apertures, a common feature on strap-ends with schematic renderings of the Winchester style. Strap-ends with embellished surfaces With six strap-ends cast in lead and the remaining artefacts in copper-alloy, Winchester-style strap-ends from the Danelaw belong to the large category of ‘base-metal’ dress items thought to be widespread in tenth- and eleventhcentury England.42 Some examples, however, show traces of gilding, a technique which re-gained some popularity in the tenth-century, perhaps because of the inlux and The Distribution of the ‘Winchester’ Style in Late Saxon England: Metalwork Finds from the Danelaw 261 common late Saxon dress attachments, including strap-ends and hooked-tags, were undecorated.47 The hooked-tag and mount Figure 9. Hooked-tag from Whissonsett, Norfolk. Copyright The Trustees of the British Museum. Figure 10. Mount from Great Shelford, Cambridgeshire. Image courtesy of the Portable Antiquities Scheme inluence of gilded Carolingian strap-ends around this time.43 Of the ifty-seven copper-alloy strap-ends recorded by the PAS, three show traces of gilding, although many inds are now so corroded that evidence of original gilding is unlikely to survive (NMS-F7A7C1; NMS657; LEIC0C2B81, Fig. 3). Further examples of embellished strap-ends not recorded by the PAS include a strap-end from Shipdam in Norfolk, recorded on the county’s HER, and one of the strap-ends included in Kendrick’s catalogue.44 The latter object, from Ixworth, originally had silver inlay in its surface ornament, in the bird’s wings and plant decoration, although now only slight traces are visible.45 Several of the known Winchester-style objects with liturgical signiicance also bear traces of silver gilding or plating and, in the tradition of later ninth-century Anglo-Saxon metalwork, niello inlay.46 The evidence provided by the newly discovered strap-ends indicates that such embellishment was not limited to ecclesiastical items, but was also employed on personal dress accessories. This is of note given that inds from excavations have largely given the impression that A hooked-tag and mount are the only two other artefact types with Winchester-style decoration to have been uncovered by metal-detecting from the Danelaw and recorded by the PAS, although a brooch with Winchesterstyle birds, discussed below, was found during the Thetford excavations. While there are other parallels for the mount, the recently-discovered hooked-tag from Whissonsett in Norfolk is notable not only for being the only known example of a hooked tag with Winchesterstyle decoration, but also for being the only cast silver item in the style from the Danelaw (PAS-E897A3, Fig.9). The tag, a British Museum Treasure, comprises a circular plate and perforated projection lug, although its hook is missing.48 The plate has an incised border ring which surrounds a central domed stud and four radiating arms with expanded ends forming a cross-like motif. Each arm contains a semi-circular basal bulb and leshy, bifurcating acanthus leaves, accentuated by the use of niello inlay. The motif is a simpliied version of the Winchester-style scroll and irmly places the tag in the tenth century. The tag, probably used as a dress fastener, is a remarkable piece for demonstrating that the Winchester style adorned artefacts of precious metals in the Danelaw at a time when personal dress items in silver and gold were extremely rare. A mount from Great Shelford in Cambridgeshire, perhaps from a stirrup-strap, survives only as a fragment but may have originally been rectangular or square in form, as indicated by a surviving rivet in the upper right corner (CAM-D45F73, Fig. 10). The upper surface of the Great Shelford fragment depicts in moulded relief a trefoil feature, central stem and foliates. Only two complete openwork perforations remain, around which the decoration is somewhat dificult to decipher. It is clear, however, that the fragment depicts stylised foliates characteristic of the Winchester School. The mount from Thetford noted by Kendrick is a reminder that this item is not unique among Danelaw inds.49 Other mounts bearing Winchester-style decoration are also known south of the Danelaw. Mounts from Shakenoak and Southampton have already been mentioned, although a more recent detector ind from the Winchester area with pairs of back-to-back interlacing creatures set within a bifurcating plant with scrolled tendril ends portrays the most complex design.50 These mounts would have had varying functions; they could have been attached to dress straps, pieces of equestrian equipment or even items of furniture. Such items, together with the hooked-tag, suggest that the Winchester Style was applied to a broad range of artefact types and hint at the versatility and appeal of the style. 262 Jane F. Kershaw Production and Distribution The distribution of these artefacts clearly shows a concentration in the most easterly counties, with only a few inds recorded from the more westerly Hertfordshire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire (Fig. 1). The entirely rural distribution of these inds is also marked; there is no evidence of clustering around urban centres in Norfolk or Lincolnshire, where inds are most numerous and where evidence of such clustering is most likely to be revealed. However, given that excavated inds indicate that the Winchester style was known in urban locations, this pattern is probably the result of low levels of recovery and recording of metal-detected inds from modern built-up areas, and does not suggest that the Winchester style was conined to the rural Danelaw. Gabor Thomas’s research on ninth- and tenth-century Anglo-Scandinavian strap-ends from the Danelaw has shown that inds from the eastern Danelaw display a much wider variety of cultural and artistic inluences compared to inds from the rest of the Scandinavian settlement area.51 Thomas has identified an eclectic range of strap-ends circulating in the eastern Danelaw, including Scandinavian examples with Borre-style ringknot designs, Anglo-Scandinavian hybrids with Insular versions of a Borre-style motif and examples paralleled by inds from the Irish Sea region, all of which have a clearly eastern distribution with few or no inds coming from areas such as West or South Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, Staffordshire and Leicestershire.52 While we must question the extent to which the current distribution pattern relects accurately the contemporary spread of Winchester-style artefacts within the Danelaw, it may also be that York served as the epicenter for AngloScandinavian cultural interaction within the region. While there is evidence in York and its immediate hinterland for the presence and manufacture of Hiberno-Norse-type strap-ends with incised roundels and panels of interlace, very few of these items have been found between the Irish Sea coast and the Yorkshire region, although metaldetected inds from this area overall are less frequent than inds from other eastern counties.53 Nonetheless, neither excavations of rural settlements nor metal-detecting activity has located a signiicant number of items with hybrid cultural inluences in this upper Midland band. Few artefacts have been uncovered at Wharram Percy in east Yorkshire where Mid-Saxon occupation is believed to have given way to Scandinavian settlement, or at what may be a Scandinavian farmstead at Simy Folds, Upper Teesdale, although this is fairly typical for the acidic soils of upland sites.54 The presence of two Norse bells at another upland, potentially Scandinavian, farmstead at Cottam in the Yorkshire Wolds is a very rare indication of cultural and trading links between the western and eastern Scandinavian communities not focused at York, although the close proximity of Cottam to York may suggest trade via the Scandinavian capital.55 It should, perhaps, be expected that York acted as the catalyst for cultural integration given similar evidence for long-distance trade and artistic assimilation in other Viking-Age urban settlements, such as Dublin.56 This impression is conirmed when we take into account evidence for the manufacture of Winchester-style ornament within the Danelaw. Evidence for the production of Winchester-style objects in late Saxon England is sparse. No moulds for strapends decorated in the Winchester style survive.57 The discovery in recent years of a small number of undecorated strap-ends in copper- and lead-alloys, including an item from Coddenham in Suffolk, may attest to the general production of strap-ends in rural locales (SF-3D3311). This piece has a single rivet hole and a plain tag tapering towards the end, and may well be a model or uninished strap-end. There is, however, nothing to suggest that such an item could have been used in the manufacture of Winchester-style items in particular. Indeed, Winchesterstyle strap-ends display integrally cast openwork designs or designs in high relief, probably executed during the initial stages of production. It is conventional to cite decorated strap-ends and jewellery in lead or lead alloys such as pewter as archaeological evidence for manufacturing. These items are often interpreted as trial pieces or models, used in the serial production of artefacts in copper-alloys.58 Such interpretations seem reasonable given that the bulk of the inds, including items from Hibalstow in Lincolnshire and Congham in Norfolk, are fragmented artefacts bereft of the attachment appendages required for use (NLM-419320; NMS168). This assumption is, however, more dificult to sustain in the light of complete inds with surviving and functioning attachment ends. Two lead strap-ends mentioned above, from Hatcliffe and Lissington in Lincolnshire, retain attachment panels with the remains of pierced rivet holes which would have enabled each object to be attached to a belt (NLM5373; LIN-D17C35, Fig. 4). Such ittings indicate that that these objects were not casting models, but were meant to be worn and used. The Lissington and Hatcliffe strap-ends are just two among several recent inds of Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Scandinavian dress items in lead which retain their attachment lugs and clearly functioned as dress accessories.59 Several Jelling-style lead disc brooches retain remains of pin-lugs and catchplates, and, in some cases, traces of original iron pins, as do a number of late Saxon disc brooches of English manufacture.60 Kevin Leahy has recently catalogued a number of lead strapends and brooches from the area of Anglo-Saxon Lindsey in North Lincolnshire, many of which have the remains of attachment appendages or pierced rivet holes.61 Given such examples, we must remain open to the possibility that some lead artefacts, rather than being tools in a manufacturing process, were intended to be worn. Given that we can no longer assume that lead dress items were mere models, we must turn to other evidence for the production of Winchester-style pieces. Several The Distribution of the ‘Winchester’ Style in Late Saxon England: Metalwork Finds from the Danelaw 263 Figure 11. Die or patrix from Sporle with Palgrave, Norfolk. Scale 2:1. Drawing by Susan White. Copyright Norfolk County Council recent finds suggest that the Winchester style both circulated in the rural Danelaw, and was produced there. A copper-alloy strap-end from Osleston and Thurvaston in Derbyshire has symmetrical openwork decoration in the shape of a plant motif and belongs to the group of strapends with stylised versions of Winchester-style foliage (WMID-4EF045). However, although it is complete, no rivet piercings are discernable on its attachment end and one of its eight openwork perforations is illed in, raising the possibility that the artefact was uninished when it was lost or discarded. More concrete evidence for the production of the motif in the eastern counties rests on two further inds. The irst is a rectangular bronze die or patrix, recovered from Sporle with Palgrave in Norfolk with early Winchester-style decoration (Fig. 11). The die is decorated in relief with a central bifurcated stem supported by three basal lobes, a feature of Carolingian art. Flanking the stem is a pair of proiled birds with lentoid-shaped eyes, gaping jaws and pelleted wings. They appear in a circular arrangement; their heads look down, their wings curve under their bodies and their clawed feet, continuing this curvature, come round to touch their beaks. Such an arrangement hints at an early date and inds parallels in the restricted pose of ninth-century Trewhiddle-style creatures.62 The pattern ills the entire decorative surface, indicating that the die’s margin or border is missing.63 The pattern on this die would have been imprinted onto the surface of a thin foil, probably of silver, which would then have been applied to the surface of copper-alloy artefacts. There is little doubt that it would have been used to create high quality, inely embellished pieces. The decorative layout of the die is arranged horizontally and it therefore would not have been used to create patterns on strap-ends, which depict perpendicular foliage designs lowing either upwards or downwards. Nonetheless, the die, with its lobed features and restricted birds, raises the possibility that Winchester style circulated in East Anglia at an early stage, perhaps in the early tenth century, and may hint at local production around this date. Further evidence for the manufacture of Winchester-style metalwork in the Danelaw rests on a single fragmentary mould for a trefoil brooch found at Blake Street, York, in the heart of the old Roman fortress (Fig. 12). This item is exceptional in depicting Winchester-style foliage and animal masks on a mould for a trefoil brooch, a brooch-type introduced to England from Scandinavia in the Viking Age.64 Animal masks of the type seen on the Canterbury and London Bridge censer covers can be seen both at the junction of the two surviving arms and in the centre of each arm below a pair of inward-looking birds, another Winchester prototype.65 This too may be an early Winchester piece, as the trefoil brooch was a type which circulated in the Danelaw in the late ninth and tenth centuries. Although no brooch from this mould survives, the mould was found with a crucible, suggesting manufacture at a site on or near its location spot. Other artefacts recovered from the city certainly suggest that dress items in Scandinavian styles were manufactured in York. A lead-alloy matrix with Borre-style decoration and a bird-head suspension loop found at Blake Street could have been used to create pendants similar to Danish examples found in the Tolstrup hoard.66 Two disc brooches depicting devolved versions of the Scandinavian Jellingstyle backwards-looking animal are also known from the city and were probably produced there.67 A clear mixing of Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon decoration is also evident on some inds. A copper-alloy tenth-century strap-end found during the St Mary Bishophill excavations has a characteristic Anglo-Saxon form but a modiied version of the Scandinavian Borre-style ring-chain.68 A strikingly similar ind uncovered from Coppergate suggests these items were produced locally.69 In light of this evidence, the production of a Winchester-style trefoil brooch at York would be just one of a number of culturally hybrid artefact types manufactured in the heart of the Scandinavian kingdom. Chronology and Development The evidence for both devolved and well crafted Winchester motifs on strap-ends from the Danelaw gives 264 Jane F. Kershaw the impression that the Danelaw inds were not simply southern English examples which strayed north and east, but a semi-independent group, which was clearly inspired by Winchester models, but which adapted the Winchester style in an appropriate manner. Without an associated stratigraphy, a precise dating of these objects is problematic. The strap-ends with inhabited foliage from the Winchester series date to the mid-tenth century by their associations with graves and house structures, and may therefore be considered contemporary with the latest phases of the Borre and Jelling styles as they appeared in England.70 It has been suggested, however, that the series continued with simple, uninhabited renderings of the style into the early-mid eleventh-century, when the later Scandinavian Ringerike style was current in southern England.71 The ind contexts of the plainer strap-ends and buckle from Winchester suggest a chronology consistent with such a time frame.72 If it is the case that the zoomorphic element received less emphasis as the style evolved, most Danelaw examples, with plain symmetrical openwork patterns, would date to the late tenth or early eleventh centuries. None of the metaldetected inds can, however, be dated on anything other than stylistic grounds. Unfortunately, the few Winchester-style artefacts recovered from excavations within the Danelaw come either from only broadly datable contexts or contexts which have yielded no chronological information.73 The die from Norfolk and the trefoil mould from York have already been mentioned as potentially early Winchester-style pieces on account of their associated art styles and morphological attributes and it is notable that both display clear zoomorphic elements. It may be possible to identify further instances of early and late stages of the Winchester style on the strap-ends themselves. Early versions of the style, like Carolingian designs, tend to show lat, dense and leshy acanthus leaves, rather than the more spindly, open tendrils typical of most of the Danelaw inds.74 Such renderings are discernable on a rectangular copper-alloy strap-end from Weeting with Broomhill in Norfolk with a simple folded metal construction (SF3658). The ornament on this item is neither moulded nor carved in openwork, but engraved, and consists of luxuriant acanthus leaves ending in rounded lobes on either side of a plain central longitudinal band. Unusually, the strapend also has two centrally positioned rivet holes, which may suggest its re-use as a mount. At the other end of the chronological scale, the strap-end from Tunstall already mentioned (Fig. 2) on which the Winchester style was paired with Romanesque-inluenced designs may date to the mid-eleventh century or later on account of its late artistic afinities. While dating objects on a stylistic basis alone does not offer a precise chronology, there seems to be evidence both for the early manufacture of the Winchester style in the Danelaw and for the style remaining a popular artistic idiom in the eastern counties for several generations. Figure 12. Trefoil brooch mould from Blake Street, York. Copyright York Archaeological Trust. Max. l c. 100m Social and Cultural Implications The Winchester style can no longer be considered an ecclesiastical motif present only on items with liturgical signiicance. Its appearance on strap-ends and other dress items is testimony to its use on secular and personal accessories. Nor can it be considered a style only of southern England, for the distribution of Winchester-style inds from the Danelaw clearly demonstrates that the style was not conined to ‘English’ England. What, then, did the Winchester style mean and communicate? Who wore it and for what purpose? Recent interpretations of Viking-Age material culture have demonstrated ways in which Scandinavian and Anglo-Scandinavian metalwork from the Danelaw can inform our views of, for instance, contemporary settlement patterns, wealth and social status, and cultural and trade contacts.75 Of increasing interest is the value of metalwork, speciically its form and decoration, in elucidating aspects of social identity and cultural interaction.76 Work by Caroline Paterson in particular has demonstrated how the appearance of the Scandinavian Borre and Jelling styles on items of metalwork produced in England may be studied to reveal processes of cultural exchange and assimilation in mixed Anglo-Scandinavian communities.77 Paterson’s analysis is underpinned by modern theoretical approaches to material culture, which emphasize the role of artefacts as both embodying and shaping the identity of their makers and wearers.78 Such approaches see variability in artefact style as a means of communicating aspects of social identity, such as gender, age and regional or political afiliations. In some circumstances, the selective use of objects is thought to facilitate social and cultural interaction.79 Items with Winchester-style decoration recovered The Distribution of the ‘Winchester’ Style in Late Saxon England: Metalwork Finds from the Danelaw from the Danelaw may help further elucidate the interrelationships between incoming and native populations. Several objects recorded through excavation suggest that the Winchester style occurred on items of mixed cultural or regional forms and styles. A pewter plate brooch recovered during excavations at Mill Lane, Thetford, demonstrates that the Winchester style was applied to brooch forms of Continental origin.80 While the straight-edged, rectangular shape of the brooch has Carolingian parallels and the foliage is representative of the true Carolingian acanthus, the naturalistic bird motifs are later in date and drawn from the canon of the Winchester School. The pair of proiled birds, with speckled necks, clearly deined wings and tail-feathers and raised heads bear a striking resemblance to the confronted birds on the strap-ends with inhabited foliage from the Winchester series.81 There is further evidence for the incorporation of Scandinavian design elements into Winchester-style objects south of the Danelaw. A gilt silver strap-end and rectangular decorative plaque from the Old Minster, Winchester, combine Jelling and Winchester motifs. The strap-end, in typical Saxon tongue-shaped form, depicts an animal with Jelling-esque spiral hips but an acanthusshaped tongue.82 On the plaque, the divisions of decorative panels are Swedish in origin, the contorted creatures Scandinavian and the foliage classically Winchester style.83 Ornament on other artefacts is suggestive of the fusion of the later Scandinavian Ringerike style with Winchester motifs. This is, to a certain extent, to be expected given the close similarities between the styles, and there has been some debate about the relative inluence of the Winchester School on the development of the Scandinavian style, which lourished in the south of England under the patronage of King Cnut and his dynasty from the early eleventh century.84 Ringerike-style foliates, with their long, drawn out, clustered tendrils and tightly-curled scrolls, together with the interlacing snakes typical of the style, are seen in isolated forms on a variety of media, including sculpture and metalwork, from the south of England.85 The style could, however, also occur alongside Winchester-style birds and foliage on individual objects. Interspersed lourishes of Ringerike animals and tendrils are seen in a small number of manuscripts in the Winchester style and both styles appear on decorative panels of an unprovenanced bone comb.86 The fusion of Winchester and Ringerike styles also occurs on a small number of items of metalwork, including some with a Scandinavian provenance and place of manufacture. Symmetrical acanthus foliage and bird motifs found in the Winchester repertoire transfuse with Ringerike tendrils on a pair of gilt bronze stirrup plates found in a barrow grave in Velds in Denmark and on an elaborate gilt silver sword guard from Dybäck in southern Sweden, both of which have been discussed at some length elsewhere.87 Of course, the socio-political and regional contexts in which the Ringerike style was produced in England vary greatly from those in which the 265 Borre and Jelling styles lourished; when Kendrick wrote of the Viking rejection of the Winchester acanthus he was speaking not of the Scandinavians in the court of Cnut, but of the Danish settlers of the late ninth and tenth centuries.88 Nonetheless, the integration of the Ringerike style with that of the Winchester School is a clear indication that the Winchester style continued to appear in amalgamated forms on culturally hybrid items, in both England and the Scandinavian homelands, into the eleventh century. The combination of different artistic motifs may simply relect heightened levels of cultural contact in culturally and ethnically mixed communities. It may, however, also suggest that metalwork provided a medium through which meaningful expressions relating to identity were made. Inhabitants of the Danelaw may have chosen to fuse together Winchester motifs with other regional styles in order to portray mixed cultural or regional identities. Perhaps the Winchester style was adopted and altered by Scandinavian settlers in an attempt to integrate with the existing population, taking on local fashions. Caroline Paterson’s work has demonstrated that Scandinavian settlers quickly abandoned dress artefacts of Scandinavian origin which had long been out of fashion in England, such as pendants, yet retained types which could be more easily assimilated into native costume, such as disc brooches.89 Hybrid forms could also have been created by the English living under Scandinavian rule, possibly to gain social or political advantage. Signiicantly, metalwork displaying other forms of hybrid Anglo-Scandinavian and Hiberno-Scandinavian styles largely share with Winchester-style metalwork a widespread distribution in East Anglia and Lincolnshire.90 A proliic disc brooch series from the region relects a similar fusion of Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian art. Although their Borre-style knotwork designs are Scandinavian in inspiration, their lat form and single attachment lug relect insular production.91 Some strapends depict Scandinavian design elements rendered in an Insular style. Examples from Walsingham and Blo Norton in Norfolk, for instance, display a ring-chain motif surrounding central lozenges, a devolved form of the Borre-style ring-knot motif.92 The presence in Lincolnshire, Suffolk, East and North Yorkshire of doublesided strap-ends with interlace decoration and a distinctive animal-head terminal incorporating rounded eyes further relects cultural contact, in these instances between the eastern Danelaw and Scandinavian communities around the Irish Sea littoral. Although this type derives from ninth-century Irish models, some examples from the Danelaw also have Borre-style decoration, revealing an amalgamation of different art styles.93 Most inds from the Danelaw are, however, purely Winchester in inspiration. These items encompass a broad qualitative range, making any assessment of the overall status of the Danelaw corpus problematic. The silver hooked tag and Jelling-Winchester-style strap-end from the Old Minster, and perhaps also items on which the die 266 Jane F. Kershaw from Norfolk was used, indicate that precious metals could be adorned with the style on either side of the Danelaw border. Such items must be considered ‘high-status’. The appearance of ine, technically-accomplished examples, some with gilded surfaces, double-sided decoration and unique combinations of art styles also suggests highlyskilled craftspeople freely incorporated Winchester forms and motifs into high quality objects in the Danelaw. In the past, the base-metal composition of new metalwork inds of late Saxon date has led to interpretations that the owners of such items were poor or low-status, able only to afford mass-produced artefacts at the lowerend of the market.94 The worn nature of many of these inds, interpreted as evidence that such items were in use for a long time, has added to this view, as has their predominantly rural distribution.95 Certainly, the crude execution and simpliied designs of several of the Danelaw inds suggests that the Winchester style occurred on objects of more lowly status, as well as on precious metals. It is, however, well-known that, in this period, dress accessories in precious metals were increasingly replaced by those in copper and lead alloys. As Hinton has suggested, the decline in the quality and elaboration of dress ittings in the tenth century may relect changing attitudes among the elite to the display of wealth through personal adornment, rather than a decline in resources.96 The recovery of Winchester-style strap-ends from recent urban excavations together with the rural ind-spots indicated by PAS records, establishes that the style circulated in both the town and countryside. While the Danelaw inds clearly belong to the base-metal repertoire of tenth-century metalwork, they do not necessarily relect the low social-standing of their owners and wearers. The Winchester style seems to have been appropriate on both items worn to ‘mark out’ an elite group and on those intended for everyday use by rural and urban populations. The meaning of the Winchester style, associated neither with speciic cultural nor social groups, remains enigmatic. We cannot be certain whether it was adopted by the native English, by newly arrived Scandinavians, or both, and no doubt all inhabitants of the Danelaw were familiar with it. It seems to have been a genuinely popular style, which enjoyed a widespread circulation in the towns and countryside of both the Danelaw and Wessex. It was also adaptable and applied to a wide range of artefact types with varying degrees of skill and artistry. It was just one of an assorted range of cultural and regional styles available to consumers of metal dress items in the Danelaw. The style’s easterly distribution highlights the eclecticism of metalwork styles present in the Danelaw in the tenth and early eleventh centuries; an eclecticism which hints at the potentially complex social and political circumstances within which choices relating to expressions of afiliation and identity were made. Conclusion An analysis of Winchester-style metalwork from the Danelaw poses more questions than it can answer, but this new corpus of inds clearly demonstrates the need for a revision of our understanding of the development and distribution of the style. We can now state with conidence that, in contrast to traditional characterizations of the Winchester style as a southern English and ecclesiastical phenomenon, the art of late Anglo-Saxon England and of monastic reform, permeated the Scandinavian area of settlement. It appeared on secular dress ittings right across rural East Anglia and Lincolnshire, and probably over the wider Danelaw. Although the precise chronology of the style is unknown, evidence for both early and late expressions of the style indicate that it was a longlived and familiar motif in the Danelaw in the tenth and eleventh centuries. There is, furthermore, sound evidence for its manufacture both in the rural Danelaw, and in the capital of the Scandinavian kingdom, arguably the focus of artistic and cultural interaction. In attempting to deine the meaning and signiicance of the Winchester style within the Danelaw we are on shakier ground. The Winchester style could be expressed with its full inhabited foliage motifs or in devolved and schematic designs, and appeared on artefacts in both silver and leadalloys. While most artefacts considered here represent stylized, debased forms of the style, a number of unusual and high-status inds hint at the wide-ranging and varied nature of the Danelaw corpus. The style appears on artefacts in a ‘pure’ form akin to the examples from Winchester itself, but it also relects the opportunities available for cultural exchange, and appears on culturally-hybrid items alongside motifs of Scandinavian and Carolingian origin. This study has demonstrated that the Winchester style was popular, versatile and long-lived, and lourished on secular dress ittings north of the Danelaw in the tenth and eleventh centuries. Acknowledgements I would like to thank the anonymous reviewer for his/ her many useful comments on the original draft of this paper, and my supervisor, Professor Helena Hamerow, for her support and encouragement in bringing this paper to publication. The Distribution of the ‘Winchester’ Style in Late Saxon England: Metalwork Finds from the Danelaw Notes 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. Hadley and Richards 2000 Backhouse et al. 1984, pl. XV Wamers 1987, 107; Saunders 1928, 20 Saunders 1928, 19, 25–7; Wormald 1945; 1971 Backhouse et al. 1984, no. 37 Wormald 1945, 131–3; Parkes 1976 Hinton 1990a, 32–3; 1996 Hinton 1996, 216; Saunders 1928, 16; Kendrick 1949, 1; Deshman 1977; Wilson 1984, 160 Zarnecki 1979; see too examples noted by Wilson 1984, 195– 200 Brøndsted 1924, 263 Fig. 187 Wilson 1984, 190–5 Wilson 1984, 190–3 Fig. 241; Backhouse et al. 1984, no. 114 Backhouse et al. 1984, 88 Kendrick 1938, 380–1 Wamers 1987, 107 Wamers 1987 Backhouse et al. 1984, 88 Wilson 1964, 43; Backhouse et al. 1984, no. 76 Kendrick 1938; Wilson 1964, nos. 9, 44, 56, 147 Kendrick 1938, 380–1 pl. LXXIV Hillier 1855, plate 4 Fig. 2; Wilson 1975, pl. XXIIb Bu’Lock 1960, 13 Fig. 4f Hinton 1990b, 495; Backhouse et al. 1984, no. 79 Hinton 1990b, 494–500 igs. 124–125 Wilson 1969 Hinton 1990b, Fig. 124; Backhouse et al. 1984, no. 83 Hinton 1990b, Fig. 125 1060 and 1061, 512 Fig. 129 1101 Kendrick 1938, 380 Hinton 1990b, 498–9 1057 and 1056 Wilson 1984, 160, 200 Kendrick 1941,125, 130–1 Thomas 2000a, 249–50; Thomas 2001, 42 Thomas 2000a, 108–9, 249 Thomas 2000b, 241 Ibid., 238 Backhouse et al. 1984, no. 133; Rogerson and Archibald 1995, Fig. 41.75; Rogerson and Dallas 1984, Fig. 111.28; MacGregor 1982, Fig. 46; Mainman and Rogers 2000, Fig. 105 10421; Youngs 2004, pl V SF161 See, for instance, Gurney 2002, Fig. 6G; 2003, Fig. 6B; Martin et al. 2001, 66 Thomas 2004, Fig. 4 no. 32 Wilson 1964, no. 44; 1960, pl. VIIc Backhouse et al. 1984, no. 133 Hinton 1990b, Fig. 125 Hinton 1975, 176–8 Thomas 2000a, 165 Gurney 2002, 160 Fig. 6G; Kendrick 1938, 380–1 pl. LXXIV Backhouse et al. 1984, no. 81 Hinton 1975, 203–5; Wilson 1984, 158–60; Backhouse et al. 1984, nos. 72–3, 75–6 Hinton 1990a, 32 Bibliography Backhouse, J., D. Turner and L. Webster 1984. The Golden Age of Anglo-Saxon Art, 966–1066. London: British Museum Brøndsted, J. 1924. Early English Ornament: the sources, development and relation to foreign styles of pre-Norman ornamental art in England. London and Copenhagen: Hachette Bu’Lock, J. D. 1960. ‘The Celtic, Saxon and Scandinavian Settlement at Meols in Wirral’, Trans. of the Historical Society of Lancashire and Cheshire 112, 1–28 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 267 Youngs 2001 Kendrick 1938, pl. LXXIV Hinton 1996, Fig. 4 Thomas 2000b, 244 Ibid. 244–6; Thomas 2001, 44–6 Thomas 2000b, 246 Fig. 20 Richards 1997; Coggins et al. 1983 Haldenby 1990, Fig. 6.1; 1994 Fig. 3.1; Richards 2000, 305 Fig. 29 Wallace 1987 Hinton 1990a, 32 Thomas 2000b, 241; Coatsworth and Pinder 2002, 73–6 Mainman and Rogers 2000 Ibid. See on the PAS LIN-FC1347, SF7482 Leahy 2007, pers. comm Webster and Backhouse 1991, 220–1; Youngs 1998 Youngs 1998 Petersen 1928, 93–114 Roesdahl et al. 1981, YMW14 Ibid. YMW13 Ibid. YD12 and YD13 Wilson 1965b, Fig. a; Thomas 2001, 44 Roesdahl et al. 1981, YD38 Hinton 1990b, 497–8; Wilson 1977 Hinton 1990b, 497–8; Wamers 1987, 107 Hinton 1990b, 499–500, 512 Youngs 2004, pl. 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