Churches and Social Power in Early Medieval Europe: Integrating Archaeological and Historical Approaches by ed. José C. Sánchez-Pardo and Michael G. Shapland (review)

This well-organised and diverse volume considers the question of early medieval churches and social power. It is the result of a 2010 conference at University College London, with some additions to expand the geographical range of the work presented, though there is a clear bias towards the Iberian Peninsula, Gaul, and the British Isles. In line with my own areas of interest, I will focus here on the Germanic papers in the volume, predominantly those about the Anglo-Saxons.

Aleksandra McClain’s excellent contribution, ‘Patronage in Transition: Lordship, Churches, and Funerary Monuments in Anglo-Norman England’, departs slightly from the majority of the volume with its focus on smaller, local churches rather than the larger minsters and cathedrals more usually associated with elite social power. McClain’s premise is that local churches can provide insight into the operation of lower-level, elite lordship, while also, owing to their ubiquity across the landscape, providing an ideal context within which to study both religious and secular power. McClain sets out the material hierarchy of elite dominance in Anglo-Norman England that ranges from castles and cathedrals down to these local churches and their funerary monuments. This approach shows a more personal and localised basis of power against the backdrop of a constantly changing social sphere of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. She focuses on Yorkshire for the paper’s case studies, and it would be fascinating to see the mapping and implications broadened for the rest of Anglo-Norman England. McClain has integrated archaeology and written sources to build a well-founded argument for regional and local style robusticity even post-Conquest, and a disconnect between architectural style and ethnicity.

Christofer Zwanzig’s chapter is not only refreshingly cross-cultural in its subject matter but also perhaps one of the most surprising pieces of work in the volume. Using a bold comparative approach, ‘Heidenheim and Samos: Monastic Remembrance of the “Anglo-Saxon Mission” in Southern Germany and the “Mozarabic Resettlement” of Northern Spain Compared’ charts the self-perception of monastic elites versus royal power in the two named case studies. Zwanzig shows that church buildings themselves played a role in reinforcing the ideology and ‘memories of migration’ (p. 288) for the ecclesiastical communities. From this comparison comes interesting insight into early medieval monastic elites and the way their migrations and monastic foundations played into the larger phenomenon of acculturation throughout the Church. However, Zwanzig’s interpretation of extant architecture from the early medieval period as purely architectural and not part of the archaeological record leads him to conclude that there is little-to-no archaeology for the two sites. Those not familiar with the field of archaeology might find this conclusion, to what is otherwise a very intriguing paper, somewhat perplexing.

To conclude this overview, we have Michael Shapland’s paper ‘Palaces, Churches, and the Practice of Anglo-Saxon Kingship’. It is a very welcome addition to the volume but also to the discipline, as the study of Anglo-Saxon palaces is not only difficult, but often avoided. His emphasis on the centrality of buildings to Anglo-Saxon Christianity is vital to understanding the physicality of belief in the early medieval period. Shapland deftly presents the available archaeological and written evidence and shows that conversion and dynastic ambition should not be separated in this period. Shapland’s call for us to change our preconceptions of ‘palaces’ in the Anglo-Saxon context is one that needs to be heeded. He astutely observes that in many cases, owing to the royal founding and governance of most ecclesiastical buildings, the Anglo-Saxons probably made little distinction between palaces and monasteries in the landscape; their function, grand architecture, and use by a still very mobile royal...