Hostname: page-component-7b7567c8c-kwt9d Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-14T21:46:42.088Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Barrows in the Anglo-Saxon Land Charters

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 April 2011

L. V. Grinsell
Get accessRights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The Saxons used beorh for prehistoric barrows and hlæw for their own barrows, but pleased themselves which term to use for prehistoric barrows containing intrusive Saxon burials (e.g. Rough Barrow, Cheselbourne 8b, Dorset; Cwicelmes Low, Ardley, Oxon.; the better known Cwichelmes Low (East Hendred, Oxon. ex Berkshire) is mentioned not in a charier but in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Long barrow Swell IV, Glos., contained Saxon intrusive burials.

There are more than twenty rough barrows but only one rough low (in Chetwode-Hillesden, Buckinghamshire, S 544), implying that the Saxons normally kept their own barrows tidy but did not bother much about those of earlier date.

They sometimes distinguished between long and round barrows (e.g. Long Barrow, Swell IV, Glos.; ‘the barrow which lies between the two long barrows’, Wonston, Hants. They never distinguished between round barrows of bowl, bell, disc and saucer types.

Scrutiny of the charters has led to the discovery of a few barrows previously unknown to the Ordnance Survey Archaeology Division, e.g. Buckland Newton I, Dorset; Cheselbourne 17, Dorset; Tetbury Upton 3, Glos.

As the charters were written more than a thousand years ago they recorded many barrows long before they had been reduced to their present sorry state by ploughing and other agencies.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 71 , September 1991, pp. 46 - 63
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1991

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Bishop, L. 1984. ‘The Bibury Saxon Charter’, Glevensis, 18, 16–18Google Scholar
Bosworth, J. and Toller, S. 1898. An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Brentnall, H. C. 1938. ‘The Saxon bounds of Overton’, Rep. Martborough College Natur. Hist., Soc, 87, 116–36Google Scholar
Chaplais, P. 1965. ‘The origin and authenticity of the Royal Anglo-Saxon Diploma’, J. Soc. Archiv., 3, 48–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Colt, Hoare, Sir R. 1812. The Ancient History of Wiltshire, vol. 1Google Scholar
Crawford, O. G. S. 1936. ‘Review of Grinsell, Ancient Burial-Mounds of England’, Antiquity, 10, 510–12Google Scholar
Darvill, T. C. and Grinsell, L. V. 1989. ‘Gloucestershire barrows: supplement 1961–1988’, Trans. Bristol Gloucestershire Archaeol. Soc, 107, 39–105Google Scholar
Fasham, P. J. 1979. ‘The excavation of a triple barrow in Micheldever Wood, Hampshire’, Proc. Hampshire Field Club Archaeol. Soc, 35, 5–40Google Scholar
Finberg, H. P. R. 1961. Early Charters of the West Midlands, Leicester University Studies in Early English History, 2, LeicesterGoogle Scholar
Finberg, H. P. R., 1964. The Early Charters of Wessex, Leicester University Studies in Early English History, 3, LeicesterGoogle Scholar
Forsberg, Rune. 1950. ‘A contribution to a dictionary of Old English place names’, Nomina Germanica, 9, UppsalaGoogle Scholar
Forsberg, Rune, 1973, ‘Aestealles Beorh’, Studia Neophilologica, 45, 3–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fox, H. A. A. 1970. ‘The boundary of Uplyme’, Rep. Trans. Devonshire Assoc, 102, 35–47Google Scholar
Gelling, M. 1972. Place-Names of Berkshire, Part II, English Place-Name Society, 50Google Scholar
Gelling, M., 1976. Place-Names of Berkshire, Part III, English Place-Name Society, 51Google Scholar
Grimm, Jacob (ed.J. S. Stallybrass). 1882. Teutonic Mythology, 1, 376–8Google Scholar
Grinsell, L. V. 1957. ‘Archaeological Gazetteer’, in Victoria History of the County of Wiltshire, 1 (i), 21–279, LondonGoogle Scholar
Grinsell, L. V., 1959. Dorset Barrows, Dorset Natur. Hist. Archaeol. Soc, DorchesterGoogle Scholar
Grinsell, L. V., 1961. ‘Gloucestershire barrows’, Trans. Bristol Gloucestershire Archaeol. Soc, 79, Part IGoogle Scholar
Grinsell, L. V., 1969. ‘Somerset barrows. Part 1, West and South’, Proc. Somerset Archaeol. Natur. Hist. Soc, 113, Supplement, 1–43Google Scholar
Grinsell, L. V., 1971. ‘Somerset barrows, Part II, North and East’, Proc. Somerset Archaeol. Natur. Hist. Soc, 115, Supplement, 44–137Google Scholar
Grinsell, L. V., 1982. Dorset Barrows Supplement, Dorset Natur. Hist., Archaeol. Soc, DorchesterGoogle Scholar
Grinsell, L. V., 1983. ‘The barrows of south and east Devon’, Proc. Devon Archaeol. Soc, 41, 5–46Google Scholar
Grinsell, L. V., 1988a. ‘Surrey barrows 1934–86: a reappraisal’, Surrey Archaeol. Collect., 78, 1–41Google Scholar
Grinsell, L. V., 1988b. ‘Somerset barrows: supplement’, Proc. Somerset Archaeol. Natur. Hist.Soc, 131 (for 1987), 13–25Google Scholar
Grinsell, L. V., 1991. ‘Wayland Smith and his relatives: a legend and its topography’, Folklore, 102, 235–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grundy, G. B. 1919. ‘The Saxon land charters of Wiltshire. First series’, Archaeol. J., 76, 143–301.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grundy, G. B., 1920. ‘The Saxon land charters of Wiltshire. Second series’, Archaeol. J., 77, 8–126CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grundy, G. B., 1921, 1924, 1926, 1927. ‘The Saxon land charters of Hampshire’, Archaeol.J., 78 (1921), 55–173; 81 (1924), 31–126; 83 (1926), 91–253; 84 (1927), 160–340CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grundy, G. B., 1933–1939. ‘Dorset charters’, Proc. Dorset Natur. Hist. Archaeol. Soc, 55 (1933), 239–68; 56 (1934), 110–30; 57 (1935), 114–39; 58 (1936), 103–36; 59 (1937), 95–118; 60 (1938), 75–89; 61 (1939), 60–78Google Scholar
Grundy, G. B., 1935–1936. Saxon Charters and Field Names of Gloucestershire, Bristol Gloucestershire Archaeol. Soc, GloucesterGoogle Scholar
Grundy, G. B., 1935. The Saxon Charters … of Somerset, Somerset Archaeol. Natur. Hist. Soc, TauntonGoogle Scholar
Hart, C. E. 1965. ‘Some Dorset charter boundaries’, Proc. Dorset Natur. Hist. Archaeol. Soc. 86 (for 1964), 158–63Google Scholar
Kelly, S. forthcoming. Glastonbury ChartersGoogle Scholar
Kemble, J. M. 1857. ‘Notices of heathen interment in the Codex Diplomatics’, Archaeol. J., 14, 19–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klingelhöfer, E. 1991. ‘Anglo-Saxon manors of the Upper Itchen Valley: their origin and evolution’, Proc. Hants Field Club Archaeol. Soc. 46, 31–9Google Scholar
Mawer, Allen. 1919. ‘Animals and personal names in Old English place-names’, Modern Language Review, 14, 233–44Google Scholar
Mills, A. D. 1989. The Place-Names of Dorset, Part III, English Place-Name Soc, 59–60, CambridgeGoogle Scholar
Neale, , Frances. 1969. Wrington Village RecordsGoogle Scholar
O'Neil, Helen and Grinsell, L.V. 1961. ‘Gloucestershire barrows’, Trans. Bristol Gloucestershire Archaeol. Soc, 79 (for 1960), 1–148Google Scholar
Prince, E. F. M. 1984. ‘A Doughton charter reassessed’, Trans. Bristol Gloucestershire Archaeol. Soc, 101 (for 1983), 77–81Google Scholar
Sawyer, P. H. 1968. Anglo-Saxon Charters: An Annotated List and Bibliography, LondonGoogle Scholar
Speake, G. 1989. A Saxon Bed Burial on Swallowcliffe Down, Wiltshire, English Heritage Archaeol. Rep., 10, LondonGoogle Scholar
Turner, A. G. C. 1955. ‘Some Old English passages relating to the Episcopal Manor of Taunton’, Proc. Somerset Archaeol. Natur. Hist. Soc, 98, 118–26Google Scholar
Watkin, Dom Aelred. 1952. The Glastonbury Cartulary, 11, Somerset Record Society, 63Google Scholar
Williams, A. R. 1945. ‘Seven’, Folklore, 56, 257–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zachrisson, R. E. 1927. Romas, Kelts and Saxons in Ancient Britain, UppsalaGoogle Scholar