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The Caistor-By-Norwich ‘Massacre’ Reconsidered

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2011

M.J. Darling
M.J. Darling
Affiliation:
3 Club Yard, Blacksmiths Lane, Harmstan, Lincoln
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Extract

The archaeological evidence for the period spanning the end of Roman Britain and the start of Saxon England needs careful examination to avoid unwarranted speculation. The testimony of Gildas cannot be lightly disregarded and it is time that the only archaeological evidence produced to support his account of massacres in the towns, namely that cited from Caistor-by-Norwich, was scrutinized, particularly since the excavations in 1930 by the late Professor Donald Atkinson which produced the evidence have never been published. This has led to descriptions of scenes of horror as the Romano-British inhabitants of Caistor were put to the (?)sword by Saxon raiders in the early fifth century, the details of which are at least questionable (a building burnt down at the same time, unburied bodies, perhaps decapitated, associated with coins etc.).

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Type
Articles
Information
Britannia , Volume 18 , November 1987, pp. 263 - 272
Copyright
Copyright © M.J. Darling 1987. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 Thompson, E.A., Britannia x (1979), 203.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Gildas, 24, 3.

3 Atkinson, D., JRS xxi (1932), 232Google Scholar; Clarke, R.R., East Anglia (1960), 130Google Scholar; Hawkcs, S.C. and Dunning, G.C., Med. Arch. (1961), 25, 31Google Scholar; Frere, S.S. in Wacher, J. (ed.), The Civitas Capitals of Roman Britain (1966), 91Google Scholar; Alcock, L., Arthur's Britain (1973), 185Google Scholar; Morris, J., The Age of Arthur (1973), 76Google Scholar; Frere, S.S., Britannia (1974), 421.Google Scholar

4 Hawkes & Dunning, op. cit. (note 3).

5 Morris, op. cit. (note 3).

6 Alcock, op. cit. (note 3).

7 Wacher, J., The Towns of Roman Britain (1975), 238Google Scholar; Myres, J.N.L. and Green, B., The Anglo-Saxon Cemeteries of Caistor-by-Norwich and Markshall, Norfolk (1973), 33.Google Scholar

8 Atkinson, D., JRS xxii (1932), fig. 1.Google Scholar

9 Myres and Green, op. cit. (note 7), fig. 64, nos. 1, 3 and 4.

10 Both reports published 10.9.30, in the Eastern Daily Press and a shorter, almost identical report in the Daily Mail. Records at the newspapers do not indicate whether the report arose from a prepared text, although it is suspected that the local reporter interviewed Professor Atkinson at the Castle Museum, Norwich.

11 JRS xxi (1931), 232.

12 JRS xxii (1932), 33.

13 Although incomplete, the building may have originally been a simple block from Room 3–4 and Room 10, running east to Room 8. There is, however, the peculiar offset junction of the west walls of Rooms 3–4 and 10; if the building was originally symmetrical, the west wall of the baths, Rooms 3, 4 and 11, could have been part of the original building, and anomalies may have arisen when the small bath-suite was constructed. The south corridor, 6, and the two rooms, 1 and 2, may have been added, and the addition of the apse to Room 1 and the apsed Room 9 appear to have been later still, perhaps when the baths (Rooms 3, 4 and 11) were constructed. These apsidal additions appear structurally different on both photographs and plan, and photographs also show the south wall of the corridor, 6, to have been either built on offset foundations, or a later rebuild, perhaps when the wing rooms were added. This sequence is, however, speculative in the absence of adequate records.

14 There was also damage to the north wall of Rooms 5, 7 and 8, whereas the north wall of the corridor, 12, immediately to the north, appears to have been more or less intact for the width of Room 5. Rooms with damage to their walls appear to have had either damaged or completely destroyed floors, whereas Room 7A with its walls apparently intact, had a cement floor which, according to Atkinson's notes, ‘well sealed’ the pottery below it. Plough damage does not therefore seem to have been the cause of the ruinous state of the building, which seems more likely to have arisen from digging into its ruins (?pits, robbing). Such disturbance would not be easy to detect in narrow trenches with a shallow depth of plough soil.

15 The dating of the small group from Room 7A was based on colour-coated sherds, including sherds from rouletted beakers; there is less evidence for the basis of the dating of the group from below Room 3–4.

16 Atkinson, D., Norfolk Arch. xxvi. 2 (1937), 207.Google Scholar

17 D. Atkinson, op. cit. (note 16), Group 6.

18 Keith had examined skulls from Roman Forts on the Yorkshire coast with sharp cuts, and emphasizes in his report ‘… but on not one of the Caistor fragments could I see a clean-cut incision’. One of the vaults which was damaged was considered to be probably female. The majority of the fragments which could be sexed were male, but over a quarter were too fragmentary for the sex to be determined.

19 Frere, S.S., Britannia ii (1971), 2, fig. I.Google Scholar

20 I am grateful to the Castle Museum, Norwich for allowing access to both finds and records from the late Professor Atkinson's excavations; to Dr Richard Reece for his re-examination of the coins and to Don Brothwell for discussing the skeletal evidence.

21 R.A.G. Carson, Myres and Green, op. cit. (note 7), 34.

22 That Room 3–4 is correct is clear from Atkinson's mention of the coins in Norfolk Arch, xxvi (1932), 209.