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Trees and Timber in the Anglo-Saxon World - Oxford Scholarship Online
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Trees and Timber in the Anglo-Saxon World

Michael D. J. Bintley and Michael G. Shapland

Abstract

The chapter offers a wide-ranging discussion of the state of current research that engages with the function of trees and timber in their various uses. Topics are approached sequentially, offering an overview of the role of trees and their products in material culture, in early medieval ontologies of wood and timber, within systems of Christian and pre-Christian belief, in the early medieval landscape, and in Anglo-Saxon art and literature. Each of the subsequent chapters in the book is situated within the scholarly tradition, and an appeal is made for the recognition of trees and timber as an ... More

Keywords: wood, timber, belief, art, literature, landscape, material culture

Bibliographic Information

Print publication date: 2013 Print ISBN-13: 9780199680795
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2014 DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199680795.001.0001

Authors

Affiliations are at time of print publication.

Michael D. J. Bintley, editor
Lecturer in Medieval Literature, Canterbury Christ Church University

Michael G. Shapland, editor
Part-time lecturer, University of Winchester

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Contents

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Front Matter

Title Pages

Preface and Acknowledgements

List of Figures and Table

Table

1 An Introduction to Trees and Timber in the Anglo-Saxon World

Michael D. J. Bintley (Canterbury Christ Church University) and Michael G. Shapland (Institute of Archaeology, University College London)

Part I Timber in Anglo-Saxon Building Practice

2 Meanings of Timber and Stone in Anglo-Saxon Building Practice

Michael G. Shapland (Institute of Archaeology, University College London)

3 The Sophistication of Late Anglo-Saxon Timber Buildings

Mark Gardiner (Queen’s University Belfast)

4 References to Timber Building Materials in Old English Place-Names

John Baker (Institute for Name-Studies, University of Nottingham)

Part II Perceptions of Wood and Wooden Objects

5 The Wooden Drinking Vessels in the Sutton Hoo Assemblage

Martin G. Comey (Independent Scholar, London)

6 The Exeter Book Riddles’ Precarious Insights into Wooden Artefacts

Jennifer Neville (Royal Holloway, University of London)

7 Brungen of Bearwe: Ploughing Common Furrows in Exeter Book Riddle 21, The Dream of the Rood, and the Æcerbot Charm

Michael D. J. Bintley(Canterbury Christ Church University)

8 Breaking the Mould: Solving the Old English Riddle 12 as Wudu ‘Wood’

Pirkko Anneli Koppinen(Royal Holloway, University of London)

Part III Trees and Woodland in Anglo-Saxon Belief

9 What is a ‘World Tree’, and Should We Expect to Find One Growing in Anglo-Saxon England?

Clive Tolley (Independent Scholar, Chester)

10 Holy Beams: Anglo-Saxon Cult Sites and the Place-Name Element Bēam

John Blair (The Queen’s College, Oxford)

11 Recasting the Role of Sacred Trees in Anglo-Saxon Spiritual History: The South Sandbach Cross ‘Ancestors of Christ’ Panel in its Cultural Contexts

Michael D. J. Bintley (Canterbury Christ Church University)

12 Christianity and the ‘Sacred Tree’

Della Hooke (University of Birmingham)

End Matter

Index