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Excavations at Gloucester. Fourth Interim Report: St. Oswald's Priory, Gloucester, 1975–1976

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2011

Carolyn Heighway
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Summary

Excavations at St. Oswald's Priory, Gloucester, showed that the site was occupied in the second century by the Roman municipal tile works which was abandoned by the fourth century. The ruined church which now stands on the site shows two successive building phases pre-dating a Norman arcade; excavation established part of the plan of this late Anglo-Saxon church and also uncovered part of the tenth- to thirteenth-century cemetery. Documentary evidence suggests that this was the ‘new minster’ built by Æthelflæd and Æthelred of Mercia. Taking other historical and archaeological evidence into consideration, Gloucester can be argued to have had, in the late ninth to early tenth century, a special significance for the rulers of Mercia.

Specialist reports are offered on the stratified medieval pottery, and on the inscribed bell-mould from the tenth-century church.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 58 , Issue 1 , March 1978 , pp. 104 - 132
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1978

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References

NOTES

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7 Recorded by A. P. Garrod.

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62 Sawyer, op. cit., no. 1441, dated 896.

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64 Sawyer, op. cit., nos. 223 and 1280.

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70 Many leases refer to this property, whic h was appurtenant to the post of Provost Marshall in 1671: Gloucester Borough Records 1448/1570, 106.

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72 Malmesbury, William of, Gesta Pontificum Anglorum (Rolls Series, London, 1870), p. 293.Google ScholarWilliam was writing c. 1125 so the alterations were presumably complete by then.

73 There was certainly no corresponding twelfth-century south aisle, since the excavations would have traced its south wall in the cemetery area. Nevertheless, it is possible that the ‘widening’ included a twelfth-century south transept or chapel further east which has not yet been located.

74 See the editor's gloss in the Gesta Pontificum, p. 34, and Hamilton-Thompson, op. cit., p. 129, note 2. The latter was satisfied that Æthelflæd was buried at St. Oswald's, but this mus t remain doubtful.

75 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ed. Whitelock, , anno 918.Google Scholar

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87 Hamilton-Thompson, op. cit., pp. 138 ff.; Denton, op. cit., p. 55.

88 Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, vol. xv; p. 292.

89 Medland, op. cit., p. 127. He cites no authority for his statement.

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94 Vince, A. G., ‘The Pottery’ in Heighway, C. M. et al. , Excavations at the North and East Gates of Gloucester (C.R.A.A.G.S., forthcoming)Google Scholar.

95 Transliterated according to the following system: A indicates a clearly legible letter; A a letter damaged but legible; [A] a damaged lette r where the restoration is fairly certain; A/B ligatured letters; [] one letter lost; —text lost at beginning or end; / the end of a complete text.

96 See Okasha, E., Hand-list of Anglo-Saxon non-runic inscriptions (Cambridge, 1971), p. 156,Google Scholarindex VI.

97 Okasha, op. cit., p. 117, no. 115 and fig.

98 Some of these appear in Okasha, op. cit., pp. 128–9, no. 142 and fig. They will all appear in Biddle, M. and Keene, S., ed. The Crafts and Industries of Medieval Winchester, part ii: Crafts and Industries Other than Ceramics (Winchester Studies, vii)Google Scholar.