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The Location and Relationship of the Sancton Anglo-Saxon Cemeteries

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2011

Margaret Lindsay Faull
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Summary

Examination of the Rolleston papers and local field-work have permitted identification of the site of the Sancton II cemetery and ascription of objects in the Ashmolean Museum to individual burials described by Rolleston. It can now be seen that, during the sixth century A.D., a small, predominantly inhumation cemetery close to the village was in use concurrently with the large cremation cemetery, which had begun on the top of the wold in the early fifth century and which was possibly used by surrounding communities, and that the Christian church was eventually built on the same site as the inhumation cemetery.

Type
Articles
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 56 , Issue 2 , September 1976 , pp. 227 - 233
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1976

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References

page 227 note 1 Myres, J. N. L. and Southern, W. H., The Anglo-Saxon Cremation Cemetery at Sancton, East Yorkshire (Hull Museum Publication no. ccxviii, Hull, 1973).Google Scholar

page 227 note 2 Meaney, Audrey, A Gazetteer of Early Anglo-Saxon Burial Sites (London, 1964), pp. 299–300.Google Scholar

page 227 note 3 Myres and Southern, op. cit. (1973), p. 11.

page 227 note 4 Foster, Matthew in Old Yorkshire, ed. William, Smith (London, 1882), iii, pp. 12–13.Google Scholar

page 227 note 5 Meaney, , op. cit. (1964), p. 15.Google Scholar

page 227 note 6 I am grateful to Mr. P. D. C. Brown of the Ashmolean Museum for permission to publish these papers and objects.

page 228 note 1 Marked on the 1910 edition of the 6” O.S. map, sheet CCIX N.E.

page 228 note 2 The Victoria County History of Yorkshire (London, 1912), ii, p. 77, describes the Storrs Fox Collection material as from ‘Mr. Thomas Foster's paddock’.Google Scholar

page 228 note 3 Unfortunately, this cannot be verified because Hull Museum's records were all destroyed during the Second World War.

page 229 note 1 Information from his son, Dr. Storrs Fox of North Cave.

page 229 note 2 With the exception of the spindle whorl and spearhead, which are now missing, these are illustrated in Myres and Southern, op. cit. (1973), fig. 43.

page 229 note 3 Dated 12 November 1873 and 15 March 1875.

page 229 note 4 15 March 1875.

page 229 note 5 These notes are published exactly as written. Comments and punctuation added to assist interpretation are given in square brackets.

page 230 note 1 Myres and Southern, op. cit. (1973), fig. 42, no. 26, illustrate a bronze disc brooch as also being from Ashmolean 1341. Leeds, E. T., ‘The distribution of the Angles and Saxons archaeologically considered’, Archaeologia, xci (1945), 1–106CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. fig. 30, records one disc brooch from Sancton and the brooch itself in the Ashmolean is labelled ‘Sancton 1886. 1341’ in Leeds's handwriting. Mr. Brown informs me that this brooch is in fact Ashmolean 1886. 1421 and one of a pair from Frilford, grave V: Rolleston, G., ‘Researches and excavations carried out in an ancient cemetery at Frilford, near Abingdon, Berks. in the years 1867–1868’, Archaeologia, xlii (1869), 417–85, esp. 472–3.Google Scholar

page 230 note 2 Myres and Southern, op. cit., p. 114, describe no. 17 as Ashmolean 1342c but no. 17 is really Ashmolean 1343b and no. 18 is 1342c.

page 231 note 1 Margary, I. D., Roman Roads in Britain (London, 1957), ii, p. 149. The modern road curves at this point and it is not certain if this is the exact course of the Roman road. If the Roman road ran in a straight line then both cemeteries would have been to the east of the road.Google Scholar

page 231 note 2 The pottery scatter in the field to the north-west extends over some 30 sq. yds., as large an area as that covered by the 1873 and 1954–8 excavations.

page 231 note 3 The Rolleston Papers show that ‘Market Weighton’ was a postal address covering both Sancton and Londesborough. For example, on 1 October 1879 Canon Raine writes regarding an exchange of ‘Saxon urns from Market Weighton’, which Greenwell's letter of 6 October shows were definitely from Sancton, while letters from the Revd. R. Wilton to Rolleston are headed ‘Londesborough Rectory, Market Weighton’. The confusion caused by this has led in the past to burials from Londesborough being attributed to Market Weighton: Meaney, op. cit. (1964), p. 294; Swanton, M., ‘An Anglian cemetery at Londesborough in East Yorkshire’, Yorks. Arch. J. xli (1964), 262–86, esp. 267. The urn in Hull Museum which is recorded as coming from Market Weighton and another which Dr. J. N. L. Myres informs me is in Leicester Museum probably both came from Sancton.Google Scholar

page 231 note 4 Faull, Margaret L., ‘Roman and Anglian settlement patterns in Yorkshire’, Northern History, ix (1974), 1–25, esp. 8–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 232 note 1 Hyslop, Miranda, ‘Two Anglo-Saxon cemeteries at Chamberlain's Barn, Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire’, Arch. J. cxx (1963), 161–200.Google Scholar

page 232 note 2 Bede, , Historia Ecclesiastica translated in Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. Colgrave, B. and Mynors, R. A. B. (Oxford, 1969), ii, 14.Google Scholar

page 232 note 3 Pevsner, N., The Buildings of England: York and the East Riding (London, 1972), p. 333.Google Scholar

page 232 note 4 I am indebted to the University of Newcastle for allowing me access to this painting.

page 232 note 5 I should like to express my thanks to Dr. E. A. Gee for visiting Sancton church and for giving me his opinion on it.

page 232 note 6 Lodged with the Borthwick Institute of Historical Research, St. Anthony's Hall, York.

page 233 note 1 I am extremely grateful to Mr. P. D. C. Brown and Dr. J. N. L. Myres for all their assistance in the preparation of this paper: the views expressed in it remain, however, my responsibility.