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Pavements and Poverty in the Chiltern Villas

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2011

Keith Branigan
Keith Branigan
Affiliation:
Department of Classics, The University, Bristol
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Extract

In addressing a CBA conference in 1965 Mr. C. E. Stevens performed his now famous ‘strip-tease act’, whereby he arrived at the conclusion that, save in a few exceptional areas, south-eastern England from Hengistbury Head to the Wash rarely produces Romano-British villas with patterned pavements. He related this phenomenon to the system of land-tenure which he believes he can recognize operating in south-eastern England during the Roman period—tenure in tir gwelyawg. Hence, the occupiers of the villas did not lay mosaic pavements because they ‘do not seem to have had the power of capital accumulation sufficient to place an order for them’. South-eastern England thus becomes a zone of ‘poor men's villas’ (to use Mr. Stevens' term), and sitting in the very centre of this zone are the villas of the Chilterns. Mr. Stevens generously recognized that High Wycombe was an exception to his rule, and rather more grudgingly admitted that Totternhoe might be another, but he was confident that ‘critics might find one or two more, but not many’. I have previously challenged, in passing, this harsh assessment of the Chiltern villas, but in the last two years additional information has come to light and the importance of well-dated mosaic pavements from villas has been emphasized by Dr. D. J. Smith's brilliant chapter on villa-mosaics in The Roman Villa in Britain.

Type
Articles
Information
Britannia , Volume 2 , November 1971 , pp. 109 - 116
Copyright
Copyright © Keith Branigan 1971. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 C. E. Stevens, ‘The Social and Economic Aspects of Rural Settlement’ in C. Thomas (ed.), Rural Settlement in Roman Britain (1966), pp. 123–4.

2 Mr. Stevens turned to Welsh law in an attempt to understand something of land-tenure in Roman Britain. For a brief discussion of the meaning and significance of tir gwelyawg see Stevens, op. cit., p. 111.

3 Stevens, op cit., pp. 123–4.

4 Stevens, op. cit., p. 124.

5 Stevens, op. cit., p. 127.

6 Branigan, K., ‘Romano-British Rural Settlement in the Western Chilterns’, Arch. Journ., cxxiv (1968), p. 144.Google Scholar

7 Smith, D. J., ‘The Mosaic Pavements’ in Rivet, A. L. F. (ed.), The Roman Villa in Britain (London, 1969), PP. 71–125.Google Scholar

8 It must be said, in all fairness to Mr. Stevens, that much of the information on which this paper is based would not have been available to him in 1965.

9 Victoria County History of Hertfordshire iv, pl. XII.

10 JRS lviii (1968), p. 188Google Scholar; see now Britannia i (1970), pp. 160 f, where it is shown that the mosaic published by Evans no longer survives but was possibly of late second-century date.Google Scholar

11 Second Interim Report published by the Hemel Hempstead Excavation Society, p. 7.

12 JRS Iviii (1968), p. 188Google Scholar. In Current Archaeology 18 (1970), however, Mr. Neal clearly regards the two mosaics as contemporary (p. 201).Google Scholar

13 Trans. St. Albans and Herts. Architectural and Arch. Soc. 1961, 21–30.

14 Cocks, A. H., ‘A Romano-British Homestead in the Hambleden Valley, Bucks’, Archaeologia lxxi (1922), p. 144, and RCHM Buckinghamshire II (North), p, 10.Google Scholar

15 Smith, D., Appendix I ‘The Mosaics’ in B. R. Hartley, ‘A Romano-British Villa at High Wycombe’, Records of Buckinghamshire xvi (1959), pp. 227–257.Google Scholar

16 Hartley, op. cit., n. 15, p. 231.

17 Hartley, op. cit. n. 15, p. 239.

18 Smith, op. cit. n. 15, pp. 249–50.

19 K. Branigan, Latimer (Belgic, Roman, Dark Age and Early Modern Farm), forthcoming.

20 In the 4th Interim Report published by the Chess Valley Archaeological and Historical Society, this was erroneously identified as a denarius of Severus Alexander.

21 Rev. Burgess, B., ‘The Roman Villa at Latimer, Bucks’, Records of Buckinghamshire iii (1866), p. 183 and plan.Google Scholar

22 O'Neil, H. E., ‘The Roman Villa at Park Street, near St. Albans, Hertfordshire’, Arch. Journ. cii (1945). P. 27.Google Scholar

23 Matthews, G. L., Ancient Dunstable (Dunstable, 1963), pl. vib.Google Scholar

24 R D. Thomson, ‘The Roman Villa Site at Little Kimble’, duplicated report. A copy is kept in the County Museum, Aylesbury.

25 Branigan, K, ‘The Romano-British Villa at Saunderton Reconsidered’, Records of Buckinghamshire xviii (1969), pp. 261–76.Google Scholar

26 Ashcroft, D., ‘Report on the Excavation of a Romano-British Villa at Saunderton, Bucks.’ Records of Buckinghamshire xiii (1940), p. 416.Google Scholar

27 Branigan, op. cit. n. 25, p. 268.

28 I am indebted to the Librarian of the Ashmolean Library, Oxford, for permission to study and publish this material.

29 Branigan, op. cit. n. 6, p. 157, 6d. There is in addition a report of ‘paving work in manner of dice work’ from an uncertain location in the parish of Coleshill, Branigan, op. cit. n. 6, p. 157, 6 f.

30 Rivers-Moore, C N., ‘Further Excavations in the Roman House at Harpsden Wood, Henley on Thames’, Oxoniensia xvi (1951), p. 23 ff.Google Scholar

31 Smith, op. cit. n. 7, pp. 74–5.

32 Smith, op. cit. n. 7, p. 78 (Winterton, Lines., and Well, Yorks). The third, at Piercebridge, was found in 1969 by D. Harding. Smith also suggests that Walton Heath (Surrey) may be another example.

33 Hanworth, R., ‘The Roman Villa at Rapsley, Ewhurst’, Surrey Archaeological Collections lxv (1968), p. 1 ff.Google Scholar

34 Smith, op. cit. n. 7, p. 71.

35 Cf. my discussion of the villas along the foot of the Chiltern scarp, where the Vale of Aylesbury may still have offered opportunities for the expansion of the estates in the fourth century, Branigan, op. cit. n. 25, p. 273.

36 S. Appeibaum in Thomas, op. cit. n. 1, p. 104; Rivet, op. cit. n. 7, pp. 208–9; Smith, op. cit. n. 7, p. 114. To the arguments presented by these writers I have added some others and some additional evidence in a paper read to the Bristol Archaeological Research Group entitled ‘Gatcombe and the Bristol Region in the Fourth Century’. It is hoped to publish this paper in the near future.

37 Rivet, op. cit. n. 7, p. 201.

38 Branigan, op. cit. n. 6, p. 149; Matthews, op. cit. n. 23, p. 64.

39 I am very much indebted to the generous help of Dr. David Smith in collecting information about some of the mosaics discussed and in assessing their wider significance.