This chapter is published within Early Medieval English Life Courses: Cultural-Historical Perspectives, ed. Porck and Soper. Please email me if you would like to cite it and I will send you a PDF with page numbers.

This chapter traces cross-communal interactions in the fields of medicine, mathematics and what the historical actors called the natural sciences. It discusses various modern interpretations of those interactions and engages with a number of historical problems researchers face when studying the extant sources. After a substantive survey of the…[Read more]

This course provides an introduction to the visual culture and art forms of the Italo-Roman world from the
Early Iron Age to the beginning of Late Antiquity. The course examines the developmental arcs of art
forms in various spheres (public, private, sacred, funereal) and considers key media (sculpture, painting,
mosaic, decorative arts).…[Read more]

This paper uses the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the publication of the original report on the Corbridge Hoard, together with the redisplay of the finds in the site museum at Corbridge, to review the findings of the original report. The ‘lorica segmentata’ armour is considered in the light of more recent finds from Carlisle (UK), Stillfried…[Read more]

This paper uses the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the publication of the original report on the Corbridge Hoard, together with the redisplay of the finds in the site museum at Corbridge, to review the findings of the original report. The ‘lorica segmentata’ armour is considered in the light of more recent finds from Carlisle (UK), Stillfried…[Read more]

At the Fourth Roman Military Equipment Conference in Newcastle in 1987, I first explored the reconstruction of Roman cavalry harness, attempting to harmonise the evidence from sculptural representations and archaeological excavation. Much has been learned since then, and this paper attempts to review how some of the principles expounded back then…[Read more]

At the Fourth Roman Military Equipment Conference in Newcastle in 1987, I first explored the reconstruction of Roman cavalry harness, attempting to harmonise the evidence from sculptural representations and archaeological excavation. Much has been learned since then, and this paper attempts to review how some of the principles expounded back then…[Read more]

A select group of 1st-century AD ‘Totenmahl’ tombstones shows Roman auxiliary cavalry horses being long-reined. These same stones also provide the main sculptural evidence for the use of saddle plates. This paper begins by examining one set of privately owned horse harness and then broadens its focus to consider the wider implications of…[Read more]

A select group of 1st-century AD ‘Totenmahl’ tombstones shows Roman auxiliary cavalry horses being long-reined. These same stones also provide the main sculptural evidence for the use of saddle plates. This paper begins by examining one set of privately owned horse harness and then broadens its focus to consider the wider implications of…[Read more]

Viking invasions and settlements left substantial legacies in late Anglo-Saxon England, attested in legal texts as a division between areas under Dena lage and those under Ængla lage. But how legal practice in Scandinavian-settled England functioned and differed from Anglo-Saxon law remains unclear. III Æthelred, the ‘Wantage Code’, provides criti…[Read more]

A work-in-progress, this is an extended bibliography on Messene covering the period from 1831 and up to today. It includes the excavation reports and archaeological/historical publications of ancient and byzantine Messene in Messenia, SW Peloponnese. Please send via mail or message any corrections, suggestions and additions.

The ninth-century Annales Fontanellenses are a concise set of monastic annals composed by the community of St Wandrille, situated along the lower reaches of the river Seine. Covering the 840s and 850s, their contents are concerned with a relatively brief but highly tumultuous period in the history of the Frankish realm, representing an eclectic…[Read more]

Britain’s second-longest early medieval monument – Wat’s Dyke – was a component of an early medieval hydraulic frontier zone rather than primarily serving as a symbol of power, a fixed territorial border or a military stop-line. Wat’s Dyke was not only created to monitor and control mobility over land, but specifically did so through its careful a…[Read more]

Often neglected and misunderstood, there are considerable challenges to digital and real-world public engagement with Britain’s third-longest linear monument, Wat’s Dyke (Williams 2020a). To foster public education and understanding regarding of Wat’s Dyke’s relationship to the broader story of Anglo-Welsh borderlands, but also to encoura…[Read more]

We hope this comic heritage trail for Wrexham helps introduce you to Britain’s third-longest ancient monument

This article introduces the third volume of the Offa’s Dyke Journal (ODJ). As well as reviewing ODJ 3’s contents, I present reviews of the journal received to date, notable new publications on linear monuments, and the Collaboratory’s key activities during 2021. The context and significance of the research network’s ongoing endeavours are present…[Read more]

Introduction to the collected essays of Professor Dai Morgan Evans

Review of Katell Berthelot, Jews and Their Roman Rivals: Pagan Rome’s Challenge to Israel. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2021. Pp. 552. ISBN 9780691199290. $45.00.

It is my modest goal in this essay to trace how Nock uses conversion to produce religion(s) and then to explore its similarities to and differences from an analogous construction of religion-through-conversion in late antiquity.

Benjamin Porat’s Justice for the Poor differs from these books not only in that it is written in Hebrew (from the list above, only Wilfand’s 2014 book has been translated into Hebrew), but also because it envisions rabbinic charity as a branch of “law.” Porat is a law professor, and his book is jointly published by a law school, a think tank an…[Read more]