Early Medieval Winchester

Winchester’s identity as a royal centre became well established between the ninth and twelfth centuries, closely tied to the significance of the religious communities who lived within and without the city walls. The reach of power of Winchester was felt throughout England and into the Continent through the relationships of the bishops, the power fluctuations of the Norman period, the pursuit of arts and history writing, the reach of the city’s saints, and more. The essays contained in this volume present early medieval Winchester not as a city alone, but a city emmeshed in wider political, social, and cultural movements and, in many cases, providing examples of authority and power that are representative of early medieval England as a whole.

Winchester in the Anglo-Saxon and early Norman periods was an important royal and religious centre. Property and Piety comprises an edition and translation, with extensive commentary, of thirty-three Anglo-Saxon and Norman documents relating to the topography and minsters of early medieval Winchester. These texts record the physical effects on the city of the foundation and expansion of the three neighbouring minsters, and also of the removal of the New Minster to Hyde in about 1110. They record political, religious, and cultural aspects of the tenth-century reform of Benedictine monasticism, of which Winchester was a leading centre. The splendid New Minster refoundation charter, composed by Bishop AEthelwold and granted by King Edgar in 966, is here translated for the first time. A full examination is also made of the old minster confirmation charter, probably fabricated in the reign of AEthelred. The volume also includes all Anglo-Saxon grants of land within Winchester and a reappraisal of the evidence for the beneficial hidation of the surrounding estate of Chilcomb. This book is the third part of the fourth volume in the Winchester Studies series on The Anglo-Saxon Minsters of Winchester.

Winchester in the Anglo-Saxon and early Norman periods was an important royal and religious centre. The thirty-three documents edited and translated here concern both monastic and urban life and reflect royal influences on both. They include detailed descriptions of property inside and around the city and information about individual inhabitants.

Winchester’s identity as a royal centre became well established between the ninth and twelfth centuries, closely tied to the significance of the religious communities who lived within and without the city walls. The reach of power of Winchester was felt throughout England and into the Continent through the relationships of the bishops, the power fluctuations of the Norman period, the pursuit of arts and history writing, the reach of the city’s saints, and more. The essays contained in this volume present early medieval Winchester not as a city alone, but a city emmeshed in wider political, social, and cultural movements and, in many cases, providing examples of authority and power that are representative of early medieval England as a whole.

London and Winchester were not described in the Domesday Book, but the royal properties in Winchester were surveyed for Henry I about 1110 and the whole city was surveyed for Bishop Henry of Blois in 1148. These two surveys survive in a single manuscript, known as the Winton Domesday, andconstitute the earliest and by far the most detailed description of an English or European town of the early Middle Ages. In the period covered Winchester probably achieved the peak of its medieval prosperity. From the reign of Alfred to that of Henry II it was a town of the first rank, initiallycentre of Wessex, then the principal royal city of the Old English state, and finally 'capital' in some sense, but not the largest city, of the Norman Kingdom.In this book a team of scholars from Britain and Sweden, centred on the Wincheste Research Unit have undertaken a full edition, translation, and analyses of the surveys and of the city they depict. Drawing on the evidence derived from archaeological excavation and historical research in the citysince 1961, on personal- and place-name evidence, and on the recent advances in Anglo-Saxon numismatics, they provide an unparalleled account of one of the principal European cities of the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

By the fourteenth century Winchester had lost its former eminence, but in trades, manufactures, and population, as well as by virtue of its administrative and ecclesiastical role, the city was still one of the major provincial centres in England. This Survey is based on a reconstruction of the histories of the houses, plots, gardens, and fields in the city and suburbs between c. 1300 and c. 1540, although in many instances both earlier and later periods are also covered. The reconstruction takes the form of a gazetteer (Part ii) of 1,128 histories of properties, together with accounts of 56 parish churches and the international fair of St. Giles, all illustrated by detailed maps. There is also a biographical register (Part iii) concerning more than 8,000 property-holders, most of whom lived in Winchester. This is the first time that it has been possible to piece together such a precise and detailed picture of both the topography and the inhabitants of a medieval town. Part i of the book contains a full discussion of the significance of this material and, in a manner relevant to an understanding of life in medieval towns in general, describes and defines such matters as the evolution of the physical environment, housing, land-tenure, property values, the parochial structure, the practice and organization of trades, and the ways in which the citizens of Winchester adapted to the declining status of their city.