Their first English foundation was at Waverley in 1128, and by 1160 there were 67 Cistercian monasteries in England. Great builders and innovators, the Cistercians reclaimed vast acres of marginal fen and moorland, as well as developing their industrial base, including iron works, lead workings and coal mines. Glyn Coppack, the head of English Heritage's East Midlands regional team, has worked in the field of monastic studies for many years, and is an internationallyrecognised authority on monasticism in Britain. In this new book, Dr Coppack provides an interesting and readable guide to the development of the Cistercians in England, drawing heavily on recent archaeological work. He charts the spectacular rise and ultimate decline of the Cistercians, beginning with an introduction to the foundation of the order, followed by a discussion of the earliest buildings and the efforts to find permanent bases in England, to the erection of the first permanent monasteries, the growing success of the Cistercians in the 12th and 13th centuries, and their eventual demise at the Reformation.
Animals are a fascinating subject of archaeological research.
In this book, Miranda Green discusses the importance of different animals in Iron Age and Roman farming and hunting, and analyses their role in war, sacrifice, ritual, art and religion. She also considers the significance of animals in the Celtic myths of Wales and Ireland. First published in 1992 but now issued in paperback, this book takes a modern approach in its study of everyday and ritual actions as two indivisible aspects of human life. This approach has been pioneered in particular by JD Hill of Southampton University whose work emphasises the symbolic and ritual component of much of the material found in Iron Age deposits on so-called domestic sites. Some scholars stress that much of our traditional impression of Celtic life in the Iron Age period has been gained from biased literary sources, and that Iron Age material should be interpreted in its own right, rather than in relation to the classical texts or Celtic myths.