Martin Henig – författare

This is the first comprehensive catalogue of the sculpture from this region of Roman Britain, including the first proper record of the sculpture from Wroxeter. The sculptures, all in local sandstone, were carved locally and provide an index of Romanisation in the far north-west of the Roman Empire - at the Fortress of Legio II Adivtrix and then Legio XX Valeria Victrix at Devra (Chester), and at the Fortress and subsequently the civil town of the Cornovii at Viroconium (Wroxeter). The sculpture from Letcetum (Wall, Staffs) is also considered. The works range in quality from highly accomplished and decorative altars and tombstones, to rather ham-fisted efforts which hint that it was not always possible to attract sculptors to these relatively remote places. Such factors are discussed in an extended introduction.

With the help of over 100 illustrations, many of them little known, Martin Henig shows that the art produced in Britannia--particularly in the golden age of Late Antiquity--rivals that of other provinces and deserves comparison with the art of metropolitan Rome. The originality and breadth of Henig's study is shown by its systematic coverage, embracing both the major arts--stone and bronze statuary, wall-painting and mosaics--and such applied arts as jewelery-making, silversmithing, furniture design, figure pottery, figurines and appliques. The author explains how the various workshops were organized, the part played by patronage and the changes that occurred in the fourth century.

A concise, clearly written introduction to the early past of Britain and Europe from the beginnings up to the twelfth century AD, which presents archaeological research in a readily understandable form. Written, and originally published in 1973, for readers with no specialist knowledge or the subject, a major virtue of this book is the way in which it brings into focus all the separate strands of evidence to present a coherent narrative development. The account starts with a brief survey of human evolution and a consideration of the evidence of tool-making in the Old Stone Age. It goes on to describe the origins and spread of farming and the subsequent development of metallurgy and full urban civilization and the contribution made by the urban civilization of Rome to the development of Europe. It looks at the Migration Period through to the reestablishment of urban culture in northern Europe concluding with a brief description of conditions in the twelfth century.

Apart from Christianity and the Oriental Cults, religion in Roman Britain is often discussed as though it remained basically Celtic in belief and practice, under a thin veneer of Roman influence. Using a wide range of archaeological evidence, Dr Henig shows that the Roman element in religion was of much greater significance and that the natural Roman veneration for the gods found meaningful expression even in the formal rituals practised in the public temples of Britain.

With the help of over 100 illustrations, many of them little known, Martin Henig shows that the art produced in Britannia--particularly in the golden age of Late Antiquity--rivals that of other provinces and deserves comparison with the art of metropolitan Rome. The originality and breadth of Henig's study is shown by its systematic coverage, embracing both the major arts--stone and bronze statuary, wall-painting and mosaics--and such applied arts as jewelery-making, silversmithing, furniture design, figure pottery, figurines and appliques. The author explains how the various workshops were organized, the part played by patronage and the changes that occurred in the fourth century.

Apart from Christianity and the Oriental Cults, religion in Roman Britain is often discussed as though it remained basically Celtic in belief and practice, under a thin veneer of Roman influence. Using a wide range of archaeological evidence, Dr Henig shows that the Roman element in religion was of much greater significance and that the natural Roman veneration for the gods found meaningful expression even in the formal rituals practised in the public temples of Britain.

Water in the Roman World: Engineering, Trade, Religion and Daily Life offers a wide and expansive new treatment of the role water played in the lives of people across the Roman world. Individual papers deal with ports and their lighthouses; with water engineering, whether for canals in the north-west provinces, or for the digging of wells for drinking water, and for multiple other purposes; with baths for swimming; and with spas. Further papers explore religion in water-sanctuaries and the deposition of objects in rivers as well as deities connected with water, including river gods and nymphs. A final chapter provides an overview of subjects not fully covered elsewhere, including warships and naval battles, trade and navigation, aqueducts, fishing and fish-farming, and literary response to watery landscapes, rivers and lakes. The latter include works by great landowners such as the younger Pliny with his Laurentine villa beside the sea west of Rome or by poets, among them Catullus enjoying Lake Garda and Ausonius with his loving description of the River Moselle. The contributors address the subject in a variety of different ways, as Classicists drawing largely on literature, archaeologists with experience of excavating the watery environment, and art-historians. The papers range from the theoretical, with particular interest in materiality, to more lyrical approaches which address the Romans with their problems as well as their pleasures.

Julian Munby has gained a reputation over half a century in many branches of archaeological and historical knowledge, from his meticulous publication of the medieval timber structure of 126 High Street and his later elucidation of Tackley’s Inn from J. Buckler’s nineteenth century records when he was an undergraduate, to more recent work on the Historic Towns Atlas for Oxford. He has taken in the publication of the medieval castle at Portchester, the roofs of Chichester and many other cathedrals, the landscape history of Levens Park, Westmorland, the Round Table at Windsor Castle and the Field of the Cloth of Gold. He is an enthusiast for the history of Antiquity, topographical art, and for reading historical sources in the original.His lively and warm character and sense of fun has made him many friends who also in some sense feel they are his pupils, and this collection of papers has been assembled as a tribute. The first part comprises a preface by the editors, his daughter and son share accounts of being brought up in a household where it was normal for parents to be archaeologists, Jane Woodcock remembers ten years when Julian spent his day in an office arranging exams and cooking gourmet meals, and Deirdre Forde and others reveal his pioneering work teaching building archaeology.The second part consists of papers by friends who share his enthusiasm and in each case write on a facet of his interests, from his brother’s paper on the superbly engineered tunnel at Box, a reminder that railways and railway architecture has always been one of Julian’s loves, to Oxford topography in a number of papers and the later decor of Windsor Castle.

Binsey is a village to the west of Oxford, on the south bank of the main channel of the River Thames, opposite Port Meadow, which has been an open space belonging to the burgesses of Oxford since late Saxon times. Although now within the ring-road, the village is essentially rural and unspoilt. The hub of Binsey is a row of cottages and the Perch Inn on one side of the village green. At one time when the river was wider there was a ferry here taking travelers across to Oxford. The church, its present building no earlier than the 12th century though on an older site, lies a third of a mile distant. Its association with Oxford’s patron saint St Frideswide alone makes this an evocative place for anyone with an interest in the origins of this great University city. Its holy well, dedicated to St Margaret like the church itself, was a place of resort for those with eye problems or desirous of a child: Katharine of Aragon’s lack of success in conceiving a male heir after resort to the well in a sense precipitated the English Reformation! Later associations, which include Charles Dodgson and Alice Liddell as well as Gerard Manley Hopkins and C. S. Lewis, render Binsey a place for the literary as well as the religious pilgrim. This book is a collection of essays on aspects of Binsey and its environs. It is not a guidebook so much as an evocation of the place, dwelling on specific aspects from the busy river to the tranquil and silent churchyard; from the poplars, great-grandparents of the present trees along the river and Hopkins’ great poem on them, to the personalities who served the village community; from the Binsey of St Frideswide’s time to the community of the present day.