Food for the Soul: The social dynamics of marine fish consumption along the southern North Sea coast from AD 700 to AD 1200 (Rebecca Reynolds)

Food for the Soul: The social dynamics of marine fish consumption along the southern North Sea coast from AD 700 to AD 1200 (Rebecca Reynolds)

The origins of intensive marine fishing along the Channel in the Middle Ages are thought to have begun around the turn of the first millennium and to have been driven by economic forces focused around the developing urban centres of the Late Anglo-Saxon period. Recent excavations at two Middle and Late Anglo-Saxon sites have revealed significant amounts of marine fish remains. and the high status nature of both these settlements has enabled the beginnings of a study exploring the social context of fish consumption. Bishopstone, East Sussex has been identified as being a high status secular settlement (thegnly residence) and Lyminge, Kent may be linked to a Middle Anglo-Saxon monastery. The situation is revealing to be highly complex with several different factors at play and has highlighted the need to expand this research further by broadening the time period and geographical areas but also incorporating other zooarchaeological and archaeological evidence and drawing upon iconography, history, social and economic theory. It is hoped that this will help elucidate the role elites played in initiating a taste in fish and the dynamics of how this was transferred to urban dwellers and to see how the situation compares on the opposite coasts of the North Sea.

Rebecca Reynolds, University of Nottingham

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