The Albigensian Crusade

This month sees the publication of two very different books on the Albigensian Crusade, the war against heretics in the Languedoc region which has become a byword for brutality. We investigate.

New Bargains

A first look at our most recent bargain books.

Of all the new books that have passed over the desks of the Oxbow staff this month, these, for whatever reason, are the ones that grabbed their attention.

New Releases

The Tribe of Witches: The Religion of the Dobunni and Hwicce
by Stephen Yeates
Paperback. GB £19.95, GB £8.95

Until now the old religions of Britain have only been looked at in a piecemeal way. This book presents a detailed and focused investigation of the religion of the Dobunni and the Hwicce peoples who occupied the Severn valley and the Cotswolds immediately before and after the Roman occupation. It uncovers some secrets of the old religion of Britain that have lain hidden in reams of unconnected and largely forgotten information, from a variety of sources. The first part of the book concerns the deification of the natural world; the second, the deities of the tribal groups. It explores the deities of the different areas of the Dobunnic/Hwiccan territory; identifying the goddess of the Cotswolds, and describes how the worship manifested itself. Yeates demonstrates how the deification of rivers was important and how this has led to the location of a number of ancient river shrines as well as the identification of a number of monumental arrangements used by the peoples in their religious activities and folk-group identity; numerous recognisably pre-Old English folk-names are also shown to relate specifically to river-names, town-names, and folk-group-names. The religious use of the hill-forts, of which there are so many dotted over the landscape, and their shrines is discussed. These are connected with mineral extraction, warfare, nemetons, and sacred groves. The use for standing totems and burial practices is also covered. Once the associations are made between deity, river, and folk-group, and all other aspects of religion have been discussed the deity who resided over the Dobunni is revealed. Her cult, which was evident in the major Roman towns, can be traced back into the Iron Age, and can be identified as the inspiration for the tribal name Hwicce. This shows an element of continuity in British culture, not recognised previously because of the assumed obliteration of British culture due to the extent, success, and longevity of the Roman occupation and Anglo-Saxon migration. Understanding the tribal goddess also explains why this people were "the tribe of witches". Finally, it is recognised that these gods did not perish but persisted in medieval legends, traditions and place-names. Although at its core this is a study of two British tribes, the work will have a major impact on the understanding of pre-Christian religion not only in Britain but also in Western Europe generally.

The Dartmoor Reaves: Investigating Prehistoric Land Divisions, Second Edition
by Andrew Fleming
Paperback. GB £20.00

First published in 1988, The Dartmoor Reaves is a classic story of archaeological fieldwork and discovery, and a winner of the Archaeological Book Award. This major new edition adds both colour illustrations and two substantial new chapters to the original groundbreaking text, which revolutionised our understanding of Britain's prehistoric landscapes. Dartmoor has long been known for the richness of its prehistoric heritage; stone circles, hut circles, massive burial cairns, and stone rows all pepper the landscape. In the 1970s a new dimension was added, with the recognition that the long-ignored reaves (ruined walls) are also prehistoric; Dartmoor now posed all sorts of questions about the nature of Bronze Age society. Andrew Fleming describes the critical moment when his own fieldwork picked up the pattern of the reaves, and he realised their true identity. His new chapters places Dartmoor's large-scale, planned, prehistoric landscapes in the context of other 'co-axial' field systems that have since been found elsewhere, and also discuss their meaning, in the light of the latest research on the Bronze Age.

Feeding the Roman Army
edited by Sue Stallibrass and Richard Thomas
Paperback. GB £30.00

These ten papers from two Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference (2007) sessions bring together a growing body of new archaeological evidence in an attempt to reconsider the way in which the Roman army was provisioned. Clearly, the adequate supply of food was essential to the success of the Roman military. But what was the nature of those supply networks? Did the army rely on imperial supply lines from the continent, as certainly appears to be the case for some commodities, or were provisions requisitioned from local agricultural communities? If the latter was the case, was unsustainable pressure placed on such resources and how did local communities respond? Alternatively, did the early stages of conquest include not only the development of a military infrastructure, but also an effective supply-chain network based on contracts? Beyond the initial stages of conquest, how were provisioning arrangements maintained in the longer term, did supply chains remain static or did they change over time and, if so, what precipitated those changes? Addressing such questions is critical if we are to understand the nature of Roman conquest and the extent of interaction between indigenous communities and the Roman army. Case studies come from Roman Britain (Alchester, Cheshire, Dorset), France, the Netherlands and the Rhine Delta, looking at evidence from animal products, military settlements, the size of cattle, horses, pottery and salt. The editors also provide a review of current research and suggest a future agenda for economic and environmental research.

Living Well Together? Settlement and Materiality in the Neolithic of South-East and Central Europe
edited by Douglass Bailey, Alasdair Whittle and Daniela Hofmann
Paperback. GB £38.00, GB £10.00

Living Well Together investigates the development of the Neolithic in southeast and central Europe from 6500-3500 cal BC with special reference to the manifestations of settling down. A collection of reports and comments on recent fieldwork in the region, Living Well Together? provides 14 tightly written and targeted papers presenting interpretive discussions from important excavations and reassessments of our understanding of the Neolithic. Each paper makes a significant contribution to existing knowledge about the period, and the book, like its companion (Un)settling the Neolithic (Oxbow 2005) will be a benchmark text for work in this region. The reports in Living Well Together? play out the critical questions posed in the earlier volume: how should one interpret settlement; what of the difference between tells and flat sites; what do we mean by permanent occupation; can we avoid the assumptions that underlie claims for year-round residence or seasonal occupation; why, in some regions and at some times, did people maintain residence for so many generations that monumental tell settlements grew to dominate the visual and social landscape; what would a viewshed analysis of tells reveal; what are the dynamics of households in Neolithic Greece; how should we see the emergence of pottery in terms of material culture; and what were the origins of the LBK, and how can we understand its development? The volume's authors have succeeded in attacking existing thought, in provoking new discussion and in creating new paths to understanding the nature of human existence in the Neolithic. Together they set a new agenda for studying the Neolithic across and beyond southeastern and central Europe.

Miro: The Leper Bishop
edited and translated by Walter Borenstein
Paperback. GB £15.00
Hardback. GB £40.00

Gabriel Francisco Miro Ferrer was born on July 28th 1879, in Alicante on the Costa Blanca. Brought up in the Castilian-speaking Alicante, Miro was sent away to school in nearby Orihela, aged eight. The Jesuit Colegio de Santo Domingo would become the "Jesus" in The Leper Bishop. Miro studied Law, first at the University of Valencia, then at Granada, from which he graduated in 1900. He married in 1901, at the age of 22, and in that same year published his first novel, La mujer de Ojeda. The Leper Bishop was published in December 1926, when Miro was a grandfather, and he died not long afterwards, in May 1930, of peritonitis. The Leper Bishop (El obispo leproso) follows the story (begun in Our Father San Daniel) of a boy, Pablo, who is sent to a Jesuit school - a place where an extremist version of Catholicism is inflicted on its pupils. The novel portrays the struggle between innocence and evil, which, by the end of the book, is tempered by understanding. Miro has traditionally been seen as a writer difficult or impossible to translate, with very few of his works available in English. It is hoped that this edition will bring this lyrical writer's work to a wider audience.