Feasting with Latinus: Whithorn as the seat of a Late Antique regulus
Resource type
Conference paper (unpublished)
Creator (person)
Maldonado, Adrià¡n
Date published
June 18, 2021
Abstract
The excavations led by the late Peter Hill at Whithorn, Dumfries and Galloway are widely understood as revealing one of the earliest monasteries in Britain. While the early Christian site is undoubtedly significant, new analysis and dating evidence is forcing a rethink of the earliest phases of the sequence. A poorly-understood late Roman phase was followed by an early medieval settlement marked with a fifth-century Latin-inscribed stone bearing a Christian invocation. The following two centuries of the sequence were interpreted as the beginnings of a monastery, but re-dating of the cemetery shows burial began at least a century or more later than the early settlement. The fifth to seventh-century sequence is characterised by feasting activity, including copious amounts of luxury imported ceramic and glass vessels from Gaul and the eastern Mediterranean, alongside metalworking and apparently ceremonial but ephemeral timber structures. The archaeological signal is reminiscent of early royal and proto-royal settlements in northern and western Britain. New work on the formation of a ‘British’ identity on the edges of the Roman province of Britannia suggests that Latinity and Christianity were crucial elements in the formation of Late Antique power structures within the militarised zones of north and west Britain. These duces and reguli were then in a position to profit from the vacuum created by the transformations of the fifth century. The precocious adoption of the Christian faith and the Latin language at Whithorn can best be explained not as the foundation of an early monastery, but a seat of a Late Antique regulus or perhaps a wealthy bishop. This raises new questions about the role of Christianity, alongside other evidence for cult action, in the formation of rituals of
Project(s)
Glenmorangie Research Project into Early Medieval Scotland
Event title
Places of Royal Power and Ritual in Early Medieval Scotland and Europe
Publisher
University of Highlands and Islands
Place of publication
Inverness
Rights statement
In Copyright