A History–After The Romans

Thinking about the Iron Ages and earlier is all very well but what about something more recent in our parish, let’s say, the ‘Dark ages’?

In about 400 AD the Roman Empire was under attack in Rome, in Germany and the East by Vandals, Goths, etc., and was shrinking fast. In Britain forays from the north by Picts from Scotland and Scots from Ireland were getting worse. Abroad the Baltic sea was expanding as ice melted, and with their land flooding exploration by parties of ‘Angles’ sailing west found East Anglia, and our Yorkshire coasts and rivers attractive, attacking the Romans. With all this trouble here and at home the Romans quit Britain in 410. The remaining Celts of Iron Age and Roman times were very few and we entered the ‘Dark Ages’; a time where history is largely speculation.

As it happens we have one record that may help us, here in Riplingham. You may recall that from its name Riplingham may be our oldest settlement; -ingas is earliest Anglo-Saxon for ‘people of’, and Ripel a ‘ridge of land’ which is exactly what we see in the landscape there. From mediaeval charters, old surveys, and nowadays from aerial photographs we can identify many ancient ‘deserted’ settlements on the Wolds. Rowley parish has Hunsley, Risby and Riplingham, and Weedley and Wauldby just over our present boundary.

In Riplingham we are doubly fortunate in having, near Riplingham House, a deserted village which was partly excavated archaeologically in 1956-7. This ‘dig’ found signs of occupation probably from bronze or iron age time up to about 1750. A double ditch against the western (now parish) boundary was interpreted as a well-trodden pre-historic defensive ditch or an ancient route connecting with similar ones near Hunsley. Other earthworks visible on the ground were found to contain foundations of ages from 1250 to 1750 which had been rebuilt and extended up to five times. Time and cost restricted the dig to only part of the site, but it seems reasonable to claim that we have probably had human activity ranging over 2000 years there.

All that we have nowadays is informed guesswork; its early, Anglo-Saxon, name; its existence recorded as Ripingham, with population and land ownerships, in the Domesday Book; and a partial archaeological survey points to an important settlement but not very much to help us through those ‘dark ages’.

From our present day perspective it is hard to imagine life then. The Romans leaving behind farms tended by hand, poor in fertility on the Wolds; Constantine’s recent Christianity quickly reverting to paganism, probably Druidical; tradition and myth re-asserting itself as tribal chieftain based culture; housing of timber frames, and at best; a short, dangerous, hard life. From the names of our parish settlements there is a succession in them telling of incomers and changes; -ingas is earliest Anglo-Saxon, leah or –ley clearing in a wood is later Anglo-Saxon, -tun or –ton an enclosure or farmstead as the settlement grew dates from about the 6th century Anglo-Saxon, and then –bi or –by after the Danes arrived around 830. Tracing these endings on a map plots these incomers.

Finally the Norsemen came in from Ireland about 915. That was a troubled period in Yorkshire until 954 when the English defeated Eric Bloodaxe but would we have known, here in Rowley? Probably not; we have no Norse names –thwaite or –thorpe in our hamlets except that in 1066, just days before the Normans arrived Harold defeated the Norsemen Tostig and Hardrada at Stamford Bridge their men escaping as best they could via Spurn Point, possibly leaving some stragglers finding refuge and staying.

It is all too easy to claim that the ‘Dark Ages’ were times of mystery; the reality is barely so. In fact it was little more than the first 200 years after the Romans that are blank. The influence of those times on what made Rowley parish, (and Britain), was in many ways just as formative as more recent times…to be continued…

Big Thank You to Barry Heaton for his historical articles which we hope will become a regular feature of both the Web site and Newsletter.

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