Introduction: It is my intention in this address to examine certain series of buildings and objects that represent the material evidence for the beginnings of Christianity in Britain. Although these series have been discussed individually on more than one occasion, there has been little attempt to assess their collective meaning and to demonstrate their significance in the development of the British church. It is my hope that the discussion will throw some light on Christian origins in Britain and, in particular, will contribute to an appreciation of the extent to which there was continuity between the church in Roman Britain of the 4th century and the later church in the Celtic lands of the north and west.
My first series concerns the ‘churches’ of Roman Britain. I make no excuse for examining these buildings, although they lie outside the field normally studied by this Society. Formally I might call in the authority of the Cambridge Medieval History, which starts logically with the Emperor Constantine and the Peace of the Church. Christianity is a historical unity and the scholar who seeks to understand the early medieval church must look back to its origins. This is the more important in that the church is the dynamic element in the early middle ages, the hammer which beat out a finely finished civilization on the anvil of tribal society.
The little building at Silchester,’ the first undoubted Romano-British ‘church’ to be explored, had an overall length of 42 ft. It consisted of a central area with a western apse, measuring in all 29 ft. by 10 ft., and with narrow corridors on each side and small, rather wider, chambers flanking the apse; at the E. end a cross-hall, or narthex, measuring 24 ft. by 7 ft., extended the full width of the building. The floor of the main space was mosaic, of coarse tesserae with a panel of finer tesserae on the chord of the apse. Recent excavations by the late Sir Ian Richmond- brought to light a coin minted between 348 and 353 adhering to the mortar underbedding of the pavement; the building, therefore, can hardly be earlier than c. 360. At the N. end of the cross-hall was a foundation 22 in. in diameter. On the axial line, 11 ft. east of the building, was a tile foundation about 4 ft. square, surrounded by the remains of a rough pavement of flints.
By C.A. Ralegh Radford
Medieval Archaeology, Vol.15 (1971)
Introduction: It is my intention in this address to examine certain series of buildings and objects that represent the material evidence for the beginnings of Christianity in Britain. Although these series have been discussed individually on more than one occasion, there has been little attempt to assess their collective meaning and to demonstrate their significance in the development of the British church. It is my hope that the discussion will throw some light on Christian origins in Britain and, in particular, will contribute to an appreciation of the extent to which there was continuity between the church in Roman Britain of the 4th century and the later church in the Celtic lands of the north and west.
My first series concerns the ‘churches’ of Roman Britain. I make no excuse for examining these buildings, although they lie outside the field normally studied by this Society. Formally I might call in the authority of the Cambridge Medieval History, which starts logically with the Emperor Constantine and the Peace of the Church. Christianity is a historical unity and the scholar who seeks to understand the early medieval church must look back to its origins. This is the more important in that the church is the dynamic element in the early middle ages, the hammer which beat out a finely finished civilization on the anvil of tribal society.
The little building at Silchester,’ the first undoubted Romano-British ‘church’ to be explored, had an overall length of 42 ft. It consisted of a central area with a western apse, measuring in all 29 ft. by 10 ft., and with narrow corridors on each side and small, rather wider, chambers flanking the apse; at the E. end a cross-hall, or narthex, measuring 24 ft. by 7 ft., extended the full width of the building. The floor of the main space was mosaic, of coarse tesserae with a panel of finer tesserae on the chord of the apse. Recent excavations by the late Sir Ian Richmond- brought to light a coin minted between 348 and 353 adhering to the mortar underbedding of the pavement; the building, therefore, can hardly be earlier than c. 360. At the N. end of the cross-hall was a foundation 22 in. in diameter. On the axial line, 11 ft. east of the building, was a tile foundation about 4 ft. square, surrounded by the remains of a rough pavement of flints.
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