Author Description

Whithorn is known in the history of British Christianity as the first known Christian community beyond the Roman province of Britannia, and as the site of the island's earliest named church - Candida Casa. The essential elements of this story were recorded by the Venerable Bede, and are generally accepted as a reliable account. Much however remains unknown. This text offers a detailed account of recent excavations on ground to the south of the medieval cathedral which have revealed an extensive settlement established in c500 AD and identifiable as a major monasterium of the post-Roman church. A remarkable sequence of archaeological deposits charts the development of this community as it was transformed by contacts with Irish, Northumbrian, Viking, Hiberno-Norse, Anglo-Norman and Scottish settlers. The text encompasses reports by leading specialists, and includes contributions on early medieval imports of pottery and glass, the first Anglian window glass found in Scotland, a wide range of sculptural fragments, a group of Northumbrian coins, and a diagnostic assemblage of combs and comb-workshop debris. Environmental reports include analyses of one of the largest groups of medieval skeletons from Britain.