Conclusions

Beer to drink was just as important as bread to eat, both practically and symbolically, for the peoples of 7th to 9th c. ad England. Yet corresponding archaeobotanical evidence has been, to date, conspicuously lacking – hence the particular significance of an assemblage from the earliest unambiguous multi-feature Anglo-Saxon malting complex, revealed at Sedgeford. Archaeobotanical research, uncovering an abundance of germinated grains (a sign of malting), was the key ‘missing piece’, alongside structural evidence, underpinning the designation of Sedgeford’s trench 23 as an 8th and 9th c. ad malting complex.

FWE methods, stable isotopic analyses and weed seasonality analyses have revealed evidence for all three components of the so-called ‘mouldboard plough package’ – extensification of cultivation, use of a mouldboard plough, and perhaps, early crop rotation – in the fields that supplied Sedgeford’s malting complex. Additional characteristics of the malting complex assemblage exemplify other trends associated with the period. These include its sheer richness – evidencing local specialisation (in grain processing for beer-production), and also a diverse crop spectrum – dominated by rye, a minor crop in Anglo-Saxon England but well adapted to local environmental conditions. This was a time when farmers were ‘digging themselves in as never before’ (McKerracher 2018, p 118) – investing in their connection with the land – to both feed and slake the thirst of a people who esteemed the ploughman as one giving ‘drink as well as bread’ (Ælfric’s Colloquy, Garmonsway 1991, p 40, l.226).