• Walter POHL – Nina MIRNIG (Eds.) – Annamaria PAZIENZA – Irene BAVUSO (Guest Eds.)

medieval worlds • no. 23 • 2025

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A truly sensational find is presented in volume 23 of Medieval Worlds: a newly discovered Christian world chronicle in Arabic, which Adrian C. Pirtea examines in a preliminary case study. We furthermore open a new series on Multilingualism in Premodern Societies, which investigates patterns of communication, mobility and power in connection with language use in a Eurasian context. This first instalment focuses on Urban Administrative Spaces (guest editor: Katalin Szende), in which two captivating articles make use of pragmatic literacy and investigate chancery documents of the 14th-17th centuries: Lena Sadovski uses them to draw out skilfully the multilingual environment of Venetian Dalmatia. Marijana Mišević highlights in her study the potential of this hitherto underused source for studying the communication between Ragusans and Ottomans. Our cluster on Moving Jobs: Occupational Identity and Motility in the Middle Ages (guest editors: Annamaria Pazienza and Irene Bavuso) is continued from volume 20 (2024) with three contributions investigating how mobility could have meaningful impact on social advancement and identity formation: Joe Glynias presents a new view on the renowned 11th-century Baghdadi physician Ibn Buṭlān and his career as Christian Arabic author. The movement of peasants in 10th-century Spain as reconstructed from charters serves for Robert Portass as model to develop ideas on the mobility of local communities. Irene Bavuso combines theories of mobility and sedentism to offer new perspectives on artisans in early medieval England. A rare source on papermaking in 13th-century Baghdad was transcribed and partially translated by Shiva Mihan for a further addition to our volume on Mongols’ Baghdad. Knowledge Transmission through Manuscript Cultures before and after the Conquest (guest editors: Bruno de Nicola and Nadine Löhr).

medieval worlds is open to submissions of broadly comparative studies and matters of global interest, whether in single articles, companion papers, smaller clusters, or special issues on a subject of global/comparative history. We particularly invite studies of wide-ranging connectivity or comparison between different world regions.

Apart from research articles, medieval worlds publishes ongoing debates and project and conference reports on comparative medieval research.

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medieval worlds • no. 23 • 2025

ISSN 2412-3196
Online Edition

ISBN 978-3-7001-5131-9
Online Edition



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Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften
Austrian Academy of Sciences Press
A-1011 Wien, Dr. Ignaz Seipel-Platz 2,
Tel. +43-1-515 81/DW 3420, Fax +43-1-515 81/DW 3400
https://verlag.oeaw.ac.at, e-mail: bestellung.verlag@oeaw.ac.at
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Wandering Artisans? The Mobility of Smiths in Early Post-Roman England

    Irene Bavuso

medieval worlds • no. 23 • 2025, pp. 73-96, 2025/11/27

doi: 10.1553/medievalworlds_no23_2025s73


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doi:10.1553/medievalworlds_no23_2025s73

Abstract

This article seeks to re-evaluate the evidence for the itinerancy of smiths in the early medieval period, focusing especially on England between the fifth and the early seventh century. The »itinerant smith« is a well-known model to explain metalworking in north-western Europe during these centuries. Yet the idea of a totally itinerant smith relies heavily on outdated theoretical models, and on literary images that cannot be considered to represent reality at face value. Geographical mobility is to some extent inherent in metalworking, and it was also a way through which smiths could expand their networks and gain upward socioeconomic mobility and social standing. However, it is profitable to consider a more complex model, in which various forms of mobility and sedentism coexisted. Given the severely fragmentary state of the evidence, both written sources and archaeological remains from the Continent will be considered, including fundamental insights from early medieval technical treatises. A re-evaluation of the mobility of the smiths – this article holds – may also have theoretical consequences for broader questions about early post-Roman England, especially concerning the landscape of settlement, the connections between elites and crafts, and the mechanisms of construction and reproduction of hierarchical relationships.

Keywords: early medieval England, mobility, smiths, metalworking, craftsmanship, craft treatises