UHI Archaeology Institute lecturer Dr Sarah Jane Gibbon is one of the contributors to a new book, Small Churches and Religious Landscapes in the North Atlantic c.900–1300, to be launched next month.
The book follows a European Association of Archaeologists (EAA) session in 2016, where Sarah Jane was invited to deliver a presentation on Orkney’s Norse churches.
Her chapter, Small Churches in Orkney, presents some of the results from her 2006 doctoral research for the first time.
She explained: “My research has informed much of my teaching and subsequent research, such as Cult of St Magnus, Mapping Magnus in Orkney and Caithness and the Skaill excavations in Rousay, but this is the first time it has been published in any detail.
“According to evidence gathered from archaeological remains, upstanding buildings, placenames, written sources and traditions, as many as 220 churches may have been founded in Orkney in the tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries.
“My research looked at these in their landscape context, the goal to understand the beginnings of the medieval parochial system in the Orkney Earldom.
“Unexpectedly, as well as gaining an insight into the establishment of parishes and parish churches, I was able, from considering the church locations, to suggest tentative explanations of varying purposes and possible dates for some of these poorly understood ‘medieval chapels’ based on their location characteristics.”
Sarah Jane was the first Archaeology PhD student at the UHI and her supervisory team were Dr Raymond Lamb, Professor Barbara Crawford and Professor Jane Downes.
Small Churches and Religious Landscapes in the North Atlantic c. 900–1300, edited by Jette Arneborg and Orri Vésteinsson, is published by Brepols.
- In a timely coincidence, Sarah Jane’s PhD inventory is now available online, alongside her thesis.
