Viking and native: re–thinking identity in the Danelaw
This paper addresses the impact of the Scandinavian settlements in England in the ninth and tenth centuries, and the role that ethnic identity and affiliation played in the society of the so–called Danelaw. It is argued that ethnic identity was not a constant factor, but one that only became relevant, at least in the evidence available to us, at certain times. It is suggested that the key to understanding expressions of ethnicity lies in the absorption of new ruling elites in northern and eastern England, and in subsequent political manoeuvring, rather than in the scale of the Scandinavian settlement. Indeed, the scale of the settlement does not easily explain most of our evidence, with the exception of some of the linguistic data. This paper stresses the importance of discussing the Scandinavian settlements not simply by reference to ethnic factors, but within the social and political context of early medieval society.
Lincoln in the Viking age : a 'town' in context
This thesis investigates the development of Lincoln in the period c. 870-1000 AD. 
Traditional approaches to urban settlements often focus on chronology, and treat 
towns in isolation from their surrounding regions. Taking Lincoln as a case study, 
this PhD research, in contrast, analyses the identities of the settlement and its 
inhabitants from a regional perspective, focusing on the historic region of Lindsey, 
and places it in the context of the Scandinavian settlement. Developing an 
integrated and interdisciplinary approach that can be applied to datasets from 
different regions and time periods, this thesis analyses four categories of material 
culture - funerary deposits, coinage, metalwork and pottery - each of which occur 
in significant numbers inside and outside Lincoln. 
Chapter 1 summarises previous work on late Anglo-Saxon towns and introduces the 
approach adopted in this thesis. Chapter 2 provides a discussion of Lincoln's 
development during the Anglo-Saxon period, and introduces the datasets. 
Highlighting problems encountered during past investigations, this chapter also 
discusses the main methodological considerations relevant to the wide range of 
different categories of material culture that stand central to this thesis, which are 
retrieved through a combination of intrusive and non-intrusive methods under 
varying circumstances. 
Chapters 3-6 focus on funerary deposits, coinage, metalwork and pottery 
respectively, through analysis of distribution patterns and the impact of changes in 
production processes on the identity of Lincoln and its inhabitants. It is argued that 
a straightforward distinction between 'town' and 'country' is too simplistic. Viking- 
; 
Age Lincoln was firmly embedded within the surrounding region, and neither Lincoln 
nor Lindsey was a homogenous entity. The formation of Lincoln's 'urban' identity 
was the outcome of changes in late ninth- and tenth-century socio-political 
structures, many of which had been set in motion centuries before the 
Scandinavian settlement.
Reid on Hypotheses and the Ether; A Reassessment
In recent years historians of science have come to see that Thomas Reid’s Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man had a profound impact on the development of British methodological thought in the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries. Larry Laudan has argued that Reid was “the first major British philosopher to take Newton’s opinions on induction, causality, and hypotheses seriously”; and that Reid was thereby instrumental in changing the character of British methodological discourse in the Enlightenment.(1) Geoffrey Cantor has examined in detail the influence of Reid’s critique of ether theories and hypotheses in the Essays on leading protagonists in the nineteenth-century debates surrounding the wave theory of light,(2) and Richard Olson has traced the origins of the scientific style of British physics in the Victorian period to the writings of Reid and other Common Sense philosophers. (3) As well as delineating Reid’s influence, Laudan, Cantor, and Olson have attempted to identify the problems to which he addressed himself in articulating his methodology, and they have analysed with some care the internal structure of his methodological views. Thanks to the work of these historians, therefore, we have a fairly comprehensive picture of Reid’s methodology and its fortunes in the nineteenth century.