News
Wire Story

Metal-Detecting Brits Unearth Medieval Church Artifacts

Archaeologists are using over a million amateur finds to study pilgrimage sites, the Black Death, and the Protestant Reformation.

Christianity Today November 22, 2023
Jacabel / Getty Images

Much has been written about religious life in the medieval era, but thanks to the British fancy for metal detectors, archaeologists are hopeful about gauging just how much more has gone unwritten.

Earlier this month, the University of Reading announced that it has been awarded a million pounds ($1,245,330) by the British Arts and Humanities Research Council to study the role of religion in medieval life, for which the university will employ a unique source of data: the findings of hobby metal detector users that have been logged in the British Museum’s Portable Antiquities Scheme.

The museum’s scheme was founded more than 20 years ago, in part to quell archaeologists’ fears that hobby metal detector users were disturbing the historical record.

“At the time, there was this boom in metal detecting, with lots of archaeological findings being discovered, and not really any mechanism to record them at all,” Michael Lewis, the scheme’s director, told Religion News Service. “So the Portable Antiquities Scheme was set up to provide a mechanism, on a voluntary basis, to record all the other sorts of discoveries that have been found.”

Since then, metal-detecting hobbyists in Britain have had more than a few minutes of fame thanks to a BBC show, Detectorists, that debuted in 2014. Detectorists wasn’t their only time in the limelight; three shows about the hobby specifically in Britain made it onto Detect History’s list of its 10 “Best Metal Detecting TV Shows.”

Though archaeologists once worried that the fad would hamper their work, they are now seeing it as another way to further understand our past.

“The reason that we’re interested in this is that sources of archaeological evidence are increasingly showing us that quite a lot went on in the medieval period that wasn’t recorded in historical documents,” said Roberta Gilchrist, who leads the program at the University of Reading.

“What we know about religion is through the lens of written sources, largely through the church and through the male priesthood,” Gilchrist explained. “We hope we’re going to be able to use archaeological evidence to get more from the people who didn’t leave documents. For example, women, children, or ordinary, everyday men.”

Through the scheme, metal detectors can log their finds with the museum, including the exact coordinates and conditions of where they were found. Some then choose to donate the artifacts; others keep them in private collections.

A flask used by pilgrims for holding holy water.
A flask used by pilgrims for holding holy water.

So far it has resulted in a database of more than 1.5 million entries, several hundred thousand of which date to the late medieval period.

“What we’re particularly looking at is material culture that’s associated with medieval pilgrimage,” Gilchrist said, especially pilgrim badges that were produced as souvenirs for Christian shrines at the time, as well as metal ampullae that were used to hold holy water.

“These were really just very cheap objects made of, like, a lead-tin alloy. But there are thousands of these things,” said Gilchrist, “and we can map them because the metal detectors, now, when they find them, they all have GPS on their phones, and they can give you a very accurate indication of where they find these things.”

The patterns they find give clues into practices from centuries ago. A high concentration of badges related to a certain saint found on a historic road may signify a previously unknown pilgrimage route. Ampullae regularly found at the borders of farms and fields suggest that farmers used holy water to bless crops.

“We very seldom find (ampullae) from excavated sites in villages or towns. But we’ve got hundreds of these turning up in plowed fields,” Gilchrist explained. “They’re often intact objects, but the tops have been pried off, or they’ve been bitten off in some cases, and so the sort of theory is that these things are being used in some kind of agricultural ritual.”

Written records exist that tell scholars of large-scale ceremonies in which priests brought crosses and other relics out to village fields, but nothing on an individual level.

The existing record also tends to reflect what was going on in cities. “Most of the finds that are recorded with us are through metal detecting, and the metal detector users, generally speaking, are searching in the countryside on arable sites, and not in cities,” said the British Museum’s Lewis. “In the countryside, people are kind of living in a different way, and those people in the countryside are likely to be less wealthy than those in the cities.”

The project will also examine two major shifts in society and religion in medieval Britain, the Black Death and the Protestant Reformation.

“It will be really interesting to see in a general sense what the impact of these kinds of changes in society had on the material culture,” Lewis said.

“What we’re trying to do here is something that’s quite, quite tricky, actually. What we’re trying [to do] is to understand—through these objects—how people relate it to the divine in many different ways,” he added.

Our Latest

The Bulletin

Praying for Time

Hosts and guests discuss Gen Z in the workplace, Israeli hostages, and astronauts stuck in space.

Wire Story

China Ends International Adoptions, Leaving Hundreds of Cases in Limbo

The decision shocked dozens of evangelical families in the US who had been in the process since before the pandemic.

Wire Story

Bangladeshi Christians and Hindus Advocate for a Secular Country

As political changes loom and minority communities face violence, religious minorities urge the government to remove Islam as the state religion.

Public School Can Be a Training Ground for Faith

My daughter will wrestle with worldliness in her education, just as I did. That’s why I want to be around to help.

Boomers: Serve Like Your Whole Life Is Ahead of You

What will our generation do with the increased life expectancy God has blessed us with?

Review

Take Me Out to Something Bigger Than a Ballgame

American stadiums have always played host both to major sports and to larger social aspirations.

How to Find Common Ground When You Disagree About the Common Good

Interfaith engagement that doesn’t devolve into a soupy multiculturalism is difficult—and necessary in our diverse democracy.

Wire Story

Evangelical Broadcasters Sue Over IRS Ban on Political Endorsements

Now that some nonprofit newspapers have begun to back candidates, a new lawsuit asks why Christian charities can’t take sides.

Apple PodcastsDown ArrowDown ArrowDown Arrowarrow_left_altLeft ArrowLeft ArrowRight ArrowRight ArrowRight Arrowarrow_up_altUp ArrowUp ArrowAvailable at Amazoncaret-downCloseCloseEmailEmailExpandExpandExternalExternalFacebookfacebook-squareGiftGiftGooglegoogleGoogle KeephamburgerInstagraminstagram-squareLinkLinklinkedin-squareListenListenListenChristianity TodayCT Creative Studio Logologo_orgMegaphoneMenuMenupausePinterestPlayPlayPocketPodcastRSSRSSSaveSaveSaveSearchSearchsearchSpotifyStitcherTelegramTable of ContentsTable of Contentstwitter-squareWhatsAppXYouTubeYouTube