WHAT ARE MANSIOS?

2009-01-07T02:18:00.000-08:00

The Roman road between London and Chichester was referred to as Stane Street from around AD930 in Sussex and 1279 in Surrey, from a potential Saxon origin as Stan Street, referring to the stone slabs which formed the surface of the road (Glover 1997).

The Roman road system in Britain originated in the 1st century AD as a military system centred on strategically positioned London. The roads linked London to the Romanised towns constructed in the native centres of the south-east and to the legionary bases and later towns to the north and west. The Roman government needed these lines of communication to control areas using the commanders of the regional forts. However, it was also necessary for the administration of the Roman army, government officials, and soldiers, to travel between the various forts on government business. The government therefore authorised the construction of praetoria, a series of roadside accommodation sites for high ranking officials to eat, sleep and procure fresh transport for their journey. This system of roads and accommodation became known as the cursus publicus, literally ‘public passage’.

The staging posts of the 1st century AD were normally attached to earlier forts. (although later, government officials were often billeted in the houses within roadside settlements or vici). These vici often preceded the construction of purpose-built accommodation for government officials, with bath-houses and stables and other such facilities within a defensive enclosure (Black 1995, 1).

The type of roadside accommodation within a staging post consisted of two categories, divided into ‘standard’ and ‘first class’ accommodation. As sites have been interpreted as containing both classes of accomodation, so the word mansio (‘a place to stop the night’) was used to refer to such places. A mansio differed from a praetorium in that it was not just for high ranking officials, and the term differed also from mutation, which was regarded as ‘a place to change transport’ and not ‘a place to stop the night’. Mansio has now become the preferred term for a roadside accommodation site (Black 1995. 1 and 12).

English Heritage defines a Mansio as a Roman building or complex of buildings which was intended to provide facilities, including accommodation and stabling for travellers involved with the provincial postal service (cursus publicus). Mansio complexes are normally built in stone and generally include suites of rooms and an integral or adjacent bath-house. By reason of their function, they occur exclusively on, or immediately adjacent to, major roads. Mansiones occur in urban areas, including small towns and fort vici, as well as in rural contexts. In some places they may have formed the nucleus of a growing roadside settlement as indeed has occurred here at Alfoldean. (www.eng-h.gov.uk/mpp/mcd/sub/datman1.htm).

See also Wikkipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mansio

Mansio sites and other places of accommodation were positioned at convenient intervals along the length of a road between major urban centres. A list of such accommodation was recorded in the Bordeaux Itinerary, a 4th century book describing the route from Bordeaux to Jerusalem for pilgrims and describes accommodation as civitates, mansiones or mutationes. The document was designed for travellers on horseback or those travelling by carriage and listed accommodation at a distance of a single day’s journey, on average 20-35 Roman miles (approximately 29-51km or 18-31 miles) apart.

The Antonine Itinerary contains a collection of routes from varying dates within the Roman world. The collection possibly dates from some time before AD 326, with the British section of the Itinerary dating to the late 3rd or early 4th century AD.

(http://home.freeuk.net/britannica/iter.htm)

The routes within the Antonine Itinerary were designed for travellers on foot or those accompanying slow-moving convoys or transport wagons, and listed accommodation at the distance of a single day’s journey for them. The distances recorded between accommodation were between 20 and 15 Roman miles (approximately 22-29km or 13-18 miles) with only a handful less than 15 Roman miles apart (Black 1995, 12-13}.

Stane Street is not mentioned as a route within the Antonine Itinerary; though the distances between accommodation centres between London and Chichester do conform to the average distances recorded. The distance from London to EweIl is 14 Roman miles. At Ewell a settlement was identified adjacent to the road, potentially 900m long by 200m wide, where a number of structures have been excavated, one dated AD 96-160 and another from the late 4th century AD, the whole settlement potentially surrounded by a defensive ditch. From Ewell to Dorking is just less than 10 Roman miles, where 2nd century AD deposits and features have been identiñed adjacent to Stane Street.

The distance from Dorking to the mansio here at Alfoldean is 11.5 Roman miles, and from Alfoldean to Hardham is 12 Roman miles. At Hardham a rectangular Banked and ditched enclosure measuring c.134m by 122m and encompassing an area of some 4.125 acres was identified, although much of the enclosure, was destroyed by the cutting of the Midhurst to Pulborough railway line (now disused), and the excavation of’ a large quarry pit for ballast for the railway line. A small excavation was carried out by S. E. Winbolt in 1926 which revealed a rammed dark earth floor layer, a flint wall foundation, a number of cremations and large pits containing pottery Wasters. There was evidence of late 1st to early 2nd century pottery production on site. The distance from Hardham to Chichester is recorded as almost 15 Roman miles {Black 1995, 15; VCH 1973, 36-7: Smith 1987, 274-7; Cleary 1987, 7 and 91).

Only one mansio has been excavated in its entirety in this country, at Inchtuthill in Scotland, located 40m from the south-east corner of the legionary fort there and dated to some time before AD 88. The enclosure contained two courtyards surrounded by barracks on one side and another timber building consisting of two rooms, located by a hvpocaust system, on the other - in other words, barrack-like ‘standard class’ accommodation and ‘first class’ accommodation separated by a courtyard area, with a detached bath-house and stabling. This type of layout and the type of buildings within the enclosure is considered as typical, and the norm within a mansio staging post.

The earliest mansio identified in Britain is recorded in the Antonine Itinerary; it is situated at Richborough in Kent, and dates to just after AD43. It is clear that mansio complexes continued to be built in the mid 4th century. with some sites such as Catterick being occupied in the late 4th century and possibly beyond, while it is clear that other sites were abandoned well before this time (Black 1995, 17; www.eng-h.gov.uk/mpp/mcd/sub/datman2.htm). The major period of mansio building seems to have lasted between 250 and 300 years, from about the 2nd quarter of the 2nd century until the late 4th century AD, with the peak of building in the middle of the 2nd century www.eng-h.gov.uk/mpp/mcd/sub/datman8.htm).

Two main types of mansio complex have been identified, those with an open courtyard and those formed as a complex of discrete buildings, which may be contemporary or of different dates, and either linked by corridors or physically separated. The courtyard mansiones are the most common recorded, with examples at Silchester, Chesterholm, Chelmsford, Wanborough, and Wall.

Courtyard mansiones are described as basically square or rectangular in plan, comprising three or four ranges of rooms arranged around a central square or rectangular open courtyard. In most known examples the courtyard is enclosed on all four sides; ranges of rooms commonly occupy three sides while the fourth is often formed by a corridor, ambulatory or similar. The rooms vary in size both between and within individual mansiones; in the case of Silchester the rooms in the north and south wings appear to he arranged into ‘suites’, each suite consisting of one or two large rooms adjoined by two smaller ones and flanked by a service corridor. Larger rooms within the mansiones were frequently provided with hypocausts.

www.eng-h.gov.uk/mpp/mcd/sub/datman3.htm).

Mansiones would probably have had stables and bake-houses, although no proof of such structures has so far been identified in the archaeological record.

WHAT IS A MANSIO?

WHAT ARE MANSIOS?