Overview
The INS was established as an umbrella organisation for the research activities of the EPNS and name-studies scholars at the University of Nottingham.
Current Research
Travel and Communication in Anglo-Saxon England
The Travel and Communications project is a three-year interdisciplinary research project funded by the Leverhulme Trust investigating travel and communications in Anglo-Saxon England.
The project, a collaborative venture between the Institute of Archaeology at University College London and the Institute for Name-Studies at the University of Nottingham, runs from November 2014 and teams archaeologists, historians, and place-name scholars. The project team are working to reconstruct Anglo-Saxon England’s overland route-system (and its intersections with the riverine route-system) using textual, landscape archaeological, and onomastic evidence.
Despite its evident importance for understanding several aspects of Anglo-Saxon society, including warfare, commerce and polity formation and extent, the Anglo-Saxon routeway network has not previously been investigated in detail at the national level. There is therefore much that is uncertain about the routeway network during the period.
It has often been assumed that the Roman road network remained in use throughout the Anglo-Saxon period; consequently, travel in Anglo-Saxon England is often discussed in relation to the Roman road network. However, as the majority of the known Roman roads did not survive into use in the early modern period, it is highly likely that some of these roads went out of use during the Anglo-Saxon period. Conversely, some of the non-Roman roads in use by the early modern period may have come into usage during the Anglo-Saxon period.
By combining archaeological, place-name and charter evidence, the project will shed light on the routeways that were in use during the Anglo-Saxon period. This will be made publicly available in a GIS-generated Online Atlas of the Anglo-Saxon route-system.
The Staffordshire Place-Name Project
Work has recently begun to restart the county place-name survey for Staffordshire. The first volume of the English Place-Name Society survey was published in 1984 but its editor, J. P. Oakden, unfortunately passed away before any further volumes were completed.
The INS is now running a volunteer study group, based at the Staffordshire Record Office, which is collecting historic place-name forms from documents held in Stafford.
The project has been running since February 2017, with a regular group of volunteers meeting on a weekly basis at the Staffordshire Record Office. The project was launched with a study day on 4 February, and a second study day is planned in July. Data collected during the project will be used in the completion of the EPNS survey of Staffordshire.
The project has a website, Twitter feed and Facebook page which are regularly updated with news and information.
Flood and Flow Project
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Study With Us
Interested in name-studies? The INS at the University of Nottingham is a leading specialist in the study of place-names and personal names.
Students can specialise in name-studies at undergraduate,
masters, and doctoral level
Events
- Date
- 27/10/2018
- Description
- The 2018 Medium Ævum Day Conference 'Names and Identity in the Medieval World' will be held on Saturday 27 October at the University of Glasgow.
- Date
- 29/11/2018
- Description
- Dr Jayne Carroll will be delivering the annual E. C. Quiggin Memorial Lecture organised by the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic, University of Cambridge, on Thursday, 29 November 2018. Jayne's lecture, 'Speaking fluently: watery place-names and the medieval English landscape', will be based on her work on the Flood and Flow project.
- Date
- 08/12/2018
- Description
- The 2018 AGM and Winter Seminar of the Medieval Settlement Research Group will take place on Saturday 8 December 2018 at the University of Leicester.This year's Seminar will incorporate two sessions, a morning session with student presentations on landscape and settlement studies in Britain, Ireland and Europe, and an afternoon session on the theme of settlement in the Danelaw. Confirmed speakers for the afternoon session include Prof. Dawn Hadley, Prof. Julian Richards, Prof. David Stocker, Dr Stuart Wrathmell and Dr Rebecca Gregory.
News
- Description
- Congratulations to Dr John Baker, who has recently been promoted to Associate Professor in Name-Studies.
- Description
- A new virtual museum which tells a regional story about the Vikings in the East Midlands.
- Description
- Dr Rebecca Gregory, former PhD student and researcher at the Institute for Name-Studies, will be giving one of the guest lectures at the Minor Placenames Workshop organised by logainm.ie (17–18 May 2018).
- Description
- Dr Eleanor Rye gave a talk based on her PhD research, completed at the Institute for Name-studies in 2016, at the Northern Names event organised by the Regional Heritage Centre, Lancaster University.
- Description
- Dr Rebecca Gregory's new book Viking Nottinghamshire, written as part of the 'Bringing Vikings back to the East Midlands' project, is now out.
- Description
- Volume 48 of the Journal of the English Place-Name Society has been published. EPNS members receive the Journal free of charge, and individual volumes can be purchased directly from the Society. Contents of this and previous volumes can be viewed on the Journal web pages.
- Description
- Enjoy our Viking events in the flesh or virtually!
- Description
- Booking now open. Find out more about our courses, meet staff and students, explore funding and tour our fantastic facilities and campus!
- Description
- Many Viking events to look forward to in 2017-18.
- Description
- Up to 80 open awards and 6 collaborative awards available. Deadline 15 January 2018.
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