Roman Villas - Taylor & Francis Group

ROMAN VILLAS

ROMAN VILLAS

A Study in Social Structure

J.T. Smith

Drawings by A.T. Adams

London and New York

First published 1997by Routledge

11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2002.

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canadaby Routledge

29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001

© 1997 J.T. Smith

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted orreproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter

invented, including photocopying and recording, or in anyinformation storage or retrieval system, without permission in

writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Smith, J.T. (John Thomas), 1922–Roman villas : a study in social structure / J.T. Smith ; drawings by A.T. Adams.

p. cm.Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-415-16719-1 (hc)1. Architecture, Domestic—Rome. 2. Architecture, Roman—Europe.

3. Architecture and society—Rome. I. Title.NA335.E85S65 1997

728 '.09376—dc21 97–248

ISBN 0-415-16719-1 (Print Edition)ISBN 0-203-00405-1 Master e-book ISBNISBN 0-203-22010-2 (Glassbook Format)

For Heather

vii

C O N T E N T S

List of figures xiiiPreface xxviEditorial notes on drawings xxixGlossary xxxList of abbreviations of locations xxxii

PART I: AIMS AND METHODS

1 Aims and scope of the book 3Plan typology: some objections 4The terminology of social structure 5The history of villa classification 6Villa architecture 9What is a villa and what is its name? 10A representative sample? 11

2 Methods and assumptions 13What constitutes a type? 13Origins of plan analysis 13Relevance of vernacular architecture studies 14The principle of alternate development 15Room use 15House plans and social structure 16Classical canons: symmetry and axiality 18Matters ignored 19

PART II: TYPES OF PLAN

3 Hall houses 23Stahl and Mayen 24Classification and its problems 26Layout and functions of the hall 26

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The hearth/entrance relation 29The off-centre hearth 29The lower end 30Broad halls with more than one hearth 31Narrow halls 32Single-ended halls 33The inner room subdivided 35Double-ended halls 35Aisled houses 36Ridge-post halls 37Wide-nave halls 40Nave and aisles of equal width 40Hall or yard? The case of Inzigkofen 41Hall and porticus unified: Sinsheim and Kingsweston 43Divided halls 43Halls: a summary 45

4 Row-type houses 46Introduction 46Interconnecting rooms: Newport (I.o.W.) and Lamargelle 47Newport enlarged: Sparsholt 49Lamargelle enlarged: Downton 49The size and forms of units 51Houses entered at one end 54The longitudinal lobby 56Longitudinal lobbies and reverse symmetry 57Houses with two front entrances 59Four-cell houses 60The compact row type 62

5 Developed forms of row-house 65Kirchberg: three-room and lobby units 65The elaboration of units: Laufen-Müschag 67Bierbach: how many units in a row-type villa? 68Lobby types 70Room proportions and their implications 75Articulation or separate rooms? 76Blocks of small rooms 77Transformation of lobbies 78The significance of disparate units 79

6 Developed forms of hall houses 80Narrow end rooms 80End rooms as byres? 82End rooms organised around lobbies 83End rooms: Inzigkofen and its analogues 86

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Disproportion between the ends of the hall 88Larger apartments: Bocholtz-Vlengendaal 89Other large end apartments: Kinheim 90Social significance of room groupings 91Development of wide-nave houses 93

7 Problematic house types 94Bondorf: small house or large yard? 94Other villas of Bondorf type 97The problem of function 99Ranges of end rooms in broad halls 100Yard rather than hall? 101The smallest row-houses? 102One-room buildings: houses or what? 105Double-depth plans 106Back-to-back houses 109The interpretation of double-depth plans 110The axial corridor 112The social basis of axial-corridor plans 114Back-to-back halls 115

8 The porticus-with-pavilions: pavilions 117Pavilions: the classic form 117Where was the pavilion entered? 119Asymmetrical pavilions 120Practical asymmetry: the case of Rothselberg 120Asymmetry as an expression of status 121Small difference, significant social implication 123Oblong pavilions 123Pavilions not rectangular 124Minimal pavilions 125Pavilions in row-type houses 126Detached wings or quasi-pavilions 128One storey or two? 128Conclusion 129

9 The porticus-with-pavilions: porticuses 130Open-ended porticuses: an expression of social structure 130Hierarchy in porticuses open at one end 132The ultimate open-ended porticus: Csucshegy 132Tapering and splayed porticuses 134Two households: symmetrical entrances 136Two households: porticus-with-pavilions front and rear 137Porticus functions: recreation 139Recreation: ghost pavilions 140The porticus as living-space 141

— Contents —

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Porticuses as workplace: wide or continuous porticuses 142

10 The elements and forms of villa complexes 144Irregular yards 144Divided yards 149Courtyards of geometrical shapes 151Tapering yards 152Fan-shaped yards 156Sub-triangular courtyards 157Rhomboidal courtyards and the problem of Hambach 512 158Long rectangular courtyards 159Domestic courtyards and courtyard houses 162Parallel ranges and detached facades 166Linear villas 167Rectangular farmyards 171Conclusion 171

11 Palaces, peristyle houses and luxury villas 172Palaces 173Villas as seats of lordship 178Peristyle villas 183Luxury villas 190Formality and luxury 193Lordship or joint proprietorship? 195

12 The villas of south-east Europe 199Hall-type villas 199Square halls 201Row-houses 202Row-house equivalents 202Houses with one cross-wing 205Houses with multiple small rooms 207The ways of grouping buildings 208L-shaped plans 211Forms of courtyard and farmyard 212Rectilinear yards 213Courtyard villas and peristyles 214Fortified villas? 215Conclusion 216

PART III: THE VILLA SYSTEM IN OPERATION: MODES OF CHANGE

13 The late pre-Roman Iron Age background 219The evidence: limitations and problems 219Two-aisled houses: forms and distribution 220Two-aisled houses: interpretation 222

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Three-aisled houses 226Squarish and trapezoidal buildings 227Monospan oblong buildings 229Round-houses 230Complex houses 231Conclusion 232

14 Modes of Romanisation 233Native to Roman by easy stages: Rijswijk and St Lythans-Whitton 233Romanisation by luxury 238Houses built over boundaries 239Collingham and Radley: continuity or discontinuity? 243Built on ditches: Kaisersteinbruch and Rudston 249Removal to a new site 250Romanised courtyards and wooden buildings 250An implied first phase in timber? 252Building in stone: early halls 253Building in stone: round-house or round pavilion? 254

15 Patterns of villa development 257The open hall: its rise 257The open hall: its decline 261The aisled house 263The social development of a villa 264Sudeley-Spoonley Wood 268Change in a row-house: Great Weldon 270A stable villa population 271Prosperity without social change: Schupfart-Betberg 274

16 A model of development 275The hypothesis 275Before the Romans 277The emergence of villas 278The consolidation of settlements 279The diffusion of villa types 282Development of the villa system 284Social change in hall and yards 285Shrines as a unifying device 288Freestanding shrines and temples 291Why do large villas differ so much? 292The problem of a stable villa population 293Courtyards for kin or slaves? 295The emergence of hereditary lordship 300The end of the villa system 301Conclusion 301

— Contents —

xii

Notes 303Abbreviations of periodicals 324Bibliography 330List of villas and other sites mentioned 340Index 360

xiii

FIGURES

1 Stahl and related villas: 25Bargen im HegauKoerich-Goeblingen 1 [I], [II]Ludwigsburg-PflugfeldenMayen im Brasil III–VI, VIIISaaraltdorf [I], [II]ServilleStahl [I], [II]Tiefenbach

2 Halls with evidence of use: 27Bollendorf I, IIIBörstingenBruchsal-Ober Grombach AKonkenMamer-Gaschtbierg

3 British halls: 28(a) with evidence of useFarmington-Clear Cupboard I/FSomerton-Bradley Hill 1 ISomerton-Catsgore 2.1Somerton-Catsgore 2.5Stowey Sutton-Chew Park(b) othersByfieldLangton Dwelling House I, II, IIILaugharne-CwmbrwynNorth-Stainley-Castle Dykes [I], [II]Wraxall I/F

— List of Figures —

xiv

4 Halls used for stalling animals: 30Blieskastell-AltheimBöchweilerCrain

5 French hall houses: 32Brain-sur-AllonnesGrémeceySaint-Pierre-la-Garenne

6 Single- and double-ended halls: 34BrückenHeppenheimOverasseltQuinton IIRothselberg

7 Aisled buildings: 38–9(a) aisled housesCarisbrookeDenton IIEast GrimsteadExning-Landwade I, IIMansfield WoodhousePetersfield – StroudWest Blatchington(b) wide-nave hallHölstein(c) nave and aisles of equal widthWinkel-Seeb A II, VIWinkel-Seeb B I, IIB(d) ridge-post hallFishtoft

8 Halls open to porticus: 43Sigmaringen-SteinäckerSinsheim-Sinsheimer-Wald

9 Divided halls: 44Bad HomburgHeerlen-Boventse CaumerHouthem-VogelsangLaperrière-sur-SaôneSaint-Aubin-sur-MerVoerendaal-Ten Hove I


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10 Row-houses: 47Ditchley I/II, IIIDowntonLamargelle-VersingueNewport I.o.W.

11 The varied positions of lobbies: 51Brixworth I–IIICléry-sur-SommeEllesborough-TerrickFaversham IMansfield Woodhouse [I], [F]St Stephens-Park Street VIWelwyn-Lockleys I, II/III

12 Unit-system villas: 52Cenero-Murias de BelonoGargrave-Kirk Sink

13 Row-houses with two entrances: 53Hemel Hempstead-Gadebridge Park IIIMaulévrierNorth Cerney-The DitchesRomegoux-La Vergnée

14 Virtually identical units: 53Boos-Le Bois FlahautHérouville-Lébisey

15 End entrances: 54Farningham-Manor House IOrmalingen

16 Longitudinal lobbies: 56Eaton by TarporleyHuntsham NWellow

17 Reverse symmetry: 58Beadlam I, IIHigh Wycombe

18 Compact row houses: 61Civray-Le Poirier MoletHummetroth – row house equivalentLussas-et-NontronneauPrimelles-Champ Chiron


xvi

19 Lobbies and room groupings: 66Anthée, detailBierbachCartagena-El CastilletL’Ecluse LeckboschKüttigen-Kirchberg [I], [II]Laufen-Müschag [I], [F]

20 Lobbies and related forms: 71(a) longitudinal lobbies and elongated roomsHaccourt ILiestal-Munzach, detailPuig de CebollaVouneuil-sous-Biard(b) L-lobbiesFontoy-Moderwiese, aediculeNorth Leigh-Shakenoak B IIa/b, IIIaStadtbergen I(c) widened lobbyLa Roche-Maurice

21 Unit variations in row-houses: 78Les MesnulsSarmentsdorf

22 Halls with long end rooms: 81Courcelles-UrvilleGrenchen I–IIIMundelsheimWahlen

23 Halls with complex end blocks: 84BuchtenEveletteMaurenNuth-VaasradeRheinbach-FlerzheimTholey-Sotzweiler II/III

24 Halls with double-depth end blocks: 85Bocholtz-Vlengendaal [I], [F]Kinheim [F]Newel II, III, IV

25 Halls or yards? 96Alpnach-Dorf


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Bad Rappenau-ZimmerhofBondorfEckartsbrunnMesskirchNiedereschach-Fischbach 3RemmingsheimSigmaringen-Laiz A

26 Halls with freestanding corner posts: 97BilsdorfLudwigsburg-Hoheneck

27 Halls with rear columns: 98Hechingen-Stein I, FInzigkofenNeckarzimmern-Stockbronner-HofSchambachStuttgart-Stammheim

28 Halls subdivided by timber partitions: 99Lörrach-Brombach

29 The smallest row houses: 103BouchoirDuryL’EtoileHarbonnièresKempten-Loja 1 IIKempten-Loja 2 I/II, IIINiedereschach-Fischbach 2Plouneventer-Kerilien IIRheinfelden-Herten-WarmbachVauxWancourt

30 One-room houses: 104Biberist-SpitalhofKoerich-Goeblingen 2 I–VMonreal I–IIIPin-IzelSontheim an der Brenz 2, I–V

31 Adjoining parallel ranges and back-to-back halls: 108–9(a) parallel rangesAmbresinBasse-Wavre [I], [F]


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FrilfordGünzenheim-Staatsforst-SulzKernen-RommelshausenLendinMunzenberg-Gambach I/FVillers-Bretonneux(b) back-to-back hallWalsbetz-Hemerijk

32 Anomalous double-depth houses: 111AshteadFrankfurt-Bornheim

33 Houses with internal corridor or yard? 113Bad Dürkheim-UngsteinGeislingen-Heidegger HofHohenfelsMézières-en-Santerre/La Croix-Saint-JacquesNeuburg a.d. Donau

34 Pavilion details: 122Bristol-Kingsweston, detailHüfingenStahl, detailTitelberg, aediculaWhittington

35 Minimal and quasi-pavilions: 126Langenau-OsterstettenStratford-upon-Avon-Tiddington

36 Terminal rooms: 127BachenauBeckingenBrighstone-RockBroichweidenRainecourt

37 Open-ended porticuses: 133Budapest III-CsúcshegyDémuinMainz-Kastel, aediculeShipham-Star II A

38 Tapering and splayed porticuses: 135Laufenburg


xix

39 Houses with two porticuses or two porches: 137(a) hallsDirlewangDoische-VodeléeHerschwerler-PettersheimManderscheid (and detail)(b) row-houseGayton Thorpe

40 Ghost pavilions and porticuses as living-space: 141Bergen-Auf-dem-KellerGreat StaughtonOvillers

41 Irregular and divided yards: 145–7(a) irregularLudwigsburg-Hoheneck I/II, IIIRegensburg-Burgweinting(b) divided yardsBruchsal-Ober GrombachEwhurst-RapsleyFriedberg-Pfingstweide, yard planFriedberg-Pfingstweide 1, 2Lauffen am NeckarMesskirchOlfermont

42 Yards not rectangular: 153–5(a) taperingCachyEcoust-Saint-MienNiederzier-Hambach 69Mansfield WoodhouseMayenLe Mesge(b) fan-shaped and sub-triangularDarenthHambleden-Yewden ManorRockbourne II–IV, VI, VIII(c) development of yardsBignor IIANorth Leigh I, IV, V

43 Rectangular courtyards: 160–1AthiesFliessem


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Hungen-BellersheimMarchelepotWarfusée-Nord, Abancourt

44 Rectangular courtyards with hints of rebuilding: 164–5Belleuse-les MureauxDavenescourtMarboué-MienneMarboué-Mienne, west rangeNorth WraxallSudeley-Spoonley WoodWiesbaden Höfchen

45 Parallel ranges and detached facades: 168–9Arradon-LodoLeutersdorf I–IIIOrton Longueville-Orton Hall FarmPlomelin-PerennouPulboroughWintertonWinterton G, I–III

46 Linear villas: 170Bocholtz-VlengendaalHalstock IIJemelle-NeufchâteauMaillen-al Sauvenière

47 Palaces: 174–5Budapest-AquincumBudapest III-Aquincum, officers’ lodgingsFishbourne PalaceFishbourne Palace, officers’ lodgingsRome, Flavian Palace, administrative partRome, Flavian Palace, general planWoodchester

48 Seats of lordship: 180–1Almenara de AdajaBadajoz-la Cocosa, general planBadajoz-la Cocosa, peristyleBignor, detailBignor, general planBoxNorth LeighRielves


xxi

49 Spanish peristyles: 184Cuevas de SoriaJumilla-Los CipresesSanta Colomba de Somoza

50 Lalonquette I–V 186–7

51 Montmaurin I, II 188

52 Luxurious formal villas: 192–3Graz-ThalerhofHaccourt IIMontrozier-Argentelle

53 Joint proprietorship – grandeur, not luxury: 196–7FliessemFliessem, detailFliessem, interpretationHaut Clocher-Saint Ulrich

54 End-entrance halls: 200BistricaBudakalászGyulafirátótMajdanTelita

55 Square halls: 201Bihác-Zalo�jeLisi�icí IIMali Mo�unjStolac 2

56 Row-house equivalents: 203Dra�evica I–IVKeszthely-Fenékpuszta 8Travnik-RankovicSarmizgetusaWinden am See II, III

57 Houses essentially of two cells: 205CincisFischamend-KatharinenhofMaria Ellend-Ellender WeingärtenSarajevo-StupSarica


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58 Houses with one cross-wing: 206ProbojRegelsbrunnStolac 3Stolac 5

59 Houses with multiple small rooms: 207ApahidaCiumafaia [II]Keszthely-Fenékpuszta 7

60 Ways of grouping buildings: 210–11(a) linear plansIskar-GaraKonskaKralev Dol(b) block plansHobita-GradisteIzolaManerauNovi Saher(c) yardsHobita-GradisteKaisersteinbruch-Königshof C, DLisi�ici IIILju�inaOrlandovtsiPanik

61 Aisled buildings: 222(a) two-aisled or ring-postBeegdenEching-AutobahnHaps THaunstettenOss-UssenZijderveld(b) two-/three-aisledBefort-AleburgHeuneburgKönigsbrunnVerberie

62 Square buildings: 227(a) largerBraughing-Skeleton Green


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DaneburyHornchurchLandshut-Salmansberg(b) the smallest square housesCroft AmbreyMailhac-CaylaMartigues-L’ArquetThe Wrekin

63 Monospan halls: 229Babworth-Dunston’s ClumpKaalheide-KrichelbergNiederzier Hambach 59Radley-Barton Court Farm 3

64 Grouping of houses: 231DraughtonPilsdon PenSt Michael-GorhamburySigean-Pech-MahoVilleneuve-St-Germain

65 Stages of Romanisation: 235–7Barnsley Park, I, III, V/VI, VIIIHartfield-Garden Hill II–IVRijswijk IA–D, IIA–B, IIIA–BSt Lythans-Whitton I–VI, VIII

66 Building over boundaries: 242–3Aylesford-Eccles ICondé-Folie I, IIKingsweston, BristolLaugharne-CwmbrwynMarshfield II, IIIBUplyme-Holcombe IIA

67 Building along or over ditches: 244–5Hamblain-les-PrésHemel Hempstead-Gadebridge ParkJublains-La BoissièreKaisersteinbruch-KönigshofMilton Keynes-Bancroft II, VRudston

68 Problems of continuity: 246–8(a) discontinuity?


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Collingham-Dalton ParloursRadley-Barton Court Farm I–III(b) moving to a new sitePort-le-GrandSparsholt I–III(c) timber predecessors of stone housesBedburg-GarsdorfBellikonBözenHemel Hempstead-Boxmoor INeumagen-Dhron-PapiermühleOsterfingen I, II(d) the significance of round-housesManfield-Holme House II–IVRingstead I, II

69 Rise and decline of the open hall: 258–60(a) riseFrancolise-San Rocco I, IA(b) declineBad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler [I], [F]Bristol-Kingsweston [I], alternative [II]Bruckneudorf-Parndorf [I], [II], [F]Friedberg-Fladerlach [I], [III]Frocester Court I–III, alternative [II]Frocester Court, alternative IIGrauxMaidenhead-Cox Green, I, IIMehring I, FSchleitheimWeitersbach I, II

70 The social development of villas: 266–7Blankenheim IA, IIA, IIIAGreat Weldon I–IV, V/VISt Stephen-Park Street VII, VIIISudeley-Spoonley Wood

71 Social stability in villas: 272Köln-Mungersdorf I, II/III, VISchupfart-Betburg II, III

72 Second-phase enlargement: 280–1Leiwen-Bohnengarten I–IIINoyers-sur-Serein [II], [F]Winkel-Seeb, Switzerland


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73 Diffusion of a type: 283Deva [I]Schaanwald, Grabungen ITholey-Sotzweiler I

74 Yards as indicators of social relations: 286–7BondorfChedworth IKatzenbachKoerich-GoeblingenKöngenPforzheim-HagenschiessSt-Germain-lès-CorbeilSontheim a.d. BrenzVierherrenborn-Irsch

75 Unit-system villas of the Late Empire: 294–5Anthée, main houseAylesford-Eccles [F]Köln-MungersdorfMilton Keynes-Bancroft VNorton Disney

76 Courtyards for kin or slaves? 296–8Anthée-yardAnthée, buildings 2, 3, 10, 15Levroux-TrégonceLiédenaLiestal-MunzachNoyers-sur-SereinOberentfelden

KEY TO FIGURES

� = certain doorway H = Hypocaust� = conjectured doorway he = hearthM = Mosaic

xxvi

PREFACE

This book is the culmination of an interest which began nearly fifty years ago whenthe late Sir Ian Richmond urged me, on the slender basis of attendance for twoweeks at his Corbridge training excavation, to accept an invitation from the thenMinistry of Works to dig the villa at Denton (Lincs.), at that time threatened byironstone mining. Parallel interests in the history of houses, which entailed study ofroom function and of timber construction, soon revealed problems hardly consideredhitherto by students of Roman Britain; and the potentially fruitful interaction of thethree strands of my life’s work, conducted at considerable intervals and at veryvarying intensity, has at last produced the ideas set out in the following chapters.

The approach here adopted, which is founded on the assumption that houseplans reflect accurately the relations within and between the various groups or classescomprising a society, gives rise to a difficulty of presentation. Few people engagedin these studies have analysed plans in any depth and consequently few are familiarwith more than a small proportion of villas in their own country – and here I refer tothe major countries, Britain, France and Germany; the point applies with less forcewhere there are fewer villas or where analytical gazetteers or summaries exist.Furthermore, hardly anyone has looked at plans from a functional standpoint, sothat points of that kind made about even the few villas reproduced internationally,such as Köln-Mungersdorf, Montmaurin or Welwyn-Lockleys, require illustration forthe present purpose. Because the approach is unfamiliar, all villa plans mentionedshould, ideally, be illustrated, and generous aid from several bodies has enabled aconsiderable proportion of them to be presented. Nevertheless, every reader willdeplore the omission of this or that plan, and to one and all I can only say that I havedone my best.

One hoped-for result of this work is the internationalisation of villa studies,something already done splendidly in a general way by John Percival’s The RomanVilla, but now in greater detail. Archaeologists presented with an unfamiliar kind ofpottery or brooch will scour excavation reports and museum catalogues for thewhole of the Empire until they find a parallel; it is time they did the same for villaplans. The attitude of many of them was summed up by a member of the regrettablyshort-lived Roman Villas Research Group who remarked to me: ‘I regard your functionin the Group as that of gadfly.’ I hope this book will secure my promotion, in theeyes of that person and others like-minded, to the status of hornet.

— Preface —

xxvii

A few words are necessary to explain how the book was written. As the collectionof villa plans proceeded, a thematic index of elements was compiled, commonlyaccompanied by very brief remarks scribbled – the word is used advisedly – on thephotocopy itself. No separate notes were made on individual sites. When a newelement was perceived, memory often brought to mind other examples whosesignificance had gone unnoticed, and from time to time the whole corpus of planswas combed for omissions. To interpret the many details in any one plan requiredrepeated examination over a long time and, since the text was written directly fromindex and plans, constantly taking new material into account, some inconsistencyarising from new ideas or changed opinions is inevitable. Even now, revision of thetext with all the plans would sometimes produce a better example to make a pointor permit interpretation of some overlooked feature.

A book with roots as distant as this demands numerous acknowledgements, someto persons long dead. Foremost among the latter are my former history tutor andfriend at Birmingham University, Philip Styles, an inspiring teacher to whom I owean awareness of the use of architecture as historical evidence; K.D.M. Dauncey, alsothen of Birmingham University, for a stimulating introduction to Roman Britain; SirIan Richmond, who provided an opportunity far beyond reasonable expectation;Gerald Dunning, who encouraged me at Denton and was invariably helpful in Romanmatters; and Edith Wightman, who sent offprints and drafts of articles and whosediscussion of villa problems was enlightening. Among the living I am indebted tothree people who, unlike so many scholars in the field, did not dismiss out of handearly outlines of my ideas. At the first presentation, to the Society of Antiquaries ofLondon, Rosamond Hanworth and Richard Reece gave immediate support and havecontinued their encouragement. In the discussion following the Antiquaries paperRichard remarked: ‘I think we may be seeing the beginning of a new way of lookingat villas.’ I hope the long-delayed result does not fall too far below that optimisticexpectation. After the second presentation, delivered at a conference at NottinghamUniversity, Malcolm Todd urged me to put into print, under his editorship, a paperwhich an eminent scholar had instantly dismissed as unbelievable (Todd 1978).Among others who since then have lent welcome support are Cary Carson (of ColonialWilliamsburg, but with academic roots in Roman Britain), Simon James, Martin Millett,John Percival and Tim Potter.

I have special reason to be grateful to Richard Reece for reading drafts of thewhole of Parts II and III, and to John Wilkes for reading certain chapters. AdrianHavercroft also read and commented extensively on a few chapters, and providedvaluable assistance in photocopying the whole of the text. Several other peoplehave helped me over the years through discussion, the exchange of letters and thegift of offprints, notably Roger Agache, V.H. Baumann, Ernest Black, Wolfgang Gaitzsch,Herman Hinz, Fridolin Reutti and Franz Schubert. I am profoundly grateful to afriend and former colleague in the Royal Commission, Allan Adams, who undertookall the drawings at short notice after an initial setback. Sarah Brown and AnneNeville laboured to remove inconsistencies and obscurities in a complicated textdrafted and revised over several years; I thank them warmly for their meticulouswork. Any defects and mistakes that remain in text and drawings alike are my soleresponsibility.

— Preface —

xxviii

Several foundations, institutions and libraries have aided my studies. On myretirement from the staff of the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments ofEngland, University College London very kindly conferred on me an HonoraryResearch Fellowship. The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars atWashington DC granted a six months’ Fellowship to write much of the first draft.During that time occurred the only public presentation of the essential ideas, towhich Professor A.G. McKay of McMaster University proved a kindly and helpfulrespondent. The Römisch-Germanisch Kommission at Frankfurt a.M. several timesprovided hospitality and access to an incomparable library of periodicals; I amespecially grateful to Dr Eckehart Schubert for assistance of many kinds. At differenttimes the British Academy awarded a personal research grant for travel and theLeverhulme Trust a Research Fellowship; and the Academy, the Marc Fitch Fund andthe Robert Kiln Charitable Trust all made generous grants towards the cost ofillustrations. The library of the Society of Antiquaries of London has been an invaluableresource; I thank two Librarians, John Hopkins and Bernard Nurse, and their staffsfor much help.

Other people too numerous to mention individually have provided information:some are thanked in notes; all, I hope, will accept this grateful acknowledgement oftheir help. Finally, I give most heartfelt thanks to my wife, Heather, for creating theconditions which made my work possible, for her interest in it over many years, andfor helping me through discouragements; without her assistance and understandingthis book would not have been finished.

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EDITORIAL NOTES ONDRAWINGS

Names of villas are those of the commune, parish, etc., followed as necessary by thelocal name and by the country or an administrative division of a country. For Germanythe villa names given in RiBad-Württ, etc., are used, supplemented by reference toMüllers Grosses Deutsches Ortsbuch, 1982–3.

Phases of villas are shown in Roman numerals, e.g. I, II, . . . where they follow theexcavation report, and [I], [II], . . . where the phases represent the author’s opinion.[F] = final state.

A phase preceding the first Roman villa is designated [pre-I] except where asuccession of pre-Roman buildings follows the numerical sequence of the report.

Houses on villa sites are designated by compass points or, where the original reportis followed, by a number or letter, followed by a phase, e.g., Beadlam N I.

Rooms retain any numbers given in the report or are numbered following thesequence of letters, hence Blankenheim 33.

Drawings of houses are reproduced to a scale of 1:1000 except for a few particularlylarge ones which have a drawn scale.

Courtyards and farmyards are generally reproduced to a scale of 1:3000. Exceptionshave a drawn scale.

xxx

GLOSSARY

The following entries define only how terms are used in this book and may in someinstances be additional to the senses given in OED.Aisled house: combines domestic accommodation at one end with working spaceor a byre in the remainder.Anteroom: a larger lobby; a room in its own right giving access to a moreimportant one.Apartment: two or more rooms interpreted as forming a self-contained suite; analternative to unit.Cell: a spatial unit of the plan defined by load-bearing (usually external) walls andtransverse walls or partitions; the term takes no account of axial partitions.Corridor: a passage with rooms (one of which may be a porticus) on both sides.Courtyard plan: having buildings, not necessarily continuous, on three or foursides of a large open yard.Cross-wing: see Wing.Farm: used as the equivalent of the German Ackergut, Gutshof, Herrenhof, Meierhofand the French exploitation.Farmer: used as the equivalent of Bauer, Grossbauer.Galerie-facade: see Porticus-with-pavilions.Houseful: all the persons, of whatever status, inhabiting a house, which may be asingle structure or comprise two or more structures.Household: a unit of consumption and reproduction corresponding to an elementary(or nuclear) family and its dependants, both relatives and servants.Hypocauston: a small hypocausted room heating adjoining rooms.Living-room: any room not serving a special purpose such as kitchen or dining-room; probably multi-purpose, providing for work, storage, eating and sleeping.Lobby: a room through which a larger one is entered; a means of approach withouta major function of its own.

Transverse lobby: a corridor closed at one end.Square (or small) lobby: a room about half the width of a cell in a row-house.

Pavilion (tour d’angle, Eckrisalit): a squarish room at the end of a porticus.Porch: a squarish room, commonly within a porticus, giving entry to a building.Porticus (galerie, Portikus): a neutral term for a comparatively narrow roofed

— Glossary —

xxxi

space adjoining an external elevation which in plan looks like and often is a passageor loggia but can function as a room or balcony.Porticus-with-pavilions: equivalent to Portikus-mit-Eckrisaliten, galerie-façade,maison à tours d’angles; intended to replace winged corridor.Representational room: assumed to have been used by a kin-group for feastswhich reinforced group solidarity and had a religious element, as demonstrated bythe presence of a shrine in the room (Newport) or in a smaller adjoining room(Kinheim); also an imposing room for ceremonies of mutual obligation, accompaniedby feasting, between a grandee and his dependants.Row-type house (Reihentyp, linear-aufgereihten Haus): comprises a series ofrooms, usually squarish, often interspersed with lobbies.Veranda (Laubengang): an open earthfast timber porticus.Villa: (1) the principal house(s) of a country estate or farm (= Herrensitz); (2) farm(Herrenhof, Meierhof, Gutshof).Wing: a long room or row of rooms assumed to be roofed at right-angles to and infront of the main range of a building.

Cross-wing: one roofed transversely to the end of a building.Winged corridor: see Porticus-with-pavilions.Workhall (Wirtschaftshalle): a domestic hall, presumed to be for either a familyforming part of a kin-group or farm servants, in which work, commonly smithing, isan important function.

xxxii

ABBREVIATIONS OF LOCATIONS

Aus. AustriaBad.-Württ. Baden-WürttembergBay. BayernBelg. BelgiumBerks. BerkshireBucks. BuckinghamshireBulg. BulgariaCambs. CambridgeshireFin. FinistèreGlam. GlamorganGlos. GloucestershireHants. HampshireHerefs. HerefordshireHerts. HertfordshireHung. HungaryI.o.W. Isle of WightLincs. LincolnshireLoire-Atl. Loire-AtlantiqueLux. LuxembourgNeth. NetherlandsNordrh.-Westf. Nordrhein-WestfalenNorthants. NorthamptonshireNotts. NottinghamshireOxon. OxfordshirePembs. PembrokeshirePyr.-Atl. Pyrénées-AtlantiquesPyr.-Or. Pyrénées-OrientalesRhld-Pf. Rheinland-PfalzRom. RomaniaSaarld SaarlandSeine-Mar. Seine-MaritimeSom. Somerset

— Abbreviations of Locations —

xxxiii

Staffs. StaffordshireSwitz. SwitzerlandWar. WarwickshireWilts. WiltshireYorks. YorkshireYugosl. Yugoslavia

PART I

AIMS AND METHODS

3

CHAPTER ONE

AIMS AND SCOPE OF THE BOOK

Anyone confronted with a new book on Roman villas must ask whether anythingnew can be said, given that two Empire-wide studies exist, one by A.G. McKay

of every kind of house and another by John Percival of the villa as a social andeconomic institution;1 and these are supplemented by innumerable regional surveys.Yet the question can be answered positively, for this book has an entirely differentpurpose and method.

Its primary aim is to classify and make intelligible the innumerable andextraordinarily varied villa plans excavated over the past two hundred years.Villas form a large body of evidence which at present is either misused or totallyneglected: a failure unwittingly revealed in Webster’s remark that ‘most villaexcavations have been very scrappily recorded . . . short of physical re-excavationthere is little that can be done significantly to increase our knowledge’.2 Thisunwarranted pessimism, founded in ignorance of the history of villa studies,provided a spur to prove the contrary.

A second aim, to understand the structure of rural society in the Roman Empire, was,like the first, limited initially to the provinces of north-west Europe. As villa plans werecollected for comparative purposes, it became apparent that sufficient resemblancesexisted over the whole length of the Empire from Wales to Bulgaria to make somecomment on social structure possible for those areas peripheral to the main theme.

The evidence is plentiful for Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Holland andSwitzerland, and in these countries sufficient sites have been dug to their lower levelsto establish broadly how villas developed in that large part of the Empire. Plans are notlacking for Spain, Austria and Hungary, although phases other than the latest haverarely been explored. The sparser evidence for Romania and the former Yugoslavia,taken overall, reveals a different pattern which, nevertheless, contains a few links withthat of the north-west provinces, and even Bulgarian villas have some connections.Brief enquiry into the villas of Italy and Greece suggested that they add little to thetheme, although the former country will certainly be enlightening when more villasare properly dug. Throughout, villas are dealt with by modern countries becauseneither villa types nor their modes of development are limited to particular provincesand consequently it is less tendentious as well as less demanding of geographicalknowledge of the Roman world if they are kept in a modern framework.

— Chapter One —

4

The analysis of ground plans, which will be described in the following chapter, isstrongly influenced by the study of medieval and early modern houses as it hasdeveloped in Britain during the past forty years. In that field, recognition of thestructural complexity of old houses arising from their successive adaptation andenlargement has led to a strong emphasis on forms of plan and has produced subtleways of determining and interpreting their development. In vernacular architecturethis has resulted in the establishment of a series of types characteristic of particularperiods and capable of correlation with social classes or groups; the intention is todevise a typology for the Roman Empire though without periodisation.

Links of this kind enable historians to add architecture to the sources forsocial history rather than using it as a mere backcloth to a narrative based ondocumentary and literary evidence; this is proving to be true of periods forwhich the written sources are far more abundant than they are for the RomanEmpire. Since the vast majority of villas can only be known through excavationreports, the application of the methods used in vernacular studies is limited tocertain kinds of inference and particularly to the recognition of plan types. In ahistorical period in which hardly more than the foundations of houses remainit may be hoped that an awareness of types will lead to more sophisticatedanalysis of villas, not only by historians interpreting them but also by thearchaeologists who dig them and who need hypotheses to test in the course ofexcavation.

PLAN TYPOLOGY: SOME OBJECTIONS

Plan, it has been asserted, is not the only determinant of a building’s historicalsignificance – which is self-evidently true – nor even the most important,3 which iscertainly untrue. It goes without saying that style, ornament and decoration havemuch to tell us about the social position of the person who commissioned a house,yet archaeologists rarely realise how closely their interpretation is bound up withplan; the study of mosaics, for example, which has been so largely concerned withdating, technique and schools of craftsmen, has a strong bearing on the uses andrelative importance of rooms and the understanding of how villas functioned. Littlewill be said about mosaics because I am not sure what the social as opposed to theiconographic significance of individual examples is, although their more obviousimplications are sometimes used to elucidate a plan.

An objection sometimes made to house typology as social history is that a richman might choose to build a comparatively small house or a poor man build beyondhis means, so invalidating any close correlation between size or form of house andsocial class. Clearly, exceptions to that rule did occur, and indeed an instance fromseventeenth-century England establishes the truth of the general proposition that aman’s wealth and social position and the size of his house were closely linked. Thusthe Nonconformist divine Richard Baxter records admiringly how his friend the LordChief Justice Sir Matthew Hale refused to conform to this social norm: ‘His garb andhouse and attendance so very mean and low . . . that he was herein the marvel of hisage.’ Roger North put a different gloss on this situation:

— Aims and Scope of the Book —

5

I shall not forgett a relation I heard the Duke of Beaufort make of the advice hiscountry-man the Chief Justice Hales gave him when he was building atBadmanton, to have but one door to his house, and that in the ey of hisordinary dining room, or study where he past his time. This shews how all menmeasure things by their owne education and circumstances, and expect othersshould governe their actions accordingly, tho farr from the like engagements.

North was in tune with his times, Baxter not, as one of Samuel Pepys’s observationsconfirms: ‘all men do blame him [Clarendon] for having built so great a house,till he had got a better estate’; this of the great Lord Chancellor, the dominantpolitical figure of the early Restoration period, to whose downfall pride in whatanother diarist called his ‘new built Palace’ contributed much.4 Exactly the sameattitudes governed building in every age prior to the late twentieth century. Ahouse was one of three kinds of display or conspicuous consumption, the othertwo being dress and entertainment (Baxter’s ‘garb’ and ‘attendance’), whichtogether provided the means whereby a man established his power and rank inthe eyes of his contemporaries.

THE TERMINOLOGY OF SOCIAL STRUCTURE

Whether the model of society proposed here finds acceptance or not, it can hardlybe doubted that something better than the present one is needed. Most scholars whohave studied villas have implicitly equated Roman society with their own as it was inthe heyday of the country house or château or Schloss about a hundred years ago. Itis a society dominated by landowners great and small operating a market in whichland is freely bought and sold without reference to any constraint of law and customand whose lives mirror those of late nineteenth-century country gentlemen. Beneaththem is a class of farmers whose more prosperous members aspire to the higherstatus of gentleman landowner, whilst the others are tenants;5 and an insular aberrationsees many British houses occupied by bailiffs with, below them, the ultimate absurdityof the cottager in the ‘cottage house’.

One notable proposal has been made to reform this inadequate framework. AFrench scholar has suggested that if reference is made to such categories as countryor manor house it should be systematic, using the whole range of terms describingthe houses of the society selected as analogous – implicitly, that of the EuropeanMiddle Ages or early modern period.6 The idea is attractive; the difficulty is to applyit. It assumes, first, that the later society is comparable in detail to its Roman predecessor,yet it cannot be taken for granted that such terms as manor house, farmhouse andcottage correspond to the social reality of Roman houses. Second and morefundamentally, it assumes that the structure of the medieval or early modern societyin question has been correctly understood from purely documentary evidence,something that, for England and Wales at least, is open to question.7 Even what isoften taken to be the perfectly neutral term ‘farmhouse’ has historical connotations:what kind of farmer do we envisage – a peasant farmer, a tenant analogous to ahusbandman or yeoman (and if so, on what terms), or a freeholder? These are only

— Chapter One —

6

the British problems; a German would interpret a farmhouse as a combined shelterfor family and animals. As far as possible the word ‘farmhouse’ will not be usedbelow and when it appears will have only the minimal sense of the dwelling placeof a person engaged in agriculture.

Any deductions about social structure rest on three principal categories of evidence.The first comprises classical texts: the problems of reconciling them with archaeologicalevidence have been encapsulated in the felicitous phrase ‘text-hindered archaeology’and are exemplified by the endless argument about the reliability of Julius Caesar’sdescription of British and Gaulish society. Inscriptions form a subdivision of thiscategory – a more reliable one but of limited scope. A second comprises the objectsfound in the course of excavation. Few illuminate the use of rooms, and the difficultyof interpreting them is illustrated by the contrast between fine objects, especiallythose connected with feasting or dress, and the simple houses in which they aresometimes found.8 The third is provided by villas or contemporary indigenous houses,all of them requiring interpretation.

My own view is that those house plans where the grouping and intercommunicationof rooms is known or can be inferred provide objective evidence of social organisation,showing how people actually lived and how social relations changed. It is a view basedon research over the past fifty years into Welsh and English houses. First, in 1942, certaingentry seats in west Wales were found to comprise three or more independent housesinstead of the one that would normally be expected. The existence of a seventeenth-century kin-group thus implied was taken up a decade later to account for the presencein some farmyards in south-east Wales of two houses. Subsequent fieldwork establishedthat the same phenomena are widespread in England at various social levels.9

Now joint habitation by kin-groups in these two countries at so late a date hadnever been suspected by historians despite intensive research, nor even by genealogistsworking in Wales where family and descent have been studied as keenly as anywhere.If house plans can produce surprises of this kind in a period incomparably betterdocumented than the Roman Empire at any time, their primacy as a source of socialinformation ought to be accepted over the uncertain weight of literary evidence; andthat is the line taken throughout this book.

THE HISTORY OF VILLA CLASSIFICATION

Most historians recognise that villas form a potentially important source ofinformation; the problem is how to use the material in bulk, rather than pickingout particular villas to make an impressionistic point. Classifying villas into typesmakes this possible, provided always that the typology has a definable social oreconomic significance. Thirty or more scholars in several countries have attemptedclassification and it might be expected that their cumulative efforts over more thana hundred years would by now have achieved a satisfactory conclusion. Far fromit, as a brief review will show.

Arcisse de Caumont appears to have been the first person to study villas as adistinct class of building, bringing together many French and English examples andrelating them to classical texts. Many were large and, since nobody could divide


7

them into structural phases, they were too diverse for types to be recognisable.German scholars took the first tentative steps in that direction, beginning with theenergetic first director of the Trier museum, Felix Hettner, who, in 1883, in thecourse of a wider survey, divided villas into two classes: those with an internalcourtyard, including Fliessem and most of the smaller villas; and the pleasure orluxury house (Lusthaus), such as Nennig and Oberweis. Hettner, though, like deCaumont, was hampered by treating complicated plans of large buildings – as manyvillas then known were – as a single building campaign.10

Towards the end of the nineteenth century the establishment of the Reichs-Limes-Kommission resulted in a number of villa excavations in the Roman frontier areas ofGermany which produced mostly simple, little-altered plans. Using four of them,Schumacher recognised a type defined by two common elements, a gallery or portico(Halle) and, behind it (following Hettner), an open yard flanked by rooms. A fewyears later Haverfield, summarising current knowledge of Roman Hampshire for theVictoria County History, coined the term ‘corridor house’ to denote a range of roomsjoined by a front corridor or portico. He also recognised a kind of rectangular buildingdivided internally by two rows of columns which, a few years later, was named byWard, not altogether happily, the basilican type. Otherwise Ward took over fromHaverfield ‘the ordinary or “corridor” type’ and the courtyard type of villa builtaround three or four sides of a large courtyard. Indigenous houses persisting in theRoman period he called ‘cottages’.11

Meanwhile, two more German scholars addressed the problem of villa typology.Anthes, seeking the origins of villas in Germany, found the direct Italian inspirationhe expected in the north-western provinces only in a peristyle ‘house’ at Caerwent –a building which subsequently elicited the qualification ‘if a private residence at all’.His almost incidental comment on the great villa of Haut Clocher-St Ulrich, that itwas of three distinct parts and gradual growth, was a key to progress not otherwiseused. Kropatscheck went further in the same ultimately sterile directions as Anthes,dealing with a large number of villas in neighbouring countries as well as Germanyand attempting to relate them all to Italian models and the writings of Vitruvius. In abrief summary of Ward’s book he rejected the idea of the basilican building in favourof an elongated internal yard gradually built over, thereby assimilating the type tothe many German villas then invariably interpreted, following Schumacher, as acourtyard with rooms on two or three sides and a gallery at the front.12

Kropatscheck’s article is the culmination of many years’ work in Germany, Englandand elsewhere. A decade later much of it was obsolete. The first step towards aclearer understanding came in 1918 with a remarkable book by the young Austrianart historian Karl Swoboda which proclaimed itself to be, not altogether accurately,about Roman and Romanesque palaces. This was the first study to embrace thewhole of the Roman Empire and its importance for the present purpose lies, first, inits singling out the porticus-with-pavilions (Portikus-mit-Eckrisaliten) as an architecturalfeature common to villas everywhere; and, second, in the recognition that this elementwas a display feature, at once a mark of status and a proclamation of Roman values.The second and even more important step was taken by a German archaeologist inwhom an incomparable knowledge of the architecture of the ancient world wasapplied to an understanding of the complexity of buildings and an interest in how

— Chapter One —

8

they functioned. Franz Oelmann’s mind is the keenest that has ever been applied tovillas and in his paper on the villa of Stahl and its analogues he achieved an astonishingfeat of pure typological study, one which transformed the subject in Germany andHolland. His analytical method is considered in detail below (Chapter 3, p. 24); by ithe established that what had been thought of as a yard behind the porticus was alarge hall. Within six years this hypothesis was fully confirmed by his own classicexcavation of the villa at Mayen.13 In these two publications Oelmann provided forthe first time a method of analysing villas and an effective way of using them asdocuments of social history.

A few years later Fremersdorf put the study of villas as agricultural enterprises ona firm footing at Köln-Mungersdorf with the total excavation of a house and itsoutbuildings; it was the culmination of a long-standing interest among his countrymenand marks the high point of German villa research. At the same time Paret, incomments on Remmingsheim and other villas, applied Oelmann’s ideas briefly butfailed to develop them systematically.14 No progress has since been made with typologyin Germany, although some brief remarks by Samesreuther suggest that the SecondWorld War deprived us of a scholar willing to tackle the fundamental problems ofvillas and keen to follow the lead given by Oelmann and Fremersdorf.15

Not that scholars elsewhere have done any better. In Britain Collingwood, awareof Swoboda’s book and the Mayen report, ignored their implications in producing apurely formal classification of no historical significance. Calling the porticus a corridorand the pavilions (Eckrisaliten) wings – both names misrepresent the architecturalform and function of these elements – he created two types, the bipartite corridorhouse with only a front corridor and the tripartite with one at the back as well.Courtyard and basilican houses he took over from Ward. Meanwhile, in France,Albert Grenier summarised Oelmann’s articles and also his earlier report on theBlankenheim villa. Awareness is one thing, understanding another: the two pagesreproducing the plans of Stahl and its analogues fail to grasp their significance andthe accompanying comments reflect Swoboda’s conclusions rather than Oelmann’s.Regrettably, neither Collingwood nor Grenier understood sufficiently the method sobrilliantly expounded by Oelmann to apply it themselves. That was left to de Maeyer,who analysed a few hall-type villas on the lines of Mayen, something he couldhardly avoid doing since the Belgian villa of Serville figured in the 1921 paper.16

Since 1945 several British archaeologists have endeavoured to improve theclassification of villas, confining their attentions to insular sites; the results aredeplorable. Nash-Williams’ schematic ‘evolution of the Roman villa-plan’ was futile.Hawkes, going flat contrary to Harmand’s view that modern terminology should beapplied consistently, misapplied the term ‘cottage’ at much the same time as Richmonddid in his revision of Collingwood. This was particularly depressing in the light ofRichmond’s keen understanding and appreciation of many other kinds of architecture,not only Roman, as is his failure to develop a few tentative remarks about hall-typevillas and their resemblance to those in Germany. Worse was to come. In the mid-1970s Branigan stepped smartly backwards in interpreting several British villas ashaving what he called intra-mural yards, a point he clinched without further argumentby reproducing several of the plans from which Oelmann had drawn precisely theopposite conclusion.17 No further attempt has been made to classify plans.


9

Europe outside Germany was more fortunate in these years. Drack, in assemblingall known plans of Swiss villas, coined the term ‘row type’ to describe what Britisharchaeologists call a corridor house, thereby recognising that the significant part of ahouse is what lies behind the façade. He applied Oelmann’s method, unargued, tovirtually all reasonably complete plans and, had the conclusions been published witha commentary, they would have had the impact they deserved and have affected forthe better the course of both Swiss and German villa research. Agache, who appears tohave been unaware of Oelmann’s Stahl article, analysed plans of villas in the Sommebasin comparatively, the first time anyone had done this from air photographs and notthe least noteworthy aspect of a very remarkable achievement.

This sunny picture had a dark side. The study of Spanish villas, many of themonly partially excavated, produced in typological terms one step forward and oneback. Maria Cruz Fernando Castro took the step forward in putting them into moreor less convincing groups. Three years earlier J.-G. Gorges had produced a pretentiousclassification which deserves to be widely known as an awful warning and whichmars an otherwise informative and well-organised book. Lumping together into onetable several typologies – those of Swoboda, Richmond, Grenier, Agache – andadding to them the notions, for they hardly amount to typologies, of E. Thomas, M.Biro and G.A. Mansuelli, then decorating the columns with schematic plans of varyingdegrees of improbability, Gorges produced a result best described in words onceapplied to a work of Latin scholarship: ‘What it most resembles is a magpie’s nest.’18

In the light of the author’s all too briefly expressed insights into the spatial organisationof peristyle villas he should have been equally independent in classifying plans.Elsewhere, Vasic failed to find types in Yugoslav villas; three authors commissionedto survey Germania and Gallia Belgica did no more than heap up materials; and withNikolov’s opinion that ‘no meaningful classification of villas is really possible’19

Webster’s know-nothing attitude finds its continental match.I would not be so scornful of some of these performances if Oelmann’s penetration

and insight had remained confined to the comparatively obscure 1921 paper, but mostemphatically they did not. For many years past no archaeologist concerned with villasanywhere can have failed to become aware of Mayen and, once the report is consulted(even via Grenier), the plans there reproduced from the earlier paper establish thatOelmann’s theoretical approach had that rare attribute, the power of prediction. Thiswas surely one of the greatest triumphs of typological reasoning and must have apowerful impact on anyone who reflects on its implications. Going back to that seminalarticle, which parallels the ways developed by architectural historians to interpretchurch and house plans alike, is an inspiration few have found.

VILLA ARCHITECTURE

It may be asked why so little attention is given in this book to the villa as architecture.The reason is simple: too little is known about the matter, for all that a large numberof drawn reconstructions have appeared in print. Those of Pannonian villas formwhat may be the largest group so far published; most are fantasy. At least onefamous reconstruction, Mylius’ of Blankenheim I, defies the specific evidence of

— Chapter One —

10

excavation adduced by Oelmann without, apparently, any realisation of the fact onthe part of those who have reproduced the drawing subsequently.20 Hardly anyreconstructions take account of the precise form of foundations, their authors takingrefuge in drawings which ignore problems of variation in width and construction. Asfor roofs, the appearance of the cladding, whether of tile, stone slates or thatch, isthe only aspect considered; how they were supported, who knows or cares? Indrawn reconstructions of timber buildings archaeologists have solved the problemof continuity from Roman to medieval many times: villa houses in Sussex, Franche-Comté or the Rhineland have exposed framing looking exactly like that of theirrespective sixteenth-century counterparts.

The current vogue in Britain is for villas of two or more storeys. So strongly is thisidea canvassed that in conversation one eminent Romano-British archaeologist offeredthe luxury villa of Oplontis on the Bay of Naples as reason for thinking that Britishvillas too might have had upper storeys. In fact, no evidence of an upper storey hasyet been found in any of the many villas of the province except over the odd roomand, indeed, not a scrap of positive evidence for the necessary staircase has beenfound anywhere except Spain, Italy and North Africa. The structure and appearanceof villas need much detailed study before generalisation for one country is possible,let alone Europe generally. For Britain some recent papers21 give hope that thesematters may one day be tackled with authority, but until then I prefer to stick to asubject on which it may be possible to make some progress.

If exclusion of every aspect of villas but the plan needs more justification thanthis, the reader should consider the crushing burdens further work would impose.22

To deal systematically with their topographical setting and the light it throws on theform of the buildings, or with their economic function – that is, to go beyond thevaluable generalisations made for so many parts of the Empire by Rostovtzeff, Percivaland many other writers – would require local research so detailed as to impose animpossible burden on an individual. Similarly, to relate them to particular kinds ofagricultural production may be thought important. Whether plans are much affectedby considerations of this kind, apart from the presence of animals in some part of thehouse or the ‘agricultural factory run by slaves’,23 is quite uncertain; the many corndriersalleged to have existed in British villas did not noticeably affect their planning,which can be explained on purely domestic lines. Storage of crops, notably wheaton the stalk, is a possibility suggested by early modern German and Dutch farmhousesbut one that does not seem to have left recognisable archaeological traces. Only inolive-growing regions have the presses required for production of the oil-modifiedhouse plans in a distinctive way and only a handful of the villas noticed below comeinto this category.

WHAT IS A VILLA AND WHAT IS ITS NAME?

Every effort has been made to discover villa plans. Villa in that context correspondsgenerally to Edith Wightman’s sensible definition: ‘all farms or country-houses builtat least partly in stone’.24 In the light of recent discoveries, though, even that may notbe quite wide enough. What do we call the group of rectangular timber buildings


11

laid out on three sides of a courtyard at Druten in Holland? This pre-eminentlyRoman form of planning is common in French and British villas and is quite unlikenative farmsteads. And what about those settlements acquiring the beginnings ofRoman buildings and manners such as Harting-Garden Hill or Barnsley Park IV,where bath buildings appear among round or rectangular timber structures? Theyhardly qualify even under Wightman’s broad definition and, since the main house isnot of stone, may be referred to, like Druten, as proto-villas. In the end it hardlymatters; an historical approach must treat pre-Roman and Roman buildings andsettlements as a continuum.

Even in the context of provincial-Roman societies the word ‘villa’ presentsdifficulties, meaning at different times the house of a farm or other establishment;the house and the adjoining buildings within an enclosure or courtyard; and theentire establishment, land and buildings. Here ‘villa’ is used principally in the secondsense and houses are called just that. Complete consistency of usage has certainlynot been achieved because so often the house is the only thing excavated on a villasite and it is hard to avoid referring to it simply as the villa of ——.

Then there is the question of nomenclature. How should a site be referred to: byits most localised name, that of the field or hill on which it stands, or by the name ofthe commune or parish? British archaeologists tend to prefer the first option and sothe reader is confronted with names like Spoonley Wood, Wadfield, Lockleys andDicket Mead, whose geographical location someone working at a distance – I havein mind an archaeologist working in the Danube delta – may find difficult to discover.The general rule, though, is that the city, commune or parish name prefaces the localone, hence that has been taken as the appropriate standard form.25 The advantagesof this system have been demonstrated in Roger Agache’s many publications on theSomme villas. It is useful, on seeing a plan of Warfusée-Sud (or -les Terres Noires)which is about 370 m long, to be reminded by the name that another villa almost aslarge, Warfusée-Nord (or -le Petit Chêne et le Chaufour), is not far away. That someparts of Britain may have been almost as densely covered with villas as the Sommebasin is now generally recognised, but for some British and all continental studentsof the subject the question will the more readily be called to mind by Sudeley-Spoonley Wood and Sudeley-Wadfield or Welwyn-Lockleys and Welwyn-Dicket Mead,not to mention the greater ease of finding where they are. Although the preciselocation of villas is not important for the present study, the occasional need to learnthe whereabouts of one in, for example, Germany, has brought an appreciation ofthe merits of continental nomenclature and awareness of the difficulties the Britishway of doing things must sometimes present to scholars in other countries.

A REPRESENTATIVE SAMPLE?

How firmly based is this work in terms of the numbers of villas considered? The totalnumber of plans reviewed is roughly 1,100, including some fragmentary and uncertainexamples. Many plans must have been overlooked but their involuntary omission isnot likely to have affected the conclusions drawn. Probably a reasonable proportionof the villa plans in every one of the various countries has been looked at, especially

— Chapter One —

12

those where a fairly recent descriptive catalogue of all known plans exists. Such areSpain and Portugal, Switzerland, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary – more precisely, theprovince of Pannonia – and Holland, to which may be added a fifty-year-old workon Belgium and a more recent but unimportant catalogue for Luxembourg. ForAustria and former Yugoslavia it is hoped that a reasonable proportion has beenfound. These countries account for about a quarter of all the plans examined. Britain,Germany and France have more or less equal shares in the remainder, probably inascending order, although the difference – and it is only in the number of usableplans – is comparatively small. Regrettably, but hardly surprisingly in view of themagnitude of the task, no publications with plans and commentary cover thesecountries, although for the first two they exist in unpublished form. Britain now hasa comprehensive catalogue of all published and many probable, possible and doubtfulsites. For France the Carte archéologique de la Gaule is rapidly providingcomprehensive departmental lists, often accompanied by plans, and for northernGaul as a whole the situation is redeemed by a recent study dealing with the ruralsites of Late Antiquity.26

Every plan has been considered carefully, most several times. At first many wereunintelligible but, as understanding grew, the number put aside diminished untilmost of those now remaining are simply too fragmentary to make any sense of.Ideally a catalogue should list all plans examined, with a summary interpretation ofeach. Space prohibits that but a full list of all those mentioned, with the source ofeach plan, is appended (pp. 340–59).

How representative are they and what proportion do they form of the total numberof villas at present known to have existed? The second point could be calculatedlaboriously from the gazetteers accompanying more recent sheets of the InternationalMap of the Roman Empire. Only for Britain is it easy. The latest edition of the OrdnanceSurvey Map of Roman Britain lists 275 villas and 285 ‘other substantial buildings’, atotal of 560. Of these about 200, or rather more than a third, have plans sufficientlyintelligible to be assigned to one or other category of house plan, even if sometimesthe detail is obscure. It can reasonably be regarded as a representative sample of thewhole. There is little point in guessing the corresponding fraction of German villas;although certainly considerably smaller, it is probably large enough to berepresentative. France, with its innumerable villas, presents the real problem, especiallysouthern France, corresponding approximately to the provinces of Aquitania andNarbonnensis, to which can be added Spain and Portugal. In these countries bigvillas of great complexity are common and in Spain are the norm. Until several ofthem have been thoroughly explored down to the lowest levels the course of theirdevelopment will remain obscure; consequently their treatment in this book is boundto be unsatisfactory.

330

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ABBREVIATIONS OF BOOKS AND SERIALS

Actes Balkaniques 1969 = Actes du Premier Congrès International des Etudes Balkaniques etSud-Est Européennes, vol. 2, Sofia

AFdS = Archäologische Führer der SchweizANRW = Aufstieg und Niedergang der Römischen WeltArch Belg = Archaeologia Belgica (reprints)Ausgr Deutschland = RGK, Ausgrabungen in Deutschland 1950–75, Mainz 1975Ausgr Rhld = Ausgrabungen in Rheinland 1981–2, BonnBAR = British Archaeological Reports, Oxford:

Brit Ser = British SeriesInt Ser = International SeriesSuppl Ser = Supplementary Series

CAG = Carte archéologique de la Gaule01 Ain03 Allier14 Calvados16 Charente18 Cher19 Corrèze23 Creuse27 Eure28 Eure-et-Loir29 Finistère35 Ille-et-Vilaine36 Indre37 Indre-et-Loire38/1 Isère40 Landes41 Loir-et-Cher44 Loire-Atlantique

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