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Medieval Archaeology book cover

1st Edition

Medieval Archaeology

Edited By Roberta Gilchrist
    1994 Pages
    by Routledge

    Medieval Archaeology has developed as a distinctive academic domain in the last fifty years or so. It is now taught widely at undergraduate and postgraduate level, and learned societies for Medieval Archaeology flourish across Europe. The subject is more interdisciplinary than most types of archaeology, engaging critically with fields such as History and Art History to provide fresh and independent insights to the medieval world. It draws on sources of evidence that are unique to Medieval Archaeology, such as extant medieval churches. Medieval Archaeology is literally history ‘from below’; it offers unique access to people and practices that were never documented by medieval élites. (Medieval Archaeology also has relevance beyond academia. Indeed, much of the commercial archaeology that now takes place in Europe seeks to record and conserve medieval towns in advance of new developments.)

    Focusing on the archaeology of medieval Europe (c. 1000–1550AD), this new four-volume collection from Routledge enables researchers and advanced students to make better sense of a vast—and rapidly growing—corpus of scholarship. The gathered materials have been carefully selected to highlight the key issues and debates in the development and contemporary practice of Medieval Archaeology, and each volume includes a comprehensive introduction newly written by the editor. Medieval Archaeology is an essential work of reference. It is destined to be valued by specialists—as well as those working in allied areas such as Medieval Studies, History, and Art History—as a vital one-stop research tool.

    Volume 1: Defining Medieval Archaeology

    Disciplinary Traditions

    1. David Austin, ‘The "Proper Study" of Medieval Archaeology’, in David Austin and Leslie Alcock (eds.), From the Baltic to the Black Sea: Studies in Medieval Archaeology, (London: Unwin Hyman, 1990), pp.9-42.

    2. Aleksandra McClain, ‘Theory, Disciplinary Perspectives and the Archaeology of Later Medieval England’, Medieval Archaeology, 56, 2012, pp.131-170.

    3. Andrea Augenti,‘Medieval Archaeology in Italy; Current Patterns and Future Perspectives’, in Peter Attema, Albert Nijboer and Andrea Zifferero (eds.), Papers in Italian Archaeology VI: Communities and Settlements from the Neolithic to the Early Medieval Period, BAR International Series 1452, I (2 vols), (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2005), pp.44-51.

      4. Landscapes, Buildings and Beliefs

    4. Christopher Dyer and Paul Everson, ‘The Development of the Study of Medieval Settlements, 1880-2010’, in Neil Christie and Paul Stamper (eds.), Medieval Rural Settlement: Britain and Ireland, AD 800-1600, (Oxford: Windgather Press, 2012), pp.11-30.

    5. Kate Giles, ‘Ways of Living in Medieval England’, in Mette Svart Kristiansen and Kate Giles (eds.), Dwellings, Identities and Homes: European Housing Culture from the Viking Age to the Renaissance, (Hoejbjerg Aarhus: Jutland Archaeological Society/Aarhus University Press, 2014), pp.13-28.

    6. Amanda Richardson, ‘Gender and Space in English Royal Palaces c. 1160-1547: A Study in Access Analysis and Imagery’, Medieval Archaeology, 47, 2003, pp.131-165.

    7. Roberta Gilchrist, ‘Monastic and Church Archaeology’, Annual Review of Anthropology, 43, 2014, pp.235-250.

    8. Anders Andrén, ‘Landscape and Settlement as Utopian Space’, in Charlotte Fabech and Jytte Ringtved (eds.), Settlement and Landscape: Proceedings of a Conference in Århus, Denmark, May 4-7 1998, (Moesgård: Jutland Archaeological Society, 1999), pp.383-393.

      9. Material Culture

    9. Geoff Egan, ‘Urban and Rural Finds: Material Culture of Country and Town c. 1050-1500’, in Kate Giles and Christopher Dyer (eds.), Town and Country in the Middle Ages: Contrasts, Contacts and Interconnections, 1100-1500 (Leeds: Maney, 2005), pp.197-210.

    10. David A. Hinton, ‘Deserted Medieval Villages and the Objects from them’, in Christopher Dyer and Richard Jones (eds.), Deserted Villages Revisited (Hertfordshire: University of Hertfordshire Press, 2010), pp.85-108.

    11. David Gaimster, ‘A Parallel History: The Archaeology of Hanseatic Urban Culture in the Baltic c. 1200-1600, World Archaeology, 37, 3, 2005, pp.408-423.

      12. People, Plants and Animals

    12. Charlotte Roberts, ‘Health and Welfare in Medieval England: The Human Skeletal Remains Contextualised’, in Roberta Gilchrist and Andrew Reynolds (eds.), Reflections: 50 years of Medieval Archaeology, 1957-2007, (Leeds: Maney, 2009), pp.307-325.

    13. Christopher J. Knüsel, Catherine M. Batt, Gordon Cook, Janet Montgomery, Gundula Müldner, Alan R. Ogden, Carol Palmer, Ben Stern, John Todd, Andrew S. Wilson, ‘The Identity of the St Bees Lady, Cumbria: An Osteobiographical Approach’, Medieval Archaeology, 54, 2010, pp.271-311.

    14. Michelle M. Alexander, Christopher M. Gerrard, Alejandra Gutiérrez and Andrew R. Millard, ‘Diet, Society and Economy in Late Medieval Spain: Stable Isotope Evidence from Muslims and Christians from Gandía, Valencia, American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 156, 2015, pp.263-73.

    15. Terry O’Connor, ‘Medieval Zooarchaeology: What are we trying to do?’ in Aleks Pluskowski (ed.), Medieval Animals, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp.3-21.

    16. James H. Barrett, Alison M. Locker and Callum M. Roberts, ‘"Dark Age Economics" Revisited: The English Fish Bone Evidence AD 600-1600’, Antiquity, 78, 2004, pp.618-636.

    17. Aleks Pluskowski, ‘The Zooarchaeology of Medieval Christendom: Ideology, the Treatment of Animals and the Making of Medieval Europe’, World Archaeology, 42, 2, 2010, pp.201-214.

    18. Marijke van der Veen, ‘The Materiality of Plants: Plant-People Entanglements’, World Archaeology　46, 5, 2014, pp.799-812.

      19. Volume 2: The Medieval Landscape

      Space and Place

    19. Sam Turner and Jim Crow, ‘Unlocking Historic Landscapes in the Eastern Mediterranean: Two Pilot Studies using Historic Landscape Characterisation’, Antiquity, 84, 323, 2010, pp.216-229.

    20. Mark Gardiner, ‘Oral Tradition, Landscape and the Social Life of Place-Names’, in Richard Jones and Sarah Semple (eds.), Sense of Place in Anglo-Saxon England, (Donington: Shaun Tyas, 2012), pp.16-30.

    21. Karin Altenberg, ‘Marginal Life. Experiencing a Medieval Landscape in the Periphery’, Current Swedish Archaeology, 9, 2001, pp.93-113.

    22. Andrew Reynolds, ‘Crime and Punishment’, in Helena Hamerow, David A. Hinton and Sally Crawford (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Anglo-Saxon Archaeology, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), pp.892-913.

    23. Timo Ylimaunu, Sami Lakmäki, Titta Kallio-Seppä, Paul R. Mullins, Risto Nurmi and Markku Kuorilehto, ‘Borderlands as Spaces: Creating Third Spaces and Fractured Landscapes in Medieval Northern Finland’, Journal of Social Archaeology, 14, 2, 2014, pp.244-267.

      24. Towns and Trade

    24. Søren M. Sindbæk, ‘The Small World of the Vikings: Networks in Early Medieval Communication and Exchange’, Norwegian Archaeological Review, 40, 1, 2007, pp.59-74.

    25. Keith Lilley, Christopher D. Lloyd and Steven Trick, ‘Mapping Medieval Townscapes: GIS Applications in Landscape History and Settlement Study’, in Mark Gardiner and Stephen Rippon (eds.), Medieval Landscapes: Landscape History 2 after Hoskins, (Macclesfield: Windgather Press, 2007), pp.27-42.

    26. Jöelle Burnouf, ‘Towns and Rivers, River Towns: Environmental Archaeology and the Archaeological Evaluation of Urban Activities and Trade’, in Joachim Henning (ed.), Post-Roman Towns, Trade and Settlement in Europe and Byzantium. Vol 1: The Heirs of the Roman West, (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2007), pp.165-180.

    27. Grenville Astill, ‘Archaeology and the Late-Medieval Urban Decline’, in T. R. Slater (ed.), Towns in Decline AD 100-1600, (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000), pp.214-234.

      28. Castles and Colonisation

    28. Oliver Creighton, ‘Castle Studies and the European Medieval Landscape: Traditions, Trends and Future Research Directions’, Landscape History, 30, 2, 2009, pp.5-20.

    29. Robert Liddiard and Tom Williamson, ‘There by Design? Some Reflections on Medieval Elite Landscapes’, The Archaeological Journal, 165, 1, pp.520-535.

    30. Kieran O'Conor, ‘Castle Studies in Ireland - The Way Forward’, in Château Gaillard, 23, 2008, pp.329-339.

    31. Alex Brown and Aleks Pluskowski, ‘Detecting the Environmental Impact of the Baltic Crusades on a Late-Medieval (13th-15th Century) Frontier Landscape: Palynological Analysis from Malbork Castle and Hinterland, Northern Poland’, Journal of Archaeological Science, 38, 8, 2011, pp.1957-1966.

      32. Sacred Landscapes

    32. Heiki Valk, ‘Sacred Natural Places of Estonia: Regional Aspects’, Folklore, 42, 2009, pp. 450-466.

    33. David Stocker and Paul Everson, ‘The Straight and Narrow Way: Fenland Causeways and the Conversion of the Landscape in the Witham Valley, Lincolnshire’, in Martin Carver (ed.), The Cross Goes North: Processes of Conversion in Northern Europe, AD 300-1300 (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer and York Medieval Press, 2003), pp. 271-288.

    34. Tim Pestell, ‘Using Material Culture to Define Holy Space: The Bromholm Project’, in Andrew Spicer and Sarah Hamilton (eds.), Defining the Holy: Sacred Space in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), pp.161-186.

    35. William Anderson, ‘Blessing the Fields? A Study of Late-Medieval Ampullae from England and Wales’, Medieval Archaeology, 54, 2010, pp.182-203.

      36. Climate and Crisis

    36. Bo Gräslund and Neil Price, ‘Twilight of the Gods? The "Dust Veil Event" of AD 536 in Critical Perspective’, Antiquity, 86, 2012, pp.428-443.

    37. Christopher Gerrard and David N. Petley, ‘A Risk Society? Environmental Hazards, Risk and Resilience in the Later Middle Ages in Europe’, Natural Hazards, 69, 1, 2013, pp.1051-1079.

    38. Marek E. Jasinski and Fredrik Søreide, ‘The Norse settlement in Greenland from a Maritime Perspective’, in Shannon Lewis-Simpson (ed.), Vinland Revisited: The Norse World at the Turn of the First Millennium, (St John’s, NL: Historic Sites Association of Newfoundland and Labrador, 2000), pp.123-132.

    39. Henry F. Diaz, Ricardo Trigo, Malcolm K. Hughes, Michael E. Mann, Elena Zoplaki and David Barriopedro, ‘Spatial and Temporal Characteristics of Climate in Medieval Times Revisited’, American Meteorological Society, 92, 11, 2011, pp.1487-1500.

      40. Volume 3: Medieval Life


      Medieval Health, Hygiene and Medicine

    40. Gino Fornaciari, Valentina Giuffra, Federica Bortolotti, Rossell Gottardo, Silvia Marvelli, Marco Marchesini, Silvia Marinozzi, Antonio Fornaciari, Giorgio Brocco and Franco Tagliaro, ‘A Medieval Case of Digitalis Poisoning: The Sudden Death of Cangrande della Scala, Lord of Verona (1291-1329)’, Journal of Archaeological Science, 54, 2015, pp.162-167.

    41. Mary E. Lewis, ‘Children of the Golden Minster: St Oswald’s Priory and the Impact of Industrialisation on Child Health’, Journal of Anthropology, 2013, pp.1-12.

    42. Simon Roffey, ‘Medieval Leper Hospitals in England: An Archaeological Perspective’, Medieval Archaeology, 56, 2012, pp.203-233.

    43. J. L. Bolton, ‘Looking for Yersinia pestis: Scientists, Historians and the Black Death’, in Linda Clark and Carole Rawcliffe (eds.), The Fifteenth Century XII: Society in an Age of Plague, (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2013), pp.15-37.

    44. Steinunn Kristjánsdóttir, ‘The Tip of the Iceberg: The Material of Skriđuklaustur Monastery and Hospital’, Norwegian Archaeological Review, 43, 1, 2010, pp.44-62.

    45. Johanna Bergqvist, ‘Gendered Attitudes Towards Physical Tending Amongst the Piously Religious of Late Medieval Sweden’, in Effie Gemi-Iordanou, Stephen Gordon, Robert Matthew, Ellen McInnes and Rhiannon Pettitt (eds.), Medicine, Healing and Performance, (Oxford: Oxbow, 2014),pp. 86-105.

      46. Medieval Food and Diet

    46. C. M. Woolgar, ‘Food and the Middle Ages’, Journal of Medieval History, 36, 1, 2010, pp.1-19.

    47. Joanita Vroom, ‘Byzantine Garlic and Turkish Delight. Dining Habits and Cultural Change in Central Greece from Byzantine to Ottoman Times’, Archaeological Dialogues, 7, 2, 2000, pp.199-216.

    48. Anton Ervynck, ‘Orant, Pugnant, Laborant. The Diet of the Three Orders in Feudal Society of Medieval North-West Europe’, in Sharyn Jones O’Day, Wim Van Neer and Anton Ervynck (eds.), Behaviour Behind Bones. The Zooarchaeology of Ritual, Religion, Status and Identity, (Oxford: Oxbow, 2004), pp.215-223.

    49. Gundula Müldner, ‘Isotopes and Individuals: Diet and Mobility Among the Medieval Bishops of Whithorn’, Antiquity, 83, 2009, pp.1119-1133.

    50. Angela L. Lamb, Jane E. Evans, Richard Buckley and Jo Appleby, ‘Multi-Isotope Analysis Demonstrates Significant Lifestyle Changes in King Richard III’, Journal of Archaeological Science, 50, 2014, pp.559-565.

      51. Medieval Warfare

    51. Christopher Knüsel, ‘Courteous Knights and Cruel Avengers: A Consideration of the Changing Social Context of Medieval Warfare from the Perspective of Human Remains’, in Christopher Knüsel and Martin Smith (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of the Bioarchaeology of Human Conflict, (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2014), pp.263-281.

    52. P. D. Mitchell, Y. Nagar and R. Ellenblum, ‘Weapon Injuries in the 12th-Century Crusader Garrison of Vadum Iacob Castle, Galilee’, International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, 16, 2, 2006, pp.145-155.

      53. Medieval Craft and Industry

    53. Frans Verhaeghe, ‘Industry in Medieval Towns: The Archaeological Problem. An Essay’, in Jean-Marie Duvosquel and Erik Thoen (eds.), Peasants and Townsmen in Medieval Europe: Studia in Honorem Adriaan Verhulst, (Gent: Snoek-Ducaju & Zoon, 1995), pp.271-293.

    54. David Bourgarit and Nicolas Thomas, ‘Late Medieval Copper Alloying Practices: A View from a Parisian Workshop of the 14th century AD’, Journal of Archaeological Science, 39, 2012, pp.3052-3070.

    55. Jerzy Kunicki-Goldfinger, Ian, C. Freestone, Iain McDonald, Jan A Hobot, Heather Gilderdale-Scott and Tim Ayers, ‘Technology, Production and Chronology of Red Window Glass in the Medieval Period – Rediscovery of a Lost Technology’, Journal of Archaeological Science, 41, 2014, pp.89-105.

    56. Maureen Mellor, ‘Seeing the Medieval Child: Evidence from Household and Craft’, in D. M. Hadley and K. A. Hemer (eds.), Medieval Childhood: Archaeological approaches, (Oxford: Oxbow, 2014), pp.75-94.

    57. Quita Mould, ‘The Home-Made Shoe, a Glimpse of a Hidden, but most "Affordable" Craft’, in Gitte Hansen, Steven P. Ashby and Irene Baug (eds.), Everyday Products in the Middle Ages: Crafts, Consumption and the Individual in Northern Europe c. AD 800-1600, (Oxford: Oxbow, 2015), pp.125-142.

      58. Medieval Play

    58. Mark Hall, ‘Board of the Kings: The Material Culture of Playtime in Scotland AD 1-1600’, in Matthias Teichert (ed.), Sport und Spiel bei den Germanen. Nordeuropa von der Römischen Kaiserzeit bis zum Mittelalter, (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014), pp.163-195.

    59. Carenza Lewis, ‘Children’s Play in the Later Medieval English Countryside’, Childhood in the Past, 2, 2009, pp.86-108.

    60. Naomi Sykes, ‘Animal Bones and Animal Parks’, in Robert Liddiard (ed.), The Medieval Park: New Perspectives, (Macclesfield: Windgather Press, 2007), pp.49-62.

      61. Volume 4: Medieval Social Archaeology


      Identities and Power

    61. Florin Curta, ‘Some Remarks on Ethnicity in Medieval Archaeology’, Early Medieval Europe, 15, 2, 2007, pp.159-185.

    62. Magdalena Naum, ‘Premodern Translocals: German Merchant Diaspora between Kalmar and Northern German Towns (1250-1500)’, International Journal of Historical Archaeology, 17, 2, 2013, pp.376-400.

    63. Sally Smith, ‘Materializing Resistant Identities among the Medieval Peasantry: An Examination of Dress Accessories from English Rural Settlement Sites’, Journal of Material Culture, 14, 3, 2009, pp.309-332.

    64. Ole-Magne Nøttveit, ‘The Kidney Dagger as a Symbol of Masculine Identity – The Ballock Dagger in the Scandinavian Context’, Norwegian Archaeological Review, 39, 2, 2006, pp.138-150. (18)

    65. Elizabeth FitzPatrick, ‘Assembly Places and Elite Collective Identities in Medieval Ireland’, Journal of the North Atlantic, 8, 2015, pp.52-68.

      66. Religions and Beliefs

    66. Neil Price, ‘Passing into Poetry: Viking-Age Mortuary Drama and the Origins of Norse Mythology’, Medieval Archaeology, 54, 2010, pp.123-156.

    67. Howard Williams, ‘Remembering and Forgetting the Medieval Dead: Exploring Death, Memory and Material Culture in Monastic Archaeology’, in Howard Williams (ed.), Archaeologies of Remembrance: Death and Memory in Past Societies, (New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum, 2003), pp.227-254.

    68. Roberta Gilchrist, ‘Magic for the Dead? The Archaeology of Magic in Later Medieval Burials’, Medieval Archaeology, 52, 2008, pp.119-159.

    69. Samuel Gruber, ‘Archaeological Remains of Ashkenazic Jewry in Europe: A New Source of Pride and History’, in Leonard V. Rutgers (ed.), What Athens has to do with Jerusalem: Essays on Classical, Jewish and Early Christian Art and Archaeology in Honour of Gideon Foerster, (Leuven: Peeters, 2002), pp.267-301.

    70. Mark A. Hall, ‘The Cult of Saints in Medieval Perth: Everyday Ritual and the Materiality of Belief’, Journal of Material Culture, 16, 1, 2011, pp.80-104.

    71. C. Pamela Graves, ‘From an Archaeology of Iconoclasm to an Anthropology of the Body: Images, Punishment and Personhood in England, 1500-1660’, Current Anthropology, 49, 1, 2008, pp.35-57.

      72. Heritage and Representation

    72. Arjo Klamer, ‘The Values of Archaeological and Heritage Sites’, Public Archaeology, 13, 2014, pp.59-70.

    73. Louise D'Arcens, ‘Laughing in the Face of the Past: Satire and Nostalgia in Medieval Heritage Tourism’, postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies, 2, 2, 2011, pp.155-170.

    74. Hilary Orange and Patrick Laviolette, ‘A Disgruntled Tourist in King Arthur's Court: Archaeology and Identity at Tintagel, Cornwall’, Public Archaeology, 9, 2, 2010, pp.85-107.

    75. Sheila Bonde and Clark Maines, with Elli Mylonas and Julia Flanders, ‘The Virtual Monastery: ‘Re-Presenting Time, Human Movement and Uncertainty at Saint-Jean-des-Vignes, Soissons’, Visual Resources, 25, 4 , 2009, pp.363-377.

    76. Siân Jones, ‘Negotiating Authentic Objects and Authentic Selves: Beyond the Deconstruction of Authenticity’, Journal of Material Culture, 15, 2, 2010, pp.181-203.

    77. Iain Banks and Tony Pollard, ‘Protecting a Bloodstained History: Battlefield Conservation in Scotland’, Journal of Conflict Archaeology, 6, 2, 2011, pp.124-145.

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