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The Medieval Settlement Research Group in 2008
The Medieval Settlement Research Group (MSRG) continues to be a well supported and highly active body, offering both informative conferences and seminars and outputs. The MSRG Spring meeting was held on Saturday 29th March, 2008 at the McDonald Institute, Downing Street, University of Cambridge, and was entitled The Multiple Estate Revisited: Territories, Resources and Society in Early Medieval Britain. Glanville Jones developed the concept of the multiple estate in a series of papers during the 1960s and 1970s, arguing that there was a basic form of land structure which could be found in many parts of Britain. The multiple estate combined the arable areas of the lowlands with the pastoral uplands into an administrative and economically integrated region. As this idea developed, Jones concluded that the estate structure must have Celtic origins and that it survived in its purest form in the west Britain where it was recorded in early Welsh laws. This wide-ranging and influential model was not without its critics, however. This MSRG seminar re-visited Glanville Jones’ original ideas and explored how far the multiple estate still provides a useful way of thinking about territories, society and resource exploitation. In this well-attended day conference, the model and idea of the multiple estate were cleverly discussed by both Mark Gardiner and Dawn Hadley, and new angles explored by Ros Faith and Alex Woolf; in the afternoon, Stuart Brooks and Angus Winchester considered evidence from diverse zones – Kent and Cumbria and Lancashire respectively. All was brought together in an excellent summing up by Chris Lewis.
The Group’s 2008 Winter Seminar, jointly run at Leicester University with the Society for Landscape Studies, was held on 6th December, and was in memory of former MSRG President, Harold Fox, who died in August 2007. A series of papers on themes centred around the landscape and economy were assembled under the seminar banner Fishing, Transhumance and Woodland in Medieval Britain. Stimulating papers by Andrew Fleming, Della Hooke and Nicola Bannister explored in particular trees and wood pasture from Wales to the Weald; issues of transhumance – its visibility, the bases of the shepherds, its modes of practice – were discussed by Peter Herring, Angus Winchester and Mark Gardiner, with coverage from south-west and northern England to Northern Ireland; and James Barrett opened up the much-understudied world of medieval sea-fishing. Publication is planned of papers from both this seminar and a separate conference also held in Leicester in summer 2008 centred on Harold’s research interests.
Core to the 80 page Annual Report no.22 published in October 2008 were the extended summaries of papers and discussions from POMLAS – ‘Perceptions of medieval landscapes and settlements’ – the innovative programme of workshops engineered and promoted by MSRG Vice-President Professor Chris Dyer (Centre for English Local History, University of Leicester) and funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) from its ‘Landscape and Environment Programme’. Workshops on themes such as ‘Planning and meaning’, ‘Working and sharing’ ‘New people, new farms’ succeeded greatly in stimulating discussion and raising extra issues and debates, which we hope will be the prompt for new projects and meetings. The Annual Report also included summaries of recent fieldwork activities, such as at Hazleton and in the Mendips; Carenza Lewis, meanwhile, reported on test-pitting work in East Anglian villages; and there was an extended summary of the 2007 John Hurst MA Dissertation Prize winning thesis by Michael Busby on 14th-century poll tax records for medieval Leicestershire.
The MSRG Annual General Meeting in December (framed between the Winter Seminar morning papers and the enticing lunch!) – overseen by new President Paul Stamper – saw the re-election of the Committee officers, the election of three new Committee members, and reported on a new venture, a projected edited volume on medieval rural settlement in Britain, drawing on the expertise of past and present Committee and other members.
Whilst no John Hurst MA Dissertation Prize (initiated in 2004 to honour the memory of John Hurst and his achievements with the MSRG) was awarded for 2008, the Group funded two fieldwork grants; the Group has also introduced a bursary fund, linked to the name of Maurice Beresford, for younger scholars to apply to for conference or related attendance. Please see the webpages or Annual Report for details of how to apply to the various awards. Finally, the MSRG editor, Dr Sam Turner, is overseeing a redevelopment of the Annual Report, with the aim of attracting fuller research articles on the Group’s core interest area of medieval rural settlement. Potential contributors should contact the editor with ideas of papers.
MSRG Hon. Secretary: Dr. Neil Christie, School of Archaeology & Ancient History, University of Leicester, Leicester LE1 7RH
E-mail: njc10@le.ac.uk
MSRG website: http://www.britarch.ac.uk/msrg/
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The Medieval Settlement Research Group in 2007
The Medieval Settlement Research Group (MSRG) continues to be fully engaged in terms of productive and informative conferences and seminars. Key in 2007 was the innovative programme of workshops engineered and promoted by MSRG Vice-President Professor Chris Dyer (Centre for English Local History, University of Leicester). Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) from its ‘Landscape and Environment Programme’, the workshops were gathered around the theme entitled ‘Perceptions of medieval landscapes and settlements’ (POMLAS). Its target was to enhance communication and debate between specialists in medieval rural settlements and landscapes and prompt new research angles as well as academic connections; to encourage debate, the workshops featured compact groupings of invited speakers, regional and theme specialists, plus postgraduates. Four workshops were held in Belfast, Exeter, Edinburgh and York across the year and there was a plenary meeting in Leicester in December. Workshop themes comprised: Planning and Meaning; Working and Sharing; New People, New Farms; Belonging and Communicating; summaries of sessions were posted on the MSRG website, and extended summaries will appear in the 2008 Annual Report. The venture was seen as a great success and certainly helped in stimulating both debate and potential new ventures.
Whilst there was no specific MSRG Spring meeting this year, Committee and general members had been invited to attend the ‘Anglo-Saxon Landscapes’ conference organised by Nick Higham held at Manchester University from 11-13 April; the MSRG contributed funds for a set of postgraduate bursaries for this conference. This was a very well attended conference with prominent academic speakers and a good set of postgraduate papers. Lively debates in and out of the conference rooms highlighted how the Anglo-Saxon period remains a highly active research arena.
The Annual Report no.21 published in October 2007 contained various useful reports and news including extended summaries of the papers from the 2006 Winter Seminar on ‘Beyond Region and Place’, papers on Leicestershire Historic Village Cores, the Ness Archaeological Landscape Survey, excavations in Trelech, and a transcript of a fascinating discussion of medieval villages and Wharram with John Hurst. There are also obituaries of Alan Davison (Norfolk) and of former MSRG President, Harold Fox, who died in August 2007. The Group will be dedicating the 2008 Winter Seminar to the memory of Harold, with papers on themes centred around the landscape and economy. This will be a joint seminar with the Society for Landscape Studies.
The MSRG Annual General Meeting was held on 1st December at the University of Leicester during the course of the plenary session of the noted POMLAS workshops. This saw the re-election of the Committee officers, four new Committee members elected, and the election of Paul Stamper as the President from 2008 – taking over from Mark Gardiner, who all members agreed had served the MSRG excellently, initiating important new actions, most notably the revision and updating of the Policy Statement on Medieval Rural Settlements (on research directions and targets, heritage issues, academic and public roles), and the detailed Research Review for 1996-2006, both documents appearing with the Annual Report, and with the Policy Statement sent to all national bodies, museums and units. The AGM also saw the editor, Carenza Lewis, standing down from this position (the new editor is Sam Turner); the outgoing President warmly thanked Carenza for all her hard work on producing the Annual Report and promoting the Group.
The prize winner of the 2007 John Hurst MA Dissertation Prize (initiated in 2004 as an annual award of £200 to honour the memory of John and his achievements with the MSRG) is Michael Busby (MA in English Local History, University of Leicester). His thesis entitled ‘Leicestershire Settlements through the Late Fourteenth Century Poll Tax Records – Urban or Rural?’, sought to define and qualify markets and settlements in a specific Midlands region; interrogation of the various strands of evidence and the use of GIS made this a valuable approach to the medieval economic landscape. A summary of the dissertation will appear in this coming year’s MSRG Annual Report.
MSRG Hon. Secretary:
Dr. Neil Christie
School of Archaeology & Ancient History
University of Leicester
Leicester LE1 7RH
E-mail: njc10@le.ac.uk
MSRG website: http://www.britarch.ac.uk/msrg/
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The Medieval Settlement Research Group in 2006
The Medieval Settlement Research Group (MSRG) maintained its run of productive and informative conferences and seminars in 2006. On 8-9 April, the Northumberland National Park HQ at Hexham provided the venue for the Spring Conference on the theme of Medieval Settlement Studies in Northumberland organised by Rob Young, Park Archaeologist. Rob Young has been a major engineer of the region’s Historic Villages Atlas, exploring the past of seventeen communities (www.northumberlandnationalpark.org.uk/historicvillageatlas). Talks were given by regional field professionals and university academics alike, on themes ranging from the royal palace site of Ad Gefrin, to settlements of medieval lordships, deserted settlements, and marginality. The conference developed in particular some of the aspects of early medieval and medieval land use and ownership highlighted in the excellent volume Archaeology in Northumberland National Park, edited by Paul Frodsham (CBA Research Report 136, 2004). Attendees also benefited from expert guidance on field tours within the Park on the second day of the conference.
An important venture in 2006 was the application by Prof Chris Dyer (English Local History, University of Leicester) on behalf of the MSRG to the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and its ‘Landscape and Environment Programme’, which offered potential funds to set up either Research Workshops or Research Networks. Prof Dyer submitted a successful Workshops application entitled ‘Perceptions of medieval landscapes and settlements’ (POMLAS). Its target is to run a set of workshops to improve communication between specialists in medieval rural settlements and landscapes and establish new academic debates as well as academic connections. Four workshops are programmed to be held in Belfast, Exeter, Edinburgh and York in 2007, culminating in a plenary meeting in Leicester. Workshop themes comprised: Planning and Meaning; Working and Sharing; New People, New Farms; Belonging and Communicating. Dissemination will be via the MSRG website, an extended Annual Report, two articles in refereed journals and a popular journal paper.
The Annual Report no.20 published in 2006 contained various useful papers including an overview by Carenza Lewis of the innovative and highly popular and rewarding HEFA-prompted ‘Field Academies’ programme (Discussed more fully in this edition of Medieval Archaeology); and John Naylor and Julian Richards outlined approaches to interpreting early medieval sites through portable antiquities. The Annual Report also contained a selection of rural settlement-oriented PhD summaries.
Of major significance was the prompt publication in 2006 of the synthetic discussion of the overall results of the AHRC-sponsored Whittlewood Project (2000-05), headed by Prof Dyer: Richard Jones & Mark Page, Medieval Villages in an English Landscape. Beginnings and Ends (Windgather Press, Macclesfield).
The MSRG Annual General Meeting was held on 2 December in the McDonald Research Centre at the University of Cambridge. This saw the re-election of the Committee officers and election of Prof C Dyer as Vice-President – a vacancy following the sad bereavement of Prof M Beresford. The AGM included discussion of the Membership Questionnaire results, which showed members very happy with the output and running of the Group, whilst offering useful ideas on additions to the Annual Report and on possible future Spring Conference and Winter Seminar themes. After the well-attended AGM, the 2006 Winter Seminar was convened with the title ‘Region and Place/Place and Region: Debating Wrathmell and Roberts’. Five papers were presented which reflected on the impact of and revisions to the important but controversial ‘Regions and Places’ thesis by Stuart Wrathmell and Brian Roberts, both of whom gave papers. A busy audience with good questions made for a stimulating seminar.
The prize winner of the 2006 John Hurst MA Dissertation Prize (initiated in 2004 as an annual award of £200 to honour the memory of John and his achievements with the MSRG) is Tudur Davies (MA in Landscape Archaeology, University of Sheffield). His thesis entitled ‘Llanfor and the Dee valley: early medieval landscape study’ examined the problems of locating, interpreting and dating early medieval sites in north Wales; strong engagement with field evidence was shown by Tudur’s undertaking of gradiometer surveys on a variety of potential sites. A summary of the dissertation will appear in this year’s MSRG Annual Report.
Finally we report that the President, Dr Mark Gardiner, identified the need for the MSRG to produce a revised and updated Policy Statement on Medieval Rural Settlements (on research directions and targets, heritage issues, academic and public roles), the last edition of which was produced in 1996. A detailed Research Review for 1996-2006 has also been initiated. Both documents will be made available and circulated to members and key institutions and bodies towards the end of 2007.
MSRG Hon. Secretary:
Dr. Neil Christie
School of Archaeology & Ancient History
University of Leicester
Leicester LE1 7RH
E-mail: njc10@le.ac.uk
MSRG website: http://www.britarch.ac.uk/msrg/
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The Medieval Settlement Research Group in 2005
http://www.britarch.ac.uk/msrg/
The Medieval Settlement Research Group (MSRG) maintained its run of productive and informative conferences and seminars in 2005. On 9-10 April, Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, was the venue for the Spring Conference on the theme of The Medieval Village in ‘Woodland’ and ‘Champion’ Landscapes organised by Sue Oosthuizen. A record attendance of 160 delegates enjoyed the day of lectures and the full day of visits, which benefited much from the expert guidance of Chris Taylor. Even more substantial was the MSRG-supported and English Heritage-sponsored conference organised by Prof Chris Dyer and his team at the University of Leicester which celebrated the 50th anniversary of W.G. Hoskins’ ground-breaking book The Making of the English Landscape. Running with parallel sessions across three days (7-10 July), the participants were treated to papers under themes such as Rural Settlement, Buildings in the Landscape, Mapping the Landscape, Status/Designed Landscapes, and Britain before the English, and featuring keynote lectures by Fiona Reynolds, Chris Taylor and Elisabeth Zadora-Rio. Crucially the conference’s scope was not just to revisit Hoskins’ work, but to highlight advances made across the whole of Britain, and to show the avenues that Hoskins failed to explore but which have since been investigated through archaeology especially. The editing of the volumes of conference papers is making good progress, and the medieval and post-medieval volumes will be published by Windgather Press in 2007.
Excellent progress was meanwhile made on the final (paper and electronic) publications related to the highly successful and innovative AHRB-funded Whittlewood Project which saw its final field season in 2004 (see the MSRG Annual Report and the Project website for season summaries and key findings: www.le.ac.uk/elh/whittlewood/research.htm). The Whittlewood monograph will be published by Windgather Press late in 2006. The generous support and enthusiasm of locals to the Project have encouraged the directors to pursue some new, small-scale archaeological investigations in the Wicken area in 2006.
Note can be made of the MSRG-supported exhibition at Malton Museum, which displays a vivid overview of the life and death of the villagers of medieval Wharram Percy, including through facial reconstructions of some of the inhabitants examined from the site’s busy cemetery.
The MSRG Annual General Meeting was held on 3 December in the Centre for English Local History at the University of Leicester. This included the election of four new committee members (Ros Faith, Andrew Reynolds, Bob Silvester and Sam Turner); the president Dr Mark Gardiner warmly thanked those retiring committee staff (Richard Jones, Keith Lilley, Sue Oosthuizen and Rob Wilson-North). After the well-attended AGM, the Winter Seminar was convened with the theme of ‘Finds in the Landscape: From Saxon to Medieval’. This took as its brief the growing impact of, in particular, metal-detectorists’ finds in helping to fill out our knowledge of landscape usage and settlement. Speakers comprised Andrew Rogerson (Norfolk County Council) who tackled the new data gathered in East Anglia for the Saxon period; John Naylor (York University) who presented the first stages of analysis of a project supervised by Prof Julian Richards seeking to chart more fully Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian settlement trends in England as a whole from metal-detectored finds (see http://www.york.ac.uk/depts/arch/vasle/index.html); and Geoff Egan (Museum of London) who considered the theme of medieval finds in the landscape.
The second prize winner for the John Hurst MA Dissertation Prize (initiated in 2004 as an annual award of £200 to honour the memory of John and his achievements with the MSRG) was Jonathan Kinsella (MA in Landscape Archaeology, School of Archaeology, University College, Dublin). His thesis, ‘Locating the Poor and Unfree of Early Medieval Ireland’, examined a sizeable segment of society which is too frequently ignored by archaeologists and historians alike due to a lack of coherent data; here Jonathan aimed to reinterpret both the settlement data and the material culture to show that such people can be made visible. A summary of the dissertation will appear in this year’s MSRG Annual Report.
Finally it can be reported that a Membership Questionnaire was circulated this year to seek the views of our members regarding the Group’s role, its seminars and conferences, website, and Annual Report. The returned questionnaires were very supportive of the Group and offered useful ideas for conference themes and for enhancing the MSRG publication; a summary of the responses will appear in the Annual Report.
MSRG Hon. Secretary:
Dr. Neil Christie
School of Archaeology & Ancient History
University of Leicester
Leicester LE1 7RH
Tel: 0116 2522617 E-mail: njc10@le.ac.uk
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The Medieval Settlement Research Group in 2004
http://www.britarch.ac.uk/msrg/
This was a busy year for the MSRG on many fronts. Spring 2004 saw two sizeable academic gatherings: from 6-8 February there was the MSRG-sponsored conference at Rewley House in Oxford, overseen by Prof Chris Dyer, on the theme ‘Villages and Landscapes in the Middle Ages. Recent Surveys and Explorations’. The 110 delegates were treated to a host of excellent speakers including Peter Fowler, David Stocker, Paul Everson and Stephen Rippon. From 7-9 May, the MSRG teamed up with the Group for the Study of Irish Historic Settlement at their 33rd Annual Regional Conference in County Carlow, examining in depth the history and archaeology of medieval Carlow; this was fully informed by tours of the town and region.
The Whittlewood Project, funded largely by the AHRB but with strong MSRG support, entered its final field season in 2004 (see www.le.ac.uk/elh/whittlewood/research.htm). The season focussed on the villages of Wicken and Silverstone, both previously test-pitted, and with new work also at Pottersbury. The project workforce included undergraduates from a number of universities, including Southampton and Leicester. At Silverstone work in the central fields was very productive of medieval pottery, notably under the ridge and furrow; trial trenches indicated the presence of linear features under the headlands of the ridge and furrow, although the pottery overall did not go back before the twelfth century. Many members and interested locals attended the Whittlewood Project’s Annual Meeting and Review in Wicken Village Hall in February, and the Open Day for the MSRG in July. Fieldwork results, plus reviews of studies on placenames, buildings, and environmental corings were outlined and reviewed. An exciting array of data has been accumulated and the project team are well on target with both the final paper and electronic publications. Reports on the 2004 work will appear in this year’s MSRG Annual Report.
The Annual General Meeting was held on 4 December in the Centre for English Local History at the University of Leicester. This included the election of new committee members and election also of a new president, since Paul Everson was standing down. Paul was warmly thanked for his excellent running of the Group over the past three years. The new president is Dr Mark Gardiner of Queen’s University Belfast, who has published much recently on medieval standing domestic buildings and salt marshes. After the well-attended AGM, the Winter Seminar was convened with the theme of ‘Diet and Health in the Medieval Countryside: The Archaeological Evidence’. Speakers were Richard Thomas (Leicester) who analysed archaeozoological data to assessdietary trends in the medieval period; the role of archaeobotany in elucidating the rural diet was considered by Lisa Moffett (English Heritage – Birmingham); and Simon Mays (English Heritage – Portsmouth) gave a vivid overview of diet, health and death amongst the villagers of medieval Wharram Percy.
A new initiative for 2004 was the John Hurst MA Dissertation Prize, an annual award of £200 to honour the memory of John and his achievements with the MSRG. The prize is for the best Masters dissertation awarded in that year on a theme related to medieval rural settlement in Britain and Ireland. The first award winner is Triona Nicholl of the Dept of Archaeology, University College, Dublin, for her thesis, ‘The Use of Domestic Space in Irish Early Medieval Roundhouses:
An Experimental Archaeological Approach’, an innovative analysis of internal space as conditioned by light, heat and smoke. A summary of the dissertation will appear in this year’s MSRG Annual Report.
Hon. Secretary:
Dr. Neil Christie
School of Archaeology & Ancient History
University of Leicester
Leicester LE1 7RH
Tel: 0116 2522617 E-mail: njc10@le.ac.uk
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The Medieval Settlement Research Group in 2003
As many readers of Medieval Archaeology will be aware this was a particularly sad year for the Group because of the death on 29th April of one of its Vice Presidents, John Hurst. This followed an attack in his home village during early March. John’s death at this time was made all the more sad because the Group had just celebrated the 50th anniversary of his co-foundation of one its forerunners, the Deserted Medieval Village Research Group, of which he was the first Secretary. An obituary can be found in our most recent Annual Report.
The Spring Conference was hosted by the Department of Lifelong Learning at the University of Exeter. About 90 people witnessed seven excellent papers presented with the aid of state of the art facilities and covering many aspects of settlement and agriculture in Devon, Cornwall and Somerset. The Sunday field trip to Bodmin Moor gave members and local guests some good exercise as the day’s circular walk (made a little longer as some narrow Cornish lanes defeated our coach!) took in the abandoned medieval farmstead of Carkees, the shrunken hamlet of Garrow and traces of extensive field systems, both nearby and on Scribble and Emblance Downs. Oliver Creighton and Peter Herring jointly organised a very successful weekend. A full report will appear in our next Annual Report.
A handful of members attended the Whittlewood Project’s Open Day for the MSRG on 23rd July. Fieldwork in progress was viewed and we were particularly well rewarded at Whittlebury where our visit coincided with excavations in the churchyard and some hot off the computer hard drive geophysics results which revealed the round houses and defences of a previously unknown Iron Age hillfort. We have continued to provide financial support to the Project with a grant of £1500.00 this year.
The AGM was held in December in the Centre for English Local History at the University of Leicester. Dr. Neil Christie was elected to replace Stephen Coleman as the Group’s Secretary. After the AGM a seminar convened as a tribute to John Hurst concentrated on “The contribution of pottery studies to medieval settlement research”. Paul Blinkhorn discussed early medieval pottery and settlement while John Allan and Stephen Moorhouse reviewed later medieval pottery studies and settlements in the south west and the north and midlands respectively.
Hon. Secretary:
Dr. Neil Christie
School of Archaeology & Ancient History
University of Leicester
Leicester
LE1 7RH
Tel: 0116 2522617 E-mail: njc10@le.ac.uk
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The Medieval Settlement Research Group in 2002
In April we finally made it to Scotland for our Spring Conference postponed from the previous year because of the outbreak of foot and mouth disease. It was largely organised for us by Historic Scotland and the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS). An audience of 70 at the University of Edinburgh enjoyed 8 very varied papers covering buildings, settlements, field systems and industry in many parts of Scotland. These papers have since been published by Historic Scotland as Conference Proceedings: Medieval or Later Rural Settlement in Scotland: 10 Years On (2003, £10.00, ISBN 1 903570 62 X). Next day several went on a field trip funded by Historic Scotland and led by Dave Cowley and Piers Dixon of RCAHMS. Despite damp conditions we were rewarded with a fascinating day’s walk in Menstrie Glen on the Ochil Hills in Perthshire. Here we saw the remains of several successive abandoned landscapes dating from late medieval times to the late 18th century and including their settlements, both turf and stone built. These have been recorded by the RCAHMS and published in a highly recommended and heavily colour-illustrated booklet: 'Well Shelterd & Watered': Menstrie Glen, a farming landscape near Stirling (2001, £5.00).
TheWhittlewood Project which we sponsor was boosted in April by the news that funding had been approved by the AHRB to enable the Project to continue for a further three years beyond 1st August 2002. We helped cover a funding gap immediately before this so that the summer fieldwork programme could be completed. Summaries of both the fieldwork and the documentary analysis carried out so far can be found in our Annual Reports.
At the AGM held in December we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the MSRG and its forerunners by convening a seminar to discuss “Medieval Settlement Studies – Past, Present and Future”. In particular John Hurst reflected on The Wharram Research Project, Mick Aston reviewed the multidisciplinary approach and community involvement of The Shapwick Project whilst Steve Rippon looked forward to future trends and possible new lines of enquiry.
Website: www.britarch.ac.uk/msrg
From the Hon. Secretary:
Stephen R. Coleman
c/o Heritage and Environment Section
Culture and Environment Group
Bedfordshire County Council
County Hall
Cauldwell Street
Bedford
MK42 9AP
Tel: 01234 228072 E-mail: colemans@deed.bedfordshire.gov.uk
