The organisers were thanked and congratulated for bringing together such a fresh group of speakers and participants. A number of those attending were relatively young, and new to the MSRG. There was a good mix of disciplines, with a distinct geographical slant, and  there were both speakers and those involved in the discussion with literary interests. Mark and Keith maintained a relaxed and friendly atmosphere, which was conducive to discussion. There was not a lot of time for discussion after the morning session, but that was partly because a speaker overran. There was a lot of  informal conversation arising from the papers and formal exchanges over lunch and in the pub afterwards.

Summaries of the papers are on the web site, so there is no need for me to repeat that material in full. The purpose of this report is to convey some of the results of the workshop, and to pick out ideas that seemed new to me, or which were expressed with a new vigour. The ideas selected are subjective – they reflect my perception of the event, which will differ from others. I have attributed them to individuals by means of initials, or sometimes Disc means that something came out of discussion.  I apologise if I have attributed to individuals points that emerged in discussion or which occurred to me as a result of hearing the paper.

The morning session was about domestic space, and these ideas emerged :

KG. houses and public buildings such as guild halls and churches should be studied together, as all were products of the same society.

We should look for diversity and flexibility, and not force buildings into categories, and assume one-track lines of development, e..g from public halls to private rooms.

Those who study buildings should be prepared to learn from medieval literature, including philosophical writings.

Buildings should be analysed as inhabited spaces, and they tell us about families and households who used the space internally, and their outward appearances tell us about wider social relations as identity and status, even social competition.

The evidence of standing buildings and excavated plans should be used together.

SS.  Peasants had their own sense of space, and indeed they arranged their houses according to their own needs and ideas.

Villages had a uniform appearance, because the houses were built in a similar style and in similar layouts. The arrangement of houses and plots reflect unity and co-operation.

 Resistance to authority is suggested by stone robbing, use of handmills and  bone evidence for poaching.

‘Domestic’ space not the most appropriate term, ‘household’ would be better.

We should be more conscious of gender in analysing village plans – some space might be especially likely to be occupied by women.

TO’K. We should draw on post-modern ideas in anthropology, sociology and cultural studies, which would render existing approaches obsolete.

MG.  How should we look at buildings ?  Did planned spaces and buildings change the people who lived in them?  What was the role of the builder ( carpenter) and the client in deciding a building’s form ?  How can the form of settlements and buildings tell us about community,  unity,  egalitarian ideas, and resistance ?  

Was there an element of nostalgia (or regard for the past) in the perpetuation of archaic lay outs in buildings and settlements?

Disc. Literature has a lot to tell us about buildings, as houses and space within them are often used as metaphors, and they can tell us about expectations of how a house would be used/inhabited.

The first afternoon session was about settlement space:

BM  Manor houses and churches are often juxtaposed, creating symbols of power and authority, but sometimes lords did not found churches near to houses, but placed manor house near to an existing church and incorporated church into their enclosures.

In their search for privacy lords sometimes built ‘secret houses’ away from settlements.

KL.  In explaining planning, are literary texts helpful in explaining in who planned and how and why ?

To what extent did contemporaries impose on the plan after the event meanings which were not in the minds (consciously anyway) of the planners ?

What was planning ?  It was forward thinking, with reference to founding a new town, and giving it a plan. We must consider what planning meant, and relate it to the broader conceptual  spatial imaginings of the period ?   

CF   Were plans inspired not by rational calculations of the best use of space, or just a desire to look neat and  orderly, but by specific liturgical priorities which were of paramount importance to contemporaries ? Specifically in the case of Salisbury, did the streets follow the lines of processions established before the town was built ?

TS  Which came first, the plan or its justification/explanation/ideology ?

We should remember the explicit accounts of astronomical/astrological considerations in far eastern city siting and planning.

In medieval Europe we should remember the role of colour, sound and movement in the planned spaces, and the incorporation into the town of  living and natural things -  trees and springs for example.

The second afternoon session was about landscape space:

SK   An examination of  ghost stories shows how contemporaries were anxious to draw a clear line between the living and the dead – the graveyard was an important landmark in the community, but must be kept separate.

RL   The commonplace assumptions about the aesthetics of the surroundings of castles, and  emphasis on ‘views’ and the impact of  a building and its setting on the visitor, have gone too far. We should not apply notions of landscape design from the modern period to the middle ages. We should be critical about seeing this type of planning everywhere. Perhaps we put too much emphasis on that aspect of ‘perceptions’?  

Disc.  Some philosophical doubts about whether the terms that we use, such as ‘landscape’ and  ‘perceptions’ had a commonly agreed meaning.

Important to attempt ‘joined up thinking’, so that those concerned with landscapes and settlements were aware of the thinking among e.g. prehistorians, and were willing to learn from, for example, students of  literature.   

Chris Dyer, March 2007.