This short monograph surveys the current state of archaeological thinking on the early medieval town, using case studies from northern Italy. Topics under discussion include the extent of de-urbanisation, the continuity or otherwise of trade and commerce, Christianisation and its effect on town layout and the wider landscape, increased fortifications and differences in construction techniques. Overall Gonella concludes that the evidence points very much to an 'age of transition'.

The idea of organised mass travel is one that does not really come about until the High Middle Ages, and this study looks at the mechanics of travel before then. It asks questions such as who travelled and why and examines the principle routes between England and Rome and the problems experienced by travellers over land during this period. The appendices contain lists of the known travellers to Rome and their routes, and a documentary appendix of sources which describe such travel.

Subtitled "Hungarian noble residences and their social context from the thirteenth through to the sixteenth century: an outline for methodology." This work aims to set up a research agenda to show how archaeology can contribute to an interdisciplinary study of society in the later Middle Ages, in this case in terms of a survey of the possibilities of using archaeology to study Hungarian nobility from the point of view of their living conditions and the functions of their residences. The author, drawn to this theme through an excavation in Pomaz (west of Budapest) in 1995, investigates the co-existence of various settlement types from the point of view of manorial buildings.

Investigation of social and economic change has always been central to archaeology. As part of this, population movements have frequently been emphasised as instigators of transition. This is particularly the case in British archaeology where, as an island, migration episodes tend to be viewed as highly significant. The Norman Conquest was the last and perhaps most famous of Britains invasions, resulting in the almost complete replacement of the Saxon elite, both lay and ecclesiastical. Because the events surrounding the Conquest are so well documented, 1066 has come to be held as a significant watershed. This book sets out to undertake a detailed zooarchaeological analysis of the Norman Conquest, whereby data are considered by site-type to detect subtle temporal variations, if present, in human-animal relationships. The aim of this book is to show that zooarchaeological and historical data can be used together profitably to provide a new perspective on the Normans and their conquest of England. In order to accomplish this, the Norman Conquest is examined at the macro, meso and micro scale, which can be translated as the Norman Empire, Saxo-Norman England and specific Saxo-Norman sites, respectively. Contents: Chapter 1: Introduction; Chapter 2: The French Dataset; Chapter 3: The Animal Economy: Continuity or Change?; Chapter 4: New Norman Breeds? Studies in Animal Size and Conformation; Chapter 5: The Norman Impact on Wild Resource Exploitation; Chapter 6: Deer Hunting: Methods and Rituals; Chapter 7: Biogeography of the Anglo-Norman Transition; Chapter 8: Cooking, Class and Cultural Identity; Chapter 9: The Invisible Conquest.

The presence of unusual, grotesque and rude carvings on ecclesiastical buildings have been explained in a number of ways, from reflecting the warped sense of humour of the masons, to a purely ornamental or marginal function. However, in this study of medieval sculpture from southern England, Alex Woodcock suggests that imagery should be seen in the same way as the buildings themselves, as liminal spaces mediating between the human, mortal world and the sacred and unknown. In examining various distorted and foliate heads, grotesques, mythical creatures, beasts and so on, Woodcock argues that these are wholly appropriate images for medieval religious life, reflecting the ambiguous and the unclassifiable in an unknown realm, whilst also having an apotropaic function. Placing emphasis on liminality, the study focuses in particular on heads - severed, foliate and otherwise - and whole figures, humans, animals and hybrids, including detailed studies of the siren and mermaid.

The purpose of castles - their position and their symbolic nature - is the main focus of this study, which takes into account the importance of their context in the medieval world, as part of a many-faceted society. The four south-eastern counties of Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire and Northamptonshire and their castle buildings are looked at in detail to define the reasons for their locations - not just from a 'military-strategic' point of view, but a social and economic one as well.

This work describes the organization of an agricultural homestead and its equipment and function and the ensuing research contributes towards an understanding of aspects of the social and economical status of peasants during the High and Late Middle Ages. Looking at homesteads, courtyards and villages, the author mainly focuses on the period between the 13th 15th centuries in the region of the present-day Czech Republic, as well as in other parts of Central Europe, extending the current knowledge base, with the intention of bringing more information on the development of the inner structure of the mediaeval village.

This book provides an account of the archaeology of medieval monastic houses throughout Great Britain and Ireland. The application of a wide range of archaeological techniques, allied to historical investigation, has awakened interest in monasteries. Important new sources of information have transformed knowledge of monastic life. As well as discussing many of the advances made by research over the last two decades, innovative methods of archaeological investigation are described, and examples of good practice in the preservation of sites and their interpretation to visitors are provided. Suggestions for further research, examples of outstanding monastic sites to visit, a glossary of terms, a comprehensive bibliography and an index are also included.

Many hundred of bone and antler combs have been uncovered during half a century of excavation at the medieval settlement of Novgorod in Russia. Recovered from sites across the city, and spanning its entire medieval history, the combs reveal much about the changes in comb-making during the transition from the Viking to medieval period, while their archaeological provenance contributes to our understanding of the cultural and economic development of Novgorod. At the heart of the study is a detailed, illustrated typology of combs, along with analyses of their distribution, their decoration, the bone material, the location of possible industrial centres and chronological changes in design. Additional data is presented on a CD.

This study of post-medieval ceramic production and consumption in the Lower Rhineland is prefaced by a survey of previous work and approaches in the field. With the initiation of large-scale urban excavations in the Lower Rhineland during the 1980s, particularly in the town of Duisburg, an extensive sequence of pottery has been recovered dating from c .1400 to 1800, enabling archaeologists for the first time to re-examine traditional chronologies, attributions and socio-economic interpretations. This survey comprises 95 individual assemblages of pottery from sites excavated in Duisburg and from towns and rural sites in the region. (Studies in Contemporary and Historical Archaeology is a new series of edited and single-authored volumes intended to make available current work on the archaeology of the recent and contemporary past. The series brings together contributions from academic historical archaeologists, professional archaeologists and practitioners from cognate disciplines who are engaged with archaeological material and practices.)

The manuscript which eventually came to be called "Domesday Book" is a product of the enterprise originally known as the "Descriptio totius Angliae," the survey carried out in 1086, twenty years after the Norman Conquest, by order of King William I. This manuscript does not stand alone. It is the latest of four successive versions of the written record of the survey. Intrinsically the least valuable, it has gained in value over time, as the earlier versions have dropped out of existence. But they have not disappeared completely. Part of the immediately preceding version survives as the companion volume to "Domesday Book"; part of the version preceding that survives, for some unknown reason, in the library of Exeter Cathedral, even though it was, without any doubt, written in the king's treasury at Winchester. The earliest version of all - the only version in which the data were recorded cadastrally, county by county, hundred by hundred, village by village, manor by manor - has been entirely lost in the original; yet for most of one county a copy survives, in a late twelfth-century manuscript from Ely. This book begins with a sequence of chapters which analyse some aspects of the manuscript evidence, from a new angle, or in closer detail than before, working backwards from the latest version towards the earliest. The last two chapters reassemble the evidence to create a new picture of the conduct of the survey, in both its fieldwork and its post-fieldwork phases.

These fourteen papers were presented as part of Section 14 of the XIVth UISPP Congress held at the University of Liege in 2001. The papers present a broad mix of medieval archaeology and history, including: cave santuaries in the Pre-Urals; the early medieval Great Hungarian Plain; ritual bronze cauldrons; fountains in Viterbo; a cemetery at saint-Esteve-le-Pont; funerary practices in Picardy; woodworking in central and northern Europe; interaction between migration groups and local populations in the early Middle Ages; fortresses on the French-Spanish border; ceramics from an abandoned chateau; the study of architecture from an archaeological perspective; dwarfism; catacombs.

This piece of research, based on the author's dissertation, is where the study of historical woodlands meets botanical and ecological analysis. In using the approach based on the historical ecology of the English landscape and applying it to the Carpathian Basin, Peter Szabo presents an investigation into the woodland and forests of medieval Hungary. Although this is not a straightforward comparison between the English and Hungarian situation, Szabo does draw some parallels between the two whilst also highlighting Hungarian peculiarities. Themes such as the destruction og woodland, tree types, manage, ment of woodland and forests, coppicing, and the relationship between the Church and woodland, and the designation of Royal forests, are discussed and examples cited

This volume draws on two pieces of evidence which offer insights into life in Byzantium: the illuminated manuscript Skylitzes Matritensis and the great Christian monument turned mosque, Hagia Sophia. The main part of the discussion focuses on Skylitzes Natritensis which is a dramatic portrayal of the historical events of the period from Michael I Rangabe (811-813) to the accession of Isaac Comnenos (1057-1059), described as a videotape in action style'. The manuscript depicts a great many themes, including coronations, marriages, ceremonial life, disasters, persecutions, war, violence and so on, with accompanying legends. The rather shorter discussion of the Hagia Sophia looks at the transformation of the Christian monument into an Ottoman mosquem at its role as a prototype and antitype' of the mosque, its influence on Ottoman mosque architecture of Istanbul and Edirne, and at iconoclasm. Literary references to Hagia Sophia are also discussed, with extracts.

This volume charts the changing human-animal relationship at one particular location, Dudley Castle, West Midlands, over several centuries. The temporal span considered (the 11th-18th centuries) is, arguably, one of the most formative in the evolving relationship between humans and animals. The period was one of profound economic, social and demographic change, witnessing not only the evolution of modern breeds of domestic animals, but also a change in the way animals were perceived and treated. In this study, the animal bones recovered from archaeological excavations at Dudley Castle have been integrated with historical documentation to provide a basis from which to explore these issues. Site-specific questions, as well as broader trends within the social and economic landscape of the medieval and post-medieval periods in England are considered. This study also attempts to explore dietary patterns on site, and the way in which the acquisition and consumption of food was used in the negotiation of social relationships.

From the end of the thirteenth century to the first decades of the sixteenth century, Guyart des Moulins's Bible historiale was the predominant French translation of the Bible. Enhancing his translation with techniques borrowed from scholastic study, vernacular preaching, and secular fiction, Guyart produced one of the most popular, most widely copied French-language texts of the later Middle Ages. Making the Bible French investigates how Guyart's first-person authorial voice narrates translation choices in terms of anticipated reader reactions and frames the biblical text as an object of dialogue with his readers. It examines the translator's narrative strategies to aid readers' visualization of biblical stories, to encourage their identification with its characters, and to practice patient, self-reflexive reading. Finally, it traces how the Bible historiale manuscript tradition adapts and individualizes the Bible for each new intended reader, defying modern print-based and text-centred ideas about the Bible, canonicity, and translation.

The majority of literature about the Viking period, based on artefacts or written sources, covers battles, kings, chiefs and mercenaries, long distance travel and colonisation, trade, and settlement. Less is said about the life of those that stayed at home, or those that immigrated into Scandinavia, whether voluntarily or by force. This book uses results from the examination of a substantial corpus of Swedish osteological material to discuss aspects of demography and health in the Viking period face=Calibri>- those which would have been visible and recognisable in the faces or physical appearances of the individuals concerned. It explores the effects of migration, from the spread of new diseases such as leprosy to patterns of movement and integration of immigrants into society. The skeletal material also allows the study of levels of violence, attitudes towards disablement, and the care provided by Viking communities. An overview of the worldwide phenomenon of modified teeth also gives insight into the practice of deliberate physical embellishment and body modification. The interdisciplinary approach to questions regarding ordinary life presented here will broaden the knowledge about society during the Viking Age. The synthesis of the Swedish unburnt human skeletal remains dated to the Viking age will be a valuable resource for future research, and provides an in-depth view on Viking age society.

The reconstruction of ancient landscapes is not just about physical entities, but also about conceptual ones. Based on her PhD dissertation, Symonds examines how material culture can be used to reflect on landscape and social practice, taking pottery production in 10th-century Lincolnshire as her case study. Taking a combined theoretical, geographical, historical, typological, GIS and statistical approach, she looks at the ways in which material culture structured social life and explores how daily practices, memory, perceptions of places, territory and movement can bring a better understanding of how landscapes were formed, used and perceived.

The adaptive re-use of English monastic buildings in the second half of the 16th century has been relatively little studied. With a few notable exceptions, it has been generally assumed that most former monastic sites were simply plundered for their building materials. Two new approaches suggest that frequently this was not so. First, by examining in detail all the monastic houses of a single county - in this case Hertfordshire - which survived until the Dissolution, and, secondly, by treating the surviving architectural evidence as a primary source, it can be shown that much medieval fabric is, in fact, incorporated in later houses on monastic sites, even when this is not readily apparent. Coupled with contemporary documentary records and later antiquarian accounts, this structural analysis allows a reconstruction to be made of the processes of re-use in the half-century after the Dissolution. The author features 13 detailed case studies of important prope! rties.

This book developed out of the need to address the issues surrounding the potential impact of urbanization and later, industrialization, on past human health in England. The main aims of the research were to assess differences in the levels of morbidity and mortality in non-adults from urban and rural environments, and to explore the types of evidence for morbidity observed on non-adult skeletons. The study was based on two urban (York and London) and two rural (Northamptonshire and North Yorkshire) sites in England (between 850 and 1859). The use of skeletal and dental indicators of stress were examined as measures of environmental change, and also what factors in the urban and rural environments may be contributing to any difference between the samples.

This study of birth-rates, death-rates and demography in Medieval Italy challenges many traditional assumptions based on documentary evidence. Giovannini looks instead at archaeological evidence from the 6th to 14th century and reaches a number of interesting conclusions - the death-rate for 0-5 year olds is not as high as previously thought; a small percentage of the population lived beyond the age of 50. Like many other parts of Europe, factors such as famine and disease do not seem to have been prevalent until the later medieval period. Text in Italian with English and French abstracts.

The kiln at Downpatrick is one of only two known examples in medieval Ireland. This study includes an analysis of the kiln and its pottery, attempting to answer questions regarding its period of use, its productivity, and its role within contemporary County Down and Britain.