Medieval History and Archaeology of Yorkshire
Tuesday 6 December 2016 – 17.30
Emilia Jamroziak (Professor of Medieval Religious History, School of History, and Director, Institute for Medieval Studies, University of Leeds) Inaugural Lecture: The Present Mirrored in the Past: Why Interpreting Medieval Monasticism Matters
Nathan Bodington Council Chamber, Parkinson Building, University of Leeds.
Tuesday, 22 November 2016 – 17.30
Chris J. Given-Wilson (Professor of Medieval History, St Andrews Institute of Mediaeval Studies, University of St Andrews)
Nathan Bodington Council Chamber, Parkinson Building, University of Leeds.
The next lecture in the programme will be by Dr Audrey Thorstad talking about Interaction, daily life, and socialising spaces in early Tudor castles on 10th December. This will be held in the Swarthmore Institute.
Dr Thorstad kindly sent the following abstract and the photograph of Cowdray Castle:-
‘Castles have long been understood as elite military structures. However, recent approaches to castle studies have demonstrated that historical documents and archaeological remains depict a much more complex narrative for those living, working, and visiting a castle site during the Middle Ages and early modern periods. This paper will explore how people – from the lord and his family to members of the household and guests – moved around and used space in English castles of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. My approach takes into account sources that have not previously been used together in order to explore the layout and chamber arrangements in an age when castles were supposedly in decline. By dismantling the idea of the decline paradigm often used to describe castles after the fourteenth century, this paper will argue that castles were in fact still heavily used by the nobility well into the sixteenth century.’
Details for the Richmond visit on Thursday 13 October: in the morning at 11.00 meet at the The Georgian Theatre Royal, Victoria Road, Richmond, DL10 4DW. Tel 01748-823710. Cost to participants £6.00 – this can be paid on the day. Tea/coffee will be provided on our arrival.
Park in the Market Square and walk northwards up King Street (at the side of The King’s Head Hotel); turn left onto Victoria Road and the theatre is on your left. Disc parking is available for 2 hours in the Market Square, following which we suggest moving cars to the former Richmond Station which is adjacent to the swimming pool, just across the river, off the A6136 Catterick Garrison road, postcode DL10 4LD. Parking here is currently 50p for 2 hours or £1 for 4 hours. Lunch will be in this beautiful building, now restored – numbers are needed in advance for reserved tables.
“The Station is a stunning riverside Victorian railway building; brought back to life as an art gallery and exhibition space, community venue for groups, meetings and classes, and home to a variety of independent businesses.”
If you wish to join the Richmond visit please let Jane Ellis know as soon as possible, preferably by e-mail janerway@gmail.com or telephone 07787-311913.
The organiser needs to know a.s.a.p. the numbers who will be going.
Sylvia Thomas, our speaker for the October lecture, kindly sent the following notes about her talk at Swarthmore Education Centre this Saturday:
Since its foundation in 1863 the Society has accumulated significant archive collections from all over Yorkshire, many of them records of major families, some of which date back as far as the thirteenth century. Highlights are the enormous series of surviving court rolls of the manor of Wakefield (1274 – 1925), the fifteenth-century stock book and sixteenth-century lease book of Fountains Abbey, the secular cartulary of Whixley, North Yorkshire (1430), numerous early Yorkshire charters, and much more.
In 2015 all these collections were deposited by the Society for safe-keeping in the University of Leeds, Brotherton Library Special Collections, where they are again available for use by the public.
Sylvia Thomas is the former archivist and a past president of the YAHS, and a retired County Archivist of West Yorkshire. She is Joint Editor of the West Riding and Derbyshire volumes of Records of Early English Drama.
Riches revealed: medieval archives in the collections of the YAHS a talk by Sylvia Thomas.
2pm at Swarcliffe as usual
Prof. Raluca Radulescu (Professor of Medieval Literature and Co-Director of the Institute for Medieval & Early Modern Studies, Bangor University)
Date : 4th October 2016
Time : 6pm
Location : Parkinson Building: Room 1.08.
The historical and cultural context in which vernacular chronicles were written at the end of the Middle Ages in England and the Continent was complex. Among the numerous types of extant chronicles, the Middle English Brut chronicle tradition, with more than 180 extant manuscripts, predominantly from the fifteenth century, stands out as a ‘best seller’. The Brut chronicle inherits the narrative of Britain’s origins from Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae, and establishes, through its continuations up to fifteenth century, a seemingly uninterrupted line of succession for the kings of England from the foundation of the ‘nation’ by Brut, the great-grandson of Eneas. Versions of the Brut chronicle are found in abridged format, be they in Latin, French or English, in other types of chronicle, such as the genealogies. Through their diagrammatic design the genealogical chronicles provided their first audiences with powerful reminders of a particular interpretation of history, especially during the Wars of the Roses, when this type of chronicle was used, it is now believed, for political propaganda purposes.
However, the use of fifteenth-century genealogical chronicles, surviving in large numbers and in both roll and codex format, extended beyond immediate political aims. The genealogical chronicles, I argue, contributed to the creation of gentry, noble and royal family history, and shaped the imaginary of the ‘English nation’. Image-making and identity-making are thus crucial to our understanding of the cultural framework in which historical writing was produced in fifteenth-century England. My talk will address, among other, the following questions: How was the land perceived and presented in the late medieval English vernacular chronicles, particularly in the Brut and genealogies? How did the audiences of these chronicles interact with the codices and/or rolls containing these historical narratives – if at all? What gaps are there in our understanding of the function of these chronicles, and what work is still needed to fill them?
Raluca Radulescu is Professor of Medieval literature and co-director of the Institute for Medieval and Early Modern Studies, Bangor University, Wales. She is also general editor of the Journal of the International Arthurian Society and President of the British Branch of the same society. She has published widely on Arthurian and non-Arthurian romance, gentry culture, fifteenth-century political culture, Brut and genealogical chronicles, and the medieval miscellany. Her most recent books are Romance and Its Contexts in Fifteenth-Century England: Politics, Piety and Penitence (Cambridge: D.S.Brewer, 2013) and, co-edited with Margaret Connolly, Insular Books: Vernacular Manuscript Miscellanies in Late Medieval Britain, British Academy vol. 201 (Oxford: Oxford University Press for the British Academy, 2015).
The latest analysis from the Fulford Battlefield dig:-
After sorting the Fulford finds, a clear picture emerged of iron items: they are in the flow of what we can now identify as the ancient course of Germany Beck. With a few exceptions the iron was found in this restricted location and is focused in one layer. (There are some images of finds in the dig 2016 folder on the Fulford Battlefield website)
The ‘anvils’ are the exception to this rule. Wooden models of three of the items were identified by Scandinavian experts recently as likely tools used by metal-workers to planish the surface of sheet metal; so they could have been employed to remove dents from shield bosses and helmets. These items lie just above the stream bed.
The suggestion is that they arrived here attached to a block of wood into which they were driven in order to be used by the ancient armourers. This prevented their easy recovery and the rising tides in the days following the battle (all the recycling sites identified were beside the beck) floated away. The ‘anvils’ would have acted as a keel causing them to remain submerged and when found, the items all have their pointed end above the head, suggesting some buoyancy at the tip. The first two finds of the season were two further ‘anvils’ making a collection of 5. We also know these, and the finds from 2013-2015, were all along the ancient line of the beck which would account for the deposition of these finds.
The survival of metal within the stream is taken as support for the recycling hypothesis which suggests that the battlefield was thoroughly cleared of metal debris and only items that were submerged in the beck avoided the clearup. The identification in 2004 of so many metal working tools and now the identification of the ‘anvils’ leave little doubt that something dramatic happened to interrupt the work and the suggestion is that this was the destruction of the Norse army at Stamford Bridge.
With the exception of a few pieces of lead all the other items were iron and this itself is noteworthy since normal metal surveys produce a greater number of non-ferrous items. So the domination of iron in the sample is interesting but just what one might expect in a battle area.
Among the finds are an unusual number of intriguing objects that are currently awaiting xray. During the initial cleaning and find sorting, three tubular objects were found the likes of which have not been seen before and we also have what has been catalogued as a ‘long flat object’.
The work has also allowed us to refine the dating model for the layers: The stone layer was stable from pre-historic, through Roman times and ends about the time of the battle. It was only in the century after the battle that sediments began to accumulate, probably caused by the influx of alluvium from the Ings. We then have a deep layer of sand and alluvium which rapidly accumulated possibly associated with the construction of the bridge. This restricted the ebbing of the water allowing more material to be deposited. This buildup also caused the course of the beck to move a little to the north.
The road which we have variously described as a causeway, mediaeval track is looking increasingly as if it is a Roman military road. The width and construction are consistent with that interpretation but we need to do a little more work. The surface layers show many signs of repair which continued into Tudor times.
We will be extending this trench to the east to see what lies beyond the edge of the road. If any members are available this weekend, their help would be appreciated to carry out this work.
The final headline is the remains of what appears to be a small horse. It will be worth investigating if the pieces of horse vertebrae recovered at a slightly higher context in previous digs are ‘related’ to this horse because only skeletal elements that would have been close to the ground have been recovered this year. It is not easy to imagine why a horse wold have been left to rot near the crossing but that is what appears to have happened.
There is lots more analysis to do but the model of the battlesite is even clearer after all your hard work.
Thanks very very much.
Wakefield’s Medieval Bridge and Chantry Chapel on Saturday 1st October
This event at The Hepworth, Wakefield will cover what is known about the Bridge and Chantry, as well as their context, with talks by an engineer about medieval bridge construction and a historian about the purpose of chantry chapels. Other talks will cover new research, both current research about bridge chapels and also research being carried out for The Hepworth into the antiquarian Gott Collection. The day will end with a visit to look at the Bridge and the Chapel.
This event coincides with the 660th anniversary of the start of worship at the Chapel, the 25th anniversary of the Friends of the Chantry Chapel and remembers the work of Kate Taylor towards its restoration.
The cost is £10 for members of Wakefield Historical Society/Friends of the Chantry Chapel, £15 for non-members. For more information, see www.wakefieldhistoricalsociety.org.uk or phone 07971 449463.
Digging at Fulford, 2015
Chas Jones has kindly sent details of this year’s commemorations of the battles of Fulford and Stamford Bridge. Fulford was the first and arguably largest of the three battles in the autumn of 1066. Five days after the battle of Fulford the Vikings were caught off guard at Stamford Bridge by King Harold II and badly defeated. These two Yorkshire battles contributed to the defeat of King Harold a few weeks later at Hastings because his army was no longer fresh after its long march up to Yorkshire and back.
The archaeological digs of 2014 and 2015 on the site of the 1066 battle of Fulford yielded many fragments of bone, which appeared to be human. Sadly it was not possible to extract collagen for a carbon date or to do isotope analysis on these bones.
The work will resume this summer with more trenches where the bones were found. Another trench will expose a further section of the ancient road leading to the ford which was discovered last year.
Chas recently launched a ‘Crowdfunder’ appeal, featuring a film by Dan Snow, to get the money to open the site to visitors. As a part of the 950th anniversary of 1066 the site, which is on public land, will be open for families during the summer holidays to visit and dig some of the intriguing archaeology that was uncovered last year.
There will be a number of events to commemorate the Fulford and Stamford Bridge battles, culminating in a battle re-enactment at Stamford Bridge on 25th September, the 950th anniversary date of that battle before the trek south to Hastings. This is being organised by English Heritage.
Chas has spoken to Medieval Section in the past. Chas hopes some of our members might venture over to Fulford to do some digging or just to come and have a look. He also runs newsletter to which you can sign up.
The site will remain open to visitors as long as weather conditions permit. The hope is to keep them open until the battle of Hastings in mid-October, weather and floods permitting, to maximise visitor opportunities
Medieval Section of the Yorkshire Archaeological and Historical Society 