Uncovering Rievaulx Abbey’s landscapes – the Cistercian taskscape and environmental change
This talk will present a case study of Rievaulx Abbey (North Yorkshire), to examine whether a major Cistercian monastery ‘transformed’ its landscape. Dr Freya Horsfield is based at Durham University.
The next meeting will be presented by Martin Richards on Archaeogenetics and Human Ancestry. It should be very interesting to see the work of scientist in tracing our ancestry through physical means.
Member will have already received a mail with the link to register for the Zoom meeting but non-members are welcome and can register through this link :
Also, a brief reminder that subscriptions to the YAHS and the section are now due. You can either renew online or send a cheque to YAHS at Stringer House. We do hope that you will rejoin and enjoy the programme for the rest of the year.
New members are always welcome and you can join through this link . Medieval Section only costs £16 / year. If you are already a member of the YAHS it is only an extra £6 / year.
Sarah Brown will be talking about the Medieval stained glass from York, St Cuthbert window’
Unfortunately the speaker will not be able to be with us but she is sending presentation which we will be able to view, and would be happy to take any questions or comments from members afterwards.
Section members members should have already received the link to register and non-members are welcome. Please use the following link to register :
This time, we have Stuart Wrathmell speaking on Vikings settlements in eastern and northern Yorkshire. This will follow on nicely from the Lost Villages Found conference last Saturday.
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 However, recent approaches to castle studies have demonstrated that historical documents and archaeological remains depict a much more complex narrative for those living, working, and visiting a castle site during the Middle Ages and early modern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.’
The Whixley cartulary, showing pages from the extent of Whixley manor, early 15th century.
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.
Initial from the Fountains Abbey stock book (late 15th century).
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.
Edited shortened version of lecture given to the Medieval Section of the Yorkshire Archaeological and Historical Society about the St Bees Knight, by Chris Robson of St Bees Historical Society. Filmed at the Swarthmore Education Centre on 12th December 2015, and edited by Bryan Sitch, Honorary Secretary of the Medieval Section. Posted 15th June 2016.
The February 2016 lecture will cover the archaeology of the Order of the Gilbertines, focusing on the layout and function of both double and much overlooked single houses. The lecture will primarily focus on the Yorkshire houses of Watton, Ellerton, Malton and St. Andrews, York. Comparisons of layout will also be drawn with other monastic orders to place the Gilbertines within a wider national context and to help shed light on how they were regarded by their contemporaries. Previous excavation, survey and interpretation will be drawn together and re-evaluated. This will include, for the first time, evaluation of St. John Hope’s nineteenth century excavations at Watton Priory with new a resistivity survey carried out on the site by the speaker in 2014.
Our speaker Peter Townend will draw upon research carried out over the last three years for his PhD thesis on the Monastic Order of the Gilbertines. He intends to submit his thesis for examination by Easter of this year, so we are very grateful to him for speaking when he has weightier matters to think about. Peter has a background in landscape archaeology and completed his Masters in Landscape Archaeology at the University of Sheffield in 2009, following a undergraduate degree in History and Archaeology at the University of Hull. He worked for a number of years at Northamptonshire Archaeology. He is currently collaborating with his supervisor Dr Hugh Willmott on the Thornton Abbey Research Project having previously worked together at Monk Bretton Priory and Humberston Abbey. Publications for all three of these sites are planned for this coming year. Attendees at the monthly lectures and followers of this blog will be familiar with Monk Bretton because Dr Willmott kindly spoke to the Medieval Section in April 2014.
Medieval Section of the Yorkshire Archaeological and Historical Society 