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This book presents a synthesis and analysis of the possessions of non-elite rural households in medieval England. Drawing on the results of the Leverhulme Trust funded project ‘Living Standards and Material Culture in English Rural Households, 1300-1600’, it represents the first national-scale interdisciplinary analysis of non-elite consumption in the later Middle Ages. The research is situated within debates around rising living standards in the period following the Black Death, the commercialisation of the English economy and the timing of a ‘revolution’ in consumer behaviour. Its novelty derives from its focus on non-elite rural households. Whilst there has been considerable work on the possessions of the great households and those living in larger towns, researchers have struggled to identify appropriate sources for understanding the possessions of those living in the countryside, even though they account for the majority of England’s population at this time. This book will address the gap in understanding. The study combines 3 sources of data to address 2 questions: what goods did medieval households own, and what influenced their consumption habits? The first is archaeological evidence, comprising 14,706 objects recovered from archaeological excavations. The book synthesises this data, much of which is unpublished and therefore inaccessible to researchers. The second dataset derives from lists of the seized goods of felons, outlaws and suicides collated by the Escheator, a royal official, in the 14th and 15th centuries. The work of the Escheator is not well understood, but these lists, relating to some of the poorest people in medieval society (for whom traditional sources such as wills and probate inventories do not exist), provide new insights into the living standards of rural households. The lists typically detail and value the possessions of a household, meaning that it is possible to present a quantitative analysis of non-elite consumption for the first time. The final dataset draws on equivalent lists generated by the Coroner for the 16th century. An interdisciplinary approach is essential, as many objects identified archaeologically do not occur in the written records, and goods such as textiles do not survive in the ground. Drawing these sources together therefore allows the presentation of a more comprehensive analysis of the possessions of medieval households. The introduction lays out the research context in a manner accessible to historians and archaeologists who may not be familiar with work in each other’s disciplines. This is followed by a brief summary of the research methodology and the sources underpinning the research. The next 5 chapters focus on addressing the question of what medieval households owned, discussing the evidence for kitchen equipment, tableware, furniture, clothing and personal items. The following 3 chapters discuss household economy, considering the evidence for the production of goods, variation in consumption between town and country and variation in accordance with wealth, firstly through the consideration of these themes at the national scale and secondly through a regional case study focussed on Wiltshire, which has particularly rich archaeological and documentary sources. The volume closes with a concluding chapter which places the research back into its wider context.

Castles had a lasting influence on the practice of reign during the high and late Middle Ages throughout Europe. While this has received considerable attention for many regions, southern Jutland has not yet been perceived as a castle landscape neither by regional historians nor by castle research, although toponyms such as Sønderborg, ramparts like Tørning and palaces such as Gottorf, whose origin goes back to a medieval castle, still provides a vivid impression of the once important role played by such castles. From 2014 to 2018, the author conducted a research project at Kiel University on this phenomenon. With this book, he now presents the first comprehensive study of the castles between Eider and Kongeå, which have received little attention so far. On a micro-level, information on the individual structures on both sides of the German-Danish border from various disciplines such as history and medieval archaeology is compiled, critically evaluated and interconnected. The individual case studies are then placed in their spatial and historical contexts on a micro-level. The work is primarily inspired by the latest trends in international castle research, which emphasize the social complexity, landscape embedding and functional diversity of castles. Especially an innovative classification into different function types allows for completely new methodological approaches to the castles of this region. The book illustrates a total of seven evolutionary phases of this historical castle landscape, from the humble beginnings of the 12th century to the manorially complex and diverse structures of the 15th century. While it is evident that each of these 58 verifiable castles must be examined individually, they can only be meaningfully understood within their historical and landscape contexts. The volume thus sees itself as an important contribution to a more differentiated understanding of this complex territory, providing a frame of reference for further investigations and establishing the region as a castle landscape in supra-regional research.

The idea that the past was an era with long periods of little or no change is almost certainly false. Change has always affected human society. Some of the catalysts for change were exogenous and lay in natural transformations, such as climate change or plant and animal diseases. Others came from endogamous processes, such as demographic change and the resulting alterations in demographic pressure. They might be produced by economic changes in the agrarian economy such as crop- or stock-breeding or better agricultural husbandry systems with the resultant greater harvests. Equally, they might be from technological developments in industry and manufacturing affecting traditional forms of production. We should also note changes in ideology within society and even between principal groups, such as secular and ecclesiastical bodies. We need to consider the impact of politics and warfare. These innovations, transmissions and transformations had profound spatial, economic and social impacts on the environments, landscapes and habitats evident at micro-, meso- and macro-levels. Changes, alterations and modifications may affect how land was worked, how it was organized, and the nature of buildings and rural complexes (homesteads, work buildings, villages, monasteries, towns and landscapes). The authors of the 36 papers focus in particular on transmissions and transformations in a longue durée perspective, such as from early medieval times (c. 500AD) to the High Middle Ages (c. 1000/1200 AD), and from medieval to post-medieval and early modern times (1700). The case studies include the shrinking and disappearance of settlements; changes in rule and authority; developments in the agrarian economy; the shift from handwork to manufacturing; demographic change.

The study of belief, faith and religious practices can provide a deep insight into historical societies, whether Christian, Muslim, Jewish or pagan. They form a constant of human behaviour. Through religion, cult and rituals, multi-layered and complex cultural norms are expressed, demonstrating group affiliation. However, popular devotion and belief in a rural environment can include practices that are out with those of the official religion. Some of these practices discussed in this book can be investigated through archaeology. Important religious sites like churches, monasteries, mosques and synagogues as well as caves, holy wells and hermitages are discussed. Furthermore burials of children, revenants and the condemned are analysed, as they often deviate from normal practice and shed light on particular communities and their beliefs. Rituals concerning the protection of buildings and persons which focus on objects attributed with religious qualities are another area explored. Through archaeological research it is possible to gain an understanding of popular religion of medieval and early modern times and also to draw conclusions about religious ideas that are not written in documents. By bringing together these topics this book is of particular interest to scholars working in the field of archaeology, history and cultural anthropology.

In de Vroege Middeleeuwen maakte het kustgebied van Zuid-Holland deel uit van West-Friesland. Van menselijke aanwezigheid in deze periode getuigen niet alleen enkele historische bronnen en oude plaatsnamen, maar vooral archeologische vondsten. Dit boek geeft voor het eerst een gedetailleerd overzicht van de bewoningsgeschiedenis van de estuaria van de Oude Rijn en Maas tussen circa 270 en 900 na Chr., met tal van nieuwe inzichten. Door de rijkdom aan archeologische gegevens ligt de nadruk op de Oude Rijnstreek. Aan de hand van hoofdstukken over het toenmalige landschap, archeologische vindplaatsen, nederzettingen, huisbouwtraditie en handelscontacten, wordt gekeken welke plaats Zuid-Holland op cultureel en politiek vlak innam ten opzichte van de omliggende gebieden. Daarbij wordt ook ingegaan op de vraag naar de tribale verhoudingen langs de Hollandse kust en wat het etiket ‘Fries’ daarbij voorstelt. Dit heeft ook gevolgen voor onze kijk op het Friese koninkrijk. Menno Dijkstra (Lisse, 1971) studeerde in 1996 af aan het Instituut voor Pre- en Protohistorie van de Universiteit van Amsterdam, met als specialisatie de archeologie van de Middeleeuwen en Nieuwe tijd. In 1997 begon zijn promotieonderzoek bij het Frisia Project. Dit proefschrift is daar het resultaat van. Momenteel is hij werkzaam als senior archeoloog.