Medieval Rural Settlement

Questo libro ha in sé due oggetti di indagine. Da una parte l’osservazione della distrettuazione politica dell’Emilia orientale e dell’organizzazione della sua rete di popolamento; dall’altra, l’analisi dell’articolazione della società, con una particolare attenzione alle relazioni che intercorrono tra le comunità e i diversi poteri centrali che si succedettero in una zona circoscritta all’interno di uno spazio definito come iudiciaria mutinensis nelle carte del X e dell’XI secolo, estesa su buona parte delle terre delle attuali province di Modena e Bologna, dalle propaggini appenniniche del Frignano fino alla bassa pianura tra la via Emilia e il Po.
Così, la gerarchizzazione sociale ed economica, le specifiche logiche dell’organizzazione territoriale dell’Emilia orientale, le capacità d’azione politica a livello locale dei ceti eminenti, ovvero la dinamica sociale del potere, si presentano come i principali problemi nel processo di elaborazione di uno studio accurato sui vari gruppi sociali e i loro rapporti politici ed economici lungo il periodo di transizione tra l’Antichità e il Medioevo condotto tenendo presente in modo critico e sistematico i risultati delle più recenti indagini archeologiche e l’analisi delle fonti scritte.

Målet med denne artikel er – med udgangspunkt i Sydvestjyske Museers udgravninger
i Esbjerg Kommune – at arbejde på tværs af periodeskellet imellem
forhistorie og middelalder til fordel for et mere kontinuitetsbåret blik på det
agrare landskab og de bønder, der skabte det. Hvordan er den overordnede
udvikling i bebyggelseshistorien i de to årtusinder fra landsbyernes opståen i
førromersk jernalder og frem til den første præcise kortlægning på matrikelkortene
fra omkring år 1800? Løber der en rød tråd igennem bebyggelseshistorien
i de to årtusinder fra landsbyernes opståen i førromersk jernalder og frem til
den første præcise kortlægning på matrikelkortene fra omkring år 1800? Og
hvad er de gennemgående træk i det lange tidsperspektiv, la longue durée? Blikket
for samspillet mellem bl.a. økonomiske og sociale faktorer over lange tidsrum,
er især kendetegnende for Annales-skolen, i dens bestræbelser på at blotlægge
og forstå de grundlæggende samfundsstrukturer.1
En anden problemstilling, som vil blive diskuteret, er, i hvilket omfang
de naturligt forløbende landskabs- og klimaforandringer havde indflydelse
på samfundet? Og hvordan er forholdet mellem disse ikke-menneskeskabte
processer i forhold til de menneskeskabte? Hvordan blev det agrare landskab
påvirket af teknologiske landvindinger som muldfjælsplove og vandmøller eller
sociale forandringer som fremkomst af kongemagt og kirke og de hermed
forbundne økonomiske byrder?
I artiklens anden del rettes blikket mod den middelalderlige landbebyggelse
og mere specifikt relationen imellem de middelalderlige gårdes arkitektur
– toften og bygningernes størrelse, konstruktion og fremtoning – og det
samfund, gårdene indgik i. I hvilket omfang er det muligt at koble de fåtallige
skriftlige kilders omtaler af bønder, bryder, landboer, gårdsæder, fæstebønder
m.m. med de arkæologiske levn af bøndernes levesteder? Og hvad skal man
lægge i begreberne “frie” og “ufrie” bønder?
Det er et hovedsynspunkt i teksten, at de arkæologiske undersøgelser i det
agrare landskab igennem de seneste årtier har nået et omfang og antal, som
muliggør, at også de overordnede sociale modeller for jernalderens, vikingetidens
og middelalderens samfund kan holdes op imod udsagnene fra de
udgravede levn. Og denne sammenligning peger i retning af en meget stærk
kontinuitet, hvor landsbyer bestående af jævnstore familiebrug befolket af
relativt frie bønder udgjorde den dominerende gruppe i samfundet helt fra
jernalderen og frem til tidlig moderne tid.

The archaeology of the rural settlement of medieval East- and South Norway is reviewed and it is concluded that not only is tha material very slender but it is unlikely with the present ruling paradigma that it is going to increase. Though more than 80% of the population of medieval Norway lived in the countryside it seems that the archaeological remains fall outside the interest of research and preservation. This is due not only to legislations and regulations but also to certain untested presumptions deeply rooted in Norwegian archaeology. Meanwhile the archaeological remains of medieval rural Norway are being lost.

A traves de los casos de algunos yacimientos recientemente excavados en la Comunidad de Madrid trataremos de exponer la complejidad del proceso formativo de los primeros asentamientos altomedievales de caracter aldeano. Aprehender la relacion existente entre sus principales areas funcionales (funeraria-residencial-productiva) y llegar a establecer con precision su secuencia diacronica aporta elementos clave en la discusion. Las aldeas de El Pelicano y Gozquez ejemplifican dos variantes extremas por cuanto respecta a la organizacion interna del asentamiento: la primera se origina a partir de la descomposicion de un establecimiento bajoimperial tipo villa; la segunda se establece aparentemente ex novo, sin relacion evidente con elementos previos conocidos.

This report presents the results of a programme of rchaeological excavation of 32 1m2 ‘test pits’ in the Cambridgeshire village of Meldreth carried out in summer 2013. The programme was funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) through its ‘All Our Stories’ programme and supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Connected Communities theme which funded the Cambridge Community Heritage programme at the University of Cambridge in 20012-13. Over three weekends, more than 300 residents of the village of Meldreth and the local area took part in the excavations in 32 different locations throughout the present village. The results provided new evidence for the development of the area now occupied by the village, which mostly lies alongside a small stream, from the prehistoric period onwards. Parts of the area appears to have quite intensively used by humans in the prehistoric period, with unusually large volumes of Bronze Age pottery recovered from at least four different sites likely to be indicative of settlement and/or burial. Pottery of Roman date favours the south of the present village, and suggests settlement took the form of a dispersed scatter of small settlements such as farmsteads surrounded by arable fields to the north. No evidence was found for any activity dating to the period between the 5th –9th centuries AD, but Saxo-Norman pottery was found widely, with particular concentrations on the manorial site of Topcliffe as well in the south of the village around Flambards moated site. The absence of any Thetford ware from Meldreth suggests that this activity is likely to be post-Conquest in date and that the medieval settlement originates in this period rather than earlier. The high medieval period sees the settlement extend westwards, probably laid out in the 12th or 13th century over former arable, with apparently new settlement sites founded at Chiswick and North End. This growth ceases in the late medieval period, although Meldreth does not appear to be as badly affected in this period of widespread demographic and settlement contraction as many settlements in the eastern region. In the post-medieval period, however, the test pit data indicates that Meldreth stagnated, with the southern end of the settlement particularly badly affected.

espanolLa investigacion llevada a cabo en la region del Alto Mondego durante los ultimos cinco anos ha permitido la identificacion de la estructura del poblamiento rural altomedieval, que comienza ahora a ser estudiada. Los datos arqueologicos y el analisis de la documentacion que se han obtenido indican un cambio en la estrategia de ocupacion y de explotacion del territorio entre los siglos x y xii. A partir de ese momento surge una nueva red de poblamiento que es la que definira la situacion en la Plena y la Baja Edad Media. En este articulo se presentan los resultados arqueologicos y se debate sobre los posibles procesos de cambio que tuvieron lugar en esta region y que determinaron la construccion del paisaje rural medieval. EnglishThe last five years of research in the Upper Mondego region allowed the identification of an early Medieval rural settlement system that is now being studied. Archaeological data and analysis of written documents indicate a change in the occupation an...

This report presents the results of a programme of archaeological excavation of 23 1m2 ‘test pits’ in the Bedfordshire village of Shillington carried out in summer 2013. The programme was funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) through its ‘All Our Stories’ programme and supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Connected Communities theme which funded the Cambridge Community Heritage programme at the University of Cambridge in 20012-13. Over three days, more than 300 residents of the village of Shillington and the local area took part in the excavations in 23 different locations throughout the present village. The results provided new evidence for the development of the area now occupied by the village, which mostly lies alongside a small stream, from the prehistoric period onwards. The landscape was used by humans in the prehistoric period, apparently favouring the area nearer the small brook running west of the prominent hill which dominates the land around the parish. One test pit near this stream produced convincing evidence for undisturbed settlement remains in the immediate vicinity. Small quantities of pottery of Roman date came from five different sites, two of them away from the Brookside area hinting at a pattern of settlement or agricultural land use moving beyond the lower lying zones. No evidence was found for any activity dating to the period between the 5th – 9th centuries AD, but Saxo-Norman pottery of 10th – 11th century date was found in two distinct concentrations, suggesting more than one hamlet present, possibly part of a nucleated pattern of settlement, at this time. The high medieval period saw settlement at these sites grow and that at three other ‘ends’ appear, indicating a pattern of mixed dispersed and nucleated settlement. This growth ceases in the late medieval period, with Shillington particularly badly affected in this period of widespread demographic and settlement contraction compared to many settlements in the eastern region. In the post-medieval period, however, the test pit data indicates that Shillington gradually recovered, with former dispersed settlements mostly reoccupied, although it did not achieve its pre-14th century levels and some of the medieval ‘ends’ remained uninhabited until the 19th century.

This report presents the results of the West Wickham Big Dig programme of excavation of eighteen 1m2 archaeological ‘test pits’ in the Cambridgeshire parish of West Wickham in summer 2013. The excavations were funded by a Heritage Lottery Fund’s ‘All Our Stories’ grant to West Wickham & District Local History Club and were supported by Cambridge Community Heritage, funded by the AHRC. The aim of the West Wickham Big Dig was to enable members of the public to experience places familiar to them in new ways by excavating in private gardens and other open spaces within West Wickham, searching for archaeological evidence left by people who lived in this parish in the past. Over two days, more than 100 people took part in the excavations in West Wickham which produced thousands of finds and provided new evidence for the development of settlement in the area from the prehistoric period onwards. The results indicated that the landscape around West Wickham was extensively but lightly used by humans in the prehistoric period, although two pits yielding Bronze Age pottery hints at settlement or mortuary activity in the vicinity of the present church. No evidence of Roman date at all was found in the test pits within the present village, with the earliest post-prehistoric finds dating to the Anglo-Norman period, which were found near the parish church of St. Mary, suggesting that the present settlement at West Wickham was founded in this period as a small hamlet, arranged as a thinly occupied interrupted row, predating the foundation of Streetly End or Burton End. In the high medieval period (11th – 14th century), this settlement appears to have taken the form of a small nucleated village around a green extending east from the church of St Mary. Both Streetly End and Burton End appear to be later in date than West Wickham, but were in existence by 1100-1200 AD. This process of high medieval settlement expansion was abruptly arrested in the later medieval period, which saw the volume of pottery recovered severely reduced, with none at all found at Burton End. This decline does not appear to have been evenly felt across the parish of West Wickham, however, as all the test pits in Streetly End yielded sherds from this period, hinting possibly at expansion in the extent or intensity of settlement here at this time. Recovery was not established until after the end of the medieval period, but was robust when it did occur, with the dispersed character hamlet-dominated character of the high medieval settlement pattern maintained until the later 19th / early 20th century. By successfully involving members of the public of all ages and backgrounds from within, across and beyond the community of West Wickham in planning, organising and undertaking the excavations, the West Wickham ‘Big Dig’ excavations enabled participants to find out more about their local heritage, take part in the Heritage Lottery Fund’s ‘All Our Stories’ project and enjoy a community event while generating new evidence to inform understanding of the past development of their homes, their community and its wider landscape.

The present contribution, on the basis of a reconstruction of Antique and Medieval cultural landscapes, proposes the analysis of a Central-Western area of Sardinia embracing the Southern ridge of the Montiferru volcanic mountain chain. The examined region, comprise within the modern territories of Bonarcado, Milis, Narbolia and Seneghe belonging to Oristano’s Province, widens over an area of circa 145 square kilometres. The region is morphologically characterized by limited plains and mountains and prevailing hills. The reasons beyond the choice of such territories as a basis for a landscape archaeology approach are manifold. Among other things can be highlighted a substantial geo-morphological homogeneity, natural borders able to circumscribe the region together with the intrinsic characteristic of the territory as an in-between zone among the coastal and plain region of the Campidano and the mountainous internal regions. The region has also been a boundary area in different histor...

RESUMO Este artigo apresenta os resultados da intervenção arqueológica do sítio de Barradas (Odiáxere, Lagos, Portugal). Os vestígios de um assentamento do Neolítico Final/Calcolítico e de uma provável necrópole romana foram fortemente perturbados pela ...

This paper reports on the third year of the University of Cambridge Higher Education Field Academy (HEFA) project which combines education and outreach with the archaeological investigation of currently occupied rural settlemcnts (CORS). It fo llows earlier reports in MSRG Annual Rcport 20 (Lewis 2006) and 21 (Lewis 2007a), where the aims and methods of this projcct arc detailed.

Traditional historiography about border space in central Iberian Peninsula has developed a conception of organised around some communication routes, a few cities, towers and castles. However, if we reduce the scale of the study we will discover a more complex reality, in which not all the towers were watchtowers and some settlements displayed an urban character without being cities. Above all, we will identify a compact pattern of rural settlements that played a key role in shaping the surrounding landscapes on the grounds of their economic production, particularly agriculture but also herding and the exploitation of others resources such as salt. We will discuss the existence of local elites, whom we can describe as rural powers, placing also the focus on where they inhabited and how they created territoriality.

Dixon, The medieval peasent building.. 187-200 The medieval peasant building in Scotland: the beginning and end of crucks Das mittelalterliche Bauernhaus in Schottland: Der Beginn und das Ende der Krümmlingsbauten Début et fin de l'usage d'armatures en bois fourchues ...

Résumé/Abstract: Établi en surplomb d'une vallée encaissée, l'habitat du «Mesnil» à Plomb se développe au cours de deux phases, l'une attribuée aux IX eX e et la seconde aux XI e-XII e siècles. Ces aménagements succèdent à une première occupation remontant aux I ...

General introduction to the Devroey 'Festschrift: includes Jean-Pierre Devroey's intellectual portrait, with a summary of his contribution to the field of Medieval and Rural History/ Introduction générale du volume d'hommage dédié à jean-Pierre Devroey: inclut un portrait intellectuel, avec un résumé de sa contribution à l'Histoire médiévale et rurale

Alongside the Morava, the border river between Austria and Slovakia, a significant historico-cultural area developed from the Prehistory on. Fertile soil pandered to the procession of formation of settlements. Good transportation routes on land and water boosted the supra-regional contacts which ranged from the Baltic Sea to the Adriatic Sea. Also, medivial settlements as well as mottes are known from this region. The metal artefacts presented here, which were gathered around Bernhardsthal, Ringelsdorf, Drösing and Jedenspeigen, come from a private collection. The corpus of finds document the spectrum of metal everyday objects from clothes and jewellery of the Middle Ages. Finds from the late High Middle Ages and the Late Middle Ages predominate. Beside the common Europe-wide forms, some few stand out through meticulous workmanship and gilding. Most of the medivial finds were dated to the time as the settlement Drösing (around 1296) was relocated to a dry area to the West. Finds whi...

À Villers-le-Bouillet, au lieu-dit “Lohincou”, la fouille exhaustive d’un site du Haut Moyen Âge a livré les vestiges traditionnellement associés aux occupations rurales de cette période (fosses, fossés, empreintes de poteaux, cabanes excavées, structures de combustion), ainsi qu’un groupe funéraire. Le site est occupé entre le VIIe siècle et la première moitié du XIe siècle au plus tard. Des études archéobotaniques ont pu être effectuées. Les résultats carpologiques permettent d’appréhender les espèces mises en culture dans un terroir de la Hesbaye. Les assemblages associés à certaines aires de combustion sont particulièrement abordées. Ceux-là posent la question d’un lien direct avec le traitement thermique des récoltes céréalières. L’hétérogénéité des assemblages laisse envisager le mélange de produits/sous-produits de différentes moissons dont la mise culture n’est pas concomitante. Dans cet article, nous tentons d’aborder ces pratiques agricoles en croisant les données archéologiques, historiques et carpologiques. Cette approche montre toute la complexité de la compréhension de l’organisation socioéconomique d’un habitat rural du haut Moyen Âge.

Cuatrovitas (Bollullos de la Mitación) es un despoblado situado en el Aljarafe sevillano. concretamente en el término municipal de Bollullos de la Mitación.
This is a deserted medieval village that preserve an Almohad mosque converted into a church and later hermitage. This paper in centered mostly in the village.

Few medieval rural settlements have been identified or excavated in Scotland. The site at Springwood Park survived in a ploughed field and was identified by scatters of medieval pottery. Excavation revealed only part of the settlement, a row of buildings on a river terrace which was occupied from the late 12th to the 14th century. Three main periods were identified, followed by levelling and abandonment. The earliest period featured post-set structures and plots defined by ditches; the two later occupation periods featured cruck-framed buildings with clay walls on stone footings. These later periods were each marked by a major reorganization of the settlement, with the buildings in the second period arranged end-on to the old river terrace along which the settlement was built, and in the third period rebuilt in a row facing the terrace. The project was funded by the Manpower Services Commission and Historic Scotland.

Defining the Midlands is a challenge because it is an area which is mostly lacking clear geographical divisions and its boundaries have consequently been drawn along different lines depending on frames of reference. Here, however, ‘the Midlands’ has been taken to encompass 15 counties from five different local government regions: Derbyshire, Leicestershire (including Rutland), Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, and Nottinghamshire (East Midlands region); Herefordshire, Staffordshire, Shropshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire (West Midlands region); Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire (South-East England region); Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire (East of England region; and Gloucestershire (South West Region). This area, which could perhaps be better termed ‘the greater Midlands’, including as it does both core and peripheral regions of the traditional Midlands zone is, of course, at one level a function of a prosaic need within this volume to divide the country up into regions for discussi...

This report presents the results of the ‘Dig and Sow’ programme of excavation of twenty-nine 1m square archaeological ‘test pits’ in the Essex parish of Clavering in spring 2012. The excavations were part of ‘On Landguard Point’ an arts project funded by Arts Council England via its ‘Artists taking the Lead’ programme for the Cultural Olympiad of the London 2012 Olympic Games. The aim of ‘Dig and Sow’ was to enable members of the public to experience places familiar to them in a new way by excavating in private gardens and other open spaces within living East Anglian communities, searching for archaeological evidence left by people who lived in those communities in the past. Over a single day, more than 150 people took part in the excavations in Clavering which produced thousands of finds and provided new evidence for the development of settlement in the area from the prehistoric period onwards. The results showed that the landscape around Clavering appears to have been extensively but lightly used by humans in the prehistoric period, with activity perhaps focussing more on the valley in the Roman period. No evidence at all was found from the Anglo-Saxon period. The high medieval period (11th – 14th century) appears to be the time when the settlement pattern as it is today was established. This period saw an explosion of settlement across the landscape of Clavering, with a small nucleated village around a church/manor core surrounded by numerous even smaller dispersed settlements scattered along lanes throughout the parish, many named as ‘greens’ or ‘ends’ and others likely to have comprised little more than single homesteads. A significant number of these sites are complimented by moats. This energetic expansion of settlement in the 11th – 14th centuries saw the volume of pottery recovered from across the parish of Clavering climb from zero in the Anglo-Saxon period to above average for the eastern region in the high medieval period. This process of high medieval settlement expansion was abruptly arrested in the later medieval period, which saw the dispersed settlement pattern particularly severely scaled back, with most sites outside the village producing no pottery of later medieval date (mid 14th – mid 16th century) at all. The nucleated settlement around the church seems however to have fared much better. Recovery in the wider dispersed settlement landscape was not established until after the end of the medieval period: all but one of the pits produced pottery of 16th-18th century date, showing that when this robust recovery did take place, the dispersed character of the settlement pattern established in the high medieval period was maintained. It remains largely so today, despite 20th century development around the valley-bottom medieval nucleated village and string development along roads out of it creating a large village at the centre of the parish. By successfully involving members of the public of all ages and backgrounds from within, across and beyond the community of Clavering in planning, organising and undertaking the excavations, the ‘Dig and Sow’ excavations enabled participants to find out more about their local heritage, take part in the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad and enjoy a community event while generating new evidence to inform understanding of the past development of their homes, their community and its wider landscape.

This compelling new study forms part of a new wave of scholarship on the medieval rural environment in which the focus moves beyond purely socio-economic concerns to incorporate the lived experience of peasants. For too long, the principal intellectual approach has been to consider both subject and evidence from a modern, rationalist perspective and to afford greater importance to the social elite. New perspectives are needed. By re-evaluating the source material from the perspective of the peasant worldview, it is possible to build a far more detailed representation of rural peasant experience. Susan Kilby seeks to reconstruct the physical and socio-cultural environment of three contrasting English villages – Lakenheath in Suffolk, Castor in Northamptonshire and Elton in Huntingdonshire – between c. 1086 and c. 1348 and to use this as the basis for determining how peasants perceived their natural surroundings. In so doing she draws upon a vast array of sources including documents, ...

Het Fries-Groningse kustgebied vormt een van de rijkste archeologische landschappen van Nederland. Het bestond oorspronkelijk uit vruchtbare kweldergebieden: een weids en boomloos landschap waarin het goed boeren was, mits men voldoende rekening hield met de zee. Welbekend zijn de terpen en wierden, de kunstmatig opgeworpen woonheuvels die de kustbewoners en hun kostbaarste goed tegen de hoogste vloeden beschermden. Veel minder bekend is dat ook de architectuur er sterk door de zee beinvloed werd. Vooral in de vroege middeleeuwen kwam de nauwe relatie tussen landschap en bouwtraditie optimaal in de terpboerderijen tot uiting; opgegraven plattegronden uit de vijfde tot en met de zevende eeuw bestonden uit weinig meer dan dikke muren van gestapelde kleizoden. Ondanks hun streekgebonden uiterlijk waren deze zodenhuizen op dezelfde leest geschoeid als de ‘houten' woonstalhuizen die elders in het zuidelijke Noordzeegebied gebouwd werden. Daarom is onderzoek aan de terpboerderij ook r...

Résumé/Abstract: Établi en surplomb d'une vallée encaissée, l'habitat du «Mesnil» à Plomb se développe au cours de deux phases, l'une attribuée aux IX eX e et la seconde aux XI e-XII e siècles. Ces aménagements succèdent à une première occupation remontant aux I ...

In questo primo contributo sugli scavi alla Montagna della Ganzaria (sito presso il quale si è lavorato nell’ambito del progetto “POR 2000-2006 Montagna della Ganzaria”), si analizza la documentazione materiale proveniente dallo scavo dell’area della basilica di epoca bizantino-medievale di Piano delle Cannelle. L’analisi, realizzata attraverso un database ha permesso una quantificazione tipologica dei manufatti e si è concentrata su alcune specifiche classi di materiali (come la ceramica acroma e i laterizi, pertinenti alla copertura del tetto dell’edificio cultuale del quale si sono individuate più fasi, documentando un graduale passaggio nella produzione laterizia dalla tradizione tardo romana-bizantina a quella medievale). Il testo è corredato da alcuni grafici quantitativi e da un catalogo dei materiali più significativi, dall’età greco-arcaica (fine VII sec. a.C.) a quella arabo-normanna (XI-XII sec. d.C.).

On se propose ici d'installer un nouvel objet de recherche, la forme radioquadrillée des terroirs non planifiés, non exclusivement médiévale, et, par conséquent, de relever toutes les ambiguïtés de la modélisation des formes «radio-concentriques» rapportées au ...