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The phrase "designed landscape" is generally associated with the great parks and gardens of the post-medieval period, with grand country houses surrounded by parkland, such as Chatsworth and Longleat. However, recent research has made it clear that its origins lie much further back than that, in the middle ages, and numerous examples have been identified. This book offers the first full-length survey of designed medieval landscapes, not just the settings for castles, but for palaces, manor houses and monastic institutions. Gardens and pleasure grounds gave their owners sensory enjoyment; lakes, ponds and walkways created routes of approach that displayed residences to best effect; deer parks were stunning backdrops and venues for aristocratic enjoyment; and peacocks, swans, rabbits and doves were some of the many species which lent these landscapes their elite appearance. Richly illustrated with plans, maps, and photographs of key sites showing what can still be seen today. Oliver H. Creighton is Associate Professor in Archaeology, University of Exeter
Castles were among the most dramatic features of the medieval landscapes of Europe and are still often dominant elements of our surroundings. This book offers an accessible and portable guide to the archaeology and architecture of castles in England and Wales, an area whose castles had some common developments in the medieval period and which now provides numerous and rich sites for both study and visit. In this book the authors explore many recent and exciting developments in the field of castle studies.
The first ever archaeologically based study of the turbulent period of English history often known as the 'Anarchy' of King Stephen's reign in the mid-twelfth century, covering battlefields and conflict landscapes, arms, armour and material culture, fortifications and the church.
In “The Making of Europe”: Essays in Honour of Robert Bartlett, a group of distinguished contributors analyse processes of conquest, colonization and cultural change in Europe in the tenth to fourteenth centuries. They assess and develop theses presented by Robert Bartlett in his famous book of that name. The geographical scope extends from Iceland to the Islamic Mediterranean, from Spain to Poland. Themes covered range from law to salt production, from aristocratic culture in the Christian West to Islamic views of Christendom. Like the volume that it honours, the present book extends our understanding of both medieval and present day Europe. Contributors are Sverre Bagge, Piotr Górecki...
"More than any other canonical English writer, Geoffrey Chaucer lived and worked at the centre of political life -- yet his poems are anything but conventional. Edgy, complicated, and often dark, they reflect a conflicted world, and their astonishing diversity and innovative language earned Chaucer renown as the father of English literature. Marion Turner, however, reveals him as a great European writer and thinker. To understand his accomplishment, she reconstructs in unprecedented detail the cosmopolitan world of Chaucer's adventurous life, focusing on the places and spaces that fired his imagination. Uncovering important new information about Chaucer's travels, private life, and the early...
Older research on the premodern world limited its focus on the Church, the court, and, more recently, on urban space. The present volume invites readers to consider the meaning of rural space, both in light of ecocritical readings and social-historical approaches. While previous scholars examined the figure of the peasant in the premodern world, the current volume combines a large number of specialized studies that investigate how the natural environment and the appearance of members of the rural population interacted with the world of the court and of the city. The experience in rural space was important already for writers and artists in the premodern era, as the large variety of scholarly...
The Origins of the Civilization of Angkor reflects the results of a research programme conducted by Charles Higham over the last twenty years, highlighting much entirely new, and occasionally surprising, information and providing a distinct perspective on cultural change over two millennia. The book covers the background of environmental change, the adoption of rice farming, archaeogenetics, the adoption of copper-based metallurgy, the iron age and the origins of state formation.
Although King John is remembered for his political and military failures, he also resided over a magnificent court. This book uses records of his reign to reconstruct his life at court, and explore how it produced both pleasure and soft power for the king.
A basic introduction to key debates in the study of hunter-gatherers, specifically from an anthropological perspective, but designed for an archaeological readership.
This volume brings together scholarship from many disciplines, including history, heritage studies, archaeology, geography, and political science to provide a nuanced view of life in medieval Ireland and after. Primarily contributing to the fields of settlement and landscape studies, each essay considers the influence of Terence B. Barry of Trinity College Dublin within Ireland and internationally. Barry’s long career changed the direction of castle studies and brought the archaeology of medieval Ireland to wider knowledge. These essays, authored by an international team of fifteen scholars, develop many of his original research questions to provide timely and insightful reappraisals of material culture and the built and natural environments. Contributors (in order of appearance) are Robin Glasscock, Kieran O’Conor, Thomas Finan, James G. Schryver, Oliver Creighton, Robert Higham, Mary A. Valante, Margaret Murphy, John Soderberg, Conleth Manning, Victoria McAlister, Jennifer L. Immich, Calder Walton, Christiaan Corlett, Stephen H. Harrison, and Raghnall Ó Floinn.