Memory, Settlement and Landscape, 25th International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds, July 2–5, 2018

Everything we do in the landscape leaves an impression on it and alters it in some way. This is as true today as it was in the Middle Ages. These travel of human activity are embedded within the landscape, and remain perceptible across the centuries. As scholars of medieval settlement and landscape, we read these memories and try to understand how they were created. We need to continue to push the boundaries of our understanding by considering the daily life of people within these settlements, and their relationship with both settlement and landscape. Recently, scholars have considered the landscape as a repository for local memory. This naturally includes not just an analysis of the physical evidence of occupation and activity, but a more nuanced understanding, encompassing experiential considerations and mentalities, to begin to uncover why these places were deemed to be important to those living and working within them.

These sessions intended to explore memory and rural landscape in Europe between the fifth and fifteenth centuries. This could take a more traditional approach, examining deserted medieval villages, settlement formation, dispersed settlement, earthworks, field systems, or agriculture. Or, more thematically, investigating gendered spaces, landscape and social structure, the living and the dead, labour and leisure, or landscapes of subversion, to offer but a few potential lines of enquiry, We especially welcome papers taking an interdisciplinary approach.

Organizers
Duncan Berryman
Eddie Procter