Lords to Lepers: Medieval Social Worlds (ARC2118)

15 credits

You will consider the archaeologies of everyday life – and death – in medieval Britain between c. AD 1050 and 1550. You will look at material culture across the entire social spectrum, from kings and lords, through to peasants in the medieval countryside and traders and merchants in the towns, down to the level of the dispossessed and/or marginalised such as criminals, lepers and Jews. One focus will be on the buildings that were central to domestic life, but the module will draw on a diverse range of evidence, including portable artefacts, burials, landscapes and environmental material to explore standards of living and modes of social display and consider how these changed through time and varied between areas.