The Archaeology of Britain: An introduction from ... - waughfamily.ca

Middle Ages: churches, castles and monasteries
• 243 •
century, located in the western end of the nave to denote both entry to the church and initation
to the life-cycle. By the fifteenth or sixteenth century, sermons had become an important element
of the service, and pulpits were sometimes placed at the eastern end of the nave. Benches and
fixed seating also began to appear at this time, with their arrangement reflecting the social hierarchy
of the community itself. Factors such as social status, gender and age influenced the parishioner’s
visibility of the altar and masses.
Higher status churches were built with, or acquired, transepts, the two arms that project from
the crossing of a cruciform (cross-shaped) plan. The transepts were used to house additional
chapels or important burials. From the twelfth century, but more regularly from the thirteenth
century, aisles were added to the south and/or north side of the nave. This new construction
sometimes involved the piercing of existing side walls with an arcade, a series of arches supported
by piers and columns, that would be screened to divide the envelope of the nave from the aisles.
Aisles may have provided space for a growing population, but more likely reflect changes in the
use of churches. Aisles were used to house separate chapels, or to provide special places for
guilds and fraternities, groups linked by occupation, or devotion to particular saints or feasts.
During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, private family chapels and mausolea became
common in the spaces of the aisles, particularly as chantry masses—prayers for the dead that
were believed to hasten the passage of the soul through Purgatory—became more popular.
Traditionally, castles have been studied from a purely military perspective, although there has
been some recent discussion of the symbolic and iconographic content of castle architecture
(Heslop 1991). Archaeologists are increasingly concerned with issues of daily life in castles and
monasteries, including standards of living, social life, production and consumption of goods.
Evidence for food preparation at castles includes a twelfth-century bread-oven excavated in the
bailey at Hen Domen, corn-drying kilns at Stamford that were placed adjacent to the kitchen, a
malthouse and kiln at Sandal, and a thirteenth- to fourteenth-century kitchen complex at
Montgomery that included an oven and brewhouse. Investigation of animal remains can amplify
our knowledge of the higher status medieval diet. In common with the monastic diet, this included
a substantial amount of marine and freshwater fish, the latter having been a fairly precious
commodity in medieval Britain. Remains of oysters from Okehampton, Devon, suggest that the
shellfish was deliberately cultivated and harvested at three to four years (Kenyon 1990, 179–180).
At Barnard Castle, Co. Durham, large quantities of the bones of deer suggest the production of
venison on a commercial scale (Austin 1984). Daily life is revealed through the recovery of
household artefacts, including sources of lighting, such as cresset lamps, candlesticks and lanterns;
the usual range of wooden, pottery and glass vessels; and rarer forms of distillative glass and
urinals, possibly indicating medicinal use. Personal artefacts recovered include jewellery, militaria,
such as spurs and arrowheads, and artefacts revealing entertainment and leisure, such as the
gaming pieces and musical instruments excavated at Castle Acre (Kenyon 1990).
Monastic sites have yielded a wide range of material: artefacts excavated at Kirkstall Abbey,
West Yorkshire, included those linked with domestic activity, such as bronze, glass and pewter
vessels, building fittings, including door furniture, roof tiles, water pipes, glass and lead cames,
and personal items such as belts and strap fittings, jewellery, toilet implements and coins and
jettons. Among the most commonly recovered artefacts are sherds of pottery, traditionally used
to help assign dates to archaeological contexts. Pottery from Kirkstall Abbey was plotted by
individual sherd, in order to help in understanding the degree of contamination and residuality
of features, and to assist in interpreting the functions of different areas of the monastery
(Moorhouse and Wrathmell 1987). The production and range of medieval pottery is relatively
well understood, so that the presence of diagnostic fabrics can be used to reconstruct patterns of
monastic production, consumption and trade. The form of the vessel, for example whether