Perceptions of Medieval Settlement

The approach to the perception of landscape and settlement adopted by medieval archaeologists has been rather different to those of their colleagues working on the prehistoric period. To a large extent such differences can be attributed to the quality of the evidence. Many of the studied medieval buildings still survive, albeit often as ruins. The landscape with its pattern of roads, fields and farms can be largely reconstructed in broad terms, and sometimes in detail. This sort of material both informs our understanding of past perceptions of landscape, but also serves to constrain the way we might interpret it. The type of imaginative reconstruction advocated, for example by Tilley (2010, 30–31), in which the archaeologist places themselves within the landscape and responds to the experience has been practised only rarely for the historic period. It is not that medievalists lack the imagination of prehistorians, but rather they do not feel the need to embark upon discussions of their particular experience of place when it is possible instead to reflect upon how those in the Middle Ages may have perceived their surroundings.