Lived Experience in the Later Middle Ages: Studies of Bodiam and Other Elite Landscapes in South-Eastern England

This edited volume sets out the work of a team of scholars from Northwestern University and the University of Southampton led by Matthew Johnson, in collaboration with the National Trust. Between 2010 and 2014, different members of the group carried out topographical, geophysical and building survey at four different late medieval sites and landscapes in southeastern England, all owned and managed by the National Trust: Bodiam, Scotney, Knole and Ightham. Studies were also undertaken into documentary, map and other evidence. A particularly important element of the research was to synthesize and re-present the 'grey literature' at all four sites. This volume seeks to present this work and discuss its archaeological and historical importance. It places the four sites and their landscapes in their setting, as part of the wider landscape of southeast England. It discusses the importance of these places in understanding later medieval elite sites and landscapes in general, and in terms of their long-term biographies and contexts. Central to the volume are the linked ideas of lived experience and political economy and ecology in presenting a new understanding of late medieval sites and landscapes.