Major Funded Projects

The Exeter Book Project

(Dr Emma Cayley, Department of Modern Languages)

I am currently working on a project in collaboration with a creative economy partner, Antenna International, to create a smart device App. Our App will introduce school age pupils and other audiences to the fascinating world of medieval manuscripts. An initial stage will create a prototype based around Exeter Cathedral’s famous Exeter Book (c. 970) which contains the world’s largest collection of Anglo-Saxon (Old English) poetry, and features the Exeter Riddles: a collection of ninety-six literary enigmas. A later version will include other South West medieval manuscripts, including the Syon Abbey manuscripts currently held in the University of Exeter’s Special Collections department.

The Works of Guillaume de Machaut: Music, Image, Text in the Middle Ages

(Dr Yolanda Plumley, Department of History)

This project represents the first large-scale and sustained campaign to unite scholars from different disciplines in a programme of collaborative research into the works and sources of fourteenth-century French poet-composer Guillaume de Machaut (c.1300-1377), culminating in the first complete edition of his entire oeuvre in digital and hard copy. Supported by the Leverhulme Trust, the project brings together an interdisciplinary team of academic partners from the Universities of Exeter, Amsterdam, Clemson, Youngstown State, and City University of New York, as well as professional musicians.

Interpreting Medieval Liturgy c. 500 – 1500 AD: Text and Performance

(Dr Sarah Hamilton, Department of History)

As has been recognised by many scholars in recent years, ritualised actions played an important role in medieval religious, social and political life. At the same time there has been an increasing interest in liturgical sources. This research network brings together historians, musicologists, literary scholars, theologians, palaeographers and art and architectural historians, to discuss the problems involved in studying the surviving evidence for occasional services.

Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the research network 'Interpreting Medieval Liturgy c.500 - 1500 AD: Text and Performance' has been convened by the University of Exeter and University of Kent.

Script and Forgery in England to A.D. 1100

(Dr Julia Crick, Department of History)

This study challenges a prevailing chronology in which historical consciousness in the period before 1100 is seen as compromised or lacking. It brings into contention a little-studied body of evidence which shows early medieval scribes consciously and wilfully imitating the artefacts of the past in order to make ideological statements or gain legal advantage. Palaeographical archaism needs to be considered alongside textual archaism, both in diplomatic and wider historical terms; the study will investigate the extent of the phenomenon in England with reference to continental examples, the nature of the authority claimed by imitation, and the circumstances of production. This 2-year project (2008-10) is funded by the Leverhulme Trust.

The Bere Ferrers Project

(Professor Steve Rippon, Department of Archaeology)

Using Devon as a case study, due to its particularly fine documentary sources and well-preserved preserved field archaeology, this project will initially assess the extent of extractive industry in the medieval countryside, and characterise its impact upon the historic landscape of today. In addition to the well known Dartmoor tin industry this will include iron on Exmoor, and copper at North Molton. The specific case study will be the previously neglected but remarkably well-preserved Bere Ferrers complex on the confluence of the rivers Tavy and Tamar in south Devon, where silver was worked under the direct management of Crown officers from 1292 to 1349. This collaborative project is funded by the Leverhulme Trust.

Citation and Allusion in the Ars Nova French Chanson and Motet: Memory, Tradition, and Innovation

(Dr Yolanda Plumley, Centre for Medieval Studies)

The project seeks to define the extent and nature of citational practice in the late medieval French lyric repertory, with and without music. Focussing on the period c1320-c1420, it analyses the significance of citation for our understanding of a range of issues relative not only to musical composition of the late Middle Ages but also poetic activity and social attitudes and practices. This three-year interdisciplinary project (2007-2010) is funded by the AHRC.

Debate and Game Culture: Poetic Engagment in Europe (1300-1500)

(Dr Emma Cayley, Department of Modern Languages)

The debate genre was vastly popular in vernacular European literature from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries. From the early courtly love songs of the troubadours, through the longer dialogued poems of Machaut, Chaucer, Christine de Pizan or Alain Chartier, to the Grands rhétoriqueurs and beyond, debate emerged as one of the most widespread modes of literary expression. This international collaborative project investigates the reasons behind the popularity of the debating genre throughout Europe in the later Middle Ages, traces its development from earlier avatars, and attempts to rehabilitate many of the texts written in the genre, which have been frequently been dismissed by twentieth century criticism. The project has initially been funded by both a Leverhulme Research Fellowship (2007) and a British Academy Small Grant (2006) for the principal investigator.

Lawyers in Society 1258-1558

(Professor Anthony Musson, School of Law)

This new study seeks to enhance our understanding of lawyers and complement what we know of the professional legal world they inhabited by examining the social and economic context in which they flourised. It seeks to explain the contradictory attitudes towards lawyers revealed in contemporary literary works and in the attacks on judges and lawyers at times of political stress by analysing both their relationships to and in society and the perceptions engendered by activities carried out in their private (as well as professional) lives. It will examine evidence of their material culture, cultural pursuits, social aspirations and pretensions, as well as recourse to the law in their private capacity. Their role in local networks and with regard to the balance of power in local society will also be assessed. The two-year project (2007-09) is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.

Medieval Designed Landscapes

(Dr Oliver Creighton, Department of Archeology)

In studies of the British landscape the phrase 'designed landscape' is generally associated with the great parks and gardens of the post-medieval period. Research funded by the British Academy is exploring the concept that elite medieval landscapes, and in particular the settings of manor houses, palaces and castles could have been designed for visual impact as well as for leisure and pleasure. Examining this phenomenon across the British Isles, this work will culminate in a book provisionally entitled Designs Upon the Land, to be published by Boydell.

Medieval Urbanism

(Dr Oliver Creighton, Department of Archeology)

A three-year AHRC-funded research project involving the Universities of Exeter, Leicester and Oxford is investigating the townscape of Wallingford (Oxfordshire) as a platform for the wider study of processes of medieval urban development. The project is entitled Modelling Urban Renewal and Growth in Britain and North-West Europe, AD 800-1300: The Wallingford Burh to Borough Project. It is seeking to illuminate urban transformation between c. AD 800-1300 - a crucial period of renewal and growth spanning the Saxon and Norman periods, through excavation, survey and documentary study.

On the Frontiers of Islam: Cross-border Relations in Medieval Iberia and North Africa, c.1000-1500

(Professor Simon Barton, Department of History)

Far from consistently being a hard and fast demarcation between two mutually hostile religions and cultures, the frontier between Christian and Muslim territories in the medieval Iberian peninsula was in fact a highly permeable one. Cross-border movement, collaboration and acculturation - by political exiles, mercenaries, merchants and missionaries, among others ­ remained a constant feature even at the height of inter-faith conflict. The project is supported by a three-year Major Research Fellowship by the Leverhulme Trust (2007-2010).