How can pottery studies contribute to the study of medieval archaeology? How do pots relate to documents, landscapes and identities? These are the questions addressed in this book which develops a new approach to the study of pottery in medieval archaeology. Utilising an interpretative framework which focuses upon the relationships between people, places and things, the effect of the production, consumption and discard of pottery is considered, to see pottery not as reflecting medieval life, but as one factor which contributed to the development of multiple experiences and realities in medieval England. By focussing on relationships we move away from viewing pottery simply as an object of study in its own right, to see it as a central component to developing understandings of medieval society. The case studies presented explore how we might use relational approaches to reconsider our approaches to medieval landscapes, overcome the methodological and theoretical divisions between documents and material culture and explore how the use of objects could have multiple implications for the formation and maintenance of identities. The use of this approach makes this book not only of interest to pottery specialists, but also to any archaeologist seeking to develop new interpretative approaches to medieval archaeology and the archaeological study of material culture. AUTHOR: Dr Ben Jervis is lecturer in medieval archaeology at Cardiff University, where he specialises in the study of medieval archaeology and material culture. He is the author of Pottery and Social Life in Medieval England: Towards a relational approach (Oxbow, 2014) and co-editor of Objects, Environment and Everyday Life in Medieval Europe (Brepols, 2016), Food and Drink in Archaeology 4 (Prospect Books, 2015) and Make-do and Mend: Archaeologies of Compromise, Repair and Re-use (BAR, 2012). He has been involved in the analysis of major pottery assemblages from the Anglo-Saxon sites at Bishopstone (East Sussex) and Lyminge (Kent) as well as medieval pottery from excavations in Southampton. He was also pottery specialist for the Noviodunum Archaeological Project (Romania).
