Exchanging Medieval Material Culture Studies on archaeology and ...

Social theory and post-medieval archaeology:
a historical perspective
Paul Courtney
1 Introduction
Th e British-based, Society for Post-medieval Archaeology was
founded in 1966. However, the subject was scarcely taught in
European universities before the 1990s; though Prof Dr. Frans
Verhaeghe, formerly of the vub (Flemish Free University of
Brussels), has long been a source of encouragement across the
Continent. Now, an increasing number of archaeology departments,
especially in the United Kingdom, have added postmedieval/historical
archaeology to their curriculum in recent
years. Th ose outside the uk include u.c. Dublin, Cork, Lund,
Seville, Venice, Paris, Pisa and Bamberg, while various maritime
archaeology programs also cover the period. Matthew
Johnson and Marilyn Palmer were appointed to personal chairs,
respectively in historical archaeology at Durham in 1998 and
in industrial archaeology at Leicester in 2000. Other important
milestones include the founding of the Italian journal
Archeologia Postmedievale in 1997 and the creation of the Irish
Post-medieval Archaeology Group in 19991.
Th is paper hopes to illustrate the breadth of theoretical debate
in both post-medieval archaeology and the cognate disciplines
of history, geography and the social sciences. It is beyond the
scope of this paper to tackle the increasing impact of American
historical archaeology, notably in Britain, Ireland and Sweden;
though American scholars cannot be entirely ignored as their
work is so entwined with European scholarship. Th is account
is also inevitably biased towards Britain where the subject is
most developed, especially from a theoretical standpoint.
However, it aims to mitigate this emphasis by taking a broader
view of European intellectual trends. Firstly, several infl uential
academic traditions (such as folk studies and culture history)
will be identifi ed and traced historically, though much crossfertilisation
is evident. In particular, I hope to show that there
has been a long and rich tradition of social theory interacting
1 Represa 1996; Milanese 1997; Ericsson 1995,
1999; O’Sullivan 1999; Donnelly & Horning 2002.
2 Hellspong & Klein 1994; Østergård 2002. 3 Peate 1948; Stocklund 1983; Rentzhog 2007.
317
with European landscape and material-culture studies.
Secondly, I will review some areas of current theoretical debate
within post-medieval archaeology, hopefully demonstrating
the wide range of interdisciplinary interaction.
2 Some key intellectual traditions
2.1 Folk studies
Th e late 19th century saw the creation of close ties between
the Romantics and the emerging nationalist movements of
Europe. As industrialiaation transformed traditional ways of
rural life, members of the Romantic movement looked back to
a golden medieval age as epitomized by William Morris’s interest
in craft production. Romanticism had a major impact on
the emerging movements for the preservation of the architectural
heritage, initially perceived as pre-eminently Gothic. Th e
most obvious physical expression of the growing interest in
folk culture was the open-air museum movement and its academic
counterpart, folk studies or ethnology. Th e fi rst such
museum to open was Artur Hazelius’s 1891 creation at Skansen,
near Stockholm. Hazelius also founded the Nordiska Museet
(Nordic Museum), an ethnographic collection whose name
refl ected the pan-Scandinavian politics of the time2. In 1913
the Institute of Ethnology opened at Lund University. Th ese
three institutions served as models for the many subsequent
folk-life museums and ethnological research institutions
founded across Europe3.
Folk studies only slowly emerged in France, and continues to
be especially poorly developed in England, refl ecting the centralizing
needs of these empire-building states. Th e publicschool
educated English middle classes oft en shared with Celtic
and Scandinavian folklorists a distrust of industrialization, but