Space, Structure, and Identity: Understanding the Components of Medieval Communities

Edited by Alison Norton and Crystal Hollis

ABOUT THE COLLECTION

Communities of the medieval world are nuanced entities that are often explored and defined by specific categories, such as trade and commerce, agricultural and pastoral workers, kinship and brotherhood, and inhabitants of faith, spiritual, and religious landscapes. These categories encapsulate generalised components of medieval communities, though ultimately provide piecemeal interpretations of how individuals or groups occupied the world and landscape in which they inhabited. Additionally, these interpretations isolate and limit the identity and communal context of certain individuals or groups to a singular structural focal point (castles or churches). 

In every community, there is a connective element between individuals and groups to a particular place, often associated with an architectural or structural point of interest, such as castles, churches, temples, beacons, and barns. This point of interest could invoke various emotional, psychological, economic, or cultural attachments within groups, individuals, or seasonal travellers and workers. Often, these structural elements are viewed as singular defining entities within a locale that create and initiate a community’s identity, solely limiting one’s conception of medieval communities to a structure’s defined interior and exterior space. Yet relatively few studies have examined how these structures were used as connective and isolating components of medieval communities and how individuals or groups interacted with and utilised this connection. The primary focus of this volume is twofold. This volume first seeks to explore how structures shaped, created, and facilitated different layering or nesting elements of local and regional communities within the medieval world. Secondly, this volume will examine how individuals or groups regularly, seasonally, or occupationally interacted with various interior and exterior spaces, resulting in the creation of layered community identities.

TOPICS

Contributions to the volume might include, but are not limited to:

• Structural and communal connectivity within local and regional landscapes

• Groups or individuals attached to public spaces who functioned in an isolated role, such as anchorites

• Itinerant, seasonal, or occupational groups or individuals that comprise elements of a community’s economic, social, or cultural identity 

• Contextualising the reuse of interior and exterior spaces by groups or individuals as a form of community identity

• The agency of structures/how structures evoked emotions and attitudes

PUBLICATION

The volume will be published with Trivent Publishing. The editors seek additional contributions between 7,000 and 10,000 words that explore the connectedness between medieval structures and their local and regional communities. Chapters already included within the volume involve topics such as castle communities, graffiti analysis of parish identities, the use of parish churches in medieval Ireland, and the interconnectedness of temples and blacksmiths in India and Thailand.

DATES AND DEADLINES

Abstract submissions by April 14th, 2025

Notification of abstract acceptance by May 1st, 2025

Full paper submissions by August 1st, 2025

CONTACT THE EDITORS

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the editors:

Dr. Alison Norton (alinorton186@gmail.com)

Dr. Crystal Hollis (crystalahollis@gmail.com)

DOWNLOAD THE CALL FOR PAPERS IN PDF FORMAT HERE.