Mapping the Medieval City: Space, Place and Identity in Chester c. 1200-1600 (Religion and Culture in the Middle Ages)

This fascinating volume brings together scholars from a wide range of disciplines, including literary studies, history, geography, and archaeology, to investigate questions of space, place, and identity in the medieval city. Using medieval Chester as a case study—with attention to its location on the border between England and Wales, its rich multilingual culture, and its surviving infrastructure—these contributions recover the experience of medieval city living and in doing so provide fresh perspectives and generate new questions about urban space both during this period and beyond. Introduction: Medieval Chester: Views From The Walls / Catherine A. M. Clarke -- Urban Mappings: Visualizing Late Medieval Chester In Cartographic And Textual Form / Keith D. Lilley -- Framing Medieval Chester: The Landscape Of Urban Boundaries / C. P. Lewis -- St Werburgh's, St John's And The Liber Luciani De Laude Cestrie / John Doran -- The Spatial Hermeneutics Of Lucian's De Laude Cestrie / Mark Faulkner -- '3e Beoð þe Ancren Of Englond...as þah 3e Were An Cuuent Of...chester': Liminal Spaces And The Anchoritic Life In Medieval Chester / Liz Herbert Mcavoy -- Sanctity And The City: Sacred Spaces In Henry Bradshaw's Life Of St Werburge / Laura Varnam -- Plotting Chester On The National Map: Richard Pynson's 1521 Printing Of Henry Bradshaw's Life Of St Werburge / Cynthia Turner Camp -- The Outside Within: Medieval Chester And North Wales As A Social Space / Helen Fulton -- Mapping The Migrants: Welsh, Manx And Irish Settlers In Fifteenth-century Chester / Jane Laughton -- Leeks For Livery: Consuming Welsh Difference In The Chester Shepherd's Play / Robert W. Barrett, Jnr -- Remembering Anglo-saxon Mercia In Late Medieval And Early Modern Chester / Catherine A. M. Clarke. Edited By Catherine A. M. Clarke. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [219]-234) And Index. This ground-breaking volume brings together contributions from scholars across a range of disciplines (including literary studies, history, geography and archaeology) to investigate questions of space, place and identity in the medieval city. Using Chester as a case study - with attention to its location on the border between England and Wales, its rich multi-lingual culture and surviving material fabric - the essays seek to recover the experience and understanding of the urban space by individuals and groups within the medieval city, and to offer new readings from the vantage-point of twenty-first century disciplinary and theoretical perspectives.