Occupying Space in Medieval and Early Modern Britain and Ireland

Gregory Hulsman holds a PhD in English from Trinity College Dublin. His research focuses on the compilation of Lollard anthologies in late fourteenth- and early fifteenth-century England.
Caoimhe Whelan holds a PhD in History from Trinity College Dublin. Her work examines the transmission and reception of texts with a particular focus on the dissemination of historical texts in late medieval and early modern Ireland.

This collection offers a range of interdisciplinary viewpoints on the occupation of space and theories of place in Britain and Ireland throughout the medieval and early modern periods. It considers space in both its physical and abstract sense, exploring literature, history, art, manuscript studies, religion, geography and archaeology. The buildings and ruins still occupying our urban and rural spaces bridge the gap between the medieval and the modern; manuscripts and objects hold keys to unlocking the secrets of the past. Focusing on the varied uses of space enriches our understanding of the material culture of the medieval and early modern period. The essays collected here offer astute observations on this theme and generate new insights into areas such as social interaction, cultural memory, sacred space and ideas of time and community.

This collection offers a range of interdisciplinary viewpoints on the occupation of space and theories of place in Britain and Ireland in the medieval and early modern periods. The contributions consider space in both its physical and abstract sense, exploring literature, history, art, manuscript studies, religion, geography and archaeology.

Contents: Gregory Hulsman/Caoimhe Whelan: Preface - Clare Fletcher: The Wife of Bath in the Saddle: A Rereading of 'Upon an amblere esily she sat' (General Prologue, I 469) - Edel Mulcahy: 'He purveyyd hym bothe scryp and pyke and made hym a palmer lyke': The Role of Pilgrim Clothing in Medieval Narratives - Emma Martin: Portraits of Envy: The Green Clothed Monster in Late Medieval Material and Literary Culture - Johanna M. E. Green: Textuality in Transition: Digital Manuscripts as Cultural Artefacts - Diane Scott: Filling the Void: The Development of Punctuation in a Silent Reading Culture - Joel Grossman: Games at Court: Space in Early Tudor Manuscripts - Margaret Tedford: 'Enta geweorc': Locating Memory in Landscape in Anglo-Saxon Poetry - Duncan L. Berryman: Welcome to the Occupation: Patterns in the Management of the Fourteenth-Century English Landscape - Sonya Cronin: 'Spaces of Retir'd Integritie': The Relocation of Home in the Royalist Poetry of Katherine Philips - Stephen Hand: 'Them which possess the places erected by our ancestors': Sacred Space and Conflict in Ireland (1603-1633) - Lyndsey Smith: The Tactile Account of Anglo-Saxon Ivory (550-1066): Image, Status, Materiality and Economics - Richard Wragg: A Civic Relationship: The Guild Book of the Barbers and Surgeons of York as an Expression of Professional Status and City Authority.