Marginal Life: Experiencing a Medieval Landscape in the Periphery

Abstract

Medieval landscape archaeology has mainly focused on the function and management of medieval settlements and their immediate surroundings. While theories concerning the experience of the cultural landscape, regional identity and social structure have proved fruitful in other disciplines such as prehistoric archaeology and human geography, medievalists have disregarded the possibilities of phenomenology for landscape studies. The wealth of materiel available to medieval landscape studies ought to be fully exploited in the development of theories concerning the experience of the landscape during the Middle Ages. Evidence from Bodmin Moor and Dartmoor in south-west Britain is re-examined in order to discuss the ways in which the landscape was perceived by those who lived and worked on the moors and by those who had an interest in the moors from further afield.