Medieval 'new towns' seem to echo Roman towns in having a grid of streets associated with a fortress, and have often been credited with a standard plan applied by the hand of authority. Here the authors analyse the new towns founded by Edward I in Wales and find some highly significant variations. Rediscovering the original layouts by high precision survey and GIS mapping, they show that some towns, founded at the same time and on similar topography, had quite different layouts, while others, founded at long intervals, had plans that were almost identical. Documentation hints at the explanation: it was the architects, masons and ditch-diggers, not the king and aristocracy, who established and developed these blueprints of urban life.

Drawing upon recent research experiences of using a Global Positioning System (GPS) and Geographical Information Systems (GIS), this paper sets out how spatial technologies can be used in the study of medieval built form. The paper focuses particularly on the use of differential GPS and ArcGIS in mapping and analysing the plan of Winchelsea, an English medieval 'new town' established in the 1280s. The approach used to conduct this research is outlined here, with comments on the practicalities of using GPS and GIS in historical urban morphology. Although the research on which this paper is based is at a preliminary stage, the paper offers a working method for those interested in using spatial technologies to build upon existing methods of morphological study, namely town-plan analysis and metrological analysis. Some preliminary research findings relating to the planning of medieval Winchelsea are also presented.

Burwell, Cambridgeshire, is best known as possessing a castle constructed by King Stephen during the midtwelfth-century civil war commonly referred to as 'the Anarchy'. Documentary sources confirm that the king built a series of fortifications around the East Anglian fen-edge during a.d. 1144 in an attempt to restrict the activities of the rebellious baron Geoffrey de Mandeville, Earl of Essex, who was using the Isle of Ely as a base to raid the surrounding countryside. Written texts also reveal how de Mandeville was mortally wounded during a skirmish or siege which subsequently took place at Burwell. A combination of topographic and geophysical survey, supplemented by documentary analysis, suggests that the castle was constructed in a landscape with a complex earlier history. It is suggested that during the Romano-British period a temple complex was developed on the site, with a spring rising on the edge of the fens providing the likely focus for ritual activity. Burwell later developed into an important early medieval place and the castle itself may have been inserted into a thegnly enclosure -an act which probably sought to appropriate a recognised pre-existing centre of power. The current research provides the most comprehensive assessment of the site to date, and supports existing interpretations which consider the twelfth-century castle to be incomplete. Analysis also gives additional insight into the functional and symbolic significance of the castle at Burwell, and sheds important light on the character of power and conflict in the fenland during the mid-twelfth century.

This chapter turns to consider the effects of the conflict on the urban and rural landscape. Despite the almost twenty-year duration of the civil war, its impacts on landscape and townscape had very significant geographical biases. There was a greater effect upon urban rather than rural life, as urban castles, fortified towns and their hinterlands were the foci of sieges and counter-sieges. Behind the image of a slowdown in urban growth, lords were investing in new town plantations, invariably alongside fortifications and often as components within more comprehensive schemes of aggrandisement. Tracing the impact of the Anarchy on the rural landscape archaeology of England is a more difficult proposition, although we have strong evidence for landscape planning and the creation of fortified settlements by newly emboldened lords. Documentary sources catalogue widespread landscape devastation by armies, although on the ground the effects of the war had a strong regional dimension, with some areas, most notably the West Country and Thames Valley, the focus of especially regular and damaging upheaval. Elsewhere, urban and rural populations are likely to have been affected little by the ebb and flow of the conflict, where the political and military fortunes of the social elite did not impinge on everyday life.

This chapter considers military apparel in in the mid-twelfth century and explores the interrelationship between changes in arms and armour and the creation of knightly identities. Outwardly, the mid-twelfth century knight looked quite similar to the Norman warriors depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry, although with some subtle differences. By the 1130s and 40s the knight was a little better protected with mail covering more of the bodily extremities. A slightly wider range of military personnel would have been armoured, and minor stylistic differences are distinguishable in showier swords, shields, spurs and scabbards. More important in the actual prosecution of warfare was the changing use of the crossbow, which saw widespread use alongside ‘armour-piercing’ bodkin-type arrowheads. The battles of the period were also the first major military clashes in England where heraldic display was visible — in particular on banners and shields, but also more subtly on horse harness pendants. Such devices created a new means for displaying knightly allegiance, rank and affinities to elite social networks.