The Shop within?: An Analysis of the Architectural Evidence for Medieval Shops

Abstract

It is now almost forty years since W. A. Pantin wrote that ‘the origin and history of the medieval English shop is … a subject which badly needs investigation.’ Since then, although the study of vernacular buildings has become respectable, shops seldom appeared as a subject in textbook indices or, until recently, as a separate topic in bibliographies. Part of the reason, understandably, is that much of the architectural evidence has been obliterated. Few original shopfronts remain; internal features have long since been removed. However, buildings which can be shown to have contained shops — either workshops or retail spaces — in medieval times (taken as broadly the period from 1100 to 1500) can be found in many towns and cities in England. They range from simple one-room lock-ups to substantial multi-storey jettied buildings, from a room in a merchant’s house to whole rows of workshops associated with basic living accommodation. While it is dangerous to draw quantitative conclusions from the evidence of such survivals, they can, with the help of documentary sources, shed some light on how spaces were used. The purpose of this paper is to offer an interpretation of the medieval shop as a place where goods and money were exchanged, as a contribution to the better understanding of surviving structures.

Using multiple computer models to study the acoustics of a sixteenth-century performance space

“…The information available on streets and buildings in medieval and Tudor England in general and York in particular [11,[17][18][19][20][21][22][23] was used as the basis for the design of eight different computer models with the aim of arriving at an approximation of the acoustics of Stonegate in the sixteenth century. Since it is not possible to arrive at the definite acoustics of the space due to the incompleteness of the surviving information, the use of different models allows reflection on the impact different variations in the street space might have had on its acoustics.…”

“…When information on specific buildings at the time of the performances is not available the approach followed was that of modelling the street frontage following the general characteristics of urban secular buildings of the period. Due to the importance of medieval Stonegate as a street accommodating businesses related to the church, the ground floor of the buildings was modelled following the features of medieval shops [19]. Furthermore, all buildings were simulated as timberframed houses with brick infill and jetties with a projection of 0.6 m, considered to be standard at the time [17].…”

The interpretation of urban buildings: power, memory and appropriation in Norwich merchants' houses,c. 1400–1660

“…Urban buildings have generally undergone more intensive processes of redevelopment than their rural counterparts, with the resulting loss of original features, particularly on ground-floor commercial frontages. Original evidence for shops and workshops such as large open windows and fixtures for counters and shutters are rare survivals in large towns (Clark 2000;Alston 2004); Norwich preserves only one example of a medieval shop-front (15 Bedford Street). Undercrofts may have a higher rate of survival -Norwich contains over fifty brick-vaulted medieval undercrofts (Smith 1990: 191-212) -but their original functions and relationship to above-ground buildings can be difficult to determine.…”

Review of periodical literature published in 2003

“…Bryan and Wise examine the topography of the central market in Cambridge, demonstrating how it was once more than twice the size of the current market and how it involved both permanent shops for daily sales and temporary booths for the Saturday market. Shops themselves are a neglected topic in urban history and so Clark’s typology of the layout of workshops and retail spaces in England, c .1100–1500, is particularly welcome.…”