Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T09:59:16.607Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

‘The mystery of husbandry’: medieval animals and the problem of integrating historical and archaeological evidence

Part of: Zooarchaeology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Umberto Albarella
Umberto Albarella*
Affiliation:
Department of Ancient History & Archaeology, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, England. u.albarella @bham.ac.uk
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Archaeological evidence and historic records are often at variance on the subject of animal husbandry. This paper discusses the problems of integrating the evidence for medieval and later Britain, and offers new discussion on the interpretation of the zooarchaeological data.

Keywords

Britainmedievalarchaeozoologyhusbandryagriculturedocumentseconomy
Type
Papers
Information
Antiquity , Volume 73 , Issue 282 , December 1999 , pp. 867 - 875
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 1999

References

Albarella, U. 1997a. Size, power, wool and veal: zooarchaeological evidence for late medieval innovations, in De Boe, G. & Verhaeghe, F. (ed.), Environment and subsistence in medieval Europe: 19–30. Bruges: Institute for the Archaeological Heritage of Flanders. Papers of the ‘Medieval Europe Brugge 1997’ Conference volume 9.Google Scholar
Albarella, U., Beech, M. & Mulville, J.. 1997. The Saxon, Medieval and Post-medieval mammal and bird bones excavated 1989–1991 from Castle Mall, Norwich (Norfolk). London: English Heritage. AML report 72/97.Google Scholar
Albarella, U. & Davis, S.. 1994. The Saxon and Medieval animal bones excavated 1985–1989 from West Cotton, Northamptonshire. London: English Heritage. AML report 17/ 94.Google Scholar
Albarella, U. & Davis, S.. 1996. Mammals and bird bones from Launceston Castle: decline in status and the rise of agriculture, Circaea 12(1) (1996 for 1994): 1–156.Google Scholar
Albarella, U. & Serjeantson, D.. In press. A passion for pork: meat consumption at the British late Neolithic site of Durrington Walls, in Miracle & Milner (ed.).Google Scholar
Ambros, C. 1980. The mammal bones, in P. Wade-Martins, Fieldwork and excavation on village sites in Launditch Hundred, Norfolk, East Anglian Archaeology 10: 158–9.Google Scholar
Astill, G. & Grant, A. (ed.). 1988. The countryside of medieval England. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Burke, J. 1834. British husbandry; exhibiting the farming practice in various parts of the United Kingdom. London: Baldwin & Cradock.Google Scholar
Campbell, B., Bartleyŭ, K. & Power, J.. 1996. The demesne-farming systems of post-Black Death England: a classification, Agricultural History Review 4(2): 131–79.Google Scholar
Darby, H. 1977. Domesday England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Davis, S. 1991. Faunal remains from the Late Saxon-Medieval Farmstead at Eckweek in Avon, 1988–1989 excavations. London: English Heritage. AML report 35/91.Google Scholar
Davis, S. 1992. Saxon and Medieval animal bones from Burystead and Langham Road, Northants; 1984–1987 excavations. London: English Heritage. AML report 71/92.Google Scholar
Dobney, K., Jaques, D. & Irving, B.. N.d. Of butchers and breeds. Report on vertebrate remains from various sites in the City of Lincoln. Lincoln: City of Lincoln Archaeology Unit. Archaeological Studies 5.Google Scholar
Dyer, C. 1980. Lords and peasants in a changing society. The Estates of the Bishopric of Worcester, 680–1540. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Dyer, C. 1989. Standards of living in the later Middle Ages: social change in England c. 1200–1520. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Dyer, C. 1991. The West Midlands, in Miller, E. (ed.), The agrarian history of England and Wales III: 1348–1500: 222–37. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Dyer, C. 1997a. Do household accounts provide an accurate picture of late medieval diet and food culture?, in Rassart-Eeckhout, E. Sosson, J.-P. Thiry, C. & Van Emelryck, T. (ed.), La vie materielle au Moyen Age. L’apport des sources litteraires, normatives et de la pratique: 109–25. Louvainla-Neuve: Presses Universitaire de Louvain. Textes, Etudes, Congres, vol.18.Google Scholar
Dyer, C. 1997b. Recent developments and future prospects in research into English medieval rural settlements, in De Boe, G. & Verhaeghe, F. (ed.), Rural settlements in medieval Europe: 55–61. Bruges: Institute for the Archaeological Heritage of Flanders. Papers of the ‘Medieval Europe Brugge 1997’ Conference volume 6.Google Scholar
Finn, R. 1963. An introduction to Domesday Book. Westport (CT): Greenwood Press.Google Scholar
Fussell, G. 1947. The old English farming books form Fitzherbert to Tull. London: Crosby Lockwood.Google Scholar
Gibson, A. 1988. The size and weight of cattle and sheep in early modern Scotland, Agricultural History Review 36: 162–71.Google ScholarPubMed
Gidney, L. 1996. The cosmetic and quasi-medicinal use of dog fat, Organ 11: 8–9.Google Scholar
Grant, A. 1988. Animal resources, in Astill & Grant (ed.): 149–261.Google Scholar
Hallam, H. (ed.). 1988a. The agrarian history of England and Wales II: 1042–1350: Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hallam, H. 1988b. Farming techniques: Eastern England, in Hallam (ed.): 272–312.Google Scholar
Hanawalt, B. 1986. The ties that bound. Peasant families in medieval England. Oxford & New York (NY): Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Harvey, S. 1988. Domesday England, in Hallam (ed.): 45–136.Google Scholar
Lauwerier, R & Groenewoudt, B.. Forthcoming. Ritual and economics in fourth-century Heeten (the Netherlands), in Geraghty, S. (ed.), Ethnography, history and environmental archaeology. Proceedings of the 18th annual conference of the Association for Environmental Archaeology, Limerick September 1997.Google Scholar
Luff, R. & Moreno Garcia, M.. 1995. Killing cats in the medieval period. An unusual episode in the history of Cambridge, England, Archaeofauna 4: 93–114.Google Scholar
McCormick, F. 1988. The domesticated cat in early Christian and Medieval Ireland, in Mac Niocaill, G. & Wallace, P. (ed.), Keimelia: studies in Medieval archaeology and history in memory of Tom Delaney. 218–28. Galway: University Press.Google Scholar
McCormick, F. In press. Dividing the carcass: the Irish evidence, in Miracle & Milner (ed.).Google Scholar
Miracle, P. & Milner, N. (ed.). In press. Consuming passions and patterns of consumption. Cambridge: McDonald Institute.Google Scholar
Morris, J. 1984. Domesday book. A survey of the counties of England. Chichester: Phillimore.Google Scholar
Noddle, B. 1977. Mammal bones, in Clarke, H. & Carter, A., Excavations in King’s Lynn 1963–1970: 378–99. London: Society for Medieval Archaeology.Google Scholar
Noddle, B. 1980. Identification and interpretation of the mammal bones, in P. Wade-Martins, North Elmham Park vol. II, East Anglian Archaeology 9: 377–409.Google Scholar
Postan, M. 1973. Essays on medieval agriculture and general problems of the medieval economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Redstone, V. 1931. The household book of Dame Alice de Bryene of Acton Hall, Suffolk, Sept. 1412-Sept. 1413. Ipswich: Harrison.Google Scholar
Serjeantson, D. 1989. Animal remains and the tanning trade, in Serjeantson, D. & Waldron, T. (ed.), Diet and crafts in towns: the evidence of animal remains from the Roman to the Post-Medieval periods: 129–46. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports. British series 199.Google Scholar
Trigg, S. (ed.). 1990. Wynnere and Wastoure. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Trow-Smith, R. 1957. A history of British livestock husbandry to 1700. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Wilson, B. & Edwards, P.. 1993. Butchery of horse and dog at Witney Palace, Oxfordshire, and the knackering and feeding of meat to hounds during the post-medieval period, Post-Medieval Archaeology 27: 43–56.Google Scholar