Sacred Heritage: Archaeology, Identity and Medieval Beliefs

Medieval churches and monasteries are key features of the British landscape, contributing to local identities and sense of place. Yet the relationship between heritage and medieval religion has received relatively little critical reflection. These lectures place research on medieval beliefs within a wider framework of sacred heritage, reflecting on issues of value, authenticity and interpretation. Archaeological evidence for medieval beliefs is explored in relation to regional identity, practices of magic and healing, memory and myth. The lectures develop chronologically from the 12th century to the use of archaeology today, with case studies focusing on Scottish monasticism and Glastonbury Abbey.

Recorded on Saturday 20th May 2017 at 3.30pm in the Auditorium of the National Museums Scotland, Edinburgh

Lecture 4: “The Materiality of Magic: the Ritual Lives of People and Things” by Professor Roberta Gilchrist, University of Reading

Why did medieval people place amulets with the dead and deliberately bury objects in sacred space? How were beliefs about magic reconciled with medieval religion? This lecture considers archaeological evidence for ritual practices that were shared by monastic and lay communities in medieval Scotland, rites possibly intended to heal, protect and transform the living and the dead.

Roberta Gilchrist is Professor of Archaeology and Research Dean at the University of Reading. She has published extensively on the archaeology of medieval religion and belief and their intersection with gender, magic and the life course. She has published pioneering works on medieval nunneries (1994), hospitals (1995), burial practices (2005) and popular devotion (2012), and major studies on Glastonbury Abbey (2015) and Norwich Cathedral Close (2005). She is an elected Fellow of the British Academy, a trustee of Antiquity and former president of the Society for Medieval Archaeology. She was voted Current Archaeology’s ‘Archaeologist of the Year 2016’.

Recording made by Mallard Productions

Sponsored by AOC Archaeology Group