Transhumance to Farmstead: Landscape and the Medieval Resettlement of Dartmoor

Summary

Dartmoor was permanently resettled by peasants and tenant farmers during the 10th and 11th centuries, following hundreds of years of seasonal use of the moor as transhumant pasture. This paper explores how previous knowledge of the landscape on the part of shepherds (and shepherdesses) affected the choices made by later permanent settlers. Peasant choices were also constrained by the priorities of manorial lords and overseers, who had their own ideas about where best to establish settlements to increase the prosperity of the manor. These often conflicting priorities reflected fundamentally different experiences of the landscape. A historically situated, multiscalar approach to medieval Dartmoor shows how dimensions of social difference, including class and gender, were contested and negotiated on, within, and through the landscape.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2014   •
• Foregrounding the Landscape in Archaeology

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): SYM-38,11