Village Plans in County Durham: A Preliminary Statement

THIS paper examines some facets of rural settlement-morphology within co. Durham and demonstrates the way in which all villages involve particular combinations of universal structural components. These provide grounds for a logical classification and a framework within which to explore the origins of some of the plan-types that can be identified. A close analysis of the most regular series, the two-row plans, indicates that a strong measure of deliberate ordering was involved and evidence is presented to suggest that some villages, which were first mapped in the 19th century, possess a plan-type that developed before 1200. Furthermore there are grounds for arguing that there may be traces of village-regulation, such is as found in Scandinavia and has been described by G. C. Homans. A possible date for the imposition of this regularity would be the years immediately after the widespread devastations in the north at the end of the 11th century.     

Late Medieval Jugs with Lettering

Previous interpretations of medieval moated sites, rooted in functionalist and culture-historical theoretical frameworks, describe moat owners as defending themselves from threats of physical violence or emulating a fashionable status symbol. This study takes an alternative framework by exploring moated sites’ active role in producing medieval ideologies of inequality. A set of case studies from the eastern Weald in south-east England provides evidence for how moats alter patterns of movement, produce spaces of stratified accessibility, and enhance the visibility of structures and spaces bounded by moats. Spatial data from surface survey is synthesized with historical context and ‘imagined’ moated spaces found in pictorial and textual sources to determine how moats may have been perceived by different groups of people in medieval society. By altering the physical and symbolic landscape, moated sites constituted the authority of their owners and contributed to the maintenance, or in some cases contestation, of medieval structural inequalities.     

The Late Saxon Town of Thetford: An Interim Report on the 1964–6 Excavations

Abstract

Reigate stone was one of the most important building stones used in London and along the Thames littoral in the Middle Ages but, despite this, its use has been largely ignored by archaeologists. This introductory essay attempts to look at both the geology and documented history of the stone quarries, and at the Battersea and other Thames-side sites from which the stone was distributed.     

A Medieval Pottery Kiln at Audlem,Cheshire

BUILDING ACCOUNTS for 1398–99 give detailed costs of the construction of a circular, brick, free-standing artillery tower. The artillery towers at Southampton and Canterbury were linked to existing wall circuits, and detached forts in France may be more comparable to the tower at Norwich.     

The Kitchen Area of Northolt Manor,Middlesex

Abstract

The Winchester Moot Horn was found in a chest in the late 19th century when the Westgate was cleared out in advance of its conversion to a museum. Although generally believed to be of late-12th- or early-13th-century date on stylistic grounds, and a civic horn appears in local documentary sources, its excellent state of preservation has always raised some doubt as to its antiquity. Recent study and scientific analyses have now confirmed its early date. A survey of other moot horns from England suggests that at least one other, from Canterbury, dates to much the same time.     

More on the Kula: Ethnography,history, and theory

Leach, Jerry W., and Edmund Leach, eds. The Kula, New Perspectives on Massim Exchange. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983. xii + 577 pp. including plates, bibliography, index. $79.50 cloth.

Macintyre, Martha. The Kula, A Bibliography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983. vi + 90 pp. including author index, appendix. $19.95 cloth.     

Theories of the transcendent

Guthrie, Stewart. Faces in the Clouds: A New Theory of Religion. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. xi + 290 pp. including end notes, references, figure credits, and index. $30.00 cloth.

Saler, Benson. Conceptualizing Religion: Immanent Anthropologists, Transcendent Natives, and Unbounded Categories. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1993. x + 292 pp. including bibliography and index. $80.00 cloth.

Torrance, Robert. The Spiritual Quest: Transcendence in Myth, Religion, and Science. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994. xvii + 367 pp. including bibliography and index. $35.00 cloth.     

Metaphors and fault lines: Case studies of HIV/AIDS in Haiti and Uganda

Farmer, Paul. AIDS and Accusation: Haiti and the Geography of Blame. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992. xiv + 338 pp. including notes, bibliography, and index. $35.00 cloth. Barnett, Tony and Piers Blaikie. AIDS in Africa: Its Present and Future Impact. New York: Guilford Press, 1992. ix + 193 pp. including references and index. $18.95 paper.     

New perspectives on adolescent fertility

Lancaster, Jane B., and Beatrix A. Hamburg, eds. School‐Age Pregnancy and Parenthood: Biosocial Dimensions. New York: Aldine, 1986. xviii + 403 pp. including figures, chapter references, and index. $39.95 cloth.

Moore, Kristin A., Margaret C. Simms, and Charles L. Betsey. Choice and Circumstance: Racial Differences in Adolescent Sexuality and Fertility. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Books, 1986. xiv + 165 pp. including tables, chapter references, and index. $19.95 cloth.