City Witness: Place and Perspective in Medieval Swansea

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This project brings together multiple perspectives on medieval Swansea, connecting those recovered from medieval witnesses (both textual and material) with new insights into the historic town for local communities and visitors to Swansea today. Our research will make new primary resources accessible for researchers and wider audiences, drawing on these materials to explore the topography of Swansea in the Middle Ages and the multiple cultural communities and identities which navigated the medieval town. The unique potential of Swansea as a case study is based on the manuscript source available in the Vatican Library (Vat. Lat. 4015), which brings together eye-witness accounts of the hanging of 'William Cragh' in ?1289, representing diverse cultural, social, gendered and ethnic perspectives within the city. Focusing on questions of perception and perspective within the urban landscape, and drawing on comparative analysis and interpretation, the project will also extend our understanding of place and identity in the Middle Ages more widely. The research will involve teams in the English Department, Swansea University (SU), the School of Geography, Archaeology and Palaeoecology, Queen's University Belfast (QUB), and the Department of Digital Humanities, King's College London (DDH). The project is also founded on partnerships with the City and County of Swansea (CCS) and the Glamorgan Gwent Archaeological Trust (GGAT), which underpin both our research and our commitment to wider engagement. The High Street area of Swansea is currently targeted for regeneration and CCS aspires to create a specific identity for this part of the city as the 'Castle Quarter', promoting it as a focal point for tourism. This research will help re-situate the Castle within the medieval town, and re-invigorate medieval Swansea as a heritage asset and visitor destination. The digital map of medieval Swansea will be created at QUB in a GIS, using methods of retrogressive plan analysis and data gathered from archaeological and historical sources. The primary outcome will be the interactive digital map of Swansea c.1100-1400 (as well as a smaller conjectural plan of the two medieval castles), containing cartographic and morphological data.The map will be linked with an online edition and translation of the accounts of the hanging of 'William Cragh' by William de Breos, lord of Gower, in ?1289 (MS Vat. Lat. 4015). Whilst this medieval text has been examined previously by historians (notably Robert Bartlett in his micro-history 'The Hanged Man', 2004), its remarkable potential to extend our understanding of the medieval town has not been exploited. The eyewitnesses describe a range of locations (castle, dungeon, marketplace, gallows, burgess's house) and reflect a range of different social and cultural perspectives (Anglo-Norman and Welsh; lay and religious; male and female; lord, burgess and outlaw). Each narrative represents the urban space in different ways, offering diverse vantage-points (literal as well as metaphorical) on the medieval city. The project website will be developed by DDH and will enable users to engage simultaneously with both text and map, to use Google Maps to layer the medieval town over the modern city, and to download multi-media elements for PCs and mobile devices. New 3D visualisation technologies will simulate the perspectives which are represented in the witness statements.This research extends the model established in the team's successful AHRC-funded 'Mapping Medieval Chester' project. It enables medieval Swansea to be examined in a comparative perspective, and the innovative digital techniques developed for that project to be enhanced. This project will engage with diverse audiences, through online resources and interpretation materials produced with the non-HEI partners. The pavement marker series will use our research to create a visible, permanent presence for medieval Swansea in today's city.