The Medieval Ritual Landscape: Archaeology, Material Culture and Lived Religion

中世纪仪式景观项目（MeRit）将为英国中世纪（公元1000-1600年）的日常宗教提供新的视角。考古证据的补充来源（出土的人工制品和金属检测发现）将在不同的尺度（宏观的国家和跨国，微观尺度的区域视角）进行分析，以阐明中世纪的人如何表达他们自己的宗教机构，很大程度上没有被书面资料记录。该项目将采用跨学科的研究框架，结合考古、历史和数字人文方法，揭示生活宗教的物质实践如何与性别、家庭和社区交叉。它将考虑随着时间的推移以及对社会危机和宗教转型（如黑死病和漫长的宗教改革）的反应，信仰的变化，对普通中世纪人的宗教信仰和代理采取深入的时间视角。通过对三个区域案例研究（肯特郡、诺福克郡、北约克郡）的详细背景研究，选择与欧洲大陆进行直接比较，将考虑仪式实践和宗教认同的区域差异。它将把英国的证据与荷兰和丹麦的公共发现数据进行比较，以评估中世纪西北欧在多大程度上共享了共同的宗教物品和仪式实践。该项目将释放英国中世纪公共发现数据的潜力（超过325,000个中世纪发现被PAS记录，便携式文物计划）和欧洲公共发现的跨国分析的先驱，与整个欧洲的考古公民科学相关。它将创建一个中世纪宗教文物的综合数据库，包括公共发现（金属检测对象）和挖掘的考古证据，以实现创新的空间统计分析，以绘制中世纪景观中的仪式实践。该项目将使用GIS制图技术来询问与定居点和景观中的自然或文化特征相关的宗教物品的空间关系，以及可能揭示有意“放置沉积物”的潜在集群发现和早期仪式景观的再利用。随着时间的推移，将通过使用蒙特卡罗模拟的概率“主”分析来考虑变化，以测试宗教物质文化与社会和人口趋势（如教区的发展、朝圣、黑死病和宗教改革）相关的模式。社会网络分析将用于阐明和比较朝圣纪念品和其他宗教物品流通中的区域模式。我们将询问中世纪的文本来源，以更深入地了解谁进行了仪式实践，出于什么原因，在什么空间，以及神职人员对这些世俗实践的态度和评论。除了来自Kunera项目（内梅亨大学，NL）的中世纪朝圣者纪念品的丰富数据集之外，还将从丹麦（DIME，奥胡斯大学）和荷兰（PAN，阿姆斯特丹自由大学）的公共发现记录计划中收集比较见解。功绩将提供平行的影响和产出，解决i)中世纪的日常宗教；ii)今天公众发现的用途和意义，使其惠及学术界以外的受益者，包括：公民科学家、文物专业人士、公众和便携式古物计划。我们将与博物馆和PAS文物联络官（FLOs）合作，建立一个“公民考古学家”合作小组，与他们共同制作文物记录指南和创造性的文物传记方法。PAS将从与该项目的合作中获得长期利益，包括相互知识交流，以提高未来中世纪发现记录的质量，数据清理，以及PAS网站的遗留材料。

The Medieval Ritual Landscape Project (MeRit) will shed new light on everyday religion in the English Middle Ages (c.1000-1600 CE). Complementary sources of archaeological evidence (excavated artefacts and metal-detected finds) will be analysed at different scales (macro-scale national and transnational, and micro-scale regional perspectives) to illuminate how medieval people expressed their own religious agency, largely unrecorded by written sources. The project will adopt an interdisciplinary research framework, combining archaeological, historical and digital humanities approaches, to reveal how the material practices of lived religion intersected with gender, family and community. It will consider changes in belief over time and in response to social crises and religious transitions, such as the Black Death and the long Reformation, taking a deep time perspective on the religious beliefs and agency of ordinary medieval people. It will consider regional variation in ritual practices and religious identity, through detailed contextual studies of three regional case studies (Kent, Norfolk, North Yorkshire), selected to provide direct comparisons with continental Europe. It will place the English evidence in comparative perspective with Dutch and Danish public finds data, to evaluate the extent to which medieval north-western Europe shared a common repertoire of religious objects and ritual practices.The project will unlock the potential of English medieval public finds data (over 325,000 medieval finds recorded by the PAS, the Portable Antiquities Scheme) and pioneer transnational analysis of European public finds, with relevance to archaeological citizen science across Europe. It will create an integrated database of medieval religious artefacts, including both public finds (metal-detected objects) and excavated archaeological evidence, to enable innovative spatial-statistical analyses to map ritual practices in the medieval landscape. The project will employ GIS mapping techniques to interrogate spatial relationships of religious objects in relation to settlements and natural or cultural features in the landscape, as well as potential clustering of finds that may reveal intentionally 'placed deposits' and the reuse of earlier ritual landscapes. Change over time will be considered through probabilistic 'aoristic' analyses using Monte Carlo simulation, to test patterns in religious material culture in relation to social and demographic trends, such as the development of parishes, pilgrimage, the Black Death, and the Reformation. Social Network Analysis will be used to elucidate and compare regional patterns in the circulation of pilgrim souvenirs and other religious objects. We will interrogate medieval textual sources to gain deeper understanding of who conducted ritual practices, for what reasons and in what spaces, as well as clerical attitudes and commentaries on these lay practices. Comparative insights will be gleaned from public finds recording schemes in Denmark (DIME, Aarhus Universitet) and the Netherlands (PAN, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam), in addition to the rich data set for medieval pilgrim souvenirs from the Kunera Project (Radboud Universiteit, NL).MeRit will deliver parallel strands of impact and outputs addressing i) everyday religion in the Middle Ages; and ii) the use and significance of public finds today, to reach beneficiaries beyond academia, including: citizen scientists, heritage professionals, the public and the Portable Antiquities Scheme. Working with museums and PAS Finds Liaison Officers (FLOs), we will establish a partnership group of 'citizen archaeologists' with whom we will co-produce finds recording guides and creative approaches to object biographies. The PAS will gain long-standing benefits from partnership with the project, including reciprocal knowledge exchange to improve the quality of future medieval finds recording, data cleaning, and legacy materials for the PAS website.