Early Christian Churches and Landscapes (ECCLES): Co-Creating Public Resources

早期基督教教堂和风景(ECCLILES)是一个研究项目，专注于1100年前在威尔士、爱尔兰、苏格兰和英格兰建立的基督教教堂。这是英国和爱尔兰人民皈依基督教并首次建立当地教堂的时期。埃克利斯将历史学家、考古学家、艺术历史学家和地名专家聚集在一起，以确定这些教堂的不同类型的证据。它将提供这些教堂的性质、位置、分布和景观环境的更全面的图景。它将产生一个公共网络资源，其中包含一个证据数据库，允许用户搜索地点，发现它们的历史背景，识别与它们有关的幸存证据，并下载信息来制作地图。该项目意义重大，因为教会在经济、社会、文化和政治变革中发挥了核心作用。基督教是一种全球信仰，但它是在当地实践的：教堂是构建当地基督教身份的地方，因为全球信仰的各个方面与当地的经济、社会、文化和政治条件相互作用。基督教崇拜涉及社区参与。因此，教堂也是当地社区成员炫耀经济财富或社会地位的地方，或者是尺子寻求发挥权力的地方。由于教会在当地社会中扮演的角色，他们经常获得土地来支持他们的工作。在1100年之前建立的教堂在今天仍然是重要的圣地和社区中心，当地社区在那里管理这一时期的证据，这些证据对他们仍然有意义。尽管这些教堂对学术研究人员和当地社区具有重要意义，但我们对它们的了解并不完整。只是从1100年起，随着宗教改革修道院的建立，当地教堂的大规模重建，以及教区和教区记录的开始，我们关于各种教会的证据才变得更加普遍。首先，没有关于1100年之前建立的教会的不同类型证据的全面目录，所以我们不知道曾经存在过多少教会。第二，虽然我们知道早期基督教教会的证据存在地区差异，但我们不知道这是否反映了教会的原始分布，或者是由于现有证据类型的差异或在中间时期证据的破坏。第三，在1100年之前的时期，威尔士、爱尔兰、苏格兰和英格兰等现代国家还不存在，但关于教堂的证据往往是根据这些现代的国家边界进行的不适当的研究。第四，这些教堂的证据通常由遗产机构、教会机构或慈善机构保管，但没有公开可获得的资源来识别证据、探索其背景或调查其社会价值。为了考虑Eccle公共网络资源应该如何满足学术研究人员和非学术利益相关者的需求，AHRC资助了一个研究网络。我们注意到，现有的欧洲数据库侧重于学术研究人员的需求；相反，我们需要一个新的公共网络资源来满足非学术利益攸关方的需求。我们确定了对额外资源的需求--一个在线展览空间，当地社区的成员可以在那里制作关于他们教会的展览，以及帮助教师在学校使用Eccle数据库的模范教学包。AHRC的后续资金项目将使我们能够规划Eccle公共网络资源，输入试点数据，并与遗产机构、教会机构、教会慈善机构、教师和当地社区的成员共同创建一个在线展览空间、一个试点在线展览和模范教学包。

Early Christian Churches and Landscapes (ECCLES) is a research project focused on Christian churches established in Wales, Ireland, Scotland, and England before 1100. This was the period in which the peoples of Britain and Ireland converted to Christianity and first established the landscape of local churches. ECCLES brings together historians, archaeologists, art historians, and experts on place-names to identify the different types of evidence for those churches. It will provide a more comprehensive picture of the nature, location, distribution, and landscape settings of those churches. It will produce a Public Web Resource housing a database of the evidence, allowing users to search for places, discover their historical context, identify the surviving evidence relating to them, and download information to produce maps.The project is significant because churches have played a central role in economic, social, cultural, and political change. Christianity is a global faith, but it is practised locally: churches are places where local Christian identities are constructed as aspects of that global faith interact with local economic, social, cultural, and political conditions. Christian worship has involved communal participation. Churches have therefore also been places where members of local communities could show off economic wealth or social standing, or where rulers could seek to exert power. Thanks to their roles in local society, churches have often received land to support their work. The churches established before 1100 often remain significant sacred places and community centres today, where local communities curate the evidence from this period and where that evidence remains meaningful to them.Despite the significance of these churches to academic researchers and to local communities, our knowledge about them is incomplete. It is only from 1100 onwards that our evidence for churches of all kinds becomes more common, as a result of the foundation of reformed monasteries, the great rebuilding of local churches, and the beginning of diocesan and parish records. First, there is no comprehensive catalogue of the different types of evidence for churches established before 1100, so we do not know how many churches once existed. Second, though we know that there are regional variations in the evidence for early Christian churches, we do not know whether this reflects the original distribution of churches or is down to differences in the types of evidence available or the destruction of evidence in intervening periods. Third, in the period before 1100 the modern nations of Wales, Ireland, Scotland and England did not exist, but the evidence for churches is often inappropriately researched according to those modern national boundaries. Fourth, the evidence for those churches is usually under the care of heritage agencies, ecclesiastical bodies, or charities, but there is no publicly accessible resource where they can identify that evidence, explore its context, or investigate its social values.To consider how the ECCLES Public Web Resource should meet the needs of academic researchers and non-academic stakeholders, the AHRC funded a Research Network. We observed that an existing European database focused on the needs of academic researchers; instead, we required a new Public Web Resource to meet the needs of non-academic stakeholders. We identified a demand for additional resources - an Online Exhibition Space where members of local communities can create exhibitions about their churches, and Model Teaching Packs to help teachers use the ECCLES database in schools. This AHRC Follow-On Funding project will allow us to program the ECCLES Public Web Resource, enter Pilot Data, and co-create an Online Exhibition Space, a Pilot Online Exhibition, and Model Teaching Packs with members of heritage agencies, ecclesiastical bodies, ecclesiastical charities, teachers, and local communities.