Early in De laude Cestrie, Lucian casually remarks plerumque quod nec civis attendit, peregrinus appendit (‘often a stranger ponders what a citizen does not even consider’). And so it was with this visit. I was lucky enough to be showing a visitor round the city, and her fresh eyes discerned new questions.

Naturally my Lucian-lite tour took in the churches (St Peter’s, St Michael’s, St Werburgh’s, St John’s) and the walls. My obdurate visitor persisted in asking at every stage “so what was in the space between them?”. This is what I usually call a ‘difficult’ question (i. e. one I can’t answer), but the fact that I couldn’t answer it satisfactorily was itself revelatory. I’d become so attuned to Lucian’s ecclesiastical topography that I’d forgotten, to a certain extent, that Chester was not just a religious space, but also a commercial, residential and social environment.

A further surprise was how big the intra-mural area of Chester is. I wrote an article last summer that discussed a day Lucian describes in which he walked from St Werburgh’s to St Michael’s to hear mass,  to St John’s to pray, then on to the castle to conduct some abbey business. The factor I now recognise I neglected to consider is the time this would have taken Lucian; these locations are a significant distance apart. Lucian’s progress between them could have taken two or three hours, a rate of progress any nineteenth-century flâneur would regard with pride.

My experience, and Lucian’s remark, contain a broader lesson, I think; the lesson that we, as academic citizens, must look to share our work with anyone interested. Strangers can pose and answer important questions which are all to easy to neglect. Those hostile to the idea of ‘impact’ would do well to ask not what they can do for the public, but what the public can do for them.

Fecunde unum debriat quod alteri de facili profluebat (‘What readily flows forth from one, completely intoxicates another’). So Lucian remarks just before the words I have been discussing here. This remark seems just as true, and for that reason I must thank all the peregrini who came to the Festival last August, and particularly the peregrina who accompanied me on Friday. I am ‘completely intoxicated’ (or as we would now say, extremely grateful).

Chester 2010: The Creation and Fall of Man

The symposium included sessions on topics such as ‘The Audience’ and ‘The City’, which reminded us once again of the many different identities, cultural traditions and practices in medieval and early modern Chester, offering lots of new perspectives on the city. In our own ‘Mapping Medieval Chester’ session, sponsored by the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, we gave an overview of our project research and some ‘case studies’ of ways in which it might be valuable for scholars working on the Chester plays. For example, Mark Faulkner examined Lucian’s understanding of symbolic space within the city, while Catherine Clarke discussed the cross-cultural exchanges – and tensions – between Welsh and English communities in Chester, as reflected in the medieval literature.

The complete performance of the Chester Whitsun Cycle – on wagons, over three stations – was extremely exciting. A new text, incorporating Goodman’s list of ‘absurdities’, had been edited by Alexandra Johnston. Each pageant was produced by a different North American university, meaning that we had a wide range of different interpretations – from the serious to the comic, the more naturalistic to the highly stylised and liturgical.

Chester 2010 was a wonderful event, and the ‘Mapping Medieval Chester’ team are very grateful to the University of Toronto for their hospitality and interest in our work. A volume is forthcoming, to which Mark and Catherine hope to contribute.

Chester 2010: The Last Judgement

The Chester 2010 symposium will offer some unique new perspectives on place and identity in Chester. As well as presentations from a wide range of scholars, the symposium includes a staging of the complete Chester cycle, with each pageant produced and performed by a group from a different North American university or college. We hope to bring back lots of new ideas about the interactions between the plays, their physical environment, and their audiences in the late-medieval / early modern city.

We’re currently working with the Grosvenor Museum Chester, and other partners in Chester itself, to look at ways in which we could share our project research with the local community and visitors to the city. We’re hoping to apply for funding to make this possible and have several meetings coming up to discuss ideas. Watch this space for news as our plans take shape!

On a separate note, we’ve just found out that the ‘Mapping Medieval Chester’ project will be featuring in an Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) report for government and other stakeholders entitled ‘Changing the World: the impact of the arts and humanities’. We’re really pleased to be included in a report which shows the value that this kind of research can have both within and beyond academia. Who knows – perhaps Peter Mandelson will soon be reading about Lucian and Henry Bradshaw over his morning cup of coffee…

Keith Lilley has been asked to contribute to an event being held at the University of Lancaster in February on the theme of Landscapes, memories and cultural practices: A GIS/GPS digital heritage mapping network, sponsored by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and British Telecom, and organised by Dr Ian Gregory. Of the event, Ian says the “aim is to bring people with humanities GIS content together with technical experts so that we can work towards developing systems that will provide location-specific content to users in the field”. This discussion will have a bearing on future work we have in mind developing further the existing Chester online resource.

Shortly after the Lancaster meeting, Keith is then off to the University of Padua in Italy at the invitation of Alexandra Chavarria, an archaeologist researcher in Padua who is working alongside Professor Gian Pietro Brogiol on a project called Architettura Residenziale Medievale a Padova (further details of which are accessible here). This is quite similar in nature to Mapping Medieval Chester and through this exchange we shall share experiences of mapping medieval cities using GIS and look to future potential collaborative work that builds upon both the Padua and Chester projects.

All in all, as we had hoped, Mapping Medieval Chester is still very much alive as a project, and will continue to spawn new initiatives and influence future research agendas in a wide range of fields.

Fancy a taste of medieval festive fun? Then Chester Cathedral is definitely the place to be on Saturday, 5 December.

The Cathedral’s Chapter House will offer a choice of Christmas fayre, herbs and spices, that figured on menus of the Middle Ages against the background of carols. Musical accompaniment will be played on instruments of the period like the gemshorn, rauschpfeife and timbrell. Visitors will also have the chance to revel in the Yuletide atmosphere of past centuries by joining in the dancing, Mummers’ Plays and story-telling. There will also be a chance make beeswax candles – once brought as offerings to the shrine of  St Werburgh, or examine the false religious relics being offered by the  Pardoner - a medieval figure purporting to sell papal pardons or indulgences.

A Medieval Christmas – an opportunity to meet and discover some of the contemporary characters and traditions of the period from 10.30am to 4pm.

Admission is free. The event has been organised jointly by Chester Cathedral and the Cheshire West Museums Service.

One topic which came up repeatedly in our discussion was the idea that Chester needs to do more to celebrate and promote its medieval heritage – in comparison with the huge emphasis it currently places on its Roman history.  As various members of our project team have commented in the past: every time we’re in Chester we bump into a Roman centurion! It would be great if the wonderful, rich medieval heritage of the city had more of a visible presence in the city’s culture and tourism programmes. It was certainly very encouraging to hear the enthusiasm of those present at the lecture for all things medieval Chester!

I (shamelessly) used my lecture as another opportunity to urge people to take photos of medieval locations in Chester today for our website. It’s very easy – you can find full details below in the post ‘Mapping Medieval Chester needs you!’. If you have a look at our maps, they’ll give you an idea of some of the sites you could photograph (including St Werburgh’s, St John’s, the walls and gates, the Rows etc etc) and we’re very keen to have several different perspectives on each location. After all, our project seeks to explore how different people represent the urban space around them differently.

Thank you to the Chester Archaeological Society for the invitation to speak, and to everyone who came along on Wednesday.

Insular Identities and the Borders of Medieval Britain
Northeast Modern Language Association, April 7-11 2010, Montreal, Quebec

While England, Scotland, and Wales each produced their own bodies of literature in the Middle Ages, their physical proximity at times engendered a sense of shared literary culture, even as the fraught political relations among them complicated any notion of a shared identity. This panel seeks to explore Britain’s insular identities through an examination of its borders, and invites papers dealing with depictions of borders, bordered identities, border theory, or cross-border relations in medieval Britain. Send abstracts to Katherine H. Terrell: kterrell@hamilton.edu by 30 September.