Introduction to medieval villages, how archeology is useful.

1. How do we know what
medieval villages looked like?
9/22 2014

2. Nearly everybody in the Middle Ages lived in the countryside.
There were small clusters of houses here and there, with
sometimes a hundred, sometimes several hundred people
living in them.
These villages, with the land around them, were called
manors and were held and controlled by a lord of the manor.
What did these villages look like?

3. The first village we are going to look at, Wharram Percy, no
longer exists. Apart from the church, there are no buildings
left, just fields.
But because the land has not been built on by later
generations, there are many remains for ARCHAEOLOGISTS to
excavate.

4. Wharram Percy, like some other medieval villages, was
deserted by 1500.
Until the 1940s, almost everyone had forgotten that there
ever was a village called Wharram Percy. After the villagers
left, the houses fell down and grass grew over the foundations
and pathways.
But over the last 50 years, using evidence such as Sources 1
and 2, arhaeologists have been able to discover what it was
like.

5. Source 1
A photograph of
Wharram Percy
from the air.
Photographs like
this were taken
for the first time
in the 1940s.
They can show
details of what
is just below the
surface of the
ground

6. Source 2
Evidence noticed by the arhaeologists
• A parish church stands isolated in the middle of fields
• Three fields close to the church are called `Water Lane´,
`Towngate´ and `Town Street´
• There are stone foundations of rows of rectangular houses

7. Source 3
The archaeologists were finally able to produce
this plan of Wharram Percy

8. Discuss
How were the arhaeologists able to draw the plan of Wharram Percy in
Source 3? Use Sources 1 and 2 to help you. How do you think they
worked out:
a) where the roads were?
b) where the edges of the fields were?
c) which were the villagers’ houses?
d) which building was the manor house where the lord of the manor
lived?
e) where the church was?
f) that there was a mill and a mill pond next to the church?

9. A reconstruction of Wharram Percy
In Source 4 you can see a reconstruction of Wharram Percy.
This has been done by an artist who has been given very
specific information about what the village might have looked
like and the position of the houses, roads, church and so on

10. HBA
C
D
E
I
FG

11. Using Sources 1-4, write a description of the village as it was
during the Middle Ages. A few ideas to start you off are set
out below
A main road ran down the center of the village. Along it were...
The manor house was separated from the peasants’ houses. This was the largest...
There were buildings around the manor house. For example...