MOWLIT: Mapping the March: Medieval Wales and England, c. 1282–1550
The overarching objective of MOWLIT is to produce the first comprehensive and interdisciplinary account of the literary and manuscript culture of the medieval March of Wales. This is a region which has been less studied than almost any area of the British Isles in the Middle Ages, and yet it is one which was crucial to the fortunes of the English Crown from 1066 through to the reign of Henry VIII. Through the project outputs, including databases, published works, and a website, MOWLIT will provide a groundbreaking reorientation of the March as a culturally distinctive border zone.
Sir William Stanley (d. 1495), lord of Bromfield and Yale
The main research tool for the project, and one of its most significant outcomes, will be a complex set of linked databases containing detailed information about the culture of the medieval March of Wales between 1282 and 1550 in its social, historical, linguistic, and geographical contexts. The databases will be fully searchable, comprising interlinked entities that will include texts (poetry and prose in various languages), people, lists of manuscripts, maps, and places. The data will be viewable via search/browse facilities and through the exploration of a chronological series of digital maps of the Marcher lordships. The information accumulated in the databases will be used to identify, define, and analyse dynamic networks of Marcher multiculturalism, discoverable at the intersection of history, literature, language, manuscript production, and geography. These findings, which go well beyond the current state of the art research in medieval Welsh history, will be published in a series of monographs, journal articles, and collections of essays. Results will also be disseminated via workshops, conferences, and exhibitions.
The historical context of MOWLIT is the period between 1282 and 1536 when the March of Wales was a key region of Britain, owned and managed by some of the most powerful magnates of the English aristocracy, such as the Mortimers (earls of March), the Despensers of Glamorgan, and the FitzAlans (earls of Arundel). Almost two-thirds of the landmass of Wales were divided into around forty Marcher lordships of various sizes, all of which possessed unparalleled liberties in terms of legal, economic, and social control. Within each lordship, the incumbent population was largely Welsh, augmented by English settlers drawn to opportunities for work on the land or in the fast-growing towns. Both in the Principality and in the March, the Welsh suffered various kinds of discrimination, leading to significant anti-English feeling among the local populations. Wales in the late Middle Ages was thus a deeply divided nation, split between Crown and Marcher lordships, between Welsh and English cultures and languages, between uchelwyr (the Welsh gentry) and English nobles who exercised a colonialist rule within their lordships. There is clearly more work to be done to reach a more detailed and finely-grained understanding of the March as a colonial border society, which is the broad objective of MOWLIT.
The Cistercian Valle Crucis Abbey or Valley of the Cross Abbey.
To further enrich the project, MOWLIT will engage with scholars working on other border regions of medieval Europe in order to explore more widely the core themes of border cultures and identities from a transnational perspective. Opening up the project through interdisciplinary workshops and symposia will create opportunities for comparative analysis, enable two-way feedback on and refinements to various methodologies, and situate the Welsh border region within a larger European and pre-nation-state context of border societies.
The literary texts and manuscripts which comprise what might be called ‘the Matter of the March’ are written in Welsh, English, French, and Latin, and come from both sides of what is now the border between Wales and England. Largely because of a major disciplinary divide between ‘English’ studies and ‘Welsh’ studies, medieval manuscripts and books from the border region have traditionally been split into ‘English’ and ‘Welsh’ artefacts on the basis of their assumed geographical provenance (and often on their current library location), almost regardless of language or content. One of the most innovative aspects of MOWLIT is that the project will bring together a large body of manuscripts which have not previously been considered together, thereby defining and illuminating a multilingual culture shared across what is now the modern border.
Raglan Castle belonging to Marcher lord Sir William Herbert
One of the most important objectives of MOWLIT is to produce a series of layered digital maps which will show the boundaries of the Marcher lordships as they evolved from 1282 to 1536. As Marcher lords increased their holdings through war or marriage, or lost lands due to escheat or penalty, the borders of the lordships changed over time, often from one decade to the next. At the same time, owners of the lands also changed, as families died out or their lands were appropriated by the king for political reasons. There has not yet been any attempt to produce such a map or maps of the Marcher lordships. Sketch maps of the broad outlines of the lordships as they existed in the fourteenth century have been published, as have maps of individual lordships at particular historical moments. A beautiful set of hand-drawn maps of south Wales was produced by the historian William Rees in 1932, portraying the historical landscape of south Wales in the fourteenth century. Apart from these static printed examples, there is currently no mapping for use in GIS environments which can accurately show the Marcher lordships as a set of interconnected and fluctuating territories. The digital mapping layers produced during the MOWLIT project, based on historical sources and produced in partnership with the Royal Commission on Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales, will therefore be unique in providing a clear geographical and chronological view of the March. The maps will be illuminating in themselves while also providing visual representations of the centres of manuscript production, gentry libraries, and the travels of individual manuscripts from place to place.
Map showing Marcher Lordships c. 1400
CONTACTS
Project Lead
Professor Helen Fulton, University of Bristol
(+44) 07768 960 452
Project Partner
Royal Commission on Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales
Scott Lloyd
Research Administrator
Abi Freeman
Mapping-the-march@bristol.ac.uk
