In 2007, my first book was published, just in time for the RAE circus. At the time, I was just glad to get rid of  it. I felt, at best, ambivalent to the work contained therein, and at worst, that it was all useless. At one level, I really didn’t care what people thought of it because it was my book and, in moments of clearer thinking, I thought I had achieved what I set out do do, at least in part. At a deeper level was the anxiety – what if someone really important totally pans it? What do I do?

Two years on, the book has received a number of reviews. These are, so far, evenly split between bad reviews and good/fair reviews, with one that could best be described as neutral. In some respects, this is good. I’ve generated some kind of (limited) debate. In other respects, it isn’t, mainly because the bad reviews came out before the good ones. I am not going to name names here, so as to spare the blushes of those who wrote the reviews, and what follows are brief considerations of some general points. I make no case to be scientific in my analysis.

• The most obviously striking point about the reviews is that the good ones were all written by men and the bad ones by women. The neutral one also had a female author.

• Following on from that, the bad reviews have all been written by people based in American universities. The good ones have a more mixed profile (one American affiliation; two British).

• Two out of the three bad reviews have appeared on on-line only reviews based in America. The printed bad review is also in an American journal. The good ones are all in peer-reviewed printed journals, including one Francophone publication.

• The tone of the reviews is also different. There is a far more balanced approach in evidence in the good reviews, in that their authors restrict their comments to what is in the book. The bad reviews, especially the one that came out first, are not well-tempered and did, in the first case, resort to personal remarks based on some pretty remarkable assumptions.

I confess I am not sure what to make of this. I wonder how much is to do with differences in culture between American and British academic life. Do people feel they can be much more combative in an on-line only publication? Are women, and remember I am female, more vicious in their reviewing than men? Are men more willing to cut an author some slack if they try for something ambitious, but don’t quite manage it in the eyes of the reviewer?

It is sometimes hard not to take these reviews, which, in the grand scheme of things probably don’t matter that much, personally. Certainly, the first one was personal and others who read it felt that too. Fortunately, I was given the chance to respond. I confess I had to write two responses: one for publication and one for private gratification. In the former I stuck to a factual and straightforward approach, refuting the reviewer point by point, clarifying where necessary and also correcting the errors evident in the review. It was a cathartic process. Somewhat to my surprise, the exchange elicited a number of responses commending me for my approach and I’ve had nothing but good feedback. If the reviewer was hoping to condemn my book to oblivion, she didn’t succeed.

I did come face to face with one of my bad reviewers over the summer. While I found it easy to chat about in consequential matters, I became aware that I was unwilling to engage in any conversation about my work with this woman and, to my surprise, actually got quite angry when she asked about it. It was almost as if I felt that she had forfeited the right to discuss it. I’ve never felt comfortable talking about my work with people I suspect don’t take it seriously – life is too short and my work is too important to me.

Criticism is part of academic life and the methods through which we improve and refine our work, so I would not wish anyone to think that I was being precious. A recent article of mine went through the process of peer review in which the referees, both senior figures in the field, were very critical of parts of my work, but in a way that was helpful and also respectful of the effort that had gone into producing the paper. This allowed  me to revise the paper and the finished article is much better for it. So why is it that people think that they can behave in an unreasonable fashion about a book that has already been published? It doesn’t do anyone any favours, least of all themselves. It is perfectly possible to be critical without being mean. The third bad review managed this and the good reviews managed to be critical of the more problematic parts of the book without condemning the entire enterprise as worthless.

As I said above, I have no idea if there is any deeper significance to the breakdown of the reviews other than a difference in tradition. In the meantime, I don’t worry about the bad reviews. As Oscar Wilde might have said: ‘The only thing worse than bad reviews, are no reviews’. At least people are reading my book!

Both Reivers and I have been quiet on the blogging front of late as we have moved house. I, at least, have now become a person who gets excited about cookers – it must be middle age creeping up. In amongst all the chaos of moving, proposals for papers and books that I put in with great hope, partial hope and no hope at all, seem to have come back with positive responses, or at least noises which suggest future acceptance. So, for a change, a post on research (yay)!

First up is the Rouen volume. I have probably mentioned this elsewhere, but alongside a colleague in Cambridge, I am editing a collection of essays on Rouen 10th-13th centuries that arose from two sessions in Leeds 2007. Yes, that was two years ago, but these things take time, especially as I get extremely nervous about publishing anything. This volume is shaping up nicely, with contributions from professors to grad students based both in Britain and France. The publishers  have accepted it in principal, so it is full steam ahead on badgering authors and, ahem, writing my own contribution (plus intro). This is something I have wanted to do for a while, so am extremely excited it could see the light of day.

More immediately, I have a paper to give to the London Society for Medieval Studies after Christmas on the topic of landscape and fighting in Norman chronicles. I had been assured that the audience was knowledgeable, but non-threatening (though John Gillingham and Susan Reynolds are attenders) and that things were a little more informal than the usual IHR seminars. Then I saw the programme. I am in the midst of some great historians, including my hero from undergrad days, Magnus Ryan. The other Norman paper in the series will be given by David Bates no less. I best get cracking.

Largely more in hope than expectation, I banged in a proposal (on the deadline day itself) to the Social History conference in March, mainly because it advertised a strand on spaces and places. This is a big cross period conference, so I really wasn’t expecting to have the abstract accepted, so was somewhat surprised when I got the email. I also had completely forgotten in the midst of the start of term and the move, what it was I said I was going to speak on. Fortunately, I have since remembered and will be attempting to explain to modern historians why we should care about chroniclers’ descriptions of ambushes and deliverance in the Norman world. Any useful hints on how to speak to modernists will be gratefully received.

Finally, there is the continuing saga of the Leeds sessions. Alongside colleagues in English and Archaeology, I’ve been involved in organising a monster strand on medieval routes; that is to say, the strand is a monster, not about monsters. We won’t know until December whether that one has been accepted, but we are hopeful. Should that come to pass, then I will be attempting to get to grips with southern Italy (the Normans therein – am I boring you yet?), which will be decidedly new territory. I’ve been threatening to do this for a while, so it is about time I started.

So all in all, that is three new papers to fit into everything else this year and three new papers that need to be good. Fortunately, at the moment at least, I have a lovely bunch of first and third years to teach who find heresy or the Normans fascinating, which makes that side of life easier. There is no bigger boost to a medievalist’s ego than to have students say to you ‘This is so much more interesting than Hitler and Stalin’. In the meantime, I have quite a few things I want to blog about, some teaching, some research and an observation on gender differences in book reviews.

No sooner do I launch an incoherent post on ‘impact’ (which in itself illustrates the dangers of such woolly concepts) on an unsuspecting world, than the Times Higher features a lengthy article on Bad History, starring Miri Rubin and Jonathan Phillips amongst some modernists. Although the article isn’t explicitly about impact, historians looking for a crumb of comfort in these vicissitudinous times may be relieved that some people haven’t lost the plot entirely.

The article is actually showcasing the work  History and Policy and the Institute of Historical Research in London.This body seeks to inform current debates historically and also to act as a counter-balance to the poor interpretations, crass analogies and general lack of historical knowledge that politicians and journalists seem to be fond of these days. Reading this in the light of ‘impact’ it is clear that if politicians want history to inform policy, then they need to make a conscious effort to engage with it and understand it.  Bad History, in the mode of Ben Goldacre’s  ‘Bad Science‘ blog [Reviers - why haven't you put this on the blog roll?], is set to become a feature of their work. So far Goldacre hasn’t managed to stop politicians and the media spreading scare stories or missing the point, but he is at least making a spirited defence. Let’s hope Bad History succeeds in some small way.  I will watch with interest.

If you keep up with the Higher Education pages in the UK newspapers, you will know that there has been a great deal of comment on  a mysterious entity called ‘impact’ lately. Impact is the latest government and research council buzz word for why our research must have some definable economic or social goal: where is the next technological gadget or government initiative coming from in otherwords. Impact will also replace esteem in the REF, which in itself, replaces the RAE, except with a bigger percentage

This impact business is concerning for a number of reasons. Esteem did not make up a huge proportion of the RAE, but impact will be 25%. Both were or will be hard to quantify. Impact will also be a criterion in deciding who gets funding and who doesn’t from the research councils. Impact also suggests a certain amount of short term thinking, which will hit the sciences just as much as the ever beleaguered arts and humanities. Research is, generally speaking, curiosity driven. I certainly do not spend my time trying to understand Norman history because I think it’s going to ameliorate the current economic crisis or bring about world peace overnight. I research the Normans for all sorts of kinds of ‘fluffy’ non-economic reasons: old-fashioned curiosity, a rather grudging admiration for what they managed to achieve, their wonderful historical writing, the beauty of their buildings etc. etc. None of this fits in with the current impact agenda as articulated by the government and research councils.

Impact has also been a hot topic of conversation in and around the department in which I work, particularly frustration at what is seen as a lack of a robust defence of our discipline from the research council (AHRC). Impact is seen as a very short-term thing. What can make an explosion this year, can be forgotten in the next. Often, carefully researched and written monographs and articles can take years to ‘make an impact’ in a field, but once they have, a rarely forgotten: students of Domesday Book will still refer back to Maitland. Writing a book is no longer seen as sufficient.

So how do we respond to this? I am not sure. A couple of colleagues have pointed out that writing a book, obtaining a contract from a publisher and then publishing it equates to economic impact. Publishers, generally speaking, will not take on books they expect to make a loss on. The book then also ticks another current buzz phrase, ‘knowledge transfer’. Libraries and individuals buy the book, which then contributes to the economy etc. (ok I am simplifying horribly, but you get the picture). A number of historians also contribute to radio, tv and film productions. This is, apparently, very good impact, but how do you archive it and is it sustainable? Radio, tv and film bodies are also commercial organisations, and should the public become bored with such programmes, where does that leave the historians, archaeologists, literature specialists etc.?

There are no quick and simple answers to this. Most people who apply for funds will become very adept at explaining why their particular area fits in with housing policy or will contribute to paying off the national debt in evermore tenuous phrases. We will shoe-horn our pet projects into the AHRC’s ring-fenced themes regardless of how well they fit. We will make up outcomes and impacts like there is no tomorrow, regardless of intellectual content. No doubt, some good will come of this, particularly if it leads to closer partnerships with outside bodies, but at what cost? Academics value their independence enormously. For many, it is the one thing that makes the job worthwhile (just look at the comments in the Higher and the Guardian). Do we risk losing that if we become solely reactive to government pressures and agendas?

So what do I think my research does? Can it contribute to society in anyway? To my mind, teaching, the act of passing knowledge on and, more importantly, equipping people with the skills to create knowledge and pass it on in turn, or just merely to be curious and critical about the world around them, is the best justification for anything that I do. It certainly has a longer-term impact than any amount of media exposure, government think-tankery, or AHRC trendy clusters. The trouble is that no one important enough seems to be saying either this, or defending knowledge for its own sake. This lack of leadership is what bothers me more than anything.

In the meantime, the best and most robust defence of what we do has come from a comedian. Thank you David Mitchell.

There has recently been a series of articles in the Times Higher and in other places reflecting, bemoaning and sometimes downright scaring on the state of higher education and universities in the UK. At the core of these debates is the question of what are our universities for? Are the people who comprise the faculty an elite squad of researchers who happen to pass on the benefits of their expertise to students in their spare time? Are they teaching, or, rather, instructing machines? And that’s before we even get to the admin.

One of the things I like most about academia is that departments are composed of a broad mix of individuals, each with their own way of doing things, ideas, quirks, dress sense; however, this can be the most infuriating aspect and cause conflict. I would say that among the academics of my acquaintance, there is a goodly proportion who think that the universities’ main reason for existence is to research and everything else is secondary to that. In extreme cases, this means nothing should be allowed to impinge on research and that everything should be sublimated to it, especially in the matters of timetabling, meetings etc. Fine, they may be correct, but what about the teaching?

From conversations with colleagues here and at other institutions, I wonder if I am becoming somewhat old fashioned in my approach to what a university is and what it should be doing. Research is important, but it should not be pursued to the detriment of everything else. I took my undergraduate degree from Cambridge, a research intensive university if ever there was one in this day and age, where I was fortunate to be taught by some wonderful people who were leading lights in their field. In term time, which was ridiculously short, they gave the appearance, at least, of prioritising teaching. The flip side of this state of affairs was that no one expected (student or staff) to have conversations about teaching in the vacations. It is this attitude that I have carried with me into my current job. I believe that I should be around as much as possible in term time so my students can find me if they wish. Also, and this is a fact much neglected, that my colleagues can find me and resolve problems quickly, essential in exam time and when you convene a first-year compulsory module.

I should declare an interest here. I enjoy teaching and could not have stuck out 18 months of floundering in an archaeology unit,  three years as an hourly-paid tutor, plus two years of more secure employment before my current happy state if I didn’t. Teaching, especially when one is a medievalist, forces you to read widely and to engage with parts of history one might never dream of in terms of research. Modern historians may become dizzy if they stray beyond their 20 year comfort zone, but medievalists range across 1000 years or more of excitement, intrigue, mystery and yes, at times, tedium (as the chroniclers eloquently bear witness to). As such teaching is complements our research, throws up new angles and is, quite often, fun.

We need brilliant historians who generate new ideas, keep us on our toes and attract others to our institutions, but those who expect their students to absorb, comprehend and synthesise their content of their courses in the context of a broader curriculum in the breaks between submission to high powered journals and key not addresses risk losing something that is core to being an historian. Although solitary by nature, we thrive on face to face contact and conversation. Only talk to your peers in your cosy, comfy, insulated clique; absorb their praise, bask in glory if you must, but don’t forget our students can challenge as much as our peers. Nothing sharpens an argument better than the process of teaching – you can’t get away with extraneous flab, sometimes used to disguise the gap in a hurriedly, but otherwise brilliant piece or to hide the fact that what follows is wild speculation.

Undeniably, some people  make better researchers and some better teachers, but none of us  should be too brilliant to teach. I am exceptionally grateful for being taught by such excellent historians as an undergrad – they were also excellent teachers.

I am involved in organising some sessions for next year’s Leeds based on different medieval routes. We have a couple of gaps in various sessions, so if anyone has anything to say about the following please get in touch:

• German roads, routes and itineraries, particularly if these relate to palaces or the military orders
• Pilgrimage routes around the Mediterranean
• The Silk Road

We are particularly interested in papers that explore experience of routes from a narrative, archaeological or cartographic perspective. Please send proposals to Marianne O’Doherty as soon as possible. Thanks. Call for Papers

I am in a very fortunate position: when asked that extremely rude question, second only to ‘when will you finish your thesis/book?’, when will you get a permanent job?, I can now blow a big, fat raspberry in the enquirer’s face. Yes, I am now permanent, back to part time, but nonetheless, here to stay! This has led to some rather odd experiences, not least of all people in a similar position and some postgrads asking me how I’ve achieved this.

The short answer to that big question is that I am not entirely sure, but here are some thoughts for any passers-by wanting unsolicited careers advice.

• Be stubborn. Never underestimate how far sheer bloody mindedness will carry you through in the face of all reasonable sense.
• Know your worth. If you allow a department to walk all over you, believe me, they will treat you as a door mat. Knowing when to say, ‘Enough’ is essential.
• Smile. I am not known for smiling, so much so my students have commented on this character trait on feedback forms. In contrast, my colleagues think I am positively cheerful presence (odd to anyone who knows me well).
• Do over and above, but not to the extent of being a door mat (see above).
• Make life easy for your colleagues, but again, be wary of muddy feet.
• Be stubborn.

In addition, I am blessed in still being passionate about the middle ages, without which what would be the point, and also in having an extremely supportive partner, without whom I would have gone insane along time ago. Oh, and did I mention being stubborn?

In terms of my own work, part-time equates to some much needed breathing space to really sort out my new project and get it to the stage where I can apply for grants (which, being permanent, I can do now). My teaching and research interests are slowly coming back together again and I can use valuable time spent applying for jobs actually researching, reading, writing, thinking about teaching, or, shock horror, having fun.

Above all, I’ve told those who have asked, if I can do it, so can they. For once, being a good colleague has won the prize.

This year, the Battle conference was at Gregynog in Powys due to the closure of the usual venue of Pyke House. Although beer in the Chequers was sorely missed, the conference itself was very interesting and, once I’d got my paper out of the way, enjoyable. I’m afraid tales of the social scene will have to come from someone else, as I was far too exhausted to stay up this year. So, what of the papers?

The R. Allen Brown memorial lecture was given by Prof. Dominique Barthelemy on ‘The Peace of God and bishops at war in the Gallic lands from the late tenth to the early twelfth centuries’, a large and weighty topic with which to begin the conference. Although the paper was delivered in English, Prof. Barthelemy provided everyone with a copy, which proved essential, as he cut large chunks as he went along. His argument focused on the behaviour of the bishops involved in the ‘Peace of God’ and took issue with Cowdrey’s linking of diocesan peaces and the Gregorian reform.  Instead of these oaths to keep the peace being a ‘pacifist movement to abolish a feudal system based on war’, they produced warrior bishops who were just as ‘feudal’ as the counts and lords they were campaigning against. What is key here is that a combination of factors, including Gregorian reform and the influence of the urban classes, acted as an impetus for the king to organise his own troops, paid for by urban taxes, rather than getting the bishops to do it for him. This summary does not do the paper justice, but I hope gives you a flavour – I haven’t, for example, discussed Barthelemy’s consideration of the communes.

Other highlights for me included Stephen Marrit’s paper on ‘Royal souls, titles and superlatives in Anglo-Norman charters’. I think it’s quite established that I don’t do charters, but this was a paper I could get excited about. Rather that just talking about various different clauses, Marrit showed how these documents could be read as responses to political crises, the reigns of Henry I and Stephen being the main focus. I’m having a little difficulty decoding my notes here, but among the many interesting points raised was how we can understand the conceptualisation of titles and roles as well as an understanding of royal authority among the barons. I’m looking forward to reading this one again (rather than trying to concentrate after giving my own paper).

The award for courage has go to Max Lieberman who was speaking on ‘Knighthood and chivalry in the histories of the Norman dukes: Dudo and Benoit’ in which he traced how Dudo, an eleventh-century Latin chronicle was translated into a twelfth-century vernacular French verse chronicle. Anyone who has read Dudo will know just have difficult his Latin is and Benoit is incredibly long, so this is a real labour of love.  Lieberman employed linguistic analysis to look at different categories (chevalier, homme, etc.) in order to try to understand social relations within the texts. Again, this was an incredibly dense paper and much was cut.

Also talking about chronicles was Joanna Huntington, in her case accounts of Earl Waltheof’s activities and execution. This paper forms part of a wider project on ‘Heroes from histories: shaping lay male virtue in post-Conquest England and Normandy’. What came out of this paper was the importance not of what Waltheof had done, but the context of the chroniclers. Orderic Vitalis (I’ve done well not to mention him in five paragraphs), writing in a monastic context, had a much more positive (not a good word, but the best I can do at the moment) view of Waltheof because he listened to clerics and was obedient to the Church. What also came out of Joanna’s paper was just how difficult using a particular example or case study can be, as she acknowledged. Not only am I looking forward to reading this paper again, but can’t wait for the book.

Those were my personal highlights, but there was much more discussed about comital education in charters, forest law and Domesday Book, the latter in a provocative and interesting paper by Julian Munby. We debated the big questions of the Peace of God, urban transformations and the nature of history writing. I managed not to make a fool of  myself and received plenty of useful questions and comments after my paper. The project I thought would be a series of articles instead of a monograph, now looks like being a monograph again, which has made me happier about my work than I have been in ages. Let’s just hope I can turn it into something publishable.

One last point. Battle is an interesting conference also for the mix of people it attracts. Granted the great and good of Anglo-Norman history are generally in attendance, but this year, we had a lady who had taken time off from a completely non-history related job to come along. It was nice to think that we might be addressing a broader audience and I hope she enjoyed it.

Next week sees my third, and hopefully final, conference of the summer – the Battle Conference on Anglo-Norman Studies 2009. Last year I commented on my experience of a past Battle and why I hadn’t been back to the conference for eight years. I also reported on what a good conference Battle 2008 turned out to be. This year, the conference will be in Gregynog (Powys) due to the closure of Pyke House. The observant among you will have noticed the slight change from my normal conference previews: I’m giving a paper this year and will no doubt look forward to the conference in retrospect!

Battle is not a themed conference, except that it’s loosely framed around the tenth-twelfth centuries and all things Anglo-Norman, but this year does have a spatial, or at least geographic, flavour to it with Dolly Jorgensen speaking about royal forests, Laurence Jean-Marie on commercial links between towns and ports in thirteenth-century lower Normandy and England, Richard Holt on the urban transformation and myself talking about outdoor space in Norman chronicles, particularly journeys and descriptions of the landscape. It would not be an understatement to say that I am terrified.

The R. Allen Brown memorial lecture will be given this year by Dominique Barthelemy on ‘Some reflections about the Peace of God and bishops at            war’. This isn’t a topic I have thought much about since my undergrad days, and Barthelemy is an eminent historian of feudal society, so it will be interesting to see what he has to say and whether I understand it. Unfortunately, the Allen Brown lecture is the evening before my paper, so panic may well be the order of the day.

It will be a while before I write up the report on Battle as I am going on holiday straight after (an epic train journey from Powys to Par). Silence in this case will not necessarily mean I’ve fled medieval history forever if things have gone badly, though I utterly reserve the right to do so!

I’ve survived another Leeds (my 8th I believe) and thankfully, it was better than last year’s, both in terms of quality and weather. I still have some concerns about the over-use of case studies, but more of those later. I failed miserably to make it to either bloggers’ meeting due to double-booking myself and a successful round table: I’m sure Magistra et Mater and Jonathan Jarrett will update everyone on that score (the bloggers, not the roundtable).

The highlights for me this year were the session on the Edges of Orthodoxy in the Angevin Empire, Nick Karn’s paper on thirteenth-century English bishops and the indefatigable Pauline Stafford. Edges of Orthodoxy explored the relationship between Rouen and its surrounding leper houses to good effect and this work is forming the basis of a broader project by Elma Brenner looking at leprosy and society in Normandy. What interested me, the Formation of a Persecuting Society aside, is that the monastic character of these institutions substantially alters after the thirteenth century as the population becomes more transient. We also heard about the cost of Henry II’s penance for the murder of Thomas Becket from Fanny Madeline. Henry gave a great deal of building materials to various monastic houses, which may not have been all that it appeared (at least to Gerald of Wales). Fanny presented detailed analysis of gifts of lead to show how Henry could exploit the situation and resources at his disposal without impoverishing the crown. Finally, Paul Wester considered the language used in letters from Pope Innocent III to King John relating to his excommunication and sentence of inderdict in England. What was fascinating here was the idea of Innocent as a ‘doctor’ dishing out remedies and medicine to cure the patient.

Like the ‘Edges of Orthodoxy’ session, both Nick Karn and Pauline Stafford had much to say about their particular case studies, but broadened out their discussions to suggest new ways of approaching topics and the big questions that need addressing. In Nick’s case, this was a plea to understand the roles of bishops more broadly – a study of bishopship if you like, much as we study kingship as a role and in terms of what it means to different constituencies. Pauline, as ever, was trying to uncover the lives of almost-forgotten and poorly documented women. In a beautifully crafted paper that was refreshingly honest about its problems, she considered the careers of Aethelred II’s daughters, drawing on tenth-century English and continental parallels. What emerged was a much more complex picture of marriage and kinship alliances than I had ever considered.

Less satisfactory this year I felt were the number of sessions in which the papers focused on very specific case studies and failed to broaden their perspective to suggest anything at all about the workings of medieval society. For example, the session I attended on Thursday morning on hagiography, although fascinating in its presentation of the sources relating to three particular saints, said nothing at all about the practices of sanctity in the middle ages, or even why these saints in particular were important areas of study. It may be that the 9am Thursday post-dance slot curse had struck, but it was nonetheless frustrating. More so, because the participants perhaps should have known better, were the archaeologically inclined sessions on the Tuesday: palaces, appropriation of landscapes, and space in peasant communities. The latter was especially frustrating as the second paper had nothing to do with space, ran over time and didn’t explain why the author had chosen case studies from Wiltshire and Norfolk. Having said that the paper on dichotomies between lords and peasants in relation to the understanding of manure (both figuratively and in agricultural practice) was fascinating, if narrow.

Now, I am not saying that case studies are a bad thing, but as I mentioned in last year’s report, it can get a little tiresome. I am probably as guilty as the next person in the over use of wonderfully illuminating, yet quite specialised gobbets, but I do hope I explain why I think these are important and why, frankly, we should be bothered. It is partly a fault of the way we work, stuck inside our own heads with not enough interaction. What can seem so obvious to us is not at all to other people and needs to be explained, elucidated and illuminated!

This brings me to the Navigating Space round table, which I organised along with two colleagues.  The premise for our discussion was to bring people from difference disciplines (history, literature, art history and archaeology) together to talk about what we mean when we write about ’space’, what methodologies we use, and whether interdisciplinarity is achievable or even desirable. Over the course of the discussion, we discovered that Paul Hyams (who wasn’t there) has termed medieval studies ‘pre-disciplinary’, which I think is a) wonderful, b) hits the nail on the head as none of us are purely historians or purely archaeologists and c) renders the ghastly notion of ‘interdisciplinarity’ redundant. The different medieval theories of space at both miro- and macro-spatial levels proved fruitful terrain. In summing up, Matthew Johnson drew attention to the necessity of understanding the vernacular of each other’s disciplines as this is where the misunderstandings occur and importantly, to explore the lack of fit between different sources and not to seek to impose a false sense of order on our understanding of medieval space. There is also, of course, the vexed issue of how other people, both in past and contemporary societies, use medieval spaces. Plenty to think about there for next year!

All in all, a good Leeds then – roll on Travel and Exploration as I can’t wait to be taken to new places or to walk down familiar routes in new ways.