Messy Developments: The Temporality of Economic Developments in Medieval England

In Commerce Before Capitalism, the historian Martha Howell argues against the re-construction of a linear pathway to modern capitalism, but for understanding the medieval economy on its own terms. Her concern is primarily with the uncritical imposition of modern economic concepts and ideals onto the medieval past, but such teleological analyses of economic development have further implications; I propose that they are deeply patriarchal and anthropocentric. In this seminar I bring the work of Howell and the Deep History approach to commercial development of Daniel Lord Smail into dialogue with new materialist approaches inspired by the work of Deleuze and Guattari (particularly that of Jane Bennet and Rosi Braidotti) and historical and archaeological evidence to examine the non-linearity of economic development. A focus on the objects and materials, the ‘stuff’ of the medieval economy demands us to adopt a non-linear approach to temporality, to consider how the affective properties of things and materials bring the potential to reproduce or break-down social and political ‘structures’. Focussing on tasks often seen as marginal and associated with domestic, female, labour will provide a basis for engaging with the complex and affective human-material entanglements out of which economic development emerged.

Dr Ben Jervis is lecturer in Archaeology at Cardiff University, UK. He is a specialist in the archaeology and material culture of medieval England and has published widely on topics including consumption, ceramics and urban development. His work is influenced by new materialist approaches such as Actor-Network Theory and Assemblage Thought, the latter being the topic of his most recent book Assemblage Thought and Archaeology. He is currently engaged in a 3-year interdisciplinary research project (with Dr Chris Briggs, University of Cambridge) entitled Living Standards and Material Culture in English Rural Households, 1300-1600, funded by the Leverhulme Trust. This project draws on archaeological and historical evidence to examine the possessions of medieval non-elite households