Ceremony and ostentation in the medieval landscape — from Tomen-y-Mur to Petra Nigra

In a characteristically insightful article in Landscape History volume 40 (2), the field archaeologist and historian Chris Taylor drew attention to the existence in the landscape of medieval temporary camps. Using a rare documentary reference of 1284 which alluded to the preparation of an encampment for Edward i’s household, Taylor identified Tomen-y-Mur in the northern Welsh hills, a highly symbolic location, as the site of a gathering to mark his conquest of Wales in 1283. The present article adds to Taylor’s thesis by looking at five places in France — St Germain-des-Prés at Paris, and four places in Gascony (Edward’s duchy of Aquitaine) — where similar temporary camps or, more accurately, temporary assembly places, were created by the same king’s servants. Archaeological evidence and precise locations for these sites are lacking at present, but bringing together documentary evidence, and looking at their likely topographic position, might allow future fieldwork to take the debate further forward, and to find undocumented examples, while at the same exploring the landscape significance of the places chosen for these events.