Household goods in the European Medieval and Early Modern Countryside

Although household goods are a well-establish topic in Medieval and Early Modern archaeology, more recent research is overcoming simple typological and technological aspects and pointing to broader approaches, which relates to the understanding of goods’ production, consumption strategies, other economic activities and structures of social organization. Thus, the understanding of past societies and cultures relies heavily in the study of their household goods to understand people, groups and societies. In this context, the aim of the Ruralia XIV Conference was to emphasize the significance of household archaeology to the study of the European countryside in Medieval and Modern times under a cross-cultural approach. Detailed analysis of single contexts, small parts of sites, faunal, botanical and soil studies enables us to reconstruct common peoples’ activities and interactions within their homes. House functions can be detected by means of specific installations but also by inventories and location of goods, evidence for particular activities inside, such as cooking and eating, storage, weaving, refuse disposal, resting, etc. or by a comprehensive overview of outdoor surroundings. All this is evidence of functional purposes but it can also tell us about the rank and wealth of their owners, their daily lives, household compositions, family concepts and even gender statuses. Moreover, structural analysis can give evidence about spheres of interaction and patterned behaviours within a house. In different sections (archaeology and household; temporary households; living conditions; spatial structure; household objects and social and economic status) case studies across Europe are presented.

Table of Contents:
Foreword and Introduction   Household goods in the European medieval and early modern countryside – an introduction Catarina Tente, Claudia Theune   Archaeology and Household   Is that all there is? Reflections on the presence and survival of household goods in archaeological contexts Bert Groenewoudt, Rowin van Lanen   Household goods illuminated by motivation and need theories in Hanfelden Castle in the early modern countryside of Styria, Austria Iris Winkelbauer, Claudia Theune   Household and home life in the Russian Countryside during the sixteenth to first half of the eighteenth century, according to archaeological finds in Alexandrovskaya Sloboda Irina Zaytseva   Tenth-century peasant houses and household goods. The potential and limitations of the archaeological record from Beira Alta (Portugal). Tente, Gabriel de Souza, João LuísVeloso, Catarina Meira   Temporary households   Exploring the “extended” household? Historical landscapes, material culture and building materials at the Monte Fasce settlements, Liguria, Italy (17th-21st c.) Giulia Bizzarri, Anna Stagno   Household in a settlement dealing with large animal husbandry from the 10-11th century in west Hungary Ádám Pátkai   Living conditions and household   Making a house a home: odd deposits in ordinary households in later medieval Ireland 1200-1600 AD Karen Dempsey   Checking-in at the multispecies hotel: Natureculture and the early medieval house Rachel Brody   Households from early medieval rural settlements in Alto Alentejo (Central Portugal): material culture and social structures Sara Prata, Fabián Cuesta-Gómez   Spatial structure and household   Refitting the past. The spatial distribution of finds as a key for understanding activities and the use of space in medieval farm buildings in the Northern Netherlands Jan van Doesburg   Kecskemét-Törökfái-dűlő: structure and topographical elements of an Árpádian-age settlement in the Danube-Tisza Interfluve Region, Hungary Nikoletta Lukács   Social and economic status and household   Household goods of late medieval peasants in Denmark Mette Svart Kristiansen   Household goods from excavations at homestead in Kopaniec (Seifershau), Poland Paweł Duma, Jerzy Piekalski   Contextual value of iron household goods in the late medieval countryside: testimony of the Czech Lands Tomáš Klir, Martin Janovský, Lucie Hylmarová   Peasant household – noble household: objects and structures. Some remarks on household archaeology of late medieval Hungary László Ferenczi, Edit Sárosi, Csilla Zatykó   Social inequality and household goods in central Iberia during the early middle ages Carlos Tejerizo   Lord in the Village: Can houseware and personal equipment indicate the presence of a social class? Andrej Janeš   Local societies and early medieval domestic economies in the light of the Basque Country archaeological record (8th-10th centuries) Juan Antonio Quirós Castillo   Particular activities – particular household objects   Pottery in medieval rural households – perspectives of archaeological research in Southern Germany Rainer Schreg   Household goods for winter travel and leisure in Norway – objects, games and processes of enculturation Marie Ødegaard, Kjetil Loftsgarden   Household goods of Ottoman soldiers in the rural fortified settlements of the 16th–17th century in Hungary Ágnes Kolláth, Bianka Kovávs, Gyönyi Kovács, Zsófia Nádai   A sign of wealth or everyday objects? The use of stoneware vessels in medieval and early modern Southern Finland Tuuli Heinonen   Artefacts of osseous and keratinous materials from the Netherlands – the project Jørn Zeiler, Marloes J. Rijkelijkhuizen, Marloes, Joyce van Dijk

About the Author :
Catarina Tente is Professor of Medieval and Rural Archaeology at the Nova University of Lisbon with a focus on early medieval rural communities, rural landscape, mountain landscapes, social archaeology. Claudia Theune is Professor of Historical Archaeology at the University of Vienna with a focus on contemporary archaeology, on medieval and post-medieval marginal landscapes and on early medieval funeral and social archaeology.