PV1A17 Medieval Archaeology

Faculty of Arts
Autumn 2008
Extent and Intensity
1/1/0. 2 credit(s). Type of Completion: z (credit).
Teacher(s)
prof. PhDr. Zdeněk Měřínský, CSc. (lecturer)
Guaranteed by
doc. PhDr. Helena Krmíčková, Dr.
Department of Archaeology and Museology – Faculty of Arts
Contact Person: Martina Maradová
Timetable
Thu 16:40–18:15 C43
Course Enrolment Limitations
The course is also offered to the students of the fields other than those the course is directly associated with.
fields of study / plans the course is directly associated with
Course objectives
Course description: Systematics of the field within the framework of Central Europe, individual settlement types and objects, the problem of extinct villages, the culture of every-day life, the study of castles and monasteries.
Syllabus
  • 1. Definition of the term medieval archaeology, subject of the study and the timeframe (different approaches in various European countries); contact and overlapping with other fields of archaeology (industrial, post-medieval etc.). The main spheres of research and issues (history of technics; spiritual sphere; production and economy; social development and settlement). Archaeological sources of material nature and their usage in the work of a historian-medievist. 2. An outline of basic literature from the field of medieval archaeology and the work with this literature. Basic reference books of encyclopaedic and dictionary character, textbooks, special methodological studies and specifics of the field theory and practice (Harris method and other specifics of field documentation and guidance of medieval arch. research). Basic works and syntheses for Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia, and monographs summarizing the issues relating to the individual parts of Europe. An outline of the main specialized European periodicals (incl. the USA). 3. Methodical procedures and specifics of medieval archaeology methodology (archaeological process; sources and their criticism; operations related with formulation of the issues, diagnosis, analysis and interpretation). Main theoretical orientations and philosophical resources (positivism and neopositivism, structuralism, marxism, analytical and new archaeology, post-processualism etc.). The “Annales” French school and historiography (mainly medievistics). 4. Systematics of the medieval archaeology branch. Natural conditions, development of settlement, rural settlements, sacral objects, feudal manors, towns and their genesis, economy, social development, agriculture and crafts (production facilities and the individual spheres and groups of material culture relics), artistic craft. 5. History of research in the sphere of medieval archaeology (until 1945); the first targeted medieval researches (Bohemia and Moravia, Slovakia until 1918, Czechoslovakia, Germany); resources of hiving off the specialist medieval archaeology discipline (antiquarian, cultural – historical, fine-art historical approaches; the share of prehistoric archaeology and its methods; the benefit of application of stratigraphical method; J. E. Vocel, J. Koula, K. Guth, K. Hilbert, L. Niederle, G. Skalský, V. Mencl, I. Borkovský). Fine-art history (NM in Prague) and archaeological orientations (StAÚ in Prague, est. 1919). Research of the Prague Castle (since 1925), Vyšehrad and other localities. 6. Emergence of the medieval archaeology concept after 1945 (StAÚ in Prague, NM in Prague; J. Böhm, I. Borkovský and V. Denkstein); impulses in the Hussite movement research (Z. Nejedlý, Z. Drobná) and the discussion on the origins of feudalism (F. Graus, J. Böhm, K. Černohorský atd.); seminar meeting 1953 (theoretical, chronological, thematic and methodological definition of the discipline; V. Denkstein and others); impulses for the branch in the form of exhibitions by NM in Prague and MZM in Brno (the Hussite movement, medieval village and pottery). The first major post-war researches; medieval archaeologist founder generation. 7. Development of medieval archaeology in Moravia and in Slovakia. Moravia. The first researches of abandoned medieval villages, the development of Slavonic archaeology after 1945, and impulses for the High Middle Ages archaeology. Main research circuits, organization of scientific work, places of work, the most important researches and persons. Slovakia. The first excavations; organization of research places of work; development of research after 1945 and important persons. 8. Medieval archaeology as a typical interdisciplinary branch. Cooperating branches from the sphere of technical and natural sciences, social sciences and historical branches. The position of medieval archaeology within auxiliary sciences of history and its separation as an independent discipline. 9. Methods of prospecting and dating applied in medieval archaeology. Geophysical methods of prospecting, aerial photogrammetry, phosphate soil analysis, methods and principles of surface reconnaissance including geodesy survey of surface relics and ascertained situations. Dating methods, suitable and unsuitable (C14, thermoluminiscence, archaeomagnetism, pollen diagrams, dendrochronology, its principles and outcomes). 10. Cooperating branches of natural sciences (inanimate nature) and selected outcomes of cooperation. Geology, petrography and petroarchaeology, pedology, hydrogeology a hydrology, geography, orography and field morphology determining and co-creating the conditions for medieval settlement. Studied sites; researchers; outcomes. 11. Cooperating branches of natural sciences (animate nature except anthropology). Palynology, palaeobotanics, development of forest, microbiology and parasitology, entomology, malakozoology, palaeozoology. Studied sites; researchers; outcomes. 12. Anthropology and palaeodemography, palaeopathology and the cognition of health state of the population; their importance, methods and findings. An outline of analysed collections, sites, outcomes and research tasks. Demographic development of early and high medieval Europe, migration within the Euro-Asian space, types of populations, Black Death. 13. Cooperation with branches of social sciences, especially historic branches, and their outcomes. Medievistics, historic research and auxiliary sciences of history (diplomatics, palaeography, epigraphy, heraldry, genealogy, sfragistics, codicology, metrology, chronology, filigranology), numismatics, legal history, history of arts, historic geography and settlement geography (iconographic material, maps, vedutas and their utilization), ethnology and ethnography, linguistics and toponomastics, study of medieval routes and their relics, the development of boundaries, patrotinia, church history, liturgy and church symbolism. 14. Specific outcomes of scientific branches and social sciences cooperation within the framework of a complex cognition of processes influencing medieval social and economic development. Historical climatology, reconstruction of the natural environment and the extent of forest as well as its character; fluvial plane in early and high Middle Ages. 15. Medieval archaeology and the study of natural environment, reconstruction of early and late settlement area and chronological horizons of settlement. Area of discoveries, its picture and listings (archaeological topography), criticisms of finds and sources.
Literature
  • MĚŘÍNSKÝ, Zdeněk. Archaeologia historica. Brno: MVS, AÚ AV ČR, ÚAM FF MU, 2005, 527 pp. Archaeologia historica 30. ISBN 80-7275-056-9. info
  • LE GOFF, Jacques. Kultura středověké Evropy. Vyd. 2., Ve Vyšehradu 1. Praha: Vyšehrad, 2005, 702 s. ISBN 8070218088. info
  • NEKUDA, Vladimír, Zdeněk MĚŘÍNSKÝ and Pavel KOUŘIL. Archaeologia historica 29/04. Sborník příspěvků přednesených na XXXV. konferenci archeologů středověku České republiky a Slovenské republiky s hlavním zaměřením hranice v životě středověkého člověka (Archaeologia historica 29/04. XXXV. Conference Proceedings of Medieval Archaeologists of The Czech Republik and Slovakia. Primary thema: The Boundaries in the Life of Medieval Man). In Archaeologia historica 29/04. Sborník příspěvků přednesených na XXXV. konferenci archeologů středověku České republiky a Slovenské republiky s hlavním zaměřením hranice v životě středověkého člověka. první. Brno: Muzejní a vlastivědná společnost v Brně, Kláštorisko, n. o. Levoča, Ústav archeologie a muzeologie Filozofické fakulty Masarykovy univerzity, 2004, p. 1-626. ISBN 80-7275-049-6. info
  • PETRÁŇ, Josef. Dějiny hmotné kultury. I. (1), Vymezení kulturních dějin. Kultura každodenního života od pravěku do 15. století. 1. vyd. Praha: Státní pedagogické nakladatelství, 1985, 478 s., xi. info
  • Dějiny hmotné kultury. I. (2), Kultura každodenního života od 13. do 15. století. Edited by Josef Petráň. Praha: Státní pedagogické nakladatelství, 1985, s. 489-997. info
Assessment methods
Teaching: 2 hours lecture + 2 hours seminar per week Assessment: Test, oral examination
Language of instruction
Czech
Further comments (probably available only in Czech)
Study Materials
The course is taught once in two years.
General note: koná se v sudém roce.
Information on course enrolment limitations: NEZAPISUJE KOMBINACE PVH-AE
The course is also listed under the following terms Autumn 2002, Autumn 2003, Autumn 2004, Autumn 2006, Autumn 2010, Autumn 2012, Autumn 2014, Autumn 2016, Spring 2018.
  • Enrolment Statistics (Autumn 2008, recent)
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