Dr Amanda Richardson, BA Hons (UCW) MA (Soton) PhD (Soton)
Contact Details
Telephone: +44 (0) 1243 816204
Fax: +44 (0) 01243 816080
Office Number: New Hall, N122
I am senior lecturer in medieval and early modern history, and have a background in archaeology. Due to this, I encourage students to use material culture (i.e. the built environment, designed landscapes, art, and other cultural artefacts) as historical ‘evidence’, alongside written sources. I teach modules in late-medieval history at all levels, including ‘Kingship, Queenship and Power in Medieval and Early Modern Europe’ at level 3. In fact medieval queenship is one of my main interests. I am currently researching the way queens managed their substantial estates from c.1200-1500, and thus how they functioned, in a gendered context, as ‘great lords’.
My doctoral thesis was the study of a Wiltshire royal forest from c.1200 to c.1650, so I am also interested in landscape/local/ regional history. Hence my level one module ‘The Material World’ focuses on Chichester and its buildings, and gives students the opportunity to carry out their own research using original historical documents held in the West Sussex Record Office. I also teach ‘Spaces and Places’ at level three, which allows students to analyse local landscapes such as Chichester Cemetery and Arundel Castle as socio-cultural artefacts. Another interest is the interface between history and heritage, and I co-ordinate the level 2 work placement module, which offers students the chance to explore the links between academic history and local and regional communities and to make a real contribution to the dissemination of knowledge at local heritage sites.
I speak regularly at conferences on such diverse topics as medieval deer parks, Tudor gardens, queens’ apartments in medieval palaces, knighthood in late-twentieth-century film, and even impotence in the Middle Ages!
Publications:
- ‘Putting the “Royal” Back into Forests: Kingship, Largesse, Patronage and Management in a Group of Wessex Forests in the 13th and 14th Centuries’, ed. J. Langton and G. Jones, Forests and Chases of England and Wales to circa 1500 (St John’s College, Oxford, 2009)
- “‘The King’s Chief Delights”: A Landscape Approach to the Royal Parks of Post-Conquest England’, in The Medieval Park: New Perspectives, ed. R. Liddiard (Windgather Press, 2007)
- ‘Women, Castles & Palaces’, in Women and Gender in Medieval Europe: An Encyclopedia, ed. M. Schaus (Routledge, 2006)
- ‘‘‘Hedging, Ditching and Other Improper Occupations”: Royal Landscapes and their Meaning Under Edward II and Edward III’, in Fourteenth Century England IV, ed. J. Hamilton (Boydell and Brewer, 2006)
- The Medieval Forest, Park and Palace of Clarendon, Wiltshire c.1200-c.1650: Reconstructing an Actual, Conceptual & Documented Wiltshire Landscape (Archaeopress, 2005)
- ‘Corridors of Power: A Case Study in Access Analysis from Medieval Salisbury, England’ (Antiquity 77, no.296, 2003)
- ‘Queens’ Apartments in Medieval Palaces c.1160-1540: A Study in Access Analysis & Imagery’ (Medieval Archaeology 47, 2003).