Medieval Rural Settlement and Infrastructure Archaeology Across Europe

This volume surveys how new infrastructure across 15 European countries affects medieval rural archaeology. Case studies assess legal frameworks, impacts, and mitigation, with concluding best‑practice recommendations to ensure future developments better support understanding of medieval settlements.

This volume provides a unique new Europe-wide perspective on the impact of infrastructure‑led archaeology on our knowledge of medieval rural settlement.

Across the 5th–16th centuries, most of Europe’s population lived and worked in the countryside, based in villages, hamlets, farms and small towns. Some of these medieval settlements persist today, but many others were abandoned and, over time, erased from memory.

Good infrastructure is essential for modern society to function well, but its construction can be immensely destructive of archaeological sites including medieval settlements whose remains are rarely sufficiently monumental to warrant costly redesign to preserve them intact. However, since the adoption across Europe of the ‘polluter pays’ principle obliging developers to fund the identification, investigation and recording for posterity of at-risk archaeological remains, our understanding of the extent and range of medieval settlement remains in the landscape has expanded substantially.

The volume explores the paradox that ‘While large‑scale infrastructure projects represent a major challenge for archaeology, they also offer opportunities to expand scientific knowledge’ (Rácz & Sárosi, this volume). Fifteen new reviews by experts in medieval archaeology and heritage management in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Scotland and Spain consider the impact of discoveries from infrastructure-led archaeology on knowledge of rural settlement in the past, and on archaeological practice today. The volume culminates in a synthesising overview distilling transnational themes and identifying ten key actions shown by experience across these fifteen different states to maximise the knowledge dividend of infrastructure archaeology.

This volume is essential reading for anyone interested in the historic countryside, heritage management or impactful archaeological investigation.

Key organisations and contributor biographies

Foreword

Introduction: Exploring the impact of infrastructure archaeology on medieval rural settlement remains across Europe – Carenza Lewis, with Neil Christie, Gareth Davies and Aidan O’Sullivan

Infrastructure archaeology and medieval rural settlement in Austria – Claudia Theune and Eva Steigberger

The impact of infrastructure archaeology on knowledge and understanding of medieval rural settlement in Bulgaria, with case studies from Vidin region – Zdravko Dimitrov and Elena Vasileva (with contributions by Carenza Lewis)

Infrastructure archaeology and medieval rural settlements in Croatia – Andrej Janeš

Infrastructure Archaeology and Research on Inhabited Rural Settlements in the Czech Republic – Pavel Vařeka, Petr Lissek, Petr Netolický and David Novák

Infrastructure archaeology and medieval rural settlement in Denmark – Mette Svart Kristiansen

Assess, Dig, Avoid: reflections on the contribution of linear infrastructure projects in advancing an understanding of medieval settlement in England, 2000–23 – Richard Newman with Carenza Lewis

Infrastructure archaeology and medieval rural settlement in the former County of Flanders (western Flanders, Belgium) – Ewoud Deschepper, Wim De Clercq, Floris Beke, Johan Hoorne and Gerben Verbrugghe

A new reading of the fabric of the village: the contribution of preventive archaeology to the knowledge of rural settlements of the Early Middle Ages in France – Edith Peytremann

Infrastructure projects, rural development and medieval settlement archaeology in southern and western Germany – Rainer Schreg and Aline Kottmann

Large-scale Infrastructure Archaeology and Medieval Rural Settlement in Hungary – Tibor Ákos Rácz and Edit Sárosi

Early Medieval Rural Settlement Archaeology in Ireland and the Impact of Large Infrastructural Developments – Aidan O’Sullivan and Rónán Swan

Major Modern Infrastructure Projects and the Archaeology of the Middle Ages in Rural Italy – Paul Arthur

The impact of large infrastructure projects on the state of knowledge about the development of medieval rural settlements in Poland – Paweł Duma

Medieval Rural Settlement, Infrastructure Projects and Commercial Development: The Scottish Experience – John A. Atkinson

Infrastructure Archaeology and Medieval Settlements in Spain: A Partial Review – Jesús Fernández Fernández and Gabriel Moshenska

Roads to ruin – or restitution? The impact of infrastructure-led archaeology on rural medieval settlement across Europe – Carenza Lewis, Neil Christie, Gareth Davies and Aidan O’Sullivan

Carenza Lewis is Professor of Public Engagement with Research at the University of Lincoln, having formerly been archaeological investigator with the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England, research fellow at Birmingham University, and director of Access Cambridge Archaeology at Cambridge University.

Neil Christie is Professor of Medieval Archaeology at the University of Leicester, UK, where he has been based since 1992.

Gareth Davies is Technical Director at SLR Consulting and an Honorary Research Fellow in Medieval Archaeology at the University of Nottingham.

Aidan O’Sullivan is Professor of Archaeology and Head of UCD School of Archaeology, at University College Dublin.

• Edited by Carenza Lewis
• Edited by Neil Christie
• Edited by Gareth Davies
• Edited by Aidan O’Sullivan