Books and Authorships by Dr Rachel E . Swallow FSA
M. Rzepiela and R. E. Swallow (eds), What really was a castle? : Widening the horizons of interdisciplinary interpretation, Proceedings of the European Association of Archaeologists conference (EAA), Kiel, Germany: 8 – 11 September 2021 , 2024
PhD (Archaeology). University of Chester (unpublished), 2015
PhD
Co-authors: McGuicken [Swallow], R. and Liddiard, R
Published Articles and Chapters of Edited Volumes by Dr Rachel E . Swallow FSA
Archaeologia Cambrensis , 2023
By RACHEL E. SWALLOW Cheshire was a compact lordship along the northern part of the medieval Wels... more By RACHEL E. SWALLOW Cheshire was a compact lordship along the northern part of the medieval Welsh border, where the late eleventh-century county borders were more extensive than they are today. This is evidenced in Great Domesday Book, which shows that Cheshire included the semi-detached entity of a likely separate administration represented by modern Flintshire and part of Denbighshire in northeast Wales; both modern counties are situated west of the river Dee and the Anglo-Norman Cheshire earls' honorial seat at Chester. Notably, it was in these medieval northern English/Welsh Borderlands of this northeast Wales area where the Cheshire earls and their tenants built approximately half of the entire county's castles (twenty-one definite and possible fortifications), dating from the late eleventh century onwards. The geographical focus of this article will be the northern English/Welsh Borderlands west of the river Dee.
in M. Rzepiela and R. E. Swallow (eds), What really was a castle? : Widening the horizons of interdisciplinary interpretation, Proceedings of the European Association of Archaeologists conference (EAA), Kiel, Germany: 8 – 11 September 2021
Chateau Gaillard Colloque, vol. 31, 2024
Proceedings of the International Conference in Carcassonne, 4 - 7 November, 2021: Fortification and sovereign powers (1180-1340).: Fortified architecture and territorial control in the 13th century, 2023
Archaeologia Cambrensis, vol. 221, 2022
Anglo-Saxon royal vill of Farndon in Cheshire, of which Aldford township formed a fundamental sec... more Anglo-Saxon royal vill of Farndon in Cheshire, of which Aldford township formed a fundamental secular component. By focusing on a wider geo-political context, the former site of a late Anglo-Saxon royal palace is suggested based on fresh evidence. In turn, it is demonstrated that Aldford Castle was unlikely to have been built over the former regal palace site, as has been asserted in the past, but instead over an Anglo-Saxon thegnly site of particular strategic and commercial importance. The paper concludes that the seemingly humble earthworks of Aldford Castle that remain in the landscape today, are in fact symbolic of a continuation of significant regal and comital power within the more comprehensive context of the entire royal vill at Farndon from at least the tenth century. Ultimately, the paper promotes a wider temporal and spatial research methodology, to help explain the siting of castles generally.
Chateau Gaillard, 29, 2020
The Queen’s Gate at Caernarfon Castle has hitherto escaped due academic attention. This paper exa... more The Queen’s Gate at Caernarfon Castle has hitherto escaped due academic attention. This paper examines medieval gate architecture in relation to tangible traces of Caernarfon’s extant Roman buildings, medieval churches, gardens and parks, as well as the intangible memory represented in the Medieval Welsh tale of Breudwyt Maxen Wledic (‘The Dream of Macsen Wledig’). This paper will contribute to future research of the geopolitical, social and symbolic relations between castles, their builders, and elite and legendary seascapes and landscapes.
Cherchez la femme: Une nouvelle approche interdisciplinaire, sur plusieurs périodes, pour comprendre l'interaction entre les sexes, le lieu et les espaces au château de Caernarfon à Gwynedd (Pays de Galles).
La porte de la Reine du château de Caernarfon a jusqu'ici échappé à l'attention académique. Cet article examine l’architecture des portes médiévales en relation avec les traces tangibles des vestiges romains existants, des églises médiévales, et du jardin et du parc de Caernarfon, ainsi que des témoignages immatériels rapportés dans le conte gallois médiéval, Breudwyt Maxen Wledic (‘The Dream of Macsen Wledig’). Cet article contribue à la recherche à venir sur les relations géopolitiques, sociales et symboliques entre les châteaux, ceux qui les construisirent, les paysage marins et les paysages légendaires et d'élite associées où ils s’inscrivaient.
Cherchez la Femme: Ein neuer interdisziplinärer und periodenübergreifender Ansatz zum Verständnis von Geschlecht, Ort und Raum auf Schloss Caernarfon in Gwynedd, Wales
Das Königintor in Caernarfon Castle ist bisher der akademischen Aufmerksamkeit entgangen. Dieser Aufsatz untersucht die mittelalterliche Torarchitektur in Bezug auf konkrete Spuren von Caernarfons erhaltenen römischen Gebäuden, mittelalterlichen Kirchen, Gärten und Parks sowie die immaterielle Erinnerung, die im walisischen Mittelalter von Breudwyt Maxen Wledic (‘The Dream of Macsen Wledig’) dargestellt wird. Dieses Papier wird einen Beitrag zur künftigen Erforschung der geopolitischen, sozialen und symbolischen Beziehungen zwischen Burgen, ihren Erbauern sowie elitären und legendären Meeres- und Landschaften leisten.
Cheshire History Journal, No. 50, 2019 - 2020, 2019
(NB THIS PAPER IS IN TWO PARTS)
In 1314, it was recorded in the Plea Rolls of the Chester County... more (NB THIS PAPER IS IN TWO PARTS)
In 1314, it was recorded in the Plea Rolls of the Chester County Court that Thomas Tuchet had a castle, park and a ‘Hyresoun’ in Tattenhall, Cheshire (‘herison’: spiked palisade/fencing around a fortification). Believed to be the only reference of any kind to a medieval castle existing at Tattenhall, this also appears to be the only known mention of a herison in the medieval Anglo-Welsh border county of Cheshire. In the absence of archaeological or any other evidence to confirm a castle build at Tattenhall, this paper considers the possible contemporary meanings of what we now translate as ‘castle’ and ‘herison’. The paper also explores the potentiality that by the fourteenth century, the documentary mention of these two words in the same phrase was by then more formulaic in stylistic terms, and referred more to a notional or archaic duty required of the lord of the manor’s tenants, and less to the herison of a fortified building in strictly physical terms. Because of its seemingly rare documentary mention generally, this paper focuses predominantly on the intended contemporary meaning of the word ‘herison’. In doing so, it provides the first in-depth research, analysis and interpretation of the multi-period (inter)national use of the term. Although conclusions are by necessity theoretical, this paper also provides an important contribution to what has been a small body of ‘herison’ and associated ‘castle’ evidence to date.
Archaeologia Cambrensis, Vol. 168, pp. 153 - 95, 2019
The late thirteenth- to early fourteenth-century Caernarfon Castle and its associated townscape i... more The late thirteenth- to early fourteenth-century Caernarfon Castle and its associated townscape in Gwynedd, North Wales, has been the subject of detailed academic historical, archaeological and architectural scrutiny for considerable time. This paper presents a fresh interpretation for this widely studied Edwardian castle, based on a broader temporal and spatial research approach. Interdisciplinary and comparative study re-examines the fortification’s architecture in the light of tangible traces of Caernarfon’s pre-medieval fortified and elite settlement, as well as the intangible memory represented in the Romance legend of The Dream of Macsen Wledig in the Mabinogion. It is proposed that King Edward and Queen Eleanor intentionally incorporated rather than obliterated these visible memories, thus ensuring the display of a further, prominent layer of lordly and lady power as a symbol of legitimacy through continuity. With a particular focus on the Queen’s Gate, this paper introduces the new interpretation of a royal designed landscape beyond the walls of Caernarfon’s town, arguing that King Edward and Queen Eleanor deliberately combined symbolic elements of Roman heritage and Arthurian-type Romance along an ancient route way below Queen’s Gate. The paper concludes that Edward’s and Eleanor’s castle and private landscape were intended to reflect the persistent memory of Caernarfon’s powerful male and female ancestors.
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Books and Authorships by Dr Rachel E . Swallow FSA
Published Articles and Chapters of Edited Volumes by Dr Rachel E . Swallow FSA
Cherchez la femme: Une nouvelle approche interdisciplinaire, sur plusieurs périodes, pour comprendre l'interaction entre les sexes, le lieu et les espaces au château de Caernarfon à Gwynedd (Pays de Galles).
La porte de la Reine du château de Caernarfon a jusqu'ici échappé à l'attention académique. Cet article examine l’architecture des portes médiévales en relation avec les traces tangibles des vestiges romains existants, des églises médiévales, et du jardin et du parc de Caernarfon, ainsi que des témoignages immatériels rapportés dans le conte gallois médiéval, Breudwyt Maxen Wledic (‘The Dream of Macsen Wledig’). Cet article contribue à la recherche à venir sur les relations géopolitiques, sociales et symboliques entre les châteaux, ceux qui les construisirent, les paysage marins et les paysages légendaires et d'élite associées où ils s’inscrivaient.
Cherchez la Femme: Ein neuer interdisziplinärer und periodenübergreifender Ansatz zum Verständnis von Geschlecht, Ort und Raum auf Schloss Caernarfon in Gwynedd, Wales
Das Königintor in Caernarfon Castle ist bisher der akademischen Aufmerksamkeit entgangen. Dieser Aufsatz untersucht die mittelalterliche Torarchitektur in Bezug auf konkrete Spuren von Caernarfons erhaltenen römischen Gebäuden, mittelalterlichen Kirchen, Gärten und Parks sowie die immaterielle Erinnerung, die im walisischen Mittelalter von Breudwyt Maxen Wledic (‘The Dream of Macsen Wledig’) dargestellt wird. Dieses Papier wird einen Beitrag zur künftigen Erforschung der geopolitischen, sozialen und symbolischen Beziehungen zwischen Burgen, ihren Erbauern sowie elitären und legendären Meeres- und Landschaften leisten.
In 1314, it was recorded in the Plea Rolls of the Chester County Court that Thomas Tuchet had a castle, park and a ‘Hyresoun’ in Tattenhall, Cheshire (‘herison’: spiked palisade/fencing around a fortification). Believed to be the only reference of any kind to a medieval castle existing at Tattenhall, this also appears to be the only known mention of a herison in the medieval Anglo-Welsh border county of Cheshire. In the absence of archaeological or any other evidence to confirm a castle build at Tattenhall, this paper considers the possible contemporary meanings of what we now translate as ‘castle’ and ‘herison’. The paper also explores the potentiality that by the fourteenth century, the documentary mention of these two words in the same phrase was by then more formulaic in stylistic terms, and referred more to a notional or archaic duty required of the lord of the manor’s tenants, and less to the herison of a fortified building in strictly physical terms. Because of its seemingly rare documentary mention generally, this paper focuses predominantly on the intended contemporary meaning of the word ‘herison’. In doing so, it provides the first in-depth research, analysis and interpretation of the multi-period (inter)national use of the term. Although conclusions are by necessity theoretical, this paper also provides an important contribution to what has been a small body of ‘herison’ and associated ‘castle’ evidence to date.
Cherchez la femme: Une nouvelle approche interdisciplinaire, sur plusieurs périodes, pour comprendre l'interaction entre les sexes, le lieu et les espaces au château de Caernarfon à Gwynedd (Pays de Galles).
La porte de la Reine du château de Caernarfon a jusqu'ici échappé à l'attention académique. Cet article examine l’architecture des portes médiévales en relation avec les traces tangibles des vestiges romains existants, des églises médiévales, et du jardin et du parc de Caernarfon, ainsi que des témoignages immatériels rapportés dans le conte gallois médiéval, Breudwyt Maxen Wledic (‘The Dream of Macsen Wledig’). Cet article contribue à la recherche à venir sur les relations géopolitiques, sociales et symboliques entre les châteaux, ceux qui les construisirent, les paysage marins et les paysages légendaires et d'élite associées où ils s’inscrivaient.
Cherchez la Femme: Ein neuer interdisziplinärer und periodenübergreifender Ansatz zum Verständnis von Geschlecht, Ort und Raum auf Schloss Caernarfon in Gwynedd, Wales
Das Königintor in Caernarfon Castle ist bisher der akademischen Aufmerksamkeit entgangen. Dieser Aufsatz untersucht die mittelalterliche Torarchitektur in Bezug auf konkrete Spuren von Caernarfons erhaltenen römischen Gebäuden, mittelalterlichen Kirchen, Gärten und Parks sowie die immaterielle Erinnerung, die im walisischen Mittelalter von Breudwyt Maxen Wledic (‘The Dream of Macsen Wledig’) dargestellt wird. Dieses Papier wird einen Beitrag zur künftigen Erforschung der geopolitischen, sozialen und symbolischen Beziehungen zwischen Burgen, ihren Erbauern sowie elitären und legendären Meeres- und Landschaften leisten.
In 1314, it was recorded in the Plea Rolls of the Chester County Court that Thomas Tuchet had a castle, park and a ‘Hyresoun’ in Tattenhall, Cheshire (‘herison’: spiked palisade/fencing around a fortification). Believed to be the only reference of any kind to a medieval castle existing at Tattenhall, this also appears to be the only known mention of a herison in the medieval Anglo-Welsh border county of Cheshire. In the absence of archaeological or any other evidence to confirm a castle build at Tattenhall, this paper considers the possible contemporary meanings of what we now translate as ‘castle’ and ‘herison’. The paper also explores the potentiality that by the fourteenth century, the documentary mention of these two words in the same phrase was by then more formulaic in stylistic terms, and referred more to a notional or archaic duty required of the lord of the manor’s tenants, and less to the herison of a fortified building in strictly physical terms. Because of its seemingly rare documentary mention generally, this paper focuses predominantly on the intended contemporary meaning of the word ‘herison’. In doing so, it provides the first in-depth research, analysis and interpretation of the multi-period (inter)national use of the term. Although conclusions are by necessity theoretical, this paper also provides an important contribution to what has been a small body of ‘herison’ and associated ‘castle’ evidence to date.
The research approach is interdisciplinary, thus examining all available architectural, cartographic, documentary, place-name, archaeological and topographical material. Initial conclusions point to a late eleventh-century paradigm shift of power from Acton to Nantwich; there is no evidence for an early-built baronial fortification at Nantwich, but there is evidence that Acton’s manorial landscape retained its elite significance without a castle build. Comparing Nantwich with the salt town of Droitwich in Worcestershire, the paper concludes that this apparent paradigm shift of power can be attributable to the semi-autonomous earls of Chester, and their freedom to control the economics of the county independently of the Crown.
This paper will contribute to future multidisciplinary research of castles and their landscapes, by demonstrating that any lack of continuity of site significance, can be experienced instead by the continuity of a zone of elite, social, political, and economic power.
The research approach is multidisciplinary, including the examination of all available architectural, cartographic, documentary, place-name, archaeological and topographical material. The case study of the medieval hilltop castles of 12th-century Buckton and 13th-century Beeston in Cheshire, north-west England, uncovers a clear physical and symbolic link between them, where their similar form and siting in the landscape were intended to enhance the significant power of the earls of Chester. Both hilltop positions were deliberately chosen to enhance their visibility from within elite hunting landscapes below.A prime purpose for Beeston’s hilltop siting was the intervisibility between the castle and its ancestral castle at Buckton. Both demarcating and overseeing Cheshire’s boundaries, the castles jointly symbolised significant inherited power within the geopolitical landscape of the county and beyond.
This paper will contribute to future multidisciplinary research of the geopolitical, social and symbolic relationships between castles, their builders and their landscapes, thus integrating the wider fields of castellology, medieval archaeology and history.
In December 2015, Matthew Thomas, a first year undergraduate on the Bachelor of Arts degree programme in Archaeology at the University of Chester, identified what appears to have been a mound and related earthworks on the 1875 First Edition OS map in Poulton, west Cheshire (NGR SJ4033 5904). The mound is no longer extant; its disappearance is probably due to the creation of Poulton Airfield during the Second World War, now disused. The mound was positioned just west of the River Dee, and immediately south of the existing Pulford Approach road running between the Grosvenor estate lands at Pulford and at Eaton.
This paper provides the first known recorded mention and interpretation of the Poulton mound. Cartographic evidence indicates that the mound was positioned within the boundaries of medieval Cheshire, although this observation is not in itself sufficient to conclude that the mound must have existed during the Middle Ages. However, following joint research by these authors into the Poulton mound and its contextual historical and archaeological landscape, this paper concludes that it is highly probable that a ‘new’ castle has been discovered for medieval Cheshire.
This paper explores the nature of rules and regulations regarding the definition of a castle, and their relationship with the archaeological record. Within this context, the paper considers Frodsham Castle, Cheshire. Believed to have been constructed by the first Earl of Chester within an administrative centre of a pre-existing and substantial Anglo-Saxon estate, the location of Frodsham’s vanished castle has proved elusive with reference to available historical sources alone.
Drawing on a reinterpretation of the available archaeological, documentary and antiquarian evidence, this paper explores the relationship between comital law and regulation and the power of place in considering the functions and role of Frodsham Castle.
This article examines the medieval castles of Cheshire, in North-West England, and argues that there was far more continuity in conceptions of power, place, and land tenure across the eleventh and twelfth centuries than has been previously recognized. New interpretations of existing evidence are presented, indicating that the medieval castles in the western areas of the county were strategically sited and maintained throughout the Anglo-Norman period. Probably because the River Dee largely formed the western boundary of the entire frontier county from the end of the thirteenth century (Harris 1984, 1), Anglo-Norman castles located to the west of the River Dee in medieval west Cheshire have tended to be researched separately from their counterparts to the east of the River Dee. This has had the overall effect of both diminishing the value of this important northern section of the Anglo-Welsh border — what is here termed the Irish Sea Cultural Zone — and ignoring the significant research and interpretation potential of the castles and their landscapes, in terms of their individual and group significance within medieval Cheshire. As such, the concept of the Irish Sea Cultural Zone, and its nature and extent, is proposed in this article for the first time. The evidence relating to the siting and form of the zone’s castles is analysed through a landscape history and archaeological study, which spans many disciplinary boundaries. Discussion will highlight that continuity of form from prehistoric, Roman, or Anglo-Saxon monuments to Anglo-Norman castles reflected the continuity of purpose in control over communications, as well as reflecting the continuing significance of military and social influences on the siting of the castles in west Cheshire.
Forthcoming: To be published in full (TBA)
https://books.google.de/books?id=WEMtDwAAQBAJ&lpg=PR1&dq=archaeologies%20of%20rules%20and%20re&hl=de&pg=PR1#v=onepage&q&f=false
Barbara Hausmair, Ben Jervis, Ruth Nugent and Eleanor Williams (eds)
How can we study the impact of rules on the lives of past people using archaeological evidence? To answer this question, Archaeologies of Rules and Regulation presents case studies drawn from across Europe and the United States. Covering areas as diverse as the use of space in a nineteenth-century U.S. Army camp, the deposition of waste in medieval towns, the experiences of Swedish migrants to North America, the relationship between people and animals in Anglo-Saxon England, these case studies explore the use of archaeological evidence in understanding the relationship between rules, lived experience, and social identity.
Contents
Introduction: Archaeologies of Rules and Regulation: An Introduction
Barbara Hausmair, Ben Jervis, Ruth Nugent and Eleanor Williams
PART I: NETWORKS
Introduction: Rules, Networks, and Different Kinds of Sources
Natascha Mehler
Chapter 1. Rules, Identity and a Sense of Place in a Medieval Town. The Case of Southampton’s Oak Book
Ben Jervis
Chapter 2. Meat for the Market. The Butchers’ Guild Rules from 1267 and Urban Archaeology in Tulln, Lower Austria
Ute Scholz
Chapter 3. Rubbish and Regulations in the Middle Ages: A Comparison of Urban and Rural Disposal Practices
Greta Civis
Chapter 4. How to Plant a Colony in the New World: Rules and Practices in New Sweden and the Seventeenth-Century Delaware Valley
Magdalena Naum
PART II: SPACE AND POWER
Introduction: Rules and the Built Environment
Harold Mytum
Chapter 5. Embodied Regulations: Searching for Boundaries in the Viking Age
Marianne Hem Eriksen
Chapter 6. What Law Says That There Has to be a Castle? The Castle Landscape of Frodsham, Cheshire
Rachel Swallow
Chapter 7. Shakespearian Space-Men: Spatial Rules in London’s Early Playhouses
Ruth Nugent
Chapter 8. US Army Regulations and Spatial Tactics: The Archaeology of Indulgence Consumption at Fort Yamhill, Oregon, United States, 1856–1866
Justin E. Eichelberger
Chapter 9. Religion in the Asylum: Lunatic Asylum Chapels and Religious Provision in Nineteenth-Century Ireland
Katherine Fennelly
Chapter 10. Prison-Issue Artefacts, Documentary Insights and the Negotiated Realities of Political Imprisonment: The Case of Long Kesh/Maze, Northern Ireland
Laura McAtackney
PART III: CORPOREALITY
Introduction: Maleficium and Mortuary Archaeology: Rules and Regulations in the Negotiation of Identities
Duncan Sayer
Chapter 11. Gone to the Dogs? Negotiating the Human-Animal Boundary in Anglo-Saxon England
Kristopher Poole
Chapter 12. Adherence to Islamic Tradition and the Formation of Iberian Islam in Early Medieval Al-Andalus
Sarah Inskip
Chapter 13. Break a Rule but Save a Soul. Unbaptized Children and Medieval Burial Regulation
Barbara Hausmair
Chapter 14. Medieval Monastic Text and the Treatment of the Dead. An Archaeothanatological Perspective on Adherence to the Cluniac Customaries
Eleanor Williams
Chapter 15. ‘With as Much Secresy and Delicacy as Possible’: Nineteenth-Century Burial Practices at the London Hospital
Louise Fowler and Natasha Powers
The Archaeology of Rules and Regulation: Closing Remarks
Duncan H. Brown