Assembling urban space: an exploration of Medieval town ‘planning’
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 2016-04-10

Two arguments have characterised the study of later medieval town foundations. The first concerns the definition of the term town and the second concerns the extent to which towns were ‘planned’ or ‘organic’. Increasingly intricate analyses of urban form have shifted the focus towards understanding how urban space developed over time and, to a certain degree, the social implications of changes to the urban landscape. Here a new approach is furthered, which argues that rather than seeing towns as planned or as organic, that they are emergent - places become urban as social relations are played out at multiple scales. Towns are more than buildings and streets, they are social assemblages which are reiterated and transformed as the people, materials and things interact within and around them. Utilising the concept of ‘lines of becoming’, this paper traces trajectories of urbanism, to view towns as dynamic processes rather than static plans to address two questions - how did places become urban, and what was the role of space in this process?  
 
Ben JERVIS (Cardiff University)