Medieval Palaces and Royal Houses

Medieval Palaces and Royal Houses

Tom Beaumont James
The Oxford Handbook of Later Medieval Archaeology in Britain
Edited by Christopher Gerrard and Alejandra Gutiérrez
Print Publication Date: Jan 2018

Subject: Archaeology, Anglo-Saxon and Medieval Archaeology
Online Publication Date: Feb 2018 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198744719.013.18
Abstract and Keywords
This chapter revises the concept of ‘palaces’ as residences, their uses and evolution,
stressing the role that archaeology can play in their understanding and study. Royal
palaces in rural settings are associated with specialized landscapes and generate a dis
tinctive archaeology because of their intermittent use and purpose; medieval kings and
their queens could be exceptionally mobile and households left little behind. Elements of
European design, some of which are considered here, could be influential and architec
tural practice was often in the vanguard of fashionable taste. Personal taste too played its
part but by the mid-fifteenth century the more remote residences were less visited, while
the sixteenth century brought new residences into royal hands. Current projects and
themes are all outlined as well as threats to sites and standing buildings.
Keywords: royal residences, episcopal palaces, parks, Westminster Palace, royal material culture
THE concept of the palace in later medieval Britain derived from various origins: the
houses on the Palatine Hill in Rome, Anglo-Saxon royal houses such as Cheddar in Somer
set (excavated by Philip Rahtz in the 1960s; Rahtz 1979), and Yeavering in Northumber
land (excavated by Brian Hope-Taylor in the 1950s; Hope-Taylor 1977). These last two
were royal sites for pre-Conquest dynasties in different parts of Britain. By the time these
kingdoms were united under the Normans, the royal family had a base at Westminster,
outside the walls of the city of London, squeezed between the abbey and the Thames on a
rather indifferent site. In order to control its large and diverse population, the Tower of
London was built before 1100 and its orientation leaves no doubt as to its purpose: it oc
cupies the south-east corner of the walled area and confronts the city. Apart from its ex
ceptional size, the arrangement of the Tower, with its main royal accommodation on the
upper storey, speaks volumes not only for the vigour of the Norman kings, but also their
skill with fortifications, their ambition in controlling the London metropolis, and their for
ward-looking architecture with its wall-fireplaces for added comfort (Ashbee 2006; Harris
2016; Hiller and Keevill 1995; Impey 2008; Keevill 2004; Parnell 1977; 2013; Thurley
1995; 1993).
Page 1 of 16
PRINTED FROM OXFORD HANDBOOKS ONLINE (www.oxfordhandbooks.com). © Oxford University Press, 2018. All Rights
Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a title in
Oxford Handbooks Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice).
Subscriber: Durham University; date: 10 September 2020

These two structures, the palace of Westminster and the Tower of London, epitomize the
two types of palatial residence occupied by royalty by 1100: the undefended palace and
the castle-palace. Other royal palaces and castle-palaces included more rural retreats
such as Clarendon in Wiltshire and Woodstock in Oxfordshire, both undefended resi
dences in the grand villa rustica style. The other great castle-palace which developed in
the period 1100–1540 was Windsor in Berkshire (Thurley 1993).
In addition there were episcopal palaces. The collapse of the western Roman Empire from
the early fifth century, and the subsequent colonization by Islam from the seventh century
of most of the Christian centres of the eastern Mediterranean and north Africa height
ened the focus on Rome, the centre of the western church. This political weakness in
western Europe propelled bishops into the role of managing large areas of (p. 372) the
Christian west in collaboration with local leaders. For this reason, and in contrast to the
episcopate in the eastern Church, western bishops found themselves working closely with
local rulers. In the Winchester diocese, for example, the kings of Wessex endowed the
bishopric with sufficient land to render it the wealthiest seen north of the Alps long be
fore 1100. Church and state at the highest level of society were very closely connected. In
turn, such enormous landholdings enabled bishops to create luxurious residences funded
by the income from their many manors (Rollason 2017). Their principal Winchester resi
dence, the mighty Romanesque structure called Wolvesey, was described in the twelfth
century variously as a domus quasi palatium, an element within de Blois’s wider scheme
of palatia sumptuosissima. Wolvesey was extensively, if partially, excavated and recorded
by Martin Biddle in the 1960s but remains unpublished (see, for example, Biddle 1970).
Lyddington Bede House (Figure 24.1) was originally a medieval wing of a palace of the
bishops of Lincoln. Like many palaces it later changed its use and was converted into an
almshouse by the end of the sixteenth century.
Figure 24.1 Lyddington Bede House in Leicester

shire, part of a medieval bishop’s palace, probably
private chambers with extensive buried remains
which would once have enclosed an open courtyard
(© Paul Stamper)
Page 2 of 16

Royal houses were associated with specialized landscapes which were in place by 1100.
In France for example, the Capetian kings settled on Paris as their capital because of the
quality of the hunting grounds nearby; at a later date kings of Scotland were to select
Falkland (Fife) for similar reasons. William the Conqueror had been described as loving
deer as if they were his children (in any case the deer were more pleasant than his chil
dren). His son Henry I (1100–35) was a keen hunter, creator of parks, and a keeper
(p. 373) of wild animals including camels, lynx, and porcupine in his park at Woodstock
(Bond 1987; for buildings here and elsewhere, see Brown et al. 1963; for lions at the Tow
er of London, see Keevill 2000 and O’Regan et al. 2006). Deerparks were associated both
with royal houses and palaces and also with episcopal houses and palaces. Some resi
dences were moated, such as Writtle, a hunting lodge in Essex associated with King John
(Rahtz 1969) and equipped with fashionable and labour-intensive fishponds, or Wells, the
episcopal residence in Somerset constructed for the bishops of the diocese of Bath and
Wells (Dunning 2010).
The use of palaces by royalty, and to a lesser extent by the archiepiscopate and episco
pate, was intermittent (Figure 24.2). Some kings were more mobile than others. The early
Norman kings of England, William I (1066–89) and William II (1089–1100), began over
size, ‘colonial’ building schemes such as the Tower of London, Winchester Cathedral with
its giant nave and westworks designed to be used for crown-wearing ceremony, and West
minster great hall, the largest of its kind in Europe (Courtney and Mark 1987). It may be
argued that similar grand landscape schemes, such as the walled park at Woodstock,
where the buildings were lost in the early eighteenth century and thus are recorded now
only in antiquarian accounts, and the exceptionally sized park at Clarendon, were prod
ucts of the same, ‘colonial’ regimes (Richardson 2005). Keen to impress and overawe the
local population, schemes such as these were created with funds seized from the previous
regime.
Norman rulers controlled large parts of Europe from Sicily to northern Europe to Eng
land in the eleventh to thirteenth centuries. This produced cross-fertilization of design—
for example the introduction of the donjon keep into England from Normandy, while the
introduction of fallow deer and park culture flowed northwards from Sicily to England,
whence fallow deer culture was exported to Normandy, for example (Sykes 2004). Occa
sionally elements of southern European palace design, e.g. interconnecting pools such as
those found at Palermo (Sicily) and later at the Alhambra (Granada, Spain), found their
way into England, for example into Everswell in Woodstock Park, the bijou residence cre
ated in the royal park by Henry II for his young mistress Rosamund Clifford in the late
twelfth century (Bond 1987, 46). This structure echoed contemporary literature, the tale
of Tristan and Isolde, popular at that time, where an enclosed residence for Isolde neces
sitated the passing of notes via waterways. There was, no doubt, a pan-European interest
among elites in aspects of these structures. Henry of Blois, brother of King Stephen
(1135–54) and the most likely candidate for extensive building work at Guildford Castle,
Surrey, was well known for his use of imported ancient Classical spolia to his episcopal
palace at Wolvesey in Winchester, while his dazzling Winchester Bible of c.1160 illus
Page 3 of 16

trates Romanesque interiors, roofs, decorative schemes, palace life, and furnishings
(Donovan 1993).
By 1200 much Romanesque palace building was completed under the Norman and
Angevin kings, especially during the long reigns of Henry I (1100–35, the remains of his
Romanesque Great Hall at Woodstock being recorded by John Aubrey before 1700) and
Henry II (1154–89). John’s busy itineraries led to the creation of many facilities appropri
ate for the arrival of royal retinues at short notice, such as the kitchen arrangements at
(p. 374) (p. 375) the royal castle of Marlborough in Wiltshire (not excavated but for a plan,
see Brentnall 1938), where hearths were capable of roasting two oxen at once. However
costly these building works might be, they were dwarfed by other expenses such as the
furnishings recorded in the Exchequer Rolls which begin in regular series from 1154. The
earliest English royal household account of 1207 shows that the greatest expense in royal
travel was the fodder for the horses rather than the food and drink for the court trav
ellers (Woolgar 1999). Hunting parks such as Clarendon, Woodstock, and elsewhere were
used seasonally by the kings according to set patterns of the hunting year, supply and
availability of sport, and so on. In the thirteenth century some evidence shows that kings
such as Henry III visited the park at Clarendon during the doe hunting season (today 1
November to 29 April), the buck hunting season was earlier, more of a summer activity
and that is when we find Edward II—who is documented engaged in hunting there in
1326—and Edward III at Clarendon (Richardson 2005). These palaces within their parks
were undefended sites in rural areas, the rural counterparts of Westminster, and with
their extensive paling fences and embankments have been described as ‘castles for deer’.
Figure 24.2 A map of royal palaces during the Mid

dle Ages
(© Alejandra Gutiérrez)
Page 4 of 16

One of the reasons for King John’s (1199–1216) unpopularity in England was that he was
exceptionally mobile. He was never in the same place for more than a month in his seven
teen-and-a-half year reign. This has resulted in a plethora of sites being dubbed ‘King
John’s’ house or palace and he no doubt visited many of them (e.g. Rahtz 1969). Many of
his subjects’ communities had not been visited by royalty for generations, if ever, al
though it remains a moot point as to whether the king was welcomed by all, as the deba
cle of Magna Carta and the civil war of 1215–16 was to demonstrate. The lifestyle of John
was mirrored by his Welsh counterparts, who were likewise itinerant and who also trav
elled to royal and other sites during progresses, stopping for example at Rhuddlan or De
gannwy, Gwynedd, to do business, justice, and ‘to eat [their] way through’ taxes (Pound
1994). This was a lifestyle readily recognizable in England and Scotland in the Middle
Ages among royalty, prelates, and nobility, but which in Wales came to an end for their
kings with the conquest of Wales in 1283 and subsequent attempts from a string of com
fortable royal castles in North Wales to pacify the principality. Geophysical work at the
end of the last century identified some of these llys or royal complexes of the Welsh kings
(Smith 2014).
Then as now, fashions changed, and royalty often led the way, or at least picked the best
of what they saw others doing. Thus, when Romanesque architecture with its solid,
rounded arches, gave way to the pointed architecture of the Gothic, royalty were among
the leaders of this fashion. Louis IX of France (1226–70) inspired his brother-in-law Henry
III of England (1216–72) to become a ‘champion of the Gothic’. Various claims have been
made and disputed about the influence of Arab architecture on the transition from Ro
manesque to Gothic arising from contacts made during the crusades which began in
1095. What is more certain is the spread of Christian material culture from Byzantium af
ter the fourth crusade of 1207 when many relics were looted by the western European
crusaders who sacked the ancient capital of the eastern church. Of these relics, the
Crown of Thorns from Christ’s passion was the most prized. This led to the establishment
of a series of chapels of l’epine across France as individual thorns were disposed of
(p. 376) by the king. The most significant of these repositories in the Gothic style was the
Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, with is full-size reliquary design both exterior and interior (Co
hen 2008). Chapels similar in design, tall and narrow, were built across Europe from the
middle of the thirteenth century, for example in London and at Clarendon in Wiltshire.
Among the European building stock, three from France might be highlighted. The first, at
Perpignan, was begun c.1270 for the kings of Majorca and incorporated Islamic influ
ences (Passarius and Catafau 2014). The second, at Hesdin (Artois), was created c.1295
as a palatial pleasure garden over 940 hectares enclosed by a wall 13 km in length; it was
intended as a Garden of Eden complete with various machines which dispensed water,
feathers, and soot and further amused (or confused) visitors with mirrors (Van Buren
1986). Hesdin may have been the inspiration, after a visit in 1313, for Edward II to lavish
attention on enlarging his own parks. But if Hesdin was an inspirational garden, the
greatest palace in the early fourteenth century was the massive Palace of the Popes at
Avignon, built during the exile of the papacy from Rome between the early and mid-four
teenth century (Renoux 1994). Claimed as the largest Gothic building in Europe, the cam
Page 5 of 16

paigns of Benedict XII (1334–42) and subsequently Clement VI (1346–56) were outstand
ing, the buildings combining the grandeur of French Gothic with decorative schemes by
Italian craftsmen.
During the fourteenth century, war between France and England, insecurities of succes
sion in the Capetian family, and dispossession of monarchs in England such as Edward II
(1327) and Richard II (1399) all inhibited grand palace development, although Richard
did create small-scale building-jewels, such as his palatial accommodation on the south
coast at Portchester, Hampshire (Cunliffe 1977; 1985), and his island retreat (now entire
ly lost) at ‘La Nayght’ on the Thames at Surbiton, Surrey. He is recorded as adding ‘danc
ing rooms’ at various palaces across England. Notably, he razed the palace at Sheen, Sur
rey, to the ground following the death there of his wife Anne of Bohemia in 1392. Howev
er, by far the greatest achievements in palace building in England were a result of the
coming together of the necessary leadership (for example by William of Wykeham and
William Wynford) and the required financial resources which arose from the capture and
ransom of John II of France at the Battle of Poitiers in 1356. This enabled the completion
of outstanding works such as the chapel of St Stephen at Westminster (traditionally be
gun in the reign of King Stephen, d. 1154) which was achieved despite the shortage of
labour and skills following the Black Death of 1348–50. Greater still was the work carried
through after 1356 at Windsor castle-palace where the Norman keep was upgraded and
reroofed, and the unusual ‘Round Table’ building of 1344, based on a Mediterranean pro
totype, was dismantled and replaced by a major building scheme in the upper bailey con
sisting of an end-on hall and chapel under a single roof-ridge, accommodation for retain
ers, upgraded kitchens etc., all of this on a grand scale (Tatton-Brown 2010).
Agency of popes, royalty, their relations, and leading staff, such as Wykeham (in the
1350s) and other prelates, is key in these works. As Edward III declined militarily, physi
cally, and financially (ransom monies stopped with the death of King John II in 1364), roy
al building slowed although the heir to the throne, Edward the Black Prince, (p. 377) up
graded and modernized his palatial residence at Kennington, in London south of the
Thames. Both Edwards were dead by the end of 1377. The significant decline in royal and
episcopal incomes following the Black Death put a brake on the more grandiose schemes.
In England the change from richly carved, labour-intensive, decorated architecture to the
regional mass-produced conformity of the Perpendicular style illustrates the changing cir
cumstances very well. Continuing international and civil wars in Europe drained re
sources, with a kaleidoscope of changing fortunes and monarchs, as France recovered to
wards the mid-fifteenth century, so England fell into disarray.
In common with his predecessor Richard II, Henry V (1412–22) took special delight in
small private and secluded sites, such as the moated ‘Pleasaunce’ at Kenilworth Castle in
Warwickshire, across the lake from the main magnate residence (Jamieson and Lane
2015). But he also drove forward grand schemes such as the reconstruction of a resi
dence at Sheen adorned with antelope images on the roof. All this was in stark contrast to
Henry VI, who was not renowned as a builder of palaces (although his colleges at Eton,
Berkshire, and at King’s in Cambridge were, so far as they went, significant architectural
Page 6 of 16

achievements, left incomplete at his death). Meanwhile in Scotland, James I (1406–37),

after eighteen years of captivity in England, returned to Scotland in 1424 to a small
group of residences or palaces, notably Edinburgh and Stirling castles and Linlithgow
palace. Kings of an earlier era had been crowned at Scone Palace, Perthshire, an abbey
and abbatial palace adjacent to Perth on the Tay. Scone had long been a key site in Scot
tish royal ceremony and remained so until dissolved as a monastery in 1559, analogous
arguably to Westminster Abbey and Palace near London (Dunbar 1999). Perhaps the
greatest extent of Scottish royal residences developed under James V (1514–42) with the
capable assistance of his advisers for he came to the throne aged only 1 year old. The roy
al property portfolio of residences expanded into Angus and the lordship of Glamis at
which point in the mid-sixteenth century he laid claim to some thirty-six properties which
could be drawn upon during his itineraries.
With the deposition of Henry VI and his untimely death in 1471, the Yorkist kings drew in
their ambitions for widespread travel and reduced use of the more remote residences
such as the most westerly at Clarendon, where Henry VI had suffered the first onset of
his mental collapse in 1453. So although ovens there were kept up as late as 1485 against
the visit of the ‘northern’ King Richard III, there is no evidence that he or his Tudor suc
cessors visited the palace as a residence although Henry VII, Henry VIII, and Elizabeth
used the park (Beaumont James and Gerrard 2007). Under Henry VIII (1509–47), howev
er, matters were to alter substantially so far as palaces were concerned. What first
changed the scene was the king’s falling out with his senior churchmen which brought
new palaces into royal hands. Among these were Cardinal Wolsey’s Hampton Court in
1529 and York Palace (Whitehall), as well as a range of other episcopal and archiepisco
pal residences such as Mayfield in Sussex and Oatlands in Kent. Second, when this king
entered into his dispute with the monasteries, their dissolution provided further opportu
nities for palatial royal endeavours, for example the conversion of part of the enormous St
Augustine’s Abbey in Canterbury, Kent, dissolved in 1538, to a royal (p. 378) residence
used for example by the new Queen Anne of Cleves as she made her way to London in
1540.
Undoubtedly the major achievement in palace building in the final phase of the period to
1540 was the creation of the eponymous Nonsuch Palace, Surrey (Biddle 2005), following
the birth of Prince Edward in 1537. Here the king drew on French and Italian craftsmen;
the materials, moulded plaster with gilded slate covering over an oak frame, were unique
in England, and not well suited to the climate. What is apparent from the layout and the
plans of Nonsuch, and other royal residences of the same period, is that in many respects
they followed the ancient gendered plans of apartments for the king, apartments for the
queen. When compared to the Tower of London of the Normans, Angevin, or Plantagenet
palaces—or indeed to palaces in use today for that matter—the royal apartments and per
sons were deeply hidden (Richardson 2003; see Chapter 50 in this Handbook). Work on
queens’ accommodation, palaces, and landholdings is one area awaiting closer scrutiny.
Page 7 of 16

Archaeology and Complementary Sources for

Palaces
For England the greatest royal palace was undoubtedly Westminster which lies beyond
the walled area of the City of London. The Westminster complex of buildings, which in
cludes the royal abbey, is most certainly the most significant source of evidence for the
medieval palace and for royal-ecclesiastical links, the abbey being the coronation church
of the kings with its late medieval coronation chair and its unique survivals of architectur
al style and decorative schemes including the late thirteenth-century Cosmati pavements
(see cover), polychromy, and sculpture. Westminster boasts fossilized fragments of decor
which have vanished almost everywhere else. Although St Stephen’s chapel at the palace
has gone, the Chapel of the Pew in the Abbey contains in microcosm much detail which
matches records of what was once to be seen at St Stephen’s, from doorway to vaulting
and architectural detail of the 1370s (Spooner 2015).
Much of the medieval palace at Westminster was destroyed in the fire of 1834 but the
great hall of William II (Rufus) survives (Figure 24.3). Recent work argues for a remark
able panelled ceiling to the eleventh-century hall, so that it was never an aisled hall (Har
ris and Miles 2015). The 600-tonne hammer beam roof of the 1390s stands today as a
monument to the technical, lapidary, engineering, and craft skills of that era (Munby
2015). While archaeology is of great value, much of the historic palace has disappeared
over the centuries, not least in the fire of 1263. Changes, upgradings, and demolitions in
the early nineteenth century (for example of the queen’s apartments and her chapel)
were recorded by antiquarians and others, and they have provided, for example, a record
of the thirteenth-century Painted Chamber before its murals were wallpapered over.
These remarkable watercolour records by artists such as Capon and Stothard are (p. 379)
invaluable for understanding the later medieval structures and their décor (Emery 2006,
258). The fire of 1834 also cleared accretions to some buildings leaving, for example, the
outer walls of St Stephen’s Chapel, which had been used since the Reformation as the
parliament chamber (medieval parliaments having met in such spaces as the Chapter
House of the adjacent abbey). The reconstruction of the parliament debating space by
Barry post-1834 as a reproduction of the north and south confronting medieval canons’
stalls has been argued to have continued the tradition of adversarial English politics en
couraged by the re-use of the facing stalls of the former canons, established by Edward
III (d. 1377) (Rodwell 2015).
Page 8 of 16

Figure 24.3 Westminster palace and abbey, as de

picted by Wenceslaus Hollar in 1647 (Thomas Fisher
Rare Book Library, University of Toronto, public do
main)
Because of its scale, the ongoing use of Westminster as a centre of national government,
the needs for security, and the challenge of making the medieval abbey partly available to
interested members of the public through use of a ‘trail’, the detailed study of the struc
ture is currently very difficult. In addition, there were many later changes when the ma
jor medieval structures continued to be used not only for parliaments and royal religious
observance but also for key political events, such as the trial and condemnation of
Charles I (d. 1649) and also as the home for many centuries to the courts of Common
Pleas and King’s Bench, both sited also within the Great Hall. All this contributes to an
explanation as to why this supremely important complex has not been studied in its me
dieval incarnations as it should have been. Nevertheless, of particular interest at West
minster is the wide range of pigments and paintings which have survived from the period
c.1250 to 1350. Reds (including lac lake and vermilion), copper greens (verdigris and
malachite), yellows (e.g. orpiment in imitation of gold leaf), indigo, and many combina
tions of these pigments with white, black, and other colourings and drawing media all
survive in the decoration at the Abbey (Howard and Sauerberg 2015). For example, the
scheme of vices and virtues in the window reveals of the Painted Chamber and recorded
in watercolour before their destruction would, (p. 380) like the furnishings in the abbey,
have been decorated with inlaid stones or jewels and with raised tinwork decorative
schemes. These echo royal commissions elsewhere such as at Clarendon palace where
fragments of azurite and ultramarine (lapis lazuli) have been recovered, as has minium
(red lead) foundation painting on stone fragments together with evidence for the gilding
of stonework and statuary (Beaumont James and Gerrard 2007, 78). Surviving pieces of
furniture, royally embellished such as the coronation chair of the late thirteenth century
and the altar retable both also in Westminster Abbey, illustrate just how lavish such fur
nishing could be. The so-called Wilton Diptych of the late fourteenth century also once
stood in the Chapel of our Lady of the Pew while Richard II (d. 1399) revered it (Spooner
2015). This astonishing survival would have travelled with the king and have been set up
in the now lost palaces round the country, such as Woodstock and Clarendon, where the
kings had a special shelf for their travelling relics.
Page 9 of 16

Archaeology shows on the one hand how little royal material culture remained in palaces
unless it was broken on site and dumped. Among the fragments which survive is a re
markable travelling chest from Knaresborough Castle in Yorkshire, once the possession of
Queen Philippa of Hainault (d. 1369). Muniment chests found today at the Public Record
Office also date from the medieval period (Steane 1993, 127); in situ storage arrange
ments for records can be found in William of Wykeham’s colleges in Oxford and in Win
chester. Elsewhere, surviving decorative schemes include tiles from Chertsey, Surrey,
which probably started out in Westminster before being passed on to the abbey and the
fine thirteenth-century palace floors from Clarendon which are now on display in the
British Museum (Figure 24.4), while part of the tile kiln in which they were made can be
seen at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The pre-1250 circular pavement from
Clarendon is exceptional both in survival and more significantly in the apparently excep
tional skill of the English tilers who made it (Beaumont James and Gerrard 2007, 82–3).
Also from Clarendon are a handful of lead stars, linked to documentary references to scin
tillis noted in documentation of Henry III’s reign.
Royalty, bishops, and nobility were peripatetic and carried all kinds of supplies from site
to site. Bishop Swinfield of Hereford, travelling from his westerly diocese to his London
house, suffered a disaster when a cart capsized and severely damaged the ceramics he
was transporting to the capital for his use. When the wagon train halted, potters were
found then and there to replace the damaged items. Foodstuffs too were required in
quantity. Food remains such as crab-carapaces were recovered from Kings Langley in
Hertfordshire, and from Clarendon there was a wide range of deer, as well as cod, conger
eel, ray, and wrasse from deep sea fishing and coastal-raised oysters. Documentary
sources show how fresh-water fish were transported to royal and episcopal sites (Dyer
2000, 107), in the case of the bishops of Winchester’s palace at Wolvesey for example, all
the way from Somerset in damp sacks for a feast attended by Richard II in 1393. Several
kitchens and their waste have been investigated archaeologically, including those at
Windsor Castle and Clarendon, while a standing medieval episcopal kitchen complete
with its roof is to be found at the bishop’s palace at Chichester (Sussex), with remains of
a (p. 381) (p. 382) later structure in the adjoining diocese of Winchester at Bishops
Waltham, although no below ground archaeology has been undertaken at either location
(Hare 1988).
Page 10 of 16

Figure 24.4 A reconstruction of the thirteenth-centu

ry palace floor from the king’s apartments at Claren
don Palace, Wiltshire, together with other floor tiles
from other areas of the same site
(© Alejandra Gutiérrez)
Current Work
As a result of work by John Steane (1993; 2001) on the archaeology of the monarchy and
symbols of power, recent national syntheses (Dunbar 1999; James 1990; Keevill 2000;
Thurley 1993) and case studies (e.g. Beaumont James and Gerrard 2007 for Clarendon;
Gilchrist 2005 for Norwich Cathedral close; Payne 2003 for the palaces of the Bishops of
Bath and Wells; White and Cook 2015 for Sherborne Old Castle and the Bishops of Salis
bury), medieval palaces are now emerging once again as a field of study and there is
much to look forward to. The themes outlined by Creighton (Chapter 23) stand equally
well for palaces. A selection of projects underway might include a major scheme to recov
er a detailed plan of the palace of Westminster (under preparation at the University of
York) or landscape research at King’s Norton in Leicestershire, led by James Wright of
the Museum of London. A final report of the ‘spoilheap’ archaeology at Clarendon Palace
undertaken while the site was being rescued from the overgrowth and undergoing emer
gency consolidation, is also in preparation. In Scotland a survey of deerparks is being car
ried out by Derek Hall at Buzzart Dykes, Perthshire, and elsewhere while Penny Dransart
has run a long series of excavations at the bishop’s palace at Fetternear, Aberdeenshire.
Medieval palace studies are in search of champions for the new millennium and a major
international conference on medieval palaces at Bishop Auckland (Co. Durham) in 2015,
where excavations are underway in advance of a new museum within the episcopal
palace complex, set a new agenda (Rollason 2017).
Page 11 of 16

Threats continue. In 1972 the disastrous creation of the underground carpark at West
minster destroyed much archaeology there without any recording (Gerrard 2003, 134).
Fragile structures such as the remains at Clarendon are once again heading towards Her
itage England’s Buildings at Risk Register. However, new ideas are being posited about
the arrangement and sequencing of palace buildings nationally, heavily but almost entire
ly unscientifically excavated at different periods from the eighteenth to the twentieth cen
turies. Keyhole sites at Tudor palaces in London have brought much to light in recent
years, but are of necessity small-scale. So far as rural palace sites are concerned, new
sites are under investigation. Current work at Kings Clipstone (Nottinghamshire) led by
Andy Gaunt (Mercian Archaeological Services) and James Wright (Museum of London Ar
chaeology) have involved standing remains survey, landscape work, and geophysical sur
vey, similarly to community excavations at Woking Palace, Surrey (ongoing Heritage Lot
tery Fund project). A plan of ‘John of Gaunt’s’ palace at King’s Somborne (Hampshire)
was recovered some years ago while outlines of what appears to be a Romanesque palace
hall and other buildings have likewise shown up dramatically in recent work at Old Sarum
by the University of Southampton. There is much to be done, not least considered excava
tion using modern (p. 383) methods at sites where the surface has only been scraped, at
such sites as Clarendon, Kings Clipstone, and Woodstock. Such work promises to trans
form our understanding of the archaeology, architecture, and ecology through properly
dated sequences. The combination of detailed documentary study in close relation to
physical archaeology and architectural study of these uniquely recorded sites is essential.
Among recent developments have been reconstructions of medieval décor of the twelfth
century (Dover Castle, Kent), thirteenth century (Tower of London, now largely replaced),
and the thirty-five-year programme of reconstruction on the Great Hall of Stirling Castle
including the manufacture of a medieval-style roof of c.1500 to recreate the hall of James
IV of 1503 with some furnishings. Such schemes are sometimes problematic and contro
versial, but they are intended to breathe life back into buildings which have not seen roy
al residents for many centuries.
References cited
Ashbee, J. A. 2006 The Tower of London as a royal residence: 1066–1400, unpublished
PhD thesis, University of London
Beaumont James, T. and Gerrard, C. M. 2007 Clarendon: landscape of kings, Windgather,

Macclesfield
Biddle, M. 1970 ‘Excavations at Winchester, 1969: eighth interim report’, The Antiquaries
Journal 50, 277–326
Biddle, M. 2005 Nonsuch Palace, Oxbow, Oxford
Bond, C. J. 1987 ‘Woodstock Park in the Middle Ages’, in J. Bond and K. Tiller (eds),
Blenheim: landscape for a palace, Sutton, Gloucester, 22–54
Page 12 of 16

Brentnall, H. C. 1938 ‘Marlborough Castle’, Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History

Magazine 48, 133–43
Brown, R. A., Colvin, H. M., and Taylor, A. J. 1963 The history of the King’s works, vol. 2:
the Middle Ages, Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, London
Cohen, M. 2008 ‘An indulgence for the visitor: the public at the Sainte-Chapelle of Paris’,
Speculum 83, 840–83
Courtney, L. T. and Mark, R. 1987 ‘The Westminster Hall roof: a historiographical and
structural study’, The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 30, 374–93
Cunliffe, B. W. 1977 Excavations at Portchester Castle vol. 3: medieval, the outer bailey
and its defenses, The Society of Antiquaries of London, London
Cunliffe, B. W. 1985 Excavations at Portchester Castle vol. 4: medieval and inner bailey,
The Society of Antiquaries of London, London
Donovan, C. 1993 The Winchester Bible, The British Library, London
Dunbar, J. G. 1999 Scottish Royal Palaces: the architecture of the royal residences during
the late Medieval and early modern periods, Tuckwell Press, East Linton
Dunning, R. 2010 Jocelin of Wells: bishop, builder, courtier, Boydell Press, Woodbridge
Dyer, C. 2000 Everyday life in medieval England, Hambledon and London, London
Emery, A. 2006 Greater medieval houses of England and Wales, 1300–1500: Vol. 3, south
ern England, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Gerrard, C. M. 2003 Medieval archaeology: understanding traditions and contemporary

approaches, Routledge, London
Gilchrist, R. 2005 Norwich Cathedral Close: the evolution of the English cathedral
(p. 384)
landscape, Boydell, Woodbridge
Hare, J. N. 1988 ‘Bishop’s Waltham Palace, Hampshire: William of Wykeham, Henry Beau
fort and the transformation of a medieval episcopal palace’, The Archaeological Journal
145, 222–54
Harris, R. B. 2016 ‘Recent research on the White Tower: reconstructing and dating the
Norman building’, in J. A. Davies, A. Riley, J.-M. Levesque, and C. Lapiche (eds), Castles
and the Anglo-Norman World, Oxbow Books, Oxford, 177–89
Harris, S. and Miles, D. 2015 ‘Romanesque Westminster Hall and its roof’, in W. Rodwell
and T. W. T. Tatton-Brown (eds), Westminster: the art, architecture and archaeology of the
royal palace and abbey, Part 2, British Archaeological Association Conference Transac
tions volume 39, Leeds, 22–71
Page 13 of 16

Hiller, J. and Keevill, G. D. 1995 ‘Recent archaeological work at the Tower of London’,
Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society 45, 147–81
Hope-Taylor, B. 1977 Yeavering: an Anglo-British centre of early Northmbria, Her

Majesty’s Stationery Office, London
Howard, H. and Sauerberg, M. L. 2015 ‘The polychromy at Westminster Abbey, 1250–

1350’, in W. Rodwell and T. W. T. Tatton-Brown (eds), Westminster: the art, architecture
and archaeology of the royal palace and abbey, Part 1, British Archaeological Association
Conference Transactions volume 39, Leeds, 205–61
Impey, E. (ed.) 2008 The White Tower, Yale University Press, London and New Haven
Jansen, V. 2015 ‘Henry III’s palace at Westminster’, in W. Rodwell and T. W. T. Tatton-

Brown (eds), Westminster: the art, architecture and archaeology of the royal palace and
abbey, Part 2, British Archaeological Association Conference Transactions volume 39,
Leeds, 89–110
James, T. B. 1990 The palaces of medieval England, c.1050–1550: royalty, nobility, the
episcopate and their residences from Edward the Confessor to Henry VIII, Seaby, London
Jamieson, E. and Lane, R. 2015 ‘Monuments, mobility and medieval perceptions of de
signed landscapes: the Pleasance, Kenilworth’, Medieval Archaeology 59(1), 255–71
Keevill, G. D. 2000 Medieval palaces: an archaeology, Tempus, Stroud
Keevill, G. D. 2004 The Tower of London moat: archaeological excavations 1995–9, Oxford
Archaeology, Historic Royal Palaces Monograph 1, Oxford
Munby, J. 2015 ‘Late-14th-century reconstruction of Westminster Hall’, in W. Rodwell and

T. W. T. Tatton-Brown (eds), Westminster: the art, architecture and archaeology of the roy
al palace and abbey, Part 2, British Archaeological Association Conference Transactions
volume 39, Leeds, 120–32
O’Regan, H., Turner, A., and Sabin, R. 2006 ‘Medieval big cat remains from the Royal
Menagerie at the Tower of London’, International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 16, 385–94
Parnell, G. 1977 ‘Excavations at the Tower of London’, London Archaeologist 3(4), 97–9
Parnell, G. 2013 ‘The Great Hall in the inmost ward, Tower of London’, London Archaeolo
gist 13(8), 211–14
Payne, N. 2003 The medieval residences of the bishops of Bath and Wells, and Salisbury,
unpublished PhD, University of Bristol
Passarius, O. and Catafau, A. (eds) 2014 Un palais dans le ville, vol. 1. Les Palais des Rois
de Majorque à Perpignan, Trabucaire, Canet en Roussillon
Page 14 of 16

Pound, N. J. G. 1994 The medieval castle in England and Wales: a political and social his
tory, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Rahtz, P. A. 1969Excavations at King John’s hunting lodge, Writtle, Essex, 1955–

(p. 385)
57, The Society for Medieval Archaeology Monograph 3, London
Rahtz, P. A. 1979 The Saxon and Medieval Palaces at Cheddar, British Archaeological Re
ports British Series 65, Oxford
Renoux, A. (ed.) 1994 Palais médiévaux (France-Belgique): 25 ans d’archéologie, Univer

sité du Maine, Le Mans
Richardson, A. 2003 ‘Gender and space in English royal palaces c.1160–c.1547: a study in
access analysis and imagery’, Medieval Archaeology 47, 131–65
Richardson, A. 2005 The forest, park and palace of Clarendon, c.1200–c.1650: recon
structing an actual, conceptual and documented Wiltshire landscape, British Archaeologi
cal Reports British Series 387, Oxford
Rodwell, W. 2015 ‘The archaeology of Westminster Abbey: and historiographical

overview’, in W. Rodwell and T. W. T. Tatton-Brown (eds), Westminster: the art, architec
ture and archaeology of the royal palace and abbey, Part 1, British Archaeological Associ
ation Conference Transactions volume 39, Leeds, 34–60
Rollason, D. (ed.) 2017 Princes of the Church: bishops and their palaces, The Society for
Medieval Archaeology Monograph 39, Abingdon
Smith, S. G. 2014 ‘Parks and designed landscapes in medieval Wales’, in K. Baker, R. Car
den, and R. Madgwick (eds), Deer and people, Oxbow, Oxford, 231–9
Spooner, J. 2015 ‘The Virgin Mary and white harts great and small: the 14th-century wall-
paintings in the Chapel of Our Lady of the Pew and the muniment room’, in W. Rodwell
and T. W. T. Tatton-Brown (eds), Westminster: the art, architecture and archaeology of the
royal palace and abbey, Part 1, British Archaeological Association Conference Transac
tions volume 39, Leeds, 262–90
Steane, J. M. 1993 The archaeology of the medieval English monarchy, Batsford, London
Steane, J. M. 2001 The Archaeology of power: England and Northern EuropeAD 800–
1600, Tempus Publishing, Stroud
Sykes, N. J. 2004 ‘The introduction of fallow deer to Britain: a zooarchaeological perspec

tive’, Environmental Archaeology 9, 75–83
Tatton-Brown, T. W. T. 2010 St George’s Chapel, Windsor: history and heritage, Dovecote

Press, Dorset
Thompson, M. 1998 Medieval bishops’ houses in England and Wales, Ashgate, Aldershot
Page 15 of 16

Thurley, S. 1993 The royal palaces of Tudor England: architecture and court life, 1460–
1547, Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, Yale University, New Haven
Thurley, S. 1995 ‘The Royal Lodgings at the Tower of London 1240–1320’, Architectural
History 38, 36–7
Van Buren, A. H. 1986 ‘Reality and literary romance in the park of Hesdin’, Medieval Gar
dens 127, 115–34
White, P. and Cook, A. 2015 Sherborne Old Castle, Dorset: archaeological investigations
1930–90, The Society of Antiquaries of London, London
Woolgar, C. M. 1999 The great household in late medieval England, Yale University Press,
New Haven
Tom Beaumont James
Tom Beaumont James is Professor Emeritus in Archaeology and History at Winches

ter University. His main areas of interest are medieval buildings, especially medieval
palaces, and also the Black Death of 1348–50, having written books on Clarendon
Park, Wiltshire, and Winchester, among others.
Page 16 of 16

Medieval Palaces and Royal Houses

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Medieval Palaces and Royal Houses

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Medieval Palaces and Royal Houses

Medieval Palaces and Royal Houses

Print Publication Date: Jan 2018

Abstract and Keywords

Subscriber: Durham University; date: 10 September 2020

Figure 24.1 Lyddington Bede House in Leicester­

Subscriber: Durham University; date: 10 September 2020

Subscriber: Durham University; date: 10 September 2020

Figure 24.2 A map of royal palaces during the Mid­

Subscriber: Durham University; date: 10 September 2020

Subscriber: Durham University; date: 10 September 2020

Subscriber: Durham University; date: 10 September 2020

achievements, left incomplete at his death). Meanwhile in Scotland, James I (1406–37),

Subscriber: Durham University; date: 10 September 2020

Archaeology and Complementary Sources for

Subscriber: Durham University; date: 10 September 2020

Figure 24.3 Westminster palace and abbey, as de­

Subscriber: Durham University; date: 10 September 2020

Subscriber: Durham University; date: 10 September 2020

Figure 24.4 A reconstruction of the thirteenth-centu­

Subscriber: Durham University; date: 10 September 2020

Beaumont James, T. and Gerrard, C. M. 2007 Clarendon: landscape of kings, Windgather,

Biddle, M. 2005 Nonsuch Palace, Oxbow, Oxford

Subscriber: Durham University; date: 10 September 2020

Brentnall, H. C. 1938 ‘Marlborough Castle’, Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History

Donovan, C. 1993 The Winchester Bible, The British Library, London

Gerrard, C. M. 2003 Medieval archaeology: understanding traditions and contemporary

landscape, Boydell, Woodbridge

Subscriber: Durham University; date: 10 September 2020

Hope-Taylor, B. 1977 Yeavering: an Anglo-British centre of early Northmbria, Her

Howard, H. and Sauerberg, M. L. 2015 ‘The polychromy at Westminster Abbey, 1250–

Jansen, V. 2015 ‘Henry III’s palace at Westminster’, in W. Rodwell and T. W. T. Tatton-

Keevill, G. D. 2000 Medieval palaces: an archaeology, Tempus, Stroud

Munby, J. 2015 ‘Late-14th-century reconstruction of Westminster Hall’, in W. Rodwell and

Subscriber: Durham University; date: 10 September 2020

Rahtz, P. A. 1969Excavations at King John’s hunting lodge, Writtle, Essex, 1955–

57, The Society for Medieval Archaeology Monograph 3, London

Renoux, A. (ed.) 1994 Palais médiévaux (France-Belgique): 25 ans d’archéologie, Univer­

Rodwell, W. 2015 ‘The archaeology of Westminster Abbey: and historiographical

Sykes, N. J. 2004 ‘The introduction of fallow deer to Britain: a zooarchaeological perspec­

Tatton-Brown, T. W. T. 2010 St George’s Chapel, Windsor: history and heritage, Dovecote

Subscriber: Durham University; date: 10 September 2020

Tom Beaumont James

Tom Beaumont James is Professor Emeritus in Archaeology and History at Winches­

Subscriber: Durham University; date: 10 September 2020

You might also like

Figure 24.1 Lyddington Bede House in Leicester

Figure 24.2 A map of royal palaces during the Mid

Figure 24.3 Westminster palace and abbey, as de

Figure 24.4 A reconstruction of the thirteenth-centu

Renoux, A. (ed.) 1994 Palais médiévaux (France-Belgique): 25 ans d’archéologie, Univer

Sykes, N. J. 2004 ‘The introduction of fallow deer to Britain: a zooarchaeological perspec

Tom Beaumont James is Professor Emeritus in Archaeology and History at Winches