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8. POST-MEDIEVAL (1485–1750): RESEARCH AGENDA
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8.1 Urbanism: morphology, functions and buildings
8.1.1: Can we elucidate the roles of towns as social, administrative, industrial and commercial centres, their integration within regional marketing systems and their relationship to communication routes?
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8.1.2: How were towns organised and planned, and how did population growth impact upon their internal spatial organisation?
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8.1.3: What was the impact of religion, urban government, civic pride and class structures upon town planning and architecture (e.g. public buildings such as town halls or prisons and water management structures)?
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8.1.4: What can studies of environmental data, artefacts and structural remains tell us about variations in diet, living conditions and status?
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8.1.5: Can we recognise the emergence of the poorer classes in the developing suburbs?
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8.1.6: How can we advance studies of building plans and standing remains, especially where hidden inside later buildings, and of caves and cellars?
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8.2 Landscapes of display: country houses and gardens
8.2.1: Can we elucidate further the use of social space in buildings and across the landscape, the manipulation of vistas and the integration of gardens with the wider landscape?
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8.2.2: How were garden designs influenced by changing fashions and by a familiarity with Continental garden styles?
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8.2.3: What horticultural methods, planting schemes and water management methods were employed by garden planners?
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8.2.4: How are tenants and servants reflected in the surviving material culture?
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8.2.5: Can we establish regional typologies of parklands, parkland structures and the villages and cottages associated with estates?
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8.3 Agricultural landscapes and the food-producing economy
8.3.1: How can we improve our understanding of the early landscapes of enclosure and improvement and the interrelationship between arable, pasture, woodland, commons and waste?
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8.3.2: How did water management and land drainage change the landscape during this period?
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8.3.3: What changes and improvements occurred in animal husbandry and the use of animals (e.g. new breeds, traction and traded animal products)?
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8.3.4: What garden plants and crops were grown in the countryside and urban market gardens, and what new types were introduced?
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8.4 Rural settlement patterns and building traditions
8.4.1: Can we enhance our understanding of the houses of the rural poor?
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8.4.2: Can we develop as an aid to academic study and conservation management a regional typology of farmhouses, barns and other rural vernacular buildings?
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8.4.3: Can we discern intra-regional or temporal variations in the pattern of rural vernacular architecture?
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8.4.4: What was the impact of industrialisation upon established settlement patterns and the rural landscape, and how did this vary regionally?
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8.4.5: How did the diet, living conditions and status of rural and urban communities compare?
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8.5 Industry and communications
8.5.1: Can we elucidate the organisation of the workplace, gender differences at work and the development of industrial processes (especially the nationally important lead, coal and tanning industries)?
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8.5.2: Can we shed further light upon the developing technology of the regionally important early stoneware potteries?
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8.5.3: Can we identify domestic buildings adapted for the textile industry?
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8.5.4: How were transport infrastructures improved and how was this related to the developing urban and market hierarchy?
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8.5.5: What may be learned of the material culture of industrial workers?
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8.5.6: What can we deduce from factory/non-factory production data about the changing economy (especially patterns of marketing and consumption)?
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8.6 Ecclesiastical structures, estates and burials
8.6.1: What was the impact of the Reformation upon ecclesiastical buildings and monastic estates?
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8.6.2: Can a typology of church-related and non-Anglican buildings be devised?
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8.6.3: How can we ensure appropriate recording of churches and chapels, graveyards, artefacts of burial and remembrance and human remains (with their major potential for elucidating diet, health and demography)?
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8.6.4: Can we devise a typology to record and classify more effectively the interiors of ecclesiastical buildings, their decoration and monuments?
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8.7 Battlefields and fortifications
8.7.1: How best can we record and study battlefield sites, particularly of the Civil War period (e.g. Naseby)?
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8.7.2: How can we refine our knowledge of Civil War defences and siege works?
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8.7.3: What was the impact of the Civil War upon urban development (notably the demolition of suburbs, as at Leicester, and post-siege development)?
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8.8 Material culture
8.8.1: How was pottery distributed across the region and can we identify competition between regional potteries?
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8.8.2: Can we establish a dated type series for ceramics (building in particular upon unpublished urban pit and well groups)?
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8.8.3: Can we identify the changing material culture of the urban and rural poor, the emerging middle classes and the aristocracy?
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8.8.4: Were there different patterns of consumption between town and countryside and between different agricultural regions?
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8.8.5: What may be deduced about the symbolic use of material culture (e.g. in social competition)?
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