Prior Eastry's Memory Palace

Supervisory Team: Prof Barbara Bombi (Kent), Dr Rocio von Jungenfeld (Kent)

Based at: Kent

KOM Theme: C – Systems of Knowledge

Medieval Canterbury, particularly in relation to Thomas Becket’s murder in the Cathedral (1170), has fascinated generations across the world for centuries, yet crucial records associated with the social and economic life of the city in the High Middle Ages remain largely untapped in the strongroom of the Canterbury Cathedral Archives and Library (CCAL). The PhD project will unlock some of these historical treasures by assisting with the digitisation of the records, and by creating verbatim transcriptions and translating the Latin text contained in the Register E cartulary.

Canterbury’s medieval history still attracts visitors to the city, yet the original documentary evidence of life in the city around Becket’s time has remained curiously neglected since the publication of William Urry’s Canterbury Under the Angevin Kings  (London, 1967). Urry’s study brings into play the method of loci, including detailed maps which topographically connect medieval charters (some of which are included in Register E) with 13th-century Canterbury, an urban structure that has remained largely intact to the present day.

It is expected that an interactive map of Canterbury in the High Middle Ages will be produced to enable digital access to a selection of the content recorded in Register E, and the spatialisation of some of these records and other relevant CCAL objects. The digital map will be a core output of the PhD project, a Memory Palace in its own right, and present information that is currently largely inaccessible.

Image reproduced by kind permission of the Dean and Chapter, Canterbury Cathedral.