Duncan Berryman
Duncan Berryman
Qualifications
BA [Hons] Ancient History & Archaeology (QUB);
MSc Landscape, Heritage & Environment (QUB)
Postgraduate
Email: dberryman01@qub.ac.uk
Address
School of Geography, Archaeology and Palaeoecology (GAP)
Queen’s University Belfast
Belfast, BT7 1NN
Northern Ireland, UK
Telephone
+44 (0)28 9097 5287
Current Research: Past Cultural Change
A documentary and archaeological investigation of the buildings of manorial curiae
Much work has been carried out on the agriculture of medieval England, such as crop yields and practices. The society of medieval England is well understood, Roberts and Wrathmell have researched the development of settlement across England and Beresford initiated the analysis of medieval towns in England and Wales. Salzman has compiled a comprehensive collection of documentary references and illustrations of building techniques and materials from the Middle Ages. At the centre of the English manor was a curia, the lord’s residence and the farm with barns and outbuildings. However, very little is understood about the curia; the type of buildings and their size remains unknown and the position of the buildings on sites is a mystery.
This project aims to shed new light on manorial curiae and answer questions that have remained unasked for years. By understanding the buildings of the curia and their maintenance, we can gain a fuller understanding of curiae and how they functioned. This analysis of the expenditure of manors can be combined with work already carried out on the income of the manor from crop sales. This research will use documents, such as Inquisitions Post Mortem and manorial accounts, from the fourteenth century to illustrate the buildings of the curia and the annual expenditure they required.
Principal Supervisor: Dr Mark Gardiner
Secondary Supervisor: Prof Bruce Campbell
Previous research:
My BA dissertation in archaeology focused on the defensibility of the Irish Tower House and involved an experiment to test the strength of an oak door.
I returned to QUB to complete an MSc in Landscape, Heritage and Environment, this allowed me to gain GIS skills and my thesis developed a new method for assessing the value of historic landscapes.
Publications:
2008, ‘Defending the lord's power - Testing the strength of an Irish Tower House door’, Proceedings of Power in the Middle Ages conference, NUI Galway
2009, ‘Home Security: How strong was a Tower House Door?’ Archaeology Ireland 23 [Summer 2009], 8-10 Forthcoming, ‘Irish Tower Houses: a study of their defensibility’, Proceedings of the 2009 conference of the AYIA
Forthcoming, ‘A study of the defensibility of Irish Tower Houses’ Castle Studies Group Journal
In preparation, ‘Field surveys undertaken by the Ulster Archaeological Society in 2007’ Ulster Journal of Archaeology
Conference Papers:
8th October 2008: Defending the lord's power - Testing the strength of an Irish Tower House door, Power in the Middle Ages: NUI Galway, Ireland
4th April 2009: Irish Tower Houses: a study of their defensibility, Association of Young Irish Archaeologists Annual Conference: Institute of Technology Sligo, Ireland
Additional Information:
Memberships:
Member of the Council for British Archaeology since 2002
Member of the Ulster Archaeological Society since 2006
Member of the Castle Studies Group since 2008
Member of the Society for Medieval Archaeology since 2008
Student member of the Institute for Archaeologists since 2009
Student member of the Vernacular Architecture Group since 2010
Student member of the British Agricultural History Society since 2010
