Dobson Scholars, Yorkist History Trust Scholars, and PGR/ECR presenters at the 2025 Harlaxton Medieval Symposium (courtesy of Ana Roda Sanchez)
Each year, we award two Dobson Scholarships to PGRs and ECRs whose research interests align closely with the theme of the Symposium. Here, the Dobson Scholars for 2025, Isla Dawson (University of Bristol) and Gemma Lees (University of York), provide accounts of their experiences at the 2025 Harlaxton Medieval Symposium: The Medieval City.
Isla Dawson
I was incredibly grateful to receive a Dobson Scholarship to attend the Harlaxton Medieval Symposium, and would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to the committee for the opportunity to attend. Harlaxton was one of the conferences I had set my sights on attending when I began my PhD — I had quickly come to admire its publications on The Urban Church and The Friars in Medieval Britain and had heard stories of its congenial atmosphere from academics and fellow students. My doctoral supervisors had further flagged to me that study across disciplines — art history, literary studies, historical studies, and more — was central to the Symposium’s purpose, and would appeal to my own research which uses primary and secondary literature from several of these disciplines. I planned to wait for the perfect theme to come along to apply for a scholarship, and ‘The Medieval City’ came at just the right time to speak to the chapter I was then writing. As it turned out, I learned so much more, on a wider range of topics, than I had anticipated — this is, I think, one of the great benefits of a concentrated conference without parallel papers, which encourages you to attend every panel regardless of your prior knowledge.
My research has come to focus on the social communities and power dynamics in medieval towns more than I had anticipated at its inception. My doctoral thesis studies the reuse of monastery buildings and precincts in the immediate wake of the Dissolution of the Monasteries; its period is the 2-3 decades following Dissolution in order to highlight the negotiation of this radical change in local societies, and it takes as its focus the ways that monastery buildings could become useful to civic institutions and private individuals in these societies, instead of focusing on processes of destruction, and instead of characterising reuse as destruction. I began this project by studying clusters of different monastery types in towns and cities, focusing on friaries in Chester (Cheshire) and Newcastle (Northumberland). These examples on the borders of Wales and England and England and Scotland led me to reflect on the structure of the English polity, and to re-examine the relationship between central authority in London and local societies. I have argued in my latest chapter that historians of the Dissolution have under-valued the agency of civic institutions and parish organisations in directing reuse of monastic materials, particularly in urban environments. My study has also highlighted that the Court of Augmentations was dependent on these societies for both information and cooperation, a dynamic which did not vest it with the level of authority we may have assumed.
When I arrived at the Harlaxton Medieval Symposium I had been struggling for weeks to grasp the nature of the medieval guild — what was it for, who was part of one, when and why was a craft guild different from a religious guild, and what were their relationships to urban monasteries, were all live questions in my head that I couldn’t seem to reconcile by reading. Luckily for me, the symposium was serendipitously full of papers on medieval guilds of various kinds, and I returned to my supervisors full of relief and ready to strengthen my chapter. Kate Giles’ paper on the guild chapel in Stratford on Avon walked us calmly through the layout of a guild hall and the functions of its various parts, including the multi-functionality of the hall, as well as providing an expert overview of the archaeology undertaken to uncover painted wall decorations in this and other guild hall structures. Alma Poloni’s paper on craft guilds in Europe, particularly in Siena, discussed the crafts’ internal hierarchies and their relationships with the civic authorities of medieval towns, and Shannon McSheffrey’s paper on the Skinners’ high rates of involvement in the Evil May Day Riots of 1517 discussed structural conflict in guilds in a way that enriched my understanding of their function, and of the geographical mobility of members of craft guilds. This theme was yet again addressed and consolidated in the Pamela Tudor Craig Memorial Lecture, in which Caroline Barron discussed the nature of the aldermanic class in London and challenged the idea that there were no merchant dynasties in medieval London, arguing the dynasties were rather made through marriages to the daughters of affluent craftsmen and traders, who provided vital patronage and connections and so bequeathed a dynasty legacy without their family name.
There was also a concerted focus on the creation and storage of documents in papers presented at the symposium, which I found particularly original and interesting in the context of urban life in the medieval period. Papers given by Adele Sykes on the reform of legal record keeping in the wake of the Black Death and by Eliza Hartrich on Bristol’s merchant community and the nature of civic archives, which might have circulated in private hands as often as they were securely stored in corporate spaces. These were themes I had not anticipated but found absolutely fascinating. Similarly, though I had no prior knowledge of their subjects, I was fascinated by papers given by Eliot Benbow on the international trade in material culture by members of the Haberdashers’ Guild (with some excellent images from MOLA’s collections) and with Zoe Opacic’s on The Rostock Scroll from its creation through its collection history.
My experience at Harlaxton was made by the Symposium’s attendees as well as its speakers; I was grateful to discuss the presentations with other academics in attendance, and to have the opportunity to discuss the presentation I had given in the PGR presentation session on the first day. I was glad to discover that Nick Holder, whose monograph (The Friaries of Medieval London, Boydell 2017) I was very familiar with, was in attendance and happy to discuss record classes at TNA, and I was lucky enough to have a conversation with Nicola Coldstream about Chester Cathedral over lunch one day. I found that the Harlaxton Medieval Symposium truly made the most of the benefits of a small conference, with a conversational and close-knit atmosphere, and a community of scholars who made the event feel very welcoming.
Gemma Lees
I first want to express my gratitude to all who had a part to play in this year’s Harlaxton Medieval Symposium, held at Madingley Hall, which brought together scholars at all stages of their careers to reflect on the rich and multifaceted theme of the medieval city. Thank you to the convenors, steering committee, and secretaries for planning and hosting a stimulating and welcoming event. Thank you to Shaun Tyas and Boydell & Brewer for their bookstalls, which provided conversation-starting points between sessions and made my bag heavier on the trip home. Also, thank you to all the attendees whose intellectual generosity and passion resulted in lively questions and debates during sessions and well into the evenings.
I am incredibly grateful to have been awarded the Barrie Dobson Scholarship, which facilitated my attendance at the symposium. Scholarships like this are so vital to help those at the beginning of their academic careers to attend such events and to integrate with the wider academic community. To attend the Harlaxton Medieval Symposium has been a goal of mine since my undergraduate studies in art history. I first became aware of the symposium through the Harlaxton Medieval Studies series, which has been, and continues to be, a vital source of information and inspiration. To be able to attend in person, and at such a formative stage in my doctoral research, was a privilege, and to be introduced to so many individuals whose work has been foundational to my own, and to be a part of such an invigorating atmosphere cannot be taken for granted.
Moreover, considering that my project focuses on how late medieval merchants represented their evolving individual and collective identity through their use of commemorative media in the parish churches of York and Norwich, the symposium’s chosen theme of the medieval city could hardly have been more directly relevant. The interdisciplinary nature of the symposium was invaluable for enriching my understanding of the medieval urban context and providing insights into the contrasts and commonalities between Britain and Europe, and large and small urban communities.
The nine sessions of two papers and The Pamela Tudor-Craig Memorial Lecture provided stimulating discussions of how individuals and communities perceived, navigated, and shaped urban life. Each paper was rigorous and approached the topic of the medieval city through a different lens, utilising an array of sources. A strength of Harlaxton lies in its interdisciplinary nature, facilitating new approaches and connections to arise. This was further aided by the arrangement of the papers, which invited the audience to draw parallels between, at times, spatially and temporally distant case studies.
For example, Janna Coomans’ paper examined the development of fire management strategies in the Low Countries, demonstrating how urban communities adapted physically and socially to such threats. This was then followed by Joe Chick’s paper on household possessions after the Black Death, in which they found evidence pointing towards the extent to which individuals diversified their trades to be economically resilient. These papers together provided an interesting discussion into the navigation of risk in medieval urban society on both a city wide and individual scale.
Another example of an overarching theme in a session was on how cities were used to convey ideological notions rather than merely provide context. Julian Luxford discussed this in relation to images of cities and how they fluctuated between being accurate, spatial representations or influenced by religious notions or other ideals. This was then complemented by Helen Fulton’s paper on the use of Caerleon in literature to express imagined histories to support identity creation. These papers highlight the power and potential of cities in medieval mentalities as more than a place.
Though I do not have the space to discuss all of the papers, I hope this offers a glimpse into the vitality of medieval urban studies and how it is a field that grapples with ongoing polemics such as resilience, communal memory, and belonging.
Alongside the opportunity to hear the work of so many established scholars, a highlight for me was the PGR/ECR presentations on the first evening. This offered a fantastic opportunity to hear what other students and early career researchers are working on, but also gave us a platform to share our research before an incredibly knowledgeable and supportive audience. The decision to arrange these papers on the first evening of the symposium was especially effective, as it introduced us and our areas of research to all of the attendees. This resulted in senior scholars approaching us to share their thoughts and offering suggestions for readings and further contacts. Perhaps more importantly, it brought together a collection of PGRs and ECRs from several universities and across the world to forge new connections between ourselves and introduce each other to individuals working on similar topics in our cohort who were not in attendance.
This exemplifies the ethos of Harlaxton. It is not only a forum for presenting new research, but it also offers an invaluable space to foster a passionate scholarly community. A place where collegiality between senior scholars and those at the beginning of their careers can be helpful for all, and result in equally stimulating discussions within the sessions or taking place over coffee or a glass of wine.
Thank you again for the incredible opportunity to attend, and thank you to the organisers, sponsors, and participants.
Yorkist History Trust Scholarships
Five other scholarships to the 2025 Symposium were generously funded by the Yorkist History Trust. You can read the accounts of recipients of the YHT Scholarships on their blog.