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Texte remanié de: Th.--Liverpool--University.

This thesis considers a little-examined region of medieval Britain through the concept and significance of power and place applied to the architecture and landscapes of castles. Over the last thirty-five years, castle studies have shifted in their interpretations of the defensive, offensive and aesthetic landscape contexts of medieval fortified residences and have adopted a new line of research. It is now understood generally that, apart from occasional military activity, most castles were used less for military purposes and more for administration and display as the lords’ residences. No such study has been made of castles in medieval Cheshire, to critically evaluate and apply new approaches in castle studies to the Cheshire evidence. This thesis concerns the number, location and distribution of castles raised in medieval Cheshire — which included current areas of north-east Wales and Greater Manchester — under the quasi-independent earls of Chester and their tenants, c.1070–1237. The study is primarily one of landscape history and archaeology, which together span many disciplinary boundaries. It draws upon previously un-studied or under-studied documentary and cartographic sources, as well as new interpretations of archaeological features at and around castle sites. An original research approach is thus employed to revisit and reinterpret the changing social, political and historical frameworks of fortified élite residences in medieval Cheshire. Within the context of current debates on the historic landscape, in-depth exploration situates related castle case studies within their respective spatial and temporal environs.

Researching early medieval stone sculpture has long been enabled and constrained by approaches devised and subsequently honed over the last century focusing on form and ornamentation. These approaches largely prioritise the physical appearance of sculptural fragments, often distancing them from the physical and cognitive contexts in which they operated from their creation to the present. This thesis brings together popular strands of research from other areas of archaeology - landscape, biography, materiality and monumentality - to explore how early medieval stone sculpture operated in place and time, from their construction through processes of use and reuse. The study recognises that sculpture did not function independent of physical location or the socio-political context with which it was connected and that many sculptures have life-histories which can be charted through individual monuments, assemblages of sculpture, and regional patterns. Using a tenth-/eleventh-century assemblage from Cheshire, the biographies of the county’s early medieval monuments and architectural fragments are explored in relation to their physical location and the local historical frameworks with which they are connected. Through this original and distinctive approach, Cheshire's corpus of early medieval stone sculpture is both revisited and reinterpreted to emphasis the power of place and the biographies of stone sculpture.

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This work analyses the impact of landownership on the physical development and other factors affecting settlements in south-west Cheshire between 1750 and 2000, seeking to demonstrate the hypothesis that landownership was the overriding influence on settlement growth or decline. To assist in this the work also addresses the related problem of how most accurately to analyse landownership in townships. It therefore presents an original methodology using the Herfmdahl-Hirschman Index (HHI) in an historical context to determine the amount of landowner concentration in a township. The use of HHI as a measure of landownership concentration (indicating the extent of large landowner control) is presented as a more accurate, easy to use, quantifiable method of analysis than the traditional distinction between 'open' and 'closed'. Following a demonstration of HHI's superiority over the traditional terms using examples in south-west Cheshire, HHI is used to analyse the effect on settlement development of landownership trends in the area. HHI is then used to analyse the effect of dominant landowners on the main population trends, transport infrastructure, farming, enclosure and twentieth-century planning and legislation in relation to settlement development in the area. HHI supports the main conclusion that decisions made by large landowners and subsequently planners in south-west Cheshire had a continuous and profound effect on settlement patterns and development from the mid-eighteenth century up to the end of the twentieth century. The intervention and influence of the major landowners and twentieth-century planners hindered settlement growth. Landowners had both a direct influence on settlement development through the buying and selling of land and an indirect influence through their role in determining the transport infrastructure and their bequest of a prevailing pattern of land use, which in turn was preserved via modern planning decisions. Following the decline of major landowners during the early twentieth century, planning laws restricted building in agricultural areas with the aim of preserving agricultural land. Analysis of land tax records in conjunction with HHI shows that although landownership consolidation took place, the number of smaller landowners was maintained and even increased in places and such building as took place was focussed on the increasing number of smaller plots. HHI also demonstrates the discernible trend that in south-west Cheshire the settlements that were the larger, more open settlements of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were those that increased in size both physically and in terms of population throughout the period while the smaller closed settlements tended to stagnate or decline. Overall the research has demonstrated that settlements flourished in low HHI townships with less control by large landowners, that settlements in high HHI townships were rarely allowed to grow, and that patterns established in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were perpetuated into the late twentieth and early twenty-first century by a conservative approach to planning.

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This thesis sets out to examine the nature and extent of retail provision, chiefly in three Cheshire towns, during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Traditionally major developments in retailing have been seen as taking place after 1850 with shops and shopping remaining traditionally organised, and probably of less importance than markets or even hawkers, during the early stages of industrialisation in Britain. Such assumptions have rarely been based on very much evidence and it is hoped that by presenting some of the evidence relating to retailing immediately before and during the early Industrial revolution a clearer picture will emerge. Thus it has been necessary to consider the extent to which shops existed in the eighteenth century, how widespread they were and how important they were in relation to non-shop retailing. The context in which retailing is examined in the thesis is that of three contrasting towns. A local approach is taken because much of the evidence relating to retailing is essentially local and because by looking in depth at a small area retailing can be seen in relation to the general economic development of the area. Two of the towns, Macclesfield and Stockport, grew rapidly from the late eighteenth century as their textile industries developed and they thus provide good examples of towns where the demand for foodstuffs could have been in danger of outstripping the institutions for their supply. Chester by contrast grew much more slowly and had long been a commercial centre serving the needs of a wide area. Thus there was no reason to look for a crisis of retail provision there, but rather to examine how far new retailing institutions were emerging to cater for growing demand for consumer goods and how far the organisation of shops was changing. Furthermore the local approach made possible an examination of the regional pattern of retail provision. The pattern of market towns and their links with one another could be examined and an attempt made to describe the functional roles of the towns in the region, This involved making some tentative suggestions about the geography of shopping centres and trying to construct a hierarchy of service centres. Although it was by no means possible to answer all the questions about retailing that could have been posed, and many questions relating to retailing economics in the eighteenth century will probably always reuain unanswered, the study of markets and shops is of considerable importance. Distribution has too frequently been ignored when economic development and town growth have been under consideration, yet without adequate provision for the distribution of food and consumer goods, urban society can hardly be sustained. The classic period of the industrial revolution is a key period for the growth of towns and for the growth of home demand, and whatever the deficiencies of the data, increased information on these matters is of value. Only by examining distribution and the general growth of services can a fuller picture emerge of the great changes taking place in the economy and society in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The thesis begins by suggesting some of the theoretical linkage a between industrial growth and the development of retailing and then suggesting the impact of different levels of deraand and changes of levels of demand on the organisation of retailing. The local background is then considered, both in terms of the network of trade links fron the three towns chiefly examined and changes in these consequent on industrial developments in the towns, and in terms of local resources for food supply. Trading Institutions such as fairs, and particularly the fairs at Chester, are examined in Chapter 2 and in Chapter 3 Cheshire agriculture, the urban demand for food, including questions of diet, and the mechanism linking supply and demand are considered. A brief survey of the role of middlemen, of private marketing and of the consequences for food supply of improved communications leads on to an examination of the market towns of Cheshire in their role as the traditional distribution points for local surpluses and for the exchange of rural and urban products. The pattern of market towns is considered in Chapter 4 with mention being made of the periodicity of markets, the shape and size of market areas and the extent to which prices imply that there was a relatively perfect market operating in the county. The history of the markets in Macclesfield, Stockport and Chester is examined in Chapter 5 and the extent to which markets were losing wholesale functions while retaining retail functions for the sale of perishable goods is considered. Also discussed is the ability of the markets to cope with rapidly growing demand particularly in years of scarcity, and the occasional market riots are described. Finally, before turning to shops, Chapter 6 attempts to suggest the importance of itinerant trading both in the countryside and the towns in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The examination of the importance of fixed shops begins with a study of the county pattern of service centres and a discussion of the expected shape of shopping catchment areas and their size. Some suggestions are then made about the extent of retail provision in the county as a whole and particularly about the penetration of fixed shops into villages. It is further suggested that Chester had an overwhelmingly dominant position as a shopping centre with Stockport and Macslesfield next in importance in the county. Chapters 8, 9, and 10 turn to Macclesfield, Stockport and Chester for a more detailed examination of the shops in those towns. Firstly the numbers of shops are suggested, together with the chronology of growth in shop numbers, changes in the relative importance of different types of shop and the location pattern of shops. In Chapter 9 some of the general characteristics of shop retailing are analysed and the institutional context of urban and gild regulations in which shops, particularly in Chester, operated is described. The final section of the chapter looks at the risk of bankruptcy facing shopkeepers and by contrast the opportunities of making money from shops. Detailed examination of the different shop trades, including description of stocks held, of the nature of the business done and of the degree of integration or separation between producing and retailing is the subject of Chapter 10. Much of the information for this had to be based on very miscellaneous evidence, only occasionally confirmed by the business records of retailers, but an overall picture of shop retailing nevertheless emerged. The thesis demonstrates firstly the possibility of providing at least some quantitative information on shop numbers from the late eighteenth century, and to a very limited extent from the early eighteenth century. This makes possible comparison of shop provision between towns and over time and can demonstrate the specific role of certain towns as shopping centres in the eighteenth century as well as suggesting rapid growth in shop numbers from about 1780, and even more rapid growth after the first decade or two of the nineteenth century. Although the figures produced have to be treated with caution, they imply that at least initially shop provision may not have kept up with growing demand in the most rapidly growing towns. However, it is equally clear that shops were widespread In the eighteenth century and that general provisions shops wore to be found in substantial numbers in towns before 1800. Secondly a pattern of service centres can be described, including not only market towns but also many villages in which shops were to be found.

Thesis (M.L.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves.