ABSTRACT
As a multidisciplinary approach to copper acquisition and object production, this thesis aims to provide a clear understanding of late-monastic society and its metal economy, through the study of neglected copper-alloy working evidence. From three research perspectives, this study has brought together state-of-the-art materials science, archaeological and historical approaches. To determine the level of acquisition and production, the copper-alloy metalwork and production waste from a wide range of monastic houses and religious orders is identified, examined, and analysed. As limited viable copper was mined in late-medieval England, the majority is known to have been imported in the form of portable objects, not always raw material, where it was then re-melted, re-cycled, re-worked, and sold on.
Copper was not a metal of the monastery, yet there is little explanation for the abundance of copper-alloy working evidence found on these monastic sites; all of which have never been systematically excavated. The project afforded a rare opportunity to undertake sub-surface chemical analysis on a wide range of copper-alloy objects, including a small collection of unusual and infrequently encountered monastic artefacts. These analyses provided evidence that in reality, there was little difference between secular and religious use of metal in this period, and the assumptions based on what we know from records of the belongings of the monastic elite may be misguided.
This study also highlights the importance of re-identification and examination of neglected archives. England’s national institutions are full of materials from past investigations, which have yet to be researched and analysed. It is only through collaboration with those institutions that these archives will ever be examined.
