Skip to main content

IMC 2007: Sessions

Session 517: Fashioning and Refashioning Identities: Narratives of People and Places in Late Medieval Canterbury

Tuesday 10 July 2007, 09.00-10.30

Sponsor:Canterbury Centre for Medieval & Tudor Studies, University of Kent
Organiser:Sheila Sweetinburgh, Canterbury Centre for Medieval & Early Modern, University of Kent
Moderator/Chair:Catherine T. Richardson, Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham
Paper 517-aManufactured Identities and Civic Policy: A Comparison of Two Late Medieval Towns
(Language: English)
Mark L. Merry, Centre for Metropolitan History / Birkbeck, University of London
Index terms: Anthropology, Local History, Social History
Paper 517-bLooking to the Past: The St Thomas Pageant in Late Medieval Canterbury
(Language: English)
Sheila Sweetinburgh, Canterbury Centre for Medieval & Early Modern, University of Kent
Index terms: Anthropology, Local History, Social History
Paper 517-cEarly Antiquarian Descriptions of Canterbury
(Language: English)
Claire Bartram, Canterbury Christ Church University
Index terms: Anthropology, Local History, Social History
Abstract

Taking as its starting point the means whereby people seek to produce narratives about themselves and their surroundings, this session examines the construction of personal identity and that of the city of Canterbury. Using ideas from cultural anthropology, the papers provide innovative insights into Canterbury's development during a difficult period in the city's history. Merry, adopting a comparative approach, investigates the self-fashioning of identity by members of urban elites, Sweetinburgh considers the way Canterbury's leading citizens sought to fashion their city's identity and Bartram explores the narratives produced by early antiquarians who, as outsiders, envisaged Canterbury's identity from a different perspective.