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Materializing Resistant Identities Among the Medieval Peasantry

An Examination of Dress Accessories from English Rural Settlement Sites

University College Dublin, Ireland, sally.smith{at}ucd.ie

This article examines metal dress accessories from a range of late medieval English rural settlement sites. It is argued at the outset that medieval archaeology has been very slow to consider the concept of resistance when interrogating the material culture of the peasantry and that items of dress are particularly amenable to such consideration given the close relationship between personal appearance and social power in this period. The dress accessories from seven excavated sites are investigated and interpreted as revealing the use of `infra-political' power by members of the medieval peasantry as they deployed this aspect of their material lives in re-fashioning and resisting the identities imposed on them by the medieval elite.

Key Words: dress accessories • infra-politics • medieval peasantry • resistance

Journal of Material Culture, Vol. 14, No. 3, 309-332 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/1359183509106423


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