Mapping Medieval Chester Festival

by Kathryn Hadley

A new website devoted to medieval Chester will be launched tomorrow, August 29th, as one of the final stages of the Mapping Medieval Chester project. The project was developed by Swansea University, Queen’s University Belfast and King’s College London in an effort to understand how different communities lived and interacted in Chester between 1200 and 1500AD. It addressed issues of space, place and identity in the town on the border town between England and Wales and explored how writers form various ethnic communities and cultural backgrounds imagined and represented Chester.

The new website features a multi-layered map of Chester at the end of the Middle-Ages and is linked to medieval texts, which are being made accessible to the public for the first time. The texts include De laude Cestrie, a 12th-century description of the city in Latin by Lucian who was probably a monk at St Werburgh monastery, and the Life of St Werburge a verse celebration of Chester and its patron, St Werburgh, written by the monk Henry Bradshaw in approximately 1513.

The Grosvenor Museum has been a partner in the project and has organised a programme of events on August 29th to celebrate the launch of the new website. Highlights at the Grosvenor Museum include a series of readings from medieval texts relating to Chester, a photographic display of medieval sites in Chester and the opportunity to view the museum’s collection of medieval documents.

For further information on the project visit http://www.medievalchester.ac.uk/
For further information on the Mapping Medieval Chester Festival visit http://www.grosvenormuseum.co.uk/