Professor Ben Jervis

I joined the university as Professor of Medieval Archaeology in 2023. I am a specialist in the archaeology of medieval England, with particular interests in urbanism and material culture. I am also committed to the advancement of theoretical approaches within the discipline and have published widely on archaeological applications of assemblage thought.

I am PI of the UKRI funded project ENDURE: Urban Life in a Time of Crisis, which takes an interdisciplinary and multi-scalar approach to understanding urban lifeways in the small towns of later medieval England.

Books

Jervis, B., Briggs, C., Forward, A., Gromelski, T. and Tompkins, M. 2023. The Material Culture of English Rural Households c. 1250–1600. Cardiff University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.18573/book10

Jervis, B. 2018. Assemblage Thought and Archaeology. Routledge.

Jervis, B., Williams, E., Nugent, R. and Hausmair, B. (eds). 2018. Archaeologies of rules and regulation: between text and practice. Berghahn.

Jervis, B. ed. 2018. The Middle Ages revisited. Studies in the Archaeology and history of Medieval Southern England presented to Professor David A. Hinton. Archaeopress.

Jervis, B., Broderick, L. G. and Grau Sologestoa, I. eds. 2016. Objects, Environment, and Everyday Life in Medieval Europe. Studies in the History of Daily Life (800-1600) Vol. HDL 3. Turnhout: Brepols. (10.1484/M.HDL-EB.5.110681)

Sibbesson, E., Jervis, B. and Coxon, S. eds. 2016. Insight from Innovation: New Light on Archaeological Ceramics. Southampton: Highfield Press.

Jervis, B., Howard, W. and Bedigan, K. eds. 2015. Food and Drink in Archaeology 4. Prospect Books.

Jervis, B. 2014. Pottery and Social Life in Medieval England: Towards a Relational Approach. Oxford: Oxbow Books.

Kyle, A. and Jervis, B. 2012. Make-do and mend: Archaeologies of compromise, repair and reuse. British Archaeological Reports.

Papers

Jervis, B. 2023. Confronting commerce: whetstones, economy and ecologies of interdependence in Medieval England. Norwegian Archaeological Review (https://doi.org/10.1080/00293652.2023.2203717)

Jervis, B. 2023. Brewing difference: malting, gender and urbanity in medieval England. An examination of drying and malting kilns c1150-1500. Journal of Medieval History (https://doi.org/10.1080/03044181.2023.2253807)

Christopher, B. and Jervis, B. 2023. Some fifteenth-century Canterbury chattels lists. Archaeologia Cantiana 144

Jervis, B. 2022. Examining temporality and difference: an intensive approach to understanding Mediaeval rural settlement. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 29 (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-022-09555-9 )

Jervis, B. 2022. Mortars, medicine and knowledge in Medieval England. Revue d'Histoire Nordique 29.

Jervis, B. 2022. Becoming through milling: challenging linear narratives in medieval England. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 32(2) (10.1017/S0959774321000548)

Jervis, B., Cembrzyński, P., Fleisher, J., Tys, D. and Wynne-Jones, S. 2021. The archaeology of emptiness? Understanding open urban spaces in the medieval world. Journal of Urban Archaeology 4 (10.1484/J.JUA.5.126601)

Briggs, C., Forward, A. and Jervis, B. 2021. Living standards and material culture in English rural households 1300-1600. Data Paper. Internet Archaeology 56 (10.11141/ia.56.14)

Dunne, J. et al. 2021. Finding Oxford's medieval Jewry using organic residue analysis, faunal records and historical documents. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences 13, article number: 48. (10.1007/s12520-021-01282-8)

Craig-Atkins, E. et al. 2020. The dietary impact of the Norman Conquest: a multiproxy archaeological investigation of Oxford, UK. PLoS ONE 15(7), article number: e0235005. (10.1371/journal.pone.0235005)

Briggs, C., Jervis, B., Forward, A. and Tompkins, M. 2019. People, possessions and domestic space in the late medieval escheators' records. Journal of Medieval History 45(2) (10.1080/03044181.2019.1593624)

Jervis, B. 2018. Assemblage urbanism: becoming urban in late Medieval Southampton. Archaeological Dialogues 25(2), pp. 135-160. (10.1017/S138020381800017X)

Jervis, B. et al. 2018. Early Anglo-Saxon pottery in South East England: recent work and a research framework for the future. Medieval Ceramics 36, pp. 17-30.

Forward, A. and Jervis, B. 2017. Living standards and material culture in English rural households 1300-1600. Medieval Settlement Research 32, pp. 84-84.

Jervis, B. 2017. Assembling the archaeology of the global Middle Ages. World Archaeology 49(5), pp. 666-680. (10.1080/00438243.2017.1406397)

Jervis, B. 2017. Reply to comments: re-thinking Medieval things. Norwegian Archaeological Review 50(1), pp. 40-43. (10.1080/00293652.2017.1331460)

Jervis, B. 2017. Assessing urban fortunes in six late medieval ports: an archaeological application of assemblage theory. Urban History 44(1), pp. 2-26. (10.1017/S0963926815000930)

Jervis, B. 2017. Ceramics and coastal communities in medieval (12th-14th Century) Europe: negotiating identity in England's Channel ports. European Journal of Archaeology 20(1), pp. 148-167. (10.1017/eaa.2016.3)

Jervis, B. 2017. Consumption and the 'social self' in Medieval Southern England. Norwegian Archaeological Review 50(1), pp. 1-29. (10.1080/00293652.2017.1326978)

Jervis, B. 2016. Decline or transformation? Archaeology and the late Medieval 'urban decline' in southern England. Archaeological Journal 174(1), pp. 211-243. (10.1080/00665983.2017.1229895)

Jervis, B. 2016. Assemblage theory and town foundation in Medieval England. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 26(3), pp. 381-395. (10.1017/S0959774316000159)

Jervis, B., Briggs, C. and Tompkins, M. 2015. Exploring text and objects: Escheator's inventories and material culture in Medieval English rural households. Medieval Archaeology 59(1), pp. 168-92. (10.1080/00766097.2015.1119400)

Jervis, B. 2014. Middens, memory and the effect of waste. Beyond symbolic meaning in archaeological deposits. An early medieval case study. Archaeological Dialogues 21(2), pp. 175-196. (10.1017/S1380203814000208)

Baeten, J., Jervis, B., De Vos, D. and Waelkens, M. 2013. Molecular evidence for the mixing of meat, fish and vegetables in Anglo-Saxon coarseware from Hamwic, UK. Archaeometry 55(6), pp. 1150-1174. (10.1111/j.1475-4754.2012.00731.x)

Jervis, B. 2013. Conquest, ceramics, continuity and change. Beyond representational approaches to continuity and change in early medieval England: a case study from Anglo-Norman Southampton. Early Medieval Europe 21(4), pp. 455-487. (10.1111/emed.12026)

Jervis, B. 2012. Cuisine and urban identities in medieval England: objects, foodstuffs and urban Life in thirteenth- and Fourteenth-century Hampshire. Archaeological Journal 169(1), pp. 453-479. (10.1080/00665983.2012.11020921)

Jervis, B. 2012. Medieval pottery from Romsey: an overview. Hampshire Studies 67(Pt II), pp. 32-46.

Jervis, B. 2011. A patchwork of people, pots and places: Material engagements and the construction of 'the social' in Hamwic (Anglo-Saxon Southampton), UK. Journal of Social Archaeology 11(3), pp. 239-265. (10.1177/1469605311420223)

Morris, J. and Jervis, B. 2011. What's so special? A reinterpretation of Anglo-Saxon 'special deposits'. Medieval Archaeology 55(1), pp. 66-81. (10.1179/174581711X13103897378401)

Book Chapters

Jervis, B. 2022. Luxury and everyday. In: Davis, J. ed. A Cultural History of Shopping in the Middle Ages., Vol. 2. Bloomsbury.

Jervis, B. 2021. Old things and aspirational households in 15th century England: The case of William Mavndvile of Colnbrook, Middlesex. In: Hawkins, K. and Boughton, D. eds. Back in the Bag: Papers in the Memory of David W. Williams. Spoilheap

Jervis, B. and Semple, S. 2020. Object worlds. textual materialities in a time of transition. In: Semple, S. and Lund, J. eds. A Cultural History of Objects in the Medieval Age. Volume 2. Bloomsbury

Jervis, B. 2020. Resilience and society in medieval Southampton: An archaeological approach to anticipatory action, politics and economy. In: Jones, C., Kostick, C. and Oschema, K. eds. Making the Medieval Relevant: How Medieval Studies Contribute to Improving our Understanding of the Present. De Gruyter (10.1515/9783110546316-013)

Jervis, B., Williams, E., Nugent, R. and Hausmair, B. 2018. Archaeologies of rules and regulation: an introduction. In: Jervis, B. et al. eds. Archaeologies of Rules and Regulation: Between Text and Practice. Berghahn, pp. 1-20.

Jervis, B. 2018. Rules, identity and a sense of place in a medieval town: the case of Southampton's Oak Book. In: Jervis, B. et al. eds. Archaeologies of Rules and Regulation: Between Text and Practice. Berghahn, pp. 25-42.

Jervis, B. 2018. David Hinton and medieval archaeology: A personal appreciation. In: Jervis, B. ed. The Middle Ages Revisited. Studies in the Archaeology and History of Medieval Southern England Presented to Professor David A. Hinton. Archaeopress, pp. 5-10.

Jervis, B., Whelan, F. and Livarda, A. 2017. Cuisine and conquest: interdisciplinary perspectives on food, continuity and change in 11th-century England and beyond. In: Hadley, D. and Dyer, C. eds. The Archaeology of the Eleventh Century: Continuities and Transformations. Routledge, pp. 244-262.

Jervis, B. 2016. Changing places? Place-making in Anglo-Saxon Hamwic, Southampton and Winchester. In: Jervis, B., Broderick, L. G. and Grau Sologesota, I. eds. Objects, Environment and Everyday Life in Medieval Europe. Studies in the History of Daily Life (800-1600) Brepols, pp. 235-260.

Jervis, B. 2016. Trade, cultural exchange and coastal identities in Early Anglo-Saxon Kent: a ceramic perspective. In: Willemsen, A. and Kik, H. eds. Golden Middle Ages in Europe. New Research into Early-Medieval Communities and Identities. Brepols, pp. 57-63.

Jervis, B. 2016. A picture says a thousand words? Decoration, effect and medieval pottery. In: Sibbesson, E., Jervis, B. and Coxon, S. eds. Insight from Innovation. New Light on Archaeological Ceramics. The Highfield Press, pp. 170-185.

Jervis, B. 2015. The context of pottery production in Late Saxon Chichester, England. In: Thuillier, F. and Louis, E. eds. Tourner autour du pot.. Les ateliers de potiers médiévaux du Ve au XIIe siècle dans l’espace européen, Actes du colloque international de Douai (8-10 octobre 2010). Caen: Presses universitaires de Caen

Jervis, B. 2015. Provisioning and Diet in Hamwic (mid-Saxon Southampton): New data and new perspectives. In: Jervis, B., Howard, W. and Bedigan, K. eds. Food & Drink in Archaeology., Vol. 4. Prospect Books, pp. 110-127.

Jervis, B. 2014. Pots as things: value, meaning and medieval pottery in relational perspective. In: Blinkhorn, P. and Cumberpatch, C. eds. The Chiming of Crack'd Bells: Recent Approaches to the Study of Artefacts in Archaeology. British Archaeological Reports International Series Vol. 2677. Archaeopress, pp. 3-16.

Jervis, B. 2013. Rubbish and the creation of urban landscape. A case study from Medieval Southampton, UK. In: Bintliff, J. and Caroscio, M. eds. Pottery and Social Dynamics in the Mediterranean and Beyond in Medieval and Post-Medieval Times. Archaeopress, pp. 57-72.

Jervis, B. 2013. Objects and social change: a case study from Saxo-Norman Southampton. In: Jones, A. M., Alberti, B. and Pollard, J. eds. Archaeology After Interpretation: Returning Materials to Archaeological Theory. Left Coast Press, pp. 219-234.

Jervis, B. 2012. Making-do or making the world? Tempering choices in Anglo-Saxon pottery manufacture. In: Jervis, B. and Kyle, A. eds. Make-do and mend: Archaeologies of compromise, repair and reuse. Archaeopress, pp. 67-80.

Datasets

Forward, A., Jervis, B., Briggs, C., Tompkins, M. and Gromelski, T. 2021. Living standards and material culture in English rural households 1300-1600: digital archive.(10.5284/1085022)

Supervision

I am available to supervise research students interested in aspects of medieval archaeology, urban archaeology and archaeological theory.

Current PhD Students:

Kate Evetts: Understanding the Plant Economy of Small Towns in Medieval England (c1200–1600).  I am also co-supervising several PhD students at Cardiff University.

I am primarily engaged in research, but contribute occasional lectures across the archaeology programmes.

I am available to comment on stories relating to the archaeology of medieval Britain.