Staff
Dr Jemma Bezant
+44 (0)1570424737 (phone)
+44 (0) 1570 423669 (Fax)
Lecturer in landscape and medieval archaeology
BA (Hons) Archaeology, PgDip Cultural Landscape Management, PhD (University of Wales)
Co-Director of the Strata Florida Landscape Project
PROFILE
Jemma is a medievalist and landscape archaeologist with research interests in the Post-Roman period in Britain and northern Europe. She is currently researching her contribution to the forthcoming Monastic Wales publication and is keen to cultivate the strong partnerships between this the Strata Florida Project. A recently completed research project in collaboration with Professor David Austin (funded by the University of Wales’s Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, Aberystwyth) mapped the medieval origin and development of Wales’s largest Cistercian estate of Strata Florida Abbey. Having been involved with the Strata Florida Abbey Research Project for 6 years, she is currently co-director of the Strata Florida Landscape Project where she continues to develop fieldwork and research strategies, design teaching programmes as well as strengthening partnerships with agencies such as the Royal Commission for Ancient and Historic Monuments Wales and Dyfed Archaeological Trust.
Jemma specialises in landscape reconstruction through the application of remote sensing, geomatics and GIS (geographical information systems) and has excavated a number of medieval secular and ecclesiastical sites. Her recently published doctoral thesis was funded by a full AHRC doctoral award and this allowed her to examine territory and settlement in 12th century Wales. She was able to reconstruct the political and cultural geography of an essentially pre-conquest Ceredigion landscape and, in particular, identify some of the specific mechanisms of governance employed by Rhys ap Gruffudd, lord of the ancient dynastic house of Dinefwr. Fieldwork involved topographical and geophysical survey of a number of key locations in and around Llandysul and a series of excavations at the Llanfair estate.
Jemma is particularly interested in revising the historical and nationalist narratives of medieval and later Wales. Her research has highlighted the sophisticated and complex character of the maenor, tref and gwely of pre-conquest Wales and she has been able to analyse the landscape at a series of scales from family and community to lordship and to identify the specific agencies of the lordships of the ‘Age of the Princes’.
Jemma has also been contracted to a number of key archaeological excavations and surveys in the UK including the Royal Commission’s Uplands Archaeology Initiative, the Newport Medieval Ship and the Severn Estuary Levels Research Project. She is also developing links with a number of community groups and currently directs the annual excavations of the Llangynidr Historical Society. Her other research interests include history, community archaeology, vernacular architecture, Welsh medieval and post medieval history, the 18th century gentry estate, landscaped gardens, the history of agriculture and Welsh customary tenure and law.
Jemma is a committee member of the Council for British Archaeology Wales and was appointed as editor of Archaeology in Wales in 2010. She edits the CBA Wales’s biannual newsletter and is a council member for Wales Environment Link. She is also a member of the Society for Medieval Archaeology, the Cambrian Archaeological Association and the Lampeter Society.
TEACHING
Jemma supervises a number of students at dissertation, MA, MPhil and PhD level.
Her teaching includes the following modules:
Undergraduate:
- Knights and Castles,
- Introducing British Archaeology,
- Exploring the Region: Field Trips in Wales and the West,
- The Past in the Contemporary World.
- Research Experience: Community, Locality and Heritage,
- Excavation and Fieldwork Experience (module leader with Quentin Drew),
- Excavation and Analysis (module leader)
Postgraduate:
- Representations,
- Research Methodologies (module leader),
- Introduction to Contemporary Archaeology,
- Work Placement (module leader)
- Visual Culture of the Medieval Gentry
PUBLICATIONS
Bezant, J. et. al. (2010 forthcoming) Survey at Dyffryn Crawnon, Llangynidr. Archaeology in Wales 49.
Bezant, J. 2009 Medieval Welsh Settlement and Territory: Archaeological Evidence from a Teifi Valley Landscape. British Archaeological Monographs British Series 487.
Ware, S. Bailey, J. & Bezant, J. 2008 Llangynidr Local History Society: Lan Fawr Excavations 2008. Archaeology in Wales 48.
Bezant, J. 2007 Geophysical Survey at Strata Florida Abbey, Henfynachlog Farm and Troedyrhiw Upland Settlement, Ceredigion. Archaeology in Wales 47.
Bezant, J. (forthcoming) Gwely as Territory not Tenure. Identity and Morphology in Medieval Wales. Landscapes.
Bezant, J. ( forthcoming) Lordship and Patronage: Rhys ap Gruffudd. Chapter in Monastic Wales, eds Burton, J, & Stober, K.
Austin, D. & Bezant, J. (in prep) The Ceredigion Landscape, 12th to 16th Centuries. Ceredigion County History, Volume II.
Bezant, J & Austin, D. (in prep) The Medieval Grants to Strata Florida Abbey: Mapping the Agency of Lordship.
Austin, D. Bezant, J., Drew, Q. & Crowther, J. (forthcoming) Excavation and Fieldwork at Strata Florida Abbey. Archaeologia Cambrensis.
CONFERENCE PAPERS
2010 The Holy Grail of Strata Florida: An Archaeology of Hospital-ity in Rural Wales. International Medieval Congress, Leeds University.
2009 The Agency of Lordship; Grants to Strata Florida Abbey During the Age of the Princes. Monastic Wales Conference, Aberystwyth University.
2009 Archaeological Excavation of an Upland Enclosure near Llangynidr and other community projects. U3A, Brecon Group.
2009 Archaeological Excavation of an Upland Enclosure near Llangynidr and other community projects. Llangynidr History Society AGM.
2009 An Archaeology of Agricultural Identity, Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, Edward Lhuyd Conference, Aberystwyth University.
2009 Strata Florida Abbey and its Grange Estates: Mapping, Identity and Culture, and the Use of GIS within Landscape Archaeology, Ceredigion Archaeology Day, Aberystwyth University.
2009 Gwely as Territory not Tenure. Identity and Morphology in Medieval Wales. Local History in Britain after Hoskins Conference, Leicester University.
2008 Strata Florida Abbey and its Grange Estates: Mapping, Identity and Culture, and the Use of GIS within Landscape Archaeology, Research Institute of Archaeology, History and Anthropology, University of Wales, Lampeter.
2008 The Strata Florida Landscape Project: Mapping the Estates and their Antecedents, poster session World Archaeological Congress, Dublin University. http://www.wac6.org/livesite/posters/poster_files/WAC_008_Bezant.pdf
2008 When is a Church Not a Church? Mis-interpretations in a West Wales Landscape. Theoretical Archaeology Group Conference, Southampton University.
2008 Was Wales Really Invented by the Normans? The ‘Long 12th Century’ and the Implications for Nationalist Revisionism. Theoretical Archaeology Group Conference, Southampton University (session supported by the Society for Medieval Archaeology).
2007 Medieval Settlement and Territory Explored: Some Archaeological Evidence from the Teifi Valley. Early Medieval Wales Research Group Day School, Cardiff National Museum of Wales.
2007 Gwely as territory not tenure. Agency and morphology in a 12th century landscape. Research seminar paper, Research Institute of Archaeology, History and Anthropology, University of Wales, Lampeter.
2005 Landscape and Lordship in the middle Teifi Valley: an Archaeological Interrogation. Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, Milestones International Conference Aberystwyth University.
2005 Locating Medieval Wales, Ceredigion Archaeology Day School, poster session, Dyfed Archaeological Trust, Aberystwyth University.
2005 Chair, Inter-departmental Postgraduate Seminar Day School. University of Wales, Lampeter.
CLIENT REPORTS
2008 Geophysical survey at Strata Florida Abbey. Unpublished client report.
2008 Archaeological Survey and Excavation at Lan Fawr Enclosure, Llangynidr, Brecon, SO 1707 1838, an Interim Report. Unpublished client report.
2007 Geophysical Survey at Strata Florida Abbey, Troedyrhiw upland settlement and Henfynachlog Farm. Unpublished client report.
2006 Archaeological Excavations at Coed Abaty, Strata Florida. Unpublished client report.
2004 Geophysical Survey at Margam Park. Unpublished client report on behalf of Terra Nova.
2004 Geophysical Survey at Borth Bog. Unpublished client report for Dyfed Archaeological Trust Archaeology.