Roberta Gilchrist notes that archaeologists studying medieval Europe have paid little attention to heritage studies. The disconnect is striking because the two would seem to have much to do with one another. Yet archaeologists work in a separate space, one defined by academic inquiry. Heritage occupies a domain of public interest and education, tourism and national identity—everything that stresses the utility of the past for the present. Heritage studies addresses the ongoing use of monuments; archaeologists want to know what once existed and how it was once used. For those in the practice of studying, preserving and presenting heritage, the cultural work of the past is not over.
Gilchrist's book is driven by an important question: “What is the contemporary value of medieval European sacred heritage in an ostensibly secular society?” (p. 1). Heritage means more than modern Christian interest in the Christian past. Have archaeologists missed an opportunity to contribute to the public understanding of cultural values in the present that have been deeply shaped by those of the past? Gilchrist places her own area of specialisation, medieval archaeology, in dialogue with two other fields: heritage studies and the material study of religion. That may seem strange at first as her version of medieval archaeology is indeed the material study of religion. But she discusses at some length in the opening chapter how medieval archaeology has operated under the sway of secular tradition, which has disposed it to avoid matters of ‘the sacred’. Archaeologists of Christian medieval buildings have focused on technology and economics, leaving aesthetics and spirituality to historians of art and architecture. The matter of the “individual experience of the sacred” (p. 5) is not something that most archaeologists have concerned themselves with at all. Yet their intimate understanding of space and materials might enrich the study of ritual and the particular role of architecture and ornamentation for ceremony. Certainly, the reconstructions of damaged or destroyed structures by art and architectural historians have made that contribution. Gilchrist points to the work of art historian Caroline Bruzelius and archaeologist Ian Hodder as examples, as well as aptly citing her own work, which has made significant contributions to the understanding of medieval religious architecture.
The argument of the book proceeds with the assertion that the construction of monasteries for the new, reformed orders (Cistercian and Augustinian) by successive Scottish kings in the twelfth century AD served the interest of nation-building by “consolidating the kingdom of Scotland and bringing it into the mainstream of European culture” (p. 52). Gilchrist reminds us that monastic building was always about national identity, so its relevance for heritage no less than archaeology becomes very clear. The history of sacred buildings is the history of sacred heritage. She turns in the next chapter to the issue that has dominated the study of the material culture of religion in recent years—the embodied practices that produce religion. This approach has inverted the conventional notion of religion as dogma or doctrine. Gilchrist makes good use of Marcel Mauss's discussion of ‘techniques of the body’ as culturally constructive devices that discipline the body to behave in certain ways (Mauss Reference Mauss1973). She cites the Rule of St Benedict as a long-standing monastic instance of this disciplining of the body “through celibacy, fasting and daily and seasonal routines for physical movement, prayer, work, study, talking, eating and sleeping” (p. 72). She goes on to marshal, with impressive expertise, the gamut of embodied practices that structured medieval spiritual life—from diet to hospital care, medicinal practices, pharmacology, the technologies of distillation and the use of herbs and plants. Throughout this range of practices and lore, she is very careful to consider the importance of magic, which was an integral part of the treatment of the sick conducted in monastic infirmaries.
Chapter 4 focuses on magic, and in particular on ‘natural magic’, especially the occult powers of stones and gems. We cannot understand the medieval treatment of illness without grasping the lack of distinctions that only became important to modernity. The history of the modern study of religion has insisted on enforcing a sharp difference between religion and magic. But the idea of natural magic—that some substances possessed powers that were not evident in others, such as poisons, nutrients, or anything that operated in an evidently mechanical manner (like a splint, unguent or truss)—has no need of such segregation. Nor was natural magic the same as the magic worked by God or Satan. Natural magic required the special knowledge of a substance's intrinsic properties and how to harness them, and was therefore the domain of the healer with access to special lore and the manuscripts that transmitted ancient learning. This made monastic infirmaries important places for healing, and therefore also for the consideration of sacred heritage.
In the two final chapters, Gilchrist takes up the fascinating case of Glastonbury as a medieval site of great interest to modern pilgrims of many kinds. Heritage means something more than medieval Christianity for the thousands of visitors seeking to connect to ancient Druidism, King Arthur's court, prehistoric Goddess worship, ancient English Christianity or New Age planetary spirituality. Some archaeologists may regard much or all of this as historically unfounded appropriation of a medieval site. But Gilchrist's dismantling of the strong distinction between magic and religion, and her scrutiny of the Christian motives driving an earlier day of archaeological work at Glastonbury, strongly suggest that enchantment is nothing new. The past is a deep stratification of religions and politics and cultural interests, which ought to urge scholars to avoid defining authenticity as purity. Culture is a messy thing.
