The Sustainability of Settlement and Exploitation of Liminal Coastal Environments in the North Sea Region, c. 1150-1400

Britain's low-lying coastal wetlands face the related threats of climatic change and
rising sea levels. These problems are particularly acute in Romney Marsh, a
region of combined salt and freshwater marsh covering c. 260 km2 in southwestern
Kent. Before c. 1150, settlement of Romney Marsh had largely been
limited to sporadic seasonal occupation. After this point, there was a shift towards
year-round marshland exploitation which may have partly caused or exacerbated
a series of devastating flooding episodes in 1250 and 1287-88. My thesis will
explore this past experience of flooding and the subsequent societal response,
enabling an assessment of the anthropogenic role in destabilising marshland
environments. Additionally, I will investigate where agency lies in transforming the
medieval landscape, use of its resources, and the cause of this shift towards a
new exploitative relationship with marshland. An inter-disciplinary approach will
utilise a range of sources, including the parochial built environment, legal
documents, and pedological surveys, to gather quantitative data on land use,
ownership and settlement patterns. This will enable a reconceptualisation of
human relationships with the environment during the Middle Ages. Such research
is urgently needed to provide perspective on the current ecological crisis because
marshlands are a critical natural resource. However, part of the evidence upon
which it relies, Romney Marsh's medieval field system, is fast being eroded by a
post-1960s shift in regional farming policy from pastoral to arable methods.
Consequently, current agricultural practices and the marshland's unstable ecology
make this research particularly timely.