Excluded subjects

SUBJECTS EXCLUDED FROM THIS SITE

The focus of this Web site is on places in England that had urban status or character at some point during the Middle Ages (conventionally about 600 to 1485), and on the people who lived or worked in them or contributed to their development. Places that became urban at later date than the Middle Ages are not addressed (sorry about that!), nor is this site comprehensive in its coverage of medieval towns, for its central theme is urban history rather than local history.

Documented use of the site search engine has shown a number of search queries (separated below by semi-colons) that cannot have produced good results for searchers. Examples of some of these may help future researchers avoid wasting their time, or explain why their searches produce no useful results.

medievil; Mideval: The conventional spellings are medieval (used on this site) and mediaeval (mostly avoided).
medieval; England: Since the entire site concerns these themes, it will not be very useful to use them as search terms.
renaissance; victorian age: Outside the medieval period (except for the twelfth-century renaissance).
Halifax; Huddersfield; Pytchley; Thurlton: Not known to have had urban status in the Middle Ages (though sometimes such places creep into the text).
Armagh; Beaumaris; Bruges; Cape Town; Constantinople; Edinburgh; medieval paris; Venice: Not in England, though you may find a little information on some non-English towns.
court life; squire; peasant food; cathedral schools: Non-urban aspects of history.
alexander the great; marie antoinette: Not personages living during the Middle Ages.
saladin: Not an English person; non-English persons may be mentioned, but you will not find much information about them.
cities; development; failure: Terms too general to use by themselves; try combining with one or more other terms.
primary source; daily life: Queries too general; try browsing the Florilegium.
town characteristics; names of towns: Queries too general; try browsing the Introduction section or the thesaurus.
the impacts of towns on european society; how did london change between 12th and 14th century; Compare the daily life of a family in the Middle Ages to the daily life of a family now; what the people in town did; what were medieval england towns like; where were extra crops sold; what would be a good name for a medieval town: These are all valid questions. However, queries phrased in this general way seek to retrieve knowledge/analysis rather than information, and even the best search engines are not yet intelligent enough to respond very effectively to most such queries. A combination of browsing the site and more targeted queries (use keywords rather than phrases) is recommended.
woman crime theft steal: This exemplifies a type of query better formulated for search engines. But please bear in mind that the Florilegium is still barely half complete and there remain many topics not yet well covered, including the roles of women in medieval urban society.
archaeological finds at wics: Although archaeological evidence is taken into account on this site, its focus is history rather than archaeology, and so is not the best resource from which to seek detailed information on the topic.
the Vinkings: Careful with your spelling! Not all search engines are as intelligent as Google.
Medici: Even when spelled correctly (not so easy), it is still a non-English subject.
labor; urbanisation: Try labour or urbanization. As an English-born Canadian, my (perhaps bad) habit is sometimes to use English spellings, sometimes American, though I usually favour the English.
dirty town: Aren't they all?
sex: This is not 'that type' of site!

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Created: November 17, 2016.