On Friday the 13th of June the Yorkshire Museum played host to a special event marking the opening of a new co-curated display celebrating the work of the Medieval Ritual Landscape or MeRit Project, an AHRC-funded research collaboration led by the University of Reading and the British Museum, with partner organisations across England, Denmark, and the Netherlands. Focused on the period AD 1000–1600, this fascinating project has been investigating the material traces of religious experience and exploring ‘medieval lived religion’ and ritual activity through in different ways across the country. In York metal-detected finds, particularly those unearthed by local detectorists and recorded by the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) were used to explore these themes.
PAS
New Pope, Old Name
Robert Francis Prevost (b. 1955) was elected Pope on Thursday (8 May 2025), taking the ‘papal name’ Leo, said to be after Leo XIII (r. 1878-1903), who was committed to the ‘social teaching of the Church’ in an era of change. Like his thirteen predecessors, the curia under Leo XIV will issue proclamations and edicts with leaden seals (papal bullae).
Medieval Ritual Landscape Project at the Yorkshire Museum
In Yorkshire, Michael Lewis (British Museum) and Rebecca Griffiths (Yorkshire Museum) are working with representatives of the local metal detecting community to co-curate a display in the Museum foyer. On 17th January 2025 we held our second workshop at the Yorkshire Museum. At this workshop, we began refining ideas for our display.
