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Scarf joint Hewett’s date range Hampshire date range Professor Baillie’s work, on how dendrochronology can shed new light on the Black Death, is an interesting area of study and one which will sit well within this thesis. He suggests the “Black
Death has a clear environmental context”[3]. He sees a clear ‘slump’ in tree-ring patterns from AD 1333 to 1360, with a sharp rise toward the end of the century, from 1380 onwards. This is
well reflected in the Hampshire data, as a possible hiatus on dated buildings occurs, between 1347 and 1359, followed by a sharp rise in dated buildings from 1388 onwards.
Type 1 (splayed scarf) C1180 - 1400 1249 - 1360
In 1992, Matthew Johnson warned of relying on typologies to date buildings[4]. Following the advances in dendrochronology, coupled with the data collected during this research, I believe it is
now possible to rely on chrono-typologies to provide a tighter date range than was possible sixteen years ago. Indeed Sarah Pearson wrote, five years after Johnson, “one important aspect of
Type 2 (edge-halved) C1375 onwards 1400 - 1500 construction which is likely to be considerably advanced through tree-ring dating is the typology of timber jointing techniques”[5].
References
[1] D. H. Miles, Michael Worthington, and Martin Bridge, “Oxford Dendrochronology Laboratory,”
Dendrochronology.com, http://www.dendrochronology.com/; Edward Roberts, Hampshire Houses: 1250-1700.
Their Dating & Development (Hampshire: Hampshire County Council, 2003), 227-51
[2] Cecil A. Hewett, English Historic Carpentry (Phillimore, 1980)
[3] Mike Baillie, New Light on the Black Death (Tempus, 2006), 38.
[4] Matthew Johnson, “The Englishman's Home and its Study,” in The Social Archaeology of Houses
(Edinburgh Univ Pr, 1992), 248
[5] S. Pearson, “Tree-Ring Dating: A Review,” Vernacular architecture 28 (1997): 38
[6] C. A. Hewett, “Scarf Jointing During the Later Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries and a Reappraisal of the
Origin of Spurred Tenons,” Royal Archaeological Institute 134, no. 287-96; Hewett, English Historic Carpentry,
263-71
[7] Hewett, “Scarf Jointing During the Later Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries and a Reappraisal of the
Origin of Spurred Tenons,” 293