David A. Walsh
Professor of History and Art History
414 Morey Hall
Rochester, New York 14627-0070
dwls@mail.rochester.edu
phone: 585.275.4285
fax: 585.756.4425
Ph.D., University of Minnesota, 1974
Courses Offered
(subject to change)
Spring 2009
HIS 216: Barbarian Europe (AH 242)
Fields of Interest
Medieval archaeology, history, and art history.
The study of the Middle Ages is, of necessity, an interdisciplinary undertaking. My research, which began in art history with an iconographic and stylistic study of southern Italian bronze doors of the twelfth century, has been increasingly informed by archaeology and the methods of the social sciences. I employ various approaches to interpreting settings and objects of Medieval material culture. I have participated in archaeological excavation of numerous sites in England of the Roman, Anglo-Saxon, and later Medieval periods, having worked for thirty years on the Cistercian monastery of Bordesley Abbey in the West Midlands (twelfth to sixteenth century) and for over a decade on the Abbey of Cluny in Burgundy. My study of archaeological material has led to a number of projects which attempt to reconstruct not only buildings and their surrounds, but their internal fittings (especially church furniture) with a view to understanding the functioning of the built environment and aspects of life not always found in written documents. I have a special concern, in fact, for the comparison of different types of evidence. In my studies of building practices, and particularly Medieval measurement systems, I explore the ways information is formulated and transmitted. My most recent projects have involved the interpretation of the gateway chapel as an interface between the monastic community and the world outside its precinct, the idea of classicism in Medieval architecture, and the reconstruction and functioning of liturgical spaces.
I have attempted to combine the specialist studies of my research with larger questions of the interpretation of culture in both the objects and methods of my teaching. I use historical periods (such as Romanesque or Gothic) as one way of narrowing focus and limiting material for study. More importantly, looking at segments of time in limited geographical areas, can facilitate, for example, an historical examination of technical capabilities and invention in relation to form and function (as the technology of warfare and castle-building) or can help explain the symbolism and use of liturgical ecclesiastical architecture and its furnishings. Students are always encouraged to examine the objects of study from many points of view, and to bring their own background and academic interests to bear on the subject.
Representative Publications:
- "Regionalism and Localism in Early Cistercian Architecture in England." Arte Medievale, II, 8 n.1, vol. 2 (1994), pp. 103-112. With N.W. Alcock.
- "Reconstructions of the Mill Buildings." In A Medieval Industrial Complex and its Landscape: The Metalworking, Watermills, and Workshops of Bordesley Abbey. Ed. G.G. Astill. York: Council for British Archaeology Research Report (1993), pp. 259-267, figures 110-15, 117.
- "Architecture of Cowdery's Down: a Reconsideration," Archaeological Journal, 150 (1993), 403-409.
- "The Excavations of Cluny III by K.J. Conant," Le gouvernement d'Hugues de Semur a Cluny. Actes du Colloque scientifique internationale, Cluny (1988), pp. 317-334.
- "The Iconography of the Bronze Doors of Barisanus of Trani." Gesta, XXI/2 (1982), pp. 91-106.