Home and Homelessness in the Medieval and Renaissance World

The idea of `home' means much more than a pile of bricks and mortar but the archaeological evidence of physical structures provides valuable information about how people in the past have used the space in their houses. Similarly documentary evidence tells us much about the dispossessed. This study collects five essays which approach `home and homelessness' from a range of perspectives, using both archaeological and documentary sources. Contributors discuss the house of 16th-century Venice, Morisco houses in 16th-century Spain, povery and vagrancy in Spain and early colonial Peru, homelessness in early medieval Iceland and its sagas, and Anglo-Saxon England.