Morphology as classification and representation

If there are so many difficulties with typologies, why then do they persist? Writing from a biological perspective, Pratt points out that without the classification of individuals into groups it is impossible to derive conclusions other than about individuals. Groups enable more generalised conclusions.²⁰⁵ In a morphological context, identifying single forms in the landscape is of little value in helping to understand them. Meaning only begins to attach to individual forms when they are seen as members of a group of similar forms. In his work on prehistoric field systems, Bowen opined that a study of field typology has three main uses: ‘to provide labels to assist in thinking about the problem, to make the incongruous stand out, and to see whether there are regional or cultural differences'.²⁰⁶ Such systematic methods offer the virtues of being:

standardized, objective, capable of being used by others and producing results that can be checked. Their essential merit is that they make a complex situation intelligible by imposing an abstract framework on it.²⁰⁷

Withers has noted that 'organizational frameworks for knowledge are not reflections of inherent structures within our knowing but representations of and limitations upon it'.²⁰⁸ Established classifications and typologies become entrenched in our conscious,

204 See p.98.

205 V. Pratt, 'Foucault & the history of classification theory', Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A, 8(2), (1977), pp.163-71 at p.168.

206 Bowen, Ancient fields, p.22.

207 E. Relph, 'Responsive methods, geographical imagination and the study of landscapes' in A.

Kobayashi and S. Mackenzie (eds.), Remaking human geography, (Boston, Unwin Hyman, 1989), pp.149-63 at p.149.

208 C.W.J. Withers, 'Encyclopaedism, modernism and the classification of geographical knowledge', Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 21(1), (1996), pp.275-98 at p.275 (his emphasis).

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thus shaping our perceptions. By way of illustration, Thomas describes how naturalists in the early modern period tended to classify animals according to their relationship with man rather than their intrinsic qualities: ‘Essentially there were three categories for animals: edible and inedible; wild and tame; useful and useless’.²⁰⁹ It was not until the development of the Linnaean system, and its acceptance in England in the 1760s, that classifications came to be based more on the structural qualities of life forms in the way that we now expect.²¹⁰ Although we presume that the way we classify things today represents an objective reality, in actuality there are numerous alternative classification schemes. The danger of classifications therefore, whether in morphology or elsewhere, is that they limit discourse on a subject by becoming a cultural code of interpretation.²¹¹ As Roberts has said, referring to points made by Harvey, ‘classifications can become inflexible to the point of actually inhibiting research, and we must always strive to separate our classificatory system from the objectives of our enquiry’.²¹²

The potential problem then is that morphological classification gets confused with reality. It can be forgotten that the classification is merely a representation:

We create representations of the world that enable us to reflect upon it and give it order, structure and meaning. … If these representations seem to work, and to help us create a world that functions and makes sense, then these representations will be taken for granted as being essentially equivalent to the

209 K. Thomas, Man and the natural world: changing attitudes in England 1500-1800, Originally published by Allen Lane, 1983, (London, Penguin, 1984), p.53.

210 Ibid., pp.52-69.

211 C. Snyder, 'Analyzing classifications: Foucault for advanced writing', College Composition and Communication, 35(2), (1984), pp.209-16 at pp.210-11; The work of Foucault on the significance of classification has been particularly influential over the last few decades: M. Foucault, The order of things: an archaeology of the human sciences, (London, Tavistock Publications, 1970).

212 B.K. Roberts, 'Of landscapes and words' in B.K. Roberts and R.E. Glasscock (eds.), Villages, fields and frontiers: studies in European rural settlement in the medieval and early modern periods, (Oxford, British Archaeological Reports, 1983), pp.21-42 at p.21; D. Harvey, Explanations in geography, (London, Edward Arnold, 1969), pp.326-49.

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world they represent. We then tend to forget that they are representations, and see them rather as a direct presentation of reality.²¹³

The problem is compounded if the representation is transferred to a map. Baker and Butlin noted that 'the inherent danger in this latter process, as in all forms of

cartography, is that it can give an air of authenticity and respectability to material of dubious reliability, accuracy, and coverage’.²¹⁴ More specifically Withers argued that:

Despite the presumed certainty of its language of lines and symbols, a map is not an immediate and a static accomplishment so much as a process aimed at achieving some sort of commensurability: between different claims to

knowledge, and between the map and the world it portrays. Maps are only scaled representations of the world, not mirrors of it. Of necessity, maps distort, reduce, and symbolize and do so in different ways and places.²¹⁵ Olwig has pointed out how the application of the same geometric principles used to shape landscape through enclosure has allowed landscape researchers to confuse the representations of landscapes in maps and photos with the actual landscape. The imposition of a ‘flat static, Euclidean gridded space’ allows the map to become the perfect medium for segmenting the landscape into easily identifiable and measurable areas.²¹⁶ As shown earlier in this chapter this is precisely what happens with HLC.

The map becomes the primary artefact, showing the fieldscape neatly divided into chronological periods of development.

Although classification is a necessary tool in trying to make sense of landscape data, such models can become self-perpetuating. One way in which this can occur is the linking of morphological models with specific historic events despite the lack of evidence. It is assumed that documented medieval clearance must have resulted in

213 K.R. Olwig, '"This is not a landscape": circulating reference and land shaping' in H. Palang, H.

Soovali, M. Antrop and G. Setten (eds.), European rural landscapes: persistence and change in a globalising environment, (Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic, 2004), pp.41-65 at p.42.

214 Baker and Butlin, 'Introduction: materials and methods', p.38.

215 C.W.J. Withers, Placing the Enlightenment: thinking geographically about the Age of Reason, (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2007), p.99.

216 Olwig, '"This is not a landscape": circulating reference and land shaping', pp.49, 52-4.

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irregular shapes, partly because of the association of assarting field names with such shapes in some areas and partly because of its usual individual piecemeal nature.

Therefore irregular shapes must be prima facie medieval clearance.²¹⁷ Sheppard’s studies of settlement morphology in Yorkshire ascribe the regularity of settlements in Yorkshire to planning in the aftermath of the Harrying of the North by William I although there is no evidence to support this.²¹⁸ Regularity equals planning so an historical cause must be found which both reinforces the argument and provides a convenient chronology. Morphological models can thus take on a reality of their own rather than staying within their role as being merely a representational tool.

2.2.5 Conclusion

The variable nature and complexity of fieldscapes has largely defied attempts to develop morphological field classifications. While it seems feasible to describe individual fields and groups of fields by various physical attributes such as shape and size, it is very difficult to organise those classes of description into a meaningful schema that is generically valid. A typology can only be broadly indicative, acting as

‘reference points’ in the same way as the agrarian models created by Roberts and Wrathmell.

The difficulties of relating chronology and process to morphology are summarised by the principles of indeterminacy and equifinality. If similar processes can result in different field shapes, only additional evidence can determine which processes might have been involved. This may affect the determination of chronology, which faces the additional challenge that similar forms may have had different functions and origins at

217 Muir and Muir, Fields, p.83; Taylor, Fields in the English landscape, pp.95-6.

218 J.A. Sheppard, 'Medieval village planning in northern England: some evidence from Yorkshire', Journal of Historical Geography, 2, (1976), pp.3-20; Austin, 'Doubts about morphogenesis', p.205.

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different points in time. Morphology also presents a paradox. While we need to develop classifications in order to aid our understanding, the classification itself can disrupt that understanding if the representation becomes mistaken for reality.

None of this is to deny that morphology has its uses. As both Widgren and Coones have argued, landscape research demands a holistic approach:

We do need to develop our understanding of not only the different forms and their differing functions, but also the processes of change that are involved and the different political, economic and social contexts in which similar forms may appear.²¹⁹

To this Coones would add that one should not separate the cultural aspect of the landscape from the environmental.²²⁰ Morphology is therefore one tool in the research portfolio but one that should be used in conjunction with others.

Coones identifies the principal difficulties in landscape research as being ‘the frequent organisation of the research around the technique, rather than vice versa, or the

splitting up of reality in order to analyse a limited part of it with respect to the preconceptions of some model'.²²¹ Both of these statements could be applied to the English Heritage-sponsored landscape approaches with which this thesis is concerned.

In a particularly telling metaphor, Relph commented that ‘trying to investigate places and landscapes by imposing standardized methods is like ... Judging wines by

measuring their alcohol content - the information obtained may be accurate but it seriously misrepresents the subject matter'.²²² In light of these observations, the next section will consider the methodology for testing the utility and value of the

morphological approaches adopted by English Heritage.

219 Widgren, 'Reading property in the landscape', p.58 (his emphasis); See also Widgren, 'Can landscapes be read?', p.462.

220 Coones, 'One landscape or many?', p.5.

221 Ibid., p.10.

222 Relph, 'Responsive methods', p.149.

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