ABSTRACT
The annual conference of the Society afforded not only opportunities for networking and getting to know a region, but also to hear lectures relevant to the region, or important updates on major projects. Until the Society’s foundation, the sort of thing that interested us had battled for publication space in the main archaeological journals — although the Archaeological Journal did admit some ‘dirt archaeology’ into its antiquarian pages. There were practically no posts in universities for medieval archaeologists; those who had jobs in medieval archaeology worked either in museums, in the Royal Commissions or in the Ancient Monuments section of the Ministry of Works. Medieval numismatics was undergoing a revolution, particularly led by Christopher Blunt and Michael Dolley, who developed ideas from such influential historians as Sir Frank Stenton. John Hurst’s original newsletter idea was adapted to produce the continuing section on recent work in medieval archaeology, a summary of digs and finds.
