Relationality and Economic Emergence: Ceramic Networks and Urban Assemblages in Medieval ( c. 1250–1400) England

This article presents an analysis of the relationship between urbanization as an ongoing process and economic development in medieval ( c. AD 1250–1400) southern and midland England. It is proposed that understanding the distribution of pottery through network analysis provides a means of comprehending the role played by affective material relations in these processes. Rather than seeing pottery distributions as reflecting an overarching economic context, the author investigates how relations with pottery, and between pottery and other commodities, generated distinctive and situated modes of urban life. He proposes that the medieval economy was a patchwork rather than a coherent system. The study draws on Deleuze’s concept of the ‘virtual’ to examine how economic emergence and urbanization are open-ended and difference-making processes.