BUILDING URBANITY: SPATIAL ORGANISATION AS SOCIAL PRACTICE IN MEDIEVAL ODENSE

The article investigates the social practices of the inhabitants of the medieval town as it is expressed in the materiality of the urban landscape. It is argued that a practice-based approach allows an understanding of how urbanity, defined as a specific set of social practices motivated by the shared space, developed in the medieval period. The town is seen as something more than a physical entity. The argument is developed through a diachronic and contextual analysis of the spatial organisation and layout of the medieval town of Odense in Denmark, as it is seen in the archaeological record of I. Vilhelm Werners Plads, representing the 9^th-16^th centuries. The analysis demonstrates that from the mid-12^th century, the organisation of the settlement plot and the interaction between town dwellers and townscape change. This change of practices is seen as related to a different mind-set and perception of what it means to live in a town, that progressively has provided a sense of urbanity.