London around the year 1300 was a major European city, with a population of 80,000-100,000, comparable with the great urban centres of that time, Venice and Florence. In the city centre were streets such as Cheapside, with buildings of three or four storeys packed with people living in cramped conditions.
Many of them were recent migrants from the countryside, and they created a lively and productive society. On the ground floor of the buildings were shops and stalls, many of them clustered in “selds” – small-scale arcades or malls, offering customers a choice of goods.
The city’s influence extended over the whole of the south-east of England, so that farmers in south Oxfordshire planted the wheat that they knew was in demand by London consumers and farmers in Northamptonshire sent their sons to train as apprentices to London traders. This vivid picture of the metropolis was revealed by Derek Keene, who has died aged 78 after suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.
A historian of medieval towns, Derek brought together history, archaeology and geography to investigate spaces and buildings, and show how people in the past experienced life in towns.
His most important publication was a two-volume study of medieval Winchester (1985) but the project that generated most excitement was his work in the 1980s and 90s on the townscape and society of medieval London.
Derek had been brought up in London, and remembered its postwar ruins, but the historic buildings and streets were being damaged by commercial development on a much larger scale than anything caused by wartime bombing. Excavations of the Roman, medieval and early modern structures were needed before destructive building work began, and these investigations were organised by archaeologists at the Museum of London, whose work now has an independent home as MOLA (Museum of London Archaeology).
Derek saw that these extensive excavations presented a major research opportunity, but so did the archive of written records, which could shed light on the material remains, but also could fill out the wider background of the city. An inquiry into such a complex and well-documented place could not be tackled by one person, and in 1979 Derek applied for funding to pay his own salary and to employ an assistant. The first of them was Vanessa Harding.
In the early 80s Keene and Harding concentrated on a detailed investigation of housing and people in Cheapside. This led to a revision of London’s estimated population, and its ranking with the great Italian cities. The resulting imaginative research published in such works as Cheapside Before the Great Fire (1985, with Harding) meant that Derek could persuade the Institute of Historical Research in the University of London to establish a centre for metropolitan history in 1987, and he was appointed its director.
“Metropolitan” was chosen rather than “London” to reflect the great status and influence of the city, and to encourage comparisons to be made. The centre enabled a succession of themes to be explored, such as suburbs and crafts. Its work on “feeding the city”, published in 1993 as A Medieval Capital and its Grain Supply, won fame among historians of food, farming and towns.
Derek was the son of Edith (nee Swanston), a nurse, and Charles Keene, a policeman who became a planning officer. He was brought up first in Holloway, north London, and then in Northolt, west London. From Ealing grammar school, in 1961 he went to Oriel College, Oxford. His degree was in history, but he valued archaeology (having dug since the age of 10) and as a map enthusiast he respected geography.
At Oxford he encountered the wide-ranging archaeological work being done at Winchester, directed by Martin Biddle, and, as a postgraduate student and later salaried researcher Derek became embedded in the Winchester project, excavating medieval artisans’ houses in Brook Street, while discovering the documents for the same area. With full access to the city’s large archive, he extended the scope of his research to cover the whole of Winchester, which in the middle ages was the 14th largest town in England, until his employment as assistant director of the Winchester project ended in 1978.
The publication of the massive two-volume Survey of Medieval Winchester in 1985 was a landmark event in British urban history. This book detailed every feature of the late medieval city, including all streets, houses and gardens, and identified every known property owner. The details were pulled together in conclusions about the population, government, society, economy and religion.
In 2001 Derek was appointed to the Leverhulme chair in comparative metropolitan history at the Institute of Historical Research, and was able until his retirement in 2008 to pursue the idea of the metropolis in different periods and countries. He was still involved in collaborations, notably when he brought together a group of scholars to write the history of St Paul’s: The Cathedral Church of London 604-2004 (2004).
An example of Derek’s capacity to inspire came from the groups of students and visitors he led through the streets of the City of London in his time at the Institute of Historical Research. A favourite route took them from the river to Cheapside, where he could show that the concrete office buildings and skyscrapers had not destroyed all trace of a once lively, colourful and inhabited city. The street plan was very old, and Keene would show that Bread Street, for example, had been planned in about AD890 under King Alfred.
In his spare time, Derek would take long walks in wild parts of the world, including the Rockies.
He married Suzanne Forbes, now an authority in museum studies, in 1969, when she was managing the Winchester archaeological finds, and she then had a similar role at the Museum of London.
She survives him, as do their daughter Frances, son, Thomas, and four grandchildren: Ruan, Bryn, Eryn and Eiros.
• Derek Keene, historian, born 27 December 1942; died 17 April 2021
