These short essays discuss some central aspects of our project research, drawing together the various project materials, methods and themes. They are designed to raise key critical questions and issues, to stimulate further reflection on the project materials, and to generate possibilities for further exploration.

Mapping Medieval Chester: Aims, Challenges, Outcomes, Futures, Catherine A M Clarke: this essay give an overview of some of the processes (methodological and theoretical) involved in the project, as well as possibilities for future extension and development.

Multilingualism in Chester and Chester Texts, Mark Faulkner: here close analysis of passages from the project texts forms the basis for a short discussion of multilingualism, hybridity, cultural exchange (and sometimes tension) in medieval Chester.

Imagining the city: Christian symbolism and Chester’s medieval urban form, Keith D. Lilley: this essay uses Lucian’s description of the ‘perfect cross’ at the centre of Chester as a starting-point for exploring medieval ideas and representations of urban form, which privilege symbolism and allegory.

Colonial Chester, Helen Fulton: what was the relationship between Chester and Wales? This essay places project texts (especially the Welsh poetry) within their wider cultural and political context, paying particular attention to textual responses to the pressures of colonialist rule.