In these articles, ancient graffiti isn’t always shown as something that wasn’t illicit, disapproved, or only made by the lower class. Marianne Ritsema van Eck sites many example of graffiti being both approved and unapproved. In the article by O’Donnell, different perspective towards graffiti are shown over history that describe graffiti both as acceptable and unacceptable. According to Fabri, graffiti is a disturbance for later pilgrims, an act of violence and disrespect. This contradicts many of the previous article’s perceptions regarding ancient graffiti, reasserting that a discussion of the social context of graffiti must always be discussed.
Medieval graffiti was often found in the context of churches. Pilgrimages that passed through churches resulted in pilgrims leaving graffiti to mark that they had completed that part of the pilgrimage. I also found it interesting that O’Donnell sites many situations in which English men would leave graffiti after recognizing other English graffiti, such an act that shows how graffiti served to unite subgroups of people.
Mia Gala and Graves and Rollason both write articles using graffiti as a way to gain information on other topics. Mia Gala discusses the relationships between Latins and Greeks in Cyprus through graffiti while Graves and Rollason determine the history and function of a prior’s chapel in Durham through the graffiti present. This relates to the theme of using graffiti as a framework for approaching different fields of research.