Territoriality And The Early Medieval Landscape

All communities have a strong sense of identity with the area in which they live, which for England in the early medieval period manifested itself in a series of territorial entities, ranging from large kingdoms down to small districts known as pagi or regiones. This book investigates these small early folk territories, and the way that they evolved into the administrative units recorded in Domesday, across an entire kingdom - that of the East Saxons (broadly speaking, what is now Essex, Middlesex, most of Hertfordshire, and south Suffolk). A wide range of evidence is drawn upon, including archaeology, written documents, place-names and the early cartographic sources. The book looks in particular at the relationship between Saxon immigrants and the native British population, and argues that initially these ethnic groups occupied different parts of the landscape, until a dynasty which assumed an Anglo-Saxon identity achieved political ascendency (its members included the so-called "Prittlewell Prince", buried with spectacular grave-good in Prittlewell, near Southend-on- Sea in southern Essex). Other significant places discussed include London, the seat of the first East Saxon bishopric, the possible royal vills at Wicken Bonhunt near Saffron Walden and Maldon, and St Peter's Chapel at Bradwell-on-Sea, one of the most important surviving churches from the early Christian period.

This book explores the development of territorial identity in the late prehistoric, Roman, and early medieval periods. Over the course of the Iron Age, a series of marked regional variations in material culture and landscape character emerged across eastern England that reflect the development of discrete zones of social and economic interaction. The boundaries between these zones appear to have run through sparsely settled areas of the landscape on high ground, and corresponded to a series of kingdoms that emerged during the Late Iron Age. In eastern England at least, these pre-Roman socio-economic territories appear to have survived throughout the Roman period despite a trend towards cultural homogenization brought about by Romanization. Although there is no direct evidence for the relationship between these socio-economic zones and the Roman administrative territories known as civitates, they probably corresponded very closely. The fifth century saw some Anglo-Saxon immigration but whereas in East Anglia these communities spread out across much of the landscape, in the Northern Thames Basin they appear to have been restricted to certain coastal and estuarine districts. The remaining areas continued to be occupied by a substantial native British population, including much of the East Saxon kingdom (very little of which appears to have been 'Saxon'). By the sixth century a series of regionally distinct identities - that can be regarded as separate ethnic groups - had developed which corresponded very closely to those that had emerged during the late prehistoric and Roman periods. These ancient regional identities survived through to the Viking incursions, whereafter they were swept away following the English re-conquest and replaced with the counties with which we are familiar today.

The Anglo-Saxon period was crucial in the development of England's character: its language, and much of its landscape and culture, were forged in the period between the fifth and the eleventh centuries. Historians and archaeologists have long been fascinated by its regional variations, by the way in which different parts of the country displayed marked differences in social structures, settlement patterns, and field systems. In this controversial and wide-ranging study, the author argues that such differences were largely a consequence of environmental factors: of the influence of climate, soils and hydrology, and of the patterns of contact and communication engendered by natural topography. He also suggests that such environmental influences have been neglected over recent decades by generations of scholars who are embedded in an urban culture and largely divorced from the natural world; and that an appreciation of the fundamental role of physical geography in shaping human affairs can throw much new light on a number of important debates about early medieval society. The book will be essential reading for all those interested in the character of the Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian settlements, in early medieval social and territorial organization, and in the origins of the England's medieval landscapes. Tom Williamson is Professor of Landscape History, University of East Anglia; he has written widely on landscape archaeology, agricultural history, and the history of landscape design.

Wessex formed the heartland of Alfred the Great's kingdom, and continued to wield immense economic power long into the Middle Ages with many extensive and wealthy royal and ecclelesiastical estates. Contributors to this collection of 13 papers on the medieval landscape of Wessex include: B Eagles (The Archaeological evidence for settlement in the 5th to 7th centuries); D Hinton (The archaeology of 8th- to 11th-century Wessex); P Hase (The Church in the Wessex heartlands); D Hooke (The administrative and settlement framework of early medieval Wessex); M Costen (Settlement in Wessex in the 10th century); J Bond (Forests, chases, warrens and parks); J Hare (Agriculture and settlement in Wiltshire and Hampshire); C Lewis (The medieval settlment of Wiltshire); M Hughes (Towns and villages in medieval Hampshire); C Taylor (The regular village plan); M Aston (Medieval settlement in Somerset); S Rippon (Medieval wetland reclamation); R Croft (Protecting medieval settlement sites).

This volume brings together 18 case studies investigating territory in the Middle Ages from an archaeological perspective. It offers contributions from prestigious professors, such as Flocel Sabat� and Jes�s Brufal, and a selected set of young researchers. It promotes new perspectives on territory studies through innovative research methods. The case studies are organized chronologically from the end of the Roman Empire to the end of the Middle Ages, focusing especially on cases in Portugal, Spain and Italy, in order to provide a Mediterranean perspective. The volume explores a range of topics, from aspects of methodological informatics in the valley of Ager in Catalonia, the evolution of prosperous cities in the Middle Ages (such as Braga, Pisa and Milan), the transformation of the early medieval rural space to the long evolution of island territories (Sardinia), and the influence of the military actions, the political power and the religious architecture on the landscape in the Iberian and the Italian Peninsula, among other topics. As such, this publication offers a variety of new insights into the study of medieval territory.

This book explores the origins and development of territorial identities within the landscape. It uses a wide range of archaeological evidence to study the landscape of eastern England in the Iron Age, Roman, and early medieval (Anglo-Saxon) periods.

The extent to which Anglo-Saxon society was capable oflarge-scale transformations of the landscape is hotly disputed. Thisinterdisciplinary book - embracing archaeological and historical sources -explores this important period in our landscape history and the extent to whichbuildings, settlements and field systems were laid out using sophisticatedsurveying techniques. In particular, recent research has found new and unexpectedevidence for the construction of building complexes and settlements ongeometrically precise grids, suggesting a revival of the techniques of theRoman land-surveyors (Agrimensores).Two units of measurement appear to have been used: the 'short perch' of 15 feetin central and eastern England, where mostcases occur, and the 'long perch' of 18 feet at the small number of examplesidentified in Wessex. This technically advanced planning is evident during twoperiods: c.600-800, when it may have been a mostlymonastic practice, and c.940-1020, when it appears to have been revived in amonastic context but then spread to a wider range of lay settlements. Planning in the Early Medieval Landscape is a completely new perspective on how villages and other settlement were formed. It combines map and field evidence with manuscript treatises on land-surveying to show that the methods described in the treatises were not just theoretical, but were put into practice. In doing so it reveals a major aspect of previously unrecognised early medieval technology.