Northwest Europe in the Early Middle Ages, c.AD 600–1150
Northwest Europe in the Early Middle Ages, c.AD 600–1150

Author: Christopher Loveluck

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2013-10-24

Total Pages: 490

ISBN-13: 110747082X

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Christopher Loveluck's study explores the transformation of Northwest Europe (primarily Britain, France and Belgium) from the era of the first post-Roman 'European Union' under the Carolingian Frankish kings to the so-called 'feudal' age, between c.AD 600 and 1150. During these centuries radical changes occurred in the organisation of the rural world. Towns and complex communities of artisans and merchant-traders emerged and networks of contact between northern Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Middle and Far East were redefined, with long-lasting consequences into the present day. Loveluck provides the most comprehensive comparative analysis of the rural and urban archaeological remains in this area for twenty-five years. Supported by evidence from architecture, relics, manuscript illuminations and texts, this book explains how the power and intentions of elites were confronted by the aspirations and actions of the diverse rural peasantry, artisans and merchants, producing both intended and unforeseen social changes.

The Domesday Book
The Domesday Book

Author: Thomas Hinde

Publisher: Continental Enterprises Group

Published: 1996

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781858334400

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A fundamental part of English heritage, the Domesday Book is unique in medieval history, recording an entire country and its inhabitants town by town, with over 12,500 entries. In this lavishly illustrated book, Elizabeth Hallam and Thomas Hinde examine the background to the nine-hundred-year-old document, setting the events of 1086 into the context of the medieval world. It is a remarkable tribute to English continuity that almost all of the Domesday settlements still exist in some form or another.

Inhabiting the Landscape
Inhabiting the Landscape

Author: Nicola Whyte

Publisher:

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 204

ISBN-13:

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The discipline of landscape history has recently taken a new turn: away from the analysis of past land use and environments towards an understanding of landscape as a social construct. This book is a significant step along this exciting new road. Focusing on Norfolk in the post-medieval centuries, Nicola Whyte recaptures the essential character of ordinary people's experience of landscape. She shows how perceptions were deeply rooted in the comprehension of material antiquities, the annual round of work, public events and religious ritual, and the complex web of rights and jurisdictions mapped out in the fields. People valued and gave meaning to the landscape for a wide range of reasons, many of them unconnected with the economic potential of the land. Landscape features outside the confines of the church and the graveyard - pilgrimage routes, crosses, wells and springs - played an important part in the ideological shift of the Reformation. Parish boundaries, and in particular the annual ritual of 'beating the bounds' at Rogationtide, reveal much about the shifting pattern of local allegiances and competition over resources. Places of execution and the graves of suicides were 'mneumonic spectacles' defining both geographical and behavioural limits. The local history of enclosure and rights to commons is the story of nascent capitalism in rural England, a clash of values between modern productivity and ancient tradition that involved the reinterpretation and renegotiation of the past. Informed by the latest archaeological theory, this book shows how landscape development was a dynamic, experiential process, in which world-views changed as well as woods, hedges and fields.