The Medieval Landscape of Wessex
The Medieval Landscape of Wessex

Author: Michael Aston

Publisher: Oxbow Books Limited

Published: 1994

Total Pages: 296

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

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).

The Ancient Ways of Wessex
The Ancient Ways of Wessex

Author: Alexander Langlands

Publisher: Windgather Press

Published: 2019-11-30

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 1911188542

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The Ancient Ways of Wessex tells the story of Wessex’s roads in the early medieval period, at the point at which they first emerge in the historical record. This is the age of the Anglo-Saxons and an era that witnessed the rise of a kingdom that was taken to the very brink of defeat by the Viking invasions of the ninth century. It is a period that goes on to become one within which we can trace the beginnings of the political entity we have come to know today as England. In a series of ten detailed case studies the reader is invited to consider historical and archaeological evidence, alongside topographic information and ancient place-names, in the reconstruction of the networks of routeways and communications that served the people and places of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex. Whether you were a peasant, pilgrim, drover, trader, warrior, bishop, king or queen, travel would have been fundamental to life in the early middle ages and this book explores the physical means by which the landscape was constituted to facilitate and improve the movement of people, goods and ideas from the seventh through to the eleventh centuries. What emerges is a dynamic web of interconnecting routeways serving multiple functions and one, perhaps, even busier than that in our own working countryside. A narrative of transition, one of both of continuity and change, provides a fresh and alternative window into the everyday workings of an early medieval landscape through the pathways trodden over a millennium ago.

The Medieval Landscape of Wessex
The Medieval Landscape of Wessex

Author: Michael Aston

Publisher: Oxbow Books Limited

Published: 1994

Total Pages: 296

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

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).

Burial, Landscape and Identity in Early Medieval Wessex
Burial, Landscape and Identity in Early Medieval Wessex

Author: Kate Mees

Publisher: Anglo-Saxon Studies

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781783274178

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Multi-disciplinary investigation of Anglo-Saxon funerary traditions. Burial evidence provides the richest record we possess for the centuries following the retreat of Roman authority. The locations and manner in which communities chose to bury their dead, within the constraints of the environmentaland social milieu, reveal much about this transformational era. This book offers a pioneering exploration of the ways in which the cultural and physical environment influenced funerary traditions during the period c. AD 450-850, in the region which came to form the leading Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex. This was a diverse landscape rich in ancient remains, in the form of imposing earthworks, enigmatic megaliths and vestiges of Roman occupation. Employing archaeological evidence, complemented by toponymic and documentary sources and elucidated through landscape analysis, the author argues that particular man-made and natural features were consciously selected as foci for funerary events and ritual practice, becoming integral to manifestations of identity and power in early medieval society. Kate Mees is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Archaeology, Durham University.

The English Medieval Landscape
The English Medieval Landscape

Author: Leonard Cantor

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-12-01

Total Pages: 237

ISBN-13: 100036867X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

First published in 1982, The English Medieval Landscape was written to recreate and analyse the development of the major elements of the medieval landscape. Illustrated with maps and photographs, the book explores the nature of the English landscape between 1066 and 1485, from farms and chases to castles, monastic settlements, villages, roads, and more. The English Medieval Landscape will appeal to those with an interest in medieval history and British social history.

Territoriality and the Early Medieval Landscape
Territoriality and the Early Medieval Landscape

Author: Stephen Rippon

Publisher: Boydell & Brewer

Published: 2022-04-05

Total Pages: 407

ISBN-13: 1783276800

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

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.

Making a Christian Landscape
Making a Christian Landscape

Author: Sam Turner

Publisher:

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Sam Turner's important new interpretation of early medieval patterns of landscape development traces landscape change in the South West from the introduction of Christianity to the Norman Conquest (AD c. 450-1070). It stresses the significance of political and religious ideology in both the 'Celtic' west (especially Cornwall) and the 'Anglo-Saxon' east (especially the Wessex counties of Devon, Somerset, Wiltshire and Dorset). Using innovative new research methods, and making use of archaeology, place-name evidence, historical sources and land-use patterns, it challenges previous work on the subject by suggesting that the two regions have much in common. Using modern mapping techniques to explore land-use trends, Turner advances a new model for the evolution of ecclesiastical institutions in south-west England. He shows that the early development of Christianity had an impact on the countryside that remains visible in the landscape we see today. Accessibly written with a glossary of terms and a comprehensive bibliography, the book will appeal to both veterans and newcomers to landscape archaeology.