The Medieval English Landscape, 1000-1540The landscape of medieval England was the product of a multitude of hands. While the power to shape the landscape inevitably lay with the Crown, the nobility and the religious houses, this study also highlights the contribution of the peasantry in the layout of rural settlements and ridge-and-furrow field works, and the funding of parish churches by ordinary townsfolk. The importance of population trends is emphasised as a major factor in shaping the medieval landscape: the rising curve of the eleventh to thirteenth centuries imposing growing pressures on resources, and the devastating impact of the Black Death leading to radical decline in the fourteenth century. Opening with a broad-ranging analysis of political and economic trends in medieval England, the book progresses thematically to assess the impact of farming, rural settlement, towns, the Church, and fortification using many original case studies. The concluding chapter charts the end of the medieval landscape with the dissolution of the monasteries, the replacement of castles by country houses, the ongoing enclosure of fields, and the growth of towns. |
Contents
Mortons Leam near Whittlesey Cambridgeshire | |
Bradfield Woods Suffolk | |
The landscape of religion | |
Crowland Abbey Lincolnshire | |
Rievaulx Abbey Yorkshire | |
Mount Grace Priory Yorkshire | |
Cockersand Abbey Lancashire | |
Gloucester Abbey Cloisters | |
Deer Leap Quernmore Park Lancashire | |
Windmill Mound Cold Newton Leicestershire | |
The landscape of rural settlement | |
Burton near Tarvin Cheshire | |
Barnack Quarries Cambridgeshire | |
Kersey Suffolk | |
Weeting Church and Manor House Norfolk | |
Hungry Bentley Derbyshire | |
Plan of Whatborough Leicestershire 1586 | |
Heath Chapel and Deserted Settlement Shropshire | |
The landscape of towns and trade | |
St Ives Bridge Huntingdonshire | |
Egham Causeway Surrey | |
Packhorse Bridge near BarrowinFurness Cumberland | |
Moreton in Marsh Gloucestershire | |
No 58 French Street Southampton | |
Two Churches in one Churchyard Swaffham Prior Cambridgeshire | |
Rotherfield Churchyard Sussex | |
St Helens Church Colchester Essex | |
The landscape of fortification | |
Fotheringhay Castle Northamptonshire | |
Hedingham Castle Essex | |
Warkworth Northumberland from the Town Bridge | |
Goodrich Castle Herefordshire | |
Layer Marney Tower Essex | |
Ashby de la Zouch Castle Leicestershire | |
Stokesay Castle Shropshire | |
Hartlepool Town Wall County Durham | |
Canterbury Town Wall | |
Notes | |
Bibliography | |
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Common terms and phrases
Abbey arable Archaeology Benedictine Beresford Bishop Black Death bridge building built Cambridge University Press Cambridgeshire Canterbury castles Cathedral centres chapel Cheshire Chester Cistercians communal Cornwall County Durham curtain walls defensive Devon dispersed settlement Domesday Book Dyer early fourteenth century east English Heritage Essex estates example excavation farming field systems fifteenth century Figure forests fortified gatehouse hall hamlets Henry Hertfordshire Higham History kilometres King king’s King’s Lynn land landscape Landscape History late late-medieval Lincoln Lincolnshire London lords manor house manorial meadow Medieval England metres middle ages midlands monastic monks motte motte-and-bailey nave Norfolk Norman Northamptonshire nucleated open fields Orderic Vitalis Oxford Oxfordshire parish churches parks pasture peasant places population rebuilding ridge and furrow River Roberts and Wrathmell royal rural settlements Shropshire sixteenth stone street strips structures surviving thirteenth century timber tofts tower towns twelfth century urban village Wales Wharram Percy William woodland Yorkshire