Ebook: The Ancient Ways of Wessex: Travel and Communication in an Early Medieval Landscape
Author: Alexander Langlands
- Publisher: Windgather Press
- Language: English
- epub
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.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Contents
List of Figures
Introduction
Part 1: Literature Review
Chapter One: The Landscape of Routes and Communications
Prehistoric Trackways
Roman Roads
Medieval Ways and Paths
Bridges and Fords
Waterways and Water Transport
Chapter Two: Travellers and Journeys
Pilgrimages
Clerics and the Mobility of the Church
Messengers
Landscapes of Governance
An Anglo-Saxon Highway Code
Driving Droves and Leading Loads
Chapter Three: From Emporia to Markets – Trade Networks in Wessex
Emporia, Minsters and ‘Productive’ Sites
The Emergence of a Market-based Economy
Part 2: The Case Studies
Chapter Four: A note on the evidence: Anglo-Saxon Charters and Ordnance Survey maps
Anglo-Saxon Charters
The Ordnance Survey, and the theory and practice of landscape archaeology
Chapter Five: Hampshire
Study Area 1: The Harroway, Whitchurch, and the Bourne Rivulet Valley
Study Area 2: Winchester and the Upper Itchen Valley
Chapter Six: Devon
Study Area 3: Crediton
Study Area 4: South Hams
Chapter Seven: Dorset
Study Area 5: Isle of Purbeck
Study Area 6: Shaftesbury’s Southern Hinterland
Chapter Eight: Wiltshire
Study Area 7: The Ebble Valley
Study Area 8: The Salisbury Basin
Study Area 9: Bradford-on-Avon and its hinterland
Study Area 10: Kinwardstone Hundred
Part 3: Discussion
Chapter Nine: Roman Roads, Markers and Gates
The Roman Road Question
Wayside Markers
Gates and Access in the Early Medieval Landscape of Wessex
Chapter Ten: Bridges, Herepaths, Trade Routes and the King’s Peace
Bridge-work, Fortress-work but no Road-work
Herepaths and the Hierarchy of Anglo-Saxon Routes
Trade and Trade Routes
Conclusion: Wessex and the early medieval world beyond
The Via Publica and Early Medieval Roads
Herepaths, Portways and an Age of Infrastructure
From Rivers to Roads
Abbreviations
Bibliography
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.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Contents
List of Figures
Introduction
Part 1: Literature Review
Chapter One: The Landscape of Routes and Communications
Prehistoric Trackways
Roman Roads
Medieval Ways and Paths
Bridges and Fords
Waterways and Water Transport
Chapter Two: Travellers and Journeys
Pilgrimages
Clerics and the Mobility of the Church
Messengers
Landscapes of Governance
An Anglo-Saxon Highway Code
Driving Droves and Leading Loads
Chapter Three: From Emporia to Markets – Trade Networks in Wessex
Emporia, Minsters and ‘Productive’ Sites
The Emergence of a Market-based Economy
Part 2: The Case Studies
Chapter Four: A note on the evidence: Anglo-Saxon Charters and Ordnance Survey maps
Anglo-Saxon Charters
The Ordnance Survey, and the theory and practice of landscape archaeology
Chapter Five: Hampshire
Study Area 1: The Harroway, Whitchurch, and the Bourne Rivulet Valley
Study Area 2: Winchester and the Upper Itchen Valley
Chapter Six: Devon
Study Area 3: Crediton
Study Area 4: South Hams
Chapter Seven: Dorset
Study Area 5: Isle of Purbeck
Study Area 6: Shaftesbury’s Southern Hinterland
Chapter Eight: Wiltshire
Study Area 7: The Ebble Valley
Study Area 8: The Salisbury Basin
Study Area 9: Bradford-on-Avon and its hinterland
Study Area 10: Kinwardstone Hundred
Part 3: Discussion
Chapter Nine: Roman Roads, Markers and Gates
The Roman Road Question
Wayside Markers
Gates and Access in the Early Medieval Landscape of Wessex
Chapter Ten: Bridges, Herepaths, Trade Routes and the King’s Peace
Bridge-work, Fortress-work but no Road-work
Herepaths and the Hierarchy of Anglo-Saxon Routes
Trade and Trade Routes
Conclusion: Wessex and the early medieval world beyond
The Via Publica and Early Medieval Roads
Herepaths, Portways and an Age of Infrastructure
From Rivers to Roads
Abbreviations
Bibliography
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