The varied character of Britain's countryside provides communities with a strong sense of local identity. One of the most significant features of the landscape in Southern Britain is the way that its character differs from region to region, with compact villages in the Midlands contrasting with the sprawling hamlets of East Anglia and isolated farmsteads of Devon. Even more remarkable is the very 'English' feel of the landscape in southern Pembrokeshire, in the far south west of Wales. Hoskins described the English landscape as 'the richest historical record we possess', and in this volume Stephen Rippon explores the origins of regional variations in landscape character, arguing that while some landscapes date back to the centuries either side of the Norman Conquest, other areas across southern Britain underwent a profound change around the 8th century AD.

An original and approachable account of how archaeology can tell the story of the English village. Shapwick lies in the middle of Somerset, next to the important monastic centre of Glastonbury: the abbey owned the manor for 800 years from the 8th to the 16th century and its abbots and officials had a great influence on the lives of the peasants who lived there. It is possible that abbot Dunstan, one of the great reformers of tenth century monasticism directed the planning of the village. The Shapwick Project examined the development and history of an English parish and village over a ten thousand-year period. This was a truly multi-disciplinary project. Not only were a battery of archaeological and historical techniques explored - such as field walking, test-pitting, archaeological excavation, aerial reconnaissance, documentary research and cartographic analysis - but numerous other techniques such as building analysis, dendrochronological dating and soil analysis were undertaken on a large scale. The result is a fascinating study about how the community lived and prospered in Shapwick. In addition we learn how a group of enthusiastic and dedicated scholars unravelled this story. As such there is much here to inspire and enthuse others who might want to embark on a landscape study of a parish or village area. Seven of the ten chapters begin with a fictional vignette to bring the story of the village to life. Text-boxes elucidate re-occurring themes and techniques. Extensively illustrated in colour including 100 full page images.

The Middle Ages are all around us in Britain. The Tower of London and the castles of Scotland and Wales are mainstays of cultural tourism and an inspiring cross-section of later medieval finds can now be seen on display in museums across England, Scotland, and Wales. Medieval institutions from Parliament and monarchy to universities are familiar to us and we come into contact with the later Middle Ages every day when we drive through a village or town, look up at the castle on the hill, visit a local church or wonder about the earthworks in the fields we see from the window of a train. The Oxford Handbook of Later Medieval Archaeology in Britain provides an overview of the archaeology of the later Middle Ages in Britain between AD 1066 and 1550. 61 entries, divided into 10 thematic sections, cover topics ranging from later medieval objects, human remains, archaeological science, standing buildings, and sites such as castles and monasteries, to the well-preserved relict landscapes which still survive. This is a rich and exciting period of the past and most of what we have learnt about the material culture of our medieval past has been discovered in the past two generations. This volume provides comprehensive coverage of the latest research and describes the major projects and concepts that are changing our understanding of our medieval heritage.

The first major synthesis of the evidence for Anglo-Saxon settlements from across England and throughout the Anglo-Saxon period, and a study of what it reveals about the communities who built and lived in them.

Why is it that in some places around the world communities live in villages, while elsewhere people live in isolated houses scattered across the landscape? How does archaeology analyse the relationship between man and his environment? Making Sense of an Historic Landscape explores why landscapes are so varied and how the landscape archaeologist or historian can understand these differences. Local variation in the character of the countryside provides communities with an important sense of place, and this book suggests that some of these differences can be traced back to prehistory. In his discussion, Rippon makes use of a wide range of sources and techniques, including archaeological material, documentary sources, maps, field- and place-names, and the evidence contained within houses that are still lived in today, to illustrate how local and regional variations in the 'historic landscape' can be understood. Rippon uses the Blackdown Hills in southern England, which marked an important boundary in landscape character from prehistory onwards, as a specific case study to be applied as a model for other landscape areas. Even today the fields, place-names, and styles of domestic architecture are very different either side of the Blackdown Hills, and it is suggested that these differences in landscape character developed because of deep-rooted differences in the nature of society that are found right across southern England. Although focused on the more recent past, the volume also explores the medieval, Roman, and prehistoric periods.

The 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.

The origins of England's regional cultures are here shown to be strongly influenced by the natural environment and geographical features. 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 interestedin 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 LandscapeHistory, University of East Anglia; he has written widely on landscape archaeology, agricultural history, and the history of landscape design.