Alban's Buried Towns

Alban's Buried Towns
Author: Rosalind Niblett
Publisher: Oxbow Books Limited
Total Pages: 450
Release: 2005
Genre: History
ISBN:

St Albans has a long tradition of archaeological investigation dating back to the 18th century. What has been lacking however, is a detailed synthesis and interpretation of the accumulated information. This book is intended to meet that need, and comes out of a project set up by English Heritage in 1992 designed to promote 'intensive' urban archaeological strategy. This volume is a critical assessment of the current archaeological information from an area of 12 square kilometers centred on medieval and modern St Albans and its Roman predecessor, Verulamium. There is evidence of scattered occupation in the area from the Mesolithic period onwards, but it was only towards the end of the 1st century BC that a settlement was established to the south of the modern town. This was superseded by the development of the Roman town of Verulamium on the south side of the River Ver, but by the 8th century settlement had become focused on the shrine of the late Roman martyr, Alban, on the hill to the north of the river. In the late Saxon period an Abbey was established close to this shrine, and after the Norman conquest, settlement concentrated in the area north of the Abbey. Most of the monastic buildings were demolished shortly after the dissolution of the monastery in 1539, but on the whole St Albans retained its medieval form until the 19th century. The papers in this volume look at the development of this important city throughout its long history, bringing its Roman and Medieval past to life.

Late Roman Towns in Britain

Late Roman Towns in Britain
Author: Adam Rogers
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 253
Release: 2011-03-28
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1139499513

In this book, Adam Rogers examines the late Roman phases of towns in Britain. Critically analysing the archaeological notion of decline, he focuses on public buildings, which played an important role, administrative and symbolic, within urban complexes. Arguing against the interpretation that many of these monumental civic buildings were in decline or abandoned in the later Roman period, he demonstrates that they remained purposeful spaces and important centres of urban life. Through a detailed assessment of the archaeology of late Roman towns, this book argues that the archaeological framework of decline does not permit an adequate and comprehensive understanding of the towns during this period. Moving beyond the idea of decline, this book emphasises a longer-term perspective for understanding the importance of towns in the later Roman period.

A County of Small Towns

A County of Small Towns
Author: T. R. Slater
Publisher: Univ of Hertfordshire Press
Total Pages: 452
Release: 2008
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781905313440

Exploring the history of the principal towns of Hertfordshire, England, from the medieval period to the 19th century, this collection of essays includes chapters on important towns, including Alban, Ashwell, Berkhamsted, Hertford, Hitchin, and Ware. A rich resource on the urban history of Hertfordshire, it features essays on topography, medieval town economy, commons and boundaries, industry, and the influence of the Dissolution on the region.

Hertfordshire

Hertfordshire
Author: Anne Rowe
Publisher: Hertfordshire Publications
Total Pages: 349
Release: 2013
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1909291005

More than three decades after the publication of Lionel Munby's seminal work 'The Hertfordshire Landscape', Anne Rowe and Tom Williamson have produced an authoritative new study, based on their own extensive fieldwork and documentary investigations, as well as on the wealth of new research carried out into Hertfordshire specifically and into landscape history and archaeology more generally.

Towns in the Dark

Towns in the Dark
Author: Gavin Speed
Publisher: Archaeopress Publishing Ltd
Total Pages: 205
Release: 2014-07-28
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1784910058

The focus of this book is to draw together still scattered data to chart and interpret the changing nature of life in towns from the late Roman period through to the mid-Anglo-Saxon period. Did towns fail? Were these ruinous sites really neglected by early Anglo-Saxon settlers and leaders?

The English and Their Legacy, 900-1200

The English and Their Legacy, 900-1200
Author: David Roffe
Publisher: Boydell Press
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2012
Genre: History
ISBN: 1843837943

The dynamics of medieval societies in England and beyond form the focus of these essays on the Anglo-Norman world. Over the last fifty years Ann Williams has transformed our understanding of Anglo-Saxon and Norman society in her studies of personalities and elites. In this collection, leading scholars in the field revisit themes that have beencentral to her work, and open up new insights into the workings of the multi-cultural communities of the realm of England in the early Middle Ages. There are detailed discussions of local and regional elites and the interplay between them that fashioned the distinctive institutions of local government in the pre-Conquest period; radical new readings of key events such as the crisis of 1051 and a reassessment of the Bayeux Tapestry as the beginnings of theHistoria Anglorum; studies of the impact of the Norman Conquest and the survival of the English; and explorations of the social, political, and administrative cultures in post-Conquest England and Normandy. The individualessays are united overall by the articulation of the local, regional, and national identities that that shaped the societies of the period. Contributors: S.D. Church, William Aird, Lucy Marten, Hirokazu Tsurushima, Valentine Fallan, Judith Everard, Vanessa King, Pamela Taylor, Charles Insley, Simon Keynes, Sally Harvey, K.S.B. Keats-Rohan, David Bates, Emma Mason, David Roffe, Mark Hagger.

Property, Power and the Growth of Towns

Property, Power and the Growth of Towns
Author: Catherine Casson
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 311
Release: 2023-05-05
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1000876772

Local enterprise, institutional quality and strategic location were of central importance in the growth of medieval towns. This book, comprising a study of 112 English towns, emphasises these key factors. Downstream locations on major rivers attracted international trade, and thereby stimulated the local processing of imports and exports, while the early establishment of richly endowed religious institutions funnelled agricultural rental income into a town, where it was spent on luxury goods produced by local craftsmen and artisans, and on expensive, long-running building schemes. Local entrepreneurs who recognised the economic potential of a town developed residential suburbs which attracted wealthy residents. Meanwhile town authorities invested in the building and maintenance of bridges, gates, walls and ditches, often with financial support from wealthy residents. Royal lordship was also an advantage to a town, as it gave the town authorities direct access to the king and bypassed local power-brokers such as bishops and earls. The legacy of medieval investment remains visible today in the streets of important towns. Drawing on rentals, deeds and surveys, this book also examines in detail the topography of seven key medieval towns: Bristol, Gloucester, Coventry, Cambridge, Birmingham, Shrewsbury and Hull. In each case, surviving records identify the location and value of urban properties, and their owners and tenants. Using statistical techniques, previously applied only to the early modern and modern periods, the book analyses the impact of location and type of property on property values. It shows that features of the modern property market, including spatial autocorrelation, were present in the middle ages. Property hot-spots of high rents are also identified; the most valuable properties were those situated between the market and other focal points such transport hubs and religious centres, convenient for both, but remote from noise and pollution. This book takes an interdisciplinary approach, drawing on expertise from the disciplines of economics and history. It will be of interest to historians and to social scientists looking for a long-run perspective on urban development.

Archaeology in Hertfordshire

Archaeology in Hertfordshire
Author: Kris Lockyear
Publisher: Univ of Hertfordshire Press
Total Pages: 360
Release: 2015-10-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1909291471

Celebrating the rich heritage of archaeology and of archaeological research in Hertfordshire, the 15 papers collected in this work focus on various aspects of the region, including the Neolithic to the post-Medieval periods, and include a report on the important excavations at the formative henge at Norton. Several chapters focus new attention on the Iron Age and Roman periods, both from a landscape perspective and through detailed studies of artefacts, while a discussion of the rare early Saxon material recently excavated at Watton at Stone makes a vital contribution to the existing corpus of knowledge about this little-understood period. All of the papers in the volume focus on the local scene with an understanding of wider issues in each period and as a result, the papers are of importance beyond the boundaries of the county and will be of interest to scholars with wide-ranging interests.

Venta Belgarum: Prehistoric, Roman, and Post-Roman Winchester

Venta Belgarum: Prehistoric, Roman, and Post-Roman Winchester
Author: Francis M. Morris
Publisher: Archaeopress Publishing Ltd
Total Pages: 1402
Release: 2023-12-28
Genre: History
ISBN: 1803276819

This is a detailed study of the archaeology of Roman Winchester—Venta Belgarum, a major town in the south of the province of Britannia— and its development from the regional (civitas) capital of the Iron Age people, the Belgae, who inhabited much of what is now central and southern Hampshire.

Kingdom, Civitas, and County

Kingdom, Civitas, and County
Author: Stephen Rippon
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 461
Release: 2018-04-19
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0191077267

This book explores the development of territorial identity in the late prehistoric, Roman, and early medieval periods. Over the course of the Iron Age, a series of marked regional variations in material culture and landscape character emerged across eastern England that reflect the development of discrete zones of social and economic interaction. The boundaries between these zones appear to have run through sparsely settled areas of the landscape on high ground, and corresponded to a series of kingdoms that emerged during the Late Iron Age. In eastern England at least, these pre-Roman socio-economic territories appear to have survived throughout the Roman period despite a trend towards cultural homogenization brought about by Romanization. Although there is no direct evidence for the relationship between these socio-economic zones and the Roman administrative territories known as civitates, they probably corresponded very closely. The fifth century saw some Anglo-Saxon immigration but whereas in East Anglia these communities spread out across much of the landscape, in the Northern Thames Basin they appear to have been restricted to certain coastal and estuarine districts. The remaining areas continued to be occupied by a substantial native British population, including much of the East Saxon kingdom (very little of which appears to have been 'Saxon'). By the sixth century a series of regionally distinct identities - that can be regarded as separate ethnic groups - had developed which corresponded very closely to those that had emerged during the late prehistoric and Roman periods. These ancient regional identities survived through to the Viking incursions, whereafter they were swept away following the English re-conquest and replaced with the counties with which we are familiar today.