The Ancient Ways of Wessex: Travel and Communication in an Early Medieval Landscape

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