About the Book
Champion: The pattern of nucleated settlements and extensive open fields most commonly found within the landscape of the Midlands.
This book presents a radical reinterpretation of the origins of villages and open fields, and their development in the late medieval and post-medieval periods, in the Midland, ‘champion’ areas of England. Most landscape historians believe that villages were created in the middle or later Saxon periods through the ‘nucleation’ of a formerly dispersed pattern of settlement, that many villages were initially laid out as planned, regular settlements and that open fields probably came into existence at the same time. Re-examination and mapping of the data suggests ‘nucleation’ is a myth, ‘village planning’ an illusion and open fields were created, at least in their classic, ‘regular’ forms, only in the eleventh or twelfth centuries.
Table of Contents:
Chapter 1: Introduction
Why Northamptonshire? • Debating the Medieval Landscape • The Post-Medieval Landscape • Methodology
Chapter 2: Structures of Landscape
Geology and Topography • Climate and Soils • Territory and Topography • Late Prehistoric and Roman
Settlement • Early and Middle Saxon Settlement • Territorial Organisation • Demographic and Agricultural
Expansion • Conclusion
Chapter 3: Medieval Settlement
Introduction • Dispersion and Nucleation • Villages: Geology, ‘Cores’ and Expansion • Village Plans: Patterns of
Earlier Land Use • Geology, Land Use and Plan Form • Regular Tofts and ‘Planning’ • Dispersed Settlements •
Conclusion
Chapter 4: Medieval Land Use: Field and Forest
Introduction • Arable • Pasture • Meadow • Woodland and Forest • Heaths • The Antiquity of the Open Fields
• Conclusion
Chapter 5: The Post-Medieval Landscape
Introduction • Tenure and Ownership • Enclosure • Modifying the Open Fields • The Chronology of
Northamptonshire Enclosure • Enclosing the Forests • Enclosure and Land Use Change • The Impact of
Enclosure • The Development of Rural Settlement • Conclusion
Chapter 6: Northamptonshire in Context
Woodland and Champion • The Characteristics of ‘Woodland’ Landscapes • Variations in the Medieval
Landscapes of the Midlands • Variations in Post-Medieval Landscape and Agriculture • Woodland and
Pasture • The Origins of Regional Variation • Explaining Regional Variation • The Implications of Post-Medieval
Developments
Chapter 7: Landscape: Time, Agency and Character
Historic Landscape Character • Northamptonshire Field Patterns • Landscape and Agency
About the Author :
Tom Williamson is Professor in Landscape History at UEA and published 'The Transformation of Rural England: Farming and the Landscape 1700-1870' with UEP in 2002. Robert Liddiard completed a PhD at UEA in 2000 and has published on high-status landscapes in the Middle Ages. Tracey Partida is a consultant specializing in geographical information systems (GIS) and her PhD is in progress at University of Huddersfield.
Review :
A masterpiece of scholarship...using the best documented part of the 'champion landscapes' of the English Midlands, the authors have tackled what is arguably the most contentious topic in landscape history, the origins and development of villages and fields. The subject has been studied by historians, archaeologists and geographers for well over a century. Yet, despite the huge amount of work on it, especially over the last 20 years or so, no consensus has been reached on almost any aspect. This book is a truly great piece of work that would considerably advance the history of villages and fields. This book represents the major output of a landscape project that, despite being focused on just one county, is undoubtedly of national significance. This book offers another timely discussion about the origins of villages and open fields, going on to cover their development in the late medieval and post-medieval periods. The study was funded by a grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Northamptonshire was chosen as its focus because of the amount of research already carried out in that county (much of it by David Hall and Glenn Foard), together with the wealth of evidence available, although it is relevant to a much wider region and to the discussion as a whole. Rather ironically, this book appears at much the same time as that written by David Hall himself: The Open Fields of England (Oxford University Press, 2014). However, Hall's book concentrates on 'champion' lands in the medieval period while Williamson et al.'s book sets these within a much wider time period and there is little doubt that it will make a substantial contribution to the literature. The authors' arguments are cautious in their approach to the origin of Northamptonshire's open field systems, something perhaps to be welcomed by those never completely convinced by Hall's earlier arguments that open field systems in the county resulted from an initial process of deliberate planning involving the layout of long furlongs around nucleated settlements at a very early stage, commencing somewhere around the eighth century. As Williamson et al. note, recent studies have confirmed that 'villages' 'did not come into existence, fully formed, in the seventh, eighth or ninth centuries', while 'the regular tenurial cycles and the yardland structures themselves must ... have been created at a relatively late date'. These authors conclude that 'The "long furlongs" are likewise unlikely to pre-date the late eleventh century' (pp. 121-2), and that 'there seems little doubt that the highly regular, communal and extensive field systems characteristic of the medieval period were largely if not entirely of post-Conquest date' (p. 126). While Hall continues to place the open field systems found here as originating from about the eighth century, the emphasis here therefore seems to be more cautious, although both books argue that further detailed research will be necessary to cast more light on the problem. Champion sets these arguments within a fuller framework, examining past views on regional field and settlement patterns and the causes that influenced them, and uses digital mapping to great effect, covering the evidence of historical maps, underlying geology and soil types, earlier archaeological and territorial evidence, etc., plus variations in population density, wealth and the extent of cultivated land. The study continues to examine these factors throughout the medieval period, examining changing medieval settlement patterns, all well illustrated with county maps in colour. For the post-medieval period, one which saw 'the unmaking of the English midland landscape', there is coverage of patterns of tenure and land ownership, the continuing effects of environmental factors, the enclosure of open fields and commons, the enclosure of the forests, and also the modification of earlier open field systems to allow the expansion of pasture and the introduction of new varieties of crops, perhaps emphasising the shift into a pastoral economy rather more fully than in many earlier historical studies. The effects that enclosure had upon the population are discussed without the exaggerated negative social approach so commonly met and social changes are more rigorously and evenly estimated. An attempt is also made to set Northamptonshire within a wider framework while recognising that regional differences were not as clear-cut as has often been argued and that settlement change was rather more subtle, with stabilisation followed by gradual expansion the main factor of the Anglo-Saxon period rather than straightforward 'nucleation'. As one might expect from Williamson, environmental conditions are considered as a major factor, although again only in a complex way: the increasing importance of hay in the agrarian economy and the need to assemble plough-teams rapidly in areas of vulnerable soils may both have influenced the location of villages. The authors disagree with those of the 'post-processual' school of thought who have dismissed such an approach as 'too deterministic' while concentrating upon 'agency'; they also discuss more cautiously the role of lordship but consider that the character of land ownership and the emergence of a more commercialised and regionally specialised agrarian economy were prime factors influencing subsequent change. Indeed, the conclusion reached is 'that environmental factors underlay the principal regional variations in the medieval landscape of lowland England' (p. 221), but interacting with other factor such as custom, tenure, lordship and economics in ways that were often subtle and indirect. Few studying the subject will be able to ignore such a book. ... the review quote to use is 'A substantial contribution to the literature ... Few studying the subject will be able to ignore such a book. This is an important book for all those interested in the development of the English landscape. Clearly written and beautifully illustrated, Champion presents a strong central argument and a raft of stimulating secondary ideas. ...This book enriches our understanding of landscape ... The work of Williamson, Liddiard, and Partida represents another landmark in the controversy, and our understanding and interpretation of the subject will not be the same again.
