Landscapes Decoded The origins and development of Cambridgeshire's medieval fields

How were the field boundaries created and cultivated by the farmers of prehistoric and Roman Britain transformed into the open fields of medieval England? Historians and archaeologists have posited a complete physical break between the field systems of Roman Britain and the common or open fields of...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Oosthuizen, Susan
Other Authors: Fox, Harold, Goose, Nigel
Format: eBook
Language:English
Published: Hatfield University of Hertfordshire Press 2006
Subjects:
Online Access:
Collection: OAPEN - Collection details see MPG.ReNa
LEADER 02948nma a2200361 u 4500
001 EB002059567
003 EBX01000000000000001200678
005 00000000000000.0
007 cr|||||||||||||||||||||
008 220825 ||| eng
100 1 |a Oosthuizen, Susan 
245 0 0 |a Landscapes Decoded  |h Elektronische Ressource  |b The origins and development of Cambridgeshire's medieval fields 
260 |a Hatfield  |b University of Hertfordshire Press  |c 2006 
300 |a 192 p. 
653 |a field systems 
653 |a Social and cultural history 
653 |a Archaeology by period 
653 |a Cambridgeshire 
653 |a United Kingdom, Great Britain 
653 |a archaeology 
653 |a medieval agriculture 
653 |a Landscape history 
700 1 |a Fox, Harold 
700 1 |a Goose, Nigel 
700 1 |a Fox, Harold 
041 0 7 |a eng  |2 ISO 639-2 
989 |b OAPEN  |a OAPEN 
500 |a Creative Commons (cc), by-nc-nd/4.0/, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ 
856 4 0 |u https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/id/4c9cebd7-193f-4501-b30a-2b148c50485b/UH Press Landscapes Decoded ISBN 9781902806587.pdf  |x Verlag  |3 Volltext 
856 4 2 |u http://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/23410  |z OAPEN Library: description of the publication 
082 0 |a 900 
082 0 |a 630 
520 |a How were the field boundaries created and cultivated by the farmers of prehistoric and Roman Britain transformed into the open fields of medieval England? Historians and archaeologists have posited a complete physical break between the field systems of Roman Britain and the common or open fields of medieval England.
Susan Oosthuizen’s fascinating research into the landscape history of the Bourn Valley, just west of Cambridge (an area which has been intensively cultivated for at least the last 3,000 years), has uncovered preserved prehistoric field patterns in the medieval furlongs there – startling in the context of ‘champion’ England. If it were possible to unravel the relationships between pre-open-field and open-field boundaries in the Valley between about 600 and 1100 AD, then a significant step forward might be taken in our understanding of the origins of medieval open-field systems in general. We might begin to understand the processes by which the fields, woods and pastures that developed over the prehistoric millennia and during the Roman centuries were organised into the completely new landscape of the medieval open fields.
The unexpected discovery of what appears to be an 8th- or 9th-century proto-open-field pattern seems to indicate a fossilising of the process of development from prehistoric to medieval fields, which Susan Oosthuizen seeks to explain by examining the social, administrative and political contexts within which these changes took place. The newly uncovered evidence allows Oosthuizen to propose a new model for the introduction of common fields in England. -