Warwickshire, a late Anglo-Saxon county drawn up around the defended burh of Warwick, brought together the eastern part of the kingdom of the Hwicce and part of Greater Mercia. This book presents all the topographical detail in the Anglo-Saxon charters and especially that in associated boundary clauses, all freshly transcribed from surviving documents, many of which are not readily available in print. Each boundary clause is individually mapped, usually for the first time, and the charter's landmarks are located as closely as possible. The evidence that emerges provides an insight into the details of the Anglo-Saxon countryside that can be obtained from no other source. Regional variation within the county becomes apparent, ranging from the pastoral and well-wooded Arden to the more heavily cultivated Feldon; Old English terminology can be related to identifiable features; and territorial organisation can be better understood when estates and their boundaries are accurately located, and light is cast upon the way that land ownership and estate organisation evolved within an older territorial regional framework.
Dr DELLA HOOKEis a fellow of the Institute for Advanced Research in the Humanities at the University of Birmingham.