Abstract
The map of rural England today is studded with villages, many only two or three miles apart, and the great majority of these villages have existed since Domesday Book was compiled in 1086. Within them, in the middle ages, lived over ninety per cent of the population. Even in the 1980s English villages have much to remind us of their medieval origins — the church most frequently and often parts of a manor house or castle, the lay-out of the streets and cottages, and features in the fields. The English village landscape of today was made in the middle ages.
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Further Reading
H.S. Bennett, Life on the English Manor (Cambridge, 1938); J.L. Bolton, The Medieval English Economy 1150–1500 (London, 1980); P.D.A. Harvey, A Medieval Oxfordshire Village: Cuxham 1240–1400 (Oxford, 1965); R.H. Hilton, A Medieval Society. The West Midlands at the End of the Thirteenth Century (London, 1966); W.G. Hoskins, The Making of the English Landscape, 2nd edn (London, 1977); J.Z. Titow, English Rural Society 1200–1350 (London, 1969).
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© 1985 London Weekend Television
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Carpenter, D. (1985). Working the Land. In: Smith, L.M. (eds) The Making of Britain. The Making of Britain. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-17669-4_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-17669-4_7
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