John Blair is Lecturer in Modern History and Professor of Medieval History and Archaeology at Queen's College, Oxford.

The first study of Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman canals and waterways, this book is based on new evidence surrounding the nature of water transport in the period. A collection of essays from economic historians, geographers, geomorphologists, archaeologists, and place-name scholars, this study unearths this neglected but important aspect of medieval engineering and economic growth. Its new perspective broadens our understanding of the economy, landscape, settlement patterns, and inter-regional contacts of medieval England.

• Introduction


• Part I: Waterways, Geography and Economy


• 1: FIONA EDMONDS: Barrier or Unifying Feature? Defining the Nature of Early Medieval Water Transport in the North-West


• 2: DELLA HOOKE: Uses of Waterways in Anglo-Saxon England


• 3: ANN COLE: The Place-Name Evidence for Water Transport in Early Medieval England


• 4: MARK GARDINER: Hythes, Small Ports and Other Landing Places in Later Medieval England


• 5: JOHN LANGDON: The Efficiency of Inland Water Transport in Medieval England


• Part II: Improved Waterways and Canals


• 6: ED RHODES: Identifying Human Modification of River Channels


• 7: JAMES BOND: Canal Construction in the Early Middle Ages: an Introductory Review


• 8: STEPHEN RIPPON: Waterways and Water Transport on Reclaimed Coastal Marshlands: the Somerset Levels and Beyond


• 9: CHARLES and NANCY HOLLINRAKE: The Water Roads of Somerset


• 10: CHARLES and NANCY HOLLINRAKE: Glastonbury's Anglo-Saxon Canal and Dunstan's Dyke


• 11: CHRISTOPHER K. CURRIE: Early Water Management on the Lower River Itchen in Hampshire


• 12: JOHN BLAIR: Transport and Canal-Building on the Upper Thames, 1000-1300