East Anglia

East Anglia

East Anglia's History

East Anglia's political and economic importance in the middle ages is plain for all to see, stemming initially from its crucial position on the eastern shores of the North Sea and its participation in the successive patterns of invasion and settlement of England. Archaeological evidence abounds: burial mounds, castles, great churches deriving from the wealth created by sheep, yeoman farmhouses, and market towns of eighteenth-century elegance. Behind these visible manifestations of the march of centuries lie particular histories, and these seventeen studies from the region's best scholars reveal some of those jigsaw puzzles of time, ranging from the Domesday herring industry by way of monasteries, memorials, wills, Gainsborough and garden history to the growing passion for natural history and science in the mid nineteenth century. They make a serious contribution to an understanding of the region, and at the same time honour Norman Scarfe, whose own studies have played a notable part in the interpretation of East Anglia's history. Contributors JOHN BLATCHLY, JAMES CAMPBELL, CHRISTOPHER HARPER-BILL, CAROLE RAWCLIFFE, DAVID DYMOND, PETER NORTHEAST, COLIN RICHMOND, JUDITH MIDDLETON-STEWART, DIARMAID MacCULLOCH, HASSELL SMITH, TOM WILLIAMSON, EDWARD MARTIN, JONATHAN THEOBALD, RICHARD WILSON, HUGH BELSEY, STEVEN PLUNKETT, GEOFFREY MARTIN, MICHAEL HOWARD.

East Anglia and Its North Sea World in the Middle Ages

This collection of essays discusses East Anglia in the context of a medieval maritime framework and explores the extent to which there was a distinctive community bound together by the shared frontier of the North Sea during the Middle Ages. It brings together the work of a range of international scholars and includes contributions from the disciplines of history, archaeology, art history and literary studies.