Anglo-Saxon Warwick

Author: Bassett, Steven

Source: Midland History, Volume 34, Number 2, Autumn 2009 , pp. 123-155(33)

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Abstract:

Warwick was one of a number of thriving Domesday boroughs which were urban by 1086 or not long afterwards, but for which there is very little earlier evidence. The only well established fact of its Anglo-Saxon history is that Æthelflæd built a burh there in 914, an event which is still often seen — despite Slater's attempt (1983) to give the place a pre-tenth-century role — as marking the origins of Warwick's undoubted later importance as an administrative, commercial and ecclesiastical centre. An examination of the albeit fragmentary evidence for Warwick's defences shows that although the course of the Æthelflædan circuit remains elusive, the most credible theory is that it was the one subsequently taken by the town's later medieval defences. A discussion of the main roads which cross Warwick's site and, secondly, of the origins of its several major later medieval churches prompts a new model for the place's pre-tenth-century importance, portraying it as an increasingly successful commercial settlement focused on a major minster of possibly seventh-century foundation. Accordingly, Æthelflæd's involvement is envisaged as the fortifying of an established minster-centred settlement at a location of regionally strategic importance which may already have been showing proto-urban characteristics by 914.

Keywords: WARWICK; DEFENCES; BURH; ANGLO-SAXON; MINSTER; URBAN ORIGINS

Document Type: Research Article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/175638109X417332

Affiliations: University of Birmingham

Publication date: 2009-09-01

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