Tom Williamson is Professor in Landscape History at UEA and published 'The Transformation of Rural England: Farming and the Landscape 1700-1870' with UEP in 2002. Robert Liddiard completed a PhD at UEA in 2000 and has published on high-status landscapes in the Middle Ages. Tracey Partida is a consultant specializing in geographical information systems (GIS) and her PhD is in progress at University of Huddersfield.

The work of Williamson, Liddiard, and Partida represents another landmark in the controversy, and our understanding and interpretation of the subject will not be the same again.Mark Bailey, English Historical Review

• Chapter 1: IntroductionWhy Northamptonshire? • Debating the Medieval Landscape • The Post-Medieval Landscape • MethodologyChapter 2: Structures of LandscapeGeology and Topography • Climate and Soils • Territory and Topography • Late Prehistoric and RomanSettlement • Early and Middle Saxon Settlement • Territorial Organisation • Demographic and AgriculturalExpansion • ConclusionChapter 3: Medieval SettlementIntroduction • Dispersion and Nucleation • Villages: Geology, ‘Cores’ and Expansion • Village Plans: Patterns ofEarlier Land Use • Geology, Land Use and Plan Form • Regular Tofts and ‘Planning’ • Dispersed Settlements •ConclusionChapter 4: Medieval Land Use: Field and ForestIntroduction • Arable • Pasture • Meadow • Woodland and Forest • Heaths • The Antiquity of the Open Fields• ConclusionChapter 5: The Post-Medieval LandscapeIntroduction • Tenure and Ownership • Enclosure • Modifying the Open Fields • The Chronology ofNorthamptonshire Enclosure • Enclosing the Forests • Enclosure and Land Use Change • The Impact ofEnclosure • The Development of Rural Settlement • ConclusionChapter 6: Northamptonshire in ContextWoodland and Champion • The Characteristics of ‘Woodland’ Landscapes • Variations in the MedievalLandscapes of the Midlands • Variations in Post-Medieval Landscape and Agriculture • Woodland andPasture • The Origins of Regional Variation • Explaining Regional Variation • The Implications of Post-MedievalDevelopmentsChapter 7: Landscape: Time, Agency and CharacterHistoric Landscape Character • Northamptonshire Field Patterns • Landscape and Agency