Richard Hodges’ most recent book takes us back to his original area of study: the economic and political conditions leading to the rebirth of towns in early medieval Britain. He starts by reminding the reader of his 1982 book Dark Age Economics, and of the negative reception aspects of it attracted. He concedes that he was wrong in places, but argues that the book prompted research in the field. Perhaps the greatest value of the current work is the review of the literature, in three related fields, that has subsequently been published: English urbanism, Viking Age Scandinavian towns, and the Flemish urban revolution. His principal argument is that the emporia of the 7th and 8th centuries failed while the Scandinavian towns throve, and that ideas of production for an extended hinterland emerged in them. This idea, he argues, was exported back to England and Flanders. Some of his rhetoric seems a bit far-fetched (for instance, ‘The Great Army invaded with the intent to make versions of Hedeby, Kaupang, and Ribe, and to colonise under-developed English central places with artisans and traders’, p.156), but the volume is full of stimulating ideas.
REVIEW ALEX WOOLF
Excavating Cambridgeshire