Dark Earth: Further Reading

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I spent 2-3 years doing the research for Dark Earth with the help of a generous grant from the Leverhulme Trust. I started out with a host of questions about swords, ruins, soil, ‘Anglo-Saxon’ belief systems, bathhouses, Romanised Britons, looting, smithing, rewilding… It was hard to know where to start.

So I made myself a home in the university library and got stuck in, following one book or article through to another, ordering books and articles that the library didn’t have (via interlibrary loan or finding online access), writing down each new set of questions as they emerged. It was a joy.

I read hundreds of books and articles during this time, far too many to include here, filled scores of notebooks, then boxed up all my notes and took them to the garage and closed the door. They stayed there until the first draft was finished, then I consulted them again for subsequent drafts.

Here are a few books and articles I found especially helpful.

My favourite books on post-Roman Britain in general:

*Robin Fleming (2021), The Material Fall of Roman Britain: 300-525 CE, University of Pennsylvania Press.

* Robin Fleming (2011), Britain After Rome: The Fall and Rise, 400-1070. Penguin History of Britain.

Marc Morris (2021), The Anglo-Saxons and the Beginnings of England. Hutchinson.

A.S. Edmonde Cleary (1989), The Ending of Roman Britain. BT Batsford.

J.Gerrard (2013), The Ruin of Roman Britain: An Archaeological Perspective. Cambridge University Press.

P Booth et al (2007), The Thames Through Time: The Archaeology of the Gravel Terraces of the Upper and Middle Thames. Oxford Archaeology.

H. Hamerow, D.A. Hinton and S.Crawford eds (2011), The Oxford Handbook of Anglo-Saxon Archaeology. Oxford University Press.

Richard Hingley (2018), Londinium: A Biography: Roman London from its Origins to the Fifth Century. Bloomsbury Academic.

N.Faulkner (2000), The Decline and Fall of Roman Britain. Tempus.

*Robin Fleming’s work influenced Dark Earth more than any other single writer. Her ability to approach the questions that vexed me in a cross-disciplinary way, merging archaeological and historical evidence, and her emphasis on building up a picture from material objects, is truly breathtaking. She also, of all the historians and archaeologists I read, displays an equal interest in the worlds of women as well as the worlds of men. Many of the books I read showed absolutely no curiosity about women in this period.