Sarah Semple has been prominent in advocating landscape approaches in Anglo-Saxon studies, engaging in a series of influential publications with the physical and cultural landscapes of early medieval England and with the beliefs and structures of cognition that shaped and were shaped by them. This monograph revises and updates her 2003 Oxford DPhil thesis, providing both an authoritative overview of current thinking and a powerful and coherent analysis of the ways in which elements of the inherited landscape were viewed, ascribed meanings and used by early medieval communities. As such it goes beyond landscape studies into the archaeologies of belief and psychology. It will, rightly, become a fixed reference point for researchers and a primary source for students.

Chapter 1 sets out the intellectual background and context. This is followed by three chapters which, broadly speaking, examine relationships between early medieval communities and earlier monuments through patterns of spatial proximity in the archaeological record and naming. This delivers a nuanced and regionally sensitive analysis of the reuse of monuments in mortuary geography; an assessment of the ways in which landscape, landscape features and monuments may or may not have structured the spectrum of ritualised social behaviours from cult through assemblies to military conflict; and a clear-sighted analysis of the relationship between early churches and pre-Christian monuments which challenges some easy assumptions. Chapters 5 and 6 deal respectively with the meanings and significances accorded monuments and landscape elements in place names and literature, and with the place of monuments in constructions of religious and jurisdictional theatre and landscapes of administration in the Middle and Late Anglo-Saxon periods. Chapter 7 provides a lucid summary and overview, and there are four appendices of supporting data. The text is well supported by illustrations in monochrome and colour.

The main conclusions may be summarised by emphasising two points: the ways in which early medieval communities used and reacted to earlier monuments and landscape features were complex; and their meanings and resonances changed over time. There is no single simple pattern of spatial association: reuse was selective, varied by region, locality, physical landscape and sphere of social activity, and analysis must take account of context and situation, both physical and ideational. It is clear, however, that from the eighth and ninth centuries attitudes shifted from a mindset in which association with monuments from the past might be affirmative to one in which some were attributed negative associations of death, hell and judgement. The ways in which the spectrum of different resonances was utilised and renegotiated to help establish landscapes of authority in the Late Anglo-Saxon period provide important insights into the psychologies of power, rulership and the ruled.

It is, of course, possible to take issue with some elements of intellectual history, perspective and argument. There is no doubt that the past fifteen to twenty years have seen a massive increase in scholarship in this area but (contra the statement on p 2) debates about the use of the ancient landscape – with contributions from, for example, Brian Hope-Taylor, Richard Bradley and Richard Morris – were current well before 1992. The emphasis is on the prehistoric (in the modern sense – there is no suggestion of an Anglo-Saxon concept of prehistory rather than of the past) but early medieval communities reacted with all elements of the inherited landscape; similarly, in privileging the use of the past and the landscape in social construction and reconstruction there is a danger that the contemporary, the innovative and other media are downplayed, leaving an anachronistic picture of societies living their lives in dialogue with the past rather than with the exigencies of subsistence, health, social relationships and rulership in the here and now. In fairness, though, these points are acknowledged. The analysis throughout is alert to the pitfalls of speculation, recognising the limitations of the evidence and of the analytical approaches available, and explicit about contingent argument and model-building.

The only serious criticisms to be levelled at this monograph must be aimed at the publisher rather than the author. The hardback cover price will discourage most of the target audience and even as a loss-leader for a subsequent paperback edition it is hard to see the business justification. Just as seriously, although the book is physically well produced there are slipshod errors that should have been eradicated by competent copy-editing and quality control during production. These include inconsistencies between citations in the text and in the bibliography, elisions in the bibliography whereby publications are attributed to the wrong author, erratic text layout at the foot of some pages, and an apparent loss of text at the foot of page 212 which leads to a conflation of Edgar’s consecration at Bath in 973 with the ‘submission at Chester’. At this price from Oxford University Press one expects better.