While it is clear that there was much that was happening in and around Wallingford in the long period before the creation of the burh in the late ninth century, it is this particular event which created Wallingford as a significant place in ways which more than any single episode in its history have determined its subsequent historical development, as well as its topography and physical layout. To
appreciate the significance of this event it is necessary to view the early development of the burh at Wallingford in the pre-Conquest period in its wider political, strategic and landscape context as part of similar and parallel developments in the late Saxon kingdom of Wessex (and indeed further afield). It is therefore important to ask how its creation as a burh or defended settlement was (or was not) conceived as forming one element in a system of burhs which was built over the whole of Wessex by King Alfred, and which is listed in the Burghal Hidage document
The burh of Wallingford and its context in Wessex
Haslam, Jeremy
Published Online (2009)
Abstract
While it is clear that there was much that was happening in and around Wallingford in the long period before the creation of the burh in the late ninth century, it is this particular event which created Wallingford as a significant place in ways which more than any single episode in its history have determined its subsequent historical development, as well as its topography and physical layout. To
appreciate the significance of this event it is necessary to view the early development of the burh at Wallingford in the pre-Conquest period in its wider political, strategic and landscape context as part of similar and parallel developments in the late Saxon kingdom of Wessex (and indeed further afield). It is therefore important to ask how its creation as a burh or defended settlement was (or was not) conceived as forming one element in a system of burhs which was built over the whole of Wessex by King Alfred, and which is listed in the Burghal Hidage document
Click here to read this article by Jeremy Haslam
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