Abstract

London in the Early Middle Ages 600-1300 DEREK KEENE 1975 saw the publication of Brooke and Keir's survey of the central part of this period (1.1). Learned, wide-ranging, and with many flashes of insight, it is still a valuable resource, especially concerning the mayoralty and the commune. Yet in not providing an effective context - spatial, chronological, or theoretical - in which to interpret the development of the metropolis, it laid down few guidelines for future study. In part that was because the book appeared on the eve of the massive expansion of empirical knowledge of early London which has characterised the last twenty years. Thus it marked the end rather than the beginning of an historiographical era. Much of that new knowledge has arisen on the one hand from the archaeological exploration in the city and its suburbs (7.18), and on the other from an awareness that systematic approaches to the exceptionally rich documentary sources could place the history of London on a new foot- ing (4.19-20, 5.3, 7.8). Both sets of findings, often piecemeal and opportunistic, have taken a long time to absorb, and the process of interpretation is fraught with trial, misapprehension and (oc- casionally) error.