There are many ways to approach the study of parks: from archival materials, from place-name evidence etched into the modern landscape, or from physical features remaining on the ground, such as banks, ditches and other earthworks, lodges, veteran pollard trees, and other aspects of ecology. Furthermore, the park can be considered at a range of levels, from the national perspective of the post-Conquest society with its imposed higher stratum of Norman overlords and the dispossessed Saxon community, to the more tangible occurrence at regional or local levels. Each approach can help inform the others, and some remarkable regional accounts have been produced. To create such a comprehensive regional overview based on evidence at the individual site level and gleaned from enquires into local, regional and even national archives, requires patience, inspiration, dedication, and tenacity. In Anne Rowe's recent publication on the Medieval Parks of Hertfordshire we have all these in abundance.
Rowe's book is the result of many years of diligent research either alone or in cooperation with a variety of other colleagues. The book sits alongside Hugh Prince's Parks in Hertfordshire since 1500 (2009), published concurrently and reflects work by a small network of researchers. The volume will appeal to anyone having an interest in the County of Hertfordshire, but it will also be of interest to a much wider audience. The book is split into two sections, both equally significant and substantial. Part One provides an introduction to the subject and a very useful overview of medieval parks in Hertfordshire. Part Two presents detailed site by site accounts, with meticulously gathered evidence and its interpretation. Maps provide details of location and context. These are a mixture of definitive positions and boundaries and very tentative interpretations from documentary and field evidence of sites long since removed. This involves careful detective work and intuitive ‘guesstimation’ based on a multiplicity of evidence.
Rowe also provides a very helpful glossary of basic terminology used in the book and this will guide the less experienced reader. Indeed, for those unfamiliar with medieval parks, this book will be an ideal introduction. Medieval parks are now proving to be of particular interest to environmental historians, providing a unique insight into the past as analogues of the historical ecology of primeval Europe. One problem in reconstructing the ecology of the medieval park, and in placing it within the broader landscape ecology of the region, is that we know so little about the actual functioning of the system at either an ecological or human level. Rowe's work provides a very helpful insight into individual and regional parkland resources. Where fragments of these once magnificent medieval landscapes survive, as in Hertfordshire, they offer a vibrant glimpse into the past. Yet we view them through a frosted glass and with the danger of selective and emotional judgement. The giant surviving pollards were working trees. They ‘worked’ for a living in an economically active park. What are today fragments of the park, locked in leisurely landscapes of romantic and recreational functions, were not so in medieval times. It is therefore hard to view them as what they were. Rowe helps in this process by establishing the functions and importance of some of her county's parks. They were certainly economically important and functional but for the most part required support and subsidy. They were significant political statements on the map from the level of the local lord of the manor to the crown itself, and they also provided hunting and other sport for owners and important guests. When any of these benefits became less significant than the costs of repair and maintenance, then the park was threatened, and often lost.
The significance of the medieval parks should not be under-estimated. They were clear indications of power, wealth, political influence and social standing. Taken in from common, waste, woodland, or occasionally open field, they ebbed and flowed with the economic and social tides of the times and the fortunes and interests of their owners. Enclosed and protected, these parks were disputed territories, and many remained so for centuries. They were separated from the commoners beyond by walls, banks and ditches, palings and parkers. Above all, and as amply demonstrated by Rowe, these were working, economically functioning landscapes. They produced income from timber, from fuel wood, from livestock, from pannage, such as acorns, beech mast, or sweet chestnuts, and from leases to tenants.
To understand the complexities of these many layered landscapes, and their social, political, economic and ecological functions, requires meticulous and dedicated research at both regional and local levels. It also necessitates a multidisciplinary approach to facilitate a broad appreciation of issues and drivers. Anne Rowe has brought these facets together in a very worthwhile book. I would have liked to see more inclusion of basic ecology and ecological evidence, but this is difficult without access to the requisite specialists. It would be very exciting for the information gathered so effectively by Rowe to be considered by specialists in for example dead wood insects and to overlay their distributions on her tentative park locations. The use of specific indicators such as hoverflies, saproxylic beetles and others might help reconstruct the ecological histories and place their boundaries with more confidence. Importantly, this would also provide an opportunity to test issues of site continuity or severance, since many of these organisms do not move to new sites under present day conditions. This is not a criticism of the book as it stands, but a plea for integrated and multidisciplinary approaches to reconstructing landscape histories.
