ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the history of research into the medieval landscape across mainland Britain beginning with a series of pioneering studies in the late 19th/early 20th century, through the emergence of ‘landscape archaeology’ as a recognized discipline in the 1970s, to some current debates. In the first half of the 20th century it was historians who dominated the study of landscape, working within the culture-historical paradigm dominant at that time. Within the disciplines of history and historical geography there were also scholars studying the landscape in one form or another. In 1979 the Society for Landscape Studies was founded, as a reaction against the highly empirical tradition that had developed within medieval archaeology, and reflecting the desire of many to develop a more holistic approach towards landscape research. The growth of landscape archaeology in the 1970s was not just about new techniques and the scale at which they were used: there was also a new agenda.
