ABSTRACT
IN the 250 years following the Norman Conquest the population of England multiplied some threefold, rising from about 1, 10o,ooo to about 3, 70o,ooo. One consequence of these extra mouths and hands has already been seen, for they brought about that steady increase in the area of cultivated land which spread the open fields across the English plains. But the same 250 years witnessed an expansion in the number of towns and town-dwellers, and in the next two chapters we shall be visiting towns which were created in this period. The object will still be the same: to detect the finger of the past in the present landscape and to show how topographyeven of streets and squares-is still the child of history.
