ABSTRACT
In spite of wars and civil strife, the period between the Conquest and the Black Death was one of great expansion in Wessex. By the time of the Norman Conquest or soon afterwards the parochial system was firmly established throughout Wessex, replacing the earlier organisation based on central or 'minster' churches. The fact that so many churches or additions to churches were in need of consecration is in itself evidence of popular piety and concern for enlarging, rebuilding and beautifying the parish churches. The rapid growth of a market economy, and of internal trade in agricultural produce is as characteristic of the central Middle Ages as are the increase in people and the expansion of land under cultivation. Among the commonest landscape features of the chalklands of Wessex are the strip lynchets, the terraces by which cultivation was extended up the hillsides thereby enabling much more land to be ploughed.
