Despite urban expansion and changes in agriculture, fields are still the most characteristic feature of the English landscape. But why are fields the size and shape they are, and how can you tell a Saxon one from a medieval one? This book is a chronological history of the field and of landscape evolution. As far as possible, Christopher Taylor has used evidence of what remains today and interprets this with the help of archaeological discoveries, documentary evidence and the observations of his own fieldwork. He aims to make the reader familiar with the historical evolution of the English landscape through its fields, paddocks, water-meadows, terraces, and ridge-and-furrow patterns.