Books by Matthew Blake

Stories from the Edge identifies a methodology to illuminate the early medieval history of places that lack the compelling evidence to be included in national surveys of the period. It demonstrates that even in seemingly unpromising places something can be said about the people of the period. In landscape terms it is a study of the little world, the local, the manorial complex with its church and burial place, a micro-topography, investigating the construction of social memory. Through this we see the way the early medieval landscape was perceived and how people engaged with it in a creative and imaginative series of responses. Their past and present were negotiated and expressed through the landscape. It is about stories and storytelling, about the creation of memory, the invention of home, spirituality and social hierarchy. This study re-tells some of those stories and recaptures the early medieval sense of place in Pirehill. Above all though, this is an account of living in a mutable landscape and the stories people once told there.