Networking the March: A History of Hereford and its Region from the Eleventh through Thirteenth Centuries

Abstract

This article formulates a new, alternative history of Hereford and its Marcher region from the eleventh through thirteenth centuries. Arguing against the traditional dismissal of the Herefordian region as peripheral and provincial, this article charts the various networks of its individuals and communities that connect the area to locations from Ireland to Israel. Such networks include those instantiated by trade routes, feudal holdings, familial relations, military orders, the Jewish community, the Crusades, and the Norman diaspora, as well as scholarly, ecclesiastical, and architectural connections. Taking the network as a historiographical model in this way, this article contributes to current work in historical scholarship, which is increasingly thinking about the medieval world in terms of networks, rather than of the traditional, hierarchical core-periphery. As such, this networked history recasts both Hereford and its region as a vibrant, multilingual, and cosmopolitan centre of military, ecclesiastical, literary, academic, and economic activity.