Notthingham: The Buried Past Of A Historic City Revealed, by Scott Lomax

As I have been fairly productive with my De Re Militari reading of late [1], the list of available books is not as high as it used to be, but for some reason there remains a large number of books on English medieval history that remain to be reviewed that I have thought about reviewing before, and so one by one I have been reading those books since no one else has asked for them first. Having received the book, a characteristically short book by Pen & Sword, I have decided to take a look at it before reading it to give my first impressions on the book and what I am looking for or expecting from it. Nottingham, of course, is a city well known because of its associations with the Robin Hood cycle of stories and the perfidious Sheriff of Notthingham. I don’t expect anything about Robin Hood [2], given the dubious historicity of that character and the fact that numerous possibly historical figures may have been called by that name given the power of the existing story over the centuries. Be that as it may, the city itself has a long history and like many cities, it is benefitting from the studies of archaeologists who have found much previously unknown history.

The appeal of this book is that it targeted as a concise guide to various matters of popular and scholarly interest that have not been brought to great public attention, such as the castle, the city’s churches and friaries, the history of industry during Saxon and medieval times, the town wall, the manmade caves of the city, a mysterious and briefly lasting suburb just outside of the city center, and the connections between the city and the Vikings. All of these are areas that readers such as myself can be expected to enjoy. The question remains as to whether this book delivers the goods, but that will take reading it, and will be a major aspect of my review. In the meantime, this is a book I look forward to reading, and one that will not likely take very long to read.

[1] See, for example

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2016/05/21/non-book-review-beyond-the-gates-of-fire/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2016/04/24/non-book-review-richard-iii-the-king-in-the-car-park/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2016/04/02/non-book-review-john-de-courcy-prince-of-ulster/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2012/11/25/scholarly-book-reviews/

[2] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2011/08/14/robin-hood/