Introduction

A word for ‘frontier’ did not exist in Old English; writing on fens and frontiers therefore poses a challenge. The nuances of the modern term can be quite wide-ranging: we use it for everything from a place such as America's Wild West to space exploration to finding new treatments on the frontiers of medical research. Here we look at Anglo-Saxon frontiers as both literal and figurative, material and imagined. This approach yields somewhat divergent evidence that suggests settlement of the fens could, on a practical level, increasingly exploit the rich material yields of the environment, seen partly through archaeology and place name study, while, simultaneously, the concept of the fens could evoke layers of interpretation, superstition and belief that grew and evolved in the imagination according to cultural needs and ideologies. Considering how and why fens matter in Anglo-Saxon culture allows an exploration of the impact of fens on the thoughts and perceptions of Anglo-Saxons, showing something of how this particular land- and waterscape shaped its peoples.

In an earlier article, ‘Living on the Ecg’, I attempted to get at habits of mind among the Anglo-Saxons by looking at texts alongside the environmental and archaeological evidence for the interplay of land and water: