This book is intended to pull together our current knowledge of the ‘lost’ group of people called the Pecsaetna (literally, meaning the ‘Peak Sitters’) by synthesising more recent historical and archaeological research towards a better understanding of their activities, territory and identity. This group of people is shrouded in the mists of the so-called ‘Dark Ages’ and are only known to us by the chance survival of less than a handful of documents.

Since the mid-20th century, valuable work has been done to identify former Anglo-Saxon estates in the Peak from the analysis of charters and from the Domesday survey, together with recent wider historical analysis. In addition, some have also attempted reconstructions of geographical territories from the Tribal Hidage, the document, which first mentions the Pecsaetna. To this historical analysis can be added further archaeological evidence which ranges from Anglo-Saxon barrow investigation in the limestone Peak District, to studies into the geographical distributions of free-standing stone monuments of the Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Scandinavian periods. It is this latter study that has prompted the writer to attempt this study.

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List Of Figuers
• Introduction
• Chapter 1. The Topography of the Peak
• Chapter 2. Early Anglo-Saxon Settlement in a Post-Roman Context
  • The Roman Background to the Peak
  • The Post-Roman Landscape
• Chapter 3. Historical Sources for the Pecsaetna
  • Settlement and Control in the Wider Region
  • The Pecsaetna in the Later Saxon Period
• Chapter 4. Place-names in the Peak and the Hiberno-Norse
• Chapter 5. The Archaeology of the Pecsaetna
  • The Barrow Burials
  • Earthworks and Communications
  • The Pecsaetna and Anglo-Saxon Stone Monuments
  • King Edward’s Burh
  • The Significance of Dore
• Chapter 6. Changes in the Countryside: The Demise of Great Peak Estates and Later Saxon Settlement
• Chapter 7. The Pecsaetna, Religion and the Church
  • Church Dedications
• Chapter 8. The Pecsaetna and Lead
• Chapter 9. The Pecsaetna of the Peak District: Piecing it Together
  • The Last Days of the Pecsaetna
  • Uhtred
• Biblography
• Appendix