Abstract
-
Alan Cooper's Bridges, Law and Power in Medieval England, 700- 1400, is an important contribution to our understanding of the development of the English laws relating to bridge building and maintenance from Anglo-Saxon times to the final decades of the fourteenth century. More a history of the responses of successive royal administrations to the problem of providing and maintaining a crucial element of transport infrastructure than a history of the technology of bridge construction, the book provides some fascinating insights into the very different approaches to governance of the Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman kings.