It is sobering to reflect on the extent to which the observations made on places have been led by what has been documented in narrative sources. To that end the narratives of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Flodoard and Richer of Reims, William of Jumièges, and Orderic Vitalis have tended to dominate. The previous chapters have shown how far our source materials determine the perception of the landscape and the places within it. What would we know of English history in the tenth century if a figure like Flodoard had emerged in lowland Britain at some remove from the centre of power, to narrate the history of the unification of the English kingdom in the way that Flodoard narrated the fragmented nature of power in the north and east of what was becoming a kingdom of France? Of course, that question reveals something of the nature of power relationships in England in comparison with West Francia/ France: it might be said that no ‘English Flodoard’ emerged because religious centres in England with traditions of historical writing were all in some way connected with the ruling house or at least ended up with such connections. It is, however, an interesting intellectual exercise. Perhaps the closest candidate might be the western Mercian narrative of the ‘Mercian Register’ of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, though that could be argued to have been a parallel royal (or would-be royal) narrative to that propagated at the West Saxon court. Similarly, going beyond narrative sources, what would we know of the French landscape and our understanding of power relations in that landscape in the eleventh century if a Domesday Book existed for those estates?

These questions cannot be answered because Flodoard and Domesday Book – and of course other contemporary sources – have emerged from the political circumstances of the West Frankish and Anglo-Norman polities at times of crisis and change. As Stéphane Lecouteaux has shown for Flodoard and David Roffe for Domesday Book, the apparently unbiased presentation of information in these sources provides a false sense of security in feeling our way through these blind corridors.