Jeremy Haslam has worked on various archaeological sites in England and Europe and as an urban archaeologist in Wiltshire. His main archaeological interests lie in the study of medieval artefacts (particularly pottery and glass), medieval industrial processes and in the development of early medieval settlement patterns in general and towns in particular. He has also written Medieval Pottery in Britain in this series.

Towns have been a place of evolution and development throughout British history, growing from royal 'wics' between the seventh and ninth centuries, to characteristic Viking towns in the later nineth and early tenth centuries, then changing following the Norman Conquest in 1066. Using archaeological, topographical and documentary material, this book provides an extensive and detailed insight into recent ideas about the developments of towns in England in the latter half of the first millennium to AD 1140.