Landes to fela: Geography, Topography and Place inThe Battle of Maldon

Abstract

Modern readers of The Battle of Maldon are often confronted in editions and anthologies with explanatory notes or even maps connecting the events of the poem to the present-day topography of Northey Island, in the Blackwater estuary near Maldon, Essex. The presence of such critical apparatus makes tacit or overt claims regarding the poem's status as a witness to the historical