Premium
Map or Terrier? The Example of Christ Church, Oxford, Estate Management, 1600–1840
Author(s) -
Fletcher David
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
transactions of the institute of british geographers
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.196
H-Index - 107
eISSN - 1475-5661
pISSN - 0020-2754
DOI - 10.1111/j.0020-2754.1998.00221.x
Subject(s) - circumstantial evidence , estate , land tenure , real estate , history , geography , political science , archaeology , law , agriculture
Many factors might have prompted English landowners to map their properties after the genre of estate maps emerged in the late sixteenth century. However, the continuing predominance of the traditional written survey, or terrier, remains to be accounted for. An example from the muniments of Christ Church, Oxford, a large institutional landowner, is used to explain this pattern. Circumstantial evidence from maps and written surveys is augmented by the deeper insights gained from evidence of individual perceptions and institutional policies to explain the durability of the written, as opposed to the cartographic, record of land.