The initial aim of the research from which this book arose was to place the Romano-British villa at Gorhambury near St Albans, Hertfordshire, within the context of the resources which it might have exploited and the economic organisation for which it was a focus. What resulted was a much wider history and reconstruction of the Gorhambury landscape itself. This `Study of six parishes in the St Albans area" presents an analysis and measurement of the changing landscape from the pre-medieval and medieval periods to the early modern, examining such themes as settlement, field systems, land use, and administration.