Some topics relevant to this book have been dealt with more thoroughly in various preparatory papers listed in the bibliography. In them readers can find some discussion of the sixth-century background to this study and detailed evidence for various aspects which are simply summarized here so as to avoid duplication. I have tried to avoid methodological disquisitions and formal description and analyses of sources, but specialists should find my assessment of the sources to be implicit. The approach to the authenticity and interpretation of early charters is, I hope, broadly that of authorities such as Professor Brooks and Dr Scharer. Charters are cited by the number in Professor Sawyer's Handlist, in accordance with the policy of the series in which this book appears, but it should be understood that reference should also be made to the printed texts and secondary authorities cited in the Handlist;, in particular, there is often relevant information in H. P. R. Finberg's Early Charters of the West Midlands. For archaeological evidence I have given references to available distribution maps, but I have refrained from providing new ones (with one exception in fig. 2), since new discoveries soon render them misleading. When the location of minor places is important, I have given National Grid References (in the form SP/1694, SO/8805, etc.); these can be found on all modern Ordnance Survey maps. To make the text as accessible as possible I have given quotations in translation, or have added translations in the footnotes.