What can the map of England, its landscape and/or the material things found on it teach the historian? (You may choose to focus either on a single theme, such as towns, or you may collect your examples generally from the whole period or any part of it.)

"Monastic Britain" [G 5741 E423 1540 G7]. One of historical map series produced by Britain's Ordnance Survey, also "Dark Age" and "Medieval Britain".

Hoskins, W. G. The Making of the English Landscape [DA 630 H82 M2] The classic survey of the human construction of the landscape. Dated but good.
Taylor, Christopher, Village and Farmstead [+GF 551 T23] is a first attempt at a modern synthesis of all the recent work..
Rackham, O. The History of the Countryside [QH 137 R12] Rabbits, barbed-wire fences and much else from a smart, eccentric botanist.

Hooke, Della. Anglo-Saxon Settlements [DA 152 A58] and Medieval Villages [+DA 130 M48] Rowley, R. The Norman Heritage, 1055-1200 [DA 176 R88]
Historic Towns, ed. Mary D. Lobel (1969-89) [3 vols., ++G 1814 A1 A88 Olin Map room] Great pre-1800 city maps and plans with illuminating historical commentaries, several towns each vol.
The initiator of this kind of topographical study of towns in Medieval England was Cornell's own Carl Stevenson, Borough and Town (1933), cap. VII.

David A. Hinton, Archaeology, Economy & Society: England from the Fifth to the Fifteenth Century (1990) is a good general survey.
John Steane,. The Archaeology of Medieval England and Wales [+DA 90 S79] Martin Carver. Underneath English Towns: Interpreting Urban Archaeology [+DA 90 C33] Outstanding introduction to the methods and importance of urban excavation.
D.M. Wilson, ed. The Archaeology of Anglo-Saxon England [+DA 155 A66] Classic for Anglo-Saxon towns, etc.
Patrick Ottaway, Archaeology in British Towns [DA 90 O86x 1992]. A recent synthesis of documentary and archaeological materials, with good bibliography.