Editing Icknield Way (section)

==The "Four Highways" of medieval England==
The Icknield Way was one of four highways that appear in the literature of the 1130s. [[Henry of Huntingdon]] wrote that the [[Ermine Street]], [[Fosse Way]], [[Watling Street]] and Icknield Way had been constructed by royal authority. The ''[[Leges Edwardi Confessoris]]'' gave royal protection to travellers on these roads, and the Icknield Way was said to extend across the width of the kingdom. [[Geoffrey of Monmouth]] elaborated the story by saying that [[Belinus]] had improved the four roads so that it was clear that they were the protected highways.<ref name="Har"/>

Around 1250, the Four Highways were shown by [[Matthew Paris]] on a diagrammatic map of Britain called ''Scema Britannie''. The Icknield Way is depicted by a straight line from [[Salisbury]] (i.e., [[Old Sarum]]) to [[Bury St Edmunds]] which intersects the other three roads near [[Dunstable]].<ref name="Par"/>

===Icknield Street===
In the fourteenth century, [[Ranulf Higdon]] described a different route for the Icknield Way: from [[Winchester]] to [[Tynemouth]] by way of [[Birmingham]], [[Lichfield]], [[Derby]], [[Chesterfield, Derbyshire|Chesterfield]] and [[York]].<ref name="Har"/> This route includes the Roman road running from [[Bourton-on-the-Water]] to [[Templeborough]] near [[Rotherham]], which is now called ''[[Icknield Street]]'' (or ''Ryknild Street'') to distinguish it from the ''Icknield Way''.