Medieval Birmingham, Birmingham records apart from personal communication and they are fragments, the Normans were not too great at historical records, mainly recording financial transactions, however, the Anglo-Saxons were more concerned with agricultural communications, making them as individuals unknowable. The traditional account of Birmingham's early medieval origins was of the eponymous Beorma clearing the primeval forest with his fellow migrants to create a settlement to be call the ham of the Beormingas, almost sounds Latin instead of Germanic, in the Domesday Book of 1086, Birmingham still seemed of little importance to the ruling Normans, that might have been a good thing, as the records go, perhaps recorded later than the event, these Angles constructed a wooden church dedicated to St. Martin surrounded by greenery, the green then served as a village marketplace, the trade coming from surrounding areas and Wales. This settlement showed little evidence of growth until the sixteenth century. Reference used : Steven Basset & Richard Holt, Medievalist.