The King's English

The King's English

Author: Nicole Guenther Discenza

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2012-02-01

Total Pages: 234

ISBN-13: 0791483231

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In the late ninth century, while England was fighting off Viking incursions, Alfred the Great devoted time and resources not only to military campaigns but also to a campaign of translation and education unprecedented in early medieval Europe. The King's English explores how Alfred's translation of Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy from Latin into Old English exposed Anglo-Saxon elites to classical literature, history, science, and Christian thought. More radically, the Boethius, as it became known, told its audiences how a leader should think and what he should be, providing models for leadership and wisdom that live on in England to this day. It also brought prestige to its kingly translator and enshrined his dialect, West Saxon, as the literary language of the English people. Nicole Guenther Discenza looks at the sources Alfred used in his translation and demonstrates his selectivity in choosing what to retain, what to borrow, and how to represent it to his Anglo-Saxon audience. Alfred's appeals to Latin prestige, spiritual authority, Old English poetry, and everyday experience in England combine to make the Old English Boethius a powerful text and a rich source for our understanding of Anglo-Saxon literature, culture, and society.


Making England, 796-1042

Making England, 796-1042

Author: Richard Huscroft

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-07-11

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 0429893175

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Making England, 796–1042 explores the creation and establishment of the kingdom of England and the significant changes that led to it becoming one of the most successful and sophisticated political structures in the western world by the middle of the eleventh century. At the end of the eighth century when King Offa of Mercia died, England was a long way from being a single kingdom ruled by a single king. This book examines how and why the kingdom of England formed in the way it did and charts the growth of royal power over the following two and a half centuries. Key political and military events are introduced alongside developments within government, the law, the church and wider social and economic changes to provide a detailed picture of England throughout this period. This is also set against a wider European context to demonstrate the influence of external forces on England’s development. With a focus on England’s rulers and elites, Making England, 796–1042 uncovers the type of kingdom England was and analyses its strengths and weaknesses as well as the emerging concept of a specifically English nation. Arranged both chronologically and thematically, and containing a selection of maps and genealogies, it is the ideal introducion to this subject for students of medieval history and of medieval England in particular.


A Source Book for Mediæval History

A Source Book for Mediæval History

Author: Oliver J. Thatcher

Publisher: Good Press

Published: 2019-11-22

Total Pages: 512

ISBN-13:

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A Source Book for Mediæval History is a scholarly piece by Oliver J. Thatcher. It covers all major historical events and leaders from the Germania of Tacitus in the 1st century to the decrees of the Hanseatic League in the 13th century.


After Alfred

After Alfred

Author: Pauline Stafford

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2020-07-02

Total Pages: 401

ISBN-13: 019260340X

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The vernacular Anglo-Saxon Chronicles cover the centuries which saw the making of England and its conquest by Scandinavians and Normans. After Alfred traces their development from their genesis at the court of King Alfred to the last surviving chronicle produced at the Fenland monastery of Peterborough. These texts have long been part of the English national story. Pauline Stafford considers the impact of this on their study and editing since the sixteenth century, addressing all surviving manuscript chronicles, identifying key lost ones, and reconsidering these annalistic texts in the light of wider European scholarship on medieval historiography. The study stresses the plural 'chronicles', whilst also identifying a tradition of writing vernacular history which links them. It argues that that tradition was an expression of the ideology of a southern elite engaged in the conquest and assimilation of old kingdoms north of the Thames, Trent, and Humber. Vernacular chronicling is seen, not as propaganda, but as engaged history-writing closely connected to the court, whose networks and personnel were central to the production and continuation of these chronicles. In particular, After Alfred connects many chronicles to bishops and especially to the Archbishops of York and Canterbury. The disappearance of the English-speaking elite after the Norman Conquest had profound impacts on these texts. It repositioned their authors in relation to the court and royal power, and ultimately resulted in the end of this tradition of vernacular chronicling.


Colonial England, 1066-1215

Colonial England, 1066-1215

Author: J. C. Holt

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 1997-01-01

Total Pages: 362

ISBN-13: 1852851406

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The process of colonisation that followed the Norman Conquest defined much of the history of England over the next 150 years, structurally altering the distribution of land and power in society. This theme is defined in a previously unpublished lecture on Colonial England, given in 1994, but it runs through all the sixteen essays in this collection. J.C. Holt's subjects include Domesday Book, the establishment of knight-service, aristocratic structures and nomenclature, the relation of family to property, security of title and inheritance, among other matters. He comments on the work of Maitland, Round and Stenton and ends with studies of the treaty of Winchester (1153), the rasus regis, and Magna Carta.


Landscapes of Monastic Foundation

Landscapes of Monastic Foundation

Author: Tim Pestell

Publisher: Boydell Press

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 306

ISBN-13: 9781843830627

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Pre-Conquest monastic foundations, (in the present-day counties of Norfolk and Suffolk) in their topographical, social, economic and political environment; evolution of religious devotion in East Anglia since the 7th-century Conversion; the influence of the Anglo-Saxon past on the post-Conquest monastic landscape.