Widely acknowledged as the essential reference work for this period, this volume brings together more than 700 articles written by 150 top scholars that cover the people, places, activities, and creations of the Anglo-Saxons. The only reference work to cover the history, archaeology, arts, architecture, literatures, and languages of England from the Roman withdrawal to the Norman Conquest (c.450 – 1066 AD) Includes over 700 alphabetical entries written by 150 top scholars covering the people, places, activities, and creations of the Anglo-Saxons Updated and expanded with 40 brand-new entries and a new appendix detailing "English Archbishops and Bishops, c.450-1066" Accompanied by maps, line drawings, photos, a table of "English Rulers, c.450-1066," and a headword index to facilitate searching An essential reference tool, both for specialists in the field, and for students looking for a thorough grounding in key topics of the period
The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England is a major reference-work covering the history, archaeology, arts, architecture, literatures and languages of England from the Roman withdrawal to the Norman Conquest (c.450 - 1066 AD). Maintains and stimulates an interdisciplinary approach to Anglo-Saxon studies. Includes contributions from 150 experts in the field. Accessible style and layout make the encyclopedia an excellent reference tool.
The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England is a major reference-work covering the history, archaeology, arts, architecture, literatures and languages of England from the Roman withdrawal to the Norman Conquest (c.450 - 1066 AD). Maintains and stimulates an interdisciplinary approach to Anglo-Saxon studies. Includes contributions from 150 experts in the field. Accessible style and layout make the encyclopedia an excellent reference tool.
This book brings together new research that represents current scholarship on the nexus between authority and written sources from Anglo-Saxon England. Ranging from the seventh to the eleventh century, the chapters in this volume offer fresh approaches to a wide range of linguistic, historical, legal, diplomatic and palaeographical evidence.
The laws of Æthelbert of Kent (ca. 600), Hlohere and Eadric (685x686), and Wihtred (695), are the earliest laws from Anglo-Saxon England, and the first Germanic laws written in the vernacular. They are of unique importance as the only extant early medieval English laws that delineate the progress of law and legal language in the early days of the conversion to Christianity. Æthelbert's laws, the closest existing equivalent to Germanic law as it was transmitted in a pre-literate period, contrast with Hlohere and Eadric's expanded laws, which concentrate on legal procedure and process, and again contrast with the further changed laws of Wihtred which demonstrate how the new religion of Christianity adapted and changed the law to conform to changing social mores. This volume updates previous works with current scholarship in the fields of linguistics and social and legal history to present new editions and translations of these three Kentish pre-Alfredian laws. Each body of law is situated within its historical, literary, and legal context, annotated, and provided with facing-page translation.
This latest title in the highly successful Ancient Textiles series is the first substantial monograph-length historiography of early medieval embroideries and their context within the British Isles. The book brings together and analyses for the first time all 43 embroideries believed to have been made in the British Isles and Ireland in the early medieval period. New research carried out on those embroideries that are accessible today, involving the collection of technical data, stitch analysis, observations of condition and wear-marks and microscopic photography supplements a survey of existing published and archival sources. The research has been used to write, for the first time, the ‘story’ of embroidery, including what we can learn of its producers, their techniques, and the material functions and metaphorical meanings of embroidery within early medieval Anglo-Saxon society. The author presents embroideries as evidence for the evolution of embroidery production in Anglo-Saxon society, from a community-based activity based on the extended family, to organized workshops in urban settings employing standardized skill levels and as evidence of changing material use: from small amounts of fibers produced locally for specific projects to large batches brought in from a distance and stored until needed. She demonstrate that embroideries were not simply used decoratively but to incorporate and enact different meanings within different parts of society: for example, the newly arrived Germanic settlers of the fifth century used embroidery to maintain links with their homelands and to create tribal ties and obligations. As such, the results inform discussion of embroidery contexts, use and deposition, and the significance of this form of material culture within society as well as an evaluation of the status of embroiderers within early medieval society. The results contribute significantly to our understanding of production systems in Anglo-Saxon England and Ireland.
During the tenth century England began to emerge as a distinct country with an identity that was both part of yet separate from 'Christendom'. The reigns of Athelstan, Edgar and Ethelred witnessed the emergence of many key institutions: the formation of towns on modern street plans; an efficient administration; and a serviceable system of tax. Mark Atherton here shows how the stories, legends, biographies and chronicles of Anglo-Saxon England reflected both this exciting time of innovation as well as the myriad lives, loves and hates of the people who wrote them. He demonstrates, too, that this was a nation coming of age, ahead of its time in its use not of the Book-Latin used elsewhere in Europe, but of a narrative Old English prose devised for law and practical governance of the nation-state, for prayer and preaching, and above all for exploring a rich and daring new literature. This prose was unique, but until now it has been neglected for the poetry. Bringing a volatile age to vivid and muscular life, Atherton argues that it was the vernacular of Alfred the Great, as much as Viking war, that truly forged the nation.
Commanding its own museum and over 200 years of examination, observation and scholarship, the monumental embroidery, known popularly as the Bayeux Tapestry and documenting William the Conqueror’s invasion of England in October 1066, is perhaps the most important surviving artifact of the Middle Ages. This magnificent textile, both celebrated and panned, is both enigmatic artwork and confounding historical record. With over 1780 entries, Szabo and Kuefler offer the largest and most heavily annotated bibliography on the Tapestry ever written. Notably, the Bayeux Tapestry has produced some of the most compelling questions of the medieval period: Who commissioned it and for what purpose? What was the intended venue for its display? Who was the designer and who executed the enormous task of its manufacture? How does it inform our understanding of eleventh-century life? And who was the mysterious Aelfgyva, depicted in the Tapestry’s main register? This book is an effort to capture and describe the scholarship that attempts to answer these questions. But the bibliography also reflects the popularity of the Tapestry in literature covering a surprisingly broad array of subjects. The inclusion of this material will assist future scholars who may study references to the work in contemporary non-fiction and popular works as well as use of the Bayeux Tapestry as a primary and secondary source in the classroom. The monographs, articles and other works cited in this bibliography reflect dozens of research areas. Major themes are: the Tapestry as a source of information for eleventh-century material culture, its role in telling the story of the Battle of Hastings and events leading up to the invasion, patronage of the Tapestry, biographical detail on known historical figures in the Tapestry, arms and armor, medieval warfare strategy and techniques, opus anglicanum (the Anglo-Saxon needlework tradition), preservation and display of the artifact, the Tapestry’s place in medieval art, the embroidery’s depiction of medieval and Romanesque architecture, and the life of the Bayeux Tapestry itself.
