Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England

Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England

Author: Barbara Yorke

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2002-11

Total Pages: 233

ISBN-13: 1134707258

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Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England provides a unique survey of the six major Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and their royal families, examining the most recent research in this field.


The Anglo-Saxons

The Anglo-Saxons

Author: Marc Morris

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2021-05-25

Total Pages: 452

ISBN-13: 164313535X

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A sweeping and original history of the Anglo-Saxons by national bestselling author Marc Morris. Sixteen hundred years ago Britain left the Roman Empire and swiftly fell into ruin. Grand cities and luxurious villas were deserted and left to crumble, and civil society collapsed into chaos. Into this violent and unstable world came foreign invaders from across the sea, and established themselves as its new masters. The Anglo-Saxons traces the turbulent history of these people across the next six centuries. It explains how their earliest rulers fought relentlessly against each other for glory and supremacy, and then were almost destroyed by the onslaught of the vikings. It explores how they abandoned their old gods for Christianity, established hundreds of churches and created dazzlingly intricate works of art. It charts the revival of towns and trade, and the origins of a familiar landscape of shires, boroughs and bishoprics. It is a tale of famous figures like King Offa, Alfred the Great and Edward the Confessor, but also features a host of lesser known characters - ambitious queens, revolutionary saints, intolerant monks and grasping nobles. Through their remarkable careers we see how a new society, a new culture and a single unified nation came into being. Drawing on a vast range of original evidence - chronicles, letters, archaeology and artefacts - renowned historian Marc Morris illuminates a period of history that is only dimly understood, separates the truth from the legend, and tells the extraordinary story of how the foundations of England were laid.


Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms

Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms

Author: Claire Breay

Publisher:

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780712352024

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The Anglo-Saxon period stretches from the arrival of Germanic groups on British shores in the early 5th century to the Norman Conquest of 1066. During these centuries, the English language was used and written down for the first time, pagan populations were converted to Christianity, and the foundations of the kingdom of England were laid. This richly illustrated new book - which accompanies a landmark British Library exhibition - presents Anglo-Saxon England as the home of a highly sophisticated artistic and political culture, deeply connected with its continental neighbours. Leading specialists in early medieval history, literature and culture engage with the unique, original evidence from which we can piece together the story of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, examining outstanding and beautiful objects such as highlights from the Staffordshire hoard and the Sutton Hoo burial. At the heart of the book is the British Library's outstanding collection of Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, the richest source of evidence about Old English language and literature, including Beowulf and other poetry; the Lindisfarne Gospels, one of Britain's greatest artistic and religious treasures; the St Cuthbert Gospel, the earliest intact European book; and historical manuscripts such as Bede's Ecclesiastical History and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. These national treasures are discussed alongside other, internationally important literary and historical manuscripts held in major collections in Britain and Europe. This book, and the exhibition it accompanies, chart a fascinating and dynamic period in early medieval history, and will bring to life our understanding of these formative centuries.


A Brief History of the Anglo-Saxons

A Brief History of the Anglo-Saxons

Author: Geoffrey Hindley

Publisher: Robinson

Published: 2013-02-07

Total Pages: 326

ISBN-13: 1472107594

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Starting AD 400 (around the time of their invasion of England) and running through to the 1100s (the 'Aftermath'), historian Geoffrey Hindley shows the Anglo-Saxons as formative in the history not only of England but also of Europe. The society inspired by the warrior world of the Old English poem Beowulf saw England become the world's first nation state and Europe's first country to conduct affairs in its own language, and Bede and Boniface of Wessex establish the dating convention we still use today. Including all the latest research, this is a fascinating assessment of a vital historical period.


Building Anglo-Saxon England

Building Anglo-Saxon England

Author: John Blair

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2018-04-17

Total Pages: 497

ISBN-13: 1400889901

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A radical rethinking of the Anglo-Saxon world that draws on the latest archaeological discoveries This beautifully illustrated book draws on the latest archaeological discoveries to present a radical reappraisal of the Anglo-Saxon built environment and its inhabitants. John Blair, one of the world's leading experts on this transformative era in England's early history, explains the origins of towns, manor houses, and castles in a completely new way, and sheds new light on the important functions of buildings and settlements in shaping people's lives during the age of the Venerable Bede and King Alfred. Building Anglo-Saxon England demonstrates how hundreds of recent excavations enable us to grasp for the first time how regionally diverse the built environment of the Anglo-Saxons truly was. Blair identifies a zone of eastern England with access to the North Sea whose economy, prosperity, and timber buildings had more in common with the Low Countries and Scandinavia than the rest of England. The origins of villages and their field systems emerge with a new clarity, as does the royal administrative organization of the kingdom of Mercia, which dominated central England for two centuries. Featuring a wealth of color illustrations throughout, Building Anglo-Saxon England explores how the natural landscape was modified to accommodate human activity, and how many settlements--secular and religious—were laid out with geometrical precision by specialist surveyors. The book also shows how the Anglo-Saxon love of elegant and intricate decoration is reflected in the construction of the living environment, which in some ways was more sophisticated than it would become after the Norman Conquest.


Alfred the Great

Alfred the Great

Author: Richard Abels

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-11-26

Total Pages: 392

ISBN-13: 1317900413

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This biography of Alfred the Great, king of the West Saxons (871-899), combines a sensitive reading of the primary sources with a careful evaluation of the most recent scholarly research on the history and archaeology of ninth-century England. Alfred emerges from the pages of this biography as a great warlord, an effective and inventive ruler, and a passionate scholar whose piety and intellectual curiosity led him to sponsor a cultural and spiritual renaissance. Alfred's victories on the battlefield and his sweeping administrative innovations not only preserved his native Wessex from viking conquest, but began the process of political consolidation that would culminate in the creation of the kingdom of England. Alfred the Great: War, Kingship and Culture in Anglo-Saxon England strips away the varnish of later interpretations to recover the historical Alfredpragmatic, generous, brutal, pious, scholarly within the context of his own age.


The Anglo-Saxon World

The Anglo-Saxon World

Author: Nicholas J. Higham

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2013-06-25

Total Pages: 495

ISBN-13: 0300125348

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Presents the Anglo-Saxon period of English history from the fifth century up to the late eleventh century, covering such events as the spread of Christianity, the invasions of the Vikings, the composition of Beowulf, and the Battle of Hastings.


Anglo-Saxon England

Anglo-Saxon England

Author: Sally Crawford

Publisher: Shire Publications

Published: 2011-06-21

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780747808367

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Early Anglo-Saxon England saw some of the most important elements in the creation of modern England: the Germanic migrations after the departure of the Romans and the introduction of Christianity in the 7th century. While traditionally the early centuries of Anglo-Saxon England have been disregarded as"'lost centuries," archaeological evidence, paired with the later written sources, can reveal a complex and often sophisticated society. This period saw the beginnings of urbanization, with the establishment of market-places enabling the trade of local and exotic goods, and the first schools were introduced in the 7th century. Sally Crawford looks at how the Anglo-Saxons lived, from the composition of an Anglo-Saxon family and how status was defined by an individual's occupation, to the complexities of feasting and drinking and how adults and children found entertainment.


The Anglo-Saxon Age c.400-1042

The Anglo-Saxon Age c.400-1042

Author: D. J. V. Fisher

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-06-17

Total Pages: 342

ISBN-13: 131787319X

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An introductory survey which provides a clear and accessible account of the centuries between the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons and the Norman Conquest.