The Anglo-Saxons A history of the beginnings of England 400-1066

Marc Morris, 1973-

Book - 2021

"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. This authoritative na...rrative charts the revival of towns and trade, as well as the origins of a familiar landscape of shires, boroughs and bishoprics. The Anglo-Saxons is a tale of famous figures like King Offa, Alfred the Great and Edward the Confessor, but the book 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"--Dust jacket flap.

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Subjects
Published
New York : Pegasus Books 2021.
Language
English
Main Author
Marc Morris, 1973- (author)
Edition
First Pegasus Books cloth edition
Physical Description
xvi, 508 pages, 8 unnumbered leaves of unnumbered plates : illustrations, maps, genealogical tables ; 24 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical resources (pages 413-482) and index.
ISBN
9781643133126
  • The ruin of Britain
  • War-wolves and ring-givers : the emergence of kings and kingdoms
  • God's chosen instrument : St. Wilfrid and the establishment of Christianity
  • An English empire? : King Offa and the domination of the south
  • Storm from the north : the Viking assault on Britain and Francia
  • Resurrection : Alfred the Great and the forging of Englishness
  • Imperial overstretch? : King Æthelred and the conquest of the north
  • One nation under God : St. Dunstan and the pursuit of uniformity
  • The ill-counselled king : Æthelred the Unready and the fear of apocalypse
  • Twilight : the rise of the house of Godwine.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Historian Morris (The Norman Conquest) delivers a character-driven history of how the Anglo-Saxons developed England in the centuries between the end of Roman rule and the Norman conquest. Though very few written records exist from the fifth and sixth centuries, when immigrants from Germania arrived in England, Morris fills in the historical gaps with discussions of archaeological sites such as the Sutton Hoo ship burial, where a king (likely Rædwald of East Anglia) was laid to rest with his treasures in the early seventh century. Drawing from the ninth-century Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and other medieval texts, Morris describes how King Offa of Mercia transformed London into a business center in the eighth century, and discusses probable motivations for the building of Offa's Dyke, which separated Anglo-Saxon kingdoms from the native Britons of present-day Wales. Morris also debunks popular misconceptions such as the origins of Æthelred the Unready's (c. 966--1016) nickname, explaining that it wasn't recorded until the late 12th century and "indicated not a lack of readiness, but a lack of good counsel." Bringing clarity and flashes of humor to discussions of Alfred the Great, St. Dunstan, Beowulf, and other touchstones of Anglo-Saxon England, this is a welcome introduction to a fascinating age. (May)

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

A comprehensive overview of the Anglo-Saxon era seeking "to see these people as they were…and try to shed the misconceptions about them that have developed in later centuries." Morris, author of The Norman Conquest, King John, William I, and other books of British history, returns with another compelling, sweeping story of old England, starting with the crumbling of the Roman administrative and military edifice in the mid-fifth century. The incursions by the Saxons, Picts, Scots, Jutes, and Angles, among others, wore down the Romanized Britons, and conversion to Christianity followed. Morris meticulously delineates the rise of the Northumbrian kingdom in the north and Mercia in the south, where the great King Offa reigned, and then moves on to the Vikings. Beginning with the raid of Lindisfarne in 793, the Vikings ushered in a long era of marauding armies from the north, taking advantage of the enormous economic growth of the systems of trade further south. "The Scandinavians knew all about the rich coastal communities of the kingdoms to the south," writes Morris, "and they also knew that they were undefended." It wasn't until the late ninth century, with the rise of Alfred the Great of Wessex, that the Norsemen were quelled, leading to the conversion of their leader, Guthrum, and consolidation of Anglo-Saxon fortification across the country's boroughs and restoration of London in 886. "Alfred, in his determined efforts to undo the cultural destruction that decades of [V]iking attacks had caused," writes Morris, "was also responsible for a remarkable renaissance in learning, and the elevation of English to a language of literature." In this rich history, which draws on up-to-date archaeological data, the author also examines significant cultural and intellectual currents and the resurrection of monasticism in the 10th century. He concludes with the doomed King Harold II, whose death at the Battle of Hastings ended Anglo-Saxon rule in England. A welcome refreshment of a seminal era in the forging of the English identity. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.