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

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)

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.