It is only to be considered "dry" due to the writing style which is meant to convey a vast amount of information assuming a great deal of interest by the reader. However, most laypeople may find the text to be so dry that it inhibits their reading pleasure. I admit this can be the case, but if it is reading pleasure you seek-there are plenty of excellent historical fiction books on this time frame. If you seek serious scholarship that will introduce some new information, as well as reinforce some ideas already held-then you will enjoy this book immensely.
Dec 17, Mir rated it really liked it Shelves: medieval , non-fiction. Very mildly amusing, probably only to me: I read this book with a different cover, but also at least two distinct books with this cover image.
I suppose there are only so many dramatic early medieval artifacts to choose from Jul 04, Brackman rated it it was amazing Shelves: medieval-studies.
I read this book when I was studying for prelims a while back, shall we say. I switched to Anglo-Saxon studies from Middle English studies shortly before I finished coursework, so I had quite a bit of catch-up to do. This book accomplished that and gave me a solid framework to take to the more detailed works like Stenton's Anglo-Saxon England.
It also has beautiful plates that I've used nearly every semester since I've started teaching. Apr 09, Annette rated it it was amazing Shelves: british-history-reading-challenge Summary: Three historians have compiled an in-depth chronicle of the Anglo-Saxon era.
Specific studies of Christianity, German settlers, reigns of kings, manuscripts, Vikings, warfare, and key battles are all explored. The Anglo-Saxons is a large glossy paperback. A must-have for all readers of British history, especially those keen on the Anglo-Saxon era.
My Thoughts: I love this book. I repeat, I love this book! I'm giddy, and this is an unusual response from a gal who is reserved in nature. I read the book cover to cover and zeroed in on the photographs and illustrations. Most of the photographs and illustrations are in black and white, some are in color. But all of them are fascinating. An added gem to the The Anglo-Saxons, is the large amount of information gleaned on ecclesiastical history in Britain.
I did not expect to read-in several areas of the book-a study on Christianity. A sub-chapter titled "The Making of the Early English Church," examines "culture" and "values" the Christian church provided. One of my favorite chapters was "The Age of Bede and Aethelbald. A personal goal of mine is to read and study ecclesiastical history. I hope to read this book later this year or in the new year.
The Anglo-Saxons vacillates between academic reading and narrative history reading. Aug 03, Kate rated it it was amazing Shelves: medieval.
If you're interested in the Anglo-Saxons but don't know where to start, pick up this book. Written by the top Anglo-Saxonists working today, this well-illustrated volume will give a great overview of the culture and point you toward additional resources, if you just can't get enough.
Jul 30, Graham rated it it was amazing Shelves: historical , non-fiction , reference , anglo-saxon. It tells of the battles, of the kings, the tribes and the alliances, right from the early days when our post-Roman country was subject to Germanic invaders, through warring kings, the coming of the Vikings and finally the catastrophic Norman invasion.
This is the perfect starting point before getting into the deeper stuff about the period. One final mention for the illustrations: fantastic. Colour plates of exquisite artwork, plenty of maps, pictures of archaeological finds inevitably, the Sutton Hoo burial figures predominantly , plus plenty more besides.
I loved this book and will treasure it always. View 1 comment. A required read for my Anglo-Saxon course at University. This text is prepared almost perfectly and has become my companion on many quiet evenings. A great addition to anyone with an interest in ancient British history.
Apr 17, Will rated it really liked it. Solid introduction. I read this book mostly to find out about Anglo-Saxon as opposed to Norse paganism, and found a little info. I discovered a lot more about other aspects of late-Roman and Anglo-Saxon Britain, which I found very valuable.
Sep 27, Katie R. Herring rated it it was amazing Shelves: history , textbook. I knew nothing of this time, and was surprised to find out a lot of things I thought true, were in fact false. The reading was dense, but gripping. There was so much information, however. I would highly recommend this, though I would not call it an introduction. Dec 30, Rachel rated it liked it. It was useful and I will return to it many times for reference no doubt.
At a different level, the actual size of the book didn't encourage me to read it - didn't fit in my bag!!! On the other hand, some books don't lend themselves to a smaller format, so can't really complain. Would have been nice to have more of the maps in colour, but not in terms of cost.
Jun 19, Cate rated it really liked it Recommends it for: anglophiles, those interested in the Anglo-Saxons. Shelves: history , college , research. Fantastic starting point for learning about Anglo-Saxon England. Complete with wonderful pictures. Oct 07, Ryan Patrick rated it liked it Shelves: medieval-history , non-fiction Obviously a little dated now, but still a good overview of English history from It is not as narratively driven as one might like--spending more time analyzing specific situations, people, and institutions than telling a story of kings and battles--but much of Anglo-Saxon history doesn't lend itself to such a narrative and where it does, you might as well just read Bede or the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, since that will be the ultimate source of much of it.
All told, though, I think I pre Obviously a little dated now, but still a good overview of English history from All told, though, I think I prefer the more recent The Anglo-Saxon World , although parts of that feel more archaeologically driven than a historian can fully appreciate Feb 21, Kevin rated it liked it. Fascinating stuff. Tangl —; English Historical Documents 1: c. Dorothy Whitelock London 2 — Archaeological evidence from the seventh and eighth centuries for re-organisation and delineation of boundaries in the landscape may suggest in- creasing pressures to create a profit were a facet of developing consciousness of landownership among the ruling classes.
However, it may be significant that the sceatta coins of King Aldfrith of Northumbria — , an unusually literate king who had had a clerical education, do carry his name. Kings are likely as they did later to have shared their new monopolies with the royal agents nobility on whom they depended for their implementation, just as they had assigned to them some of their regalian rights over land.
Some of the best surviving evidence is that from the toll concessions to religious communities. The Origins of Towns and Trade, A. Huggett, Imported grave-goods and the early Anglo-Saxon economy, in: Medieval Archaeology 32 63— Frederick Attenborough Cambridge 78— Alfred, chapter Studies Presented to Cyril Roy Hart, ed. The Anglo-Saxon kingdoms — and the beginnings of the Old English state 81 and noble family power rather than as representing a quite separate stream of ecclesiastical authority.
Various intermediaries can be recognised in which varying degrees of Roman influence combined with other traditions or conceptualisations of power: Germanic, Celtic and Christian. The balance between differ- ent channels of influence would have varied between kingdoms, but this is too complex an issue to be explored here, where a homogenised view of the influences on the various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms will be discussed.
Although many aspects of Roman imperial life may have been lost in Britain, or perhaps never had the same degree of impact as in some provinces of the empire, 78 there was nevertheless a long-lasting legacy from the Roman physical environment whose importance should not be underestimated.
On one level, this aspect of Roman infrastructure was of great practical significance. Roman roads aided movement around lowland areas of England, whether for trade, war or more peaceful intercourse be- tween kingdoms. However, the Anglo-Saxons were not the only insular inheritors of Roman authority as the same could be said of the various British regimes that emerged in the fifth and sixth centuries. From an early stage Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were part of overlordship systems that included Celtic rulers.
Mercia, Northumbria and Wessex expanded their borders northward and westwards in the seventh and eighth centuries by incorporation of British kingdoms and other polities, and there may have been other, un- recorded instances of regime change in the sixth century.
Northumbria, in particular in its formative period in the late sixth and seventh centuries, was part of an extensive northern British system of 76 Barbara Yorke, Nunneries and the Anglo-Saxon Royal Houses London at 17—46, — British rulers were amongst those whose modes of exercising authority would be known to aspirant Anglo-Saxon kings, and systems of authority established by British elites would have been inherited by Anglo-Saxon successors as part of the expansion of their kingdoms.
The Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of southern England seem to have been more closely influenced at their formative stages by their connections with another Germanic people who had already absorbed aspects of Roman power into their articulation of authority, namely the Franks who may even have exercised a direct overlordship over some areas of southern England. Rather Francia can be seen as a reservoir of ideas and practice into which Anglo-Saxon rulers and churchmen constantly dipped.
The achievements of Francia during the reigns of the great Carolingian kings in the late eighth and ninth centuries had a major impact on contempo- rary Anglo-Saxon kingdoms that lasted well into the tenth century, 85 but it was a pattern of borrowing with much older origins.
The introduction of Christianity was of course of major importance in the shaping of the early An- glo-Saxon kingdoms as well as providing the written records through which the topic can be studied.
The church was a major channel for re-importation of Roman ideas, style and technology to Britain, as well as introducing new concepts of royal obligations and moral responsibility towards their subjects and vice versa.
The churchmen whose views survive for us to study are the more articulate and critical, reforming churchmen like Bede and Boniface, who may have been the exception rather than the rule in the early Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. The difficulty in distinguishing a noble lay estate from a religious house in the eighth and ninth centuries is eloquent testimony to the extent that minsters were part of the powerbases of noble and royal families.
Martin Carver Woodbridge — Tangl — Flixborough and its importance for middle and late rural settlement studies, in: Image and Power in the Archaeology of Early Medieval Britain, ed. The majority of ecclesiastical foundations faced two ways: they were both part of the network of minsters and monastic culture and an integral component of the nexus of royal and noble families that controlled power in the Anglo- Saxon kingdoms.
We need not doubt that this produced tensions and that ecclesiastical influences were often subordinated or adapted to secular needs. We can see such views as part of the rhetoric of re- forming churchmen, but it would appear that their impact was more completely realised in the tenth century than in earlier centuries.
This might appear to mitigate against the stability often seen as an essential component of early medieval statehood. Certainly many borders were not stable. The Thames, for instance, was sometimes a boundary between Wessex and Mercia, however, as both kingdoms for their own security felt the need to control both banks, they competed to control lands immediately north and south of the river with the result that boundaries in this area fluctuated considerably in the seventh and eighth cen- turies.
A number of factors offset the potential differences between kingdoms and could suggest they were becoming increasingly homogenous, following the dissolution of the fifth- and sixth-century Anglian, Saxon and Jutish confederations.
Particularly important in this context were the common experiences of overlordship which meant that all kingdoms could be subject to similar demands from a temporary dominant authority.
For instance, the once independent kingdoms of the south-east which were incorporated into Wessex preserved their identity as shires, presumably because they were already set up to function as units that could provide the payments and services which first Mercian, and then West Saxon, rulers demanded in the place of their indigenous royal houses.
In spite of the need to be open to differences, it can be said that there were strong tendencies to- wards a common court culture within the early Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.
Intermarriage and other alli- ances encouraged movement of personnel between courts and meant that members of royal and noble houses were often able to claim links with courts of several different kingdoms. Such movements between royal courts facilitated a sharing of ideas and a desire to emulate suc- cessful innovations within other kingdoms.
East An- glia and Kent which had the closest contacts with Francia were the first kingdoms to follow the northern Frankish elite practice of founding nunneries controlled by female relatives. Major figures such as Offa, Alfred, Edgar and Cnut are discussed in detail, while the stunning illustrations convey the immense achievements of Anglo-Saxon centuries were 'simply a barbarous prelude More about James Campbell.
Product Details. Download free Sutton hoo coins Wallpaper HD beautiful, free and use for any project. Cxy Decorative Plates Decor. William Stubb's vision of Anglo-Saxon England as a country with real representative institutions may indeed be truer than that of his denigrators.
James Campbell's work demands the re-thinking of Anglo-Saxon history. Choose items to buy together. This item: The Anglo-Saxons. In Stock. Ships from and sold by Amazon. FREE Shipping. So it is with excitement, …. In stock online. This item has been added to your basket. View basket Checkout. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century.
However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo-Saxons happened within Britain, and the identity was not merely imported. Anglo-Saxon identity arose from interaction between incoming groups from …. Anglo-Saxon, term used historically to describe any member of the Germanic peoples who, from the 5th century ce to the time of the Norman Conquest , inhabited and ruled territories that are today part of England and Wales.. According to St. By definition, folk music, also known as World Music, has no identifiable origin.
Widely sung and widely known, this kind of music belongs to the people. It is meant to be sung, shared, and enjoyed freely. Many of these well-known folk songs date back at least to the time of the Anglo-Saxons in England. Folk music is as different from court
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