Selected by Choice for the 2011 list of Outstanding Academic Titles.The warfare of the late Anglo-Saxon period had momentous consequences for the development of the English state following Alfred the Great's reign. This book provides a comprehensive guide, with extracts in translation from the principal sources for our knowledge, accompanied by the most important interpretations by scholars through the ages, and new introductions by thepresent author. It looks at every asp...

There have been many studies of the Scandinavians in Britain, but this is the first collection of essays to be devoted solely to their engagement with Wessex. New work on the early Middle Ages, not least the excavations of mass graves associated with the Viking Age in Dorset and Oxford, drew attention to the gaps in our understanding of the wider impact of Scandinavians in areas of Britain not traditionally associated with them. Here, a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approach to t...

'A reputation as a ruthless ruler was sealed that would last beyond his lifetime. In that respect, at least, Cnut had succeeded...'Cnut, or Canute, is one of the great 'what ifs' of English history. The Dane who became King of England after a long period of Viking attacks and settlement, his reign could have permanently shifted eleventh-century England's rule to Scandinavia. Stretching his authority across the North Sea to become king of Denmark and Norway, and with close links to ...

Winchester’s identity as a royal centre became well established between the ninth and twelfth centuries, closely tied to the significance of the religious communities who lived within and without the city walls. The reach of power of Winchester was felt throughout England and into the Continent through the relationships of the bishops, the power fluctuations of the Norman period, the pursuit of arts and history writing, the reach of the city’s saints, and more. The essays contained in this...

The defence of the 9th-century kingdom of Wessex under King Alfred against the 'Great Viking Army' is one of the major military achievements of Early Medieval history.While the guerrilla warfare in the Somerset marshes and the battle of Edington are characteristic of Alfred's military abilities, his definitive physical achievement was a series of some 30 well-structured fortifications (known as burhs) across the kingdom. Many of these fortifications survive to this...

'Æthelred's reign of nearly thirty-eight years was the longest of any Anglo-Saxon ruler. If he had died in AD 1000, history would have remembered him more kindly'Few monarchs of the Middle Ages have had a worse popular reputation than Æthelred II, 'the Unready', remembered as the king who lost England to Viking invaders. But, as Richard Abels shows, the failure to defend his realm was not entirely his alone. Æthelred was in many ways an innovative ruler but one whose challenges - a...

Edward the Confessor, the last great king of Anglo-Saxon England, canonized nearly 100 years after his death, is in part a figure of myths created in the late middle ages.In this revealing portrait of England's royal saint, David Woodman traces the course of Edward's twenty-four-year-long reign through the lens of contemporary sources, from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the Vita Ædwardi Regis to the Bayeux Tapestry, to separate myth from history and uncover the co...

A look at what world history might have been like if not for the fall of the Western Roman Empire.This is a fascinating exploration of how the history of Europe, and indeed the world, might have been different if the Western Roman Empire had survived the crises that pulled it apart in the fourth and fifth centuries.The author starts by showing how that survival and recovery might plausibly have happened if several relatively minor things had been different....

This biography of an overlooked but important Anglo-Saxon ruler sheds light on the Dark Ages of England.In the eighth century, Offa ruled Mercia, one of the strongest Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. For over thirty years he was the dominant warlord in the territory south of the Humber River and the driving force behind the expansion of Mercia's power. During that turbulent period, Offa commanded Mercian armies in their struggle against the neighboring kingdoms of Northumbria ...

The centuries after the end of Roman control of Britain in AD 410 are some of the most vital in Britain's history - yet some of the least understood. Warlords brings to life a world of ambition, brutality and violence in a politically fragmented land, and provides a compelling new history of an age that would transform Britain. By comparing the archaeology against the available historical sources for the period, Warlords presents a coherent picture of the...

First published as part of the best-selling The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain, John Blair's Very Short Introduction to the Anglo-Saxon Age covers the emergence of the earliest English settlements to the Norman victory in 1066. This book is a brief introduction to the political, social, religious, and cultural history of Anglo-Saxon England. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost ever...

The Anglo-Saxon era is one of the most important in English history, covering the period from the end of Roman authority in the British Isles to the Norman Conquest of 1066 in which the very idea of England was born. In The Kings& Queens of Anglo-Saxon England, Venning examines the rulers of Anglo-Saxon England, beginning with the legendary leaders of the Anglo-Saxon invasion as Hengest and Horsa or Cerdic and Cynric and moving on through such figures as Aethelbert of Kent, the first king ...