Overview

"'Here lies our leader all cut down, the valiant man in the dust.' The elegiac words of the ""Battle of Maldon"", an epic poem written to celebrate the bravery of an English army defeated by Viking raiders in 991, emerge from a diverse literature - including ""Beowulf"" and ""Bede's Ecclesiastical History"" - produced by the people known as the Anglo-Saxons: Germanic tribes who migrated to Britain from Lower Saxony and Denmark in the early fifth century CE. The era once known as the 'Dark Ages' was marked by stunning cultural advances, and Henrietta Leyser here offers a fresh analysis of exciting recent discoveries made in the archaeology and art of the Anglo-Saxon world. Arguing that the desperate struggle (led by Alfred the Great) against the Vikings helped define a distinctively English sensibility, the author explores relations with the indigenous British, the Anglo-Saxon conversion to Christianity, the ascendancy of Mercia and the rise of Wessex. This vivid history evokes both the emergent kingdoms of Alfred and Offa and the golden treasures of Sutton Hoo. It will appeal to students of early medieval history and to all those who wish to understand how England was born."

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9781780765990

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'Henrietta Leyser not only sets out the tumultuous events of Anglo-Saxon history with elegant clarity and eloquent cogency, but also explores many of its byways with a pithy wit. General readers will be drawn into a compelling narrative ranging over many centuries, and illustrated throughout with a wealth of translated quotations from contemporary sources. Students and specialists, meanwhile, will appreciate the breezy ease with which this sometimes baffling and always complex material is summarised and analysed by its distinguished author. This is a beautifully crafted and well researched book.' - Andy Orchard, Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon, University of Oxford, 'In eight invigorating chapters, Henrietta Leyser covers a period of six hundred years from the settlement of Germanic peoples across eastern and southern Britain, in the fifth and sixth centuries, to the Norman Conquest of England in 1066. She provides a lively and well-balanced assessment of the ways in which social, cultural, economic and political forces interacted with each other, leading to the emergence of a unified kingdom of the English - and its conquest. It is over thirty years since a book of this scope and nature has appeared; and Dr Leyser is a very skilful guide to all that has changed in our perception of the Anglo-Saxon world-order.' - Simon Keynes, Elrington and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon, University of Cambridge

Author Information

Henrietta Leyser is an Emeritus Fellow of St Peter's College, Oxford. Her books include Hermits and the New Monasticism: A Study of Religious Communities in Western Europe, 1000-1150, Medieval Women: A Social History of Women in England, 450-1500 and The Life of Christina of Markyate.

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