A Brief History of the Anglo-Saxons (58 page)

16
Smyth,
King Alfred the Great
, 1995, p. 398.

17
See Abels,
Alfred the Great
, 1998, pp. 261, 268.

18
Sturdy,
Alfred the Great
, 1995.

19
For these paragraphs on Alfred’s ‘writing office’, see Keynes, ‘The Power of the Written Word’, 2003, pp. 184–5, 193–5.

20
Bately, ‘The Alfredian Canon Revisited’, 2003, pp. 109–11.

21
Godden, ‘The Player King’, 2003.

22
Campbell, ‘Placing King Alfred’, 2003, p. 6.

23
Keynes, ‘The Power of the Written Word’, 2003, p. 192.

24
Keene, ‘Alfred and London’, 2003.

25
Based on Hill, ‘The Origins of Alfred’s Urban Policies’, 2003, pp. 219–33.

26
Abels,
Alfred the Great
, 1998, pp. 203–4, 206.

27
Based on Hill, ‘The Origins of Alfred’s Urban Policies’, 2003, pp. 219–33.

28
Sturdy,
Alfred the Great
, 1995, p. 152.

29
Mason,
The House of Godwine
, 2004, p. 12.

30
Cited in Lawson,
Cnut
, 2004, p. 133.

31
Gifford and Gifford, ‘Alfred’s New Longships’, 2003, pp. 281–9.

32
Campbell, ed. and trans.,
Chronicon Æthelweardi
, 1962, p. 51.

33
Keynes, ‘The Power of the Written Word’, 2003, p. 197.

Chapter 9 – Literature, Learning, Language and Law in Anglo-Saxon England

Essential here is Rosamond McKitterick’s
The Uses of Literacy in Medieval Europe
(1990), with such chapters as ‘Royal Government and the Written Word’ by Simon Keynes and ‘Literacy in Anglo-Saxon Lay Society’ by Susan Kelly.
The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature
(1991) by Malcolm Godden and Michael Lapidge is invaluable, while E. Temple’s
Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts
(1976) is still basic. Patrick Wormald’s
The Making of English Law
(1999) is a magisterial survey. For the fuller background, the best is probably
Learning and Literature in Anglo-Saxon England
(1985), edited by Michael Lapidge and Helmut Gneuss. As an introduction to the language itself, nothing can approach Bruce Mitchell’s
An Invitation to Old English and Anglo-Saxon England
(1995). Michael Swanton’s
Anglo-Saxon Prose
(revised 1993) and S. A. J. Bradley’s
Anglo-Saxon Poetry
(1982) are comprehensive anthologies and the finest translation of
Beowulf
is the one by Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney (1999).

1
O Croínin, ‘Writing’, 2003, p. 183.

2
Bede,
Ecclesiastical History
, IV, 24.

3
Crossley-Holland,
The Exeter Book Riddles
, 1980.

4
Elton,
The English
, 1994, p. 36.

5
Hunter Blair,
Introduction to Anglo-Saxon England
, 1956, p. 352–5.

6
Howlett, ‘The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the Idea of Rome’, 2003, p. 3.

7
Kabir,
Paradise, Death and Doomsday
, 2001, p. 183.

8
Cited by Lapidge, ‘Asser’s Reading’, 2003, p. 41.

9
D. P. Simpson,
Cassell’s New Latin–English, English–Latin Dictionary
, revised 1979.

10
Kelly, ‘Literacy in Anglo-Saxon Lay Society’, 1990, p. 58.

11
Ibid., p. 39.

12
Lapidge, ‘
Beowulf
, Aldhelm, the
Liber Monstrorum
and Wessex’, 1982.

13
Wormald,
Making of English Law
, 1999, p. 451.

14
For this paragraph see ibid., pp. 462–4.

15
Keynes, ‘Royal Government and the Written Word’, 1990, pp. 228–9.

16
Loyn,
The Governance of Anglo-Saxon England
, 1987, cited by Keynes, ‘Royal Government and the Written Word’, 1990, p. 229.

17
Gillingham, ‘Britain, Ireland and the South’, 2003, p. 229.

Chapter 10 – The Hegemony of Wessex

Given the scant nature of the materials relating to England’s tenth-century kings, ‘biography’ in the usual sense of the word is difficult. Recent works focusing on specific reigns are Higham and Hill’s
Edward the Elder, 899–924
(2001) and Paul Hill on
The Age of Æthelstan
(2004), which gives much attention to the antecedents of the reign.

On religious life John Blair’s
The Church in Anglo-Saxon Society
(2005) is essential if somewhat specialized reading here, as throughout the period, and John Godfrey’s
The Church in Anglo-Saxon England
(1962) is a valuable general survey. For a general survey of the period Pauline Stafford’s
Unification and Conquest:A Political and Social History of England in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries
(1989) is recommended.

1
Wormald,
Making of English Law
, 1999, pp. 170–71.

2
Campbell, ‘Placing King Alfred’, 2003, p. 4.

3
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
, ‘C’.

4
Abels,
Alfred the Great
, 1998, p. 218.

5
Gillingham, ‘Britain, Ireland and the South’, 2003, p. 215.

6
Brooke,
The Saxon and Norman Kings
, 1963, p. 120.

7
Campbell, ed.,
The Anglo-Saxons
, 1991, p. 11.

8
Annals of Ulster
, cited in Stafford,
Unification and Conquest
, 1989, p. 35.

9
Hare, ‘Abbot Leofsige of Mettlach’, 2004.

10
For much of this paragraph see Hill,
The Age of Æthelstan
, 2004, pp. 32, 35, 105.

11
Stafford,
Queens, Concubines and Dowagers
, 1983, p. 21.

12
For this paragraph see Campbell, ‘The United Kingdom of England’, 1995, pp. 39, 41.

13
Keynes, ‘Royal Government and the Written Word’, 1990, p. 243.

14
Wormald,
Making of English Law
, 1999, p. 126.

15
Keynes, ‘Royal Government and the Written Word’, 1990, pp. 235, 248–9.

16
Hill,
The Age of Æthelstan
, 2004, p. 121.

17
Ibid., p. 25.

18
Blackburn, ‘Mints, Burhs and the Grately Code’, 1996, p. 160.

19
Davis,
From Alfred the Great to Stephen
, 1991, p. 57.

20
Campbell, ‘The United Kingdom of England’, 1995, p. 38.

21
Elton, The English, 1994, pp. 47–8.

22
Stafford,
Queens, Concubines and Dowagers
, 1983, p. 133.

Chapter 11 – Danish Invasions and Kings

There are a number of important recent books here, including the study by M. K. Lawson, revised as
Cnut: England’s Viking King
(2004), an exhaustive view of original sources by the leading authority in the field; Frank Barlow’s
The Godwins:The Rise and Fall of a Noble Dynasty
(2003); and Emma Mason’s
The House of Godwine
(2004). Pauline Stafford’s
Queen Emma and Queen Edith
(1997) is highly recommended, as is her ‘The Reign of Æthelred II: A Study in the Limitations on Royal Policy and Action’ (1978). Simon Keynes’s somewhat specialist
The Diplomas of King Æthelred ‘The Unready’: 978–1016
(1980) opens up such documents as quarries for historical evidence. For a glimpse of the dramatic and sometimes sordid reality behind the politics, see Richard Fletcher’s
Bloodfeud
(2003).

1
Campbell,
Anglo-Saxon State
, 2000, p. 160.

2
Ibid., p. 166.

3
Ibid., pp. 167–8.

4
For above see Swanton,
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
, 1996, p. 135, note.

5
Stafford,
Queen Emma and Queen Edith
, 1997, p. 224.

6
Based on Swanton,
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
, 1996, p. 135 (‘E’, sub anno 1010).

7
Attwater,
Penguin Dictionary of Saints
, 1979, p. 41.

8
Fletcher,
Bloodfeud
, 2003, p. 74.

9
Campbell,
Anglo-Saxon State
, 2000, p. 181.

10
Swanton,
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
, 1996, p. 144, notes.

11
Fletcher,
Bloodfeud
, 2003, p. 1.

12
Lawson,
Cnut
, 2004, p. 134.

13
Stafford,
Queen Emma and Queen Edith
, 1997, p. 225.

14
Ibid., pp. 226–7.

15
Campbell,
Anglo-Saxon State
, 2000, p. 8.

16
Gillingham, ‘Britain, Ireland and the South’, 2003, p. 215.

17
Stafford,
Queen Emma and Queen Edith
, 1997, p. 247.

18
Damico,
Beowulf’s Wealtheow and the Valkyrie Tradition
, 1984.

19
Stafford,
Queens, Concubines and Dowagers
, 1983, p. 29.

Chapter 12 – Edward the Confessor, the Conquest and the Aftermath

Frank Barlow’s
Edward the Confessor
(1970) is still the classic work on the king and the last years of Anglo-Saxon England. With
The Battle of Hastings, 1066
(2002), M. K. Lawson produced the definitive work on the battle. Mason’s and Barlow’s books on the Godwin(e)s (see previous chapter) are of course important in this chapter too. Ian Walker’s
Harold: The Last Anglo-Saxon King
(1997) is a major and exhaustive study, while Ann Williams’s
The English and the Norman Conquest
(1995) is basic in its field. In the post-Conquest age ‘the Laws of Edward the Confessor’ were of recurrent interest, and behind this and all studies of Anglo-Saxon law looms Patrick Wormald’s monumental and sometimes controversial
The Making of English Law: King Alfred to the Twelfth Century
, I:
Legislation and its Limits
(1999). Pauline Stafford’s
Queen Emma and Queen Edith
(1997) gives body to the shadowy figure of Edith and her entourage.