Foundation (History of England Vol 1) (86 page)

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Authors: Peter Ackroyd

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8. ‘Alfred in the Danish Camp.’ In legend, the king infiltrated the Danish camp in the disguise of a minstrel, where he sang to Guthrum.

9. Aethelbert, the great king of Kent, is here depicted at his baptism by Saint Augustine in
AD
597. It was the beginning of the saint’s mission to convert the Germanic settlers.

10. The Venerable Bede in his scriptorium. His most famous work,
The Ecclesiastical History of the English People
, earned him the title of ‘The Father of English History’.

11. The
incipit
of the Gospel of Saint Matthew from the Lindisfarne Gospels. The richly illuminated manuscript was fashioned at Lindisfarne, in Northumbria, in the late seventh or early eighth century.

12. A Viking ship, suitably stylized as an engine of the invasion that began in
AD
790. ‘Never before’, one chronicler wrote, ‘has such a terror appeared in Britain.’

13. An image of Ethelred, commonly known as ‘the unready’ or ‘the ill-advised’, who was king of England in the late tenth and early eleventh centuries. The great sword is no doubt intended to emphasize his prowess or masculinity.

14. Edward the Confessor, king of England from 1042 to 1066. He was known as ‘the Confessor’ because he was deemed to have borne witness to the Christian faith, but in truth he was not especially pious.

15. The Normans crossing the Channel for the invasion of 1066. Fourteen thousand men were summoned by William for the onslaught against England.

16. The death of Harold in battle, from the Bayeux Tapestry. Once the king had been slain, all was lost.

17. A man wielding an axe, taken from
Topographia Hibernica
. The work was written by Gerald of Wales in 1188, and includes the remark that the native Irish allow ‘their hair and beards to grow enormously in an uncouth manner’.

18. An image of man and dogs from the Luttrell Psalter, an illuminated manuscript that was written and illustrated at Lincoln at some point in the decade after 1325.

19. A nineteenth-century woodcut of a medieval manor, with the lord’s demesne, the village and the church all neatly outlined. Note the areas of ‘waste’ just beyond the fields.

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