Just Finished Reading: A Brief History of The Anglo-Saxons – The Beginnings of the English Nation by Geoffrey Hindley

This history of the Anglo-Saxons covers the period from the end of Roman rule up to the invasion by the Normans in 1066. The (very) broad outline is basically a tale of invasion and settlement by colonists and mercenary armies from Northern and Central Europe into the vulnerable and recently abandoned Roman province. The British of course fought back but where slowly overwhelmed as wave after wave of invaders arrived, settled and changed the make up of the country until Britain became Angle-land – England. It is a long and involved story spanning centuries full of warfare, treachery and occasional acts of heroism. It was also a time of great religious conversion as heathens became Christians as both Irish and Roman Christianity fought for ideological supremacy throughout the land. One interesting fact was that the date for Easter was, for a while at least, celebrated on two different dates in different churches in the same city until, that is, such weighty matters where settled once and for all by Rome. At the end of this period, just prior to the events in 1066, England was a fully formed, prosperous and well organised nation-state. It was in many ways the envy of Europe. Unfortunately, as we English school children are taught, that all came crashing down when William the Conqueror AKA William the Bastard led his army against King Harold and defeated him on Senlac Hill near Hastings. What I didn’t know until recently, and what (at least as far as memory serves) we were never told in school was that not only was the battle a very close run thing but that even after the defeat and the crowning of William on Christmas Day 1066 the English resisted Norman rule for another 22 years! It seems that as a nation we’ve never gone down that easy!

Overall, although the book did fill in some important gaps in my historical knowledge, I did find it rather dull and in some places a definite slog. The author seems to be interested in early Ecclesiastical history – which I am most definitely not – and spent what I considered to be an inordinate time detailing how English Christian missionaries helped to shape the faith of the European mainland. I also, to be honest, lost the plot a few times with the number of kings, queens and other VIPs who had very similar sounding names. Taken together with the inevitably litany of brother killing brother for the throne in various regions and dodgy dealings all round it did kind of all blend into a bit of a mind-numbing morass. What I need in future, I think, is something a bit more targeted on smaller events and individual people. Saying all that, this book does give a fairly detailed and comprehensive overview of a turbulent and foundational time in our history. Read with a keen eye it will offer you many possible inroads into the period and has a very handy bibliography (something I have a habit of checking almost before I read the index). Reasonable.