Just Finished Reading: The Anglo-Saxon Age – A Very Short Introduction by John Blair (FP: 1984)

This was to be honest a very short introduction indeed only running to a mere 75 pages. Needless to say I started and finished it during a single Sunday a few weeks ago. The author is very clear that, for most of the period under discussion, we can say precious little about what happened and what we can say must be taken cautiously. Very little text survives before 600AD and what does survive is partisan. The archaeological evidence, again what has survived, can tell us something about the spread of Anglo-Saxon burial sites across what would become England – named after the Angles of course – but provides us with no great detail and says very little indeed to decide the thorny question of what happened to the indigenous population after the Anglo-Saxons arrived in ever increasing numbers. Where they assimilated, exterminated or forced to leave to inhabit the edges of the island in Cornwall, Wales and Ireland? It is a question and a debate that may never be fully answered.

What does seem to be clear is that, over 400-500 years various waves of immigration (or invasion depending on your point of view or perspective) arrived on the English shore and set up home here. Inevitably conflict arose and throughout that period dynasties rose and fell, territories expanded and contracted and both heroes and villains fell under the swords of their enemies. This is the area where legend and history meet and intermingle and national foundation myths are born. I was certainly brought up on stories of Alfred the Great, Arthur and, at the end of the Anglo-Saxon age Harold Godwinson. I wonder how many names the present young generation would recognise. Not many I’m guessing. We are, it would seem, increasingly cut adrift from our history and national legends much to our detriment I feel.

Despite its brief nature this is a well written and detailed introduction to the very edge of British history in that twilight moment between the withdrawal of Rome and the arrival of the Normans in 1066. Much more on this fascinating period to come. Recommended.