"The enormous hoard of beautiful gold military objects found in a field in Staffordshire has focused huge attention on the mysterious world of 7th and 8th century Britain. Clearly the product of a sophisticated, wealthy, highly militarized society, the objects beg innumerable questions about how we are to understand the people who once walked across the same landscape we inhabit, who are our ancestors and yet left such a slight record of their presence. Britain after Rome brings together a wealth of research and imaginative engagement to bring us as close as we can hope to get to the tumultuous centuries between the departure of the Roman legions and the arrival of Norman invaders nearly seven centuries later. As towns fell into total decay, Christianity disappeared and wave upon wave of invaders swept across the island, it can be too easily assumed that life in Britain became intolerable - and yet this is the world in which modern languages and political arrangements were forged, a number of fascinating cultures rose and fell and tantalizing glimpses, principally through the study of buildings and burials, can be had of a surprising and resilient place. The result of a lifetime of work, Robin Fleming's major new addition to the Penguin History of Britain could not be more opportune. A richly enjoyable, varied and surprising book, Britain after Rome allows its readers to see Britain's history in a quite new light."--
Record details
ISBN:9780140148237
ISBN:014014823X
Physical Description:print xxii, 458 pages : maps ; 20 cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 367-429) and index.
Formatted Contents Note:
The rise and fall of late antique Britain : the second to early fifth century -- Life among the ruins : the fifth and early sixth centuries -- Making peoples, making class : the late fifth and sixth centuries -- Elites, kingdoms and a brand-new past : the later sixth and seventh centuries -- Belief and ritual : the fourth to seventh century -- Missionaries and converts : the later sixth to early eighth century -- The rebirth of trading communities : the seventh to mid-ninth century -- Norse and natives : the late eighth to late ninth century -- New towns : the ninth to eleventh century -- Kings and surpluses : the ninth to eleventh century -- Selling surplus and buying status: the tenth and eleventh centuries -- Clerics, monks and the laity : the ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries -- Living and dying in early Medieval Britain : the fifth to eleventh century.
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