Britain After Rome The Fall and Rise, 400 to 1070

by Fleming, Robin

• ISBN13: 9780140148237
• ISBN10: 014014823X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-05-01
• Publisher: Penguin UK

Summary

What was Britain like in the Dark Ages? Who walked across the landscape we now inhabit? Do objects such as those found in the Staffordshire hoard reveal a far more sophisticated, wealthy and militarized society than we had previously imagined?Britain After Rome stitches 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 collapse of the Roman Empire in the West and the arrival of the Normans nearly seven centuries later. Robin Fleming depicts a country whose towns were abandoned, where Christianity had disappeared, and where immigrants and invaders came to settle. Yet it is also the world in which many of today's villages were founded, and Britain's vernacular languages and political arrangements were forged.Britain after Rome offers tantalizing glimpses of the surprising and resilient peoples who remade Britain in the centuries after Rome's collapse. It allows its readers to see Britain's history in a quite new light.'An excellent, gripping and persuasive read . . . offers an entirely new insight into the past'British Archaeology'A sweeping work of impressive scope'Archaeology Review

Author Biography

Robin Fleming is the author of Domesday Book and the Law and Kings and Lords in Conquest England. She has taught for many years at Boston College and is currently Matina S. Horner Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	p. xi
Maps	p. xiii
Introduction	p. xix
The Rise and Fall of Late Antique Britain: The Second to Early Fifth Century	p. 1
Life among the Ruins: The Fifth and Early Sixth Centuries	p. 30
Making Peoples, Making Class: The Late Fifth and Sixth Centuries	p. 61
Elites, Kingdoms and a Brand-New Past: The Later Sixth and Seventh Centuries	p. 89
Belief and Ritual: The Fourth to Seventh Century	p. 120
Missionaries and Converts: The Later Sixth to Early Eighth Century	p. 152
The Rebirth of Trading Communities: The Seventh to Mid-Ninth Century	p. 183
Norse and Natives: The Late Eighth to Late Ninth Century	p. 213
New Towns: The Ninth to Eleventh Century	p. 241
Kings and Surpluses: The Ninth to Eleventh Century	p. 269
Selling Surplus and Buying Status: The Tenth and Eleventh Centuries	p. 290
Clerics, Monks and the Laity: The Ninth, Tenth and Eleventh Centuries	p. 318
Living and Dying in Early Medieval Britain: The Fifth to Eleventh Century	p. 345
Further Reading	p. 367
Sources	p. 427
Index	p. 431
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