This isn’t a treasure hoard – it’s a grave. Like other Scandinavians, the East Angles buried people with things they’d owned in life. Who did they place inside this ship? A body was never recovered, so it’s impossible to say with certainty. We can make a pretty good guess, though. The Anglo-Saxons traces the turbulent history of these people across the next six centuries. It explains how their earliest rulers fought relentlessly against each other for glory and supremacy, and then were almost destroyed by the onslaught of the Vikings. It explores how they abandoned their old gods for Christianity, established hundreds of churches and created dazzlingly intricate works of art. It charts the revival of towns and trade, and the origins of a familiar landscape of shires, boroughs and bishoprics.

The peoples of each of the various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms spoke distinctive dialects, which evolved over time and together became known as Old English. Within that variety of dialects, an exceptionally rich vernacular literature emerged. Examples include the masterful epic poem Beowulf and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a collection of manuscripts that cover events in the early history of England. Guide to Scandinavian origins of place names in Britain" (PDF). Ordnance Survey. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 December 2008 . Retrieved 15 January 2010.Anglo-Saxon England or Early Medieval England, existing from the 5th to the 11th centuries from soon after the end of Roman Britain until the Norman Conquest in 1066, consisted of various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms until 927, when it was united as the Kingdom of England by King Æthelstan (r. 927–939). It became part of the short-lived North Sea Empire of Cnut, a personal union between England, Denmark and Norway in the 11th century. Take French day-names like mardi and jeudi and their English cognates, Tuesday and Thursday. The former come from the Latin names of the Roman gods Mars and Jupiter. Tuesday and Thursday, by contrast, are named after the Anglo-Saxon gods Tiw and Thunor. It’s a significant divergence. Sawyer, Peter (2001). The Oxford Illustrated History of the Vikings (3rded.). Oxford: OUP. ISBN 0-19-285434-8. Jones, The End of Roman Britain, Ch.1: Population and the Invasions; particularly pp. 11–12: "In contrast, some scholars shrink the numbers of the Anglo-Saxon invaders to a small, potent elite of only a few thousand invaders." Welch, Anglo-Saxon England. A complete analysis of Anglo-Saxon Archaeology. A discussion of where the settlers came from, based on a comparison of pottery with those found in the area of origin in Germany. Burial customs and types of building.

Meticulous and absorbing. Where Morris’ book really excels is in its understanding of the conquest’s ramifications for the nation’s demographics, language, and ruling elite. Providence Journal Welch, Anglo-Saxon England, p. 11: "Some archaeologists seem to believe that very few immigrants...were involved in the creation of Anglo-Saxon England... Gildas describes the settlement of Saxon mercenaries in the eastern part of the country, their reinforcement and subsequent successful rebellion...suggests more than just a handful of military adventurers. Bede felt secure in his belief that he was not of British descent... Further his list of three principle peoples who migrated here... is echoed in the archaeological record." When Æthelred died in 911, Æthelflæd succeeded him as "Lady of the Mercians", [111] and in the 910s she and her brother Edward recovered East Anglia and eastern Mercia from Viking rule. [111] Edward and his successors expanded Alfred's network of fortified burhs, a key element of their strategy, enabling them to go on the offensive. [113] [114] When Edward died in 924 he ruled all England south of the Humber. His son, Æthelstan, annexed Northumbria in 927 and thus became the first king of all England. At the Battle of Brunanburh in 937, he defeated an alliance of the Scots, Danes, and Vikings and Strathclyde Britons. [113] When the Roman legions left Britain, the Germanic-speaking Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians began to arrive – at first in small invading parties, but soon in increasing numbers. Initially they met little firm resistance from the relatively defenceless inhabitants of Britannia. Around 500 AD, however, the invaders were resisted fiercely by the Romano-British, who might have been led by King Arthur, if he existed – andthere is no hard evidence that he did. However, the monk Gildas, writing in the mid-6th century, talks about a British Christian leader called Ambrosius who rallied the Romano-British against the invaders and won twelve battles. Later accounts call this leader Arthur. See 'Saxon Settler' lesson plan.The term Anglo-Saxon seems to have been first used by Continental writers in the late 8th century to distinguish the Saxons of Britain from those of the European continent, whom St. Bede the Venerable had called Antiqui Saxones (“Old Saxons”). By the early seventh century, Britain had been divided into dozens of warring kingdoms. Rulers and clans fought for wealth and prestige. The risks to life and limb were great. But the rewards were great as well. An asbolute masterpiece . It feels like the missing piece of historiography on an essential period of our past. Marc Morris is the platonic ideal of scholarly yet readable big history." Dan Snow Fast-forward to 1066, the year of the Norman Conquest, and you’ll find all the familiar markers of England. The countryside is divided into shires, sheriffs keep the peace, and the locals speak a tongue that’s more or less comprehensible even to us.