Book
The Anglo-Saxons
by Marc Morris
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Marc Morris surveys the centuries between the end of Roman rule and the Norman Conquest, combining written sources, archaeology and material culture to explain how new kingdoms and identities emerged in Britain. He follows migration and settlement, the growth of Northumbria, Mercia and Wessex, conversion to Christianity, monastic learning and the networks that connected early England to Ireland and continental Europe.
The later narrative centres on Scandinavian invasion, Alfred the Great’s resistance, the formation of a single English kingdom under rulers such as Æthelstan, and the renewed Danish conquest associated with Æthelred and Cnut. Morris also examines law, lordship, slavery, women, warfare and religious reform before the succession crisis of 1066. The book presents Anglo-Saxon England not as a static prelude to later history but as a changing society that created many of the institutions inherited by Norman rulers.