The Birth of the Anglo-Saxons: Three Kings and a History of Britain at the Dawn of the Viking Age

Description

A brilliant, profound, and authoritative history of the golden age of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom in Britain.

For too long, the eighth century has been a neglected era in British history: a shadow land between the death of Saint Bede and the triumphs of King lfred and the eventual unification of England.

But before the victories of King lfred against the Viking invaders, the kingdom of Mercia–spread across a broad swathe of central England–was the reigning power that exercised central political authority for the first time since the Roman Empire. This authority was used to construct trading networks and markets; to develop strong economic, cultural, and political links with the Continent; and to lay the foundations for a system of defense that would be invigorated and reinvented by lfred at the end of the ninth century.

Two kings, thelbald (716-757) and Offa (757-796), dominated the political landscape of the rising power of Mercia. During their reigns, monasteries became powerhouses of royal patronage, economic enterprise, and trade. Offa constructed his grandiose dyke along the borders of the warlike Welsh Kingdoms and, more subtly, spread his message of political superiority through coinage bearing his image. But thelbald and Offa between them built something with an even more substantial legacy–a geography of medieval England. And these two kings engineered a set of tensions between kingship, landholding, and the church that were to play out dramatically at the dawn of the Viking Age.

In this illuminating history of Early Medieval Britain, Max Adams reconnects the worlds of the three kings– thelbald, Offa, and lfred–in an absorbing study of the landscape, society, and politics of a fascinating century of change.
Binding Type: Hardcover
Author: Max Adams
Published: 04/01/2025
Publisher: Pegasus Books
ISBN: 9781639368310
Pages: 464
Weight: 1.40lbs
Size: 1.70″ H x 9.10″ L x 6.30″ W

About the Author
Adams, Max: – Max Adams is the author of In the Land of Giants and The Viking Wars, both available from Pegasus Books. A university professor, Max lives in the northeast of England.