At a time when the Battle of Hastings and Magna Carta have become common currency in political debate, this study of the role played by the Norman Conquest in English history between the eleventh and the seventeenth centuries is both timely and relevant.

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A riveting and authoritative history of the single most important event in English history: The Norman Conquest. An upstart French duke who sets out to conquer the most powerful and unified kingdom in Christendom. An invasion force on a scale not seen since the days of the Romans. One of the bloodiest and most decisive battles ever fought. This new history explains why the Norman Conquest was the most significant cultural and military episode in English history. Assessing the original evidence at every turn, Marc Morris goes beyond the familiar outline to explain why England was at once so powerful and yet so vulnerable to William the Conqueror’s attack. Morris writes with passion, verve, and scrupulous concern for historical accuracy. This is the definitive account for our times of an extraordinary story, indeed the pivotal moment in the shaping of the English nation.

A sweeping and original history of the Anglo-Saxons by national bestselling author Marc Morris. Sixteen hundred years ago Britain left the Roman Empire and swiftly fell into ruin. Grand cities and luxurious villas were deserted and left to crumble, and civil society collapsed into chaos. Into this violent and unstable world came foreign invaders from across the sea, and established themselves as its new masters. 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. It is a tale of famous figures like King Offa, Alfred the Great and Edward the Confessor, but also features a host of lesser known characters - ambitious queens, revolutionary saints, intolerant monks and grasping nobles. Through their remarkable careers we see how a new society, a new culture and a single unified nation came into being. Drawing on a vast range of original evidence - chronicles, letters, archaeology and artefacts - renowned historian Marc Morris illuminates a period of history that is only dimly understood, separates the truth from the legend, and tells the extraordinary story of how the foundations of England were laid.

The Norman Conquest in 1066 was the last time England was successfully invaded, and was one of the most profound turning points in English history, cataclysmically transforming a disparate collection of small nations into a European state. But what actually happened? How was the invasion viewed by those who witnessed it? And how has its legacy been seen by generations since? This fascinating Very Short Introduction reveals how dramatically English life was changed, from its language to its law, and focuses on the differing ways the conquest has been viewed by historians and in folklore ever since. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Named a Book of the Year by the Daily Telegraph, Times Literary Supplement, The Times, Spectator, and The Economist The English first materialized as an idea, before they had a common ruler and before the country they lived in even had a name. From the armed Saxon bands that descended onto Roman-controlled Britain in the fifth century to the travails of the Eurozone plaguing the prime-ministership of today's multicultural England, acclaimed historian Robert Tombs presents a momentous and challenging history of a people who have a claim to be the oldest nation in existence. Drawing on a wealth of recent scholarship, Tombs sheds light on the strength and resilience of English governance, the deep patterns of division among the people who have populated the British Isles, the persistent capacity of the English to come together in the face of danger, and not the least the ways the English have understood their own history, have argued about it, forgotten it and yet been shaped by it. Momentous and definitive, The English and Their History is the first single-volume work on this scale for more than half a century.

This lively and far-reaching account of the politics, religion, and culture of England in the century and a half after the Norman Conquest provides a vivid picture of everyday existence, and increases our understanding of all aspects of medieval society. This was a period in which the ruling dynasty and military aristocracy were deeply enmeshed with the politics and culture of France. Professor Bartlett describes their conflicts, and their preoccupations - the sense of honour, the role of violence, and the glitter of tournament, heraldry, and Arthurian romance. He explores the mechanics of government; assesses the role of the Church at a time of radical developments in religious life and organization; and investigates the peasant economy, the foundation of this society, and the growing urban and commercial activity. There are colourful details of the everyday life of ordinary men and women, with their views on the past, on sexuality, on animals, on death, the undead, and the occult. The result is a fascinating and comprehensive portrayal of a period which begins with conquest and ends in assimilation.

Chronicles life in England from the Roman invasion through the middle of the twelfth century.