History Unlimited Bookshop: Dark Age Britain, The Age Of Saints

Books on Dark Age Britain & The Age of Saints.

The Ancient Sources

Britain was left defenceless and vulnerable following the departure of the Roman legions. It is, therefore, the more remarkable that the western fringes of the defunct empire served as a repository for the surviving scholarship of Rome and Western Christendom. The monastic tradition was crucial. The scriptoriums of the religious houses produced records and chronicles, albeit motivated by religious and chauvinist rather than historical agendas. The titles are organised in the rough chronological order of their authorship.

De Excidio Brittaniae / Gildas
The Ruin of Britain — Glidas’s ascerbic salvo against the rulers of Britain at the time of the Saxon Advent.

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Ecclesiastical History of the English People / Bede
Eight century history of the emerging English church and the development of Anglo-Saxon government from the ‘Father of English History’.

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Alfred the Great: Asser’s Life of King Alfred & Other Contemporary Sources / Asser et al
Biography from the contemporary of Alfred the Great, with other material from the period that saw the deliberate consolidation of written English. Includes work attributed to King Alfred himself.

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The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle / Ed. Michael Swanton
Correlated edition of the surviving versions of the Chronicle that was first compiled on the orders of Alfred the Great.

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Historia Brittonum: The History of the Britons / Nennius / AW Wade-Evans
Translated from an 11th century manuscript, this is one of the most important texts on Dark Age Britain, and Wales in particular. Contains the widely quoted list of Arthur’s battles.

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Annales Cambriae / Kathleen Hughes
The Annals of Wales from an 11th century source document. Makes for interesting comparisons with The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (qv).

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The History of the Kings of Britain / Geoffrey of Monmouth

The Historia Regum Britannie was completed in 1136 and covers the history of the realm from its mythical foundation by Brutus to the Saxon Advent some 2,000 years later. For the most part a work of the imagination, the Historia contains the earliest really substantial account of King Arthur and Merlin and was an influence on Mallory and Tennyson amongst others. The work was also one of Shakespeare’s sources — viz Lear and Cymbeline.

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The Age of Saints

Wales and Ireland preserved Christian institutions at the furthest edge of the barbarian world. The missionary activity of the ‘Celtic’ Church helped spread the message of Christianity and the tradition of scholarship to northern Britain and continental Europe.

Saints, Seaways and Settlements in Celtic Lands / E G Bowen

As western Europe collapsed into chaos following the barbarian invasions and the fall of the Western Roman Empire, a community of Christian scholarship and cultural exchange developed around the western seaways of Britain, Ireland and Brittany.

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The Settlements of the Celtic Saints in Wales / E G Bowen

The spread of mission and monasticism from the great centres of learning in Wales.

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The Life of St. Patrick and His Place in History / J Bury

The impact of St. Patrick on Ireland and western Christianity.

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Discovering Saint Patrick / T O'Loughlin

The life and times of the Patron Saint of Ireland from a modern authority based at the University of Wales Lampeter.

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Life and Writings of the Historical St. Patrick / R P C Hanson

Based on historical texts including the Confessio, written by St. Patrick in around 450 CE. The original texts provide a unique contemporary account of life in the British Isles at the time of the Age of Saints.

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Rhigyfarch's Life of St. David / J W James

No contemporary account of St. David exists. The Vita Dauidis is an important late 11th century text from the son of Sulien, a former bishop of St. Davids in Pembrokeshire. This sophisticated and powerful work elevates St. David above all other Welsh saints, with the objective of gaining supremacy of the see of St. Davids in Wales. The Vita was written at the monastic settlement of Llanbadarn Fawr, now better known as an industrial estate on the outskirts of Aberystwyth!

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The Anglo-Saxon Flowering

Anglo-Saxon settlement spread in the face of resistance from the indigenous peoples of Britain, most effectively symbolised by the legendary campaigns of Arthur. For half a millennium the Anglo-Saxon world developed in sophistication, until the resurgence of concerted raiding from northern Europe across the whole of the British Isles heralded a new expansionism that was to cut off a culture in its prime.

King Arthur in Legend & History / Ed. Chris Barber
Massive compilation of references to King Arthur in history and literature, some appearing for the first time in English translation. An entertaining version of the Arthurian myth (Excalibur, 1981) can be found on our Film Pages.

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An Introduction to Anglo-Saxon England / Peter Hunter Blair
Peter Hunter Blair uses a wide range of sources — documents, archaeological evidence and place names — to produce a realistic account of the period.

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The Anglo-Saxon World / Ed. Kevin Crossley-Holland
Comprehensive anthology of Anglo-Saxon literary and historical writings, including Beowulf and the Battle of Maldon.

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A History of the Vikings / Gwyn Jones
The Viking realms and movements “from the North Cape and the White Sea to the Pillars of Hercules, from Newfoundland and Baffin Island to the Volga Bend and Byzantium”. Viking raids and the Viking settlement of Normandy resulted in the destruction of an Anglo– Saxon world that was reaching towards a full cultural flowering.