Anglo-Saxon

King Alfred: An Eleventh Centenary

Timothy Wilson Smith describes how, in the year 878, Alfred witnessed the conversion to Christianity of the Danish warlord Guthrum, and helped to found the English nation.

Hereward the Wake

Four years after William I's conquest of England, writes J.J.N. McGurk, a Lincolnshire thegn named Hereward led a fierce resistance movement against Norman rule.

Bede of Jarrow

W.N. Bryant introduces Bede, the ‘Father of English History’, a Northumbrian Monk who devoted his life to study, teaching and church services.

Questioning Egbert's Edict

John Gillingham challenges an idea, recently presented in History Today, that the Anglo-Saxon King Egbert was responsible for the naming of England.

The Story of England: The Coming of the English

This extract is the first of a series in which Dr. Arthur Bryant describes the evolution of the English Kingdom, through the invasions of Saxons, Danes and Normans, to its consolidation in medieval times.