The Governance Of Anglo-Saxon England 500-1087
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Very good
Jacket: Wear and tear with damage
Pages: Good
For nearly six centuries, Anglo-Saxon England stood as one of the most complex and formative political experiments in the medieval world — and H.R. Loyn's The Governance of Anglo-Saxon England 500–1087 is the definitive scholarly account of how it actually worked. Spanning the tumultuous period from the earliest Germanic settlements to the Norman Conquest, the work chronicles the evolution of royal authority, local administration, law, and the mechanisms of social order that shaped pre-Conquest England, presenting a meticulous portrait of a society far more sophisticated in its governance than popular history typically allows. Loyn, one of the foremost authorities on the Anglo-Saxon period, argues with clarity and precision that the institutions of this era — the witan, the shire system, the thegnhood — were not primitive antecedents to medieval governance but rather dynamic structures with their own internal logic and resilience. His prose is measured and authoritative, drawing on a vast command of primary sources and archaeological evidence to illuminate the political life of an often-misunderstood civilisation. A landmark work in medieval studies, it leaves the reader asking a haunting question: how much of what we call English government was forged not at Runnymede, but in the halls of Saxon kings long before 1066?
Author: H.R. Loyn
Format: Hardback
Published: 1984, Stanford University Press
Genre: British & Irish history
Condition remarks:
Book: Very good
Jacket: Wear and tear with damage
Pages: Good
For nearly six centuries, Anglo-Saxon England stood as one of the most complex and formative political experiments in the medieval world — and H.R. Loyn's The Governance of Anglo-Saxon England 500–1087 is the definitive scholarly account of how it actually worked. Spanning the tumultuous period from the earliest Germanic settlements to the Norman Conquest, the work chronicles the evolution of royal authority, local administration, law, and the mechanisms of social order that shaped pre-Conquest England, presenting a meticulous portrait of a society far more sophisticated in its governance than popular history typically allows. Loyn, one of the foremost authorities on the Anglo-Saxon period, argues with clarity and precision that the institutions of this era — the witan, the shire system, the thegnhood — were not primitive antecedents to medieval governance but rather dynamic structures with their own internal logic and resilience. His prose is measured and authoritative, drawing on a vast command of primary sources and archaeological evidence to illuminate the political life of an often-misunderstood civilisation. A landmark work in medieval studies, it leaves the reader asking a haunting question: how much of what we call English government was forged not at Runnymede, but in the halls of Saxon kings long before 1066?