Wessex and England from Alfred to Edgar: Essays on Political, Cultural, and Ecclesiastical Revival

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This book is concerned with aspects of the revival of English military,ecclesiastical, and intellectual strength in the period from KingAlfred’s defeat of the Great Danish Army at Edington in 878 to thatof the triumph of Benedictinism in the of Edgar, king of England959-975. Studying intellectual developments of the first half of the10th century, Dr Dumville argues that those decades were a periodof continuation of the Alfredian renascence and he looks back intothat king’s troubled but productive reign to discover new aspectsof his thinking and to offer some new interpretations of his actions.These were also the years in which the kingdom of England was formed:attention is therefore given to King AEthelstan, its creator.

This series of new studies draws on fresh manuscript-evidenceas well as reinterpreting texts long known to historians. By bringingtogether the testimonies of a wide variety of sources, it seeks toprovide the basis on which a new history of the period may be written.

DAVID N. DUMVILLE is Reader in the Early Mediaeval History and Culture of the British Isles at the University of Cambridge.