Quotes About History

but the vikings who targeted Kent and Hampshire are likely to have come directly from Scandinavia

Archaeological excavation of such sites has also revealed evidence of cannibalism.

English had been used since the start of the seventh century to draft administrative documents,

referring to conflicts between the various rulers who had emerged in western Britain since the break with Rome.

such as charters and law codes, but never employed for great works of literature, theology or philosophy,

Power in Mercia passed to a new king named Coenwulf,

with what is now Wales.

after 410, but that within a generation the villas and towns of Roman Britain had been almost completely abandoned.

In 757, having ruled for forty-one years, he was killed by his own bodyguard

In 844 they sailed up the River Garonne, one of the great arteries of Francia,

probably the most dramatic period of social and economic collapse in British history'.

and by the end of the fifth century they had conquered three-quarters of the old Roman province,

The Emergence of Kings and Kingdoms

So began the rule of the greatest king of eighth-century Britain,

the story of Offa's rise to power is frustratingly obscure.

So miraculous was their victory that the site of battle later became

He was, in the words of one modern historian, 'the last great pagan king of Anglo-Saxon England'.

this year,' says the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 794, 'Offa, king of the Mercians, had Æthelberht beheaded.

The monk went on to become Pope Gregory the Great,

Two were works of Gregory the Great,

Then, in the summer of 991, a much larger force arrived from Scandinavia.

warlord who would later become king of Norway.

after the viking leader's submission in 878.

Here our best guide is once again the Venerable Bede,