What do you think?
Rate this book
Anglo-Saxon Britain
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.
117 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1884
126 people are currently reading
294 people want to read
About the author
Grant Allen
1,179 books32 followersCharles Grant Blairfindie Allen (February 24, 1848 – October 25, 1899) was a science writer and novelist, and a successful upholder of the theory of evolution.
He was born near Kingston, Canada West (now incorporated into Ontario), the second son of Catharine Ann Grant and the Rev. Joseph Antisell Allen, a Protestant minister from Dublin, Ireland. His mother was a daughter of the fifth Baron of Longueuil. He was educated at home until, at age 13, he and his parents moved to the United States, then France and finally the United Kingdom. He was educated at King Edward's School in Birmingham and Merton College in Oxford, both in the United Kingdom. After graduation, Allen studied in France, taught at Brighton College in 1870–71 and in his mid-twenties became a professor at Queen's College, a black college in Jamaica.
Despite his religious father, Allen became an agnostic and a socialist. After leaving his professorship, in 1876 he returned to England, where he turned his talents to writing, gaining a reputation for his essays on science and for literary works. One of his early articles, 'Note-Deafness' (a description of what is now called amusia, published in 1878 in the learned journal Mind) is cited with approval in a recent book by Oliver Sacks.
His first books were on scientific subjects, and include Physiological Æsthetics (1877) and Flowers and Their Pedigrees (1886). He was first influenced by associationist psychology as it was expounded by Alexander Bain and Herbert Spencer, the latter often considered the most important individual in the transition from associationist psychology to Darwinian functionalism. In Allen's many articles on flowers and perception in insects, Darwinian arguments replaced the old Spencerian terms. On a personal level, a long friendship that started when Allen met Spencer on his return from Jamaica, also grew uneasy over the years. Allen wrote a critical and revealing biographical article on Spencer that was published after Spencer was dead.
After assisting Sir W. W. Hunter in his Gazeteer of India in the early 1880s, Allen turned his attention to fiction, and between 1884 and 1899 produced about 30 novels. In 1895, his scandalous book titled The Woman Who Did, promulgating certain startling views on marriage and kindred questions, became a bestseller. The book told the story of an independent woman who has a child out of wedlock.
In his career, Allen wrote two novels under female pseudonyms. One of these was the short novel The Type-writer Girl, which he wrote under the name Olive Pratt Rayner.
Another work, The Evolution of the Idea of God (1897), propounding a theory of religion on heterodox lines, has the disadvantage of endeavoring to explain everything by one theory. This "ghost theory" was often seen as a derivative of Herbert Spencer's theory. However, it was well known and brief references to it can be found in a review by Marcel Mauss, Durkheim's nephew, in the articles of William James and in the works of Sigmund Freud.
He was also a pioneer in science fiction, with the 1895 novel The British Barbarians. This book, published about the same time as H. G. Wells's The Time Machine, which includes a mention of Allen, also described time travel, although the plot is quite different. His short story The Thames Valley Catastrophe (published 1901 in The Strand Magazine) describes the destruction of London by a sudden and massive volcanic eruption.
Many histories of detective fiction also mention Allen as an innovator. His gentleman rogue, the illustrious Colonel Clay, is seen as a forerunner to later characters. In fact, Allen's character bears strong resemblance to Maurice Leblanc's French works about Arsène Lupin, published many years later; and both Miss Cayley's Adventures and Hilda Wade feature early female detectives.
Allen was married twi
He was born near Kingston, Canada West (now incorporated into Ontario), the second son of Catharine Ann Grant and the Rev. Joseph Antisell Allen, a Protestant minister from Dublin, Ireland. His mother was a daughter of the fifth Baron of Longueuil. He was educated at home until, at age 13, he and his parents moved to the United States, then France and finally the United Kingdom. He was educated at King Edward's School in Birmingham and Merton College in Oxford, both in the United Kingdom. After graduation, Allen studied in France, taught at Brighton College in 1870–71 and in his mid-twenties became a professor at Queen's College, a black college in Jamaica.
Despite his religious father, Allen became an agnostic and a socialist. After leaving his professorship, in 1876 he returned to England, where he turned his talents to writing, gaining a reputation for his essays on science and for literary works. One of his early articles, 'Note-Deafness' (a description of what is now called amusia, published in 1878 in the learned journal Mind) is cited with approval in a recent book by Oliver Sacks.
His first books were on scientific subjects, and include Physiological Æsthetics (1877) and Flowers and Their Pedigrees (1886). He was first influenced by associationist psychology as it was expounded by Alexander Bain and Herbert Spencer, the latter often considered the most important individual in the transition from associationist psychology to Darwinian functionalism. In Allen's many articles on flowers and perception in insects, Darwinian arguments replaced the old Spencerian terms. On a personal level, a long friendship that started when Allen met Spencer on his return from Jamaica, also grew uneasy over the years. Allen wrote a critical and revealing biographical article on Spencer that was published after Spencer was dead.
After assisting Sir W. W. Hunter in his Gazeteer of India in the early 1880s, Allen turned his attention to fiction, and between 1884 and 1899 produced about 30 novels. In 1895, his scandalous book titled The Woman Who Did, promulgating certain startling views on marriage and kindred questions, became a bestseller. The book told the story of an independent woman who has a child out of wedlock.
In his career, Allen wrote two novels under female pseudonyms. One of these was the short novel The Type-writer Girl, which he wrote under the name Olive Pratt Rayner.
Another work, The Evolution of the Idea of God (1897), propounding a theory of religion on heterodox lines, has the disadvantage of endeavoring to explain everything by one theory. This "ghost theory" was often seen as a derivative of Herbert Spencer's theory. However, it was well known and brief references to it can be found in a review by Marcel Mauss, Durkheim's nephew, in the articles of William James and in the works of Sigmund Freud.
He was also a pioneer in science fiction, with the 1895 novel The British Barbarians. This book, published about the same time as H. G. Wells's The Time Machine, which includes a mention of Allen, also described time travel, although the plot is quite different. His short story The Thames Valley Catastrophe (published 1901 in The Strand Magazine) describes the destruction of London by a sudden and massive volcanic eruption.
Many histories of detective fiction also mention Allen as an innovator. His gentleman rogue, the illustrious Colonel Clay, is seen as a forerunner to later characters. In fact, Allen's character bears strong resemblance to Maurice Leblanc's French works about Arsène Lupin, published many years later; and both Miss Cayley's Adventures and Hilda Wade feature early female detectives.
Allen was married twi
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
September 26, 2012
Anglo-Saxon Britain by Grant Allen is a book that now comes free via Amazon Kindle, so there is absolutely no excuse for not reading it, especially when such editions can be downloaded to and read from an ordinary personal computer, at zero cost and complete convenience. This is not an advertisement, except, of course, for the book.
Anglo-Saxon Britain ought to compulsory reading for all narrow-minded nationalists, Little Englanders, British national types, English leaguers and any other set of racial purity head-bangers, plus absolutely anyone who might even suggest that isolationism is either beneficial for or a natural state of the English. Anglo-Saxon Britain is not a new book, and hence does not cover any aspects of ethnology that have been developed since the arrival of DNA analysis. Anglo-Saxon Britain is thus an old-fashioned review and analysis of available historical documents and sources. But, in a succinct and wonderfully readable form, it succeeds in summarising the issue’s complexity and communicating a beautifully rounded picture of a thoroughly complicated reality.
The English - and their Saxon and Jutish cousins – were, of course, invaders, originating in what we now call Germany, Denmark and Holland. What they brought to a Romanised, at least in part already Christian and largely unified land was barbarism, paganism and continual warfare. What they also brought with them – or at least the Angels did – was their language, a form of low German with gendered nouns that had case endings and verbs that declined into multiple forms But the general structure of that language endured, endured as its complexities of form gradually disappeared whilst its complexity of potential nuance grew. Its vocabulary welcomed successive waves of foreign invaders and its aesthetic adopted the more civilised ways of other foreigners from southern Europe.
The Danes also deserve a mention, of course, since they ruled most of what we now call England for much of the Anglo-Saxon period. And the Welsh and Celts, indigenous people, but only in a relative sense, were not only subjugated but contributed in their own way to the wholly complicated and, frankly mixed up, gene pool through inter-marriage. The point is made repeatedly that perhaps the most English – as far as the original form and sound of the language is concerned – is still spoken by the Lothians of modern-day Scotland, since the Angel settlers there were the least affected by subsequent waves of invasion.
What we do know about the English – very little, it has to be said, since they wrote down almost nothing about themselves – is that they rarely cooperated, except at the tribal or clan level, constantly bickered and argued, regularly fought one another and spent very little time on more civilised pursuits. At least some things have endured.
Anglo-Saxon Britain by Grant Allen does not trade any myths. It presents a learned, well researched and referenced account of the politics, the conflicts, the culture and language of the early English. It reminds us that the last English person to occupy the English throne was Harold in 1066 and he succumbed to an immigrant from continental Europe who moved in and made the place his own, perhaps improving it along the way. The book is superbly entertaining as well as informative, erudite and learned, but also lean, stimulating and succinct. Its sections on the language, alone, render it essential reading for anyone who is the least bit interested in English or the English.
Anglo-Saxon Britain ought to compulsory reading for all narrow-minded nationalists, Little Englanders, British national types, English leaguers and any other set of racial purity head-bangers, plus absolutely anyone who might even suggest that isolationism is either beneficial for or a natural state of the English. Anglo-Saxon Britain is not a new book, and hence does not cover any aspects of ethnology that have been developed since the arrival of DNA analysis. Anglo-Saxon Britain is thus an old-fashioned review and analysis of available historical documents and sources. But, in a succinct and wonderfully readable form, it succeeds in summarising the issue’s complexity and communicating a beautifully rounded picture of a thoroughly complicated reality.
The English - and their Saxon and Jutish cousins – were, of course, invaders, originating in what we now call Germany, Denmark and Holland. What they brought to a Romanised, at least in part already Christian and largely unified land was barbarism, paganism and continual warfare. What they also brought with them – or at least the Angels did – was their language, a form of low German with gendered nouns that had case endings and verbs that declined into multiple forms But the general structure of that language endured, endured as its complexities of form gradually disappeared whilst its complexity of potential nuance grew. Its vocabulary welcomed successive waves of foreign invaders and its aesthetic adopted the more civilised ways of other foreigners from southern Europe.
The Danes also deserve a mention, of course, since they ruled most of what we now call England for much of the Anglo-Saxon period. And the Welsh and Celts, indigenous people, but only in a relative sense, were not only subjugated but contributed in their own way to the wholly complicated and, frankly mixed up, gene pool through inter-marriage. The point is made repeatedly that perhaps the most English – as far as the original form and sound of the language is concerned – is still spoken by the Lothians of modern-day Scotland, since the Angel settlers there were the least affected by subsequent waves of invasion.
What we do know about the English – very little, it has to be said, since they wrote down almost nothing about themselves – is that they rarely cooperated, except at the tribal or clan level, constantly bickered and argued, regularly fought one another and spent very little time on more civilised pursuits. At least some things have endured.
Anglo-Saxon Britain by Grant Allen does not trade any myths. It presents a learned, well researched and referenced account of the politics, the conflicts, the culture and language of the early English. It reminds us that the last English person to occupy the English throne was Harold in 1066 and he succumbed to an immigrant from continental Europe who moved in and made the place his own, perhaps improving it along the way. The book is superbly entertaining as well as informative, erudite and learned, but also lean, stimulating and succinct. Its sections on the language, alone, render it essential reading for anyone who is the least bit interested in English or the English.
August 2, 2009
I really enjoyed this free book for the Kindle (also available for money in a dead-tree edition). Written in the late 19th century, this was part of a series of short histories on Early Britain for popular readers of the time. It suffers, of course, from the prejudices of its times, but really does give a good introduction to the Anglo-Saxons and their history in Britain. The writing style is surprisingly readable. Well worth the time for anyone interested in the subject. This was especially valuable for me, as I'm also reading Bernard Cornwell's novels about Alfred the Great and the Danish invasions in the ninth century. They dovetail nicely.
July 5, 2017
I understand that a lot of history books can be dry, but holy shit that was bad. It was so hard to follow despite the fact that Allen was trying to keep a conversational tone. The sentences were long and often run-on. I will never understand why so many academics think it's cool to squish three sentences into one. I also didn't feel any heart or emotion in this - there was nothing to connect me to the information.
August 17, 2012
I am confident that there are later books on this subject that are better. It was OK and I thought the author did a good job of telling a story, but the end of the book going through all the roots and derivations of English words from their origin was tough to get through.
February 13, 2013
I enjoyed reading this book and learning something new at almost every page. This England's history from a whole new perspective tracing the origins of every invader who has come to be part of the whole composition of British identity; the natives who were Iberian in Origin, the Celtic who were low Germanic, the Romans: a miscellany of mideterranean races, the Anglo-Saxons who were low Germanic tribes like the celtics who had come to the island much earlier, the vikings who were high Germanic Scandinavians, and the Normans who were Germanic people also but settled in the South-west of France. Each of which contributed something to the character and characteristics of the British national identity.
There are only two points I hold against the author of Anglo-Saxon Britains. In many ways the book reads like the history of the spread of Christianity into Britain rather than the history of the British Anglo-Saxon era. I don't know whether this is just because civilisation in Britain is intertwined with Christianity of the author has got more subjective reasons. The second point I hold against Allen is that he completely ignored the influence of what was called back then Moorish texts on British civilisation during the Renaissance. He mentioned Roman and Greek influences and went as far back as ancient Egypt, but never once did he remember to mention the Islamic civilisation which delivered the Renaissance to Europe through its manuscripts, translations and innovations.
There are only two points I hold against the author of Anglo-Saxon Britains. In many ways the book reads like the history of the spread of Christianity into Britain rather than the history of the British Anglo-Saxon era. I don't know whether this is just because civilisation in Britain is intertwined with Christianity of the author has got more subjective reasons. The second point I hold against Allen is that he completely ignored the influence of what was called back then Moorish texts on British civilisation during the Renaissance. He mentioned Roman and Greek influences and went as far back as ancient Egypt, but never once did he remember to mention the Islamic civilisation which delivered the Renaissance to Europe through its manuscripts, translations and innovations.
December 7, 2015
Easy to read overview of the period focusing on the social aspects of the time and demonstrating the mix of peoples we now call the English and the British. Again, as in Green's England During the Dark Ages, it is a product of the thinking of the time, and discoveries and new research have made some of this book erroneous.
April 22, 2014
This is a fairly easy read, though it does wrap up drily and slowly as the history stops and the language description begins.
January 29, 2023
Originally published in 1884, this public domain ebook is an improvement on Gildas’ history of Britain (which the author roundly criticises), but is still mostly conjecture about a poorly documented period of British history, trying to make past events fit with contemporary place-names and geographical features. It’s not much of a step up from myth-making.
Besides the jingoism (although the author is Canadian) and exceptionalism that is to be expected in a book of its time, and to be expected particularly in a book commissioned by a proselytising organisation, there are a few glaring inaccuracies. In particular, conflating the Angles with the English. The Angles were only one of the many peoples in the melting pot that gave rise to the English, even if they were prominent ones. This conflation gives the book an inherent self-contradiction that runs deep.
On the one hand, the author argues that Englishness is ancestral and pre-conquest, and that the superior English imposed their ways on others, be they Saxon, Jute, or Celt, leading directly to the character of the nation in Victorian times.
On the other hand, he argues the English were originally barbarians who were civilised by their new dominions and of course by the Church. The barbaric nature of the heathen English is perhaps exaggerated so as to exaggerate the civilising influence of the Church - as is to be expected due to this book’s commissioners.
With evident discomfort, the author clings to the traditional account of violent invasion, massacre, and conquest by invading barbarians, whilst at the same time acknowledging the emerging evidence (pre-genetics, obviously) that Celtic Britons and Germanic invaders actually lived side by side throughout the land, just as happened throughout the invaded Roman Empire, and that they eventually mingled to some degree. The evidence presented dismisses the accounts of invasion as purely symbolic. If anything, the accounts of invasion are confined to the south coast whereas there are no legends of battle along the east coast. The Jutes and Saxons are the main culprits, but they had only relatively small settlements in Britain with the bulk of the population remaining on the continent. Only the Angles seem to have moved lock, stock, and barrel to Britain. This points to the Angles responding to a request by the romanised Britons to become federated protectors against raiders, which was paid for in settlement land as was the case throughout the continental Roman Empire, followed by a more progressive, political takeover resulting from subsequent political conflict, again as happened elsewhere on the continent. However, to avoid this conclusion, the author proposes, without a glimmer of irony, that the English transformed themselves within a few generations from semi nomadic pastoralists, to seafaring pirates, and to settled agriculturists without outside influence. Somehow that was all within their superior character.
The main accounts of warfare concern the battles of the new masters of Romano-Celtic Britain against the non-Romanised Celts and Picts. If they had been federated by the Romano-Celts, they would have been brought in to repel the Welsh and Picts who took advantage of the Roman departure. So that all makes sense.
It is true that in Britain the locals adopted Germanic customs and language under the ruling martial class, as opposed to the invaders evolving towards the languages, religions, and customs of their new domains. But the Germanic tribes that settled in Romano-Celtic Britain adapted to their circumstances, as happened on the continent. In this case, the balance of power leaned towards the new masters rather than the old. That is all. The English can only be the result of the mixing of peoples, Germanic and Romano-Celt, rather than a violent replacement. This undermines the claim of ancestral Englishness being imposed by racially pure Aryan invaders on inferior Romano-Britons.
The Germanic invaders were indeed heathens and permitted to remain so as federates (other invaders of the Roman Empire were Christian *before* invading) but evidence suggests they subsequently converted to Christianity for political expediency when the time was right. It was just right later for them than it had been for their cousins on the continent. The real religious struggle was between Rome and the remnant of Romano-Celtic Christianity represented by the Irish and Scottish churches. The victory of Rome celebrated by this book yet again contradicts the argument that Englishness is ancestral and undiluted, by showing that the outsider Church of Rome forms the basis of English culture and society today. That’s the commissioners of this book trying to impose their self-contradictory version of events.
That part of the book dealing with vikings and Danes as invaders contradicts the arguments put forwards for the supposed invasion of the Angles and Saxons, as two invasions from the sea cannot have produced such different outcomes. The Britons became English, but the English outlasted the Scandinavians? Nah. The later, better evidenced, model is what is applicable to the earlier, less evidenced event, even though the Angles and Saxons came more peacefully than the Vikings: the earlier population endures under the rule of a minority and absorbs it.
Similarly, at this point, the author lets slip that the Angles (conquered by the Danes) and the Saxons (not so) were actually quite different and separate peoples - so which one represents the ancestral English, eh? The evidence provided is that the Angles were the weaker of the two. The jingoistic edifice crumbles completely here. Evidently, many different peoples make up the English, not some ancestral blood. The author makes very clear that “England” was an utterly divided collection of peoples right up to the Norman conquest.
I think the author is straining within the confines of his jingoistic brief, and simply cannot make the evidence fit with the premise. This would chime with some of his other works, if Wikipedia is to be believed, and the background of the author, who became an atheist, a socialist, and a proponent of evolution, as well as a seminal writer of science fiction and detective stories. Here is a modern thinker commissioned to write a narrow minded history, and struggling to do so.
The last quarter of the book is a tedious attempt to prove ancient Englishness in language, place names, literature, and culture, and only manages to prove the huge variety of influences that together created the blend that is Englishness.
Altogether, this is a curio. It’s a tedious read that took some time to choke down, but it’s interesting as the exercise fails to prove the existence of a Christian master race the commissioners clearly wanted and only proves the melting pot of pan-European influences that made the people of this island. Makes one wonder how the book was approved for publication. Did they even read the manuscript when it was handed in? Didn’t they notice how subversive it was? The author has my respect for sticking to the evidence, but a self contradictory history is a bad history.
Besides the jingoism (although the author is Canadian) and exceptionalism that is to be expected in a book of its time, and to be expected particularly in a book commissioned by a proselytising organisation, there are a few glaring inaccuracies. In particular, conflating the Angles with the English. The Angles were only one of the many peoples in the melting pot that gave rise to the English, even if they were prominent ones. This conflation gives the book an inherent self-contradiction that runs deep.
On the one hand, the author argues that Englishness is ancestral and pre-conquest, and that the superior English imposed their ways on others, be they Saxon, Jute, or Celt, leading directly to the character of the nation in Victorian times.
On the other hand, he argues the English were originally barbarians who were civilised by their new dominions and of course by the Church. The barbaric nature of the heathen English is perhaps exaggerated so as to exaggerate the civilising influence of the Church - as is to be expected due to this book’s commissioners.
With evident discomfort, the author clings to the traditional account of violent invasion, massacre, and conquest by invading barbarians, whilst at the same time acknowledging the emerging evidence (pre-genetics, obviously) that Celtic Britons and Germanic invaders actually lived side by side throughout the land, just as happened throughout the invaded Roman Empire, and that they eventually mingled to some degree. The evidence presented dismisses the accounts of invasion as purely symbolic. If anything, the accounts of invasion are confined to the south coast whereas there are no legends of battle along the east coast. The Jutes and Saxons are the main culprits, but they had only relatively small settlements in Britain with the bulk of the population remaining on the continent. Only the Angles seem to have moved lock, stock, and barrel to Britain. This points to the Angles responding to a request by the romanised Britons to become federated protectors against raiders, which was paid for in settlement land as was the case throughout the continental Roman Empire, followed by a more progressive, political takeover resulting from subsequent political conflict, again as happened elsewhere on the continent. However, to avoid this conclusion, the author proposes, without a glimmer of irony, that the English transformed themselves within a few generations from semi nomadic pastoralists, to seafaring pirates, and to settled agriculturists without outside influence. Somehow that was all within their superior character.
The main accounts of warfare concern the battles of the new masters of Romano-Celtic Britain against the non-Romanised Celts and Picts. If they had been federated by the Romano-Celts, they would have been brought in to repel the Welsh and Picts who took advantage of the Roman departure. So that all makes sense.
It is true that in Britain the locals adopted Germanic customs and language under the ruling martial class, as opposed to the invaders evolving towards the languages, religions, and customs of their new domains. But the Germanic tribes that settled in Romano-Celtic Britain adapted to their circumstances, as happened on the continent. In this case, the balance of power leaned towards the new masters rather than the old. That is all. The English can only be the result of the mixing of peoples, Germanic and Romano-Celt, rather than a violent replacement. This undermines the claim of ancestral Englishness being imposed by racially pure Aryan invaders on inferior Romano-Britons.
The Germanic invaders were indeed heathens and permitted to remain so as federates (other invaders of the Roman Empire were Christian *before* invading) but evidence suggests they subsequently converted to Christianity for political expediency when the time was right. It was just right later for them than it had been for their cousins on the continent. The real religious struggle was between Rome and the remnant of Romano-Celtic Christianity represented by the Irish and Scottish churches. The victory of Rome celebrated by this book yet again contradicts the argument that Englishness is ancestral and undiluted, by showing that the outsider Church of Rome forms the basis of English culture and society today. That’s the commissioners of this book trying to impose their self-contradictory version of events.
That part of the book dealing with vikings and Danes as invaders contradicts the arguments put forwards for the supposed invasion of the Angles and Saxons, as two invasions from the sea cannot have produced such different outcomes. The Britons became English, but the English outlasted the Scandinavians? Nah. The later, better evidenced, model is what is applicable to the earlier, less evidenced event, even though the Angles and Saxons came more peacefully than the Vikings: the earlier population endures under the rule of a minority and absorbs it.
Similarly, at this point, the author lets slip that the Angles (conquered by the Danes) and the Saxons (not so) were actually quite different and separate peoples - so which one represents the ancestral English, eh? The evidence provided is that the Angles were the weaker of the two. The jingoistic edifice crumbles completely here. Evidently, many different peoples make up the English, not some ancestral blood. The author makes very clear that “England” was an utterly divided collection of peoples right up to the Norman conquest.
I think the author is straining within the confines of his jingoistic brief, and simply cannot make the evidence fit with the premise. This would chime with some of his other works, if Wikipedia is to be believed, and the background of the author, who became an atheist, a socialist, and a proponent of evolution, as well as a seminal writer of science fiction and detective stories. Here is a modern thinker commissioned to write a narrow minded history, and struggling to do so.
The last quarter of the book is a tedious attempt to prove ancient Englishness in language, place names, literature, and culture, and only manages to prove the huge variety of influences that together created the blend that is Englishness.
Altogether, this is a curio. It’s a tedious read that took some time to choke down, but it’s interesting as the exercise fails to prove the existence of a Christian master race the commissioners clearly wanted and only proves the melting pot of pan-European influences that made the people of this island. Makes one wonder how the book was approved for publication. Did they even read the manuscript when it was handed in? Didn’t they notice how subversive it was? The author has my respect for sticking to the evidence, but a self contradictory history is a bad history.
February 27, 2021
On the dry side, but that is to be expected for the time period it was written in. Overall though it was not much more than Name, place and date. In the later chapters it went into several more interesting aspects of the topic. Not my cup of tea for a history book, but glad I stuck with it and read it through.
September 22, 2019
Interesting Read
A very interesting look at the history of Anglo-Saxon Britain and the misconceptions we tend to have about the melting pot that is Britain. A quick, interesting and well researched read.
A very interesting look at the history of Anglo-Saxon Britain and the misconceptions we tend to have about the melting pot that is Britain. A quick, interesting and well researched read.
April 19, 2020
This short book gave a good introduction of the history and linguistic and literary influences of Anglo-Saxon England (c460-1066). This book, however, is quite dated with some old-fashioned terminology. Overall, an interesting read.
March 25, 2025
Dated, but interesting. All I really needed was this:
"The old Teutonic poetry, with its treble system of accent, alliteration, and parallelism, was wholly different from the Romance poetry, with its double system of rime and metre." (page 140)
"The old Teutonic poetry, with its treble system of accent, alliteration, and parallelism, was wholly different from the Romance poetry, with its double system of rime and metre." (page 140)
March 31, 2020
Sometimes interesting, sometimes downright boring and requiring a patience for the flowery language of Edwardian English. It was just about worth the effort..
April 1, 2021
This intelligent account of Anglo-Saxon England has an engaging narrative. Some may find it dry in places, but then it is Victorian non-fiction.
Naturally, new info has come to light since this book’s initial publication in 1884, but it makes for good reading nonetheless.
I appreciated the section on the evolution of the English language. As an Englishman myself, it’s interesting to see how the language developed over the centuries.
Naturally, new info has come to light since this book’s initial publication in 1884, but it makes for good reading nonetheless.
I appreciated the section on the evolution of the English language. As an Englishman myself, it’s interesting to see how the language developed over the centuries.
June 17, 2013
Allen is a product of his time period. I prefer Bede's account, even if it's incomplete.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews