Making of the English Nation: From the Anglo-Saxons to Edward I

by H.R. Loyn

In this saga of close on 900 years, in which invasion, political turbulence, personal ambition and a host of other factors ensure that there is no inevitable conclusion, Henry Loyn probes to the roots of English identity.

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Henry Royston Loyn (16 June 1922 – 9 October 2000), FBA, was a British historian specialising in the history of Anglo-Saxon England. His eminence in his field made him a natural candidate to run the Sylloge of the Coins of the British Isles, which he chaired from 1979 to 1993. He was Professor of Medieval History in the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire and afterwards Professor of Medieval History at Westfield College in the University of London.

The Sylloge's natural emphasis is on Anglo-Saxon numismatics. Loyn's mastery of an extensive and specialised literature in an often-contentious area of history produced over four decades a series of cautious, even conservative syntheses of continuity and evolving changes in late Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman England, universally well received in the academic press, which are still staples of student reading-lists.

Aside from numerous articles, occasional lectures such as The "matter of Britain": A historian's perspective (a Creighton Trust lecture), and his main publications (see below), he edited The Middle Ages: A Concise Encyclopedia. He has been praised for his "felicitous, economic writing style"