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The Mercian Chronicles: King Offa and the Birth of the Anglo-Saxon State, AD 630–918
A brilliant recreation of the golden age of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia – its landscapes, peoples, conflicts, power structures and political geography.
The eighth century has long been a neglected backwater in English a shadowland between the death of Bede and the triumphs of Ælfred. But before the hegemony of Wessex, the kingdom of Mercia - spread across a broad swathe of central England – was the dynamic heart of a kingship that discovered the means to exercise central political authority for the first time since the Roman empire. That authority was used to construct trading networks and markets; develop economic and cultural links with the Continent, and lay the foundations for a system of co-ordinated defence that Ælfred would reinvent at the end of the ninth century.
Two kings, Æthelbald (716–757) and Offa (757–796) dominate the political landscape of the rising power of Mercia. During their reigns, monasteries became powerhouses of royal patronage, economic enterprise and trade. Offa constructed his grandiose dyke along the borders of the warlike Welsh kingdoms and, more subtly, spread his message of political superiority through coinage bearing his image. But Æthelbald and Offa between them built something with an even more substantial legacy – a geography of medieval England. And they engineered a set of tensions between kingship, landholding and church that were to play out dramatically at the dawn of the Viking Age.
In this, the latest of his sequence of histories of Early Medieval Britain, Max Adams re-connects the worlds of Oswald, Bede and Ælfred in an absorbing study of the landscape, politics and society of a fascinating century.
The eighth century has long been a neglected backwater in English a shadowland between the death of Bede and the triumphs of Ælfred. But before the hegemony of Wessex, the kingdom of Mercia - spread across a broad swathe of central England – was the dynamic heart of a kingship that discovered the means to exercise central political authority for the first time since the Roman empire. That authority was used to construct trading networks and markets; develop economic and cultural links with the Continent, and lay the foundations for a system of co-ordinated defence that Ælfred would reinvent at the end of the ninth century.
Two kings, Æthelbald (716–757) and Offa (757–796) dominate the political landscape of the rising power of Mercia. During their reigns, monasteries became powerhouses of royal patronage, economic enterprise and trade. Offa constructed his grandiose dyke along the borders of the warlike Welsh kingdoms and, more subtly, spread his message of political superiority through coinage bearing his image. But Æthelbald and Offa between them built something with an even more substantial legacy – a geography of medieval England. And they engineered a set of tensions between kingship, landholding and church that were to play out dramatically at the dawn of the Viking Age.
In this, the latest of his sequence of histories of Early Medieval Britain, Max Adams re-connects the worlds of Oswald, Bede and Ælfred in an absorbing study of the landscape, politics and society of a fascinating century.
508 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 13, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
August 24, 2025
Mercia’s cultural failure either to produce — or preserve — a body of historical narrative or secular literature beyond the literary confines of the charter and, perhaps, the outstanding poetic masterpiece Beowulf, left a gaping hole for a triumphant West Saxon narrative to fill at their erstwhile rival’s expense. It has encouraged historians to probe tentatively at the edges of the darkness with their torches and sticks without, so to speak, turning the floodlights on. To attempt something approaching a chronicle of Mercia’s heyday is to throw no more than another lighted candle into the shadows. There are many dim recesses and side passages still to be illuminated.
The Mercian Chronicles is a great introduction to the possibilities and limitations of reconstructing history where near contemporaneous narratives are lacking.
Emphasis on introduction
Adams demonstrates how careful interpretative work can allow a historian to piece together a plausible narrative of the Mercian state, whole acknowledging others may exist. The highlight is the description of Offa's Dyke and the debates over its purpose. The Mercian Chronicles demonstrates how archaeology influences historioagraphy - recent developments can upend decades of received wisdom.
There is interesting cause and effect descriptions here, even where Adams is careful to disclaim reading too much into them. The caution did occasionally leave me confused, ie to the extent monasteries were drivers of industry, but overall I appreciated the insights into the "Dark Ages" - perhaps still a very violent time, but one in which you could make your way through some sense of normality, even if under an ever-changing constellation of client and petty kings. I also get the feeling that under the hood of the story there is a hot running engine of debates around interpretations of the sources and archaeology.
How interesting in itself is the reign of the Mercian kings? Well... ...that is where the limitations really bite. While some of the Viking Age stuff actually relies on sagas written hundreds of years afterwards, they do at least exist, whereas the Merician kings receive no such benefits. I believe Adams does a good enough job to convince me they did have interesting reigns, but we just can't quite get close enough to inhabit their thoughts and feelings. There's no exchanges like that between Harold and Tostig before Stamford Bridge that echo through the ages, more some shiny gold pieces and flatly written charters.
I am grateful for the insights, but I see this book as a building block for understanding post-Roman-pre-Conquest Britain, heavily dependent on other books on the era (unsurprisingly, Adams has a few). Read it with that in mind.
The Mercian Chronicles is a great introduction to the possibilities and limitations of reconstructing history where near contemporaneous narratives are lacking.
Emphasis on introduction
Adams demonstrates how careful interpretative work can allow a historian to piece together a plausible narrative of the Mercian state, whole acknowledging others may exist. The highlight is the description of Offa's Dyke and the debates over its purpose. The Mercian Chronicles demonstrates how archaeology influences historioagraphy - recent developments can upend decades of received wisdom.
There is interesting cause and effect descriptions here, even where Adams is careful to disclaim reading too much into them. The caution did occasionally leave me confused, ie to the extent monasteries were drivers of industry, but overall I appreciated the insights into the "Dark Ages" - perhaps still a very violent time, but one in which you could make your way through some sense of normality, even if under an ever-changing constellation of client and petty kings. I also get the feeling that under the hood of the story there is a hot running engine of debates around interpretations of the sources and archaeology.
How interesting in itself is the reign of the Mercian kings? Well... ...that is where the limitations really bite. While some of the Viking Age stuff actually relies on sagas written hundreds of years afterwards, they do at least exist, whereas the Merician kings receive no such benefits. I believe Adams does a good enough job to convince me they did have interesting reigns, but we just can't quite get close enough to inhabit their thoughts and feelings. There's no exchanges like that between Harold and Tostig before Stamford Bridge that echo through the ages, more some shiny gold pieces and flatly written charters.
I am grateful for the insights, but I see this book as a building block for understanding post-Roman-pre-Conquest Britain, heavily dependent on other books on the era (unsurprisingly, Adams has a few). Read it with that in mind.
May 27, 2025
First, a confession. I am very much a modern historian. My qualifications are in modern history. My evidential sensibilities are those of a modern historian. For a time, anything before 1837 may as well have been marked with 'here be dragons', and I'd have been none the wiser. For a historian reliant on a primary written record, who can look up newspaper reports, diary entries from a literate society, Hansard, the lot, the early middle ages present something of a challenge, and one not unfamiliar to my fellow history teachers when we are asked the inevitable question: But how do we know?
Enter Max Adams.
There are written sources for the period. I was going to write 'of course there are', but that very much is not the point. The point is that those written sources are lacking. For every entry in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, there's a silence in the written record surrounding it. So how do we know what happened? A line or two, written sometimes 200 years after the fact, hardly sheds light on events. My inner modernist almost screams with frustration as the written record fails. And that's where we look at the archaeology.
Adams' work is magisterial. That's not something I say lightly. He takes what he can from the at times unreliable written record, and expertly intertwines it with what the archaeology tells us. This is a book that understandably is bereft of true historical characters, but their actions are still obvious. We may not find out much about the character and personality of each of the people who drift across the page, frustratingly out of focus through the lens of time, but we do get to see the ripples spreading out from their initial impacts. But because this is a book grounded in the archaeology - along with what must be said to be a true mastery of the written sources we do have - it is a story of landscapes and geography. Where things were found combines with what has been found, and what these things tell us about developing power structures. Where the character is absent, structures become increasingly clear, writ large across the Midlands landscapes in locations evocatively brought to life.
That isn't to say at times this isn't a frustrating book. The first half feels elusive, a loose narrative based heavily on a small handful of sources and the assumptions that can be made from established archaeological finds. Take Penda. His presence looms throughout that first half, until Æthelbald strides into history with his transformative reign. But barring a small number of events, he drifts in and out. Conclusions drawn can only ever be provisional, subject to new finds and interpretations. The few events don't form a coherent narrative - no fault of the author, whose skill in drawing his conclusions and explaining them is outstanding - but to a modernist as myself the sort of thing that challenges and moves one beyond a comfort zone. Even when the sources begin to tell a more fleshed-out story the questions are never quite answered. In a ten-page study of the construction of Offa's Dyke, Adams has to admit, multiple times, that we just cannot be sure of the dates of its construction or its purpose.
None of this, of course, is the fault of the historian. It is the very nature of historiography about this period of history. Shine a candle, as Adams says in his concluding remarks, and there are still so many unlit shadows. For a historian used to illumination, the darkness poses a challenge. It's one reason why I've begun to enjoy early medieval history; it forces a reader to think in a new way about what confronts them.
And that isn't to say that clear conclusions cannot be drawn, or that any of this is unimportant. Quite the opposite. Adams traces a truly formative period in the development of royal - and more broadly state - power that helps us to understand modern power structures and society. The mirror held up to this distant past, 1400-1100 years ago, helps us to see our own world in a new light.
Finally, it does help that Adams is a superb writer. Many historians have a mastery of the sources; others hide a lack of that behind the ability to spin a yarn. Adams manages both. And where he does not - or cannot - know an answer, he both admits it and pulls together a plausible sequence of events. His evocative histories are becoming a must-read for this particular modernist who cannot resist the pull of a time which shows us another way of doing history.
Enter Max Adams.
There are written sources for the period. I was going to write 'of course there are', but that very much is not the point. The point is that those written sources are lacking. For every entry in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, there's a silence in the written record surrounding it. So how do we know what happened? A line or two, written sometimes 200 years after the fact, hardly sheds light on events. My inner modernist almost screams with frustration as the written record fails. And that's where we look at the archaeology.
Adams' work is magisterial. That's not something I say lightly. He takes what he can from the at times unreliable written record, and expertly intertwines it with what the archaeology tells us. This is a book that understandably is bereft of true historical characters, but their actions are still obvious. We may not find out much about the character and personality of each of the people who drift across the page, frustratingly out of focus through the lens of time, but we do get to see the ripples spreading out from their initial impacts. But because this is a book grounded in the archaeology - along with what must be said to be a true mastery of the written sources we do have - it is a story of landscapes and geography. Where things were found combines with what has been found, and what these things tell us about developing power structures. Where the character is absent, structures become increasingly clear, writ large across the Midlands landscapes in locations evocatively brought to life.
That isn't to say at times this isn't a frustrating book. The first half feels elusive, a loose narrative based heavily on a small handful of sources and the assumptions that can be made from established archaeological finds. Take Penda. His presence looms throughout that first half, until Æthelbald strides into history with his transformative reign. But barring a small number of events, he drifts in and out. Conclusions drawn can only ever be provisional, subject to new finds and interpretations. The few events don't form a coherent narrative - no fault of the author, whose skill in drawing his conclusions and explaining them is outstanding - but to a modernist as myself the sort of thing that challenges and moves one beyond a comfort zone. Even when the sources begin to tell a more fleshed-out story the questions are never quite answered. In a ten-page study of the construction of Offa's Dyke, Adams has to admit, multiple times, that we just cannot be sure of the dates of its construction or its purpose.
None of this, of course, is the fault of the historian. It is the very nature of historiography about this period of history. Shine a candle, as Adams says in his concluding remarks, and there are still so many unlit shadows. For a historian used to illumination, the darkness poses a challenge. It's one reason why I've begun to enjoy early medieval history; it forces a reader to think in a new way about what confronts them.
And that isn't to say that clear conclusions cannot be drawn, or that any of this is unimportant. Quite the opposite. Adams traces a truly formative period in the development of royal - and more broadly state - power that helps us to understand modern power structures and society. The mirror held up to this distant past, 1400-1100 years ago, helps us to see our own world in a new light.
Finally, it does help that Adams is a superb writer. Many historians have a mastery of the sources; others hide a lack of that behind the ability to spin a yarn. Adams manages both. And where he does not - or cannot - know an answer, he both admits it and pulls together a plausible sequence of events. His evocative histories are becoming a must-read for this particular modernist who cannot resist the pull of a time which shows us another way of doing history.
August 5, 2025
Max Adams again proves that he is the best person to help us see through a glass darkly into the hazy world of the early Middle Ages.
April 27, 2025
Another illuminating volume from Max Adams. As the author says himself, putting together an account of Mercia's heyday is like throwing a candle into the shadows. However, Adams brings to life the great Kings Penda and Offa, the lesser known like Aethelbald and of course the Lady of the Mercians herself, Aethelflaed. my only advise is that people have read Adams's other books first as he goes over concepts and themes he's previously explained and examined in those books. Even so, I loved this book, bringing to life Mercian history has been an interest of mine - as I've got enough on Wessex to last a lifetime. Thoroughly recommend this for those interested in the period and in the history of the drama, politics, war and foundations of the Midlands and how it helped build the foundations of the English state.
December 26, 2025
Historical information on Mercia is sparse, especially if you concentrate on the written word. Adams uses what written material exist, plus archaeology, charters, vitae and other multifarious sources to tease out a fascinating history of the kingdom and its rulers. Particularly interesting is his suggestion that the Mercian burhs were clear forerunners of Aelfred's burhs and that Aelfred extended existing strongholds.
November 15, 2025
Very, very detailed. To the point of unfortunately being a touch impenetrable.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews