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Building Anglo-Saxon England
A radical rethinking of the Anglo-Saxon world that draws on the latest archaeological discoveries
This beautifully illustrated book draws on the latest archaeological discoveries to present a radical reappraisal of the Anglo-Saxon built environment and its inhabitants. John Blair, one of the world's leading experts on this transformative era in England's early history, explains the origins of towns, manor houses, and castles in a completely new way, and sheds new light on the important functions of buildings and settlements in shaping people's lives during the age of the Venerable Bede and King Alfred.
Building Anglo-Saxon England demonstrates how hundreds of recent excavations enable us to grasp for the first time how regionally diverse the built environment of the Anglo-Saxons truly was. Blair identifies a zone of eastern England with access to the North Sea whose economy, prosperity, and timber buildings had more in common with the Low Countries and Scandinavia than the rest of England. The origins of villages and their field systems emerge with a new clarity, as does the royal administrative organization of the kingdom of Mercia, which dominated central England for two centuries.
Featuring a wealth of color illustrations throughout, Building Anglo-Saxon England explores how the natural landscape was modified to accommodate human activity, and how many settlements--secular and religious--were laid out with geometrical precision by specialist surveyors. The book also shows how the Anglo-Saxon love of elegant and intricate decoration is reflected in the construction of the living environment, which in some ways was more sophisticated than it would become after the Norman Conquest.
This beautifully illustrated book draws on the latest archaeological discoveries to present a radical reappraisal of the Anglo-Saxon built environment and its inhabitants. John Blair, one of the world's leading experts on this transformative era in England's early history, explains the origins of towns, manor houses, and castles in a completely new way, and sheds new light on the important functions of buildings and settlements in shaping people's lives during the age of the Venerable Bede and King Alfred.
Building Anglo-Saxon England demonstrates how hundreds of recent excavations enable us to grasp for the first time how regionally diverse the built environment of the Anglo-Saxons truly was. Blair identifies a zone of eastern England with access to the North Sea whose economy, prosperity, and timber buildings had more in common with the Low Countries and Scandinavia than the rest of England. The origins of villages and their field systems emerge with a new clarity, as does the royal administrative organization of the kingdom of Mercia, which dominated central England for two centuries.
Featuring a wealth of color illustrations throughout, Building Anglo-Saxon England explores how the natural landscape was modified to accommodate human activity, and how many settlements--secular and religious--were laid out with geometrical precision by specialist surveyors. The book also shows how the Anglo-Saxon love of elegant and intricate decoration is reflected in the construction of the living environment, which in some ways was more sophisticated than it would become after the Norman Conquest.
496 pages, Hardcover
Published April 17, 2018
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421 people want to read
About the author
John Blair
17 books7 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
William John Blair, FSA, FBA is a British historian, archaeologist, and academic, who specialises in Anglo-Saxon England. He is Professor of Medieval History and Archaeology at the University of Oxford, and a Fellow of The Queen's College, Oxford. (Source: Wikipedia)
William John Blair, FSA, FBA is a British historian, archaeologist, and academic, who specialises in Anglo-Saxon England. He is Professor of Medieval History and Archaeology at the University of Oxford, and a Fellow of The Queen's College, Oxford. (Source: Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
January 3, 2019
It deserves more than five stars. It's going to take several attempts to reread in an attempt to deal with the wealth of information, analysis and argument Blair has crammed into one book.
Anyone with a serious interest in the history of Anglo-Saxon England should read this.
The hardback was expensive, but it's a beautifully produced book.
Anyone with a serious interest in the history of Anglo-Saxon England should read this.
The hardback was expensive, but it's a beautifully produced book.
November 25, 2018
The chapters I read were related to research I am doing on early medieval period (500-700). But they were excellent, and I have already recommended the book to another person.
September 28, 2020
Perhaps as good a book as could be written on the subject, given the paucity of the evidence. But like so many books on Anglo Saxon history, one feels that one is reading a book that is all footnotes and no text. It would be nice if the author could have presented a "best guess" summary of his findings, in addition to all of the appropriately scholarly discussion of the sources and their defects, for those of us who would be happy to accept a scholars best guess for the sake of more easily forming a picture of the period and its buildings.
June 6, 2019
Wolfson History Prize shortlist 2019
A book for scholars
A book for scholars
September 4, 2019
Complex and detailed in its analysis, this book is a much needed addition to the literature on Anglo Saxon England. But it is not only erudite , it is also beautiful.
September 16, 2025
This is an outstanding book that gives the reader a glimpse into a largely vanished world. Here are a few insights that I took away from this book (it is far too complex and I know far too little to summarize it usefully):
- We have little archaeological evidence of Anglo-Saxon architecture because most Anglo-Saxon building was transient and expected to be so. Anglo-Saxon buildings (even churches) were almost entirely made of timber, and for several centuries royal courts (for example) would have largely lived in elaborate tents as they moved around the king's domain. Wood and textiles are not materials that survive the elements for a thousand years.
- England did not have a homogeneous culture during the Anglo-Saxon period. The "Eastern Zone" was heavily influenced by cultural and trade links with the Low Countries and Scandinavia, and the "Western Zone" was influenced by its links with Ireland.
- Much of the evolution in how society was structured (for example, the growth of villages and towns and open-field farming, rather than small scattered settlements) was driven by the need for greater food production due to demographic growth and would have occurred even absent the Norman Conquest.
- Anglo-Saxon culture likely was more influenced by Scandinavian culture than many people assume.
The book is also beautifully illustrated and Blair provides comparisons to more recent societies that may resemble Anglo-Saxon society at various points. I definitely recommend this book, but unless this is a topic in which you have a quasi-academic interest, it likely will take you a while to get through it.
- We have little archaeological evidence of Anglo-Saxon architecture because most Anglo-Saxon building was transient and expected to be so. Anglo-Saxon buildings (even churches) were almost entirely made of timber, and for several centuries royal courts (for example) would have largely lived in elaborate tents as they moved around the king's domain. Wood and textiles are not materials that survive the elements for a thousand years.
- England did not have a homogeneous culture during the Anglo-Saxon period. The "Eastern Zone" was heavily influenced by cultural and trade links with the Low Countries and Scandinavia, and the "Western Zone" was influenced by its links with Ireland.
- Much of the evolution in how society was structured (for example, the growth of villages and towns and open-field farming, rather than small scattered settlements) was driven by the need for greater food production due to demographic growth and would have occurred even absent the Norman Conquest.
- Anglo-Saxon culture likely was more influenced by Scandinavian culture than many people assume.
The book is also beautifully illustrated and Blair provides comparisons to more recent societies that may resemble Anglo-Saxon society at various points. I definitely recommend this book, but unless this is a topic in which you have a quasi-academic interest, it likely will take you a while to get through it.
September 30, 2023
An exceptional study, although perhaps too heavy for the casual reader. But if you keep with it, it provides an excellent overview of current thinking about the Old English,including how such narratives perhaps wrongly play into ideas about our 'national character':
"The (in itself reasonable) case for the strength of the late Anglo-Saxon state' has played its part in buttressing conceptions of England as exceptional, and standing alone. But we have seen how much West Saxon government owed to the earlier sociopolitical amalgam that was greater Mercia, which was itself built on the creative inter-actions of contrasting sociocultural zones: on the broad scale between the Scandinavian and Frankish spheres, and more locally between the resource-rich west of England and its commercially developed east."
"The (in itself reasonable) case for the strength of the late Anglo-Saxon state' has played its part in buttressing conceptions of England as exceptional, and standing alone. But we have seen how much West Saxon government owed to the earlier sociopolitical amalgam that was greater Mercia, which was itself built on the creative inter-actions of contrasting sociocultural zones: on the broad scale between the Scandinavian and Frankish spheres, and more locally between the resource-rich west of England and its commercially developed east."
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews