Lost Realms: Histories of Britain from the Romans to the Vikings

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I say attempt because the whole point is the incredible paucity of evidence: a lot of kings and some kingdoms may not have existed at all. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. Sometimes it felt like the author wrote not one book but several seperate stories and put them together for a book. Overall a tougher read than expected, perhaps because of the poetry within the book sometimes confusing the chronology.

Alternatively annoying and enchanting; writing which is suggestive and evocative rather than getting too involved with making the few facts fit a coherent narrative. Found the fleeting references to some of the more successful kingdoms more interesting than the minor kingdoms that ultimately gave way. Either way a thoroughly enjoyable book that even more brilliantly bring to life this period in my mind when I travel across the country!For all ebook purchases, you will be prompted to create an account or login with your existing HarperCollins username and password. Drawing on Britain ' s ancient landscape and bringing together new archaeological revelations with the few precious fragments of surviving written sources, Williams spectacularly rebuilds a lost past. Particularly enjoyable is the use of each kingdom to highlight the different forces and events changing Britain between Roman and what we consider the medieval period.

A sort of holy artillery deployed in the face of the Northumbrian war machine' describes a famous incident when the monks prayed before a battle. I found the chapters on Elmet and Rheged particularly fascinating, however, the entire volume held my interest from start to finish.These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc. We really get an impression of the weirdness for the people of the time, living through the collapse of Roman civilisation, abandonment, cities falling into ruin, roaming gangs, the rise and fall of warlords, and then the period when the country was full of remains of a magnificent past, monuments so sophisticated they must have been left by wizards or giants. This book was incredibly fascinating and I really enjoyed learning about these little kingdoms, a lot of which I’ve never heard off.