The Anglo-Saxon Kings

The Anglo-Saxon era is one of the most important in English history, covering the period from the end of Roman authority in the British Isles to the Norman Conquest of 1066 in which the very idea of England was born. Starting off with an examination of the problematic textual sources and the historiography, Timothy Venning argues that is time to return to a more linear view of this period and to re-examine ideas about the Anglo-Saxon settlement of England. In The Anglo-Saxon Kings, the author examines the rulers of Anglo-Saxon England, those whom the sources tell us most about, beginning with the legendary leaders of the Anglo-Saxon invasion such as Hengest and Horsa or Cerdic and Cynric and moving on through such figures as Æthelberht of Kent, who received the mission led by Augustine of Canterbury to re-Christianize England, Saint Oswald of Northumbria, to Alfred of Wessex and his dynasty, the Viking invasions, and the last of the Anglo-Saxon kings, Harold Godwineson.