The Birth of the Anglo-Saxons: Three Kings and a History of Britain at the Dawn of the Viking Age by Max Adams
'The Birth of the Anglo-Saxons: Three Kings and a History of Britain at the Dawn of the Viking Age' by Max Adams
In the early Middle Ages, there was no England, no Great Britain, but a swarm of little antagonists lead by warrior kings. One of those kings, Penda, traced his ancestry to Woden. “Anglo-Saxon kings liked to claim descent from an ancestral pool of otherworldly continental warlords boasting mythic powers of sorcery, arcane wisdom and victory in battle,” writes Max Adams. They led their warbands into battle and were “obliged to be generous with gift, song and feast.” We’re in Tolkien territory, the land of Beowulf whose shadows can be discerned in the UK today—and maybe the entire English-speaking world.
Adams asks, “Who does Early Medieval power still matter?” He sees parallels between then and now, the rules of power “are the same rules by which politicians and corporations play today,” he explains. “Patronage, alliance, feud, othering, the invention of tradition, cultural appropriation …” Adam finds all of those factors in play.
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