The Age of Arthur

[chickenfeet]

I am rereading John Morris' The Age of Arthur. This is the kind of book I love dearly and would highly recommend to anyone with an interest in history. It's a history of the British isles from 350 CE to around 650 CE or roughly the period from the withdrawal of the legions to the consolidation of the English as the dominant people in Southern Britain. This is, of course, a period that tends to be dismissed as some kind of unknowable "Dark Ages" or alternatively presented as some kind of foggy "Arthurian" romantic myth. Morris knows his sources; Welsh, English, Irish texts and the archeological evidence, much of which is quite recent, but what makes the book so stimulating and enjoyable is that he dares to ask the "big questions" and, with due caution, attempts to answer them.

I find such works intensely stimulating and quite rare. Modern academic practice tends to confine people to specialties and to look askance at anyone who attempts the "big picture" but what is the point of spending a lifetime studying fourth century ceramics in Southern Wiltshire if nobody is going to try and put one's work in some sort of broader context? I am also deeply in awe of anyone who has mastered the wealth of material presented by Morris, which ranges from Irish Lives of Saints to patterns of inhumation among the early English settlers.

So, if you ever wanted answers, however provisional, to questions such as:

Who was Arthur?
Why is England the only province of the former Western Roman Empire that speaks a Germanic language?
Why is Scotland so peculiar?
What made Irish and Welsh society so vulnerable to foreign invasion?
Why are there so many places in Cornwall named for Irish saints?

and so on, this book won't give you all the answers but it will change the way you look at the questions.

Comments

[tanuja.livejournal.com]

Why is Scotland so peculiar?

Snigger :)

The Arthurian legends have always fascinated me, more from the side of Morgaine, since I think that she was more the injured party than Guinevere.

Thanks for posting the recommendation, I shall put this on my Amazon wish list or check out the local library to see if I can loan it from there.

[itchyfidget.livejournal.com]

That's another snigger at 'Why is Scotland so peculiar?' ... if you can work out some historical precedent for the deep-frying of mars bars, let me know!

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

That one is lost in the mists of time. Perhaps it has something to do with Kenneth McAlpine arriving in Scotland with a bunch of Irish navvies, building the M9 and thus uniting Picts and Scots.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

I should perhaps add that this sequence of events is not universally accepted by historians. There are those who assert that McAlpine's navvies arrived from Ireland with only shovels and were therefore not capable of undertaking major construction projects until after thay had acquired the Picts.

[jez-e-bel.livejournal.com]

that sounds like something I need to add to my collection... is it widely available?

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

I think I bought my copy at The World's Biggest Bookstore

[frumiousb.livejournal.com]

Looks good. Thanks for the recommendation.