Conquests in Eleventh-Century England

<p>Eleventh-century England suffered two devastating conquests each bringing the rule of a foreign king and the imposition of a new regime. Yet only the second event the Norman Conquest of 1066 has been credited with the impact and influence of a permanent transformation. Half a century earlier the Danish conquest of 1016 had nonetheless marked the painful culmination of decades of raiding and invasion - and more importantly of centuries of England's conflict and cooperation with the Scandinavian world - and the Normans themselves were a part of that world. Without 1016 the conquest of 1066 could never have happened as it did: and yet disciplinary fragmentation in the study of eleventh-century England has ensured that a gulf separates the conquests in modern scholarship.<br />The essays in this volume offer multidisciplinary perspectives on a century of conquest: in politics law governance and religion; in art literature economics and culture; and in the lives and experiences of peoples in a changing febrile and hybrid society. Crucially it moves beyond an insular perspective placing England within its British Scandinavian and European contexts; and in reaching across conquests connects the tenth century and earlier with the twelfth century and beyond seeing the continuities in England's Anglo-Saxon Danish Norman and Angevin elite culture and rulership. The chapters break new ground in the documentary evidence and give fresh insights into the whole historical landscape whilst fully engaging with the importance influence and effects of England's eleventh-century conquests both separately and together.<br /><br />LAURA ASHE is Professor of English Literature and Fellow and Tutor in English Worcester College Oxford; EMILY JOAN WARD is Moses and Mary Finley Research Fellow Darwin College Cambridge.<br /><br />Contributors: Timothy Bolton Stephanie Mooers Christelow Julia Crick Sarah Foot John Gillingham Charles Insley Catherine Karkov Lois Lane Benjamin Savill Peter Sigurdson Lunga Niels Lund Rory Naismith Bruce O'Brien Rebecca Thomas Elizabeth M. Tyler Elisabeth van Houts Emily Joan Ward.</p>