Michael Wood - In Search of the Dark Ages

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The Emperor Nero. This decapitated head, found in the River Alde in Suffolk, is thought to have been looted from the temple of Claudius during Boudicas sack of Colchester in AD 60Above left, a coin of the Iceni: the inscription ECEN reflects the likely pronunciation of their name, Ecenni. Above right and below, pieces from the Water Newton treasure, a hoard of fourth-century Roman silverware; on the plaques the Christian chi-rho monogram and alpha and omega; on the bowl: Innocentia and Viventia offered this. From a Christian church, this is the earliest group of liturgical silver yet found in the Roman EmpireKing Arthur in a painting by Matthew Paris, c.1250, by which time Arthur was a pan-European king and hero. His obscure and perhaps irrecoverable origins may lie in wars around 600 north of Hadrians Wall.Christ and Woden: the divergent pulls in early English culture. Woden the pagan king of the gods and mythical ancestor of the Old English royal lines of Wessex, Sussex, Kent, Mercia and Northumbria.The Augustine Gospels: a sixth-century Italian book traditionally brought to Canterbury in 597 by St Augustine on his conversion mission, and still a sacred relic to English CatholicsThe Gold of the Barbarians. The Sutton Hoo buckle and whetstoneThe purseSword hilt decorations from the Staffordshire Hoard, perhaps part of Bedes incredible collection of royal treasures offered by Oswy to Penda in 655?The great Iron Age hill fort at South Cadbury in Somerset: reoccupied at the Fall of Rome and linked in later legend with the story of King Arthur.Glastonbury Tor: looking out over the Somerset Levels, a royal island chosen by God. A late Roman cult centre, then a West Saxon royal church, and later still the supposed burial place of Arthur, its roots as a sacred place lie back in the Iron Age or even earlierAthelstan gives a book to St Cuthbert; the first portrait of an English ruler. He was of medium height, slim build, his hair flaxen, beautifully twisted with gold braids wrote William of Malmesbury in around 1125: public opinion still holds that no one more versed in law and learned in Latin letters ever ruled the kingdomWith wisdom he held his kingdom. The late ninth-century Fuller Brooch and Alfred Jewel both bear the figure of Wisdom as the ideals of Carolingian Renaissance began to reshape English kingship under Alfred the GreatViking wealth: the Cuerdale Hoard was buried around 910, perhaps by one of the leaders of the great attack on Mercia that year.The raven coin minted for King Anlaf Guthfrithson after the Viking conquest of York in 940; and the sword coin of Eric Bloodaxe from the moneyer Ingelgar who made coins for English and Scandinavian kings through the 940s and 950s.The Vale of York cup; packed with more than six hundred coins, including Arab dirhams, it was perhaps buried during Athelstans invasion of Northumbria in 927A gold coin of Ethelred, minted by Leofwine of Lewes. In Roman cavalry helmet and mail coat, the king wears war gear more appropriate to a fourth-century emperor than the beleaguered English ruler of c.1005.The Norman Conquest as portrayed by English needlewomen in Canterbury on the Bayeux Tapestry, c.1070: the Norman fleet arrives at Pevensey; the Norman cavalry attack the English shield wall; the death of King Harold. A fatal day for our dear country, wrote William of MalmesburyWilliam the Conqueror depicted in a manuscript of c.1312. As a man he was harsh beyond all measure. After 1066, as if to draw a line under the Old English rulers, the English royal line was counted only from William, as it still is: the grandson of Queen Elizabeth II will be William V

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First published by BBC Books in 1981
This revised edition published by BBC Books in 2022

Copyright Michael Wood 1981, 1987, 1994, 2001, 2005

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Cover Images Shutterstock
Cover design by Andrew Smith

ISBN: 978-1-448-14151-7

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