Early Medieval c 400-1066

Justinian's Flea 20% off

Rosen, Bill, Rosen, William Normal price £20.00 — Discount price £16.00 — You save £4.00  <convert> 

In the middle of the sixth century, the world's smallest organism collided with the world's mightiest empire. Twenty-five million corpses later, the Roman Empire, under her last great emperor, Justinian, was decimated. Before Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that carries bubonic plague, was through, both the Rome and Persian empires were easy pickings for the armies of Muhammad on their conquering march out of Arabia. In its wake, the plague - history's first pandemic - marked the transition from the age of Mediterranean empires to the age of European nation-states - from antiquity to the medieval world. "Justinian's Flea" is the story of that collision, a narrative history that weaves together evolutionary microbiology, architecture, military history, geography, rat and flea ecology, jurisprudence, theology, epidemiology, and the economics of the silk trade.

Harald Hardrada 15% off

Marsden, John Normal price £20.00 — Discount price £17.00 — You save £3.00  <convert> 

One of the greatest medieval warriors Harald Sigurdsson, nicknamed Hardrada (Harold the Ruthless or hard ruler) fell in battle in an attempt to snatch the crown of England. The spectacular and heroic career which ended at Stamford Bridge in Yorkshire on 25 September 1066 had taken Harald from Norway to Russia and Constantinople and saw him gain a kingdom by force and determination rather than right or inheritance. He was one of the most feared rulers in Europe and was first and foremost a professional soldier, who acquired great wealth by plunder and showed no mercy to those he conquered. "Harald Hardrada: The Warrior's Way" reconstructs a military career spanning three and a half decades and involving encounters with an extraordinary range of allies and enemies in sea-fights and land battles, sieges and viking raids across a variety of theatres of war. John Marsden's superbly researched and powerfully written account takes us from the lands of the Norsemen to Byzantium and the Crusades and makes clear how England moved decisively from three hundred years of exposure to the Scandinavian orbit to a stronger identification with continental Europe following the Norman invasion.

Framing the Early Middle Ages 10% off

Wickham, Chris Normal price £85.00 — Discount price £76.50 — You save £8.50  <convert> 

The Roman empire tends to be seen as a whole whereas the early middle ages tends to be seen as a collection of regional histories, roughly corresponding to the land-areas of modern nation states. As a result, early medieval history is much more fragmented, and there have been few convincing syntheses of socio-economic change in the post-Roman world since the 1930s. In recent decades, the rise of early medieval archaeology has also transformed our source-base, but this has not been adequately integrated into analyses of documentary history in almost any country. In "Framing the Early Middle Ages" Chris Wickham aims at integrating documentary and archaeological evidence together, and also, above all, at creating a comparative history of the period 400-800, by means of systematic comparative analyses of each of the regions of the latest Roman and immediately post-Roman world, from Denmark to Egypt (only the Slav areas are left out). The book concentrates on classic socio-economic themes, state finance, the wealth and identity of the aristocracy, estate management, peasant society, rural settlement, cities, and exchange.

Late Anglo-Saxon England 10% off

Bruce R O'brien Normal price £16.99 — Discount price £15.29 — You save £1.70  <convert> 

This book covers Anglo-Saxon history from the reign of Edward the Elder and Aethelstan up to the death of Harold at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. The period was characterised by the expansion of West Saxon political control, as the dominant families of this region consolidated and extended their authority, conquered the north, dealt with the Scandinavian threat and established foreign relations, most notably with the Welsh and the Germans. This volume will be the first to draw together recent research on this period of English history for over twenty years. It provides both narrative and thematic coverage of the subject. The first three chapters provide a narrative the major events in those years and attempt to assess the political power of kings, and the relationship between kings, nobles and Church. These chapters not only describe the conquest of the viking armies in the north, but also the conquests of the formerly independent English kingdoms and the establishment of a form of West Saxon hegemony in Britain.

A.D. 500 25% off

Young, Simon Normal price £7.99 — Discount price £5.99 — You save £2.00  <convert> 

AD 500 is written as a practical survival guide for the use of civilised visitors to the barbaric islands of Britain and Ireland. It describes a journey which begins in Cornwall and continues through Wales and Ireland, then across to Scotland and eventually down to London and southern Britain.

The Romans have left, and the islands are now fought over by Irish, British Celts, Picts and Saxons. It is a dangerous world, full of tribal war. The British Celts are enthusiastic head-hunters, while the Saxon gods require regular blood sacrifices, animal and sometimes human. There are social pitfals too ( Do not make fun of the Celts' beliefs about Arthur'...'Don't refuse a place in a Welsh collective bed.')

Cheviot bandits, bizarre forms of Christianity, boat burials, peculiar haircuts, human sacrifice, poetry competitions, slave markets, the legend of King Arthur - these are the realities of life in the sixth century AD.

Battle of Lechfeld and Its Aftermath, August 955 10% off

Bowlus, Charles R. Normal price £47.50 — Discount price £42.75 — You save £4.75  <convert> 

In August 955, a battle took place that effectively ended the incursions of steppe nomads into Western Europe. The forces of Otto the Great annihilated a huge army of Hungarian mounted archers in an encounter that is generally known as the battle of Lechfeld, a broad plain near Augsburg in southern Germany. Since even after a defeat, these elusive warriors surely could have fled back to the Carpathian Basin to rebuild their strength and resume their raids, the total annihilation of the Hungarian army is mysterious. This book provides the first satisfactory explanation for the decisive nature of Otto's victory. Based on a detailed analysis of all contemporary, and often contradictory, sources, Bowlus provides a step-by-step reconstruction of the battle. This is preceded by chapters analysing the administrative and military reforms in tenth-century Germany, and the strengths and weaknesses of nomadic styles of warfare, in particular their archery, and setting out the historical context in which the battle occurred.

Europe After Rome 15% off

Smith, Julia Normal price £25.00 — Discount price £21.25 — You save £3.75  <convert> 

This is the first single-author study in over fifty years to offer an integrated appraisal of the early Middle Ages as a dynamic and formative period in European history. Written in an attractive and accessible style, it makes extensive use of original sources to introduce early medieval men and women at all levels of society from slave to emperor, and allows them to speak to the reader in their own words. It overturns traditional narratives and instead offers an entirely fresh approach to the centuries from c.500 to c.1000. Rejecting any notion of a dominant, uniform early medieval culture, it argues that the fundamental characteristic of the early middle ages is diversity of experience. To explain how the men and women who lived in this period ordered their world in cultural, social, and political terms, it employs an innovative methodology combining cultural history, regional studies, and gender history. Ranging comparatively from Ireland to Hungary and from Scotland and Scandinavia to Spain and Italy, the analysis highlights three themes: regional variation, power, and the legacy of Rome.

Rise and Fall of the Arab Empire and the Founding of Western Pre-eminence 15% off

Collomb, Rodney Normal price £25.00 — Discount price £21.25 — You save £3.75  <convert> 

This book describes the conditions, social, economic and climactic rise and fall of the several culturally fettered Arab empires of the Middle Ages, and the rise of the freer West to pre-eminence. It: describes the expansion of the Arab Empire, a patchwork which tore itself apart when it stopped expanding; explains the role of the West in the downfall of the Arab empire partly due to the rise of European independent religious thought, such freedoms were not allowed within Islam; and shows that within the Empire there was great unity in faith and language, and proves the importance of science and the arts to the empire. It also explains the spiritual and cultural divide between the Arabs and the West, and how they distanced themselves from the West and declined into a dark age; outlines the decline of Arab control on the Eastern trade routes when Westerners discovered the passage round Africa; and demonstrates that for 400 years Muslim Spain was one of the leading industrial, artistic and intellectual cultures in Europe.

Why Alfred Burned the Cakes, David Horspool
(20% off)

Alfred the Great, Justin Pollard
(15% off)

A Brief History of the Anglo-Saxons , Geoffrey Hindley
(15% off)

Witches, Druids and King Arthur , Ronald Hutton
(15% off)

The Origins of the Anglo-Saxons
Donald Henson
(5% off)

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