Publisher's Synopsis
This second book in the "Origins of England" trilogy examines the organization and make-up of Anglo-Saxon England in the early 7th century, taking as its starting point the highly rhetorical account of Britain's ecclesiastical history written by Bede.;Bede made efforts to legitimise the English domination of his own day by comparing it to the Roman rule of Britain in the past.;N.J. Higham re-examines and reinterprets the principal literary sources for an English "empire": Bede's famous list of "overkings" in Historical Ecclesiastica, and the Tribal Hidage. He argues that a comparatively stable and long-lived pattern of regional "overkingships" existed in early England. King Raedwald's career as a king and "overking" is described in detail.;The book closes with an account of relations between the Anglo-Saxons and Britons in early England which provides insights into the structure of rural society in the age of Bede.
