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Excavation at Hereford Cathedral took place in 1993, prior to the construction of the Mappa Mundi Museum and new archive library. This revealed extensive remains, some potentially dating back to the 7th/8th century, including timber-built buildings and a late Saxon cemetery. Around the year 1000, major change saw a roadway installed and a new, very substantial building erected, the latter possibly the bishop's residence at the time. Its occupation ceased in the mid-11th century, the cellar being...

The legal and literary texts of early medieval England and Iceland share a common emphasis on the swearing of oaths. The sheer volume of instances of oath-taking and oath-breaking demonstrate their importance for an individual's socially constructed reputation and his personal guarantees. Traditionally, scholars looking at truth and attestation from the late medieval period tend to view early cases of swearing as procedural, artless, or largely instinctive. This study of Anglo-Saxon and Icelandi...

Old English Lives of Saints, a series composed in the 990s by the Benedictine monk Aelfric in his distinctive alliterative prose, portrays an array of saints-including virgin martyrs, married virgins, aristocrats, kings, soldiers, and bishops-for a late Anglo-Saxon audience. At a turbulent time when England was under increasingly severe Viking attack, the examples of these saints modeled courageous faith, self-sacrifice, and individual and collective resistance. The Lives also covers topics as d...

This volume examines the aristocracy in Tuscany and in England across a period of two and a half centuries (1000-1250). It deals first with Tuscany, tracing the history of the aristocracy and illustrating its nature and evolution, and observing aristocratic behaviour and attitudes, and how aristocrats related to other members of society. Peter Coss then examines the history of England in the same periods. It is not, however, a comparative history, but employs Italian insights to look at the aris...

A concise history of the goddess-like figures who evade both Christian and pagan traditions, from the medieval period to the present day In this riveting account, renowned scholar Ronald Hutton explores the history of deity-like figures in Christian Europe. Drawing on anthropology, archaeology, literature, and history, Hutton shows how hags, witches, the fairy queen, and the Green Man all came to be, and how they changed over the centuries. Looking closely at four main figures-Mother Earth...

In these books, Peter Dennis sets the paper soldiers of the 19th century marching again across the wargames tables of the 21st. All the troop types of the wars are represented in full colour in a format designed to create stands of soldiers which can be used to re-fight these epic struggles for the control of Britain. Although the figures can be used with any of the commercial sets of wargame rules, an introduction to wargaming and a simple set of rules by veteran wargamer Andy Callan is include...

This report outlines investigation of the early manor at Guiting Power, a village in the Cotswolds with Saxon origins, lying in an area with interesting entries in the Domesday Survey of 1086. Excavation has shown that, during the later Saxon period, a lightly defended compound contained a principal area of habitation, with an adjacent, more open ‘working area’ partly divided by ditched sub-enclosures, perhaps related to subsidiary settlement, or other economic activity. This complex may have...

A new and definitive account of one of the most famous and mysterious manuscripts in the world. The Book of Kells is a mystery. It is distinct from all copies of the gospels from the early Middle Ages, not only in the quality and amount of its decoration but also in the peculiarities of the ordering of its contents, the oddness of its apparatus, the appearance of the script, the interplay of text and ornament, and the erratic forms of its Latin. Scholars cannot agree on the number of scribes an...

REBEL. LEADER. BROTHER. KING.1179. Henry II is King of England, Wales, Ireland, Normandy, Brittany and Aquitaine. The House of Plantagenet reigns supreme.But there is unrest in Henry's house. Not for the first time, his family talks of rebellion.Ferdia - an Irish nobleman taken captive during the conquest of his homeland - saves the life of Richard, the king's son. In reward for his bravery, he is made squire to Richard, who is already a renowned warrior.Crossing the English Channel, the two are...

This is the story of two Sheffield men from very different social backgrounds, who both volunteered in early September 1914 and joined the new Pals battalion (12th Bn York and Lancaster Regt). One of these men was Vivian Simpson, a 31 year old solicitor who was well known in the city; partly because he was an outstanding footballer, playing for Sheffield Wednesday and an England trialist. Simpson was the very first man to enrol for the new battalion and was commissioned in January 1915. The ot...

The Royal Naval Division, a fighting formation of naval ratings and Royal Marines, was formed at the instigation of Winston Churchill at the beginning of the First World War. At first under the control of the Admiralty, it fought at the defence of Antwerp in October 1914 and through the whole of the Gallipoli campaign. In 1916 the Admiralty handed the Division over to Army control. Re-named the 63rd (Royal Naval) Division, it fought with great distinction and success with the BEF in France and B...

The story of the Norman Conquest and the Battle of Hastings as shown in the Bayeux Tapestry is arguably the most widely-known in the entire panoply of English history, and over the last 200 years there have been hundreds of books portraying the Tapestry and seeking to analyse its meanings. Yet, there is one aspect of the embroidery that has been virtually ignored or dismissed as unimportant by historians - the details in the margins. Yet the fables shown in the margins are not just part of a de...

This is the story of two Sheffield men from very different social backgrounds, who both volunteered in early September 1914 and joined the new Pals battalion (12th Bn York and Lancaster Regt). One of these men was Vivian Simpson, a 31 year old solicitor who was well known in the city; partly because he was an outstanding footballer, playing for Sheffield Wednesday and an England trialist. Simpson was the very first man to enrol for the new battalion and was commissioned in January 1915. The ot...

This book tells the story of Hild, the abbess of a highly successful double monastery at Whitby in Northumbria, where she was responsible for the education of five future bishops. Here she exercised an authority which in subsequent centuries would be reserved exclusively for men. At thirteen Hild was baptized by Paulinus, who had come to Britain to join Augustine's mission. Augustine had been sent by Pope Gregory to convert Britain, which had largely lapsed into paganism after the fall of the...

This gripping action-packed book is the eagerly awaited sequel to the best-selling Secret SAS Missions in Africa. C Squadron SAS, comprising dedicated battle-hardened veterans, operated against ruthless terrorist groups, trained and equipped by the Chinese and Russians between 1968 and 1980. The Author, who rose to be the Squadron Second-in-Command, is superbly qualified to tell the inside story of their daring and deadly operations undertaken regardless of international borders in former South...