Conquered
The Last Children of Anglo-Saxon England
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Conquered
Narrated by:
Kristin Atherton
Buy Now for £13.70
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Narrated by:
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Kristin Atherton
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By:
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Eleanor Parker
"Outstanding." – The Sunday Times
"Beautifully written." The Times
"Superbly adroit." The Spectator
"Excellent." BBC History Magazine
The Battle of Hastings and its aftermath nearly wiped out the leading families of Anglo-Saxon England – so what happened to the children this conflict left behind?
Conquered offers a fresh take on the Norman Conquest by exploring the lives of those children, who found themselves uprooted by the dramatic events of 1066. Among them were the children of Harold Godwineson and his brothers, survivors of a family shattered by violence who were led by their courageous grandmother Gytha to start again elsewhere. Then there were the last remaining heirs of the Anglo-Saxon royal line – Edgar Ætheling, Margaret, and Christina – who sought refuge in Scotland, where Margaret became a beloved queen and saint. Other survivors, such as Waltheof of Northumbria and Fenland hero Hereward, became legendary for rebelling against the Norman conquerors. And then there were some, like Eadmer of Canterbury, who chose to influence history by recording their own memories of the pre-conquest world.
From sagas and saints’ lives to chronicles and romances, Parker draws on a wide range of medieval sources to tell the stories of these young men and women and highlight the role they played in developing a new Anglo-Norman society. These tales – some reinterpreted and retold over the centuries, others carelessly forgotten over time – are ones of endurance, adaptation and vulnerability, and they all reveal a generation of young people who bravely navigated a changing world and shaped the country England was to become.©2022 Eleanor Parker (P)2022 Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
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Critic reviews
Conquered is beautifully produced and written with flair and great scholarly acumen. (John Carey)
In her superbly adroit new history, Eleanor Parker examines how memories of Edgar and his like – the generation that straddled the Conquest – survived, or were melded to meet the needs of the time…. It is much to the credit of Parker’s sensitivity as a scholar that, almost 1,000 years later, she has been able to resurrect, often from silence, the pathos of those decades and the plight of those who endured them. (Alex Burghart)
This outstanding, beautifully written history follows the young Anglo-Saxons whose lives were shattered by the Norman conquest. (Andrew Holgate and Robbie Millen)
This excellent book offers an original premise: that there is much to learn by considering the children whose lives were upended by the Conquest… Parker insightfully shows how the experiences of these children of Anglo-Saxons (among others) illustrate the accommodations being made in England as conquered and conquerors adjusted to the new reality, and reframed the 1066 narrative for future generations. (Dave Musgrove)
This is a brilliant book. It is well researched and pleasantly written, and it identifies a new subject that even the well-established field of Anglo-Norman studies has yet to explore in this much detail... Anyone interested in the history of children in medieval Europe should definitely read this book. (Charles C. Rozier)
A child grasps a woman’s hand as they flee a house being torched by two men seemingly unconcerned for their plight. This image, embroidered onto the Bayeux Tapestry several years after 1066, is a hauntingly timeless reminder of the devastation warfare and conquest can wreak on individuals, families and communities... Conquered narrates their stories vividly and knowledgably in a refreshing departure from popular narratives of the Norman Conquest, which concentrate on the political and military concerns of adult men. (Emily J. Ward)
Fascinating and accessible. (Sarah Foot)
This book is a revelation. What it demonstrates is the international inter-connectedness of the pre-Norman secular and ecclesiastical aristocracy. (Duncan Bowie)
The book opens up new and important perspectives on the individuals, networks, and texts under examination. Eleanor Parker has thus succeeded in producing an impressive and highly readable balancing act between specialist discourse and popular scholarship—one that historians may well take as an example.
It is hard to criticise such a welcome addition to the literature. It remains an excellent book. (Julian Calcagno)
Children of the Conquered
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Great read
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There is a simple reason for this: a striking lack of contemporary sources exists describing the lives of the people most adversely affected. This often leaves those most interested in the subject at a frustrating dead end. Eleanor Parker does much to remedy this in a way that is both historically meticulous and emotionally-connected.
I think this book should be considered a triumph in the struggle to understand and piece together the short and long-term societal and cultural effects of the Conquest.
It is also brilliantly narrated, with a clear understanding of the subject matter, and accurate pronounciation of Old English names.
Indispensable
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Excellent
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