Dr Marc Morris. Wednesday 23^rd March 2022.

The Bristol HA’s ninth lecture of 2021-22 brought in our largest live audience with 55 people in the audience.  Marc Morris the bestselling medievalist condensed six hundred years of English History into an hour from a book that took him four and a half years to write.  He really gave us the big picture of the Anglo-Saxon period.  His talk was witty and very scholarly and challenged many of the myths some of us had learnt at school.  His very visual talk started with the collapse of Roman Britain. In a few generations a sophisticated economically specialized country with a professional army to defend it and civilian skills ranging from mosaic layers to shop keepers turned into a “fend for yourself” country ruled over by war lords.   Much of the evidence he presented across the centuries was derived from archaeological finds as much of what is in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and other later chronicles is based on legend. Among the key evidence drawn upon were the treasures at Sutton Hoo and Offa’s Dyke. He showed us the extensive coin evidence that Offa’s period had produced and how Offa had been influenced by Charlemagne. He also used maps to show us where up to 35 tribes in Anglo-Saxon England had been based. The arrival of the Vikings and their destruction of many of the written records was also explored. Alfred the Great of course appeared in the talk along with those famous cakes. He was described as Rex Anglo-Saxon, an English King but was not king of all the English. Even in the last century before the Norman Conquest it was clear that England was still coming together. We were left with a lasting impression that there are still many gaps in our knowledge of the Anglo-Saxons. Nevertheless, their legacy includes so many place names, the shires and of course the English language. The talk finished with lots of really informed questions from our audience and pithy answers from Marc.