Publisher's Synopsis
Part of an eight-volume series providing short biographies of men and women from Roman to Victorian times, Who's Who in Early Medieval England spans the period 1066-1272, the period of the Norman Conquest, the murder of Thomas Becket, Magna Carter and Simon de Montfort. Though remote in time, its influence is still evident in the institutions of today. What in 1066 were disparate elements of Anglo-Saxon, Scandinavian and French had by 1272 coalesced into a realm distinctively and self-consciously English. The process was symbolised by the adoption by Henry III, the builder of Westminster Abbey, of Edward the Confessor as his patron saint and the accession in 1272 of his son Edward I, the first King of England with an English name since the conquest. This volume contains over 160 short biographies of men and women who played a prominent part in their time. Each entry places the subject in the context of their age and evokes what was distinctive and interesting about their personality and achievement. The biographies are arranged in a broadly chronological rather than alphabetical sequence so that the reader may easily browse from one contemporary to the next. The index, with its many cross-references, reveals further linkages between contemporaries. Each volume is a portrait of an age, presenting history in a biographical form which complements the conventional approach.
