Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice book in great condition. Pages in excellent condition. No notes or highlighting. See images. Fantastic book.

About the book >.>.> Another book about Somerset needs to be justified on a more than local level if it is to have relevance for the study of the most difficult period in our history from the end of Roman administration up to the coming of the Normans. Can we say anything which helps us to understand this long era if we look only at a single shire? (We are of course dealing with the ancient Somerset existing before the manufacture of ‘Avon’ and its subsequent not always noted disappearance.) If integration into the emerging kingdom of Wessex took place in the later seventh century then there are about 250 years of history to study before that time. We cannot understand later Somerset without some attempt to understand post-Roman Somerset. It may well have had some existence as a province or a kingdom during this period and it is quite clear that it was part of an integrated and organised society. In addition Somerset has a history as a shire which reaches back well before 1066. The authors of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle specifically mention the men of Somerset in 848 when they fought against a Danish raiding army at the mouth of the river Parrett (ASC A ^ 2 848 ) Asser writing towards the end of the ninth century referred to ‘Summurtunensis paga’ the district belonging to Somerton (Keynes and Lapidge 1983 84) Since it is clear that there were local ?aldormen in Somerset by that date the likelihood is that the boundaries of their jurisdiction were well defined by the middle of the ninth century if not before. (SP)