Sublime

In 792 a charter of King Offa of Mercia refers to Kent, and the need for military service against “seaborne pagans” (who can only be Scandinavians) in migratory fleets that had presumably been active for some time.

Who would dare to suggest without a trustworthy record that England’s seventh Archbishop of Canterbury, Theodore—a contemporary of Oswald—would be a Greek from Asia Minor, plucked from his studies in Rome at the age of sixty-seven and sent to England without knowing anything of the language or culture of the English; that he would set the essential

However, behind these warlords and their petty kingdoms, and the social ladder on which they tried to rise, were the continuities of political life that had been part of Scandinavian culture for centuries. This was the so-called thing (Old Norse þing), a regular gathering of elected representatives in whom was vested the practical exercise of power

Anglo-Saxon warlords did not name heirs; kings were chosen by the political elite from a pool of athelings, those whose blood and personal attributes entitled them to be considered;

One archaeological example gives the tedious flavour, a runic inscription scratched on a bone that therein refers to a second inscription, carved into the timber walls of a church. The text takes the form of a dialogue and is written in two different hands (H1 and H2), implying it was passed between two people as they wrote in turn: H1: What was it