Product Description

First published as part of the best-selling The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain, John Gillingham and Ralph A. Griffiths' Very Short Introduction to Medieval Britain covers the establishment of the Anglo-Norman monarchy in the early Middle Ages, through to England's failure to dominate the British Isles and France in the later Middle Ages. Out of the turbulence came stronger senses of identity in Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. Yet this was an age, too, of growing definition of Englishness and of a distinctive English cultural tradition.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #69710 in Books
• Published on: 2000-08-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

About the Author
John Gillingham taught history at the London School of Economics, University of London, from 1965 to 1998. His previous publications include The Angevin Empire (Edward Arnold, 1981); Richard Coeur de Lion (Noesis, Paris, 1996), awarded the Prix Guillaume le Conquérant for 1997; Richard I (Yale University Press, 1999); The English in the Twelfth Century (Boydell Press, 2000); The Angevin Empire (revised edition of 1981 edition) is
forthcoming.

Ralph A. Griffiths has been Professor of Medieval History, University of Wales, Swansea, since 1982. His previous publications include The Principality of Wales in the later Middle Ages, Vol. I, South Wales, 1277-1536 (University of Wales Press, 1972); The Reign of King Henry VI (Benn and California University Press, 1981; 2nd edn Sutton 1998); The Making of the Tudor Dynasty, with R. S. Thomas (Sutton and Humanities Press, 1985; revised edn 1993); The Oxford
Illustrated History of the British Monarchy, with J. Cann

Customer Reviews

An interesting introduction to Medieval Britain
As someone with little background knowledge of the Medieval period inBritain I found this book to be a very interesting introduction to thepolitics and social changes of this era. Whilst providing sufficientinformation to give a very general overview of the changes occuring duringthis period the book was easy to read and accessible to thenon-historian. Despite the fact that this book is intended to be a briefintroduction to Medieval Britain I was not left with the feeling that theauthors had skimped on details.
To support the text there is also a chronology of the period and agenealogy of Royal descent, which I thought provided a helpful visual aidto understanding the information presented. The suggestions for furtherreading also covered a fairly broad spread of related topics.
Overall, this was an informative and interesting read, which without beingtoo academic and inaccessible to someone with little knowledge of the eraprovides a good basic grounding for further reading about this period inBritain's history.

Highly readable and surprisingly detailed
I am a big fan of the Very Short Introduction series, and "Medieval Britain" by John Gillingham and Ralph A. Griffiths is one of its very best examples. For a book that is just 150 pages long, the authors have managed to fit in a surprising amount of information, covering the entire period from the Norman Conquest in 1066 to Henry VII's accession in 1485. At the same time, however, it is very readable and is broken down into easily digestible chunks.

The book follows a roughly chronological pattern. The first two chapters describe the main political events in the reigns of the Norman kings (1066-1154) and the Plantagenet kings (1154-1272). The authors then move on into a more thematic discussion of matters such as religion, royal administration, law and the economy. From then on political and social topics are interspersed together. By providing the broad overview of events first of all, then fleshing that out with all the aspects which give the reader a real flavour of medieval society, this structure proves very effective. In this way all of the key ideas are tied together nicely. The final chapter discusses the development of Englishness and the concept of England as a distinctive nation - much of which feels very relevant to our modern age.

The text is supplemented by no less than 5 maps and 14 illustrations, as well as a useful chronology of the years 1066-1485, and a royal genealogy, all of which provide some context. The bibliography is extensive, running to some 91 titles which cover virtually every angle discussed in the book. This offers tremendous scope for following up various topics and makes this Very Short Introduction an excellent springboard for studying the medieval period. Finally, the book has a thorough index, always a handy aid to navigation.

Just one word of warning: although entitled "Medieval Britain", this book is very Anglocentric and perhaps "Medieval England" would suit it better, since very little space is given to Scotland, Wales and Ireland. For me, however, this does not detract significantly from what is a very fine book and an excellent introduction to medieval English history (especially at the price it is currently being offered by Amazon). I would definitely recommend it, both for the student and for the casual interested reader.