Product Description

On a gusty March day in 1016, as King Canute was completing his subjugation of the north of England, he commanded the appearance of teh greatest of his northern subjects, Earl Uhtred of Northumbria, at a place called Wiheal, probably near Tadcaster in Yorkshire. Uhtred had been loyal to Canute's predecessor, Ethelred the Unready, but realized that Canute had an overwhelming upper hand, and came with forty retainers to Wiheal to make his submission. However, as Richard Fletcher recounts in his opening to this book, "Treachery was afoot". Uhtred and his men were ambushed and slaughtered by an old enemy of Uhtred's called Thurbrand, with Canute's connivance. This book analyzes the long bloodfeud which resulted from this act of treachery.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #587175 in Books
• Published on: 2002-02-28
• Format: Illustrated
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 230 pages

About the Author
Richard Fletcher is one of Britain's most distinguished medieval historians, and has for many years taught at the University of York. His The Quest for EL CID won the Wolfson Award and the Los Angeles Times History Prize; his most recent book, The Conversion of Europe, was a best-seller for Harper Collins.

Customer Reviews

Academically researched book that reads like a bestseller
Most medieval historians seem satisfied to chart the Norman Conquest from the period that stemmed from the feuding of the Godwines. Fletcher has produced a fascinating account that summises that the collapse of Saxon resistance in the North of England may have stemmed from feuds between rival magnates in the tenth century. Given the paucity of information available, the author makes a compelling case for his argument whilst keeping the reader entertained with a narrative that makes the book difficult to put down. This book will satisfy the academic and the general reader and I would vote this the most entertaining medieval book that I have read since Prof. Holt's "Robin Hood" from about 20 years ago. Anyone with an interest in the tragic events of 1066 must read this book - certainly the curators of the Bayeux tapestry museum would be forced to change their tune !! Buy this book!!!

Pre-feudal and feudal Anglo-Saxons and their feuds
With little material to work with Richard Fletcher has produced a very readable and highly entertaining book. Much of the material is background information and inevitably there are gaps in the history of the feud. In fact the specific feud mentioned may only take up about 25% of the book, but this is unimportant. There's lots of information here about how the kingdoms ot the English were unified, early monasticism and its later revival and plenty of information about St Cuthbert and the Lindisfarn monastery. The book thus covers a swathe of history from the north east. Of course Viking attacks feature heavily with the invasion of Cnut in 1016 being important. This book gives a good insight into the impact of having foreigners on the English throne for the first time (in 1016 and again in 1066, though there has been no English monarch on the throne since), especially on taxation. The bloodfeud itself takes a back seat for much of the book but what comes across well is the total disaster for the English of the invasions and capitulations of 1016 and 1066, leaving the native English out in the cold and treated as nothing more than second class citizens. Something the foreign nobility continued to do for centuries (and still do to a certain extent).

A highly entertaining analysis of feudal Britain
This really is an excellent read. The author begins his enquiry with an examination into a series of brutal murders, but this book offers no less than a history of England in the three hundred years preceding the Norman Conquest. What is particularly fascinating is reading how the merest fragments of archaeological and contemporary evidence are used to build up a highly credible picture of the collapse of Anglo-Saxon rule and the nature of feudal society: this is literary archaeology at its finest. The events themselves (invasions, murder and treachery) ensure that the action rolics along, and the author's rather chatty style makes for good reading. Vikings, insanity, ghastly deaths and corrupt bishops - it's all there and in fewer than 200 pages.