Anglo-Saxon England

After Penda's death in 655, Mercia faced a grim future. Cowed by a dominant Northumbria and ruled by a puppet king there seemed to be little hope for the people of march. But, in the shadows, nobles p...

9 Jun 202226min

Penda's career is one of the most dramatic in Anglo-Saxon history yet very little is known about him apart from what others tell us about him. In this episode I cut through the uncertainty to give you...

25 Mai 202226min

Mercia, the kingdom which grew out of the English Midlands, dominated England south of the Humber from the 620s until its final fall in the late 800s. It was a military and cultural powerhouse for muc...

11 Mai 202222min

The collapse of Northumbria in the ninth century was a result of long standing crises being compacted by the sudden arrival of a new threat the likes of which they could not have imagined. The memory ...

26 Apr 202231min

Even as its glory days slipped into the past, Northumbria was still able to produce one last great mind who would have a profound impact on the rest of the world. Alcuin of York came from an obscure f...

14 Apr 202210min

This episode, ahead of the big episode on the Northumbrian collapse,  we take a break from politics to look at one of the most important artefacts from Anglo-Saxon England: the Lindisfarne Gospels. It...

30 Mar 202212min

After Osred's death in 716, Northumbria entered a period of political upheaval which eventually saw the emergence of a new dynasty to claim the throne. This family, descendants of Leodwald, quickly ac...

11 Mar 202213min

This week we look at fallout of Nechtansmere and the end of Athelfrithing domination of Northumbrian politics. Ironically, this coincided with one of the more famous kings of the dynasty, famed for hi...

23 Feb 202214min