Language and linen I have just finished reading the latest ‘Sherds’ column in CA 417. His pieces are always thought-provoking, and I thoroughly enjoyed the section on the Norse/Anglo-Saxon influence on our modern language. I am fascinated by place-names, and…
REVIEW SHANE MCLEOD This handsomely produced book acts as a 20-year celebration of the earlier Vikings in Scotland: an archaeological study by James Graham-Campbell and Colleen Batey, and as a continuation of that still indispensable work. Both of those authors contribute…
Your views on some of the latest issues raised in CA.
Review by Duncan W Wright. The fens of eastern England are usually characterised as unremittingly flat, with big skies but little topographical variation. This (frankly lazy) assumption fails to account for the subtle differences in geology and height above sea…
When exactly did we begin to lose touch with the natural cycle of the sun, the stars, and the seasons? Was it at the start of the Industrial Revolution, when people moved from land-based activities to working in factories?
‘The late medieval sheep of Britain have so engaged the attention of the agrarian historians that other aspects of stock husbandry appear to have been neglected. Our knowledge of the cattle of the period, and of how they were kept,…
One of the more impressive aspects of this book – the outcome of a British Academy Conference held in 2015 – is the range of evidence that is marshalled to trace migrants in the medieval past. As might be expected,…
‘The past lies in fragments… one might just as well try to reconstruct the idea of a tree from its leaves, or an ocean wave from a dripping tap.’ So writes Max Adams, author of The First Kingdom, a wide-ranging…