Tom Shippey
Under Wychwood
Beda: A Journey Through the Seven Kingdoms in the Age of Bede
By Henrietta Leyser
Head of Zeus 287pp £20
Henrietta Leyser’s book is a travelogue rather than a narrative. It was born from two moments of well-justified indignation. In 2007 the author took an American friend to Bede’s World at Jarrow, the museum and mock Anglo-Saxon farm built in honour of the Venerable Bede, author of The Ecclesiastical History of the English People and many other works, the greatest historian of the Middle Ages and the most learned man in 8th-century Europe, all of which he achieved from a starting point of poverty and isolation on the fringe of the Christian world. But in 2007 there was nobody there. The car park was empty. Bede’s achievement appeared, in the 21st century, to have been forgotten even in the place he made famous.
A year later Leyser was at the other end of England, this time on the trail of St Wilfrid, Bede’s contemporary, who converted Sussex to Christianity and established a monastery at Selsey. In 2008 no one in Selsey had ever heard of him. There was at least an excuse, for the centre of Selsey had shifted: the site of the old monastery was perhaps at Church Norton a couple
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
It is a triumph @arthistorynews and my review @Lit_Review is here!
In just thirteen years, George Villiers rose from plain squire to become the only duke in England and the most powerful politician in the land. Does a new biography finally unravel the secrets of his success?
John Adamson investigates.
John Adamson - Love Island with Ruffs
John Adamson: Love Island with Ruffs - The Scapegoat: The Brilliant Brief Life of the Duke of Buckingham by Lucy Hughes-Hallett
literaryreview.co.uk
During the 1930s, Winston Churchill retired to Chartwell, his Tudor-style country house in Kent, where he plotted a return to power.
Richard Vinen asks whether it’s time to rename the decade long regarded as Churchill’s ‘wilderness years’.
Richard Vinen - Croquet & Conspiracy
Richard Vinen: Croquet & Conspiracy - Churchill’s Citadel: Chartwell and the Gatherings Before the Storm by Katherine Carter
literaryreview.co.uk