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Peter Rex tells the whole story of the Conquest of England by the Normans from its genesis in the deathbed decision of King Edward the Confessor in January 1066 to recommend Harold Godwinson as his successor, to the crushing of the last flickers of English resistance in June 1076.

Opere di Peter Rex

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Sesso
male
Nazione (per mappa)
United Kingdom
Organizzazioni
Princethorpe College

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While well written and easy to read, Rex's history of the Norman Conquest is at times a bit dry, especially when he recites the names of endless Norman barons and the lands they appropriated. He can be a bit repetitive, but the book is well researched and I certainly learned a few things I didn't know before.

Rex chronicles the run up to the invasion and the ten year period afterwards when William ruthlessly Normanised Britain. The old ways were swept away and William's supporters were rewarded with Earldoms. The populace was subdued with a combination of Military occupation, heavy taxation and ravaging of the land, which left it barren and uninhabitable for years. Suffice to say that William lived up to his name of The Bastard.

Rex paints William as a usurper with no legitimate claim to the throne of England, a war criminal who used force to gain and hold on to his kingdom. He also tells of the English resistance which fought in vain to throw off the Norman Yoke. There were several revolts during those first ten years but in each case they came to nothing, William either buying off the participants or putting them down with superior military might.

There are useful appendices on the English Succession, The Bayeux Tapestry and an English folk hero called Hereward who led a resistance on the Isle of Ely.

So, a decent history book, well researched and written, but perhaps not as engaging as it could be.
… (altro)
 
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David.Manns | Nov 28, 2016 |
No proper biography of this King is possible due to the paucity of the sources for his reign (as opposed to those for his great grandfather Alfred). But this book makes a good attempt to look at the reasons why Edgar's reign seems to have been a very peaceful interlude in a century of warfare and why it was regarded as the highpoint of Anglo Saxon England, culminating in his famous "(re)coronation" of 973. The conclusions are based on reasoned supposition rather than strong primary evidence, but I found them largely persuasive. This King should be better known and probably would be if more facts were known - the ASC entries for the years of his reign are sparse. 4/5… (altro)
 
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john257hopper | May 31, 2012 |
I found this rather disappointing. I thought the author was too concerned with trying to make a parallel between resistance to the Normans and resistance in Nazi-occupied Europe which doesn't really work except at a fairly superficial level. Although obviously well researched to judge by the sources listed in the bibliography, the lack of footnotes for specific points was a drawback and it often wasn't clear what the source was, which increased my scepticism on points where the author differs from other accounts I have read. I thought there was a tendency to romanticise the resistance and to portray this as the dominant reaction in English society, which is only really true for the north of England and at other points the author says that the bulk of English civic society acquiesced in Norman rule in fairly short order. Partly linked to this was a tendency to take the chroniclers' accounts of land being constantly laid waste a bit too literally - most modern authors consider these accounts to be somewhat exaggerated, harsh though Norman oppression undoubtedly was, especially in the north. There was very little coverage of some aspects of resistance such as the fightback by Harold's sons in 1067-9 - okay, this was not part of an underground resistance, but is surely worth a bit more coverage as they were initially the most prominent opponents of the Normans. The Rising of the Earls in 1075 was also not covered. Most useful was the disentangling of fact and myth from the life and activities of Hereward, miscalled the Wake - though, frankly, he doesn't sound like a very attractive resister to me.… (altro)
 
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john257hopper | Jun 4, 2009 |

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Statistiche

Opere
13
Utenti
283
Popolarità
#82,295
Voto
½ 3.6
Recensioni
3
ISBN
23

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