Myth, Rulership, Church and Charters Essays in Honour of Nicholas Brooks

For more than forty years Nicholas Brooks has been at the forefront of research into early medieval Britain. In order to honour the achievements of one of the leading figures in Anglo-Saxon studies, this volume brings together essays by an internationally renowned group of scholars on four themes that the honorand has made his own: myths, rulership, church and charters. Myth and rulership are addressed in articles on the early history of Wessex, Ã?thelflÃ?d of Mercia and the battle of Brunanburh; contributions concerned with charters explore the means for locating those hitherto lost, the use of charters in the study of place-names, their role as instruments of agricultural improvement, and the reasons for the decline in their output immediately after the Norman Conquest. Nicholas Brooks's long-standing interest in the church of Canterbury is reflected in articles on the Kentish minster of Reculver, which became a dependency of the church of Canterbury, on the role of early tenth-century archbishops in developing coronation ritual, and on the presentation of Archbishop Dunstan as a prophet. Other contributions provide case studies of saints' cults with regional and international dimensions, examining a mass for St Birinus and dedications to St Clement, while several contributions take a wider perspective, looking at later interpretations of the Anglo-Saxon past, both in the Anglo-Norman and more modern periods. This stimulating and wide-ranging collection will be welcomed by the many readers who have benefited from Nicholas Brooks's own work, or who have an interest in the Anglo-Saxon past more generally. It is an outstanding contribution to early medieval studies.

Contents: Introduction: myth, rulership, church and charters in the work of Nicholas Brooks, Julia Barrow; Nicholas Brooks at Birmingham, Christopher Dyer; Anglo-Saxon origin legends, Barbara Yorke; A nearly, but wrongly, forgotten historian of the Dark Ages, James Campbell; Anglo-Saxon charters: lost and found, Simon Keynes; Reculver Minster and its early charters, Susan Kelly; Stour in Ismere, Margaret Gelling; Was there an agricultural revolution in Anglo-Saxon England?, Alex Burghart and Andrew Wareham; The Annals of Æthelflæd: annals, history and politics in early 10th-century England, Pauline Stafford; The first use of the 2nd Anglo-Saxon Ordo, Janet L. Nelson; Where English becomes British: rethinking contexts for Brunanburh, Sarah Foot; Archbishop Dunstan: a prophet in politics?, Catherine Cubitt; A mass for St Birinus in an Anglo-Saxon missal from the Scandinavian mission-field, Alicia Corrêa; The Saint Clement dedications at Clementhorpe and Pontefract castle: Anglo-Scandinavian or Norman?, Barbara E. Crawford; England and the Norman myth, Nick Webber; What happened to ecclesiastical charters in England 1066-c1100?, Julia Barrow; Nicholas Brooks: a list of publications; Index.

Julia Barrow is Reader in Medieval Church History in the School of History, University of Nottingham, UK. Andrew Wareham is Reader in English Social History at Roehampton University London.