Anna Chant's Blog, page 9
February 19, 2019
A visit to British Library Anglo-Saxons Kingdoms
[image error]Today is the final day of the wonderful Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms exhibition at the British Library. With my usual habit of leaving everything to the last minute I was lucky enough to visit it yesterday.
The collection of treasures is an eclectic one – runes to riddles, music to maps, bibles to brooches, charters to chronicles, coins to curses and much more besides. It reveals a people who took learning seriously, with books treasured objects. The condition of many of these books are in after more than a thousand years is remarkable with illustrations of intricate detail still in vibrant colour.
The careful workmanship in both manuscripts and jewellery is astounding, with details so perfect they rival anything we produce today with our printers and laser cutters. The texts too show a standard of handwriting which I can only look on with envy!
There is also an international flavour to many of the objects, showing a high level of cooperation with our European neighbours which feels particularly poignant in our current time as we seem to be drawing away from them. The collection includes texts brought from as far away as Africa, texts which show the influence of religious houses from Ireland, Scotland and the Frankish realms, records of Anglo-Saxon advisors at the Court of Charlemagne and a coin of the Mercian king, Offa so perfectly copied from an Arabic one that it even contains the inscription ‘Allah is Great’.
The exhibition also showed the very human side of the Anglo-Saxons, allowing them to reach out simply as fellow humans across the ages – an imperfectly repaired brooch which the metalsmith signed anyway, a brooch containing a curse on any who stole it, a charter with the scribe’s rough notes still attached.
The exhibition ends with the Domesday Book, a remarkable record of late Anglo-Saxon life and the start of the Norman era. It is a document I used frequently when researching Rising from the Ruins and found it in many ways to be a testament of tragedy, as the wonderfully evocative Anglo-Saxon names recorded from the time of Edward the Confessor give way to the more familiar names brought in by the Normans. It is a record of a people being replaced or at the very least, assimilated.
My favourites[image error]
Every item in the exhibition is a remarkable one, but there were some which, for often personal reasons, spoke particularly to me.
As someone with a great love of Suffolk, the gleaming gold and remarkably well preseved Sutton Hoo treasures are a particular delight. Blythburgh is a place I am very familiar with making it wonderful to see a whalebone tablet found there which would have been so much cheaper in those Anglo-Saxon days than vellum and might be used for scribes to practise their craft. And with my home now in Devon, I must give a shoutout to that wonderful collection of riddles and poems – The Exeter Book.
I love being in places or seeing objects associated with characters in my books, so it was great to see the Alfred Jewel and some charters of King Athelwulf of Wessex, both key characters in Three Times the Lady.
This made it particularly exciting to see the Coronation Gospels probably given by Otto I of Germany to Athelstan, as I mentioned this giving of books in The Saxon Marriage.
“What do you gain from this, my lord?” Aelflaed barely kept the sarcasm out of her voice.
“I gain a valuable ally,” Athelstan replied. “Naturally there is some exchange of treasures. King Henry and his son [Otto] have sent some fine books.”
While I would never have used the term Dark Ages to imply the Anglo-Saxon era was particularly brutal or ignorant, I have felt it sums up how hard the era is to ‘see’. Archaeological finds and manuscripts have seemed to me like candles shining in the darkness, allowing us intriguing glimpses into these fascinating times which only whets our curiosity further. Seeing all these treasures together has made those candles illuminate their world ever brighter.
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February 15, 2019
Kindle Countdown Deal on God’s Maidservant
God’s Maidservant – the story of Adelaide of Italy is on a Kindle Countdown deal for just 99c or 99p until 22nd February
Adelaide of Italy was a Burgundian princess, married for political reasons to King Lothair, the nominal King of Italy.
After his brutal death, his murderer wants Adelheid to marry his son, but she has other ideas, leading them into a bitter conflict.
[image error]Otto the Great
Only one man can help her. Otto is the King of Germany and the most powerful man in Christendom, but he is also a widower whose heart lies in the grave with his beloved wife…
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God’s Maidservant is available on Amazon in paperback and eBook.
For more on Adelaide of Italy see The wives of Otto the Great
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February 13, 2019
RIP Cinaed Mac Alpin
I never like thinking of the deaths of my main characters and the death of Cinaed, my first major male character and the hero (sometimes anti-hero!) of Kenneth’s Queen, is a particularly emotional one. But he died on this day in 858 and was succeeded by his younger brother Domnal. (Donald I).
He had become King of Dal Riata in 839, gaining the Pict throne some time in the 840s, where he started the tradition of being crowned on the Stone of Destiny, which continues to this day. Traditionally he is believed to have been buried on Iona, the place also named as his birthplace.
He seems to have been or at least become a successful and popular king with his epitaph in the Annals of Ireland reading
Because Cinaed with his host lives no longer
there is weeping in every house;
there is no king of his worth under heaven
as far as the borders of Rome
RIP Cinaed
Long Live King Domnal!
Meet Cinaed, Domnal and a host of other real characters in Kenneth’s Queen
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For more on Cinaed Mac Alpin see Fishy tricks, Scotland’s patron saint and In the footsteps of Kenneth Mac Alpin
Also see my articles on Cinaed on the blogs of Mary Anne Yarde and Nancy Jardine
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February 5, 2019
Kindle Countdown Deal on The Saxon Marriage
The Saxon Marriage is on a Kindle Countdown Deal for just 99cents or 99p until 12th February.
[image error]The story follows troubled Wessex princess, Eadgyth, daughter of Edward the Elder, King of the Anglo-Saxons and a granddaughter of Alfred the Great as she is sent to Germany with her younger sister. At the Court of Henry the Fowler, Otto, the young Hope of Saxony will choose the one who best pleases him to be his wife.
Eadgyth’s life in Germany becomes happier than she believes possible, but beneath the surface of her new family tensions are building. Otto’s brothers harbour concealed ambitions, his meddlesome mother seems strangely indifferent to him and Otto himself reveals an unexpected secret.
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As Otto prepares to take the throne of Germany, the tensions boil over, leaving Eadgyth struggling to hold the family together and terrified she could lose the man at the heart of it…
The Saxon Marriage is available on Amazon as kindle eBook and paperback
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For more on Eadgyth see RIP Eadgyth of Wessex and The wives of Otto the Great
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January 26, 2019
RIP Eadgyth of Wessex
On this day in 946 German queen, Eadgyth of Wessex died. She was the daughter of Anglo-Saxon king, Edward the Elder, the granddaughter of Alfred the Great and heroine of my historical novel, The Saxon Marriage.
[image error]Alfred the Great
Eadgyth’s childhood was a mixed bag. Up to the age of nine she was raised at the court of her father as he travelled around the realm. But at nine, her parents were divorced and Eadgyth was sent to a convent with her mother. There is evidence she suffered a serious illness or eating disorder at that time and it does not seem too much of stretch to assume her parents’ separation may have at least contributed to it.
In 929/30 her half brother, Athelstan, sent her to Germany with her sister, so that Otto of Saxony, the 17-year-old son of the German King, Henry the Fowler could choose the one which best pleased him to be his wife.
[image error]Otto the Great
According to the chronicles, it was love at first sight between Eadgyth and Otto and certainly all the signs are that their marriage was a loving one, even if elsewhere in the family, life was not so harmonious…
Eadgyth’s death was undoubtedly a great shock and grief for Otto. But for important royal figures, death is not necessarily the end as in Saxony, at least, she was venerated as a saint. Additionally, Eadgyth’s story has a recent sequel when her bones were discovered in Magdeburg Cathedral[image error] in 2010 and were sent back to England for testing. How strange to think that more than a thousand years after she left, Eadgyth had come home! The information these tests revealed has given us a fascinating glimpse into the life of the Anglo-Saxon nobility as well as the life of Eadgyth herself.
But Eadgyth’s return to England was only temporary and she lies again in Magdeburg Cathedral, where her husband, Otto, also rests.
RIP Eadgyth
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For more on Eadgyth see The wives of Otto the Great
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January 24, 2019
Kindle Countdown Deal on Dawn of the Franks
From the 24th January Dawn of the Franks will be on a Kindle Countdown deal for just 99p or 99c. You can get it at this bargain price until 31st January.
Dawn of the Franks takes us back to the beginning of the medieval era or perhaps the end of the Roman era! Meet Saxon visionary as she marries King Bisinus of Thuringia. But does her destiny lie with a very different man?
Set against the backdrop of the waning power of Rome as the sun starts to rise on the Dark Ages…
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January 22, 2019
Ten Year Challenge
This is a hashtag which resonates particularly with me, as there is a lot in my current series of looking back. Siward, Oswyth and their friends are continually looking back to the days of good King Edward, when their lives and lands seemed secure and many a loved one was still alive. In the ten years before Rising from the Ruins starts they have seen King Edward die, the crowning of King Harold and then the arrival of the Bastard, at which point their lives changed forever becoming unrecognisable from their lives in 1063.
Ten years ago for us too seems very different. Barrack Obama had just become president and Brexit hadn’t been invented. I cannot begin to imagine what ten years from now will bring.
So, what about me? What was my life like ten years ago? And now? Well, as it happens the 22nd January 2009 was an eventful day for me…
[image error]2009
[image error]2019
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January 12, 2019
RIP Athelwulf, King of Wessex
On this day in 858, Athelwulf, King of Wessex died. He had been King of Wessex since 839 and had been King of Kent, as subking to his father before that. He was a successful king, who managed the Viking threat well, with a notable victory at Aclea. His achievements helped pave the way for those of his famous son, Alfred.
Athelwulf is a key character in Three Times the Lady, the story of his second wife, Judith of Flanders who he had married less than two years before his death when she was in her teens.
His life was over, but hers was just beginning!
RIP Athelwulf
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Read more about Athelwulf in Aethelwulf of Wessex – a Dad for the Dark Ages and Judith of Flanders – the Wessex years
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January 8, 2019
Kindle Countdown Deal on Three Times the Lady
Three Times the Lady – the story of Judith of Flanders is on a Kindle Countdown deal from 8th – 15th January for just 99 cents or 99 pence!
In 856 young Frankish princess, Judith is married to Athelwulf, King of Wessex and unusually for the time, she is crowned queen, becoming stepmother to his children including the young Alfred the Great.[image error]
With an age gap of more than forty years, it is unsurprising that Judith’s marriage is not a long one, but while his life is almost over, hers is just beginning!
In a remarkable true tale involving scandal, heartbreak, imprisonment and a desperate journey across medieval Europe, Judith emerges into a courageous young woman, who never gives up hope of finding happiness.
But with her formidable father determined to oppose her, can she succeed?
Three Times the Lady is available on Amazon and is free with Kindle Unlimited!
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January 6, 2019
Long live the King!
On this day in 1066 Harold Godwinson was crowned King of England, following the death of his brother-in-law Edward the Confessor. This was likely to be the first coronation in Westminster Abbey, starting a tradition which survives to this day.
My characters Siward of Gloucester, Bridwin of Lichfield and Frebern of Warwick were all present. Perhaps they or their fathers even had a hand in choosing him as King! 17-year-old Siward and 16-year-old Bridwin are already good friends, but Frebern, then a 12-year-old destined for the priesthood, is somewhat beneath their notice!
They would have sworn loyalty to King Harold and hoped their new king would rule them well for many years. But you only need the sketchiest of knowledge of the events of 1066 in England to know this would not be the case!
Although my characters do not realise it, another step towards Quest for New England has begun!
Book one Rising from the Ruins is available as a Kindle e-book or in paperback!
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