England from Arthur to the Magna Carta

This course explores the history of England from the fall of Roman Britain to the establishment of Magna Carta. The course is chronologically arranged and examines medieval authors like Bede, Asser, and Matthew of Paris as well as illuminated manuscripts and the archaeological record. It begins with famous figures like St. Patrick and Arthur and then transitions to the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, their Christianization, and the age of Alfred. The second half of the course explores how England was unified into what some have described as the first nation-state. It concludes with how the Norman conquest reshaped England and led to that famous testament to early English constitutionalism, the Magna Carta. The course explores the trials, triumphs, and tragedies that defined England. The people and ideas that braved the collapse of Roman civilization, Viking raids, and tyrannical kings laid the foundations for an Anglo-American culture that would shape the world we now know. 

Lecture Topics

UNIT 1: 55 BC -AD 800 Monster-Fighters, Missionaries, Monks, & Minsters

Course Introduction and the First Conquest of Britain

St. Martin of Tours & Roman Britain

The Life & Times of St. Patrick

Arthur: Forget the Fiction, Here Are the Facts

An Irish Prince & an Italian Monk Lead the Conversion of England

Christian Northumbria vs. the Great Pagan King

The 8th-century Renaissance & the Ascendancy of Mercia

UNIT 2: 800-973 The Age of Alfred, His Heirs, & the Creation of England

The Return of the Exile and the Rise of Wessex

Scourge of the Great Heathen Army

King Alfred and the Idea of England

The Test of Alfred’s Vision

The Children of Alfred & the Beginning of the Reconquest

The Heirs of Alfred & the 10th Century Revival

UNIT 3: 973-1120 Three Queens, a Family of Earls, and a Foreign Abbot

Emma and the Unread(y) King in the Second Viking Age

Cnut’s North Sea Empire and the Rise of Godwin

Anselm and the Godwins in the Eye of the Storm

The Conquest, an Anglo-Saxon Perspective

The Esther and Mordecai of Anglo-Norman England

UNIT 4: 1066 - 1272 Plantagenet Kings, Two Priests, & the Greatest Knight

Freeholder, Merchant, Marshal, and Plantagenets amidst the “Anarchy”

The Archbishop vs. the King

The Crusader & The Bible Student

The Archbishop and the Marshal

The Great Charter