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Citadel of the Saxons - The Rise of Early London (Hardcover)
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Citadel of the Saxons - The Rise of Early London (Hardcover)
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With a past as deep and sinewy as the famous River Thames that
twists like an eel around the jutting peninsula of Mudchute and the
Isle of Dogs, London is one of the world’s greatest and most
resilient cities. Born beside the sludge and the silt of the
meandering waterway that has always been its lifeblood, it has
weathered invasion, flood, abandonment, fire and bombing. The
modern story of London is well known. Much has been written about
the later history of this megalopolis which, like a seductive dark
star, has drawn incomers perpetually into its orbit. Yet, as Rory
Naismith reveals – in his zesty evocation of the nascent medieval
city – much less has been said about how close it came to earlier
obliteration. Following the collapse of Roman civilization in
fifth-century Britannia, darkness fell over the former province.
Villas crumbled to ruin; vital commodities became scarce; cities
decayed; and Londinium, the capital, was all but abandoned. Yet
despite its demise as a living city, memories of its greatness
endured like the moss and bindweed which now ensnared its toppled
columns and pilasters. By the 600s a new settlement, Lundenwic, was
established on the banks of the River Thames by enterprising
traders who braved the North Sea in their precarious small boats.
The history of the city’s phoenix-like resurrection, as it was
transformed from an empty shell into a court of kings – and
favoured setting for church councils from across the land – is
still virtually unknown. The author here vividly evokes the
forgotten Lundenwic and the later fortress on the Thames –
Lundenburgh – of desperate Anglo-Saxon defenders who retreated
inside their Roman walls to stand fast against menacing Viking
incursions. Recalling the lost cities which laid the foundations of
today’s great capital, this book tells the stirring story of how
dead Londinium was reborn, against the odds, as a bulwark against
the Danes and a pivotal English citadel. It recounts how
Anglo-Saxon London survived to become the most important town in
England – and a vital stronghold in later campaigns against the
Normans in 1066. Revealing the remarkable extent to which London
was at the centre of things, from the very beginning, this volume
at last gives the vibrant early medieval city its due.
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