The Making of England: To 1399, Vol. 1

This text, which is the first volume in the best-selling History of England series, tells how a small and insignificant outpost of the Roman empire evolved into a nation that has produced and disseminated so many significant ideas and institutions.

I. The Birth of the Realm: To 1066 1. Celtic and Roman Britain Britain Before the Romans The Roman Invasions of Britain The Conquest of the North The Romanization of Southern Britain Agricultural Prosperity in the Third and Fourth Centuries The Fracturing of the Western Roman Empire The End of Roman Britain Britain in the Fifth and Sixth Centuries The Anglo-Saxon Conquest 2. Conversion and Unification: Anglo-Saxon England to the Death of King Alfred (899) The "Celtic Church" The Roman Church and Continental Monasticism The Mission to England The Conversion of Northumbria The Synod of Whitby (664) and the Origins of "Englishness" Theodore and the Restructuring of the Anglo-Saxon Church Renaissance and Renewal Vernacular Literature Missions to the Continent Kingship and Power in Early Anglo-Saxon England Toward Political Consolidation: Mercia Toward Political Consolidation: Wessex The Viking Age and the Birth of the English Monarchy Alfred the Great 3. Late-Saxon England The Consequences of Political Unification The Monastic Reform Movement The Administrative Strength of of the Late Anglo-Saxon State Law and Justice Finance, Coinage, Towns, and Taxation Changes on the Land Social Mobility Late-Anglo-Saxon Art The Reign of Ethelred "the Unready" (978-1016) and the New Invasions The Reign of Cnut (1016-1035) The Reign of Edward the Confessor (1042-1066) The Reign of Harold II and the Norman Conquest (1066) II. The Growth of the Realm: 1066 to 1216 4. The Impact of the Norman Conquest The Conquest Consolidated The Norman Church The Problem of Feudalism The Administrative Contributions of William the Conqueror The Impact of the Norman Conquest upon English Society and the English Economy The End of the Reign 5. Norman England: William II, Henry I, and Stephen The Reign of William Rufus (1087-1100) The Reign of Henry I (1100-1135) The Reign of King Stephen (1135-1154) 6. "The Devil's Brood": Henry II, Richard, and John Military and Financial Reforms Under Henry II Henry II and the Common Law Henry II and the Church The Angevin Empire Richard the Lion-Hearted (1189-1199) The Reign of Richard I King John (1199-1216): An Evaluation The Collapse of the Angevin Empire The Struggle with the Papacy Magna Carta (1215) 7. Society, Economy and Culture in High-Medieval England Towns and Commerce in High-Medieval England Twelfth-Century London The Jews of Angevin England The Landholding Aristocracy Women Medieval Children The Agrarian Economy of High-Medieval England and the Emergence of Common-Law Villeinage Peasant Life in an English Village High-Medieval Christianity The New Orders Intellectual Life Art and Literature III. The Community of the Realm: 1216 to 1307 8. The Troubled Reign of King Henry III (1216-1272): Monarchy, Community, and Parliament The Government of England During the Minority The Personal Rule of King Henry III (1236-1258) The Problems of Crown Finance (1236-1258) The King and the Jews The Period of Baronial Reform and Rebellion (1258-1267) The Emergence of Parliament 9. The Reign of Edward I Law and Administration The Wars of Edward I IV. The Realm in Transition: 1307 to 1399 10. The Bloom Fades: England in the Age of Edward II Economic and Social Change in Fourteenth-Century England The Reign of Edward II (1307-1327) 11. Edward III and the Hundred Years' War The Reign of Edward III (1327-1377) Parliament in the Fourteenth Century Law and Administration Edward III and the Decline of Royal Authority 12. Death, Disorder, and Creative Flowering The Black Death Political Conflict Religious Ferment The Flowering of English Literature Political Anticlericalism John Wycliffe The Great Revolt of 1381 The Reign of Richard II (1377-1399) Conclusion. Appendix. Bibliography. Index