This course was run at the City Lit on 19 November 2011 as a follow up to the course on the Trojan War. Below are the notes I made to run the course. I repeated the course on Saturday 21st June 2014 with some further handouts. Heracles handout Plays on the Heroes gods For those…
Handel fell in love with England on his first visit writing music for Queen Anne herself. He was reconciled with George I partly with his Water Music Suite and wrote the coronation music for George II. It is an examination of how closely his music and career was bound up with the British royal family…
I must have fallen in love with the British Museum as a child of nine or ten when my Primary School teacher used to take us on school trips there on frequent occasions. Sometimes these were for specific exhibitions such as the Captain Cook’s first voyage bicentenary in 1968, but it soon became my first…
Ever since I studied Tenth Century England with Professor Colin Richmond at Keele in 1978 I have been fascinated by Anglo-Saxon charters and the treasures they contain. A long-held ambition to exploit this interest was realised when I registered for my PhD on “The Royal Women of Anglo-Saxon England” where I used the extensive charter…
Lectures for Baltic and St Petersburg Cruise on the Ocean Countess July 2011 ANGLO-SAXONS AND VIKINGS – THE MAKING OF ENGLAND Lecture 6 Vikings Everywhere In the first five lectures we have looked at the transformation of Roman Britain into Anglo-Saxon England. By the time William of Normandy conquered Britain in 1066 many institutions and…
Lectures for Baltic and St Petersburg Cruise on the Ocean Countess July 2011 ANGLO-SAXONS AND VIKINGS – THE MAKING OF ENGLAND Lecture 5 Vikings 1 England 0 Summary of Lecture 4 In the last lecture we examined how the West Saxon kings took advantage of the power vacuum left by the weak kings of Mercia…
Lectures for Baltic and St Petersburg Cruise on the Ocean Countess July 2011 ANGLO-SAXONS AND VIKINGS – THE MAKING OF ENGLAND Lecture 4 Alfred and the Vikings Summary of Lecture 3 During the Christianisation of Anglo-Saxon England, Northumbria had emerged as the most important kingdom but the extinction of the immediate family of Oswiu led…
Lectures for Baltic and St Petersburg Cruise on the Ocean Countess July 2011 ANGLO-SAXONS AND VIKINGS – THE MAKING OF ENGLAND Lecture 3 The Vikings are Coming Summary of Lecture 2 In the first lecture we saw how Roman Britain was transformed by the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons and in Lecture 2 we examined how…
Lectures for Baltic and St Petersburg Cruise on the Ocean Countess July 2011 ANGLO-SAXONS AND VIKINGS – THE MAKING OF ENGLAND Lecture 2 The Coming of Christianity Summary of Lecture 1 In the first lecture we looked at what Britain was like before the Anglo-Saxon invasions, why Celtic Britain was attractive to the Romans but…
Lectures for Baltic and St Petersburg Cruise on the Ocean Countess July 2011 ANGLO-SAXONS AND VIKINGS – THE MAKING OF ENGLAND Lecture 1 The Germans are Coming Outline of Lecture Series The first five lectures cover the period of the history of England from the C5th to the C11th, some 600 years from the departure…