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  • Northumbria, 500-1100: Creation and Destruction of a Kingdom
  • Alex Woolf
Northumbria, 500-1100: Creation and Destruction of a Kingdom. By David Rollason. Pp. xxviii, 339. ISBN 0 521 81335 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2003. £55.00.

David Rollason's book on Northumbria is a tour de force. His narrative takes us forward from the Germanic settlement to carving up of the kingdom between the Scots and the English, concluding with a brief discussion of the historiographical swansong of the early twelfth century. Rollason writes in such a way that while the novice will be guided gently through the quagmire of sources—textual, toponymic and archaeological—the scholar will also find insights and new perspectives on almost every page. To some extent this work is a culmination of much of Rollason's previous writing, from his Sources for York History to 1100 produced for the York Archaeological Trust (1998) to his magisterial edition of Simeon of Durham's Libellus de Exordio for Oxford Medieval [End Page 132] Texts (2000). This is also a very nicely produced book with plenty of attractive and useful maps and plans.

One of the strengths of Rollason's approach is that he is not too didactic. This is particularly clearly illustrated in his discussion of the Anglo-Saxon conquests in chapter three 'The Northumbrians: Origins of a People'. This topic is extraordinarily fraught in the contemporary historiography and is generally framed as dialogue of the deaf with the dumb. Those (mostly archaeologists) who believe in a small number of Germanic conquerors whose culture was voluntarily adopted by the bulk of the native population are barely on speaking terms with those (mostly linguists) who argue for a more extreme and violent scenario, whilst others (mostly historians) dither in an inconsistent and internally incoherent fashion. Rollason deals with this problem by presenting each model in a thorough and fair fashion and while at the end you are fairly certain that you know where he stands (you will have to read the book) you do not feel that he is bullying you into going along with him. This even-handedness and a willingness to describe the primary source material, verbal and material, in some detail characterises the whole volume.

Perhaps the most original portion of the book lies in his discussion of the role of the city of York in both the pre-Viking and the Anglo-Scandinavian eras. He makes a very convincing case that in neither period was York principally a royal centre but that it, and particularly the portion within the walls of the Roman fortress, remained an ecclesiastical preserve dominated by the Archbishops and focussed on a number of churches. It was, in effect, what in Ireland would be turned a 'monastic city' (or, following Colmán Etchingham's dictatus, a 'church settlement'). Both archaeological and textual evidence, Rollason argues, places the secular domain, mercantile and royal, outwith the fortress and not too heavily dug in. One implication of this reading of the material is that our view of a 'Viking Kingdom of York', dominating affairs from 867 to 954 must be revised and it is slightly disappointing that although Rollason points out (p. 215) that 'our sources never use the expression "kingdom of York" in connection with the Viking kings, or indeed at any other time', he continues to use the phrase 'Viking Kingdom of York'. He is trapped in his habit and intellectual knowledge alone cannot break it.

This book is not faultless, however; it was disappointing to see Historia Brittonum uncritically attributed to Nennius and, indeed, to see the kingdom of Dumbarton in the eighth century referred to as Strathclyde (the terminology changes in the 870s and doubtless reflects some real change in the political geography of the northern Britons). Indeed, the Clyde seems to be Rollason's blind spot for he misdates the sacking of Dumbarton (870) to 889 (the death date of Eochaid son of Rhun, which can be inferred from the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba) and he seems not to be aware of Benjamin Hudson's important article in Scottish Gaelic Studies 15 (1988) which exploded the late medieval myth of a Scottish...

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