Kingship and Consent in Anglo-Saxon England, 871–978

This book by Levi Roach deserves a warm welcome not only as the first monograph to be devoted to historical aspects of pre-Conquest English assemblies since T.J. Oleson’s The Witenagemot in the Reign of Edward the Confessor (1955; rev. ante, lcci [1956], 640–2), but also as the first extended treatment of the subject in any form since then. For, as the author points out in his perceptive and illuminating introduction, the whole question of assemblies was side-stepped by authorities such as F.M. Stenton and James Campbell, who preferred to concentrate on other aspects of the state. Roach’s book is also to be welcomed as a notably erudite treatment, which is particularly valuable in that it draws into the discussion current insights from German historiography, with which Roach is clearly very familiar, and from anthropology. Roach deals first with attendance at assemblies, providing an insightful examination of the evidence offered by charter witness-lists. The conclusion that ‘the most important ealdormen and bishops attest the vast majority of diplomas’ so that ‘this was an essential feature of meetings of the witan’ (p. 44) is not perhaps surprising, but it is well developed here. The author then moves on to the sites and timing of assemblies, and he has sensible points to make about the places where political and military submissions took place. But, although he notes the emphasis in the Continental historiography on the characteristics and significance of places where assemblies met (pp. 46–7), he does not pursue the sites of English assemblies in as much detail as this reviewer would wish, restricting himself largely to questions of the sites’ accessibility, and concluding, unsurprisingly, that ‘the centre of royal power was firmly south of the Thames’ (p. 64). It is a little disappointing that less is made of the archaeological evidence from ongoing archaeological work on assembly-sites (led, among others, by Sarah Semple and Andrew Reynolds) or that the question of hunting as an aspect of assemblies is not pursued further (p. 69). The relationship between assembly-sites and royal estates could also surely be explored in more depth, with more detailed reference to the form and topography of the estates than Roach has space for here

Anachronism · Ancient history · Archaeology · Autocracy · Bishops · Charter · Democracy · Historiography · Middle Ages · Monarchy · Political science · Politics · Reign · State (computer science · Subject (documents · Witness · Classics · Historical and Archaeological Studies · History · Law · Medieval Literature and History