Table of Contents

Abbreviation — List of figure — Preface to second edition — Preface — The peoples and kingdoms of pre-Viking England — The 'Heptarchy' — The Tribal Hidage — Angles or Saxons? — Hierarchies of command: the Brytenwealda — The problem of nomenclature — Early Kent — The reign of Aethelberht — The pagan reaction under Eadbald — The sequel — The early kings of the western Saxons — The Anglian territories in the late sixth and early seventh centuries — The struggle for political and military leadership — The Deirans and the Bernicians — The wars with the northern Britons — The northern Anglian hegemony in the seventh century — The Humbrian overlordship of Eadwine — Eadwine's British wars — The reign of Oswald — The battle of the Winwaed — The last phase of northern domination in southern England — Military recovery in north Britain under Oswiu and Ecgfrith — Ecclesiastical politics — The southumbrian kingdoms from the mid-seventh to the mid-eighth century — The reign of Wulfhere — The ascendancy of Caedwalla and its aftermath — Reconstruction — The reign of Aethelbald — Northumbria in the eighth century — Offa — The Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in the first three-quarters of the ninth century — The Mercian successors of Offa — Ecgberht, king of Wessex — Northumbria — King Aethelwulf and his sons — The coming of the Vikings — Appendix — Notes — Index.