Vale of the White Horse, with the hillfort, Uffington Camp.
The 361-foot-long White Horse, cut out of the chalk in the Iron Age. By the 10th Century Anglo-Saxon estates in the area followed the Iron Age and Roman boundaries; suggesting some sort of continuity. Incredibly the present day parish boundaries follow the line of the Anglo-Saxon land grants very closely.
Archaeological discoveries using new technologies continue to shed new light.
During 2010 when I was last in Britain I read of the largest Roman Villa discovered (so far) there. In 2013 British Archaeologists were rocked by the discovery that farming was being undertaken some 6,000 years prior to what had previously been established. It is all so different from the life portrayed in history books from my school days.
This year I am going to try and tell the story of the period of the Roman invasion of Britain to the Norman Conquest. It is also the story of how Christianity was to become the new religion in Europe. I hope to reach the period of the Crusades by the end of the year.
I have been influenced by two important books that cover this period in detail:-
Triumph of the West. Roberts, J.M. London: BBC, 1985
The Domesday Quest in search of the roots of England. Wood, Michael. London: BBC, 2005
Whilst I invite you to sit back and enjoy the wide range of dvds I have collected to illustrate the history the two books will aid those of you who want to pursue the subject in more detail.
Michael Wood is a talented historian who has also produced a number of television documentaries, some of which will be used in this course. He challenges the idea that the Norman invaders made revolutionary changes to the direction of English/British history. He focuses on what survived from the Celtic, Roman and Saxon/Viking periods and was adopted by the new Norman invaders. By using the Domesday Book to illustrate the lives of ordinary people he develops a story of continuity.
Wood sets out to try and answer what he thinks is the most important question in British history. How much of the Celtic and Roman past went into the Anglo-Saxon culture and what survived the Norman times?
If you want to be really challenged I suggest you try and get hold of Triumph of the West. Roberts believes that Civilisations have historical myths and the Western view of history was anchored in two central ideas. One is the idea that people are in some sense able to take charge of their own destinies, the other is that history is meaningful because it has direction; it is progressing.
These two ideas appear to originate in the traditions of the Graeco-Roman society and the Judaic. This is where the roots of western civilisation have long been recognised to lie.
The Greeks of the classical age began to think of themselves as civilised. During the long series of wars waged by the Persian Empire to subdue them some Greeks began to see this as a war of ideas. They began to see it as a war against not just their freedom, religion and language, but also their self-direction (autonomy) and government (the city-state or polis). Those ideas were adopted by the Romans and developed into the idea that the West stood for freedom in contrast to barbarians.
Roberts selected two big ideas from the West’s Jewish heritage, which had been transmitted via Christianity. One, the idea of the bad conscience, a force always pushing out the boundaries of the morally possible. It has often stirred up western thought and stopped it settling into immobility. The heart of the Jewish faith does not lie in the salvation of the individual as Christianity espouses; instead God’s covenant with Israel was with a whole community. This idea led both Jews and Christians to believe they were the Chosen people who by struggling to sustain God’s law would reach the Promised Land. That, claims Roberts, is why unlike other cultures the West has thrown up so many Utopias. One example is the Pilgrim Fathers, this (and other examples) fuel the western view that history is the story of people going somewhere; advancing.
The 361-foot-long White Horse, cut out of the chalk in the Iron Age. By the 10th Century Anglo-Saxon estates in the area followed the Iron Age and Roman boundaries; suggesting some sort of continuity. Incredibly the present day parish boundaries follow the line of the Anglo-Saxon land grants very closely.
Archaeological discoveries using new technologies continue to shed new light.
During 2010 when I was last in Britain I read of the largest Roman Villa discovered (so far) there. In 2013 British Archaeologists were rocked by the discovery that farming was being undertaken some 6,000 years prior to what had previously been established. It is all so different from the life portrayed in history books from my school days.
This year I am going to try and tell the story of the period of the Roman invasion of Britain to the Norman Conquest. It is also the story of how Christianity was to become the new religion in Europe. I hope to reach the period of the Crusades by the end of the year.
I have been influenced by two important books that cover this period in detail:-
Triumph of the West. Roberts, J.M. London: BBC, 1985
The Domesday Quest in search of the roots of England. Wood, Michael. London: BBC, 2005
Whilst I invite you to sit back and enjoy the wide range of dvds I have collected to illustrate the history the two books will aid those of you who want to pursue the subject in more detail.
Michael Wood is a talented historian who has also produced a number of television documentaries, some of which will be used in this course. He challenges the idea that the Norman invaders made revolutionary changes to the direction of English/British history. He focuses on what survived from the Celtic, Roman and Saxon/Viking periods and was adopted by the new Norman invaders. By using the Domesday Book to illustrate the lives of ordinary people he develops a story of continuity.
Wood sets out to try and answer what he thinks is the most important question in British history. How much of the Celtic and Roman past went into the Anglo-Saxon culture and what survived the Norman times?
If you want to be really challenged I suggest you try and get hold of Triumph of the West. Roberts believes that Civilisations have historical myths and the Western view of history was anchored in two central ideas. One is the idea that people are in some sense able to take charge of their own destinies, the other is that history is meaningful because it has direction; it is progressing.
These two ideas appear to originate in the traditions of the Graeco-Roman society and the Judaic. This is where the roots of western civilisation have long been recognised to lie.
The Greeks of the classical age began to think of themselves as civilised. During the long series of wars waged by the Persian Empire to subdue them some Greeks began to see this as a war of ideas. They began to see it as a war against not just their freedom, religion and language, but also their self-direction (autonomy) and government (the city-state or polis). Those ideas were adopted by the Romans and developed into the idea that the West stood for freedom in contrast to barbarians.
Roberts selected two big ideas from the West’s Jewish heritage, which had been transmitted via Christianity. One, the idea of the bad conscience, a force always pushing out the boundaries of the morally possible. It has often stirred up western thought and stopped it settling into immobility. The heart of the Jewish faith does not lie in the salvation of the individual as Christianity espouses; instead God’s covenant with Israel was with a whole community. This idea led both Jews and Christians to believe they were the Chosen people who by struggling to sustain God’s law would reach the Promised Land. That, claims Roberts, is why unlike other cultures the West has thrown up so many Utopias. One example is the Pilgrim Fathers, this (and other examples) fuel the western view that history is the story of people going somewhere; advancing.
