HISTORY HIT Guide to Medieval England: From the Vikings to the Tudors – and Everything in Between
By Matthew Lewis with Introduction by Dan Snow
Hodder & Stoughton: London, 2024
ISBN: 9781399726139
Reviewed by Nicholas Morton
In Medieval England Matthew Lewis offers his readers a sweeping history covering (as the subtitle promises) a vast swath of time from the Vikings to the advent of the Tudors. Its purpose is to offer an engaging overview of this topic suitable for anyone wishing to begin their immersion into medieval English history.
Structurally, Lewis’s history advances in bite-sized chunks, each around a page or two in length, progressing steadily through this period from start to finish. The spine to his work is the political, military, and royal history of the kings of England, tracing their many wars, succession disputes, and profoundly odd personalities.
Consequently, we move from the Vikings to the Norman Conquest, then into the reigns of the Conqueror’s successors: William II and Henry I. We learn about the White Ship disaster, which claimed the life of Henry I’s son, and the civil war that broke out after his death. Then onwards into events such as the crusade of Richard I, the French invasion of 1217, and Edward I’s wars with Scotland. From there, Lewis covers the Hundred Years’ War, the Black Death, and the Great Insurrection of 1381. Finally, moving into the fifteenth century, the book’s concluding chapters cover developments such as the ongoing war with France and the Wars of the Roses. Interspersed within the onward march of crowned heads, wars, and constitutional crises, Lewis provides more focused summaries of other matters including trade, castles, the Black Death, tournaments, the Poll Tax, and ecclesiastical politics.
In some respects, this focus and approach read as rather old-fashioned. I could almost hear some of my peers smugly saying things like “haven’t we moved beyond from this kind of kings-and-queens history,” yet for my part, I disagree entirely with this kind of stance; in this context at least, I like old-fashioned. Given that this is an introductory work, I think it’s important to provide newcomers to medieval English history with a solid grounding in the core structural events of this era. Whether you like it or not, this means acquiring a clear understanding of royal and political history because the actions of governments and rulers played such an instrumental role in moulding the other processes shaping the kingdom. By extension, this foundation then provides a basis and starting point for readers subsequently wishing to explore other areas and topics.
One of Medieval England’s most impressive features is the many QR links it provides to podcasts on a whole range of related subjects. Here Lewis benefits from History Hit’s wide library of podcasts on medieval topics, and the sheer range of podcast material available is remarkable. I’ve never seen this kind of approach before, but it offers an excellent opportunity for readers to branch out and acquire a deeper understanding on a range of different subjects.
If the selection of a suitable focus and structure for a book is one key decision point for any author writing an introductory history, then another is writing style and approach. Covering such a broad sweep of time, is it better to gloss over complex developments with a tidy high-level summary, or should you get into the guts of events, working through slice-by-slice? Here, Lewis tends more towards the latter option. For example, rather than summarising the Vikings and their attacks, he provides a far more granular account of their campaigns, sometimes proceeding year-by-year. The result is a little breathless at times, but again there is a strong vein of logic to this approach in that it allows readers to familiarise themselves with the core events of this time rather than being dependent on an author’s interpretive overview. Lewis is very clear and precise when laying out events—which helps—and he also intersperses his discussion with interesting and intriguing stories as well as amusing turns of phrase which gives it a lighter feel.
As Dan Snow points out in the introduction, “England is medieval” – you simply can’t get away from it. Whether it’s the moated castles, the soaring cathedrals, the thousands of local churches, the royal palaces, or the stories of King Arthur, England immediately evokes a strongly medieval aura. Medieval England provides a fabulous introduction to this topic fully equipped with links to other podcasts where readers can find out more (although a reading list of further books might also have helped). I think that the key test when reading a book like this is to ask—if I had the option to travel back to when I first started learning about the medieval era and give myself this book to read, would I do so? The simple answer is “yes.”
Nicholas Morton is an Associate Professor of History at Nottingham Trent University in the UK. He is the author or editor of several books covering different aspects of Medieval Near Eastern history, including The Mongol Storm: Making and Breaking Empires in the Medieval Near East.
Click here to read more from Nicholas Morton
Nicholas’ online course, The Crusades 1095-1187: A multi-perspective history, begins January 23, 2025. Click here to sign up
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