FREE THE HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 1000-1154 PDF Henry Of Huntingdon,Diana E. Greenway | 208 pages | 15 Apr 2009 | Oxford University Press | 9780199554805 | English | Oxford, United Kingdom CCCU. History Of The English People Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read. Want to Read saving…. Want to Read Currently Reading Read. Other editions. Enlarge cover. Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Open Preview See a Problem? Details if other :. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. Diana Greenway Editor. Henry of Huntingdon's narrative covers one of the most exciting and bloody periods in English history: the Norman Conquest and its aftermath. He tells of the decline of the Old English kingdom, the victory of the Normans at the Battle of Hastings, and the establishment of Norman rule. His accounts of the kings who reigned during his lifetime--William II, Henry I, and Steph Henry of Huntingdon's narrative covers one of the most exciting and bloody periods in English history: the The History of the English People 1000-1154 Conquest and its aftermath. His accounts of the kings who reigned during his lifetime--William II, Henry I, and Stephen--contain unique descriptions of people and events. Henry tells how promiscuity, greed, treachery, and cruelty produced a series of disasters, rebellions, and wars. Interwoven with memorable and vivid battle-scenes are anecdotes of court life, the death and murder of nobles, and the first written record of Cnut and the waves and the death of Henry I from a surfeit of lampreys. Diana Greenway's translation of her definitive Latin text has been revised for this edition. Get A Copy. Paperbackpages. More Details Original Title. Other Editions 3. Friend Reviews. To see what your The History of the English People 1000-1154 thought of this book, please sign up. Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average The History of the English People 1000-1154 3. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Mar 29, Jan-Maat added it Shelves: 12th-centurybritish-islesread-in-translation. I heard Henry of Huntingdon call out from the shelves of the large Waterstones bookshop on Piccadilly allegedly the largest bookshop in Europe, I have my doubts but lack the funding and the measuring wheel to carry out the detailed research required to verify this claim. The call was relentless and I found myself dragged entirely against my will to the shelf and then to the till - because I'm nice and disapprove of shop lifting. It is fun I heard Henry of Huntingdon call out from the shelves of the large Waterstones bookshop on Piccadilly allegedly the largest bookshop in Europe, I have my doubts but lack the funding and the measuring wheel to carry out the detailed research required to verify this claim. It is fun to find and finally read some of the sources for the history that I studied long ago. Henry is the source of some well-known tales including King Canute and the waves as well as the Empress Matilda escaping over the The History of the English People 1000-1154 from a besieged castle, evading capture by being dressed all in white - but it striking how bald some of his narration is. For instance this is the Matilda escape: In the same year, the king besieged the empress at Oxford, from after Michaelmas until Advent. During the latter season, not long before Christmas, the empress fled across the frozen Thames, clothed in white garments, which reflected and resembled the snow, deceiving the eyes of the besiegers. She fled to the castle at Wallingford, and thus at last Oxford was surrendered to the king. In the earlier sections, before the events of his own and his listeners and readers lifetimes Henry feels free to be a little more expansive. Greenway in her introduction suggests that Henry may have drawn from some lost sagas as well as folk-tales or what ever the twelfth century equivalent of urban legends were in compiling his account there is a nice instance of this in his very fictional account of the death of Edmund Ironside: A few days after this, King Edmund was treacherously killed at Oxford When the king, fearful and most formidable to his enemies, was prospering in his kingdom, he went one night to The History of the English People 1000-1154 lavatory to answer a call of nature. There the son of Ealdorman Eadric, who by his father's plan was concealed in the pit of the privy, struck the king twice with a sharp knife in the private parts, and leaving the weapon in his bowels, fled away. Then Eadric came to King Cnut and saluted him, saying, 'Hail, sole king! Henry was Archdeacon of Huntingdon. His father was a Norman, a married priest and Archdeacon of Huntingdon before his son. His mother was English - Henry has an interest in English phrases, place names and English saints - the latter is particularly interesting as some English saints had a period on the scrap heap literally after the Norman conquest before later being replaced in affection by mainstream fashionable saints from the continent. There's a nice sense as he moves from place to place mentioning the saints associated with each one of a geography of holiness, the sainted men and women radiating out from their resting places over the beautiful fens. Henry was commissioned by the Bishop of Lincoln to narrate the history of this kingdom and the origins of our peopleit was apparently intended to be read aloud and Henry has a taste here for the cartoonishly comic moment such as when William the Conqueror is giving a speech to his Normans at the battle of Hastings: Duke William had not yet concluded his speech when all his men, boiling with unbelievable anger, charged forward in their lines with indescribable force against the enemy, and left the duke alone, speaking to himself. God delivers up the English to be destroyed by the violent and cunning Norman racewhich comes as some surprise since the English seem to have The History of the English People 1000-1154 no strangers to violence and cunning themselves according to Henry. Presumably the Normans were even more violent and so cunning that The History of the English People 1000-1154 made foxes look innocent by comparison. Punishments, such as the death of King Henry's children in a shipwreck, are due to sin - generally sodomy - which was according to many writers the sin of choice for inhabitants of the British Isles since Gildas. Added to the chronicle is what is ostensibly a letter to a dying friend on the subject of on contempt for the world that shines a light on courtly life. Since Henry was in service to the Bishop of Lincoln he spent some time in the company of the great and the good, he has here an odd sympathy for the worries of King Henry I "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown". He mentions the back biting and intriguing; the son of a bishop clerical celibacy was being introduced to England in the face of some protest during this period boasting that he passes among the courtiers like salt amongst live eels commenting that those The History of the English People 1000-1154 are brought up in beds of roses are surrounded by manure. Henry notices his Bishop crying next to him at dinner one day. The cause of the bishops tears - that he has been fined so much money that he can only afford to clothe his retinue in woollens - a really sharp image of the worldliness and desire for magnificence from a Prince of the Church in the age of Archbishops Lanfranc and Anslem. This is a nice paperback edition with good supporting introduction and endnotes by Diana Greenway. View all 16 comments. Henry of Huntingdon is a typical product of the Middle Ages when the learning was monopolyzed by the men and women of the Church. The archdeacon of Huntingdon gives us a detailed account of the history of England before and after the Norman Conquest of He vividly retells the decline of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, the Danish invasions and settlements the Danelawthe family connections between the Anglo-Saxon ruling families and the Norman dukes. Add to this the treachery of the nobility, Henry of Huntingdon is a typical product of the Middle Ages when the learning was monopolyzed by the men and women of the Church. Add to this the treachery of the nobility, murders, rapes, the extorsion of money from the Church and a decription of the First Crusadeand you get a mediaeval thriller book. At some times, this book was extremly difficult to read, because of the enormously dense text very few dialoguesand because of the large quantity of names which are unfamiliar to anyone who didn't specialise in this period of history. However, Henry amends to this by inserting anecdotes into the text king Canute and the waves, the death of king Henry I because of food poisoning and his poems and epitaphs. Another great feature of this book is the introduction which gives the reader some historical background and some sparse information about Henry of Huntingdon. Complementary to this introduction and to the text itself are the explanatory notes without which I personally would have been at a loss of understanding a lot of things and people. View 1 comment. When a work becomes a "primary document" the difficulty becomes, at least to a layman like me, in assessing the aesthetic merit of the work itself.