100 books like The Coming of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England

By Henry Mayr-Harting,

Here are 100 books that The Coming of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England fans have personally recommended if you like The Coming of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of The Ecclesiastical History of the English People

Richard Shaw Author Of How, When and Why did Bede Write his Ecclesiastical History?

From my list on Bede and his Ecclesiastical History.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am Professor of History at Our Lady Seat of Wisdom College in Canada. Previously a journalist and a diplomat serving in the Middle East, since returning to academia I have published several books and a wide variety of academic articles – winning the 2014 Eusebius Essay Prize. My work is focused on source analysis and the use of sources to reconstruct the truth of the past – especially in the early Middle Ages: as a result, I have been able to discover the date of Augustine of Canterbury’s death; the underlying reasons behind the need to appoint Theodore of Tarsus as bishop; and the essential story of how Bede produced his Ecclesiastical History.

Richard's book list on Bede and his Ecclesiastical History

Richard Shaw Why did Richard love this book?

This is the basic text. You can’t study early Christian Anglo-Saxon England without Bede’s Ecclesiastical History – and why would you want to?

Bede’s History was an instant classic, popular from the moment it was published. Bede’s scholarship and clear prose – as well as his eye for detail, chronology, and a good story – mean this book will always be engaging, intriguing, and relevant.

The version recommended here is an updated translation including an Introduction to get you going with the History, together with some other helpful texts – especially Bede’s Letter to Ecgberht, which is vital for grasping the context in which Bede completed his magnum opus.

By Bede, Judith McClure (editor), Roger Collins (editor) , Bertram Colgrave (translator)

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Ecclesiastical History of the English People as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Ecclesiastical History of the English People (731 AD) is Bede's most famous work.
As well as providing the authoritative Colgrave translation of the Ecclesiastical History, this edition includes a new translation of the Greater Chronicle, in which Bede examines the Roman Empire and contemporary Europe. His Letter to Egbert gives his final reflections on the English Church just before his death, and all three texts here are further illuminated by a detailed introduction and explanatory notes.
ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each…


Book cover of Essays in Anglo-Saxon History

Richard Shaw Author Of How, When and Why did Bede Write his Ecclesiastical History?

From my list on Bede and his Ecclesiastical History.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am Professor of History at Our Lady Seat of Wisdom College in Canada. Previously a journalist and a diplomat serving in the Middle East, since returning to academia I have published several books and a wide variety of academic articles – winning the 2014 Eusebius Essay Prize. My work is focused on source analysis and the use of sources to reconstruct the truth of the past – especially in the early Middle Ages: as a result, I have been able to discover the date of Augustine of Canterbury’s death; the underlying reasons behind the need to appoint Theodore of Tarsus as bishop; and the essential story of how Bede produced his Ecclesiastical History.

Richard's book list on Bede and his Ecclesiastical History

Richard Shaw Why did Richard love this book?

To my mind, James Campbell was the greatest commentator on early Anglo-Saxon England of the last sixty years.

He was my tutor at Oxford for a course on early Anglo-Saxon history and archaeology, and he inspired me to recognise just how much of the so-called “Dark Ages” can be brought to light via a combination of rigour in analysis and creativity in reconstruction.

Campbell’s seminal articles on Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, included in this edited collection, transformed Bedan studies and set out the path forward for the next generation of scholars, although much more remains to be done – particularly in connection with identifying Bede’s sources and unpacking the chronology of the composition of his History.

If you want to understand the conversion of Anglo-Saxon England, you need to understand Bede’s Ecclesiastical History; and if you want to understand Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, you have to understand Bede. The quest will…

By James Campbell,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Essays in Anglo-Saxon History as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

James Campbell's work on the Anglo-Saxons is recognised as being some of the most original of recent writing on the period; it is brought together in this collection, which is both an important contribution to Anglo-Saxon studies in itself and also a pointer to the direction of future research.


Book cover of The Times of Bede: Studies in Early English Christian Society and its Historian

Richard Shaw Author Of How, When and Why did Bede Write his Ecclesiastical History?

From my list on Bede and his Ecclesiastical History.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am Professor of History at Our Lady Seat of Wisdom College in Canada. Previously a journalist and a diplomat serving in the Middle East, since returning to academia I have published several books and a wide variety of academic articles – winning the 2014 Eusebius Essay Prize. My work is focused on source analysis and the use of sources to reconstruct the truth of the past – especially in the early Middle Ages: as a result, I have been able to discover the date of Augustine of Canterbury’s death; the underlying reasons behind the need to appoint Theodore of Tarsus as bishop; and the essential story of how Bede produced his Ecclesiastical History.

Richard's book list on Bede and his Ecclesiastical History

Richard Shaw Why did Richard love this book?

Patrick Wormald’s early death was a tragedy for early medieval studies as a whole.

Thankfully his former student, Stephen Baxter – an exceptional scholar in his own right – had the energy to carry some of his mentor’s projects over the line, including this collection of some of Wormald’s best essays, articles, and book chapters relating to Bede and his world.

Patrick was also my tutor for several undergraduate courses at Oxford as well as being the supervisor for my Master's Thesis and I too owe him a great debt. This edited collection – with the advantage of updated references and comments – showcases the searing brilliance which made Wormald such a prized commentator on everything connected to the early Middle Ages.

Coupled with Campbell's Essays in Anglo-Saxon History, readers will quickly gain nuanced perspectives on elements and themes crucial in comprehending the conversion of the early English.

By Patrick Wormald, Stephen Baxter (editor),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Times of Bede as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Written by the late Patrick Wormald, one of the leading authorities on Bede's life and work over a 30-year period, this book is a collection of studies on Bede and early English Christian society. A collection of studies on Bede, the greatest historian of the English Middle Ages, and the early English church. Integrates the religious, intellectual, political and social history of the English in their first Christian centuries. Looks at how Bede and other writers charted the establishment of a Christian community within a warrior society. Features the first map of all known or likely early Christian communities in…


Book cover of The Narrators of Barbarian History (A.D. 550-800): Jordanes, Gregory of Tours, Bede, and Paul the Deacon

Richard Shaw Author Of How, When and Why did Bede Write his Ecclesiastical History?

From my list on Bede and his Ecclesiastical History.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am Professor of History at Our Lady Seat of Wisdom College in Canada. Previously a journalist and a diplomat serving in the Middle East, since returning to academia I have published several books and a wide variety of academic articles – winning the 2014 Eusebius Essay Prize. My work is focused on source analysis and the use of sources to reconstruct the truth of the past – especially in the early Middle Ages: as a result, I have been able to discover the date of Augustine of Canterbury’s death; the underlying reasons behind the need to appoint Theodore of Tarsus as bishop; and the essential story of how Bede produced his Ecclesiastical History.

Richard's book list on Bede and his Ecclesiastical History

Richard Shaw Why did Richard love this book?

This book – intentionally – shook up the study of Bede (and of the other early medieval historians the work surveys) when it was initially released in 1988.

One book-length chapter is dedicated to Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, and it is this part of Narrators which has had probably the greatest influence. Consciously controversial, with polar expression of ideas and a rhetorical presentation of the evidence suited to an attempt to break new ground, Goffart argued for an intentionality in the writing of the History that was tied to the contemporary ecclesio-political context – and, specifically, the enduring impact of what he called the “Ghost of Bishop Wilfrid”.

Goffart returned to the fray on several other occasions – including via the issue of the revised edition of Narrators, recommended here. Despite the polemical approach – and the perhaps understandable sensitivity of scholars responding to Goffart’s arguments – the main aspects…

By Walter Goffart,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Narrators of Barbarian History (A.D. 550-800) as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In this substantial work Walter Goffart treats the four writers who provide the principal narrative sources for our early knowledge of the Ostrogoths, Franks, Anglo-Saxons, and Lombards: Jordanes, Gregory of Tours, Bede, and Paul the Deacon. The University of Notre Dame Press is pleased to make this book available for the first time in paperback. Winner of the Medieval Academy of America's Haskins Medal for 1991, The Narrators of Barbarian History treats the four writers who are the main early sources for our knowledge of the Ostrogoths, Franks, Anglo-Saxons, and Lombards. In his preface to this paperback edition, Goffart examines…


Book cover of Figuring Racism in Medieval Christianity

Geraldine Heng Author Of The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages

From my list on race before the modern era.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m that infamous medievalist who wrote the big book on medieval race. It took 20 years of thinking and research, and a whole lot of writing, but now people are convinced that there was, indeed, such a thing as race and racism between the 11th and 15th centuries in the West (aka Christendom/Europe). I'm Perceval Professor of English and Comparative Literature, with a joint appointment in Middle Eastern studies and Women’s studies at the University of Texas at Austin.

Geraldine's book list on race before the modern era

Geraldine Heng Why did Geraldine love this book?

In the European Middle Ages—the millennium-long era in the West after antiquity and before the modern period—Christianity was the first and last authority for all sources of knowledge and forms of reasoning.  This important book shows in great detail how medieval Christian theology produced arguments and rationales that enabled racism against Jews during the centuries of the long medieval period.

By M. Lindsay Kaplan,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Figuring Racism in Medieval Christianity as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In Figuring Racism in Medieval Christianity, M. Lindsay Kaplan expands the study of the history of racism through an analysis of the Christian concept of Jewish hereditary inferiority. Imagined as a figural slavery, this idea anticipates modern racial ideologies in creating a status of permanent, inherent subordination. Unlike other studies of early forms of racism, this book places theological discourses at the center of its analysis. It traces an
intellectual history of the Christian doctrine of servitus Judaeorum, or Jewish enslavement, imposed as punishment for the crucifixion. This concept of hereditary inferiority, formulated in patristic and medieval exegesis through the…


Book cover of History of the English Church and People

Matthew Harffy Author Of A Time for Swords

From my list on the world of Anglo-Saxon Britain.

Why am I passionate about this?

Matthew Harffy is the author of ten novels set in the early medieval world. His Bernicia Chronicles, follow the saga of Beobrand as he moves through the echelons of Anglo-Saxon society, fighting in many battles and dealing with the intrigues of the ever-increasingly powerful men and women with whom he mixes. Recently, with Wolf of Wessex and the A Time for the Swords series, Harffy has covered the early Viking Age with his usual eye for detail, historical realism and a gripping plot.

Matthew's book list on the world of Anglo-Saxon Britain

Matthew Harffy Why did Matthew love this book?

As close as we come to a first-hand account of events in the first part of the early medieval period. Writing in the early 8th century, Bede was able to interview some of the people who had witnessed events he describes. Bede was undoubtedly writing from the Christian perspective and he was certainly biased in favour of his native Northumbria, but his words are like a window into the past and how people (or at least the clergy) thought.

Book cover of The Mongols and the Islamic World: From Conquest to Conversion

Nicholas Morton Author Of The Mongol Storm: Making and Breaking Empires in the Medieval Near East

From my list on the Mongol conquest of Western Eurasia.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am an associate professor at Nottingham Trent University and my interest in the Mongols first began many years ago during my MA at Royal Holloway University. I had always been interested in the historic relationships between nomadic and agricultural societies, but what I found fascinating about the Mongols was the sheer speed and range of their expansion—how could they have conquered the greater part of the Asia within only a few decades? Exploring how the Mongols grappled with the realities of ruling such a vast imperium remains a very thought-provoking issue, so too is the question of how the peoples they overthrew accommodated themselves to Mongol rule. 

Nicholas' book list on the Mongol conquest of Western Eurasia

Nicholas Morton Why did Nicholas love this book?

As the Mongol Empire expanded it seized control over many different regions, peoples, and religious communities. Among these were many Islamic societies, especially in the Near East. In this remarkable piece of scholarship Peter Jackson examines the nature of Mongol rule in the Near East providing analysis on topics such as: how the onset of Mongol rule influenced the region’s trade, how the Mongols treated the Muslim peoples under their control, and also why the Mongols in the Near East themselves ultimately converted to Islam. 

By Peter Jackson,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Mongols and the Islamic World as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

An epic historical consideration of the Mongol conquest of Western Asia and the spread of Islam during the years of non-Muslim rule

The Mongol conquest of the Islamic world began in the early thirteenth century when Genghis Khan and his warriors overran Central Asia and devastated much of Iran. Distinguished historian Peter Jackson offers a fresh and fascinating consideration of the years of infidel Mongol rule in Western Asia, drawing from an impressive array of primary sources as well as modern studies to demonstrate how Islam not only survived the savagery of the conquest, but spread throughout the empire.

This…


Book cover of The Uses of Supernatural Power: The Transformation of Popular Religion in Medieval and Early-Modern Europe

Bruce McClelland Author Of Slayers and Their Vampires: A Cultural History of Killing the Dead

From my list on vampire and slayer folklore.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have often been asked why I became an expert on vampires. The answer always goes back to my childhood, when I went to horror and sci-fi movies and watched old vampire movies on TV. In 1976, I published my first book of poetry, The Dracula Poems. My vampire interest eventually combined with my background in Russian literature when I discovered Perkowski’s Vampires of the Slavs. I obtained my Ph.D. in Slavic Folklore from UVA and have kept up my interest in this fascinating subject ever since. I am planning another book on the period known as Magia Posthuma when there were “epidemics” of vampirism around Austro-Hungary. 

Bruce's book list on vampire and slayer folklore

Bruce McClelland Why did Bruce love this book?

Serious students of vampire folklore are aware that the motif is found all over Eastern and Central Europe. Gabor Klaniczay is a Hungarian historian whose research focuses on witches and other supernatural entities in the cultures of Austro-Hungary and its environs.

This book showed me so many things that I and other American readers get wrong. For example, most people believe that the “blood countess,” Erzebeta Bathory, drank the blood of local virgins, but Klaniczay shows that these reports were actually constructed to get her out of the way of an inheritance scheme. Klaniczay is also an expert on Central European shamanism, and this led to my assertion that vampire lore incorporates some shamanistic beliefs.

By Gabor Klaniczay, Susan Singerman (translator), Karen Margolis (editor)

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Uses of Supernatural Power as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This book of essays is concerned with aspects of religion, magic, and witchcraft in medieval and early-modern Europe, with particular reference to Central Europe. Drawing on a range of theoretical and methodological work including that of Elias, Geertz, Bakhtin, and Turner, the author gives special attention to the history of the body and of gesture, of symbolism and representation, and shows how these dimensions can be related to religious and mystical beliefs and practices.

Among the topics discussed are conflicts in twelfth-century Christianity and the tensions between popular religion and learned urban Christianity; heretical and nonconformist behavior in the twelfth…


Book cover of The Name of the Rose

Christine Jordan Author Of Sacrifice

From my list on immersed in a medieval world.

Why am I passionate about this?

I became fascinated with history when I moved to Gloucester in the nineties. The city is hugely historical from the early Roman settlers through to the industrial age of the nineteenth century. What is more fascinating is that many of the streets and buildings I write about still exist in the city today. I carried out extensive research when writing my first historical fiction novel to immerse myself in the medieval city as it would have been in 1497. When I came to write my second novel, listed below, the first book in the Hebraica Trilogy, I already had a good idea of the layout of the city. 

Christine's book list on immersed in a medieval world

Christine Jordan Why did Christine love this book?

I loved this book because it’s a medieval detective story set in 1327 in Italy. I learned a lot about the intrigue and corruption of religious life in the medieval period and how closed and isolated communities could lose their way with murderous consequences.

It’s a fascinating insight into the world of a monk’s life in 14th-century Italy, packed full of the atmosphere of religious life inside the abbey. It is a dark and gothic tale of corruption, murder, and power-grabbing at all costs.

By Umberto Eco, William Weaver (translator),

Why should I read it?

16 authors picked The Name of the Rose as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Read the enthralling medieval murder mystery.

The year is 1327. Franciscans in a wealthy Italian abbey are suspected of heresy, and Brother William of Baskerville arrives to investigate. When his delicate mission is suddenly overshadowed by seven bizarre deaths, Brother William turns detective.

William collects evidence, deciphers secret symbols and coded manuscripts, and digs into the eerie labyrinth of the abbey where extraordinary things are happening under the cover of night. A spectacular popular and critical success, The Name of the Rose is not only a narrative of a murder investigation but an astonishing chronicle of the Middle Ages.

'Whether…


Book cover of Florence and Its Church in the Age of Dante

Tinney Sue Heath Author Of A Thing Done

From my list on medieval Florence.

Why am I passionate about this?

I write historical fiction set in medieval Italy, in that lesser-known territory somewhere between ancient Rome and the Renaissance. I’m fascinated by the period before the Medici, before Michelangelo, sometimes even before Dante. The seeds of the Renaissance are hidden in that turbulent time, and I love to hunt for them. I also like to write about marginalized people—the obscure, unfamous, forgotten folk plucked from the footnotes. I’m happy to introduce some of the excellent history books that help me do that. These five books are specific to Florence, the city of my heart.

Tinney's book list on medieval Florence

Tinney Sue Heath Why did Tinney love this book?

To know medieval Florence, you have to have a sense of the enormous role the Church played in people’s lives. Here, Dameron concentrates on the 50-year period 1265-1321 (Dante’s lifetime), during which Florence went from something of a backwater to one of the wealthiest and most influential cities in all of Europe. Separation of church and state was simply not a thing back then; the concept would have bewildered medieval Florentines. All aspects of the city, from the legal system to charity efforts, were affected by religious institutions. This knowledgeable account will give you a rich, full picture of that aspect of medieval Florentine society.

By George W. Dameron,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Florence and Its Church in the Age of Dante as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

By the early fourteenth century, the city of Florence had emerged as an economic power in Tuscany, surpassing even Siena, which had previously been the banking center of the region. In the space of fifty years, during the lifetime of Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321, Florence had transformed itself from a political and economic backwater-scarcely keeping pace with its Tuscan neighbors-to one of the richest and most influential places on the continent. While many historians have focused on the role of the city's bankers and merchants in achieving these rapid transformations, in Florence and Its Church in the Age of Dante, George…


Book cover of The Ecclesiastical History of the English People
Book cover of Essays in Anglo-Saxon History
Book cover of The Times of Bede: Studies in Early English Christian Society and its Historian

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