Annie Whitehead (1)Reseñas
Autor de Mercia: The Rise and Fall of a Kingdom
Para otros autores llamados Annie Whitehead, ver la página de desambiguación.
Reseñas
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Mercia was one of these, extant from around the middle of the 6th century AD to the middle of the 9th and at one point controlling most of the middle of England, including London. Eventually Vikings and the rise of the Kingdom of Wessex brought it down; it became an earldom (Lady Godiva was Earl Leofric of Mercia’s wife) and was eventually divided into “shires” to conform to the Wessex system of land organization.
Annie Whitehead, author of Mercia, is primarily a historical novelist; however, this is a serious and very scholarly history. The problem is Mercia flourished during the “Dark Ages” and there’s not much in the way of historical records; some saint’s lives, Bede, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and a number of works written much later (for example, Chronicon ex chronicus of Florence of Worcester, Historia Anglorum of Henry of Huntingdon and Flowers of History by Roger of Wendover, all dating from the 12th and 13th centuries). Whitehead is often reduced to speculating on subtle bits of data from these – is some poorly-attested king of Mercia related to some other poorly-attested king? Was some casually mentioned battle important? There’s not much feel for what life was like for the average Mercian – or even if there were people who thought of themselves as “Mercians”. That’s not Whitehead’s fault, of course, she has to deal with the scanty evidence available.
Instructive for me; I’ve been reading a lot of English history recently and Mercia gives considerable insight into an otherwise obscure historical period. Only one map, and that’s a very general one; a handicap for readers like me who don’t live in the UK and therefore don’t have a good idea of regional geography. A color plate section with relevant illustrations. Lots of genealogical tables. A useful preface with sources and abbreviations. Extensive endnotes bibliography.