The Penguin History of Britain: The Struggle for Mastery: Britain 1066-1284

Description

The two-and-a-half centuries after 1066 were momentous ones in the history of Britain. In 1066, England was conquered for the last time. The Anglo-Saxon ruling class was destroyed and the English became a subject race, dominated by a Norman-French dynasty and aristocracy. This book shows how the English domination of the kingdom was by no means a foregone conclusion. The struggle for mastery in the book's title is in reality the struggle for different masteries within Great Britain. The book weaves together the histories of England, Scotland and Wales in a new way and argues that all three, in their different fashions, were competing for domination.

David Carpenter, who has translated the text of Magna Carta and written the text of this edition, is Professor of Medieval History at King's College, London. He is the author of The Struggle for Mastery in Britain, 1066-1284, a volume in the Penguin History of Britain series.

"This is a fine, up-to-date synthesis of a grand subject, now suitably enlarged." T.N. Bisson, Henry Charles Lea Professor of Medieval History, Harvard University