LECTURE: The Defence of Wessex in the Viking Age
2:30 pm, Saturday, 06 November, 2010

An illustrated lecture by Dr Stuart Brookes exploring the northern frontier of the West Saxon kingdom.

Stuart will explore the processes by which the northern frontier of the West Saxon kingdom evolved during the later Anglo-Saxon period. He will outline the present state of knowledge of civil defence structures as revealed by archaeological, written and toponymic sources, including the important document known as the Burghal Hidage. Using an important case-study of northern Wiltshire, he argues that territories in early medieval England became defined and delineated as part of changing approaches to territorial defence against Viking aggression.


Dr Stuart Brookes is a research fellow at the UCL Institute of Archaeology and lectures at both Birkbeck College and the Oxford University Department for Continuing Education. He specialises in comparative landscape studies and the archaeologies of state formation. He is Assistant Editor of WANHM. Recent publications include Landscapes of Defence in the Viking Age (with J Baker and A Reynolds) and The Kingdom and People of Kent, AD400-1066 (with S Harrington).

Booking:

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