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AD 500: A Journey through the Dark Isles

by Simon Young

Oxbow says: Imagine you were a traveller to Britain from turn of the (6th) century Byzantium. Having probably chosen the four-month sea route, the sea monsters and winds of the Bay of Biscay being preferable to the barbarians of the Rhine Valley, you then have to contend with the inherently superstitious, hospitable and robust Britons (Celts, Saxons, Angles, Scots and so on) who speak an indecipherable language, and drink themselves to oblivion every night while (especially in Wales) singing songs. If this were the case then this guidebook is for you. Simon Young has written a thoroughly enjoyable, witty, atmospheric and very knowledgeable companion to post-Roman Britain, from Kent to Orkney. Soundly based on archaeological and material evidence, the format effectively breathes life into gravegoods and cemeteries, settlements and monastic sites as well as literary epics and myth. This is a world where Hadrian's Wall continues to loom large, where Glastonbury Tor begs to be climbed and where every town has an Arthur story or a saintly relic, where complex rituals accompany the burial of the dead and abbots dominate. The book is presented as a longlost Byzantine travelogue which Simon Young has translated; his translator's brief notes adding background or additional information. This book will be enjoyed by many with an interest in that period between the Roman withdrawal and the complete Saxon domination of the land, when Roman walls were torn down but Roman pottery was treasured. Arguably those readers with some knowledge of early medieval and Saxon archaeology will enjoy Young's book the most for the colour (and humour) that it adds to a fascinating transitional period for which the archaeological evidence is tantalisingly scarce and enigmatic. New in Phoenix paperback. 260p (Weidenfeld and Nicolson Hb 2005, Phoenix Pb 2006)

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