The Formation of the English Kingdom in the Tenth Century

George Molyneaux was born in Edinburgh and grew up in Aberdeen. He studied History at Christ Church, Oxford, coming top in the university in both his Preliminary and Final examinations. He was then elected to an Examination ('Prize') Fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford, where he researched and wrote the present book. He has also published articles in the English Historical Review, the Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, the Journal of Ecclesiastical History, Early Medieval Europe, and Anglo-Saxon England, receiving the Royal Historical Society's Alexander Prize for his article on the Old English Bede (English Historical Review, 2009). He is now a barrister at Blackstone Chambers in London, and remains a Fellow of All Souls College.

• Introduction: The Unification of the English? ; 1. The Geographical Extension of Cerdicing Domination ; 2. The Cerdicings and their Greater Subordinates from the Late Ninth to the Mid-Tenth Century ; 3. The Cerdicings and the General Populace from the Late Ninth to the Mid-Tenth Century ; 4. Administrative Change in the Mid- to Late Tenth Century ; 5. The Implications of Administrative Change ; Conclusion: The Formation of the English Kingdom and the "Anglo-Saxon State" ; Bibliography

This is a seriously impressive piece of scholarship that creates a framework through which we can perceive something of the tenth century's extensive administrative developments, the rationale that underpinned them, and the extraordinary far-reaching consequences they would have. It re-emphasizes the sophistication of late Anglo-Saxon government, and how very strong its interaction was with localities and the individual. In doing so, it reveals much about how England began.