Edoardo Albert reviews Fortress of Fury, the latest book in Matthew Harffy’s much-loved Bernicia Chronicles series set in the turbulent world of seventh-century England. The many readers who have accompanied Matthew Harffy’s seventh-century warrior hero, Beobrand, through his adventures in the previous six books in the series will be expecting taut adventure, bloody and brutal […]
A life of war in Anglo-Saxon Britain
The skeleton of an unknown 7th-century warrior buried near Bamburgh Castle in Northumberland seemed to have nothing to tell historian and novelist Edoardo Albert… until tests showed a link to a Scottish holy island and the original returning king: Oswald of Northumbria. The bones were silent. That’s the problem: they usually are. They are the […]
Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms: Art, Word, War
Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms: Art, Word, War at the British Library has been hailed as “a once-in-a-generation exhibition“. Edoardo Albert finds that, in this giant treasure-hoard, the brightest jewels are often in the smallest details. Would you give a thousand acres of the best land for a book? Benedict Biscop, founder of the double monastery at Monkwearmouth-Jarrow, did. […]