The chapters in this volume, each written by a leading scholar of the period, analyze in turn the different nationalities and kingdoms that existed in the British Isles from the end of the Roman empire to the coming of the Vikings, the process of conversion to Christianity, the development of art and of a written culture, and the interaction between this written culture and the societies of the day.

Thomas Charles-Edwards is Jesus Professor of Celtic at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Jesus College.

• Introduction


• 1: Thomas Charles-Edwards: Nations and Kingdoms


• 2: John Hines: Society, Community, and Identity


• 3: Thomas Charles-Edwards: Conversion to Christianity


• 4: Jennifer O'Reilly: The Art of Authority


• 5: Andy Orchard: Latin and the Vernacular Languages: the Creation of a Bilingual Textual Culture


• 6: Robin Chapman Stacey: Texts and Society


• Conclusion