Though the Norman conquest of 1066 and the subsequent passage of a millennia have robbed us of much of Anglo-Saxon culture, Misters Lacey and Danziger reconstruct a surprisingly vivid picture of life in England prior to William the Conquerers overthrow of the Anglo-Saxon way of life. Drawing inferences from the illustrations in a contemporary calendar, illustrations which were meant to guide citizens of the day in activities appropriate to the seasons, the authors assemble a favorable portrait of Anglo-Saxon life which suggests they were advanced beyond the culture of the Normans who conquered them. Women had the power to divorce their husbands, or be recompensed for rape. Many crimes were handled by a system of fines in lieu of physical punishments, an inducement to comply with the law without permanently debilitating the perpetrator. Every Anglo-Saxon had the right to hunt the land and claim what he killed. This democratic policy was in contrast to the Norman method of restricting such rights to the nobility and the owners of the land. Finally, kings were not hereditary. They were chosen from a pool of the worthy who were related by blood to the ruling family, a system that promoted ability over the primogeniture practiced by the Normans.
This is not the first book to argue that a people conquered in the name of enlightenment were actually more enlightened than their conquerers. There is, no doubt, a tendency amongst historians to elevate the virtues of cultures lost to antiquity. They, like great rock stars who die young, are frozen in time, their middle-aged warts unrealized. And yet this is a compelling case put forward with charming good humor that cannot but entertain. (3/5 Stars)
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