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Death Comes for the King

18 May 2025
Edoardo
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Categories: History

Although the king list of the rulers of Northumbria is subject to some considerable question, what no historian doubts is the mortality rate. Not one of the early kings of Northumbria, nor its constituent kingdoms of Bernicia and Deira, died as old men.

The kings were caught in a cycle of raid and revenge, revenge and raid. Raids to acquire the booty to give as gift to their warband. Revenge to strike back at those raiding them.

Offensive warfare has two main avenues: columns of men moving through the countryside seeking to find and destroy the enemy’s forces or smaller groups of men moving fast and setting out to cause as much damage and chaos while reaping as much plunder as possible.

The main drawback for raiders was that cattle, a frequent target for such raids, can only be moved at cow speed, which is slower than horse speed. Trying to usher enemy cattle back out of enemy territory before the enemy could concentrate enough men to cause serious trouble must have been a major headache. Decoy or simultaneous raids could have helped to scatter the response.

Book review: Oathbreakers by Matthew Gabriele and David M. Perry

18 May 2025
Edoardo
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Categories: Book review
Oathbreakers by Matthew Gabriele and David M. Perry

Historians, when writing for the general public, don’t normally draw back the curtains on what they do. They tell the story of what happened, when it happened and who did what, but they don’t spend ages going through the painstaking work that allowed them to tell this story.

In Oathbreakers, Gabriele and Perry do something different: they pull back the historical curtains. While the book sets out to tell the history of the bitter civil conflict between the children and grandchildren of Charlemagne that tore apart the Carolingian Empire, it’s a book that also reveals how historians interrogate their sources to try to get at the real story of what happened.

While the history of the falling out between the heirs of Charlemagne is dramatic in itself, just as much of the tension in the book comes from the authors’ treatment of their sources. As Gabriele and Perry examine the sources of their history, the writers’ description of their methods also allows the reader to evaluate what they are doing. For, of course, just as the original annalists were telling a story with a view to its effect, historians work with their own set of assumptions and presuppositions. It’s just rare for these to be presented to the reader, explicitly and implicitly.

As such, Oathbreakers is both an excellent history of the division and conflict that, eventually, produced France and Germany but also a chance for readers to understand how historians come to these conclusions and agree, or disagree, with their conclusions.

Bob Marley Meets Chris Blackwell

16 May 2025
Edoardo
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Categories: History

In 1972, Bob Marley, Peter Tosh and Bunny Livingstone paid a call on Chris Blackwell, the head of Island Records, at his office on Basing Street, Notting Hill.

They pointed out to Blackwell that the Wailers had never received any royalties for their recordings that Island Records had distributed in Britain. Blackwell told them that he had paid thousands to their record label in Jamaica. The Wailers had been systematically cheated.

At the news, Marley, Tosh and Livingstone went up to the roof of the building and did what the Wailers normally did when considering important matters: they smoked a spliff. Meanwhile, Blackwell was downstairs, considering what to do with this group of intense men. He had been told that the Wailers were difficult but already Blackwell was coming to respect them. So, when he joined them on the roof, Blackwell proposed a most unusual deal. He would give the Wailers £4,000 to cover the cost of recording a new record and another £4,000 on the record’s completion. What was more, at this stage there would be no contract. It was a handshake deal.

Blackwell was working on instinct. If he was wrong, there would be nothing to stop Marley and Co. walking off with the £4,000 and never coming back. There were plenty of people who told Blackwell that he was throwing his money away, that the Wailers would disappear back to Jamaica with his money and that would be it, but Blackwell trusted his instincts. He was certain that the Wailers were something special.

The World’s Oldest Ghost Story

14 May 2025
Edoardo
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Categories: History

The world’s oldest ghost story was found written on four sherds of ostraca, pottery inscribed with writing. The story is around 4,000 years old.

In the tale Khonsemhab, a high priest of the god Amun, is visited by a restless ghost, named Nebusemekh, who laments that his tomb has fallen to into ruin, that no one brings him food any longer and that, if this continues, then he will be lost, for his soul no longer has a dwelling place. Khonsemhab asks the ghost who he was and Nebusemekh tells him that he had been in charge of the treasury of Pharaoh Mentuhotep and lieutenant in his army. Nebusemekh had died in the 14th year of Mentuhotep’s reign but the pharaoh had provided his faithful servant with all the necessities for the afterlife. But now the care due to him has withered away and he is withering too.

The high priest, Khonsemhab, assures the ghost that he will see to the care of his tomb but Nebusemekh is dubious: he thinks the priest simply doesn’t have the money to build him a new tomb or to supply enough victuals to sustain him.

But Khonsemhab does not forget his promise, and sends men out to search for the tomb of Nebusemekh. They return with news of its whereabouts, at which Khonsemhab rejoices, calling an official to tell him what he has found.

Unfortunately, the end of the story is lost – although there is hope that another piece of ostraca may be unearthed with its ending – but experts believe that in the story Khonsemhab goes to the ruined tomb to tell the ghost of Nebusemekh that he will soon have a new home.

Book review: Crafting Stories from the Past

2 May 2025
Edoardo
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Categories: Book review
Crafting Stories from the Past

I’ve been writing books for fifteen years now, with seventeen published, so I was a little dubious that this new how-to book about writing historical fiction would have much to tell me.

Turns out, I was wrong! It has loads for me to learn, in particular about the research side of historical fiction and different ways of organising and remembering all that material so that you can apply it where needed in the writing. I had never even thought of keeping a spreadsheet of historical data. The chapter on what horses can and can’t do, what they need, how far they can travel, and all the other bits of information you need as a writer writing about horses while actually riding around in cars and buses was also invaluable.

The book is written by a collective of writers, with different writers contributing different chapters, so the reader gets the benefit of the distilled experience of many voices. There’s also an excellent appendix with links to further resources for research and writing.

I would genuinely say this is the most useful one-volume guide to historical fiction on the market today.

Help Me Choose the Cover for my New Novel

28 April 2025
Edoardo
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Categories: Writers, Writing
Cover 1
Cover 2
Cover 3
Cover 4

Dear Readers, I would very much appreciate your help. We’re working on the cover for my new novel, The War for the Heart of the World, and my designer has come up with these four concept covers. Which is your favourite? Or, even better, can you tell me your order, from best to worst? It will be a real help to hear from you and learn what you all think.

The Snare of War

21 April 2025
Edoardo
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Categories: History

Britain was once a place of little kingdoms. By the end of the fifth century, the two Roman dioceses, Britannia Inferior and Britannia Superior, had given way to a mosaic of petty princedoms. Some were the size of a county. Some were smaller: the land around a cluster of villages, perhaps demarcated by some natural features such as forest and river. Many of these tiny kingdoms have left not the slightest trace on the historical record: they disappeared with the deaths of the kings who claimed to rule them. And the reason that so many were forgotten was that the life of a king was short and ended in blood.

For the kings, the men sitting at the apex of the social pyramid, had made a deal with devils in their ascent: having reached the top of the mountain there was no way back down. They were caught as tight as a hare in a wire. It did not matter if their subjects were Britons, Angles, Saxons or any of the other peoples who lived on the land. The farmers were constrained by the rhythms of farming: ploughing, sowing, harvesting, preparing. But the kings were trapped. They were trapped more firmly than any of their subjects.

The kings were caught in the snare of war.

Warriors Born and Warriors Made

21 April 2025
Edoardo
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Categories: History

Could the son of a farmer become a warrior in Anglo-Saxon Britain? Whether the warrior caste was sufficiently open to allow such a boy to enter it is an interesting question. Certainly, the easiest way to enter the warrior caste was to be born into it. However, it might have still been possible for a farmer’s son to become a warrior and part of the king’s warband.

While the social distance between king and peasant was great, the physical distance was not. The king and his warband were personal and present; they travelled their kingdom. A young man exhibiting strength, courage and initiative could attract their attention, particularly if he had the opportunity to do something that drew attention to his abilities: taking part in a battle and distinguishing himself, alerting the warband to the presence of an enemy, acting as a scout. Any of these could bring the farmer’s boy to the king’s attention and lead to his recruitment into the warband.

Once in, it was deeds that counted. While there was a hierarchy within the warrior aristocracy and the son of a farmer was never going to be an ætheling, his son or his grandson might.

Separated by Battle, Joined by Warfare

15 April 2025
Edoardo
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Categories: History

The warriors of early medieval Britain – Angle, Saxon, Briton, Irish, Pict – shared much even when they were separated by different religions: following the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons, their cultures converged further.

The threads holding them together ran through language, the hierarchical but meritocratic organisation of the warband, the training necessary for fighting men, the broader horizons established by travel and the many outlanders among them. Indeed, perhaps a majority of warriors learned their skill far from their own mead hall.

It was a common practice for kings in Anglo-Saxon Britain to send their sons, from the age of seven and up, to be fostered as part of the retinue of an allied king. This served to broaden the experience of the growing boy, and it cemented ties between competing and allied kingdoms.