Summary of Max Adams' The King in the North

By IRB Media

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#1 The dark ages were not weird, but they were not normal either. They were a time of magic and miracles, of superstition and making offerings to spirits. The people who survived the age were pragmatists and keen observers of their world.

#2 The first English king to be a martyr, Oswald ruled Northumbria for eight years, from 634 to 642. He was the overlord of almost all the other kingdoms in Britain, and his death was displayed on stakes at a place which came to be known as Oswald’s Tree.

#3 The life of Oswald was a prime example of how the politics of the Early Medieval period were played out between competing elite families. He was the product of such rivalries.

#4 Acha was the daughter of Ælle, king of the region called Deira between the rivers Humber and Tees. She was married to King Æthelfrith, and they had two sons, Oswald and Oswiu. Acha may have traveled far to the north and west with her children after Æthelfrith’s death.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Jul 12, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822545397

IRB Media

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Insights on Max Adams's The King in the North

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 8

Insights from Chapter 9

Insights from Chapter 10

Insights from Chapter 11

Insights from Chapter 12

Insights from Chapter 13

Insights from Chapter 14

Insights from Chapter 15

Insights from Chapter 16

Insights from Chapter 17

Insights from Chapter 18

Insights from Chapter 19

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The dark ages were not weird, but they were not normal either. They were a time of magic and miracles, of superstition and making offerings to spirits. The people who survived the age were pragmatists and keen observers of their world.

#2

The first English king to be a martyr, Oswald ruled Northumbria for eight years, from 634 to 642. He was the overlord of almost all the other kingdoms in Britain, and his death was displayed on stakes at a place which came to be known as Oswald’s Tree.

#3

The life of Oswald was a prime example of how the politics of the Early Medieval period were played out between competing elite families. He was the product of such rivalries.

#4

Acha was the daughter of Ælle, king of the region called Deira between the rivers Humber and Tees. She was married to King Æthelfrith, and they had two sons, Oswald and Oswiu. Acha may have traveled far to the north and west with her children after Æthelfrith’s death.

#5

The seventh century is outstanding for the number of women who played active roles in the fortunes of kingdoms. They had their own queenly agendas, and they were not to be underestimated.

#6

The arrival of Christianity in the Anglo-Saxon world changed the status of noble women. The sanctuary of the monastery came to offer a relatively comfortable retirement, as it also became an attractive career option for royal women who were not destined to be queens.

#7

The real world is full of irrationality, whim, chance event, and unintended consequence. The biographer must balance probabilities and err on the side of caution. They must allow an average man three score years and ten, but they weigh the accidents and balls-ups and offer a balanced probability.

#8

Oswald was a child of the Bernician royal family, which, predictably, traced its origins to the pagan god Woden. The lands that they claimed to rule lay between the River Tyne and the River Forth.

#9

The Bowl Hole cemetery near Bamburgh, which was excavated in the early 1900s, revealed that the people who lived there were well-fed and had grown up not in Bamburgh itself but across Bernicia. They were buried with parcels of food, perhaps from their funeral feasts.

#10

The kings of Bernicia spent much of their time campaigning in foreign lands for glory and the rewards of conquest. They had no defenses at Yeavering, a place of tribal assembly, judgement, and ritual since time out of mind.

#11

Oswald’s relationship with his father was terminated when he was twelve. Oswald would not see his home or native land again until he was twenty-nine.

Insights from Chapter 2

#1