Ann Williams is a specialist in the history of Anglo-Saxon England. She is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and a research fellow at the University of East Anglia. Previously, she was a lecturer in history at the Polytechnic of North London from 1965 to 1988.
Despite the growing centralisation of medieval papal government, this study argues that twelfth-century papal councils - a critical mechanism for contemporary papal government - relied on input from local clerics to formulate the conciliar decrees and, later, ensure their dissemination, thereby limiting the influence of the papacy.
This book is a study of the exercise of royal authority before the Norman Conquest. Six centuries separate the 'adventus Saxonum' from the battle of Hastings: during those long years, the English kings changed from warlords, who exacted submission by force, into law-givers to whom obedience was a moral duty. In the process, they created many of the administrative institutes which continued to serve their successors. They also created England: the united kingdom of the English people.
A series which is a model of its kind: Edmund King