Customer Reviews

The Struggle for Mastery: Britain, 1066-1284

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As a closet British/Norman amateur medieval scholar, the Norman and Angevin rulers are endlessly fascinating to me. This is one of the best books I've ever read on the subject. It places virtually every individual and significant event into context, some of which even biographies devoted to a particular individual haven't discussed. It blends the events, personalities, economics, religious aspects and power struggles into a comprehensive, highly readable narrative. My only caution -- the author assumes the reader has a general knowledge of the time period from the Norman Conquest of England through the Angevin dynasty.
Even though I have over 75 text books and biographies on the period, this is already one of my favorites I know I'll turn to time and again.

Excellent and highly recommended: the best I've read in the recent Penguin history of Britain (v. 4 is poor, v. 5 is very good). Carpenter offers a very intelligent, comprehensive, balanced, and authoritative account of the social, economic, political, and religious aspects of a very rich period that witnessed the early formation of institutions that have lasted to the present. Best of all, Carpenter has written a masterful narrative in a clear, perspicuous, and fluid style that seamlessly weaves many complex themes in an orderly pattern, mixing illuminating detail with judicious observation. This volume is also much longer than the others I've seen in the series, and all the better for that. The index's organization is a bit peculiar (see all entries for "England"), but once you get used to it you'll find it accurate and reliable. (With all due respect to the previous reviewer, with whom I otherwise completely agree, I think the educated lay reader new to the period will do fine with this book. It's true, on occasion my eyes glazed at the detail on battles or finances, but one can easily skip a paragraph or two, or even several pages, without losing the thread, such is author's organizational skill.)

This book is an outstanding work of history, going for the most part into incredible depth on this critical period of British history, from the initial Norman conquest of England in 1066 to the final English conquest of Wales in 1284 (and also to the first English conquest of Scotland a few years later). Most importantly, it shows how this period formed the foundations of what would become Britain, covering everything from how the Norman overlords and their English subjects eventually assimilated each other to become one people, how the Scots were successful in forming a viable kingdom out of many disparate groups while the Welsh, who had seemingly greater advantages, ultimately failed due to their endless internecine feuds. The kings of the period, Norman and Angevin, come into sharp relief, their personal strengths and weaknesses shown often to be the biggest factor in the successes or failures of their reigns. The book also covers in great detail how Magna Carta came to be the foundation for the rule of law, how the institution of parliament evolved, how the concept of common law evolved and the unifying effect that this had on the nation, and how none of these things occurred without a great deal of struggle - military, political and social - between the various parties involved. It really is impossible to convey the depth of detail the book goes into on everything from how laws were enforced (at one point traveling courts called 'eyres' would hear cases in a given shire about once every two years), how creative taxation could be (widows were sometimes required to pay a fee for the right to choose if and whom they wished to remarry) and how the document-driven bureaucracy evolved (King Henry II employed four clerks in his chancery. His great-grandson Edward I employed over two hundred). About the only areas where I felt the author could have gone into more detail was in the eventual conquests of Wales and Scotland at the end of the period. But otherwise, I found this book extremely informative on many levels. It's a somewhat dense read due to the amount of detail, but you come away with a very firm understanding of what happened in the period and why it was all so critical to Britain's evolution.