David Starkey's new series is worth watching, though I'll probably not bother with any of the rest. Last night the subject was Anglo-Saxon kingship, the stars of the show being Ethelbert of Kent, Offa of Mercia and - above all - Alfred the Great of Wessex. Starkey made the key point, compared to which all others can be let go: that the monarchy which we have today is the lineal descendant of the Anglo-Saxon monarchies, and that they were rooted in Germanic custom. Christian and Roman ideas came later to exalt the idea of monarchy, but the substratum was that of the Germanic chief, who holds power on behalf of the people and in constant, institutionalised consultation with them. Consultation is not full accountability, but it provides an excellent foundation for it. It also enables much greater national efforts, so long as the ruler is in accord with the people: it enabled Alfred and his successors to defend Wessex from the Vikings and, within fifty years, to wrest the whole of the territory now known as England from their pagan grasp. And they did it without turning England into a dreary militaristic autocracy, but by preserving and using the customary mechanisms of the people, and at the same time as encouraging the growth of learning and the arts. Alfred and his son Edward and grandson Athelstan were men of no common stamp.
C., with whom I watched the programme, commented that Alfred's cultural efforts were a bit wasted because most of the English couldn't read. But mass education in that time was neither necessary nor possible: Alfred was trying to create, virtually from scratch (because the Vikings had slaughtered every priest and monk they could find) an educated ruling class capable of leading the people in difficult times. No offence, but C. reads the Guardian.
This kind of institutional history is a bit out of fashion today, since TV producers and publishers like to go for the easy marks and the mass market, hence the endless flood of books about Nazis and mad Roman emperors. But the difference between that sort of thing and Starkey is the difference between entertainment and understanding.