The Documentary Politics of Conquered England's Queens

This book provides new and approachable translations of two important medieval artifacts: the Encomium of Queen Emma and the Life of King Edward. Sponsored by royal women—Emma of Normandy, wife of two English kings and mother to two more; and Edith of Wessex, the wife of Edward the Confessor and sister to Harold Godwineson—these texts place the politics of history writing centre-stage against the backdrop of the Anglo-Scandinavian regime of Cnut the Great and the Norman Conquest of 1066. Readers will encounter the drama and pageantry of civil war, invasion, and resistance through the eyes of the queens behind the thrones.

Jacob Bell is Assistant Professor of History at Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX. His research focuses on the lives and afterlives of enslaved peoples and other marginalized groups across the medieval globe.