As early as the late seventh century King Ine of Wessex (688-726) was moved to categorize numbers of armed men: ‘We call up to seven men thieves; from seven to thirty-five a band; above that it is an army.’

Anyone interested in the Viking Age is perforce going to be interested in the people we call the Anglo-Saxons. I recall that they intrigued me strangely when I discovered them in an encyclopedia at a very young age, before (as far as I can remember) I even knew about Vikings. The two cultures are sisters after all; many of the Anglo-Saxon tribes were Scandinavian in origin and only a few generations and geographic relocation separated them.

Paul Hill, author of The Anglo-Saxons at War 800-1066, is an accomplished historian and historical popularizer. He has produced here an excellent work targeted at those of us (like historical reenactors) who are interested in looking past generalizations and common assumptions to discover what we are able to know for sure (or can surmise) about warfare in the period. The trick is to separate known fact from guesses, and it seemed to me this book did a pretty good job of that.

The book includes an Introduction (a Survey of the Evidence); and chapters on Warfare, Violence and Society; Military Organization; Strategy and Tactics; Fortifications and Earthworks; Campaigns, Battles and Sieges; and Weapons, Armour and Accessories.

Now and then there are statements that contradict things I’m in the habit of telling people at reenactment events – he isn’t sure that the saex knife was reserved for the use of free men (spears, on the other hand, were, he says). And he doesn’t think the “wings” on a “boar spear” are actually intended to prevent a body from slipping down the shaft. He thinks they’re for parrying, and he probably knows more about it than I do.

General readers looking for a history of warfare in the period should probably find a different book. Certain events and campaigns are described in considerable detail, but they’re examined out of historical sequence. This is a book for enthusiasts interested in the period. Historical reenactors in particular will appreciate it.