The glory of German wines

I have had three recent conversations, all lively if unrelated – and all well lubricated. The first concerned Anglo-Saxon England around ad 700. Recent discoveries of coin hoards suggested that economic activity during that period of the Dark Ages was more extensive than had been supposed. Without damaging the coins, it had been possible to establish that some of their silver content had come from Byzantium.

Every time
I drink a German wine I am convinced that one should do so more often

The main discussants were a couple of academics who had been disciples and friends of Philip Grierson, one of the greatest numismatists of all time: a scholar, collector and major benefactor of the Fitzwilliam in Cambridge. That reminded me of an embarrassing meeting. In my undergraduate days, I was once introduced to Professor Grierson, whose reputation was well known, as a fellow numismatist. ‘Oh really: what is your period?’ I quickly put matters right. I was no numismatist, merely a schoolboy coin collector. He was amused: I, overawed and embarrassed – but he quickly put me at my ease.

Historians of the Anglo-Saxon period are constantly searching for new sources in answer to that perennial question: ‘How dark were the Dark Ages?’ I have always assumed that the defeat in 1066 was a blessing, in that the Norman Conquest brought England into European civilisation, and prevented it from becoming part of south Scandinavia, and that the cruelties inflicted on Anglo-Saxon peasants were a price well worth paying. But there are those, notably Sally Harvey, who point to the glorious quality of Anglo-Saxon manuscripts and insist that the late Anglo-Saxons could have achieved everything that William and his brigands accomplished if only King Harold had not been so impetuous as to lead an exhausted army into a combat with fresh troops.