I'm thinking of writting a book

I agree that you shouldn't judge the past by modern standards, but taking a look through a modern lens at somethings is useful, l had a book on the Mercian King Penda for xmas, he's always seen as a baddie in traditional history, but was he really? He was Englands last pagan king, so of course with most history being written from a christian perspective, this makes him a big baddie, but that's not the whole picture by a long shot. Questioning history is vital, as is questioning the history of history. Boudicca has been treated more kindly by modern historians than she was by Roman sources and those who relied on them and followed the prevailing sexism of the time of weriting. I mean if my husband died, foreign soldiers came and turfed me off my land, took my frieds into slavery, raped my young daughters and then tied me to a post and whipped me for objecting, then I'd probably raise an army and try and drive them out too, I've not seen any one try and dismiss the horrors she and her army inflicted on the towns they sacked. I see this as a more nuanced view, than one that just points at good and bad

I get very fed up of writers who trash other peoples theories but don't put forward any of their own, I wonder why they bother and why they get published, also the material they use to denigrate the works of others is often a bit out of context. History as it's practised now is a shared thing with evidence taken from ancestral DNA, and archaelogy, it is no longer just an examination of texts. Also the texts that have been used for centuries are being reexamined themselves. One of the thing that always irritated me about so many historians of the past 100 ears or so, has been that they seem to have expected ancient peoples to stick within modern political boundaries.

I think there are also some questions that need asking and taking seriously, like how Roman was Britain, where was it most heavily Romanised? I'm also glad that theories of wholesale population replacement have had to be largely abandoned due to lack of archaelogical evidence but most importantly through DNA analysis, this sort of thing has left a lot of disgruntled people out there without an axe to grind.

I get your point about being told things by historians, and I actually think it's gotten worse myself. I recently read some of Livy's work, who was a Roman historian writing in the 1st century AD. He mentioned at the very beginning how he's aware of the potential inaccuarcies of historical/mythical events and he does put his own opinion in at times, but he's very clear that it is his own opinion and doesn't really pass it off as fact.

When I read newer translations of older books, or just modern books in general, I feel like many authors out there are purposefully trying to tear apart and then revise history to suit their agenda. It's the same with historical figures being branded as evil simply because they are being judged by modern standards - a stupid attempt at villianising certain figures in order to claim 'victim points' for whichever background the author claims to be from.

Yes I will have to learn to use a spell checker and have all the hassle of learning how to use a word processor again and have it in UK English and grammar, rather than US English and grammar, it used to frustrate me so much that everytime there was an update word would switch back to its default US settings and change everything I'd written and I've have to go back and change it all again. It's left me with a Ggrrr feeling everytime a see a red wiggly. This is one reason why I won't type anything up until I have all my notes and everything and am ready to write.

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I do have a book of Celtic saints, but so little seems to be known about them that any biography is very short, mostly all that seems to be known is that they existed and roughly where they practiced. I do wonder if the sources have been deliberately ignored and lost, most of what we do have are later copies of original documents, and it can be quite difficult to know how accurate those copies are as scribes often left out or changed bits they didn't like. I wonder if this happened with early British Christianity, that it didn't survive because it didn't fit the narrative that the church was fostering. I suspect too that early British Christianity was similar to that Ireland and the Orthodox and Coptic churches. That would certainly fit in with the hermitages that seem so frequent in Britain and Ireland and the harsh living conditions of early monasteries, there was a lot of admiration and copying of the desert fathers.

I wouldn't know where to begin with publication and I'd probaly be to afraid of rejection, but when It's done I might email it to people on request, so you will get to read it if you want to.

I'm sorry catwoman, but someone has to say this.  

*sarc mode <on>*

If you are going to be"writting a book" perhaps you ought to at least spell the title of it right!

*sarc mode <off>* 

Apart from that tiny detail, it seems you are possibly going to write something I'd like to read! 

I agree. It sounds like something you are going to enjoy, so definitely try it!

I haven’t used JSTOR for a long time but it wasn’t great. It is very frustrating not to have access to the academic platforms. Your book chapters offer rather exciting themes and when you finish it, do keep an open mind about publishing it or submitting even a chapter to an academic journal for consideration. I know that isn’t your end goal though and clearly you are doing it for the love and passion of your subject, and that is a wonderful thing. Regarding ‘kings should not allow female warriors’, you are dead right about suggesting that women warriors existed, or at the very least, have requested or have shown inclination to fight. Much can be deduced from documents stating certain activities are forbidden. With regard to early Christianity in Britain, I know much has been dedicated to the subject, but perhaps the earliest period has been skimmed over because I believe that credible historical sources are scarce. Some of the sources are legends of the saints. It would be likely that following the introduction of Christianity by the Romans or by a person or persons who were in contact with the Romans, certain parts of Britain would have assimilated Celtic practices and other cultural traditions. Surely it is likely that the Christianity practiced in Early Britain would have incorporated at least the main elements of the early churches in Turkey, Lebanon, Jerusalem and Greece?  Perhaps the historical evidence for that, along with what you already know about Christianity in early Britain, would give you enough cumulative evidence to say “it is likely that …’”. 

This is great! Do it!

I don't, I find J-Stor almost unusable, or it was when I last tried it, which was some years ago and I've never heard of SCOPUS so I will try and check it out.

It will be hard with no access to academic websites, but then I have no attachment to getting it published or even a finishing date. I too would love to do a PhD, but very few universities cover my period anyway, so I will just keep going as best I can.

I've already started, I bought myself a nice note book and have been writing down questions I want to cover as well as taking notes for the chapter on Aethelflaed, did she fight alongside her soldiers? Women weren't trained to fight in Christian Anglo-Saxon times, as far as we know, we don't know about the pre-Christian times as there are no sources, but there are rumours and niggles. It would have been highly unlikely that she would have been accepted as a leader if she couldn't fight and there are no mentions of any particular men associated with her as possible generals, just that she seems to have been on the fields of battle, she could have been directing things from a distance, but it seems unlikely. There is evidence of women fighters in war graves, especially one in Repton I think it was, I need to check, in a mass Viking grave, they would have been contemporary with Aethelflaed. In Ireland the laws of Adoman. AKA The Law of Innocents, an early Geneva convention on rules regarding non combatants specifically says that kings should not allow female warriors. Why include them as a specific catagory if they don't exist? It would a very unusual piece of legislation to include the inconcievable!

Another chapter I want to write is about religion in post Roman Britain, far from being totally pagan and over run as soon as the legions left, large parts of Britain were held by the Romano British population who we're told were Christian, but made no attempt to convert their pagan neighbours. Nor do we know what variant of Christianity was practiced here, there appear to be no records, why? Could it be because they were lost? Could it be that they were written out of history by later writers because their variant of Christianity was frowned upon? The nearest thing to a source we have is Gildas, who's problematic for so many reasons, he castigates British Kings for poor Christianity, but never says that they were pagans.

Another chapter will be on "The Othering of the North" and why Scandinavia is ignored in European history as a whole, only included as a discrete catagory, despite them having a huge impact on language, religion and it's practices. Even the Normans seem to suffer from this "othering", like they only matter when they become French.

Brilliant! Go for it! It is difficult, as you know, to access academic literature unless you are currently studying at postgraduate level. Do you use SCOPUS, JSTOR or any other online platforms. I would love to do a PhD part time in archaeology but the cost is prohibitive. I am not in a position to take up any teaching duties so it would be unlikely to atteact funding.