The man who first posed and answered these questions lived 1,200 years ago in Northumberland. The Venerable Bede spent almost his whole life in two monasteries looking over the North Sea, far from the centres of civilisation. Yet he became the foremost scholar of the first millennium, writing a history that continues to illuminate the Dark Ages, while also popularising our modern dating scheme.

Faced with a Britain of competing kingdoms and peoples, it was Bede who first wrote of the English as a single people. It was his vision that created the story that has united and divided Britain ever since: an island divided into three countries.

Based on the most up-to-date research and historical and archaeological evidence, this book pieces together Bede’s life and those of the monks and nuns, warriors and kings, farmers and merchants who made up the kingdoms in the contested realm of Britain. 

Edoardo Albert is a London-based writer of Italian and Sri Lankan extraction who specialises in religion, travel and archaeology. His previous books include: Warrior: A Life of War in Anglo-Saxon Britain and Northumbria: The Lost Kingdom, both of which he co-authored with Paul Gething.