Anglo-Saxon England Podcast - and Cricket

I can only recommend Anglo-Saxon England with reservation. It very much depends on what you are looking for. I thought modern historians had moved away from focus on battles and kings, so I am surprised that this is mostly what you get here. Tom Kearns clearly knows his stuff.  He makes constant reference to the sources and their disagreements and limitations. He is aware of the marriages for alliance, or reading between the lines to discern whether a ruler is a puppet of a more powerful neighbor or an assertion of local power in defiance of one. He gives a fair bit of attention to archbishops and their replacements as well, to give some sense of the competition and sharing of power.

But in the end it's lists of kings and successions. As these are all Anglo-Saxon names, all Pendas and Coenwulfs, Egfriths and Aethelberts.  Not a Henry or a Richard among them to sooth the modern mind with familiar names. There is passing mention of coinage, or legal codes, or trade from Kent to the Continent, but only in service to discussing kings, and next kings, and relatives of kings.  To be fair, he does have bonus episodes about distinctives of piety and poetic themes, but these are background, not fully integrated in to the discussions.  What did they eat?  How did they marry? What did they sell? What were their houses and carts like?

There is another podcast of similar name Anglo Saxon England (no hyphen) by David Crowther, which I listend to a few years ago.  I should listen to a couple of episodes again before reviewing that. Stay tuned.  I think I liked it better.

Small podcasts can be fun because of who is taking a flyer on putting an add there.  I keep getting plugs for a weekly podcast on Indian Cricket.  I might give it a try, just for the novelty of it.