Home » Rory Naismith

Rory Naismith

Offa: King of the Mercians, by Rory Naismith

Offa: King of the Mercians, by Rory Naismith

A worthy re-evaluation of the reign of Offa, showing through varied evidence how his power shaped Mercia’s dominance and early English state formation.

When studying Anglo-Saxon history at university, it often felt to me that (with apologies to East Anglia), Mercia was left holding the thin end of the wedge in terms of the big three kingdoms of the Heptarchy. With Northumbria to the north and Wessex to the south, it...

Offa: King of the Mercians – Rory Naismith Interviewed

Offa: King of the Mercians – Rory Naismith Interviewed

The historian discusses his new portrait of Offa with Paul Bernardi, dissecting the obstacle of limited sources, projections of kingship through coins and monuments, and how the 8th-century monarch laid the groundwork for a united England.
Rory Naismith

Let me begin, Rory, by offering my congratulations on the publication of Offa: King of the Mercians. A truly magnificent piece of work. The jacket notes refer to this book as a ‘breathtaking piece of historical investigation’ (with which I cannot argue); how would you...

Lichfield: England’s Third Archbishop

Lichfield: England’s Third Archbishop

In the age of Offa, a short-lived archbishopric at Lichfield (787–803) reflected the expansion and consolidation of Mercian rule, though later Canterbury sources recast it as a contentious and anomalous creation.
Rory Naismith

The pair of Anglican archbishops at Canterbury and York have been pillars of England’s ecclesiastical establishment for centuries, going back long before the Church of England itself. However, for a brief period between 787 and 803 England had a third archbishopric,...