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"Sometimes laugh-out-loud comic and sometimes coldly caustic, Jones’s wit as a narrator makes the Middle Ages seem very up close and personal. His book is not only an engrossing read about the distant past, both informative and entertaining, but also aprofoundly thought-provoking view of our not-really-so-“new” present. . . . All medieval history is here, beautifully narrated . . . The vision takes in whole imperial landscapes but also makes room for intimate portraits of key individuals, and even some poems."―Wall Street Journal

"A lively history . . . [Jones] has managed to touch every major topic. As each piece of the puzzle is placed into position, the modern world gradually comes into view . . . Powers and Thrones provides the reader with a framework for understanding a complicated subject, and it tells the story of an essential era of world history with skill and style."―The New York Times

“An audacious, entertaining page-turner. Dan Jones covers a thousand years of history with elegance and panache.”―Dan Carlin, host of Hardcore History

"Simply the best popular history of the Middle Ages there is."―The Sunday Times (UK)

"A great achievement, pulling together many strands with aplomb."―Peter Frankopan, The Spectator

“Despite the immensity of the task, renowned historian Jones makes the 1,000-year history of the Middle Ages accessible and utterly fascinating. He does so by consistently applying two techniques, strategic use of primary source material and relatable comparisons to modern times . . . The book’s subtitle includes the word new, and deservedly so. This is a refreshing take on a long, complex period in the human story.” ―Booklist

“This gripping history manages to bring novelty to a well-trod subject, spanning the Dark Ages and the globe. Traversing crises and empires and shedding new light on famous subjects, this archive of a fascinating time enthralls till the final page.”―Newsweek

"A terrifically colourful and compelling narrative history, with all the confidence, bravura and swift judgements essential to an overview of such a vast time span . . . A hugely impressive achievement, bustling and sizzling with life on every page . . . This is now simply the best popular history of the Middle Ages there is."―The Sunday Times (UK)

“Jones covers 1,000 years of world history in this entertaining chronicle of the period between the fall of the Roman Empire and the Protestant Reformation. Throughout, Jones displays flashes of humor and reveals unexpected links between events and figures . . .This richly detailed history will appeal to aficionados and newcomers alike.” ―Publishers Weekly (Starred review)

“Absorbing . . . Jones writes a lively narrative . . . A fine account of a distant era that still echoes today.”―Kirkus Reviews

“An audacious, entertaining page-turner. Dan Jones covers a thousand years of history with elegance and panache. Taking a long view and a wide lens, Powers and Thrones offers both the big picture and unique insights. It felt as though I were reading a classic history of my youth, but updated with modern factual information and a 360-degree cultural perspective.”―Dan Carlin, host of Hardcore History

1



Romans



Everywhere . . . the name of the Roman people is an object of reverence and awe.



Ammianus Marcellinus, Roman historian and soldier



They left the safety of the road and tramped out into the wilderness, lugging the heavy wooden chest between them. How their limbs must have ached as they carried it some two miles across the uneven landscape-for the box, while only a meter in length, was well built, densely filled, and sealed with a large silver spring lock. To move it any distance required at least two people, or a small cart, for crate and contents together weighed half as much as a person. But the value of the goods inside far exceeded the cost of a human being. An enslaved person imported from Gaul, brought across the British Sea (Oceanus Britannicus-today the English Channel), and converted into cash on the markets of London (Londinium) might in those days cost six hundred denarii-assuming he or she were fit, young, and either hardworking or good-looking. This was no small price, around twice an ordinary soldier's annual wages. But if it was a lot, it was also nothing at all for an elite citizen of the Roman Empire in the fifth century a.d. Inside the oak box that creaked as they hiked across the gently sloping countryside was a fortune sufficient to pay for a whole houseful of enslaved people.



The precious load inside the oak case included nearly six hundred gold coins known as solidi. These jangled against fifteen thousand silver siliquae and a couple of handfuls of random bronze pieces. The coins were stamped variously with the faces of emperors from three dynasties, the most recent of them the ill-fated usurper Constantine III (r. a.d. 407/9-11). Nestled among the coins were even greater treasures: an assortment of gorgeous gold necklaces, rings, and fashionable body chains designed to cling to the curves of a slender young woman's body; bangles etched with geometric patterns and lifelike hunting scenes; tableware including silver spoons and pepper pots in the shape of wild beasts, ancient heroes, and empresses; elegant toilet utensils including silver earwax scrapers and toothpicks made to look like long-necked ibises; bowls, beakers, and jugs; and a tiny elephant-ivory pyxis-the sort of trinket that rich men like Aurelius Ursicinus, whose name was etched into many of the items, liked to buy for refined women like the lady Juliane (Iuliane). A bespoke bracelet was personalized with a loving message spelled in tiny strips of beaten gold: vtere felix domina ivliane (Use this happily, Lady Juliane). And ten silver spoons advertised the family's devotion to the young but pervasive religion of the day: each was stamped with the symbol known as the Chi-Rho-a monogram made up of the first two Greek letters in the word Christ. This would have been instantly familiar to fellow believers-Christians-who were part of a community of the faithful that stretched from Britain and Ireland (Hibernia) to North Africa and the Middle East.



This hoard of coins, jewelry, and home furnishings was by no means the sum total of the family's valuables, for Aurelius and Juliane were members of the small, fabulously wealthy Christian elite of Britain-a villa set who lived in similar comfort and splendor to other elites right across Europe and the Mediterranean. But it was a significant nest egg all the same-and the family had taken some trouble in selecting what to include in it. That was only right, because this rich cache was effectively an insurance policy. The family had instructed that it be buried somewhere discreet for safekeeping, while they waited to see whether Britain's increasingly turbulent politics would tip over into governmental collapse, civil unrest, or something worse. Only time would tell what fate held for the province. In the meantime, the best place for an affluent clan's riches was underground.



The bustle of the busy road-the route that joined the eastern town of Caister-by-Norwich (Venta Icenorum) with the London-to-Colchester (Camulodunum) thoroughfare-had long receded into the distance, and the small group carrying the box found themselves alone and out of sight. They had walked far enough that the nearest town-Scole-was more than two miles away; satisfied that they had found a good spot, they set the box down. They may have rested awhile, perhaps even until nightfall. But soon enough shovels bit the earth, the soil-a mixture of clay and sandy gravel-heaped up, and a shallow hole emerged. They did not need to dig far-there was no need to waste effort, for they would be only making work for themselves in the future. So when the hole was just a few feet deep, they carefully lowered the box into it and backfilled the spoil. As they did so, the stout oak case containing Aurelius's spoons and silverware, Juliane's delicately wrought jewelry, and many handfuls of coins disappeared: buried like grave goods, those prized possessions of the deceased that had been laid to rest with their owners in half-remembered days of generations past. The diggers took note of the spot, then set off, relieved and unburdened, back toward the road. They would, they may have said to themselves, be back. When? It was hard to say. But surely, once the political storms battering Britain eased, and the barbarous invaders who attacked the eastern seaboard with wearying regularity were finally driven away, and the loyal soldiers returned from their wars in Gaul, Master Aurelius would send them back to dig up his valuable cargo. In a.d. 409, they did not know-and could not have begun to imagine-that Aurelius Ursicinus's treasure trove would in fact remain underground for nearly 1,600 years.



At the dawn of the fifth century a.d., Britain was the farthest-flung part of the Roman Empire, a superpower with a glorious history stretching back more than a millennium. Rome began as an Iron Age monarchy-tradition dated its origins to 753 b.c.-but following the reigns of seven kings (who, according to Roman lore, became increasingly tyrannical) in 509 b.c. it became a republic. Later still, in the first century b.c., the republic too was overthrown and Rome was ruled by emperors: at first a single emperor ruled in Rome, but later as many as four emperors ruled simultaneously from capitals including Milan, Ravenna, and Constantinople. The fourth Roman emperor, Claudius (r. a.d. 41-54), began the conquest of Britain in a.d. 43, assaulting the native peoples of the islands with an army of twenty thousand Roman legionaries and a war machine including armored elephants. By the end of the first century a large part of southern Britannia had been conquered, up to a militarized zone in the north that was eventually marked by Hadrian's Wall. Britain was henceforth no longer a mysterious zone at the limits of the known world, but a territory that had in large part been pacified and incorporated into a Mediterranean superstate. For the three and a half centuries that followed, Britain was joined to the Roman Empire, a political behemoth only rivaled for size, sophistication, military muscle, and longevity by the Persian megastates of the Parthians and Sassanids, and the empire of the Chinese Han dynasty. Ammianus Marcellinus, a Greek-born historian who lived and wrote in the fourth century a.d., called Rome "a city destined to endure as long as the human race survives." The Roman Empire, meanwhile, had "set its foot on the proud necks of savage peoples and given them laws to serve as the eternal foundation and guarantee of liberty."



There was hyperbole here-but only a pinch. Ammianus Marcellinus was by no means the only serious Roman writer to look upon Rome and its empire and see a series of triumphs stretching back to the dimness of prehistory and forward to infinity. Poets and historians such as Virgil, Horace, Ovid, and Livy gave voice to the superior nature of the Roman citizen and the epic character of the city's imperial history. Virgil's Aeneid, w

"Not only an engrossing read about the distant past, both informative and entertaining, but also a profoundly thought-provoking view of our not-really-so-‘new’ present . . . All medieval history is here, beautifully narrated . . . The vision takes in whole imperial landscapes but also makes room for intimate portraits of key individuals, and even some poems."―Wall Street Journal

"A lively history . . . [Jones] has managed to touch every major topic. As each piece of the puzzle is placed into position, the modern world gradually comes into view . . . Powers and Thrones provides the reader with a framework for understanding a complicated subject, and it tells the story of an essential era of world history with skill and style."―The New York Times

The New York Times bestselling author returns with an epic history of the medieval world―a rich and complicated reappraisal of an era whose legacy and lessons we are still living with today.

When the once-mighty city of Rome was sacked by barbarians in 410 and lay in ruins, it signaled the end of an era--and the beginning of a thousand years of profound transformation. In a gripping narrative bursting with big names―from St Augustine and Attila the Hun to the Prophet Muhammad and Eleanor of Aquitaine―Dan Jones charges through the history of the Middle Ages. Powers and Thrones takes readers on a journey through an emerging Europe, the great capitals of late Antiquity, as well as the influential cities of the Islamic West, and culminates in the first European voyages to the Americas.

The medieval world was forged by the big forces that still occupy us today: climate change, pandemic disease, mass migration, and technological revolutions. This was the time when the great European nationalities were formed; when the basic Western systems of law and governance were codified; when the Christian Churches matured as both powerful institutions and the regulators of Western public morality; and when art, architecture, philosophical inquiry and scientific invention went through periods of massive, revolutionary change.

The West was rebuilt on the ruins of an empire and emerged from a state of crisis and collapse to dominate the world. Every sphere of human life and activity was transformed in the thousand years covered by Powers and Thrones. As we face a critical turning point in our own millennium, Dan Jones shows that how we got here matters more than ever.