Learning:
The Journey of a Lifetime
A Cloud Chamber of the Mind

April 2006 History Notebook

An Example of a "Learning Process" Journal (using the 2 colored box format)

Notes for "In Search of the Dark Ages" by Michael Wood

7:50 am We are house sitting a lovely property in the rainforest near Alstonville NSW for the next 4 weeks. Most of my books have been shipped home via sea mail. However I did keep back a couple of small books for reading, including a couple of history books: In Search of the Dark Ages and Medieval Lives.

I began reading In Search of the Dark Ages last evening and am now faced with the task of making a few notes.

The introduction says that the book covers a period of about a thousand years, from the beginning of the Roman conquest to the Battle of Hastings in 1066 when England was invaded by William the Conqueror, a Norman king. For me, I need a framework within which to embed key events and people. This is best done by means of a simple chronological table.

The book contains nine chapters, each one about a key individual

Time	Description
	original inhabitants were Celtic-speaking Britons (ancestors of today's Welsh)
AD 43	Roman invasion of Britain
AD 60 - 61	revolt led by Boudica (Boadicea).
61 - 400	Britain was a relatively prosperous province of the Roman Empire.
400 - 500	Fall of the Roman Empire
	Invasions of Anglo-Saxons from Denmark and Saxony (Germany)
	Legend of King Arthur (defends the British against the invading English)
757 - 796	Offa (Anglo-Saxon king)
800 - 900	Viking invasions
871 - 899	Alfred the Great (Anglo-Saxon king)
924 - 939	Athelstan (Anglo-Saxon king)
954	Anglo-Saxons defeat Eric Bloodaxe, the last king of an independent Viking settlement
978 - 1016	Ethelred the Unready fails to maintain Anglo-Saxon rule
1016 - 1042	Danish rule under Canute and his successors
1042 - 1066	Anglo-Saxon rule restored
1066	William the Conqueror of Normandy ends Anglo-Saxon rule

 

 

This table gives me an good overview of the major events during this entire thousand year period. I recall reading the first volume of a series of historical novels by Jack Whyte that covered much of this same period.

But I have little detail about the actual life of the people at this time. Fernand Bruedel's history of France provides a good description of this. I must begin reading this when I return to Lethbridge.

Boadicea (Boudica)