Anglo-Saxon Portraits

Thirty ground-breaking men and women of the early English nation

By: Various

Narrated by: Barbara Yorke, David Almond, Full Cast, Michael Wood, Rowan Williams, Seamus Heaney

The half millennium between the creation of the English nation in around 550 and the Norman Conquest in 1066 was a formative one. This groundbreaking series rediscovers the Anglo-Saxons through vivid portraits of thirty incredible men and women, as told by their contemporary admirers.

Nobel prize-winner Seamus Heaney discusses the Beowulf bard; former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams focuses on St Augustine, the first Archbishop of Canterbury; Michael Wood celebrates Penda, the much-maligned last pagan king of England; Barbara Yorke tells the story of Hild of Whitby, the powerful abbess and largely forgotten pre-feminism model; and writer David Almond investigates the oldest surviving English poet, Caedmon.

From royalty to peasants, the women behind the Bayeux Tapestry to rebellious nuns, Anglo-Saxon Portraits unravels the mysteries of a too often forgotten period in British history.