Sharon Turner - History of The Anglo-Saxons

Turner's History of the Anglo-Saxons appeared in four volumes between 1799 and 1805.

Britain at the time of original publication was involved in wars against France and the idea of the Norman yoke (Anglo-Saxon liberty versus Norman despotism) had been around since the seventeenth century. Turner demonstrated Anglo-Saxon liberty "in the shape of a good constitution, temperate kingship, the witenagemot, and general principles of freedom". Turner researched extensively the collections in the British Museum and the manuscripts of Sir Robert Cotton. In doing so he obtained a working knowledge of Anglo-Saxon.

The History had a profound impact on historiography for the succeeding fifty years. Robert Southey said that "so much new information was probably never laid before the public in any one historical publication". However the Edinburgh Review in 1804 criticised Turner for a lack of discrimination and for the romantic parts of the work.

Sir Walter Scott acknowledged his debt to Turner for his historical work in his Dedicatory Epistle to his novel Ivanhoe. In 1981 J. W. Burrow said Turner produced "the first modern full-length history of Saxon England...It was a genuinely pioneering work, and was much admired, and not without reason".