Discovering a region

Published by Michelle Pacey for 24dash.com in Education

A new study provides a sweeping view of one of the UK's most distinctive areas.

A book covering nearly 15 centuries of the history and culture of North East England has just been published, giving a sweeping view of one of the UK’s most distinctive regions. Covering political, economic and cultural history, geography, archaeology, poetry, demography, religion, art, music, literature and dialect.

Northumbria History and Identity 547-2000 is edited by University of Leicester Professor of English History, Robert Colls, with contributions from other members of the School of Historical Studies and the Department of English and the Centre for English Local History.

Divided into five sections, the book covers –

1. the ‘Christian Kingdom’ of medieval times;
2. the ‘Border and Coalfield’ of the early modern period;
3. the ‘New Northumbrians’ of the 19th century when the region was resurgent again with a new identity that was on a par with Nationalist developments in Ireland and Wales;

4. the ‘Cultural Region’ of the 20th Century when the coal and steel went into decline and the region had to stand on its values and ideas rather than its wealth production;

and
5. The ‘Northumbrian Island’ – a grand survey of 15 centuries of physical and cultural distinctiveness.

As well as general accounts of the region’s cultural, geographical, economic, and social history, there are also essays on the music, poetry, literature, demography, religion, art, dialect and language of the region over the period.

Professor Colls commented: “There is probably not a region of England that can lay claim to a work of such historical range – ranging for instance from the Hymn of Caedmon the cowherd in 647, to the songs of Lindisfarne, Sting and others in the late 20th century. Nor are there many regions in Europe with an historical memory to match that of North East England. This is ‘deep history’ indeed.”

Professor Colls, whose book on the Identity of England (OUP 2002) took the long view of ideas about England and Englishness, has contributed to the book with an account of the rise of a Victorian regional intelligentsia – the ‘New Northumbrians’ as he calls them.

Other Leicester contributors include Dr Jo Story of the School of Historical Studies, who has written on Bede, St Cuthbert and the Northumbrian folc; Professor Rosemary Sweet, also of the School of Historical Studies, who has written on Antiquarianism in the North; Nick Everett of the Department of English, who has written on Basil Bunting’s great modernist Northumbrian epic, Briggflatts; and Professor Charles Phythian-Adams of English Local History who has written on the Northumbrian Island.

Northumbria. History and Identity 547-2000, hard back with illustrations, is published by Phillimore, part of the newly formed History Press, price £20, ISBN 978-1-86077-471-3.