In order fully to grasp the depth and breadth, the vitality and sophistication of Anglo-Saxon culture, it is of course necessary to go beyond the poetry, and to read among the diversity of written records, in verse and prose, which cover such forms as historical and theological writing, moral and ethical treatises, political and geographical studies, legal records, and so on. An anthology such as Bradley's Anglo-Saxon Poetry provides a good sense of the diversity and quality of Anglo-Saxon poetry and prose.

To my mind it is with the poetry that one should begin, since everything of interest in Anglo-Saxon history is also to be found there: all the historical and political, moral and ethical, theological and ecclesiastical, military and constitutional motives and preoccupations of the culture can be read, in the verse, at the level of individual perception and personal experience. Here we can understand what it was like to be part of an Anglo- Saxon community, and how it felt to become lost to it; what it was like to be a Christian speaking and writing in a language that for centuries had expressed pagan values and beliefs; what it felt like to be a soldier in the tenth century, standing with all the splendour of the heroic past behind you, and a cruel and determined enemy in front; what it felt like to be a woman occupying a servile position in a male-dominated society, and how it was for a man putting on a brave face to hide a deep inward sorrow. Nothing but poetry can take us into a historical period with this degree of empathy, give us access to so inward and vivid a knowledge of human experience in such a culture and such a society.

The many parallels and details of comparison between Anglo- Saxon culture and our own should not, however, allow us to forget that this is a very foreign world, in which the past really was another country, where things were done differently. The particular moral and psychological conflicts represented in the poetry are not ours, since the values held by these our remote ancestors were not ours – though it is true that the manner in which they struggled with those conflicts is often, no doubt, reminiscent of moral exploration in any age.