Just one book on . . . Edward the Confessor

Considering his importance, it’s a little surprising that there are so few modern biographies available about Edward the Confessor. While there are a couple coming out soon (which I will review at some point down the road), someone interested in reading something about Edward the Confessor today does not have a lot of options. That being said, the ones available offer the most diverse selection of books available for any monarch of the era.

Two of the options are especially unusual, as they are the closest thing we have or are ever likely to have in terms of contemporary biographies of Edward. Unfortunately, while these make both the Life of King Edward and Aelred of Rievaulx’s The Life of Saint Edward, King and Confessor indispensable as source material for both his life and his medieval reputation as a saint, both were written for an audience of people already familiar with the world in which Edward lived, and consequently neither works very well as a modern-day biography. For this reason, only someone with a need to study Edward in-depth would have cause to seek them out.

By contrast Peter Rex’s King & Saint: The Life of Edward the Confessor offers the exact opposite of these books, being a well-written modern biography of the king that is fantastic as an introduction to both Edward and the kingdom which he ruled. The more biographies of English monarchs I read, the more I appreciate Rex’s ability to explain his subject in an accessible and interesting way. It’s definitely the one I would recommend for anyone unfamiliar with Anglo-Saxon history who is seeking a starting point for studying the era.

Yet as good as it is, as a biography of Edward in terms of quality and depth of analysis it cannot measure up to Frank Barlow’s superb book on the king. This is no slight on Rex, as Barlow has set an incredibly high bar thanks to the depth of knowledge about Edward that he brought to his subject and his analytical insights into the Confessor’s reign. When I first listed the books on Edward that I was planning to read, I speculated whether there were so few biographies of him because of the quality of Barlow’s book or because of the lack of material with which to write the biography. After reading it for myself, I’m inclined to think that it’s the former, as it would be an intimidating prospect to surpass Barlow’s achievement. If you’re looking for to read just one book on Edward the Confessor, his is the one to get.