Sharon Turner

Sharon Turner (24 September 1768 – 13 February 1847) was an English historian of the Anglo-Saxons.

Quotes

The History of the Anglo-Saxons, from the Earliest Period to the Norman Conquest (7th ed. 1852)

First published in four volumes between 1799 and 1805. The seventh edition was published in three volumes in 1852.

• The character of the ancient Saxons displayed the qualities of fearless, active, and successful pirates. It is not merely the Spanish churchman Orosius, who speaks of them as dreadful for their courage and agility, but the emperor Julian, who had lived among barbarians, and who had fought with some Saxon tribes, denotes them as distinguished amongst their neighbours for vehemence and valour. Zosimus, their contemporary, expresses the general feeling of his age, when he ranks them as superior to others in energy, strength, and warlike fortitude.
  • Vol. I, p. 177

• Woden was the great ancestor from whom they deduced their genealogies. It will be hereafter shown that the calculations from the Saxon pedigrees place Woden in the third century... Woden was the predominant idol of the Saxon adoration, but we can state no more of him but so far as we describe the Odin of the Danes and Norwegians.
  • Vol. I, pp. 188-189

• Nothing is more curious nor more interesting in history than to remark that when great political exigencies occur, which threaten to shake the foundations of civil society, they are usually as much distinguished by the rise of sublime characters, with genius and ability sufficient to check the progress of the evil, and even to convert its disasters to benevolent issues. One of these extraordinary persons was Alfred the Great, and considered with regard to the time of his appearance, the great ends which he achieved, and the difficulties under which he formed himself, no historical character can more justly claim our attention and admiration than our venerated king.
  • Vol. I, p. 416

• The reign of Alfred, from his restoration to his death, was wise and prosperous. One great object of his care was, to fortify his kingdom against hostile attacks. He rebuilt the cities and castles which had been destroyed, and constructed new fortifications in every useful place; and he divided the country into hundreds and tythings for its better military defence and internal peace, and to repel that disposition for depredation which was prevailing even among his own subjects. By these defensive precautions, he gave to the country a new face, and not only kept in awe the Northmen who were in it, but was prepared to wage, with advantage, that defensive war, which the means and disposition of the impetuous invaders could never successfully withstand.
  • Vol. I, p. 496

• If we had no other evidence of the political wisdom of our Gothic or Teutonic ancestors than their institution of the witena-gemots, or national parliaments, this happy and wise invention would be sufficient to entitle them to our veneration and gratitude. For they have not only given to government a form, energy, and direction more promotive of the happiness of mankind than any other species of it has exhibited, but they are the most admirable provision for adapting its exercise and continuance to all the new circumstances ever arising of society, and for suiting and favouring its continual progress.
  • Vol. III, p. 156

• War and religion were the absorbing subjects of this period, and all the imagination, and feeling, and thought which exist in the Anglo-Saxon poetry are connected with one or both of these topics.
  • Vol. III, p. 231

Quotes about Sharon Turner

• The first edition was published as early as 1805; and though for the edition of 1807 the work was carefully revised, it can hardly be considered a standard authority at the present day. The investigations of Kemble, Palgrave, and others have deprived it of a value it once possessed.
  It will be found, however, that the volumes contain many minute details of considerable interest. The author was a special student of this period; but, though he accumulated a vast number of interesting facts, his methods were much less philosophical than those of his more distinguished successors in the same field.
  The literary style is not such as to give additional value to the volumes.
  Aside from its intrinsic merits, the work is entitled to some respect; for, when it was first published, it was a genuine revelation to the English people. Until that time, no one had taken the trouble to collect the accessible evidence and bring it into a single book. Turner, therefore, performed a very useful work in calling attention to a field which has since been very successfully cultivated.
  • Charles Kendall Adams, A Manual of Historical Literature Comprising Brief Descriptions of the Most Important Histories in English, French, and German Together with Practical Suggestions as to Methods and Courses of Historical Study For the Use of Students, General Readers, and Collectors of Books (1882), pp. 443-444

• Among many historical efforts, principally concerning England in different periods, his History of the Anglo-Saxons stands out prominently as a great work. He was an eccentric scholar, and an antiquarian, and he found just the place to delve in when he undertook that history. The style is not good—too epigrammatic and broken; but his research is great, his speculations bold, and his information concerning the numbers, manners, arts, learning, and other characters of the Anglo-Saxons, immense. The student of English history must read Turner for a knowledge of the Saxon period.
  • Henry Coppée, English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History. Designed as a Manual of Instruction (1873), p. 448

• One of the best writers, of the most learned antiquarians and most enlightened scholars of his time.
  • Richard Cumberland, Memoirs of Richard Cumberland, Vol. II (1807), pp. 324-325

• Turner's History of England down to the Lives of the Tudors, is replete with Anglo-Saxon and other ancient learning; and it is written with dignity, purity and eloquence. Turner surpasses Hume in the depth and fulness of his researches, and in the spirit and tenor of his moral reflections.
  • James Kent, A Course of Reading (1840), p. 21

• The publication of the first edition of Sharon Turner's History of the Anglo-Saxons in successive volumes between the years 1799 and 1805, appears to have excited an attention not only towards their history, but by the addition to it of an account of their language and literature, a slow but gradually increasing attention has been awakened... [T]he research which, within a few years past, has characterized the inquiries into the institutions, laws, and polity of the Anglo-Saxons, has been in a great degree the offspring of a previous acquaintance with the pages of Sharon Turner's highly interesting and instructive work.
  • John Petheram, An Historical Sketch of the Progress and Present State of Anglo-Saxon Literature in England (1840), p. 118

• Turner's Hist. of the Anglo-Saxons ought to be upon your shelves...so much new information was probably never laid before the public in any one historical publication.
  • Robert Southey to John May (5 August 1805), quoted The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey. Volume II, ed. Rev. Charles Cuthbert Southey (1850), p. 342

• Turner's work came as a revelation to the reading public. Based on solid and patient erudition, its judicious and authoritative note won approval... After speaking of the Britons and Romans, Turner described the life and customs of the Teutonic invaders before they left the mainland,—and devoted much space to the religious, economic, and social features of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in England. Inferior to Hume in the narrative portions, he offered a far broader view of early life in the island.
  • James Westfall Thompson, A History of Historical Writing, Volume II: The Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (1942), pp. 283-284

• The chief value of Turner's writings today is found in his notes. His artistic pretensions were least happy of all; his arrangement was neither orderly nor luminous, and digressions annoy the reader. Southey winced over some of his later volumes. When Turner emerged from the Saxon period he had little to offer which was new, and Lingard's work superseded these later portions. But in his proper domain he worked with enthusiasm and effectiveness, won the esteem of Hallam, Southey, Scott, and Tennyson, and had the satisfaction of stirring the English mind to a new consciousness of its ancestry. As a student of Anglo-Saxon materials, Turner held his own until Kemble and Thorpe appeared.
  • James Westfall Thompson, A History of Historical Writing, Volume II: The Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (1942), p. 284