I remember a few years ago when it was decided that no English history taught in schools would predate the Norman invasion. This, I felt indignantly, represented the final victory of the oppressor. Ever since steeping myself in Tolkien at the age of 11 I have always felt a strong sympathy for the Anglo-Saxons, despite myself being only a quarter-English.

So Harriet Harvey Wood won me over fairly early on when, in her introduction, she wrote: "A recent eminent historian of the period has announced with his customary enthusiasm that, if he had been present, he would have been charging with William; I make no bones about stating that I would have stood beneath the standards of the Dragon of Wessex and the Fighting Man with Harold."

It would have been a principled stand, but a doomed one. William, once he had won the battle, set about the English with such ferocity that not even all the chroniclers who were on his side could approve of his actions. Noting the death of more than 100,000 of the "humble and defenceless populace", Orderic Vitalis said: "I would rather lament the griefs and sufferings of the wretched people than make a vain attempt to flatter the perpetrator of such infamy."

Indeed, the book is most enjoyable when the author deals with the failings of the Normans. On the suggestion that the conquest "opened England to the new tide of literary innovation that came from France", Harvey Wood drily notes that this was most unlikely, on the grounds that "the Normans were most improbable conduits for any form of culture", and they're a ghastly crew, good for killing and not much else.

Of the elasticity of the term "knight" she notes that many so called "were little more than mounted thugs", and of the education of young Normans she says "it was rather like going to public school", and you get the feeling that she is not referring to one of the more civilised public schools. (I can believe her. There's a great riff on this aspect of knightly education in TH White's The Once and Future King

"What the system did produce was an excessive number of testosterone-fuelled young men, unqualified and unsuited for any profession other than fighting and killing." Put like that, it seems a marvel that it took a mere 900-odd years for this country to reach the high-water mark of its civilisation, which is, as any fule kno, the section of the newspaper you are now reading.

Until the Normans came, though, Anglo-Saxon England, while admittedly a rather grim and violent place, as its poetry attests, had in place the kind of institutions and laws that we Guardian readers would have no trouble in applauding. "It has been estimated that in Anglo-Saxon England there were rarely more than two layers of lordship between the yeoman and his king." (I wonder how many there are now.) The kingship itself was not necessarily determined by birth; just as important was the perceived ability to defend your people (difficult, with all those pesky Vikings raiding all the time; but even Cnut, once he'd slaughtered all those who objected to him, made sure that he ruled in the manner of his Anglo-Saxon predecessors). Divorce was not to be as easy or as fair again to women for nearly another millennium, with separated women legally allowed half the property. The Normans, perhaps eager to gain control of the land when they, let's put this politely, intermarried with the widows of the slain, knocked that law on the head.

And it could all have been averted. Harold's army was bigger, although weakened by its victory over Harald Hardrada. There are numerous puzzles, such as why someone so strategically intelligent as Harold II engaged with William so close to the latter's own supply lines.

Brace yourself, though, for some rather knotty background material. Lots of people with names like Leofric. But salute the Anglo-Saxons: they lasted 600 years, which is a hell of a long time. And I've managed to get through the entire review without saying "1066 and all that" once.

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