In the early fifth century, Britain was a former Roman province, descending into ruin: a land of crumbling temples and abandoned villas. But by the early eleventh century, it was dominated by a newly forged kingdom called ‘England’: a country of shires, sheriffs, bishops and boroughs, with boundaries much the same as they are today. How did the multiple kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxons become a single kingdom called England, and when did its inhabitants start to regard themselves as English? In this talk Marc Morris explores this little-understood but critical period when the foundations of modern England were laid.