author
Henry Hallam
1777–1859
Best known for sweeping, clear-eyed histories of medieval Europe, English government, and European literature, this 19th-century writer helped shape how many readers understood the past. His books aimed to be serious without being dry, blending legal precision with a broad literary view.
6 Audiobooks
Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries, Vol. 2
by Henry Hallam
Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries, Vol. 1
by Henry Hallam
View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages, Vol. 3
by Henry Hallam
About the author
Born at Windsor on July 9, 1777, Henry Hallam was an English historian educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford. He trained and worked as a barrister before turning more fully to historical writing, bringing a lawyer’s care for evidence and argument into his books.
Hallam is chiefly remembered for three major works: View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages (1818), The Constitutional History of England (1827), and Introduction to the Literature of Europe (published in the late 1830s). Together, they show the range of his interests, from politics and institutions to the wider life of ideas and letters.
His life was also marked by personal loss. He was the father of Arthur Henry Hallam, the gifted young poet whose early death deeply affected family and friends, including Alfred Tennyson. Henry Hallam died on January 21, 1859, leaving behind a reputation as one of the notable English historians of his century.