The Anglo-Saxon Period (450-1100) Background, Beowulf, and More!!!

The Anglo-SaxonPeriod (450-1100)

Background, Beowulf, and More!!!

From Cave Dwellers to Celts

• Cave dwellers - 250,000 years ago• Invaders from Iberian peninsula (modern

Spain and Portugal) create a society sophisticated enough to erect Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain

• Celtic peoples reach the British Isles around 600 B.C.

• Celtic tribes war with each other while their priests, called druids, conduct sacrifices in forest shrines

Invasion of an Island

The Invasions Continue…

• 55 B.C. – Rome first tries to conquer Britain and Julius Caesar raids the land to punish the Britons for helping the Continental Celts in their struggle with the Romans

• 43 A.D. – Roman emperor Claudius successfully invades the island and drives the defeated tribes into the highlands of Wales and Scotland

Roman Britain Prospers

• Population of 3-4 million people

• Large buildings and elaborate sanitation systems

• Straight, well-made roads

• Primarily a rural society

The Good Times End

• 410 A.D. – the city of Rome falls to an army of German barbarians and the emperor Honorius sends a letter to the Roman Britons announcing that they must defend themselves

• Britain is weak and divided, standing open to foreign aggression

• Angles, Saxons, and Jutes – Germanic tribes spreading throughout eastern, central, and southern Britain

A Legend Arises

• Celtic inhabitants flee west into the highlands of Wales

• Among these people the legend of King Arthur and his Round Table arises

Anglo-Saxon England

• Beowulf – heroic poem that tells of the Germanic settlers and their first decades in England

• Tribal society in which warrior kings led a group of fighting men, called thanes, into battle

• Defeat and capture meant death so battle was fierce and unyielding

• Gang warfare – bloodshed was common and any offense of one thane had to be avenged

Drinks and Entertainment

• Mead-hall – where the king, thanes, wives, and servants gathered together, and where the warriors slept

• While the king and his court feasted, the scop, a singing poet, entertained

• The scop recounted both past history and present events while also preserving record of their achievements for future generations

Kings, Kings, and More Kings

• Country was divided into a number of petty kingdoms

• More ambitious kings began to assert an authority over other rulers each claiming to be a ruling king, or bretwalda

• Aethelbert – first bretwalda who ruled from 560 to 616 and dreamed of bringing unity and a measure of peace to the land

Converting A Nation

• St. Patrick – began converting Celtic Ireland to Christianity in the 430s, but Anglo-Saxon Britain remained pagan

• St. Augustine – sent from Rome in 597 to convert England, established the first archbishopric at Canterbury

• During the next 40 years missionaries were able to convert most of the Anglo-Saxon kings and their people to Christianity

The Terrible Vikings

• Crossed the North Sea from Denmark and Norway

• Between 867 and 877 they took over most of the northeast and central portions of England

• Danelaw – a region where Danish law was in force

England Fights Back

• Alfred the Great – ruled the one surviving Anglo-Saxon kingdom, Wessex, and prevented the Vikings from seizing it the way they had the Danelaw ( built the first English navy)

• Defeated the Vikings and was able to foster a second great era of Anglo-Saxon literary culture

• Struggle for control was halted for good by another invasion, the last one, by the French-Norman, William the Conqueror

The Rest Is History

• Anglo-Saxons dominated the history of England for 600 years

• Provided its language, began its literature and established traditions in law, government, and religion

• First English people

Beowulf

Beowulf

Beowulf

Beowulf

Beowulf

The first page of theBeowulf manuscript.Damage by the fire can beseen in the upper lefthand corner..

Links to Readings in Old English

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LP2FyVbymTg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Wl-OZ3breE