Basis of modern english

• The history of English in ten minutes: The Anglosaxons: a video

• The Ages of English

• What types of words did the Anglo-Saxons give the English language?

Important dates

• 43AD Romans (Claudius) invade Britain (Britannia).• Encountered Celtic tribes, Britons and Picts ( North) • Romans built roads, villas, huge buildings, forts, cities like

Londinium, Evoracum ( York), Aquae Sulis (Bath) and sanitation system.

• Introduced Christianity and lots of Latin words.

• 410AD Roman Empire falls, Romans leave Britain

• 450AD Jutes and the Angles and Saxons from Denmark or Northern Germany invade England.– Germanic tribes. (polytheism)– Anglo-Saxons push out Celts

• 597AD Anglo-Saxons become Christian (Saint Augustine)

Religion

• While Southern parts of England were Christian thanks to influence of Romans, Northern tribes remained pagan (believed in many gods)

• Angles and Saxons were pagan until 597• This influenced early English culture• Literature had both Christian and pagan elements• Early English Christian documents surviving from

this time include the 7th-century illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the Venerable Bede. Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum (731)

The anglo-saxons

Who were the jutes/angles/saxons

• They were tribes from modern-day Denmark

• They came to England in the 5th Century ( south)

• Jutes, together with the Angles and the Saxons, make up the migrant groups to England who are now collectively known as Anglo-Saxons

• They were used as slaves by the Romans

• Jutes were wiped out by the Saxons.

map

Old english literature

• It mixed Latin and vernacular language, mainly religious. Importance of oral tradition.

• Old manuscripts ( 9th-11th): Exeter, Vercelli book

• Poetry: alliterative verse, Kenning, litotes .

Epic poetry ‘Beowulf’ ‘The Seafarer’

• Prose: The Anglosaxon Cronicle, Anglosaxon riddles

• Religious books: Wessex Gospels

• Authors: Bede, King Alfred the Great, Cædmon

Vikings!

• 865 – come from Scandinavia to invade Britain, destroy monasteries

• Vikings rule in England until 1042, mixed with the Anglosaxons.

• Fun fact – Vikings spread as far as the Byzantine Empire, where they were hired as dogs

• Set up a capital at Jorvik (York) Jorvik centre

• The whole of England was unified with Norway and Denmark in the eleventh century, during the reign of the Danish king Cnut, succeeded by the Anglo-Saxon king Edward the Confessor

Norman conquest

• Most important of all the “invasions” into England after the Romans left , why?? ( Domesday Book, French-Latin, elimination of slavery, Norman castles.

• Start of Middle English.

• 1066 – Normans ( William the Conqueror) beat the Anglo-Saxons at the Battle of Hastings

• King Harold, King of the Anglo-Saxons is killed• Normans take over the country from Anglo-Saxons