Invasions and Patterns Invasions and Patterns of Settlement in the of Settlement in the

British Isles (II)British Isles (II)

The Anglo-SaxonsThe Anglo-Saxons• At first the Germanic tribes only raided Britain, but after 430 AD they began to

settle. One legend actually claims that they were initially hired by the Romanised Celts to help them fight back the attacks of the Scots and the Picts (e.g. 449 – Hengest and Horsa), but then they turned against their employers and decided to stay despite their hosts’ resistance. A much more reliable source is Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, written three centuries later, which was proven correct by archaeological evidence.

↓The Germanic invaders coming from northern Germany and southern Denmark belonged to three powerful tribes:1.The Angles who settled in the east and in the north Midlands;2.The Jutes who settled in Kent and along the south coast;3.The Saxons who settled from the Thames Estuary westwards

between the Angles and the Jutes. The Anglo-Saxon migrations lasted from about 441 when they

secured a permanent stronghold at the mouth of the Thames to about 600 when they virtually controlled the present-day England (‘land of the Angles’).

The British Celts were killed, famished, enslaved and pushed into the corners of the island in Wales (‘the land of the foreigners’), Cornwall and southern Scotland. Others sailed to Ireland or to Brittany on the French coast. (The Celtic resistance to the invaders was immortalised in legends dominated by the figure of King Arthur as a hero of many victories against the Anglo-Saxons.)

The Anglo-SaxonsThe Anglo-Saxons• Anglo-Saxon Culture:

– a Nordic culture which involved the worship of war gods, which praised the warrior’s courage, strength, intelligence, and, above all, loyalty to the leader; cowardice, desertion and lack of honour were publicly condemned.

– a religion of dread that taught people not to be afraid of death and to aspire to the ideal of heroic sacrifice on the battlefield. Coldness and pessimism were defining features of the Anglo-Saxon religion according to which Wyrd (Fate) was stronger than the gods themselves.

– The Anglo-Saxon myths and legends were collected in the Edda and handed down from generation to generation. The body of epic poetry celebrated heroes like Sigurd and Beowulf, whereas the elegies spoke of the ups and downs of life, foregrounding, in lyrical terms, the values and beliefs of the Anglo-Saxon society.

– The Anglo-Saxons shared with the Scandinavians the art of decorating weapons, jewellery, and objects of daily use with patterns of great beauty and richness, as well as customs of war and agriculture. (e.g. the Sutton Hoo archaeological site, 1936)

The Anglo-SaxonsThe Anglo-Saxons• Government and society:- the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in:

– the 6th century – the ‘Heptarchy’:• Angles: Mercia, Northumbria, East-

Anglia;• Saxons: Essex, Wessex, Sussex;• Jutes: Kent.

– the 8th century: as a result of the conflicts between the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, Mercia, Northumbria and Wessex grew larger and more powerful.

– the 9th century: only the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex (under the rule of King Alfred the Great) managed to survive the Viking invasion.

- the administrative organisation: shires (counties) – one of the world’s oldest still functioning government unit. In each shire, one shire reeve/ sheriff was appointed as the king’s local administrator, in charge of raising taxes and recruiting soldiers.

The Anglo-SaxonsThe Anglo-Saxons• Government and society:

– Unlike the Romans, the Anglo-Saxons were not city dwellers. They settled in the countryside. The community was organised around the lord’s manor where the villagers paid taxes, justice was administered and men joined the army (the fyrd). It was the beginning of the manorial system which reached its full development under the Normans.

– The Anglo-Saxon technology changed the shape of English agriculture.

• They cleared dense forests and drained wet lands.• Their heavier ploughs allowed them to better plough heavier soils in long

straight lines across the field.• Their system of land ownership and organisation put the land of the

community to better use. They divided the land into two-three large fields, which were further sub-divided into long thin strips (‘hides’) owned by each family and cultivated in the same way as the ones of the neighbours. One field was used for spring crops, a second one for autumn crops, and a third one was left to rest for a year and used, together with the other fields after crop harvesting, as common land for animals to feed on.

– Thus, the Anglo-Saxons set the basis of English agriculture until the eighteenth century.

The Anglo-SaxonsThe Anglo-Saxons• Anglo-Saxon hierarchical system:

– the king (‘cyning’): 1. ‘the ring-giver’ in times of peace (arm-rings or neck-rings = gold pieces/ jewellery given as a reward to the warriors for their courage and values); 2. the ‘shield’ and protector in times of war.The king was elected and assisted during his rule by the Witan, a council made of senior warriors and churchmen. Without the Witan’s support, the king’s authority was in danger.

- the noblemen – ‘eorlas’ (earls) or thanes: they enjoyed material privileges in exchange for their loyalty and military support to the king.

- the ‘ceorlas’: free men entitled to their share of the common land.- the ‘laet’: landless men who cultivated the soil for their lord (serfs).- the slaves: war prisoners or people sold by their families in times of famine

to save them from starvation or convicts in a law-suit. Slaves were working machines that could be bought or sold, even killed by their masters.

The Anglo-Saxons had their own system of punishing manslaughter by paying a sum of money (‘wergilt’ = war money) to the relatives of the murdered man. (The slaves were an exception in this respect; the master paid no wergilt.)

The Anglo-Saxon system represented a transition from the tribal to the feudal organisation.

The Anglo-SaxonsThe Anglo-Saxons• The introduction of Christianity (7th century):

– in the early days of the Anglo-Saxon rule in Britain: heathen Anglo-Saxons /vs./ the Christianised Celts (Wales, Scotland and Ireland)

– 597 AD: Pope Gregory the Great sent a monk, Augustine, to re-establish Christianity in England. He came as a missionary in Canterbury, at king Ethelbert of Kent’s court, and he became the first Archbishop of Canterbury in 601. He continued to convert especially ruling families in Kent, East Anglia, Essex, Sussex and Wessex.

– In Northumbria, Christianity was introduced by Irish monks 40 years later.– The ordinary people in Britain were converted by Celtic Church bishops from

Wales, Ireland and Scotland, who travelled from village to village to spread Christianity.

↓the Celtic Christian Church (ordinary people) vs. the Roman

Christian Church (interested in authority)↓

663 AD: the Synod of Whitby decided in favour of the Roman Church. The Celtic Church retreated as Rome extended its

authority over all Christians, even in the Celtic parts of the island.Christianity brought about the return of learning, reading and writing

in Latin, enriching the Anglo-Saxon language with Latin vocabulary. The monasteries became seats of learning and teaching of Latin, Greek, music, astronomy, medicine, miniature art and history (e.g. the Venerable Bede, Ecclesiastic History of the English People).

The VikingsThe Vikings• Vikings (“pirates”; “people of the sea inlets”) came from Norway

and Denmark.

• end of the 8th century: the first raids along the east, north and west coasts of Britain and Ireland (London – raided in 842)

• 9th-10th centuries: Viking raids in various other parts of the world going as far as Piraeus and Constantinople.

• Viking lore: – The Scandinavian prose Sagas recorded with extraordinary realism

their life of war and plunder.– “God spare us from the wrath of the Northmen.” – regular prayer in

England. • 870: From among the seven Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, only Wessex

(incorporating Wessex, little of Kent and half of Mercia) survived. → England divided into: Wessex and the ‘Danelaw’ (the east and north of England).

• Alfred the Great (871-900): He built walled settlements (burghs) to keep the Danes out. 878 – he defeated the Danes and forced their leader Guthrum to sign the treaty of Wedmore, whereby the Vikings underwent baptism and agreed to retire into the Danelaw.

The VikingsThe Vikings

• King Canute/ Knut/ Cnut: the Viking king of England (elected in 1016), Denmark (1018), Norway (1028) and parts of Sweden. He was on the way to found a Northern Empire with Scandinavia for one pillar and England for the other, reinforcing the cultural bonds between these cultural spaces. When he died in 1035, his incapable Danish successors dissipated the confederation and England returned to Anglo-Saxon monarchs.

• The last Viking invasion: during the rule of the last Anglo-Saxon king, Harold Godwinson. 1066: Harold had to march north into Yorkshire to fight the Vikings led by Harald Hardrada, King of Norway. The Vikings were defeated at Stanford Bridge.

The NormansThe Normans• 1066:

– the death of Edward the Confessor (1042-66);– Harold Godwinson chosen by the Witan as the new king. He

succeeded to the throne under the suspicion of having usurped the rights of Edward’s heir, William, Duke of Normandy.

– William’s claims to the English throne:• King Edward had promised the throne to him before his death;• Harold, who visited William in 1064/1065, promised he would not take

the throne for himself.

↓

October 13, 1066: William’s troops landed at Pevensey.The battle of Hastings: Better armed, better organised and mounted on horses, the Normans defeated the Anglo-Saxons.

Harold died on the battlefield. (The Tapestry of Bayeux – the story of the Norman triumph)

William marched to London and he was crowned King of England in Edward’s church of Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day, 1066.

- the ‘harrying of the North’: atrocious punitive campaigns meant to put down the resistance of the Saxon earls in the North of England.

The NormansThe Normans• The Norman feudal system:

– the King: • divided the land to the nobles: William gave half to the Norman

nobles, a quarter to the Church and kept a fifth for himself. The nobles were given pieces of land in different parts of the country so that no noble could easily or quickly gather his fighting men to rebel.

– the nobles: • received from the king the feu, land held in return for duty or

service to the lord. → vassals who owed the king obedience, help in time of war and part of the produce of their land.

• The greater nobles gave parts of their lands to lesser nobles, knights, and other ‘freemen’ (yeomen).

• the “homage” ritual: the vassal kneeled before the lord, his hands placed between those of his lord. (nowadays part of the coronation ceremony of British kings and queens)

– the ‘freemen’ (yeomen): some paid for the land by doing military service, while others paid rent.

– the peasants bound to the land (serfs): they were not free to leave the estate and were often little better than slaves.

The NormansThe Normans• Basic principles of feudalism:

– Every man has a lord.– Every lord has land. ↓

DOOMSDAY BOOK (1088): a general survey of all the lands of the kingdom, their value, owners, quality of the soil, cattle or poultry. It was an inventory of both all the possessions of the country and the social distribution of the population.

• the fate of the defeated: English lords were deprived of their lands in favour of the French barons. All high offices both in the church and state were exclusively filled by French speaking foreigners. The English found themselves excluded from all road leading to honour or preferment. In 1088, only 5,000 thanes were recorded to survive as the local gentry.

The NormansThe Normans• Cultural conditions in Norman England:

the 13th century Renaissance– the peaceful ‘invasion’ of Normandy’s industrial and trading

classes ↓

a) Architecture: the building of England’s twenty-seven greatest cathedrals (Norwich, Gloucester, Oxford, Peterborough, Winchester, St. Albans, Durham, etc.)

-styles: 1) the English Romanesque or Norman style (bold massive construction, semicircular arches, flat buttresses, ponderous cylindrical pillars, geometrical patterns); 2) the Gothic (pointed arches, clustered columns, pointed ribbed vaults, flying buttresses, tall and pointed towers and spires, stained glass)

b) development of crafts in wood, stone, glass, tapestry and painting (miniatures).

The NormansThe Normans

c) the first universities: Oxford – 1249; Cambridge – 1284 – seats of learning (John Duns Scotus, William of Occam, Roger Bacon);

d) chronicles: The Anglo-Norman Chronicles (written in Latin, but lacking the impartiality of their Anglo-Saxon predecessors); Matthew Paris’s Chronica Majora (English and Continental events from 1255) and Chronica Minora (home events between 1200-1250); Walter Map’s Of Courtiers’ Trifles (violent attacks at the corruption and abuses of the clergy);

e) Middle English: Latin (the language of the church and scholarship) – French (the language of public life, aristocratic society, law-courts and royal administration, literature, art and cooking) – English (the language of the people at large, of the illiterate lower classes).

Battles for BritainBattles for Britain

• The defeat of the Spanish Armada (1588)

• Fighting the German Luftwaffe (1940)

England versus Spain in the Late England versus Spain in the Late Sixteenth CenturySixteenth Century

• Anglo-Spanish relations in the 1570s-1580s:– the conflict over control of the commercial routes:

• Spain ruling over the Protestant Netherlands that fought for independence;

• Spanish ships ‘harassed’ by English “privateers” (‘pirates’ unofficially supported by Queen Elizabeth I; e.g.: Francis Drake, Martin Frobisher, Walter Raleigh) ↔ the result of Spain’s refusal to allow England to trade freely with Spanish American colonies.

– the religious conflict: Catholic Spain vs. Protestant England • 1570 – Elizabeth I excommunicated by Pope Pius V. Loyal

Catholics were urged to depose her. • England supported the Protestant French and the Dutch

Protestant rebels.

England versus Spain in the England versus Spain in the Late Sixteenth CenturyLate Sixteenth Century

• 1580s:– Philip II of Spain prospered: he annexed Portugal (1580) and the Azores

(1582-3). He built a great fleet, an “Armada”, exceeding in size the combined fleets of England and the Netherlands. Philip decided to conquer England before he would be able to defeat the Dutch in the Netherlands.

– 1584: the Dutch leader, William of Orange, was assassinated. That created panic among English politicians who feared that Elizabeth I might fall victim too.

– 1585: Phillip II was confident he could seize all English ships in Iberian ports. Elizabeth I responded by sending the Earl of Leicester to Holland with an army, but Leicester was defeated.

– 1587: The Spanish Armada was attacked and partly destroyed by Francis Drake in the Cadiz harbour.

– 1588: The re-built Spanish Armada (the largest that had ever gone to sea, but less fast than the English ships) carrying mainly soldiers (few ships carried cannons and medium guns) aimed at conquering England and controlling the English Channel, so that subsequently Spanish troops could have easier access to the Netherlands. However, the Spanish Armada was defeated by the English weather and by the English guns. Some Spanish ships were sunk, but most were blown northwards by the wind, many being wrecked on the rocky coasts of Scotland and Ireland. In August 1588 Protestant England celebrated with prayers and public thanksgiving. The war with Spain continued until Elizabeth I’s death (1603), but the Britain did not become the scene of a foreign invasion.

The Second World War: The Battle of The Second World War: The Battle of BritainBritain

• September 1939: Germany invaded Poland, and Britain entered the war.

• May 1940 – June 1940: The German army invaded the Netherlands, attacked and defeated the French. France capitulated within 11 days on June 10, 1940. The British army was driven into the sea and was saved by thousands of private boats which crossed the English Channel at Dunkirk.

• Summer-autumn 1940: The German air forces (Luftwaffe) launched a major bombing and raiding campaign over Britain. Their targets: coastal shipping convoys, shipping centres, Royal Air Force (RAF) airfields and infrastructure, aircraft factories and ground infrastructure. Finally, the Lufwaffe resorted to attacks on strategic town areas which culminated in the serial bombing of London which killed thousands of civilians and destroyed most of central London.

In this time of terror, Prime Minister Winston Churchill brilliantly managed to persuade a nation “on its knees” that it would win.

The failure of Germany to achieve its objectives of destroying Britain’s air defences, or forcing Britain to negotiate an armistice or an outright surrender is considered both its first major defeat and one of the crucial turning points in the war. If Germany had gained air superiority, Adolf Hitler might have launched Operation Sealion, an amphibious and airborne invasion of Britain.