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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