The AngloSaxons, 4491066 A.D.

1
The Anglo-Saxons,449-1066 A.D.

• Senior Language Arts

2
INTRODUCTION

• A small and isolated country, England is the
  origin of a legal and political system that many
  other countries, including America, have since
  imitated. English traditions and language owe
  something to each of the islands invaders.

3
Stonehenge (c. 1800-1400 B.C)
4
The Celtic Heroes and Heroines A Magical World

• The first British settlers (by the 4th century
  B.C.) were the Celts, a tall blond people whose
  daily lives were influenced by their magical
  religion.
• Among these was a group called Brythons (or
  Britons), the source of the name Britain, still
  used today.

5
The Celtic Heroes and Heroines A Magical World
(2)

• The religion of the Celts was animism, from the
  Latin word for spirit.
• The Celts saw spirits everywherein rivers,
  trees, stones, ponds, fire, thunder.
• Priests called Druids acted as intermediaries
  between the gods and people. Sometimes ritual
  dances and even human sacrifices were called for
  to appease the gods.

6
The Celtic Heroes and Heroines A Magical World
(3)

• The mythology of the Celts has influenced English
  and Irish writers to this day.
• Thomas Malory (15th century) gathered together
  Celtic legends about a warrior named Arthur. He
  mixed them with chivalric legends from the
  Continent and produced Le Morte dArthur.

7
The Celtic Heroes and Heroines A Magical World
(4)

• Celtic legends are different from Anglo-Saxon
  tales that came later because the former are full
  of strong women, rather than being
  male-dominated.

8
The Celtic Heroes and Heroines A Magical World
(4)

• All Britons dye their bodies with woad, which
  produces a blue color, and this gives them a more
  terrifying appearance in battle. They wear their
  hair long, and shave the whole of their upper
  bodies except the head and the upper lip.
• -- Julius Caesar

9
The Romans The Great Administrators

• Beginning with an invasion led by Julius Caesar
  in 55 B.C., and culminating in one organized by
  the emperor Claudius about a hundred years later,
  the Britons were finally conquered by the legions
  of Rome.
• The Romans prevented further serious invasions of
  Britain for several hundred years.

10
The Romans The Great Administrators (2)

• They built a network of roads and a defensive
  wall 73 miles long. They brought Christianity,
  which would later become a unifying force,
  causing the old Celtic religion to vanish.
• By A.D. 409, they evacuated their troops, leaving
  Britain without a centralized government. It
  became a country of separate clans.

11
Hadrians Wall
12
The Anglo-Saxons Sweep Ashore

• In the middle of the fifth century, the Angles
  and Saxons from Germany and the Jutes from
  Denmark, crossed the North Sea, driving the old
  Britons west, out of the mainland over to Wales,
  Ireland, and Scotland.

13
The Anglo-Saxons Sweep Ashore (2)

• Engla land (England) became the new countrys
  name.
• At first, the country was divided into several
  independent principalities, each with its own
  king.
• King Alfred of Wessex (r. 871-899), AKA Alfred
  the Great, led the Anglo-Saxons against invading
  Danes, and became the first real king of England.

14
The Anglo-Saxons Sweep Ashore (3)

• Christianity provided a common faith and common
  system of morality and right conduct it also
  linked England to Europe.
• Under Christianity and Alfred, the A-S fought to
  protect their people, their culture, and their
  church from the ravages of the Danes.
• Alfred and his descendants fought the Danish
  invaders until the Norman Conquest in 1066.

15
What does Anglo-Saxon England mean?

• Anglo-Saxon society developed from kinship groups
  led by a strong chief.
• The people farmed, maintained local governments,
  and created fine crafts, especially metalwork.

16
What does Anglo-Saxon England mean? (2)

• Christianity eventually replaced the old warrior
  religion, linking England to Europe.
• Monasteries brought learning and literacy and
  preserved works from the older oral tradition.
• Englishnot just the Churchs Latingained
  respect as a written language.

17
Anglo-Saxon Life The Warm Hall, the Cold World

• Warfare was the order of the day. All groups
  were organized around a leader who commanded
  absolute loyalty.
• Law and order, initially, was the responsibility
  of the group leader (family, clan, tribe,
  kingdom).
• Fame and success, even survival, were gained only
  through loyalty to the leader. Success was
  measured in gifts from the leader.

18
Anglo-Saxon Life The Warm Hall, the Cold World
(2)

• Anglo-Saxons tended to live close to their
  animals in single-family homesteads, wooden
  buildings that surrounded a communal court or a
  fire-lit chieftains hall. The cluster of
  buildings was protected by a wooden stockade
  fence.

19
The Anglo-Saxon Religion Gods for Warriors

• Despite the influence of Christianity, the old
  A-S religion with its warrior gods persisted.
• A dark, fatalistic religion came with the A-S
  from Germany and had much in common with Norse or
  Scandinavian mythology.

20
The Anglo-Saxon Religion Gods for Warriors (2)

• Woden, from Odin, the Norse god of death, poetry,
  and magic--Woden could help humans communicate
  with spirits, and he was associated with burial
  rites and ecstatic trances. Hence, we have
  Wednesday from Wodens day.

21
The Anglo-Saxon Religion Gods for Warriors (3)

• Thunor, from Thor, the Norse god of thunder and
  lightning. His sign was the hammer and the
  twisted cross we call the swastika. Hence we
  have Thursday from Thors day.

22
(No Transcript)
23
The Anglo-Saxon Religion Gods for Warriors (4)

• The dragon is always the protector of a treasure.
  The fiery dragon should be seen as both a
  personification of death the devourer and as
  the guardian of the grave mound, in which a
  warriors ashes and his treasure lay.

24
The Anglo-Saxon Religion Gods for Warriors (5)

• Overall, the religion of the Anglo-Saxons seems
  to be more concerned with ethics than with
  mysticismwith the earthly values of bravery,
  loyalty, generosity, and friendship.

25
The Bards Singing of Gods and Heroes

• The A-S regarded their bards (called scops) as
  equal to warriors. Creating poetry was as
  important as fighting, hunting, farming, or
  loving.
• The poets sang to the strumming of a harp. They
  told of heroic tales that reflected the concerns
  of a people constantly under threat of war,
  disease, and old age.

26
The Bards Singing of Gods and Heroes (2)

• For pagan A-S, whose religion offered them no
  hope of an afterlife, only fame and its
  reverberation in poetry could provide a defense
  against death.
• This is why A-S bards, uniquely gifted with the
  skill to preserve fame in the collective memory,
  were such honored members of their society.

27
The Christian Monasteries The Ink Froze

• Monasteries served as strongholds of Christianity
  and centers of learning.
• Monks recorded and rewrote the great works of
  popular literature.
• When the monks recorded the words from the older
  oral tradition, they wrote in the vernacular, the
  language of the A-S people. This was a Germanic
  tongue that we now classify as Old English.

28
The Christian Monasteries The Ink Froze (2)

• Monks assigned to the monasterys scriptorium, or
  writing room, spent almost all their daylight
  hours copying manuscripts by hand.
• The scriptorium was a covered walkway open to a
  court. Makeshift walls of oiled paper or glass
  helped somewhat, but England is cold . . .

29
The Christian Monasteries The Ink Froze (3)

• Latin alone remained the language of serious
  study in England until the time of King Alfred.
• During his reign, Alfred instituted the
  Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a lengthy, running history
  of England that begin the earliest days and
  continued until 1154. It was written in English.

30
REFLECTION

• Life in a small A-S community was obviously very
  different from life in the US. Imagine how
  people lived and thought under such
  circumstances. Now imagine yourself as a young
  man or woman about to come of age. What do you
  think your life is like? What choices do you
  have? What limitations do you face? Jot down
  your thoughts.