Anglo-Saxon History

The Britons

  • No writing, everything was passed down by words

  • Stories were memorized and repeated

The Romans

  • Invaded and defeated the Britons

  • Briton’s area becomes part of the Roman empire, but they are treated well and peaceful

  • In 410, the Romans leave to defend their empire and never come back

The Germanic Invasions

  • Jutes: Tribe that wants Britons land, defeats the brits and takes over

  • Angles: Fight the Jutes and Britons, Angles take over

  • Saxons: Fight the Jutes, Britons, and Saxons, win and take over

  • Anglo Saxon period begins: 449

    • Relative peace, no major disputes

The Benefits

  • Created a common language (English)

  • Created Anglo-Saxon England (Angleland)

  • Reign lasted until 1066 (Norman conquest)

Language

  • Old English or Anglo-Saxon

    • West German

    • Dutch

The Downfall

  • England was not unified

  • Could not avoid the Vikings (Norsemen or Danes)

    • Most groups (Anglo-Saxons), attacked for more land, while Vikings just attacked to attack

    • Incredibly hard to defend

    • Attacked mostly small communities

Anglo-Saxon Civilization

  • Northumbria

  • Mercia

  • Wessex

  • Kent

Commonalities Between Anglo-Saxons

  • Language

  • Heroic Ideal

  • Shortness of Life

    • No modern medicine

    • Constant war and death

  • Wyrd

    • Fate

    • What is destined to happene

      • Death in battle: Destiny

    • No control over any aspect of life

Anglo-Saxon Literature

  • Format

    • Sung by a scop

      • Professional poet, had to know about everything

      • Passed on their knowledge to another scop before they died

      • Strong beat

        • most important idea or emphasis is placed

  • The Epic

    • A long narrative poem that tells about the adventures of a national hero

    • Epic Hero

      • The hero on the adventure in an epic poem

Poems

  • Heroic poem

    • Contains a hero

    • Ex: Beowulf

  • Elegiac poem

    • mourns the passing of good times

    • the present sucks lol

    • much shorter than heroic poems

    • Ex: The Seafarer

  • Riddles

    • intellectual exercises

    • much longer than current riddles

Anglo-Saxon Beliefs

  • Personal valor

    • Had to make a name for yourself

  • Shortness of life

  • Religious with a touch of fatalism

    • Paganism and christian

      • Pagans: belief in monsters and wyrd

      • Christians: god will allow fate to change if you’re a good warrior, monotheist

  • Allegiance to a Lord or King

  • Open-handed hospitality

    • give to others (those of your class or higher)

      • lower class doesn’t count

  • Stern and barbarous life

  • Savage and sentimental

Anglo-Saxon Heroes

  • incredibly strong

  • courageous

  • appreciative of beauty

    • admiring the sunset

    • decorating hilt of sword/breastplate

  • boastful

  • generous

    • time, money, talent

  • loyal

    • to the king

  • believed in wyrd

The Epic Poet

  • Concerned with relaying human values and moral choices

  • Considered the historian of the people, blending the past and present

Alliteration

  • Repetition of similar consonant sounds

  • usually at the beginning of a word

Assonance

  • repetition of similar vowel sounds in unrhymed stressed syllables

  • beginning or middle of word

Allusion

  • Reference to a well known piece of art that the author expects you to know

  • “She was as beautiful as Cleopatra“

  • “He was as rich as King Tut“

Caesura

  • pause or natural break in a line of poetry

  • reader takes a pause before moving on

  • indicated by // or big space

Epithet

  • brief descriptive phrase used to characterize a character/object

  • Ex: America the beautiful, Ivan the terrible

Gielp

  • boasting/bragging

Hyperbole

  • a great exaggeration used for emphasis

Kenning

  • an elaborate phrase that describes people, things, and events in a metaphorical and indirect way

  • Ex: “writing utensil“ instead of pencil

    • “Whale home“ = sea

    • “Ring giver“ = king (gives rings to promote ranks in society)

Riddle

  • often a poem that describes an object without naming it

Beowulf

  • Author

    • unknown

    • Written in old english/ anglo saxon

    • scribes set down the poem around the year 1000

    • scribes were monks

    • mixture of Christian and pagan values