Who
were they?
-
blue eyes
-
fair skin
-
-
common language (Anglo-Saxon)
-
-
crush higher Celtic civ.
-
-
Destroy monestaries, etc.
-
-
King Arthur – Celtic king who fights in
vain against A-S invaders
-
-
Celts pushed to north and west of island
-
-
A-Ss have lower classes (slaves and
peasants) who do most of farming and domestic work
-
-
Upper class men (thanes or free
warriors) were king’s consultants and who obey king in times of battle; often
relatives or good friends of king
-
-
Loud existence – heavy drinking,
disputes, fights, braggarts
-
-
The flyting – bragging contest between
two warriors
-
-
A-S warriors are plain-spoken and
straightforward
o
o Like Mainers?
- - loyalty to king
·
The rulers of Britain
after 410 are referred to as 'tyrants' because their authority had no
legitimacy in Roman Eyes.
·
Having no armies left,
the British people were left open to attack from the Picts (probably by sea
down the east coast, for the Picts are described in one Late Roman source as a
sea-going people - just like the Saxons).
Germanic Troops
·
It is known that
Germanic troops had been stationed in this country by the Romans since at least
the third century - it is also known that some of these troops settled in this
country - and Germanic pirates were raiding Britain from at least this date
too, so the 'excellence of the land' would have already been well known
on the continent.
·
Archaeology has shown
that by the late fourth century Germanic mercenaries were to be found settled
all along the east coast of Britain, and along the banks of the Thames at least
as far as Oxfordshire.
·
The British 'tyrants'
also feared a Roman invasion from Gaul to remove them, so some of the Saxons
stationed in southern England may have been a guard against Roman military
intervention - a far cry from the old view of the Britons missing the presence
of the legions!.
·
It is also known that
the peoples who made up the 'Anglo-Saxons' were far more varied than just the
three groups mentioned.
·
Even the totally
violent nature of their arrival is now thought to be rather exaggerated.
·
Whilst it is certainly
true that the newcomers did fight against the Britons (or as the Invaders
called them the wealas - an Old English word meaning slave or
foreigner!) in many areas much of the settlement was peaceful with farmers and
craftsmen integrating themselves into existing communities.
Invasions
·
The numbers of the
invaders was certainly large, and they certainly did affect the nature of
British society, even to the extent of replacing the primary language, but they
did not wipe out the native population.
·
It is most likely that
in fact a mixture of all situations happened - in some places the native
Britons were almost entirely replaced by the newcomers, in some places the two
peoples lived side by side, and in other places the population remained almost
exclusively British, although these British people gradually adopted the ways
and language of the invaders.
·
Whatever the nature of
the influx of Germanic peoples, we know that it did not happen overnight and
that it was not entirely peaceful.
·
Fifty years after the
traditional arrival of Hengest and Horsa there was still fighting
going on for control of the land. Some of this was between the Britons and the
invaders - this was the time of Ambrosius Aurelianus (probably the King
Arthur of legend), a Romano-British chieftain - and some of the fighting
was between different Germanic tribes each struggling for supremacy.
·
Around the year 500
A.D. the Britons (probably under the leadership of Ambrosius Aurelianus)
won a great victory at Mons Badonicus (Mount Badon) which halted the
tide of Germanic invaders
·
It also seems to be at
this time that many Britons left Britain for northern Gaul and turned the
peninsula of Armorica into Brittany.
·
For about half a
century there was relative peace with British rule over the western half of the
country and Germanic rule in the east, and it seems probable that the Britons
may even have won back some parts of central England from the invaders
·
By the middle of the
fifth century the Germans started a second wave of colonisation that ended with
most of lowland Britain under the control of many Germanic 'kings' (most of the
later kingdoms were founded at this time)
·
In England the Saxons, after establishing themselves in the south and
east, in the localities now represented by Sussex and Essex, founded a great
kingdom in the West which gradually absorbed almost the whole country south of
the Thames. In fact, the King of Wessex ultimately became the lord of the
entire land of Britain.
·
The Angles, who followed close upon the heels of the Saxons, founded the
kingdoms of East Anglia (Norfolk and Suffolk), Mercia (the Midlands), Deira
(Yorkshire), and Bernicia (the country farther north).
·
British culture
relegated to the western fringes of the country in Dumnonia (Devon and
Cornwall) and Wales (the name of which is derived from the word wealas
mentioned above); in the north there was the British kingdom of Strathclyde
and the independent British kingdom of Elmet which stretched westwards
for many miles from the marshes at the head of the Humber, and separated the
Angles of the northern Midlands from those of the plain of York.
597 A.D. – Christian
missionaries come to England from Rome and Ireland (which had been Christian
for a hundred years thanks to St. Patrick and others)
- Augustine is
first Archbishop of Canterbury
-
-
uneven results
-
-
A dominant Anglo-Saxon king in South,
Ethelbert, was converted after marrying a German princess
-
-
“officially” Christian by 700 A.D.
-
-
still, large pockets of paganism or
Christian veneer
-
-
superstitions, charms, and legends of
old heathen gods persist
-
-
monestaries founded and their influence
spreads to the populace
o o
monks start writing in Latin, but then
begin writing in English
Remained
masters of the country until a new order of things was created in 1066 by the
coming of the Normans.
We’ll talk about the Normans tomorrow.
EXTRA
TIME: pp. 120-123