THE ANGLO-SAXONS

THE SAXON INVASION

When Romans left, Great Britain was invaded by Germanic tribes known as Angles, Saxons and Jutes. Infact
the actually name England came from Angles. The Celtic were pushed into Cornwall, the mountains of
Wales and Scotland. The legend of King Arthur developed in this period. There were warlike and illiterate
and used only the runic alphabet, which was composed of a series of mysterious characters using only for
carving on jewellery and stones.
ANGLO-SAXON CIVILIZATION AND VALUES
The Anglo-Saxon lived in tribes ruled by a king or chieftain, whom the male members of the tribe had to
emulate. Among this tribes there was a great heroic ideal in common: like courage, physical strength,
fighting ability together with loyalty to the leader were considered the qualities necessary to survive. It was
important to the Kindred, infact when a man died it was the kindred duty to look after the widow and her
children. They believed that life was short, harsh and uncertain. To the Anglo-Saxon nothing could be done
to change this, because everything was determined by a impersonal powerful fate, known as wyrd. The
only thing that lasted was fame, and the only way to achieve them it was through acts of heroism and
courage. This is one of the aspects of Anglo-Saxons poetry. The Anglo-Saxon were warriors and farmers,
infact they set up rural communities and tilled the soil. They didnt like urban life, so they sacked Roman
towns. They preferred the wooden hits of their own culture. The members of the community ate, drank
together, and the told stories about the heroic deeds and adventures.
A HARSH LANGUAGE FOR A VIOLENT WORLD
Anglo-Saxon language was harsh, not a particularly musical tongue, this is because of the number of
stressed consonants in the words that gave the language harsh sound. However this harsh language was
used to produce a poetry that was perfectly suited to expressing the harsh realities of life. The Anglo-
Saxons werent only violent and warriors because they had a highly developed feeling for beauty, infact the
decorated they swords and shields, and produces beautiful jewellery. One aspect of Anglo-Saxon civilization
that survives today is the names of certain weekdays that derived from the names of old Anglosaxon gods.
Tuesday from Tiw, the god of war; Wednesday from Woden, the chief Teutonic god; Thursday from Thor,
the god of Thunder; and Friday from Frigga, goddess of the home.
THE SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY
Next to wars for possession of Britain, there was another quieter invasion: the spread of Christianity. In 597
arrival of missionaries like St. Augustine led to the creation of monasteries. Between the 7 and 11 centuries,
monk, scribes and Christian scholars started to transcribe the oral poetry of the Anglo-Saxons. They
introduced element of Christian Belief and occasional reference to the Bible. One of this ecclesiastics, the
Venerable Bede, taught at monasteries in Northumbria. He was regarded as the Father of English History.
He wrote in latin The Ecclesiastical History of English People, which tells the story of Britains conversion
to Christianity and the growth of its Church.



THE VIKING INVASION
In 876 a new tribe arrived to Britain: the Vikings, called also Danes. But they conquered only the North part
of Britain because King Alfred of Wessex stopped them. So the new centre of learning moved from the
North to the South tanks to King Alfred called the Great, not only because he was an outstanding leader
in war, but also because he brought a lot of transformation in England culture. With King Alfred , Wessex
became the new centre of learning of Britain. In this period monks began to re-copy and compile an
important collection of Anglo-Saxon lyrics, known as Exeter Book. Alfred gave great importance to using the
native language in writing, and he himself helped translate books from latin into Anglo-Saxon.
The inhabitants of Britain, at the time of the Roman invasions , spoke a Celtic language. Celtic was probably
spoken in country places, and Celtic languages have survived until today in parts of Wales. The history of
the English language begins with the settlement of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes in Britain. The main
features of Old English were: inflexional endings; the infinitives of the verbs ending with an, and the
stress of words generally as near the beginning as possible.
By 950 the fore England was divided in two parts: South and Southeast were under Saxons rule, while the
Northeast of Britain was under the Vikings. When King Alfred de King died, Ethered raised a tax, called
Daneged, to pay the Vikings to go away. After him, Canute, leader of the Vikings, controlled much of
England. On Canutes death his sons ruled in Scandinavia, so the Witan (an assembly made up of noble,
kings relatives and bishops), elected Edward the Confessor, so called for his saintly life. He also important
because he built the Westminster Abbey. Since he has no sons, the Witan choose as King Arold of Wessex,
who fought two rivals: Arold and William of Normandy, he defeated Arold but he was defeated by William
of Normandy so the Normandy dynasty bagan.