1. The Anglo-Saxon Period 449-1066 AD

2. Who were the Anglo-Saxons?

3. Where did the Anglo-Saxons come from?  When the Roman legions left Britain around 410 AD, various Germanic tribes from the continent like the Angles, Jutes, and Frisians began to arrive in small invading parties at first, but soon in increasing numbers. They were regarded as foreigners and enemies by the native Britons.

5. The Dark Ages..?  Written sources for the early years of the Saxon invasions are scarce since they were mostly illiterate  A time of war  The breaking up of the Roman Britannia into several separate kingdoms  Religious conversion  After the 790s, a time of continual battles against a new set of invaders – the Vikings

6. A few glimpses of their life…

7. A typical Anglo-Saxon hut

9. The British map then…

10. When did the Celts come to England?  Iron Age & Celtic Britain  They arrived in 2 waves: - the Goidelic-speaking Celts between 2000-1200BCE - the Brythonic-speaking Celts sometime between 500-400BCE

11. The AS kingdoms  By 650 AD, there were 7 separate kingdoms:  Kent  Mercia  Northumbria  East Anglia  Essex  Sussex  Wessex

12. Reemergence of Christianity  596 AD: attempt to convert the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity  597 AD: St. Augustine arrives in Britain to preach the Christian faith - King Ethelbert of Kent is the first to be converted - a monastery is set up in Canterbury in Kent  Many of the older pagan beliefs still persist; Christian and pagan beliefs co-exist  By 850 AD - 3 large consolidated kingdoms are formed, namely, Northumbria, Mercia, and Wessex - the Anglo-Saxons had become a Christian people

13. Alfred the Great King of Wessex 871-899 AD  Defeated the Vikings in the Battle of Edington in 878, then converted their leader Guthrum to Christianity;  Recaptured London from the Vikings and established a boundary between the Saxons and the Vikings - the area ruled by the Vikings was known as the Danelaw;  Strengthened his kingdom's defences by creating a series of fortresses (burhs) and a decent army;  Built ships against Viking sea attacks, so beginning the English navy;  Had books translated into English and promoted learning;  Founded monasteries;  Commissioned the writing of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a historical record of the Anglo-Saxons in Britain.

14. Literature of the Anglo-Saxon times…

16. Old English Literature  Dating from the period between the 5 th century and the Norman Conquest of 1066  Has survived in 4 primary manuscripts: - the Junius MS - the Vercelli Book - the Exeter Book - the Beowulf MS (or, Nowell Codex)  Written in both Latin and the vernacular  Include such genres as poetry, Biblical translations, sermons, chronicles, riddles, legal works and so on  Can thus be primarily grouped into 2 categories: poetry & prose  Nearly all OE writers are anonymous, with only a few exceptions

17. Old English Poetry  Belongs to 2 fields of reference: the heroic Germanic pre-Christian & the Christian  It mostly comprises alliterative verse. We also find a frequent usage of kenning – a stylistic device of describing one thing in terms of another. For instance, in Beowulf, the sea is referred to as the whale road.  Most Old English poets are anonymous, and only four names are known with any certainty: Cædmon; Bede; Alfred the Great; and CynewulfCædmonBedeAlfred the GreatCynewulf  OE poetry can be roughly classified into: Christian poetry, heroic poetry (chief among whom is Beowulf), and lyrical and elegiac poetry.

18. Old English Lyrical & Elegiac Poetry  Also known as “wisdom poetry”  Found in the manuscript generally referred to as the Exeter Book  Poems include: - Widsith - The Wanderer - The Seafarer - Deor - The Wife’s Lament - The Husband’s Complaint - Wulf and Eadwacer - The Ruin

19. Widsith  An OE poem of 143 lines  Found in the Exeter Book  The autobiography of an itinerant minstrel who recounts the story of his long travels through the Germanic World.  During his tour he visited different tribal chiefs, lords, kings and princes and received rich presents. Some of them are well-known to History as- Eormenric, king of the Goths; Attila, king of the Huns; Albion-king of the Lombard, Theodrick, king of Franks and even the reference of Hrothgar and Hrothwulf.  A valuable document of the social and historical aspects of the time  To David Daiches- "What strikes us most forcibly is its catholicity; praise is meted out impartially to Huns, Goths, Burgundians, Franks, Danes, Swedes, Anglos, Wends, Saxons and many others".

20. The Wanderer  115 lines of alliterative verse  Found in the Exeter Book  The Wanderer conveys the meditations of a solitary exile on his past happiness as a member of his lord's band of retainers, his present hardships and the values of forbearance and faith in the heavenly Lord  The speaker reflects upon life while spending years in exile, and to some extent has gone beyond his personal sorrow. In this respect, the poem is a "wisdom poem." The degeneration of “earthly glory” is presented as inevitable in the poem, contrasting with the theme of salvation through faith in God.  The poem deal with the ‘ubi sunt’ theme (‘where are the snows of yesteryear’)

21. Deor’s Lament  42 lines of alliterative verse  Found in the Exeter Book  Narrates the story of the scop Deor who, after years of service to his lord, has been replaced by his rival Heorrenda.  Deor mentions various figures from Germanic mythology and reconciles his own troubles with the troubles these figures faced, ending each section with the refrain "that passed away, so may this.”Germanic mythology

22. The Seafarer  A poem of 124 lines  Found in the Exeter Book  Hard to surmise if the poem is an internal monologue of an old sailor or if it is a dialogue between an old sailor warning an eager young seaman against the dangers of a sea-faring life  The poem has often been read as an allegory about the troubles of earthly life. It ends with an exhortation to keep one’s eyes fixed upon God and concludes with the single word ‘amen’

23. The Wife’s Complaint  Also known as ‘The Wife’s Lament’  An elegy of 53 lines found in the Exeter Book  The speaker is a woman who has apparently been separated from her husband by the plotting of his kinsmen and forced to dwell in a distant cave  Friendless and forsaken, the woman bewails her loneliness. The poem is rich in melancholy

24. The Husband’s Message  A poem of 53 lines found in the Exeter Book  The Husband's Message tells the story of a man who was forced to leave his homeland and his wife due to a feud. The poem takes place after the feud has ended. The supposedly now wealthy and established husband carves a message onto a plank or staff of wood and sends it to his wife or his betrothed, the exact relationship between the man and woman is never specified, recounting the past years without her, reflecting on his past misfortunes, professing his love for her and imploring her to reunite with him in his new home. Thus, the "message" becomes the physical plank of wood itself, as well as the poem's written lyrics.feud  To some critics the poem is a sequel to 'The Wife's Complaint’ but some would to see it as an independent poem.

25. Wulf and Eadwacer  A fragment perhaps of only 19 lines found in the Exeter Book  It tells the story of a woman who has been separated from her lover, Wulf. Eadwacer is most possibly her hated husband or at least the man she has been forced to live with.  The tone of melancholy is strongly felt in the poem and the passion of the woman rings out with remarkable clarity

26. The Ruin or, The Ruined Burg  An elegy of about 49 lines found in the Exeter Book  The poem evokes the former glory of a ruined city by juxtaposing the grand, lively past state with the decaying present  The speaker imagines how the towers, walls, baths, and palaces must have looked at the time of their completion and envisions them full of life and action. This imagery is contrasted with the desolate reality of the speaker's time, the buildings having been ruined by time and fate.  It is often taken to refer to the Roman-built city of Bath which had been left broken and desolate following the invasions by the different Germanic tribes from continental Europe

27. OE Heroic Poetry  Widsith  Deor  Beowulf  Waldere  The Battle of Brunanburh  Battle of Maldon

28. Waldere  A fragment; part of an Anglo-Saxon treatment of the Waltharius story which was already well-known on the continent.  Its most complete form is preserved in the Latin epic of Waltharius by Ekkehard of St. Gall  The poem consists of two separate parts of about 30 lines each, abd its chief interest is in offering further evidence of the popularity of stories of continental Germanic heroes among the Anglo-Saxons

29. The Battle of Brunanburh  A later AS poem which appears in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle under the date 937  It celebrates the victory of king Aethelstan of Wessex and his brother Eadmund against the combined forces of the Scots, Norses, and the Britons  The heroes are looked upon less as individuals than as champions of their nation: it is not so much a personal victory of the princes as it is a national victory

30. Battle of Maldon  Also appears in the AS Chronicle under the date 991  It deals in the older epic manner with one of the many clashes between the English and the Danes  It is the story of a disastrous English defeat: Byrhtnoth, who led the English forces, fought and died in a recklessly courageous attempt to stem the Danes.  The poem contains 9 speeches by 7 different speakers: the tone of desperate courage against hopeless odds echoes throughout the poem and becomes more and more intense towards the end of the poem.

31. Beowulf  The only complete extant epic of its kind in an ancient Germanic language  Falls into 2 main parts: 1. Beowulf, nephew of King Hygelac of the Geats, visits the court of King Hrothgar of Denmark. Here he kills the man-eating monster, Grendel, who had plagued the king’s court for long. When Grendel’s mother arrives to exact revenge for her son’s death, Beowulf follows her to her underwater lair and after a desperate struggle, slays her too. He then returns home, laden with gifts and honour.  2. the second part takes place 50 years later when Beowulf has long been king of the Geats. A fire-breathing dragon wrecks havoc on his kingdom when it is disturbed while guarding a hoard of treasure. Beowulf succeeds in slaying the dragon but he is himself mortally wounded in the struggle. The poem ends with his funeral amidst the lamentations of his warriors

32. Continued…  Beowulf is a heroic poem, reflecting the ideals of a society which we call Heroic  A unique blend of pagan and Christian elements which, however, do not seriously weaken the essentially pagan atmosphere of the poem  Documents a primitive society with a genuine ideal of nobility underlying its adventure stories. Emphasizes the shortness of life and the passing away of all things except the fame a man leaves behind

33. Religious Poetry  Seems to have flourished in northern England throughout the 8 th century  Bede, in his Ecclesiastical History, first tells of how in the monastery of the abbess Hilda at Whitby, a lowly brother named Caedmon suddenly and miraculously received the gift of song and at once began to sing of the glory of God  It is dated before the year 680  The only poem which can said to have been composed by Caedmon with certainty is the 9-line poem which Bede quotes in his History  The poem shows the earlier vocabulary of praise found in heroic poetry to describe one’s lord being adapted for the purposes of religious poetry

34. The Caedmonian School: Genesis  4 poems that are contained in the Junius manuscript, of which 3 are based on Old Testament story – Genesis, Exodus, and Daniel, the fourth being Christ and Satan  Genesis – divided into 2 parts, the Genesis A and Genesis B. A poem of nearly 3000 lines which primarily describes the substance of the first 22 chapters of the book of Genesis  The MS contains several gaps in the text and has a remarkable interpolation of over 600 lines, different in style and language from the body of the poem and clearly coming from another work, which has come to be known as Genesis B to distinguish it from the rest of the poem, known as Genesis A

35. Exodus, Daniel & Christ and Satan  Exodus: the poem depicts Moses as the “glorious hero” leading a war-like people to freedom and victory  Linguistic evidence suggests it might be the oldest of the AS biblical poems  Daniel: a paraphrase of the first 5 chapters of the biblical book of Daniel, with the apocryphal prayer of Azariah interpolated in the middle  Christ and Satan: originally an untitled poem  We have in the poem a representation of Satan as a lost soul lamenting the loss of the joys of heaven. The difference of following Christ and Satan is emphasized as is the difference between heaven and hell. It gives a description of Christ’s temptation in the wilderness before returning and concluding with an account of Satan’s frustration

36. Cynewulf  A poet who may have flourished early in the 9 th century and who is the first AS poet to sign his work  4 of Cynewulf’s poems are extant and they have a more meditative and contemplative tone than the OE heroic poems  His 4 poems are: Christ, Juliana, Elene, and The Fates of the Apostles

37. The poems…  Christ – deals primarily with the Advent, the Ascension, and the Last Judgement  Juliana – a more conventional work, a typical saint’s life, which follows its Latin prose source without any significant deviation  Elene - the story of the discovery of the true cross by St. Helena, mother of Constantine  The Fates of the Apostles – the author meditates on the adventures of the various apostles after they dispersed to spread the Gospel but its interest also lies in the personal passages which have a typically melancholic, elegiac strain or tone

38. The School of Cynewulf  The Dream of the Rood – the complete poem is found in the Vercelli Book. It is the oldest extant English poem in the form of a dream or vision. The dreamer tells of the bright, gem-encrusted cross it saw in a vision and describes the cross’s speech: how it was chosen from a forest to be cut and fashioned into the cross meant for Christ, its decision to hold steadfast because it was God’s command, the suffering of Christ, and finally ends with an exhortation to seek the kingdom of heaven together with the dreamer’s own religious hopes  Andreas - tells of the adventures, sufferings, and evangelical successes of St. Andrew  The Phoenix – the first part deals with an earthly paradise in the east, the beauty of the phoenix, and its cycle of life. The second part deals with the phoenix as an allegory for life and as a symbol of Christ

39. Judith  A fragmentary poem of which only the concluding sections survive  Deals with the deals with the apocryphal book of Judith  Narrates the story of Judith’s beheading of the drunken Holofernes, her rallying of the Hebrews to attack the Assyrians, the defeating of the Assyrians by the Hebrews, and Judith’s triumph and praise to God  The poem has a fierce energy and is one of the later AS poems

40. Anglo Saxon Prose  AS prose, unlike poetry, does not back to Germanic origins: it takes place wholly in England, and largely as a result of the Christianization of England  The chief sources of OE Prose include: - King Alfred - The AS Chronicle - Aelfric, abbot of Eynsham - Wulfstan, Archbishop of York

41. King Alfred  Translations of Latin works: 1. Cura Pastoralis – meaning Pastoral Care, it was a work by Pope Gregory the Great; a work describing the duties and responsibilities of a bishop which had come to be regarded as a manual for a parish priest’s duties; Alfred was especially concerned with the training of teachers. He also emphasized the importance of the learning of English. 2. Historia adversum Paganos – originally by Paulus Orosius, it was a work written under the influence of St. Augustine in order to prove that the introduction of Christianity had not made the world worse than what it had been before. 3. Historia Ecclesiastica – (Ecclesiastical History of the English people) a work by the great historian Bede, documenting the English history

42. King Alfred continued… 4. De Consolatione Philosophiae (The Consolation of Philosophy) – a work by Roman philosopher Boethius, it deals in the form of a dialogue between the author and Philosophy, various philosophical problems like the nature of true happiness, good and evil, God’s foreknowledge of man’s free will and so on. Though it isn’t a Christian work, it nevertheless appealed to Christian thought. 5. “Book of Blossoms” derived from the Soliloquies of St. Augustine – more of a record or documentation of Alfred’s literary endeavours.

43. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle  A series of annals which commence with an outline of English history from Julius Caesar’s invasion to the middle of the 5 th century and continues to 1154.  The continuity of English prose from Old English period to Middle English period is demonstrated clearly by the Chronicle  It documents various events which include, amongst many others, the relations between England and Scandinavia in the reign of Edward the Confessor, the Norman Conquest, the conflicts with the Danes, etc.

44. Aelfric, abbot of Eynsham & Wulfstan, Archbishop of York  Aelfric: 1. sermons in the vernacular: the first 2 series known as the Catholic Homilies, and the third, known as Lives of the Saints  2. a somewhat abbreviated version in AS of the first 7 books of the Old Testament (the Heptateuch)  3. Colloquy – a set of simple Latin dialogues intended to teach Latin to boys in a monastic school.  Wulfstan: 1. Sermon to the English – paints a vivid picture of the horrors of the Danish invasions and uses it as a means to instruct his audience about the necessity of amendment if they are to avoid hell-fire and earn eternal glory.