1. Viking Invasions

3. Coins of Offa

4. Growth of the Anglo-Saxon State: 700-1066
Rise of Mercia: 700s
Trade, taxation, charters
Viking Invasions: 800s
What was their impact on the formation of the Anglo-Saxon state?

5. Discuss Campbell

6. Why was the period of Mercian dominance apparently violent and even tyrannical?
The Mercians did not establish written laws?
The sources that we have were victims of Mercian aggression
Sources indicate that Mercian kings never really embraced Christianity
The Mercians developed a centralized government that Campbell referred to as absolutist state.

7. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle first composed c. 890

8. What likely caused the decline of Mercian power, according to Campbell?
Viking invasions
Dynastic instability
Lack of Christian piety
Revolt by the Britons in Wales

9. Viking Invasions

10. Discuss the Vikings What were prominent features of Viking culture?
What bias can you expect from Anglo-Saxon sources about Vikings?
How can historians overcome these biases?

11. Beowulf composed late 700s or early 800s? Written c. 1000

12. Discuss Beowulf Where did the Beowulf poem take place?
Why would a Christian Anglo-Saxon author express interest in pagan Scandinavians?
What was strange about the religion of the characters in Beowulf, and what does this spiritual orientation tell us?
How might Danish invasions have influenced the composition of the poem?

13. Long Boat

14. Viking Drakkar

18. Viking Invasions of the British Isles

19. Sites of Early Viking Incursions: Lindisfarne and Iona

20. Ruins of Lindisfarne Priory

22. Viking coins

23. Viking spearheads & axes found near London Bridge

24. Alfred the Great

25. Guthrum’s Peace c. 886

28. The Burghal Clusters

29. Relative Size of Alfred’s Burhs

30. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle first composed c. 890

31. Early Shire Structure approx. 30 shires. C. 950

32. Writs

33. King Edgar, c. 973

34. How does the poem describe Beowulf as a warrior?
How does the poem describe Beowulf as a king?
What was Beowulf’s religious orientation?

35. In what sense is the story a tragedy?
How was the story instructive?
How might it have been influenced by Danish invasions?