1. Selfless Sacrifice: Anglo-Saxon History

2. The Anglo-Saxons: 449–1066 AD 1066 300s BC Celts in Britain AD 449
Norman Invasion
300s BC
Celts in Britain
AD 449
Anglo-Saxon Invasion
55 BC –AD 409
Roman Occupation
AD 878
King Alfred against the Danes
300 BC AD 1 AD
300 AD
600 AD
900 AD
1200
AD 400–699
Spread of Christianity

3. The Celts in Britain Before and during the 4th century BC
Britain is named after the Brythons, tall blond warriors who made up one of the Celtic tribes.
Celtic religion was a form of animism, Latin word for spirits. They saw spirits everywhere and in everything.
Stonehenge, built BC…some of the stones weigh as much as four tons and were transported some 240 miles
BACKGROUND INFORMATION:
Greek travelers to Britain in 4th century encountered tall, blond warriors who called themselves Celts.
Animism is a belief that gods live in all things—trees, stones, water, air.
Druids are known to have existed since the 3rd century B.C.
The word druid means “knowing the oak tree.”
Celtic priests performed ceremonies in oak groves and considered the oak trees, as well as the mistletoe that grows on oaks, sacred.
Stonehenge stands at the top of a gentle slope among the dry grasslands of the Salisbury Plain, in southern England.
Scholars believe that Stonehenge (c.3100–1100 B.C.) was built by the Iberians, who lived in Britain before the Celts.
Most archaeologists believe that Stonehenge was used by the Druids for religious ceremonies having to do with lunar and solar cycles.
The name comes from the Saxon, combining stone and henge, “hang”—thus, a place of hanging stone.
Druids, Celtic priests, performed religious rituals.

4. The Roman Occupation 55 BC Julius Caesar leads an invasion
Hadrian’s Wall
55 BC Julius Caesar leads an invasion
43 BC Celts defeated and driven out by Emperor Claudius
Over the course of their rule, the Romans build walls, villas, baths, and roads (some still in use)
AD 409 Romans evacuate their troops, leaving physical structures, but no central government
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
The Roman Empire occupied not only the British Isles, but also most of Europe, Asia Minor, the Middle East, and North Africa—including what is now Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Holland, Spain, Portugal, Armenia, parts of southern Russia, western Romania, Greece, Turkey, Persia, Syria, Jordan, Palestine, Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco.
The five thousand miles of stone roads built by the Romans linked tribal capitals and towns, especially London, York, and Winchester.
The defensive wall, Hadrian’s Wall, linked the North Sea and the Atlantic near the present-day border between England and Scotland. Hadrian’s Wall held back the marauding Picts and Scots for 250 years.
The Visigoths sacked Rome in A.D. 410, and the Vandals attacked in A.D The last western Roman emperor, Romulus Augustulus, was deposed in A.D. 476 by the German chief Odovacar.
Britain is left a country of separate clans, making them vulnerable to attack
Roman ruins

5. Germanic Tribes Invade
Jutes
Angles
Saxons
Celts
AD 449 The invading tribes, Jutes, Angles, and Saxons, push the native Celts into the far west of the country, known as Wales, where they were led by a Welsh chieftain known as Arthur, the “once and future king.”
King Alfred the Great came from Wessex. By the middle of the tenth century, the Wessex kings had become the kings of all England.
Northumbria was known as a center of learning and the arts. The religious art mixed Celtic and Anglo-Saxon influences. The Monastery of Lindisfarne (from which come the Lindisfarne Gospels) is located on Holy Island, off the northwest coast of Northumbria.
In Sutton Hoo, East Anglia, a burial mound of an Anglo-Saxon king was discovered in 1939.

6. The Anglo-Saxon Society
Germanic tribes settle the land that becomes known as Engla Land, or England.
The society is made up of small tribes led by a strong warrior chief to whom they were fiercely loyal.
Fame and success, even survival, were gained only through loyalty to the leader, who provided law and order.
They weren’t barbarians, but their lives weren’t peaceful, either, for enemy attack was a constant threat.
Lived in villages surrounding a communal hall, together they made communal, democratic, decisions.
People farmed, fished, and produced fine craftwork.
BACKGROUND:
Anglo-Saxon king was an absolute ruler and mighty warrior.
The Anglo-Saxons had a two-class society: the thanes, or earls, who ruled and were related to the leader of the tribe; and the churls, or bondservants, whose ancestors had been captured by the tribe.
King consulted with the witan (“wise men”), an assembly of respected earls.
Churls provided hard labor and were bound to the earls’ service unless they could earn possessions and special royal favor to become freemen (independent landholders).
Warriors were admired.
Social organization based on strict laws and a sense of obligation to others.

7. Anglo-Saxon Language
Their language, Anglish, now known as Old English, emerged as a written language, though most couldn’t read or write.
About half of our modern English words are formed from Old English.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Old English was the language of the Anglo-Saxons. It is part of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Modern English is directly descended from Old English.
During the Anglo-Saxon period, people spoke what we call Old English, but the language of study was Latin until the time of King Alfred. During his reign, King Alfred instituted the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a lengthy running history of England that covered the earliest days and continued until Partly because of King Alfred’s efforts, English began to gain respect as a language of culture. An electronic copy of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is available on the Internet.
Old English

8. Old English Days of the Week Sunday =Sunnandæg Monday =Mōnandæg
Eald = old
Brodor =brother
Hus =house
Nett=net
Riht =right
Wyrd=weird; to the Anglo- Saxons, the word meant fate. Shakespeare calls the witches in Macbeth the weird sisters; they inform Macbeth of his fate.
Days of the Week
Sunday =Sunnandæg
Monday =Mōnandæg
Tuesday =Tīwesdæg
Wednesday=Wōdnesdæg
Thursday=Þūnresdæg
Friday =Frīgedæg
Saturday=Sæturnesdæg
Tiw is the Old English form of the Proto-Germanic god *Tîwaz, or Týr in Norse, a god of war and law. Also a reference to Greek word for Mars

9. Anglo-Saxon Religion
Offered no hope of an afterlife—dark and fatalistic
Valued ethics over mysticism, focusing on earthly virtues of bravery, loyalty, generosity, and friendship
Anglo-Saxon hero was someone courageous enough to control response to fate—rather than accept it, they would face it and fight it
Beliefs are similar to Norse mythology
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Woden would help humans communicate with spirits and was associated especially with burial rites and ecstatic trances, important for both poetry and religious mysteries. Not surprisingly, this god of poetry and death played an important role in the lives of people who produced great poetry yet maintained a somber, brooding outlook on life.
Thunor was the god of thunder and lightning. His sign was the hammer and possibly also the twisted cross we call the swastika, which is found on so many Anglo-Saxon gravestones.
Thunor
Thor
Woden
Odin
Day of week
Anglo-Saxon god
Norse god
Woden’s Day
Thor’s Day

10. Anglo-Saxon Literature
Anglo-Saxon bards (storytellers)
also called scops
strummed a harp as they sang songs about heroic deeds
were as respected as warriors because they provided an element of hope
Anglo-Saxons did not believe in an afterlife, but warriors could gain immortality through songs. If a bard sang about them, they lived forever in the collective memory
PRONUNCIATION GUIDE
scops (skahps)
BACKGROUND
The literature of the Anglo-Saxons was handed down orally by scops who sang in the lords’ mead halls, where warriors gathered to celebrate the events of the day. These scops, like the Greek poets before them, remembered their stories by using accentual meter and many stock phrases called kennings.
The word wyrd was used by the Anglo-Saxons to represent one’s fate in life.
The early Anglo-Saxons did not believe strongly in an afterlife; they believed that immortality, or lof—fame that survives death—could be earned through heroic action.
The Anglo-Saxon lyre (a type of harp) on the slide is a replica of a six-stringed instrument found at the Sutton Hoo archaeological site. It is a reconstruction based on fragments.
Anglo-Saxon harp

11. The Spread of Christianity
Around AD 400
Christian monks settle in Britain
Christianity and Anglo-Saxon culture co-exist
By AD 699
Christianity is widespread
Britain is culturally linked to the rest of Europe
BACKGROUND
Ireland began a golden age during the 5th century. Unlike England, Ireland was not overrun by invaders. Then, in 432, the whole of Celtic Ireland was converted to Christianity by a Romanized Briton named Patricius (Patrick). From 432 to 750, while Europe and England sank into constant warfare, Ireland experienced a golden age.
Monasteries in England served as centers of learning just as they would in the Middle Ages. The monks preserved not only the Greek classics but also some of the great works of popular literature such as Beowulf, which was first written down around A.D Due to the Christian elements in the epic, scholars believe the poet who wrote down the version of Beowulf we have today was a monk.

12. Monasteries and Anglo-Saxon Literature
Monks spent almost all of their daylight hours copying manuscripts by hand, preserving not only the Latin and Greek classics, but also great works of popular literature, such as Beowulf
Christianity replaced the dark, pagan religion and provided hope, as well as a link to continental Europe
The monasteries served as a stronghold and developed into centers of learning and faith

13. King Alfred the Great against the Danes
8th–9th centuries
Danes, one of the fierce Viking people who crossed the sea in dragon-prowed boats, invade Britain.
871 Alfred of Wessex is king of England
King Sweyn and his Danish troops arrive in England, from a manuscript (c. 14th century)
878 Known as King Alfred the Great, he unifies the Anglo-Saxons against the Danes; England becomes a unified nation.
BACKGROUND:
The illustration of King Sweyn’s invasion of England is notable for its lack of historical accuracy. The ship and soldiers are typical of the Middle Ages rather than the eleventh century.
QUESTION:
What does the illustration’s lack of historical accuracy suggest about the medieval approach to history?
[Possible response: Medieval artists were not concerned with how customs changed from one historical period to another.]
The Danes were one of the fierce Viking peoples who crossed the North Sea in dragon-prowed ships.
The Danes plundered and destroyed all in their path, eventually settling in northeast and central England.
King Alfred (849–899) truly deserves the appellation “the great.” Not only did he help save Wessex and other kingdoms in England from the Danes, but he also helped create a cohesive English society from a collection of small, fractious kingdoms. In addition, he restored cities destroyed during invasions and revived interest in learning and in the English language. King Alfred is the only British monarch who is called “the great.”
The Alfred jewel is a gold and enamel jewel (9th century) thought to have belonged to King Alfred and is possibly the handle to a pointer used for following manuscript text.
QUESTION
The Alfred jewel shows an enameled figure of a man holding two scepters. The inscription around the edge reads: “Alfred ordered me to be made.” What symbolic significance do the two scepters have? [Possible response: They symbolize the political unity Alfred was trying to achieve.]

14. The Norman Invasion
1066
William of Normandy, or William the Conqueror, crosses the English Channel
William defeats Harold and Anglo-Saxon army
French replaces English as the language of the ruling class, and a strict class system is enforced.
BACKGROUND
King Harold Godwinson was the last Anglo-Saxon king of England.
Although tapestry usually involves the weaving of thread, this tapestry is actually an embroidered band of linen, 231 feet long and 19 ½ inches wide. Of particular value to historians are the details of battle tactics and equipment depicted in the work.
The Norman Invasion,
Bayeux Tapestry