History of british culture

Class system and social stratification

19. century class system

Upper Class
Aristocrats (They are not working, They are not doing anything but They have money)
 Royal Family
 Spiritual Lords
 Temporal Lords
 Great officers of the states

Baronets Knights Country Gentlemen

- They have money because of family heritage (They already have the land to collect money.)
There are farmers, workers etc. who pay rent to aristocrats

Middle Class
Upper Middle Class
- Factory Owners -Business Men -Bankers
- Lawyers - Engineers -Clergyman

They are working and They are earning money. Middle Class mostly don’t make their hands dirty. These
people have money and they invested.

Lower Middle Class

- Small scale business men - Merchants
- Shopkeepers - Civil servants

Just like upper middle class but their earning a little bit less than upper middle class.

Lower Class
- The working class (Labor)
Factory workers/ seamstresses/ miners / sweepers

- The Poor
They are unemployed
They have unstable life conditions
Homeless
 21. century class system

Precariat
The lowest class. They don’t have stable life. They don’t have stable earnings for example homeless peope.

Traditional working class

This class scores low on all farms of the three capitals although they are not the poorest group. The average
age of this class is older than others

Emergent Service Workers.

This new class has low economic capital but has high levels of ‘emerging’ cultural capital and high social
capital. This group are young and often found in urban areas.

Technical Middle Class

This is a new, small class with high economic capital but seem less culturally engaged. They have relatively
few social contacts and so are less socially engaged.

New Affluent Workers:

This class has medium levels of economic capital and higher levels of cultural and social capital. They are a
young and active group.

Established Middle Class

Members of this class have high levels of all three capitals although not as high as the Elite. They are a
gregarious and culturally engaged class.

Elite
This is the most privileged class in Great Britain who have high levels of all three capitals (social, economic,
and cultural capital). Their high amount of economic capital sets them apart from everyone else.
 Earliest Time

 Iberian Settlement - Pre-Historic Times

 Beaker Folk Invasion - Around 2000 B.C.
 Other Immigrants in Wessex - 1500 B.C.
 Celts (Brythons and Gaels) - Around 700 B.C. up to 55 B.C.
 Roman Conquest - 55 B.C/43 A.D.
 Anglo-Saxon Period - 450 A.D.
 Viking Invasions - 793 A.D.
 Norman Conquest - Begins in 1066 A.D.

I.B.O.C.R.A.V.N. — (Pre-History - 1066 A.D.)

Prehistory of Britain.
In Britain, as elsewhere, the story of man and his society can be traced through the various stone and metal
ages. Man moved westward in Europe and arrived in Britain during the Paleolithic (Old Stone) Age. Since
each succeeding period or "age" was also a transplanting from the Continent, Britain became largely a
recipient of cultural change in the period of prehistory.

The Stone Ages

From stone and bone tools and skeletal remains it is surmised that Homo sapiens first appeared in Britain by
a land bridge some 250,000 years ago. In the New Stone Age, long-headed agriculturalists, probably from
the Iberian peninsula, crossed the Channel and set up mixed farming in southern England side by side with
the older hunting communities. A thousand years later (around 2000 B.C.) these peaceful and mild-
mannered settlers were attacked in turn by tall, powerful, round-headed warriors from Europe who overran
all of habitable Britain. They brought with them metal implements and thereby introduced a new age of
Bronze.

The Beaker Folk

The latest invaders were designated as the Beaker Folk after the shape of the drinking vessels which they
fashioned out of clay. These newcomers possessed a mastery of metal workmanship that was reflected in the
variety of weapons and tools they produced. They wore woolen and linen clothes, greatly admired jewelry,
but had little interest in farming.
Other immigrants followed and by 1500 B.C. the blending of traditions established the distinctive Wessex
culture in Britain: an age of Bronze, an organized religion and priesthood, and a tribal structure centered
around a kinglike chief and a slowly evolving aristocracy.
Where the earlier immigrants (Iberians) had worshipped Mother Earth  (Agriculture), the Beaker Folk
worshipped the Sun  (Nature) in temples open to the sky.
The Celtic Invaders (Around 700 B.C.)

Celtic Invasion
The last of the early invaders were the Celts, the first of the conquerors about whom the Romans wrote.
With the Celts came the higher civilization of the Iron Age.
From about 700 B.C., the Celts dominated most of what is now western and central Europe. Skilled
artisans, they introduced the use of iron to the rest of Europe. They also had a highly developed religion,
mythology, and legal system that specified individual rights. The Celts were also adept at curing hams,
keeping bees, and making wooden barrels. The language of the Celts was dominant in Britain until around
the 5th century.
Many of them were tall and had fair or red hair and blue eyes. These were the Celts, who probably came
from central Europe or further east, from southern Russia, and had moved slowly westwards in earlier
centuries.

Around 500 B.C. two groups of Celts invaded British Isles:

 Brythons (Britons) settled island of Britain
 Gaels settled on Ireland
 Picts settled in Scotland

Celtic Origins
The word "Celt," in terms of British identity, is more a matter of civilization and language than of race.
Threatened by rival groups, the Celtic-speaking tribes of France and western Germany migrated to the
British Isles to obtain relief from continental conflicts. During the last century before Christ, bands of Celtic
invaders, armed with battle-axes and double-edged swords, landed on the south and east coasts and moved
inland.
Hill-fort
The hillfort remained the center for local groups. The insides of these hillforts were filled with houses, and
they became the simple economic capitals and smaller "towns" of the different tribal areas into which
Britain was now divided

Celtic Society
The invaders wove cloth, shaved their bodies, and made agriculture and grazing important industries for the
first time. Communities of farmers lived in either hut villages or protected homesteads, and the clan became
the center of their social organization. Over the years Celtic culture advanced as the tribes became expert in
working tin, bronze, and iron; their pottery and their metal helmets indicate a growing interest and ability in
the decorative arts and in ornamentation.
The south Britons had a gold coinage similar to that of Macedon, and their tribal leaders led a revelrous
life, enriched with imported wines and luxury goods. At least the Celts were not just primitive savages,
painted with blue dye, and beyond the pale of civilization as was once thought.
Celtic Religion
Druidism originated in England and spread to Gaul and Ireland. The druids were an organized caste of
priests who exercised great power. They preached a religion of fear and immortality, worshipped various
nature gods in sacred groves, and offered human sacrifices. Druid priests commanded prestige, presided over
religious rituals and served as judges and leaders of tribal opinion.
Believed spirits controlled every aspect of life.

Druids
The Celtic tribes were ruled over by a warrior class, of which the priests, or Druids, seem to have been
particularly important members. These Druids - priests who settled arguments, could not read, or write, but
they memorized and recited all the religious teachings, the tribal laws, history, medicine, poems about past
and other knowledge necessary in Celtic society. The Druids from different tribes all over Britain probably
met once a year. They had no temples, but they met in sacred groves of trees, on certain hills, by rivers or by
river sources. We know little of their kind of worship except that at times it included human sacrifice.

Stonehenge
Stonehenge, a circular grouping of massive stones, remains to this day a fascinating and impressive
monument of the period.

Boadicea
During the Celtic period women may have had more independence than they had again for hundreds of
years. When the Romans invaded Britain two of the largest tribes were ruled by women who fought from
their chariots. The most powerful Celt to stand up to the Romans was a woman, Boadicea.
In A.D. 61 she led her tribe against the Romans. She nearly drove them from Britain, and she destroyed
London, the Roman capital, before she was defeated and killed. Roman writers commented on the courage
and strength of women in battle and leave an impression of a measure of equality between the sexes among
the richer Celts.

Celtic Britain and Gaul

Druidism, trade, and racial affinity were three of the ties between Britain and Gaul. The link became even
more direct in 75 B.C. when the Belgic tribes of Gaul claimed southeast Britain (modern-day Kent,
Middlesex, and Hertfordshire) as their kingdoms. These Gallic Celts dispersed the native Celts from the best
lands of the southeast and were the first tribe to face the next invader, Caesar.
 Roman Invasion(s)
Conquering Britain in the first century AD and making it a part of the Roman Empire,
the Romans began to control the world from Hadrian's Wall to Arabia.
The name "Britain" comes from the word "Pretani", the Greco-Roman word for the
inhabitants of Britain. The Romans mispronounced the word and called the island
"Britannia".

 55 BC Julius Caesar invaded Britain.

 43 AD Emperor Claudius invaded; marks beginning of Roman Britain.
 Celtic religion vanished.
The Romans considered the Celts as war-mad, "high spirited and quick for battle", a
description some would still give the Scots, Irish and Welsh today.

Roman Conquest
In contrast to the earlier Celt or later Saxon invaders, the Romans came to Britain to
rule and exploit the island as part of a world empire, not to disperse the inhabitants
and settle in their place. The Roman objectives in this new method of conquest
produced quite different results. Roman rule became urban and efficient, but
remained alien, and therefore only temporary in its effects. (Schulz 4)

Hadrian’s Wall
The great defensive wall is Hadrian's Wall, which linked the North Sea and the Atlantic
near the present-day border between England and Scotland and held back the
marauding Picts and Scots for two hundred years. Along this wall were seven large
stone forts to house the Roman legions guarding the frontier.
The Romans could not conquer "Caledonia", as they called Scotland, although they
spent over a century trying to do so. At last, they built a strong wall along the
northern border, named after the Emperor Hadrian who planned it. At the time,
Hadrian's wall was simply intended to keep out raiders from the north. But it also
marked the border between the two later countries, England and Scotland.

Antonine wall
The Roman Emperor Antoninus Pius ordered the building of his Antonine Wall in AD
140 to bring some order to the troubled outpost of the empire.
Building actually started around AD 142 and is thought to have taken six years to
complete. Running from east to west, and stretching some 37 miles long from modern
Bo'ness on the Firth of Forth to Old Kilpatrick on the River Clyde, the wall marked the
extent of the Roman military advance northwards from the existing frontier of
Hadrian's Wall.
It was the Roman general, Quintus Lollius Urbicus, who was tasked with the building
of the wall. The purpose was apparently to defend the frontier from raids by those
pesky Caledonians (northern Britons who had developed a troublesome habit of
sending raiding parties south, in order to relieve their richer southern neighbors of
some of their wealth)!

Route of the Fosse Way

One of the straightest of straight Roman roads across England, the Fosse Way runs
from Exeter in Devon in the south to Lincoln in the northeast. When troops of Emperor
Claudius landed in Kent in AD 43, they soon pushed inland and conquered much of
southern England. The Fosse Way, built in the first phase of occupation, effectively
marked the western frontier of the early Roman province, punctuated by military
stations.
The name “Fosse” derives from the Latin fossa meaning “ditch”; probably less to do
with road-building techniques than with the suggestion that the Way followed a one-
time defensive ditch running along the western border of Roman-controlled England.

Roman Order
By now the three legions (army units of up to 6,000 men) remaining in Britain had
settled in permanent bases. Auxiliary troops were scattered in smaller forts, mostly
across northern England and along Hadrian’s Wall.
In the pacified parts of the province, cities had been founded as capitals for each of
the tribal areas (the civitates) into which the Britons had been organized. A network of
roads had developed, and landowners in the south began to build Roman-style villas.
Life for most ordinary Britons, who were farmers in the countryside, was slow to
change. By degrees, however, they came into contact with villas, towns and markets.
Here they could exchange their produce for Roman-style goods and see people
dressing and behaving in Roman ways.

New Network
Following the Roman invasion of Britain under the Emperor Claudius in AD 43, the
Roman army oversaw the rapid construction of a network of new roads. These served
to link the most important military places in the new province of Britannia.
Roads allowed troops to move efficiently from ports such as Richborough and Dover
in Kent, and enabled officials and messengers to travel swiftly, using the imperial
communications system (later known as the cursus publicus).
Many of the early roads served to link key pre-existing settlements such as
Colchester in Essex and Silchester in Hampshire. These became Roman towns, and
important centers for the developing Roman administration.

Roads To the Sea

The roads built by or for the army not only served to link forts and towns as they
developed, but were also essential for trade. Moving goods by water was cheaper
than overland transport, however, so the road network linked with the sea and inland
ports. Many of the supplies required by forts, such as Housesteads and Birdoswald on
Hadrian's Wall, would have arrived via the seaports of Carlisle and South Shields. Their
journey may have continued via rivers before being completed by road.
Nonetheless, the Romans did move goods long distances by road - at least when
there were no obstacles to doing so. A writing tablet from Vindolanda fort near
Hadrian's Wall records delays in receiving supplies of hide from Catterick because of
the poor state of the roads.

Literacy and Language

The Romans brought the skills of reading and writing to Britain (in Latin). The written
word was important for spreading ideas and also for establishing power. As early as
AD 80, as one Roman at the time noted, the governor Agricola "trained the sons of
chiefs in the liberal arts . . . the result was that the people who used to reject Latin
began to use it in speech and writing. Further the wearing of our national dress came
to be valued and the toga (the Roman cloak) came into fashion." While the Celtic
peasantry remained illiterate and only Celtic (vernacular/local language) speaking, a
number of town dwellers spoke Latin and Greek with ease, and the richer landowners
in the country almost certainly used Latin.

The Impact and Legacy of Latin

Despite almost four centuries of Roman occupation and settlement, the impact of
Latin was surprisingly small in the period after their departure. The most evident
linguistic marker is arguably in the -chester, -cester and -caster suffixes to many
English place names (e.g. Winchester, Cirencester or Doncaster) coming from the
Latin castra or ‘camp’.
 Latin completely disappeared both in its spoken and written forms when the
Anglo-Saxons invaded Britain in the fifth century AD.

The great legacy of Latin dates principally from three later periods, the one following
the arrival of the missionary St. Augustine (Bible) in 597, the Norman invasion of 1066
and the Renaissance era, when Latin came back into English by indirect paths.
(Gooden 16)
An Important Event During Roman Occupation:
St. Augustine (the “other” St. Augustine) lands in Kent in 597 and converts King
Aethelbert (King of Kent, the oldest Saxon settlement) to Christianity; becomes first
Archbishop of Caterbury

What Legacy/Impact Did the Romans Leave?

The Romans left signs of their physical presence everywhere, particularly in the siting
of towns and in the works of roads, some of whose routes are still followed today.
(Gooden 16)
 The 5,000 miles of stone roads the Romans built linked tribal capitals and towns,
especially London, York, and Winchester. These roads facilitated trade, the
 collection of taxes, and the movement of troops. System of roads/highways -
height of the empire, one could travel on post roads and use same currency
from Northumbria to Middle East; not possible since.
 Provided an organized society which kept other invaders out for several
centuries.
 Latin (as a small impact).
 Christianity.
 Houses, towns and cities.

The Romans left about twenty large towns of about 5, 000 inhabitants, and almost one
hundred smaller ones. Many of these towns were at first army camps, and the Latin
word for camp, castra, has remained part of many town names to this day (with the
ending -chester, -caster or -cester): Gloucester, Leicester, Doncaster, Winchester,
Chester, Lancaster and many others besides.
One of the most iconic types of rural site known from the Roman period, the villa
rustica was normally the center of a farming estate.
The villa was more than a comfortable house, often being the focus for a community
that might include several generations or branches of a family, their servants, estate
workers and probably slaves.

Romans “leave” in 407 A.D. because Visigoths attack Rome (this leaves Britain
defenseless). It is very difficult to be sure how many people were living in Britain when
the Romans left. Probably it was as many as five million, partly because of the peace
and the increased economic life which the Romans had brought to the country. The
new wave of invaders changed all that.

Anglo-Saxon Invasion
Germanic Invasions — Angles, Saxons, and Jutes — 449 AD.
  Angles/Saxons from Germany
 Jutes from Denmark
Deep sea fishermen and farmers

The wealth of Britain by the fourth century, the result of its mild climate and centuries
of peace, was a temptation to the greedy. At first the Germanic tribes only raided
Britain, but after AD 430 they began to settle. The Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes
came from regions of what is now Denmark, northern Germany and northern Holland.
The newcomers were warlike and illiterate.
We owe our knowledge of this period mainly to an English (a Northumbrian
Benedictine) monk named Bede, who lived three hundred years later. His story of
events, history of how Christianity came to Britain, written in Latin around 730 AD
(Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum — Ecclesiastical History of the English People)
has been proved generally correct by archeological evidence. He described those who
came over as being from «the three most powerful nations of Germany», even if they
were members of tribes rather than what we would regard as «nations». But unlike
the Roman landings, this was no systematic invasion. Instead, it was a repeated and
piecemeal process of incursions, which resulted in a patchwork of settlements that
eventually came to dominate the country. (Gooden 22)
Bede tells us that the invaders came from three powerful Germanic tribes, the
Saxons, Angles and Jutes. The Jutes settled mainly in Kent and along the south coast
and were soon considered no different from the Angles and Saxons. The Angles settled
in the east, and also in the north Midlands, while the Saxons settled
between the Jutes and the Angles in a band of land from the Thames Estuary
westwards. The Anglo-Saxon migrations gave the larger part of Britain its new name,
England, "the land of the Angles”. (McDowall 11)

Facts
 They created the Anglo-Saxon England (“Engla-land”) that lasted until 1066 AD.
 Britain was divided into separate kingdoms:
 Kent, Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, and Wessex are the main ones.
 Kent, Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Wessex, Essex, and Sussex are the
most important seven kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon Period.
(There are 9 kingdoms in total, 7 the most important ones, and 5 the main ones.)

 United themselves in last two centuries to resist invasions from Vikings, or

Norsemen (whom they called Danes).

The Heptarchy (from Latin “7”)

Lacking a tradition of national unity or a single leader to unify their conquests, the
marauding tribes carved out separate kingdoms in England. Gradually seven
kingdoms (the heptarchy) emerged from the welter of rival claimants. Kent was
occupied by the Jutes, the three kingdoms of Essex, Sussex, and Wessex were settled
by the Saxons, and the Angles claimed East Anglia, Mercia, and Northumbria.
Political Unification
At times a common overlord known as a Bretwalda (Britain-ruler) imposed temporary
unity over these kingdoms. Kent was the first dominant kingdom, especially during
the reign of King Ethelbert (552?-616) . Northumbria succeeded Kent as the leading
state in the early seventh century and was superseded by Mercia and Wales in 632.
Offa II, the last of the Mercian overlords, ruled from 757 to 796 during which time he
extended his kingdom north and west, codified laws, and won recognition from the
pope and Charlemagne. Since Offa conquered Wessex and established supremacy
over all England south of the Humber, he is often considered the first overlord to be
recognized as "king of the whole of the land of the English". With his death the
Mercian supremacy of two hundred years passed in 802 to Wessex under King Egbert
(775?-839). Egbert defeated the Mercians, and his son Ethelwulf continued the
consolidation of Wessex; but even before Egbert's death the Danes were making their
first raids along the English coast.

Offa’s Dyke
The Anglo-Saxons established a number of kingdoms, some of which still exist in
county or regional names to this day: Essex (East Saxons), Sussex (South Saxons),
Wessex (West Saxons), Middlesex (probably a kingdom of Middle Saxons), East Anglia
(East Angles). By the middle of the seventh century the three largest kingdoms, those
of Northumbria, Mercia and Wessex, were the most powerful.
It was not until a century later that one of these kings, King Offa of Mercia (757-
796), claimed "kingship of the English". He had good reason to do so. He was powerful
enough to employ thousands of men to build a huge dyke, or earth wall, the length of
the Welsh border to keep out the troublesome Celts. But although he was the most
powerful king of his time, he did not control all of England. (McDowall 12)

Alfred the Great and the Danish Threat

The Danish Conquest and The English Resistance
In 797 the English experienced pirateering and pillage similar to that which they had
inflicted on the Britons three hundred years earlier. The invaders were Norsemen (or
Vikings) who hailed from Scandinavia. Their attacks on England were part of the great
Viking expansion reaching from Russia to Greenland; the terror of their raids scourged
European coasts for over two hundred years.
The Vikings usually pillaged wealthy English monasteries along the coast and then
made fierce sorties inland from the east and south coasts. With good cause the
English prayed, "From the fury of the Northmen, O Lord, deliver us"; and yet, they
were not demoralized as the Britons had been by the Anglo-Saxon raids. The kings of
Wessex repulsed the invaders on several occasions; but when the Vikings' annual
raids and attacks in England changed from piracy to settlement in the middle of the
ninth century as a large army of conquest landed and moved inland, the English could
not withstand them. By 871, only Wessex was free from Viking control.

Alfred the Great of Wessex

In 871, Alfred, the youngest son of King Ethelwulf, succeeded his
brother, Ethelred, as king of Wessex. Already a military veteran at
the age of twenty-two, Alfred halted the Danish advance that year,
and a temporary truce was concluded while the Danes organized
the rest of England. After repeated attacks in 876 and 878 Wessex
was finally overrun by the Danes, and Alfred escaped only by
hiding in the swamps of Somerset.
It was during this time that Alfred built England’s first navy,
erected strategic fortifications in his kingdom, and remodeled the
local militia (or fyrd) into active and reserve units. After seizing London in 886, Alfred
was recognized by all the English as their national leader. That same year he
concluded another treaty with Guthrum which divided England between Danes and
Saxons, with the Danish north and east identified as the Danelaw.
Often considered the greatest Englishman in early history, Alfred well deserved the
compliment. Scholar, educator, and national hero he saved England from another
submersion by Nordic invaders. His successful defense against the Danes preserved
the identity of Anglo-Saxon England, strengthened the Christian Faith, won political
pre-eminence for Wessex, and paved the way for the partial assimilation of the English
with the Danish invaders.

Peacetime Leadership
Alfred's achievements do not end with his outstanding generalship. Viking raids had
undermined law and order and had destroyed monasteries and churches; schooling
and Christianity were in decline. The King showed his wide-ranging interests by
fostering a religious and literary revival. He hired the few scholars available to teach
in his court school and expected royal officials to follow suit by educating themselves
and then, those around them. Alfred also translated important books from Latin into
English, adding prefaces that revealed artistry and scholarship. It was his conception
that stimulated the writing of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle which recorded the narrative
of England to his time. Alfred kept in constant contact with Rome, where he had spent
part of his childhood, and with leaders on the Continent. He was Saxon England's
greatest lawgiver, and toward the end of his reign he issued a code of laws for the
Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. He was also responsible for rebuilding London as a garrisoned
town and strengthening the shire as the unit of local government.

Witan (The King’s Council)

The Anglo-Saxon kings needed a system of government in which all the influential and
powerful had a stake. The Saxons created institutions which made the English state
strong for the next 500 years. One of these institutions was the King's Council, called
the Witan. It was not a formal institution that met regularly, at a single location or with
set rules as to who would attend, and it existed only when the king chose and was
made up of the individuals he summoned. The Witan probably grew out of informal
groups of senior warriors and churchmen to whom kings like Offa had turned for
advice or support on difficult matters. By the tenth century the Witan was a formal
body, issuing laws and charter. It was not at all democratic, and the king could decide
to ignore the Witan's advice. But he knew that it might be dangerous to do so —
mutual respect is required. For the Witan’s authority was based on its right to choose
kings, and to agree the use of the king's laws. Without its support the king's own
authority was in danger. The Witan established a system which remained an important
part of the king's method of government. Even today, the king or queen has a Privy
Council, a group of advisers on the affairs of state. (McDowall 12)

They:
 Advised the King
 Attended Ceremonies
 Listened to New Laws

Reeves: Collecting taxes and fines. Enforcing the law.

Thegns: Lesser Nobles — Land and wealth from the king. Military service.
Ealdormen: Important Nobles — Governing shires. Overseeing moots and shire court.
Archbishops and Bishops: Individual Parishes — Leading a diocese. Containing
money.

21.10.2021

Anglo-Saxon Period: Characteristics of the Period

 Enormous upheaval and change in England
 Reigns of some of the most famous and infamous kings
 Time of disastrous wars, both internal and external
 Time of foreign invasion
 Time of painful reconsolidation and emergence of England as nation
 Nine Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms eventually become the Anglo-Saxon heptarchy
(England not unified) or “Seven Sovereign Kingdoms”.

Anglo-Saxon Civilization
 Common language
 Shared a heroic ideal; set of traditional heroes
 Admired men of outstanding courage
 Loyalty to leader and tribe
  Fierce personal valor

 Persons of rank received with grave courtesy

 Ruler generous to those who remain loyal
 Everyone aware of shortness of life & passing of all things in the world
 Impersonal, irresistible fate determined most of life (Wyrd or Fate)
 Heroic human will & courage allowed individuals to control their own response
to fate

Social Order Heroic groups; rural and tribal

Core of culture was comitatus relationship-warrior bond for each other and their
leader. Tribes engaged in blood feuding constantly.
WER GELD = “man price”, absolute obligation to avenge a fellow warrior’s death (like
gangs).
After battles, there was a strict payment of treasure.
Chief selected for loyalty, generosity, strength, and courage.

Village life centered on the mead hall.

 Mead: fermented beverage made from honey.
 Thanes: soldiers loyal to the king
 Flagon: cup
 Entertainment: singers (gleeman), scop (poet)

What was valued by the Anglo-Saxons?

TRAITS athletic violent strong warrior seafaring ruthless adventurous fair play

The Ideals of the Anglo-Saxons:

 Repression of sentiment
 Allegiance to lord/king
 Love of personal freedom
 Comitatus relationship
 Respect for women
 Love of glory
 Honored the truth

Creating an Anglo-Saxon army:

 Must have basic stick man body, head, etc.
 Must show as many qualities of an Anglo-Saxon as you feel you can show.
 Must have a name.
 Must be labeled.
 Must have color.
Anglo-Saxon Culture
Language: Common language now known as Old English (similar to Dutch and
German).
Runes were used by early Germanic tribes on documents in stone, wood and metal.
They relied on these symbols not only for writing but also to tell fortunes, cast spells,
and provide protection.
The runic alphabet, or Futhark, gets its name from the first six sounds, much like
our alphabet “A,B,C’s”.

Religion: Pagan – similar to Norse mythology: Polytheistic.

 The strength of Anglo-Saxon culture is obvious even today. Days of the week
were named after Germanic (Anglo-Saxon) gods that has survived and still very
much part of daily live.
 Tuesday — from Tiw/Tig.
 Wednesday — from Woden/Wodin
 Thursday — from chief Teutonic god — Thor - god of thunder.
 Friday — from Frigga/Frei — goddess of the home.

New place-names appeared on the map. The first of these show that the earliest
Saxon villages, like the Celtic ones, were family villages. The ending -ing meant folk or
family, thus "Reading" is the place of the family of Rada, "Hastings" of the family of
Hasta. Ham means farm, ton means settlement. Birmingham, Nottingham or
Southampton, for example, are Saxon place-names. Because the Anglo-Saxon kings
often established settlements, Kingston is a frequent place-name. (McDowall 11-12)

Anglo-Saxon Literature
It is based on oral tradition — poems and song committed to memory and performed
by scops, bards, gleemen, or minstrels. With coming of Christian Church, written
literature began to evolve. Priests and monks were the only ones who could write;
stories survival depended upon them. The church was not too eager to preserve
literature that was pagan in nature, so historians believe they either ignored it or
changed it. This may account for the mixture of Christian and pagan elements in
Beowulf.

Two important traditions in literature:

 Heroic Tradition — celebrates heroes
 Elegiac Tradition — passing of earlier, better times

Beowulf: England — one of few pieces that survived. (Only manuscript available
dates from the year 1000; discovered in the 18th century.)
  Depicts a world from the early 6th century.
 Poem based on early Celtic and Scandinavian folk legends.
 Scenery described is from Northumbria; assumed that poet was Northumbrian
monk.
 Composed in Old English probably in Northumbria in northeast England
sometime between.
 Oral art — handed down with changes and embellishments.

The Venerable Bede was probably the outstanding scholar of the Old English period.
His forty books covered a variety of theological and historical subjects; his most
admired work, The Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation/People (in Latin),
provided an excellent account of the early history of England. His standard of
scholarship was continued by Alcuin (735-804) who left York to head Charlemagne’s
palace-school, and by Alfred the Great who wrote translations from Latin into West
Saxon (Old English). Early English poetry and prose is also indebted to Christian
writers. The epic poem Beowulf (composed circa 750?) tells the story of a pagan
Saxon hero who valiantly defies men and dragons with equanimity. Aldhelm (640?-
709), the Bishop of Sherborne, was a noted Latin scholar and lover of English songs.
His contemporary, Caedmon, the first English poet known by name, was a
Northumbrian monk who introduced Old Testament themes in his poems. In the eighth
century Cynewulf’s four religious poems are the most imaginative of Old English
verse. After the Danish invasion the revival of prose was best represented in the
vernacular homilies of Aelfric (c. 955-c. 1020). He also provided a readable English
version of the first seven books of the Bible and composed textbooks for the teaching
of Latin. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which spans five centuries of early English
history, was the cumulative work of numerous monks in different monasteries. Alfred
the Great is believed to have greatly stimulated the writing of this Chronicle. The one
towering figure of the Anglo-Saxon period remains Alfred the Great who combined the
best qualities of scholar, churchman, and ruler.

The Epic
A long narrative poem on a great and serious subject, related in an elevated style, and
centered on a heroic or quasi-divine figure on whose actions depends the fate of a
tribe, a nation, or the human race.

Epic Conventions
 The hero is of great national cosmic importance, the ideal man of his culture. He
often has superhuman or divine traits. He has an imposing physical stature and
is greater than the common man.
 The setting is vast. It covers great distances, perhaps even visiting the
underworld, other worlds, other times.
 The action consists of deeds of valor or superhuman courage (especially in
battle).
 Supernatural forces interest themselves in the action and intervene at times.
 The style of writing is elevated, even ceremonial.
Characteristics of Epic Hero
 Is significant and glorified
 Is on a quest
 Has superior or superhuman strength, intelligence, and/or courage
 Is ethical
 Risks death for glory or for the greater good of society
 Performs brave deeds
 Is a strong and responsible leader
 Reflects the ideals of a particular society

Old English Poetics

 Alliteration — repetition of consonant and vowel sounds at the beginning of
words
 Caesura — a natural pause or break in the middle of the line of poetry and
joined by the use of a repeated vowel or consonant sound
 Out of the marsh // from the foot of misty
 Hills and bogs // bearing God’s hatred
 Grendel came // hoping to kill
 Anyone he could trap // on this trip to high Herot
 Preposition phrase — Giver of knowledge
 Kennings — a metaphorical phrase used to replace a concrete noun. Ready
made
 descriptive compound words that evoke vivid images
 Kennings are formed by prepositional phrases, possessive phrases, compound
words
 Preposition phrase — Giver of knowledge
 Possessive phrase — mankind’s enemy
 Compound word - sea path

Anglo-Saxon Poetry and Riddles

The Book of Exeter
 Contains more than 30 poems and 90 riddles.
 Written down by monks in about 975, our primary source of Anglo-Saxon poetry
 Dominant mood in poetry is elegiac, or mournful
 Dominant tone of riddles is light and somewhat bawdy

The French Kings

Under the Norman and Angevin rulers (1066-1399) previous Scandinavian ties were
severed and replaced by a new liaison with the Continent. In these years England was
dominated by a French speaking nobility and a Latin-speaking clergy. Paradoxically,
under this foreign leadership, England developed distinctive institutions which
imitated no foreign models, but instead blended into a new synthesis — the old Saxon
traditions, and the new Norman feudalism and administration.

Viking Invasion (Danish Raids)

8th - 12th Centuries

“In this year fierce, foreboding omens came over the land of the Northumbrians, and
the wretched people shook; there were excessive whirlwinds, lightning, and fiery
dragons were seen flying in the sky. These signs were followed by great famine, and a
little after those, that same year on 6th idea of January, the ravaging of wretched
heathen men destroyed God’s church at Lindisfarne.”
~793, Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

Viking Raids and Rulers

The arrival of people from the Scandinavian countries, beginning in the late eighth
century and continuing for more than 300 years, started as a series of raids and
ended in a combination of conquest and colonization.
 In 793 came the first recorded Viking raid, where ‘on the Ides of June the harrying of
the heathen destroyed God’s church on Lindisfarne, bringing ruin and slaughter’ (The
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle). These ruthless pirates continued to make regular raids
around the coasts of England, looting treasure and other goods, slaughtering
everyone in settlements that couldn’t pay enough to them, and capturing people as
slaves. Sacred objects and monasteries were often targeted and destroyed, for their
precious silver or gold chalices, plates, bowls and crucifixes. Gradually, the Viking
raiders began to stay, first in winter camps, then settling in land they had seized,
mainly in the east and north of England. Outside Anglo-Saxon England, to the north of
Britain, the Vikings took over and settled Iceland, the Faroes and Orkney, becoming
farmers and fishermen, and sometimes going on summer trading or raiding voyages.
To the west of Britain, the Isle of Man became a Viking kingdom. The island still has its
Tynwald, or ting-vollr (assembly field), a reminder of Viking rule. In Ireland, the Vikings
raided around the coasts and up the rivers. They founded the cities of Dublin, Cork
and Limerick as Viking strongholds. Meanwhile, back in England, the Vikings took over
Northumbria, East Anglia and parts of Mercia. In 866 they captured modern York
(Viking name: Jorvik) and made it their capital. They continued to press south and
west.
The Viking raiding did not stop — different Viking bands made regular raiding
voyages around the coasts of Britain for over 300 years after 793. The kings of Mercia
and Wessex resisted as best they could, but with little success until the time of Alfred
of Wessex, the only king of England to be called ‘the Great’, who forced Vikings to
northern England.
There were two waves of Viking settlement and triumph, one leading to their effective
control of half the country (known as the Danelaw) and the second, briefer one
marked by the accession of the Danish king Cnut (Canute) to the English throne in
1016. (Gooden 33)

King Alfred and the Danes

King Alfred ruled from 871-899 and after many trials and tribulations, he defeated the
Vikings at the Battle of Edington in 878. After the battle the Viking leader Guhtrum
converted to Christianity.
In 886 Alfred took London from the Vikings and fortified it. The same year he signed a
treaty with Guthrum. The treaty partitioned English between Vikings and English. The
Viking territory became known as the Danelaw, dividing line between Viking Britain
and Anglo-Saxon Britain (?). It comprised the north-west, the north-east and east of
England. Here, people would be subject to Danish laws. Alfred became king of the
rest.

Athelstan (Æthelstan)
Alfred’s grandson, Athelstan, was King of the Anglo-Saxons from 924 to 927 and
King of the English from 927 to his death in 939. He was the son of King Edward the
Elder and his first wife, Ecegwynn. Athelstan became the first true King of England and
led an English victory over the Vikings at the Battle of Brunaburh in 937, and his
kingdom for the first time included the Danelaw. Modern historians regard him as the
first King of England and one of the “greatest Anglo-Saxon kings”. He never married
and had no children. He was succeeded by his half-brother, Edmund I.
In 954, Eirik Bloodaxe, the last Viking king of York, was killed and his kingdom was
taken over by English earls.
In 991, during the reign of Æthelred ‘the Unready’ (‘ill-advised’), Olaf Tryggvason’s
Viking raiding party defeated the Anglo-Saxon defenders (recorded in the poem The
Battle of Maldon), with ‘Ethelred responding by paying ‘Danegeld’ in an attempt to
buy off the Vikings.

Danegeld
Instead of fighting the invaders, some English kings preferred to pay the Vikings to
leave them in peace. These payments were called ‘Danegeld’.
The Danegeld was a tax raised to pay tribute to the Viking raiders to save a land
from being ravaged. It was called the geld or gafol in eleventh-century sources. It was
characteristic of royal policy in both England and Francia during the ninth through
eleventh centuries, collected both as tributary, to buy off the attackers, and as
stipendiary, to pay the defensive forces. The term Danegeld did not appear until the
early twelfth century. In Anglo-Saxon England tribute payments to the Danes was
known as gafol and the levy raised to support the standing army, for the defense of
the realm, was known as heregeld. Danegeld was mostly taken by the Norsemen from
Sweden and Denmark.
The Vikings collected tribute in other countries too. In Ireland in the 9 th century they
imposed a tax and slit the noses of anyone unwilling or unable to pay, and that is the
origin of the English phrase ‘to pay through the nose’ meaning to pay an excessive
price. The English king who paid the most Danegeld was Aethelred II. During his reign
(978-1016) nearly 40 million pennies were produced in order to pay Danegeld.
Finally, Aethelred decided to fight, and he introduced a new tax to pay for a larger
army. However, Aethelred was completely defeated and the Viking’s leader, Cnut,
became king of England, and later king of Denmark and Norway as well.

So, the Vikings were not permanently defeated - England was to have four Viking
kings between 1013 and 1042. The greatest of these was King Cnut, who was king of
Denmark as well as of England. A Christian, he did not force the English to obey
Danish law; instead he recognized Anglo-Saxon law and customs. He worked to create
a north Atlantic empire that united Scandinavia and Britain. Unfortunately, he died at
the age of 39, and his sons had short, troubled reigns.

Later Viking Raids and Rulers

The final Viking invasion of England came in 1066, when Harald Hardrada sailed up
the River Humber and marched to Stamford Bridge with his men. His battle banner
was called Land-waster. The English king, Harold Godwinson, marched north with his
army and defeated Hardrada in a long and bloody battle. The English had repelled the
last invasion from Scandinavia. However, immediately after the battle, King Harold
heard that William of Normandy had landed in Kent with yet another invading army.
With no time to rest, Harold’s army marched swiftly back south to meet this new
threat. The exhausted English army fought the Normans at the Battle of Hastings on
14th October, 1066. At the end of a long day’s fighting the Normans had won, King
Harold was dead, and William was the new king of England.
The irony is that William was of Viking descent: his great-great-great-grandfather
Rollo was a Viking who in 911 had invaded Normandy in northern France. His people
had become French over time, but in one sense this final successful invasion of
England was another Viking one.

Norman Conquest
Hastings to Ely
The conquest of England by the Normans started with the 1066 CE Battle of Hastings
when King Harold Godwinson (aka Harold II, r. Jan-Oct 1066 CE) was killed and ended
with William the Conqueror’s defeat of Anglo-Saxon rebels at Ely Abbey in East Anglia
in 1071 CE. In between, William had to more or less constantly defend his borders
with Wales and Scotland, repel two invasions from Ireland by Harold’s sons, and put
down three rebellions at York.
The Norman conquest of England, led by William the Conqueror (r. 1066-1087 CE)
was achieved over a five-year period from 1066 CE to 1071 CE. Hard-fought battles,
castle building, land redistribution, and scorched earth tactics ensured that the
Normans were here to stay.
William, duke of Normandy, made careful preparations to make good his claim to the
English throne, and, aided by fortuitous circumstances, he defeated Harold, Godwin’s
son, and became king by conquest. The ruling Normans never displaced the Anglo
Saxons as the latter had done with the Britons, for the Normans were too few in
number. Nevertheless, they destroyed the old English nobility and maintained their
minority rule by a strong central government, by the military technique of mounted
knights, and by the security of fortified castles.
The conquest saw the Norman elite replace that of the Anglo-Saxons and take over
the country’s lands, the Church was restructured, a new architecture was
introduced in the form of motte and bailey castles and Romanesque
cathedrals, feudalism became much more widespread, and the English
language absorbed thousands of new French words, amongst a host of many
other lasting changes which all combine to make the Norman invasion a momentous
watershed in English history.

The Coronation of William the Conqueror

After victory at Hastings on this day he marched to London, overcoming local
resistance, and was crowned king of England in Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day
1066, according to the ancient English rite. Aldred, archbishop of York performed the
ceremony in place of Stigand, archbishop of Canterbury. He presented the new king to
the people, speaking in English with Bishop Geoffrey of Coutances speaking the words
in French. When the French-speaking Normans and English-speaking Saxons then
shouted their approval the Norman soldiers outside thought the noise inside was an
assassination attempt and began setting fire to houses around the Abbey. Smoke filled
the church and the congregation fled and riots broke out. Inside William and the
officiating clergy completed the service despite the chaos.

One Orderic Vitalis (another historical record, like Anglo-Saxon Chronicles) wrote of
the occasion:
“So at last on Christmas Day ..., the English assembled at London for the king’s
coronation, and a strong guard of Norman men-at-arms and knights was posted round
the minster to prevent any treachery or disorder. And, in the presence of the bishops,
abbots, and nobles of the whole realm of Albion, Archbishop Ealdred consecrated
William duke of Normandy king of the English and placed the royal crown on his head.
This was done in the abbey church of St. Peter the chief of the apostles, called
Westminster, where the body of King Edward [the Confessor] lies honorably buried.
But at the prompting of the devil, who hates everything good, a sudden disaster
and portent of future catastrophes occurred. For when Archbishop Ealdred asked the
English, and Geoffrey bishop of Coutances asked the Normans, if they would accept
William as their king, all of them gladly shouted out with one voice if not one language
that they would. The armed guard outside, hearing the tumult ..., imagined that some
treachery was afoot, and rashly set fire to some of the buildings. The fire spread
rapidly ..., the crowd who had been rejoicing ... took fright and throngs of men and
women of every rank and condition ran out of the church in frantic haste. Only the
bishop and a few clergy and monks remained, ... and with difficulty completed the
consecration of the king who was trembling from head to foot.
... The English, after hearing of the perpetration if such misdeeds, never again
trusted the Normans who seemed to have betrayed them, but nursed their anger and
bided their time to take revenge.”

The Bayeux Tapestry

The Bayeux Tapestry is a masterpiece of 11th
century Romanesque art, which was probably
commissioned by Bishop Odo, William the
Conqueror’s half-brother, to embellish his
newly-built cathedral in Bayeux in 1077.
It tells the epic story, in wool thread
embroidered on linen cloth, of the events
surrounding the conquest of England by the
William, Duke of Normandy who became King
of England in 1066 after the Battle of Hastings.
The story begins in 1064, when Edward the Confessor, King of England, instructs his
brother-in-law Harold Godwinson to travel to Normandy in order to offer his cousin
William the succession to the English throne. Although the end of the embroidery is
missing, the story ends with the Anglo-Saxons fleeing at the end of the Battle of
Hastings in October 1066.
An Accurate Account of the 11th Century
The Bayeux Tapestry is an account of the medieval period in Normandy and England
like no other. It provides information about civil and military architecture such as
castle mounds, armor consisting of a nasal helmet, hauberk and oblong shield and
seafaring in the Viking tradition. Through the great number of items depicted, it also
gives precious details of everyday life in the 11 th century.

A Pyramid of Power — Feudalism

The Feudal System since 1066, hierarchy based on holding land in return for
service. The word “feudalism” comes from the French word feu, which the Normans
used to refer to land held in return for duty or service to a lord. The basis of feudal
society was the holding of land, and its main purpose was economic. The central idea
was that all land was owned by the king but it was held by others, called “vassals”, in
return for services and goods. The king gave large estates to his main nobles in return
for a promise to serve him in war for up to forty days. The nobles also had to give him
part of the produce of the land. The greater nobles gave part of their lands to lesser
nobles, knights, and other “freemen”. Some freemen paid for the land by doing
military service while others paid rent. The noble kept “serfs” to work on his own land.
These were not free to leave the estate, and were often little better than slaves.
(McDowall 24)
In other words, all land belonged to king; gave land to tenants-in-chief (barons and
bishops) in return for tax, advice, knights’ service; gave land to knights in return for
military service; provided land for peasants to work, they farmed their food, and had
to work for lord each week and gathering harvest. In return for land, had to swear
oath of fealty (loyalty). 5,000 knights had to serve in king’s army for 2 months and
give 40 days guarding lord’s castle.
There were two basic principles to feudalism: every man had a lord, and every lord
had land. The king was connected through this “chain” of people to the lowest man in
the country. At each level a man had to promise loyalty and service to his lord.
William operated on the principle, never claimed by Anglo-Saxon kings, that all the
land belonged to him. In theory this meant that no tenant or vassal should be more
powerful than the king, but in practice they often were more powerful than the king,
especially on the Continent.
As a case in point, the Duke of Normandy was far more powerful than his lord, the
King of France, and defied him with impunity. Therefore, in structuring political
feudalism in England, William made sure that no vassal could treat him as he had
treated his liege lord.
He scattered the holdings of his vassals so they could not form consolidated fiefs,
such as he held in Normandy or as Earl Godwin had possessed under Edward the
Confessor. He also retained the fyrd as a counterforce to the nobility. By this more
centralized structure he overcame the great liability of continental feudalism-that the
parts were greater than the whole.
Lord and Vassal
Feudalism was also a contractual relationship on a personal basis between lord (the
donor of a demesne or parcel of land) and vassal (the recipient).
This centralization of power was likewise reflected in the continuation of the
Danegeld and in an elaborate census of the ownership and wealth of the kingdom.
Royal commissioners travelled to every shire to take this statistical survey for
purposes of taxation, and their meticulous findings were recorded in the famous
Domesday Book of 1086. (Schultz 26)
 Fyrd, tribal militia-like arrangement existing in Anglo-Saxon England from
approximately AD 605.
 A vassal is a person regarded as having a mutual obligation to a lord or
monarch, in the context of the feudal system in medieval Europe. The
obligations often included military support by knights in exchange for certain
privileges, usually including land held as a tenant or fief. The term is also
applied to similar arrangements in other feudal societies.

Britain’s Finest Treasure — Domesday Book

After the Norman invasion and conquest of England in 1066, the Domesday Book was
commissioned in December 1085 by order of William the Conqueror. William needed
to raise taxes to pay for his army and so a survey was set in motion to assess the
wealth and assets of his subjects throughout the land. This survey was also needed to
assess the state of the country’s economy in the aftermath of the Conquest and the
unrest that followed it.
Domesday is Britain’s earliest public record. Commissioned by William I in 1085 and
first published in 1086, it contains the results of a huge survey of land and landholding
— records for 13,418 settlements in the English counties south of the rivers Ribble
and Tees (the border with Scotland at the time). Domesday is by the far the most
complete record of pre-industrial society to survive anywhere in the world and
provides a unique window on the medieval world.
Why is it called the ‘Domesday’ Book?
It was written by an observer of the survey that “there was no single hide nor a yard
of land, nor indeed one ox nor one cow nor one pig which was left out”. The grand and
comprehensive scale on which the Domesday survey took place, and the irreversible
nature of the information collected led people to compare it to the Last Judgement, or
‘Doomsday’, described in the Bible, when the deeds of Christians written in the Book
of Life were to be placed before God for judgement. This name was not adopted until
the late 12th Century.