The Middle Ages 450-1485

The names Old and Middle

refer to the forms of English

in use during those times.

The Old English Period 450-1100

Old English was the language brought about by Anglo-Saxon conquerors in 450.

England’s Security was threatened largely from the outside during the Old English period.

Invasions: RomanUntil the close of the Old English period medieval England was rarely free fromthe threat of invasion. In fact, a series of invasions spanning eleven hundred years set the major features of what might be called the personality of England.

• Roman legions occupied England for more than four

centuries.• Beginning with Julius Caesar’s

reconnaissance raids in 55 and 54 B.C.

• A hundred years later an army under Claudius overcame

all Celtic resistance and made England the Roman

providence Britannia.• Evidence of Roman invasion is mostly

physical and include garrisons (their sites

identifiable today in the names of cities ending in –cester, –

chester and – caster), Roman villas, public baths, and remains of the Hadrian Wall.

Invasions: Germanic (Anglo-Saxons)

In 410 Roman legions were called home to protect what was left of their crumbling Empire, thus leaving the islands inhabitants to defend themselves against northern Invaders.

• From the fifth to the eleventh centuries, England was harassed and eventually conquered by Germanic tribes.• In 449 the Jutes began to occupy

Kent• Then came the Angles and the

Saxons who began to occupy the middle and southern regions

• The Angles gave their name to the conquered land, Englaland, and to it’s people the Englisc (Old English –sc is pronounced like –sh)

Invasions: Germanic (Anglo-Saxons)

These new conquerors are today referred to as Anglo-Saxons and their dialects as Old English.

The Celts, overmatched, were forced to leave central Britain. Some fled to Scotland, Ireland, some to a region in France known as Britanny. Others were pushed back to the southernwestern corners of the island, present day Wales and Cornwall.

The Anglo-Saxons were not met without resistance, but the victory, once accomplished, was permanent. Leaving the island divided into three parts: England, Scotland and Wales.

Invasions: Germanic (Scandinavians)

Four centuries after their arrival, the Anglo-Saxons succeeded in uniting their seven kingdoms under a single ruler. This unification was threatened and ultimately destroyed by still another group of invaders, the fearsome Vikings.

The-Vikings-(Personal-Jesus-by-Depeche-Mode).mp4

Invasions: Germanic (Scandinavians)

• By the time of Alfred the Great (871-99), Danish raiding parties had ravaged the eastern coast, and a large army of Danes was residing in the midlands and in much of Alfred’s southern kingdom of Wessex.

• In the northwest, as well as in Ireland, the Norwegians were encroaching in similar fashion.

• Alfred stopped the advance of the Danes and forced them to sue for peace. The Treaty of Wedmore (878) confined the Danes to the northeastern half of England, known as Danelaw.

• After Alfred’s death his children and grandchildren reconquered Danelaw; however the victory was short lived. In 1016 England fell under their domination and came part of the Scandinavian empire of the Danish king Canute (1016-35). The Danish ruled over England from 1016-1042.

Invasions: Germanic (Norman)

Though the Danish presence was more or less constant for over two hundred years the Danish influence was not so great. The Danish adapted themselves easily to the English and even upheld many of their laws and customs.

It was not until the invasion of the Northman, who had settled in France, that English society was radically changed. From the Norman (i.e. Northman) Conquest of 1066 , England received new nobility and a strongly centralized feudal administration.

William-the-Conqueror-(Sexyback-by-Justin-Timberlake).mp4

ReligionOccurring simultaneously with the political invasions were the religious, resulting in the so-called Christianization of England.

• Roman legions brought the new faith to England, and it soon spread to the Celts.• The Celtic church during the Roman occupation followed

the rest of Christendom into Catholic ritualism and superstition

• With the Anglo-Saxon conquest , Scandinavian paganism replaced Celtic Catholicism in England

• Ireland, untouched by Roman occupation, was another matter.• In 432 a British Celt named Patrick began evangelizing

Ireland for Rome; which later became Irish Catholicism which differed from Roman mainly in denying papal authority and permitting the clergy to marry

• The centers of ecclesiastical control were not churches but monasteries ruled by abbots, these monasteries became renowned centers of learning

• The influence of these abbots were challenged in 597 by the arrival of Augustine and some forty monks from Pope Gregory.• Augustine soon converted King Ethlbert of Kent and became

the first archbishop of Canterbury

Religion• Roman and Irish Catholicism competed until 664 when the English

clergy decided in favor of Rome. • Important monasteries were planted in the north

• Wearmouth 674• Jarrow 681

• The national episcopal system was installed; therefore English Catholicism was under papal rule

ConsequencesThe results of the last Germanic invasion , the Norman Invasion, appear most obviously in the Middle English Period and will be discussed in the next section.

Political Consequences

• Both the Scandinavian's and the Anglo-Saxon’s soon developed loyalties to their new communities and in time these combined into a single political system and national rather than tribal identity.

• As England became more conscious of itself , it in turn became more conscious of other national cultures and of continental Europe.

ConsequencesReligious Consequences

• The new religious faith, though as spiritually barren as what it replaced, gave England a national government of sorts long before political unity became possible.

• This ecclesiastical rule is reflected today in the organization of the Anglican church, with its archbishops of Canterbury and York and lower-level clergy.

• In the tenth century, when the nation became politically unified, the ecclesiastical and civil governments became mutually supporting institutions

Consequences

Cultural ConsequencesFrom these invasions emerged a distinctive language and literature. Old English is, of course, now unintelligible to the ordinary reader of English, but Modern English descends directly from it.

Language and Learning• In the parts of England settled by Anglo-Saxon’s invaders, the

Gaelic language of the Celts was replaced not by separate languages but by variations of the same language.

• The Angles, Saxons, and Jutes spoke dialects of the West Germanic of a family of languages known as Indo-European

• At the time, many of the Germanic dialects were clos enough to be mutually understood; however, geographical separation produces linguistic separation causing the English language to go it’s own way

• Going it’s own way does not mean isolation from other languages and thus English incorporated large amounts of vocabulary from its invaders: from church Latin, the Scandinavian, and French.

Consquences: Language• From the Celts English took mostly place names such as Kent,

York, Dover, London, and Thames• From the Latin acquisitions English took mostly ecclesiastical

words such as apostle, alter, bishop, priest, monk, disciple, and shrine

• The Viking influence shows in names and in place name endings

• “village” -beck• “brook” -dale• “valley” -fell• “hill” -garth• “yard” -gill• “ravine” -thorpe

From these regions come English surnames ending in –son or –sen

• Scandinavian impact is in ordinary speech in words such as sky, skin, anger, low, wrong, husband, gate, die, take, and want. Most notable is the grammatical influence, such as the Scandinavian pronouns they, them, and their

• From the French came words associated with political rule, aristocratic living, and the profession• Crown, reign, prince, parliament, war, peace, battle,

armor, officer, soldier, siege, art, beauty, color, design, ornament, paint, dress, apparel, costume, boil, fry, stew, roast, toast, sauce, pastry, soup, etc.

Consquences: Language• The influence of the Normans changed the language from an

inflection-oriented language to a language oriented by word order

• The Latin and Roman missionaries not only provided English with some of its vocabulary it also provided it with a new alphabet, this 26 letter Latin alphabet replaced the Germanic runes previously used to record language

• England began using Latin, an international language and the most popular written language, in church in diplomacy and also in education.

Consequences: Literature• Because of wide destruction of monasteries by the Vikings, King

Alfred began having Latin works and works in various English dialects translated into his West Saxon dialect.

• English Prose before Alfred was virtually non-existent, the poetry that was preserved reflects tribal origins. It was oral, using devices of repetition that characterize poetry written for, or even during, public recitation.

• Monks and minstrels who were called scops composed early English poems.

• The result of this mixed tribal-monastic origin is a curious blend of pagan and Christian elements. Pagan Wyrd, or fate vies with Christian providence as the determiner of human affairs. Biblical heroes or Catholic saints appear as tribal chiefs and champions• Ex. Beowulf

• Even though there was some humor in Anglo-Saxon poetry with its frequent use of irony and its fondness of riddles, most of it was somber in mood.

• Throughout Anglo-Saxon poetry, one sees heroic ideals of wisdom, courage, and loyalty depicted which stems from the most noble of Germanic tribal traditions the code of comitataus: an unquestioning loyalty of warrior to chief and chief to warrior that requires the members of a warriors band to protect one another until death .

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