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Summary Old and Middle English Period
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A summary of the Old English and Middle English period. With examples like Beowulf and The Canterbury Tales. A lot of explanations about who lived at that time and who ruled.
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Old and Middle English- Hwoet means: listen or now, it is a word that one uses to call for attention
1.1.1
- The Romans were able to conquer parts of the island of Albion beginning around 100 years
later in 43 AD
- The Britons lived in tribes that share a common language, certain traditions, and the same
religion.
- The Romans and the Britains were usually at war with one another.
- The Romans exploited the land and used the Celts as slaves, but also gave them protection
against the Picts and the Scots
- To the Romans, Britain was no more than an outpost.
- By the year 410 most of the Roman colonists had left.
1.1.2
- Bede was an historian who had written everything in his: ‘the ecclesiastical history of the
English people’
- Vortigern, 5th century king of the Britains, invited Anglic warriors to help him fight against the
Picts and Scots
- Angles were victorious, but these guests had come to stay.
- The Saxons, Jutes and Frisian also crossed the sea in 450.
- These Germanic tribes plundered the country, raped women, burned temples and killed
native priests
- They were called the Anglo-Saxons, and came from the North-Netherlands, North-Germany
and Denmark.
- These people had a tradition: they were member of a clan, and had to take revenge for the
deaths of their members.
- Comitatus is an arrangement between a youth and an leader of men.
(Youth: military service <—> Chief: Economic/legal protection)
- Each tribe spoke his own language, but later merged into a new language: Anglo Saxon, Old
English
1.1.3
- The Christian faith was adopted by many Celts during the Roman occupation
- The Germanic tribes came and had their own beliefs (Pagan)
- In the 6th century (590), St. Augustine (pope of Rome), was sent to England to convert the
Anglo-Saxons gradually
- There is a mixture of Pagan and Christian elements in Anglo-Saxons culture
- Literature had only been transmitted orally until the seventh century
1.1.4
- At the end of the 8th century the Vikings/Danes attacked the Northern-England, the island of
Lindisfarne.
- Hair; long in front and short in back
- The king of Wessex, Alfred the Great, established a peace with the Vikings in 878
- The Danelaw: the Vikings accept the Christianity
- Gradually the Danish settlers integrated into Anglo-Saxon society
- In 1042 there was a new king: Edward the confessor (Englishman)
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