Download Before 2,000 BC

Anglo-Saxon History
Pre-History to 1066 AD
Before 2,000 BC - Stone Age
• 5000-4500 BC - Farming develops in
British Isles
• 2500 BC Stonehenge
– Religious gathering place
– Burials of significant items
2,000 BC - Beaker People
• Brought bronze age to Britain
• Named for bell/beaker shaped drinking
pottery
• Mixed with Neolithic peoples already there
• Made some ‘henge’ monuments, though
some were made by Neolithic peoples
55-54 BC Julius Caesar
• Tries to invade Britain
• Not successful - distracted by revolts in
Gaul
• People in Britain then:
– ‘Celtic’ Tribes = Britons, Picts, Gaels
– Druids = Celtic Priests
43 BC - 410 AD Romans in
Britain
• Claudius invades to prove himself
• Conquered England
• Never completely conquered the
Scottish - Hadrian’s Wall
• Britons driven to Cornwall, Wales,
Scotland, and Brittany in France.
• Arthur Legend
Effects of Roman
Occupation
• Technological Progress
• Roads, plumbing, trade with other
lands, cities,
• British Identity for 1st time - (all tribes
not Roman)
End of the Romans
• Roman Empire falls apart, Italy is
attacked, troops numbers in Britain go
down
• 410 AD - leaders in Britain ask for help
in defending against the A/S, and Rome
says no
449-1066 AD Angles,
Saxons, Jutes, etc.
• ‘Dark Ages’ = No protection, few
records
• Roman-Britons fought against the
invaders (King Arthur Legend)
• Germanic peoples who invaded south
and east of Britain
Anglo-Saxon Influence
• Divided Britain into seven kingdoms
“Heptarchy”
– Kent (Jutes)
– Sussex, Essex, Wessex (Saxons)
– East Anglia, Mercia, Northhumbria (Angles)
• Main part of Britain became ‘Angleland’
(get it?)
The
Heptarchy
Anglo-Saxon Life
• Did not keep up Roman progress
• Land was currency
– Lord owns land, warriors were loyal to him
– If Lord not successful, warriors deserted
• Hearth
– Where warriors lived
• Comitatus - Oath-Taking, relationship
between man and lord in war-band
Early A/S invaders
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Seafaring wanderers
Lives were bleak, violent, and short
Believed in ‘wyrd’ or fate
Admired warriors whose fate it was to
prevail in battle
Later A/S
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Once Christianity arrived (597 AD)
Had hope for future
Settled, farmed
790s AD Viking Raids begin
Vikings: invaders from Scandinavia
raided much of western Europe,
including the British Isles.
– ‘Berserk’
– Looted, killed, burned down villages
• by 871, Conquered every English
state but Wessex (Alfred the Great)
The Danelaw
• Alfred the Great
united the English
• Danelaw - part of
Northern and
eastern England
that the Vikings
ruled
Viking Rule continues
until…
• 1016-35 Cnut, Danish King
– Makes England part of Scandinavian
Empire
• 1042-1066 Edward the Confessor
– Return of an A/S (Wessex) King
– Died with no heirs…..to be continued!
A/S Literature
• Much has probably been lost
• Only 30,000 lines survive, in just 4
books
• Venerable Bede - Wrote History of the
English Church and People
• Major Source for A/S time