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Europe FALL OF
ROME
Teacher's
THE DARK AGES:
Europe After the Fall of
Rome (410-1066 A.D.)
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Contents
Program Summary..............................!
Student Objectives ..............................2
Teacher Preparation ...........................2
Introducing The Program ...................3
Blackline Master/Answer Key ............4
Follow-Up Activities ............................5
Discussion........................................ 5
Projects ............................................5
Script of Video Narration....................6
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purpose of teaching in conjunction with the video program THE DARK
AGES: Europe After the Fall of Rome (410-1066 A.D.). This right is
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THE DARK AGES:
Europe After The Fall of Rome
(410-1066 A.D.)
Viewing Time: 29:13
PROGRAM SUMMARY
This two-part program, filmed entirely on location in
Europe, combines live-action reenactments with imagery
from famous Dark Ages sites. By viewing this program,
6th through 10th grade students are provided with a
glimpse of life in Britain and Normandy during this
very interesting period of Western European history.
In Part One of the program, students will learn how
Britain was changed when it became a province of Rome.
They will then discover what happened when the AngloSaxons destroyed Roman civilization in Britain, and
Rome's unified government was replaced by many small
warlike kingdoms. Students will also take a visual tour
of a fifth-century Anglo-Saxon village.
In Part Two, students will learn about the reintroduction of Christianity into Britain and discover the roles
played by two important seventh-century saints in bringing
this about. Students will learn about the Viking
invasions that ravaged England and that led to the creation of Normandy. Students will visually tour a tenthcentury Norman village and discover the relationship
between this type of village and the feudal institution
called a manor. Students will discover how the way
manors were distributed formed the basis of the feudal
economic system. The program concludes with the conquest of England by the Normans and the birth of the
High Middle Ages.
STUDENT OBJECTIVES
After viewing the video and participating in the lesson
activities, students should be able to...
• Contrast life in Britain under Roman rule and under
Anglo-Saxon rule.
• Explain the meaning of the historical term "Middle
Ages."
• Explain why the first 600 years of the Middle Ages
are called the Dark Ages.
• Summarize the role of the manor in the feudal system.
• Describe the barbarian invasions of Britain.
• Describe the Norman conquest of England.
TEACHER PREPARATION
Before presenting this lesson to your students, we suggest that you preview the video and review this guide
and the accompanying blackline masters in order to familiarize yourself with their content. Duplicate the
blackline masters you intend to use. See page 3 for a
description of the blackline masters. The answer key is
also provided there.
As you review the instructional program outlined in this
guide and the blackline masters that accompany it, you
may find it necessary to make some changes, additions or
deletions to meet the specific needs of your class. We
encourage you to do so, for only by tailoring this program to your students will they obtain the maximum
instructional benefit afforded by the material.
Owing to its length and the amount of information presented, this video lesson has been divided into two parts.
2
After reviewing the video, you may decide to present
the program in its entirety on one day or divide the viewing
between two separate days.
INTRODUCING THE PROGRAM
Introduce the program by stating that it consists of two
parts. Part One focuses on Roman Britain and the coming
of the barbarians around 420 A.D. Part Two looks at
Dark Ages events affecting Britain after about 600
A.D. all the way to the Norman conquest in 1066.
Distribute Blackline Masters 1-6. Define the term
"Dark Ages" as approximately the first 600 years of a
larger historical era called the Middle Ages, which extended from the fall of Rome to the Renaissance in about
1350.
Inform the students that the term "Dark Ages" refers to
the collapse of a long established civilized Roman way of
life followed by the large scale adoption of Christianity by
the barbarians. Review the state of the Roman Empire
between 350 to 476 A.D. Contrast the lifestyles of the
Romans and the barbarians (a word which means
"foreigner" in Latin).
To peak the curiosity of the students, inform them that
the Anglo-Saxons gave their own names to these three
days of the week:
• Wednesday - named for Wodans-day, the king of the
Norse gods.
• Thursday - Thors-day - the Norse god of thunder and
war.
• Friday - Friggas-day - the Norse goddess of love, wife
of Wodin.
Present the video. Viewing time is 29:13 minutes-Part
1- 14:31, Part 2 -14:42.
BLACKLINE MASTERS/ANSWER KEY
Blackline Master 1, Anglo-Saxon Invasions of Britain, is a map depicting the areas invaded by the Germanic tribes beginning around 420 A.D.
Blackline Master 2, The Seven Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms of Britain, is an information map.
Blackline Master 3, Dark Ages Timeline, is an information sheet the students can use as reference.
Blackline Masters 4, 5, and 6, Vocabulary List, will
help students become familiar with some of the terms
referred to in the video presentation.
Blackline Master 7, Crossword, can be used as an inclass activity or as a take-home assignment. Answers
are below.
a
Blackline Master 8, is the Quiz, for the video presentation. The answer key is provided below.
1. True
2. barbaricus or barbarians
3. Celtic
4. Angles, Saxons, Jutes (Frisians is also acceptable)
5. False-They had their own religion and tended to dislike
anything that reminded them of the Romans.
6. False-The area was Moslem.
7. False-The tribes neglected all Roman improvements.
8. citizen of the Roman Empire
9. fiefs
10. serfs or villeins
FOLLOW-UP ACTIVITIES
Discussion: Conduct a class discussion after the video
presentation using the following suggested topics:
• The development of the feudal hierarchy from king to
serf.
• Contrast the way of life under Roman rule to the manorial system.
• The various ways that the adoption of Christianity by
the barbarians changed the way they lived their lives...
and in what ways were their lives unchanged?
• In the Dark Ages, thousands of saints were canonized.
In the past two centuries, this number has dropped to a
small handful. Why might this be? How does canonization work?
• Today we are witnessing increasing violence, vandalism,
and a more marked division of society among the have
and the have-nots. Could it be that we are putting
civilized ways behind us as we enter a new, high-tech
Dark Age?
Projects:
• Museum visit: If your community is fortunate enough to
have an art or historical museum, it is a rewarding
experience to take a class field trip and actually see the
arts and crafts of different historical eras: in this case,
observe differences and similarities between Roman,
Anglo-Saxon, Frankish, Celtic, and High Middle Ages
arts and crafts.
Research Paper: Students could be assigned library
research projects on the lives of important people of the
Dark Ages. Possible people might include:
•King Alfred the Great
• King Arthur
• Charlemagne
• King Offa
• William the Conquerer
• St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert
• St. Augustine
• St. Patrick
• St. Bede
Script of Recorded Narration
THE DARK AGES: Europe After The Fall Of
Rome (410-1066 A.D.)
THE DARK AGES
The collapse of the Roman Empire in the year 476 A.D.,
brought about by the relentless invasions of barbarian
tribes, ended a magnificent civilization that had dominated Europe for almost ten centuries. And with this
collapse a new chapter of European history, called the
Dark Ages, began that was to last almost 600 years.
They were called the Dark Ages because during this era
the previous advances of civilization were reversed—
the single unified European government was replaced
by scores of small warring kingdoms.
Roman cities and roads fell into ruin and disrepair and
the skills that had brought about Rome's great achievements in learning and art were lost.
Now, let us discover what happened in one small corner
of the Roman Empire with the coming of the Dark Ages.
6
ROMAN BRITAIN
Much of the modern country of Great Britain was once
ruled from Rome where it was known as the province of
Britannia.
When the Roman troops first arrived in Britain in the
middle of the first century A.D., it was a sparsely populated land inhabited by Celtic-speaking tribes called the
Britons. Few traces remain of the ancient culture of
the Britons, but mysterious stone circles, like the one
seen here, are believed to have once been used by them as
places of religious worship.
As they had done elsewhere in Europe, the Romans
brought civilization and rule by law to the native people
of their new province. They introduced the Britons to
the Roman religion with its bewildering array of gods
and goddesses, and quite soon the Romans began to construct towns whose new buildings mimicked the magnificent structures of their great capital city of Rome.
Each new town had large public baths and markets and
was provided with paved streets, clean running water,
and excellent systems for drainage and public sanitation.
And so it was that the Romans introduced a highly advanced culture to Britain which became the northernmost outpost of Rome's vast empire.
However, as time went by, the Roman Empire was increasingly subjected to attacks by outsiders whom the
Romans called "barbarians"—a word which in Latin
means "foreigners."
Most of these barbarians came from the northern regions of Europe. They were poor farmers organized into
tribes headed by powerful warrior chieftains.
The barbarians envied the wealth of Rome and the rich
lands she possessed, and so they carried out violent attacks to destroy the powerful Roman army. In a very
early attempt to keep the barbarians out of his empire,
the emperor Hadrian ordered that this stone wall was
to be constructed entirely across the northern frontier
of Britain.
And for quite some time, Hadrian's great wall seemed
to serve its purpose for by the year 325 A.D., nearly two
hundred years after the wall had been constructed, Roman Britain had experienced centuries of uninterrupted
peace and prosperity and by then possessed four cities
with populations exceeding 15,000.
But right around this same time, big changes were taking
place all across Europe. Christianity was adopted as
Rome's official religion and seven decades later, in
response to increasing assaults by the barbarians, the
Roman Empire was permanently divided into Eastern
and Western halves—each half being ruled by a separate
emperor.
As the ferocity of the barbarian attacks increased, Roman troops began to be withdrawn from Britain to help
her defend her besieged provinces to the south.
But, in the year 410 A.D., the great city of Rome itself
was plundered by a tribe called the Visigoths. The capital
lay in ruins and the desperate emperor sent word to the
citizens of Britannia that he could no longer provide for
their defense—so at that point, the Roman province of
Britannia ceased to exist.
THE ANGLO-SAXON INVASIONS OF BRITAIN After
the year 410, without the presence of Roman troops,
Britain became an easy target for the Germanic tribes
from across the North Sea, and soon the barbarian
invasions of Britain began in earnest.
8
Tribesmen called the Angles sailed out from the southern
side of the Danish peninsula and occupied the northeastern
part of Britain.
Another tribe, the Saxons, set forth from their impoverished villages in Saxony on the coastal plain of the North
Sea and occupied much of southern Britain.
The Jutes began their raids from the part of the Danish
peninsula called Jutland and occupied other areas of
land in the south of Britain separate from the Saxons.
Finally, one other tribe, the Frisians, sailed to Britain
from their homeland in Friesia just to the south of
Saxony and became dispersed as a distinct group in the
years that followed.
These four tribes—the Angles, the Saxons, the Jutes,
and the Frisians—have been lumped together by historians into a single group called the Anglo-Saxons.
As the powerful Anglo-Saxon chieftains drove the native
Britons toward the west, they set up separate kingdoms in
a land that had known only unified Roman rule for almost
400 years.
For the next few centuries, Anglo-Saxon settlers from
across the North Sea built hundreds of new villages,
many of them highly fortified, using the same materials
and techniques they had used back in their homelands.
And these new settlements made of wood bore little
resemblance to the Roman towns they had destroyed.
And so, by stages that can hardly be traced, the culturally
advanced, well-ordered Roman world was completely
transformed by the Anglo-Saxons. Now let us take a
closer look at how these Anglo-Saxons lived.
9
STOWA: AN ANGLO-SAXON COMMUNITY
Construction of this village, called Stowa, first began
around 420 A.D., about ten years after the Romans
pulled out of Britain.
Stowa is located in central Britain, only about thirty
miles from the North Sea, and by the time the AngloSaxons arrived here, this land had already been under
cultivation by the Romans for several centuries.
Stowa, like other Anglo-Saxon communities, was basically self-sufficient for most things from food, to clothing, to household goods. For in the earliest days of their
occupation of Britain, the Anglo-Saxons did not engage
in the high level of trade that had centered in Roman
towns and markets, and the same held true of religion,
for the Anglo-Saxons followed the old Norse gods and
had little knowledge of either the pagan Roman religion or Christianity.
Stowa was a typical fifth-century Anglo-Saxon community and was home to three or four different family
groups which included not just parents and their children but could also include grandparents and great
grandparents as well.
Within the village boundaries, each family group occupied its own mini-village consisting of five or six buildings. These buildings were always roofed with a thatch
of straw or reeds to keep out the rain. The walls were
made either of wooden planks or woven branches and
mud called daub and wattle. And this technique of weaving
branches also was put into use in creating baskets for
storing grains and wool.
This building, called the hall, was the focal point of activity for the whole village, and here a fire was always
kept burning, both for warmth and to cook food. The
10
hall tended to be a pretty smoky place for it had no chimney, so the smoke simply filtered up through the
thatched roof into the outside air. Families gathered
together here in the evenings or during bad weather to
relax, share their evening meal and the day's gossip.
The outbuildings served many functions. Some were
used for sleeping, others served as workshops for various
crafts, such as making shoes from leather, or making
pots, jugs, cups, and other containers from clay.
But the main activity of the village of Stowa was farming. Wheat, barley, and peas were raised, and these
crops provided the vast majority of food for the village.
Cows were also kept for the meat, milk, and leather they
yielded. Sheep were also raised and transforming their
raw wool into cloth was another very important village
activity.
Much of the year, cloth-making was an indoor activity,
but during times of good weather, the cloth-making procedures moved outside.
Women would prepare special plant materials for dyemaking, and once the wool had been dyed, the next step
was to spin it into thread using a spindle.
Spinning was a time-consuming activity but must have
been a great relief from the back-breaking work of the
fields.
After the wool had been spun into thread, villagers often
set up their looms on the outside wall of a house and
thus could enjoy the fresh air and sunshine while
weaving the thread into warm woolen cloth.
Besides making items of cloth, leather, and clay for use
in the village, objects of turned wood were also created
11
on these simple machines known as pole lathes.
Foot power and the natural spring of a large wooden
pole was all that was needed to turn the pieces of wood
so they could be shaped into useful objects by a chisel.
BARBARIAN CONQUESTS ON THE EUROPEAN
CONTINENT
By the year 600, about 180 years after the village of
Stowa was founded, the Anglo-Saxons controlled not just a
large part of Britain but one region of northern Europe
as well, while, at the same time, other tribes of
Barbarians had taken over huge areas of land.
In the former Roman province of Gaul, another Germanic tribe called the Franks had seized control—the
name of the modern country of France reflects this
Frankish heritage.
To the southwest, the Ostrogoths had taken over the
Iberian Peninsula and the foundations of modern Spain
were laid; and a large portion of Italy was in the hands
of another tribe called the Lombards.
However, most of the territory bordering the Mediterranean Sea was still part of the Eastern Roman Empire
and was ruled from its capital of Constantinople, while
Rome, the fallen capital of the Western Roman Empire,
was beginning to exert its influence again, this time as
the center of administration for the rapidly-growing
Roman Catholic Church.
During the Dark Ages, three elements were joined together to create an entirely new pattern for Western
Civilization. These elements were first, the culture of
Ancient Rome, second the Germanic peoples and their
institutions, and third, and perhaps most important of
all, the Christian religion.
12
THE SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY
Christianity all but disappeared in Britain when the
Anglo-Saxons destroyed her Roman civilization.
Because the Anglo-Saxons had their own religion and
because they tended to dislike anything that reminded
them of the Romans, they did not readily accept the
Christian religion. For this reason, Christianity was not
successfully reintroduced into Britain until the end of the
sixth century. At that time there were seven AngloSaxon kingdoms in Britain. First, the King of Kent
converted to Christianity and then, one after the other,
the kings of Wessex, East Anglia, Northumbria, Sussex,
Mercia, and Essex all converted from the worship of the
pagan Norse gods to the Christian religion.
And as the barbarian tribes all across Europe began to
embrace Christianity, the Dark Ages started to take on a
new flavor, as a growing spiritual awareness began to
accompany the need for constant bloody warfare.
END OF PART ONE
PART TWO
THE COMING OF CHRISTIANITY TO THE KINGDOM OF NORTHUMBRIA
Although the castle we see here was built about 600
years after the death of Oswald, the first Christian king
of Northumbria, King Oswald once lived in his own
castle here around the year 630.
Following his own conversion, the king wanted his subjects
to share his new religion and at King Oswalds beckoning, a
monk named Aidan established what was to become a
great center of Christianity on the island of Lindesfarne
located in the sea just to the north of King
13
Oswald's castle where today the stone ruins of a 12th
century monastery stand.
The first church that Aidan built on Lindesfarne was
not of stone at all but was a simple wooden building
similar to the one seen here.
Using a church like this as his headquarters, Aidan converted thousands of Northumbrians to Christianity.
Some of these converts even chose to become monks or
nuns themselves rather than to study the traditional
Anglo-Saxon arts of war.
In this era, monks and nuns often chose to purify their
souls by following lives of penance and solitude and so to
become worthy of entering the Kingdom of Heaven. The
Anglo-Saxon monk named Cuthbert led just such a life.
Not long after arriving at Lindesfarne, Cuthbert decided
to establish a hermitage for himself on this tiny barren
island in the bay just within view of the monastery, and
here he lived for some time. But this hermitage was
not isolated enough for him, so he moved to a different,
more windswept, island seven miles to the south. Here
Cuthbert lived a life of prayer, penance, and isolation
for nine years, and during this time is said to have performed many miracles.
Whenever the rains and fogs let up, the new king of
Northumbria, named Edfrith, could just barely see
Cuthbert's hermitage from the window of his castle, and
so the king was constantly reminded of his powerful
piety and devotion.
Therefore, in the year 685, when it came time to appoint a new Bishop of Lendesfarne, the king appointed
Cuthbert, and under his leadership many new churches
14
were built throughout the kingdom of Northumbria.
And, although very few of those original churches still
survive, the Anglo-Saxon church seen here was constructed during Cuthbert's lifetime and has served as a
parish church in the tiny village of Escomb continuously
for over 1300 years.
Eleven years after Cuthbert's death, it was discovered
that his body showed no signs of decay, and this was
taken as a sign that he was a true saint.
Not long after his death, a monk named Eadfrith honored the memory of St. Cuthbert when he created this
ornately decorated book called "The Lindesfarne Gospels."
Monks like Eadfrith were known as scribes, and the
richly colored books they created, called illuminated
manuscripts, are considered to be among the greatest
art treasures of the Dark Ages. But they also serve as
reminders that this was an era when only the monks
and priests knew how to read and write and nearly all
the rest of the population, including the kings themselves, were illiterate.
THE VIKINGS AND THE NORMANS St. Cuthbert's
body lay in a place of honor next to the altar in the
monastery of Lindesfarne when, on the 7th of June in
the year 793, this small religious community was
plundered by a band of sea-roving Scandinavian
warriors called Vikings.
Just eight decades later, fear of Viking attacks finally
forced the monks to abandon their monastery, but when
they did, they took St. Cuthbert's body with them—finally burying him where this great building, called
Durham Cathedral, now stands.
15
Eventually, so many Viking settlers poured into Britain
that, by the year 878, nearly one-half of the Anglo-Saxon
lands were called the Danelaw because they were subject
to Viking laws.
Just a short time later, in the year 911, the Vikings were
given a huge area of land by the French to bring an end to
the ceaseless attacks on their country. The conquerors
named this land Normandy after themselves—the men
from the North.
A TENTH-CENTURY NORMAN COMMUNITY The
Normans established many small fortified communities
like the one seen here, for the Dark Ages was a time of
constant warfare between rival kingdoms; and at this
time, most Europeans sought the protection these types of
communities offered.
The lord, the man whose land supported this small community, was usually a mounted warrior called a knight.
Because of their high status, the lord's family usually
lived behind an extra defensive wall in a large fortified
house that usually had a stone tower attached to it. And,
within his private enclosure, the lord kept a garden of
vegetables and herbs for the use of his family.
Inside the lord's house was a hall where once a day a
huge meal was served, and next to the dining hall was
the armory where armor and weapons were kept under
lock and key. Above the armory was the lord's bedroom
where he could enjoy a good night's sleep knowing that
he was fairly safe from attack.
The village located next to the lord's compound was surrounded by just a single wall. But within the village
enclosure everything existed in order to keep the serfs
who lived there well supplied in case war broke out.
16
Here were the simple communal houses—that, like almost everything else in the village, belonged to the lord—
that several families of serfs shared with their animals.
And, just like the Anglo-Saxon halls that came before
them, these Norman communal houses were dark,
smoke-filled places.
Within the village enclosure one would find a blacksmith
who could make metal armor and weapons, as well as
more useful items, like axe heads and horseshoes.
Grain was ground into flour here by pushing the grinding
wheel around and around on a stone slab. Nearby, bread
was baked each day from that flour in the lord's oven
that stood right next to the kitchen building where the
lord's food was prepared. The bread, along with the wine
and beer he produced in the brewhouse, helped to sustain
the villagers.
For extra food, the villagers raised all kinds of poultry—chickens, geese, and even peacocks. But only the
lord was allowed to have a dovecote, where flocks of
doves were raised for the eggs, meat, and fertilizer they
yielded.
The lord enjoyed dining on fish, so he raised carp for his
table here in the village fishpond.
Goats, and even fallow deer, roamed freely about the
village and were also used for food.
A protected source of water was very important during a
siege so every fortified village had to have a good well.
Near the well stood the gallows where criminals were
executed for a wide variety of offenses that would seem
trivial to us today, but usually the lord saw fit to leave
the corpse hanging for several weeks to discourage po-
17
tential lawbreakers.
Not far from the gallows could be found the simple building
used by the potter for making most of the containers and
plates needed in the village, and just across the green
from the potter's shed was another small building
where the Norman serfs wove wool into cloth for
garments and blankets.
Right next door to the weaving house was the church
where the village community attended Mass and where
many baptisms and funerals were performed, for during
this era it must have seemed that death was almost
always present and the average person rarely lived to
the age of 35.
Beyond the village walls were the fields where the crops
were raised that formed the basis of the communities'
wealth, and here the serfs labored long hours throughout
much of the year.
CASTLES, MANORS AND FEUDALISM If the Norman
lord who ruled this community was successful and his
descendants gained in wealth and power, it is possible
that this fortified wooden village might have been
slowly transformed over the centuries into a stone castle
like this.
But, even though rebuilding with stone was fairly common, it is much more likely that this Norman village
would have remained pretty much as we have seen it—
that is, a well-defended village with a church and the
lord's larger house plus about 300 acres of farmland.
That, taken as a whole, came to be known as a manor.
Manors were the basic building blocks of the economy
of the Dark Ages and of the High Middle Ages that were to
follow them. The method by which manors were dis-
18
tributed was at the very heart of the social organization
of the Dark Ages that was known as feudalism. For in
this era, social status and wealth depended on the number
of manors that one controlled. Let us see how the
feudal system worked:
THE FEUDAL SYSTEM
At the very top of the Feudal System was the king who,
in theory, owned every manor in the land.
Because the king's power was based on the strength of
his army, he found it necessary to grant the rights to
huge areas of land that possessed many manors to his
greatest allies. These were the high lords—the dukes
and earls.
Let us imagine that there are 700 manors in the entire
kingdom and the king decides to keep 130 manors under
his direct control and to distribute the remaining 570
manors among the dukes and earls. He decides to give
each of his three dukes a dukedom containing 90
manors and each of his five earls, who are of slightly
lower status that the dukes, an earldom that contains 60
manors. In return for the gift of his dukedom, each
duke is required to provide the king with 42 mounted
knights. Each duke then decides to keep 30 manors for
himself and distribute the other 60 manors among six
lesser lords so each will receive ten manors. In exchange,
each is expected to provide the duke with seven knights.
To accomplish this, each lesser lord will keep three
manors for himself and distribute the other seven manors
among seven individual knights. Thus, in exchange for
his occasional military service, each of these seven
knights will receive not only the manor's lands and its
buildings, but also the five or six families of landless
serfs that will work the fields in exchange for the lord's
protection and a share to the crops they raise.
19
THE NORMAN CONQUEST OF ENGLAND In the year
1066, a truly momentous event took place for the unified
Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Britain—now known as
England—for a force, led by Duke William of
Normandy, invaded England and destroyed the army of
King Harold at the battle of Hastings. As a result, Duke
William became the King of England—and so, with the
raising of the Norman flag, a new chapter of English
history began. For as King William dispensed vast areas
of manor lands to his most loyal subjects, they, in turn,
began to build magnificent stone fortress homes for
themselves. And soon these Norman castles were
sprouting up all across the English countryside and with
them came thousands of fantastic new Norman churches
and monasteries.
It was clear to all that a great change had come. The era
of the Dark Ages—when the Anglo-Saxons had dominated
England—was past, and a new, much grander, era,
called the High Middle Ages, was beginning to
dawn—not only in England, but all across Europe as
well.
THE END
20
©1995 Chariot Productions
Distributed by United Learning, Inc.
Name_________
THE BARRAGES: EUROPE AFTER THE FALL OF ROME (410-1066A.D.) The Seven
Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms of Britain - 750 A.D.
©1995 Chariot Productions
Distributed by United Learning, Inc.
3
Name_________________
THE DARK AGES: EUROPEAFTERTHEFALLOFROME(410-1066AD)
Dark Ages Timeline
222 AD. - First major assaults by the Goths and other Germanic tribes against the Roman Empire.
370 AD. - Asian barbarians called the Huns invade Europe.
367 AD. - Barbarian tribes from Ireland, Scotland, and Germany attack Britain but are repelled.
410 AD. - Visigoths sack Rome; last Roman troops leave Britain.
420 AD. - Early Anglo-Saxon settlers found the community of Stowa.
449 AD. - Jutes invade Britain.
450 AD. - Angles and Saxons establish many settlements in Britain. 455
AD. - Vandals ravage Italy.
476 AD). - The fall of Rome...Grermanic chief Odoacer deposes the last emperor of Rome. 570
AD). - The prophet Mohammed is born.
600 AD. - King Ethelbert of Kent becomes the first Anglo-Saxon king to convert to Christianity. Establishes a
church at Canterbury that will become Canterbury Cathedral; later to become the headquarters of the Protestant
Anglican Church.
622 AD. - North Africa, Persia, Arabian Peninsula, Turkey, Egypt and Palestine are Moslem regions. 632
AD. - Mohammed dies.
635 AD. - The church of Lindesfarne is established.
673 AD. - Monk and historian St. Bede is born. Much of our knowledge of life during the English Dark Ages
comes from the writings of Bede.
685 AD. - St. Cuthbert is Bishop of Lindesfarne.
686 AD. - All the Anglo-Saxon Kings of England are now Christian.
700s AD. - England is divided into seven kingdoms.
768 AD). - Much of western Europe is a Frankish kingdom under Charlemagne, also known as Charles the
Great.
793 AD. - Vikings plunder Lindesfarne and much of the rest of Britain.
800 AD. - Charlemagne is crowned the first Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Leo III, thus establishing a link
between the Catholic Church and the institution of the monarchy that would become of prime importance later
in the Middle Ages.
878 AD. - After the peace of Wedmore, the "Danelaw" is established between King Alfred the Great of England
and Viking leader Guthmm, whereby a huge area of England is governed by laws of the Viking invaders.
910 AD. - Vikings establish a homeland on French soil and call it Normandy (land of the Northmen or
Norsemen).
1000 AD. - England is a unified nation and all the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms are under one ruler.
1066 AD. - William, the Duke of Normandy, conquers England. As a result, England becomes Norman French
and is greatly changed over the centuries of the High Middle Ages that follow.
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Name___________________
THE DARK AGES: EUROPE AFTER THE FALL OF ROME (410-1066A.D.)
Vocabulary List
Aidan - A saint who brought Christianity to the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria in the north of England. He
founded a monastery on the island of Lindesfarne in 635.
Alfred the Great - Anglo-Saxon ruler who unified all of the separate kingdoms of England during the time of the
Viking invasions.
Angles - A barbarian tribe from the southern side of the Danish peninsula.
Anglo-Saxon - A general term applied to the four Germanic tribes-the Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians that invaded
Britain and settled there in the Fifth Century A.D.
Barbarians - From the word "barbaricus" that means foreigner in Latin, the language of the Romans. This term came to
be applied to the violent wandering tribes that were important in bringing about the collapse of the Roman Empire.
Bede - A monk, saint and historian often referred to as "The father of English history," who lived from about 673 to 735 A.D.
Celts -Ancient people of western Europe that were obliterated as a unified group, first by the conquests of the Romans and
then by the Anglo-Saxons, Goths, Vandals, and other tribes. Celts still survive in isolated groups and Celtic languages
are spoken today in parts of Ireland, Wales, Scotland and a region of France called Brittany.
Constantine - The first Christian emperor of Rome. He lived 274 to 337 A.D.
Charlemagne - "Charles the Great," 742-814. King of the Franks and first emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.
During his lifetime, his empire was made up of present-day France and Belgium, plus parts of Germany, Holland,
Austria, Spain and Italy. Charlemagne was the most powerful ruler during the Dark Ages period.
Civilization - A state of advanced culture, taken from the Roman word "civitas" meaning citizenship (of Rome). Later, the
word "civitas" came to mean courteous. In the contrast, the term barbaricus or barbarian meant foreigner, one who was, by
definition, not a Roman citizen and was therefore "uncivilized."
Cuthbert - A great hermit, saint, and bishop who lived in the 600s in the north of England.
Dark Ages - Refers to the period of western European history following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in 476
A.D. up to approximately 1066 A.D. The name Dark Ages refers to the collapse of the learning, science, art, and all the
other things that make up civilization.
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THE DARK AGES: EUROPE AFTER THE FALL OF ROME (410-1066AD)
Vocabulary List (continued)
Danelaw - A code of Scandinavian laws established in England by the Norse invaders of the 9th and 10th centuries.
Also the regions of the north and east of England where these laws were in effect.
Druids - Religious priesthood of pre-Christian Celtic peoples.
Duke - A powerful nobleman, second in rank to the king.
Earl - In England, a powerful nobleman, third in rank beneath the king.
England - Literally "Angle-Land"-the name given to the Roman province of Brittania following its conquest by the
Anglo-Saxons. For a long time (449-828 A.D. ), England was divided into seven separate kingdoms: Wessex (west
Saxons), Sussex (south Saxons), Essex (east Saxons), Kent, Mercia, Northumbria, and East Anglia.
Feudalism - The way of life in the Middle Ages based on a hierarchy of authority in which military service and oaths of
loyalty were exchanged for gifts of land.
Fief or Fiefdom - An inheritable feudal landholding; land held by a lord in return for service.
Frisians - A Germanic tribe that dwelt in the region of Holland known as Frisia.
Franks - A confederation of Germanic tribes that settled in the valley of the Rhine. France is named for the Franks who
emerged to rule the Roman province of Gaul after the fall of Rome.
Goths - A barbarian tribe from the region that is today the eastern part of Germany and the southern part of Sweden
(Gotaland). Early in the third century, they were divided into two distinct tribes-the east Goths or Ostrogoths and the west
Goths, or Visigoths.
Hadrian - One of the most powerful Roman emperors; declared to be a Roman god following his death. Hadrian helped
maintain the Pax Romana, or Roman Peace. He ordered the construction of Hadrian's Wall that extends from one coast of
England to the other. He lived from 76 to 138 AD).
Homage - An oath of allegiance taken by a vassal to his lord.
Honorius - Emperor of the Western Roman Empire at the time it was sacked by the Visigoths in 410 A.D.
Investiture - The ceremony whereby a lord or knight was invested with the control of a fiefdom of land.
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Name_________________
THE DARK AGES: EUROPE AFTER THE FALL OF ROME (410-1066A.D.)
Vocabulary List (continued)
Jutes - A Germanic tribe from the region of Denmark called Jutland that settled in the region of southern England
known as Kent.
Lombards - A Germanic tribe; after invading northern Italy in 568 A.D., the Lombards were greatly influenced by
Roman civilization.
Lord - The owner or head of a large feudal estate. In the language called Middle English, lord meant "the master of a
household."
Manor - The smallest unit of a feudal fiefdom-around 300 acres, usually consisting of a few farms, a village for the
villeins or serfs, a manor house, a flour mill, a bakehouse, a fishpond, a church, and an orchard. Wealthy lords controlled many manors whereas common knights usually possessed only a single manor.
Middle Ages - Historical period between the fall of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance.
Norse Gods and Goddesses - Deities worshipped by both the ancient Germanic tribes and the Vikings; for example,
Thor was the god of war and thunder and Odin was king of the Norse gods.
Ostrogoths - The east Goths, a Germanic tribe that settled in what is today Spain.
Serf - The villagers who did the farm work on the feudal manors for their lord. They owned no land but were allowed to
work certain parts of the fields to raise their own crops. Serfs were thought of as manor property, but they had much
higher status than slaves because they possessed certain legal rights.
Vassal - In the Middle Ages, a person who had the exclusive rights to a certain fief of land and in return gave his
service, often military service, to his lord.
Vikings - Also known as Norsemen or Northmen because they came from the northernmost reaches of western
Europe—from Sweden, Norway and Denmark. The Vikings were sea rovers and plunderers during the 8th to 10th
centuries.
Villeins - The village-dwelling serfs who worked the manor lands belonging to their lord. Villein and serf are interchangeable words.
Visigoths - The west Goths, a powerful Germanic tribe that sacked Rome in 410 A.D.
William the Conquerer - Duke of Normandy and descendant of Vikings. He conquered England in 1066 and became
King William I of England.
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Name__________________
THE DARK AGES: EUROPE AFTER THE FALL OF ROME (410-1066A.D.)
Quiz
Directions: Answer the following questions with the correct answers.
1. True or False: Cities were very important during the Roman Empire, but were much less important during
the Dark Ages. ___________
2. The Latin word _______ was used by Romans to describe the foreigners-non-Roman citizens-who
formed tribes that conducted raids on the Roman Empire over many centuries.
3. When the Romans conquered Britain, it was inhabitied by the Britons. The Britons spoke the ______
language. Variations of this ancient tongue are still spoken in Wales, Ireland, Scotland and the region of
France called Brittany.
4. The three major Germanic tribes that settled in Britain after the Romans pulled out were the
______, the ______, and the _________.
5. True or False: The tribes that invaded Britain in the fifth century had converted to Christianity during the
fourth century as a result of their contact with the Romans. ____________
6. True or False: By the mid 600s, most of Arabia, Palestine, Egypt and North Africa were devout Christian
areas.._____________
7. True or False: The new Germanic inhabitants of Britain during the early part of the Dark Ages made many
improvements on the system of paved roads built by the Romans. ___________
8. The English word civilization is derived from the Latin word "civitas" which means ___________?
9. Under the feudal system, inheritable lands called ______ could be made up of one or many manors.
10. On a feudal manor, the farm laborers, or ________, lived in villages whereas the lord lived in the
manor house.
©1995 Chariot Productions
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