NOTES:
Chronicles record all the main events on the land of the Anglo-Saxons, England. Indeed the name 'England' is from the Anglo-saxon 'Engla land' (land of the Angles).
information are taken from documents, events, thinker's ideas..all handed down from generation to generation. from the Chronicles you can get the first written information of their social and economical organization.
From the North of Europe, the Anglo-saxons brought a nordic religion, a strong organization and a new code of value (based on a high sense of honour and fedelity to their chiefs), farming and fishing manners that had helped them to survive in such a strong weather.
Families were the centre of their social structure and branched out to clan and tribes.
their chiefs were military leaders, then came the 'earls' (nobles by born), the 'theigns' (personal companions of the king). The rest of people were 'free men' and had to help mantain roads, bridges and forts and provide military service when necessary.
People lived in country villages where farm lands, woods, pastures and meadows were communly owned.
The Anglo-saxons imposed their lenguage, later known as Old English, wich became through several modifications, the English spoken today; the Celtic lenguages of the native Britons survived only in Wales, Ireland and North-West of Scotland.
Influence of Christianity:
Christianity, which began to spread throughout pagan Anglo-saxon Britain from the end of the 6th century, proved a driving force in uniting the kingdomand in opening the country to the influence of Europe.
When the Denish king Cnut (1016-1035) became Christian, took pain to reconcile the Anglo-saxons and the Denish. The Church was also very infuential on culture aspects because it introduced the writing of documents while pagan Anglo-Saxons was mainly based on oral tradition: Anglo-saxons culture was handed out orally from generation to generation. indeed this culture was based on people's ability to remember.
Beowulf (beo-wulf > wolf) is an epic poem: 'epic' because it tells us about relevant deed of a hero, 'poem' because it is a form of narrative poetry. we don't have precise ditails about the origins of this epic poem, scholars even don't know exactly when it was composed.
>CULTURE DEFINITION:
1. the total of the inherited ideas, beliefs, values, and knowledge, which constitute the shared bases of social action.
2. the biliefs, way of life, art and customs that are shared and accepted by people in a particular society.
>CIVILIZATION DEFINITION:
1. a human society that has highly developed material and spiritual resources and a complex cultural, political, and legal organization; an advanced state in social development.
2. a society that is well organized and developed, used especcially about a particular society in a particular palce or at a particular time.