Notes from the lesson

Alfred was called “The Great” because he was successful to defeat the Danes and the Vikings.

The Anglosaxon Chronicle is the first form of the Anglosaxon history: it records the first events of Great Britain. Whenever we speak about a nation, we take the information from documents, thinkers’ideas that are generally handed over from generation to generation.

When the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes came into Great Britain, they brought with them their culture, rules, a high sense of honor and fideliy for their chiefs. They also brought with them farming and fishing skills. Their social structure had the family as its centre which branched out with clans and tribes. The chief was their military leader, then came the earls, who were noble by birth, and then the thegns who were the personal companions of the king. All the othar were free men. They were obliged(/compelled) to maintain roads, bridges and forts and provide military service when necessary. People lived in country villages where the farmland, woods, pastures and maggles were owned communally.

First of all the Anglosaxons imposed their lenguage, later known as Old English which became through several modifications the English spoken today. The Celtic lenguage of the latin Britains survived in Wales, Irland and the North-West of Scottland.

Influence of Christianity

Christianity, which began to spread throughout pagan Anglosaxon Britain from the end of the 6th century, prooved a driving force in uniting the kingdom and in opening the country of the influence in Europe.

When the Danish king Canut (1016-1035) became christian, he took pains to reconcine the Anglo-Saxons and the Danish. The Church was also very influential on aspects of culture because it introduced the writing of documents while pagan anglosaxon culture was mainly based on oral tradition .

Beowulf

The word beowulf is made up of beo and wulf, that is the English for lupo. This is one of the most important documents for the Anglosaxon culture. It is an epic poem that celebrates the jestures and the deeds of the Anglosaxon civilization. We don’t know whan it was composed exactly.