Old English

449-1100
 Britain before the English
• Britain already inhabited when the English
migrated
• Britain invaded by Romans in 55 B.C.
• Celts used their own language
• Roman withdrawal 410
• I. M. Diakonov, On the Original Home of the Speakers of Indo-
European, Journal of Indo-European Studies (1985, vol. 13, pp 92 to 174) and J.
P. Mallory's In Search of the Indo-Europeans (1989). Maps based in part on
Colin McEvedy's The Penguin Atlas of Ancient History (1967).
 The coming of the English
• Roman army included soldiers from their occupied areas
including Anglo-Saxons
• Britons attacked by Picts and Scots
• Britons called Saxons for help
• Ships carrying Jutes, Saxons, Frisians and many other
tribes in 449
• Settled the Pictish and Scottish aggressors
• Subjugated and dispossessed Britons
• Some Britons fled to wales and Cornwall and to Brittany
 The English Britain
• The Germanic settlement
comprised seven
kingdoms:
Kent, Essex, Sussex, Wessex,
East Anglia, Mercia, and
Northumbria
• In 597, Pope Gregory I dispatched a band of missionaries to
the Angles.
• The leader of this band was Saint Augustine (not to be
confused with the African-born bishop of Hippo of the same
name who wrote The City of God more than a century earlier)
• King Ethelbert was baptized. In 601, Augustine was
consecrated first archbishop of Canterbury, and there was a
church in England.
• Christianity came from two directions—from Rome with
Saint Augustine and from the Celtic Church with Irish
missionaries.
• At a Synod held at Whitby in 664 preference was
given to the Roman customs of when to celebrate
Easter and of how monks should shave their heads.
• Those apparently trivial decisions were symbolic of
the important alignment of the English Church with
Rome and the Continent.
 The first Viking conquest
• Beginning the 8th century another wave of Germanic invaders.
• Pagan
• Ivar the Boneless and Halfdan landed in East Anglia in 865.
• In 870 they attacked Wessex
• In 878 Alfred defeated Danish king Gothrum, King of East Anglia
• Gothrum was baptized
• East Anglia and Northumbria = Danelaw (Danish Law)
• Alfred honored as “the Great”
• Alfred the Great
• Reorganized the laws and government of the kingdom
• Revived learning among the clergy. He translated Latin books into
English: Pope Gregory the Great’s Pastoral Care, Orosius’s History,
Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy, and Saint Augustine’s
Soliloquies
• He was also responsible for a translation of Bede’s Ecclesiastical
History and for the compilation of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle—the
two major sources of our knowledge of early English history
The second Viking conquest
• In the later year of the tenth century
• Several attacks, crushing defeats for the English
• The English were quite aware of their kinship with
Scandinavians
• The Old English epic Beowulf is all about events of
Scandinavian legend and history
• Interested in colonizing
• Old English and Old Norse (the language of the
Scandinavians) had a whole host of frequently used words
in common, among others, man, wife, mother, folk, house,
thing, winter, summer, will, can, come, hear, see, think,
ride, over, under, mine, and thine.
• In some instances where related words differed noticeably
in form, the Scandinavian form has won out— for example,
sister (ON systir, OE sweostor).
The Golden Age of Old English
• Literature
• Rich in poetry
• Caedmon – Christian subject mater in the style of the old pagan scops or
bards
• Beowulf – blending of Pagan and Christian themes
• Cynewolf-
• Prose
• Aelfric – prose stylist of classical Old English
• Revived learning among the clergy and laity
• English culture advanced for the time
Dialects of Old English
• Four principal dialects:
• Kentish, the speech of the Jutes who settled in Kent;
• West Saxon, spoken in the region south of the Thames exclusive of
Kent;
• Mercian, spoken from the Thames to the Humber exclusive of
Wales; and
• Northumbrian
• During the time of Alfred and for a long time thereafter,
Winchester, the capital of Wessex was a center of English culture.
Though London was at the time a thriving commercial city, it did
not acquire its cultural or political importance until later.
• West Saxon dialect -most of the extant Old English manuscripts—
all in fact that may be regarded as literature.
• The Old English period spans somewhat more than six centuries.
• Many changes occurred in sounds, grammar, and vocabulary.
 SOME KEY EVENTS IN THE OLD ENGLISH PERIOD

• The following events during the Old English period significantly influenced
the development of the English language.
• 449 Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and Frisians began to occupy Great Britain,
thus changing its major population to English speakers and
separating the early English language from its Continental relatives. This
is a traditional date; the actual migrations doubtless began earlier.
• 597 Saint Augustine of Canterbury arrived in England to begin the
conversion of the English by baptizing King Ethelbert of Kent, thus
introducing the influence of the Latin language.
• 664 The Synod of Whitby aligned the English with Roman rather than
Celtic Christianity, thus linking English culture with mainstream
Europe.
• 730 The Venerable Bede produced his Ecclesiastical History of the English
People, recording the early history of the English people.
• 787 The Scandinavian invasion began with raids along the northeast seacoast.
• 865 The Scandinavians occupied northeastern Britain and began a campaign
to conquer all of England.
• 871 Alfred became king of Wessex and reigned until his death in 899, rallying
the English against the Scandinavians, retaking the city of London,
establishing the Danelaw, securing the kingship of all England for himself and
his successors, and producing or sponsoring the translation of Latin works
into English
• 987 Ælfric, the homilist and grammarian, went to the abbey of Cerne, where
he became the major prose writer of the Old English period and of its
Benedictine Revival and produced a model of prose style that influenced
following centuries.
• 991 Olaf Tryggvason invaded England, and the English were defeated at the
Battle of Maldon.
• 1000 The manuscript of the Old English epic Beowulf was written about this
time.
• 1016 Canute became king of England, establishing a Danish dynasty in
Britain.
• 1042 The Danish dynasty ended with the death of King Hardicanute, and
Edward the Confessor became king of England.
• 1066 Edward the Confessor died and was succeeded by Harold, last of the
Anglo-Saxon kings, who died at the Battle of Hastings while fighting against
the invading army of William, duke of Normandy, who was crowned king of
England on December 25.