England
The evolution of a country & its language

Influences on Early Britain
 Celts: the indigenous peoples
(ancestors of the Irish, Scots, Welsh,
Cornish, and Bretons
 The Romans
 Anglo Saxons
 The Norse

Celts
 Halstatt culture —7-6 th century B.C.
 La Tiene culture —5 th century B.C.
(55 & 54 B.C. = Caeasar’s invasion
AND, there were people there before them!

Migration of the Celts

Celtic Art
 VERY ancient Celts (@500 B.C.)
 Swirling designs
 Heavy signifigance on the number three
 Detail of armor implies a warrior aristocracy.

The Celts
 Used make-up to look more warlike.
 Oral culture
 Loose society (many small tribes)

Celts vs. Picts

The original “naked white people”

The original “naked blue people”
 Often painted themselves with chalk before going into battle
 Sometimes fought naked



Often painted themselves with woad
Sometimes fought naked
Savage people of lower Scotland

The Celts
 Loved feasts: mead drinking, lots of meat
(esp. pork) —often noisy and sometimes dangerous!
 Built forts on strategic high grounds surrounded by ditches (Motte and Bailey castles)

Ancient Celtic Religion
 Druids: wise men, healers, teachers, musicians
 Keepers of knowledge who memorized all teachings —ORAL CULTURE
 Believed that their souls did not die, but passed to another body.

Cultural Note
 Some believe that a druidic figure may be the inspiration for MERLIN in the Arthur legends.
 Merlin dictating his poems, as illustrated in a French book from the 13th century

Human Sacrifice
 Tacitus, the Roman author, writes about burning people alive in man-shaped wicker figures
Cautionary note: Writing horrible things about one’s enemies helps one’s cause.

Stone Circles & Chalk Hills
 Found all over Britain
 Used in religious ceremonies

Stonehenge —Used but not built by the Celts

Avebury Stone Circle

Silbury Hill

Celtic Art and Music
 Motifs of nature, human figures are symbolic and abstract
 Heavily laden with circles, squares, and triangles.
 Celtic art survives in decorated MSS, metalwork, and stone crosses.

Celtic Language
 Survives in Irish, Gaelic, Welsh languages
(Where the Saxons did not conquer)


Very few words survive except in place names
Others mostly topographic
EX. avon-river, combe=valley, torr=rock outcropping
 Ancor=anchorite=hermit

Welsh Language
 Roman alphabet with different sound values & consonant doubling (ll, ff, ww, dd)
 Gwynnedd = Guyneth
 Siobhan = Shevan

Queen Boudicca (Boadicea) c. 61 A. D.
 Celtic warrior queen
 Led fight against
Romans after they flogged & raped her and her daughters
 Tacitus & other Romans write about her

A description from the Romans:
Their aspect is terrifying...They are very tall in stature, with rippling muscles under clear white skin. Their hair is blond, but not naturally so: they bleach it, to this day, artificially, washing it in lime and combing it back from their foreheads. They look like wood-demons, their hair thick and shaggy like a horse's mane. . . . [M]ost content themselves with the weapons nature gave them: they go naked into battle...Weird, discordant horns were sounded,
[they shouted in chorus with their] deep and harsh voices, they beat their swords rythmically against their shields.

Arturius
 Legendary Celtic war chieftain who led his people to a victory over the Saxons at the
Battle of Badon Hill (early 500’s A.D.)
 May be start of King Arthur legends

Celtic Religion--Pantheism
 Pagans who worshiped gods of nature — over 400 different gods! They believed the spirits were everywhere and in everything.
 Believed that natural disasters, disease, famine, etc. were caused because the gods were angry.

Celtic Religion--Pantheism
 Worshiped in nature —woods, bogs, mouths of rivers, stone circles, chalk mounds.
 Main gods: earth mother (fertility), horned gods, tribal father
 Annual sacrifice of a human in the stead of the horned god to shed his blood on the land to ensure fertility.

The Romans


The Greek author Pytheas called them the
"Pretanic Isles" which derived from the inhabitants name for them, Pritani.
Romans
Called the Celts Britons
Called the island “Brittania”
@45 B.C. through 449 A.D.
THIS IS LONGER THAN THE UNITED STATES
HAS BEEN SETTLED BY EUROPEANS!

The Romans
 The Romans never made it to the
Northern part of the island – the Picts and
Scots were too fierce.

They built Hadrian’s wall to keep these warrior tribes out. It still stands today.

Roman Amphitheater--Chester

Roman Lighthouse, Dover Castle

The Romans
 The Romans integrated their own culture with Celtic culture.
 They often intermarried with the Celts and
Celts could become citizens.

Bath
 Originally a shrine to Aquae Sulis, a water goddess
 Considered a Holy Place by the Celts
 Became a popular resort in the 17 th & 18 th century

Bath

Romano-Celtic Religion
 Mithras was the sun god.
 On December 25 th , the Romanized Celts celebrated Mithras’s victory in the battle against the night.

The Romans
 The Romans left to defend the homeland from invading Germanic tribes.
 This left the Celts defenseless against the
Picts and Scots attacking from the North and West.

Vortigern’s Invitation @449 A.D.
 King Vortigern sent for help from the
Anglo-Saxon tribes across the sea.
 They came to help, liked the climate, and stayed.
 The Anglo-Saxons subjugated the native
Celts.

The Saxons
 Angles
 Saxons
 Jutes

Anglo-Saxons
 Land became known as Angla-land
 Which, of course, became England

Anglo-Saxons

½ of all English words have AS origins
 Responsible for the British traits of
Melancholy
Nostalgia
Love of Ritual
Stoicism

Anglo-Saxons
 Known for —
Feasts
Telling long-heroic tales
Fascination with the sea

The Germania – Cultural
Connections
Baritus:
 Battle chant to kindle courage by terrifying their foes.

“a unison of valour”

Anglo-Saxon belief system:
 Importance of physical and moral courage
 Loyalty above all
 Power of fate —”wyrd”
Believed that you could not control what happened to you. The measure of a man was HOW he responded to his destiny.

Anglo-Saxon Culture
 Warrior society
 Thane and his followers
Bond between them was paramount
COMITATUS PRINCIPLE
 Consequences of deserting your lord on battlefield —exile.

The Boar-Ferocious fighter
Symbol of hospitality, protective symbol on shields, charging boar=royalty or extreme military prowess, put on graves of nobles for strength in the afterlife.

The Germania, Tacitus, A.D. 98
 Polemic to raise moral standards of Rome
 Idealized Germanic culture
 Where modern Germans got their ideas of purity of blood, superiority of their culture
 Of course, Tacitus relied entirely on second-hand accounts!

The Germania – Cultural
Connections
Baritus:
 Battle chant to kindle courage by terrifying their foes.

“a unison of valour”

The Germania

“They bring back the bodies of the fallen even when a battle hangs in the balance.”

“To throw away one’s shield is the supreme disgrace, and the man [who does this] is debarred from attendance at sacrifice or assembly.”

The Germania
 Kings chosen for noble birth —power not absolute or arbitrary.
 Leaders chosen for valour —lead by example rather than authority of rank.
 Followers usually men of one clan —united by blood as well as battle.

The Germania
 Retainers expect things in return
“They are always making demands on the generosity of their chief, asking for a coveted war-horse or a spear stained with the blood of a defeated enemy.”

Uncle/Nephew Relationship

“The sons of sisters are as highly honoured by their uncles as by their own fathers. Some tribes even consider the former tie the closer and more sacred of the two.”

Wergild – The “Man price”

“Heirs are under the obligation to take up both the feuds and the friendship of a father or kinsman. But feuds do not continue forever unreconciled. Even homicide can be atoned for by a fixed number of cattle or sheep.”
 The price was determined by rank in society.

The Germania

“Traitors and deserters are hanged on trees; cowards, shirkers. . . are pressed down under a wicker hurdle into the slimy mud of a bog.”

Tollund Man

The Germania -- Women
“Close by [the battle] are “their nearest and dearest . . . whose praise he most desires
. . . . It is their mothers and wives that they go to have their wounds treated, and the women are not afraid to compare and count the gashes.”

The Germania – Women

“[A]rmies already wavering on the point of collapse have been rallied by the women, pleading heroically with their men, thrusting forward their bared bosoms, and making them realize the imminent prospect of enslavement.”

The Germania -- Women

“[T]here resides in women an element of holiness and a gift of prophecy; and so they do not scorn to ask their advice, or lightly disregard their replies.”

Their reverence is “untainted by servile flattery or any pretence of turning women into goddesses.”

Anglo-Saxon Women
 Cupbearers: served at banquets
 Could own and inherit property
 Women kept the status and wealth they were born with, not just that of husband
 Jewelry was valued as a way of showing status.

The Germania--Marriage Code

“both in peace and suffering, she is to share in his sufferings and adventures.”

Woman’s adultury severely punished:
“cuts off her hair, strips her naked nad in the presence of her kinsman . . .flogs her all through the village. Neither beauty nor wealth can find her another husband.”

Marriage Code —Other sources
 Adultery treated more casually
*½ goods if take children to raise.
*Share of goods if husband keeps children.
 Why would Tacitus emphasize the most extreme cases?

Structure of Anglo-Saxon Society
 Witan —king’s advisor
 Scop —professional bard, held in high esteem
(Monks later recorded poetry that had been passed down orally)

Moot
 Courts on local, district, & regional levels
 Rulings based on tradition, past decisions
 FYI: a moot point is one that could be argued as before a court, but everybody already knows the answer, so there’s no point in debating.

The Moot Hall, Keswick

Witanagemot or Witan

The king’s council of wise men, including earls, major landholders, and high religious authorities
 Spoofed in Harry Potter books as the
Wizengamot tribunal

The Germania –Religious
Practices

“do not think it in keeping with the divine majesty to confine gods within walls”

“Their holy places are woods and groves”

Gods similar to Norse Gods
 Thunor=God of Thunder
 Freya=fertility
 Tew=war

The Germania –Religious
Practices
 Seek information from the cries and flights of birds.
 Try to obtain omens and warnings from horses.

Anglo-Saxon Funereal Customs
 Buried with weapons, wealth for the afterlife
 The wealthy got a full set of armor
 Sometimes, great thanes were buried with fully equipped boats.
 Other times, the boats were burned at sea.

The Sutton Hoo burial

Sutton Hoo
Treasure

Sutton Hoo
Treasure

Sutton Hoo
Treasure

Other Germanic values:
 Hospitality is paramount —always hospitable to strangers and visitors.
 The more family connections and allegiances a man can command, the higher his status.
(Epithets: Hygelac’s thane, or Hrothgar’s son)
 Better to die in battle than to grow old and weak.

By the end of the 6 th Century
Augustine and his followers begin to convert England to Christianity.
King Ethelbert baptized by Augustine c. 597
A.D.

Conversion of the Saxons
 Fate and religion are intertwined in the literature as it is written down (often by monks).
 Architecture represents the Saxon aesthetic

Blend of Pagan and Christian in AS Literature
Tension “between faith in an omnipotent Christian God and a trust in blind, inexorable fate.”

Saxon Church at Dover Castle

Two Religious Centers Arose
 York —Northern
England
 Canterbury —
Southern England

The Norse
Viking Invasions –
Beginning @ 900 A.D.
10 th Century defeated English in the Battle of Maldon
Wanted British technology, raw goods

Norse Mythology
 Adumla (cow)
|
Buri
|
Bor —Bestla
(frost giant’s daughter)
|
(w)odin —----Vili—----Ve
(spirit of life) (wits & heart) (hearing & sight)
 Kill all the frost giants but one —all the blood flooded the world

Norse Mythology
 Ymir – Frost Giant that survived
1) skull=sky
2) flesh=Earth
3) bones=Mountains
4) blood=Oceans, lakes, rivers
 Dwarves: North, South, East, West

Norse Mythology

Midgard (Ymir’s eyebrows)
Middle earth, enclosure away from stone giants
 Asgard (Settled by Odin, Vili, Ve – Aesir, guardians of men) linked to midgard by the flaming rainbow bridge, Bifrost

Norse Mythology
 Ygdrasil –The living tree, the suffering tree, the life-giver
--Regenerates itself, eternal (was, and is, and will be)
 Odin hung on a tree for nine days to gain boons for mankind – Runes (magical alphabet) and Skaldic Mead (poetic inspiration)

Runes”FUTHORK”

The Population of Midgard
 Heimdall was the guard at the gate of
Midgard
 Fathered three generations for the three classes of people.

Three classes of people
 Jarl (fair, sharp, skilled, strong)
Heimdall teaches him the runes of Odin
Class of kings (koniger) and warriors
 Karl (ruddy, bright-eyed, well formed) farmers, skilled laborers, peasants
 Thrall (ugly, twisted, dull) race of unskilled laborers i.e. to “hold in thrall”

The Days of the Week
 Sunday
 Monday
 Teusday (Tiu —warrior god, symbol=boar)
 Wednesday (Wodin)
 Thursday (Thor —thunder god, very popular)
 Friday (Freya —fertility god)

Other important influences
 Eostre (estrogen, estrus cycles)
(--goddess of the dawn, spring, and new life, feast day in Spring
--Symbols are the hare and the egg!

Winter feasts (used to served boar’s head), New Year’s resolution

Gotterdammerung & Ragnarok
 Unlike Greek gods, gods were not invincible
 Living in the Gotterdamerung , or “Twilight of the gods”
 Would eventually be defeated at
Ragnarok , the “day of doom”

The Wild Hunt
 Souls of dead warriors who joined Odin in
Valhalla waiting to join against the forces of destruction at Ragnarok
 Brought to Valhalla by the Valkyrie

Gotterdammerung & Ragnarok
 Winter will reign for three years with no summer.
 All the earth will be at war, father against son, brother against brother.
 Wolves Skoll and Hati Hrodvitnisson will swallow the sun & moon, plunging the earth into darkness.
 Monsters will break free, and the WILD HUNT will begin for real!

Gotterdammerung & Ragnarok
 Fenrir/Fenris wolf — at the end of the world, will run loose, consuming the earth and heavens.
He will swallow Odin.
Slain by Odin’s son who tears off his jaw
 Odin and the Fenris Wolf, 1909, Dorothy Hardy

Gotterdammerung & Ragnarok
 Midgard serpent —will flood the world by overflowing the ocean & spew deadly venom.
 Killed by Thor before he succumbs to death from the poison.

Gotterdammerung & Ragnarok
 Horns of Heimdall will ring to warn other gods of the danger.
 By the end, Yggdrasill and all the worlds become a blazing inferno and the gods of the
Aesir & Vanir die as well as all the inhabitants of
Middle Earth.
 The sky falls into a pit of flame and the earth sinks into the sea.

The Vikings & Saxons
 Constantly battled for control of England
 Languages in England merged to become
Old English
 Battle of Maldon —recorded in poem

Battle of Maldon, Anglo-Saxon
Chronicles c. 991 A.D.
 Extant in a fragment (beginning & end missing)
 Byrhtnoth (Saxon) fights the Vikings

Byrhtnoth is 6’6” to 6’9” in a world where people are on average 5’ tall.


He is also 65 in a time when people lived to @
40.
Awesome despay of wealth —owned land in
Essex & 8 other counties

Battle of Maldon, Anglo-Saxon
Chronicles c. 991 A.D.
 When he falls, poet reproaches the cowardice of the thane Godric who gallops away
 Aelfwine, in contrast, upholds comitatus

He boasts (beot) that no one can “reproach him with fleeing whil his lord lies dead”
“Heart must be hardier courage the keener
Mood must be the bolder as our band lessens.”

Battle of Maldon, Anglo-Saxon
Chronicles c. 991 A.D.
 Glorious defeat
 BUT moral victory, affirmation of comitatus

Lindesfarne Castle

Lindesfarne

Book of Kells
 Early English translation of the Christian bible
 Illuminated pages
 Monastery kept learning alive in the “Dark Ages”
Of Viking invasion

King Alfred the Great




“Great” because he kept united tribes to repel the Danes
King when Vikings sacked the monastery at
Lindesfarne
He kept London & Wessex; Vikings kept the
Danelaw
(North and East England)
Commissioned the Anglo-Saxon chronicles of Britain from the time of Caesar’s invasion

Alfred Jewel
 "AELFRED MEC
HEHT GEWYRCAN",
"Alfred ordered me to be made"
 In the
Ashmolean in Oxford

Old English/Anglo-Saxon
The emergence of a written language.

Anglo-Saxon/Old English
 Language spoken and written from about the 5 th to 11 th centuries around the time of the Battle of
Hastings (1066).
 Standardized in 10 th century through influence of dominant kingdom of Wessex.
 Based on runic script.

Old English Words &
Modern Equivalents
 Old English
 Wicu
 Cyning (c-k)



Scort (sc=sh)
Gærs
Eorþ (þ & ð= th)
 deor
 cniht
 Modern English
 Week
 King
 Short
 Grass
 Earth
 Deer (orig. wild beast)
 Knight (orig. youth)

Book of Kells
 Early English bible
 Illuminated
 Lindesfarne Monastery

The Vikings Win, sort of . . .
 Ethelred the Unready
-weak king
-took throne at age 11
 King Canute crowned King of England,
1016

Structure of Anglo-Saxon society
 Eorls
--noble classes
(warriors, kings)
 Cheorls
--farmers, craftsmen