The Anglo-Saxons
Their History, Culture, Language,
and Literature
Unit Objectives and Skills
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CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.12.3 Analyze the
impact of the author’s choices regarding how
to develop and relate elements of a story or
drama (e.g., where a story is set, how the
action is ordered, how the characters are
introduced and developed).
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL12.5
Analyze how an author’s choices concerning
how to structure specific parts of a text (e.g.,
the choice of where to begin or end a story,
the choice to provide a comedic or tragic
resolution) contribute to its overall structure
and meaning as well as its aesthetic impact.
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Characterization – epic hero
Narrator bias
Author’s purpose
Author’s Choice:
Structure/Setting/Characterizat
ion
Tone
Point of View
Overview of Historical Events
 Ancient
Britain
 Roman Britain
 Coming of the Anglo-Saxons – The English
language begins
 Anglo-Saxon Culture, Religion, and Social Order
 Beginning of the literary tradition
 Second Viking invasion
Ancient Britain 2000 - 43 A.D.
 Inhabited
by Britons and Celtic people
 Farmers and hunters
 Society organized into clans
 Ruled by tribal chieftains elected from the class of
pagan priests, known as the Druids
Roman Britain 43 – 449 A.D.
43 A.D. – Romans, under Claudius’s rule, conquer
Britain.
 Brought their law, culture, comforts, and Latin language
to the land.
 The Celts become “Romanized,” tribal disputes stop, and
things are fairly peaceful.
 Britons were converted to Christianity with the rest of the
Roman Empire in the 4th century.
 5th century – Roman occupation ends.
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Arrival of the Anglo – Saxons
5th Century A.D.
 Withdrawal
of the Romans left the native Britons
vulnerable.
 Next 100 years – Britons were invaded by
seafaring, Germanic invaders.
 Three tribes known as Angles, Saxons, and Jutes.
 Invasion forced natives to retreat to Wales.
 Old English Period begins in 449.
Anglo-Saxon Occupational Areas
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Angles- Northern and
Midland Sections –
Northumbria, Mercia, East
Anglia
Saxons- Southern sections
– Wessex, Essex, Sussex
Jutes- Southeastern
Province, which became
the kingdom of Kent
Return
Anglo-Saxon Culture
A.S. brought legends about ancient German heroes and
kings.
 Warriors were celebrated in lays or songs sung at feasts by
a gleeman or scop.
 Lays accompanied by the harp or lyre.
 Songs composed orally – for entertainment, but also kept
history alive.
 Kings would entertain friends in mead halls, named for the
drink mead made from fermented honey.
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Anglo-Saxon Religious Beliefs
(Before Christianity)
 A.S.
were Pagans. Christianity of Roman times
kept alive only in remote regions.
 Every human life in the hands of fate.
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Worshipped ancient Norse gods: Tiu, god of war and the
sky; Woden (Odin), chief of the gods; and Fria (Freya),
Woden’s wife. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday
the Irish – which had their own Celtic
pantheon.
 Except
Anglo-Saxon Society
Organized into a class of warriors known as earls or
thanes.
 These warriors protected and were devoted to the king,
who was chosen by a witancouncil of elders.
 There was also a class of freemen known
as churls.
 Slaves were known as thralls.
 Women, as “peace-weavers”
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Return of Christianity
 All
of England converted to Christianity upon the
arrival of Augustine in 597 A.D.
 Augustine began by converting King Ethelbert of
Kent.
 Rest of England soon followed.
 Monasteries built.
 By 731 A.D.-Christianity well-rooted
The Scribes
 In
monasteries, scribes produced books by hand.
 Books were usually religious in nature.
 Focused on saints’ lives and sermons.
 There were also copies of the oral literature.
 Because of these Christian scribes, Anglo-Saxon
culture was recorded.
 “Father of English History” – the Venerable Bede,
a Northumbrian monk.
The Danish Invasion
 Vikings
(warriors) carried their piracy to the
British Isles, bringing destruction and fear.
 Despite England’s efforts to defend itself, most of
northern, eastern, and southern England fell to the
Danes by the middle of the ninth century.
 Only
the Saxon kingdom of Wessex fought the Danes
to a standstill.
Anglo-Saxon
Literary Themes
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Heroism and kingship – the relationship between kings and their
thanes (warriors).
Wergild- “man price” or retribution for the death of one’s family
member.
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After the arrival of Christianity, their relationship with God takes on
these themes.
Wyrd- “Fate” controlled one’s destiny.
Exile- the cost of being abandoned or apart from one’s tribe and
society.
Weapons of War
A Typical Village
Beowulf
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Archetypal Anglo-Saxon literary work and as a cornerstone of
modern literature, Beowulf
Beowulf was composed by an unknown Anglo-Saxon poet around
700 A.D., but much of its material had been in circulation in oral
narrative for many years.
Elements of the Beowulf story—including its setting and
characters—date back to the pe
The action of the poem takes place around 500 A.D.Many of the
characters in the poem—the Swedish and Danish royal family
members, for example—correspond to actual historical figures.riod
before the A-S migration.
Beowulf cont.
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Though still an old pagan story, Beowulf thus came to be told by a
Christian poet. The Beowulf poet is often at pains to attribute
Christian thoughts and motives to his characters, who frequently
behave in distinctly un-Christian ways. The Beowulf that we read
today is therefore probably quite unlike the Beowulf with which the
first Anglo-Saxon audiences were familiar.
The world thatBeowulf depicts and the heroic code of honor that
defines much of the story is a relic of pre–Anglo-Saxon culture.
Heorot – The Meadhall in Beowulf