The Vikings

West Country Sussex

Kent

The Anglo-Saxons England was a network of small kingdoms. They established Seven Kingdoms, known as the Heptarchy. Some of which still exist in county or regional names to this day: Essex (East Saxons), Sussex (South Saxons), Wessex (West Saxons); East Anglia (East Angels), Mercia [mә:∫jә], North u mbria [٨]; Jutes – Kent.

The Anglo-Saxon introduced a heavy plough which was more effective than anything else used before. They organized the system of agriculture and trade.

Their families and tribes were very strong. Each member of them was loyal to his king or chief.

The Anglo-Saxons spoke a Germanic language which forms the basis of modern English. This language was modified by the arrival of Viking invaders (Viking probably means either “pirates” or “the people of the sea inlets”).

Alfred the Great – king of Wessex (871 -899). He is remembered for defending England against Danish attacks, for establishing the English Navy, and for encouraging education and the use of the English language. There is a popular story of King Alfred and the cakes. After the battle he was hiding in a woman’s house. Not knowing who he was, she told him to look after her cakes which were cooking by the fire, and then became very angry when he let them burn. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle –an early history of England, written in Old English. It ends in the 12^th century, but mostly covers the period from the time when the Romans came to Britain until the Norman Conquest. Bede, the Venerable Bede (c. 673 – 735) – an English monk and historian. A his monastery in Jarrow in the north-east England, he wrote many books, the most important of which, Ecclesiastical History of the English People, written in Latin, was the first serious work of English history. Beowulf- is an Old English heroic elegy of anonymous authorship (assigned to the period 700-1000). As the single major surviving work of Anglo-Saxon heroic poetry, the work – in spite of dealing mainly with the Scandinavian matters - has risen to such prominence that it has become ‘England’s national epos’. In the poem, Beowulf, a hero of the Geats, battles three antagonists: Grendel, who is destroying Heorot and its inhabitants in Denmark, Grendel’s mother, and later in life (after he is King) a dragon. He is mortally wounded in the final battle, and after his death is buried in a barrow by his retainers.

By the end of the eight century the British Isles were subjected to one more invasion by non-Christian people from Scandinavia. They were called Norsemen or Danes, or Vikings. The Vikings were brilliant sailors, they had the fastest boats in Europe, that were moving powered by sail. They crossed the Atlantic and founded a colony in North America 500 years before Columbus.

The Vikings began with short raids – they did not stay long, but later, when they learned that the English had no navy to fight on the sea, and no good soldiers to defend their homes, more and more began to come, till in 865 they began to settle down and finally conquered a large part of England. This time they came to conquer and to settle down. They established their “Viking rule”, called Danelaw, the land where the law of the Danes ruled. Step by step, they tried to conquer all the territory of Britain.

The Vikings quickly accepted Christianity and did not disturb the local population (in the last hundred years of Roman government – in the early fourth century AD – Christianity became firmly established across Britain, both in Roman controlled areas and beyond, bringing paganism to an end. Christian missionaries came from other parts of the Roman Empire to bring Christianity to the people. England was a Roman Catholic country until 1534).

Viking rule left significant traces in the English language. These Scandinavian settlers spoke Old Norse, which was related to Anglo-Saxon, and which is the parent language of modern Danish. The similarity of Old English and Old Norse led to much borrowing. The mixing of the two languages greatly enriched the English vocabulary.

Дата добавления: 2014-01-11