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English 12 Unit 2 (part 1) The Anglo Saxon Period (449-1066)

Historical Background: Ancient Britain: The Anglo-Saxons were not the first people to occupy Britain. One of the earliest groups to inhabit the island was the Britons, a Celtic people who divided Britain into several primitive kingdoms consisting of scattered forms and villages. The legendary King Arthur was probably a Celtic chieftain. The Britons were subdued by the great conquerors of the ancient world the Romans. By 40 B.C., Roman troops had conquered southern Britain, and Britannia had become a province of the empire. It was during the Roman occupation that Christianity came to the British Isles. Roman culture greatly influenced the Britons. Throughout southern Britain, the ruins of ancient fortifications, town, villas, and roads remain as evidence of Romes presence. When the empire began to crumble, Rome lost her hold on distant provinces. As Roman troops were withdrawn to defend the imperial city against barbarian invaders, Britain became vulnerable to invasion. The Anglo Saxons The Germanic Anglo-Saxons came to Britain shortly after Rome abandoned it in the fifth century. Accustomed to the protection of Roman troops, the Britons were easily conquered. Many escaped to join other Celts in Ireland, Scotland, or Wales, leaving England to be divided among the Anglo-Saxons. One important development of the Anglo-Saxon period was the introduction of Roman Catholicism to England (Angle-land). Pope Gregory the Great appointed the missionary Augustine to convert the pagan Anglo-Saxons in 587. By A.D. 600, all of England had officially adopted the Roman religion. Romanism would remain the official religion of England for a thousand years. Except for two brief interludes during which the Vikings (particularly the Danes) ruled England, the Germanic Anglo-Saxons remained in power until the French Normans conquered Britain in 1066. Perhaps the best-known king of the Anglo-Saxon period was Alfred the Great, who bravely led his people against the Danes, Alfred promoted learning and had several books translated into the Anglo-Saxon language. He also initiated a running account of current events in England, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which continued to be written for hundreds of years.** see more on Alfred in notes.

English 12 Unit 2 (part 1) The Anglo Saxon Period (449-1066)

Anglo-Saxon Poetry: Anglo-Saxon literature was poetry not prose. It followed the following format: 1. Each line of verse has four principle beats (accented syllables) 2. Usually two or three of the accented syllables are alliterated. 3. The lines are unrhymed Literary Terms to Know: 1. 2. 3. 4. Caesurea: a pause or break in a line of poetry Accent: the stressing of certain syllables or words Alliteration: the repetition of the same consonant sounds Parallelism: The repetition of ideas in slightly differing form; the construction of two or more thoughts in the same pattern. 5. Kenning: Metaphorical, compound words or phrases that refer to persons, places, or things. Kennings are a characteristic of Anglo-Saxon poetry.

English 12 Unit 2 (part 1) The Anglo Saxon Period (449-1066) From the Ecclesiastical History of the English People
The Venerable Bede
Author: The Venerable Bede (673-735), the founder of English history, was the greatest writer of his time. He knew Latin, Greek, and Hebrew and wrote over forty textbooks on a variety of subjects. He wrote in Latin, except for his English translation of the Gospel of John. His most important work was the Ecclesiastical History of the English

People.

Points to Consider: Bedes Ecclesiastical History is a five-volume Latin work that covers nearly 800 years of English history, from Julius Caesars invasion in 55 B.C. to A.D. 731, when Bede finished his work. From this work comes most of our knowledge of early English history. The first part of Bedes history tells of King Edwins conversion to Catholicism.
The Conversion of King Edwin The Angles of Northumbria had received the teaching of the Catholic faith from the missionary Paulinus, but their king, Edwin, was hesitant to embrace it. As he was thinking about which religion he should follow, the old pagan religion of his people or Catholicism, the missionary came to him. Paulinus urged King Edwin to delay no longer and reminded him of the promise he had made to convert if God blessed him with victory. The king consulted his advisors, asking what each man thought of he new doctrine, Coifi, the chief of the pagan priests, answered that their pagan gods had not benefited them in any way. He concluded that if the new doctrine seemed better, they should accept them without delay. Another man agreed and added that since mans life is brief, and life beyond the grave is uncertain, they might do well to follow this new religion. The kings other advisors agreed. See the original of this speech in your text: The present life of man, O king, seems to me, in comparison of that time which is unknown to us, like to the swift flight of a sparrow through the room wherein you sit at supper in winter, with your commanders and ministers, and a good fire in the midst, whilst the storms of rain and snow prevail abroad; the sparrow, I say flying in at one door, and immediately out at another, whilst he is within, is safe from the wintry storm; but after a short space of fair weather, he immediately vanishes out of your sight, into the dark winter from which he had emerged. So this life of man appears for a short space, but of what went before, or what is to follow, we are utterly ignorant. If, therefore, this new doctrine contains something more certain, it seems justly to deserve to be followed.

English 12 Unit 2 (part 1) The Anglo Saxon Period (449-1066)

The famous sparrow simile from this selection was used over one thousand years later by the English Romantic poet William Wordsworth in one of his Ecclesiastical Sonnets Persuasion The following is copied from www.everypoet.com:
PERSUASION William Wordsworth "MAN'S life is like a Sparrow, mighty King! "That--while at banquet with your Chiefs you sit "Housed near a blazing fire--is seen to flit "Safe from the wintry tempest. Fluttering, "Here did it enter; there, on hasty wing, "Flies out, and passes on from cold to cold; "But whence it came we know not, nor behold "Whither it goes. Even such, that transient Thing, "The human Soul; not utterly unknown "While in the Body lodged, her warm abode; "But from what world She came, what woe or weal "On her departure waits, no tongue hath shown; "This mystery if the Stranger can reveal, "His be a welcome cordially bestowed!"

Points to Consider (cont.): The second part of Bedes Ecclesiastical History of the English People tells the story of Caedmon, the herdsman who became the first Anglo-Saxon poet whose name we know. The only authentic work of Caedmon that has survived is his first hymn, quoted here by Bede. The Story of Caedmon Caedmon was an ordinary layman who served in a monastery and had no natural ability for poetry of music. When his companions began to sing in turns, he would get up and leave, One evening, he left the house to avoid singing and found a place in a stable to rest. While he slept, a man appeared to Caedmon in a dream and addressed him by name. He asked for a song, and when Caedmon refused, the stranger told him he would indeed sing, and that he would sing of spiritual things. In response, Caedmon began to sing praised to God for His work as Creator. The next morning when Caedmon awoke, he remembered his dream and the song he had composed. He went to his supervisor and told him of the gift he had received. The man took him to the abbess, Caedmon left his secular life, joined the monastery, and became a monk.

Caedmons Hymn
ca. 737
Nu scylun hergan hefaenricaes uard Now let me praise the keeper of Heaven's kingdom, metuds maecti end his modgidanc the might of the Creator, and his thought, uerc uuldurfadur sue he uundra gihuaes the work of the Father of glory, how each of wonders eci dryctin or astelid the Eternal Lord established in the beginning. he aerist scop aelda barnum He first created for the sons of men heben til hrofe haleg scepen. Heaven as a roof, the holy Creator, tha middungeard moncynns uard then Middle-earth the keeper of mankind, eci dryctin fter tiad the Eternal Lord, afterwards made, firum foldu frea allmectig the earth for men, the Almighty Lord.

6 FYI: King Alfred the Great (849-899): During the period of the 9th and early tenth centuries Wessex (West Saxon) became the center of intellectual, literary, and political life. Beginning during the reign of Alfred the Great, King of Wessex, became the founder of English prose and the first English man of letters who was not a churchman. Alfred brought together scholars to begin a project of educational reform. He commissioned the translation of many historical and intellectual texts into Old English including Bedes Ecclesiastical History of the English People so that Englishmen could read their own history in their own language. Under King Alfred and his successors, the West Saxon dialect of Old English became the literary standard of the English Language. (Caedmons Hymn was originally Northumbrian another of the OE dialects, but was re-written in West Saxon which is the form it survives in today.) Unfortunately, By the middle of the 12th century, most of this work and the Old English language itself was gone having been replaced following the Norman Conquest with Latin and Norman French. ** rewriting all of the other OE dialects into West Saxon would be similar to taking regional American dialects and rewriting them into one standard imagine if Mark Twains writings were rewritten in the dialect of Boston, or Brooklyn!** FYI: Old English: Throughout Anglo-Saxon history, especially during the 8th and 9th centuries, England was subject to raids, incursions, and settlements by Vikings, Danes, and Scandinavians who came to plunder and to live. The Germanic languages shared sounds and words but the Scandinavian pronunciation was different from Old English. (the following notes are taken from the 1998 course guidebook to The History of the English Language taught by Professor Seth Lerer at Stanford University ) Old English made new words in four ways: A. Determinative compounding: Common to all the Germanic languages, this kind of compounding forms new words by yoking together two normally independent nouns: e.g., earhring (earring); bocstaef (bookstaff, i.e, letter); or an adjective and a noun, e.g., middangeard (middle yard, i.e., earth); federhoma (feather coat, i.e., plumage); banlocan (bone locker, i.e., body). Many of these words make up the unique poetic vocabulary of OE literature, especially in metaphorical constructions known as kennings: e.g., hronrad (whale road, or sea). B. Repetitive compounding: bringing together words that are very nearly identical, or that complement and reinforce each other for specific effect. Thus, holtwudu (wood wood, forest); gangelwaefre (going about one, swift moving one, in OE reserved as the word for spider); under this class is the later compound flutterby, which was transposed in Modern English into butterfly. C. Noun-adjective formations: graesgrene (grass green); lofgeorn (praise eager); goldhroden (gold adorned). In Modern English, this form of compounding is revived in such phrases as kingemperor or fighter-bomber. D. Prefix formations: here, as in other Germanic languages, the most common way of creating new words. OE had many prefixes that derived from prepositions and that altered the meaning of words in special ways. Thus an (back,after) combined with swear (oath) = answer (oath back); with (against) combined with stand = withstand.

7 III. There existed an Old English literary language. A. For the most part, many of the words mentioned here are nouns. Indeed, most of the words that survive into Modern English from OE are nouns and pronouns. OE seems to have a tendency to develop large classes of nouns groups of synonyms for clarifying concepts through repletion and restatement, rather than (as we do now) through progressively more distinctive adjectives or adverbs. OE literar diction is primarily nominal; that is, it hinges on forms of repetition and restatement, using synonyms to bring together various connotations of a thing or idea to enrich its resonance. B. The earliest English poem and the nature of the OE poetic vocabulary Caedmons Hymn, composed between 657 and 680, is the first example we have of OE verse. It appears in manuscripts from the early eighth century; it is purportedly oral in composition. 1. It is alliterative in metrical organization. OE poetry, lie all old Germanic poetry, uses alliteration (the repetition of an initial consonant or vowel sound) rather than rhyme, as its principle of organization. 2. It is oral and formulaic; that is, it relies on set formulae or stock phrases to drive home its meaning and effect. IV. Analyzing Caedmons Hymn provides an insight into literary Old English. A. In terms of vocabulary, we note the words for God. Caedmon adopts the older, mythological and pagan/secular words for rulership to a newer Christian purpose. B. As for compounds, Caedmon relies on the older OE compounding techniques to express traditional concepts traditionally. C. His idioms for creation recall the Old Norse creation myths, the building of the hall of the gods (Valhalla). By using familiar words, he depicts a diverse but unified portrait of God. D. Caedmons Hymn is the first example we have of an attempt to express Christian conceptions of creation in native Germanic form. Its use of language therefore tells us much about the interrelationships between the pagan and Christian, between English and Latin, and between doctrine and poetry. E. We learn three things from this study. 1. Caedmon translates Christian concepts into the older vocabulary of Creation myth and social rulership. 2. He uses the forms of oral-formulaic, alliterative English verse to express new Christian ideas. 3. His poem illustrates the principles of OE word formation by making compound words and, especially, new nouns.