british culture and civilization ii

8/13/2019 British Culture and Civilization II

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Roman Society in Britain• Highly classified

– Top: people associated with the legions

the provincial administration

the government of towns

wealthy traderscommercial classes

At the lowest end: the slaves:

many of them were able to gain their freedom

might occupy important governmental posts

Women: rigidly circumscribed: not allowed to hold

public office, limited property rights



Achievements of the Roman Empire in

Britain•

One of the greatest: its system of roads – vital to link military headquarters, the

isolated forts, for speedy movement of

troops, munitions and supplies, for trade• London – chief administrative center

• They utilized bridges – not known in

Britain

• Communication with all parts of the

country



Conclusion

• The great mass of the British people did not

become Romanized

• The influence of the Roman thought that

survived in Britain was through the Church:

Christianity had replaced the old Celtic Gods

by the end of the 4th century



The Anglo-Saxon Conquest

•

The settlement of the Nordic Peoples is thegoverning event of British History

• The beginning of the first raids of Saxon

pirates on the coast of Roman Britain took

place well before 300AD

• It ends about 1020 when Canute completed

the Scandinavian conquest of England by

reconciling on equal terms the kindred races

of Saxon and Dane



• The attempt to Latinize the Celtic broke downbecause there were too few Romans

•The Nordic conquest of England had larger,permanent results because it was secured ona general displacement of Celtic by Nordicpeoples in the richest agricultural districts of

the island

• This distinctive character of the modernEnglish is Nordic tempered by Welsh

• In Scotland the Celtic element is radicallystronger, but here also the Nordic languageand character have prevailed



• NORDIC – the German, the Anglo-Saxon, and

the Scandinavian peoples of the 5th century

• FEATURES in common: – Common art of decorating weapons, jewelry

– Common customs of war and agriculture

– Allied languages

– Religion of Thor and Woden

– They had all originally come from the shores of

the BalticThe Jutes – settled in Kent and the Isle of Wight



• The Anglo-Saxons – settled the greater part of Britainbetween Forth and the borders of Cornwall

• Many of them were farmers, whalers, deep-sea fishermen,

seal-hunters• Fierce, courageous, loyal

• Followed their chief with great fidelity

• Form of government: autocratic kinship exercised by amember of the royal family

• Mutual aid to be rendered between all members of a wideclan

• Before their migration to Britain

• Tribalism was yielding to individualism

•

Kinship replaced by the relation between warriors andchief

• All these set the basis of aristocracy and the beginningof feudalism



• The naval military organization – based on thediscipline of the crew

• There are no authentic chronicles of the Saxonconquest

• the regions seized by the newcomers were mainlythose that had been most thoroughly Romanized,

regions where traditions of political and militaryself-help were at their weakest

• The Britons in their refuge among the Welshmountains relapsed into Celtic barbarism

• The Saxons – had a Runic alphabet

• Saint Augustine and his monks brought the Latinalphabet and the custom of written record

•Britain became the country of Pilgrim Fathers



• The Anglo-Saxons: – Were not city-dwellers

– Had no mercantile instincts

–

Were bloody-minded pirates – Destroyed a higher civilization than theirs

– The Roman roads helped to hasten the pace of conquest anddestruction

– The first results: to destroy the peace and unity of the Romanprovince

– Wore boar-head helmet, had spears and wooden shields

– Desire – to settle in large rural townships and toil the soil

– Britain in the 5th and 6th centuries: a fearsome chaos of warringtribes and kingdoms, public and private war was the rule

– the emergence of England as a nation did not begin as a resultof a quick, decisive victory over the native Britons, but as aresult of hundreds of years of settlement and growth

This is the sound basis of the new English civilization



Political Face of England• There were separate kingdoms in England, settled by Angles,

Saxons and Jutes whose areas, bit by bit, extended into the

Celtic regions: Northumbria in the north; Mercia westwards to

the River Severn and Wessex into Devon and Cornwall. In the

southeast, the kingdoms of Sussex and Kent had achieved

early prominence.

• Hengist and Horsa had arrived in Kent with a small fleet ofships in around 446 AD to aid the Britons in the defense of

their lands. They had been invited by British chief Vortigern to

fight the northern barbarians in return for pay and supplies,

but more importantly, for land• The invaders, who were Jutes, named the capital of their new

kingdom Canterbury, the borough of the people of the Cantii

• the first Anglo-Saxon kingdom in Britain was an Anglo-Celtic

kingdom, peopled by Anglo-Celts. The dynasty founded thereby Hengist lasted for three centuries



• thirty years after the arrival of Hengist to Britain,another chieftain named Aelle came to settle.

The leader of the South Saxons, Aella ruled thekingdom that became Sussex. Other kingdomswere those of the East Saxons (Essex); the MiddleSaxons (Middlesex), and the West Saxons,(Wessex) destined to become the most powerfulof all and one that eventually brought together allthe diverse people of England (named for theAngles) into one single nation.

• after the conversion of the Saxon peoples to

Christianity, written laws began to be enacted inEngland to provide appropriate penalties foroffenses against the Church



• In Kent, King Aethelbert (601-04) was the first to setdown the laws of his people in the English language; hislaws constitute by far the earliest body of law expressedin any Germanic language

• The Danes came in a huge fleet to London in 851 todestroy the army of Mercia and capture Canterbury. Theyhad begun their deprivations with the devastation ofLindisfarne in 793, and the next hundred years saw armyafter army crossing the North Sea, first to find treasure,and then to take over good, productive farm lands uponwhich to raise their families

• The turning point took place in 878. From the Chronicle,we learn of the decisive event that took place at Edington

(Ethandune), when Alfred "fought with the whole forceof the Danes and put them to flight, and rode after themto their fortifications and besieged them a fortnight”



• the rise and fall of successive English kingdoms during theseventh and eighth centuries: Kent, Northumbria, Mercia, andWessex

• a Northumbrian nobleman, Benedict Biscop, founded two

monasteries, Wearmouth (674) and Jarrow (681). Both wereto play important parts in the cultural phenomenon.

• Biscop made six journeys to Rome, acquiring many valuablemanuscripts

• "the Venerable Bede," - a monk who lived from 673-735. He

entered Jarrow at the age of seven• he became the most learned scholar of his time. Working in

the library with the manuscripts acquired by Benedict Biscop,he added greatly to its store of knowledge through hisvoluminous correspondence.

• His contemporary reputation rested on his biblical writingsand commentaries on the Scriptures as well as hischronological works that established a firm system ofcalculating the date of Easter. Bede's greatest work was hisEcclesiastical History of the English Nation.



Early National Poetry• English literature is considered either medieval or

modern• The medieval literature belongs to the era that

formed the bridge over which the worldadvanced from the confusion following the

collapse of Rome to the complex modern world.

• There are 2 periods:

– 1. the Anglo-Saxon period (670-1050) deals withlegendary literature of an ancient Northern people

– 2. the Middle English period (1050-1400) deals withthe experimental literature of an amalgam of races



The Old English Period

•The Old English period is generally grouped in2 main divisions: national and Christian

• To the former are assigned those poems of

which subjects are drawn from English, orrather Teutonic tradition and history or from

the customs of the English life

•

To the latter those which deal with Biblicalmatters, ecclesiastical traditions and religious

subjects of Christian origin



• Most of earlier national poems are

anonymous and belong to times anterior to

unification of England under King Alfred (AD886) – work of minstrels rather than of literary

men

• The earliest English poem written while theAnglo-Saxons were still on the continent is

“Widsith – the Song of a Traveler” – a kind of

travel journey in which a vagrant minstrel tellsus of the people he has visited and places to

which he has been



• Another of these poems is “Deor’s Complaint” – a lyrical cry of one bard about another and

more successful rival• The most important “Beowulf” which has

been presented practically complete in amanuscript in West Saxon dialect round

AD1000

• It developed orally and achieved its presentform during the 8th century in Mercia or

Northumberland. The setting is southernScandinavia in the Age of Migration of the 5th and 6th century



• It is an epic recording of great deeds of the heroicwarrior Beowulf

• The action of the poem is attached at manypoints to the history of Germanic Europe

• There is a Homeric greatness about theatmosphere of the poem

• The historical background is drawn with clearactuality and the character of Beowulf is picturedvigorously and impressively - one of the mostimportant monuments of Anglo-Saxon literature

• It paints simply and clearly the social customs ofancestors – how they lived in peace and war, howtheir towns and country places looked like, theirpleasures and their hardships

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