History Bridging Unit
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THE BISHOPS STORTFORD HIGH SCHOOL HISTORY BRIDGING UNIT 1 Contents Contents .................................................................................................................. 2 How to: Cornell note-taking ..................................................................................... 3 PART A - Tasks to complete BEFORE Results Day (June/July ..................................... 4 PART A – Anglo-Saxons, Task 1 ................................................................................ 5 PART A – Anglo-Saxons, Task 2 ................................................................................ 9 PART A – Russia 1894-1941, Task 1 ........................................................................ 11 PART A – Russia 1894, 1941, Task 2 ........................................................................ 11 PART B - Tasks to complete AFTER Results Day (August/September) ..................... 24 PART B – Anglo-Saxons Tasks ................................................................................. 25 PART B – Anglo-Saxons Reading and Viewing ......................................................... 26 PART B – Russia 1894-1941 Tasks ........................................................................... 27 PART B – Russia 1894-1941 Reading and Viewing................................................... 37 2 How to: Cornell note-taking You will need to make use of the Cornell note-taking technique for some of the reading tasks for this Bridging Unit. The technique was devised by Prof. Walter Pauk of Cornell University (part of the ‘Ivy League’ in the US of elite universities) in the 1950s. Science has proven that it is not only more efficient, but also makes it a lot easier to review notes, for example when preparing for an exam. 1. Make sure that every piece of work has a title: 2. Put a date for every piece This should relate specifically to the topic of work. (This will help you to (e.g. don’t just put keep work in order) “History” or “Classwork”) 6. Leave some space (approximately a fifth of the page) down the right hand side of the page. After a lesson/activity, you should cross-reference your notes with your textbook (or some other 4. In the margin put resource – an online lecture/an key words/key article from Modern History Review questions (you may do etc) this as you go, or add In this space, you can add them later, after the additional material/ideas that were lesson not covered in class to build up your understanding and subject knowledge. 5. Between each lesson, you should read back over your notes, to consolidate your knowledge and prepare for the next lesson. As you re-read your work: (i) highlight your notes (you could use different colours e.g. orange for key words/terminology, yellow for evidence, green for quotes) (ii) Write a brief summary of the most important points from the lesson at the bottom of your page (e.g. three bullet points or 100 word) 3 PART A - Tasks to co mplete BEFORE Results Day (June/July Tasks to complete BEFORE Results Day (June/July 4 PART A – Anglo-Saxons, Task 1 Introduction to the Viking Wars Adapted from Whittock, M. & H.; The Viking Blitkrieg: AD 789-1098 Read through the below extract. Summarise the “Key features of early Anglo-Saxon England and Viking Raids”, in no more than four pages of A4. You must decide which information is most important. It is recommended that you use the Cornell Note-Taking Method (see information in the work pack). The Viking Wars are more than just a feature of the second half of that period of time we call ‘Anglo- Saxon England’ – they radically altered its entire landscape. Indeed, it can be argued that, unintentionally, they helped to create the united ‘England’ from a patchwork of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms which characterized the ninth century. The Viking Wars made ‘England’, and did so as much in people’s heads as in their institutions and archaeology. For twenty-first century readers these wars strike familiar chords: there are debates about the ‘clash of civilizations’; we see the stresses and strains inherent in the formation of a multi-cultural society; national identities are questioned, forged and challenged; religion, economics and power-politics intersect, interact and, at times, explode; immigrants and native inhabitants both clash and cooperate; and propaganda is created and re-created in a battle for hearts and minds. So how did the Viking Wars begin? And, more importantly, what kind of ‘England’ did they explode into? ‘England’ before the Vikings First of all, it is important to gain some context and understanding about what the Anglo-Saxon ‘England’ actually looked like at the outset of the Viking Wars. For one thing, it was barely an ‘England’ at all. The Romans ruled our island, at the time called the province of Britannia, for almost 350 years – almost as long as between our own time and that of the English Civil War in the 1600s. The Roman period in Britain is often said to have ended in the year AD 410, when the Roman emperor Honorius supposedly told the native Britons (or ‘Celts’) to look to their own defences, as he and his troops were needed to return and defend Rome itself from barbarian attacks. Once the last Roman legions had left, Britain, and its wealth, became vulnerable to external invasion. Britain, or ‘Britannia’, had never been entirely subdued by the Romans. In the far north – what we now think of as modern Scotland – there were tribes who defied the Romans, especially the Picts. The Romans built a great barrier, Hadrian’s Wall, to keep them out of the civilised and prosperous part of Britain. 5 However, as soon as Roman power began to wane, these defences were degraded, and in AD 367 the Picts smashed through them. Gildas, a monk and Briton who wrote a history of his times in around the AD 540s, says that Saxon war- bands were hired to defend Britain from these onslaughts when the Roman army had left. So, the Anglo-Saxons were invited immigrants. Who were these men, who would eventually give their name to the land, and from where did they come? They were a hard people, excellent seamen and fighters, who proved themselves to be good farmers. There were Jutes, who may have come from Denmark and given their name to Jutland, Saxons from Frisia and north Germany, and Angles who occupied the land called Angle between the Saxons and the Jutes. Initially, these mixed groups of Germanic warriors fought on behalf of the Britons, protecting them from their Pictish neighbours. However, quickly realising that their employers could not protect themselves, they raised their demands for food and pay. When they were not met, they turned their swords against them. Resistance to the invaders by the native Celts and Britons was irregular; but we know it existed, even if the details are vague. Legendary heroes such as the Romano-British chief Arturius (King Arthur) fought bravely and at times successfully; but they could do little more than check the invaders. Eventually, after the native Britons were completely crushed, seven major Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were carved out of the conquered areas: Northumbria (lands north of the River Humber), East Anglia (the East Angles), Essex (East Saxons), Sussex (South Saxons), Kent, Wessex (West Saxons) and Mercia. All these nations were fiercely independent, and although they shared similar languages, pagan religions, and socio-economic and cultural ties, they were absolutely loyal to their own kings and very competitive, especially in their favourite pastime – war. At first they were pre-occupied fighting the Britons, who were gradually pushed back into what we now think of as Wales (from the Old English ‘wealas’ – meaning foreigner). However, as soon as they had consolidated their power-centres they immediately commenced armed conflict with each other. In the ensuing years, these ‘Anglo-Saxon’ kingdoms would become Christian - one reason why they converted was because the church said that the Christian God would deliver them victory in battles. 6 It was into this island of distinct Anglo-Saxon kingdoms that the Vikings would explode onto the scene in the late eighth century, and force them to gradually unite into one, single country by the 900s – ‘Angle’-land, or England. Lindisfarne: A 9/11 moment? Every educated Anglo-Saxon – whether monk, nun or noble – would probably have been able to recall where they were when they first heard the news that the monastery of Lindisfarne (Northumbria) had been sacked, in 793. Situated at the end of a causeway, off the coast of the northern Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria, Lindisfarne was a spiritual, cultural and intellectual powerhouse. Not for nothing is it still known as Holy Island. Then, in 793, the place was trashed by a band of seafaring, pagan, Scandinavian pirates – Vikings. We know a great deal about what happened during the raid from the later historian Simeon of Durham (AD 1060 – AD1129), who in his chronicle ‘Historia Regum’ writes that: ‘…They came to the church of Lindisfarne, laid everything waste with grievous plundering, trampled the holy places with polluted steps, dug up the altars and seized all the treasures of the holy church. They killed some of the brothers, took some away with them in chains, many they drove out, naked and loaded with insults, some they drowned in the sea…’ A carved stone found on the island, known as the ‘Viking Raider Stone’ or ‘Doomsday Stone’, could also potentially represent the Viking attack on the monastery, or conversely, Anglo-Saxon warriors defending Lindisfarne from attack. This Viking raid was not the first in England. A few years before, in 789, ‘three ships of northmen’ had landed on the coast of Wessex, and killed the king’s reeve who had been sent to bring the strangers to the West Saxon court. But the assault on Lindisfarne was different because it attacked the sacred heart of the Northumbrian kingdom, desecrating ‘the very place where the Christian religion began in our nation’. It was where the patron saint of Northumbria, St Cuthbert (d. 687) had been bishop, and where his body was now revered as that of a saint.