Old English: external history
Mid-5th century AD:
Some of the West Germanic tribes cross the sea to Great Britain
Source: Gildasʼ On the conquest of Britain (6th c.) and Bedeʼs History (cca. 730) Old English: external history
Romans abandon Britain some time after 400
Angles, Saxons, Jutes (?) migrate to Great Britain, defeat Britons (Celtic speakers, cf. Picts & Scots)
Some Britons migrate to Armorica (now Brittany – hence Great Britain!) Old English: external history
A number of kingdoms form (heptarchy), Northumbria, then Mercia dominant in 7th–8th c.
Christianity partly from British, partly from Roman missionaries
Rome: St Augustine (not of Hippo) 597, Canterbury
Wessex dominant from 9th c. on; king Alfred Old English: external history
Viking (speakers of Old Norse) raids from ~800 then settlement, large part of England under Danish rule strong impact on the language!
(but, in fact, Old English and Old Norse were closely related) Old English: external history
Alfred king of Wessex (871–899)
Reorganisation of finances, code of laws
First great period of English literacy!
(although we have some written documents already after 700, in the Northumbrian and Mercian dialects)
Translation of earlier works from Latin; Anglo-Saxon Chronicles (year-by-year narration of events)
(early West Saxon dialect) Old English: external history
10th century
By middle of 10th c., all England unified under Wessex
Monastic revival after 940: ultimately from Cluny (Burgundy 910, reform movement with strong impact all over Western Europe) – spirituality, revival of learning, new monasteries
● Dunstan (Archbishop of Cantebury) ● Aethelwold (Bishop of Winchester) ● Oswald (Bishop of Worcester, then Archbishop of York) Old English: external history
Around 1000
Politically difficult period: successful Danish attacks, Anglo- Danish state (Canute)
But great time for learning! Much written in English (late West Saxon dialect), mainly for education (treatises, homilies, lives of Saints)
● Aelfric (Abbot at Eynsham) ● Wulfstan (Archbishop of York)
Much of what we have and read in Old English is by them. Old English: external history
After 1066 (Battle of Hastings)
After some confusion about succession (Danish? Norman?), William of Normandy defeats the English (Harold), and becomes king.
The Normans spoke French, though they were orginally Vikings.
Even after 1066, Normans were a minority, but they were the top of society: landowners, bishops, abbots. Old English: external history
After 1066 (Battle of Hastings)
English continued to be the language of the vast majority of the population.
But in many monasteries, copying English texts was no longer seen as important, and Aelfricʼs example was followed less and less.
English texts of the 12th century are much more varied (and the language also changes). Old English: external history
Form of writing: Runic
Common to Germanic, but in various forms (Scandinavian vs. West Germanic, with a few specific English letters)
Few Old English inscriptions remain (~ 70), most short, not all are understood and not all can be dated; 5th–10th c. origin of runic script:
Phoenician Greek Etruscan Gmc runes
Latin script Old English: external history
Form of writing: Runic
Example: Franks casket (8th c. whalebone box with rich decoration) Old English: external history
source: babelstone.co.uk Old English: external history
source: babelstone.co.uk Old English: external history
Runic graffiti of English names in Garigliano, Italy, ~8th c.
WIGFUS
HERRÆD
source: Helen Foxhall Forbes ʻWriting on the wallʼ in Journal of Late Antiquity 12 (2019) Old English: external history Old English: external history Old English: external history
Form of writing: insular hand (Latin bookhand) – only in the British Isles