Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies English Language and Literature Anna Šerbaumová Anglo-Saxons and English Identity Master’s Diploma Thesis Supervisor: Dr., M.A. Stephen Paul Hardy, Ph. D. 2010 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. V Plzni dne 22.11.2010 …………………………………………… I would like to thank my supervisor Dr., M.A. Stephen Paul Hardy, Ph.D. for his advice and comments, and my family and boyfriend for their constant support. Table of Contents 0 Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 1 1 Anglo-Saxon Period (410–1066) ........................................................................................... 4 1.1 Anglo-Saxon Settlement in Britain ................................................................................ 4 1.2 A Brief History of the Anglo-Saxon Period ................................................................... 5 1.3 ―Saxons‖,― English‖ or ―Anglo-Saxons‖? ..................................................................... 7 1.4 The Origins of English Identity and the Venerable Bede .............................................. 9 1.5 English Identity in the Ninth Century and Alfred the Great‘s Preface to the Pastoral Care ...................................................................................................... 15 1.6 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 17 2 The Conquered England (1066–1204) ................................................................................. 19 2.1 The Norman Conquest ................................................................................................. 19 2.2 The English and Norman Identities in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries ................ 20 2.3 English Identity and the Anglo-Saxons in William of Malmesbury‘s Deeds of the Kings of the English ..................................................................................................... 22 2.4 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 25 3 The Late Middle Ages (1204–1485) .................................................................................... 27 3.1 England, English Identity and the Anglo-Saxons in the Late Middle Ages ................. 27 3.2 The Romance of Guy of Warwick ............................................................................... 31 3.3 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 36 4 The Tudor Age (1485–1603) ............................................................................................... 38 4.1 England, English Identity and the Anglo-Saxons in the Tudor Age ............................ 38 4.2 Matthew Parker‘s A Testimony of Antiquity ............................................................... 41 4.3 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 45 5 The Early Stuarts (1603–1660) ............................................................................................ 47 5.1 England under the Early Stuarts and the Uses of Anglo-Saxon Past in the Construction of English Identity during the Civil War ...................................... 47 5.2 John Hare‘s St. Edward‘s Ghost, or Anti-Normanism ................................................. 50 5.3 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 53 6 From Restoration until 1789 ................................................................................................ 55 6.1 England after the Restoration and the Revival of Interest in the Anglo-Saxon Past .... 55 6.2 Daniel Defoe‘s The True-Born Englishman ................................................................ 58 6.3 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 61 7 The Nineteenth Century (1789–1914) ................................................................................. 63 7.1 The Nineteenth Century and the Racialization of the Myth of the Anglo-Saxon past ............................................................................................... 63 7.2 Charles Dickens‘s A Child‘s History of England ........................................................ 65 7.3 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 68 8 After the Second World War (1945–2010) ......................................................................... 69 8.1 The United Kingdom after the Second World War: the Crisis of English Identity and the Decline of Interest in Anglo-Saxon Past? ....................................................... 69 8.2 Geraldine McCaughrean‘s Britannia: 100 Great Stories from British History ........... 77 8.3 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 80 9 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 81 10 Works Cited ......................................................................................................................... 86 11 Resumé ................................................................................................................................ 96 12 Summary ............................................................................................................................. 97 0 Introduction The Norman Conquest is generally considered to be the end of what we call Anglo-Saxon England. However, Anglo-Saxon England remained a vital cultural construct in post-Conquest England. In fact, ―the remembrance and re-imagining of Anglo-Saxon England in the post-conquest period is part of an ongoing cultural process that began from the first moment that William stood among the slain Anglo-Saxon nobles after the battle of Hastings,‖ writes Robert Allen Rouse in the first chapter of his book The Idea of Anglo-Saxon England in Middle English Romance (1). When, in the introduction to Anglo-Saxonism and the Construction of Social Identity, Allen J. Frantzen and John D. Niles define what they mean by Anglo- Saxonism, they claim that it is ―the process through which a self-conscious national and racial identity first came into being among the early peoples of the region that we now call England and how, over time, through both scholarly and popular promptings, that identity was transformed into an originary myth available to a wide variety of political and social interests‖ (1). However, this collection of essays explores Anglo-Saxonism only in certain periods of time and in different parts of the world ranging from the United States to England and Scandinavia. My thesis further develops the concepts put forward in this work. I argue that the perceptions of the Anglo-Saxon past played an important role in English history and that they were used in various ways in the construction of English national identity, each period of English history appropriating the Anglo-Saxon past in its own way according to its current needs. Therefore, the aim of this thesis is to demonstrate systematically how the Anglo- Saxon past was viewed in different periods of English history, from the Anglo-Saxon period until the twentieth century, and how (if at all) it influenced the development of English identity. I am primarily concerned with the history and identity of England and the English, not with that of Britain, though it is inevitably connected. As investigating popular perceptions of identity in the past is extremely difficult, I will rather concentrate on how writers throughout the ages attempted to shape English identity through their works. Each period of English history will be investigated mainly through one work of a contemporary author. 1 All chapters, which are named after the period of English history which they deal with, are structured similarly. First, I introduce the given historical period and the main developments relevant to the evolution of English identity at the time. Then, I summarize what has been argued about the perception of the Anglo-Saxons and the development of English identity during the period. In the final part of each chapter, I analyze one work by an English author dealing with the Anglo-Saxon past. In chapter one, I provide a brief account of the origins of the Anglo-Saxon settlement in England and the evolution of England during the Anglo-Saxon period. Then, I describe the origins and meanings of the terms ―Saxon,‖ ―English‖ and ―Anglo- Saxon‖ as well as how the meanings of these terms have changed throughout history. Finally, I attempt to find out when the world first saw an ―English identity‖ and how that identity was viewed at this early point in history by analyzing the eighth-century Ecclesiastical History of the English People by the monk Venerable Bede and the ninth- century preface to the Pastoral Care by King Alfred the Great. Chapter two is devoted to the period between the Norman Conquest of 1066 and the beginning of the thirteenth century. I focus on the impact