Anglo-Saxon Literature
...priests, doctors, judges, scholars, diviner. Their name combines the words "oak" and "knowledge".
Celts workshipped the elements.
Stonehenge: most famous surviving circle; group of enormous blue stones placed in concentric circles; temple, astronomical observatory, site of pilgrimage; three phases and three groups of people Neolithic, Beaker, Wessex
The Roman conquest of Britain began in 55 BC with the invasion of Julius Caesar
Britain was first occupied in AD 43 under the reign of Emperor Claudius.
Many names of modern towns are formed by the suffix –chester (walled town) which derives from castra (military camp)
Most noticeable resistance: Queen Boudica
The economic system, based on a money economy and trade, was fully accepted
The Caledonians refused to be colonised and Emperor Hadrian built a wall to keep the northern raiders put of Roman Britain (Hadrian's Wall)
AD 409 Emperor Honorius was forced to pull his Roman legions out of England to defend Rome from Visigoths
Anglo-Saxon invaders : Angles, Saxons, Jutes
Britons suffered from internal division and to defend themselves from the Picts, the Irish as well as the Saxons
7 kingdoms: Kent, Sussex, Essex, East Angles, Northumbria, Mercia, Wessex.
Anglo-Saxons re-established pagan values
Runes were cryptic characters
In 597 a monk called Augustine was sent by the Pope Gregory I in England to re-establish Christianity. He became the first Archbishop of Canterbury.
Monasteries were centre of learning and culture; Wearmouth and Jarrow
Venerable Bede wrote the first important English history in Latin
The Vikings were excellent navigators; their ships, called longboats, were very well constructed and could sail extremely long distances.
Many monasteries were sacked and destroyed.
King Alfred the Great reconquered the lands the Vikings ad occupied by taking back London. He was the first to unite...
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