Transcript Alfred the Great

The Languages in England
before English.
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Living:
English
Welsh
Scots
Irish
Angloromani
Scottish Gaelic
Cornish
Anglic
Insular Celtic
 Mixed:
 Angloromani
 Shelta
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Extinct:
Insular Celtic
Brythonic
Cumbric
Galwegian Gaelic
Pictish
Old English
Middle English
Yola
Early Scots
Middle Scots
Old Norse
Norn
Romani
Welsh Romani
Anglo-Norman
The Romans in Britain.
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The first direct Roman contact came when the
Roman general and future dictator, Julius Caesar,
made two expeditions to Britain in 55 and 54 BC.
The first expedition, more a reconnaissance than a
full invasion, gained a foothold on the coast of Kent.
Romanization of the Island.
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 Roman Britain, referred to by the Romans as Britannia, controlled
by the Roman Empire from AD 43 until ca. AD 410.
 The Roman empire was based on two things: lip service to the
emperor, and payment to the army.
 The residual Latin from the Roman occupation of the island was
virtually nothing.
 All those English places ending in '-chester' got that from Latin
'castra' - they were places Romans had built a military camp, called
'castra' in Latin.
The Germanic Conquest/The
Arrival Of the Anglo-Saxons
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 The Germanic peoples (also called Teutonic or Gothic in
older literature) are an Indo-European ethno-linguistic
group of Northern European origin.
 The term Anglo-Saxon is used by some historians to
designate the Germanic tribes who invaded and settled the
south and east of Britain beginning in the early 5th century
and the period from their creation of the English nation up
to the Norman conquest.
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 The Angles, may have come from Angeln (in modern
Germany): Bede(a monk) wrote that their whole nation
came to Britain, leaving their former land empty.
 The name England (Old English: Engla land or Ængla
land) originates from this tribe.
 The Saxons, from Lower Saxony (in modern Germany;
German: Niedersachsen) and the Low Countries.
 The Jutes, possibly from the Jutland peninsula (in modern
Denmark).
Anglo-Saxon Civilization.
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 The term Anglo-Saxon can be found in documents produced
in the time of Alfred the Great.
 In their earliest sense they referred to the nation of Germanic
peoples who settled eastern Britain from the 5th century.
 The history of Anglo-Saxon England broadly covers early
medieval England, from the end of Roman rule and the
establishment of numerous Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in the 5th
century until the Norman conquest of England by the
Normans in 1066.
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 Aethelbert of Kent as being dominant at the close of the 6th
century.
 He and some of the later kings of the other kingdoms were
recognised by their fellow kings as Bretwalda (ruler of Britain).
 Aethelbald and Offa, the two most powerful kings, achieved
high status.
 This period has been described as the Heptarchy. The Heptarchy
is a collective name applied to the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of
south, east, and central Great Britain during late antiquity and
the early Middle Ages.
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 It is conventionally identified as seven: Northumbria, Mercia,
East Anglia, Essex, Kent, Sussex and Wessex.
 By convention the label (Heptarchy) is considered to cover the
period from 500 CE to 850 CE, often referred to as the Dark
Ages.
 Which approximately represents the period following the
departure of Roman legions from Britain until the unification
of the kingdoms under Egbert of Wessex(King of Wessex from
802 until his death in 839).
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Viking Age,the Norman
Conquest & Danelaw(800–1066)
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 The Viking Age was a period in European history, especially
Northern European and Scandinavian history, spanning the late 8th
to 11th centuries.
 From around 800, waves of Danish assaults on the coastlines of the
British Isles were gradually followed by a succession of Danish
settlers.
 In England the Viking Age began dramatically on 8 June 793 when
Vikings destroyed the abbey on Lindisfarne, a centre of learning
famous across the continent.
 In the 9th century, the Viking challenge grew to serious proportions.
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 Alfred the Great's victory at Edington, Wiltshire, in 878
brought intermittent peace, but with their possession of
Jorvik, the Danes gained a solid foothold in England.
 One of the reasons of the abrupt erupt in violence was due
to the attempt to Christianize the Vikings, their (the
Vikings) homelands for more religious freedom .
 They did not appreciate Christianity being forced upon
them. The Vikings were mostly Pagan.
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 Danish raiders first began to settle in England from 865, in East
Anglia.
 They soon moved north and in 867 captured Northumbria and its
capital, York, defeating both the recently deposed King Osberht of
Northumbria, as well as the usurper Ælla of Northumbria.
 The Danes then placed an Englishman, Ecgberht I of Northumbria,
on the throne of Northumbria as a puppet.
 King Æthelred of Wessex and his brother, Alfred, led their army
against the Danes at Nottingham, but the Danes refused to leave their
fortifications.
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 King Burgred of Mercia then negotiated peace with Ivar,
with the Danes' keeping Nottingham in exchange for
leaving the rest of Mercia alone.
 Under Ivar the Boneless, the Danes continued their
invasion in 869 by defeating King Edmund of East Anglia
at Hoxne and conquering East Anglia.
 Once again, the brothers Æthelred and Alfred attempted
to stop Ivar by attacking the Danes at Reading. They were
repelled with heavy losses
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 The Danes pursued, and on 7 January 871, Æthelred and
Alfred defeated the Danes at the Battle of Ashdown.
 The Danes retreated to Basing (in Hampshire), where
Æthelred attacked and was, in turn, defeated.
 On 23 April 871, King Æthelred died and Alfred succeeded
him as King of Wessex.
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 Another important development in the 9th century was the
rise of the Kingdom of Wessex; by the end of his reign Alfred
the Great, was recognised as overlord by several southern
kingdoms.
 Later on, Æthelstan or Athelstan secured the submission of
Constantine II, King of Scots, at the Treaty of Eamont Bridge
in 927 allowed him to claim the title of 'king of the English',
making him the 1st King of England.
 His reign has been overlooked, overshadowed by the
achievements of his grandfather, Alfred the Great.
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 Ivar the Boneless was succeeded by Guthrum, In ten years the
Danes gained control over East Anglia, Northumbria and Mercia,
leaving only Wessex to resist.
 Guthrum and the Danes brokered peace with Wessex in 876, when
they captured the fortresses of Wareham and Exeter.
 Alfred laid siege to the Danes, two years later, Guthrum again
attacked Alfred, surprising him.
 He was forced into hiding for a time, before returning in the
spring of 878 to gather an army and attack Guthrum at Ethandun.
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 The Danes were defeated and retreated to Chippenham, where
King Alfred laid siege and soon forced them to surrender.
 As a term of surrender, King Alfred demanded that Guthrum be
baptised a Christian; King Alfred served as his godfather.
 This peace lasted until 884, when Guthrum again attacked
Wessex.
 Alfred defeated him, with peace codified in the Treaty of Alfred
and Guthrum. The treaty outlined the boundaries of the
Danelaw and allowed for Danish self-rule in the region.
The Origin and Position of
English.
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 Old English, sometimes called Anglo-Saxon, was the
language spoken under Alfred the Great and continued to
be the common language of England (non-Danelaw) until
after the Norman Conquest of 1066.
 When, under the influence of the Anglo-Norman language
spoken by the Norman ruling class, it changed into Middle
English roughly between 1150–1500.
Some Characteristics of old
English.
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 Old English is far closer to early Germanic than Middle English.
 It is less Latinised and retains many morphological features
(nominal and verbal inflection) that were lost during the 12th to
14th centuries.
 The languages today which are closest to Old English are the
Frisian languages, which are spoken by a few hundred thousand
people in the northern part of Germany and the Netherlands.
 The letters regularly used in printed and edited texts of Old
English are the following:
aæbcdðefghilmnoprstþuwxy
 with only rare occurrences of j, k, q, v, and z.