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February: Welcome to Engla-lond. Aaron, Tessa and Teig (The Year 1000, D. Danziger & R. Lacey , Little Brown and Company, UK, 1998).
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February: Welcome to Engla-lond Aaron, Tessa and Teig (The Year 1000, D. Danziger & R. Lacey, Little Brown and Company, UK, 1998)
“Women who possessed sufficient strength of character were able to claim power and exercise authority in the England of the year 1000” (p. 25, Lacey and Danziger)
“Beowulf was unusual for being written down, which makes it particularly precious evidence – like the Julius Work Calendar” (p. 27, Lacey and Danziger).
“The sketching of this apparently routing agricultural process was heavy with meaning, since the purpose of the pruning is to direct the growth energies of a plant into the channels desired by the cultivator…demonstrating mans ability to create a profitable working partnership with God’s bushes, vines, and trees” (p. 28, Lacey and Danziger)
3 Tribes: • Angles • Saxons • Jutes • These tribesman were: • “warriors eager for fame” • and • “proud war smiths” “A tongue of extreme strength, simplicity and richness which has proved to be the primary foundation of how millions all over the globe today speak and think and frame their ideas.”(p. 28, Lacey and Danziger)
“We shall fight on the beaches; we shall fight on the landing grounds; we shall fight in the fields and the streets; we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender” – Winston Churchill “One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind” – Neil Armstrong
Englishmen who lived in ‘Danelaw’ with the Vikings found it, at times, hard to interact. “By the year 1000, a hybrid language had been stirred together by the integration of the two great waves of invaders, and a common tongue existed that was at least roughly understood in every corner of the country.” (p. 34, Lacey and Danziger) “Language helped and reflected political unification. By a canny combination of marriage alliances and battle…” (p. 34, Lacey and Danziger)
Valentines day is the only saints feast day that is celebrated all around the world. • Very few details exist in regards to St Valentius’ life. St. Valentinus was a priest martyred by the Romans in the 3rd Century A.D.
Why was he so Influential? • 1) Repelled the Vikings and saved the English language and people from destruction. • 2) Made significant advancements in education. • 3) Created the foundation for what Common Law is today.
Educational Impact • Key texts translated: Latin → English • Gregory the Great’s Pastoral Care • Boethius’s The Consolation of Philosophy • Augustine’s The Soliloquies • Gregory the Great’s Dialogues • Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People • Orosius’s History against the Pagans • The First Fifty Prose Psalms “We should translate certain books which are necessary for all men to know into the language we can all understand, and also arrange it...so that all the youth of free men now among the English people...are able to read English writing as well.” – Alfred the Great
Legal Reforms • ‘Doom Book’ or 'Code of Alfred’ • Laws mainly biblically based with some secular laws • Laws made in this code still persist today • Alfred’s successors were able to continually amend and develop this law “No woman or maiden shall ever be forced to marry one whom she dislikes, nor be sold for money.” – Code of Alfred “If anyone steals another's ox, and slays or sells it — let him repay twofold for what it was worth.”- Code of Alfred
Conclusion “With his name, England now associates her metropolis, her fleet, her literature, her laws, her first foreign relations, and her first efforts at education. Alfred is, in one sentence, the embodiment of her civilization.” - Frederick Y. Powell
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle ‘What was the Anglo Saxon Chronicle and why is it such an important piece of historical evidence?’
What Was It? • Series of records in Old English (890 AD-1154 AD) • Detailed lives and times of English People • Written in timeline format • Scribes-monks
Why is it so Important? • Without it, there would be no record of English history from departure of Roman’s to the Norman Conquest • It was written in Old English as opposed to Latin • Shows the evolution of the English language over time
Value as a Historical Text: • Sourced information from the Venerable Bede’s Ecclesiastical History • Contains the original and authentic testimony of contemporary writers to the most important transactions of the English forefathers • Embraced a variety of subjects pertaining to English life • Included examples of poetry “Nowhere else is a regular and chronological panorama of a people, described in rapid succession, by different writers, and through many ages, in their own vernacular language.” –The Avalon Project, Yale Law School
Scholarly Text: English v. Latin • Written in Old English as opposed to Latin (language of the day) • Very unusual • King Alfred pushed revival of learning and culture-use English as a written language
Evoltuion of Language: • Shift from Old English to Middle English (around 1100 AD) • Words of Kinship (German influence) : faeder, modor, brothor, sweostor, and dohtor • 25 names with their inflections like mon, men (man, men) • Two demonstratives: se, seo, thaet(that) and thes, theos(this) but there were no (‘a’ or ‘the’) articles • Middle English far closer to Modern English:
Conclusion: • Unique qualities + what it tells/shows us about England and the evolution of language = extremely important historical text “Today, 9 of the manuscripts survive in whole or in part, though none of them are the original version, nor are they all of equal historical value.”
Bibliography (for the pictures) • 2006, Early Anglo-Saxon village- artist impression, available at: http://gallery.nen.gov.uk/asset63548-.html • Tobin, Beowulf, available at: http://www.lordalford.com/oldenglish/beowulf/beowulf-tobin-1-900.jpg • Tobin, Queen Wealtheow Pledges Beowulf, available at: http://robertarood.wordpress.com/2007/11/22/beowulf-again-and-always/ • 11th Century, Anglo-Saxon Farming, available at: http://gallery.nen.gov.uk/asset70506-.html • Yousuf Karsh, 1941, Winston Churchill, available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Winston_Churchill_1941_photo_by_Yousuf_Karsh.jpg • NASA, 1969, Moon Landing, available at: http://www.abc.nl/blog/?tag=moon-landings • British Museum, 1994, Map of Britain c890, available at: http://www.mere-wilts-heritage.info/saxon.htm • Prete M., St. Valentino, available at: http://www.pylgeralmanak.nl/?pagina_id=128
Bibliography: (Aaron) Barbara Yorke, 1999, Alfred the Great: The Most Perfect Man in History? Available at: http://www.historytoday.com/barbara-yorke/alfred-great-most-perfect-man-history, Accessed 10 August 12 Britannia Historical Documents, 2006, The Peace of Wedmore, Available at: http://britannia.com/history/docs/danelaw.html, Accessed 10 August 12 Campbell, Dr. William F., 2008, Alfred the Great: The Traditions of Western Civilization, In Louisiana State University Erich W Guthrie, 2000, King Alfred's Literacy Program, Available at: http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~cpercy/courses/1001Guthrie.htm, Accessed 09 August 12 Giles, J.A., 2000, Asser Annals of the Reign of Alfred the Great, Ontario: Medieval Latin Series Cambridge Hooper, Nicholas Hooper; Bennett, Matthew (1996). The Cambridge Illustrated Atlas of Warfare: the Middle Ages. Cambridge University Press Kevin Knight, 2009, Alfred the Great, Available at: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01309d.htm, Accessed 11 August 12 King Alfred the Great, 9th Century, Code of Alfred, England M. Lapidge and M. Winterbottom, 1991, 871: "Great Heathen Army" invades Wessex Battles of Reading, Ashdown, Basing, Meretun, Available at: http://www.anglo-saxons.net/hwaet/?do=seek&query=871-899. Accessed 10 August 12 Octavia Randolph, 1998, Your Legal Rights Under Ælfred, King of Wessex, Available at: http://www.octavia.net/text/alfredlaw.htm, Accessed 10 August 12 Rev. Prof. Dr. F.N. Lee, 2000, KING ALFRED THE GREATAND OUR COMMON LAW, Department of Church History, Queensland Presbyterian Theological Seminary Royal Family History, 2005, King Alfred the Great, Available at: http://www.britroyals.com/kings.asp?id=alfred. Accessed 11 August 12 Various authors, 9th-11th Century, Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, England
Bibliography (cont.) (Tessa) Bragg, Melvyn 2004, The Adventure of English: 00 AD to 2000, The Biography of a Language, Sceptre Publishing, England Brepols Publishers, Reading the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, http://www.brepols.net/pages/ShowProduct.aspx?prod_id=IS-9782503523941-1, 2012 Brittania, Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, http://www.britannia.com/history/docs/asintro2.html, 2007 Carson-Newman College, Old English v. Middle English, http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/documents/OE_vs_ME.pdf, 2003 Delahoyde, Michael, Washington State University, Anglo-Saxon Culture, http://public.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/medieval/anglo-saxon.html (no date) Killings, Douglas, The Online Medieval and Classical Library, The Anglo Saxon Chronicle, http://omacl.org/Anglo/, 1996 McWhorter, John, 2008, Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold Story of English, Gotham Publishing, United Kingdom Official Website of the British Monarchy, Alfred ‘The Great’, http://www.royal.gov.uk/HistoryoftheMonarchy/KingsandQueensofEngland/TheAnglo-Saxonkings/AlfredtheGreat.aspx>, 2012 Pyles, Thomas 1964, The Origins and Development of the English Language, Harcourt, Brace and World INC, USA Saraswati, Prakashanand, The Development of the English Language, http://www.encyclopediaofauthentichinduism.org/articles/24_the_development_of.htm, 1999