Old English part 1

1. Old Englishpart 1

2. The Languages in England before English. • Living: • English • Welsh • Scots • Irish • Angloromani • Scottish Gaelic • Cornish • Anglic • Insular Celtic • Mixed: • Angloromani • Shelta • 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

3. The Romans in Britain. • 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.

4. Romanization of the Island. • 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.

5. The Germanic Conquest/The Arrival Of the Anglo-Saxons • 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.

6. 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).

7. Anglo-Saxon Civilization. • 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.

8. 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.

9. 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).

11. Viking Age,theNorman Conquest & Danelaw(800–1066) • 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.

12. 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.

13. 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.

14. 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

15. 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. 

16. 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.

17. Ivar the Bonelesswas 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.

18. 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 Danelawand allowed for Danish self-rule in the region.

19. The Origin and Position of English. • 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.

20. Some Characteristics of old English. • 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: • a æ b c d ð e f g h i l m n o p r s t þ u w x y • with only rare occurrences of j, k, q, v, and z.