THE ANGLO-SAXON CONQUEST OF BRITAIN

The Romans protected their province of Britain against the barbarian tribes until they lef t which was at the beginning of the 5th century. In the middle of the 5th century the Anglo-Saxons, Germanic tribes, invaded Britain. The Anglo-Saxon conquest is regarded as the beginning of medieval history in Britain. The Anglo-Saxons were the ancestors of the English. As a result of the conquest they formed the majority of the population in Britain. Here is the story of the Anglo-Saxon conquest of Britain. After the Roman legions left Britain the Celts remained ind ependent but not for long. From the middle of the 5th cen tury they had to defend the country against the attacks of Germanic tribes t the Jutes and the Saxons and e Saxons came from the Continent. In the 5th century, firs then other Germanic tribes the Angles began to migrate to Britain. Th from the territory lying between the Rhine

and the Elbe rivers which was later on called Saxony. The Jutes and the Angles came from the Jutland Peninsula. At first they only came to plunder. They would land from thei r boats, drive off and slay the cattle, seize the stores of c orn, and be off again to sea before the Celts could attack them. But after some time they returned again and again in larger numbers, and began to conquer the country. In 449 the Jutes landed in Kent and this was the beginnin g of the conquest. The British natives fought fiercely again st the invaders and it took more than a hundred and fifty years for the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes to conquer the country. Other Germanic tribes conquered the Roman provinces on the Continent without any serious resistance as the bulk of the population in the provinces occupied by the Romans welcomed the Germanic conquerors as their liberators. But the British Celts were free at the time and the ir resistance was often stubborn and prolonged. In the SouthEast the Celts were soon overwhelmed, but in the western parts of the country they off ered stout resistance for many years. Now and then the Celts won and the invaders w ere forced back. As a result Britain held out longer than the other provinces of the Ro man Empire. It was only by the beginning of the 7th century that the invaders manage d to conquer the greater part of the land. The final refuge of the Celts was Cornwall and Wales the mountainous districts of the West and the northern part of the island (Scotland) where the Celts were still living in tribes and, later on, some independent states were formed. The Celts of Ireland remained ind ependent too.

In the course of the conquest many of the Celts were killed, some were taken prisoner s and made slaves or had to pay tribute to the conquerors. Some of the Celts crossed the sea to the NorthWest of France and settled in what was later on called Brittany after the Celtic tribes o f Britons. Descendants of the ancient British Celts can be found in Brittany today.

By the end of the 6th and the beginning of the 7th century several kingdoms were for med on the territory of Britain conquered by the Germanic tribes. (This territory later on became England proper.) Kent was set up by the Jutes in the South-

East. In the southern and the southeastern parts of the country the Saxons formed a number of kingdoms Sussex (the land of the South Saxons), Wessex (the land of the West Saxons) and Es sex (the land of the East Saxons). Farther north were the settlements of the Angles wh o had conquered the greater part of the country. In the North they founded Northumbria, which has left its name in the present county of Northumberland; Mercia was formed in the Middle, and East Anglia in the East of England, north of the East Saxon kingdom. These kingdoms were hostile to one another and they fought constantly for supreme power in the country. The new conquerors brought about changes altogether different from those that had foll owed the conquest of the country by the Romans. The new settlers disliked towns pref erring to live in small villages. In the course of the conquest they destroyed the Roman towns and villas. All the beautiful buildings and baths and roads were so neglected that they soon fell in ruins. Sometimes the roads were br oken up, the stones being used for building material. Thus the art of roadmaking was lost for many hundreds of years to come. The Jutes, the Saxons and the Angles were closely akin in speech and customs, and t hey gradually merged into one people. The name Jute soon died out and the conquer ors are generally referred to as the Anglo-Saxons. As a result of the conquest the AngloSaxons made up the majority of the population in Britain and their customs, religion an d languages became predominant. They called the Celts welsh which means foreigners as they could not understand the Celtic language which was quite unlike their own. Bu t gradually the . Celts who were in the minority merged with the conquerors, adopted t heir customs and learned to speak their languages. Only the Celts who remained independent in the West, Scotland and Ireland spoke their native tongue. At first the AngloSaxons spoke various dialects but gradually the dialect of the Angles of Mercia became predominant. In the course of time all the people of Britain were referred to as the English aft er the Angles and the new name of England was given to the whole country. The Angl oSaxon language, or English, has been the principal language of the country since then although it has undergone great change.

Conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity

The Christian Church also influenced the growth of the new feudal relations a great de al. The conversion of the AngloSaxons to Christianity began at the end of the 6th century (597) and was completed, in the main, in the second half of the 7th century. Before this the Angles, Saxons and Jutes had been pagans, that is. they believed in m any gods. They worshipped the sun and the moon, the sea, springs and trees, and oth er pagan gods. One of their gods was Tu, or Tuesco the god of Darkness. Another was Wodenthe great god of War. The redbearded Thor was the god of Thunder. The AngloSaxons thought they heard his magic hammer in the thunderclap. Freya was the goddess of Peace and Plenty. The AngloSaxons named the days of the week after their gods. Thus Sunday meant the Suns d

ay, Mondaythe Moons day, Tuesday the day of the god Tuesco; Wednesday was Wodens day, Thursday was Thors day a nd FridayFreyas day; Saturday was named after Saturn, a Roman God. Paganism had developed among the AngloSaxons when they lived under the primitive system and it reflected the life of the tribal society where all men were equal and where there was no oppression of man by man. Paganism did not teach obedience and when feudal relations began to develop among the AngloSaxons this religion was of no use to the kings and landlords. They needed a religion which would teach the peasants that this order of society in which the land and power belonged to the king and the lords and in which the peasants had to work for their ma sters, had been established by God. The religion that was to serve the interests of the rich AngloSaxons was Christianity. Christianity talked the poor people into being obedient, it taught them to be meek and patient and to obey their masters. In return for their patience a nd obedience Christianity promised them eternal happiness after death in the next worl d. In 597 the Roman Pope sent about forty monks to Britain to convert the AngloSaxons. The monks landed in.

Kent and it became the first AngloSaxon kingdom to be converted. The first church was bu ilt in the town of Canterbury, the capital of Kent, that is why the Archbishop of C anterbury is now Head of the Church of England. Then Christianity spread among the AngloSaxons of the other kingdoms. It was the AngloSaxon kings and nobles who accepted Christianity first. T hen they began to convert the rank-andfile to the new faith. But they did not meet with great su ccess. The people were attached to their old gods and af ter a short time they went back to their old religion. Mor eover, the old religion meant freedom for the peasants, while the new one justified the power of the big landown ers over them, that is why they resisted their conversion into Christianity stubbornly. It took about a century to compel all the AngloSaxons to accept the new faith. The spread of Christianity brought about important changes in the life of the AngloSaxons. Many new churches and monasteries were built all over the country. The kings and nobles granted much land to the bishops and monasteries, and that promoted the growth of the big landed estates. The kings also granted th em the right to collect dues from the population and to administer justice on their estat es. Thus alongside with the lay landlords the churchmen became great landowners too. Besides, the spread of Christianity was of great importance for the growth of culture in Britain. The Roman monks who were converting the A ngloSaxons to Christianity helped to spread Roman culture in the country again. The Roma n monks brought many books to Britain. Most of them were religious books and they w ere all written in Latin and Greek. The church services were also conducted in Latin.

The Latin language was again heard in Britain. Latin was of international importance at t hat time, as it was used by learned men in all countries. They wrote their books in Lat in so that they could be understood by the learned men of other countries. The AngloSaxons spoke quite a different language of Germanic origin and did not understand Lati n. The AngloSaxon nobles were ignorant, many of them were quite illiterate and could not even sign their own names. No one except the monks knew Latin and the monasteries became centres of knowledge and of learning in those early times. The first libraries and school s for the clergy wero set up in monasteries. The monks copied out many handwritten books and even translated some books from Latin and Greek into AngloSaxon. Some monks were chroniclers they kept a record of the important events of each year. Psalters, chronicles and other manuscripts written by the medieval monks are very important historical documents today. Monks often i lluminated their manuscripts with miniatures and drawings which are also of great interest for they portray ma ny scenes of contemporary life. The learned men lived and wrote their books in monasteries. They wrote in Latin and some of their books were well known in Europe. The m ost famous writer was the monk named Bede who lived from 673 to 735. The Venerabl e Bede, as he was known in Europe, was brought up and educated in the monasteries of Northumbria where he lived all his life. He wrote Ecclesiasti cal History of the English People which was studied carefully by educated people in Eu rope as it was the only book on AngloSaxon history. From this book we learn much of what happened in Britain thirteen cent uries ago. A copy of Bedes book can be found at the British Museum in London. Another early-medieval scholar Alcuin, who lived from 735 to 804, was also an AngloSaxon monk from the kingdom of Northumbria. He got his education in the monastic sc hool of York where later on he himself began to teach. As a teacher he became famo us all over England. Many young monks would come to the school in York from faraway places to be taught by Alcuin. He was the author of the school textbooks that were very popular in the 8th9th centuries not only in England but on the Continent too. For more than twenty year s Alcuin lived on the Continent where he organized monastic schools and many pupils of his became well-known teachers. Thus the spread of Christianity promoted a revival of learning. Such English words of G reek origin as arithmetic, mathematics, theatre and geography, or words of Latin origin, such as school, paper and candle reflect the influence of the Roman civilization, a new wave of which was brought about in the 7th cen tury by Christianity. However the cultural influence of the Church effected only a small number of people and mainly the clergy. The rank-and-file AngloSaxons remained completely illiterate. The Christian religion had a tremendous influence over mens minds and actions. It cont rolled the most important events of their life baptism, marriage and burial. There was a church in every village and the villagers wer e compelled to attend the religious services held by the priests. The priests taught that it was the right of the nobles due to their position as landlords to keep order and justice on their estates. They made the villager believe that it was his duty to obey the landlords. They promised that he would be rewarded in the afterlife for all his sufferings. And the villager believed that the clergymen had the power to reward him or to send him to eternal torment after his death. Thus the Church became a powerful instrument in the hands of the feudal lords. The churchmen who became ric

h landlords themselves did their utmost to preach up the king, to justify the exploitation of the peasants and the power of the great landowners over them.