HIS120 - The OE Period

the origin of Old English goes back to the 5th century after Christ when Germanic tribes invaded Britain and the Romans withdrew the end of the Old English period is marked by the Norman Conquest in 1066 linguistically the period of Old English is normally defined as a period from 600 to 1100 after Christ the following phases of Old English can be defined and will constitute the focus of this election England before the English and then the phase of the arrival very importantly a phase of Christianization and then of course there was a phase where the Vikings constantly raided England and last but not least the final period which ended with the Norman Conquest in this election we will look at the main historical events of the Old English period including the central texts written during that time the first indo-european speakers to arrive on the landmass now called England were probably the Celts we do not know exactly the date of their arrival but they were already on the British Isles several centuries before the birth of Christ by the way do you know any modern Celtic languages well perhaps you might want to pause the video here write them down I will give you the solution later on so the Celtic languages were dominant on the British Isles until the birth of Jesus Christ beginning in 55 before Christ Julius Caesar the Roman Emperor made several attempts to invade Britain but it was not before 50 after Christ that most of the land was under Roman control except for the northern part which remained unconquered Hadrian's Wall which you can see here Hadrian's Wall represents the borderline between the Roman Empire and the Celtic territory England became Rome's westernmost outpost and was gradually romanized there were Roman public baths theaters villas with central heating and running water in 410 after Christ Roman legions were withdrawn from Britain because Rome itself was under huge pressure from invasions the legions left only chaos pits raided the country from the north the Scots came from Ireland while the Jews and the Saxons attacked the country and its eastern coasts throughout the 5th and 6th century the Britons were slowly driven back onto the mountain areas of Cumbria and Wales Germanic speaking tribes replaced the Celtic peoples and the Celtic languages gradually became minority languages today and that's the answer to my previous question the main Celtic languages that are still spoken are of course Irish Scottish Gaelic Welch and then we have Cornish spoken in Cornwall and last but not least we have brittonic a continental Celtic language so this was the situation after the withdrawal of the Romans the most complete written description of that time comes from the writings of the venerable bede now Beit a was a historian and doctor of the church who lived from 672 or 673 the date of his birth is unclear until 735 in his great work the ecclesiastical history of the English people which was written in Latin beddy tells us something of his own life and it is practically speaking all that we know he told us that the angles came from eastern Schleswig the Saxons from the North German coast between the Elbe and the river visa and the dudes from southern denmark and that their common language was called english his words written in 737 when his death was not far off not only show a simplicity and piety characteristic of that man but they throw a light on the composition of the work through which he is best remembered by the world at large venerable bede is the earliest witness of pure Gregorian tradition in England his works musica theoretic are and they are dimetric are are found especially valuable by present-day scholars engaged in the study of the primitive form of the chant the anglo-saxon religion of that time was Germanic paganism in 597 Pope Gregory send the mission under st. Augustine northern England was being converted by missionaries from Ireland the Irish missionaries followed a different calendar to calculate Easter this may seem trivial but it was a question of church unity these and other differences were resolved at the Synod of Whitby in 664 the Roman monks who have been sent by Gregory the Great to convert the English to Christianity found that the missionaries from Ireland observed Easter at a different time from that which had been appointed by the Roman Church and after years of controversy it was agreed that a synod the Synod of Whitby should be held where this difficulty might be settled so England once again after the Roman influence which had died out long before became United with kristen 'dom from which the Saxon invasion had separated it it was also an important landmark in the history of the English language because English adopted the Latin alphabet and English was soon being written down extensively let's now turn to a chapter that is characterized by constant invasions now the first Viking raid took place in 787 and from that moment onwards constant invasions affected life in England in 866 a great army descended on England landing in East Anglia and in 871 the army advanced on to Wessex now King Alfred the Great who ruled from 871 to 899 defended England from these Viking raids he also formulated a code of laws and fostered a rebirth of religious and scholarly activity his reign exhibits military skill innovation sound governance and the ability to inspire men and plan for the future piety and practical commitment to the support of religion personal scholarship and the promotion of education King Alfred the Great slowly gathered men and in 878 he fell on the Danes at etham F ndon well scholars agree that you find this place or that this place is identified with present-day eddington in which here so he met the Danes there he drove them in headlong fight and starved them into submission however Alfred saw beyond the battle and offered Guthrum the Danish leader peace the Treaty of Wedmore in 886 divided Wessex from the so called Danelaw now the Danelaw is originally the body of law that prevailed in the part of England occupied by the Danes after the Treaty of King Alfred with guru min 886 it soon also came to mean the area in which Danish law was applied the Danelaw area and the Danelaw area comprised four main regions Northumbria the areas around it including the boroughs of Lincoln Nottingham Derby Lester and Stamford East Anglia and the South East Midlands though the English kings who brought the Danelaw back under their rule they did not attempt to interfere with the laws and customs of the area many of which survived until after the Norman Conquest in 897 the Danes had ceased to invade but between 1003 and 1013 Swain of Denmark and Norway invaded England several times in 1013 the English finally accepted him as king followed by his son Knut later refer to as Knut the great well let's now turn to the year 1066 Knut sons were unworthy successors and with them Danish rule came to an end the nearest candidate for the throne was Edward the Confessor who had lived in exile in Normandy and spoke only French Edwards greatest achievement was the construction of a new cathedral where virtually all English monarchs from William the Conqueror onward would be crowned it was determined that the Minster which you probably know should not bill be built in London and so a place was found to the west of the city the West Minster well Edward died in January 1066 and on the very next day Harald Godwin or Godwinson we have two options to refer to him the Earl of Essex and Edward's brother-in-law was elected to succeed him the crown had scarcely been put on his head when King Harald's problems started in Normandy the current Duke William did not agree with the voting of the council William claimed that years earlier namely in 1051 Edward had already promised the crown of England to him in addition he believed that he had strengthened his claim still further when in 1063 he had tricked Harold into swearing to support his claim to the English throne more than a little annoyed William prepared to invade England but these were not the only problems for King Harold the following events that took place in the autumn of 1066 can best be visualized using the famous tapestry of Bayeux now this tapestry is an embroidery of roughly 70 metres length that was produced in England possibly in Canterbury commemorating the events leading up to and after the Battle of Hastings in 1066 here are the historical events that took place in September and October 1066 King Harald had severe problems in the north of England Harold's brother kostik had joined forces with Harald Hardrada king of Norway and together they had landed with an army in Yorkshire Harald marched his own English army north from London to repel the invaders arriving at Tadcaster on the 24th of September he seized the opportunity to catch the enemy of God his army was exhausted after the forced march from London but after a bitter and bloody battle to capture the bridge at Stanford harald won a decisive victory on the 25th of September well Harald Hardrada and Tostig were both killed 19 days after the Battle of Stamford Bridge William of Normandy landed up even C in Kent to challenge Harold's army Harold's army fought fiercely and well since they understood that not only their lives were at stake but their country too perhaps if the English had been fresh and at full strength they might have won easily but they were tired and depleted after the Stamford Bridge battle and the subsequent march south a very long distance so as a result Harold was killed in the battle William was the winner of the battle and with his victory he won the kingdom as William the first often referred to as William the Conqueror he became the first Norman King of England and held his position until 1087 the Norman Conquest itself continued until 1069 and under Norman rule French became the official language of the kingdom so by 1100 the Old English period or more precisely the anglo-saxon dominance came to an end and literature well only few old english texts have survived from the modern point of view all English literature usually means Old English poetry which falls into two classifications epic verse and shorter poems Beowulf is the first great English literary masterpiece the only complete epic verse it is known only from a single 11th century manuscript which was badly damaged by fire in 1731 you can see it over here scholarly discussion of the date provenance and creation of the poem continue around the world and researchers regularly require access to the manuscript telling the story of Beowulf an exceptionally strong hero who killed the ferocious monster Grendel and his mother too eventually returned to his own country where he became king this story has meanwhile even been adapted by Hollywood in Robert Zemeckis 2007 version of Beowulf let's take a look at the trailer are you the one they called labels such a strong man a man like you could own the greatest tale ever son meh stay with me give me a son and I shall make you the greatest King that ever lived this eyesore will forever be king forever strong light beyond imagination what are you alright let us now summarize we saw that old English started off as a true Germanic language that remained relatively stable over a period of almost 500 years after the Norman invasion in 1066 the situation changed most texts were now written in French or Latin and at the beginning of the 13th century old English texts were not understood anymore we also saw that literature in the modern sense hardly existed at all but what about the language Old English was clearly Germanic in character with many properties taken over from continental Germanic the linguistic details however cannot be solved in this election which was more or less historical in character so please join me again in our elections on the linguistic properties of Old English ranging from phonology to syntax

Channel: The Virtual Linguistics Campus

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Keywords: Linguistics, Historical Linguistics, History of English, English, OE, Old English, 1066, Jürgen Handke, Handke, Indo-European, Germanic, Linguistics Online, VLC, Virtual Linguistics Campus, Inverted Classroom, Flipped Classroom, E-Lecture, University, College, Student, Education, Community, educational, mobile device, Marburg, University of Marburg, IWB071

Id: sqRukG4inPY

Length: 21min 9sec (1269 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 12 2012