Anglo-Saxon History

Celts

• 800-600 B.C, Invaded the British Isles
• Farmers and hunters
• Two groups: Brythons and Gaels
• Clans, druids

Romans

• Invaded in 55 B.C
• Julius Caesar
• Lasted for 300 years
• Ended when Euro tribes invaded 

Anglo-Saxons

• From what is now Germany
• Angles, Saxons, Jutes
• Fishermen and farmers
• Took over England

Other invasions

• Norway (Norse), Denmark (Danes)
• Also known as Vikings
• Normans (North men)-Viking descendants

Feudalism

• Established by Normans
• Exchange of property for service
• Ended with the plague (Black Death)

Plantagenets

• Ended Norman rule
• Henry II
• Conflict w/church and Thomas Becket
• Importance of Canterbury

Anglo-Saxon literature

• Began with oral tradition
• Types of poems: heroic & elegiac
• Beowulf--nat'l heroic epic of England
• "The Seafarer" etc=elegiac
• Dramas, ballads, and romances emerged in Middle Ages