Scandinavian Raids

In the 8^th c. raiders from Scandinavia (the Danes) made their first plundering attacks on England. The struggle of the English against the Scandinavians lasted over 300 years, in the course of which period more than half of England was occupied by the invaders and reconquered again. The Scandinavians subdued Northumbria and East Anglia, ravaged the eastern part of Mercia, and advanced on Wessex. Like their predecessors, the West Germanic tribes, they came in large numbers to settle in the new areas. They founded many towns and villages in northern England with a mixed population made up of the English and the Danes. Since the languages of the conquerors and the conquered were similar, linguistic amalgamation was easy (fisc – fiscr).

Wessex stood at the head of the resistance. Under King Alfred of Wessex, one of the greatest figures in English history, by the peace treaty of 878 England was divided into two parts: the north-eastern half was called Danelag(Danelaw) and the south-western part united under the leadership of Wessex. The reconquest of Danish territories was carried on successfully by Alfred’s successors, but in the late 10^th century Danish raids were renewed again; they reached a new climax in the early 11^th century headed by Swayn and Canute (Knut). The attacks were followed by demands for regular payments of large sums of money called Danegeld (Danish money) collected from many districts and towns. In 1017 Canute was acknowledged as king, and England became part of a great northern empire, comprising Denmark and Norway. On Canute’s death (1035) his kingdom broke up and England regained political independence; by that time it was a single state divided into 6 earldoms.

King Alfred and His Literary Activity

King Alfred known as Alfred the Great is normally given credit not only for his military and diplomatic skills, but also for his literary and translating activities.

Alfred is the only English monarch to be known as “The Great”. He has been hailed as the Saviour of England. That may be debatable in the strict sense – there was not as yet one “England”, more a federation waiting to be moulded into one. Alfred is claimed to have saved the English language, it is in one of his own translations – in the preface to Gregory’s Pastoral Care –that one of the first appearances of the word “Englisc”, describing the language, is recorded. But Alfred not only saved the language, he dug it even more deeply into the minds of his people by using English as a rallying force and even more importantly as the conduit for an intense programme of education.

Because it was under his reign that learning and literature began to flourish in Wessex in the 9^th century. He is said to have gathered a group of scholars at his court at Winchester. An erudite himself, Alfred realized that culture could reach the people only in their own tongue. He shared the contemporary view that Viking raids were a divine punishment for the people's sins, and he attributed these to the decline of learning, for only through learning could men acquire wisdom and live in accordance with God's will. Hence, in the lull from attack between 878 and 885, he invited scholars to his court from Mercia, Wales, and the European continent. He learned Latin himself and began to translate Latin books into English in 887. He directed that all young freemen of adequate means must learn to read English, and, by his own translations and those of his helpers, he made available English versions of “those books most necessary for all men to know,” books that would lead them to wisdom and virtue. The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, by the English historian Bede, and the Seven Books of Histories Against the Pagans, by Paulus Orosius, a 5th-century theologian—neither of which was translated by Alfred himself, though they have been credited to him—revealed the divine purpose in history. Alfred's translation of the Pastoral Care of St. Gregory I, the great 6th-century pope, provided a manual for priests in the instruction of their flocks, and a translation by Bishop Werferth of Gregory's Dialogues supplied edifying reading on holy men. Alfred's rendering of the Soliloquies of the 5th-century theologian St. Augustine of Hippo, to which he added material from other works of the Fathers of the Church, discussed problems concerning faith and reason and the nature of eternal life. This translation deserves to be studied in its own right, as does his rendering of Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy. In considering what is true happiness and the relation of providence to faith and of predestination to free will, Alfred does not fully accept Boethius' position but depends more on the early Fathers. In both works, additions include parallels from contemporary conditions, sometimes revealing his views on the social order and the duties of kingship. Alfred wrote for the benefit of his people, but he was also deeply interested in theological problems for their own sake and commissioned the first of the translations, Gregory's Dialogues, “that in the midst of earthly troubles he might sometimes think of heavenly things.” He may also have done a translation of the first 50 psalms. Though not Alfred's work, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, one of the greatest sources of information about Saxon England, which began to be circulated about 890, may have its origin in the intellectual interests awakened by the revival of learning under him. His Wessex dialect would become the first Standard English. His reign also saw activity in building and in art, and foreign craftsmen were attracted to his court.

The Old English Alphabet

Date: 2015-01-12; view: 957