Part 59 (1/2)

111. THE ANGLO-SAXONS IN BRITAIN, 449-839 A.D.

ANGLO-SAXON CONQUEST OF BRITAIN

From the history of Continental Europe we now turn to the history of Britain. That island had been overrun by the Germanic barbarians after the middle of the fifth century. [24] They are commonly known as Anglo-Saxons, from the names of their two princ.i.p.al peoples, the Angles and Saxons. The Anglo-Saxon conquest of Britain was a slow process, which lasted at least one hundred and fifty years. The invaders followed the rivers into the interior and gradually subdued more than a half of what is now England, comprising the fertile plain district in the southern and eastern parts of the island.

NATURE OF THE CONQUEST

Though the Anglo-Saxons probably destroyed many flouris.h.i.+ng cities and towns of the Romanized Britons, it seems likely that the conquerors spared the women, with whom they intermarried, and the agricultural laborers, whom they made slaves. Other natives took refuge in the hill regions of western and northern Britain, and here their descendants still keep up the Celtic language and traditions. The Anglo-Saxons regarded the Britons with contempt, naming them Welsh, a word which means one who talks gibberish.

The antagonism between the two peoples died out in the course of centuries, conquerors and conquered intermingled, and an English nation, partly Celtic and partly Germanic, came into being.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ANGLO-SAXON DRINKING HORN Horn of Ulphus (Wulf) in the cathedral of York. The old English were heavy drinkers chiefly of ale and mead. The evening meal usually ended with a drinking bout.]

THE SEVEN KINGDOMS IN BRITAIN

The Anglo-Saxons started to fight one another before they ceased fighting their common enemy, the Britons. Throughout the seventh and eighth centuries, the Anglo-Saxon states were engaged in almost constant struggles, either for increase of territory or for supremacy. The kingdoms farthest east--Kent, Suss.e.x, Ess.e.x, and East Anglia--found their expansion checked by other kingdoms--Northumbria, Mercia, and Wess.e.x--which grew up in the interior of the island. Each of these three stronger states gained in turn the leading place.

EGBERT AND THE SUPREMACY OF WESs.e.x, 802-839 A.D.

The beginning of the supremacy of Wess.e.x dates from the reign of Egbert.

He had lived for some years as an exile at the court of Charlemagne, from whom he must have learned valuable lessons of war and statesmans.h.i.+p. After returning from the Continent, Egbert became king of Wess.e.x and gradually forced the rulers of the other states to acknowledge him as overlord.

Though Egbert was never directly king of all England, he began the work of uniting the Anglo-Saxons under one government. His descendants have occupied the English throne to the present day.

ANGLO-SAXON BRITAIN

When the Germans along the Rhine and the Danube crossed the frontiers and entered the western provinces, they had already been partially Romanized.

They understood enough of Roman civilization to appreciate it and to desire to preserve it. The situation was quite different with the Anglo- Saxons. Their original home lay in a part of Germany far beyond the borders of the Roman Empire and remote from the cultural influences of Rome. Coming to Britain as barbarians, they naturally introduced their own language, laws, and customs wherever they settled. Much of what the Anglo- Saxons brought with them still lives in England, and from that country has spread to the United States and the vast English colonies beyond the seas.

The English language is less indebted to Latin than any of the Romance languages, [25] and the Common law of England owes much less to Roman law than do the legal systems of Continental Europe. England, indeed, looks to the Anglo-Saxons for some of the most characteristic and important elements of her civilization.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Map, ANGLO-SAXON BRITAIN]

112. CHRISTIANITY IN THE BRITISH ISLES

PREPARATION FOR CHRISTIANITY

The Anglo-Saxons also brought to Britain their heathen faith. Christianity did not come to them until the close the sixth century. At this time more or less intercourse had sprung up between the people of Kent, lying nearest to the Continent, and the Franks in Gaul. Ethelbert, the king of Kent, had even married the Frankish princess, Bertha. He allowed his Christian wife to bring a bishop to her new home and gave her the deserted church of St. Martin at Canterbury as a place of wors.h.i.+p. Queen Bertha's fervent desire for the conversion of her husband and his people prepared the way for an event of first importance in English history--the mission of Augustine.

MISSION OF AUGUSTINE, 597 A.D.

The pope at this time was Gregory I, better known, from his services to the Roman Church, as Gregory the Great. [26] The kingdom of Kent, with its Christian queen, must have seemed to him a promising field for missionary enterprise. Gregory, accordingly, sent out the monk Augustine with forty companions to carry the Gospel to the heathen English. The king of Kent, already well disposed toward the Christian faith, greeted the missionaries kindly and told them that they were free to convert whom they would.

Before long he and his court embraced Christianity, and the people of Kent soon followed the royal example. The monks were a.s.signed a residence in Canterbury, a city which has ever since remained the religious capital of England. From Kent Christianity in its Roman form gradually spread into the other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ST. MARTIN'S CHURCH, CANTERBURY The present church, dating from the thirteenth century occupies the site of a chapel built before the arrival of Augustine, The walls still contain some of the Roman bricks used in the original structure. St Martin's Church was the scene of the earliest work of Augustine in Canterbury.]

CELTIC CHRISTIANITY

Augustine and his monks were not the first missionaries to Britain. Roman soldiers, merchants, and officials had introduced Christianity among the Britons as early as second century. During the fifth century the famous St. Patrick had carried Christianity to the heathen Irish. The Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain drove many Christians to Ireland, and that island in the sixth and seventh centuries became a center from which devoted monks went forth to labor in western Scotland and northern Britain [27] Here they came in contact with the Roman missionaries.