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Y301: The Early Anglo-Saxons c.400–800

Cultural change in Britain and Ireland: Language, religious artefacts, art and literature

  • 3 things to know
  • Unit group 3

Overview

Recall questions on language, nature and extent of cultural assimilation and identity, literature, including the writings of Gildas, Beowulf and the writings of Bede, education and learning, including the influence of the school at Canterbury, art, architecture, dress, jewellery.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Key term

How do place-names show cultural assimilation?

Key term

Describe the characteristic style of early Anglo-Saxon metalwork.

Key term

Name two carved works that show the mixing of traditions in eighth-century Britain.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    What roles did Latin play in early Anglo-Saxon Britain?

    Model answer

    It was the language of the Church's liturgy, scripture and canon law, of scholarship and of royal charters, so literacy in Latin was almost entirely a clerical accomplishment.

  2. 2

    Name the main vernacular languages spoken in Britain and Ireland in this period.

    Model answer

    Old English in its Northumbrian, Mercian, Kentish and West Saxon dialects, Brittonic in Wales, Cornwall and the north, and Irish in Ireland and Dal Riata.

  3. 3

    How do place-names show cultural assimilation?

    Model answer

    Most settlement names are English, but Brittonic river-names such as the Avon and Thames survive, and names built on the borrowed word eccles mark places where British churches were still recognised.

  4. 4

    Why is the question of identity in this period more complicated than Angles, Saxons and Jutes?

    Model answer

    That threefold scheme is a tidy later description; in reality people identified with much smaller folk groups and kingdoms, and identity could be adopted through lordship, language and dress rather than inherited by descent.

  5. 5

    Describe the character of Gildas's account of the ruin of Britain.

    Model answer

    It is a moralising sermon that blames the Saxon disaster on the sins of British rulers and clergy, using history only as evidence for its argument.

  6. 6

    Why is Gildas indispensable despite his purpose?

    Model answer

    He is the only substantial British writer close in time to the Saxon settlements, so he supplies almost the only near-contemporary narrative for the fifth and early sixth centuries.

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