The origins of English

History of English 2023-24

English throughout the world
The Indo-European language family
The Indo-European language family
The Indo-Europeans language family
The Indo-European language family
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdQwalCPNAs

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d864bwyCAoA

• https://www.worldhistory.org/Indo-European_Lang
uages/

• https://lrc.la.utexas.edu/eieol
The Indo-European language family
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European language family
Celtic: Insular and Continental
Germanic expansion
Seven distinctive features of Germanic
1) Accent is mainly on the root of the word, usually the
first syllable

•2) Development of a preterite tense (called weak) with

a dental suffix, -d or -t (e.g. want-wanted, love-loved,
walk-walked, etc.). From a past tense form *dōną ‘to do’,
reinterpreted as a single word (grammaticalization)

Two types of verbs, weak and strong: strong verbs

(drive-drove-driven; sing-sang-sung) and weak verbs
(love-loved)
 Strong verbs

ABLAUT GRADES IN INDO-EUROPEAN:

Present perfect past participle
e o Ø

Ancient Greek: “leipo” (λείπω):

leipo leloipa elipon ( λείπω, λελοίπα, ἔλιπον).

Old English: singan, sang, sungon gesungen (strong verb, class

III) (sing-sang-sung)
 Weak verbs

Past tense of ‘play’ in present-day Germanic languages

•English play played
•Danish lege legede
•Dutch spelen speelde
•Faroese spæla spældi
•German spielen spielte
•Norwegian leke lekte

(Hejná and Walkden 2022: 326)

 Seven distinctive features of Germanic

3) Indo-European verbal system was simplified:

•Only active voice

•Mood: indicative, subjunctive and imperative

•Tense: past and non-past

•Indo-European distinctions of aspect

lost in Germanic
Seven distinctive features of Germanic

4) Germanic developed two adjectival declensions

with two different sets of endings:

-WEAK: Old English ‘þa geongan ceorlas (the young

fellows, nominative pl.)

-STRONG: Old English ‘geonge ceorlas (young fellows,

nominative pl.)
Seven distinctive features of Germanic

5) Some vocalic changes from IE to

Germanic:
- Indo-European /a:/ > Germanic /o:/
Latin māter - Old English mōdor

-Indo-European /o/ > Germanic /a/

- Latin octo - Old English eahta (< *ahta)
Seven distinctive features of Germanic
6) Germanic has a number of unique vocabulary items,
which have no known cognates in other Indo-European
languages.

-These words may have been lost in the other Indo-

European languages, borrowed from non-Indo-
European languages, or perhaps coined in Germanic.

- Among these words are: broad, drink, drive, rain,

fowl, hold, wife, meat, sea
 Seven distinctive features of Germanic

7) First Sound/Consonant Shift (Grimm's Law):

IE voiceless stops  Gmc voiceless fricatives

IE voiced stops  Gmc voiceless stops

IE voiced aspirates  Gmc voiced stops

Grimm’s Law (First consonant shift)
Grimm’s Law (First consonant shift)
IE Gmc Latin/Spanish English

/p/ /f/ L. pes, pater foot, father

/t/ /Ө/ S. tres, tú three, thou
/k/ /x/ L. cornu, cors horn, heart
(/b/) /p/ S. turba thorp
/d/ /t/ S. dos, diez two, ten
/g/ /k/ S. genu-, grano knee, corn
/bh/ /b/ S. fragmento break
/dh/ /d/ IE *dhur- ‘door’ (L. foris) daughter
/gh/ /g/ L. hostis (hostil) guest
Exceptions to Grimm’s law? Verner’s
law (1875)
• Sanskrit pitṛ́ -- Gothic fadar

Why /d/ instead of expected /θ/ ?

Clue: It has to do with the original stress

of the word
Exceptions to Grimm’s law? Verner’s
law (1875)
• In Germanic all non-initial voiceless fricatives
became voiced between voiced sounds if not
preceded by an unaccented syllable in Indo-
European:

• * pa’tr > *fa’θer > *fa’ðar > OE ‘fæder

• Consequence of Verner’s law: PDE was/were

The origins of English
The earliest history of Britain

• 1000 BC: Migrations of “Celtic” people to Britain

• 55-54 BC: Expeditions by Julius Caesar.

• AD 43-47 AD: Invasion under Claudius. South and East of

England brought under Roman control.

• AD 50: London (Londinium) is founded

 The earliest history of Britain
AD 70-84: Wales,
Northern England,
and Scotland under
Roman control

AD 100-200:
Uprisings in Scotland

AD 122: Hadrian's
Wall begins to be
built

AD 410: Romans
withdraw
The coming of the Anglo-Saxons: the myth

AD 449: Hengest and Horsa,

Germanic chieftains, invited
by Vortigern, Celtic king,
arrive in Kent to help him fight
against the Picts and the Scots

• AD 455: Hengest rebels

against Vortigern
Where did the Germanic invaders
come from?
 The Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms

477-527: The Saxons:

Sussex, Wessex and
Essex

550: The Angles:

Anglian kingdoms in
Mercia, Northumbria,
and East Anglia

The Jutes?
 Anglo-Saxon migration

• Most of the biological and cultural evidence points to a minority

immigration on the scale of 10 to 20% of the native population
• The immigration was not a single ‘invasion’, but rather a series
of intrusions and immigrations over a considerable period,
differing from region to region, and changing over time even
within regions
• The total immigrant population may have numbered
somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 over about a
century, but the geographical variations in numbers, and in
social and ethnic composition, should have led to a variety of
settlement processes
 Anglo-Saxon migration
• 5th/6th centuries:
- Immigration resulted in ethnically divided communities with
some mixing and intermarriage between immigrants and
natives
- Burial rites show that Anglo-Saxons still considered important
to express their ethnic identity
- Communities composed of Germanic immigrants (and their
descendants) and Britons in roughly equal numbers
- More Britons lived outside Anglo-Saxon communities
 Anglo-Saxon migration
• 7th/8th centuries:

- Assimilation and acculturation the native British into the society of

the culturally and socially dominant immigrants

- End of a separate British identity, and the foundation of a common

‘English’ identity

- First elements of state formation in England

- Christianization played an important role

(Härke 2011: 19-20)
Anglo-Saxon England (5th-11th c.)
Sources of Anglo-Saxon history
 Christianity in Britain
Evidence of Christianity in
England from 2nd century.

North of England
christianised by Irish and
Scottish monks in 4th /5th
centuries

Iona: important centre of

early Celtic church in the
north, associated with
Saint Columba (521- 597):
 The Book Book of Kells:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWxIE-SwxQo
The Christianisation of Britain in the 6th
c. (Pope Gregory’s Mission)
595: Augustine sent to
England by Pope Gregory to
christianise Kent

604: Augustine made

Archbishop of Canterbury
End of the 7th century:
most of England already
Christian

- Continuity between the

Celtic and Anglo-Saxon
church ?
Sources of Anglo-Saxon History: Gildas
(516-570)
• Probably born in Sthrathclyde of
a noble British family

• Educated in Wales, lived in

Ireland, built monasteries and
churches

• Author of De Excidio Britanniae

one of the few near-contempoary
accounts of the Anglo-Saxon
invasion, but frustratingly
imprecise and scarcely a history
Gildas, De excidio et Conquestu Britanniae (Of the
Ruin and conquest of Britain)
Then all the councilors, together with that proud tyrant Vortigern, the
British king, were so blinded, that, as a protection to their country, they
sealed its doom by inviting in among them (like wolves into the sheep-
fold), the fierce and impious Saxons, a race hateful both to God and
men, to repel the invasions of the northern nations... A multitude of
whelps came forth… in three ships of war…They first landed on the
eastern side of the island… apparently to fight in favour of the island, but
alas! more truly against it…The barbarians … obtained an allowance of
provisions, which, for some time … stopped their doggish mouths. Yet
they complained that their monthly supplies were not furnished in
sufficient… saying that unless more liberality were shown them, they
would break the treaty and plunder the whole island. In a short time, they
followed up their threats with deeds.
 Sources of Anglo-Saxon History: Bede
(673-735)
• Anglo-Saxon monk, scholar and
teacher. Abbot of Jarrow

• Bede about himself:

- "Servant of Christ and Priest of

the Monastery of Saints Peter
and Paul which is at Wearmouth
and Jarrow."
- "It has always been my delight
to learn or to teach or to write."
 Bede Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis
Anglorum (The Ecclesiastical History of
the English People)

-Written in Latin

- Translated into English by

King Alfred’s school (9th
c.)

- Primary source for

understanding the
beginnings of the English
people and the coming of
Christianity
The Ecclesiastical History (Chapter XV)
• In the year of our Lord 449... Then the nation of the Angles, or Saxons,
being invited by the aforesaid king, arrived in Britain with three long
ships, and had a place assigned them to reside in by the same king, in the
eastern part of the island, that they might thus appear to be fighting for
their country, whilst their real intentions were to enslave it. ..Those who
came over were of the three most powerful nations of Germany ­
Saxons, Angles, and Jutes

• From the Jutes are descended the people of Kent… From the Saxons…
came the East Saxons, the South Saxons, and the West Saxons. From the
Angles…are descended the East Angles, the Midland Angles, Mercians, all
the race of the Northumbrians. The two first commanders are said to
have been Hengist and Horsa…They were the sons of Victgilsus, whose
father was Vecta, son of Woden
Sources of Anglo-Saxon History: The Anglo-
Saxon Chronicle
-Commissioned by King
Alfred the Great (late 9th
century)

- Record of Anglo-Saxon
history in English

-Copies of the ASC circulated

to institutions all over the
country  Several individual
texts with a similar core, but
considerable local variation
 The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
828 Her eft Wiglaf onfeng
Myrcna rice, 7 Aþelwold
bisceop forðferde. 7 þy ilcan
geare lædde Ecgbriht cing
fyrde on Norðwealas, and he
hi ealle ealle him to eaðmodre
hyrsumnesse gedyde.

A.D. 828. This year Wiglaf

recovered his Mercian
kingdom, and Bishop
Ethelwald died. The same year
King Egbert led an army
against the people of North-
Wales and compelled them all
to peaceful submission.
Old English: 450-1150

• Old English dialects:

- Northumbrian
- Mercian
- West Saxon
- Kentish

• West Saxon: focused

variety, Schriftsprache,
literary standard…
England
The St Chad Gospels

8th-century Gospel Book housed in

Lichfield Cathedral.
http://www.lichfield-cathedral.org/Cathedral-Treas
ures/st-chad-gospels.html
)

-236 surviving folios written in Latin

- It includes some of the earliest known

examples of written Welsh
The St Chad Gospels
Old English witnesses
About 30.000 lines of Old
English poetry survive
from 8th to 12th
centuries

Poems mostly of
unknown authorship and
uncertain date and
provenance

Four books
 Exeter Book
- 131 leaves (8 lost)

- Water damaged, knife cuts

and stain from the wet base
of a drinking vessel

- Largest collection of OE
poetry in existence, including
the Anglo-Saxon elegies: The
Wanderer, The Seafarer, The
Ruin & the Riddles
 Exeter book

Codex given to
the Exeter
cathedral by the
first bishop,
Leofric, c. 1050
 Vercelli Book
10th century
miscellany of religious
texts including The
Dream of the Rood

Discovered in 1822 in
the in the library of
Vercelli (Italy)
 Beowulf (MS Cotton Vitellius A xv)
- Only copy of the
poem

- Singed at the edges

- Saved from the fire

that destroyed a
quarter of the Cotton
library collection in
October 1731
 Beowulf (MS Cotton Vitellius A xv)
Hwæt. We Gardena in geardagum
(Listen! We of the spear-Danes in
the days gone-by)

þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon

(of those kings heard of their
glory)

hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon

(How those nobles performed

courageous deeds)
https://www.youtube.com/watch
?v=6lImDxPlMSw
 Junius Manuscript
POEMS:
Genesis
Exodus
Daniel
Christ and Satan
As with almost all OE poems
these were invented titles
-copious illustrations
(here – Noah’s Ark)
Northumbria
 Old Northumbrian Manuscripts: Poetry
(Caedmon’s Hymn)
 Five versions. The
earliest is the Moore
MS. The Northumbrian
poem was added at the
top of the last page of
the manuscript.

Dated to the 8th c.

 Used as an anchor
text to date the
remaining witnesses of
Early Northumbrian.
The Moore MS of Caedmon’s Hymn. Cambridge University Library
Kk, 5,16
Who was Caedmon?
• First English poet whose
name is known
• A herdsman attached to
the double monastery of
Streonæshalch (Whitby)
during the abbacy of St.
Hilda (657–680)
• According to Bede,
Caedmon learned to
compose poetry in the
course of a dream
• He later became a monk
and an accomplished
religious poet
Caedmon’s home (Whitby)
Caedmon’s Hymn

nu scylun hergan hefaen ricaes uard

metudæs maecti end his modgidanc
uerc uuldurfadur sue he uundra gihuaes
eci dryctin or astelidæ
he aerist scopaelda barnum
heben til hrofe haleg scepen,
tha middungeard moncynnæs uard
eci dryctin æfte tiadæ
firum foldu frea allmectig
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8WaPIu1
tAc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdUURmtG
FI8
Caedmon’s Hymn (translation)
Now we must praise heaven-kingdom’s Guardian,
the Measurer’s might and his mind’s intent,
the work of the Glory-Father, as He, Lord eternal,
appointed the beginning of each wonder.
He first shaped, for the children of men,
heaven as a roof, the Holy Creator,
then the earth, the Protector of Mankind:
the Everlasting Lord thereafter made
the earth for men, Lord Almighty.
Old Northumbrian texts: The Lindisfarne
Glospels (7th c.)
 The Old Northumbrian Gloss to the
Lindisfarne Gospels (10th c.)

-Written in Latin (Insular half-uncial) and

decorated at the end of the 7th century

-Old English gloss added in the 10th c.

(Anglo-Saxon minuscule) by Aldred of
Chester-le-Street (Durham), the earliest
surviving example of the Gospel in
English

-http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDispl
ay.aspx?ref=Cotton_MS_Nero_D_IV&in
dex=9
.
The Old Northumbrian Gloss to the Lindisfarne
Gospels

Fol.140r b12 <ic witto> L. sciam (Lk. 1.18) ‘I will know’

Skeat (1874: 17) <witto>
The Old Northumbrian Gloss to the
Lindisfarne Gospels
The Old Northumbrian Gloss to the
Durham Collectar
 Old Northumbrian glosses

• Glossed by the same scribe (Aldred the priest/ later

provost of Chester-le-Street)

• Language of Durham Collectar more conservative

• Accommodation of Aldred to prestigious southern

dialect (West-Saxonization)? and alignment with
Benedictine reform?

• Reaction against Scandinavian threat ?

Old Northumbrian inscriptions with the
runic alphabet

-Runic alphabet: brought to

Britain by the Anglo-Saxons

-Runes designed to be cut into

wood (no horizontal lines, no
curves)

- Runes were also carved on

stone, bone or metal
Post- 650 runic monuments (R. I. Page
1999: 26)
Old Northumbrian inscriptions with the
runic alphabet

-Only about 100 runic

inscriptions have
survived in Britain

-Most of them are

found in the North of
the Island

-The majority are

Christian
Old Northumbrian inscriptions with the
runic alphabet
‘The content of the Anglo-Saxon rune-stone inscriptions is
pretty dull (...) What they say is fairly uninteresting. They
add nothing to our knowledge of political or
administrative history, and little enough to what we know
of social history (...) They make interesting suggestions
about literacy in Anglo-Saxon England, but prove nothing.
As records of the language, however, of what was
recorded in certain places at certain times, they are
invaluable, indeed unrivalled, though not unambiguous.
(R. I. Page 1999: 156)
Old Northumbrian inscriptions with
the runic alphabet (Lindisfarne)
Old Northumbrian inscriptions with
the runic alphabet (Lindisfarne)
Old Northumbrian inscriptions with
the runic alphabet (Lindisfarne)
Old Northumbrian inscriptions with
the runic alphabet (Lindisfarne)
Grave-markers: Lindisfarne 25 (mid 7th to
mid 8th c.)
Grave-marker OE personal name:

a) (small) runes (left upper quadrant):

— o]in[.] II

Coina or Coena/

b) (elaborate) Anglo-Saxon capitals (lower

quadrant)

BEAN II N[AH]
Beanna(a)
Lindisfarne 24 (mid 7th to mid 8th c.)

• Grave-marker. Old English

female personal name
repeated:

• a) runes (upper quadrants)

– os II gy?

• b) Anglo-Saxon capitals
(lower quadrants)
– +OS II GY?
Northumberland: Lindisfarne 37 (9th c.)
Lindisfarne 37 (9th c.)
Northumberland: Falstone stone
(9th c.)
Old English memorial hogback (Viking grave
markers)
Bilingual and bialphabetical:
1) Left panel: roman, insular majuscules
+ EO [.] | TA [.] AEFTAER | HROETHBERHTÆ
| BECUNAEFTAER |
EOMAEGEBIDAEDDERSAULE

2) Right panel: runes

+ [–]aeftaerroe[–]
tae[be]cunae[f]taere[o –]geb[i ]daed?
e[r]saule

‘<NN set up> a monument after Hroethberht

after his uncle. Pray for his soul’
Old Northumbrian inscriptions with the runic
alphabet
Durham: Hartlepool 1 & 2 (8th c.)
 Durham: Hartlepool 1 & 2 (8th c.) .

OE female personal name,

h i l d i || þ r y þ (Hildithryth) OE female personal name
h i l d ||d i (g) y þ' (Hilddigyth)
North Yorkshire: Yarm (first half of 9th c.)
Cross. Latin and Old English,
Insular majuscule
Code switching Latin / Old
English

M]berehct + sāc alla +

signum aefter his breoder
a[s] + setae

[—]berehct the priest Alla

raised this sign in memory of
his brother/s
 The Ruthwell Cross Inscription
- Located in Ruthwell, (Dunfries, Scotland), then part
of the kingdom of Northumbria

-5.5 metres high

- Dated to 8th/9th c

-Contains fragments of the Old English poem The

Dream of the Rood written inscribed in the runic
alphabet.

-Smashed in 1664, and the pieces left in the

churchyard until they were restored in 1818

- In 1887 it was moved into the Ruthwell church

The inscription on the Ruthwell Cross
• ‘[+] kris[t] wæs on rodi hweþræ þer fus[æ] fearran kw[o]mu
[æ]þþilæ
• til anum ic þæt al bi[h] ((eald)) sar((r.)) ic w[æ]s mi[þ]
s[or]gu[m]
gidrœ[f.]d h[n]ag [.]’

Translation:
• Christ was on the cross. Yet to this solitary one there came men
from afar, eager and noble. I beheld it all. I was bitterly distressed
with griefs… bowed down
The runic inscription on the Franks Casket
- Made of whalebone

-Now exhibited in the British Museum

(London), named after its donor

-Dated to the 1st half of the 7th

century somewhere in the North of
England, most likely in Northumbria

-Contains images from Germanic and

Christian sources
 Franks Casket (Left)
• ‘romwalusandreumwalustwœgen||gibroþær||
• afœddæhiæwylifinromæcæstri:||oþlæunneg’
• Romwalus and Reumwalus, twœgen gibroþær,
• afœddæ hiæ wylif in Romæcæstri, oþlæ unneg.
Translation:
• ‘Romulus and Remus, two brothers. A wolf fed them in the city of
Rome, far from their native land’
 Runica Manuscripta

• The runic alphabet was soon replaced by the Latin alphabet, but it survived as
‘runica manuscripta’ until about the 11th century

• The Husband Message

ġehȳre iċ ætsomne .ᛋ.ᚱ. ġeador
.ᛠ.ᚹ., ond .ᛗ. āþe benemnan
þæt hē þā wǣre ond þā winetrēowe
be him lifġendum lǣstan wolde
þe ġit on ǣrdagum oft ġesprǣconn

• Translation

• ‘I conjoin S (sun) together with R (road) and EA (earth) and W(joy) and M(man)
to declare an oath that he would fulfil, by his living self, the covenant of
friendship which in former days you two often voiced’
The attack of Lindisfarne (793)

•https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bm3o7iz-PVY
The Viking raids (8th c.)
 The Viking raids (Dorset)
• 787 Her nam Breohtric cining Offan dohter Eadburge. 7 on his dagum comon ærest .iii. scipu Norðmanna of Hereðalande, 7 þa se gerefa þærto rad, 7 he wolde drifan to ðes cininges tune þy he nyste hwæt hi wæron, 7 hine man ofsloh þa; ðæt
wæron þa erestan scipu Deniscra manna þe Angelcynnes land gesohton.

• 787 Beorhtric took as wife King Offa’s daughter Eadburh. And in his days came first three ships of Northmen from Horthaland and then the reeve rode there and wanted to compel them to go to the king’s town, because he did not know
what they were; and they killed him. Those were the first ships of the Danish men which sought out the land of the English race.

• 3+99first ships of the Danish men which sought out the land of the English race.
The Viking raids
The Fall of Old Northumbria:
The destruction of Lindisfarne
The Fall of Old Northumbria:
The destruction of Lindisfarne

• Ann. Dccxciii [793]. Her wæron reðe forebecna

cumene ofer norðhymbra land . 7 þæt folc earmlic
breᵹdon þæt wæron ormete þodenas 7liᵹrescas . 7
fyrenne dracan wæron ᵹesewene on þam lifte
fleoᵹende . þam tacnum sona fyliᵹde mycel
hunᵹer . 7 litel æfter þam þæs ilcan ᵹeares . on . vi .
id. ianr . earmlice hæþenra manna herᵹunc
adileᵹode ᵹodes cyrican in Lindisfarna ee . þurh
hreaflac 7 mansliht .
The Fall of Old Northumbria:
The destruction of Lindisfarne

• Year 793.
Here were dreadful forewarnings come over the land of
Northumbria, and woefully terrified the people: these
were amazing sheets of lightning and whirlwinds, and
fiery dragons were seen flying in the sky. A great
famine soon followed these signs, and shortly after in
the same year, on the sixth day before the ides of
January [January 8th], the woeful inroads of heathen
men destroyed god’s church in Lindisfarne island by
fierce robbery and slaughter.
The Fall of Old Northumbria: The
destruction of Lindisfarne
Scandinavian invasions of Britain

• A.D. 839. This year there was great slaughter in

London, Canterbury, and Rochester.

• A.D. 840. This year King Ethelwulf fought at

Charmouth with thirty-five ship's-crews, and the
Danes remained masters of the place.
Scandinavian invasions of Britain

• A.D. 851. This year Alderman Ceorl, with the men

of Devonshire, fought the heathen army at
Wemburg, and after making great slaughter
obtained the victory. The same year King Athelstan
and Alderman Elchere fought in their ships, and
slew a large army at Sandwich in Kent, taking nine
ships and dispersing the rest. The heathens now for
the first time remained over winter in the Isle of
Thanet.
Scandinavian invasions of Britain
• The same year came three hundred and fifty ships
into the mouth of the Thames; the crew of which
went upon land, and stormed Canterbury and
London; putting to flight Bertulf, king of the
Mercians, with his army; and then marched
southward over the Thames into Surrey. Here
Ethelwulf and his son Ethelbald, at the head of the
West-Saxon army, fought with them at Ockley, and
made the greatest slaughter of the heathen army
that we have ever heard reported to this present
day. There also they obtained the victory.
 Scandinavian invasions of Britain
• A.D. 878. This year about mid-winter, after twelfth-
night, the Danish army stole out to Chippenham, and
rode over the land of the West-Saxons; where they
settled, and drove many of the people over sea; and
of the rest the greatest part they rode down, and
subdued to their will; -- all but Alfred the King. He,
with a little band, uneasily sought the woods and
fastnesses of the moors. And in the winter of this
same year the brother of Ingwar and Healfden landed
in Wessex, in Devonshire, with three and twenty
ships, and there was he slain, and eight hundred men
with him, and forty of his army
 Scandinavian invasions of Britain
• [….] In the Easter of this year King Alfred with his little force
raised a work at Athelney; from which he assailed the army,
assisted by that part of Somersetshire which proceeded to
Eddington; and there fought with all the army, and put them
to flight… was nighest to it […. ] and within one night after he
Then the army gave him hostagThey told him also, that their
king would receive baptism.es with many oaths, that they
would go out of his kingdom. And they acted accordingly; for
in the course of three weeks after, King Guthrum, attended by
some thirty of the worthiest men that were in the army, came
to him at Aller, which is near Athelney, and there the king
became his sponsor in baptism; and his crisom-leasing was at
Wedmor.
 Scandinavian invasions of England
• Alfred the Great, king of Wessex (871 – 899), was the only
Anglo-Saxon leader who successfully resisted the Viking
expansion. In 878 he won the battle of Edington a against the
Vikings

• England was divided into two administrative areas:

Viking rule was recognised in the east and north of
England and that part was called the Danelaw, i.e.
the land where the Danes imposed their law; the rest
of England was ruled by Anglo-Saxon kings.
Scandinavian invasions of Britain
 Scandinavian invasions of England
1016: Viking leader Canute (Cnut) chosen king of all
England (after the death of Edmund II Ironside)
• Became ruler of England, Norway and Denmark.

• When he died in 1035 his sons were unable to hold

the empire
• “Had he not died at the age of 42, the Scandinavian
supremacy would probably resulted in Norse
becoming the dominant language in Western
Europe.” (Hughes 2000:100)
 Scandinavian invasions of Britain
Edward the Confessor (1042-1066)

After the death of Harthacanute, son of Cnut and Emma of

Normandy, Edward, son of Aethelred the Unready, restored the
House of Wessex to the English throne.

•A deeply religious man, he left the ruling of the country to Earl

Godwin and his son Harold.

•Edward died childless

•Struggle for control of the throne of England

Scandinavian invasions of
England
Scandinavian influence on
English
• Only a few dozen loanwords are identifiable from
Old Norse in Old English, whereas many thousands
were being used in the Middle English period

• Q: Why are there so few in OE given that the

Scandinavian settlement occurred in the OE
period?