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Anglo-Saxon Conquest
The Romans occupied Britain for more than 300 years. But the power of the Roman Empire began to decline due to series of attacks from Northern Europe and the Romans needed to protect their territories. Consequently, the Roman soldiers in Britain were withdrawn to fight subsequent battles. This left the Celts unprotected. There were two tribes from Northern Britain which the Romans did not conquer, known as the Picts and Scots. These people saw the withdrawal of the Romans as an opportunity to attack and plunder the much vulnerable Celts. The Celts then appealed to the Germanic warriors - the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes for help. They came in great numbers and at different times. The Angles from the modern state of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany came in AD547 and settled in the north and central England. The Saxons (AD477) also from modern Germany occupied the south of the island; while the Jutes occupied Kent. The Jutes were the first to arrive in AD 449 driving the indigenous Celtic speaking people notably the Britons to the North and West – the present day Wales. The Jutes were from modern Denmark or Northern Germany; their territory bordered that of Saxons.
These Germanic tribes helped the Celts defeat the attacking Picts and Scots, but then turned around to loot, and destroy their host country and eventually occupied it. The Celts realized too late that their friends had become their conquerors. Although wars to resist the Germanic tribes continued for the next 200 years, the Celts could not drive the Germanic tribes out. Some of the Celts were rather driven to places like Wales, Cornwall and the Scottish highlands. Those who remained were forced to accept the government of the new comers and became absorbed through inter-marriages. After a few centuries, the Celts lost their identity within the Anglo-Saxon society.
The Germanic tribes had a lot of things in common: they were semi- nomadic (they moved from place to place) warlike, sea-faring but land loving. The Angles and the Saxons were more in number than the Jutes, and were also more persistent. The Celts called the invaders “Sassenachs” i.e. “Saxons” regardless of their specific tribes. By the end of the 6th century the term “Angles” was used. During the seventh century the Latin name for the country was Angli or Anglia. This became “Engle” in Old English, while the name of the language was called “Englisc” . It was around the 10th century that the word “Englaland” or “Aegle-land”, (land of the Angles) appeared; this later became England.
Self Assessment Exercise 1
1. Mention the Germanic tribes that invaded Britain at about the 6th century?
2. Why did the Romans evacuate Britain leaving the Celts unprotected?
3. Explain the methods the Anglo-Saxons used to conquer Britain?
3.2 The Origin and Status of Old English
Old English was the language the three Germanic tribes spoke as they settled in England. It was more of a fusion of the dialects of the Germanic tribes and it is difficult to say how much the speech of the Angles differs from that of the Saxons or that of the Jutes. However, it was never a uniform language. Four main dialects of the Old English were spoken during this period namely, Northumbrian, Mercian, West- Saxon and Kentish. These dialects were spoken in different parts of Britain and Scotland. For instance, Northumbria and Mercian were spoken in the region north of the Thames where the Angles occupied.
As you have seen in Unit1, English belongs to the low Germanic branch of the Indo-European family. This means that English has in common certain characteristics with other Germanic languages. For instance, it has both the ‘weak’ and ‘strong’ stress patterns in adjectives and verbs. It shows that there is a strong stress accent on the first or the root syllable of most words. This feature is common to all Germanic languages since it is mainly responsible for the decay of inflections in these languages. You will know more about this in the subsequent units.
SELFASSESSMENT EXERCISE 2
Explain the origin of the Old English.
3.3 Some Features of the Old English
Let me remind you once again that the period from AD450 to 1150 is referred to as Old English. The grammar of the Old English took after the Latin grammar. One of the features of Latin is that it is heavily inflected. This means that the Latin words are full of inflections; what you may call affixes today. That is why the Old English period is sometimes called the period of full inflection, because during this period, the endings of nouns, adjectives and verbs had inflections. A noun for example is described in terms of cases, Latin has six (6) cases, Nominative (subject), Genitive (possessive), Accusative (objective), Dative (indirect object) Ablative and Vocative. The Latin “Nauta” (sailor) for example has its singular form (nominative) as ‘nauta’, plural “nautae”. Remember in its grammar, Old English resembled Latin. The nouns and adjectives are inflected for up to four or five cases. The old English “fisc” (fish) for example has the following cases:
Singular:
- Nominative: fisĉ (fish)
- Genitive: fisĉes (of a fish)
- Accusative: fisĉ
- Dative: fisĉa (to/for a fish)
Plural:
- Nominative: fisĉas (fishes)
- Genitive: fisĉa (of fishes)
- Accusative: fiscas
- Dative: fîscum (to/for fishes)
Old English Adjectives:
- Masculine:
- Nominative: Gδd (good)
- Genitive: Gδdes (of a good)
- Dative: Gδdum (to/for a good)
- Feminine:
- Nominative: gδd
- Genitive: gδdre
- Dative: gδdre
- Neuter:
- Nominative: gδd
- Genitive: gδdes
- Dative: gδd
So you can see that old English takes much of Latin. In pronunciation, Old English differs a great deal from its modern equivalent. For example, the Old English “stan” is the modern ‘stone’ but the vowel differs. This is the same thing in words like halig (holy); gaÅ„ (go), bán- (bone) ráp (rope), cene (keen), fyr (fire), sceap (sheep) etc. The difference is also reflected in spelling. Because the Old English represented the sound ‘sh’, by ‘sc’ the spelling of ‘sheep’ was written as ‘sceap’ .
Old English vocabulary is almost entirely lifted from the Germanic languages. A large part of this vocabulary has disappeared today. When the Northern conquest introduced French to England as the language of the upper classes, much of the Old English vocabulary for literature and education gave way to words borrowed from French and Latin. Those that survived were very few, with such words as ‘mann’ (man), ‘wif’ (wife) ‘cild’ (child) ‘hủs’ (house) etc.
You can see that both in grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation, old English is distinct from modern English. Below is a sample from a West-Saxon version of the gospel according to Saint John Chapter 1:1-3
TEXT 1
On frymthe waes Word, and thaet Word waes mid Gode and God waes thaet Word. That waes on fruman mid Gode. Ealle thing waeron geworhte thurh hyre; and nan thing naes geworht butan him.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.
Self Assessment Exercise 3
1. Can you say why the old English conformed to the grammar of Latin?
2. Describe at least two (2) features of old English.
4.0 CONCLUSION
One of the most important events in the is the Anglo-Saxon conquest, which is responsible for the birth of English in Britain. Old English, which is the language of the conquering Germanic tribes, was influenced by Latin due to the long occupation of Britain by the Romans and their long contacts with the Germanic tribes. The old English was the national language of Britain during this period, though it had other varieties or dialects.
5.0 SUMMARY
The Germanic conquest brought the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes to England. They were initially invited to help the defenseless Celts fight their battles after the Roman withdrew from Britain. The Germanic tribes came in their large numbers, defended the Celts against the Picts and the Scots and turned around to conquer their host. The Celts could not match their new conquerors and were forced to be subjected to their authority. This period is known as the Old English period because the Angles, the Saxons, and the Jutes spoke this language. Old English was a combination of the features of the languages of the tribes and resembled Latin both in grammar and vocabulary. About four dialects of Old English were spoken at that time. Looking at some of the characteristics of Old English, it is obvious that most of its lexical, grammatical and phonological features have faded away, over time.
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