Anglo-Saxons and Normans The history of Anglo-Saxon England broadly covers early medieval England from the end of Roman rule and the establishment of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in the 5th century until the Conquest by the Normans in 1066. Christianisation of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms began around 600 and was essentially complete by the mid 8th century. Throughout the 7th and 8th centuries, power fluctuated between the larger kingdoms. Bede records Aethelbert of Kent as being dominant at the close of the 6th century, but power seems to have shifted northwards to the kingdoms of Mercia and Northumbria. Aethelbert and some of the later kings of the other kingdoms were recognised by their fellow kings as Bretwalda. The so-called 'Mercian Supremacy' dominated the 8th century, though again it was not constant. Aethelbald and Offa, the two most powerful kings, achieved high status. This period has been described as the Heptarchy, though this term
Saxons and the Jutes settle in what today is known as England and force the Celtic tribes to move to Scotland, Ireland, Wales. The Angles settled in Northumberland, East Anglia, Mercia; The Saxons in Essex, Sussex, Wessex and the Jutes in Kent. 569 AD Pope Gregory the great sends missionaries led by St. Augustine to Britain. The Benedictines establish a chain of monasteries; Britain is linked to the Latin civilization of the roman Church and Christian cultures of Western Europe. Aethelbert 1 of Kent becomes the first Christian King of England. By the end of the 7 th century all the kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxon Britain accepted the Christian faith. 3.) Describe Old English Poetry in terms of form and content. Old English poetry is highly formal. Each line of it is divides into two halves, separated by a caesura, or pause, and is often represented by a gap on the page. The verse form contains complicated rules for alliteration designed to help scops, or poets, remember
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