What do you think Stonehenge was used for? It had a religious or ritual function It had an observatory function It was a place used for law-giving and judging It was a truce-ground in international disputes It was a sort of annual market place
What was Stonehenge used for? What is the name of the archeologist? What is his new theory? What have his team discovered all around Stonehenge? What kind of settlement was it? What does Parker Pearson hope to find over the final three years of the escavation project?
KEY POINTS
BRITAIN WAS FIRST SETTLED IN THE NEOLITHIC PERIOD BY IBERIAN PEOPLE WHO SPREAD SLOWLY FROM THE SOUTH. WE FIND ABOUT THEM FROM ARCHEOLOGICAL REMAINS. THE MOST FAMOUS STRUCTURE IS THE MEGALITH OF STONEHENGE, IN SOUTH WEST ENGLAND.
WAVES OF DIFFERENT INVASIONS HIT THE COAST OF BRITAIN. DIFFERENT CULTURES MELT AND MIXED THE CELTS THE ROMANS THE ANGLO-SAXONS
AROUND 700B.C. THE CELTS BEGAN TO ARRIVE FROM NORTH-WEST GERMANY. THEY WERE TALL AND MUSCULAR, HAD FAIR SKIN, BLUE EYES AND FAIR HAIR.
BRITAIN WAS INVADED BY THE ROMANS IN 55 B.C. BUT WAS NOT CONQUERED. THE ROMANS REALLY CONQUERED BRITAIN IN THE YEARS 43-47 A.D. UNDER EMPEROR CLAUDIUS. THE ROMANS BROUGHT THEIR CULTURE AND LANGUAGE WITH THEM. THEY BUILT TOWNS AND CONNECTED THEM WITH ROADS, MANY OF WHICH ARE STILL IN EXISTENCE TODAY. EMPEROR HADRIAN ORDERED A WALL, KNOWN AS THE HADRIAN S WALL TO BE BUILT, TO MARK THE BORDER BETWEEN THE CONQUERED BRITONS AND THE SCOTS AND PICTS. ROMAN CONTROL OF BRITAIN CAME TO AN END AS SOLDIERS WERE WITHDRAWN TO DEFEND ROME AGAINST THE BARBARIAN RAIDERS. THE ROMANISED CELTS, WERE LEFT ALONE TO FIGHT AGAINST THE GERMANIC TRIBES. A ROMANO-BRITISH LEADER, FOUGHT THE SAXON INVADERS AND MAY HAVE BEEN THE ORIGIN OF THE LEGEND OF KING ARTHUR AND HIS MAGICAL COUNSELLOR, MERLIN.
IN THE 5TH CENTURY, AFTER THE ROMANS HAD LEFT, A NEW WAVE OF INVADERS CAME BY SEA. THEY CAME FROM THREE GERMANIC TRIBES, THE ANGLES, THE SAXONS, AND THE JUTES. THE ANGLO-SAXON MIGRATIONS GAVE BRITAIN ITS NEW NAME. ENGLAND, THE LAND OF THE ANGLES. AFTER THE KING, THE MOST IMPORTANT MEMBERS OF ANGLO-SAXON SOCIETY WERE THE EORLS, A KIND OF HEREDITARY ARISTOCRACY, AND THE THEGNS, HIGH RANKING WARRIORS WHO DEVOUTED THEIR LIFE TO HUNTING, WAR, COLLECTING TAXES.
THE RELIGIOUS PRACTICES OF THE EARLY ANGLO- SAXONS WERE THOSE OF PRIMITIVE PEOPLE ANXIOUS TO PLACATE THE ADVERSE NATURAL FORCES AROUND THEM, AND ACTIVATE THE BENEFICIENT ONES. DURING THE PERIOD OF ANGLO-SAXON POWER, BRITAIN BECAME CHRISTIAN. POPE GREGORY I THE GREAT SENT AUGUSTINE TO BRING CHRISTIANITY TO ENGLAND. THE MONASTERIES BECAME IMPORTANT CENTRES OF CULTURE WHERE LATIN WAS INTRODUCED.
THE SCANDINAVIAN INVADERS, KNOWN AS THE VIKINGS, LEFT THEIR POOR LAND IN NORWAY, SWEDEN AND DENMARK TO TRADE, RAID AND FARM ON NEW LAND. THE VIKINGS WERE FIERCE, PAGAN WARRIORS, WITH A REPUTATION FOR BRUTALITY AND VIOLENCE. THEN,IN 866 A LARGE VIKING ARMY BEGAN THE CONQUEST AND SETTLEMENT OF BRITAIN. THEY DEFEATED NEARLY ALL OF SAXON ENGLAND, BUT NOT WESSEX.
KING ALFRED OF WESSEX WAS THE ONLY SAXON TO STAND AGAINST THE VIKINGS. HE WAS NOT ONLY A MILITARY LEADER BUT ALSO A MAN OF CULTURE. ALFRED ORDERED THE TRANSLATION OF VARIOUS LATIN WORKS INTO ANGLO-SAXON AND ENCOURAGED THE WRITING OF A HISTORY OF ENGLAND, THE ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLES.
Anglo-Saxon literature or Old English literature was written in Anglo-Saxon (Old-English) up to the time of the Norman Conquest in 1066. It includes different genres such as epic poetry, chronicles, riddles, translations of the Bible from Latin, stories about the lives of saints and sermons. The most important work of the period is the epic poem BEOWULF. Old English poetry was anonimous and oral. The poet called scop, entertained the noblemen in the halls of kings often accompanied by a harp.
THE MEN FROM THE NORTH, DESCENDED FROM THE VIKINGS WHO HAD PREVIOUSLY SETTLED IN NORTHERN FRANCE. THEY HAD BEGUN TO SPEAK FRENCH AND HAD BECOME CHRISTIAN BUT WERE STILL WELL-KNOWN FOR THEIR FIGHTING SKILLS AND WERE ESSENTIALLY MILITARY. AT THE FAMOUS BATTLE OF HASTINGS, THE SAXONS WERE CONQUERED BY THE NORMANS AND THIS WAS THE END OF THE ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND.
After the Norman conquest on the part of William I the Conqueror, who was crowned in Westminster Abbey in 1066, the language absorbed the French and Latin of the government: One regional dialect, the East Midlands, gradually became the vernacular tongue. A new feudal aristocracy was established, based in lands both in France and England. There was much civil unrest as the monarch and the barons fought for domination. Similarly the kings and popes struggled for power. In literature, the warrior hero of old English was replaced by the knight or gentleman of good family
The Ormside bowl in the British Museum. It is a silver and glass double bowl dating from the AD 750-800 which was found in 1823 buried next to a Viking warrior in Ormside, Cumbria Harold bayeux tapestry. Fragment of the bayeux tapestry showing Harold as he comes to Normandy to inform William he is the successor of king Edward. Stained glass at York Minster. Salisbury Cathedral
Despite continuous warfare, a stable agricultural society grew up beside the military one. Land ownership was the key to power and prosperity. Commerce increased, especially the wool trade. Ports and market towns were settled. Mercantile society became significant, not only for economic reasons, but also social and political. The Christian faith and the Church were central to everyone s life. Earthly life was only a preparation for the eternal life of the soul.
The language of courtly love could be used for both secular and religious literature. Spiritual passion could be expressed in the same words as the language of devotion in the romance and even political expressions of loyalty.
King Richard I( 1189-99), known as Richard the Lionheart, spent very little time in his own kingdom, since he set out almost at once on the Third Crusade.The Crusades brought Europe into contact with the cultures of the East, increasing both intellectual and commercial exchanges between Europe and Asia. Richard was succeeded by his younger brother John (1199-1216) who had the nickname of Lackland.
In order to get more money to wage wars to defend his French possessions, King John collected higher taxes. In 1215, when John returned from an unsuccessful campaign in France, he was forced to put his great seal on a document, known by the Latin name Magna Carta. In this Great Charter the King agreed that no taxes shall be demanded in our realm without the consent of the great council No free man shall be arrested, put in prison, or lose his property, or be outlawed or banished, or harmed in any way unless he has been judged by his equals under the law of the land. The germ of the future Parliament was all there.
Edward III (1327-77) claimed the crown of France because his mother was the French king s sister. This was the beginning of the Hundred Year s War, which was to last until 1453 when the English king lost everything except Calais. King Edward III introduced the idea of chivalry, a name given to a set of values- bravery, loyalty, honesty and glory- which the perfect knight had to respect, and which was linked to the cycle of the Arthurian legends.