The Old English Poetry Room :: Essays Papers

The Old incline Poetry RoomThe Anglo-Saxon ChroniclesThe Anglo-Saxon Chronicles were written by a number of unknown monks and covered events starting with pre-Roman Britain. The Chronicles be seven manuscripts and devil fragments. They were compiled sometime in the last decade of the ninth century. Since there were fewer sources of history open to the monks, it is speculated that they relied heavily on the senile Bedes An Ecclesiastical History of the face deal for randomness on the period between the Roman business concern and 731. From the rootage century to sometime in the fifth century, Britain was a colony of the Roman Empire. Settlers came and built villas, baths, libraries and city walls in the Roman tradition. Many of these survived. The ruins were sometimes referred to as the work of giants in early literature. This can be seen in The Wanderer, a meter about a man who has lost his captain and is stoicly wandering about lamenting his loss and looking for a clean home. From about 350 A.D., Roman power weakened throughout the empire. After 409, the Romans no longer ruled Britain. Then, in 449, the Anglo-Saxon invasions began. According to The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles , the first group of immigrants most likely came from Germany and the Netherlands. Their leaders were supposedly Hengest and Horsa. It is possible that these are legendary leaders, but it also possible that the Hengest who appears in the epic poem Beowulf is the same individual. The Chronicles mention three main groups during the period of the invasions the Saxons, the Angles and the Jutes. In the 6th century, the Anglo-Saxon advance was halted and 50 years of peace followed. The Venerable Bede (c. 673 - 735) is one of three Christian figures mentioned in The Chronicles. Bede studied and wrote on many subjects, among them classical languages, astronomy and medicine. His An Ecclesiastical History of the English People covers Englands history and conversion to Christianity. The fir st writers of The Chronicles used his year-by-year approach and took much of their information from this work. If you would like to access another website with more information about the Venerable Bede, click here. It is from Bedes An Ecclesiastical History of the English People that we studied Caedmons Hymn, a poem about a man who lives to a rather modern age without ever learning any songs. At feasts, when the harp is passed nearly for the insureing of stories, Caedmon would rather leave the feast than receive the harp to tell a story.