Középkori angol irodalom [antikvár]

Political, Social and Cultural Events Settlement We can find the first mention of the English (Anglii) in the Germania of Tacitus. He referred to a Germanic tribe living on the Jutland peninsula, one of the many tribes of the day trying to find new homes within the ever growing Roman Empire. According to the historian Beda, the Angles and the neighbouring Saxons and Jutes had left their homes in this migration drive and landed after meagre resistance in tlie Roman province of Britannia. The three tribes overran the eastern half of the province, from the Channel to the Firth of Fourth. The western half held out longer, Cornwall did not yield before the ninth century, and Wales not before the thirteenth century; two -centuries after the English lost their independence at Hastings. By the end of the sixth century most of the area known as England today had been conquered by the Germanic tribes known and spoken of as English. Pope Gregory (d. 604) in his wrtings already refers to the Germanic inhabitants of Britain as Anglii. Church When Pope Gregory s missionaries had reached England in the year of 597 the old tribal system no longer existed. They foimd a number of autonomous kingdoms south of the river Humber, loosely held together under the overlordship of the king of Kent. Supremacy, however, shifted from hand to hand until in the ninth century it was won permanently by the kings of Wessex. We know little about the political organization of the early Germanic settlers but it is believed that the tribal system did not survive after the final settlenlent. The making of the English nation seems to begin with the early conquest. This can be explained from attitude of the Roman Church; the missionaries arriving in the seventh century had organized a Church of England, and not separate churches of Sussex, Kent and Wessex. With the synod of Whitby in 664 the union of the Church in England was established over their Irish rivals. - 7 -