Midevil

10 Pages 2511 Words

We know very little of the first several hundred years of the Anglo-Saxon, or "English", era, primarily because the invaders were an illiterate people. In this paper I will discuss their warband history and why their lives were full of battles and great stories. Our earliest records of them are little more than highly inventive lists of rulers. We know that they established separate kingdoms, the Saxons settling in the south and west, the Angles in the east and north, and the Jutes on the Isle of Wight and the mainland opposite. They probably thought of themselves as separate peoples, but they shared a common language and similar customs.
Today we know that the Anglo-Saxons set the foundations on which the English nation developed. In spite of continual internal warfare, they built upon those foundations and developed a high degree of civilization. When the Anglo-Saxons arrived in Britain in the 5th and 6th centuries, they found that most of the towns built by the Romans had fallen into ruins. The early Anglo-Saxons lived in small settlements consisting of just two or three families and a few buildings. Later, settlements grew into villages and small towns.
Anglo-Saxon culture is not much different from society today. Thanes were punished for being disloyal, just as there are consequences for breaking laws. They also had religion in their lives, which is even more apparent today. Their focus in life was to gain fame from their bravery, just as every young child today wants to be famous. The Anglo-Saxons laid foundations that have been built upon over time and are now edifices. An Anglo-Saxons life usually based itself around a ruler and their religion. That’s why religion and war were such big parts of their history. To understand their thoughts on warfare one must understand there views on life.
In Beowulf, Burton Raffel portrays many aspects of Anglo-Saxon lifestyle, especially the importance of weaponry, women's r...