II. Find true and false statements

1. The river Thames in prehistoric times was joined to the river Rhine in France.

2. The first inhabitants of the island formed the basis of the present-day population of Eastern England.

3. The Beaker Folk could produce different cups and pots of clay.

4. The Beaker Folk merged with Iberians to develop the first civilization on the British Isles.

5. Stonehenge was used as a burial place.

6. The Romans occupied the north of the British Isles.

7. The earliest Celts could produce iron tools.

8. The Celts lived in big tribal groups.

9. The Romans introduced Christianity, it was a step forward as new religion brought literacy to the British Isles.

III. Put the events in the right order.

1. Rome wanted to invade all the countries around the Mediterranean Sea.

2. The Celtic tribal chiefs had to recognize the Romans as their rulers.

3. The Gauls were at war with the Romans.

4. During 90 years after it trading contacts between Britain and Rome developed.

5. Julius Caesar found out that the Britons helped the Gauls.

6. After the rebellion headed y Queen Boadicea the Romans built the wall around Londinium.

7. The Britons dyed their hair and moustaches red and painted the legs and arms blue. They attacked the Romans and the invincible army had to return to Gaul.

CHAPTER II

THE ANGLO-SAXON CONQUEST.

After the departure of the Romans (407) the Celts retained their independence for a short period of time From the middle of the 5th century they were subject to the attacks of the Germanic tribes of the Jutes, the Saxons and the Angles The Jutes and the Angles came from the Jutland peninsula (southern Denmark) and the Saxons from the territory between the Rhine and the Elbe rivers (northern Germany)

By the fifth century the German tribes were expanding into the Roman Empire as well as into Britain. The Angles, Saxons and Jutes turned their special attention to the British Isles

The Jutes landed in Kent somewhere in 450. They were followed by the Angles and the Saxons. The Celts offered stiff opposition and it took them more than a century for the country to be subdued. Eventually the invaders settled down and formed a number of small kingdoms. The Angles in the north and east made kingdoms called Northumbria, Mercia and East Anglia. The Saxons in the centre and south had Wessex, Sussex and Essex. The Jutes had Kent in the south – east The Anglo Saxons and Jutes were close to each other in speech and customs, and they gradually merged into one people. The name Jute soon died out and the invaders were generally referred to as the Anglo-Saxons.

Although the German invaders occupied most of the British Isles, certain refuge areas were left to the natives. They retained territory in West and North Wales and in the northern territory of Cumbria. The northern part of Britain was the home of the Picts and Scots, whom neither the Romans nor the Angles and Saxons had been able to conquer. After the conquest of the Picts by the Scots in the ninth century this northern territory came to be called Scotland and a united Scottish kingdom was formed in the 11th century. In the course of the struggle of the Celts against the Anglo Saxons many legends emerged of which most famous is the legend of the Court of King Arthur.

Anglo-Saxon society was much more backward as compared with the social organization which prevailed among the Celts in Britain. The establishment of Anglo-Saxon rule in Britain hampered the development of class relations and the formation of class society in the country. The communal organization was wide­spread among the newcomers.

The Anglo-Saxons settled mainly in small villages consisting of about 20 to 30 families all faithful to their leader. The churls or freemen formed the majority of the population of the communities. They received their share of land – a “hide” – of about 120 acres from the community. Local rules (for example, how to share the great grass field between them before hay-making) were made by the 'moot'. The moot was a small meeting held on a grassy hull or under a tree. Sometimes it judged cases between the people of the village. The many villages were, as time went by, grouped into "hundreds" and the hundreds were grouped into shires. Each hundred had an open air court of justice, the judges being the leaders of the district, who were called aldermen. Important cases were judged by the sheriff of a shire or by a king's officer called a reeve. These cases were discussed at a shire moot which met usually twice a year,

The king's council was called the Witan. It could make laws and choose or elect new kings. Initially the king's power was mainly symbolic. Gradually class inequality increased especially after the conquest of Britain. The nobility distributed the land and cattle among the tribesmen seizing the best lands and gradually becoming great landowners. The tribal nobility could no longer cultivate the land themselves, so initially the slaves worked their fields. As slave labour was unproductive the slaves began to receive plots of land for their personal use as an incentive for better work. This was another important step in the development of serf labour.

In the 7th - 9th centuries important changes took place among the members of the Anglo-Saxon communities: land held by separate families became their private property which could be sold inherited or used as a payment for debts. Thus in the given period feudal relations were beginning to make slow progress within the Anglo-Saxon society. However, though some peasants were already in bondage and others could hardly make their ends meet because their plots were too small, the majority of the population still consisted of free peasants.

At first the invader spoke different dialects but little by little the dialect of the Angles of Mercia prevailed. Soon the people living in Britain were referred to as the English after the Angles and the name England became widely used as the name of the whole country. The Anglo-Saxons were pagans and remained so for some time. Tiu (Tuesday) was the god of war, Woden (Wednesday) was the supreme god and the ancestor of Icings, Thor (Thursday) was the god of storm, Frigga (Friday), Woden's wife, was the goddess of nature and of love. Anglo-Saxon folklore, the greatest monument of which is The Poem of Beowulf created in the seventh century, reflected the life of society and its beliefs.

I. Answer the following questions.

1. Where did the Jutes, the Saxons and the Angles come from?

2. Was the country subdued at once?

3. What kingdoms did the invaders form?

4. Why were the invaders generally referred to as the Anglo-Saxons?

5. What part of Britain was conquered nether by the Romans nor the Angles and Saxons?

6. How did the Anglo- Saxon rule influence the formation of class society in the country?