8. Anglo-Saxon non-religious prose

Anglo-Saxon prose is also a surprizingly rich source of insights into this elusive (неуловимый) culture: laws, charms and riddles(загадки) have survived.

Alfred the Great (848-899) made contributions to this already rich literature by writing in his native tongue and encouraging scholarly (академические) translations from Latin into Old English (Anglo-Saxon). Alfred translated some Latin texts into the tongue of the West Saxons; and it was under him, probably, that the ‘Anglo-Saxon Chronicle’ was begun. It’s a collection of annals narrating the history of the Anglo-Saxons and their settlement in Britain.Much of the information in these documents consists of rumors of events that happened elsewhere and so may be unreliable. However for some periods and places, the chronicle is the only substantial surviving source of information. The manuscripts were produced in different places, and each manuscript represents the biases (влияния) of its scribes (писцов).

9. Old Epic Poetry: scop (поэт), alliteration, caesura, kennings

English literature began as oral, not written, literature, with songs and poems celebrating heroes. These poems were passed on by minstrels, or scops, who composed many poems that praised Anglo-Saxon ideals. Probably most important of these ideals were valor(доблесть), honor, and loyality to one’s lord. This was primarily a somber(мрачное) time in which human destiny was believed to be ruled by fate.

Because Anglo-Saxon poetry existed in oral tradition long before it was writted down, the verse form contains complicated rules for alliteration designed to help scops remember the many thousands of lines they were required to know by heart. Each of the two halves of an Anglo-Saxon line contains two stressed syllables, and an alliterative pattern must be carried over across the caesura. Any of the stressed syllables may aliterate except the last syllable; so the first and second syllables may alliterate alone , or the second and third may alliterate alone.

In addition to these rules, Old English poetry often features a distinctive set of rhetorical devices. The most common is the kenning, used throughout ‘Beowulf’. A kenning is a short metaphorical description of a thing used in a place of the thing’s name; thus a ship may be called a ‘sea-rider’, or a king a ‘ring-giver’. Some translations employ kennings almost as frequently as they appear in the original. Others moderate the use of kennings in deference to a modern sensibilty. But the Old English version of the epic is full of them, and they are perhaps the most important rhetorical device present in Old English poetry.

10. The Medieval Period: historical, cultural, social, religious and political background

In England the Medieval Period, also called the Middle Ages, began in a year that has become famous – 1066. In that year the Normans, who had settled in what is now western France, defeated the Anglo-Saxons at the Battle of Hastings and earned for their leader the title William th Conqueror. Now England had a Norman king.

Norman kings ruled England for less than a hundreed years, but during that time the Normans brought England closer to the mainstream of European society. William introduced in England the European social, economic, and political system called feudalism. Under feudalism, land (the real wealth of the nation) was divided among noble overlords, or barons. Lesser lords, called knights, pledged (обязывали) their wealth and services to the overlords. The overlord, in return, provided use of the land. At the lowest end of the social scale were the serfs, peasants pledged (заложенные) to the lord of the manor and bound to the land.

The feudalism that the Normans brought to England was not just an economic and political system, a means of dividing up land and power. Feudalism was also a social system.The feudal manor – the home of the lord and the lands around it – was self-sufficient and in many ways like a small city.To the serfs in the small cottages on the estate, feudalism meant complete dependence upon the overlord. Social life, at least outside of the big towns and cities, was limited to hard work at farming or herding (выпасе скота) and a bit of amusement provided by the local church. In the royal courts and in the manor houses of the overlords, life was more sophisticated (утонченной).Though the lord had responsibilities to the welfare of his estate, knights and serfs freed (освобождали) him from the demands of daily struggle.

The English kings and barons from 1066 to 1485 played their roles against a backdrop (на фоне) of glory and violence that spread from the royal courts and Roman ruins near London northward into Scotland, west into Wales and Ireland, across the English Channel into France, and southeast into what was called the Holy Land – the city of jerusalem, then in Moslem hands. This was the period when knighthood flourished in England, when knights went on local quests, or across the sea to fight the French, or on what can be a life-time journey to the Holy Land.

With feudalism and knighthood the Normans brought to England the code of chivalry. Chivalry (галантность) was an ideal that all knights must try to attain (достичь): to be honorable, courteous, generous, brave, skillful in battle, respectful to women,and helpful to the weak. This romantic attitude would affect much of the literature of the period, especially the songs and stories.

The Roman Catholic Church was also a powerful force in the England of Middle Ages. Never had so many people been more totally and unquestioningly at one with a single institutional church and with the faith that church professed. Kings, courts, knights and common people down to the lowliest serf all practiced a belief in the church on earth and in the afterlife that it proclaimed. Knights were willing to die for their religious beliefs, as witnessed in particular by their ardent desire to join in the Crusades, which were military expeditions undertaken to recapture the city of Jerusalem from the Moslems.

In the years between 1096 and 1270, knights in full regalia, armor bright, with footsoldiers and all the paraphernalia that an army needs – almost a travelling city – plundered their way to th Holy Land.They were never succesful – some never even reached Jerusalem – but they left a violent trail behind them.

Back in England the normans strenghtened the physical domain of the Church, building stone monasteries and abbeys. Churches and cathedrals, perhaps the most dramatic and beautiful legacy of the period, were another product of religious faith and energy.

City life in Medieval England

By all reports, London remained a merry town. But in 1348 and 1349 the dreadful Black Death, a form of the bubonic plague, killed at least a third of the English population.

In spite of plague and warfare, England prosperied during the later Middle Ages. People began to move from castle towns to villages and cities, and cities had sprung up (возникали) in the north as well as on the southern plains.

Guilds – organizations not unlike modern-day trade unions – developed in the cities. Also during this time herding became more important than farming. British wool became famous.

Even more important than the end of knighthood (mostly due to the invention of gunpowder) and the beginning of the textile industry.