The Development of Anglo-Saxon Village West Stow Essay examples

With the growing size of Rome they soon realized it was a little more than they could handle. With the expansion Rome got new subjects who were not Roman and had to desire to be they were located in Gaul, England, and in the Middle East.

In the 7th Century AD, an important individual was buried inside a ship in East Anglia. The ship most likely hauled up from the nearby river, a burial chamber was built in the center of the massive vessel. Luckily grave robbers did not reach the ship burial as they did other nearby burial mounds, because the ship was rich in history and artifacts including gold, silver, bowls, spoons, weapons, drinking horns and much more. Originally discovered in 1939, the artifacts and ship burial have been closely examined another 2 times. The artifacts found within the magnificent burial site have created a lot of stir over the past 80 years. Theories have changed on the significance and origins of the artifacts due to changing hypothesis or the arrival of new and different evidence. Because there are dozens of artifacts within Sutton Hoo, this paper will be focusing on a select four of them including; the ‘baptismal’ spoons, the Merovingian coin hoard, the whetstone, and the scepter. According to scholars over the past 80 years, how have opinions, evidence, or assumptions changed relating to these exact artifacts? This paper will be taking a contemporary look at the perspectives of different scholars on different artifacts and, finally, analyze why these perspectives have shifted or changed over time. To my knowledge, scholars do give credit to previous perspectives, but no scholar has every brought all the perspectives together and analyzed their findings.

In the year 1939 in the community of Sutton Hoo near Suffolk, England a discovery of massive proportion took place. The magnitude of this archeological find was described in a local news article, “For the first thousand years of the Christian era the little island of Britain was overrun by hordes of men who rose up out of the sea. In the Fifth Century came the Angles, from somewhere on the bleak coast of the Baltic. Ships brought them, and when their kings died they were buried in ships with their bows pointing toward the sea.” This discovery answered many of the questions left by the story Beowulf, a document once cast of as a transcribed lore. Modern day archeological discoveries prove that Beowulf is a story founded in truth.

Sutton Hoo is the site of two cemeteries of the sixth and seventh centuries. Sutton Hoo was discovered in 1939 and is the most important link to the Anglo Saxon world. On the Sutton Hoo burial site, there are approximately 20 burial mounds formed between 625 and 670 AD. As Thomas Robjent says in his article The Sutton Hoo Ship Burial: A General Background and Source List, “Along with the ship-burial, many impressive artifacts were found within mound one. The list of artifacts and treasure from this mound is as follows: An iron standard, a sceptre, spears, an iron-bound wooden bucket, a bronze bowl, a hanging bowl containing the remains of a musical instrument, drinking horns, a shield, a helmet, a sword, the iron head of an axe, the remains

The Anglo-Saxon culture came from the ethos which arose from years of progress and understanding. This culture a unification of independent principalities brought together by one king known as Alfred the Great. The true sense of the culture came with the values of loyalty, kinship, and bravery, which present themselves in the epic tale of Beowulf whose violent victory propelled him from mercenary to rightful warrior and respected hero. where the birth of a hero came from the actions of a rightful warrior.

The archaeological discoveries of Sutton Hoo, the Staffordshire Hoard, and the Book of Kells, along with the epic Beowulf, all analyze the connection between the present and the past time period of the Anglo-Saxons. Warrior culture and Christian culture from the Anglo-Saxon time period, are apart of human cultural heritage today. There are many images and descriptions in Beowulf of treasure and armor which are similar to the findings at Sutton Hoo and Staffordshire. The similarities between the epic and the archaeological findings create an understanding of the connection between the past and the present. The elaborate images in the Book of Kells augment the understanding of early Christian culture and the epic Beowulf synthesises Christian culture and warrior culture.

In a time that archeologists of today know very little about and have very little evidence for, assumption tend to be made and believed as fact. There is so much mystery surrounding both Sutton Hoo and Beowulf that the two have been naturally connected in the minds of many and have been affecting each other since the Sutton Hoo find. One scholar wrote about this human tendency saying, “Human beings understand the world by making analogies, placing the unknown alongside the known and extrapolating from the familiar to the unfamiliar; seldom do we encounter any ‘original’ thing that we can appreciate fully in its newness and self-sufficiency. Everything reminds us of something else, everything relates to some other thing” (Liuzza 281). This is true, especially with matters of ancient history, when often time, little to no evidence can actually tell archeaologists anything substantial about the life and culture of the time. People have often done this with Beowulf and Sutton Hoo, making strong connections with flimsy facts and similarities. The traditional pagan ritual of the ship burial in which people were sent to the afterworld

This medieval village, first populated around 2000 BC as a commune, is perched like an eagles nest on a narrow rocky peak 1,400 feet above sea level. This ancient fortified village is still crowned with the ruins of its 12th-century fortified castle (torn down in 1706), sitting on a narrow rocky peak. The village forms a circular pattern around the base of the castle. The old buildings and narrow streets are very well restored, with high stone walls and narrow roadways of red-brick centered stone. When visiting this quaint village, you can tour local perfumeries, peruse shops carved into the stone, and enjoy the breathtaking views this place offers.

There are many known periods that we know lead to the development of the modern era and the Anglo-Saxon period is the oldest known period of time that had a complex culture with stable government, art and literature. This period is a time filled with great advancements and discoveries in government, religion, literature, and art. Cultures of Anglo-Saxon society and modern society have many similarities as well as differences. There are many differences between this period and the modern era we live in today in terms of politics, social climate, values, social hierarchy, the role of women, military, government and language. In this essay, I am going to focus on the differences of the two periods in terms of values, role of women and language in the society.

What does the phrase ‘social justice’ mean? Is it fairness in terms of social life? Equity in the way people are treated within a community? Or even simply, justice for those who are social? Oxford Dictionary describes social justice as “ justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society,” (Social Justice). Economically, this can mean that monetary resources are evenly distributed throughout the general public. The equal opportunity aspect of social justice can mean that everyone received a fair chance to participate in something. Finally, social justice looks to bring the same privileges to everyone, regardless of background, race, class, gender, or anything else that can be discriminatory. One issue of social justice that I’d like to focus on would be the treatment of those who suffer from traumatic brain injuries (TBI). More specifically, focusing on the assistance currently being given to soldiers who suffer from TBI after they return from war. In order to bring about better social justice for soldiers who suffer from traumatic brain injuries (TBI), current programs helping the injured to transition back to civilian life need to be adapted to better support troops.

The human brain is effortlessly conditioned by the world from what it sees and hears in the media. Society causes the public to obey what is seen in the eyes of the uneducated. This leads to conflicts in many different countries that assign a cruel name to Islam because of a few individuals hatred against society. Many people believe that all Muslims are a terroristic threat, causing Muslims to suffer from racial discrimination. Muslims, non-Muslim supporters, news outlets, and other media outlets must educate others about the peacefulness of true Muslims and decrease racial profiling, suspicion, and discrimination.

While the author of Beowulf did not initially intend for the epic to become one of the most researched and foundational works in the English language, and therefore, did not go into much detail about its setting and surrounding political structures, the unnamed writer left behind important clues regarding Scandinavian and English political, economic, geographical, and societal bodies. Although not much is known about the author, it is evident through their writing, especially in the societal structure mentioned in the epic, that they were of English descent, specifically, born in the middle of seventh and end of tenth century England, according to Seamus Heaney in the introduction to his translation of Beowulf. Societal clues are the most prominent in proving this claim, as they merge Scandinavian and Old English structures, and at its most form, Beowulf is a Scandinavian tale told through an Englishman’s persepctive.

Many Leaders lack the ability to move people. Mourning the death of a leader is an even bigger task to take on. Abraham Lincoln, in this case was an exception. In the famous poem, “O Captain! My Captain!” Written by, Walt Whitman in the year 1865. The poem, refers to a terrible event in American history; the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. Instead of the country celebrating and rejoicing over the ending of the Civil War and being happy over the country being kept whole, everyone was mourning in the loss of their leader.

The Anglo-Saxon period was a time around 410 AD where settlers from Modern Germany invaded Britain after the failure of the Roman Empire. Anglo-Saxon warriors were hired to preserve the Roman way of life but decided the land was good for themselves. Therefore, Britain became their home. Anglo-Saxons contributed greatly to the foundations of Britain by spreading their culture in ways of their language, literature, religion and traditions in law and government. They were referred to as the “First Englishmen” and left the strongest reminder of their presence in ways such as the Exeter Book. The Exeter Book was literature that expressed all the ways and values of the Anglo-Saxon people. “The seafarer”, “the wanderer”, and “the wife's lament” being part of the Exeter book expressed the central theme of isolationism.

The process of Christianization and Latin influx was interrupted at the end of the eight century (787) when the Vikings (Norwegian and Dane tribes) began their ravages over Anglo-Saxon England, sacking monasteries like Lindisfarne and Jarrow (793-794). By the ninth century, churches and monasteries in Northumbria and Mercia lay in ruins while settlements in all parts of the country had been plundered and northern towns, such as York in 867, captured. Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were finally overturned while the Vikings established their own kingdom in the northeast of England (the Danelaw). Under King Alfred’s rule of Wessex (871-899) and despite several conflicts, the Danish were contained in such area. In turn, the Danish king had to convert to Christianism, although the ‘moral fibre of the church’ was seriously disrupted (Baugh (2005:79). Then Alfred’s descendants, Edward the Elder (900-925) and Athelstan (925-939), extended their authority throughout England –Athelstan’s triumph in 937 in Brunanburh was crucial, which is recorded in an Old English poem with the same name. However, invasions were repeated at the end of the tenth century along the southeast coast, led by the Norwegian and Danish kings, Olaf and Svein respectively, who attacked London. Svein made himself king, sending the English king Æthelred the Unready into exile in Normandy. England was hence ruled by Danish kings from 1014 to 1017, when the Danish