Anglo-Saxon tribes. Anglo-Saxon heptarchy

It is difftcult to speak with surety about the relations of the newcomers and the native population. In some districts where the inhabitants were few, the Anglo-Saxons probably settled down beside the Celts in more or less peaceful contact. In others, as in the West Saxon territory, the invaders met with stubborn resistance and succeeded in establishing themselves only after much fighting. Many of the Celts undoubtedly were driven into the west and sought refuge in Wales and Cornwall, and some emigrated across the Channel to Brittany. In any case such civilization as had been attained under Roman influence was largely destroyed. The Roman towns were burnt and abandoned. Town life did not attract a population used to life in the open and finding its occupation in hunting and agriculture. The organization of society was by families and clans with a sharp distinction between eorls, a kind of hereditary aristocracy, and the ceorls or simple freemen. The business of the community was transacted in local assemblies or moots, and justice was administered through a series of fines—the wergild—which varied according to the nature of the crime and the rank of the injured party. Guilt was generally determined by ordeal or by compurgation. In time various tribes combined either for greater strength or, under the influence of a powerful leader, to produce small kingdoms. Seven of these are eventually recognized, Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Kent, Essex, Sussex, and Wessex, and are spoken of as the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy. But the grouping was not very permanent, sometimes two or more being united under one king, at other times kingdoms being divided under separate rulers. In the early part of the seventh century Northumbria gained political supremacy over a number of the other kingdoms and held an undoubted leadership in literature and learning as well. In the eighth century this leadership passed to Mercia. Finally, in the ninth century, Wessex under the guidance of Egbert (802–839) began to extend its influence until in 830 all England, including the chieftains of Wales, acknowledged Egbert’s overlordship. The result can hardly be called a united kingdom, but West Saxon kings were able to maintain their claim to be kings of all the English, and under Alfred (871–889) Wessex attained a high degree of prosperity and considerable enlightenment.

The Names “England” and “English.”
The Celts called their Germanic conquerors Saxons indiscriminately, probably because they had had their first contact with the Germanic peoples through the Saxon raids on the coast.[11] Early Latin writers, following Celtic usage, generally call the Germanic inhabitants of England Saxones and the land Saxonia. But soon the terms Angli and Anglia occur beside Saxones and refer not to the Angles individually but to the West Germanic tribes generally. Æthelbert, king of Kent, is styled rex Anglorum by Pope Gregory in 601, and a century later Bede called his history the Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum. In time Angli and Anglia become the usual terms in Latin texts. From the beginning, however, writers in the vernacular never call their language anything but Englisc (English). The word is derived from the name of the Angles (OE Engle) but is used without distinction for the language of all the invading tribes. In like manner the land and its people are early called Angelcynn (Angle-kin or race of the Angles), and this is the common name until after the Danish period. From about the year 1000 Englaland (land of the Angles) begins to take its place. The name English is thus older than the name England.[12] It is not easy to say why England should have taken its name from the Angles. Possibly a desire to avoid confusion with the Saxons who remained on the continent and the early supremacy of the Anglian kingdoms were the predominant factors in determining usage.[13]          

Adoption of Christianity and its influence on the development of the English

Language.

The introduction of Christianity meant the building of churches and the establishment of monasteries. Latin, the language of the services and of ecclesiastical learning, was once more heard in England. Schools were established in most of the monasteries and larger churches. Some of these became famous through their great teachers, and from them trained men went out to set up other schools at other centers. The beginning of this movement was in 669, when a Greek bishop, Theodore of Tarsus, was made archbishop of Canterbury. He was accompanied by Hadrian, an African by birth, a man described by Bede as “of the greatest skill in both the Greek and Latin tongues.” They devoted considerable time and energy to teaching. “And because,” says Bede, “they were abundantly learned in sacred and profane literature, they gathered a crowd of disciples...and together with the books of Holy Writ, they also taught the arts of poetry, astronomy, and computation of the church calendar; a testimony of which is that there are still living at this day some of their scholars, who are as well versed in the Greek and Latin tongues as in their own, in which they were born.” A decade or two later Aldhelm carried on a similar work at Malmesbury. He was a remarkable classical scholar. He had an exceptional knowledge of Latin literature, and he wrote Latin verse with ease. In the north the school at York became in time almost as famous as that of Canterbury. The two monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow were founded by Benedict Biscop, who had been with Theodore and Hadrian at Canterbury, and who on five trips to Rome brought back a rich and valuable collection of books. His most famous pupil was the Venerable Bede, a monk at Jarrow. Bede assimilated all the learning of his time. He wrote on grammar and prosody, science and chronology, and composed numerous commentaries on the books of the Old and New Testament. His most famous work is the Ecclesiastical History of the English People (731), from which we have already had occasion to quote more than once and from which we derive a large part of our knowledge of the early history of England. Bede’s spiritual grandchild was Alcuin, of York, whose fame as a scholar was so great that in 782 Charlemagne called him to be the head of his Palace School. In the eighth century England held the intellectual leadership of Europe, and it owed this leadership to the church. In like manner vernacular literature and the arts received a new impetus. Workers in stone and glass were brought from the continent for the improvement of church building. Rich embroidery, the illumination of manuscripts, and church music occupied others. Moreover the monasteries cultivated their land by improved methods of agriculture and made numerous contributions to domestic economy. In short, the church as the carrier of Roman civilization influenced the course of English life in many directions, and, as is to be expected, numerous traces of this influence are to be seen in the vocabulary of Old English.

3.3.1. The Earlier Influence of Christianity on the Vocabulary

From the introduction of Christianity in 597 to the close of the Old English period is a stretch of more than 500 years. During all this time Latin words must have been making their way gradually into the English language. It is likely that the first wave of religious feeling that resulted from the missionary zeal of the seventh century, and that is reflected in intense activity in church building and the establishing of monasteries during this century, was responsible also for the rapid importation of Latin words into the vocabulary. The many new conceptions that followed in the train of the new religion would naturally demand expression and would at times find the resources of the language inadequate. But it would be a mistake to think that the enrichment of the vocabulary that now took place occurred overnight. Some words came in almost immediately, others only at the end of this period. In fact, it is fairly easy to divide the Latin borrowings of the Second Period into two groups, more or less equal in size but quite different in character. The one group represents words whose phonetic form shows that they were borrowed early and whose early adoption is attested also by the fact that they had found their way into literature by the time of Alfred. The other contains words of a more learned character first recorded in the tenth and eleventh centuries and owing their introduction clearly to the religious revival that accompanied the Benedictine Reform. It will be well to consider them separately.

It is obvious that the most typical as well as the most numerous class of words introduced by the new religion would have to do with that religion and the details of its external organization. Words are generally taken over by one language from another in answer to a definite need. They are adopted because they express ideas that are new or because they are so intimately associated with an object or a concept that acceptance of the thing involves acceptance also of the word. A few words relating to Christianity such as church and bishop were, as we have seen, borrowed earlier. The Anglo-Saxons had doubtless plundered churches and come in contact with bishops before they came to England. But the great majority of words in Old English having to do with the church and its services, its physical fabric and its ministers, when not of native origin were borrowed at this time. Because most of these words have survived in only slightly altered form in Modern English, the examples may be given in their modern form. The list includes abbot, alms, altar, angel, anthem, Arian, ark, candle, canon, chalice, cleric, cowl, deacon, disciple, epistle, hymn, litany, manna, martyr, mass, minster, noon, nun, offer, organ, pall, palm, pope, priest, provost, psalm, psalter, relic, rule, shrift, shrine, shrive, stole, subdeacon, synod, temple, and tunic. Some of these were reintroduced later. But the church also exercised a profound influence on the domestic life of the people. This is seen in the adoption of many words, such as the names of articles of clothing and household use—cap, sock, silk, purple, chest, mat, sack;[30] words denoting foods, such as beet, caul (cabbage), lentil (OE lent), millet (OE mil), pear, radish, doe, oyster (OE ostre), lobster, mussel, to which we may add the noun cook;[31] names of trees, plants, and herbs (often cultivated for their medicinal properties), such as box, pine,[32] aloes, balsam, fennel, hyssop, lily, mallow, marshmallow, myrrh, rue, savory (OE sæþrige), and the general word plant. A certain number of words having to do with education and learning reflect another aspect of the church’s influence. Such are school, master, Latin (possibly an earlier borrowing), grammatic(al), verse, meter, gloss, notary (a scribe). Finally we may mention a number of words too miscellaneous to admit of profitable classification, like anchor, coulter, fan (for winnowing), fever, place (cf. marketplace), spelter (asphalt), sponge, elephant, phoenix, mancus (a coin), and some more or less learned or literary words, such as calend, circle, legion, giant, consul, and talent. The words cited in these examples are mostly nouns, but Old English borrowed also a number of verbs and adjectives such as āspendan (to spend; L. expendere), bemūtian (to exchange; L. mūtāre), dihtan (to compose; L. dictāre) pīnian (to torture; L. poena), pinsian (to weigh; L. pēnsāre), pyngan (to prick; L. pungere), sealtian (to dance; L. saltāre), temprian (to temper; L. temperāre), trifolian (to grind; L. trībulāre), tyrnan (to turn; L. tornāre), and crisp (L. crispus, ‘curly’). But enough has been said to indicate the extent and variety of the borrowings from Latin in the early days of Christianity in England and to show how quickly the language reflected the broadened horizon that the English people owed to the church.

3.3.2. The Application of Native Words to New Concepts

The words that Old English borrowed in this period are only a partial indication of the extent to which the introduction of Christianity affected the lives and thoughts of the English people. The English did not always adopt a foreign word to express a new concept. Often an old word was applied to a new thing and by a slight adaptation made to express a new meaning. The Anglo-Saxons, for example, did not borrow the Latin word deus, because their own word God was a satisfactory equivalent. Likewise heaven and hell express conceptions not unknown to Anglo-Saxon paganism and are consequently English words. Patriarch was rendered literally by hēahfœder (high father), prophet by wītega (wise one), martyr often by the native word þrōwere (one who suffers pain), and saint by hālga (holy one). Specific members of the church organization such as pope, bishop, and priest, or monk and abbot represented individuals for which the English had no equivalent and therefore borrowed the Latin terms; however they did not borrow a general word for clergy but used a native expression, ðœt gāstlice folc (the spiritual folk). The word Easter is a Germanic word taken over from a pagan festival, likewise in the spring, in honor of Eostre, the goddess of dawn. Instead of borrowing the Latin word praedicāre (to preach) the English expressed the idea with words of their own, such as (to teach) or bodian (to bring a message); to pray (L. precāre) was rendered by biddan (to ask) and other words of similar meaning, prayer by a word from the same root, gebed. For baptize (L. baptizāre) the English adapted a native word fullian (to consecrate) while its derivative fulluht renders the noun baptism. The latter word enters into numerous compounds, such as fulluhtbœþ (font), fulwere (baptist), fulluht-fœder (baptizer), fulluht-hād (baptismal vow), fulluht-nama (Christian name), fulluht-stōw (baptistry), fulluht-tīd (baptism time), and others. Even so individual a feature of the Christian faith as the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper was expressed by the Germanic word hūsl (modern housel), while lāc, the general word for sac-rifice to the gods, was also sometimes applied to the Sacrifice of the Mass. The term Scriptures found its exact equivalent in the English word gewritu, and ēvangelium was rendered by godspell, originally meaning good tidings. Trinity (L.trinitas) was translated þrines (three-ness), the idea of God the Creator was expressed by scieppend (one who shapes or forms), fruma (creator, founder), or metod (measurer). Native words like fæder (father), dryhten (prince), wealdend (ruler), þēoden (prince), weard (ward, protector), hlāford (lord) are frequent synonyms. Most of them are also applied to Christ, originally a Greek word and the most usual name for the Second Person of the Trinity, but (Savior) is also commonly employed. The Third Person (Spiritus Sanctus) was translated Hālig Gäst (Holy Ghost). Latin diabolus was borrowed as dēofol (devil) but we find fēond (fiend) as a common synonym. Examples might be multiplied. Cross is rōd (rood), trēow (tree), gealga (gallows), etc.; resurrection is from ārīsan (to arise); peccatum is synn (sin), while other words like mān, firen, leahtor, wōh, and scyld, meaning ‘vice’, ‘crime’, ‘fault’, and the like, are commonly substituted. The Judgment Day is Doomsday. Many of these words are translations of their Latin equivalents and their vitality is attested by the fact that in a great many cases they have continued in use down to the present day. It is important to recognize that the significance of a foreign influence is not to be measured simply by the foreign words introduced but is revealed also by the extent to which it stimulates the language to independent creative effort and causes it to make full use of its native resources.

3.3.3. The Extent of the Influence

To be sure, the extent of a foreign influence is most readily seen in the number of words borrowed. As a result of the Christianizing of Britain some 450 Latin words appear in English writings before the close of the Old English period. This number does not include derivatives or proper names, which in the case of biblical names are very numerous. But about 100 of these were purely learned or retained so much of their foreign character as hardly to be considered part of the English vocabulary. Of the 350 words that have a right to be so considered, some did not make their way into general use until later—were, in fact, reintroduced later. On the other hand, a large number of them were fully accepted and thoroughly incorporated into the language. The real test of a foreign influence is the degree to which the words that it brought in were assimilated. This is not merely a question of the power to survive; it is a question of how completely the words were digested and became indistinguishable from the native word-stock, so that they could enter into compounds and be made into other parts of speech, just like native words. When, for example, the Latin noun planta comes into English as the noun plant and later is made into a verb by the addition of the infinitive ending -ian (plantian) and other inflectional elements, we may feel sure that the word has been assimilated. This happened in a number of cases as in gemartyrian (to martyr), sealmian (to play on the harp), culpian (to humiliate oneself), fersian (to versify), glēsan (to gloss), and crispian (to curl). Assimilation is likewise indicated by the use of native formative suffixes such as -dōm, -hād, -ung to make a concrete noun into an abstract (martyrdōm, martyrhād, martyrung). The Latin influence of the Second Period was not only extensive but thorough and marks the real beginning of the English habit of freely incorporating foreign elements into