Heptarchy

The Anglo Saxon invasions and the Heptarchy

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• published: 21 Jun 2013
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This is the first video in the first lesson of "A Short History of the English Language"; a course offered for future English teachers and teachers in service in Southern Brazil. Transcript: Welcome to our course! In this lesson, I will introduce to you the period that we know as the "Anglo-Saxon Period", or the "Old English period". This period began in the fifth century, due to the decline of the Roman Empire, and ended in 1066 AD, when the Normans conquered England. The English language was born after three Germanic tribes, the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes, invade the territory that is now known as England. This territory was previously occupied by the Romans, but in the beginning of the 5th century, Rome was invaded repeatedly by Barbarians, mainly the Visigoths. For this reason, most Roman soldiers in British soil were called to defend Rome and left the English territory relatively unprotected. You can see, in the picture, what happened during the invasion of the Roman Empire. It is a little confusing, but you can see the Visigoths and the vandals moving to Rome, by sea and by land. On the north, it is possible to see the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes moving to the English territory. It is worth mentioning, however, that the division between these Germanic tribes was not so clear cut; there may have been other tribes among these ones. According to historians, their languages were similar West Germanic dialects. As time passed, these dialects evolved into four main dialects: Mercian, Northumbrian, Kentish, and West-Saxon. This is the division, as far as language is concerned. The territorial distributions, on the other hand, are a whole different subject. As there were different peoples settling in England after the fall of the Roman Empire, they kept their cultural differences in the new territory. It did not become, all of a sudden, the land that we know today as England. Sometime after the invasions, local tribes eventually started to merge. In the eighth century, there were only seven kingdoms: Northumbria, Mercia, Wessex, Sussex, East Anglia, Essex and Kent. This period, as you may expect, was not a peaceful one. There was a succession of wars; one kingdom tried to conquer the others and rule the whole land. It was the beginning of the process of unification of the land. Some kings achieved somewhat overall dominance in Britain. These were called Bretwaldas, or Rulers of Britain. The first one was Aelle of Sussex, in the late fifth century; for centuries, power shifted from one kingdom to the other, a period that is known as Heptarchy. Perhaps the most notable Ruler of Britain was Alfred, the great, in the late ninth century. He was the first to be truly recognized as a king of all, and, in consequence, he is now recognized as the first king of England.