(I suppose this specifically applies to the English as Scots probably have less reason to learn about the Anglo Saxons than we do.)
I was watching a documentary on Alfred the Great last night and it dawned on me how little I actually know about the Anglo Saxons and Viking invasions of England. I dropped history before GCSE, so perhaps I missed out on some later focus on this time period (though, from what I gathered from students studying GCSE History at my school, I don’t think so — perhaps at A-level?), but my history education roughly consisted of the Romans, before jumping forward to the defeat of the Anglo Saxons with the Norman Invasion, bypassing about 1000 years of history where our country was actually unified as a single political entity under Alfred and Aethelstan, with the Vikings leaving a massive cultural mark that’s still felt today, before moving on to the Tudors.
Is there a reason why the Anglo Saxons are given so little prominence?
I also quit history before GCSEs, and learnt nothing about them. Didn’t learn about the English Civil War either. All I remember learning about in history is the Cold War and Henry VIII.
Virtually nothing: there was Caesar’s invasion, then the Heptarchy, then 1066, then the Wars of the Roses, then the Tudors in more depth, then very slightly the Rebellion, then the Napoleonic Wars, then nothing.
Claudius’s more successful invasion and the successful revolution of 1688 whereby the aristocracy took over were passed over in silence. They concentrated on Industrial History which was as dull as ditch-water and on Social History, which is even duller than that.
Yes, at primary school, but mainly in the context of Northumbrian history - we did bits on The Venerable Bede and the Viking invasions starting in 793. Oh, and Hereward the Wake.
It’s a bit inconvenient to teach about the Anglo-Saxons because the cultures they conquered are still there, neither completely destroyed nor completely assimiliated (the Welsh and the Cornish, and I suppose the Bretons). Much better to start with the Normans and assume there always was an England
Learned all about them in Year 5 or 6 I think. Seaxes and scramasaxes, wattle and daub buildings, woad, thanes and so on. Even learned about their fellow travelers the Jutes and Frisians (though not much). I most distinctly remember learning about Saxon placenames.
Birmingham: the fortified village controlled by the family of Birm, whoever he was.
School-wise, we did little other than 1066 and all that. I was, however, absorbed in Henry Treece’s books, so learned a lot myself about pre-Norman Conquest.
I still remember going to Secondary School and my History teacher was young, a sort of hippy-chick. Although it wasn’t very cool, I couldn’t help myself chipping in and answering questions as we started the syllabus, possibly the only kid who was at all interested, let alone . My teacher glowed, I can still see the sparkle in her eyes, 30 years later, as we bantered about Saxons, Vikings and Danegeld, and through into the Normans and the Feudal System. Nobody else in the room gave even half a shit!
Sadly, I moved, and changed schools after a year, dumping History soon after that. ( Though I still have a thing for hippy chicks, and a yearning to get off my tits on some mushrooms and swing a massive axe called “Brain-Biter” at the massed ranks of invaders)
I dropped history in the third year of secondary school (back then it was called the third year). I remember history classes prior to that including the decline of the Roman Empire (including in Britain), Anglo Saxon Britain, the Vikings, the Normans, etc.
Some of this was just in timeline form, or presented as a context/background of other things.
In the old USENET there were Brits who posted excerpts from the
“AngloSaxon Chronicles”. The Danes were a bloodthirsty lot with a
religion even more violent than Islam. They set up a domain called
the DANELAW, and the Anglosaxons who lived north of West Saxony
(Wessex) suffered a great deal. The Irish and Roman Catholics were able to
slowly convert the Danes to the Prince of Peace. Chesterton writes well about
the conversion of these savages. Alfred the Great was able to unite England
because Norse invaders intermarried with the Anglosaxons, thus combining
ON and AS languages into one great language.
Ironically, when the catholic priests recorded the “Chronicles” around 1000 AD,
Their purpose was to preserve AS. AngloSaxon was no longer spoken by commoners
in that time.
“Goose and Gander
Waft their wings together
To carry king and daughter
Across the river Humber
To far Noroway.”
(The daughter was betrothed. Both longboats sank in a storm.
All of Wessex and Danelaw mourned.)
Only in primary school (where the teacher pretty much made up the syllabus based on what kids were interested in), I seem to recall we touched on it, but I don’t remember much in the way of detail. We did more on ancient Greece, Rome and Egypt, probably because they have cooler relics.
In secondary school we did a little about 1066, then we jumped to the tudors, and that was basically it for pre-WW1 Britain. I gave up history in the 3rd year, but apparently they only studied the World Wars at GCSE anyway.
