# Britons: did you learn anything about the Anglo Saxons in school? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 7, 2013, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britons-did-you-learn-anything-about-the-anglo-saxons-in-school/665581 "2013-08-07T12:26:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britons-did-you-learn-anything-about-the-anglo-saxons-in-school/665581/21 "2013-08-09T12:29:46Z")
I’m very surprised. I would have thought that the dark ages were covered in some detail in school in all West European countries, and also wouldn’t have thought that quiting/droping history classes could be an option. ---
**Author:** ![Jennyrosity](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/2bfe46/32.png) [@Jennyrosity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jennyrosity)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britons-did-you-learn-anything-about-the-anglo-saxons-in-school/665581/22 "2013-08-09T22:30:50Z")
I’ve no idea how secondary education works now, but in my day you studied between 8-10 GCSEs. Maths, English(language and/or literature), a science and a modern language were compulsory, after which you got to chose your own subjects from a selection which usually included history, geography, art, religious studies, IT, drama, sociology, design and technology, classics, Latin, etc, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Ken001](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/43a26b/32.png) [@Ken001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ken001)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2013, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britons-did-you-learn-anything-about-the-anglo-saxons-in-school/665581/23 "2013-08-10T08:04:15Z")
To be fair you are talking about the Dark Ages which are aptly named cos…we don’t really know much about those times. Fascinating but obscure. ---
**Author:** ![Bozuit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/edb3f5/32.png) [@Bozuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bozuit)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2013, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britons-did-you-learn-anything-about-the-anglo-saxons-in-school/665581/24 "2013-08-10T12:49:28Z")
> [@Ken001](#): > > To be fair you are talking about the Dark Ages which are aptly named cos…we don’t really know much about those times. Fascinating but obscure. I don’t think this is really true. We certainly know enough to teach it at school. I did a history GCSE and A-level. We never covered Anglo-Saxons at any point in secondary school, if I remember rightly. I think we covered them very briefly at primary school, but I remember learning about Celts in more detail. History in school is fairly standardized, it seems. You can’t go more than a couple of years without the bloody Tudors showing up again. In my experience, English history seems to go Romans -\> Henry VIII -\> Elizabeth I -\> Gunpowder Plot -\> Victoria -\> Second World War. ---
**Author:** ![aNewLeaf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ac91a4/32.png) [@aNewLeaf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aNewLeaf)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2013, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britons-did-you-learn-anything-about-the-anglo-saxons-in-school/665581/25 "2013-08-10T13:08:02Z")
American here- I got a bit of Anglo-Saxon history in school, more than some of you it seems. But that wasn’t in History classes, but English classes. The history of the language is tied up with the history of the peoples involved. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2013, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britons-did-you-learn-anything-about-the-anglo-saxons-in-school/665581/26 "2013-08-10T23:24:08Z")
> [@SanVito](#): > > ‘Inconvenient’ WTF?? You have a very odd opinion of how we view our history. We are well aware, and proud, to be a nation of mutts, thanks. Really, isn’t [Puck of Pook’s Hill](http://www.gutenberg.org/files/15976/15976-h/15976-h.htm) still on the slightly old-fashioned reading lists? > [@](#): > > Trackway and Camp and City lost, > Salt Marsh where now is corn; > Old Wars, old Peace, old Arts that cease, > And so was England born! Doesn’t “England” mean “Angle-Land?” Even more old-fashioned is Chesterton’s _Ballad of the White Horse_, in which he sees Britons, Romanized Brits & Saxons becoming allies, long before those parvenu Normans… Here in Texas, we learned more about Houston & Travis & Santa Ana than we did about King Alfred. But you don’t learn about our language without hearing some words of the Anglo-Saxons. (In the general theme of combating ignorance, I’m still shocked at a recent History Channel story about the Norman conquest. In which we were informed that the Anglo-Saxons were pagans; the Normans brought Christianity to the Island. Yes, I yelled at the screen & changed channels immediately.) ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2013, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britons-did-you-learn-anything-about-the-anglo-saxons-in-school/665581/27 "2013-08-10T23:35:42Z")
Only that Harold Godwinson was one before an unfortunate encounter with an army of Normans, Duke William the Bastard and a stray arrow that posed a serious health and safety hazard. ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2013, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britons-did-you-learn-anything-about-the-anglo-saxons-in-school/665581/28 "2013-08-13T12:47:06Z")
> [@aNewLeaf](#): > > American here- I got a bit of Anglo-Saxon history in school, more than some of you it seems. > But that wasn’t in History classes, but English classes. The history of the language is tied up with the history of the peoples involved. Interesting, I don’t remember being taught anything about the history of English in English classes. For us, English was split into Language classes (grammar, spelling, composition etc) and Literature (The Bard etc). These were separate qualifications. ---
**Author:** ![aNewLeaf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ac91a4/32.png) [@aNewLeaf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aNewLeaf)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2013, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britons-did-you-learn-anything-about-the-anglo-saxons-in-school/665581/29 "2013-08-13T12:56:32Z")
It was sort of a side topic, but we spent a couple days on it in 11th grade. English = Anglic + Latin + French. Understanding why helps you understand what to do about it. This was in SoCal in the mid-80’s, I don’t know if kids today are taught it. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2013, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britons-did-you-learn-anything-about-the-anglo-saxons-in-school/665581/30 "2013-08-13T13:35:10Z")
Ours was pretty sparse in history class (Texas, late 1980s), consisting mostly of an abbreviated timeline that went something like this: Romans conquer Britain, Romans leave. Anglo Saxons show up and conquer Britain. Blue painted Celts hang on in Wales and Scotland. Danish invasions. Heptarchy. William the Conqueror wins. Not really much more detail than that, to be honest. From there, it was more or less fast-forward to the 16th and 17th centuries when all the exploration was going on. Although like **aNewLeaf** mentions, we actually picked up a lot more English history during the course of English literature class by virtue of background information about the authors and works themselves. For example, we read some poetry(?) by the Venerable Bede, and our teacher went into some background about who he was, where he was, and what was going on during his time period. We read “Beowulf” translated, and went over the original Old English one, and got the where/when/why discussion about it as well. Same for the Canterbury Tales, “Murder in the Cathedral” , “A Man for All Seasons”, “Ivanhoe”, and so on. ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Girl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7bcc69/32.png) [@Mighty\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Girl)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2013, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britons-did-you-learn-anything-about-the-anglo-saxons-in-school/665581/31 "2013-08-14T00:08:00Z")
Apropos of language and history, this is a hilarious video on the story of the English language: [The history of English (combined) - YouTube](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3r9bOkYW9s) ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2013, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britons-did-you-learn-anything-about-the-anglo-saxons-in-school/665581/32 "2013-08-14T13:31:50Z")
> [@bump](#): > > For example, we read some poetry(?) by the Venerable Bede… Not poetry. Bede is known for histories, mostly. He wrote in a sort of meter, though, so maybe that’s what you were thinking of. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2013, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britons-did-you-learn-anything-about-the-anglo-saxons-in-school/665581/33 "2013-08-14T14:50:20Z")
Author [Richard Armour](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Armour) wrote about “the Saxons, who knew all the Angles.” 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Kiyoshi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e19adc/32.png) [@Kiyoshi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kiyoshi)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2013, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britons-did-you-learn-anything-about-the-anglo-saxons-in-school/665581/34 "2013-08-14T16:52:05Z")
I didn’t learn anything about the Anglo-Saxons at school. Primary school was the standard Ancient Egypt -\> Vikings -\> Tudors & Stuarts -\> WW2 rotation. High school was all about the 19th and 20th centuries. This included stuff like expansion of the Old West, Native American history and the slave trade, then skipped ahead a bit to WWi, Weimar Germany, the USA in the 20s, the Great Depression, WW2, the Cold War and the Vietnam War. My A-level covered England from the death of Elizabeth I through to the Restoration, France from Louis XIV to the Revolution, and Prussia from the Great Elector to Frederick II. The parts of history we didn’t cover at primary school, I learned from the [Horrible Histories](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horrible_Histories) books. There wasn’t one about the Anglo-Saxons though. ---
**Author:** ![Boulter\_s\_Canary](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e79b87/32.png) [@Boulter\_s\_Canary](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boulter_s_Canary)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britons-did-you-learn-anything-about-the-anglo-saxons-in-school/665581/35 "2013-08-16T00:36:47Z")
I learned a little - enough to make me interested enough to read C Walter Hodges’ two novels about Alfred the Great (_The Namesake_ and _The Marsh King_), which taught me more than school did. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britons-did-you-learn-anything-about-the-anglo-saxons-in-school/665581.md?page=1)