Anglo saxon fun facts: Top 10 Facts about The Anglo-Saxons — Fun Kids

Posted on 13 декабря, 2021 by alexxlab

The Anglo-Saxons: Facts & Information for Kids

Who Were the Anglo-Saxons?

The Anglo-Saxons were invaders, particularly of Germanic origins, that began to take over and control England beginning in 449 A.D. and ending during the Norman Conquest in 1066 A.D. The Anglo-Saxons primarily consisted of the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Frisians, and Franks.

In the early 5^th century, the Roman Empire was falling so troops were withdrawn from the British Isles. The Romans left Britain with roads, buildings, some forms of Christianity, and political disarray. Native tribes lacked unity and were weak to attacks by other tribes or outsiders.

When Roman left Britain, northern inhabitants (Picts and Scots) of the isle began attacking those in the south. At the same time, Angles, Saxons, and Jutes began invading British towns. Unable to defeat the northern Picts and Scots, some southern towns reached out to the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes for assistance.

The Germanic invaders did push back the Picts and Scots, but the Anglo-Saxons began to fight for land to establish their own kingdoms.

Harold Godwinson was King of the Anglo-Saxons. He was killed in the Battle of Hastings when the Normans invaded.

Where Did They Come From?

The Anglo-Saxons are primarily considered Germanic, and came from the areas of continental Europe, such as modern Germany and Denmark.

The Angles came from Denmark. They came from Angulus, a district in Schlewswig. They primarily settled in Mercia, Northumbria, and Anglia during Germanic invasions of England.

The Saxons migrated to Britain from Northern Germany. Today, the area would be considered near the North Sea coast spanning the Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark.

Historians are unsure as to the origin of the Jutes, because there is really no record of the Jutes in continental Europe. Their language suggests that they came from the Jutland peninsula. However, archeologists believe they originated near the Rhine river in northern Frankish areas. The Jutes settled in Kent, the Isle of Wight, and some of Hampshire when they migrated to England.

The Frisians came from regions near the Rhine at Katwijk. Primarily, they were from coastal regions of the Netherlands.

When Did the Anglo-Saxons Exist?

The Anglo-Saxons primarily existed between 410 A.D. and 1066 A.D.

What is the Difference Between the Anglo-Saxons and the Vikings?

There are several differences between the Anglo-Saxons and the Vikings, and the two groups of people adamantly fought each other for the control of Britain.

While the Anglo-Saxon’s homeland was primarily situated in the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, and Germany, The Vikings came from Scandinavia. This means the Vikings had their homelands in Norway, Sweden, and some parts of Denmark.

Britons during this period referred to the Vikings as the “Northmen” because they primarily came from northern homelands.

The Vikings were also considered pagans, while the Anglo-Saxons had further developed a form of Christianity. Vikings raided monasteries and attacked towns.

What is the Difference Between Saxons and the Normans?

While the Normans came from Northern France, specifically Normandy, to overthrow the Anglo-Saxons and any Viking rule, the Normans were originally Vikings from areas of Scandinavia.

The French king at the time, Charles II, gave land to a Viking chief (named Rollo) as a sign of peace between the French and the Vikings. The Vikings in Normandy lost their Viking customs, farmed the land in Normandy, became Christian, and assimilated into French society. Later, in 1066, the Norman-French army began the Norman Conquest, defeating the Anglo-Saxon army in Britain.

The Normans were Vikings that adopted French culture and then assisted with the Norman Conquest.

Everything You Need To Know About The Anglo-Saxons

Here, Martin Wall brings you 10 facts about the Anglo-Saxons…

Where did the Anglo-Saxons come from?

The people we call Anglo-Saxons were actually immigrants from northern Germany and southern Scandinavia. Bede, a monk from Northumbria writing some centuries later, says that they were from some of the most powerful and warlike tribes in Germany.

Bede names three of these tribes: the Angles, Saxons and Jutes. There were probably many other peoples who set out for Britain in the early fifth century, however. Batavians, Franks and Frisians are known to have made the sea crossing to the stricken province of ‘Britannia’.

The collapse of the Roman empire was one of the greatest catastrophes in history. Britain, or ‘Britannia’, had never been entirely subdued by the Romans. In the far north – what they called Caledonia (modern Scotland) – there were tribes who defied the Romans, especially the Picts. The Romans built a great barrier, Hadrian’s Wall, to keep them out of the civilised and prosperous part of Britain.

As soon as Roman power began to wane, these defences were degraded, and in AD 367 the Picts smashed through them. Gildas, a British historian, says that Saxon war-bands were hired to defend Britain when the Roman army had left. So the Anglo-Saxons were invited immigrants, according to this theory, a bit like the immigrants from the former colonies of the British empire in the period after 1945.

Listen: Susan Oosthuizen explains why we should be reassessing what we think about the Anglo-Saxons

The Anglo-Saxons murdered their hosts at a conference

Britain was under sustained attack from the Picts in the north and the Irish in the west. The British appointed a ‘head man’, Vortigern, whose name may actually be a title meaning just that – to act as a kind of national dictator.

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It is possible that Vortigern was the son-in-law of Magnus Maximus, a usurper emperor who had operated from Britain before the Romans left. Vortigern’s recruitment of the Saxons ended in disaster for Britain. At a conference between the nobles of the Britons and Anglo-Saxons, [likely in AD 472, although some sources say AD 463] the latter suddenly produced concealed knives and stabbed their opposite numbers from Britain in the back.

Treaty of Hengist and Horsa with Vortigern. (Photo by Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

Vortigern was deliberately spared in this ‘treachery of the long-knives’, but was forced to cede large parts of south-eastern Britain to them. Vortigern was now a powerless puppet of the Saxons.

The Britons rallied under a mysterious leader

The Angles, Saxons, Jutes and other incomers burst out of their enclave in the south-east in the mid-fifth century and set all southern Britain ablaze. Gildas, our closest witness, says that in this emergency a new British leader emerged, called Ambrosius Aurelianus in the late 440s and early 450s.

It has been postulated that Ambrosius was from the rich villa economy around Gloucestershire, but we simply do not know for sure. Amesbury in Wiltshire is named after him and may have been his campaign headquarters.

A great battle took place, supposedly sometime around AD 500, at a place called Mons Badonicus or Mount Badon, probably somewhere in the south-west of modern England. The Saxons were resoundingly defeated by the Britons, but frustratingly we don’t know much more than that. A later Welsh source says that the victor was ‘Arthur’ but it was written down hundreds of years after the event, when it may have become contaminated by later folk-myths of such a person.

Gildas does not mention Arthur, and this seems strange, but there are many theories about this seeming anomaly. One is that Gildas did refer to him in a sort of acrostic code, which reveals him to be a chieftain from Gwent called Cuneglas. Gildas called Cuneglas ‘the bear’, and Arthur means ‘bear’. Nevertheless, for the time being the Anglo-Saxon advance had been checked by someone, possibly Arthur.

Read more | Hereward the Wake: the Anglo-Saxon rebel who became William the Conqueror’s nemesis

Where did the Anglo-Saxons settle?

‘England’ as a country did not come into existence for hundreds of years after the Anglo-Saxons arrived. Instead, seven major Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were carved out of the conquered areas: Northumbria, East Anglia, Essex, Sussex, Kent, Wessex and Mercia. All these nations were fiercely independent, and although they shared similar languages, pagan religions, and socio-economic and cultural ties, they were absolutely loyal to their own kings and very competitive, especially in their favourite pastime – war.

Read more | A brief history of England

Shield of Mercia, from the Heptarchy; a collective name applied to the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of south, east, and central England during late antiquity and the early Middle Ages. Detail from an antique map of Britain by the Dutch cartographer Willem Blaeu in Atlas Novus (Amsterdam, 1635). (Photo by Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

At first they were pre-occupied fighting the Britons (or ‘Welsh’, as they called them), but as soon as they had consolidated their power-centres they immediately commenced armed conflict with each other.

Woden, one of their chief gods, was especially associated with war, and this military fanaticism was the chief diversion of the kings and nobles. Indeed, tales of the deeds of warriors, or their boasts of what heroics they would perform in battle, was the main form of entertainment, and obsessed the entire community – much like football today.

Listen: Professor Stephen Rippon explores the changing nature of England’s landscape, from the Iron Age until the Anglo-Saxon period

Who was in charge?

The ‘heptarchy’, or seven kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxons, all aspired to dominate the others. One reason for this was that the dominant king could exact tribute (a sort of tax, but paid in gold and silver bullion), gemstones, cattle, horses or elite weapons. A money economy did not yet exist.

Eventually a leader from Mercia in the English Midlands became the most feared of all these warrior-kings: Penda, who ruled from AD 626 until 655. He personally killed many of his rivals in battle, and as one of the last pagan Anglo-Saxon kings he offered up the body of one of them, King Oswald of Northumbria, to Woden. Penda ransacked many of the other Anglo-Saxon realms, amassing vast and exquisite treasures as tribute and the discarded war-gear of fallen warriors on the battlefields.

This is just the sort of elite military kit that comprises the Staffordshire Hoard, discovered in 2009. Although a definite connection is elusive, the hoard typifies the warlike atmosphere of the mid-seventh century, and the unique importance in Anglo-Saxon society of male warrior elites.

Read more | A closer look at the Staffordshire Hoard

Which religion did Anglo-Saxons follow?

The Britons were Christians, but were now cut off from Rome, but the Anglo-Saxons remained pagan. In AD 597 St Augustine had been sent to Kent by Pope Gregory the Great to convert the Anglo-Saxons. It was a tall order for his tiny mission, but gradually the seven kingdoms did convert, and became exemplary Christians – so much so that they converted their old tribal homelands in Germany.

St Augustine of Canterbury, who was sent by Pope Gregory to convert the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity. St Augustine is seen here preaching before Ethelbert, Anglo-Saxon King of Kent. Augustine was the first Archbishop of Canterbury. (Photo by Ann Ronan Pictures/Print Collector/Getty Images)

One reason why they converted was because the church said that the Christian God would deliver them victory in battles. When this failed to materialise, some Anglo-Saxon kings became apostate, and a different approach was required. The man chosen for the task was an elderly Greek named Theodore of Tarsus, but he was not the pope’s first choice. Instead he had offered the job to a younger man, Hadrian ‘the African’, a Berber refugee from north Africa, but Hadrian objected that he was too young.

Read more | Prehistoric religion: a pagan riddle we will never solve?

The truth was that people in the civilised south of Europe dreaded the idea of going to England, which was considered barbaric and had a terrible reputation. The pope decided to send both men, to keep each other company on the long journey. After more than a year (and many adventures) they arrived, and set to work to reform the English church.

Theodore lived to be 88, a grand old age for those days, and Hadrian, the young man who had fled from his home in north Africa, outlived him, and continued to devote himself to his task until his death in AD 710.

Alfred the Great had a crippling disability

When we look up at the statue of King Alfred of Wessex in Winchester, we are confronted by an image of our national ‘superhero’: the valiant defender of a Christian realm against the heathen Viking marauders. There is no doubt that Alfred fully deserves this accolade as ‘England’s darling’, but there was another side to him that is less well known.

Alfred never expected to be king – he had three older brothers – but when he was four years old on a visit to Rome the pope seemed to have granted him special favour when his father presented him to the pontiff. As he grew up, Alfred was constantly troubled by illness, including irritating and painful piles – a real problem in an age where a prince was constantly in the saddle. Asser, the Welshman who became his biographer, relates that Alfred suffered from another painful, draining malady that is not specified. Some people believe it was Crohn’s Disease, others that it may have been a sexually transmitted disease, or even severe depression.

The truth is we don’t know exactly what Alfred’s mystery ailment was. Whatever it was, it is incredible to think that Alfred’s extraordinary achievements were accomplished in the face of a daily struggle with debilitating and chronic illness.

Read more | Are we whitewashing the truth about Alfred the Great?

An Anglo-Saxon king was finally buried in 1984

In July 975 the eldest son of King Edgar, Edward, was crowned king. Edgar had been England’s most powerful king yet (by now the country was unified), and had enjoyed a comparatively peaceful reign. Edward, however, was only 15 and was hot-tempered and ungovernable. He had powerful rivals, including his half-brother Aethelred’s mother, Elfrida (or ‘Aelfthryth’). She wanted her own son to be king – at any cost.

Edward the Martyr, Anglo-Saxon king of England and the elder son of King Edgar, c975 AD. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

One day in 978, Edward decided to pay Elfrida and Aethelred a visit in their residence at Corfe in Dorset. It was too good an opportunity to miss: Elfrida allegedly awaited him at the threshold to the hall with grooms to tend the horses, and proffered him a goblet of mulled wine (or ‘mead’), as was traditional. As Edward stooped to accept this, the grooms grabbed his bridle and stabbed him repeatedly in the stomach.

Edward managed to ride away but bled to death, and was hastily buried by the conspirators. It was foul regicide, the gravest of crimes, and Aethelred, even though he may not have been involved in the plot, was implicated in the minds of the common people, who attributed his subsequent disastrous reign to this, in their eyes, monstrous deed.

Edward’s body was exhumed and reburied at Shaftesbury Abbey in AD 979. During the dissolution of the monasteries the grave was lost, but in 1931 it was rediscovered. Edward’s bones were kept in a bank vault until 1984, when at last he was laid to rest.

Listen: Historian Marc Morris tackles some of the most common misconceptions about the Anglo-Saxon era

England was ‘ethnically cleansed’

One of the most notorious of Aethelred’s misdeeds was a shameful act of mass-murder. Aethelred is known as ‘the Unready’, but this is actually a pun on his forename. Aethelred means ‘noble counsel’, but people started to call him ‘unraed’ which means ‘no counsel’. He was constantly vacillating, frequently cowardly, and always seemed to pick the worst men possible to advise him.

One of these men, Eadric ‘Streona’ (‘the Aquisitor’), became a notorious English traitor who was to seal England’s downfall. It is a recurring theme in history that powerful men in trouble look for others to take the blame. Aethelred was convinced that the woes of the English kingdom were all the fault of the Danes, who had settled in the country for many generations and who were by now respectable Christian citizens.

On 13 November 1002, secret orders went out from the king to slaughter all Danes, and massacres occurred all over southern England. The north of England was so heavily settled by the Danes that it is probable that it escaped the brutal plot.

One of the Danes killed in this wicked pogrom was the sister of Sweyn Forkbeard, the mighty king of Denmark. From that time on the Danish armies were resolved to conquer England and eliminate Ethelred. Eadric Streona defected to the Danes and fought alongside them in the war of succession that followed Ethelred’s death. This was the beginning of the end for Anglo-Saxon England.

Neither William of Normandy or Harold Godwinson were rightful English kings

We all know something about the 1066 battle of Hastings, but the man who probably should have been king is almost forgotten to history.

Edward ‘the Confessor’, the saintly English king, had died childless in 1066, leaving the English ruling council of leading nobles and spiritual leaders (the Witan) with a big problem. They knew that Edward’s cousin Duke William of Normandy had a powerful claim to the throne, which he would certainly back with armed force.

William was a ruthless and skilled soldier, but the young man who had the best claim to the English throne, Edgar the ‘Aetheling’ (meaning ‘of noble or royal’ status), was only 14 and had no experience of fighting or commanding an army. Edgar was the grandson of Edmund Ironside, a famous English hero, but this would not be enough in these dangerous times.

So Edgar was passed over, and Harold Godwinson, the most famous English soldier of the day, was chosen instead, even though he was not, strictly speaking, ‘royal’. He had gained essential military experience fighting in Wales, however. At first, it seemed as if the Witan had made a sound choice: Harold raised a powerful army and fleet and stood guard in the south all summer long, but then a new threat came in the north.

Read more | Why is Harold Godwinson a hero of the Bayeux Tapestry?

A huge Viking army landed and destroyed an English army outside York. Harold skilfully marched his army all the way from the south to Stamford Bridge in Yorkshire in a mere five days. He annihilated the Vikings, but a few days later William’s Normans landed in the south. Harold lost no time in marching his army all the way back to meet them in battle, at a ridge of high ground just outside… Hastings.

Martin Wall is the author of The Anglo-Saxon Age: The Birth of England (Amberley Publishing, 2015). In his book, Martin challenges our notions of the Anglo-Saxon period as barbaric and backward, to reveal a civilisation he argues is as complex, sophisticated and diverse as our own.

This article was first published by HistoryExtra in 2015

Anglo-Saxon KS2 Facts for Kids — PlanBee

Who was in Britain after the Romans left? Who did the Vikings raid and battle within Britain?

The Anglo-Saxons inhabited Britain for almost 600 years! Read on to find out more about them and what life was like in the Dark Ages!

Where did the Anglo-Saxons come from?

Anglo-Saxons came from many places all over Europe including Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands. They were known at the time as Jutes, Angles and Saxons. They lived in Britain between 410 AD and 1066 AD settling in the country after the Romans left following the collapse of the Roman Empire.

A map of Anglo-Saxon origins

Where did Anglo-Saxons live?

Upon their arrival in Britain, the Anglo Saxons began to battle the Britons left behind by the Romans for land, farms and villages to live in. The Britons moved north and west into areas that are now Wales, Devon, Cornwall and Northern England.

An Anglo-Saxon house

Most people lived in houses made of wood, often built over a shallow cellar. They were rectangular in shape and were mainly just one or two rooms. They heated their homes with open fires in hearths, usually in the middle of the floor. There were no chimneys so smoke escaped gradually through the thatched roofs.

An Anglo-Saxon farmer

Most people earned their living on the land as farmers but there were craftsmen who worked with leather, wood, pottery, glass and other materials to make shoes, furniture, pots, pans, belts, jewellery and other objects. These were usually men. There were no large cities, no schools and no formal law system. There were no doctors yet either. Some people earned their living travelling from place to place as jugglers, jesters or musicians.

What did Anglo-Saxons eat?

Anglo-Saxons ate what they could grow, harvest, rear and catch. Cows, pigs, chickens and geese were raised and many other wild animals were caught to be eaten. There were hares but no rabbits at this time. Domestic animals gave eggs, milk and cheese. They caught fish and other seafood too, including oysters. There was no sugar but they sweetened their food with honey. They grew wheat and rye which they made into bread, and barley to make beer. They grew fruits and vegetables, including carrots, turnips, onions and garlic, as well as many herbs. Sweetcorn, turkey, potatoes, chillies, sugar and chocolate wouldn’t come to England for hundreds of years.

Anglo-Saxons drank beer and a fermented drink made from honey called mead. They didn’t drink water as the river water was usually very polluted. Weak beer was drunk by everyone, including children. Milk was available if the family kept cows. Stronger beer was saved for feasts and special occasions. Wine was only available for the very rich.

What did the Anglo-Saxons wear?

Anglo-Saxon clothes were often made from wool that could be taken from their sheep. Men wore trousers and long tunics and women usually wore long dresses known as ‘peplos’. Both men and women used brooches to pin their clothes in places, normally around the neck or at the shoulders. Belts would also be used to keep their clothes in place. Wealthy people would also wear jewellery.

Anglo-Saxon clothing

What did the Anglo-Saxons do?

In their free time, many Anglo-Saxon villages would come together and tell stories. This was an important learning opportunity for younger members of the village and people enjoyed telling stories to each other. One famous story that we know of from this time period is the story of Beowulf: A powerful warrior who conquered the foul creature Grendel.

The original Beowulf manuscript

Looking for Beowulf resources for your class? Click here!

KS2 Anglo Saxons, Picts and Scots FREE Beowulf Story Freebee

When not telling stories, people would play music and sing together or they would play board games such as Merels or Tabula.

Who were the Anglo-Saxons?

There were strict ranks in Anglo-Saxon Britain. Kings were the most important people, followed by nobles who helped the king run his kingdom. Thanes were given control over land by the king in exchange for fighting in battles. Farmers and craftsmen would live and work on the land given to the thane. People were fiercely loyal to their thane and their king. Women and slaves had no rights and could not own land.

Laws were harsh in Anglo-Saxon times. Liars had their tongues cut out and thieves had their hands chopped off. Sometimes, a criminal was given a trial by ordeal, such as holding a red-hot iron. If the wound was healed, they were declared innocent. ‘Weregild’ was paid as compensation if you injured someone or did wrong to someone. The amount of ‘weregild’ paid depended on how important the victim was. Jails had not yet been invented as a form of punishment and neither had guillotines, but hanging was introduced to Britain during the Anglo-Saxon era and became one of the most widely used punishments.

Anglo-Saxons did not understand what caused diseases but they tried their best to cure them. Women used plants and herbs as salves and ointments and made special drinks. Moss, for example, was used to help wounds heal. They also wore lucky charms that were supposed to protect them from harm.

What did Anglo-Saxons believe?

When the Anglo-Saxons first came to Britain, they brought their beliefs in gods, goddesses and religion with them. However, in AD 597, Pope Gregory, the leader of the Christian church, sent a missionary to England. After that, more and more people became Christians and the Anglo-Saxons started building churches. However, many people held on to their traditional beliefs and mixed them with Christianity. An example of this is the Christian celebration of Easter. This got its name from the pagan goddess of spring: Eostre. In springtime, pagans would feast and celebrate the new year. This became mixed with the Christian festivities to celebrate Jesus’ resurrection.

Eostre goddess of Spring

Despite the growing popularity of Christianity in England at this time, the Anglo-Saxons still practised some of their pagan festivities and rituals. One example of this is burials. Anglo-Saxon burials often buried the body in crouched or curled up positions. They would also bury the person with goods and treasures that the person could take with them to the afterlife such as brooches, games, pots and weapons.

What happened to the Anglo-Saxons?

In the year 793 AD Vikings from Norway, Denmark and Sweden first raided a monastery in Lindisfarne on the northeast coast of England. At this time there were seven separate kingdoms across England.

Anglo-Saxon kingdom map 793 AD

Over the next 100 years, Viking raids became more and more common, with the Vikings eventually beginning to settle in England and create villages of their own. They were powerful warriors and in 865 AD a huge army arrived in England conquering massive areas of North and East England. It took them only thirteen years to occupy a third of England. This area became known as Danelaw.

Anglo-Saxon kingdom map 886 AD

After many violent battles the king of Wessex, King Alfred, brokered a peace treaty in 886 AD with the Viking king, Guthrum. Guthrum was to be baptised into Christianity and was to leave Wessex alone. In turn, the Vikings could live peacefully in Danelaw. Alfred became king over all the lands of England apart from Danelaw. He became known as Alfred the Great, king of the English.

In 1016, the Anglo-Saxon king Edmund died. He left the kingdom to the Viking king Cnut. The kingdoms of Wessex, Mercia and Danelaw were now under the control of a single king. Cnut also ruled Denmark and much of Norway. He was a very powerful king.

When Cnut died in 1035, there was a disagreement about who should be his successor. This resulted in several years of war. Eventually Edward the Confessor became king in 1042. England became very powerful during his reign. He ordered that Westminster Abbey (a huge cathedral) be built in London, beginning in 1050. This magnificent piece of architecture still stands today!

Unfortunately, when King Edward died in 1066 there was another argument about who his successor should be. Three men wanted the throne of England: Harold Hardrada (King of Norway), William (Duke of Normandy) and Harold Godwinson (Earl of Wessex).

Contenders for the English throne

There were many battles, most famously the Battle of Hastings in October 1066. Both Harolds were killed during these battles and William the Conqueror of Normandy and his Norman army were victorious. Thus ended the Anglo-Saxon and Viking era and Norman Britain began.

Find out more about the Battle of Hastings using these FREE Fact Cards for KS2.

More Interesting Anglo-Saxon Facts:

The period of time after the Romans left Britain is sometimes known as the Dark Ages. This is because much of the advancements in technology the Romans brought with them was lost and Britain pretty much returned to how it was before the Romans invaded and settled there.
The names Essex, Sussex and Wessex are derived from the name Saxon and a compass direction. South Saxons = Sussex, East Saxons = Essex and West Saxons = Wessex.
Some of our modern English words, such as the days of the week, come from the Anglo-Saxon language (sometimes called Old English).
Much of what we know about the Anglo-Saxons comes from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.
King Alfred was the first to call the people living in his kingdom Englishmen.
There were tribes of people living in Scotland at the time called Picts and Scots.
The Battle of Hastings is depicted in a famous tapestry called the Bayeux Tapestry.

Life in Anglo-Saxon England — Local Histories

By Tim Lambert

Society in Anglo-Saxon England

Everyday life in Anglo-Saxon England was hard and rough even for the rich. Society was divided into three classes. At the top were the thanes, the Saxon upper class. They enjoyed hunting and feasting and they were expected to give their followers gifts like weapons. Below them were the churls. Some churls were reasonably well off. Others were very poor. However, at least they were free. Below them were a class of slaves called thralls. Their lives were very hard. Some churls owned their own land but many ‘rented’ land from a thane. They ‘paid the rent’ by working on the thane’s land for part of the week and by giving him part of their crops.

In early Anglo-Saxon Times England was a very different place from what it is today. It was covered by forest. Wolves prowled in them and they were a danger to domestic animals. The human population was very small. There were perhaps one million people in England at that time. Almost all of them lived in tiny villages – many had less than 100 inhabitants. Each village was mainly self-sufficient. The people needed only a few things from outside like salt and iron. They grew their own food and made their own clothes.

By the 11th century, things had changed somewhat. The great majority of people still lived in the countryside but a significant minority (about 10%) lived in towns. Many new towns had been created and trade was flourishing. England had grown into a stable, civilized state with an efficient system of local government. In the monasteries learning and the arts flourished.

The Anglo-Saxons also gave us most English place names. Anglo-Saxon place name endings include ham, a village or estate, tun (usually changed to ton), a farm or estate, hurst, a wooded hill, and bury, which is derived from the Anglo-Saxon word burh, meaning fortress or fortified settlement. The Anglo-Saxons called groups of Roman buildings a caester. In time that world evolved into the place name ending chester, caster or cester.

Kinship (family ties) were very important in Anglo-Saxon society. If you were killed your relatives would avenge you. If one of your relatives was killed you were expected to avenge them. However, the law did provide an alternative. If you killed or injured somebody you could pay them or their family compensation. The money paid was called wergild and it varied according to a person’s rank. The wergild for killing a thane was much more than that for killing a churl. Thralls or slaves had no wergild. If the wergild was not paid the relatives were entitled to seek revenge.

At first, Anglo-Saxon society was relatively free. There were some slaves but the basis of society was the free peasant. However, in time Anglo-Saxon churls began to lose their freedom. They became increasingly dependent on their Lords and under their control.

Farmers in Anglo Saxon England

The vast majority of Anglo-Saxons made their living from farming. Up to 8 oxen pulled plows and fields were divided into 2 or sometimes 3 huge strips. One strip was plowed and sown with crops while the other was left fallow. The Anglo-Saxons grew crops of wheat, barley, and rye. They also grew peas, cabbages, parsnips, carrots, and celery. They also ate fruit such as apples, blackberries, raspberries, and sloes. They raised herds of goats, cattle and pigs, and flocks of sheep.

However, farmers could not grow enough food to keep many of their animals through the winter so as winter approached most of them had to be slaughtered and the meat salted.

Some Anglo-Saxons were craftsmen. They were blacksmiths, bronze smiths, and potters. At first, Anglo-Saxon potters made vessels by hand but in the 7th century, the potter’s wheel was introduced. Other craftsmen made things like combs from bone and antler or horn. There were also many leather workers and Anglo-Saxon craftsmen also made elaborate jewelry for the rich.

Homes in Anglo-Saxon England

The Anglo-Saxons lived in wooden huts with thatched roofs. Usually, there was only one room shared by everybody. (Poor people shared their huts with animals divided from them by a screen. During the winter the animal’s body heat helped keep the hut warm). Thanes and their followers slept on beds but the poorest people slept on the floor.

There were no panes of glass in windows, even in a Thane’s hall and there were no chimneys. Floors were of earth or sometimes they were dug out and had wooden floorboards placed over them. There were no carpets. Rich people used candles but they were too expensive for the poor. Instead, poor Anglo-Saxons used rushlights (rushes dipped in animal fat). Anglo-Saxon toilets were just pits dug in the ground surrounded by walls of wattle (strips of wood weaved together). The seat was a piece of wood with a hole in it.

Food in Anglo-Saxon England

Anglo-Saxon women ground grain, baked bread, and brewed beer. Another Anglo-Saxon drink was mead, made from fermented honey. (Honey was very important to the Anglo-Saxons as there was no sugar for sweetening food. Bees were kept in every village). Upper-class Anglo-Saxons sometimes drank wine. The women cooked in iron cauldrons over open fires or in pottery vessels. They also made butter and cheese.

Anglo-Saxons ate from wooden bowls. There were no forks only knives and wooden spoons. Cups were made from cow horns. The Anglo-Saxons were fond of meat and fish. However, meat was a luxury and only the rich could eat it frequently. Ordinary people usually ate a dreary diet of bread, cheese, and eggs. They ate not just chicken eggs but eggs from ducks, geese, and wild birds.

Clothes in Anglo-Saxon England

Saxon clothes were basic. Saxon men wore a shirt and tunic. They wore trousers like garments called breeches. Sometimes they extended to the ankle but sometimes they were shorts. Men might wear wool leggings held in place by leather garters. They wore cloaks held in place by brooches.

Saxon women wore a long linen garment with a long tunic over it. They also wore mantles. However Saxon women did not wear knickers.

Both men and women used combs made of bone or antler.

Rich Anglo Saxons

Rich people’s houses were rough, crowded, and uncomfortable. Even a Thane’s hall was really just a large wooden hut although it was usually hung with rich tapestries. Thanes also like to show off any gold they owned. Any furniture must have been simple and heavy such as wooden chests.

However, at least the rich Anglo-Saxons ate well. In the evenings they feasted and drank. During the day the main pastime of the rich was hunting. Rich Anglo-Saxons kept falcons. In the evenings apart from feasting, they enjoyed storytelling, riddles, and games like chess. After feasts, minstrels or gleemen entertained the lord and his men by playing the harp and singing.

Towns in Anglo-Saxon England

At first, the Anglo-Saxons were farming people and they had no need for towns. However in time trade slowly increased and some towns appeared. By the mid-7th century, the Anglo-Saxons were minting silver coins. In Anglo-Saxon times a new town of London emerged outside the walls of the old Roman town. Some towns were created deliberately. King Ine founded Southampton at the end of the 7th Century. Other towns grew up at Hereford, Ipswich, Norwich, and Bristol.

In the late 9th century and early 10th century, Saxon kings created fortified settlements called burhs. These were more than just forts. They were also flourishing little market towns. Examples include Winchester, the capital of England. In the towns, craftsmen worked with iron, leather, bone, and wood. Little wooden ships sailed to and from the Saxon ports. The main export from Anglo Saxon England was wool. Slaves were also exported.

King Alfred

Nevertheless, all these towns were very small by modern standards. In 1086 the population of London was only 16,000-18,000 and a large town like Lincoln only had 5,000 inhabitants. A medium-sized town like n had about 2,500 inhabitants. Many towns were smaller.

The old Roman towns fell into decay and Roman roads became overgrown. Travel was slow and dangerous in Anglo-Saxon times and most people only traveled if it was unavoidable. If possible people travelled by water along the coast or along rivers.

Last revised 2022

Anglo-Saxons Facts, Worksheets & Historical Background For Kids

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Anglo-Saxons are people who reigned in Britain for approximately six centuries, from 410 AD to 1066 AD. The period of their invasion is also recognized as the Dark Ages, owing to the scarcity of references for the initial periods of the Saxon uprising.

See the fact file below for more information on the Anglo-Saxons or alternatively, you can download our 25-page Anglo-Saxons worksheet pack to utilise within the classroom or home environment.

Key Facts & Information

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The Anglo-Saxons were no strangers to Britain, having served in the Roman army on the island.
They began slowly colonizing Britain even before the Roman legions left. Despite this, historical evidence suggests that they were invited with the intention of defending the country from invasion.
Following the departure of the Roman legions, Germanic-speaking Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and Frisians spontaneously showed up in Britain.
They started out as small groups of invaders, but their numbers quickly grew.
Despite their defenselessness, the people of Britain responded immediately with firm resistance.
However, the invaders were firmly rejected by the Romano-British around 500 AD.
Even so, in the mid-sixth century, a British Christian leader named Ambrosius, now known as “Arthur,” mobilized the Romano-British against the invaders.
The writings of the monk Gildas were held up as solid evidence for this, along with Ambrosius’ victory in twelve battles during the rally.
After successfully invading Britain, the Anglo-Saxons were divided into groups that settled in various parts of the country.
They formed several kingdoms, which frequently changed and were constantly at odds with one another. These kingdoms occasionally recognized one of their rulers, the Bretwalda, as a “High King.”

THE ANGLO-SAXON KINGDOMS

By the year 650 AD, the groups of Anglo-Saxons agreed to the distinction under seven kingdoms.
Kent was formed as a result of the Jutes’ settlement. St. Augustine converted the very first Anglo-Saxon king, Ethelbert of Kent, to Christianity around 595 AD.
Mercia was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom that spanned the Midlands between Wales and England. This large kingdom was famous for the Offa’s Dyke, which was built by its most famous ruler, Offa.
Northumbria is the kingdom where the Ecclesiastical History of Britain was written by its dweller, the monk Bede.
The famous Sutton Hoo ship burial was found in East Anglia. The Angles ruled the kingdom.
Essex or East Saxons is where the famous Battle of Maldon was fought against the Vikings in 991.
The South Saxons established the kingdom of Sussex.
Wessex or the West Saxons was later referred to as King Alfred’s kingdom. King Alfred was the only English king to be referred to as “The Great.” His outstanding grandson, Athelstan, was the first to claim the title “King of the English.”

KING ALFRED THE GREAT

King Alfred, a king of the kingdom of Wessex, earned the title of being “the Great” due to various reasons.
In 878, he led his troops to victory over the Vikings at the Battle of Edington. As a result of this, he was able to retake London from the Vikings.
He was successful in establishing boundaries between the Saxons and the Vikings. The Viking-dominated region was known as the Danelaw.
His kingdom’s defenses were strengthened by the construction of a series of fortresses (burhs) and a strong army.
He also pioneered the English navy as he constructed ships against the sea attacks from the Vikings.
King Alfred recognized the importance of education. For this reason, he even translated some books into English.
He commissioned the writing of a historical record of the Anglo-Saxons in Britain, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.
When the Vikings stormed Lindisfarne Monastery in 793, the Anglo-Saxons’ history became intertwined with the Vikings’. They were similar in many ways, including language, religious belief, and Northern European ancestry, but they were not the same. The fact that they infiltrated Britain at varying periods distinguishes them as two distinct groups of people in our history.

ANGLO-SAXONS IN POETRY

Some English poems offered fascinating insights into the Anglo-Saxons.
Beowulf is the story of a great hero who fought and killed the monster Grendel and his mother, rose to become a great king, and died in a battle with an outraged dragon.
The Ruin is an untraceable poem about the decay and ruin of a Roman town.
The Battle of Maldon is a poem about the Saxons’ valiant defense against a looting Viking force in Essex.

Anglo-Saxons Worksheets

This is a fantastic bundle which includes everything you need to know about the Anglo-Saxons across 25 in-depth pages. These are ready-to-use Anglo-Saxons worksheets that are perfect for teaching students about the Anglo-Saxons who are people who reigned in Britain for approximately six centuries, from 410 AD to 1066 AD. The period of their invasion is also recognized as the Dark Ages, owing to the scarcity of references for the initial periods of the Saxon uprising.

Complete List Of Included Worksheets

United Kingdom Anglo-Saxons Facts
Ang-Look Saxon
Anglo-gy Test
The Great Inspiration
King-dom Map
Venn Diagram
Historical Treasure
Draw the Helmet
Fill in the Beo-lanks
The Poet in You
Brought-tain

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Use With Any Curriculum

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Games and Pastimes of the Anglo-Saxons

An early Boogie-Woogie
Bugle Boy from Company B

All cultures, regardless of how arduous the times they live in, have some kind of sport, games, and pastimes to engage in during leisure hours, and thankfully children have always played. In Anglo-Saxon times (roughly 450 CE to 1100 CE) life was largely lived outdoors for most people, for the continuance of life was predicated on agricultural labour. The interiors of most buildings were dark, smoky, and often cramped, and many tasks whether for livelihood or leisure required the clear strong light of daylight.

Children played with many more natural objects than they do today; a later medieval sermon, which still holds true for the Anglo-Saxon era, mentions children playing

“with flowers…with sticks, and with small bits of wood, to build a chamber, buttery, and hall, to make a white horse of a wand, a sailing ship of broken bread, a burly spear from a ragwork stalk, and of a sedge a sword of war, a comely lady from cloth, and be right busy to deck it elegantly with flowers. ” (G.R. Owst, Literature and Pulpit in Medieval England, Oxford, 1961)

Grave finds from early heathen burials contain carved wooden toys such as horses and small wooden boats, tenderly laid to rest with their little owner. But childhood was short for the Anglo-Saxon girl or boy, and girls of five or six were already spending part of their day learning to spin wool, to card fleece, or help with the younger children in the family. Boys tended animals or helped in the fields. Boys also played with small spears and knives carved of wood, learning the arts of hunting and defense at a young age.

Miniature tools sized for a child’s hand have been found, much like children’s sized gardening implements today, but since a child would be more useful at an activity such as egg gathering or sheep tending perhaps such tools were meant as playthings rather than actual implements of labour for young hands. (Although no one pulls weeds better than an industrious six year old. )

Sometimes for adults work and play were mingled. In some villages plough races were held by the men on Plough Monday, the first Monday after Twelfth Night (Epiphany), the end of the Yuletide season.

Not your average little piggy

Physical fitness was obviously of paramount importance to people of all classes – life was hard and demanding, and being physically able to cope with the realities of farming, tree-felling, and of course, battle, could mean the literal difference between life and death. Young men in particular held foot-races, participated in wrestling matches, and practiced the martial arts such as spear throwing, archery, and mock sword play. Those who were rich enough to own horses would have raced them to see whose was the fastest; the Old English epic Beowulf mentions young men doing just that:

“The warriors let their bay horses go/a contest for the best horse/galloping through whatever path looked fair.” (David Breeden translation)

Hunting was not purely sport, as it was relied upon to bring food to the table, but it could be very exciting and therefore enjoyable. Huge numbers of deer roamed the vast forests and marshes of Britain, and provided a good supply of game to those able to stalk and bring them down. Wolves too were hunted as a protection to the flocks of sheep on which so much depended. These intelligent predators nearly suffered the same fate as the bear, hunted to extinction on the island in the 10th century. Boar hunting was hunting of the most challenging kind, and many dogs, horses, and men were killed while trying to hunt this speedy, ferocious, and clever beast.

Good hounds were cherished both as working animals and as companions, and the rich often times made gifts of such dogs. King Ælfred, greatest king of the Anglo-Saxon era and perhaps indeed of any other, sent a brace of fine hounds to the archbishop of Reims.

Nice doggie…nice doggie…down doggie!

Only the very richest lords kept falcons specially trained to bring down pigeons and starlings and the like. Riding out on horseback and releasing the falcon and watching it swoop down on its prey was a very aristocratic sport indeed. (Many of these falcons were from Viking traders who captured and trained them in Scandinavia, and then sold them to the rich in Britain, Northern Europe, and as far East as Arabia.)

Although most fish were captured in weirs set up in rivers, streams, and narrow ocean channels, line fishing was practiced, and was undoubtedly found to be as enjoyably frustrating as it is today.

The Anglo-Saxons had a great love of ornament on even everyday objects, and men and women spent long hours decorating the spines of wood, bone, and horn hair combs with drawings of animals, embellishing gowns and tunics with gaily coloured embroidery, and decorating leather goods by stamping them with metal dies and burning designs into the surface with heated pokers. The most utilitarian of items such as wooden buckets and dippers generally carried some decoration, even if only simple incised lines or dots around the perimeter.

Darn, broke the teeth again….

Many of these handcrafts would have been practiced out of doors to take advantage of the good light.

Indoor pastimes included a variety of board games that used little clay and carved markers, and games using dice. Just as today almost everybody enjoyed such pastimes, and our modern word “game” comes from the Old English “gamen”. Dice games were very popular (so popular that even clergy played them) and many die have been found. Betting played a large role in dice games, just as it does today.

The game of tæfl was played on a board using game pieces in opposition. The rules of early games probably varied quite a bit, but many of these games featured a piece which represented the “king” which needed to be protected by the other pieces.

Tæfl Board:Care to wager?

The stunning contents of a grave of an Anglo-Saxon prince or king (possibly of King Sabert who died in 616 CE) discovered near Southend in Essex in 2003 and known as the Prittlewell Find contained 57 gaming pieces carved of bone and two very large dice carved from antler. This shows us that games were important enough in the lives of the Anglo-Saxons that they accompanied their owners into the afterlife.

In the latter Anglo-Saxon period, from the 12th century onward, chess (a particular favourite of my own), originally created in India, was brought to Britain. With its war lords, warriors, and horsemen it echoed the battle-driven lives of the noblemen and women who played it. Two forms of chess were played, one quite similar to the challenging intellectual game we know today, and one simplified version which employed dice, and thus introduced an element of luck.

Sutton Hoo Harp: Meant for
an early Jimi Hendrix

Storytelling, singing and dancing were also part of the long indoor Winter evenings. Harps such as the beautiful one buried with the Sutton Hoo treasure (the burial goods of a great king from about 625 CE, now on display at the British Museum) were played by professional story tellers called scops, but small hide drums, wood pipes and whistles are easily made from everyday materials and were probably played by a wide variety of children and adults. Listening was an active art, and when the professional storyteller or scop began his tale, all turned attentively to him and listened raptly, picturing in their mind’s eye the great heroes, battles, hunts, and religious episodes he sang of.

The love of word-play extended to riddles, and close to one hundred riddles of the Anglo-Saxon period have been recorded in The Exeter Book, a manuscript written about 975, and still kept at Exeter Cathedral Library. Here is one:

“A creature came slinking where men were sitting, many of them in council, men shrewd in mind. It had one eye and two ears and two feet, twelve hundred heads, a back and a belly and two hands, arms and shoulders, one neck and two sides. Say what I am called.” (S.A.J. Bradley translation)

I wish I could Shimmy like my sister Kate…

Can you guess it? The answer is: A one eyed garlic seller.

There was also pleasure to be taken in the simple contemplation of unspoilt nature. A 14th century treatise on the duties and pleasures of a nobleman lists “Watching the snow fall” as an act worthy of his rank, and indeed during Winter when many agricultural duties were suspended and war rarely waged one can also imagine his earlier forbears doing the same.

Curious facts from the history of the English monarchy. (1): glebminskiy — LiveJournal

The myth of «Good Old England» that arose in the Middle Ages is still widely rooted. How old is England? If we take a conditionally traditional countdown from the Norman Conquest in 1066, then it is not very old. Even the traditions of the Russian monarchy are more ancient, conditionally traditional counting from 862. Well, if you delve into the previous Anglo-Saxon era, then perhaps it’s “old”, the date of the beginning of the Anglo-Saxon conquest of Britain is 449the year when the semi-legendary leaders of the Germanic Jutes Hengist and Horza landed in Kent at the invitation of the High British King Vortigern. There are other «intermediate» dates. But «good» England was hardly. Especially if you look at her attitude towards her monarchs. Let’s take the period from 1066 to 1714, that is, from the Norman Conquest to the establishment on the throne of the Kingdom, the German Hanoverian dynasty, a branch of the famous Second House of Welf, descended from the Italian margraves of Oberting. Quite a few English monarchs during this period died a violent death. It is this «bloody» statistics that I want to systematize a little, and along the way to generalize other interesting facts.

Speaking of dynasties, or rather their origins. We have fierce disputes about the origin of the Ruriks. They descended from Obodrite (Slavic) princes from Rurik-Rarog Bodritsky, or from the king of the Norman-Vikings (Germans) Khrerik of Jutland. (There are, by the way, other versions, more exotic — Hunnic-Bulgarian, Turkic-Khazarian and Sarmatian-Alano-Bosporan, but about them later). And for some reason, the first is considered patriotic, and the second is not. As for me, so what’s the difference, in any case, they became Russified and became quite RUSSIAN! Like later the Holstein-Gottorps of Oldenburg, who became truly Russian tsars and emperors of the Romanovs! Moreover, at that time there was no such thing as an ethnos or a nation, and people thought more in generic categories. But the British do not bother with this, after 1066 they did not have a single purely «English» dynasty, and yet all monarchs are considered truly English. The Norman dynasty — William the Conqueror with his sons, are the Frenchized descendants of the Norwegian Vikings and the Orkney Jarls. Stephan (Etienne) Blois grandson of the Conqueror, who ruled after the «Normans», a French count and a descendant of the Franco-Burgundian family of Tybaldings, in the future counts of Champagne, descended from Viscount Blois Thibaut the Old and his son Thibault the Fraudster — Count of Blois, Tours, Chartres and Chateaudun. The Angevins Plantagenets who replaced him, also French counts, who, according to legend, descended from a Breton robber, but this is in the female line, and in the male line from the French barons of Mortain-o-Perche. The Lancasters and Yorkies, who eventually staged a «carnage» under the beautiful name «War of the Scarlet and White Roses», are branches of the same Plantagenets, both along the male and female lines. The Tudors, who replaced the Plantagenets in 1485, are Welsh Celts, descendants of Sinfrig of Zhoruertsky and his son Ednifed the Younger, seneashal Prince Llewelyn the Great, ruler of the Welsh principality of Gwynedd, according to one of the legendary versions, they were a branch of the ancient British family of Coelings, descendants of one of the first British kings Coel Old (+420), who in the Roman era, was the governor of Eboracum (York). And the Stuarts, who replaced the Tudors in 1603, are Scots, or rather Scotch Bretons, descendants of Alan Fitz-Flaad, the Seneschal of the Breton Dole ruler. In Brittany, during the Anglo-Saxon conquest in the 5th — 6th centuries. By the way, many Briton-Romans fled. William III of Orange, who took the throne of England in 1688, overthrowing the so-called. «Glorious Revolution» of King James II Stuart, generally a Dutchman and at the same time a descendant of the German family of the Earls of Nassau. The Electors of Hanover, who replaced the Stuarts in 1714, are the Second House of the Welfs, the descendants of the famous in Germany in the 12th century. Duke of Saxony and Bavaria Henry the Lion, conqueror of the Obodrite state, and the most dangerous opponent of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. In turn, Henry the Lion was a descendant of the Italian margrave Oberto (first half of the 10th century), and a representative of the Este family founded by him. The Italian branch of the family ruled Ferrara, Modena and Reggio until 1803. But with those who replaced Hannover at 1901 The Windsors get an interesting historical conflict. The Windsors are descended from the Dukes of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, one of the younger branches of the Saxon ducal Wettin family. The semi-legendary ancestor of the Wettins is Hengist, the leader of the Jutes or Saxons who landed in Britain in 449, and thereby began the Anglo-Saxon conquest. Hengist founded the first Anglo-Saxon kingdom — Kent. According to legend, Hengist had two sons, the younger Esk (Oesk), the founder of the royal dynasty of Kent, and the older Hartwaker, who returned to the continent. The descendants of Hartwaker are, according to the legend of Wettina. So the approval of the Windsors on the royal throne of England can be considered a kind of «return to Anglo-Saxon roots.»

However, let’s get back to our sheep, that is, directly to the kings. Well, with Willy the Bastard, sorry, William the Conqueror, everything is clear. Incredible bastard! A bastard who became a duke, and who first defeated the internal opposition in Normandy, and then external opponents in the person of King Henry I of France and the powerful and militant Count of Anjou, Geoffroy II Martel. And later he even managed to conquer the whole kingdom. The fact that his English adventure turned out to be successful is probably a kind of «God’s Providence.» Well, of course, lucky the strongest. To luck and luck here you can add the organizational and technical superiority of the Franco-Normans. The Anglo-Saxons neglected archers and cavalry. Even though they had both. Also, they practically lacked a castle defense system. Also, the Norman Conquest can be called a kind of “Breton revenge”, since many Breton barons and knights took part in this expedition, and even in the Battle of Hastings, the left wing of the Franco-Norman army was led by the Breton baron Alain the Red, the son of Count Penthièvre, who came from a younger branches of the Breton ducal house. Let me remind you that during the Anglo-Saxon conquest, many Britons were forced to flee to the continent in Brittany.

Death of Wilhelm II Rufus.

The son and heir of William I the Conqueror, King of England William II Rufus (Red, Red-faced), having corrected 13 years, died on a hunt. According to the official version, it was an accident and a tragic mistake. Walter Tirel aimed at a deer, but hit the king. But most likely it was a well-planned and organized conspiracy. At the head of which was the younger brother of Rufus, Henry I Beauclerk, who became the king of England and the Duke of Normandy. Note Wilhelm II died a violent death. Later in 1106, Henry I, at the Battle of Tanchebray, defeated another of his older brothers, Robert III Kurtheuse, Duke of Normandy, who had returned from the Crusade. Kurtgoz was captured and imprisoned, and spent a long 28 years in captivity. He died in captivity in 1134 at Cardiff Castle in Wales. The winner of the older brothers, Henry I Beauclerk, knew the bitterness of the loss of his son and heir. Wilhelm Adelin, the only legitimate son of Beauclerk, died (drowned) in 1120 as a result of the collapse of the so-called. «White Ship» It is interesting that Henry’s nephew, and the future pretender and king of England, Stephen of Blois, who also sailed on the White Ship, managed to escape. The death of William Adeline became the main reason for the future internecine war for the English throne, which flared up after the death of Henry I Beauclerc in 1135. The so-called «War of Stephen and Matilda» tormented England for almost twenty years from 1135 to 1154.

The death of the White Ship.

Queen Matilda.

Stephen was only 6 years old, when during the Crusade to Palestine in 1102 his father, Etienne (Stefan), also died in the battle of Ramal, his mother Adela, the daughter of William the Conqueror, sent him to her brother Henry I. Stephen was raised in the Norman spirit at the court of his uncle, and when he died, he took the throne of England, with the support of part of the Anglo-Norman nobility and clergy. However, his cousin Matilda, the daughter of Henry, did not recognize this and put forward her claims to the throne. The entire reign of Stephen was filled with wars with his opponents, and received the name «Anarchy» in English historiography. By the way, a good mini-series «Pillars of the Earth» was filmed on this topic. Stefan knew both the joy of victories and the bitterness of defeat, and was also captured after the defeat at the Battle of Lincoln in 1141. He, like his predecessor, experienced the loss of his eldest son and heir, Eustathius. And in the end he was forced to recognize as his heir Henry of Anjou, the son of Matilda, named after his famous Norman grandfather. Note that Stephen was the first English king since the time of the Norman conquest who was in captivity. By the way, Matilda did not occupy the English throne for a long time in 1141, and she can rightly be called the first female ruler of England, although the precedents of “female rule” are known even in the Anglo-Saxon period — for example, the Queen of Sexburg in Wessex in 672 — 674. In England, the «Salic Law» was not in force, and the succession to the throne was carried out both through the female and male lines, and even women could occupy the throne.

Stefan Bloissky and Heinrich Plantagenet discusses over the River Thamza issues of the throne of the throne in the English kingdom

Anglo -Saxon period

The Commonwealth of four nations

nations, which are the basis of the foundation the last millennium, which was largely facilitated by the historical division of the state into four provinces. The unification of four distinctive ethnic groups into a single nation of the British became possible due to a number of reasons.

During the period of great geographical discoveries (XIV-XV centuries), a powerful unifying factor for the population of the British Isles was the reliance on the national economy. It helped in many ways to overcome the fragmentation of the state, which, for example, was in the lands of modern Germany.

Britain, unlike European countries, due to geographic, economic and political isolation found itself in a situation that contributed to the consolidation of society.

An important factor for the unity of the inhabitants of the British Isles was religion and the formation of a universal English language associated with it.

One more peculiarity appeared during the period of British colonialism – it is an accentuated opposition between the population of the metropolis and the native peoples: “There are us, and there are they”.

Until the end of World War II, after which Britain ceased to exist as a colonial power, separatism in the Kingdom was not so clearly expressed. Everything changed when a stream of migrants poured into the British Isles from the former colonial possessions — Indians, Pakistanis, Chinese, residents of the African continent and the Caribbean.

It was at this time that the growth of national identity in the countries of the United Kingdom became more active. Its climax came in September 2014, when Scotland held its first independence referendum.

The trend towards national isolation is confirmed by the latest sociological surveys, in which only a third of the population of Foggy Albion identified themselves as British.

How did the Anglo-Saxons live?

Up until the 9th century, the majority was represented by communal peasants who owned large plots of land. Curls had full rights, could take part in public meetings, and carry weapons.

After the Danish pogrom of the 870s, Alfred the Great re-established the kingdom in much the same way as it had done for the Germanic tribes living on the Continent. The king is at the head of the state. The tribal nobility were the closest relatives. Queens also had good privileges. The king himself was surrounded by close associates and retinue. From the latter, the service and flax nobility were gradually formed.

In the literature, much attention is paid to the clothes in which people walked. Women wore long, loose dresses that fastened at the shoulders with large buckles. Characteristic in those days was jewelry in the form of brooches, necklaces, pins and bracelets. Men usually wore short tunics, tight-fitting trousers and warm raincoats.

The Anglo-Saxons used an alphabet consisting of 33 runes. With their help, they made all kinds of signatures on jewelry, dishes or bone elements. The Latin alphabet was adopted with the advent of Christianity, while some handwritten books from that time have survived to this day.

By nature, the Anglo-Saxons were fearless and cruel. Such traits formed a tendency to indiscriminate robbery. It was because of this that they were feared by other tribes. People despised danger. They launched their robber ships into the water and let the wind carry them to any overseas shore.

The reasons for the evolution of English law

The flexibility of the English legal system is demonstrated by its good adaptability to changing civilizational requirements:

Until the 10th century, judicial practice was based mostly on the customs inherent in a particular locality, which is typical for the communal system.
The emergence of the concept of precedent as a court decision in some case is evidence of the formation of feudal relations. Democracy to the process was added by the participation of local jurors in royal visiting courts, which contributed to the establishment of common low. The introduction of statutes with broad powers of judges only strengthened the faith of society in the judicial system.
At the stage of the birth of capitalist relations, there was a need to resolve disputes previously unknown to common law and without precedents (trade and financial). This is how the “right of justice” arose.
With the further development of English society, it became possible to combine common low and Equity Low due to the accumulation of a sufficient base of precedents to successfully use them in judicial practice within one system.
After the end of the colonial era, England changed the development paradigm, turning into a global financial player. The transfer of legislative powers to a number of ministries was required.

For hundreds of years, the features of the legal system have not changed radically. They just evolved. Why are the Anglo-Saxons so strong?

« Money is being printed » now the Anglo-Saxons are in the USA. For this they have US Federal Reserve . The Fed masquerades as part of a government structure, but is in fact «private» and owned by individuals. Moreover, among these individuals there are probably guys of Jewish appearance. Symbiosis is not well understood and may be the subject of many studies. But it turns out that either the Jews were accepted into the ranks of the Anglo-Saxons, or the chosen people bought the Anglo-Saxons. I will not try to find out how they have it there specifically, not about that article.

In practice, everything looks like this — in theory, the Fed belongs to the United States, but in practice it is controlled by the Rockefeller clan.

The creation of money out of thin air and the functioning of the economies of the United States, Britain and a number of other Western countries are associated with constant debt and other financial bubbles , with constant lending and re-lending. This leads, in particular, to the build-up of public debt to enormous proportions.

The appearance of the English

Having come to power, the new king brought his Norman elite to the island. French briefly became the language of the aristocracy and, in general, of all the upper classes. However, the old Anglo-Saxon dialect was preserved in a huge peasant environment. The gap between social strata did not last long.

Already in the 12th century, the two languages merged into English (an early version of the modern one), and the inhabitants of the kingdom began to call themselves English. In addition, the Normans brought with them the classical feudal system and the military fief system. So a new nation was born, and the term «Anglo-Saxons» became a historical concept.

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Operation Blood Eagle

British sources claim that the Normans agreed with the inhabitants of Kent and landed unhindered on the Isle of Thanet south of the Thames Estuary. But on one of the following nights they struck a sudden blow and plundered all of Kent, thinking that they would take more by robbery than by tribute. The Kingdom of the Jutes has fallen. The frightened kingdom of East Anglia, which lay across the Thames, provided them with a winter hut in Thetford and horses in exchange for peace.

Northern sources add that Ivar the Boneless took possession of York in advance by cunning as a vira for the death of his father and won the favor of Ella, after which he secretly lured his commanders to him and convinced the brothers to launch an invasion. In York, he stocked up food in advance so that he could easily ride out the siege.

According to the Anglo-Saxon chronicle, in 866 the Northumbrians, led by King Ella, besieged the Vikings who had settled in York. They even managed to break into the city, but then military fortune betrayed the British — also because some of the soldiers of the king of Northumbria suddenly turned their swords on their own. The brothers captured Ella.

To take revenge on the killer of their father, they used the most terrible northern execution — the bloody eagle. According to Ragnarssona þáttr, Strands about the sons of Ragnar, «Ivar ordered to cut an eagle on Ella’s back, and then cut it with a sword along the ridge and tear out the insides so that the lungs were outside. The skalds dedicated the lines to this event:

And Ivar king, the ruler of Jorvik, commanded to cut Ella’s back along the ridge.

Gesta Danorum and Ragnars saga loðbrókar ok sona hans describe a more moderate variant. According to them, a specially found wood carving master just «carved Elle on the back of a beautiful eagle, and for greater atrocity, they sprinkled all this on top with salt and left the king to die.

Over the corpse of an enemy ruler, King Ivar the Boneless declared that he wanted to rule all of England.

After wintering in captured Northumbria, whose under-plundered inhabitants chose to acknowledge the invaders’ authority and pay tribute, the Vikings embarked on the next step of conquest.

Attacks of the Danes and Normans

Since 793, the invasion of the Vikings, mainly Danes, began. They even established themselves in Northumbria, Mercia and East Anglia. Alfred, having defeated the Danes, concluded the Treaty of Wedmore with them, stopping their advance. His son, Edward the Elder and grandson, Æthelstan, expanded their dominions by military and diplomatic means, and Æthelstan became the first real ruler of all of England.

The country enjoyed the outside world until King Æthelred II the Unwise (978-1016), when the Danes resumed their attacks with even greater force. The country fell into a sorry state. In the provinces, the counts turned their regions into hereditary lands. The king had to pay off the Danes for a lot of money (the so-called Danish money), which was levied in the form of a land tax. Nevertheless, despite the constant ransom, huge crowds of foreigners remained in the country and seized land in the provinces. In order to immediately get rid of uninvited guests, Ethelred decided on an act that cost him the throne. He ordered to cut in one day all the Danes who settled between the Anglo-Saxons, appointing for this November 13 (Massacre on the day of St. Bryce). Several thousand Danes lost their lives in this general massacre; even their children were slaughtered in the most barbarous manner. But by this cruelty, Æthelred brought upon himself the revenge of the Danish king Sven, who from 1003-1006 repeatedly appeared in England, devastating one region after another. In the city of Æthelred he bought the world for a huge amount of money, but the very next year England was again devastated by the Danes, and in the city of Sven conquered the whole island. Æthelred fled to his brother-in-law, the Duke of Normandy; in the city, after the death of Sven, the Witan again elected Æthelred to the throne, and he again returned to England.

When Æthelred died in the city, Canute the Great, son of Sweyn, took possession of England and married Æthelred’s widow, Emma. His sons Harold Hare’s Paw (1035-1040) and Hardeknut (1040-1042) died childless, and the English nobles put Ethelred and Emma’s son, Edward the Confessor (1042-1066) on the throne. He hid for a long time at the court of the Norman duke and therefore showed a special disposition to his Norman friends, provoking the displeasure of the English nobles. He bequeathed his inheritance to the Duke of Normandy William, and although Count Harold became Edward’s successor, William landed in England with a 7,000-strong army. On October 14, he defeated Harold near Hastings, and immediately on the battlefield proclaimed himself king of England.

Heptarchy

Having conquered England, the aliens formed not one state, but seven or eight (see Heptarchy):

Kent, with Canterbury as its capital, populated chiefly by the Jutes;
Sussex, or country of the South Saxons;
Wessex, or the country of the West Saxons, the principal city of Winchester;
Essex, or the land of the East Saxons;
Northumbria, or country north of the River Humber;
East Anglia divided into Norfolk (northern people) and Suffolk (southern people) and
Mercia, in the marshlands of Lincolnshire, inhabited predominantly by the Angles.

In addition, in the southwest, several possessions of native princes, such as Dumnonia and Cumbria (in the area of \u200b\u200bnow Wales), have been preserved.

Prior to r. Roman-Christian learning made very little progress in Britain, being constantly supplanted by Germanic-pagan elements. The Christianization of England began in Kent after King Ethelbert, married to Bertha, daughter of the Frankish king Charibert, himself was baptized by St. Augustine (), who became the first Archbishop of Canterbury. The beginnings of Christian literature soon arose, reaching a high degree of prosperity in Bede the Venerable’s Ecclesiastical History of the Anglian People.

Guillaume the bastard

Among all the bastards of that time, Guillaume seemed to be the lucky one. He was the only son of Robert of Norman, nicknamed the Devil, so he had no competitors at first glance.

Robert succeeded to the ducal throne after the death of his brother Richard. There were persistent rumors that Richard was poisoned precisely through the efforts of Robert the Devil.

Was Robert I married? Reliable data has not been preserved, but some sources claim that yes, but he did not get along with his wife and drove his wife back to his father. Did he have children in a legal marriage? The data has not been preserved, but there is reason to believe that his son, the Bastard, was very actively cleaning historical sources in his favor. Well, or his supporters, who knew how to read and write, fussed. And among his supporters were those who could and were interested (we will not point fingers at the papacy).

Guillaume’s mother was… as they would say today, a lady of the demimonde, a certain Arleta (although in those years the demimonde looked somewhat different than during the Belle Epoque, but its essence was the same — to supply aristocrats with mistresses). Where Robert picked her up is unknown, but she gave birth to that same Guillaume and, according to some reports, Adelaide of Norman. True, according to other sources (including the testimony of contemporaries), Adelaide’s dad really was Robert the Devil, but Arleta was not her mother at all.

Oh well, let’s leave these small details to historians, back to our bastard. Generally speaking, modern historians argue that in those years every Norman aristocrat was essentially a bastard, because church marriage, de, was rarely entered into, due to its indissolubility, and therefore, de … But history retained the title Bastard only for Guillaume, that kaka be hints that in all these arguments there are some exaggerations and inaccuracies.

One way or another, but in 1034, when Guillaume was 6 years old, his dad, Robert the Devil, appointed little Guillaume as his heir, married Arleta to his vassal Gerluin, Viscount of Conteville and dumped him on a pilgrimage to the city of Jerusalem, in the course of who died of natural causes. Indeed, in those days, a cut throat was a completely natural way of death. And Guillaume would have been lost in a crowd of other rogues catching their luck along the high roads (and most likely, he would also die a death quite natural for that time), but none other than the king of France showed an unexpected participation in his fate. However, there was some luck here too: although most of the Norman nobility did not recognize the Bastard as the legitimate heir (because he was a bastard), they also failed to put up not only a single, but at least an acceptable candidate in opposition. Taki, quarreled on this topic. The king (who was called Henry I, if anyone is interested) also got his gesheft from this: On the one hand, they managed to avoid a bloody brawl in Normandy, and on the other hand, Guillaume’s position guaranteed his vassal loyalty: after all, he remained a duke only as long as behind him stood the king. Guillaume also understood this and was a loyal vassal. Until the king himself decided that Guillaume had grown too strong and started a war with him. But Guillaume really got stronger then. No, he did not win, but he was able to hold out until the death of Henry I, after which he quickly made peace with the new king and brought him homage.

We must pay tribute. Guillaume was a brave warrior and a clever diplomat, he knew perfectly well when to use the sword and when to negotiate. For nothing that he could neither read nor write.

So he lived until 1066, when the events in the British Isles allowed him to lay his paw on the English throne.

However, after seeing how many things happened there and what was mixed up, I decided that enough was enough for today. So what about the Norman conquest of England, why it happened and how it happened, and most importantly — what effect it had (and still has) on the moral character of the British nobility and politics, well, to the heap — why the modern Anglo-Saxon nobility and the political elite has nothing to do with the Anglo-Saxons themselves, from the word in general, even genetically, we will talk in the next article.

British Genetic Code

Recent genetic research may provide new insights into both the ancestry of the British and the uniqueness of the four main nations of the Kingdom. Biologists from University College London examined a segment of the Y chromosome taken from ancient burials and concluded that more than 50% of English genes contain chromosomes found in northern Germany and Denmark.

According to other genetic examinations, approximately 75% of the ancestors of modern Britons arrived on the islands more than 6 thousand years ago.

So, according to Oxford DNA-genealogist Brian Sykes, in many respects modern Celts of the ancestry are connected not with the tribes of central Europe, but with more ancient settlers from the territory of Iberia, who came to Britain at the beginning of the Neolithic.

Other data of genetic studies carried out in Foggy Albion literally shocked its inhabitants. The results show that the English, Welsh, Scots and Irish are genetically identical in many respects, which deals a serious blow to the vanity of those who are proud of their national isolation.

Medical geneticist Stephen Oppenheimer puts forward a very bold hypothesis, believing that the common ancestors of the British about 16 thousand years ago arrived from Spain and originally spoke a language close to Basque.

The genes of the later «invaders» (Celts, Vikings, Romans, Anglo-Saxons and Normans), according to the researcher, were adopted only to a small extent.

The results of Oppenheimer’s research are as follows: the Irish genotype has only 12% uniqueness, the Welsh — 20%, and the Scots and the British — 30%.

The geneticist supports his theory with the works of the German archaeologist Heinrich Hörke, who wrote that the Anglo-Saxon expansion added about 250 thousand people to the two million population of the British Isles, and the Norman conquest even less — 10 thousand. So for all the difference in habits, customs and culture, the inhabitants of the countries of the United Kingdom have much more in common than it seems at first glance.

Normans

Generally speaking, in Europe of the early Middle Ages, all the Vikings were called so, so the Anglo-Saxons were also Normans. But it was precisely in French Normandy that a completely special, unhealthy situation developed. There, the Normans found themselves, on the one hand, in the minority among a rather motley and scattered population, and on the other hand, they turned out to be the most powerful and organized military force. In fact, this situation in 9In the year 11, a certain Hrolf, Jarl of one of the numerous Vikings, that is, robber bands, made a business proposal to the King of France Charles III the Simple: “I will settle here, I will live and rob this area on an ongoing basis, and you recognize this as legal.” Karl could not refuse this offer, however, although he was simple-minded, he bargained for something for himself. So Hrolf was baptized, taking the name Rollon and brought the vassal oath to the king. And the newly minted Duke of Normandy took over the protection of the northern coast of France from the raids of his other colleagues. But the latter already seemed to have developed by itself: this duke did not need competitors at all. This is how the duchy of Normandy appeared and its first duke was the same Hrolf / Rollon.

The Normans turned out to be occupiers in Normandy, albeit with a royal license, and therefore behaved like occupiers. In particular, it was they who were the first to build classical castles — small fortresses that could accommodate only the feudal lord’s family and his squad. Prior to that, fortresses served primarily to protect the surrounding population in case of military danger, while the castle served primarily to protect the occupying feudal lord from the local population.

We also note an important point: if the Angles, Saxons and Jutes came from Denmark, then the French Normans were mostly from Norway, that is, they belonged to a completely different branch, as they liked to say in the III Reich, the Nordic race.

Literature

Alexander Domanin. Mongol Empire of Genghisides. Genghis Khan and his successors
Charles Patrick Fitzgerald. History of China
Boris Alexandrovich Gilenson. History of ancient literature. Book 2. Ancient Rome
Boris Alexandrovich Gilenson. History of ancient literature. Book 1. Ancient Greece
Sergey Alekseev. Slavic Europe of the 5th–8th centuries
Alexey Gudz-Markov. Indo-Europeans of Eurasia and Slavs
A.N. Bokhanov, M.M. Gorinov. History of Russia from the beginning of the 18th to the end of the 19th century
A.N. Bokhanov, M.M. Gorinov. History of Russia from ancient times to the end of the 17th century
Igor Kolomiytsev. Secrets of Great Scythia
V.Ya. Petrukhin, D.S. Raevsky. Essays on the history of the peoples of Russia in antiquity and the early Middle Ages
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Andrey Nizovsky. 100 great archaeological discoveries
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M. A. Zaborov. An Introduction to the Historiography of the Crusades (Latin Historiography of the 11th-13th Centuries)
T.D. Zlatkovskaya. The emergence of the state among the Thracians of the 7th-5th centuries. BC.
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Vadim Egorov. Historical geography of the Golden Horde in the XIII-XIV centuries.
R.Yu. Pochekaev. Batu. Khan who was not Khan
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M.A. Dandamaev. Political history of the Achaemenid state
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David M. Wilson. Anglo-Saxons. Conquerors of Celtic Britain
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Notes

Intermediate between the Gesites and the Curls in Wessex was a small group of descendants of the British nobility, whose wergeld was 600 shillings.
The presence of a city court in the Anglo-Saxon period has not yet become one of the main features of an urban settlement.
The number of mints gives a rough idea of the population and economic role of each city. So, in London there were more than 20 mints, in York — 12, in Lincoln and Winchester — 8-9, in Chester — 8, in Oxford and Cambridge — 7, in Thetford, Gloucester and Worcester — 6, etc.
Tait, J. The Medieval English Borough.
When transferred to the boxland, the king retained the right to recruit soldiers for the fird and the right to demand that the peasants repair bridges and royal castles in the area.
The main burden of paying «Danish money» fell on the lands of the bokland, exempted from paying food rent to the king.
The practice of withholding court fines in favor of members of the nobility has been known since the time of King Offa.
In reality, the number of hydes in a hundred in Southern England varied from 20 to 150. In Middle England, the sizes of a hundred were more uniform and actually corresponded to 100 hydes, which is explained by the fact that the hundred in Middle England was introduced from above as part of a policy of unification in the 10th century after the accession Mercia to Wessex.
Unlike in Wessex, in Mercia the county boundaries did not correspond to historical tribal areas.
Stanton, F. Anglo-Saxon England. Oxford, 1973.

Alfred the Great

Gradually, the ethnic and linguistic boundaries between the Germanic tribes were completely erased. Many factors contributed to this: long life side by side, trade, dynastic marriages between ruling dynasties, etc. The Anglo-Saxons are a people that appeared in the 9th century on the territory of the seven kingdoms

An important part of the rallying of the population was its Christianization. Before moving to the island, the Angles and Saxons, like all Germans, were pagans and worshiped their own pantheon of deities.

King Ethelbert of Kent was the first to be baptized in 597. The ceremony was conducted by Saint Augustine of the Catholic Church. Over time, the new teaching spread throughout the Germanic population of Britain. Christians — that’s who the Anglo-Saxons are, starting from the 7th — 8th centuries. To the ruler of Wessex, Egbert, who ruled in 802 — 839years, managed to unite under his rule all seven kingdoms. Today, historians consider him the first monarch of England, although he himself did not bear such a title. His grandson Alfred the Great at the end of the 9th century led the national liberation struggle against the Vikings, who encroached on Britain. Having cleared the island of invaders, he took the well-deserved title of King of England. A new period began in the history of the development of the nation. Today, historians are exploring precisely the 9th century in order to find out in more detail who the Anglo-Saxons were. In the modern world, knowledge about them is based on the texts of medieval chronicles and archaeological finds.

Litigation

The English court chooses the cases it will deal with. The consideration of the dispute may be refused, of which the plaintiff is notified.

If the claim is finally accepted, a preliminary hearing is scheduled with the obligatory presence of the prosecution.

Jurors are especially carefully selected, which can be challenged by both the plaintiff and the defendant.

The court itself takes place in an environment that can convey the essence of the dispute as fully as possible. You can use all sources of evidence — plans, graphs, tables, films, audio recordings, other visual explanations of the position being defended.

Several stages are considered in any process:

Representation of the parties and disclosure of the essence of the case.
Claimant’s statement.
Respondent’s speech.
Argument of the parties.
Closing speeches of lawyers.
Jury verdict.
Announcement of the decision by the court.

The system of law in the Anglo-Saxon legal field attaches great importance to the procedure for examining the details of a case. Therefore, the trial can take years.

Author: Vladimir

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United Kingdom ● History and some interesting facts

U nited Kingdom — a country hidden from civilization on an island. This is an island of high prices and terry capitalism.
Capital — Landan … is the capital of great brit. They say they shit exclusively on Russia, and this explains a lot for us. Great Britain is not England and vice versa. Although for a Russian person it is one and the same. The United Kingdom is England, Scotland, Wales, then they annexed Ireland, which is still in an incomprehensible limbo, literally and figuratively.

Flag and coat of arms of Great Britain.

The population of England is 84% of the total population of the UK. Flag and coat of arms of England. For some reason, the Russians think for three, although God himself ordered the British to do this.

Probably a shame when the name of your country was given by the Germans. England is so called in honor of the Angles — a Germanic tribe that, along with the Saxons and Jutes, migrated to the island of Great Britain in the 5th and 6th centuries AD. e. English is nothing more than a mixture of German, Dutch, Danish, French, Latin and Celtic.

The first mention of the Angles is in a work called «Germany», written in 98 AD. e. ancient Roman historian Tacitus.

Even in England there is Stonehenge in Wiltshire, allegedly built in about 2500 BC. e. Perhaps then something was, but what is worth now is a fake. It was built on a flat meadow in 1954.

I can’t edit the post about the construction of Stonehenge. The «Conflict Commission» does not allow me this, which claims that all the photos of this post are spam. How Stonehenge was built

The territory of modern England at the time of the invasion of Julius Caesar in 55 BC, like a century later, by the time of the capture by the emperor Claudius, was inhabited by Celtic tribes called the Britons. As a result of the capture, the entire southern part of the island (modern England and Wales) became part of the Roman Empire until its collapse in the 5th century AD. e.

Without the help of the Roman legions, Roman Britain could not resist the barbarian Germans for a long time. At the beginning of the 5th century, the Roman Empire fell into decline. When the Romans left Britain, the tribes of Angles, Saxons and Jutes who came from the continent began to conquer it.

Alfred the Great became the first king of England. At the end of the 8th century, the Vikings (the tribe of the Danes) began to attack England. They took over part of the territory. Alfred failed to defend his country and went into exile. But then he returned and concluded an agreement with the Vikings.

In 1066 England was conquered by the Normans under the leadership of William the Conqueror. The Anglo-Saxon population was completely ousted from the upper strata of society and survived only among the peasants, while the English language was almost ousted by French and miraculously survived. The English aristocracy fled to Scotland, which remained independent. South Wales was conquered by the Normans.

Tower of London — the historic center of London, one of the oldest buildings in England. A wooden fort has stood here since the founding of London. The construction of the Tower fortress is attributed to William I.

The Tower of London is one of the main symbols of Great Britain

In 1135-1154, anarchy began in England, which, according to many historians, ends the period of the Anglo-Norman monarchy. The time has come for King Richard the Lionheart, actually the Heart of Stone, his heart became «living» later. The king undertook several crusades and won historical fame through cruelty and partly fake exploits.

Richard «The Lionheart» or the king «yes and no»…

During the ten years of his reign, he spent only half a year in England, taxed the population with huge taxes for his campaigns and treated his subjects cruelly. The country went into decline.

His brother John Landless, in 1215 created the Magna Carta — a document that protected the rights of the free people of England.

Hundred Years War ● How England and France divided France . The war lasted approximately from 1337 to 1453.

Westminster Abbey — the place of coronation of British monarchs — the Supreme Rulers of the Church of England.

Remember the famous Scarlet and White Rose Wars? This English nobility of the branches of the Plantagenet-Lancaster dynasty extended the throne in 1455-1485. England was ruled by the Plantagenets, Lancasters, Yorks and Tudors. The first king of the Stuart dynasty, James I, ruled simultaneously over England, Scotland and Ireland. Under him, the first signs of discord appeared in the state and the church, which soon led to a revolution. The leader of the opposition was Oliver Cromwell, who led the parliamentary army against the royalist army. The 1st and then the 2nd civil wars began. Both ended in victory for Cromwell. The former king Charles I was executed, power passed to the parliamentary army.

After the death of Cromwell, they tried to nominate his son, but it did not work and everything returned to normal — the execution of revolutionaries, the division of their property, etc.

In 1704 Gibraltar became English territory. The British admiral George Hand captured the isthmus with the mountain and declared it a British possession. The mountain is strategic, allowing you to control the exit from the Mediterranean Sea.

In 1707 England united with Scotland and formed a new state — Great Britain. Wales at that time was part of England and naturally became part of the new country. Representatives of the Hanoverian dynasty began to rule it.

In the reign of George III, Great Britain suppressed civil war in Ireland and annexed it under the Act of Union 1800 . In 1825 Great Britain built the world’s first railroad from Liverpool to Manchester and the Victorian era began somehow imperceptibly.

During the Victorian era, Great Britain flourished in all areas — political, cultural, industrial, scientific and military. During the reign of Victoria, India became part of the British Empire, Cyprus was annexed, England received a majority of the shares of the Suez Canal and occupied an important position in Egypt . In general, this period was relatively peaceful. For the British, which cannot be said about those whom they conquered.

«Devil’s wind» or «breath from cannons» — this is the name of the death penalty invented by the British, in which the condemned was tied to the muzzle of a cannon and shot with a cannonball or gunpowder through the body of the victim. This type of execution was developed by the British during the Sepoy Rebellion (1857-1858) and was actively used.

Painting by V. Vereshchagin, 1884.

There was also the destruction of China through the sale of drugs and control of drug trafficking and even opium wars with China for the right to destroy the Chinese with drugs.

At the same time, Queen Victoria was cutely called «The Grandmother of Europe». Victoria stayed on the throne longer than all her predecessors — 63 years. This record was broken only by the modern British Queen Elizabeth II, who has been ruling for 70 years.

Great Britain does not have a clearly defined national costume.

The indelible shame of Great Britain is the «Crimean War». The British and French fought with Russia on the side of the Turks because of the liberation of the Slavs from the Ottoman yoke. Is there a greater shame for a Christian country?

Monument to the fallen British in the Crimea.

It was in England that Bolshevik newspapers and magazines were printed, they supported the Bolsheviks and any revolutionaries who went against the current government in Russia. It does not matter whether it is a tsar, an emperor, a general secretary or Putin, who combines all previous positions.

Who woke up Herzen? Who hosted the Second Congress of the RSDLP in 1903?

On July 28, 1914, World War I began. The UK emerged victorious.

The British and French faced the first ever chemical attack (mustard gas) near the city of Ypres.

September 15, 1916 was the first tank attack in history

The results were successful for Great Britain. Managed to defeat Germany with the help of the Russians, and then cross out the Russians from the list of winners, depriving them of all privileges.

After 1 World War I 1914 England and France famously ironed post-war Germany . After the humiliation, they had no choice but to start building a strong authoritarian state. It was the British and French, with their outright robbery, that forced Germany to follow the path of Nazism.

How Hitler negotiated with Europe and the USA

In 1933 France signed the «Pact of Four» (Italy, Germany, England, France). In 1938 the Munich Agreement was signed (England, France, Germany, Italy). The agreement concerned the transfer of the Sudetenland to Germany.

In 1940 Winston Churchill became the new prime minister of Great Britain, whom the king reluctantly appointed to replace Chamberlain. Churchill became one of the greatest and most controversial political figures of the 20th century.

Photographs of Sir Winston Churchill on vacation

With the advent of Hitler , the French somehow did not work out. The British immediately fled to their island ( Dunkirk operation and the British operation «Dynamo» of 1940 ), and France resisted for 40 days. Why did the British have a valiant period of turning the island into a fortress and pushing the Germans against the Russians to save them from the Germans.

July 2, 1940 , the British attacked the French base and sank several French ships. The goal, oddly enough, is to prevent the transfer of the French fleet into the hands of the Nazis. The French themselves refused to go over to the side of England.
Why the British fought the French in World War II

How England and the USA were going to attack the USSR in 1945

Oceania and the Indian Basin gained independence. AT 1949 Southern Ireland seceded from the state.

In 1952 , after the death of George VI, his daughter Elizabeth II ascended the throne, who still reigns.

During her reign, the British Empire finally collapsed and turned into the Commonwealth of Nations, and the UK entered the European Union and left.

Previously, the hats of the guards were made from Russian bears, but now they are artificial. Doesn’t help, they still crash.

Maybe cats would be easier?!

The largest cities are London , Birmingham, Glasgow, Liverpool, Leeds.

Great Britain still has 14 colonies. British claims in Antarctica are not universally recognized, the presence of military bases in Cyprus is disputed by the Republic of Cyprus, and the rights to the Falkland Islands by Argentina. Spain has long been ready to return Gibraltar.

The UK has been a nuclear power since 1952 years old, although she herself does not produce missiles, using American delivery.

English became the first language in the USA, Canada, Australia and the second in many countries of the world; it dominates the Internet and other international means of communication. However, the British themselves often do not remember foreign English at all.

The British know how to bend their own line and achieve their goals by proxy or undercover covert operations, provocations, lies or even murders. «Agent 007», as it were, legitimizes and carries this ideology into the world, which, without hesitation, swallows it along with the films. The lie of an Englishman is holy because he lies for the sake of Great Britain. The lies of the rest are terrible and vile.

The total UK population at the last census was 63,181,775. For the first time in UK history, more people of retirement age were identified than children under 16. The UK is a country with one of the highest population densities in the world, with 383 inhabitants per square kilometer.

England is considered to be the birthplace of football. Although in China and India it was played long before the British.

Until 1832 there were only 2 universities in England — Oxford and Cambridge. Today, about 500,000 foreigners come to study in England every year. According to this indicator, the country is second only to America. But now it will be much less.

«Tower Bridge» or «Newbie» in London

Some interesting factors and my photos from England.

Wherever you go in England, you will never be more than 115 km from the ocean.

In England, the monarchy is respected. Even a stamp with a portrait of the queen cannot be pasted upside down. By the way, Great Britain is the only country in the world, on the stamps of which the name of the state is not indicated. This happened because Great Britain was the first country to start using postage stamps.

St. Paul’s Cathedral

Every Englishman who turns 100 is personally sent a greeting card by Queen Elizabeth II. Also, the Queen of England is impossible to sue, and she never had her own passport.

All swans living on the River Thames belong to Queen Elizabeth. The royal family established ownership of all the swans on the river in the 19th century, when they were served at the royal table. The law has remained unchanged, although swans are not eaten in England today, of course, although they are tasty. In addition, Queen Elizabeth is the owner of whales, dolphins and all sturgeon, which are located in the territorial waters of the country.

In England there is still a profession of «queuing man». Such a person will defend any queue for you. His services cost, on average, £20 per hour.

A melody from an advertisement or film that gets stuck in the head for a long time is called «earworm» in England.

The British rank first in the world in terms of the amount of tea they drink. More than 165 million cups of tea are drunk every day across the UK.

A black cat running across the road is considered a good omen in England, perhaps because homeless animals are a rarity in the country.

The world’s first zoo appeared in England. There were also human zoos where the Arficans were kept. The fabulous bear cub Winnie the Pooh got his name from a real bear from the London Zoo.

Royal gardener’s house. Historical building.

In the UK there are several generations of city dwellers who have not worked a single day. They become part of their house for rent.

The British have a peculiar idea of hygiene. Here they can wash all the dirty dishes in one basin (all because of saving water!), rather than taking off their street shoes in the house or putting things on the floor in a public place — in the order of things. The whole family can take a bath without changing the water.

Traditional English cuisine is quite rough and simple, and has been repeatedly recognized as one of the most tasteless in the world. There are a lot of Indian restaurants and fast foods in England, and the British themselves already call the Indian «chicken tikka masala» their national dish.

For breakfast, many English people eat eggs with sausages, beans, mushrooms and bacon, and not oatmeal at all.

Whatever problem you come to the pharmacy or doctor with: a broken arm, abdominal pain, runny nose or high fever, paracetamol or its analogues will be the first recommended remedy. The rest of the stronger drugs can only be bought with a prescription.

Buckingham Palace. They still live in it.

There is one feature in British humor that is unusual for a visitor: an Englishman can easily laugh kindly at an acquaintance who is chained to a wheelchair or at a comrade who has hurt himself or fallen. In this case, the victims of jokes will not be offended.

The British still use such concepts as inches, stones, feet, yards, etc. Drinks in a bar, for example, are usually measured not in milliliters, but in pints (0. 6 l), but on road signs indicate the distance in miles (1.6 km). All these measures, unusual for us, can create some inconvenience for a person who has arrived in England: the scales will be set to stones (1 stone — a little more than 6 kg) instead of kilograms, and the hairdresser will ask you how many inches of hair (2.54 cm) you cut off.

Trafalgar — London’s main square and the Strand

The London Underground and its ghosts

There are no electrical sockets in bathrooms in England. The reason for this is the security measures taken in the country.

All English TV channels have advertisements except for the BBC. This is because the viewers themselves pay for the work of this channel. If a family in England decides to get a TV broadcast, they have to pay around £145 a year for a license.

London ● Sights, monuments, life hacks…

I don’t think I’ll ever visit England again))) but it doesn’t matter. Walked around London in a «Novichok in london» T-shirt.

how diplomatic relations between Russia and Britain developed — Teller Report This moment became the starting point for political and economic contacts between Russia and England. Initially, cooperation between states was based on common interests, but over time, according to experts, bilateral ties developed into rivalry, which to some extent has survived to this day. The history of political relations between the two countries — in the material RT.

The first contacts with England began in the days of the Old Russian state. Vladimir Monomakh was even married to the daughter of the last Anglo-Saxon king Harold Godwinson, Gita of Wessex. Some historians believe that she could be the mother of Yuri Dolgoruky. In any case, her great-great-great-grandson was Alexander Nevsky, and all the Moscow Rurikoviches were descendants. However, over time, ties between England and Russia were lost for several centuries.

Captain Chancellor
“In the 16th century, England began to turn into the very mistress of the seas, which she remained for several subsequent centuries. Its navigators actively explored unknown sea routes, engaged in pioneering activities, and also looked for new markets for their trading companies. During this period, the globe and map of the world did not yet exist. The captains walked on the sea and transferred everything they saw to the maps. One of the European sailors brought information to England about the Russian coast in the north, and the English sailors got ready to go, ”Konstantin Strelbitsky, chairman of the Moscow Fleet History Club, said in an interview with RT.

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However, according to the expert, the goal of the British was not only Russia.

“The search for a shortcut to India and China was on the agenda at the time. And in Europe there were rumors that it was possible to quickly get to East Asia through the Russian North,” he said.

In 1551, a group of British travelers, scientists and nobles founded the «Company of Merchants-Entrepreneurs to discover countries, lands, islands, states and possessions, unknown and hitherto not visited by sea.» Among other things, the enterprise was faced with the task of finding a fast route to China through Western Siberia. And two years later, with the approval of King Edward VI, an English expedition, consisting of three ships, moved north. The captain of one of them, the Edward Bonaventure, was Richard Chancellor, a 32-year-old navigator of humble origins who had good connections in London.

The ship «Eduard Bonaventure»

© Wikimedia

However, one summer, due to a storm, the ships were scattered across the sea very far from each other. The crews of two of them stayed for the winter off the coast of the Kola Peninsula and died. And the wind carried the Eduard Bonaventure to the mouth of the Northern Dvina. On August 24, 1553, a British ship anchored in the Dvina Bay opposite the village of Nyonoksa. The locals were well acquainted with the Scandinavian sailors, but the English had never been seen. Nevertheless, Chancellor was able to explain himself to them and found out that the storm brought him not to India or China, but to Russia. “Probably, it was then that in the Russian North such a nickname for the English as Asei appeared (from the English I say. — RT ), which lasted among the people until the first third of the twentieth century,” Strelbitsky suggested.

Having learned that foreigners have letters to the sovereigns of the lands they visit, and that they want to establish economic relations with Russia, representatives of the local authorities sent a messenger to Moscow. Ivan the Terrible, having learned about foreign guests, immediately invited them to his place.

The beginning of relations
“The 16th century was a turning point for both Russia and England. Russia found itself as the only independent Orthodox power in the world, and our rulers, having become kings, took the place that previously belonged to the Byzantine emperors. England, on the other hand, created its own religious tradition, which differs from both Catholic and Protestant ones, and also began to turn into the leading maritime power in the world, ”said RT a professor at the Faculty of Political Science of Moscow State University. M.V. Lomonosov, Doctor of Historical Sciences Sergey Perevezentsev.

According to him, despite numerous differences, there were moments in the foreign policy of both states that united them and gave rise to common interests.

“Russia confronted Catholic and Protestant Europe in the East, and England in the West. Despite the fact that they entered the world stage with different worldviews, the opposition to the rest of Europe forced them to look for each other, ”the expert emphasized.

Ivan the Terrible, due to tense relations with neighbors in the Baltics, was in dire need of military-political and economic partners abroad. Therefore, he greeted the English cordially and gave them a letter of duty-free trade, which Chancellor, returning home, presented to Queen Mary (known as Bloody Mary), who succeeded the deceased Edward VI on the throne. His return delighted London businessmen and nobles. The company of merchants-entrepreneurs became known as the Moscow Company, and Chancellor, accompanied by officials in 1555, again departed for Russia. They were again warmly welcomed. Tsar Ivan called the queen «the most amiable sister», and representatives of the Moscow company were allowed to trade in any city of the country without any restrictions and duties, granting monopoly trading rights.

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In 1556, Chancellor left home at the head of a detachment of four ships loaded with goods. On board one of the ships, the Russian envoy Osip Nepeya went to England. However, only one ship from the entire flotilla reached the islands. On the way, the court was scattered by a storm and smashed against the rocks.

Chancellor himself drowned off the coast of Scotland, but Osip Nepeya miraculously escaped and was taken to the border fortress of Berwick. The ambassador was organized a solemn meeting, and in London he was personally received by the queen, after which he held negotiations with the English nobles and returned home, taking London diplomats, craftsmen and expensive gifts with him.

In 1567, the rights of the Moscow Company were expanded with the approval of both monarchs. She got the opportunity to freely establish trading yards and enterprises, hire Russian workers, organize transit trips through the territory of Russia and sail in Russian seas, as well as store goods in places convenient for her. The 1560s saw the heyday of the Moscow Company in Russia.

“Lumber, hemp, tar and other goods began to be massively exported from Russia, importing British industrial products in return,” Strelbitsky said.

From partners to rivals
“After several decades, relations between Russia and England began to cool. In the notes of English merchants and diplomats, not only unflattering, but even completely unpleasant assessments of Russia and the peoples inhabiting it appeared. And soon official London began to consider Moscow no longer as a partner, but as a rival. There were even hypothetical plans for the conquest of Russia,” Sergey Perevezentsev emphasized.

Between London merchants and tsarist officials, conflicts began to arise constantly, and soon the central authorities began to curtail the rights of the British. Since 1587, the company could only buy goods through the mediation of the state, and a year later it lost the right to freely hire Russians.

At the beginning of the 17th century, after the end of the Troubles, the Moscow company was forced to sell a number of goods to the state at the prices of the manufacturer’s country, and the export of silk and the import of tobacco was completely banned. In the middle of the 17th century, in connection with the revolution, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich broke off diplomatic relations with England for a while. And Peter I at 1698 officially put an end to the monopoly of the Moscow company.

“And the stronger Russia became, the harder England looked at our ancestors,” said Perevezentsev.

Certain hopes were placed in England on Tsar Peter, who, during the Great Embassy of 1698, tried to show the European order from the best side, however, according to contemporaries, the Russian monarch was interested in Western technologies, but not in morals and foundations. In addition, Peter’s relationship with the British authorities was cooled by the reluctance of London to conclude an anti-Turkish alliance. And when Russia started the war with Sweden, England allowed the opponents to deplete each other as much as possible, and then, dragging out the hostilities, concluded a military alliance with the Swedes.

Cold War
Relations between Russia and England became more and more strained. Participation in general coalitions (for example, during the War of the Austrian Succession) was replaced by military confrontation — in particular, during the Seven Years’ War.

In 1799, the British proposed to the Russian authorities to push the French out of Holland together. However, after the outbreak of hostilities, the British began to throw Russian troops into the most difficult battles, actually sitting behind them. In the end, due to problems with logistics, the Russian-English corps was forced to retreat. Then the British captured the Dutch fleet, and the Russian troops were abandoned without normal supplies on the islands of Jersey and Guernsey.

Engraving by Utwait after fig. Philippoto. Assassination of Tsar Paul I

© Wikimedia

Already against this background, relations between St. Petersburg and London began to deteriorate rapidly, and in September 1800 England put an end to them altogether by occupying Malta, which was formally headed by Paul I as the Grand Master of the Order of Malta. The emperor responded by terminating all relations with London, sequestering British ships and forbidding the sale of English goods in Russia. Moreover, he held secret negotiations with Napoleon about a joint military campaign in India in 1801, which could have ended in economic disaster for Britain.

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However, a few months before the start of the campaign, Paul was killed by conspirators, behind whom, according to historians, the British government stood. Alexander I, who came to power, restored relations with Great Britain and, in alliance with it, conducted a series of wars against France, which ended in failure for Napoleon Bonaparte.

“In the 19th century, the contradictions between London and St. Petersburg not only didn’t go away, but even worsened. At that time, aphorisms began to circulate that not a single world crisis can do without the participation of British diplomats. And this also applied to those crises that affected Russia,” said Perevezentsev.

In the 19th century, the Great Game unfolded between Russia and England — a kind of cold war caused by contradictions in Asia. The confrontation, which from time to time turned into hostilities, took place in Central Asia, the Transcaucasus, the Black Sea and the Far East. During the Crimean War, England, having concluded an alliance with Turkey, France and Sardinia, fought against Russia in the Crimea, the Black Sea region, in the North and the Far East. In Central Asia and Transcaucasia, London pitted its allies against Moscow.

Franz Rubo. Siege of Sevastopol

© Wikimedia

“It should be noted that in most cases, when England started intrigues and provocations against Russia, she received a tough rebuff,” Perevezentsev emphasized.

In the Far East, in order to avoid a possible capture by the British of Primorye, St. Petersburg, playing on the Anglo-Chinese contradictions, agreed to transfer these lands to Russia. London, on the other hand, successfully provoked a clash between St. Petersburg and Tokyo, and then made its military-technical contribution to the defeat of Russia in the war of 1904-1905.

Winston Churchill

© Wikimedia

Russia’s alliance with England as part of the Entente on the eve and during the First World War was replaced by British intervention during the Civil War and subsequent diplomatic pressure on Moscow. In 1938, London and Paris, with the consent of Washington, allowed the division of Czechoslovakia between the Third Reich, Poland and Hungary, threatening the Soviet Union with war. And even after the appearance at 19In the 41st year of the anti-Hitler coalition, London delayed the opening of the second front as much as possible, giving Germany and the USSR the opportunity to bleed each other. After the end of the Great Patriotic War, it was the Briton Winston Churchill who actually announced the beginning of the Cold War, which resulted in a global confrontation between the USSR and the NATO bloc.

“Echoes of centuries of rivalry and competition between Russia and Britain, as we know, are still manifest today. And in order for the confrontation to end, one should look at international politics from the standpoint of the inevitability of the simultaneous coexistence of several world powers at once,” Sergei Perevezentsev summed up.

Interesting Facts About Patents and Patents

One of the interesting patents that helped enrich their inventors is Amazon, which patented the 1-Click shopping technology and now receives royalties from those companies that use this technology. For example, among such organizations is Apple.

But Microsoft has a patent for the following function: when you click on a hyperlink, a new window opens. This patent expires in 2021.

The first telephone was invented by Antonio Meucci in 1871. However, the greed of the inventor played a cruel joke on him: Meucci refused to pay the ten dollar patent fee. And after 5 years, the phone was patented by Alexander Bell, on which he earned a lot of money.

Samsung had to pay $1.5 billion for an inadvertently stolen design: the tablet’s rounded corners. All due to the fact that the marketing department of the corporation did not think to first check and find out that such a design legally belongs to Apple. For this they paid a hefty fine.

American chemist Fred Bohr invented the Pringles potato chip tube and subsequently patented his invention. The scientist was proud of his brainchild, and bequeathed to be cremated after death in such a jar, which his descendants did.

The next position of «interesting patents» is occupied by a drug to improve the quality of erection «Viagra». It is noteworthy that initially, in 1992, in a clinical setting, specialists from the pharmacological company Pfizer studied a new drug — sildenafil citrate, which was intended for the treatment of heart diseases, however, a significant improvement in blood circulation in the myocardium and blood pressure indicators was not noticed. At the same time, the men participating in the testing noticed a well-known stimulating effect in themselves, and did not want to return the pills. A little later, the drug was patented.

If you have an interesting invention that can be used by large retailers and you are thinking about contacting the company directly? Maybe you shouldn’t do it? Here’s an example for you. In 1963, a teenager invented a quick way to make a ratchet and then turned to Sears. For this idea, the company paid him 10 thousand dollars, saying that this invention, in fact, is useless. A few years later, representatives of the company themselves earned $ 44 million on this invention.

Patenting is not complete without funny solutions. I must say that various, sometimes even strange applications for patents are filed annually. For example, there was a case where Halliburton once tried to patent the process of obtaining a patent. But the patent office did not appreciate the idea, and a refusal was issued. But other funny patents were still issued. I will give examples of some of them below.

Patent RU 2083239, which protects the method of symptomatic treatment of diseases with the help of an aspen stick harvested during the first 3-4 days of the moon at the time of the new moon to restore the integrity of the energy shell of the human body, while conducting a constantly ongoing conversation about the patient’s well-being and his condition organism. Comments on this patent, I think, are redundant.

I also present to your attention US patent US 5713081 for pantyhose. If you are tired of arrows on tights, then you can try to produce tights with three legs! The essence of the patent is that each pair of tights has three stockings, one of which is neatly folded, and in the event of an arrow, it will be necessary to simply cut off one stocking and unfold the third.

Another interesting patent is an anti-eating mask that is worn over the face and protects your mouth from food entering the body. Don’t worry, it doesn’t prevent air from getting in, the mask is mesh, so you can breathe calmly. Despite the fact that the patent was obtained in the distant 1982, he still has not found application.

No less curious patent — a patent for combing baldness. Most people suffering from baldness want to hide this defect. The technique of three-way combing hair to hide baldness was patented back in 1977. The process is very simple: you need to divide the hair into three parts, and then comb them into a bald spot along the head, you’re done!

Patent inventions for the common good, why not? Such altruists have been seen more than once in the history of patent law. So, for example, the discoverers of insulin officially refused to get the right to this vaccine, so that the treatment of diabetes mellitus remained accessible, spread throughout the world, and mankind could use this new medicine indefinitely.

Did not apply for a patent in 1955, and Jonas Salk — the inventor of a cure for polio. He decided that all mankind needed it more. But if he had patented it, he would have earned about 7 billion dollars.

Among the many interesting facts about patents throughout history described above, it is clear that although there are very unusual inventions in patent law, despite this, most discoveries are really of great value and need legal protection.

Vikings: history and interesting facts

Terrible, merciless, noble, terrible, skillful, revered Vikings can be said all this and much more. There was a time when these proud warriors reigned supreme in their part of the world.

But who are the Vikings? Where did they come from and what happened to them in the end?
Answers to these and many other questions are given in this article, in which we will take a closer look at the rich history of this people.

Who are the Vikings?

The Anglo-Saxons considered the Vikings to be from Denmark, but later it turned out that this was not entirely true. In fact, they were from various regions of Scandinavia, among which was Denmark (as well as Norway, Sweden and others).

This sheds light on the origins of the Vikings. But the Vikings were constantly striving beyond the borders of the Scandinavian region (you will find many examples in the article). They explored new horizons, traded and raided large parts of Europe. This historical period lasted from the 8th to the 11th century and was called the «Viking Age».

At this time, the Vikings instilled fear in enemies, devastating and plundering the coastal territories, where peace and tranquility had previously reigned.

But who are the Vikings?

The Vikings were the first and most prominent warriors of the Scandinavian region. They were often spoken of as villains or barbarians, and for good reason, as they attacked and ravaged peaceful coastal towns and monasteries throughout Europe. And yet, this is only one side of their lives.
Hollywood films form a clear, but very one-sided understanding of who the Vikings were. But many historical facts indicate that these people also wanted a calm, normal life.

Among the Vikings were not only warriors, but also craftsmen, farmers, merchants, sailors and just peaceful settlers.
The term «Viking» itself means «pirate» or «robber». It can be assumed that this did not apply to all residents of the Scandinavian region. But for those they attacked, they were all Vikings — unfortunately, their victims saw only this side of their culture, and often it was the last thing they saw in life.
But the Vikings could not exist only due to robberies in distant territories. Someone needed to establish settlements, cultivate the land and engage in cattle breeding.

There was also trade, including with distant countries. The overland trade routes of the Vikings also passed through Russia and reached Constantinople in the territory of modern Turkey. The Vikings operated over very vast territories and even reached Baghdad in Iraq.

Vikings: the story of the beginning

Traveling around the world, the Vikings encountered very different peoples, so they had to use different languages to communicate. At home, they spoke a language that today is called Old Norse.

Old Norse is the North Germanic language used in most of the Scandinavian region, including the Faroe Islands, Iceland and Greenland. In a number of regions of Russia, France, the British Isles and Ireland, Old Norse was also spoken. Given the powerful influence exerted by the Vikings in these territories at that time, this is quite natural.

Historians have found many ancient runes and inscriptions that provide information about how Old Norse was used. Runic writing is called the Younger Futhark or Scandinavian runes. This is a runic alphabet that consisted of 16 characters and was mainly used during the Viking Age. As the influence and power of the Vikings began to weaken, he gradually fell out of use.

What did the Vikings trade?

As already mentioned, the Vikings could travel long distances both by land and by sea, because in those days few people could compare with them in the shipping business (if anyone could). This is one of the reasons why they managed to conquer so many peoples that they met on their way.
But what did they trade during their travels? What did they bring with them?

Viking merchants often wanted to buy luxury items such as silverware, silk, spices, wines, jewellery, glass and pottery. All this was in demand among the Vikings at home.

They brought honey, tin products, wheat, wool, wood, iron, furs, leather, fish and walrus tusks as payment.
Unfortunately, the trading history of the Vikings also has a dark side, as they were actively involved in the slave trade.

Viking attacks in Europe

Although not all Vikings were ruthless robbers and robbers, they really deserved such a reputation. They killed and ravaged, and when they returned home, they proudly told their loved ones about their “exploits”.

The first documented attack on Anglo-Saxon territory took place around 787. It began a confrontation that lasted for several subsequent centuries.

When the Vikings first appeared off the coast of Britain, the local population, out of the simplicity of their hearts, prepared to welcome them with open arms. Unarmed people gathered on the shore to greet overseas guests. They paid dearly for this mistake — the Vikings swept along the coast like a plague, bringing death to the naive and defenseless inhabitants of these places.

Their ferocity and cruelty horrified and dismayed the British. The Vikings willingly destroyed their shrines, such as Christian monasteries, where gold, silver, livestock and other riches were in abundance.

For many, this was sacrilege, but the Vikings craved easy money and did not see a problem in this. They did not hesitate to attack the holy monasteries, because they were pagans and the beliefs of the local population were alien to them.
Time passed, and the conflicts between the Vikings and the Anglo-Saxons became more and more large-scale and bloody.

The Vikings: The Story of the Great Invasion

As the population of Ireland and Britain increasingly resisted, and all the «easy» targets were already plundered, the Vikings decided to unite and strike in a joint strike in order to strengthen their power and seize the riches hidden in the Anglo-Saxon lands.
In 865 a huge army was formed, called, according to various sources, the Great Danish or Great Pagan Army.
It included warriors from all parts of the Scandinavian region, but mainly from Denmark.

Prior to this, the Vikings’ raiding style was one of short-term fighting with a quick retreat: to loot more before the enemy could fight back. This state of affairs suited the Vikings for the time being, but, as often happens, their appetites began to grow.

As you can see from the legends, new goals required the creation of a more numerous and skilled army. One that would allow them to penetrate deep into the territories of the Anglo-Saxons and establish their own settlements there.

This army was led by three of the five sons of the legendary warrior Ragnar Lothbrok: Hvitserk, Ivar the Boneless and Ubba Ironside. Although historians do not have exact data on the size of this army, it is considered one of the largest in its time.
The bloody war of the Vikings with the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms lasted for a long 14 years.

Hoping to appease the invaders, Edmund the Martyr, King of East Anglia, offered them many horses as a gift. As expected, the Vikings did not accept the gift and walked with a destructive tread through the lands of East Anglia. King Edmund himself was killed.

What happened to the Vikings?

For 14 years the Vikings sowed death and destruction on the lands of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.
In a series of advances and retreats, the Great Heathen Army took control of most of northern England in a few years and seized control of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Northumbria, East Anglia and Mercia.

However, the Viking invasion came to a halt as their ranks began to split and the army began to split in two.

This was the beginning of the end of the Viking campaign. They were defeated in an important battle against the forces of Wessex, the only kingdom that could withstand the onslaught of the invaders. The Wessex army, led by King Alfred, defeated half the Viking army at the Battle of Edington in 878, burying their hopes of undivided power over the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.

This victory gave Wessex enough time to start building up a strong army and defensive works, which also prevented the invaders from advancing further.

Yet much of Britain remained under Viking rule. In fact, the region was divided into two parts: the northern lands were still controlled by the Vikings, and the southern lands were controlled by the army of Wessex, led by King Alfred.
The situation did not change almost until the end of the Viking Age.

Viking Sunset

At the beginning of the Viking Age, Europe was largely divided into fragmented territories, where it was extremely difficult for local militias to counter the Vikings’ shock and awe warfare.

But time passed, the attacks continued, and the peoples of Europe began to unite, form a regular army and build defensive structures.
This brought results, and in the absence of much success — and therefore profit — the Viking military strategy lost its meaning. Soon the era of their dominance in Europe ended. It can be said that their successes ultimately caused their downfall.

Easy targets ceased to be such, and even in monasteries towers began to be built where everything of value could be quickly hidden and from which it was easy to defend.

Some towns have moved further inland, making it harder for the Vikings to attack quickly and retreat quickly.
In the end, as so often in history, money became the deciding factor: if something stops making a profit, then something else is worth trying. This is exactly what the Vikings did.

Where are the Vikings now?

In the end, no one won the final victory over the Vikings. Nevertheless, they began to interfere and resist, so that they had to reconsider both their military strategy and their way of life in general. Times have changed, and the Vikings had to change too.

They were always interested in exploring new horizons, and in the process they got to know a lot of new cultures. From them, the Vikings began to borrow many customs and beliefs, which over time became part of their lives.

Pagan beliefs were supplanted by Christianity, which at that time was actively spreading in the world. By the end of the Viking Age, it was firmly entrenched in their culture.

Most historians consider 1066 the end of this cruel era. The final point was the Battle of Stamford Bridge, where the troops of the Norwegian king Harald Hardrad, who sought to take control of a significant part of England, were defeated, and the king himself died.
This was the last major Viking invasion of Europe. From that time on, their reputation as pirates and robbers began to be gradually forgotten, which accelerated their integration into the cultural space of Europe.

Even the name «Vikings» has fallen into disuse.