Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Quiz [ignore the material in square brackets for the time beingjust do the numbered
questions]
1. Put the following into chronological order of arrival in the British Isles:
a. the Vikings
b. the Anglo-Saxons
c. the Romans
d. the Normans
[Wondrous is this stone wall, wrecked by fate;
the city-buildings crumble, the works of the giants decay
Bright were the city hall, many the bath-houses,
lofty all the gables, great the martial clamour,
many a mead-hall was full of delights
The place falls to ruin, shattered
into mounds of stone, where once many a man,
joyous and gold-bright, dressed in splendour,
proud and flushed with wine, gleamed in his armour
from the Old English poem The Ruin (tr. Crossley-Holland)]
[they sealed its doom by inviting in among them (like wolves into the sheep-fold), the fierce
and impious Saxons, a race hateful both to God and men, to repel the invasions of the northern
nations. Nothing was ever so pernicious to our country, nothing was ever so unlucky. What
palpable darkness must have enveloped their minds darkness desperate and cruel!
(from Gildas, The Ruin of Britain)]
[Never, before this,
were more men in this island slain
by the swords edge as books and aged sages
confirm since Angles and Saxons sailed over here
from the east, sought the Britons over the wide seas,
since those warsmiths hammered the Welsh,
and earls, eager for glory, overran the land.
(from The Battle of Brunanburh, trans. Crossley-Holland)]
[never before has such a terror appeared in Britain as we have now suffered from a pagan
race, nor was it thought possible that such an inroad from the sea could be made. Behold the
church of St Cuthbert spattered with the blood of the priests of God
(from a letter of Alcuin, Archbishop of York)]
2. In which century was Christianity brought to the Anglo-Saxons?
a. eleventh
b. eighth
c. sixth
d. tenth
3. Who was Bede?
a. a nun
b. a monk
c. King Alfreds favourite horse
d. King Alfreds mother
the life of man on earth] seems to me like the swift flight of a single sparrow through the
banqueting-hall ... In the midst there is a comforting fire to warm the hall; outside, the storms
of winter rain or snow are raging. This sparrow flies swiftly in through one door of the hall, and
out through another. While he is inside, he is safe from the winter storms; but after a few
moments of comfort, he vanishes from sight into the wintry world from which he came. Even
so, man appears on earth for a little while; but of what went before this life or of what follows,
we know nothing ]
4. In which century did King Alfred the Great (of cake-burning fame) reign?
a. ninth
b. eighth
c. sixth
d. tenth
[My tongue, leaden with grief, lies Blackness? How quicken the breath?
Listless, will not stir to song. Rain in my sad heart and rain
No poem moves in my mind, Drenching the land. And the lash
My heart is heavy with tears. Of wind on water. On Nains
So many tears! Such sadness! Rocks the sea splinters and howls
All my thoughts are dark with death. (from Egill Skallagrmsson, Sonatorrek
How can I breed song from such Wreck of sons, trans. John Lucas)]