Sie sind auf Seite 1von 4

Old English

Universitet i Oslo-17.10.2017

Nicolas Jaramillo

I Wessex, spared by the Norsemen.

In the year 865 the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms beheld the arrival of a wolfish force that

brought havoc and disruption into the stablished order. This force is called in the Anglo-

Saxon Chronicle “The Great Heathen Army” (mycel hæþen here).1 Between this date and

the year 871 the Heathen army conquered most of the kingdoms but Wessex.2 Although

luck, and geographical dispositions of Wessex had a role to play in the inability of the

Norsemen to conquer the realm, there were some characteristics and circumstances that

favored the salvation of the last Saxon kingdom that made it different from the other

kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England; exploring this special characteristics is the object of

this essay.

Since the end of the 820’s, the preeminence of Wessex in the south, east and west would

be almost undisputable. While the sources also favored the position of the West Saxons, the

bias reflects a kernel of truth, being Wessex the only survivor of the onslaught done by the

Great Army. It is worth of notice, that the dire dynastic situation of Northumbria was

exploited by the invaders successfully, as they also did in some of the other kingdoms.

Whereas the dynastic problems affected the Mercian dominance in southern England, and

weakened the kingdom so much that by 825 Beornwulf, the Marcian king, lost control of

Kent and his life by East Angles, the West Saxons were consolidating a powerful

hegemony, using conquest, alliance and dynastic bonds, through marriage.3


1
Peter Sawyer, The age of the Vikings, (London: Edward Arnold, 1962). 120-126.
2
Robert Ferguson, The Vikings: A History, (Nueva York: Penguin Books, 2009). 132-136.
3
Martin J. Ryan. “The Anglo-Saxons and the Vikings, c.825-900.” in The Anglo-Saxon World. Ed. Martin J.
Ryan and Nicholas J. Higham. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2015). 239-241.

1
The hegemony of Wessex in the 830’s under King Ecgberht shows one of the aspects

that made Wessex so successful where the other kingdoms failed: the power was stablished

in centralized power under the ruler of the West Saxons. The relation between succession

and centrality of power in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms was always a problem, and the

evidence highlights that the primogenitors were not in the first line of succession, since

more often than not, brothers and other prospects inherit the kingship. 4 Equally problematic

was the relation of lord and retainer, since it was so inherently personal that demanded a

formal alliance between the parties. In the case of Wessex, since the times of Ecgberht, the

alliance was given to the throne and not the individual holding the royal cloth.5

This movement towards centrality was accompanied by a change in the way the system

of power function in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, since the council of the king,

witenagemot, became evidently a royal council and ceased to be a freemen council that

worked along the power of the king, this movement is in a state of development still at the

time of Ælfred, but it was no longer just a body of individuals that legitimized the

following of the law as in previous times, but was a body that assisted the monarch with the

upkeep of the realm.6

Finally, the West Saxons had developed by the 850’s an important sense of identity that

was also supportive of the regional administration. Since the end of the seventh century, the

predominant identity of the West Saxons was on the level of the realm and the ealdormen

served as regional administrators on the king’s behalf. The shires and the officers that

preside over them had some autonomy in matters that were of little or no importance to the

kingdom, but the main function was to maintain the proper observance of the law. The
4
Peter Hunter Blair, An Introduction to Anglo-Saxon England, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2003). 215-221.
5
Hunter Blair, Anglo-Saxon England, 198-204.
6
Hunter Blair, Anglo-Saxon England, 198-204.

2
distribution of functions united to the sense of West Saxon identity allowed the West

Saxons kings to expand maintain their hegemony over the kingdom, making their subjects

compete for diverse charges or appointments serving all to the status quo.7

II

[on sumum lande be:oð men a:kende, θa: be:oð on lenge syks fo:tmæ:la. Hy: hab:að

beardas oð kne:ow si:de, and feaks oð he:lan. Homodubi: hy: syndon ha:tene –θæt be:oð

“twi:-men”– and be: hre:awum fiksum hy: lifiað and θa: etað. Kapi ha:t:e se:o e:a in

θæ:reilkan sto:we θe is ha:ten gorgoneus– θæt is, “wæl-kyrging.” θær be:oð kende æ:metan

swa: mitʃle swa: hundas. Hy: hab:að sweltʃe fe:t swa: græshop:an. Hy: syndon re:ades

he:owes and bla:kes he:owes.]

III

a) Those Ants dig gold up of earth from before night until the fifth hour of the day. Then

men who to that extent daring are that they that gold take, then lead they with them camels,

mares with theirs foals and steeds. Those foals they tie ere they over the river travel. The

gold they load on the mares and they selves on-sit and the steeds there abandon.

b) Those ants dig up gold from the earth from before night to the fifth hour of the day.

Then, there are men who are so daring that they would take that gold. They will then take

with them camels, both the females with their foals and male camels. They will tie the foals

before they pass over the river. Then they would load the gold on the mares and sit

themselves over them and abandon the male camels on the spot.

7
Hunter Blair, Anglo-Saxon England, 227-229.

3
IV

a)

Sumum lande: Neuter, dative, singular, indirect object. Hrēawum fixum: Masculine, dative,

plural, indirect object. Blāces hēowes: Masculine, genitive, singular, of replacement.

Olfendan: Femenine, accusative, plural, direct object.

b)

bēoð ācende: indicative active, 3rd person, plural, present, irregular verb. ācende is weak I.

Habbað: indicative active, 3rd pers, plural, present, weak III. Nemnaþ: indicative active, 3rd

pers, present, weak I. lifiað: indicative active, 3rd pers, plural, present, weak III, infinitive

lifian.

c)

þonne hy cennan willað: the verb is in final position, in plural present tense. Þonne farað hy

on scipum to Indeum: verb in second position, the on, demands that the ships be in dative.

And þær hyra gecynda in woruld bringaþ: verb in final position.

Das könnte Ihnen auch gefallen