The Story of Saxon and Norman Britain Told in Pictures

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The Story Of Saxon And Norman Britain Told In Pictures - BY C. W. AIRNE - 1. THE ANGLO-SAXONS. A.D. 410-1066. The Anglo-Saxon or English Conquest A.D. 440-618 marks the beginning of our natioral history, as it destroyed the Roman Civilization in Britain and establish the English race and nation with its own distinctive lanqiage, society, institutions and government. The early English were pagans inferior to the Romans, but they were not barbarians. They iunderstood the Hontan Civilization, but discarded it as unsuited to essentially agricultural cornmunitics. Upon their conversion to Christianity A.D. 597-664, their civilization rapidly improved their cultural progress being directed by the Christian Church, whose efficient organization ably assisted the civil governments, instituted maturer systems of law and justice, fostered religious and secular learning and encouraged craftsmanship and the arts, especially literature and music. The English were characterized by their intense love of freedom, their reliance upon the ties of kinship and their inherent capacity for co-operation and unity. In Britain, they instituted a complete system of self-government which became in practice a rude constitutional monarchy conducted by a King and a Witan or national council, composed chiefly of eorls or nobles of hereditary rank and gcsiths or professional warriors, who afterwards formed a lower nobility aa Ulegns or thanes by acquiring minimum holdings of land. The main body of the people ranked aa ceorb or free landowners, but there was also a large class of serfs or theows composed of prisoners of war and men enslaved through debt or crime. Local government was administered by moots or meetings attended by freemen or their representatives, but in the course of time, these moob passed into the hands of the local earls, the thegns and the Kings reeves or representatives. In principle, government was simple. In practice it became involved, as the common rights of the varioua classes were supplemented by common responsibilities, the most exacting being military service..............