13. The Vikings and Anglo-Saxons
Anglo-Saxon England witnessed some violent stretches in the Dark Ages. In 655 Penda, a warlike king of Merica, one of several rival Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, breathed his last. Everybody breathed a collective sigh of relief, because Penda’s era had been one of widespread warfare. It was followed by a stretch of relative peace. The post-Penda years came to be seen as an Anglo-Saxon golden age. It was a period of economic expansion, which produced a surplus that helped fund a growing number of monasteries – centers of learning in the early medieval era. In 669, the Archbishop of Canterbury founded a school in his city – the first school in England. The Venerable Bede described it six decades later as having “attracted a crowd of students into whose minds they daily poured the streams of wholesome knowledge“.
Some of them, who survived into Bede’s own day, were as fluent in Greek and Latin as they were in their native English. Other academic institutions produced scholars and poets who wrote in Latin. One of them, Aldhelm, pioneered a grandiloquent style that became the dominant Latin style for centuries to come. Anglo-Saxon scholars were the most highly respected throughout Europe in this period. Bede himself was one of the foremost scholars and men of letters in Christendom. Unfortunately for the Anglo-Saxons, the Vikings were about to wreck their golden age.
The Anglo-Saxons initially spoke distinctive dialects. However, those different strains melded into each other over time, and evolved to form a common language, known as Old English. It lent itself to an exceptionally rich vernacular literature. Examples include the epic poem Beowulf, and a collection of manuscripts about the early history of England, known as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles. Unfortunately for the Anglo-Saxons, the very prosperity and plenty that fueled their golden age led to its sudden end. Anglo-Saxon England’s wealth, and especially the wealth of its monasteries, attracted the covetous attention of Viking raiders.
