Beowulf

Some Sources:

• Manuscript: Cotton Vitellius A xv, folios 129a-198b, late 10th or early 11th century, from library of Sir Robert Bruce Cotton (1571-1631) at Ashburnham House, Little Dean's Yard, Westminster; damaged by fire 1731; Thorkelin transcripts 1786-87
• Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta Danorum (13th c.)

Historical Background:

• Angle king Offa (350-400 AD); Gothic king Eormenric (late 4th century)
• Hygelac (475-521), Healfdene (445-498), Hrothgar (473-525)
• Northumbrian political dominance in England (603-641)
• rise of Mercia (Mercians were West Angles) (641-731)
• Mercian king Aethelbald, Rex Britanniae (bretwalda) (731-757)
• Offa's reign in Mercia (764-796), school of York, Alcuin (735-804)
• first Viking attacks (787); sack of Lindisfarne Priory (793)
• Egbert king of Wessex (grandfather of Alfred the Great) (802)
• decline of Mercia, rise of Wessex (808-829)
• Egbert defeats Mercian king Beornwulf (825), east Angles kill Beornwulf
• Egbert takes over Mercia (829)
• Wiglaf recovers Mercian throne (830-31)
• Danish Viking raids (835)
• Mercia-Wessex alliance against the Danes (839)
• large Danish offensive (865)
• King Alfred (849-899), victories over Vikings at Ashdown 871, Edington 878, Treaty of Wedmore 878, Danish king Guthrum forced to accept Christianity and retreat to Danelaw; appointment of Mercian scholars (Plegmund, Waerferth, Aethelstan, and Werwulf) (885), revival of learning, beginnings of Anglo Saxon Chronicle
• Alfred captures London (886) and becomes king of England
• Edward succeeds his father Alfred, victories over the Danes (899-924)
• Athelstan succeeds his father Edward and becomes king of all Britain (924-939); victory at Brunanburh (937)
• Olaf Guthfrithson, king of Dublin, seizes Northumbria (939)
• Edmund (Athelstan's brother) regains control but his successor Eadred once again loses Northumbria to Norse king Erik Bloodax (944)
• Northumbria regained by West Saxons (954)
• monastic revival (940), Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury (d. 988)
• Aelfric and Wulfstan (d. 1023), reform, revival of vernacular and Latin literature (955-1012)
• West Saxon king Edgar (959-975)
• West Saxon king Aethelred II Unraed (978-1016) (son of Edgar), married Emma (sister of Duke of Normandy)
• renewed Viking raids (980); Aethelred begins paying tribute (Danegeld) (991); Danes return and plunder his realm (997-1000);
• Danish Sweyn, conquers England (1013), Aethelred flees to Normandy; Canute (son of Sweyn), king of England (1016-1035), married Aethelred's widow Emma
• Edward the Confessor (Aethelred's son), king of England (1042-1066)