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)