Anglo Saxon Period
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Road to Chaucer: History and Literature of Early England Part 9: Beowulf
Long before Chaucer’s pilgrims walked the roads of England, long before castles and kings shaped the medieval landscape, stories were told around fires in great halls. The greatest of these stories, the one that has survived across centuries, is Beowulf. Beowulf is an epic poem written in Old English, the language of the Anglo-Saxons, sometime… Continue reading
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Road to Chaucer: History and Literature of Early England Part 6: End of the Anglo Saxon Period
In our previous we spoke about England under the first king to call himself “King of the English People”: Athelstan. For the first time, the word “England” had real meaning. But Athelstan’s greatness was not only military. His court became a beacon of culture and scholarship. Manuscripts were collected, laws codified, and scholars drawn from… Continue reading
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Road to Chaucer: History and Literature of Early England Part 5: Anglo-Saxon Britain
Before we get to pilgrims and playful storytelling with Geoffrey Chaucer, we have to go back much further, to a time that feels almost unrecognizable. When the Romans left Britain in the early 5th century, they did not make a dramatic exit. There was no grand farewell, no final speech, no sense of closure. They… Continue reading
Honey & Prose 🍯🌸 