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BLOCK-1
EARLY HISTORY
UNIT-3
ANGLO -SAXONS
OBJECTIVE QUESTIONS
1. Name the tribes who conquered and controlled Britain in the Anglo saxon period ?
Ans. Germanic tribes
2. Which were the three tribes that constituted the inner core of the anglo saxon community?
Ans.angles,saxons,jute
3. What was the name used to denote the period between the establishment of the Anglo saxon kingdom and the destruction of the same in the second half of the 9th century?
Ans.heptarchy
4. What is the meaning of the term heptarchy?
Ans. The rule of 7 kingdoms
5. Which are the seven kingdoms that emerged after the Anglo saxon conquest in Britain?
Ans.Northumbria,mercia,East Anglia , Essex, Kent, Sussex, Wessex
6. What was the name given to the administrative divisions in the Anglo saxon period?
Ans.Hundred and shire
7. Which is considered the basic unit of administration under the Anglo saxon region?
Ans.hide (land)
8. Name one famous ruler among the Anglo saxons who made definitive contributions to the formation of a code of law in this period?
Ans.Alfred the great
9. Provide the name of two sources often referred by scholars and historians to know more about Anglo saxon?
Ans.Ethelberts law code and doomsday book
10. What was the religious affiliation of Anglo saxon even before they said foot in the lands of Britain?
Ans.polytheistic pagan religion
1. Describe the formation of the anglo saxon kingdom and the peculiarities of its administration
Ans. Well defined administrative system was followed during the Anglo saxon period hundred and Shire where the administrative divisions during the Anglo Saxon period. In the society and ordinary prosperous freeman generally owned area of about 60 to 100 acres of land this land was called a hide which was sufficient to maintain the owners household and family in comfortable circumstances. It was the basic unit of administration a hundred hides formed a unit known as hundred this unit had to supply a sufficient number of trained soldiers to the king when needed these hundreds where presided over by a head man known as reve the reeve settled local disputes in the hundreds and had the right to punish for offences against the law. Thus these hundreds became hundred courts in later days when the counties begin to appear there was a Shire reeve he was a senior official with local responsibilities functioning under the crown and the word has now become Sheriff. Shire was an administrative division about the hundreds and existed in the time of Alfred the great and fully developed during the reign of Edgar.
Witan was the council of the Anglo saxon and kings King ruled through a sort of parliament called within members of the royal family elderman and the ministers constituted the witten it's main duty was to advised the king on all administrative and judicial matters like grams of land to churches or layman implementation of new laws territorial conquest etc the king and elect is success of their own choice.
2. Explain the features of old English poetry which prevailed in the Anglo Saxon period
Ans. The poetry of the old English period is generally group into main divisions National and Christian the line of demarcation is not of course absolutely fixed the early National poems can be classified in two groups Epic and allergic with one or two exceptions they are anonymous for the most part the same to be the work of minstrels rather than of literary men. Much of old English poetry was probably intended to be chanted with the accompanyment of a harp by the Anglo Saxon bard. This poetry generally emphasis the sorrow and ultimate utility of life and the helplessness of humans before the power of fate. Almost all this poetry is composed without rhyme in a characteristic line or verse of four stressed syllabus alternating with an indeterminate number of unstressed one. Another and female but equally striking feature in the formal character of old English poetry is structural alliteration or the use of syllables beginning with similar sounds into or three of the stress in each line.