By the beginning of the 9th century changes had come about in Anglo-Saxon society. There were now big landed estates with bond peasants working on them for the owners. With the development of feudal relations great changes were taking place in administration too. Rich landowners were given great power over the peasants.
ESTABLISHMENT OF THE KINGDOM OF ENGLAND For three centuries a struggle went on between the little Anglo-Saxon kingdoms set up in the 5th-6th centuries. As feudal relations develop the owners of the big landed estates strive to unify the separate kingdoms into one state under the power of one king.
The Danes were of the same Germanic race as the Anglo-Saxons themselves and they came from the same part of the Continent. But unlike the Anglo-Saxons whose way of life had changed greatly ever since they came to Britain, the Danes still lived in tribes. They were still pagans. They worshipped Woden, the god of […]
In 871 the Danes invaded Wessex again. But it was not so easy to devastate Wessex as other parts of England. Wessex had united the small Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and under the reign of Egbert’s grandson, King Alfred (871-899) who became known in English history as Alfred the Great, Wessex became the centre of resistance against the […]
They are many in these busy days — who, if they were suddenly asked just what the name of Alfred the Great meant to them would promptly answer with one or more of the following: “He conquered the Danes, whoever they were in those times”; “Wasn’t he the king who burned some cakes in some […]
Alfred is the only English king to whom this title “Great” has been given. One may add that of the monarchs so called he is the only one whose right to it has never been seriously contested. How strange this is! Here was the ruler of a small, obscure, semibarbarian kingdom, at the edge of […]
