The Anglo - Saxons

The Anglo - Saxons

Three groups of people arrived in Britain: Angles, Saxons and Jutes.

So the land was taken by the Anglo - Saxons tribes.

They brought with them a new system of land exploitation (sfruttamento).

There was no private property. The people of the village held land in common.

They used a three fields system: the arable ground was divided in three parts. One of this part lay fallow (incolto); the other two parts were divided in two narrow strips. These strips were cultivated by the family of the village. Each family received the products of some strips. They left the land fallow just because if you always exploit the land after a long period you can not cultivate that more.

There was just a kind of artisan: the smith (fabbro), which used only the barter (baratto).

The Anglo - Saxons established 7 kingdoms: East Anglia, Essex, Kent, Mercia, Northumbria, Sussex and Wessex. By the middle of the 7^th century Northumbria, Mercia and Wessex were the most powerful kingdoms.

In this period the Christianisation of the country took place (597), with the arrival from the continent of some missionaries.

At the end of the 6^th century the Pope Gregory I the Great sent a monk (monaco), Augustine, to bring Christianity to England.

Augustine was the first Archbishop of Canterbury, which became one of the most important place in England for Christianity. But Augustine and his monks had no success with the ordinary people. Only the Celtic Church succeed in bringing Christianity to the common people.

Celtic monks lived a simple life, which appealed to the people. These monks built some monasteries which became very important to teach the Christianity. This centre carried on agriculture. They brought to contact the north with the south, bettering the condition of the England. Moreover the Roman Church contributed to the power of kings. There were a coronation ceremony by a bishop (vescovo) added a great deal of legitimacy to a new king.

No sooner had the struggle (lotta) for the supremacy between Northumbria, Wessex and Mercia ended.

Then the new enemies arrived: the Vikings, from Norway and Denmark.