HANDOUT FOR OCT. 16 AND 18: IRELAND, ENGLAND, BEOWULF
Images for Oct. 16 for Oct. 18
Major Characters/Terms in Beowulf:
Beowulf, the hero. Warrior of the Geats (from southern Sweden).
Hrothgar, a king in Denmark.
Heorot, his Great Hall.
Hygelac, Beowulf’s lord.
Wiglaf, Beowulf’s loyal retainer at the end.
Grendel, a villain/monster, descended from Cain.
Grendel’s mother.
A Dragon, guarding a hoard of buried treasure.
Wyrd or Weird, fate/destiny or doom.
Early Christian Ireland:
Patricius (Patrick) c.420-492. Born in Britain, kidnapped by Irish pirates, credited with bringing Christianity to the Irish.
Columba c.521-597. Irish cleric, exiled for shedding blood, founds monastery (c.565) on the isle of Iona, off Scotland.
Columbanus d.615. Irish monk, goes to Gaul to "clean up" monastic practice there, moves on to Italy.
Adomnan c.640-704. Abbot of Iona. Responsible for the Law of the Innocents (697).
From Britain to England:
406 Honorius withdraws Roman military forces from Britain, never to return.
Late fifth/early sixth centuries: Anglo-Saxon warriors begin settling in southeast Britain.
c.540: Monk Gildas writes On the Ruin of Britain.
597: Monk Augustine sent by Pope Gregory the Great to preach to the Anglo-Saxons. He converts Ethelbert, King of Kent and becomes bishop of Canterbury.
602: Ethelbert issues a written law-code in Anglo-Saxon.
635: Northumbrian King Oswald accepts Christianity; monks from Iona found island monastery of Lindisfarne.
664: Synod of Whitby called to resolve differences between Roman and Irish churches on the date of Easter.
c.673-735: Bede, "the Venerable." Monk at Northumbrian monastery of Jarrow. Writes Ecclesiastical History of the English People, our major source for 7th-century England.
675-754: Wynfrith, or Boniface, English monk who missionizes on the Continent. Killed by pagans in Frisia.
793: Destruction of Lindisfarne by pagan Vikings begins a century of chaos.
849-899: Alfred the Great, king of Wessex.