Overview
Knowing about the history and culture of the society in the poem will help you understand and enjoy it.
Key concepts from early English history which will help you understand Beowulf include the development of the formation of Old English, the language in which the poem was written; England's closeness to Europe and its separateness from it, with successive immigrations and invasions from Europe into the island resulting in friendly and hostile interactions of many ethnic groups or tribes; and the coexistance of Christian and non-Christian influences.
Land Bridge
Once there was no such island or political entity as "England" or "Britain" as we now know it. The land was one with the European continent, with only a small river where the North Sea is now. Early peoples traveled easily across this land bridge and so there was frequent contact among peoples of both sides. These groups were migratory hunter-gatherers. As the land west of that river (widening to become the North Sea and English Sea) became the island we now call "England," cultural contact became less frequent, and the people living there began to develop into ethnic and linguistic groups more clearly distinct from groups of the western European continent.
Stone, Bronze, and Iron Ages
About 4000 BCE, neolithic farming peoples crossed the water from Europe. The English Stone Age began with their use of axes and farming tools made of flint and volcanic rock. In addition, they have left as evidence of their religious lives barrows for burial, sites of ritual feasting, and circular stone or timber henge monuments. With the development of metal tools in the and Bronze and Iron Ages, farming became easier, and the population in England increased. The people could also make swords. Around this time the dominant culture in England, as well as in much of Europe, was Celtic. The Celts of this time did not leave written records of their ways. Our knowledge of them comes primarily from study of their tools, arts, monuments, and sites that still remain.
Celts Arrive
The Celts (aka "Gauls" in Europe) were not all of one identical culture but many closely related groups and subgroups with variations in their culture and language. Even the Celts living in Britain did not see themselves as a united group with a single homeland, but Julius Caesar called the island "Britannia" in his report on the Gallic Wars, which includes the first extensive writing on the land.
Romans Conquer
When the Romans defeated many of England's people and added the southern and middle parts of England to their empire, they increased England's contact with the rest of the world--specifically, of Western Europe. Celts in England picked up some Latin words, pronounced them in their own way and adapted them to their own sentence patterns, and made them part of their language. This is one reason modern English still contains many words of Latin origin. The Celts also had some exposure to Christianity, a new religion from Palestine, another Roman territory.
Pax Romana
The Romans also, by their military strength, imposed order in their territories, the famous pax romana, because they deterred armed conflicts among rival subject groups. Still, threats to the peace arose. In 127 CE, the emperor Hadrian had built a series of fortifications known as Hadrian's wall, protecting his empire and his subjects in England against attacks by the Picts and Scots of northern Britain. The Roman historian Tacitus wrote his histories of western Europe and the British Isles during the first century CE also.
Germanic Invasions
Eventually the Roman Empire became weak, and in 410 CE it withdrew its troops from Britain, leaving the inhabits used to peace, not warfare, and vulnerable to invasion by its neighbors. These included: Picts and Scots from the northern part of the island; Germanic tribes from Europe, the Saxons, Jutes, and Angles, also Danes from the island of Zealand and Geats from southern Sweden.
Old English
After a violent and chaotic period, seven (or eight, depending on how you count them) regional kingdoms became strong enough to dominate Britain and maintain peace and order. These kingdoms as a group have been called a heptarchy and include Kent, Essex, Sussex, Wessex, East Anglia, Mercia, and Northumbria . Eventually a Bretwold, or primary king, became dominant among these regional kingdoms. Germanic groups had become a permanent addition to England alongside the Celts, dominating the island, bringing their language and culture with them. Their language became Old English, the language in which Beowulf is written and from which Middle English and modern English are derived, with Celtic, Latin, and many other influences.
Kings and Thanes
In Germanic society, the kingdom had originally been organized around a family, though by the time of the heptarchy and the Bretwold time Germanic kingdoms were larger. Early Germanic kings had been the chiefs or heads of families, fighting to protect relatives in war time and providing them stability and good material things, gifts, in peace. Their subjects had been close kin, bound to fight for them loyally in war under any circumstances, even if the king died. This is called the heroic ideal, and as Germanic kingdoms became larger, it was still applied to all a king's warriors, or thanes whether they were directly related to him or not.
Diverse Religious Influences
In 605 CE, Pope Gregory I sent St. Augustine to be a missionary in England, about the same time that St. Aidan and his missionaries from Ireland were also spreading the word. By about 700 CE most of the people of England had converted to Christianity at least nominally. All or most people were baptized, but often non-Christian perspectives, beliefs and practices were also kept and valued in some form. Both Christian and non-Christian influences can be found in Beowulf. Christian influences include allusions to Genesis, especially the creation and Cain, and the excoriation of worship practices which to Christians were idolatry. Non-Christian influences include the importance of lasting fame as the source of an individual's continuance after death, references to polytheism and to magic, and the dire, inexorable nature of divine will, similar to the non-Christian Germanic idea of fate.
Beowulf Composed
Beowulf may have been composed some time between the early eighth century and the late eleventh century by a poet knowledgeable about the Germanic people who had migrated to England, or invaded it, according to ones viewpoint, after the fall of the Roman Empire but before the development of the heptarchy. Probably he performed Beowulf to an audience of Germanic or partially Germanic descent, possibly one which continued to identify with its adventurous forebears from across the sea although the audience members themselves had become rather settled in England and assimilated with other groups in England. One main focus of Beowulf is to celebrate these great men of the past by describing in grand terms Beowulf's struggles and conquests.
However, some scholars suggest BeowulfMay have been composed much later and closer to the time the Cotton manuscript was produced, around 1000 CE. In this case, it would reflect a period in which Christianity had become more firmly set in the culture, the Bretwold or king had further unified the country, but repeated Viking raids, often successful, continued to threaten the peace.
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