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The Jutes, Angles, and Saxons lived in Jutland, Schleswig, and Holstein, respectively, before settling in Britain. According to the Venerable Bede, the first historian of the English people, the first Jutes, Hengist and Horsa, landed at Ebbsfleet in the Isle of Thanet in 449; and the Jutes later settled in Kent, southern Hampshire, and the Isle of Wight. The Saxons occupied the rest of England south of the Thames, as well as modern Middlesex and Essex. -
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Beowulf is the oldest surviving Germanic epic and the longest Old English poem; it was likely composed between 700 and 750. -
Old English prose works include legal writings, medical tracts, religious texts, and translations from Latin and other languages. Particularly notable is the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a historical record begun about the time of King Alfred’s reign (871–899) and continuing for more than three centuries. -
In the 9th century, as a result of the Norwegian invasions, cultural leadership passed from Northumbria to Wessex. During King Alfred’s reign, in the last three decades of the 9th century, Winchester became the chief centre of learning. -
The first great period of literary activity occurred during the reign of King Alfred the Great in the 9th century.
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One result of the Norman Conquest of 1066 was to place all four Old English dialects more or less on a level. West Saxon lost its supremacy, and the centre of culture and learning gradually shifted from Winchester to London. -
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The so-called Katherine Group of writings (c. 1180–1210), associated with Hereford, a town not far from the Welsh border, adhered most closely to native traditions, and there is something to be said for regarding this West Midland dialect, least disturbed by French and Scandinavian intrusions, as a kind of Standard English in the High Middle Ages. -
An open syllable is one ending in a vowel. Both syllables in Old English nama “name,” mete “meat, food,” nosu “nose,” wicu “week,” and duru “door” were short, and the first syllables, being stressed, were lengthened to nāme, mēte, nōse, wēke, and dōre in the 13th and 14th centuries.
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Grammatical simplification of gender in english.
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The death of Chaucer at the close of the century (1400) marked the beginning of the period of transition from Middle English to the Early Modern English stage. -
The three outstanding developments of the 15th century were the rise of London English, the invention of printing, and the spread of the new learning associated with the Renaissance.
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After the dawn of the 16th century, English prose moved swiftly toward modernity. In 1525 Lord Berners completed his translation of Jean Froissart’s Chronicle, and William Tyndale translated the New Testament. -
Sir Thomas More wrote his Utopia in Latin. It was translated into French during his lifetime but not into English until 1551, some years after his death. -
1611 lay the Tudor Golden Age, with its culmination in William Shakespeare. -
William Shakespeare published Macbeth in 1623