I was really glad when Friday came along. I had just History and that was it, even though the class was beginning to lose some of its appeal. I mean, when you've got a girl as gorgeous as that acting like some sort of ice princess and the class being too early as it was, well let's just say my motivation was going downhill fast. Why not just drop it and take a different section in my last semester, I suggested to myself.
That was before she walked in wearing a white sweater that snuggled each and every inch of her body. I mean, it was so close-fitting, it was like the angora was her skin. The denim skirt I only half-noticed from my position in the fourth row. After being shot down Wednesday, I'd needed to back up and reconsider things. She, of course, sat in the second row.
As I tuned out the pre-class chatter around me, I started compiling a list of mental notes. Judging from her clothes the first three classes, she really liked white and blue and her tastes ran more to the preppy side of things, today's denim aside. She also seemed to be a pretty serious student type, from how furiously she'd taken notes and how intensely she'd stared at the hairy goat we had for a professor. Oh and let's not forget the glacial glare from Wednesday either, I reminded myself.
It was a sketch, an outline of just a few faint lines, but it was a beginning.
My thoughts were interrupted by Morengay's tromping up to the lectern and beginning the day's lecture.
"Last time, we looked at the history of Britain from prehistoric times until the end of the Roman occupation that we'll say occurred in the early to mid 400s, as the Roman legions left around 407, but some Roman-British hung around for a while, though by this time a lot of them had fled to other parts of Europe, most notably the region in France today known as Brittany, a name it acquired as a direct result of this Roman-British emigration. I also mentioned last time that by 600 the Saxons were in charge, but that's a bit of an oversimplification."
He paused to put a map on the overhead.
"As you can see from this map, there were quite a lot of ethnic groups running around Britain after the Romans left town. That's because whenever you have a situation where the champ hangs it up, the contenders left over are going to be fighting it out for the title. The Saxons, as I said last time, were a Germanic tribe, from present-day northern Germany specifically. The Angles arrived from what is today southern Denmark and the two groups more or less divided the bulk of the old Roman territory between themselves as you'll see from this next map."
The prof changed images and I found myself getting vaguely interested against my own will. Maybe my brothers were right about this guy being a good storyteller.
"Although this map is about two hundred years after the previous one, it does a good job of illustrating my point that the Angles and the Saxons dominated the former Roman dominion during that period. As a side note, the Britons you saw in the southwest tip are not the old Roman-British, but are in fact the indigenious peoples of the island before the Romans arrived. That's also the place where many people believe a guy you may have heard of named King Arthur was based. I'm not going to be going into Arthur, it's just an aside. If you're interested, you can research the possible historicity of Arthur for your paper later this semester.
Getting back to my original point, because the Angles and the Saxons controlled the bulk of the island and because they were so close to one another, the term Anglo-Saxon has frequently been used to describe the period and the peoples. But it's important to remember that these in fact were two very distinct and separate cultural groups.
Now, as you may have already guessed from the second map, no one kingdom managed to occupy Roman Britain's boundaries. They simply weren't strong enough. Instead, you had at least seven major kingdoms duking it out, all in hopes of uniting Roman Britain. They were Northumbria, which, by the way, was actually a union of two smaller kingdoms called Bernicia and Deira, Mercia, Kent, East Anglia, Essex, Sussex and Wessex."
Prof Morengay pointed out each of the kingdoms in turn in the silent, darkened room with his pen.
"There were more kingdoms than that and of course you have the Picts and the Scots up north, but for our purposes, there were the seven major kingdoms. The Irish we'll get to another time.
Throughout most of the 600s, Northumbria looked like the ones who'd come out on top. In fact, in 655, the Northumbrian king at the time, Oswiu, killed the Mercian king, Penda at the Battle of Winwaed, leading to Oswiu's annexation of Mercia into Northumbria. Quite a lot of territory if you put the two kingdoms together.
Unfortunately for the Northumbrians, they were only able to hold on to Mercia for a few years, as the slain Penda's son became the inspiration for a lot of revenge stories by rising up in rebellion against the hated invaders and driving the Northumbrians out. Things got even worse for Northumbria towards the end of the 600s, when the Picts came along and kicked their butts in a major battle that resulted in the Northumbrian's king getting killed. You basically didn't want to be king during this time period. You had too good a chance of getting killed in battle as these guys illustrate."
The class chuckled and for once I didn't roll my eyes.
"So with Northumbria out of the picture, I'm sure it's no surprise to you to learn that Mercia was the next kingdom to assume a position of influence and power, especially after a guy named Offa became king in the mid 700s. Offa was really smart and quickly set about conquering some of the smaller kingdoms around him. Sussex fell under his control in 771, Kent acknowledged him as its superior in roughly the same time period, though Offa did allow subordinate kings to rule as what we might call governors, and portions of Wessex also came under Offa's influence in the 780s. East Anglia came into Offa's possession towards the end of the eight century as well, following the murder of Aethelbert, the previous king of that territory. There's some speculation that Offa ordered Aethelbert killed so that he could consolidate power over East Anglia, but nothing has been proven conclusively concerning that event.
He also was shrewd in his British diplomatic affairs, marrying his daughters off to the West Saxon and Northumbrian overlords to establish alliances. As another sign of his power, currency minted with his image was used as the monetary standard throughout the territory he controlled and even throughout many of the other kingdoms in the old Roman Britian.
Unfortunately, he was not perfect in his unification efforts. The Scots and the Picts remained unconquered, as did the Welsh in Wales to the west, whom Offa was never able to conclusively defeat. But he did a very wise thing after he realized he wasn't going to be able to finish the Welsh off once and for all. Taking a page from the Roman imperial playbook, he had a wall built on the Mercian-Welsh border called Offa's Dyke, his answer to Hadrian's Wall in the north from the Roman days.
So why wasn't Offa's successor able to build on what he started, eventually unifying all of the former Roman domain, or even the island completely? Three reasons, ladies and gentlemen.
First, his son and chosen successor died five months after taking the throne. Second, the West Saxons, who populated the kingdom of Wessex, started growing in power. Third, and the biggest reason, were a bunch of hairy warrior guys that made the Picts, Scots, and Welsh look like schoolboys in comparison.
These were men's men.
They were... the Vikings.
I'll stop here and we'll pick up on Monday with the Viking era."
Amidst the shuffling and scraping of books, papers, chairs, coats, and shoes that followed, Morengay held his hands up and raised his voice.
"One more thing. Since we're falling behind schedule already, I may simply change things so that we're conclusively ending in the mid 1400s. I would much rather you have a broader understanding of the basis for European history in several geographic reasons as opposed to just rushing our way through centuries of history to try and catch up with the present without understanding the basis for and connections to and between various events and people. That's all. Have a great weekend!"
We exploded out into the hall, all of us, excited to finally have the tedium of the school week over with. Even the girl dashed off quickly to wherever it was she was going.
I thought about trying to catch her and make conversation, but changed my mind. There'd be time throughout the semester for that and besides, chatting up a girl is best done during the week or at a party.
And History class was no party.