Lesson video

Hello.

So this is our fourth lesson of six lessons in the enquiry How dark were the dark ages? So hopefully you're getting a picture of what life was like, what the world was like in this country over a thousand years ago.

And today, we're going to be continuing this story.

We're going to be looking a little bit different now, something a bit different now, which is the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. Now they were in the past called the Heptarchy, strange word, we've been talking a lot about what archaeologists have found.

So we don't have much written down from the time.

So we instead have to look at archaeologists have found.

And what we find is some really interesting stuff, really interesting stories about where these different kingdoms came from.

Now, the country we live in is one country, made up of these different nations, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, England, over a thousand years ago, divided up into little bits.

So don't worry too much.

We'll go into much more detail about this.

Also, I've just noticed that that's actually a tongue, a cartoon tongue.

It's just, I wasn't sure if you'd be able to see, see what it was.

Anyway, do what I've asked you to do three times before already: piece of paper, title, date, whatever day it is you're doing.

And then underline both because we want to keep our notes tidy, and hide your phone.

Do not have it near you.

My phone is far away from me right now, and it's a relief.

So off we go.

So we're now in the, the next lesson, the Anglo Saxon Kingdoms. So we're going to be looking at the different kingdoms that appeared in England, where they came from, what they were like.

We've already looked at various aspects, different parts of Anglo-Saxon England so far, for example what happened when the Romans left, Where did the Anglo-Saxons come from, What was their society like, What were their priorities? So now the next part is to look at the kingdoms that came into being.

So title, underline it, and the date, and restart when you're ready.

So just to remind us of the story so far, or to give you a different perspective, or how to look at this period that we're looking at, the Anglo-Saxon age.

So we're looking at, from roughly when the Romans left and at the beginning of the four hundreds, right into the Norman Conquest in 1066.

So the purple bit is when the kingdoms start to come into being.

They arrive as tribes, they arrive as small family groups, and then we have the formation, the creation of these kingdoms. Then we have a period of almost 300 years when one kingdom called Mercia was the most important kingdom.

It was the most powerful kingdom.

There were other kingdoms, but they all respected the Mercians as the most important.

Then we have a period when Wessex was the most important.

Then we have the formation of England, the united country of England, when all these different kingdoms become, they are joined up into one kingdom.

We are going to be looking at the first two parts, the formation of the kingdoms, and then the Mercian Supremacy.

The word supremacy meaning the most important, or most powerful.

So one way that we have, one way that we can look at where the kingdoms come from.

So they didn't arrive as kingdoms, the Angles and the Saxons, they're only these different groups of people, they travelled across the sea.

They arrived in England, and then these kingdoms gradually grew over time.

And one of the difficult things that we as historians have, as we've already looked at, is the lack of written sources about who these kingdoms were, where they came from.

They didn't just come out of nowhere, but there are things that we can do to kind of work out where they come from.

On the screen, we have a, In the blue circle, in particular, something called the tribal hidage.

Strange word.

Now this is a list of tribes, not only that, a list of tribes and how much they paid in tribute.

Tribute being a kind of a tax that they paid to those in charge.

So we have a list of tribes, and a list of how much stuff, how many cows or animals or products, how much stuff each of these tribes have.

These are not kingdoms, these are not kingdoms yet, they're different tribes, but it's important because it gives us a clue about where they came from.

On the screen, we have a map of England, and we have a map of the different tribes listed in the Tribal Hidage.

And you'll see, there's lots of names.

The darker names are the bigger tribes.

And they are also the tribes that become kingdoms. So the Mercians, they were a tribe of Mercian people, becomes the kingdom of Mercia.

The East Saxons, the South Saxons, the West Saxons.

So these are different tribes, different groups of people that become kingdoms. All of these other kingdom, these other tribes, they vanish, they no longer exist.

So we have like the Hwicce, the Wrocensaete, I'm probably saying this incorrectly, but there we go.

The Wihtgara, the Hendrica, the Elmetsaete.

So there's really strange names, different, very different language, to the language you speak now.

These were all different tribes that we find in the Tribal Hidage.

So this gives us a clue about where the kingdoms came from.

We also have another clue, or not another clue, we have a man called Bede.

A very holy man.

We'll talk about him a bit more in a later lesson, but Bede, writing in the seven hundreds, so a bit, about a hundred years after the Tribal Hidage had been written, he writes a history of England, the first history of England.

And he talks about what happened when the Romans left, where the Angles and the Saxons came from, where these different kingdoms come from.

Now, he says that the kingdoms arrived ready-made.

Or maybe not the kingdoms, but the groups arrive ready-made, which is different to what we see in the Tribal Hidage.

Bede doesn't mention a lot of these mysterious tribes that vanished.

So he was writing at a time when these kingdoms were ready-made, they've been formed.

So we have a bit of a conflict, a bit of a disagreement between the sources, but that is what we do as historians, is work out what is true and what is not true.

And what Bede said was that there was seven kingdoms, seven kingdoms. Well, there were seven kingdoms by the time Bede was writing, but they didn't come out of nowhere.

So if you look on the screen, you see a map of Britain.

The reds names of the different kingdoms, the different kingdoms that existed: Kent, Sussex, Wessex, Essex, Mercia, East Anglia, Northumbria.

These are the kingdoms that Bede mentions.

He doesn't mention these other smaller tribes that vanished.

Now, he doesn't mention them because these smaller tribes, they were absorbed, or they were taken over by these bigger kingdoms. So this is one of the clues about what happened.

They didn't just come out of nowhere.

They gradually got bigger and more and more, and stronger and stronger.

So what I'd like you to do now is to pause here.

Based on what I've just said, I'd like you to fill in the gaps, using the words in the box below.

And don't take more than five minutes.

So all you need to do, you might want to write out the paragraph first, leaving a gap, and then add in the words as you work out which is which.

so have a go, and then restart when you're ready.

So here we go.

So this is how it should look.

Before 600 AD, there were many groups of people known as tribes.

The Tribal Hidage tells us that at one point, there were 35 tribes, ranked according to how many hides or tribute, they were able to give to their leading kingdom.

Over time, some of these tribes became more and more powerful, eventually becoming kingdoms. The smaller ones were gradually taken over by larger ones.

Writing many years later, a monk called Bede said that there were seven Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. So we've gone from 35 tribes to seven kingdoms. Now these seven kingdoms were once tribes, but they gradually turned into kingdoms, with kings.

So again, just to remind us, we've looked at the formation of the kingdoms, the purple bit.

So by the time we get to 600, we have seven powerful kingdoms. And then we have a period known as the Mercian supremacy, when the kingdom of Mercia was the most powerful of the seven kingdoms. And here, we have one example of the power of the Mercian kingdom.

This is actually a very, very, very long wall.

It was a wall built along the whole border between Wales and England.

And you can't see much of it now because it's very old, but this was made out of earth.

And there was a ditch dug either side.

Now this was to protect the kingdom of Mercia from the Welsh.

So on the screen, we have a map of the British Isles.

And the pink line is the line of the, what we call Offa's Dyke was built.

Offa was a King of Mercia.

And he, and archaeologists think the Kings that came before him, built this massive wall, right the way along the border between Wales and England.

Now to do this, to be able to build this kind of thing, you had to be a very powerful king indeed.

You had to get lots of people to build it.

You had to transport lots, you had to dedicate a lot of time and money to building this wall.

So the Mercian kingdom was a hugely powerful kingdom indeed.

We also have things like this being found.

So this is one of the most beautiful things that I've, I've come across in my own research.

In the last lesson we looked at brooches.

Remember these brooches that were made, but for worn by Anglo-Saxons.

This is a brooch, but it's of a much higher quality.

And this brooch was found at a time When the Mercians were in charge.

So the skill, and this is actually preserved, this is how it's preserved.

This is actually a brooch that describes the five senses.

Now see if you can work out.

So in the inner circle, there are five faces.

Each face represents a sense.

One of the five senses, see if you can work out which is which.

Oh, I should have moved it there.

So you can pause here, and now work out which person represents which of the senses.

First one.

This is sight, the most important one in Anglo-Saxon beliefs.

Sight.

The eyes, wide eyed, looking a bit shocked actually.

Next one, this is smell.

Hands behind his back, nose, rather large nose.

This one is taste.

He's got his hand in his mouth.

That's a much easier one, that one.

This one is hearing.

So he's got his hand up to his ear.

And the last one, touch.

His hands are being rubbed together.

So the reason I show you this is because the power of the Mercan kings was so great.

They could build, they could make this kind of beautiful brooch, and they could also build a wall, right the way across the border with Wales.

So pause here.

Now I want you to work out what is wrong with each sentence, and write the corrected version of the sentence.

So each of these sentences, there's a mistake in the sentence, and I want you to work out what the mistake is, and then correct the sentence based on what you think the answer, how it should read.

So pause now, and have a go at this.

So here we go.

First one for around 300 years, the kingdom of Mercia, not Kent, was in charge of most of Anglo-Saxon Britain.

Mercia.

Two, King Offa built a dyke across the border with Wales to protect his kingdom.

Three.

During this time, Anglo-Saxon Britain was connected to the rest of Europe.

And four, Mercia, became richer and richer, not poorer and poorer, and archaeologists have found lots of valuable objects.

So the opposite of what was the original sentence.

So make sure you've got the correct answers, and then we'll move on to the next part of the lesson.

So what we're going to do, five questions, five questions.

You're going to pause now.

You're going to close the video.

You're going to go to the next part of the lesson, read through the slides, and then answer these questions in full sentences.

So pause now, pause now.

Read the slides and answer the questions.

First question, who wrote the first history of England? Acceptable answer, Bede.

Good answer, A monk called Bede wrote the first history of England.

So very simple.

I mean, the difference isn't huge.

All I'm doing in the good answer is writing a full sentence.

Now it might seem like not a big deal, but really getting into this habit is a really good habit to get into.

Two, which Anglo-Saxon kingdom was closely linked to Francia? The acceptable answer, Kent.

Good answer, The Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Kent was closely linked to Francia.

So again, full sentence just reads a lot better, and it's a good habit to get into.

Three, what were barrows for? The acceptable answer, burials, The good answer, barrows were man-made hills where important men and women were buried.

Likes Sutton Hoo, for example.

So again, full answer, full sentence.

And the reason actually this matters is that when we do our writing activity towards the end of the lesson, you will have these sentences in your notes and your books.

And you'll be able to use this stuff.

If you just have "burials" written in your books, you're not going to know what it's about, or why it matters.

Four, what happened to some smaller kingdoms? Acceptable answer, they vanished.

Good answer, some smaller Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were taken over by larger kingdoms, like Bernicia and Deira in Northumbria.

So we have these smaller kingdoms combining or being taken over to become larger kingdoms. Five, which kingdom dominated the other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms for around 300 years? Acceptable answer, Mercia.

Good answer, the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia dominated other kingdoms for around 300 years.

Very simply all we're doing is writing a full sentence, using the words in the question.

So the writing activity for today's lessons, how did small tribes become Anglo Saxon kingdoms? They arrived as these small family groups, 300 years later they are powerful kingdoms with kings, in charge of big areas of land.

So we're going to do this writing activity again.

Historians, as I always say, historians we read, and then we write, and sometimes the other way around, but we're practising our writing.

And we're using the knowledge that we've learned in the lesson today to then bring it all together into a nice paragraph.

So what, a slightly different tasks this time.

On the screen we have six boxes, six boxes in each box is six sentences.

Is a sentence.

Now what I'd like you to do, They're jumbled up, and I'd like you to put them in order.

Now this is a difficult task.

Now, if you find it difficult, do not worry.

That's not a problem.

If it was easy, it would not be worth doing.

So go through each of these boxes and then in your books, write down them in the correct order.

The first one I will give you, because I'm kind, the first one is the Romans abandoned Britain, leaving the local population without protection.

So there we go.

That is the first one, the start of our enquiry, how dark were the dark ages.

And this was the first part of it.

The dark ages, the moment the things became dark, less organised, more violent, when the Romans abandoned Britain.

So you've now got five other sentences to get into the correct order.

See if you can work it out.

And then when you've done that, restart the video, and I will tell you the answer.

So here we go, make sure you've got these in the correct answer.

If you've got them in the wrong order, do not worry.

You can simply like do a little arrow to put them in the right order, or maybe number them.

That might be a good idea as well.

So the first one, the Romans abandoned Britain, leaving the locals without protection.

Second one, small family groups called Angles and Saxons moved to Britain from abroad in order to settle.

The next one, from these many family groups, 35 tribes were formed, according to the Tribal Hidage.

Next one, some of these tribes, some of these 35 tribes, became stronger and took over the weaker ones through violence.

Next, the stronger tribes became more organised, demanding tribute, and their leaders were called kings.

And then the last one, by 700 AD, there were seven major kingdoms, with Mercia in charge.

So that is the story of how we go from the Romans abandoning Britain, to a kingdom being so powerful, Mercia, that it could build a dyke, a wall across the border with Wales.

And that brings us to the end of the lesson.

So if you'd like to, as ever, please ask your parent or carer to share your work on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, tagging @OakNational and #LearnwithOak.

This is not compulsory, but I would love to see the work you're producing.

So if you'd like to, please do so.

So that brings us to the end of lesson four.

I hope you find it interesting, learning a little bit more about what these kingdoms looked like, who was in charge of them, where they came from.

Just to remind you, there's a short quiz for you to do after you've finished this part of the lesson.

Not a big deal, just to make sure that this stuff is in your head, because that is the goal.

And if you would like to show me your work, I would love to see it.

So as I mentioned just now, you can ask your parent or carer to post a picture of it online.

Don't worry if you don't want to, I just would quite like to see what's going on.

So have a lovely day wherever you are, and I will see you next time.