The Celts The historical Celts were a diverse group of tribal societies in Iron Age Europe. Proto-Celtic culture formed in the Early Iron Age in Central Europe (Hallstatt period, named for the site in present-day Austria). By the later Iron Age (La Tèneperiod), Celts had expanded over a wide range of lands: as far west as Ireland and the Iberian Peninsula, as far east as Galatia (central Anatolia), and as far north as Scotland. The Celtic languages form a branch of the larger Indo-European family. By the time speakers of Celtic languages enter history around 400 BCE (Brennus's attack on Rome in 387 BCE), they were already split into several language groups, and spread over much of Central Europe, the Iberian peninsula, Ireland and Britain. Some scholars think that the Urnfield culture of northern Germany and the Netherlands represents an origin for the Celts as a distinct cultural branch of the Indo-European family. This culture was preeminent in central Europe during the late Bronze Age, from c. 1200 BCE until 700 BCE, itself following the Unetice and Tumulus cultures. The Urnfield period saw a dramatic increase in population in the region, probably due to innovations in technology and agricultural practices. The Greek historian Ephoros of Cyme in Asia Minor, writing in the fourth century BCE, believed that the Celts came from the islands off the mouth of the Rhine who were "driven from their homes by the frequency of wars and the violent rising of the sea". The spread of iron-working led to the development of the Hallstatt culture directly from the Urnfield (c. 700 to 500 BCE). Proto-Celtic, the latest common ancestor of all known Celtic languages, is considered by this school of thought to have been spoken at the time of the late Urnfield or early Hallstatt cultures, in the early first millennium BCE. The spread of the Celtic languages to Iberia, Ireland and Britain would have occurred during the first half of the 1st millennium BCE, the earliest chariot burials in Britain dating to c. 500 BCE. Over the centuries they developed into the separate Celtiberian, Goidelic and Brythonic languages. The Hallstatt culture was succeeded by the La Tène culture of central Europe, and during the final stages of the Iron Age gradually transformed into the explicitly Celtic culture of early historical times. Celtic river-names are found in great numbers around the upper reaches of the Danube and Rhine, which led many Celtic scholars to place the ethnogenesis of the Celts in this area. Anglo-Saxons: a brief history This period is traditionally known as the Dark Ages, mainly because written sources for the early years of Saxon invasion are scarce. It is a time of war, of the breaking up of Roman Britannia into several separate kingdoms, of religious conversion and, after the 790s, of continual battles against a new set of invaders: the Vikings.Climate change had an influence on the movement of these new invaders to Britain: in the centuries after 400 AD Europe's average temperature was 1°C warmer than we have today, and in Britain grapes could be grown as far north as Tyneside. Warmer summers meant better crops and a rise in population in the countries of northern Europe.At the same time melting polar ice caused more flooding in low areas, particularly in what is now Denmark, Holland and Belgium. These people eventually began looking lands to settle in that were not so likely to flood. After the departure of the Roman legions, Britain was a defenceless and inviting prospect. A short history of the Anglo-Saxons in Britain Anglo-Saxon mercenaries had for many years fought in the Roman army in Britain, so they were not total strangers to the island. Their invasions were slow and piecemeal, and began even before the Roman legions departed.When the Roman legions left Britain, the Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians began to arrive in small invading parties at first, but soon in increasing numbers. Initially they met little firm resistance from the defenceless inhabitants of Britannia. Around 500 AD, however, the invaders were resisted fiercely by the Romano-British, who might have been led by King Arthur, if he existed - and there is no hard evidence that he did. However, the Saxon monk Gildas, writing in the mid-sixth century, talks about a British Christian leader called Ambrosius who rallied the Romano-British against the invaders and won twelve battles. Later accounts call this leader Arthur. See Saxon SettlerThe Celtic areas of Britain regarded the Saxons as enemies and foreigners on their borders: their name became Sassenachs to the Scottish and Saesneg to the Welsh.The various Anglo-Saxon groups settled in different areas of the country. They formed several kingdoms, often changing, and constantly at war with one another. These kingdoms sometimes acknowledged one of their rulers as a ‘High King', the Bretwalda. By 650 AD there were seven separate kingdoms. Anglo-American Literature of the 17th-20th Centuries The Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections has considerable holdings in Anglo-American literature from the 17th century onward, with notable strengths in the 18th century, Romanticism, and the Victorian and modern periods. Among the seventeenth-century holdings is a complete set of the Shakespeare folios, and works by John Milton and his contemporaries. Eighteenth-century highlights include near comprehensive printed collections of Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope, and substantial holdings on John Dryden, Samuel Johnson, Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele, William Cowper, Fanny Burney, and others. Related materials include complete runs of periodicals, such as theSpectator and the Tatler.The Division's book holdings are also especially rich in the literature of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The Cornell Wordsworth Collection, the second largest Wordsworth collection in the world, documents the Romantic movement in detail. All the major "standard" authors of the Victorian and modern periods, such as Charles Dickens, George Eliot, T.S. Eliot, W.B. Yeats, Joseph Conrad, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, et al., are well represented. In addition, the library's holdings in Victorian fiction include scarce works by many popular women authors of the time, such as Elizabeth Gaskell, Maria Edgeworth, Marie Corelli, Ouida, and Helen Mathers. The collection also includes many popular literary genres such as gift annuals, dime novels, railroad novels, and yellowbacks, as well as the small literary magazine of the 1920s and 1930s. The modern collection features strong collections of manuscripts and books by George Bernard Shaw, Rudyard Kipling, Ford Madox Ford, Wyndham Lewis, and James Joyce.In support of RMC's Human Sexuality Collection, the rare book collections feature especially strong representations of literary works by gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender writers, such as Oscar Wilde, Christopher Isherwood, Vita Sackville-West, Radclyffe Hall, E.M. Forster, W.H. Auden, Ronald Firbank, Edith Sitwell, Elizabeth Bowen, Jan Morris, and others. The collection's strengths in more recent British literature include the works of Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes, Philip Larkin, and Doris Lessing, to name just a few. AmericanThe Division holds major collections of the papers and literary manuscripts of E.B. White, Laura (Riding) Jackson, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Theodore Dreiser, American theater critic George Jean Nathan, and New Yorker magazine authors Frank Sullivan and A.J. Liebling. Smaller manuscript collections for James Thurber and Theodore Roosevelt add to the riches of the library's holdings. Each of these collections is complemented by a collection of the author's published books.The Division's book collection shows considerable depth in the literature of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Most of the major authors of the period, such as Walt Whitman, Henry James, Edith Wharton, Faulkner, Eliot, Pound, Dos Passos, Hemingway, and Fitzgerald, are well represented. Besides these writers, the collection is notable for its strength in the works of H.D., Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Stephen Vincent Benét. Harlem Renaissance authors, such as James Baldwin, Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, and Countee Cullen, are also well represented.the book collection also shows notable strength in the literature of the 1950s to 1970s, including comprehensive collections of the published work of Gary Snyder and Paul Goodman, and lesser strengths in Beat writers such as Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs. The political writings in the Goodman collection in particular are supplemented by the Division's social protest (1960s) holdings, which include the papers and published writings of Daniel and Philip Berrigan, as well as extensive archival holdings about student protest at Cornell in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The rare book collections feature especially strong representations of literary works by gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender writers such as Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Paul Goodman, Djuna Barnes, May Sarton, Gore Vidal, John Cheever, Tennessee Williams, Gertrude Stein, Willa Cather, Rita Mae Brown, James Merrill, and Audre Lorde. Related material in the Human Sexuality Collection includes extensive collections of gay and lesbian pulp novels, and the records of the lesbian/feminist publisher Firebrand Books. The Division also holds collections of the books, manuscripts, and personal papers of notable Cornell authors such as Alison Lurie, A.R. Ammons, and Diane Ackerman. This brief description highlights only a few of the many strengths of the Division's vast holdings, whose continued growth is ensured through judicious purchases and the generosity of donors. Vikings: a brief history Reference Last updated: 20th November 2015 The Vikings' homeland was Scandinavia: modern Norway, Sweden and Denmark. From here they travelled great distances, mainly by sea and river - as far as North America to the west, Russia to the east, Lapland to the north and North Africa and Iraq to the south. We know about them through archaeology, poetry, sagas and proverbs, treaties, and the writings of people in Europe and Asia whom they encountered. They were skilled craftsmen and boat-builders, adventurous explorers and wide-ranging traders. See Viking trade and Viking travel.What we call the Viking Age lasted from approximately 800 to 1150 AD, although Scandinavian adventurers, merchants and mercenaries were, of course, active before and after this period. Their expansion during the Viking Age took the form of warfare, exploration, settlement and trade.During this period, around 200,000 people left Scandinavia to settle in other lands, mainly Newfoundland (Canada), Greenland, Iceland, Ireland, England, Scotland, the islands around Britain, France (where they became the Normans), Sicily. They traded extensively with the Muslim world and fought as mercenaries for the Byzantine emperors of Constantinople (Istanbul). However, by the end of the 11th century the great days of Viking expansion were over.Terminology: historians disagree about the origin of the word Viking. In Old Norse the word means a pirate raid, from either vikja (to move swiftly) or vik (an inlet). This captures the essence of the Vikings, fast-moving sailors who used the water as their highway to take them across the northern Atlantic, around the coasts of Europe and up its rivers to trade, raid or settle. In their poetry they call the sea the whale road.Anglo-Saxon writers called them Danes, Norsemen, Northmen, the great army, sea rovers, sea wolves, the heathen.They stayed, they settled, they prospered, becoming part of the mix of people who today make up the British nation. Our names for days of the week come mainly from Norse gods, and many of their words have become part of English, e.g. egg, law, die, bread, down, fog, muck, lump, spud, scrawny. A short history of the Vikings in Britain In 793 came the first recorded Viking raid, where ‘on the Ides of June the harrying of the heathen destroyed God's church on Lindisfarne, bringing ruin and slaughter' (Anglo-Saxon Chronicle)These ruthless pirates continued to make regular raids around the coasts of England, looting treasure and other goods, and capturing people as slaves. Monasteries were often targeted, for their precious silver or gold chalices, plates, bowls and crucifixes.Gradually, the Viking raiders began to stay, first in winter camps, then settling in land they had seized, mainly in the east and north of England. See The Vikings settle downOutside Anglo-Saxon England, to the north of Britain, the Vikings took over and settled Iceland, the Faroes and Orkney, becoming farmers and fishermen, and sometimes going on summer trading or raiding voyages. Orkney became powerful, and from there the Earls of Orkney ruled most of Scotland. To this day, especially on the north-east coast, many Scots still bear Viking names.To the west of Britain, the Isle of Man became a Viking kingdom. The island still has its Tynwald, or thing-vollr (assembly field), a reminder of Viking rule. See The Viking Thing and Viking burial mound. In Ireland, the Vikings raided around the coasts and up the rivers. They founded the cities of Dublin, Cork and Limerick as Viking strongholds.Meanwhile, back in England, the Vikings took over Northumbria, East Anglia and parts of Mercia. In 866 they captured modern York (Viking name: Jorvik) and made it their capital. They continued to press south and west. The kings of Mercia and Wessex resisted as best they could, but with little success until the time of Alfred of Wessex, the only king of England to be called ‘the Great'.King Alfred ruled from 871-899 and after many trials and tribulations (including the famous burning of the cakes) he defeated the Vikings at the Battle of Edington in 878. After the battle the Viking leader Guthrum converted to Christianity. In 886 Alfred took London from the Vikings and fortified it. The same year he signed a treaty with Guthrum. The treaty partitioned England between Vikings and English. The Viking territory became known as the Danelaw. It comprised the north-west, the north-east and east of England. Here, people would be subject to Danish laws. Alfred became king of the rest.Alfred's grandson, Athelstan, became the first true King of England. He led an English victory over the Vikings at the Battle of Brunaburh in 937, and his kingdom for the first time included the Danelaw. In 954, Eirik Bloodaxe, the last Viking king of York, was killed and his kingdom was taken over by English earls. See Egils Saga.However, the Viking raiding did not stop - different Viking bands made regular raiding voyages around the coasts of Britain for over 300 years after 793. For example in 991 Olaf Tryggvason's Viking raiding party was beaten off by the English (recorded in the poem The Battle of Maldon).Nor were the Vikings permanently defeated - England was to have four Viking kings between 1013 and 1042. The greatest of these was King Cnut, who was king of Denmark as well as of England. A Christian, he did not force the English to obey Danish law; instead he recognised Anglo-Saxon law and customs. He worked to create a north Atlantic empire that united Scandinavia and Britain. Unfortunately, he died at the age of 39, and his sons had short, troubled reigns. The final Viking invasion of England came in 1066, when Harald Hardrada sailed up the River Humber and marched to Stamford Bridge with his men. His battle banner was called Land-waster. The English king, Harold Godwinson, marched north with his army and defeated Hardrada in a long and bloody battle. The English had repelled the last invasion from Scandinavia. However, immediately after the battle, King Harold heard that William of Normandy had landed in Kent with yet another invading army. With no time to rest, Harold's army marched swiftly back south to meet this new threat. The exhausted English army fought the Normans at the Battle of Hastings on 14th October, 1066. At the end of a long day's fighting the Normans had won, King Harold was dead, and William was the new king of England. The irony is that William was of Viking descent: his great-great-great- grandfather, Rollo, was a Viking who in 911 invaded Normandy in northern France. His people had become French over time, but in one sense this last successful invasion of England was another Viking one. Around the World in Eighty Days: Summary Jules Verne, Around the World in 80 Days. The Reader’s Digest complete text ofLe Tour du Monde en Quartre-vingts Jours, 1873. The Reader’s Digest Assn, Inc. Montreal and Pleasantville, New York, 1988. Summary of Chapter One: In which Phileas Fogg and Passepartout accept each other: the one as master, the other as man On October 2, 1872, Mr. Phileas Fogg of No. 7, Savile Row, Burlington Gardens, London, is hiring a new servant, after firing James Forster for bringing his shaving water at 84 degrees instead of 86 degrees Fahrenheit. Fogg is a gentleman and man of the world, a prominent but mysterious member of the Reform Club. He is never seen anywhere in London except at his club, at which he arrives the same time every day for luncheon and departs every night at midnight. No one knows what he does; he is not a landowner, a businessman, merchant, or scientist. He appears to be rich but not showy. He gives his money to charitable purposes, but he communicates little to anyone. He does nothing but read the papers, dine, and play whist with the same men. Though he often wins at cards, he gives the money to charity. He plays for love of the game.  Fogg seems to be a world traveler because he knows about every spot around the globe, yet no one sees him travel. He has no wife or children but lives alone in a rather plain but comfortable house with one manservant. Fogg is watching the clock this day, and when there is a knock on the door, he lets in a man of thirty, whom he interviews for the position of manservant. The man introduces himself as Jean Passepartout, an honest Frenchman, jack-of-all trades. He has been a singer, gymnast, circus performer, a tightrope walker, a fireman, and a valet.  He had heard of Fogg’s strict requirements and wanted to work for him, to lead a quiet and orderly life. Fogg tests him by asking what time it is. Passepartout brings out his large watch and says “ twenty-two minutes after eleven” (p. 15). Fogg corrects him, saying he is four minutes slow. They synchronize their watches as a gesture of formal contract, and Fogg has effectively hired his new man. Without any other word, Fogg leaves Passepartout in his house and goes to his club. Commentary on Chapter One Phileas Fogg is the main character of this adventure story with Passepartout, his faithful sidekick. Fogg is known as an eccentric, but he is benevolent, and so, the narrator tells us, “there is something good in eccentricity” (p.14). His main quirk seems to be his obsession with time. Passepartout is an unlikely servant for Fogg, a Parisian who is basically a performer and artist turned servant, someone who has not settled in life. In French his name means “all purpose” or “a skeleton key.” Fogg is the opposite, a precise man who never varies his routine. The narrator is omniscient and brings out interesting details about the characters and places. For instance, he tells us that Fogg’s house once belonged to the English playwright Richard Sheridan, who wrote “The School for Scandal” and lived a dissolute life. Fogg is also said to resemble Byron, but “a bearded, tranquil Byron” (13). Sheridan and Byron are ironic images for Fogg the scientific and cold Victorian gentleman. Lord Byron was also a drunken and dissolute English author. Fogg is a lot like the clocks he is addicted to, a bit machine-like in his behavior, whereas Byron and Sheridan evoke wild and erotic behavior. Fogg, furthermore, seems to be a bachelor with no interest in women or nightlife. He has money but doesn’t spend it, except on charity. He plays cards but is only interested in the game. In the first chapters, the narrator keeps piling up details of Fogg’s mystery and oddity. He is almost the caricature of an Englishman. There are, however, some intriguing points about Fogg already. For being so precise, he is quick to hire the unpredictable and French Passepartout. Passepartout points out that his name means he has “a natural aptness for going out of one business into another” (p. 15). The French and the English, it is well known, are very unlike in their behavior and thinking. This fact is used to comic effect throughout the book. Passepartout is warm and impulsive, and Fogg is cold and predictable. Yet it is also speculated that Fogg has the gift of “second sight,” for his predictions about lost travelers and far away places come true. The narrator says he must have “traveled everywhere, at least in the spirit” (p. 12). This of course was said of Verne himself whose fantastic books are full of futuristic visions and inventions. The tone of the book is whimsical and humorous and often satirical, though Verne himself was passionate about travel to far places and scientific inventions, as Fogg is. The theme of time is significantly brought up even in the first chapter, and it is fitting that master and servant seal their fateful meeting by setting their watches to the same minute. Time (the limit of 80 days) is a major idea, image, and force in this story. The Normans (Norman: Nourmands; French: Normands; Latin: Normanni) were the people who in the 10th and 11th centuries gave their name to Normandy, a region in France. They were descended from Norse ("Norman" comes from "Norseman"[1]) raiders andpirates from Denmark, Iceland and Norway who, under their leader Rollo, agreed to swear fealty to King Charles III of West Francia.[2]Through generations of assimilation and mixing with the native Frankish and Roman-Gaulish populations, their descendants would gradually adopt the Carolingian-based cultures of West Francia, ultimately resulting in their own assimilation into the Romance society.[3] The distinct cultural and ethnic identity of the Normans emerged initially in the first half of the 10th century, and it continued to evolve over the succeeding centuries.[4] The Norman dynasty had a major political, cultural and military impact on medieval Europe and even the Near East.[5][6] The Normans were famed for their martial spirit and eventually for their Christian piety, becoming exponents of the Catholic orthodoxy into which they assimilated.[2] They adopted the Gallo-Romance language of the Frankish land they settled, their dialect becoming known as Norman, Normaund or Norman French, an important literary language. The Duchy of Normandy, which they formed by treaty with the French crown, was a great fief of medieval France, and under Richard I of Normandy was forged into a cohesive and formidableprincipality in feudal tenure.[7][8] The Normans are noted both for their culture, such as their unique Romanesque architecture and musical traditions, and for their significant military accomplishments and innovations. Norman adventurers founded the Kingdom of Sicily under Roger II after conquering southern Italy from the Saracens and Byzantines. An expedition on behalf of their duke, William the Conqueror, led to the Norman conquest of England at the Battle of Hastings in 1066.[9] Norman cultural and military influence spread from these new European centres to the Crusader states of the Near East, where their prince Bohemond I founded thePrincipality of Antioch in the Levant, to Scotland and Wales in Great Britain, to Ireland, and to the coasts of north Africa and theCanary Islands. Roman invasion Rome invaded Britain because it suited the careers of two men. The first of these was Julius Caesar. This great republican general had conquered Gaul and was looking for an excuse to avoid returning to Rome. Britain afforded him one, in 55 BC, when Commius, king of the Atrebates, was ousted by Cunobelin, king of the Catuvellauni, and fled to Gaul. Caesar seized the opportunity to mount an expedition on behalf of Commius. He wanted to gain the glory of a victory beyond the Great Ocean, and believed that Britain was full of silver and booty to be plundered. His first expedition, however, was ill-conceived and too hastily organised. With just two legions, he failed to do much more than force his way ashore at Deal and win a token victory that impressed the senate in Rome more than it did the tribesmen of Britain. In 54 BC, he tried again, this time with five legions, and succeeded in re-establishing Commius on the Atrebatic throne. Yet he returned to Gaul disgruntled and empty-handed, complaining in a letter to Cicero that there was no silver or booty to be found in Britain after all.He needed the prestige of military conquest to cCaesar's military adventurism set the scene for the second exploitation of Britain - by the Emperor Claudius. He was to use an identical excuse to Caesar for very similar reasons. Claudius had recently been made emperor in a palace coup. He needed the prestige of military conquest to consolidate his hold on power. Into this situation came Verica, successor to Commius, complaining that the new chief of the Catuvellauni, Caratacus, had deprived him of his throne.Like Caesar, Claudius seized his chance. In AD 43, he sent four legions across the sea to invade Britain. They landed at Richborough and pushed towards the River Medway, where they met with stiff resistance. However, the young general Vespasian forced the river with his legion supported by a band of 'Celtic' auxiliaries, and the British were routed.Vespasian marched west, to storm Maiden Castle and Hod Hill with such ruthless efficiency that the catapult bolts used to subdue them can still be dug out of the ground today. Hod Hill contains a tiny Roman fort from this time, tucked into one corner of its massive earthworks. Meanwhile, Claudius arrived in Britain to enter the Catuvellaunian capital of Colchester in triumph. He founded a temple there, containing a fine bronze statue of himself, and established a legionary fortress. He remained in Britain for only 16 days.It took another 30 years to conquer the rest of the island (bar the Highlands). Once in, Rome was prepared to defend her new acquisition to the death. Yet Britain was originally invaded not for its wealth, not for strategic reasons, not even for ideology, but for the plain and simple reason that it furthered a politician's career. It has been said that Rome conquered an empire in a fit of absent-mindedness. Britain is a case in point. Top Romans in Britain The Roman fort and settlement of Vindolanda  ©The Roman empire was based on two things: lip service to the emperor, and payment to the army. As long as you acknowledged the imperial cult and paid your taxes, Rome did not really care how you lived your life. In one respect, there were very few 'Romans' in Britain. There were Batavians, Thracians, Mauretanians, Sarmatians: all brought in through service in the army, and all eventually granted citizenship and a packet of land after their 25 years' service. They settled all over Britain, becoming naturalised British citizens of the Roman Empire, erecting a wealth of inscriptions which attest to their assimilation and prosperity. Most of them settled in or near the fort where they had served, staying close to their friends. Gradually, these urban settlements outside the fort grew into townships, which were eventually granted municipal status. In certain cases, such as Colchester ('the Colonia by the camp'), the city was an official colony of veteran soldiers imposed upon the local population; but usually the evolution was more generic. Chester (or 'the camp') is an example of this. Standing on the city walls, you can still look down upon the remains of the amphitheatre that stood outside the military camp. In this way, the army acted as the natural force of assimilation. The evidence for what life was like in these places has largely been eradicated by the cities' urban sprawl, but in more remote areas, like at Vindolanda up on Hadrian's Wall, you can still see just what the original Roman settlement looked like. Vindolanda housed several units in its history, among them the Ninth Batavians - from whom a large pile of correspondence was found written on thin wooden writing tablets, deposited in one of their rubbish tips. There were over 200 of these writing tablets dating to AD 95-115. Mainly official documents and letters written in ink, they are the oldest historical documents known from Britain. ...empty days, relative discomfort, boredom and loneliness. Among them is a set of letters between Sulpicia Lepidina, wife of the camp commander, and her friend Claudia Severa, wife of the commander at Housesteads, around ten miles up the road. They paint a picture of life on the frontier very much like that of a British officer's wife on the north-west frontier: full of empty days, relative discomfort, boredom and loneliness. Life for the ordinary people of the vicus or village seemed a little more interesting than that of the upper classes, but it remained harsh and unforgiving. One soldier complains of being beaten with rods; another refers disparagingly to the local British population as 'Brittunculi' (little Britons). In the third century AD, marriage for soldiers was permitted, and the vicus, where their concubines had always lived, was rebuilt in stone. They constructed a beautiful little bath-house where the soldiers could relax, and a guest-house called a mansio, with six guest-rooms and its own private bath suite - for travellers on official business - along the wall. The vicus at Housesteads was rebuilt at the same time (incidentally, an excavation of one of its houses uncovered a murdered couple hidden under the floorboards). By this time, all adults in the empire had been granted blanket citizenship and the 'Romans' in Britain had become fully assimilated with their British neighbours.