PROSZE O ODPOWIEDZI NA PYTANIA DO PONIZESZEGO TEKSTU:
Answer the questions:
1.What sort of weapons was popular for most of the Middle Ages?
2.What was the first important innovation?
3.What were the innovations in the West?
4.What was the revolutionary technology of the Middle Ages?
Britain has not always been an island. It became one only after the end of the last ice age.
A few stone tools - about 250 000 BC are the first evidence of human life.
The first real ancestors of the modern British appeared around 50 000 BC.
Around 10 000 BC Britain was peopled by small groups of hunters, gatherers and fishers.
Few have settled homes. About 30 000 BC there were people who kept animals, grew
corn crops and had settled homes.After 3000 BC people started building great circles
of earth banks. Inside there were wooden buildings and stone circles. These ”henges”
were centres of religious, political and economic power. Stonehenge was almost certainly
a sort of capital, to which the chiefs of other groups came from all over Britain.
They were built in many parts of Britain.Around 700 BC the Celts arrived.
These were the Celts who probably came
from central Europe or furthereast, from southern Russia. They were technically
advanced working with iron, making better weapons and farming efficiently.
The Celts were the ancestors of the people in Highland Scotland, Wales and Ireland.
Celtic languages are still spoken there.
They built many hill - forts filled with houses and ruled by a warrior class - Druids.
In 55 BC the Romans invaded the island. The Romans left about 20 large towns -
army camps built with stone as well as wood, with streets, markets, shops and large
farms called ”villas” around them. Each villa had many workers.
The Germanic tribes began to settle after AD 430 among them three powerful - the
Saxon, Angles and Jutes. The Anglo - Saxon migrations gave the larger part of
Britain its new name, England, ”the land of the Angles”.
In 865 AD the Vikings - ”pirates” invaded Britain. They came to conquer and to settle.
Viking rule was recognised in the east and north of England. It was called the Danelaw.
Alfred was the king of the rest of the country. During his struggle against the Vikings,
he had built walled settlements to keep them out. They were called burghs. But after
the Saxon king’s death the Vikings controlled much of England. Harold, the next king
of England was very brave, but he was defeated by Danes and killed in battle near Hastings.
A new period in English history had begun when William was crowned the king of England
on Christmas Day 1066. The period is called the early Middle - Ages.