Welcome to the History of English Podcast, a podcast about the history of the English language.

This is episode 38, nobles, nuptials, and a cowherd poet.

In this episode, we're going to explore how the kingdom of Northumbria became the center

of learning and scholarship in early Anglo-Saxon Britain.

We'll also explore the political and religious developments which led to that shift of power

to the northernmost Anglo-Saxon kingdom.

And before I begin, let me make a quick note about the growth of the church in the early

Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.

I recognize that at times, some of these episodes about early Old English sound more like

a history of the English church than a history of the English language, but it's very important

to keep in mind that these two themes are fundamentally linked for the next few centuries.

To fully explain how English developed within Britain, we have to understand how the church

developed.

We've already seen how missionaries brought the alphabet to Britain, and we've seen

how monks applied that alphabet to English and gave us some of our modern spellings, and

we're going to continue to see those connections in this episode and many of the remaining episodes

in the story of Old English.

The fact is that most of the literacy in Anglo-Saxon Britain was confined to these monasteries,

so in order to trace the history of the language, we have to dig through those monasteries.

But once we get into the later periods of Old English, the landscape will start to change

a little bit.

We'll soon turn our attention to the Vikings and the Norse influence on English.

...