Beowulf - Historical Background

Beowulf is the oldest long poem written in English. It was composed in England in the early 8th century, and put into manuscript form, in Old English, in the late 10th. A fire damaged the only copy of the poem in 1731 and so some of its content is missing.

Beowulf deals with events that took place two centuries before the poem was composed. It tells of the Germanic forebears of the Englishmen of that period, particularly two south Scandinavian tribes, the Danes and the Geats (to whom Beowulf belonged), who invaded England in 449. The audience probably considered themselves descendants of the Geats. This, along with the tradition of ancient epic poems which were probably well known in that era, indicates that Beowulf was an important heroic poem and served to glorify and immortalize the origin of the audience of the poem.

It is thought that the writer of the manuscript was a Christian, as there are many references to God and Old Testament. However there are no references to the New Testament, and the Christian elements generally aren't those which evoke emotion in the story. Instead, it is those Pagan references that are utilized powerfully in the poem and serve to stir emotion in the reader. Thus the poem was most likely related to an audience who were only tentatively or primitively Christian and still had most of their beliefs grounded in Paganism.

The poem, which is set in wartime, portrays the relationship between warriors and their king. A good king would reward loyal and brave warriors generously; this material relationship between the two sides holds within a strong spiritual significance as well, as the giving of money signified a concern for the welfare of the given. 

This spiritual symbolism of money is also apparent in the tradition in which upon the slaying of a man, the killer would have to pay to the kinsmen of the killed a price matching the value of the killed according to this latter's social standing- or risk blood vengeance. There were attempts to mitigate these acts of vengeance by cross-tribal marriages but these were rarely successful. Thus the never-ending succession of revenge-taking creates in the poem a strong sense of doom.

Beowulf himself is less concerned with revenge-taking and more with fatal evils. While his predecessor Hrothgar seems not to have been fated to fight huge evils like dragons and Grendel, Beowulf is. This testing of fate is done consciously and is followed by boasting. Once a man has been proven to be well fated he may not descend from this important position. The hero must now prove himself fully by being courageous. Doom ultimately claims him, but according to with pagan tradition, Beowulf is immortalized in the memory of men, just as it is immortalized in poetry even today.

Beowulf. Illustration source