Anglo Saxons

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AD 455. Here Hengist and Horsa fought against Vortigern the king in the place which is called Aylesford, and his brother Horsa was killed. And after that Hengist, and Æsc his son, succeeded to the kingdom. AD 457. Here Hengist and Æsc fought against the Britons in the place which is called Crayford, and there killed 4,000 men; and the Britons then abandoned the land of Kent and in great terror fled to the stronghold of London. AD 465. Here Hengist and Æsc fought against the Welsh near Wipped’s Creek, and there killed 12 Welsh (Romano-Brythonic,) chieftains; and one of their Thegns, whose name was Wipped, was killed there. AD 473. Here Hengist and Æsc fought against the Welsh and seized countless war-loot and the Welsh fled from the Englisc like fire.

AD 477. Here Ælle (Ælle of Sussex) and his 3 sons, Cymen and Wlencing and Cissa, came to the land of the Britain with 3 ships at the place which is named Cymen’s shore, and there killed many Welsh and drove some to flight into the wood which is named The Weald.

AD 485. Here Ælle fought against the Welsh near the margin of Mearcred’s Burn. AD 488. Here Æsc succeeded to the kingdom, and was king of the inhabitants of Kent 24 years. AD 491. Here Ælle and Cissa besieged Anderitum, and killed all who lived in there; there was not even one Briton left alive there. AD 495. Here two chieftons; Cerdic and Cynric his son, came to Britain with 5 ships at a place which is called Cerdic’s Shore and the same day fought against the 'Welsh' (the Brythons.)

– Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

There is much debate on the extent of the Anglo-Saxon migration to Britain, see the main article for this debate. :

Heptarchy (AD 600–800)

Christianization of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom began around AD 600, and was essentially complete in the mid 8th century. Throughout the 7th and 8th century power fluctuated between the larger kingdoms. Bede records Aethelbert of Kent as being dominant at the close of the 6th century, but power seems to have shifted northwards to the kingdom of Northumbria. The so-called 'Mercian Supremacy' dominated the 8th century, though again it was not constant. Aethelbald and Offa, the two most powerful kings, achieved high status. This period has been described as the Heptarchy, though this term has now fallen out of academic use. The word arose on the basis that the seven kingdoms of Northumbria, Mercia, Kent, East Anglia, Essex, Sussex and Wessex were the main polities of south Britain. More recent scholarship has shown that a number of other kingdoms were politically important across this period: Hwicce, Magonsaete, Lindsey and Middle Anglia.

Viking Age (AD 0800–1066)

Main articles: Viking Age and Danelaw

In the 9th century, the Viking challenge grew to serious proportions. Alfred the Great's victory at Edington in 878 brought intermittent peace, but the Norsemen with the foundation of Jorvik gained a permanent foothold in Britain.

An important development of the 9th century was the rise of the Kingdom of Wessex, and Alfred by the end of his reign (899) was recognized as overlord by several southern kingdoms. Æthelstan was the first king to achieve direct rulership of what we would now consider 'England'.

The end of the 10th century saw renewed Scandinavian interest in England, with the conquests of Sweyn of Denmark and his son Canute. After various fluctuations, by 1066, there where several people with a claim to the English throne, resulting in two invasions and the battles of Stamford Bridge and Hastings, giving rise to the High Medieval Anglo-Norman rule of Britain.

Anglo-Saxon culture

Anglo-Saxon architecture

Main article: Anglo-Saxon architecture

Anglo-Saxon architecture describes a period in the history of architecture in England, and parts of Wales, from the mid-5th century until the Norman Conquest of 1066.

Early Anglo-Saxon buildings in Britain were generally simple, constructed mainly using timber with thatch for roofing. Generally preferring not to settle in the old Roman cities, the Anglo-Saxons built small towns near their centres of agriculture. In each town, a main hall was in the centre, and other forms of building of the townspeople.

There are few remains of Anglo-Saxon architecture, with no secular work remaining above ground. At least fifty churches are of Anglo-Saxon origin, with many more claiming to be, although in some cases the Anglo-Saxon part is small and much-altered. All surviving churches, except one timber church, are built of stone or brick, and in some cases show evidence of re-used Roman work.

The architectural character of Anglo-Saxon ecclesiastical buildings range from Coptic influenced architecture in the early period; basilica influenced Romanesque architecture; and in the later Anglo-Saxon period, an architecture characterised by pilaster-strips, blank arcading, baluster shafts and triangular headed openings.

Anglo-Saxon art

Main article: Anglo-Saxon art

Anglo-Saxon art covers the period from the time of King Alfred (871–899), with the revival of English culture after the end of the Viking raids, to the early 12th century, when Romanesque art became the new movement. Prior to Alfred there had been the Hiberno-Saxon culture (the fusion of Anglo-Saxon and Celtic techniques and motifs) which ceased with the Vikings.

Anglo-Saxon art is mainly known today through illuminated manuscripts. It includes the Benedictional of St. Æthelwold manuscript, which drew on Hiberno-Saxon art, Carolingian art and Byzantine art for style and iconography. A "Winchester style" developed that combined both northern ornamental traditions with Mediterranean figural traditions, and can be seen in the Leofric Missal (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodl, 579). The Harley Psalter was a knockoff of the Carolingian Utrecht Psalter —all of which underscore the larger trend of an Anglo-Saxon culture coming into increasing contact with, and under the influence of, a wider Latin Mediæval Europe.

Manuscripts were not the only Anglo-Saxon art form, although they are the most well known to have survived. Perhaps the best known piece of Anglo-Saxon art is the Bayeux Tapestry which was commissioned by a Norman patron from English artists working in the traditional Anglo-Saxon style. The most common example of Anglo-Saxon art is coins, with thousands of examples extant and more being found every year. Anglo-Saxon artists also worked in fresco, ivory, stone carving, metalwork (see Fuller brooch for example) and enamel, but few of these pieces had survived.

Anglo-Saxon language

Main article: Old English language

Anglo-Saxon, also called Old English, was the language spoken under Alfred the Great and continued to be the common language of England (non-Danelaw) until after the Norman Conquest of 1066 when, under the influence of the Anglo-Norman language spoken by the Norman ruling class, it changed into Middle English roughly between 1150–1500.

Anglo-Saxon is far closer to early Germanic than Middle English. It is less Latinized and retains many morphological features (nominal and verbal inflection) that were lost during the 12th to 14th centuries. The language today which is closest to Old English is Frisian, which is spoken by a few hundred thousand people in the northern part of the Netherlands and Germany.

Before literacy in the vernacular "Old English" or Latin became widespread, the Runic alphabet, called the futhorc (also known as futhark) was used for inscriptions. When literacy became more prevalent, a form of Latin script was used with a few letters derived from the futhork: 'Eth,' 'Wynn,' and 'Thorn.'

The letters regularly used in printed and edited texts of Old English are the following:

• a æ b c d ğ e f g h i l m n o p r s t ş u w x y

with only rare occurrences of j, k, q, v, and z.

Anglo-Saxon law

Main article: Anglo-Saxon laws

Very few law codes exist from the Anglo-Saxon period, giving us an insight into legal culture beyond the influence of Roman law. How this legal culture developed over the course of the Anglo-Saxon period is important for the understanding of contemporary developments, except how law developed following the Norman Conquest.

Anglo-Saxon literature

Main article: Anglo-Saxon literature

Anglo-Saxon literature (or Old English literature) encompasses literature written in Old English during the 600-year Anglo-Saxon period of Britain, from the mid-5th century to the Norman Conquest of 1066. These works include genres such as epic poetry, hagiography, sermons, Bible translations, legal works, chronicles, riddles, and others. In all there are about 400 surviving manuscripts from the period, a significant corpus of both popular interest and specialist research.

The most famous works from this period include the poem Beowulf, which has achieved national epic status in Britain. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is a collection of important early English history. Cædmon's Hymn from the 7th century is the oldest surviving written text in English.

Anglo-Saxon religion

Main article: Anglo-Saxon polytheism

The indigenous pre-Christian belief system of the Anglo-Saxons was a form of Germanic paganism and therefore closely related to the Old Norse religion, as well as other Germanic pre-Christian cultures.

Christianity (particularly the Roman) gradually replaced the indigenous religion of the Saxons in England around the 7th and 8th centuries AD. Christianity was introduced into Northumbria and Mercia by monks from Ireland, but the Synod of Whitby settled the choice for Roman Christianity. As the new clerics became the chroniclers, the old religion was partially lost before it was recorded and today historians' knowledge of it is largely based on surviving customs and lore, texts, etymological links and archaeological finds.

One of the few recorded references is that a Kentish King would only meet the missionary St. Augustine in the open air, where he would be under the protection of the sky god, Woden. Written Christian prohibitions on acts of paganism are one of historians' main sources of information on pre-Christian beliefs.

Despite these prohibitions, numerous elements of the pre-Christian culture of the Anglo-Saxon people survived the Christianisation process. Examples include the English language names for days of the week:

• Tiw, the Anglo-Saxon equivalent of Tyr: Tuesday
• Woden, the Anglo-Saxon equivalent of Odin: Wednesday
• Şunor, the Anglo-Saxon equivalent of Thor: Thursday
• Fréo, the Anglo-Saxon equivalent of Freyja: Friday

Contemporary meanings

"Anglo-Saxon" is still used as a term for the original West Germanic component of the English language, which was later expanded and developed through the influence of the concept of Old Norse and Norman French, though linguists now more often refer to it as Old English. In the 19th century the term "Anglo-Saxon" was broadly used in philology, and it is still, to some degree, used this way nowadays.

For other uses, see Anglo-Saxon.

In popular usage in Canada and the United States, the term "Anglo-Saxon" (as in "White Anglo-Saxon Protestant" or "WASP") has evolved into a politicised term with little connection to its academic definition. Until about 1960 the term of European origin who fits a certain socio-economic and/or ethnic profile.

For over a hundred years, the French have used "Anglo-Saxon" to refer to the Anglophone societies of Britain and the United States, and sometimes (rarely) including Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. It is a wide-ranging term, taking in the English-speaking world's language, culture, technology, wealth, influence, markets and economy.

See also

• Angles
• Anglo-Saxon dress
• Anglophile
• English people
• Jutes
• Saxons
• States in Medieval Britain
• Timeline of the Anglo-Saxon invasion & takeover of Britain
• Anglo-Saxon Military

Notes

References

• Oppenheimer, Stephen. The Origins of the British (2006). Constable and Robinson, London. ISBN 1-84529-158-1

Further reading

A good collection of the source material can be found in

• D. Whitelock, English Historical Documents c.500–1042, (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1955)

For early contemporary understandings of what it meant to be 'Anglo-Saxon' or 'English' see

• Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People, trans. L. Sherly-Price, (London: Penguin, 1990)

For modern interpretations overviews can be found in

• F.M. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, 3rd edition, (Oxford: University Press, 1971)
• J. Campbell et al, The Anglo-Saxons, (London: Penguin, 1991)
• E. James, Britain in the First Millennium, (London: Arnold, 2001)

For an introduction to aspects of Anglo-Saxon culture, see the articles in

• M. Lapidge et al, The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England, (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999)
• For a full reading list, see Simon Keynes' bibliography http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/research/rawl/keynesbib

External links

• Fides Angliarum Regum: the faith of the English kings
• Anglo-Saxon Origins: The Reality of the Myth by Malcolm Todd
• Origins of the British language: an alternative view
• An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary