The Anglo-Saxons 450 to 1066 **************************** The Anglo-Saxon period lasted from 450 until 1066 when the Normans took control. The massive influx of people was apparently triggered in 407 A.D., the year in which the ailing Roman Empire withdrew much of its army from Britain. Soon afterwards, it stopped paying its soldiers... As a result, the last Roman legionaries took off. This left Britain unprotected, an opportunity that the starving people on the continent couldn't pass up. The Angles, Saxons and Jutes left their mound dwellings and broad bean fields in the wetlands of northern Europe in droves. Entire family clans set out to sea, usually in the spring and summer when the water was calm. Their ships were bulging with household goods, cows and horses. According to an old chronicle, the land of the Angles was soon "abandoned." Bede wrote in 731 about the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons, recording that the first Anglo-Saxon settlers arrived in 449. (Bede draws largely from Gildas's "De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae"). Around this time, the english King Vortigern was having all kinds of problems with the Picts and the Welsh (a look at the present moves for independence by the Scots would suggest little has changed). The Anglo Saxon Chronicle (449AD or thereabouts) tells us Vortigern "invited" two German warlord brothers, Hengist and Horsa, to bring their army over and help out, in return for some booty and certain land rights. These two warlords sailed 600 kilometers (372 miles) down the coast from their native North Frisia, and then made the north sea crossing into a green and pleasant Britain. King Vortigern was persuaded to provide the two brothers with The Isle of Thanet in East Kent, most likely thinking once they had vanquished the King;s foes they would hasten back to Germany. Such plans would turn out quite differently.... Hengist, Horsa, and their troop of armed Jutes, Saxons and Angles duly defeated Vortigern;s enemies. Then, in what was the original "night of the long knives" they saw off Vortigern and his supporters. Horsa died along the way, so Hengist became the King of Kent, and a period of what could well be called "encouraged immigration" followed, during which time the East and South of Britain became populated by various Germanic tribes. The British offered little resistance (and died in numbers when they did), and soon the Anglo-Saxons; took charge, and the Land of the Angles (England) was born. The country they encountered was a cultivated place. Emperor Claudius had declared the island a Roman province in 43 A.D., and had introduced theaters and paved streets. There were 30,000 people living in Londinium in late antiquity. All of this was destroyed, however, when the adventurers, (who became more and more numerous as other families arrived), arrived from across the sea. It is now estimated by Archeologist Heinrich Härke that "up to 200,000 emigrants" crossed the North Sea. Saxons continued their attacking the coast off of Sussex, under the leadership of Aella. According to Sidonius Apollinaris, the fifth century landowner, poet and bishop, the raids on the coast of Aquitoine were particularly brutal. The Saxons were at home on the sea and led unexpected attacks. The Germanic peoples of the fifth century were very destructive and barbaric in nature. They preferred to kill their enemies although they did keep some as slaves. Land was cut into farms of fifty to two hundred acres, and peasants had no master or landlord. Class structure did not exist in these societies. The king was put into power and held that power by the family right. All peoples were expected to pay taxes to the king, and support the maintenance of his court and land holdings. These societies avoided civil war and anarchy by encouraging all to participate in open forum discussions of problems facing the society. The Germanic farmers of Spong Hill, in eastern England, remained in contact with their old homeland for two to three generations. A steady stream of adventurers left the mainland between 450 and 550. The estimated 200,000 intruders faced an overwhelming number of Britons, about a million, and yet the invaders triumphed. The kingdoms that soon developed, like East Anglia, Wessex (West Saxony) and Essex (East Saxony) were run by robust chieftains like Sigeric and Cynewulf. The Celts were no match for these roughnecks. The Romans had taught them how to play the lyre and drink copious amounts of wine, but the populace in the regions controlled by the Pax Romana was barred from carrying weapons. As a result, the local peoples, no longer accustomed to the sword, lost one battle after the next and were forced to the edges of the island. The Old English heroic epic "Beowulf" suggests how coarse and combative life was among the pagan conquerors in their reed-covered huts. They had soon occupied eastern and central England. The famous legend of King Arthur also originated in that era, as a form of counter-propaganda. Historians characterize the work as a "defensive myth" created by the original Christian inhabitants (with the Holy Grail possibly symbolizing the communion cup). Perhaps the King Arthur legend is based on a mythical Celtic king who won a victory at Mount Badon around 500 A.D. In truth, however, the army of the Britons was usually in retreat. Many fell into captivity. The captured Britons lived a mostly miserable existence as "servants and maids" in the villages of the Anglo-Saxons. The Angles and Saxons saved the Britons (Celts), but then turned against them and settled in England, becoming the Anglo-Saxons who lived in Angle-Land (England). These Anglo-Saxons were brave, rude, reckless, adventurous and barbaric. They did not have much of a written culture, but they brought with them a rich folk-lore tradition, with long epics recited by scops, the poets of the clan. These recitations, the earliest English Literature, were finally written down by Christian monks in the 10th and 11th centuries. Sources: anglosaxondiscovery.ashmolean.org The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle Matthias Schulz Heinrich Härke www.spiegel.de www.nzica.com