Anglo-Saxons

The Anglo-Saxons were a group of Germanic peoples who migrated to the island of Great Britain in about the fifth century. The Anglo-Saxons were comprised of three primary groups, the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, that lived in the region of modern-day Denmark and northern Germany. As the Roman Empire crumbled in the early fifth century, Roman forces fled Britain, leaving it undefended. The Angles, Saxons, and Jutes took advantage of the power vacuum by moving westward and settling on parts of the island. After consolidating their control over the region, the Anglo-Saxons eventually established seven kingdoms on the central and southern sections of the island. In 927, King Æthelstan of Wessex united the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms under his control, forming the kingdom of England, a name meaning “Land of the Angles.” The term Anglo-Saxon (Angul-Seaxan in Old English) was first used by English writers in the eighth century to distinguish the people in Britain from the Germanic Saxons of the continent. Angul-Seaxan simply means “English Saxons.” The Anglo-Saxons ruled most of Britain for six centuries, significantly contributing to the foundation of English literature, religion, law, and language. The era of the Anglo-Saxons came to an end in 1066 when William, the Duke of Normandy, invaded England and defeated the last Anglo-Saxon king in the Battle of Hastings.

Overview: Roman Britain

Prior to about 8,500 years ago, Britain was part of the European mainland, which was connected to the continent by a land bridge. However, rising seas from the melting polar ice covered the bridge, turning the area into an island. Farming first developed in Britain about 6,000 years ago. About 2,000 years later, the Neolithic Celtic Britons were making metal tools and weapons. By the first millennium BCE, the Britons had developed iron weapons and were living in fortified agrarian communities. The Britons had an ethnic connection to the Celtic peoples of northwestern Europe and likely continued a trading relationship with them across the English Channel.

In 55 BCE, Julius Caesar, then a Roman general, led his troops in an invasion into Britain but was met with fierce resistance and had to withdraw. In 43 CE, the Roman Emperor Claudius sent four legions of soldiers to conquer the island. Although they also met with resistance, the second attempt was successful, and within a few decades Rome had established control over most of the island.

With Britain now under the control of Rome, the Roman Empire continued to grow in the centuries that followed. By the late third century, the empire had grown so large that Emperor Diocletian decided to break it into western and eastern halves to make it easier to rule. During the fourth century, the Western Roman Empire began to weaken, and the empire suffered a series of military losses along its borders. To shore up its defenses closer to home, Rome’s emperor withdrew the last Roman troops from Britain in about 409. The next year, the city of Rome was invaded and sacked by the Visigoth King Alaric.

Anglo-Saxons Arrive

The Germanic peoples of modern-day Denmark and northern Germany were familiar with Britain. Some had served as mercenaries hired by Rome to protect the island, and others had begun a slow migration to Britain even before the Romans left. However, with the Romans gone, larger numbers of Germanic immigrants began to arrive in Britain after the year 410. Most of these people were the Angles, who came from the region near the modern-day border of Germany and Denmark; the Saxons, who came from the northern coast of Germany; and the Jutes, who came from Denmark. The Angles mostly settled near the east-central coast of England, the Saxons in the southeastern region, and the Jutes on a peninsula southeast of London.

Upon first arriving, the Anglo-Saxons encountered little resistance from the Celtic Britons. The monk Gildas, who wrote On the Ruin and Conquest of Britain in the mid-sixth century, compared the invaders to wild beasts and tells of the Britons finally mounting a resistance against the foreigners in about the year 500. Gildas tells of a Romanized Christian Briton named Ambrosius Aurelianus who defeated the Anglo-Saxons at the Battle of Mount Badon. Some scholars speculate that oral tales of Ambrosius may have been one of the inspirations for twelfth-century writers to create the character of King Arthur.

Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms

As the Anglo-Saxons settled in Britain, they established small tribal kingdoms that were constantly fighting one another. These tribal kingdoms slowly consolidated until they formed the seven Anglo-Saxon kingdoms by the late seventh century. In Old English, the leaders of these kingdoms were known as cynings, a term that meant “ruler” or “leader of the people.” In later years, cyning would evolve to become the word king.

The Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were named by the dominant Germanic group that settled in the region. The Jutes primarily lived in Kent; the Angles in Mercia, Northumbria, and East Anglia; and the Saxons in Essex, Sussex, and Wessex.

The kingdom of Kent likely formed from the consolidation of smaller kingdoms in the sixth century. Kent was located southeast of London and on a peninsula bordering the Strait of Dover. In the late sixth century, Pope Gregory sent a delegation of monks to Britain to convert the Anglo-Saxon population. The delegation, led by St. Augustine of Canterbury, arrived in Kent, where they converted King Æthelberht in about the year 597. Æthelberht was the first Anglo-Saxon king to convert to Christianity. Augustine established a church in Canterbury, the main city in Kent, that would go on to become the administrative seat of the Church of England.

Mercia was a large kingdom in south-central England, encompassing the lands around the River Trent and the English Midlands. Mercia became a powerful kingdom in the seventh century and rose to become the primary Anglo-Saxon kingdom in the early eighth century. The Mercian King Penda was staunchly pagan and refused to convert to Christianity. When he died in 655, he was the last major Anglo-Saxon king to refuse Christianity.

Northumbria covered most of northern England and parts of modern-day Scotland. The term refers to the region north of the Humber River. Northumbria was formed by the consolidation of the kingdoms of Bernicia and Deira in the early seventh century. By the end of the century, Northumbria would briefly become the most powerful Anglo-Saxon kingdom. Northumbrian kings welcomed Christianity and helped establish the monastery on the Holy Island of Lindisfarne, one of the holiest sites in Christian Britain.

East Anglia, or the “Land of the East Angles,” consisted of an area on the central eastern coast of England, just north of Kent and east of Mercia. It was formed in the sixth century and includes the modern-day counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. The kingdom is notable for the archaeological site at Sutton Hoo in Suffolk County. Sutton Hoo marked the burial site of a possible East Anglian king or nobleman. The person was interred in a warrior ship along with numerous artifacts that provide one of the best glimpses into the lives and customs of the Anglo-Saxons.

The Saxon kingdoms followed a common naming convention. The land of the East Saxons was called Essex; the South Saxons, Sussex; and the West Saxons, Wessex. Essex was a small kingdom located north of Kent, south of East Anglia, and east of Mercia. The city of London became part of Essex in the sixth century. Sussex was located along the southern coast, southeast of Kent. Both Essex and Sussex were relatively minor kingdoms, especially compared to Wessex, the most powerful Saxon kingdom, which was located across most of southern England and in south-west England. In 825, King Ecgberht of Wessex defeated Mercia’s King Beornwulf in the Battle of Ellendun. Ecgberht’s victory weakened Mercia’s power and consolidated Kent, Essex, and Sussex under the control of Wessex.

The Vikings and a United England

In 793, Viking raiders from the north attacked the monastery at Lindisfarne, killing the monks there and stealing much of the Holy Island’s treasures. The attack on the monastery shocked the Anglo-Saxons and began a centuries-long period of Viking incursions into Britain and other coastal regions of continental Europe. By the mid-ninth century, the Vikings turned from raids to conquests, seizing and settling lands across parts of Mercia, Northumbria, and East Anglia. The Vikings conquered Northumbria and East Anglia and replaced their kings with Viking rulers.

The remaining Anglo-Saxon kingdoms seemed powerless to stop the Vikings until Alfred the Great, the king of Wessex, defeated the Danish leader Guthrum at the Battle of Edington in 878. Alfred recaptured London, converted Guthrum to Christianity, and made a treaty promising the Vikings their own land called Danelaw in parts of Mercia and East Anglia. Alfred’s deal brought relative peace to Britain and allowed Alfred to consolidate the remaining Anglo-Saxon kingdoms under his control.

In 925, Alfred’s Grandson Æthelstan succeeded his father as king. Two years later, he led his armies into Danelaw and conquered the Vikings. With the original seven Anglo-Saxon kingdoms now under his control, Æthelstan became the first king of a united England. However, Æthelstan and his contemporaries would not have called their kingdom England. For many years, the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms did not strive to any shared national identity. That changed in the face of the Viking invasions, when the Anglo-Saxons began to unite against a common enemy. The consolidation of the kingdoms under Alfred the Great and later Æthelstan further helped forge a shared national identity. It was not until about 1000 when the kingdom was first called England. It was named for the Old English term for “Land of the Angles”—Engla Land.

The Norman Conquest

Although the Anglo-Saxons were united under Æthelstan, Britain’s problems with the Vikings were far from over. In 991, the Viking king of Denmark, Swein Forkbeard, began a second wave of invasions, landing in Kent with a fleet of ninety ships. After a series of victories and defeats, Swein succeeded in conquering England in 1013. The Anglo-Saxon king, Aethelred the Unready, was forced to flee to Normandy in northwestern France, leaving Swein as the first Danish king of England. He was succeeded by his son, Cnut, who attempted to peacefully bridge the gap between the Anglo-Saxons and the Danish.

After Cnut died in 1035, a battle of his succession broke out between Cnut’s family and the family of Aethelred. The battle was finally resolved in 1042 when Aethelred’s son, Edward the Confessor, took the throne. When Edward died in January 1066, he left no heir to succeed him, again tossing the English throne into turmoil. The two main rivals for the kingship were Harold, the Earl of Wessex, and William, Duke of Normandy.

Harold was Edward’s brother-in-law while William was his first cousin. Both men claimed that Edward had promised them the throne, but since Harold was present at the time of Edward’s death, he claimed the kingship. Although William’s dukedom was in France, he maintained his right to the kingship and accused Harold of usurping the throne. William led an army into England and engaged Harold’s forces in the Battle of Hastings on October 14, 1066.

After a brief period where it looked like Harold had the upper hand, William and the Normans turned the tables and routed the English forces, killing Harold in the process. William advanced on London and officially claimed the kingship on Christmas Day. William’s kingship ushered in French-Norman rule in England and marked the end of the Anglo-Saxon period.

Further Insights

The Anglo-Saxon era in Britain lasted for more than six centuries and left behind a profound impact on the English language and culture. Although Christianity had been introduced to the British by Christianized Romans, it was the Anglo-Saxons who mostly embraced the religion and encouraged its spread across the island. The churches in Canterbury and the monastery of Lindisfarne were hallowed sites for English Christians and remain important into the twenty-first century. Three churches in Canterbury—Canterbury Cathedral, St. Augustine’s Abbey, and St. Martin’s Church—were named to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage List in 1988.

Early Anglo-Saxon law was heavily influenced by the Germanic laws from mainland Europe. By the early seventh century, a new form of Anglo-Saxon law emerged that featured a tiered system of crimes and restitutions that varied by social standing and crime committed. According to tradition, the first Anglo-Saxon law code was written during the reign of King Æthelberht of Kent. Typical punishments included paying an amount of money or goods known as wergild. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms began to consolidate in later centuries, local laws were combined, eventually leading to a court system where rudimentary trials were conducted.

One of the oldest works of Anglo-Saxon literature is a mixture of pagan and Christian imagery called the “Dream of the Rood.” The poem, possibly composed in the seventh or eighth century, is a dream vision told from the point of view of a tree, which is also the cross of Jesus. Undoubtedly, the best-known work of Anglo-Saxon literature is the epic poem Beowulf, the tale of a heroic warrior who battles monsters and dragons. The oldest surviving copy of Beowulf was written in the tenth century, but the tale itself is centuries older.

During the reign of Alfred the Great in the late ninth century, monks began compiling a recorded history of England, drawing on some earlier works to date the history back to the fifth century. Known as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the document included year-by-year accounts of events, battles, and successions of kings as well as information about bishops and nobles. The original Anglo-Saxon Chronicle has been lost, but several copies of it survive into modern times.

Anglo-Saxon literature was written in Old English, the earliest form of English that first developed about the year 450. Old English grew from the Germanic speech of the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes and was heavily influenced by Latin, which had been the language of Rome. The Anglo-Saxons originally used a runic alphabet but transitioned into the common Latin alphabet by the eighth century, although their alphabet contained several letters that were later no longer used—ash (æ), eth (ð), thorn (þ), and wynn (ƿ).

Although Old English was greatly altered by the Norman invasion, which introduced French influence and began the shift to Middle English, many modern English words have their roots in Old English. For example, the word fæder became the Modern English, “father.” The Old English tun, meaning “enclosed piece of ground,” became the modern word town. Ceald became “cold,” nu became “now,” and writan meant “to write.”

Bibliography

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