The Anglo-

Saxon Invasion
of Britain
SOURCES:

A N I L L U S T R AT E D H I S T O R Y O F B R I TA I N , D AV I D
M C D O WA L L

T H E D E F I N I T I V E V I S U A L G U I D E H I S T O R Y O F B R I TA I N &
IRELAND, DK EDITIONS
 Introduction
- Germanic tribes (Saxons, Angles & Jutes) flocked towards Britain.
Why: The economic wealth of Britain + political peace + georgraphically favourable
conditions.
When: approximately from 410-1066AD. ≠ Began to settle in 430 AD.
How were they: powerful, warlike & illiterate ( similarities with the Celts?)
Anglo-Saxon mercenaries had for many years fought in the Roman army in Britain, so they
were not total strangers to the island.
Their invasions were slow and piecemeal, and began even before the Roman legions departed.

The period used to be known as the Dark Ages, mainly because written sources for
the early years of Saxon invasion are scarce.
≠ only account: Bede, English monk recounting events in his Ecclesiastical History
of the English people 3 centuries later (?reliability, accuracy, objectivity in hindsight
& retrospect)
- Different anglo-saxon migrations gave modern-day names of isles:
 England ‘Land of the Angles’. + Wales ‘Weallas’ ‘Land of the foreigners..

- Resistance from the British Celts yet they were eventually pushed into the fringes of the island:
• Westwards, by 570 Gloucester
• Mountains of far west in modern day Wales, lowlands modern day Scotland.
• Cornwall (surrender the Saxons rule)
• Those who stayed behind were enslaved by the Saxons.
 Geographical displacement & diaspora = desintegration of the Celtic culture & identity.

Celtic elements AngloSaxon Cultural Impact:

- Days of the week were named after

- Names of cities & rivers : eg:London & Leeds, Thames,
Avon..
- No cultural aspect survived nor the language.
Germanic gods: Tig (Tu esday), Wodin
(Wednesday), Thor (Thursday), Frei (Friday)
- Saxon settlements (family villages) (another resemblance
with the
Celts), bearing Saxon ethymology & sonority.

 Re-mapping the territory + appropriating the space.

Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, c. 650-800AD
1. Kent, settled by the Jutes. Ethelbert of Kent was the first Anglo-Saxon
king to be converted to Christianity, by St Augustine around 595 AD.
2. Mercia, whose best-known ruler, Offa, built Offa's Dyke along the
border between Wales and England. This large kingdom stretched over
the Midlands.
3. Northumbria, where the monk Bede (c. 670-735) lived and wrote his
Ecclesiastical History of Britain.
4. East Anglia, made up of Angles: the North Folk (living in modern
Norfolk) and the South Folk (living in Suffolk). The Sutton Hoo ship
burial was found in East Anglia (see below).
5. Essex (East Saxons). Here the famous Battle of Maldon was fought
against the Vikings in 991.
6. Sussex: the South Saxons settled here.
7. Wessex (West Saxons), later the kingdom of King Alfred, the only
English king ever to have been called ‘the Great', and his equally
impressive grandson, Athelstan, the first who could truly call himself
‘King of the English'.
By 850 AD the seven kingdoms had been consolidated into three large
Anglo-Saxon kingdoms: Northumbria, Mercia, and Wessex. The
Anglo-Saxons had become a Christian people.
AngloSaxon Artifacts

Trade and commerce played an important role

in the prosperity of Anglo-Saxon England.
Lead weights such as these were used
by merchants to test the weight of
precious metals and other small trade items.

Sutton Hoo Helmet, Warrior

garment
 Century later King Offa of Mercia (757-96) claimed ‘kingship of the English’.
- He was powerful enough to extinguish the royal dynasties of Kent and Sussex and seems to have ruled there directly.
- He commanded sufficient resources to build a defensive work: a huge dyke (earth wall) the length of the Welsh border, to
keep the Celts at bay.

- Nevertheless, he never succeeded in controlling all of the territory.

- His reign did not succeed in guaranteeing Mercia’s perdurable power.
 Government & Society
Shift in loyalty & the common people’s perceptions of the ruling power:

Kings’ power relied on followers’ loyalty (willingly given)

Followers believed that a man’s loyalty was to his own family first&foremost (Celtic cultural remnant)

Saxon kings’ loyalty & duties were towards lord & king rather than family.

 Fundamental change in perception & attitude towards power.

Creation of solid institutions: the King’s Council, the Witan. (ancestor of modern-day Privy Council)

Began as a grouping of informal groups of senior warriors & churchmen = advisory role

Became a formal body, issuing laws & charters= investing a legal function & legislative role

A king’s ruling power & authority depended on the Witan’s goodwill = the council’s prerogatives
(choosing kings + agree the use of the king’s laws) made of it an authority not to be dismissed or
ignored.
Administrative division:
- The Saxons divided the land into new areas called ‘shires’, or counties.
- They remained almost the same for a thousand years (have been established at the end of the 10th century)
 Long-term impact of Saxons’ presence in Britain with deeply-established institutions.

Re-shaping agriculture:
- A shift in farming techniques has occured from the celtic ways to a more advanced Anglo-Saxon way

Light
Light Heavy
Heavy
ploughing
ploughing ploughing
ploughing

Downsides
Downsides
Plough
Plough drawn
drawn
Small
Small square
square ItIt only
only Plough
Plough drawn
drawn
by
by animal or
animal or 22
fileds
fileds ploughed
ploughed by
by many
many oxen
oxen
people
people
straight
straight lines
lines

Useful
Useful for
for
Minimal
Minimal Straight
Straight
Easilly
Easilly cultivating
cultivating
production
production lines
lines
manageable
manageable heavier
heavier soils
soils ploughing
ploughing
Arar
ry
eee Impact of the change in farming techniques:
aaa - Relying on a large number of animals (oxen) to cultivate heavier soils
r
pushed for a change in both land ownership & land organisation.
IIa( • On the level of organization:
If
Pt - Land could only be ploughed in straight lines (heavy plough could not
turn)  division in 2 or 3 large fields  divided into long thin stripes.
le
Pr • On the level of land-ownership:
lah - Each family would have a ‘holding’ of sorts : twenty or more acres of long
anar land stripes.
ntv - Family had to share oxen (farming tool) on a co-operative basis =
tie fostering relations between villagers & mutual help for both parties’
benefit.
inst
ng+
 The Anglox Saxon pattern became the common way for faming land,
go
t surviving as the basis for English agriculture for a thousand years (until
18th century).
sahe
upr
tral
un
- The creation of a ‘manor’ , a multi-purpose institution serving as
a building where:
• Local villagers came to pay taxes.
• Justice was administred
• Men met together to join the Anglo-Saxon army, the fryd.

- The organisation of all of these perfomed tasks + overseeing a

proper land’s division between villagers were in the hands of the
lord of the manor  deeply-rooted manorial system.

- The lords or alderman were simply local officials  became

warlords, referred to as earls (Danish term) by the beginning of
the 11th century.
 Long-term linguistic impact: existence of both terms (alderman
meaning elected officials & earls referring to high ranking
nobles) until today. Anglo-saxon manor house ,circa 11th century
 Premises of a class-system made up of king, lords, soldiers &
workers of the land.