Introduction to Saxon England When the last of the Romans Legions left in 410 AD Britain was seen as a place of opportunity for people from the northern European shores, especially those around countries that are today called Germany, Holland, Belgium, France and Denmark. Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Friesians and Franks all travelled across the North Sea and the channel looking for new opportunities in Britain. The first opportunities were as mercenaries fighting alongside the British (essentially those living in what constitutes modern England) against the ever-troublesome Picts in Eastern and Northern Scotland. Our knowledge of this time period is largely contained in the documents known as The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, first written in the 9 th century. These are a compilation of works by more than one author, and post- date the events by some significant period of time. The Chronicles describe how in 449 two Jutes named Hengist and Horsa were invited to Britain by a regional British king called Vortigern. He paid them and their men to fight the Picts. The Jutes arrived at Ebbsfleet on the Isle of Thanet (in Kent). They fought for Vortigern for a while and then turned on him and seized his kingdom. Hengist's son Aesc became king of Kent. This may or may not be how it happened but this story gives an idea about how some of the newcomers settled in Britain. Hengist and Horsa mean stallion and horse and there are other horse-association founding stories in Germanic legends, so the brothers may have been legendary. However, the people who did arrive sent word home and soon more people started to come. The Saxons went to what is now Essex (East Saxons), Sussex (South Saxons), and Wessex (you guessed it, West Saxons), the Jutes went to Kent and the Isle of Wight and part of Hampshire, and the Angles to East Anglia, Mercia and Northumbria (north of the river Humber). The final entry of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle states that in 473 AD Hengist and his son had taken "immense booty" and the Britons had "fled from the English like fire. And that s an interesting distinction. The Britons were the pre-saxon native population, while the English were originally the incoming Angles from the continent. These two names have now become hopelessly entangled and telling someone that you re British but not English will only cause confusion and possibly arguments. The Saxons had their own gods and the early Christians of the British Isles became more isolated as Saxon rule grew. The Christians of Ireland, Scotland and Wales kept the traditions of Christianity alive. England began to be reconverted to Christianity around 600. Northumbria initially followed the native British church in its calculation of Easter and tonsure (monk s hair cut) but then aligned itself with Canterbury and Rome at the 664 Synod of Whitby. The Irish and Scots also followed over the 7 th and 8 th centuries, and eventually the Welsh followed suit under Norman rule. Pre-Christian Saxon beliefs included many gods, with parallels with the Norse Gods. Saxon Woden (Odin), Thunor (Thor), god of thunder; Frige, goddess of love; and Tiw, god of war. Our days of the week still recall these gods: Tuesday (Tiw), Wednesday (Woden), Thursday (Thor) and Friday (Frige). Saxon place names survive too. Woden is often associated with places with earthworks like Wansdyke (Woden s Dyke), Wednesbury (Woden s Earthworks) and Wednesfield (Woden s field). The Saxon religion included the sacrifice of inanimate objects and animals to the gods. There is some evidence for timber temples, although other religious spaces might have been open-air, and would have included sacred trees and megaliths.
The old religion survived as Christianity advanced and rules forbidding non-christian activities give an idea of what these involved. In 786, papal legates complained that Christian Anglo-Saxons were still eating horsemeat, an activity that may have been associated with the pagan funerary feast. The Christian church also prohibited people from eating and drinking in areas that had been sacred to the pagan Gods and that suggests that is what used to happen in pre-christian times. One confidently identified Anglo-Saxon temple is building D2 at Yeavering, Northumberland and this building was destroyed a few years after it was converted to Christian use. Building D2 has been widely interpreted as a temple or shrine room dedicated to one or more of the gods of the Anglo- Saxons, making it the only known example of such a site yet found by archaeologists in England. Archaeologists came to this conclusion due to the complete lack of any objects associated with normal domestic use, such as a scatter of animal bones of broken pot sherds. Accompanying this was a large pit filled with animal bones, the majority of which were oxen skulls. We don t know much about the pre-christian Anglo-Saxon conceptions of an afterlife, although these beliefs probably influenced funerary practices, in which the dead were either inhumed or cremated, typically with a selection of grave goods. The Sutton Hoo ship burial is the best-known and most impressive example of a high-status Saxon grave. The dating of the grave goods makes Rædwald, the ruler of the East Angles, the most likely candidate for the Sutton Hoo ship burial. He converted to Christianity and, although some Christian artefacts have been found in the burial, he seems to have reverted to worshipping the old gods. The Sutton Hoo site has been vital in understanding the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of East Anglia and the whole early Anglo-Saxon period. The most significant artefacts from the early 7 th -century ship-burial, displayed in the British Museum, are those found in the burial chamber, including a suit of metalwork fittings in gold and garnets, a ceremonial helmet, shield and sword, a lyre, and many pieces of silver plate from Byzantium. The ship-burial has prompted comparisons with the world described in the heroic Old English poem Beowulf, which is set in southern Sweden. In that part of Sweden, especially at Vendel, close archaeological parallels to the ship burial have been found, both in its general form and in details of the military equipment contained in the burial. Christian or pagan, it seems that Raedwald was ready for whatever afterlife was available. One of the best-known Saxon Christians was the Venerable Bede (672/3 26 May 735). He was an English monk in the Kingdom of Northumbria. He is well known as an author and scholar, and his most famous work, Ecclesiastical History of the English People gained him the title "The Father of English History". In the Ecclesiastical History of the English People Bede quotes this advice given to Edwin, King of Northumbria by one of his men at a meeting where the king proposed that he and his followers convert to Christianity. The present life of man, O king, seems to me, in comparison of that time which is unknown to us, like to the swift flight of a sparrow through the room wherein you sit at supper in winter, with your commanders and ministers, and a good fire in the midst, whilst the storms of rain and snow prevail abroad; the sparrow, I say, flying in at one door, and immediately out at another, whilst he is within, is safe from the wintry storm; but after a short space of fair weather, he immediately vanishes out of your sight, into the dark winter from which he had emerged. So this life of man appears for a short
space, but of what went before, or what is to follow, we are utterly ignorant. If, therefore, this new doctrine contains something more certain, it seems justly to deserve to be followed. This gives a wonderful picture of life inside a Saxon hall like our Saxon house from Chalton. Anglo-Saxon England was a collection of smaller kingdoms, often with links to places overseas through alliance and marriage. The idea of England as a separate single kingdom was a later concept. This is the point where the Vikings come into the picture. First, it s important to know that viking is an activity, it means to go on a pirate raid. It isn t name of as people. These Norse Men, North Men, Danes or Heathens (non-christians) came from countries and regions are now called Scandinavia, Denmark, Norway and Sweden. The first recorded viking attack was in 789 at Portland in Dorset. The more famous early attack was in 793 at the Christian monastery at Lindisfarne in Northumbria. From The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle Year 793. Here were dreadful forewarnings come over the land of Northumbria, and woefully terrified the people: these were amazing sheets of lightning and whirlwinds, and fiery dragons were seen flying in the sky. A great famine soon followed these signs, and shortly after in the same year, on the sixth day before the ides of January, the woeful inroads of heathen men destroyed god s church in Lindisfarne island by fierce robbery and slaughter. There followed waves of Danish viking raids on the English coast first as raids for plunder and later for land. In 865, the Danes landed a large army in East Anglia, with the intention of conquering the four Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England (East Anglia, Mercia, Northumbria and Wessex). In 867, they captured Northumbria and its capital, York. King Æthelred of Wessex and his brother, Alfred, repeatedly led their army against the Danes over the next few years. On 23 April 871, King Æthelred died and Alfred succeeded him as King of Wessex. His army was weak and he was forced to pay tribute to make peace with the Danes. In ten years, the Danes had gained control over East Anglia, Northumbria and Mercia, leaving just Wessex under Anglo-Saxon rule. The Danes brokered peace with Wessex in 876, but the fighting continued. Alfred was forced into hiding at Athelney, deep in the marshes of Somerset (where he may or may not have burned the cakes). He returned in the spring of 878 to gather an army. The Danes were defeated and King Alfred forced them to surrender. The peace treaty included defining the boundaries of the area to be ruled by the Danes (which became known as the Danelaw) and those of Wessex. The Kingdom of Wessex controlled part of the Midlands and the whole of the South (apart from Cornwall, which was still held by the Britons), while the Danes held East Anglia and the North.
England, 878 In 973, Alfred's great-grandson, Edgar, was crowned King of England and Emperor of Britain at Bath. On his coinage he had inscribed EADGAR REX ANGLORUM ("Edgar, King of the English"). That, of course, is not the same as being King of England. The presence of Danish and Norse settlers in the Danelaw had a lasting impact. There are over 3,000 words in modern English that have Scandinavian roots. Additionally, more than 1,500 place-names in England are Scandinavian in origin; for example, topographic names such as Howe, Norfolk and Howe, North Yorkshire are derived from the Old Norse word haugr meaning hill, knoll, or mound. In archaeology and other academic contexts the term "Anglo-Scandinavian" is often used for Scandinavian culture in England. After a series of campaigns in 1013/4/5 the King of Denmark and his son Cnut fought for England against Edmund and his father King Æthelred. In 1015 Edmund's army routed the Danes, but the success was short-lived: at the battle of Ashingdon the Danes were victorious and many of the English leaders were killed. Cnut and Edmund agreed to split the kingdom in two, with Edmund ruling Wessex and Cnut the rest. In 1017, Edmund died in mysterious circumstances and the English council (the witan) confirmed Cnut as King of all England. A name and date that perhaps should be better known. Cnut divided England into earldoms: most of these were allocated to nobles of Danish descent, but he made an Englishman Earl of Wessex. The man he appointed was Godwin, who eventually became part of the extended royal family when he married the king's sister-in-law.
Earl Godwin s son, Harold Godwinson became the last Ango-Saxon king of England in 1066 after some complex family manoeuvres that involved switching sides, murdering a prince (Alfred Aetheling) disowning and fighting against other family members, making large gifts and building alliances. Now that sounds like a plot for a TV series. The date you probably know is 1066 when William brought his army from Normandy and defeated King Harold at Battle near Hastings. But that, as they say, is another story