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Chapter Three: The Saxon Invasions
From the time that the Romans more or less
abandoned Britain,
to the arrival of the missionary Augustine, the period has been known as the
Dark Ages. Written evidence concerning the period is scanty, but we do know
that a gradual division of the island
of Britain took place
into a Brythonic West, a Teutonic East, and a Gaelic North. In turn, these
led to the formation of the Welsh, English and Scottish nations; and to the
conversion of much of the native population to Christianity. With the
departure of the Roman legions, the old enemies began their onslaughts upon
the native Britons once more. These were the Picts and Scots to the north and
west (the Scots from Ireland had not yet made their homes in what was to
become later known as Scotland); and the Saxons, Angles, and Jutes to the
south and east. By 4l0, Britain
had already become self-governing in three parts: the North (which already
included people of mixed British and Angle stock); the West (including
Britons, Irish, and Angles); and the Southeast (mainly Britons and Angles).
The two centuries that followed the collapse of Roman Britain happen to be
among the worst recorded times in British history, certainly the most
obscure. Three main sources for our knowledge of the Anglo-Saxon permeation
of Britain
come from the 6th century monk Gildas, the 8th century historian Bede, and
the 9th century historian Nennius. Commonly ascribed to the monk Gildas, the
De Excidio Britanniae (the loss of Britain, was written about 540.
It is not a good history, for it is most merely polemic. The account is the
first to narrate what has traditionally been regarded as the story of the
coming of the Saxons to Britain.
Their success was seen by Gildas as God's vengeance against the Britons for
their sins. We note, however, that Gildas also wrote that, in his own day,
the Saxons were not warring against the Britons.
We can thus be certain that the greater part of
the pre-English inhabitants of England
survived, and that a great proportion of present-day England is made up of their
descendants. A study conducted at the Institute
of Molecular Biology, Oxford has established a
common DNA going back to the end of the last Ice Age is shared by 99 per cent
from a sample of 6,000 British people. The study confirmed that successive
invasions of Saxons, Angles, Jutes (along with Danes and Normans) did little
to change that make-up. Thus the heritage of the British people cannot simply
be called Anglo-Saxon. The Celts were not driven out of what came to be known
as England.
More than one modern historian has pointed out that such an extraordinary
success as an Anglo-Saxon conquest of Britain
"by bands of bold adventurers" could hardly have passed without
notice by the historians of the Roman Empire,
yet only Prosper Tyro and Procopius wrote of an enormous upheaval. In the
Gallic Chronicle of 452, Tyro had written that the Britons in 443 were
reduced "in dicionen Saxonum" (under the jurisdiction of the
English). Tyro used the Roman term Saxons for all the English-speaking
peoples resident in Britain.
The Roman historians had been using the term to describe all the continental
folk who had been directing their activities towards the eastern and southern
coasts of Britain
from as early as the 3rd Century.
In the account given by Procopius in the middle of the 6th Century, he writes
of the island
of Britain being
possessed by three very populous nations: the Angili, the Frisians, and the
Britons. "And so numerous are these nations that every year, great
numbers Smigrate thence to the Franks." There is no suggestion here that
these peoples existed in a state of warfare or enmity, nor that the British
people had been vanquished or made to flee westwards. We have to assume,
therefore, that the Gallic Chronicle of 452 refers only to a small part of Britain,
and that it does not signify total conquest by the Saxons. As we discover (and recover) from reading
Gildas, we realize that there is a considerable lack of reliable written
evidence from the period, and we have to turn to the nation's poets to inform
ourselves of its important events. Much of this literature was produced in
what is now Scotland,
where Taliesin and Aneirin both lived in the area now known as Strathclyde in
Scotland,
but whose language is recognizable as Old Welsh. Their poems celebrate honor
in defeat and praise the ideal ruler who protects his people by bravery and
ferocity in battle but who is magnanimous and generous in peace.
Aneirin is best remembered for Y Gododdin, commemorating the feats of a small
band of warriors who fought the Angles at Catraeth and who were willing to
die for their overlord. The poem is the first to mention Arthur, described as
a paragon of virtue and bravery. In a later work, the Annales Cambriae, drawn
up at St. David's in Wales
around 960, Arthur is recorded as having been victorious against the Saxons
at the Battle of Badon in 5l6. A collection of stories (collected around 830)
that relate the events of the age is the Historia Brittonum of Nennius.
Arthur is also mentioned, as is Brutus, described as the ancestor of the
Welsh. Perhaps the most authentic of the early Arthurian references is the
entry for 537 in the Annales that briefly refers to the Battle of Camlan in
which Arthur and Medrawd were killed.
The question remains: how did the invaders, small in numbers compared to the
more numerous and settled invaded, come to master the larger part of Britain?
Modern historian John Davies gives us part of the answer: the regions seized
by the newcomers were mainly those that had been most thoroughly Romanized,
regions where traditions of political and military self-help were at their
weakest. Those who chafed at the administration of Rome
could only have welcomed the arrival of the English in such areas as Kent or Sussex, in the southeast. Another
compelling reason cited by Davies is the emergence in Britain of the great plague of the 6th Century
from Egypt that was
especially devastating to the Britons who had been in close contact with
peoples of the Mediterranean. Be that as it
may, the emergence of England
as a nation did not begin as a result of a quick, decisive victory over the
native Britons, but a result of hundreds of years of settlement and growth,
sometimes peaceful, sometimes not.
If it is pointed out that the native Celts were constantly warring among
themselves, it should also be noted that so were the tribes we now
collectively term "the English," for different kingdoms developed
in England
that constantly sought domination through conquest. So we see the rise and
fall of successive English kingdoms of Kent,
Northumbria, Mercia, and Wessex during the 7th and 8th
centuries. Before looking at political developments, however, it is important
to notice the religious conversion of the peoples we commonly call
Anglo-Saxons. Beginning in the late 6th Century, Christianity was able to
create an institution in Britain
that not only transcended political boundaries, but that also created a new
concept of unity among the various tribal regions to override individual
loyalties.
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Originally published at http://www.picturesofengland.com/history/#
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