Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain

The Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain is the migration of several Germanic peoples from the western coasts of Europe and their settlement in Great Britain in the 5th century. There is no precise date known, save that it began in the early fifth century after the final departure of Roman troops in 410, and continued for some time thereafter. Their arrival is called the Adventus Saxonum in Latin texts, a characterisation first used by Gildas c. 540.

The Adventus Saxonum is the starting point in the history of England, and is traditionally characterised as an invasion rather than a settlement, with differing dates and circumstances suggested as the best conjecture. Whichever may be best, a measure of the early success of the Anglo-Saxons came in 441, when the Gallic Chronicle of 452 recorded that Britain fell under Saxon domination after suffering many disasters, likely meaning that all contact with the British coast had been cut off by that date.

There is ongoing debate, scholarly and otherwise, as to how and why the Anglo-Saxon settlements were successful and as to the full nature of the relationships between the Anglo-Saxons and Romano-Britons, including to what extent the incomers displaced or supplanted the existing inhabitants. The mostly non-Romanised Britons living in the west and north of Britain were largely unaffected by the Anglo-Saxon settlement.

Peoples

The Venerable Bede translates John, by J. D. Penrose, c. 1902.

The only reliable and useful textual source for the peoples and their original homelands is Bede's Ecclesiastical History, written c. 731. It identifies the migrants as Angles, Saxons and Jutes, and it says (Bk I, Ch 15) that the Saxons came from Old Saxony and the Angles from 'Anglia', which lay between the homelands of the Saxons and Jutes. Anglia is reasonably taken to be the old Schleswig-Holstein Province (straddling the modern Danish-German border), and containing the modern Angeln. Jutland was the homeland of the Jutes, and the coast between the Elbe and Weser rivers is the Saxon point of origin.

Angles, Saxons, Jutes

Artifacts known as tracht (i.e., native costumes that are inappropriate as trade goods) are among the most reliable evidence. One of the distinctions found in burials is in women's fashion, and here there are differences that distinguish and identify Angles, Saxons and Jutes, supplemented by finds that can be related to specific regions of the Continent. In eastern Kent, for example, excavation has uncovered Jutish-style brooches and pottery.

While the ancestral societies and customs of the Angles and Saxons can be deduced from their later attested activities in Britain, there is nothing known of the historical Jutes in their original homeland aside from Bede's statement that they lived north of the Angles. Attempts have been made to fill this vacuum with peoples mentioned in classical and other ancient sources.

Frisians

A type of earthenware unique to the 4th century Frisians, called terp Tritzum, has been found in both Flanders and Kent. This refutes the contention that Frisians were not among the Germanic settlers, such as is attributed to Bremmer's The Nature of the Evidence for a Frisian Participation in the Adventus Saxonum (1990).

There is an ongoing debate as to whether the medieval and modern Frisians are the descendants of the ancient Frisians known to classical writers as the Frisii, or whether those ancient Frisians were replaced by Saxons from the east who were later given the name of the original Frisians. The arguments are beyond the scope of this article and tangential to its point—the 4th and 5th century people of Frisia were among the migrants to Britain and these people are commonly known as Frisians.

The Byzantine scholar Procopius, writing c. 565 in his Gothic Wars (Bk IV, Ch 20), said that Britain in his time was occupied by three peoples: Angles, Frisians and Britons. Procopius said that he was relating information from an informant, likely a member of a Frankish delegation to the court at Byzantium, and did not assert the information as fact. Other information that he related included the inaccurate assertion that there were no horses in Britain. His information about Britain, while occasionally useful, is not considered authoritative.

Scandinavians

The presence of artifacts that are identifiably 'North German' along the coastal areas between the Humber Estuary and East Anglia indicates that Scandinavians migrated to Britain. However, this does not suggest that they arrived at the same time as the Angles (they may have arrived almost a century later), and their status and influence upon arrival is uncertain. In particular, regarding a significant Swedish influence in association with the Sutton Hoo ship and a Swedish origin for the East Anglian Wuffinga dynasty, both possibilities are now considered uncertain.

Franks

A large number of Frankish artifacts have been found in Kent, and these are largely interpreted to be a reflection of trade and commerce rather than early migration. Yorke (Wessex in the Early Middle Ages, 1995), for example, only allows that some Frankish settlement is possible. Frankish sea raiding was recorded as early as 260 and became common for the next century, but their raids on Britain ended c. 367 as Frankish interest turned southward and was thereafter focused on the control and occupation of northern Gaul and Germania.

Russo (Town Origins and Development in Early England, 1998) says that after c. 500 a Frankish warrior-aristocracy moved into eastern Kent and perhaps married into the Jutish royal family, but this would be much later than the arrival of Jutish immigrants and not a migration as such. Yorke (Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England, 1990) notes that the dominant influence in the archaeological record for eastern Kent in the 6th century is Frankish.

Rugii, Danes, Hunni, Bructeri, etc.

Some histories say that Bede (Bk V, Ch 9) named the Fresones (Frisians), Rugini (Rugii), Dani (Danes), Hunni (a Frisian branch known as the Hunsing, but sometimes translated as Huns), Antiqui Saxones (Old Saxons) and Boructuarii (Bructeri) as arriving in Britain among the Angles and Saxons. However, this chapter of the Ecclesiastical History discusses Saint Egbert's intended mission to Germany and the peoples to whom he was to minister there. Bede noted that this is the same land from which the Angles and Saxons came, but did not say that these peoples came to Britain with the Angles and Saxons.

Migration factors

Environmental stress

The low-lying continental coast of Europe was lightly populated until c. 200 BC, when the climate and environment became more amenable to human habitation. Conditions remained favourable from 200 BC to 250 AD, and the region became densely populated.

However the region had been undergoing a series of Marine transgressions (called Dunkirk 0 through Dunkirk IIIb) characterised by a rising water table and floods that left layers of clay on the land. The heaviest blow came with the "Dunkirk II transgression" that began in the 3rd century and continually worsened, leaving large areas of the coast uninhabitable from c. 350–c. 700. People were forced to abandon their homes and emigrate. Archaeologists conducting research along the historically flood-prone coast tell this same story for The Rhine/Meuse delta (Zeeland, Brabant, parts of South Holland and Limburg); Friesland; Groningen; Ostfriesland, German Friesland and the Weser/Jade estuary; and Dithmarschen, Eiderstedt and Nordfriesland.

In the Rhine/Meuse delta, the population became scanty. Between the 5th and 7th centuries there were few centers of occupation in the delta region, and in the estuarine and peat areas no settlements at all have been found. The area would not be repopulated until the Carolingian Era. The areas with river clay were so covered with sedimentation that habitation was almost impossible between 250–650.

The northern region (coastal Netherlands, Germany and Denmark) was dominated by salt marshes, forming a district that was distinct from the southern region, and with a somewhat more erratic history, but with the same story of abandonment as bogs expanded and living conditions became intolerable. By 400–600 the outer islands were only sparsely inhabited, and virtually uninhabited from 600 to 700.

In Angeln c. 320 the population was halved from its level of the 2nd and 3rd centuries, with the people emigrating to points unknown (the Angles are not known to be in Britain at this early date). In the 5th century the population would again be greatly reduced, and this coincides with the arrival of the Angles in Britain.

The climate also became cooler and wetter in Scandinavia, forcing the abandonment of uplands and marginally productive land in Norway, and forcing the abandonment of farmsteads in both Norway and Denmark, especially after 400 AD.

Strong, organised seafaring tradition

Saxon origins are complex and little understood. In the Germanic pre-Migration Period (i.e., before c. 300 AD) they and the related Frisii, Chauci, and Angles inhabited the Continental European coast from the Zuyder Zee to south Jutland. The Chauci were either ancestral Saxons or merged into the Saxons later, and they were one of the most prominent early Germanic seafarers, entering recorded maritime history with a raid on Roman Belgica in AD 41. Chauci raiding was endemic in the North Sea Channel until their last recorded raids c. 170–175. They lost their separate identity in the 3rd century, after which time they were considered to be Saxons.

There was a sharp increase in the number and severity of raids along the British and Continental coasts beginning c. 250, much of it carried out by the Franks, who would become the premier threat for the next 100 years. Beginning c. 280 the Franks were joined by the Saxons, and by c. 350 they would replace the Franks as the primary threat. Saxons would be the only recorded sea raiders in the North Sea between c. 376 and c. 450. The Saxons would continue raiding both Britain and the Continental coast until their settlement in Britain in the 5th century, after which time they would continue their raiding on the Continental coast until the 7th century using Britain as their base.

Little is known of Anglian and Jutish activities, as they are not mentioned by those names. The Angles were not recorded in contemporary sources until c. 550 (mentioned by Procopius in his History of the Wars), while the Jutes are first mentioned by Bede in the 8th century.

British weakness

Main article: End of Roman rule in Britain

The Roman occupation of Britain had been largely focused on the commercially valuable south and east. This region would become integrated into Roman society, governed by a Roman civil administration and laws, and becoming Romanised over time.

By the time Roman troops left this part of Britain for the last time in 407, the Romanised south and east were in a state of economic collapse, accompanied by a de-Romanisation of the populace. Villas, the heart of agrarian Roman society, were being abandoned in large numbers. Coinage became progressively unavailable after 402, and soon disappeared altogether. Roman-style towns, the centers of civil administration and commercial industries, were in a steep decline from which they would not recover. Industrial ceramic production ended, and only the simplest means of market transfer remained in effect, still existing as a barter economy in the mid-5th century.

The west and north of Britain were relatively unaffected. The Roman occupation had been military rather than civil, and as long as these Britons did not interfere with or threaten Roman interests, the Romans were content to leave them alone, allowing their tribal societies to continue as before, with their people never becoming Romanised. Roman troops left these areas in 383, at which time the tribes became independent again, as they had been prior to the Roman invasion.

Early settlements

The earliest cemeteries that can be classified as Anglo-Saxon are found in widely separate regions and are dated to the early 5th century. The exception is in Kent, where the density of cemeteries and artifacts suggest either an exceptionally heavy Anglo-Saxon settlement, or continued settlement beginning at an early date, or both.

Many of the inland settlements are on rivers that had been major navigation routes during the Roman era. These sites, such as Dorchester on Thames on the upper Thames, were readily accessible by the shallow-draught, clinker-built boats used by the Anglo-Saxons. The same is true of the settlements along the rivers Ouse, Trent, Witham, Nene and along the marshy lower Thames. Less well-known due to a dearth of physical evidence but attested by surviving place names, there were Jutish settlements on the Isle of Wight and the nearby southern coast of Hampshire.

By the late 5th century there were additional Anglo-Saxon cemeteries, some of them adjacent to earlier ones, but with a large expansion in other areas, and now including the southern coast of Sussex.

A number of Anglo-Saxon cemeteries are located near or at Roman-era towns, but the question of simultaneous town occupation by the Romano-Britons and a nearby Anglo-Saxon settlement (i.e., suggesting a relationship) is not confirmed. At Roman Caistor-by-Norwich, for example, recent analysis suggests that the cemetery post-dates the town's virtual abandonment.

Implicitly contradicting the archaeological dating, some histories assert that the Anglian settlements in the English Midlands, the heartland of the future Kingdom of Mercia, are the result of an early 6th century invasion by the East Anglians and/or new immigrants from the Continent, rather than the result of 5th century settlement.

Earliest Anglo-Saxon Society

The Anglo-Saxons settled in small groups covering a handful of widely dispersed local communities that can be called "tribal", with a political leadership that was simple, informal, and having a military relevance. There was a peasant element to the Anglo-Saxon influx that contributed to the relatively flat social structure that would still be visible in the 6th century. The earliest settlements show no obvious signs of a stable elite.

Despite their wide distribution in small settlements and a social structure that was only slightly hierarchical, the Anglo-Saxons were quite capable of organising and executing large-scale military operations in the fifth century, a fact confirmed by historical sources. For example, there were raids along the Frankish Continental coast made by large fleets of Saxon ships as far south as the Garonne. The coastal Saxons would continue their predatory raids on the Continental coast until the 7th century, as they had done prior to their migration to Britain.

Common life

Life in Britain was rural. Anglo-Saxons tended to settle as a group in farms consisting of anywhere from 4 to 20 people, in contrast to the British custom of a single farmstead containing a single family. However, the extent to which any such Anglo-Saxon settlement constituted a "village" is debatable, as the medieval English village did not come into existence until the late Saxon period. Neither the early Anglo-Saxons nor the Britons used stone, instead building their structures of wood and thatch. Ceramics were all hand-made and local, and would remain so until the 7th century.

The excavation of early medieval Anglo-Saxon burial grounds suggests high levels of infant and child mortality and a high level of mortality among women of child-bearing age, with most women dying before the age of 35. Men fared somewhat better. The study of teeth and bones suggests that even those who were comparatively wealthy suffered deprivation in their youth. While it would be an overstatement to extrapolate the results of a relatively few excavations to characterise an entire population, nevertheless it is sufficient to disavow any notions that the early Anglo-Saxons obtained a life of ease and comfort after migrating to Britain.

Political structure

Anglo-Saxon society was hierarchical but not strongly so, and probably less than is implied by legal theories, with the bulk of the population either peasants or slaves. The hierarchical structure was characteristic of their ancestral homelands, and was also reflected in Britain in the grave goods of their early cemeteries, where the wealthy can be distinguished from the poor. Yorke (The Conversion of Britain, 2006) describes the early Continental Saxons as having powerful local families and a dominant military leader, while Kirby (The Earliest English Kings, 2000) suggests that even much later, the earliest 6th century kingdoms in Britain can be better described as "chiefdoms" rather than "states".

Number of migrants

Many historians decline to offer a numerical estimate of the number of migrants or their ultimate proportion of the total population, offering only qualitative estimates that state (usually without cited authority) that the proportion of Britons in the post-migration population was substantial, assertions that do not necessarily help in determining the number of migrants. These include Chris Wickham (Framing the Early Middle Ages, 2005), D. P. Kirby (The Earliest English Kings, 2000), Barbara Yorke (Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England, 1990; Wessex in the Early Middle Ages, 1995; The Conversion of Britain 600–800, 2000), Chris Snyder (An Age of Tyrants, 1998) and Nicholas Higham (Rome, Britain and the Anglo-Saxons, 1992).

There is wide variation among those who do offer numerical estimates. Heinrich Härke is quoted by Pryor as arguing that the British population fell from 2–4 million to 1–2 million between the 4th and late 5th centuries, and that there were between 100,000 and 200,000 Anglo-Saxon immigrants. Snyder (The Britons, 2003, revised in 2005) cites Michael Jones for an estimate of between 10,000 and 20,000 Anglo-Saxons, adding that few if any archaeologists support the notion that the British population of what is now England was wiped out. Laing and Laing (Celtic Britain and Ireland, 1990) summarise the evidence as a Roman-era population of perhaps 4 million of which about 90% were rural, to which the Anglo-Saxons added between 10,000 and at most 25,000 (women, children and the infirm included).

Härke's numerical estimate suggests that the Anglo-Saxons constituted between 5% and 20% of the migration-era population of Britain. The extremely low estimates of Jones and Laing seem^{citation needed} to make it impossible for the Anglo-Saxons to have conducted large-scale raids on the Frankish coast, or to have mustered the manpower to engage the Britons in major battles, or to have left sufficient protection for the "women, children and infirm" (Laing's words) while the men were away. It is known that the Anglo-Saxons did all of these things.

While the currently available DNA evidence suggests considerable population continuity from the pre-Roman Iron Age onward, that does not necessarily help in answering the questions of how many Anglo-Saxons migrated to Britain, or their percentage in the migration-era population of Britain.^{citation needed}

See also

• Anglo-Saxon England
• History of England
• Romano-British culture

References

Environment c. 250–500

• Assendorp, Jan-Joost; et. al. (2001), "The Lower Saxony Wadden Sea Region", in Vollmer, M.; et. al., LANCEWAD: Landscape and Cultural Heritage in the Wadden Sea Region—Project Report (12), Wilhelmshaven: Common Wadden Sea Secretariat, pp. 165–194 
• Berglund, Björn E. (2002), "Human impact and climate changes—synchronous events and a causal link?", Quaternary International 105 (1), Elsevier (published 2003), p. 10 
• Ejstrud, Bo; et. al. (2008), in Ejstrud, Bo; Maarleveld, Thijs J., The Migration Period, Southern Denmark and the North Sea, Esbjerg: Maritime Archaeology Programme, ISBN 978-87-992214-1-7 
• Issar, Arie S. (2003), Climate Changes during the Holocene and their Impact on Hydrological Systems, Cambridge: Cambridge University, ISBN 978-0-511-06118-9 
• Knottnerus, Otto S. (2001), "Cultural History", in Vollmer, M.; et. al., LANCEWAD: Landscape and Cultural Heritage in the Wadden Sea Region—Project Report (12), Wilhelmshaven: Common Wadden Sea Secretariat, pp. 29–63 
• Louwe Kooijmans, L. P. (1974), The Rhine/Meuse Delta. Four studies on its prehistoric occupation and holocene geology (PhD Dissertation), Leiden: Leiden University Press 
• Louwe Kooijmans, L. P. (1980), "Archaeology and Coastal Change in the Netherlands", in Thompson, F. H., Archaeology and Coastal Change, London: Society of Antiquaries, pp. 106–133 
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History

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• Russo, Daniel G. (1998), Town Origins and Development in Early England, c. 400–950 A.D., Greenwood Publishing Group, ISBN 9780313300790 
• Snyder, Christopher A. (1998), An Age of Tyrants: Britain and the Britons A.D. 400–600, University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, ISBN 0-271-01780-5 
• Snyder, Christopher A. (2003), The Britons, Malden: Blackwell Publishing (published 2005), ISBN 978-0-631-22260-6 
• Wickham, Chris (2005), Framing the Early Middle Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean, 400–800, Oxford: Oxford University Press (published 2006), ISBN 978-0-19-921296-5 
• Wickham, Chris (2009), "Kings Without States: Britain and Ireland, 400–800", The Inheritance of Rome: Illuminating the Dark Ages, 400–1000, London: Penguin Books (published 2010), pp. 150–169, ISBN 978-014-311742-1 
• Wood, Ian (1988), "The Channel from the 4th to the 7th centuries AD", in McGrail, Seàn, Maritime Celts, Frisians and Saxons, London: Council for British Archaeology (published 1990), pp. 93–99, ISBN 0-906780-93-4 
• Yorke, Barbara (1990), Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England, B. A. Seaby, ISBN 0-415-16639-X 
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• Yorke, Barbara (2006), in Robbins, Keith, The Conversion of Britain: Religion, Politics and Society in Britain c.600–800, Harlow: Pearson Education Limited, ISBN 978-0-582-77292-2 
• Zaluckyj, Sarah, ed. (2001), Mercia: The Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Central England, Little Logaston: Logaston, ISBN 1873827628