Throughout the whole of the lands conquered by the Völkerwanderung

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Throughout the whole of the lands conquered by the Völkerwanderung (Germanic Races), it was the Anglo-Saxons who most indelibly imposed themselves, without a doubt, on the lands they conquered.

The Franks, Ostrogoths, Visigoths and Lombards all conquered wide lands and ruled over the native peoples of Gaul, Italy and Spain, but the Anglo-Saxons went a stage further and imposed their language and culture for all time on the lands they conquered.

English place names and the English language have a remarkable lack of Celtic influence considering that the English origins were Celtic. It was, however, thought that the Anglo-Saxons either exterminated the Celtic Britons or drove them out, whereas it is now thought that the Anglo-Saxons imposed themselves upon the native Britons and slowly stifled their existing culture, which would explain the lack of Celtic influence!

There is no doubt that many Britons did flee from the heathens that were advancing upon their country. Many fled to Cornwall, Brittany, Wales and Strathclyde.

Even after ridding the country of its Celtic origins, the Angla- themselves remained well aware of their origins. An example of such is that the English Missionary, St. Boniface in 738, used the Continental Saxon quote “We are of one blood and one bone” in convincing his fellow countrymen to support his mission to be rid of these pagan peoples.

The Romans who conquered Britannia between the 5^th and 7^th Centuries knew the English as Anglii, Saxones, Frisii ad Jutae (a loose federation of Germanic tribes). Yet it was the Normans that gave the more familiar and collective term of “Anglo-Saxons” as a legal definition to the peoples of the land that they had conquered.

In the 3^rd Century, the Saxons began to appear with the Franks, as sea borne raiders. Ptolemy and Bede, both suggested that they came from the lands that surrounded the lower Elbe. They also linked them to he Angles, a race that came from the land of Angeln to the North.

They were also to have links with the Franks and the Thuringians by the revelation of grave-goods. The Jutes were thought to have come from Jutland because of the linguistic similarities in names, although the Jutes who predominantly settled in Kent have been proved to have an affinity with Denmark and the Rhineland Franks after archaeological evidence was unearthed.

Throughout the 4^th Century, sea raids intensified. The main targets were Northern Gaul and Britain. It also appears that at the same time, the Saxons moved southwards to Holland. Until the 8^th Century when Charlemagne subdued the Saxons, those that hadn’t migrated to England had stayed in this region as an independent force.

Archaeology confirms that there was significant habitation of the Saxons throughout the 5th and 6^th Centuries, although there is less documentation of the Saxon settlements in Gaul.

The Advents Saxonum

At the close of three-and-a-half-centuries of Roman rule, in AD402, the Roman legions were withdrawn from Britain. On the south and east coasts which had been protected by the Imperial Forces of the “Count of the Saxon Shore”, the Barbarian raids began to intensify. The written history from this point on is sometimes obscure because f the illiteracy and chaos that surrounded these times.

A warlord, Vawr Tigherne, The Great Leader (Vortigern), ruled Britain by AD430. The 9^th Century historian, Nennius, said that Vortigern had hired a force of mercenaries from the Saxons in order to fight off the Scottish and Pictish raiders, after which Vortigern hired yet more Saxon mercenaries to help to consolidate his position.

According to one story, Vortigern married the daughter of a Saxon commander, and in return, gave him land in Eastern Britain. This may have been nothing more than Vortigern planting colonies of Saxon federates to secure the approaches to London. He may have been using the Saxons in the same way that Barbarians were being employed on the continent. There is evidence from archaeological reports that show Saxon settlements appeared around London and in Kent at this same time.

The Coming of the English or “Adventus Saxonum” that is traditionally dated as AD 449, is probably nothing more than the date when the Saxon raiders and mercenaries began the process of establishing themselves permanently on British soil.

After being invited by Vortigern as mercenaries, the Saxons revolted against him in AD455. The brother Hengist (“Stallion”) and Horsa (“Horse”), according to legend, led the revolt and then established their own kingdom in Kent. The Saxons were soon in control of much of Eastern Britain.

Gildas recorded that around this time sent an appeal know as “Groans of the Britons” to a powerful Roman warlord that was almost certainly Aëtius. The appeal was supposedly messages begging for Imperial forces to be sent to save the Britons from the invaders. The appeal is also known as “the death rattle for Roman Britain”.

The Seven Kingdoms

The war bands and federations had coalesced into prototypical kingdoms; Northumbria, Lindsey, Mercia, Hwicce, Mid-Anglia, East Anglia, Essex, Wessex, Sussex and Kent, by the end of the 6th Century. Christianity finally took over from the Saxons’ Paganism and contact was re-established with the continent.

'Heptarchy' of Seven Kingdoms from about this time is identified by historians (though this is, in fact, something of an over-simplification of a complex political situation). The Anglo-Saxons resumed their relentless drive westwards, with Wessex, Mercia and Northumbria at the forefront. The Anglo-Saxons confined the British to what is nowadays known as the “Celtic Fringe”. This definitive border between the Anglo-Saxons and the Welsh is set when King Offa of Mercia built his famous Dike, at the end of the 9th Century.

Three of the Seven Kingdoms are remembered in the names of the modern English counties, which equate with their territories. - Kent, Sussex and Essex. Whilst Sussex and Essex are simply the kingdoms of the 'South Saxons' and the 'East Saxons' respectively, Kent takes its name from the Cantiaci - the Celtic tribe who inhabited the region before their displacement by the invaders.

The kingdom of the East Angles, which lay in the extreme east of Britain and is still known as East Anglia, comprised of the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk.

The two remaining Angle Kingdoms are those of Northumbria and Mercia. The land “north of the Humber” Northumbria reached as far west as the Irish Sea and as far north as the Firth of Forth.

In the upper and middle Trent Valley, the Kingdom of Mercia had its origins but at the expense of its neighbours - the Middle Angles, the Magonsæte and the Hwicce, expanded gradually until it took in the whole of the English Midlands At its greatest extent it was bounded by the Welsh border in the West, the Thames in the south the Fens in the east and the Humber in the north.

Originating in Hampshire and Wiltshire, the Kingdom of the West Saxons – Wessex - at the expense of its neighbours, expanded like Mercia. Except for Cornwall, Wessex incorporated the whole of England south of the Thames. Wessex gave pre-Conquest England its greatest kings; Alfred the Great, Edward the Elder and Athelstan.