Chapter 4: The Germanic Invasions (Angles, Saxons and Jutes)

Romanised Briton leaders operated the Roman system of local government until about 446, when they made a final, fruitless appeal to Rome for protection. From then onwards, power fell more and more into the hands of local chiefs. From time to time, some of them established a lordship over others. Tradition says that one such overlord, Vortigern, controlled an area from Kent to South Wales. During the post Roman period Celtic traditions again briefly came to the fore in Britain.

The Anglo-Saxon raids continued. They found the island easy to invade. In the south and west a low coast thrusts out toward the continent. The invaders plundered city after city and drove the Britons ever farther westward. From the coast navigable rivers lead inland across a rolling plain. The land itself, covered with green the year round, seemed miraculous. Farmers and herdsmen followed in the wake of the warriors. They cleared the forests for farmland and built long-houses grouped around the large log hall of their chief, which was decorated with carving and paint and hung with shining armour.

These raids were part of a general migration of Germanic tribes in search of new land for their increasing population. Tradition says that the Anglo-Saxon settlement of England began in 449, when Vortigern invited two Jutish chiefs, Hengest and Horsa, to help him defend Kent against invading tribes. Hengest and Horsa later rebelled against Vortigern. Horsa died in battle, but by about 550 the descendants of Hengest had conquered Kent, Sussex, Hampshire, and the Isle of Wight.

Much of the information about the Jutes in England comes from Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation (731), a book by the English historian Bede. Bede was a monk who spent his life in the Northeast of England at the twin monasteries of St Peter's at Wearmouth and St Paul's at Jarrow. The latter was sacked by the Vikings in 794.

Ruins of Jarrow Monastery

Archaeological findings have shown that the Jutes had much in common with both the Saxons in Britain and the ancient Franks, a people of what are now Belgium, western Germany, and the Netherlands. Some historians say the Jutes came from the area of Denmark known today as Jutland.

The Angles came either from Angeln, a district in what is now Schleswig-Holstein, or from Denmark. They were just entering the agricultural stage of civilisation when they arrived in Britain. The Angles occupied the central part of southern Britain and the northern and eastern coasts. They founded the embryonic kingdoms of Mercia, Northumbria and East Anglia. These territories were called Engla land, or Angle land, from which the name England came.

The ancient geographer Ptolemy first mentioned the Saxons in a book he wrote during the AD 100's. According to Ptolemy, the Saxons lived in what is now the state of Schleswig-Holstein in Germany. They were a warlike people who invaded Roman territory in the second half of the 4th century, during the reigns of the emperors Julian and Valentinian. By the close of the 6th century all northwest Germany as far east as the Elbe River had become Saxon territory.

During the 400's and 500's, the Saxons invaded Britain, conquered the Britons who lived there, and settled around the River Thames in southern and eastern Britain. An army of Welsh Celts defeated the invading Saxons in 500, but could not hold off the hoards that were constantly arriving from across the North Sea. The Saxons advanced westwards to the Bristol Channel by 577 and to the Irish Sea by 613. By then, almost all of present-day England was under Anglo-Saxon rule. In the 8th century, the Frankish king Pepin the Short attacked the Saxons who remained in Germany. His son, Charlemagne, subdued them after a series of fierce wars lasting from 772 to 804 and forced them to accept Christianity, and made their land, then called Saxony, part of his empire.

Wherever the Anglo-Saxon settlers went, they largely displaced the Britons, forcing them northwards and westwards into present-day Scotland and Wales. The Britons held out for a number of years under a tribal chief who may have been the real-life hero of the King Arthur legends. Some Britons took refuge in Cornwall or across the Channel in the Roman province of Armorica in northwestern France. This area was later named Brittany after the Britons, who subsequently became known as Bretons. In the 500's and 600's, the Angles made gains in Scotland and captured the land between Wales and the Celtic kingdom of Strathclyde.

Slavery was an institution of the Roman Empire, and picked by the Germanic tribes who dealt with it, as victims or suppliers. When these Germanic tribes reached Britain they brought the practice with them, and the complete disappearance of Celtic culture from the east and south-east of Britain is strong evidence for their success. The chronicler Gildas was probably correct when he claimed that slavery was a common fate for many of his contemporaries, as the story of St. Patrick demonstrates. He was captured by pirates in Britain and spent six years in Ireland before escaping. Almost all the slaves traded in the early middle ages were captured in raids or warfare. It was often the practice to kill the leaders of a losing army and enslave the humbler peasants and local villagers. A common Anglo-Saxon term for a slave was "wealh" (from which we get "Welsh;" it also meant "foreigner."), in addition there were also slaves by "wite-theow" (penal enslavement), and people sometimes sold themselves or their children into slavery in order to settle their debts.

In the late 500's, Christianity came to England for the second time. Saint Augustine of Canterbury travelled from France to Kent and converted Ethelbert, king of the Jutes, to Christianity in 597. Augustine built a monastery near Canterbury, which later became the religious centre of England. During the period that Augustine preached in southern England, Celtic missionaries converted the northern tribes, including the Picts and Scots, to Christianity.

The Anglo-Saxons left their mark on the English language in its grammar and in thousands of words, including perhaps a fifth of the words we use today. These words may be traced to the dialect developed in central England. The southern dialect became the chief literary language of Anglo-Saxon England and was used mainly in writing verse.

The Angles and Saxons soon became the most powerful tribes in England. In time each tribe became divided into separate nations. The Saxons, who occupied southern England, were organised into East Saxons, Middle Saxons, South Saxons, and West Saxons. The Angles lived in northern, central, and eastern England. Their nations were called Mercia, East Anglia, and Northumbria. Other recognisable kingdoms were Wessex, Essex, Sussex and Kent. The seven principle kingdoms were called the Heptarchy. From about 500 to 800, Northumbria, Mercia, and Wessex each controlled, in turn, the other six kingdoms. King Egbert of Wessex, the last kingdom to control the Heptarchy, is often considered the first king of England.