Given that is largely about how much war and conflict there was in 5th and 6th century southern Britain, I guess this is the appropriate place to post this.

3 topics that were beaten to death on the old BBC site were: the existence of otherwise of Jesus, who killed the princes in the tower, and the nature of the Anglo-Saxon ‘conquest’ of southern Britain.  I took part in the 1st and 3rd on the BBC but have not much followed the 3rd over the years except to note how various genetic studies, which one thought might have decided things one way or another, seem to come out with quite different results.  

A short while ago the BBC aired a programme ‘King Arthur’s Britain: The Truth Unearthed?’ which I recorded, skimmed and finally got to writing about.  I was not impressed by the programme because I think that, having set to make out a case that, it ignored all evidence that did not fit the case.  

Concerning King Arthur, I do not have a problem with the conclusion that he was legendary, it was more to do with its dealing with the ‘Anglo-Saxon conquest’ that I had my concerns.  The suggestion was that there was no conquest but that there had been a moderate amount of Anglo-Saxon settlement (10% was the figure given which would make it far larger than any current immigrant population) but that it was largely peaceful. 
They referred to the large number of skeletons from the period 400 to 600 AD that had been dug up and that only 2% had evidence of injury from edged weapons.  The slant on this was clearly ‘only 2%’ but then the % of the population killed in WW1 and WW2 combined could be described as ‘only 2%’.  There is also the question as to how certain we can be that the bodies dug up, which I presume will be nearly all single burials, will be typical of the deaths of the whole population, especially those killed in conflict?  If there had been raids across Britain by Anglo-Saxons, Picts and Scots, such as described by Gildas, then it would seem to me that the bodies of those killed would have been more likely to have been left to rot than lovingly buried.  If there had been any battles then the bodies, if not left to rot would have been more likely to be put into mass graves and, even from clearly identified battlefield sites such as Flodden, they seem very hard to find.  

An interesting comparison would have been to look at the skeletons of those who died between 800 and 1000AD, when there were well documented Viking invasions, to see what the % of edged weapons injuries were then.

The programme set up as an ‘Aunt Sally’ to be knocked down the account from Geoffrey of Monmouth of a major war between a British west and an Anglo-Saxon east, but he wrote in the 12th century.  What they did not seem to deal with is the admittedly limited earlier documentation that does not support a peaceful immigration theory.  For example, why should the contemporary Gallic Chronicle write that in 441 AD ‘Britain, which to this time had suffered from various disasters and misfortunes, lost to the Romans, are reduced to the power of the Saxons.’?  Why does Gildas write, as he does in the mid 6th century, of the Saxons that they were ‘hated by man and God’ if they were peaceful settlers; and why is Bede writing in the early 8th C so hostile to the Britons or ‘Nennius’ so hostile to the Saxons?

Lastly there is of course the question of the language and why in England we speak English rather than a language either close to Welsh or Latin?

Tim,

I wanted to read this thread and answer after my other "work", while I thought it was the umptheenth time King Arthur was the subject. And if you see that a thread about Gildas or Horsa and Hengist, brings some endless discussions that I didn't read, I thought my "competence" wouldn't be worth to add to all this.
But now as the "work" is a bit slowed down on the other boards for the moment, reading your insightful message and your pertinent questions I will try to reply in the possibilities of my competence and when I have a bit of time to do an elaborated research. You don't believe it perhaps but I have to start to search, who Gildas was...
And from my "beer" thread I remember that the Church in England to promote beer, especially from the monks, were not afraid to come in with a "wonder" to promote beer "blessed" by the Catholic Church...hence I think it is not that easy to do "historical" research...
But to start with my research and to gather some knowledge...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambrosius_Aurelianus
http://www.englishmonarchs.co.uk/saxon_34.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gildas


And yes, I admit, we overhere know everything about our "Clovis" Chlodovech (illustrious battle), Lodewijk, Ludwig, Louis...

Kind regards from Paul.

Thank you for your response Paul and apologies for taking so long to respond, ever since getting back from Oman I seem to have spent my time trying to catch up on Christmas.

When looking at the period in British history when the English kingdoms emerged, one of the positives is how accessible the original sources, such as they are, compared to other periods of British/English history.  I have copies of Gildas, Bede, Historia Brittonum and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles.  Gildas is I am afraid a most turgid read and how historians which he could have provided a bit less polemic and a bit more history.

regards

Tim

Tim of Aclea wrote:

Thank you for your response Paul and apologies for taking so long to respond, ever since getting back from Oman I seem to have spent my time trying to catch up on Christmas.

When looking at the period in British history when the English kingdoms emerged, one of the positives is how accessible the original sources, such as they are, compared to other periods of British/English history.  I have copies of Gildas, Bede, Historia Brittonum and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles.  Gildas is I am afraid a most turgid read and how historians which he could have provided a bit less polemic and a bit more history.

regards

Tim

 Tim,

reading for the  moment this well documented wiki...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxon_settlement_of_Britain

And still wanted to focus on the Litus Saxonicum and the presence of other "Frankish Germanics" in England in the late Roman period (that I studied for another forum) as evidence of an earlier Germanic presence in England...and also commenting the rest of the wiki.

Kind regards from Paul.

Tim, I am also a survivor of the interminable Arthur discussions on the old BBC board, where opinion varied from those who believed he was one of the elf-people (from which the actor Oliver Tobias was also obviously descended) to those who tried bravely to associate him historically with an origin in Wales, Northern England, Cornwall, Northern France, and all points between.

My problem with Arthur being considered in any potential historical context is that no matter how hard one tries in any serious way - through pruning details from the myth to isolate potential historical fact, reinterpreting philological clues to square with other clues earnestly identified from the archaeological record, and all other serious attempts to identify who or what he might have been - it never produces a character who quite "fits" the historical narrative of the period as identified through standard methods. He can be shoe-horned into several presumed contexts, but never retaining the same personality, identity, personal context and effect in each scenario.

Which is not to say that there never was a real historical post-Roman warlord/chieftain/king who might have given rise to the later myth(s), just that in attempting to retrospectively identify the guy using the assumption of persona suggested by the myths one always ends up in an historical blind alley.

Paul and yourself are correct, I think, in pursuing Arthur through first pursuing what actually was the nature of Saxon infilitration into post- Roman Britain. Over the years I have come to the conclusion that those who suggest the traditional account of full-blooded military invasion and conquest, those who suggest that the Saxon presence pre-dates the end of Roman Britain, those who cite famine and pestilence as the catalyst for Saxon incursion, and those who (as you suggest) apply some rather specific interpretations to what are as yet very inconclusive DNA investigations into the subject to suggest an "elite" coup along the lines of the later Normans, are all actually correct. I cannot believe the "Saxonisation" of most of the island could have been anything but extremely complex and much more protracted than the early retrospective historians allowed for in their assumptions.

And somewhere in that complex process, and probably even with huge personal impact, though maybe restricted to one very small geographical area where the incursion led to a military conflict that impressed on locals the memory of how "real" generals once conducted "real" warfare, the presence of an Oliver Tobias elf-king might well have made some sense.

Paul, I went through the Wikipedia article and not that, unlike the BBC programme that irritated me, it did consider all the evidence rather than just ignore of skim over that which did not fit in with the theory put forward. Regards Tim

Nordmann, thank you for your response.  I am afraid that I had to look up ''Oliver Tobias' and then realised, that as I had never watched 'Arthur of the Britons', why I did not know who he was.

On looking back at my original post, I also realised that I had managed to leave out a rather import 'not' and broadly agree with your conclusions.  The written evidence for 'Arthur' is extremely limited and very late.

I would also agree that the formation of Anglo-Saxon England was a very complex process.  However, any explanation has to take into account that by 650AD, what is now England, was largely ruled by kingdoms that identified themselves as 'English'; the entry in the Gallic Chronicle of 452 for the year 441 stating that large parts of Briton had fallen under Saxon rule; and Gildas, even though he wrote a polemic.

regards Tim

Tim wrote:

However, any explanation has to take into account that by 650AD, what is now England, was largely ruled by kingdoms that identified themselves as 'English'; the entry in the Gallic Chronicle of 452 for the year 441 stating that large parts of Briton had fallen under Saxon rule

Exactly, and I agree that the question of identity was largely settled by the 7th century - though some pockets of "England" may still have retained a non-Saxon primary element in their local identity that just wasn't deemed worthy of comment by ecclesiasticals of the period. It's hard to know at this remove, but such is more common than not in incidences of national evolution of identity elsewhere and there's no reason to think that England would have been any different.

Your comment also brings to mind two very awkward questions that were once aimed at a rather eminent expert in Anglo-Saxon studies who was conducting a lecture I attended. So awkward indeed that the "expert" had to rather bashfully admit that in this area, for himself and all other fellow "experts" who specialised in this period to varying degrees of expertise, the only honest answer which could be given was "we just don't know".

The first question was the old standard of why, if it was the Saxons who should get the credit for turning Britons into English, and especially if they did so through domination, why then didn't they become the Saxish of Saxland, and not end up with the whole country called after one alleged bunch of invaders who never really made it out of the fenlands in the east and who by all near-contemporary accounts were culturally and politically distinct enough to retain a competing and quite distinct non-Saxon identity?

The second question was new to me at the time, but one that I've always kept in mind since whenever I read about the period - who exactly were these "Saxons" anyway? Modern Germany traces two distinct (and rather far apart) regions back to a supposed original Saxon "tribe" which, it is now believed, actually was never a single tribe at all but two quite separate and unique bodies of people who assumed the name at different times. It doesn't help that those who research very old German etymological roots can't really explain why any tribe should adopt as a name a word that essentially means "division" ("saks", modern "scissors", comes straight from the same root, which is why some English historians even ascribe the name - without any evidence - to the fact that they wore scissors on their belts, I kid you not). Throw in the fact that historians of linguistics can see many more common roots between English and Friesian than between English and Old German as might have been spoken by German Saxons, whereas historians of the early first millennium can't see any evidence for any new mass German settlement of Friesia (let alone by "Saxons") in the immediate precursor to any alleged "invasion" of Britain, and one can see that any assumptions we might care to make - especially if one wants to start running DNA comparisons to hopefully reinforce them - are fraught with some very real possibilities that maybe tradition has to some extent adopted the wrong names for all the wrong people anyway. There is no doubt that the Germanic speaking people in England, once they assumed predominance, certainly called themselves "Saxon" (and were called such by others) before the identity of "English" came to the fore, but the question is what prompted them to do it, and what originally might it have meant if it didn't actually mean a single tribe at all?

I suppose if one uses the "English" "invasion" of "Ireland" as a later parallel it isn't so hard to see how something described in such simplistic terms inevitably covers but pastes over an absolute multitude of methods, motives, perceptions and effects, none of which remained constant over the many centuries that eventually resulted in both identities solidifying into their modern versions. The inescapable political realities of this outcome were also the driving force behind retrospective "histories" of the process, some of which later elevated certain individuals who - just as with Arthur - may have resisted change at the beginning, into myth-like entities whose ascribed motives and achievements owed much more to the sympathies of the myth-makers than to whatever reality had once pertained.

St Chad (who had his principal base first at Repton in Derbyshire, later at Lichfield in Staffs) is/was known variously as "Apostle to the Mercians" or "Apostle to the Angles". His brother, St Cedd, is usually referred to as "Apostle to the East Angles", and also worked amongst the East Saxons, with a probable birth date in the 620s. That may (or may not) imply a wider distriobution of "Angles" than you suggest. Both were Northumbrian by birth. Little of this comes from reliable contemporary sources, of course, mostly it comes from Bede's works.

GG wrote:

That may (or may not) imply a wider distribution of "Angles" than you suggest.

Knowing where Anglia and the Angles began and ended at any one moment is notoriously difficult, often due to the ecclesiastical habit of using both terms rather generally to areas and populations which, politically, were ruled by dynasties that are historically regarded as Saxon and outside "Anglia" per se. The kingdom of East Anglia is well attested, but the implication that therefore there must have been at some point a "West Anglia" or "Greater Anglia" can't be supported with any certainty. Church documents definitely hinted at their existence, or at least that the people in such areas should be termed "Angles", but we don't have any records outside of these ecclesiastical references pointing to equivalent political dynasties sharing that identity.

But while the ambiguity surrounding Angles is generally accepted by historians tackling this period, that surrounding Saxons - to me - is even more baffling in that it isn't acknowledged as often, even though it is a much more glaring gap in our knowledge of the political developments that led to a Saxon land carved into kingdoms in which the language and culture of the Saxons prevailed. Using political nomenclature we can certainly place people identifying as Saxons in Wessex, Sussex and Essex. However the absence historically of a "Nossex" (thanks, we're British?) means that we can only guess the extent to which people north of the Thames identified primarily as "Saxon" at all.

This map, based on how Britain might have appeared politically in the century immediately following Roman withdrawal (the one in which an Arthur is generally believed to have existed), shows how - if one removes the "Saxon" identity from the equation -  there was huge potential for forging highly separate identities throughout the territory, based on geography, old Celtic regional identities, Roman administrative remnants, invaded lands, and local power grabs by chieftains and other leaders, Saxon or otherwise. Anglia is there, occupying more or less the territory that would later be called "East Anglia" even though it never expanded in documented history in the meantime. Saxons get a tiny mention in the assumed areas of political demarcation (confusingly "Wessex" in the map, but probably because the author shied away from calling it 'Sexland) based solely on what is believed to have been their first overt assumption of power a la Hengist and Horsa etc  - their otherwise obvious absence from political nomenclature either because they haven't arrived yet in any great military numbers (invasion theory) or simply don't merit it yet based on their wielding of power based on demographic predominance (the slow accretion of population theory). Yet little more than a century later they would get the credit for turning the whole place "English" right up to Strathclyde, and the Angles would get the credit for having provided the actual name for that identity. Any sixth century political analyst trying to guess how things would develop based on the image below would never have seen that coming - and we're not sure either even after the event how it actually happened.

nordmann,

thank you very much for all the pertinent replies to this complex matter. I read it all in an intensif way.
And as they said in your example: We just don't know it, they had to add perhaps "for the moment". While in my humble opinion as for the Litus Saxonicum and the Flemish Coast Plain there is some progress with a multidisciplinary approach: linguistics, toponymy, archaeology (in the broader sense) and yes genetics, but to be considered perhaps with a pinch of salt. I remember from the BBC times the controversy, was it not about the Saxons or was it about the Vikings? Have to check...
The same perhaps as I just mentioned in another message about the disappearance of the bricks for some centuries in Northern Europe after the decline of the Roman Empire...all kind of theories so that one at the end had to say up to now we don't know it, but in the article that I mentioned there is hope for further research that can hint at the end for some clue...

Again thanks for all the new insights that I learn from you and with kind regards from Paul.

The "Saxon Shore" is something of a conundrum - opinion divided as to whether the strongholds and forts represent simple coastal defences against potential Saxon invasion (the traditional view) or in fact a rather more complex set of installations that may even have been partly administered by Saxons themselves in an arrangement with what had become a fractured and fractious Roman administration, an administration which for long periods towards the end of official occupation was "Roman" only in name and was increasingly being usurped, adapted and ignored by various local magnates (who identified as Roman only in so far as it suited them at times, which sometimes wasn't at all).

The installation has no contemporary reference in documentation (it first appears in the record as a retrospective reference to a previously appointed "Count" whose responsibility it apparently was to oversee), though the forts themselves can of course be easily verified archaeologically as having existed in some form. However the archaeology doesn't quite fit as nicely into the concept of outward-facing defensive installations as traditionalists might have hoped, and the more they are examined as contextual elements of late Roman political and military topography the more they suggest a whole range of applications over the time that they were in use, some of them even pointing (literally) towards having been primarily designed to control and monitor internal communities, not to detect and intercept any necessarily coming from an offshore location.

The truth is probably a combination of all of these functions, applications and reasons, and in fact their geographical concentration and the "Saxon" appellation may in fact be totally misleading, especially when viewed in the broader context of contemporary military structures being installed and (presumably) manned throughout the island at that time. This was a Roman province in something of a crisis throughout the period, but the nature of that crisis, in which threat of invasion definitely existed as one part, may not be best understood if looked at purely as a "Roman V Saxon" dilemma. Also, it is worth noting that despite this state of crisis which pertained the province itself, in the broader context of Roman decline, was arguably one of the best administered and more stable areas ostensibly under Roman "rule", precisely in all likelihood due to its administrative flexibility both politically and militarily, and its recorded lack of aversion to "striking out on its own" when needs must (something like today's Brexit, but with demonstrably more intelligence involved). For such a far-flung part of the empire it definitely provided more than its fair share of "Roman" magnates who either set themselves up as alternative "emperors" in a British or Northern Empire context, or who even availed of the same launchpad to achieve outright control of the empire itself. This in itself suggests an area that was very much secure in its inclination for self-determination when deemed suitable, its self-administration, and its own independent military might - not exactly a province cowering under the threat of any incursion by a "Saxon" barbarian rabble, even right up to the official end of Roman occupation. However the "Saxon Shore" fitted into that picture it certainly wasn't as a simplistic local defence against one potential source of invasion, though it may well have ended up as something like that in its very last (and probably most unsuccessful) manifestation.

I still think the main stumbling block in all this attempt at analysis based on very patchy information is the naive acceptance of "Saxon" as a straightforward generic term indicating a particular tribe of potential invaders. This is certainly how early chroniclers (writing quite some time later) chose to represent them, but I have a suspicion that we now run the risk of confusing what may well be a conflated, inflated, and politically expedient identity retrospectively applied by these chroniclers with a rather more complex set of peoples and events than "Hengist and Horsa" could ever accurately represent.

Explaining this at the top of my preamble, I quoted something from nordmann's quote above and have not been able to get the background to match mine in typing mode (it appears - the quote - as white lettering on dark background; I could change that without thinking when I was working full-time but have forgotten [perhaps YouTube will help me]).  I wanted also to say that there are some notes in the fictional account by the late Alfred Duggan that I refer to, in which the author explains what was documented historically (which, again Wikipedia being my guide was not so much) and where he let his imagine fill the lacunae.

I remember Catigern saying something about there being a school of thought that there might have been some intermingling between Celts and people coming over from Europe.  Didn't the Celts originally come from Europe only at an earlier time?  (The last sentence is my question and doesn't come from anything Catigern said).  I remember reading and liking (the best part of 30 years ago) The Age of Arthur by John Morris but I've just had a quick look on Wikipedia and other scholars don't appear to have considered the book totally credible.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Morris_(historian)  Another (this time fictional) book that I read back in the day was Alfred Duggan's The Little Emperors about the time when various people were setting themselves up as successors to the Roman rule.  As nordmann said above "For such a far-flung part of the empire it definitely provided more than its fair share of "Roman" magnates who either set themselves up as alternative "emperors" in a British or Northern Empire context, or who even availed of the same launchpad to achieve outright control of the empire itself."


Edit: When I posted this the colouring of the font and background corrected itself.

Regardless of the exact function of the 'Saxon Shore Forts' the Notitia Dignitum, with its reference to the 'Count of the Saxon Shore' would appear to be the earliest reference to 'Saxon' in a British context.

Gildas writing c540AD refers to 'Saxons (name not to be spoken) hated by man and God', so clearly not a fan of them.

The Historia Brittonum was written in the 820s and, according to the compiler, includes documents written earlier. It refers to the Saxons, although in my copy it is translated as English.  For example 31 'ad adventum Saxonum' is translated as 'the coming of the English' and 57 is translated as 'English thugs' although in Latin it is 'Saxones ambronum'.  I don't think the author liked us either.

The Welsh derogatory term for the English 'Sais', the Scottish 'Sassenach' and the Irish 'Sasanach' (I think), are all derived from 'Saxon' and not from Angle.  This is despite that, if Bede was correct, Northumbria was 'Angle' in origin and it is those whom the 'Irish living in Britain' (Scots) and Picts would most have come into contact.  Similarly the main contact for the Welsh would have been the Mercians (also Angles according to Bede).

Tim

ps thanks for the map which I had not seen before.

"Celt" is probably even worse than "Saxon" as a generic term. It was coined originally as a linguistic term, using a form of an older Greek word to denote people of a certain period who shared a common group of languages. During the 19th century and with a rise in Irish and Welsh nationalism in particular, the term came more and more to describe a people genetically distinct from later Europeans, which is all very well except that it also risks implying a much closer ethnic, cultural and genetic link between those so named as could ever have really existed.

At this stage, and especially given its almost unquestioning acceptance in American culture as a meaningful ethnic adjective, it is almost futile trying to point out such an obvious flaw in its use as a "genetic marker" in historical European social development over several millennia, and we're all guilty of using it as a shorthand description of something that in fact doesn't really bear up to much rigorous scrutiny when it comes to cultural or ethnic identity, except in so far as such has been re-invented or re-appraised in the last century or two.

I mentioned it here before and was met with some disbelief, I recall, until others checked further and found it was indeed correct. But if you visit the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin and have a close look at the descriptions of the many hundreds of Bronze Age and Iron Age artefacts on display, you will no longer ever see the word "Celt" or "Celtic" used at all.

In fact this particular topic's focus on the transition period between Roman and Saxon Britain is probably as good a place as any to highlight how inferior and unsatisfactory use of "Celtic" to describe anyone actually is, unless of course it is used in juxtaposition with and opposition to a perceived "non-Celtic" influence. We can therefore talk glibly and without fear of being too badly misunderstood about Germanic Saxons invading what was still a community of Celtic Britons. However what we have actually achieved in using those terms is a rather offhand dismissal of whatever culture, identity and ethnic affiliation the various people involved in that period of British history may have actually adopted. One thing we can be sure of - the "Celts" certainly never would have called themselves that, and the "Saxons" may in fact have adopted that identifier to distinguish them from their Germanic roots, not advertise them. It's a shame we hold ourselves hostage to such imprecision - it certainly interferes, I reckon, with a proper examination of what might really have been going on, for which we have little enough information to go on anyway, without introducing the unnecessary complication of what are often very modern generalisations of no real relevance whatsoever.

EDIT: Tim - you posted while I was composing ... I don't dispute a single word you say regarding the timing of the terms' introductions into the extant written record, or indeed how they were being interpreted as badges of identity at that later time either. My only caveat would be to be very careful assuming that this adoptive identity can be retrospectively applied as always having meant the same thing. I have a similar problem with how people use the word "Irish", in fact, once they start talking about Gaelic culture pre-dating any broad communal adoption of common identity at all. And likewise, I would be very interested in learning about the true linguistic roots of the "Saxon" appellation, even within Germany before it ever got exported to Britain at all. So far I haven't found any books or essays that tackle this head-on, but if you ever come across any please let me know (I imagine if I could speak German to academic standard I might have better luck finding such research).

PS: I imagine the Gaelic adoption of the "Sassainigh" to identify the "English" dates back to some rather serious military conflicts between both sides at quite an early stage in post-Roman "Anglo-Irish Relations", specifically when the former quite regularly made concerted efforts to compete militarily with the latter over large tracts of Northern Britain in the vacuum that persisted over that entire period, essentially a struggle to establish who or what might ultimately emulate the level of power and control the Roman administration had once held. No one really did, as it turned out, but it wasn't for want of trying and everyone got to know each other a little more than any of them really wanted to in the process. If, as is presumed, a feature of early Saxon rise to dominance in England was their military prowess, then it isn't too far-fetched to assume that those who they met as enemies in battle came to identify the opposing people with that particular name rather than the more neutral and seemingly church-approved "Angle". Makes sense to me anyway - even the most rookie Gaelic infantryman would have known he wasn't always up against an army from Norfolk.

nordmann wrote:

The "Saxon Shore" is something of a conundrum - opinion divided as to whether the strongholds and forts represent simple coastal defences against potential Saxon invasion (the traditional view) or in fact a rather more complex set of installations that may even have been partly administered by Saxons themselves in an arrangement with what had become a fractured and fractious Roman administration, an administration which for long periods towards the end of official occupation was "Roman" only in name and was increasingly being usurped, adapted and ignored by various local magnates (who identified as Roman only in so far as it suited them at times, which sometimes wasn't at all).

The installation has no contemporary reference in documentation (it first appears in the record as a retrospective reference to a previously appointed "Count" whose responsibility it apparently was to oversee), though the forts themselves can of course be easily verified archaeologically as having existed in some form. However the archaeology doesn't quite fit as nicely into the concept of outward-facing defensive installations as traditionalists might have hoped, and the more they are examined as contextual elements of late Roman political and military topography the more they suggest a whole range of applications over the time that they were in use, some of them even pointing (literally) towards having been primarily designed to control and monitor internal communities, not to detect and intercept any necessarily coming from an offshore location.

The truth is probably a combination of all of these functions, applications and reasons, and in fact their geographical concentration and the "Saxon" appellation may in fact be totally misleading, especially when viewed in the broader context of contemporary military structures being installed and (presumably) manned throughout the island at that time. This was a Roman province in something of a crisis throughout the period, but the nature of that crisis, in which threat of invasion definitely existed as one part, may not be best understood if looked at purely as a "Roman V Saxon" dilemma. Also, it is worth noting that despite this state of crisis which pertained the province itself, in the broader context of Roman decline, was arguably one of the best administered and more stable areas ostensibly under Roman "rule", precisely in all likelihood due to its administrative flexibility both politically and militarily, and its recorded lack of aversion to "striking out on its own" when needs must (something like today's Brexit, but with demonstrably more intelligence involved). For such a far-flung part of the empire it definitely provided more than its fair share of "Roman" magnates who either set themselves up as alternative "emperors" in a British or Northern Empire context, or who even availed of the same launchpad to achieve outright control of the empire itself. This in itself suggests an area that was very much secure in its inclination for self-determination when deemed suitable, its self-administration, and its own independent military might - not exactly a province cowering under the threat of any incursion by a "Saxon" barbarian rabble, even right up to the official end of Roman occupation. However the "Saxon Shore" fitted into that picture it certainly wasn't as a simplistic local defence against one potential source of invasion, though it may well have ended up as something like that in its very last (and probably most unsuccessful) manifestation.

I still think the main stumbling block in all this attempt at analysis based on very patchy information is the naive acceptance of "Saxon" as a straightforward generic term indicating a particular tribe of potential invaders. This is certainly how early chroniclers (writing quite some time later) chose to represent them, but I have a suspicion that we now run the risk of confusing what may well be a conflated, inflated, and politically expedient identity retrospectively applied by these chroniclers with a rather more complex set of peoples and events than "Hengist and Horsa" could ever accurately represent.

nordmann,

I agree with all what you say and I read already about the forts you mentioned...and yes the term "Saxon"...have to look from where it comes from...but you could be right...have to check it.."Saxon" is such a generic term...there were already Germanic tribes overthere from the time of Caesar...and yes, somewhere you spoke about Welsh, Wallish, Waals...speaking another language than we the Germanics...
I have still a thread as a résumé on the Passion Histoire to do further research...
http://passion-histoire.net/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=40634

Will seek what I can find on the "Saxon" term, if I even find something...

And thanks again for your thoughts about the question.

Kind regards from Paul.

nordmann,

did some quick research...on the internet!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxon_Shore
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Count_of_the_Saxon_Shore
http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupid?key=ha000272914
And still reading a pdf from a thesis of the university of New Mexico
https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/hist_etds/118/
Britain and the Anglo-Saxons in Late Antiquity

Kind regards from Paul.

So does the mantra "They were called Saxons because they used the seax" have any validity? There seem to have been a plethora of (non-scissor) types of seax - though I doubt if the heraldic ones on my Essex County Cricket Club membership many years ago would be much use in combat.

The Jutes seem to have been a rather distinct group from the 'other' Saxons and Angles. According to Bede, the Jutes, probably coming from the northern end of Jutland peninsular in what is now Denmark, settled only in Kent and the Isle of Wight (and also maybe a little bit on the mainland just across the Solent in southern Hampshire and coastal west Sussex), but certainly no further. It has been suggested that initially Jutish Kent may even have even been under the nominal dominion of Merovingian Francia. In any case from what I've read, the culture of the early Kingdom of Kent seems to have been somewhat different to that of the 'other' Saxons, with their decoration on jewellery and pottery generally indicating closer connections to the northern Franks, than to their Germanic barbarian co-invaders. Most of these, albeit rather scarce, archaeological remains are almost inevitably from grave goods, rather than from any evidence of the society as a whole, but this in itself also perhaps sets the Jutes apart as they, from their first arrival in Britain, tended to bury their dead rather than follow the 'pagan' and early Saxon/Anglian custom of cremation.

Although the christianization of the Anglo-Saxons of 'England' began in Kent, with the arrival of Augustine of Canterbury and his Gregorian mission in 597, Kent by then already seems to have had much closer ties, both commercial and cultural, with christian Francia just across the Channel. The name of the Kentish Kingdom, Cantaware, essentially retained the old Roman name for the region, Cantiaca, which in turn was named after the pre-Roman tribal kingdom of the Cantiaci. The maintenance of the name has been advanced as evidence that the local Romano-British population and perhaps even some of their social and legal organisations, were not simply swept aside by the Jutes' arrival, but to a large degree remained in place to be adopted by the new-comers.

Traditionally the first King of Kent was Hengist (who according to Bede landed with his brother at Ebba's Creek in Kent in 449) although the earliest recorded King was Æthelberht in the late sixth century; he it was who gave his support to St Augustine (and so was deemed worthy of record by later monkish scribes). The Kingdom of Kent lost its independence in the 8th century when it became a sub-kingdom of Mercia and then in the 9th century a sub-kingdom of Wessex.

Meles meles wrote:

The Jutes seem to have been a rather distinct group from the 'other' Saxons and Angles. According to Bede, the Jutes, probably coming from the northern end of Jutland peninsular in what is now Denmark, settled only in Kent and the Isle of Wight (and also maybe a little bit on the mainland just across the Solent in southern Hampshire and coastal west Sussex), but certainly no further. It has been suggested that initially Jutish Kent may even have even been under the nominal dominion of Merovingian Francia. In any case from what I've read, the culture of the early Kingdom of Kent seems to have been somewhat different to that of the 'other' Saxons, with their decoration on jewellery and pottery generally indicating closer connections to the northern Franks, than to their Germanic barbarian co-invaders. Most of these, albeit rather scarce, archaeological remains are almost inevitably from grave goods, rather than from any evidence of the society as a whole, but this in itself also perhaps sets the Jutes apart as they, from their first arrival in Britain, tended to bury their dead rather than follow the 'pagan' and early Saxon/Anglian custom of cremation.

Although the christianization of the Anglo-Saxons of 'England' began in Kent, with the arrival of Augustine of Canterbury and his Gregorian mission in 597, Kent by then already seems to have had much closer ties, both commercial and cultural, with christian Francia just across the Channel. The name of the Kentish Kingdom, Cantaware, essentially retained the old Roman name for the region, Cantiaca, which in turn was named after the pre-Roman tribal kingdom of the Cantiaci. The maintenance of the name has been advanced as evidence that the local Romano-British population and perhaps even some of their social and legal organisations, were not simply swept aside by the Jutes' arrival, but to a large degree remained in place to be adopted by the new-comers.

Traditionally the first King of Kent was Hengist (who according to Bede landed with his brother at Ebba's Creek in Kent in 449) although the earliest recorded King was Æthelberht in the late sixth century; he it was who gave his support to St Augustine (and so was deemed worthy of record by later monkish scribes). The Kingdom of Kent lost its independence in the 8th century when it became a sub-kingdom of Mercia and then in the 9th century a sub-kingdom of Wessex.

Meles meles,

read last night the whole pdf of Todd Morrison, nearly a book, that I mentioned yesterday and he tries to explain what is known about the several tribes, confederacies of tribes from the late antiquity
"Britain and the Anglo-Saxons in the late antiquity"
https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1112&context=hist_etds

I first start while I am here with what I learned from the thesis that I read tonight...some excerpts...

"It can be that the nucleus of the Saxon confederacy may be the Chauci..."
"Marine transgression began in the early third century...in the Lowlands the agricultural economy was destroyed followed by massive depopulation. The early Frankish moved into the vacuum."
"The coastal lands of the Chauci region...and after the flooding of the third century raiding may have been a survival tactic..."

"The origins of the Saxons"
"Therefore the original name of the word may not have necessarily referred to a "tribe", but possibly to a type of raider, particularly sea-raiders. In this sense, from the fourth century into the middle of the fifth the term may have been more akin to the medieval word "viking" or the modern term "terrorist".

MM I will go further to compare what he writes about "The origin of the Angles and Jutes" with what you mentioned.

Kind regards from Paul.

Meles meles,

again:
https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1112&context=hist_etds

The origins of the Angles and the Jutes
The author say not that much about the Jutes...
Page 54
"Angles and Jutes belonged to the Suebic confederacy
The Jutes: However, when Britain re-enters the historical record they seem to be the most powerful kingdom, with marital connections to the Merovingians, as well as being the main channel by which continental trade items entered the country."

And there were also the Frisii and perhaps longer in Roman Britain than the others. Even in the "notitia Dignitatum" an entry to "Tribunus cohortis primae Frixagorum Vindobala"

Page 72.
Sub-Roman Britain: explanation of the Dark Earth Stratum in Sub-Roman towns...
Page 90.
Comments on the change to the Anglo-Saxon culture and about the controversy with the two models and perhaps a third intermediary one...

Kind regards from Paul.

In 286AD the Roman commander Borus Carausias declared that he was immediately instigating article L and that Britannia would be Brexiting from the EU aka Roman Empire.  He justified his actions based on the vast increase in bureaucracy in the Roman Empire, for example the number of Emperors had recently increased fourfold.  Also he claimed that there were hordes of barbarians that the Empire would just let in.  “Britannia for the Britons” he declared, “we don’t want the country overrun by Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Scots.”  He dismissed as scaremongering claims that the EU aka Roman Empire would send an army to recover Britannia.  After all Romania had recently left the Roman Empire.  As for suggestions that after a Brexit there would be no more roads built for over 1400 years and it would be more than 1600 years before central heating systems became available again, he responded that “We are Britons, of course we will be able to construct roads and put in central heating systems, don’t you believe in Britannia?”  The most extreme scare story though was that following Brexit the population would crash to only 20% of what it currently was and would take 1300 years to recover, well that was just doom mongering put out by the ‘Romaners’ as he characterised those who wanted to stay part of the empire.  They would be fed to the lions!  He dismissed calls for a plebiscite pointing out that the Britons had never voted to join the Empire and so therefore constitutionally a vote was not needed to leave it.  Britannia would grow rich on free trade deals with the Irish, Picts, Frisians and Parthians.  Britannia would also retain part of Northern Gaul to prevent any camps of people trying to get into Britannia being established there.  He dismissed as baseless lies the suggestions that he had only gone for Brexit for personal gain.  His battle chariot toured the country with its slogan ‘just imagine if we had 350 denarii a week to spend on our gladiatorial contests’.  

In 293AD Boris Carausius lost control of Gaul to the EU aka Roman Empire and his assistant Michaelus Allectus decided that he could no longer support Borus Carausias’ leadership and stabbed him in the back (literally).  However, in 296AD the EU aka Roman Empire invaded Britannia, defeated the rebels and the first Brexit came to an end.

That's funny, Tim.  I remember in "Asterix chez (or 'et') les Bretons" that the Bretons broke off in mid-battle to have a tea break.  I never minded the silly anachronisms in Asterix, though I hated The Flintstones with their stone-age cars.

Actually, LiR, I think you'll find if you read it again that the Britons knocked off battle at 4pm every day to partake of a cup of hot water with a little milk. It was only at the very end of the story when Asterix suggested they should add some mysterious herbs provided by Getafix to their brew that it became "tea". :)

Mind you, Carausius himself wouldn't have looked out of place in an Asterix story. At least if one goes by this coin that he had minted in his pomp and prime (and obviously designed by an ancestor of his compatriot, the great Alberto Uderzo).



On a more serious note - if one overlooks the small complication of the lad being from Flanders and his obvious designs on acquiring rather more power than he ended up with his "revolution" that barely reached beyond Britain (the lad started however by thinking very big indeed), then Carausius serves as a very practicable prototype for all the Arthurs that came later. He certainly seems to have at least united Romano-British Britain in every important respect for that period, getting the entire military, navy, and economic system completely under his sway. Well, the whole caboodle except little Allectus, obviously ....

It's more than 50 years since I read it, nordmann, so you're probably right.

With regard to the kingdom of Kent and the modern county of Kent, there is still a divide between those who are 'Men of Kent' (and presumably women), who live to the east of the River Medway; and Kentish men, who live to the west.  It was been suggested that this may go back to the original Jutish kingdom being to the east of the Medway and the settlements to the west being those of the 'East Saxons'; but with the Jutes eventually prevailing.

Tim

LadyinRetirement wrote:

That's funny, Tim.  I remember in "Asterix chez (or 'et') les Bretons" that the Bretons broke off in mid-battle to have a tea break.  I never minded the silly anachronisms in Asterix, though I hated The Flintstones with their stone-age cars.

Lady,


about the authors

from nordmann:
"Mind you, Carausius himself wouldn't have looked out of place in an Asterix story. At least if one goes by this coin that he had minted in his pomp and prime (and obviously designed by an ancestor of his compatriot, the great Alberto Uderzo)."


https://visit.brussels/binaries/content/assets/pdf/2017.19.05_pr_asterix_en.pdf

Kind regards from Paul.

This is something I posted on a local history site awhile back

Genocide is not something one normally associates with the Isle of Wight with its seaside resorts, Osborne House and Carisbrooke Castle.  However, that is precisely what happened on the island in the year 686AD.  In 685AD a member of the West Saxon royal family, Caedwalla, gain controlled of the Wessex, the most powerful of the southern English kingdoms.  His brief three year reign seems to have been spent in constant war attempting to gain control of all of England south of the Thames.  

Even before becoming king he had launched an attack on the kingdom of Sussex, killing King Ethelwalh.  He was, however, driven out by two of the dead king’s ealdormen.  In 686 he invaded the Isle of Wight and systematically set about exterminating the population, replacing it with new settlers from the mainland.  The two remaining members of the Isle of Wight royal family, both boys, (Yes, the Isle of Wight did at one time have its own king) were captured and killed.  In the same year Caedwalla invaded Kent and initially forced the people of Kent to accept him as king, leaving his brother Mul in charge.  Caedwalla also controlled Surrey and reinvaded Sussex killing one of the two ealdormen who had previously defeated him.

In 687, however, the tide started to turn as the people of Kent revolted, captured Mul and burnt him at the stake.  Caedwalla, himself, had been badly wounded while fighting in the Isle of Wight, showing the population had not gone down without a battle.  Probably feeling that he was soon going to have to answer for his violent rule, in 688 he gave up the throne of Wessex and instead set out on pilgrimage to Rome.  In 689 he was baptised in the presence of the Pope, dying ten days later.

According to Bede the Isle of Wight, like Kent had been settled by Jutes rather than Angles or Saxons.  The genocidal attack on the Jutes of the island would seem to reflect a very high level of hostility between two different Germanic groups and is, as far as I am aware, unique in early English history.  Wessex retained control of the Isle of Wight but it was to be 150 years before it regained control of Kent, Surrey and Sussex.

That's interesting, Tim. In the Irish Annals there is mention of a deputation from the Isle of Wight ("Inis Mhicht" in Gaelic) around that period who asked for military aid from an Irish king in a fight against Saxon invaders. They get a mention only because of their bad timing - they arrived just in time for a rather turbulent series of battles that saw power in the Irish South-East shift from a clan called the Chonghaile to a federation of clans led by their near-relations Conailligh (the deputation had approached the former) and in which they themselves died at the Battle of Imleach Phích, having been told by the Chonghaile they would get help only if they first helped out in the king's own little dispute.

It is always assumed that they were "Britons" as all we know about their plight was that they identified their enemy as "Saxons" and this was enough of a reason to help them as was needed according to the annalists. Though in truth by then the term Sassainigh in Irish covered a multitude of different peoples, as so too indeed did the term "Bríotánach" which was often applied in the annals to anyone from that Island who simply didn't identify as Saxon, even if they were Saxons who had fallen out with other Saxons (not uncommon at all). But it's interesting that this event was written to have coincided with the death of St Cuthbert of Larne (one of those dubious "Bríotánaigh" if ever there was one - a Durham-based Saxon who identified as a Briton and had risen through a Gaelic church), which is recorded in the Annals of the Four Masters as having occurred in 686.

Thanks for the information, gentlemen.  Tim is right - one (well this one i.e. Sincerely Thine doesn't) doesn't normally think of the Isle of Wight as being a hub of violence though I'm sure it has its 'rough' areas as any location does. I hadn't thought of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes fighting among themselves though I shouldn't be surprised as disputes often occur when land is 'up for grabs'.

nordmann, back in the realms of time did any people from Ireland ever try to launch an invasion of what is now England (or Wales).  I've never heard of one but I come across things I haven't heard of before on an almost daily basis - and not just on Res Hist. I had heard something to the effect that the ancestors of the Scots migrated from Ireland but have never researched its veracity.  But then I'd heard (not that I think they ever tried to invade England) of "the fighting women of Connaught" but I've never come across any reference to them on the internet - Google and other search engines have not been friendly to me in that respect.

Paul, it was only on re-reading this thread that I read the article you had linked about the writer and artist of Asterix and I realise now that they had a substantial body of work for other creations than Asterix, some as individuals rather than as a partnership.  Also, from reading the linked article, nordmann was correct and the Britons in the Asterix book in which they featured did drink water and milk before Asterix ggested adding herbs!  The creators must have had a good knowledge of English as they featured a character called Vitalstatistix (not sure in which book) and Getafix (already referenced above by nordmann).

LadyinRetirement wrote:

nordmann, back in the realms of time did any people from Ireland ever try to launch an invasion of what is now England (or Wales). 

It depends on how you classify an invasion - Irish armies of every hue and definition have frequently waged war on what is now English soil, though most often in alliance with locally based armies in what were essentially local wars. During the Roman occupation however Irish raids were frequent enough to merit a beefing up of western defences, The mysterious "barbarians" whose incursions reputedly led to a huge redevelopment of Deva Victrix (modern Chester) in the early 3rd century were almost certainly tribal alliances of mostly Irish-based warlords who we know at that time also began consolidating power over the region later to be known as Strathclyde. Given just how big Deva became in this period, and that there is no evidence (despite some speculation in the past) that it was intended as a base of operations for a full-blown Roman invasion of Ireland, the only logical explanation for the huge manning levels and expense involved points to the requirement to launch repeated defensive actions against an enemy with an eye to acquiring the territory and people under its protection - about as classic a definition of a bona fide invasion as exists. In the same period there is a lot of evidence also that Irish invaders pretty much took total control of long stretches of the Welsh and Scottish coastlines, and the original Scotii invasion from which Scotland got its name seems to have started in English Cumbria, suggesting that at one point Irish soldiers may even have commandeered control of the western end of Hadrian's Wall. The lack of archaeological evidence for any contemporary battles in the region, along with a fair scattering of artefacts that can be traced back to Ireland, seems to support the view that they maintained at least some level of occupancy and control even during the period of Roman occupation. Throughout this time also, and largely because they had very much taken control of vital coastal stretches, they certainly mounted armed raids at regular intervals with a view to capturing slaves, especially in the immediate post-Roman period - the most famous one being the one that allegedly "collected" the lad who would later become St Patrick.

Having said all that it probably isn't very helpful to classify these tribes primarily as "Irish" anyway - a more correct way of looking at them (and how they probably viewed themselves) was as a loose Gaelic hegemony that had developed some kind of common identity in the north Irish Sea area, including people based largely on Ireland's eastern seaboard and what is now Scotland's western island area. They were particularly well organised navally, which seems to set them well apart from both whoever else was inhabiting the island of Ireland and other northern British Celtic people, such as the Picts.

LadyinRetirement wrote:

The creators must have had a good knowledge of English as they featured a character called Vitalstatistix (not sure in which book) and Getafix (already referenced above by nordmann)

It was the late great translator Anthea Bell who you have to thank for the clever English puns involved in the the Asterix characters' names in that language. The original French names were also good puns - but they just didn't translate too well into English. Asterix and Obelix are the only ones to retain their original identity. The other main ones were all invented by Anthea.

Here's a list I pinched from a fansite:

Getafix - A fix in a narcotic sense makes sense, given the druid's potent potions: get your fix from him. In French, he's Panoramix, as in, the Greek panorama, "all + sight" (i.e. one who sees everything).

Dogmatix - Dogmatic. In French, Idéfix, or fixed idea. A stubborn dog deserves a stubborn name.

Vitalstatistix - Chieftain of the original Gaulish village. Vital statistics. In French, Abraracourcix (a bras raccouris), which is a posture you'd adopt when you're ready to fight - arms up, fists clenched.

Impedimenta - Chief's wife. Derived from the Latin for 'baggage' (impedimenta). In French, Bonemine (bonne mine) - looks good or looks healthy. Probably sarcasm, she never looks happy.

Cacofonix - Village bard. Awful. Name derived from cacophony, a harsh, discordant mixture of sounds. In French, Assurancetourix (assurance tous risques) - comprehensive insurance.

Geriatrix - Oldest chap in the village, so name derives from geriatric (geras, Greek for old age). In French, Agecanonix (age canonique) or the canonical age. In Roman Catholic canon law it is an age one must reach, counting from birth, when one becomes capable of incurring certain obligations, enjoying special privileges, embracing special states of life, holding office or dignity, or receiving the sacraments.

Unhygienix - Village fisherman. In French, Ordralfabétix (ordre alphabetique) -  alphabetic order.

Fulliautomatix - Village blacksmith. Fully automatic, probably a reference to an evolution of his profession. Cétautomatix in French (C'est automatique or, it's automatic). Same logic there likely.

A few other minor but self-explanatory Gaulish villagers (French in brackets):

Monosyllabix (Monosyllabix)
Polysyllabix (Petitélégrafix),
Operatix (Boulimix),
Acoustix (Aventurepix),
Harmonix (Allegorix),
Polyfonix (Porquepix!),
Polytechnix (Elevedelix),
Pacifix (Linguistix),
Atlantix (Arrierboutix),
Baltix (Harenbaltix),
Adriatix (Choucroutgarnix),
Analgesix (Analgésix),
Bucolix (Deboitemendumenix),
Photogenix (Bellodalix),
Tenansix (Cétyounix),
Picanmix (Keskonrix)

Thank you for that on the Irish annals Nordmann.  I cannot say that I have ever read any and I can only remember them coming up in discussions on early English history in reference to the site of the battle of Brunanburh, another favourite for being beaten to death on history websites, and also with regard to Aethelflaed, Lady of the Mercians.


Concerning what was possibly the first invasion of Ireland by the English from Bede:
'In the year of our Lord 684, King Egfrid of the Northumbrians sent an army into Ireland under the command of Bert, which brutally harassed an inoffensive people who had always been friendly to the English, sparing neither churches nor monasteries from the ravages of war.'

Bede considered Egfrid's defeat and death at the hands of the Picts at Nechtansmere in 685 as a judgement of God on Egfrid for his invasion of Ireland.  

regards

Tim

I remember seeing a programme based on Francis Prior's book Britain AD in which he put forward that there had been no significant immigration by 'Anglo-Saxons' into Britain and want had happened was just a cultural change.

I may be exaggerating slightly but the scene painted was of a group of Britons wailing and weeping by the old port (Aldwych) of Londonium (or Caer London) over the fact that they were no longer part of the Roman Empire and what was going to happen to them. 

And then up the river rowed some hunky Anglo-Saxon merchants in their keels at which point all the 'sub-Roman' women went "oh aren't those Anglo-Saxons gorgeous; lets all become Anglo-Saxons, learn their language, culture, religion, laws" etc etc.  The sub-Roman men, as a result, reluctantly decided that they would have to become Anglo-Saxons too.

And so the merchants sailed away having happily sold their complete stock of:

Teach yourself Anglo-Saxon

Germanic law for dummies

From Tuesday to Friday - everything you wanted to know about Germanic gods but were afraid to ask

How to build your very own Grubenhaus 

The Ladybird book of how Anglo-Saxons live