Background
By 400, theHistorical evidence
The act of surveying the historical sources for signs of the Anglo-Saxon settlement assumes that the wordsEarly sources
The ''Gildas' ''De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae''
InBede's ''Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum''
Gildas and other sources were used by Bede in his '' Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum'', written around 731. Bede identifies the migrants as Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, reporting (Bk I, Ch 15) that the Saxons came from Old Saxony (Northern Germany) and the Angles from 'Anglia', which lay between the homelands of the Saxons and Jutes. Anglia is usually interpreted as the oldTribal Hideage
The ''Tribal Hideage'' is a list of 35 tribes that was compiled in Anglo-Saxon England some time between the seventh and ninth centuries. The inclusion of the ' Elmet-dwellers' suggests to Simon Keynes that the ''Tribal Hideage'' was compiled in the early 670s, during the reign of King Wulfhere, since Elmet seems to have reverted thereafter to Northumbrian control. It includes a number of independent kingdoms and other smaller territories and assigns a number of hides to each one. A hide was an amount of land sufficient to support a household. The list of tribes is headed by''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle''
The '' Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' is a historical record of events in Anglo-Saxon England, which was kept from the late 9th to the mid-12th century. The chronicle is a collection of annals that were still being updated in some cases more than 600 years after the events they describe. They contain various entries that seem to add to the breadth of the historical evidence and provide good evidence for a migration, the Anglo-Saxon elites, and various significant historical events. The earliest events described in the ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' were transcribed centuries after they had occurred.Linguistic evidence
Explaining linguistic change, and particularly the rise ofThe evidence
All linguistic evidence from Roman Britain suggests that most inhabitants spoke British Celtic and/or British Latin. However, by the eighth century, when extensive evidence for the post-Roman language situation is next available, it is clear that the dominant language in what is now eastern and southern England was Old English, whoseThe debate
Into the later twentieth century, scholars' usual explanation for the lack of Celtic influence on English, supported by uncritical readings of the accounts of Gildas and Bede, was that Old English became dominant primarily because Germanic-speaking invaders killed, chased away, and/or enslaved the previous inhabitants of the areas that they settled. In recent decades, a few specialists have continued to support this interpretation, andCurrent research
Extensive research is ongoing on whether British Celtic did exert subtle substrate influence on theElite personal names
While many studies admit that a substantial survival of native British people from lower social strata is probable, with these people becoming anglicised over time due to the action of "elite dominance" mechanisms, there is also evidence for the survival of British elites and their anglicisation. An Anglo-Saxon elite could be formed in two ways: from an incoming chieftain and his war band from northern Germania taking over an area of Britain, or through a native British chieftain and his war band adopting Anglo-Saxon culture and language.Myres, J.N.L. (1989) The English Settlements. Oxford University Press, pp. 146–147 The incidence of British Celtic personal names in the royal genealogies of a number of "Anglo-Saxon" dynasties is very suggestive of the latter process. TheArchaeological evidence
Archaeologists seeking to understand evidence for migration and/or acculturation must first get to grips with early Anglo-Saxon archaeology as an "Archaeology of Identity". Guarding against considering one aspect of archaeology in isolation, this concept ensures that different topics are considered together, that previously were considered separately, including gender, age, ethnicity, religion, and status. The task of interpretation has been hampered by the lack of works of archaeological synthesis for the Anglo-Saxon period in general, and the early period in particular. This is changing, with new works of synthesis and chronology, in particular the work of Catherine Hills and Sam Lucy on the evidence of Spong Hill, which has opened up the possible synthesis with continental material culture and has moved the chronology for the settlement earlier than AD 450, with a significant number of items now in phases before this historically set date.Understanding the Roman legacy
Archaeological evidence for the emergence of both a native British identity and the appearance of a Germanic culture in Britain in the 5th and 6th centuries must consider first the period at the end of Roman rule. The collapse of Roman material culture some time in the early 5th century left a gap in the archaeological record that was quite rapidly filled by the intrusive Anglo-Saxon material culture, while the native culture became archaeologically close to invisible—although recent hoards and metal-detector finds show that coin use and imports did not stop abruptly at AD 410. The archaeology of the Roman military systems within Britain is well known but is not well understood: for example, whether the Saxon Shore was defensive or to facilitate the passage of goods. Andrew Pearson suggests that the "Saxon Shore Forts" and other coastal installations played a more significant economic and logistical role than is often appreciated, and that the tradition of Saxon and other continental piracy, based on the name of these forts, is probably a myth. The archaeology of late Roman (and sub-Roman) Britain has been mainly focused on the elite rather than the peasant and slave: their villas, houses, mosaics, furniture, fittings, and silver plates. This group had a strict code on how their wealth was to be displayed, and this provides a rich material culture, from which "Britons" are identified. There was a large gap between richest and poorest; the trappings of the latter have been the focus of less archaeological study. However the archaeology of the peasant from the 4th and 5th centuries is dominated by "ladder" field systems or enclosures, associated with extended families, and in the South and East of England, the extensive use of timber-built buildings and farmsteads shows a lower level of engagement with Roman building methods than is shown by the houses of the numerically much smaller elite.Settler evidence
Confirmation of the use of Anglo-Saxons as '' foederati'' or federate troops has been seen as coming from burials of Anglo-Saxons wearing military equipment of a type issued to late Roman forces, which have been found both in late Roman contexts, such as the Roman cemeteries of Winchester and Colchester, and in purely 'Anglo-Saxon' rural cemeteries like Mucking excavation, Mucking (Essex), though this was at a settlement used by the Romano-British. The distribution of the earliest Anglo-Saxon sites and place names in close proximity to Roman settlements and roads has been interpreted as showing that initial Anglo-Saxon settlements were being controlled by the Romano-British. Catherine Hills suggests it is not necessary to see all the early settlers as federate troops, and that this interpretation has been used rather too readily by some archaeologists. A variety of relationships could have existed between Romano-British and incoming Anglo-Saxons. The broader archaeological picture suggests that no one model will explain all the Anglo-Saxon settlements in Britain and that there was considerable regional variation.Yorke, Barbara. Kings and kingdoms of early Anglo-Saxon England. Routledge, 2002. Settlement density varied within southern and eastern England. Norfolk has more large Anglo-Saxon cemeteries than the neighbouring East Anglian county of Suffolk; eastern Yorkshire (the nucleus of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Deira) far more than the rest of Northumbria. The settlers were not all of the same type. Some were indeed warriors who were buried equipped with their weapons, but we should not assume that all of these were invited guests who were to guard Romano-British communities. Possibly some, like the later Viking settlement of Britain, Viking settlers, may have begun as piratical raiders who later seized land and made permanent settlements. Other settlers seem to have been much humbler people who had few if any weapons and suffered from malnutrition. These were characterised by Sonia Chadwick Hawkes as Germanic 'boat people', refugees from crowded settlements on the North Sea which deteriorating climatic conditions would have made untenable.Tribal characteristics
Catherine Hills points out that it is too easy to consider Anglo-Saxon archaeology solely as a study of ethnology and to fail to consider that identity is "less related to an overall Anglo-Saxon ethnicity and more to membership of family or tribe, Christian or pagan, elite or peasant". "Anglo-Saxons" or "Britons" were no more homogeneous than nationalities are today, and they would have exhibited diverse characteristics: male/female, old/young, rich/poor, farmer/warrior—or evenReuse of earlier monuments
The evidence for monument reuse in the early Anglo-Saxon period reveals a number of significant aspects of the practice. Ancient monuments were one of the most important factors determining the placing of the dead in the early Anglo-Saxon landscape. Anglo-Saxon secondary activity on prehistoric and Roman sites was traditionally explained in practical terms. These explanations, in the view of Howard Williams (archaeologist), Howard Williams, failed to account for the numbers and types of monuments and graves (from villas to barrows) reused.Williams, Howard. "Ancient Landscapes and the Dead: The Reuse of Prehistoric and Roman Monuments as Early Anglo-Saxon Burial Sites." (1997). Anglo-Saxon Barrow burial, barrow burials started in the late 6th century and continued into the early 8th century. Prehistoric barrows, in particular, have been seen as physical expressions of land claims and links to the ancestors, and John Shephard has extended this interpretation to Anglo-Saxon tumuli. Eva Thäte has emphasised the continental origins of monument reuse in post-Roman England, Howard Williams has suggested that the main purpose of this custom was to give sense to a landscape that the immigrants did not find empty. In the 7th and 8th centuries, monument reuse became so widespread that it strongly suggests the deliberate location of burials of the elite next to visible monuments of the pre-Saxon past, but with 'ordinary' burial grounds of this phase also frequently being located next to prehistoric barrows. The relative increase of this kind of spatial association from the 5th/6th centuries to the 7th/8th centuries is conspicuous. Williams' analysis of two well-documented samples shows an increase from 32% to 50% of Anglo-Saxon burial sites in the Upper Thames region, and from 47% to 71% of Anglo-Saxon cemeteries excavated since 1945. Härke suggests that one of the contexts for the increasing reuse of monuments may be "the adoption by the natives of the material culture of the dominant immigrants".Landscape archaeology
The Anglo-Saxons did not settle in an abandoned landscape on which they imposed new types of settlement and farming, as was once believed. By the late 4th century the English rural landscape was largely cleared and generally occupied by dispersed farms and hamlets, each surrounded by its own fields but often sharing other resources in common (called "infield-outfield cultivation"). Such fields, whether of prehistoric or Roman origin, fall into two very general types, found both separately and together: irregular layouts, in which one field after another had been added to an arable hub over many centuries; and regular rectilinear layouts, often roughly following the local topography, that had resulted from the large-scale division of considerable areas of land. Such stability was reversed within a few decades of the 5th century, as early "Anglo-Saxon" farmers, affected both by the collapse of Roman Britain and a climatic deterioration which reached its peak probably around 500, concentrated on subsistence, converting to pasture large areas of previously ploughed land. However, there is little evidence of abandoned arable land. Evidence across southern and central England increasingly shows the persistence of prehistoric and Roman field layouts into and, in some cases throughout, the Anglo-Saxon period, whether or not such fields were continuously ploughed. Landscapes at Yarnton, Oxfordshire, and Mucking (archaeological site), Mucking, Essex, remained unchanged throughout the 5th century, while at Barton Court, Oxfordshire, the 'grid of ditched paddocks or closes' of a Roman villa estate formed a general framework for the Anglo-Saxon settlement there. Similar evidence has been found at Sutton Courtenay, Berkshire. The Romano-British fields at Church Down in Chalton and Catherington, both in Hampshire, Bow Brickhill, Buckinghamshire, and Havering, Essex, were all ploughed as late as the 7th century. Susan Oosthuizen has taken this further and establishes evidence that aspects of the "collective organisation of arable cultivation appear to find an echo in fields of pre-historic and Roman Britain": in particular, the open field systems, shared between a number of cultivators but cropped individually; the link between arable holdings and rights to common pasture land; in structures of governance and the duty to pay some of the surplus to the local overlord, whether in rent or duty. Together these reveal that kinship ties and social relations were continuous across the 5th and 6th centuries, with no evidence of the uniformity or destruction, imposed by lords, the savage action of invaders or system collapse. This has implications on how later developments are considered, such as the developments in the 7th and 8th centuries. Landscape studies draw upon a variety of topographical, archaeological and written sources. There are major problems in trying to relate Anglo-Saxon charter boundaries to those of Roman estates for which there are no written records, and by the end of the Anglo-Saxon period there had been major changes to the organisation of the landscape which can obscure earlier arrangements. Interpretation is also hindered by uncertainty about late Roman administrative arrangements. Nevertheless, studies carried out throughout the country, in "British" as well as "Anglo-Saxon" areas, have found examples of continuity of territorial boundaries where, for instance, Roman villa estate boundaries seem to have been identical with those of medieval estates, as delineated in early charters, though settlement sites within the defined territory might shift. What we see in these examples is probably continuity of the estate or territory as a unit of administration rather than one of exploitation. Although the upper level of Roman administration based on towns seems to have disappeared during the 5th century, a subsidiary system based on subdivisions of the countryside may have continued. The basis of the internal organisation of both the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and those of their Celtic neighbours was a large rural territory which contained a number of subsidiary settlements dependent upon a central residence which the Anglo-Saxons called a ''villa'' in Latin and a ''tūn'' in Old English. These developments suggest that the basic infrastructure of the early Anglo-Saxon local administration (or the settlement of early kings or earls) was inherited from late Roman or Sub-Roman Britain.Distribution of settlements
There are a number of difficulties in recognising early Anglo-Saxon settlements as migrant settlers. This in part is because most early rural Anglo-Saxon sites have yielded few finds other than pottery and bone. The use of aerial photography does not yield easily identifiable settlements, partly due to the dispersed nature of many of these settlements.Hamerow, Helena, David A. Hinton, and Sally Crawford, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Anglo-Saxon Archaeology. OUP Oxford, 2011. p 119–124 The distribution of known settlements also remains elusive with few settlements found in the West Midlands or North-West. Even in Kent, an area of rich early Anglo-Saxon archaeology, the number of excavated settlements is fewer than expected. However, in contrast the counties of Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire are relatively rich in early settlements. These have revealed a tendency for early Anglo-Saxon settlements to be on the light soils associated with river terraces. 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 River Thames, Thames, were readily accessible by the shallow-draught, Clinker (boat building), clinker-built boats used by the Anglo-Saxons. The same is true of the settlements along the rivers River Ouse, Yorkshire, Ouse, River Trent, Trent, River Witham, Witham, River Nene, 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 Jutes, Jutish settlements on the Isle of Wight and the nearby southern coast of Hampshire. A number of Anglo-Saxon settlements 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 Venta Icenorum, Roman Caistor-by-Norwich, for example, recent analysis suggests that the cemetery post-dates the town's virtual abandonment.Cemetery evidence
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 artefacts suggest either an exceptionally heavy Anglo-Saxon settlement, or continued settlement beginning at an early date, or both. 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. Up to the year 2000, roughly 10,000 early 'Anglo-Saxon' cremations and inhumations had been found, exhibiting a large degree of diversity in styles and types of mortuary ritual. This is consistent with evidence for many micro cultures and local practice. Cemetery evidence is still dominated by the material culture: finds of clothes, jewellery, weapons, pots, and personal items; but physical and molecular evidence from skeletons, bones, and teeth are increasingly important. Considering the early cemeteries of Kent, most relevant finds come from furnished graves with distinctive links to the Continent. However, there are some unique items, these include pots and urns and especially brooches,Suzuki, Seiichi. The quoit brooch style and Anglo-Saxon settlement: a casting and recasting of cultural identity symbols. Boydell & Brewer, 2000. an important element of female dress that functioned as a fastener, rather like a modern safety pin. The style of brooches (called Quoit (brooch), Quoits), is unique to southern England in the fifth century AD, with the greatest concentration of such items occurring in Kent. Seiichi Suzuki (philologist), Seiichi Suzuki defines the style through an analysis of its design organisation, and, by comparing it with near-contemporary styles in Britain and on the continent, identifying those features which make it unique. He suggests that the quoit brooch style was made and remade as part of the process of construction of new group identities during the political uncertainties of the time, and sets the development of the style in the context of the socio-cultural dynamics of an emergent post-Roman society. The brooch shows that culture was not just transposed from the continent, but from an early phase a new "Anglo-Saxon" culture was being developed. Women's fashions (native costumes not thought to have been trade goods), have been used to distinguish and identify settlers, supplemented by other finds that can be related to specific regions of the Continent. A large number of Franks, Frankish artefacts have been found in Kent, and these are largely interpreted to be a reflection of trade and commerce rather than early migration. Barbara Yorke, 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"It is fairly clear that most Anglo-Saxon cemeteries are unrepresentative of the whole population, and particularly the whole age range. This was, therefore, a community which made decisions about the disposal of the dead based upon various factors, but at those we can barely guess. Was the inclusion of some but not all individuals subject to political control, or cultural screening? Was this a mark of ethnicity or did it represent a particular kinship, real or constructed, or the adherents of a particular cult? Was it status specific, with the rural proletariat – who would have been the vast majority of the population – perhaps excluded? So are many of these cemeteries associated with specific, high-status households and weighted particularly towards adult members? We do not know, but the commitment of particular parts of the community to an imported and in some senses 'Germanic', cremation ritual does seem to have been considerable, and is something which requires explanation."
Molecular evidence
Researchers have employed various forms of molecular evidence to investigate the relative importance of immigration, the acculturation of natives and inter-marriage in the creation of Anglo-Saxon England.Y-chromosome evidence
The inheritance of sex-specific elements of the human genome allows the study of separate female-only and male-only lineages, using mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosome DNA, respectively. Mitochondrial DNA ("mtDNA") and Y-chromosome DNA differ from the DNA of diploid nuclear Chromosome, chromosomes in that they are not formed from the combination of both parents' genes. Rather, males inherit the Y chromosome, Y-chromosome directly from their fathers, and both sexes inherit mtDNA directly from their mothers. Consequently, they preserve a genetic record from person to descendant that is altered only through mutation. An examination of Y-chromosome variation, sampled in an east–west transect across England and Wales, was compared with similar samples taken in Friesland (East Frisia, East and West Frisia, West Fresia). It was selected for the study due to it being regarded as a source of Anglo-Saxon migrants, and because of the similarities betweenAncient DNA, rare alleles, and whole genome sequencing
Modern population studies
A major study in 2015 by Leslie et al. on "The fine scale genetic structure of the British population" revealed regional patterns of genetic differentiation, with genetic clusters reflecting historical demographic events and sometimes corresponding to the geographic boundaries of historical polities. Based on two separate analyses, the study found clear evidence in modern England of the Anglo-Saxon migration and identified the regions not carrying genetic material from these migrations. The authors argued that the proportion of "Saxon" ancestry in Central/Southern England was probably in the range 10%–40%. Additionally, in the "non-Saxon" parts of the UK they found various genetic subgroups rather than a homogenous "Celtic" population.Ancient DNA studies
In 2016, through the investigation of burials in Cambridgeshire using Ancient DNA, ancient DNA techniques, researchers found evidence of intermarriage in the earliest phase of Anglo-Saxon settlement. The highest status grave of the burials investigated, as evidenced by the associated goods, was that of a female of local, British, origins; two other women were of Anglo-Saxon origin, and another showed signs of mixed ancestry. People of native, immigrant, and mixed ancestry were buried in the same cemetery, with grave goods from the same material culture, without any discernible distinction. The authors remark that their results run contrary to previous theories that have postulated strict reproductive segregation between natives and incomers. By studying rare Allele, alleles and employing whole genome sequencing, it was claimed that the continental and insular origins of the ancient remains could be discriminated, and it was calculated that a range of 25–40% of the ancestry of modern Britons is attributable to continental 'Anglo-Saxon' origins. The breakdown of the estimates given in this work into the modern populations of Britain determined that the population of eastern England is consistent with 38% Anglo-Saxon ancestry on average, with a large spread from 25 to 50%, and the Welsh and Scottish samples are consistent with 30% Anglo-Saxon ancestry on average, again with a large spread. The study also found that there is a small but significant difference between the mean values in the three modern British sample groups, with East English samples sharing slightly more alleles with the Dutch, and Scottish samples looking more like the Iron Age (Celtic) samples. Another 2016 study analyzed nine ancient genomes of individuals from northern Britain, with seven from a Roman-era cemetery in York, and the others from earlier British Iron Age, Iron-Age and later Anglo-Saxon burials. Six of the Roman genomes showed affinity with modern British Celtic populations, such as the Welsh, but were significantly different from eastern English samples. They also were similar to the earlier Iron-Age genome, suggesting population continuity, but differed from the later Anglo-Saxon genome, which was found to be similar to the samples from East Anglia, as well as other Anglo-Saxon era burials in Cambridgeshire (see above). This pattern was found to support a profound impact of migrations in the Anglo-Saxon period. The authors commented that the English population showed variation, with samples from the east and south showing greater similarity with the Anglo-Saxon burials and those in the north and west being closer to the Roman and Iron Age burials. A third study, focused on the genetics of Ireland, combined the ancient data from both of the preceding studies and compared it to a large number of modern samples from across Britain and Ireland. This study found that modern southern, central and eastern English populations were of "a predominantly Anglo-Saxon-like ancestry", while those from northern and southwestern England had a greater degree of indigenous origin. A 2020 study, which used DNA from hundreds of Viking-era burials in various regions across Europe, found that modern English samples showed a 38% genetic contribution on average from a native British "North Atlantic" population and a 37% contribution from a Danish-like population. The researchers estimated that up to 6% of the latter signature could have been derived from Danish Vikings, with the rest being attributed to the Anglo-Saxons. A 2022 study focusing specifically on the question of the Anglo-Saxon settlement sampled 460 northwestern European individuals dated to the medieval period. The study concluded that in eastern England, large-scale immigration, including both men and women, occurred in the post-Roman era, with up to 76% of the ancestry of these individuals deriving from the North Sea coast area of continental Europe. The authors also noted that while a large proportion of the ancestry of the present-day English derives from the Anglo-Saxon migration event, it has been diluted by later migration from a population source similar to that of Iron Age France. On the implications of the study's findings, archaeologist Duncan Sayer, one of the authors of the study, commented: "There's been this ongoing conversation in archaeology for quite some time about the nature of the migration. Is it a mass migration? Is an elite migration? Was there even a migration? [...] What [this data] says is, yes, there is mass migration. You can't argue with that any more. So what we could do is start to talk about what that migration actually is and who the people are and how they interact and how they build communities."Isotope analysis
Isotope analysis has begun to be employed to help answer the uncertainties regarding Anglo-Saxon migration; this can indicate whether an individual had always lived near his burial location. However, such studies cannot clearly distinguish ancestry. Thus, a descendant of migrants born in Britain would appear indistinguishable from somebody of native British origin. Strontium data in a 5th–7th-century cemetery in West Heslerton implied the presence of two groups: one of "local" and one of "nonlocal" origin. Although the study suggested that they could not define the limits of local variation and identify immigrants with confidence, they could give a useful account of the issues. Oxygen and strontium isotope data in an early Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Wally Corner, Berinsfield in the Upper Thames Valley, Oxfordshire, found only 5.3% of the sample originating from continental Europe, supporting the hypothesis of acculturation. Furthermore, they found that there was no change in this pattern over time, except amongst some females. Another isotope test, conducted in 2018 from skeletons found near Eastbourne in Sussex, concluded that neither the traditional invasion model nor the elite acculturation model was applicable. The study found a large number of migrants, both male and female, who seemed to be less wealthy than the natives. There was evidence of continued migration throughout the early Anglo-Saxon period. Another isotopic method has been employed to investigate whether protein sources in human diets in the early Anglo-Saxon varied with geographic location, or with respect to age or sex. This would provide evidence for social advantage. The results suggest that protein sources varied little according to geographic location and that terrestrial foods dominated at all locations.Criticism
Some scholars have questioned whether it is legitimate to conflate ethnic and cultural identity with patterns highlighted by molecular evidence at all. A 2018 editorial for ''Nature (journal), Nature'' argued that simplistic use of this category of data risks resembling the 'Culture-historical archaeology, Culture-History' model of archaeological scholarship deployed in the early twentieth century, but which many present-day archaeologists consider to be problematic: for example the question of whether "Germanic" peoples can be considered to have shared any form of cultural or ethnic unity outside of their construction in Roman ethnography is far from settled, with some scholars expressing doubt that "Germanic" peoples had any strong sense of cultural affinity outside of speaking languages in the same language family.Migration and acculturation theories
Various scholars have used a synthesis of evidence to present models to suggest an answer to the questions that surround the Anglo-Saxon settlement. These questions include how many migrants there were, when the Anglo-Saxons gained political ascendency, and what happened to the Romano-British people in the areas they took over. The later Anglo-Saxons were a mix of invaders, migrants and acculturated indigenous people. The ratios and relationships between these formative elements at the time of the Anglo-Saxon settlement are the subject of enquiry. The traditional interpretation of the settlement of Britain has been subject to profound reappraisal, with scholars embracing the evidence for both migration and acculturation. Heinrich Härke explains the nature of this agreement:It is now widely accepted that the Anglo-Saxons were not just transplanted Germanic invaders and settlers from the Continent, but the outcome of insular interactions and changes. But we are still lacking explicit models that suggest how this ethnogenetic process might have worked in concrete terms.
Estimating continental migrants' numbers
Knowing the number of migrants who came from the continent provides a context from which scholars can build an interpretation framework and understanding of the events of the 5th and 6th centuries. Robert E. M. Hedges, Robert Hedges in discussing this point observes that "archaeological evidence only addresses these issues indirectly." The traditional methodology used by archaeology to estimate the number of migrants starts with a figure for the population in Roman Britannia in the 3rd and 4th centuries. This is usually estimated at between 2 and 4 million. From this figure, Heinrich Härke and Michael Wood (historian), Michael Wood have argued that taking into account declines associated with political collapses, the population of what was to become Anglo-Saxon England had fallen to 1 million by the fifth century. Within 200 years of their first arrival, the settlement density has been established as an Anglo-Saxon village every , in the areas where evidence has been gathered. Given that these settlements are typically of around 50 people, this implies an Anglo-Saxon population in southern and eastern England of 250,000. The number of migrants therefore depends on the population increase variable. If the population rose by 1 percent per year (slightly less than the present world population growth rate), this would suggest a migrant figure of 30,000. However, if the population rose by 2 percent per year (similar to India in the last 20 years), the migrant figure would be closer to 5,000. The excavations at Spong Hill revealed over 2,000 cremations and inhumations in what is a very large early cemetery. However, when the period of use is taken into account (over 200 years) and its size, it is presumed to be a major cemetery for the entire area and not just one village; such findings point to a smaller rather than larger number of original immigrants, possibly around 20,000. Härke concluded that "most of the biological and cultural evidence points to a minority immigration on the scale of 10 to 20% of the native population. The immigration itself was not a single 'invasion', but rather a series of intrusions and immigrations over a considerable period, differing from region to region, and changing over time even within regions. The total immigrant population may have numbered somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 over about a century, but the geographical variations in numbers, and in social and ethnic composition, should have led to a variety of settlement processes." However, there is a discrepancy between, on the one hand, some archaeological and historical ideas about the scale of the Anglo-Saxon immigration, and on the other, estimates of the genetic contribution of the Anglo-Saxon immigrants to the modern English gene pool (#Molecular evidence, see "Molecular evidence" above). Härke, Mark Thomas, and Michael Stumpf created a statistical study of those who held the "migrant" Y chromosomes and those that did not, and examined the effect of differential reproductive success between those groups, coupled with limited intermarriage between the groups, on the spread of the genetic variant to discover whether the levels of migration needed to meet a 50% contribution to the modern gene pool had been attained. Their findings demonstrated that a genetic pool can rise from less than 5% to more than 50% in as little as 200 years with the addition of a slight increase in reproduction advantage of 1.8 (meaning a ratio 51.8 to 50) and restricting the amount of female (migrant genes) and male (indigenous genes) inter-breeding to at most 10%. Generally, however, the problems associated with seeking estimates for the population before AD 1089 were set out by Thomas, Stumpf, and Härke, who write that "incidental reports of numbers of immigrants are notoriously unreliable, and absolute numbers of immigrants before the Norman period can only be calculated as a proportion of the estimated overall population."Thomas, Mark G., Michael PH Stumpf, and Heinrich Härke. "Integration versus apartheid in post-Roman Britain: a response to Pattison." Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 275.1650 (2008): 2419–2421. Recent isotope and genetic evidence has suggested that migration continued over several centuries, possibly allowing for significantly more new arrivals than has been previously thought.Saxon political ascendancy in Britain
A re-evaluation of the traditional picture of decay and dissolution in post-Roman Britain has occurred, with sub-Roman Britain being thought to have been more a part of the Late Antique world of western Europe than was customary a half century ago. As part of this re-evaluation some suggest that sub-Roman Britain, in its entirety, retained a significant political, economic and military momentum across the fifth century and even the bulk of the sixth. This in large part stems from attempts to develop visions of British success against the incoming Anglo-Saxons, as suggested by the Chronicles which were written in the ninth and mid-tenth century. However, recent scholarship has contested the extent to which either can be credited with any level of historicity regarding the decades around AD 500. The representation of long-lasting British triumphs against the Saxons appears in large parts of the Chronicles, but stems ultimately from Gildas's brief and elusive reference to a British victory at Mons Badonicus – Mount Badon (#Historical evidence, see historical evidence above). N. J. Higham, Nick Higham suggests that the war between Britons and Saxons seems to have ended in some sort of compromise, which conceded a very considerable sphere of influence within Britain to the incomers. Kenneth Dark, on the other hand, has argued for a continuation of British political, cultural and military power well into the latter part of the sixth century, even in the eastern part of the country. Dark's argument rests on the very uneven distribution of Anglo-Saxon cemeteries and the proposition that large gaps in that distribution necessarily represent strong British polities which excluded Anglo-Saxon settlers by force. Cremation cemeteries in eastern Britain north of the Thames begin during the second quarter of the fifth century, backed up by new archaeological phases before 450 (#Archaeological evidence, see Archaeological evidence above). The chronology of this "adventus" of cremations is supported by the Gallic Chronicle of 452, which states that wide parts of Britain fell under Saxon rule in 441.Romano-Britons' fate in the south-east
Multiple theories have been proposed as to the reason behind the invisibility of the Romano-Britons in the archaeological and historical records of the Anglo-Saxon period. One theory, first set out by Edward Augustus Freeman, suggests that the Anglo Saxons and the Britons were competing cultures, and that through invasion, extermination, slavery, and forced resettlement the Anglo-Saxons defeated the Britons and consequently their culture and language prevailed. This view has influenced much of the scholarly and popular perceptions of the process of anglicisation in Britain. It remains the starting point and 'default position', to which other hypotheses are compared in modern reviews of the evidence. Widespread extermination and displacement of the native peoples of Britain is still considered a viable possibility by a number of scholars.O. J. Padel. 2007. "Place-names and the Saxon conquest of Devon and Cornwall." In ''Britons in Anglo-Saxon England'' [Publications of the Manchester Centre for Anglo-Saxon Studies 7], N. Higham (ed.), 215–230. Woodbridge: Boydell.R. Coates. 2007. "Invisible Britons: The view from linguistics." In ''Britons in Anglo-Saxon England'' [Publications of the Manchester Centre for Anglo-Saxon Studies 7], N. Higham (ed.), 172–191. Woodbridge: Boydell. Such a view is broadly supported by the linguistic and toponymic evidence, as well as the few primary sources from the time. Another theory has challenged this view and proposes that the Anglo-Saxon migration was an elite takeover, similar to the Norman Conquest of England, Norman Conquest, rather than a large-scale migration, and that the bulk of the population was composed of Britons who adopted the culture of the conquerors. Bryan Ward-Perkins argues that while "culturally, the later Anglo-Saxons and English did emerge as remarkably un-British, ... their genetic, biological make-up is none the less likely to have been substantially, indeed predominantly, British". Within this theory, two processes leading to Anglo-Saxonisation have been proposed. One is similar to culture changes observed in Russia, North Africa and parts of the Islamic world, where a politically and socially powerful minority culture becomes, over a rather short period, adopted by a settled majority. This process is usually termed 'elite dominance'.Ward-Perkins, Bryan. "Why did the Anglo-Saxons not become more British?." The English Historical Review 115.462 (2000): 513–533. The second process is explained through incentives, such as the wergild outlined in the law code of Ine of Wessex. The wergild of an Englishman was set at a value twice that of a Briton of similar wealth. However, some Britons could be very prosperous and own five Hide of land, hides of land, which gave thegn-like status, with a wergild of 600 shillings. Ine set down requirements to prove guilt or innocence, both for his English subjects and for his British subjects, who were termed 'foreigners/wealas' ('Welshmen').AttenboroughRegional variation in settlement patterns
In recent years, scholars have sought to combine elements of the mass migration and elite dominance models, emphasizing that no single explanation can be used to account for cultural change across the entirety of England. Heinrich Härke writes that "the Anglo-Saxon migration [was] a process rather than an event, with implications for variations of the process over time, resulting in chronological and geographical diversity of immigrant groups, their origins, composition, sizes and settlement areas in Britain. These variations are, to a certain extent, reported in the written sources." According to Toby Martin, "Regional variation may well provide the key to resolution, with something more akin to mass migration in the south-east, gradually spreading into elite dominance in the north and west." This view has support in the toponymic evidence. In the southeastern counties of England, Brittonic place names are nearly nonexistent, but moving north and west, they gradually increase in frequency. East Anglia has been identified by a number of scholars, including Härke, Martin, Catherine Hills, and Kenneth Dark, as a region in which a large-scale continental migration occurred,Toby F. Martin, ''The Cruciform Brooch and Anglo-Saxon England'' (2015: Boydell and Brewer), pp. 174-175Catherine Hills, "The Anglo-Saxon Migration: An Archaeological Case Study of Disruption," in ''Migration and Disruptions: Toward a Unifying Theory of Ancient and Contemporary Migrations'', ed. Brenda J. Baker and Takeyuki Tsuda (2015: University Press of Florida), pp. 47-48 possibly following a period of depopulation in the fourth century. Lincolnshire has also been cited by Hills and Martin as a key centre of early settlement from the continent. Alexander Mirrington argues that in Essex, the cultural change seen in the archaeological record is so complete that "a migration of a large number of people is the most logical and least extreme solution." In Kent, according to Susan Harrington, Sue Harrington and Stuart Brookes, "the weight of archaeological evidence and that from literary sources favours migrations" as the main reason for cultural change. Immigration into the area that was to become Wessex occurred from both the south coast and the Upper Thames valley. The earlier, southern settlements may have been more prosaic than descriptions in the ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' imply. Jillian Hawkins suggests that powerful Romano-British trading ports around the Solent were able to direct significant numbers of Germanic settlers inland into areas such as the Meon valley, where they formed their own communities. In areas that were settled from the Thames, different processes may have been at play, with the Germanic immigrants holding a greater degree of power. Bruce Eagles argues that the later population of areas such as Wiltshire would have included large numbers of Britons who had adopted the culture of the socially dominant Saxons, while also noting that "it seems reasonable to consider that there must have been sufficient numbers of widely dispersed immigrants to bring about this situation in a relatively short space of time." In the northern kingdom of Bernicia, however, Härke states that "a small group of immigrants may have replaced the native British elite and took over the kingdom as a going concern." Linguist Frederik Kortlandt agrees, commenting that in this region "there was a noticeable Celtic contribution to art, culture and possibly socio-military organization. It appears that the immigrants took over the institutions of the local population here." In a study of place names in northeastern England and southern Scotland, Bethany Fox concluded that the immigration that did occur in this region was centred on the river valleys, such as those of the Tyne and the Tweed, with the Britons moving to the less fertile hill country and becoming acculturated over a longer period.Aspects of the success of the Anglo-Saxon settlement
The reasons for the success of Anglo-Saxon settlements remain uncertain. Helena Hamerow has made an observation that in Anglo-Saxon society "local and extended kin groups remained ... the essential unit of production throughout the Anglo-Saxon period". "Local and extended kin groups" is one of a number of possible reasons for success, along with societal advantages, freedom and the relationship to an elite, that allowed the Anglo-Saxons' culture and language to flourish in the fifth and sixth centuries.Anglo-Saxon political formation
Nick Higham (historian), Nick Higham is convinced that the success of the Anglo-Saxon elite in gaining an early compromise shortly after the Battle of Badon is a key to the success of the culture. This produced a political ascendancy across the south and east of Britain, which in turn required some structure to be successful. The Bretwalda concept is taken as evidence for a presence of a number of early Anglo-Saxon elite families and a clear unitary oversight. Whether the majority of these leaders were early settlers, descendant from settlers, or especially after the exploration stage they were Roman-British leaders who adopted Anglo-Saxon culture is unclear. The balance of opinion is that most were migrants, although it should not be assumed they were all Germanic. There is agreement that these were small in number and proportion, yet large enough in power and influence to ensure "Anglo-Saxon" acculturation in the lowlands of Britain. Most historians believe these elites were those named by Bede, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and others, although there is discussion regarding their Floruit, floruit dates. Importantly, whatever their origin or when they flourished, they established their claim to lordship through their links to extended kin ties. As Helen Geake jokingly points out "they all just happened to be related back to Woden". The Tribal Hidage is evidence of the existence of numerous smaller provinces, meaning that southern and eastern Britain may have lost any macro-political cohesion in the fifth and sixth centuries and fragmented into many small autonomous units, though late Roman administrative organisation of the countryside may have helped dictate their boundaries. By the end of the sixth century the leaders of these communities were styling themselves kings, with the majority of the larger kingdoms based on the south or east coasts.Davies, Wendy, and Hayo Vierck. "The contexts of Tribal Hidage: social aggregates and settlement patterns." Issues 44 (2011). They include the provinces of the Jutes of Hampshire and Wight, the South Saxons, Kent, the East Saxons, East Angles, Lindsey and (north of the Humber) Deira and Bernicia. Several of these kingdoms may have their foundation the former Roman civitas and this has been argued as particularly likely for the provinces of Kent, Lindsey, Deira and Bernicia, all of whose names derive from Romano-British tribal or district names. The southern and east coasts were, of course, the areas settled first and in greatest numbers by the settlers and so presumably were the earliest to pass from Romano-British to Anglo-Saxon control. Once established they had the advantage of easy communication with continental territories in Europe via the North Sea or the Channel. The east and south coast provinces may never have fragmented to the extent of some areas inland and by the end of the sixth century they were already beginning to expand by annexing smaller neighbours.Rural freedoms and kinship groups
Where arable cultivation continued in early Anglo-Saxon England, there seems to have been considerable continuity with the Roman period in both field layout and arable practices, although we do not know whether there were also changes to patterns of tenure or the regulation of cultivation. The greatest perceptible alterations in land usage between about AD 400 and 600 are therefore in the proportions of the land of each community that lay under grass or the plough, rather than in changes to the layout or management of arable fields. The Anglo-Saxons settled in small groups covering a handful of widely dispersed local communities., ''The Inheritance of Rome''. These farms were for the most part mobile. This mobility, which was typical across much of Northern Europe took two forms: the gradual shifting of the settlement within its boundaries or the complete relocation of the settlement. These shifting settlements (called ''Wandersiedlungen'' or "wandering settlements") were a common feature since the Bronze Age. Why farms became abandoned and then relocated is much debated. However it is suggested that this might be related to the death of a patron of the family or the desire to move to better farmlands. These farms are often falsely supposed to be "peasant farms". However, a ''Churl, ceorl'', who was the lowest ranking freeman in early Anglo-Saxon society, was not a peasant but an arms-owning male with access to law, support of a kindred and the wergild, situated at the apex of an extended household working at least one Hide (unit), hide of land. It is the ceorl that we should associate with the standard x post-hole building of the early Anglo-Saxon period, grouped with others of the same kin group. Each such household head had a number of less-free dependants and slaves. The success of the rural world in the 5th and 6th centuries, according to the landscape archaeology, was due to three factors: the continuity with the past, with no evidence of up-rooting in the landscape; farmers' freedom and rights over lands, with provision of a rent or duty to an overlord, who provided only slight lordly input; and the common outfield arable land (of an outfield-infield system) that provided the ability to build kinship and group cultural ties.Material culture
The origins of the timber building tradition seen in early Anglo-Saxon England have generated much debate which has mirrored a wider debate about the cultural affinities of Anglo-Saxon material culture. Philip Rahtz asserted that buildings seen in West Stow Anglo-Saxon Village, West Stow and Mucking had late Roman origins. Archaeologist Philip Dixon noted the striking similarity between Anglo-Saxon timber halls and Romano-British rural houses. The Anglo-Saxons did not import the 'long-house', the traditional dwelling of the continental Germanic peoples, to Britain. Instead they upheld a local vernacular British building tradition dating back to the late first century. This has been interpreted as evidence of the endurance of kinship and household structures from the Roman into the Anglo-Saxon period. However, this has been considered too neat an explanation for all the evidence. Anne and Gary Marshall summarise the situation:"One of the main problems in Anglo-Saxon archaeology has been to account for the apparent uniqueness of the English timber structures of the period. These structures seem to bear little resemblance either to earlier Romano-British or to continental models. In essence, the problem is that the hybrid Anglo-Saxon style seems to appear full-blown with no examples of development from the two potentially ancestral traditions ... The consensus of the published work was that the Anglo-Saxon building style was predominantly home-grown."In the Sutton Hoo burial, perhaps that of the East Anglian king Raedwald, a long and complex iron chain, used for suspending a cauldron from the beams of a hall, was found. It was the product of a continuous British smithing tradition dating to pre-Roman times. This was, however, a high-status object. For Bryan Ward-Perkins the answer to the relative lack of native influence on everyday objects is found in the success of the Anglo-Saxon culture and highlights the micro-diversity and larger cohesion that produced a dynamic force in comparison to the Brittonic culture. From beads and quoits to clothes and houses, there is something unique happening in the early Anglo-Saxon period. The material culture evidence shows that people adopted and adapted styles based on set roles and styles. John Hines, commenting on the diversity of nearly a thousand glass beads and many different clothes clasps from Lakenheath, states that these reveal a "society where people relied on others to fulfill a role" and "what they had around them was making a statement", not one about the individual, but about "identity between small groups not within small groups". Julian D. Richards, Julian Richards commenting on this and other evidence suggests:
"[The Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain] was more complex than a mass invasion bringing fully formed lifestyles and beliefs. The early Anglo-Saxon, just like today's migrants, were probably riding different cultural identities. They brought from their homelands the traditions of their ancestors. But they would have been trying to work out not only who they were, but who they wanted to be ... and forge an identity for those who followed."Looking beyond simplistic 'homeland' scenarios, and explaining the observations that 'Anglo-Saxon' houses and other aspects of material culture do not find exact matches in the 'Germanic homelands' in Europe, Halsall explains the changes within the context of a larger 'North Sea interaction zone', including lowland England, Northern Gaul and northern Germany. These areas experienced marked social and cultural changes in the wake of Roman collapse—experienced not only within the former Roman provinces (Gaul, Britain) but also in ''wiktionary:Barbaricum, Barbaricum'' itself. All three areas experienced changes in social structure, settlement patterns and ways of expressing identities, as well as tensions which created push and pull factors for migrations in, perhaps, multiple directions.
Culture of belief
The study of pagan religious practice in the early Anglo-Saxon period is difficult. Most of the texts that may contain relevant information are not contemporary, but written later by Christian writers who tended to have a hostile attitude to pre-Christian beliefs, and who may have distorted their portrayal of them. Much of the information used to reconstruct Anglo-Saxon paganism comes from later Scandinavian and Icelandic texts and there is a debate about how relevant these are. The study of pagan Anglo-Saxon beliefs has often been approached with reference to Roman or even Greek typologies and categories. Archaeologists therefore use such terms as gods, myths, temples, sanctuaries, priests, magic and cults. Charlotte Behr argues that this provides a worldview of Anglo-Saxon practice culture which is unhelpful. Peter Brown (historian), Peter Brown employed a new method of looking at the belief systems of the fifth to seventh centuries, by arguing for a model of religion which was typified by a pick and choose approach. The period was exceptional because there was no orthodoxy or institutions to control or hinder the people. This freedom of culture is seen also in the Roman-British community and is very evident in the complaints ofThe emergence of furnished cremation and inhumation graves is thus no longer regarded as reflecting a single and coherent ‘Anglo-Saxon paganism’; nor need the decline in accompanied burial relate directly or exclusively to Christian conversion. Indeed, the very term ‘pagan Anglo-Saxon burial’ compounds the conceptually naïve assumption that there existed a one-to-one correlation between ethnic affiliation, religious beliefs and ritual practice that archaeologists have been so keen to move beyond.There is also evidence for the continuation of Christianity in south and east Britain. The Christian shrine at St Albans and its martyr cult survived throughout the period (#Gildas's De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae, see Gildas above). There are references in Anglo-Saxon poetry, including ''Beowulf'', that show some interaction between pagan and Christian practices and values. While there is little scholarly focus on this subject, there is enough evidence from Gildas and elsewhere that it is safe to assume some continuing – perhaps more free – form of Christianity survived. Richard Whinder states "(The Church's pre-Augustine) characteristics place it in continuity with the rest of the Christian Church in Europe at that time and, indeed, in continuity with the Catholic faith ... today." Anglo-Saxon paganism was folk-based, centred on the individual and the community; it was not dependant on faith, but on ritual. The rituals were intended to bring benefits to, or to avert disaster from, the celebrants. As kingship developed, conversion to Christianity proved an attractive way for leaders to directly influence religion, with a priestly class under their immediate sponsorship. It is evident that the process of Christianisation was a 'top down' phenomenon, driven by kings.
Language and literature
Little is known about the everyday spoken language of people living in the migration period. Old English is a Language contact, contact language and reconstructing the pidgin used in this period from the written language found in the West Saxon literature of some 400 years later is difficult. Two general theories are proposed regarding why people changed their language to Old English (or an early form of such); either a person or household changed so as to serve an elite, or a person or household changed through choice as it provided some advantage economically or legally. According to N. J. Higham, Nick Higham, the adoption of the language—as well as the material culture and traditions—of an Anglo-Saxon elite, "by large numbers of the local people seeking to improve their status within the social structure, and undertaking for this purpose rigorous acculturation", is the key to understanding the transition from Romano-British to Anglo-Saxon. The progressive nature of this language acquisition, and the 'retrospective reworking' of kinship ties to the dominant group led, ultimately, to the "myths which tied the entire society to immigration as an explanation of their origins in Britain". The final few lines of the poem "Battle of Brunanburh (poem), The Battle of Brunanburh", a 10th-century Anglo-Saxon poem that celebrates a victory of Æthelstan, the first king of all the English, give a poetic voice to the English conception of their origins. :The orthography chosen by the scribe lacked v, ð/θ and ʃ, these are marked in square brackets after the ambiguous letter chosen. This 'heroic tradition' of conquering incomers is consistent with the conviction of Bede, and later Anglo-Saxon historians, that the ancestral origin of the English was not the result of any assimilation with the native British, but was derived solely from the Germanic migrants of the post-Roman period. It also explains the enduring appeal of poems and heroic stories such as Beowulf, Wulf and Eadwacer and Judith (poem), Judith, well into the Christian period. The success of the language is the most obvious result of the settlement period. This language was not just the language of acculturation, but through its stories, poetry and oral traditions became the agency of change. Nick Higham has provided this summary of the processes:"As Bede later implied, language was a key indicator of ethnicity in early England. In circumstances where freedom at law, acceptance with the kindred, access to patronage, and the use or possession of weapons were all exclusive to those who could claim Germanic descent, then speaking Old English without Latin or Brittonic inflection had considerable value."Higham, Nicholas J., and Martin J. Ryan. The Anglo-Saxon World. Yale University Press, 2013.
See also
Notes
Citations
References
General
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* Gretzinger, J., Sayer, D., Justeau, P. et al. "The Anglo-Saxon migration and the formation of the early English gene pool". In: ''Nature'' (21 September 2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05247-2 {{DEFAULTSORT:Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain Anglo-Saxon society Conflict in Anglo-Saxon England, . Genetics in the United Kingdom Invasions of England 5th century in England 6th century in England 7th century in England Medieval Wales Migration Period Scotland in the Early Middle Ages Sub-Roman Britain 5th century in Great Britain 6th century in Great Britain 7th century in Great Britain