Sub-Roman Britain - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Sub-Roman Britain is a term derived from an archaeological

Archaeology

Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...

label for the material culture of Britain

Great Britain

Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...

in Late Antiquity

Late Antiquity

Late Antiquity is a periodization used by historians to describe the time of transition from Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages, in both mainland Europe and the Mediterranean world. Precise boundaries for the period are a matter of debate, but noted historian of the period Peter Brown proposed...

: the term "Sub-Roman" was invented to describe the potsherds in sites of the 5th century and the 6th century, initially with an implication of decay of locally-made wares from a higher standard under the Roman Empire

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....

. It is now often used to denote a period of history. Although the culture of Britain in the period was mainly derived from Roman

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

and Celtic sources, there were also Saxons

Saxons

The Saxons were a confederation of Germanic tribes originating on the North German plain. The Saxons earliest known area of settlement is Northern Albingia, an area approximately that of modern Holstein...

settled as foederati
Foederati
Foederatus is a Latin term whose definition and usage drifted in the time between the early Roman Republic and the end of the Western Roman Empire...

in the area, originally from Saxony

Lower Saxony

Lower Saxony is a German state situated in north-western Germany and is second in area and fourth in population among the sixteen states of Germany...

in north-western Germany, although the term 'Saxon' was used by the British for all Germanic incomers. Gradually the latter assumed more control (see Anglo-Saxon England). The Picts

Picts

The Picts were a group of Late Iron Age and Early Mediaeval people living in what is now eastern and northern Scotland. There is an association with the distribution of brochs, place names beginning 'Pit-', for instance Pitlochry, and Pictish stones. They are recorded from before the Roman conquest...

in northern Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

were also outside the applicable area.

Meaning of terms

The period of sub-Roman Britain traditionally covers the history of what is now England

History of England

The history of England concerns the study of the human past in one of Europe's oldest and most influential national territories. What is now England, a country within the United Kingdom, was inhabited by Neanderthals 230,000 years ago. Continuous human habitation dates to around 12,000 years ago,...

from the end of Roman imperial rule in the very early fifth century to the arrival of Saint Augustine

Augustine of Canterbury

Augustine of Canterbury was a Benedictine monk who became the first Archbishop of Canterbury in the year 597...

in AD 597. The date taken for the end of this period is arbitrary in that the Sub-Roman culture continued in the West of England

West of England

The West of England is a loose and locationally unspecific term sometimes given to the area surrounding the city and county of Bristol, England, and also sometimes applied more widely and in other parts of South West England.-Use in the Bristol area:...

(see Cornwall

Cornwall

Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...

and Cumbria

Cumbria

Cumbria , is a non-metropolitan county in North West England. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local authority, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. Cumbria's largest settlement and county town is Carlisle. It consists of six districts, and in...

) and in Wales

Wales

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

.

This period has attracted a great deal of academic and popular debate, in part because of the scarcity of the written source material, and in part because historians argue that the events—in terms of invasion, settlement and resettlement—that took place in these years forged the national identities

National identity

National identity is the person's identity and sense of belonging to one state or to one nation, a feeling one shares with a group of people, regardless of one's citizenship status....

that would prevail within the British Isles over the coming centuries. The term Post-Roman Britain is also used for the period, mainly in non-archaeological contexts; "sub-Roman" and "post-Roman" are both terms that apply to the old Roman province

Roman province

In Ancient Rome, a province was the basic, and, until the Tetrarchy , largest territorial and administrative unit of the empire's territorial possessions outside of Italy...

of Britannia

Britannia

Britannia is an ancient term for Great Britain, and also a female personification of the island. The name is Latin, and derives from the Greek form Prettanike or Brettaniai, which originally designated a collection of islands with individual names, including Albion or Great Britain. However, by the...

, i.e. Britain south of the Forth-Clyde line. The history of the area between Hadrian's Wall

Hadrian's Wall

Hadrian's Wall was a defensive fortification in Roman Britain. Begun in AD 122, during the rule of emperor Hadrian, it was the first of two fortifications built across Great Britain, the second being the Antonine Wall, lesser known of the two because its physical remains are less evident today.The...

and the Forth-Clyde line is unclear (see Rheged
Rheged
Rheged is described in poetic sources as one of the kingdoms of the Hen Ogledd , the Brythonic-speaking region of what is now northern England and southern Scotland, during the Early Middle Ages...

, Bernicia
Bernicia
Bernicia was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom established by Anglian settlers of the 6th century in what is now southeastern Scotland and North East England....

). North of the line was an area inhabited by tribes about whom so little is known that we resort to calling them by a generic name: Picts

Picts

.

The term "Late Antiquity

Late Antiquity

", implying wider horizons, is finding more use in the academic community, especially when transformations of classical culture common throughout the post-Roman West are examined; it is less successfully applied to Britain at the time. The period may also be considered as part of the early Middle Ages

Early Middle Ages

The Early Middle Ages was the period of European history lasting from the 5th century to approximately 1000. The Early Middle Ages followed the decline of the Western Roman Empire and preceded the High Middle Ages...

, if continuity with the following periods is stressed. A range of more dramatic names are given to the period in popular (and some academic) works: the Dark Ages, the Brythonic Age, the Age of Tyrants, or the Age of Arthur

King Arthur

King Arthur is a legendary British leader of the late 5th and early 6th centuries, who, according to Medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the early 6th century. The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and...

Written accounts

There is very little extant written material available from this period, though there is a considerable amount from later periods that may be relevant. A lot of it deals with the first few decades of the fifth century only. The sources can usefully be classified into British and continental, and into contemporary and non-contemporary.

Two primary contemporary British sources exist: the Confessio of Saint Patrick

Saint Patrick

Saint Patrick was a Romano-Briton and Christian missionary, who is the most generally recognized patron saint of Ireland or the Apostle of Ireland, although Brigid of Kildare and Colmcille are also formally patron saints....

and Gildas

Gildas

Gildas was a 6th-century British cleric. He is one of the best-documented figures of the Christian church in the British Isles during this period. His renowned learning and literary style earned him the designation Gildas Sapiens...

' De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae
De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae
De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae is a work by the 6th-century British cleric Gildas. It is a sermon in three parts condemning the acts of Gildas' contemporaries, both secular and religious, whom he blames for the dire state of affairs in sub-Roman Britain...

(On the Ruin and Conquest of Britain). Patrick's Confessio and his Letter to Coroticus reveals aspects of life in Britain, from whence he was abducted to Ireland. It is particularly useful in highlighting the state of Christianity at the time

Early Insular Christianity

Early Insular Christianity is a term used to cover Christianity in Great Britain and Ireland during the post-Roman period. It splits into two strands:...

. Gildas is the nearest to a source of Sub-Roman history but there are many problems in using it. The document represents British history as he and his audience understood it. Though a few other documents of the period do exist, such as Gildas' letters on monasticism, they are not directly relevant to British history. Gildas' De Excidio is a jeremiad

Jeremiad

A jeremiad is a long literary work, usually in prose, but sometimes in poetry, in which the author bitterly laments the state of society and its morals in a serious tone of sustained invective, and always contains a prophecy of society's imminent downfall....

; it is written as a polemic to warn contemporary rulers against sin, demonstrating through historical and biblical examples that bad rulers are always punished by God - in the case of Britain, through the destructive wrath of the Saxon

Saxons

invaders. The historical section of De Excidio is short, and the material in it is clearly selected with Gildas' purpose in mind. There are no absolute dates given, and some of the details, such as those regarding the Hadrian

Hadrian's Wall

and Antonine

Antonine Wall

The Antonine Wall is a stone and turf fortification built by the Romans across what is now the Central Belt of Scotland, between the Firth of Forth and the Firth of Clyde. Representing the northernmost frontier barrier of the Roman Empire, it spanned approximately 39 miles and was about ten feet ...

Walls are clearly wrong. Nevertheless, Gildas does provide us with an insight into some of the kingdoms that existed when he was writing, and to how an educated monk perceived the situation that had developed between the Anglo-Saxon

Anglo-Saxon

Anglo-Saxon may refer to:* Anglo-Saxons, a group that invaded Britain** Old English, their language** Anglo-Saxon England, their history, one of various ships* White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, an ethnicity* Anglo-Saxon economy, modern macroeconomic term...

s and the Britons.

There are more continental contemporary sources that mention Britain, though these are highly problematic. The most famous is the so-called Rescript of Honorius, in which the Western Emperor Honorius tells the British civitates to look to their own defence. The first reference to this rescript is written by the sixth-century Byzantine

Byzantine

Byzantine usually refers to the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages.Byzantine may also refer to:* A citizen of the Byzantine Empire, or native Greek during the Middle Ages...

scholar Zosimus

Zosimus

Zosimus was a Byzantine historian, who lived in Constantinople during the reign of the Byzantine Emperor Anastasius I . According to Photius, he was a comes, and held the office of "advocate" of the imperial treasury.- Historia Nova :...

and is located randomly in the middle of a discussion of southern Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

; no further mention of Britain is made, which has led some, though not all, modern academics to suggest that the rescript does not apply to Britain, but to Bruttium in Italy. The Gallic Chronicles, Chronica Gallica of 511

Chronica Gallica of 511

The Chronica or Cronaca Gallica of 511, also called the Gallic Chronicle of 511, is a chronicle of Late Antiquity preserved today in a single manuscript of the thirteenth century now in Madrid...

and Chronica Gallica of 452

Chronica Gallica of 452

The Chronica Gallica of 452, also called the Gallic Chronicle of 452, is a chronicle of Late Antiquity, presented in the form of annals, which continues that of Jerome...

, says prematurely that "Britain, abandoned by the Romans, passed in to the power of the Saxons" and provides information about St Germanus

Germanus of Auxerre

Germanus of Auxerre was a bishop of Auxerre in Gaul. He is a saint in both the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches, commemorated on July 31. He visited Britain in around 429 and the records of this visit provide valuable information on the state of post-Roman British society...

and his visit(s) to Britain, though again this text has received considerable academic deconstruction. The work of Procopius

Procopius

Procopius of Caesarea was a prominent Byzantine scholar from Palestine. Accompanying the general Belisarius in the wars of the Emperor Justinian I, he became the principal historian of the 6th century, writing the Wars of Justinian, the Buildings of Justinian and the celebrated Secret History...

, another sixth-century Byzantine writer, makes some references to Britain though the accuracy of these is uncertain.

There are numerous later written sources that claim to provide accurate accounts of the period. The first to attempt this was the monk Bede

Bede

Bede , also referred to as Saint Bede or the Venerable Bede , was a monk at the Northumbrian monastery of Saint Peter at Monkwearmouth, today part of Sunderland, England, and of its companion monastery, Saint Paul's, in modern Jarrow , both in the Kingdom of Northumbria...

, writing in the early 8th century. He based his account of the Sub-Roman period in his Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum
Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum
The Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum is a work in Latin by Bede on the history of the Christian Churches in England, and of England generally; its main focus is on the conflict between Roman and Celtic Christianity.It is considered to be one of the most important original references on...

(c.731) heavily on Gildas, though he tried to provide dates for the events Gildas describes. It was written from an anti-Briton point of view. Later sources, such as the Historia Brittonum often attributed to Nennius

Nennius

Nennius was a Welsh monk of the 9th century.He has traditionally been attributed with the authorship of the Historia Brittonum, based on the prologue affixed to that work, This attribution is widely considered a secondary tradition....

, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is a collection of annals in Old English chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The original manuscript of the Chronicle was created late in the 9th century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of Alfred the Great...

(again written from a non-Briton point of view, based on West Saxon sources) and the Annales Cambriae
Annales Cambriae
Annales Cambriae, or The Annals of Wales, is the name given to a complex of Cambro-Latin chronicles deriving ultimately from a text compiled from diverse sources at St David's in Dyfed, Wales, not later than the 10th century...

are all heavily shrouded in myth and can only be used as evidence for this period with caution. There are also documents giving Welsh poetry

Welsh poetry

Welsh poetry may refer to poetry in the Welsh language, Anglo-Welsh poetry, or other poetry written in Wales or by Welsh poets.-History:Wales has one of the earliest literary traditions in Northern Europe, stretching back to the days of Aneirin Welsh poetry may refer to poetry in the Welsh...

(of Taliesin

Taliesin

Taliesin was an early British poet of the post-Roman period whose work has possibly survived in a Middle Welsh manuscript, the Book of Taliesin...

and Aneirin

Aneirin

Aneirin or Neirin was a Dark Age Brythonic poet. He is believed to have been a bard or 'court poet' in one of the Cumbric kingdoms of the Old North or Hen Ogledd, probably that of Gododdin at Edinburgh, in modern Scotland...

) and land deeds (Llandaff

Llandaff

Llandaff is a district in the north of Cardiff, capital of Wales, having been incorporated into the city in 1922. It is the seat of the Church in Wales Bishop of Llandaff, whose diocese covers the most populous area of South Wales. Much of the district is covered by parkland known as Llandaff...

charters) that appear to date back to the 6th century.

After the Norman Conquest there were many books written that purport to give the history of the Sub-Roman Period. These have been influenced by the fictionalised account in Geoffrey of Monmouth

Geoffrey of Monmouth

Geoffrey of Monmouth was a cleric and one of the major figures in the development of British historiography and the popularity of tales of King Arthur...

's "History of the Kings of Britain". Therefore they can only be regarded as showing how the legends grew. Not until modern times have serious studies of the period been undertaken.

Some "Lives of Saints" relating to Celtic clerics are early, but most are late and unreliable. St. Thaddaeus is described as visiting a Roman villa

Roman villa

A Roman villa is a villa that was built or lived in during the Roman republic and the Roman Empire. A villa was originally a Roman country house built for the upper class...

at Chepstow

Chepstow

Chepstow is a town in Monmouthshire, Wales, adjoining the border with Gloucestershire, England. It is located on the River Wye, close to its confluence with the River Severn, and close to the western end of the Severn Bridge on the M48 motorway...

while St Cuthbert visited deserted Carlisle.

Archaeological evidence

Archaeology

provides further evidence for this period, though of a different nature than that provided by documents. Archaeology suggested to Richard Reece that the depopulation of Roman towns and the development of villa and estate organization was already a feature of the 4th century. The fifth and sixth centuries in Britain are marked by a sharp discontinuity in town life, perhaps always a somewhat artificial Roman imposition on the landscape, dependent on imperial military requirements and requirements of administration and tax collection; the exceptions are a handful of sites: Londinium

Londinium

The city of London was established by the Romans around AD 43. It served as a major imperial commercial centre until its abandonment during the 5th century.-Origins and language:...

, Eboracum

Eboracum

Eboracum was a fort and city in Roman Britain. The settlement evolved into York, located in North Yorkshire, England.-Etymology:The first known recorded mention of Eboracum by name is dated circa 95-104 AD and is an address containing the Latin form of the settlement's name, "Eburaci", on a wooden...

, and in spite of the loss of their Roman names, Canterbury

Canterbury

Canterbury is a historic English cathedral city, which lies at the heart of the City of Canterbury, a district of Kent in South East England. It lies on the River Stour....

, Wroxeter

Wroxeter

Wroxeter is a village in Shropshire, England. It forms part of the civil parish of Wroxeter and Uppington and is located in the Severn Valley about south-east of Shrewsbury.-History:...

and possibly Cambridge

Cambridge

The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...

, but the discontinuity in the episcopate, "the institution most responsible for the survival of towns in Gaul", as H. R. Loyn

H. R. Loyn

Henry Royston Loyn , FBA, was a British historian specialising in the history of Anglo-Saxon England. His eminence in his field made him a natural candidate to run the Sylloge of the Coins of the British Isles, which he chaired from 1979 to 1993.-Works:The Sylloge's natural emphasis is on...

observes, speaks against town survival in Britain. The Roman villa

Roman villa

A Roman villa is a villa that was built or lived in during the Roman republic and the Roman Empire. A villa was originally a Roman country house built for the upper class...

system, represented by some five hundred archaeological sites, did not survive either; unlike Gaul, in Britain not a single villa name survived into the Germanic period. It may be possible that the villa system did not survive the disastrous Pict

PICT

PICT is a graphics file format introduced on the original Apple Macintosh computer as its standard metafile format. It allows the interchange of graphics , and some limited text support, between Mac applications, and was the native graphics format of QuickDraw.The original version, PICT 1, was...

ish incursions of 367 and following years.

In the sub-Roman period, building in stone came to an end; buildings were constructed of less durable materials than during the Roman period. However, brooch

Brooch

A brooch ; also known in ancient times as a fibula; is a decorative jewelry item designed to be attached to garments. It is usually made of metal, often silver or gold but sometimes bronze or some other material...

es, pottery

Pottery

Pottery is the material from which the potteryware is made, of which major types include earthenware, stoneware and porcelain. The place where such wares are made is also called a pottery . Pottery also refers to the art or craft of the potter or the manufacture of pottery...

and weapons from this period have survived. The study of burial

Burial

Burial is the act of placing a person or object into the ground. This is accomplished by excavating a pit or trench, placing an object in it, and covering it over.-History:...

s and cremation

Cremation

Cremation is the process of reducing bodies to basic chemical compounds such as gasses and bone fragments. This is accomplished through high-temperature burning, vaporization and oxidation....

s, and the grave goods

Grave goods

Grave goods, in archaeology and anthropology, are the items buried along with the body.They are usually personal possessions, supplies to smooth the deceased's journey into the afterlife or offerings to the gods. Grave goods are a type of votive deposit...

associated with these, has done much to expand the understanding of cultural identities in the period. Archaeology has shown some evidence of continuity with Roman education

Education in Ancient Rome

Education in ancient Rome influenced the development of educational systems throughout Western civilization. In the span of a few centuries, Rome went from an informal system of education in which knowledge was passed from parents to children, to a specialized, tiered system of schools inspired by...

, trade with the Mediterranean

Roman commerce

Roman trade was the engine that drove the Roman economy of the late Republic and the early Empire. Fashions and trends in historiography and in popular culture have tended to neglect the economic basis of the empire in favor of the lingua franca of Latin and the exploits of the Roman legions...

and with Celtic art

Celtic art

Celtic art is the art associated with the peoples known as Celts; those who spoke the Celtic languages in Europe from pre-history through to the modern period, as well as the art of ancient peoples whose language is uncertain, but have cultural and stylistic similarities with speakers of Celtic...

.

Excavations of settlements have revealed how social structures might have been changing, and the extent to which life in Britain continued unaltered in certain pockets into the early medieval period. Excavations have taken place on hilltops, the so-called "Hillforts", Castra
Castra
The Latin word castra, with its singular castrum, was used by the ancient Romans to mean buildings or plots of land reserved to or constructed for use as a military defensive position. The word appears in both Oscan and Umbrian as well as in Latin. It may have descended from Indo-European to Italic...

and monasteries. Work on town

Town

A town is a human settlement larger than a village but smaller than a city. The size a settlement must be in order to be called a "town" varies considerably in different parts of the world, so that, for example, many American "small towns" seem to British people to be no more than villages, while...

s has been particularly important in this respect. Work on the hill-forts has shown evidence of refurbishment in this period as well as evidence of overseas trade. One of the earliest major excavations was at Tintagel

Tintagel

Tintagel is a civil parish and village situated on the Atlantic coast of Cornwall, United Kingdom. The population of the parish is 1,820 people, and the area of the parish is ....

(Radford 1939). Rectangular structures were uncovered which were interpreted as a monastery together with much Mediterranean pottery. Later re-interpretation suggests that it was a princely stronghold and trading post. Another important excavation was at Dinas Powys

Dinas Powys

Dinas Powys is a large village and a community in the Vale of Glamorgan in South Wales which takes its name from the Dinas Powys hillfort that dates from the Iron Age...

(Alcock 1963) which showed evidence of metalworking. Alcock also led the excavations at South Cadbury

South Cadbury

South Cadbury is a village and civil parish in the South Somerset council area of the English county of Somerset. The parish includes the village of Sutton Montis...

(Alcock 1995). Many other sites have now been shown to have been occupied during the sub-Roman period, including Birdoswald

Birdoswald

Birdoswald is a former farm in the civil parish of Waterhead in the English county of Cumbria . It stands on the site of the Roman fort of Banna.-Middle Ages:...

and Saxon Shore

Saxon Shore

Saxon Shore could refer to one of the following:* Saxon Shore, a military command of the Late Roman Empire, encompassing southern Britain and the coasts of northern France...

forts.

Work on field systems and environmental archaeology

Environmental archaeology

Environmental archaeology is the study of the long-term relationship between humans and their environments. Various sub-disciplines are involved to document and interpret this relationship, including paleoethnobotany, zooarchaeology, geomorphology, palynology, geophysics, landscape archaeology,...

has also highlighted the extent to which agricultural practice

Agriculture

Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...

continued and changed over the period. Archaeology, however, has its limits, especially in dating. Although radio-carbon dating can provide a rough estimate, this is not accurate enough to associate archaeological finds with historical events. Dendrochronology

Dendrochronology

Dendrochronology or tree-ring dating is the scientific method of dating based on the analysis of patterns of tree-rings. Dendrochronology can date the time at which tree rings were formed, in many types of wood, to the exact calendar year...

is accurate enough to do this, though few suitable pieces of wood have been uncovered.

Coins

COinS

ContextObjects in Spans, commonly abbreviated COinS, is a method to embed bibliographic metadata in the HTML code of web pages. This allows bibliographic software to publish machine-readable bibliographic items and client reference management software to retrieve bibliographic metadata. The...

would normally prove the most useful tool for dating, though this is not the case for sub-Roman Britain since no newly-minted coins are believed to have entered circulation after the very early fifth century.

There is some archaeological evidence for Anglo-Saxons

Anglo-Saxons

Anglo-Saxon is a term used by historians to designate the Germanic tribes who invaded and settled the south and east of Great Britain beginning in the early 5th century AD, and the period from their creation of the English nation to the Norman conquest. The Anglo-Saxon Era denotes the period of...

and Britons living on the same site. For example, in the cemetery

Cemetery

A cemetery is a place in which dead bodies and cremated remains are buried. The term "cemetery" implies that the land is specifically designated as a burying ground. Cemeteries in the Western world are where the final ceremonies of death are observed...

at Wasperton

Wasperton

Wasperton is a village and civil parish in the English county of Warwickshire.It is on the east bank of the Warwickshire Avon and is some south of the town of Warwick which is easily accessed by the A429 road.-External links:*...

, Warwickshire

Warwickshire

Warwickshire is a landlocked non-metropolitan county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, although the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare...

, it is possible to see one family adopting Anglo-Saxon culture over a long period.

Narrative

Because of the sparse evidence for the period, many interpretations are possible. These have ranged from those taking all the sources at their face value (e.g. Alcock 1971, Morris 1973, Ashe 1985) to later ones discounting fully the non-contemporary sources. It is clear that any interpretation can only be tentative and dates more so.

At the start of the 5th century Britannia

Roman Britain

Roman Britain was the part of the island of Great Britain controlled by the Roman Empire from AD 43 until ca. AD 410.The Romans referred to the imperial province as Britannia, which eventually comprised all of the island of Great Britain south of the fluid frontier with Caledonia...

formed part of the Western Roman Empire

Western Roman Empire

The Western Roman Empire was the western half of the Roman Empire after its division by Diocletian in 285; the other half of the Roman Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire, commonly referred to today as the Byzantine Empire....

under Honorius

Honorius (emperor)

Honorius , was Western Roman Emperor from 395 to 423. He was the younger son of emperor Theodosius I and his first wife Aelia Flaccilla, and brother of the eastern emperor Arcadius....

However, signs of decline were already appearing and some Saxons

Saxons

may already have been in England as mercenaries

Foederati

Foederatus is a Latin term whose definition and usage drifted in the time between the early Roman Republic and the end of the Western Roman Empire...

. Roman troops were withdrawn by Stilicho

Stilicho

Flavius Stilicho was a high-ranking general , Patrician and Consul of the Western Roman Empire, notably of Vandal birth. Despised by the Roman population for his Germanic ancestry and Arian beliefs, Stilicho was in 408 executed along with his wife and son...

in 402, and bulk coin payments ceased around this time. In 406 the army in Britain revolted, electing three successive "tyrants" the last of whom took the remaining troops to the continent. He became a joint emperor as Constantine III but was defeated and subsequently executed in 411. Meanwhile there were barbarian raids on Britain in 408 but these seem to have been defeated. After 410 Honorius apparently sent letters to the cities of Britain telling them to fend for themselves, though this is sometimes disputed. The withdrawal of Roman legions did not put an end to the Roman culture of the "lost province", which still remained part of the Roman cultural world, as Britons self-identified as Roman.

From the middle of the fifth century the Germanic raiders altered their intentions towards the island and began to settle in the eastern river valleys. Later civil wars seem to have broken out, which have been interpreted either as being between pro-Roman and independence groups or between "Established Church" and Pelagian parties (Myres 1965, Morris 1965), a class struggle between peasants and land owners (Thompson 1977, Wood 1984) and a coup by an urban elite (Snyder 1988). A recent view explored by Laycock sees Britain violently fragmenting at this time into kingdoms based on British tribal identities. However, mostly life seems to have continued as before in the countryside and on a reduced scale in the towns as evidenced by the descriptions of Germanus

Germanus of Auxerre

' visits. Feuding kingships replaced the centrally governed Roman province

Roman province

In Ancient Rome, a province was the basic, and, until the Tetrarchy , largest territorial and administrative unit of the empire's territorial possessions outside of Italy...

s.

Gildas

Gildas

says that a "council" was convened by Vortigern

Vortigern

Vortigern , also spelled Vortiger and Vortigen, was a 5th-century warlord in Britain, a leading ruler among the Britons. His existence is considered likely, though information about him is shrouded in legend. He is said to have invited the Saxons to settle in Kent as mercenaries to aid him in...

to find ways of countering the barbarian threat, which opted to hire Saxon mercenaries following Roman practice. After a while these turned against the British and plundered the towns. A British leader Ambrosius Aurelianus

Ambrosius Aurelianus

Ambrosius Aurelianus, ; called Aurelius Ambrosius in the Historia Regum Britanniae and elsewhere, was a war leader of the Romano-British who won an important battle against the Anglo-Saxons in the 5th century, according to Gildas...

fought against them, in a number of battles apparently over a long period. Towards the end of this period there was the Battle of Mons Badonicus

Battle of Mons Badonicus

The Battle of Mons Badonicus was a battle between a force of Britons and an Anglo-Saxon army, probably sometime between 490 and 517 AD. Though it is believed to have been a major political and military event, there is no certainty about its date, location or the details of the fighting...

, around AD 500, which later sources claimed was won by King Arthur

King Arthur

though Gildas does not identify him. Subsequent to this there was a long period of peace. The British seem to have been in control of England and Wales roughly west of a line from York

York

York is a walled city, situated at the confluence of the Rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. The city has a rich heritage and has provided the backdrop to major political events throughout much of its two millennia of existence...

to Bournemouth

Bournemouth

Bournemouth is a large coastal resort town in the ceremonial county of Dorset, England. According to the 2001 Census the town has a population of 163,444, making it the largest settlement in Dorset. It is also the largest settlement between Southampton and Plymouth...

. The Saxons had control of Northumberland

Northumberland

Northumberland is the northernmost ceremonial county and a unitary district in North East England. For Eurostat purposes Northumberland is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three boroughs or unitary districts that comprise the "Northumberland and Tyne and Wear" NUTS 2 region...

as well as East Anglia

East Anglia

East Anglia is a traditional name for a region of eastern England, named after an ancient Anglo-Saxon kingdom, the Kingdom of the East Angles. The Angles took their name from their homeland Angeln, in northern Germany. East Anglia initially consisted of Norfolk and Suffolk, but upon the marriage of...

and South East England

South East England

South East England is one of the nine official regions of England, designated in 1994 and adopted for statistical purposes in 1999. It consists of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, East Sussex, Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Kent, Oxfordshire, Surrey and West Sussex...

.

Writing in Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

perhaps about AD 540, Gildas gives a preliminary account of the history of Britain but the earlier part (for which other sources are available) is severely muddled. He castigates five rulers in western Britain - Constantine of Dumnonia

Dumnonia

Dumnonia is the Latinised name for the Brythonic kingdom in sub-Roman Britain between the late 4th and late 8th centuries, located in the farther parts of the south-west peninsula of Great Britain...

, Aurelius Caninus, Vortipor of the Demetae

Kingdom of Dyfed

The Kingdom of Dyfed is one of several Welsh petty kingdoms that emerged in 5th-century post-Roman Britain in south-west Wales, based on the former Irish tribal lands of the Déisi from c 350 until it was subsumed into Deheubarth in 920. In Latin, the country of the Déisi was Demetae, eventually to...

, Cuneglasus and Maglocunus - for their sins. He also attacks the British clergy. He gives information on the British diet, dress and entertainment. He writes that Britons were killed, emigrated or were enslaved but gives no idea of numbers.

In the late 6th century there was another period of Saxon expansion, starting with the capture by Wessex

Wessex

The Kingdom of Wessex or Kingdom of the West Saxons was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the West Saxons, in South West England, from the 6th century, until the emergence of a united English state in the 10th century, under the Wessex dynasty. It was to be an earldom after Canute the Great's conquest...

of Sarum in AD 552 and including entry into the Cotswolds

Cotswolds

The Cotswolds are a range of hills in west-central England, sometimes called the Heart of England, an area across and long. The area has been designated as the Cotswold Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty...

area after the Battle of Deorham

Battle of Deorham

The Battle of Deorham or Dyrham was fought in 577 between the West Saxons under Ceawlin and Cuthwine and the Britons of the West Country. The location, Deorham, is usually taken to refer to Dyrham in South Gloucestershire. The battle was a major victory for the West Saxons, who took three important...

, though the accuracy of the entries in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles for this period has been questioned. This activity seems to have separated the Britons of the South West England

South West England

South West England is one of the regions of England defined by the Government of the United Kingdom for statistical and other purposes. It is the largest such region in area, covering and comprising Bristol, Gloucestershire, Somerset, Dorset, Wiltshire, Devon, Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. ...

(known later as the West Welsh) from those of Wales

Wales

. (Just after the period being discussed, the Battle of Chester

Battle of Chester

The Battle of Chester was a major victory for the Anglo Saxons over the native Britons near the city of Chester, England in the early 7th century. Æthelfrith of Northumbria annihilated a combined force from the Welsh kingdoms of Powys, Rhôs and possibly Mercia...

seems to have separated the latter from those of the north of England.) At the end of this period of British history the Britons were still in control of about half of England and Wales.

Kingdoms

Various British kingdoms existed at some point in the period. Some changed their names and some were absorbed by others. At times some of the kingdoms were united by a ruler who was an overlord, while wars occurred between others. During the period the boundaries are likely to have changed. The major ones were:

Bryneich
Bernicia
Bernicia was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom established by Anglian settlers of the 6th century in what is now southeastern Scotland and North East England....

- in Northumberland
Northumberland
Northumberland is the northernmost ceremonial county and a unitary district in North East England. For Eurostat purposes Northumberland is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three boroughs or unitary districts that comprise the "Northumberland and Tyne and Wear" NUTS 2 region...

, it was eventually taken by the Angles of Bernicia
Bernicia
Bernicia was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom established by Anglian settlers of the 6th century in what is now southeastern Scotland and North East England....
Dumnonia
Dumnonia
Dumnonia is the Latinised name for the Brythonic kingdom in sub-Roman Britain between the late 4th and late 8th centuries, located in the farther parts of the south-west peninsula of Great Britain...

- southwest England, mainly Devon
Devon
Devon is a large county in southwestern England. The county is sometimes referred to as Devonshire, although the term is rarely used inside the county itself as the county has never been officially "shired", it often indicates a traditional or historical context.The county shares borders with...

and Cornwall
Cornwall
Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...

but also at least parts of Somerset
Somerset
The ceremonial and non-metropolitan county of Somerset in South West England borders Bristol and Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west. It is partly bounded to the north and west by the Bristol Channel and the estuary of the...

and Dorset
Dyfed
Kingdom of Dyfed
The Kingdom of Dyfed is one of several Welsh petty kingdoms that emerged in 5th-century post-Roman Britain in south-west Wales, based on the former Irish tribal lands of the Déisi from c 350 until it was subsumed into Deheubarth in 920. In Latin, the country of the Déisi was Demetae, eventually to...

- south west Wales
Ergyng
Ergyng
Ergyng was a Welsh kingdom of the sub-Roman and early medieval period, between the 5th and 7th centuries. It was later referred to by the English as Archenfield.-Location:...

- in south west Herefordshire
Herefordshire
Herefordshire is a historic and ceremonial county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes it is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three counties that comprise the "Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire" NUTS 2 region. It also forms a unitary district known as the...

, northern Monmouthshire
Monmouthshire
Monmouthshire is a county in south east Wales. The name derives from the historic county of Monmouthshire which covered a much larger area. The largest town is Abergavenny. There are many castles in Monmouthshire .-Historic county:...

and the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire
Gwent, Brycheiniog
Brycheiniog
Brycheiniog was a small independent petty kingdom in South Wales in the Early Middle Ages. It often acted as a buffer state between England to the east and the powerful south Welsh kingdom of Deheubarth to the west. It was conquered and pacified by the Normans between 1088 and 1095, though it...

and Glywysing - in south Wales
Powys - mid Wales
Gwynedd
Kingdom of Gwynedd
Gwynedd was one petty kingdom of several Welsh successor states which emerged in 5th-century post-Roman Britain in the Early Middle Ages, and later evolved into a principality during the High Middle Ages. It was based on the former Brythonic tribal lands of the Ordovices, Gangani, and the...

- north Wales
Elmet
Elmet
Elmet was an independent Brythonic kingdom covering a broad area of what later became the West Riding of Yorkshire during the Early Middle Ages, between approximately the 5th century and early 7th century. Although its precise boundaries are unclear, it appears to have been bordered by the River...

- in south western Yorkshire
Rheged
Rheged
Rheged is described in poetic sources as one of the kingdoms of the Hen Ogledd , the Brythonic-speaking region of what is now northern England and southern Scotland, during the Early Middle Ages...

- Cumbria and Lancashire
Ebrauc - around York and northern Yorkshire
Strathclyde
Kingdom of Strathclyde
Strathclyde , originally Brythonic Ystrad Clud, was one of the early medieval kingdoms of the celtic people called the Britons in the Hen Ogledd, the Brythonic-speaking parts of what is now southern Scotland and northern England. The kingdom developed during the post-Roman period...

- (c. 900 – c. 1100) in southwestern Scotland, Cumberland, Westmorland
Gododdin
Gododdin
The Gododdin were a Brittonic people of north-eastern Britain in the sub-Roman period, the area known as the Hen Ogledd or Old North...

- centred on Traprain Law in Lothian

There were also areas that became Anglian or Saxon kingdoms:-

Bernicia
Bernicia
Bernicia was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom established by Anglian settlers of the 6th century in what is now southeastern Scotland and North East England....

- the Anglian kingdom of Bernicia before joining with Deira to become Northumbria
Deira
Deira
Deira was a kingdom in Northern England during the 6th century AD. Itextended from the Humber to the Tees, and from the sea to the western edge of the Vale of York...

- the Anglian kingdom of Deira before joining with Bernicia to become Northumbria (most of modern Yorkshire)
East Anglia
Kingdom of the East Angles
The Kingdom of East Anglia, also known as the Kingdom of the East Angles , was a small independent Anglo-Saxon kingdom that comprised what are now the English counties of Norfolk and Suffolk and perhaps the eastern part of the Fens...

- including Suffolk and Norfolk
Kent
Kingdom of Kent
The Kingdom of Kent was a Jutish colony and later independent kingdom in what is now south east England. It was founded at an unknown date in the 5th century by Jutes, members of a Germanic people from continental Europe, some of whom settled in Britain after the withdrawal of the Romans...
Hwicce
Hwicce
The Hwicce were one of the peoples of Anglo-Saxon England. The exact boundaries of their kingdom are uncertain, though it is likely that they coincided with those of the old Diocese of Worcester, founded in 679–80, the early bishops of which bore the title Episcopus Hwicciorum...

- in most of Gloucestershire outside the Forest of Dean
Forest of Dean
The Forest of Dean is a geographical, historical and cultural region in the western part of the county of Gloucestershire, England. The forest is a roughly triangular plateau bounded by the River Wye to the west and north, the River Severn to the south, and the City of Gloucester to the east.The...
Sussex
Kingdom of Sussex
The Kingdom of Sussex or Kingdom of the South Saxons was a Saxon colony and later independent kingdom of the Saxons, on the south coast of England. Its boundaries coincided in general with those of the earlier kingdom of the Regnenses and the later county of Sussex. A large part of its territory...
Essex
Kingdom of Essex
The Kingdom of Essex or Kingdom of the East Saxons was one of the seven traditional kingdoms of the so-called Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy. It was founded in the 6th century and covered the territory later occupied by the counties of Essex, Hertfordshire, Middlesex and Kent. Kings of Essex were...

- including Middlesex
Middle Saxons
The Middle Saxons or Middel Seaxe were a people and their territory which later became, with somewhat contracted boundaries, the county of Middlesex, England. It included the early London settlement. The area was part of the Kingdom of Essex, but was ceded to Mercia in the 8th century....

and Surrey
Wessex
Wessex
The Kingdom of Wessex or Kingdom of the West Saxons was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the West Saxons, in South West England, from the 6th century, until the emergence of a united English state in the 10th century, under the Wessex dynasty. It was to be an earldom after Canute the Great's conquest...

- formed from Saxon areas in the upper Thames valley
Thames Valley
The Thames Valley Region is a loose term for the English counties and towns roughly following the course of the River Thames as it flows from Oxfordshire in the west to London in the east. It includes parts of Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, North Hampshire, Surrey and west London...

and an area of Jutish settlement around Southampton (including Isle of Wight)
Mercia
Mercia
Mercia was one of the kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy. It was centred on the valley of the River Trent and its tributaries in the region now known as the English Midlands...

- centred on Repton
Middle Anglia - east Midlands, later joined with Mercia
Northumbria
Northumbria
Northumbria was a medieval kingdom of the Angles, in what is now Northern England and South-East Scotland, becoming subsequently an earldom in a united Anglo-Saxon kingdom of England. The name reflects the approximate southern limit to the kingdom's territory, the Humber Estuary.Northumbria was...

- formed from Bernicia and Deira

Religion

Officially the Roman Empire

Roman Empire

was Christian

Christian

A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

at the start of the 5th century, but there is evidence of rural pagan temples being refurbished at the start of this period in western England. However, most temples seem to have been replaced eventually by Christian church

Early Christianity

Early Christianity is generally considered as Christianity before 325. The New Testament's Book of Acts and Epistle to the Galatians records that the first Christian community was centered in Jerusalem and its leaders included James, Peter and John....

es on the same site or nearby. "Celtic" churches or monasteries seem to have flourished during this period in the British areas, such as that at Glastonbury

Glastonbury

Glastonbury is a small town in Somerset, England, situated at a dry point on the low lying Somerset Levels, south of Bristol. The town, which is in the Mendip district, had a population of 8,784 in the 2001 census...

, but the "Saxons" were pagan. This led to a great antipathy between the peoples. Many Roman cemeteries continued into much later times, such as that at Cannington, Somerset

Cannington, Somerset

Cannington is a village and civil parish north-west of Bridgwater in the Sedgemoor district of Somerset, England. It lies on the west bank of the River Parret, and contains the hamlet of Edstock.-History:...

. In the east there was a gradual transition among the pagan Saxons from cremation to inhumation. Although the arrival of Saint

Saint

A saint is a holy person. In various religions, saints are people who are believed to have exceptional holiness.In Christian usage, "saint" refers to any believer who is "in Christ", and in whom Christ dwells, whether in heaven or in earth...

Augustine

Augustine of Canterbury

Augustine of Canterbury was a Benedictine monk who became the first Archbishop of Canterbury in the year 597...

is traditionally seen as the significant Christianising event for the Saxons, a bishop had already arrived in Kent with the king's Merovingian wife, and St Columba had preached to the northern Saxons (Angles

Angles

The Angles is a modern English term for a Germanic people who took their name from the ancestral cultural region of Angeln, a district located in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany...

?). Other Saxons remained pagan after this time.

In AD 429 a British Deacon Palladius

Palladius

Palladius was the first Bishop of the Christians of Ireland, preceding Saint Patrick. The Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion consider Palladius a saint.-Armorica:...

had requested support from the Pope in Rome to combat Pelagianism

Pelagianism

Pelagianism is a theological theory named after Pelagius , although he denied, at least at some point in his life, many of the doctrines associated with his name. It is the belief that original sin did not taint human nature and that mortal will is still capable of choosing good or evil without...

. Bishops Germanus

Germanus of Auxerre

and Lupus of Troyes

Lupus of Troyes

Saint Lupus was an early bishop of Troyes. Born at Toul, he was brother-in-law to Hilary of Arles, as he had married one of Hilary's sisters, Pimeniola. Lupus worked as a lawyer. However, after being married for six years, he and his wife parted by mutual agreement.Lupus renounced all of his...

were sent. During this time it is alleged that Germanus, a former military commander, led the British to the "Halelujah" victory, possibly in Wales. Germanus is said to have made a second visit to England later. Participation by a British bishop at a synod in Gaul demonstrates that at least some British churches were in full administrative and doctrinal touch with Gaul as late as 455.

In the north Whithorn

Whithorn

Whithorn is a former royal burgh in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, about ten miles south of Wigtown. The town was the location of the first recorded Christian church in Scotland, Candida Casa : the 'White [or 'Shining'] House', built by Saint Ninian about 397.-Eighth and twelfth centuries:A...

is said to be the earliest church in Scotland, being founded in the 5th century by St Ninian. Corotius (or Ceretic) was a Christian king who was the recipient of the letter from St. Patrick. His base was Dumbarton Rock in Strathclyde

Strathclyde

right|thumb|the former Strathclyde regionStrathclyde was one of nine former local government regions of Scotland created by the Local Government Act 1973 and abolished in 1996 by the Local Government etc Act 1994...

and his descendant Riderch Hael is named in the "Life of St Columbus". Riderch was a contemporary of Aedan mac Gabrain of Dal Riata

Dál Riata

Dál Riata was a Gaelic overkingdom on the western coast of Scotland with some territory on the northeast coast of Ireland...

and Urien of Rheged

Rheged

Rheged is described in poetic sources as one of the kingdoms of the Hen Ogledd , the Brythonic-speaking region of what is now northern England and southern Scotland, during the Early Middle Ages...

, as well as of Aethelfrith of Bernicia

Bernicia

Bernicia was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom established by Anglian settlers of the 6th century in what is now southeastern Scotland and North East England....

. Unlike St Columba, Kentigern the supposed apostle to the Britons of the Clyde, and alleged founder of Glasgow

Glasgow

Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...

, is a shadowy figure.

Anglo-Saxon migration

Linguistic evidence

Linguistics

Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....

is a useful way of analysing the culture of a people, and to an extent political associations, in a period.
Bede

Bede

in Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum
Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum
The Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum is a work in Latin by Bede on the history of the Christian Churches in England, and of England generally; its main focus is on the conflict between Roman and Celtic Christianity.It is considered to be one of the most important original references on...

(completed in 731)
wrote that "currently, [there are in Britain] the languages of five peoples, namely that of the Angles (English), the Britons (Welsh), the Scots (Gaelic), the Picts

Pictish language

Pictish is a term used for the extinct language or languages thought to have been spoken by the Picts, the people of northern and central Scotland in the Early Middle Ages...

and the Latins" (HE 1.1).
A review of the Brythonic language changes during this period is given by Kenneth H. Jackson

Kenneth H. Jackson

Kenneth Hurlstone Jackson was an English linguist and a translator who specialised in the Celtic languages. He demonstrated how the text of the Ulster Cycle of tales, written circa AD 1100, preserves an oral tradition originating some six centuries earlier and reflects Celtic Irish society of the...

Studies of Old English, P-

Brythonic languages

The Brythonic or Brittonic languages form one of the two branches of the Insular Celtic language family, the other being Goidelic. The name Brythonic was derived by Welsh Celticist John Rhys from the Welsh word Brython, meaning an indigenous Briton as opposed to an Anglo-Saxon or Gael...

and Q-Celtic

Goidelic languages

The Goidelic languages or Gaelic languages are one of the two branches of the Insular Celtic languages, the other consisting of the Brythonic languages. Goidelic languages historically formed a dialect continuum stretching from the south of Ireland through the Isle of Man to the north of Scotland...

and Latin

Latin

have provided evidence for contact between the Britons, the Gaels, and the Anglo-Saxons

Anglo-Saxons

. The general consensus is that Old English has little evidence of linguistic contact. Some scholars have suggested that there is more evidence in the grammar than in the lexicon

Lexicon

In linguistics, the lexicon of a language is its vocabulary, including its words and expressions. A lexicon is also a synonym of the word thesaurus. More formally, it is a language's inventory of lexemes. Coined in English 1603, the word "lexicon" derives from the Greek "λεξικόν" , neut...

, though this is challenged by many. Latin continued to be used for writing but the extent of its use for speech has been much disputed.

Similarly, studies of placenames give clues about the linguistic history of an area. England (except Cornwall

Cornwall

and Cumbria

Cumbria

) shows little evidence now of Celtic in its placenames. There are scattered Celtic placenames throughout, increasing towards the west. There are also Celtic river names and topographical names. The place-name and linguistic evidence has been explained by saying that the settlement of Anglo-Saxons, being politically and socially dominant in the south and east of Britain, meant that their language and culture

Culture

Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...

also became dominant. Names with a Latin element may suggest continuity of settlement, while some place names have names of pagan Germanic deities. Names of British origin may be taken as indicating survival of a British population, though this may not be so. Names based on the Anglo-Saxon word for the British, wealh, are also taken as indicating British survival. An example is Walton meaning settlement of the British and this name is found in many parts of England, though it sometimes means Wall-town.

Epigraphic evidence from surviving inscriptions on stones provide another source of information on the settlements of Britons and the Anglo-Saxons in this period. Celtic inscribed stones occur in western England and Wales that relate to this period and the CISP project has been set up to record these and provide information online. In the northwest the inscriptions are written in runes and provide information on the settlement of Angles. (Inscriptions in northern Scotland are in ogham

Ogham

Ogham is an Early Medieval alphabet used primarily to write the Old Irish language, and occasionally the Brythonic language. Ogham is sometimes called the "Celtic Tree Alphabet", based on a High Medieval Bríatharogam tradition ascribing names of trees to the individual letters.There are roughly...

, some in an unknown language.)

Extent of the migrations

Two contrasting models of the end of sub-Roman Britain have been characterized by Richard Reece as "decline and immigration" and "invasion and displacement".
It has long been held that the Anglo-Saxons migrated to Britain in large numbers in the fifth and sixth centuries, substantially displacing the British people. The Anglo-Saxon historian Frank Stenton

Frank Stenton

Sir Frank Merry Stenton was a 20th century historian of Anglo-Saxon England, and president of the Royal Historical Society . He was the author of Anglo-Saxon England, a volume of the Oxford History of England, first published in 1943 and widely considered a classic history of the period...

in 1943, although making considerable allowance for British survival, essentially sums up this view, arguing "that the greater part of southern England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

was overrun in the first phase of the war". This interpretation was based on the written sources, particularly Gildas

Gildas

but also the later sources such as the Anglo-Saxon historian Bede

Bede

, that cast the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons as a violent event. The placename and linguistic evidence was also considered to support this interpretation, as very few British place-names survived in eastern Britain, very few British Celtic words entered the Old English language and the migration of Brythonic language and peoples from south-western Britain to Armorica

Armorica

Armorica or Aremorica is the name given in ancient times to the part of Gaul that includes the Brittany peninsula and the territory between the Seine and Loire rivers, extending inland to an indeterminate point and down the Atlantic coast...

, which eventually became Brittany

Brittany

Brittany is a cultural and administrative region in the north-west of France. Previously a kingdom and then a duchy, Brittany was united to the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain...

. This interpretation particularly appealed to earlier English historians, who wanted to further their view that England had developed differently from Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

with a limited monarchy and love of liberty. This, it was argued, came from the mass Anglo-Saxon invasions. While this view was never universal — Edward Gibbon

Edward Gibbon

Edward Gibbon was an English historian and Member of Parliament...

believed that there had been a great deal of British survival — it was the dominant paradigm. Though many scholars would now utilise this argument, the traditional view is still held by many other historians, Lawrence James

Lawrence James

Edwin James Lawrence , most commonly known as Lawrence James, is an English academic, notable for his works as a writer and historian. He has written several works of popular history about the British Empire...

recently writing that England was 'submerged by an Anglo-Saxon current which swept away the Romano-British.'

The traditional view has been deconstructed to a degree (a considerable degree in some circles) since the 1990s. At the centre of this is a re-estimation of the numbers of Anglo-Saxons arriving in Britain during this period. A lower figure is sometimes accepted, which would mean that it is highly unlikely that the existing British population was substantially displaced by the Anglo-Saxons. The Anglo-Saxons are suggested to have formed a ruling elite with acculturisation of the local population if the lowest of figures are used. Thus some "Saxon" graves may be of Britons though many scholars would disagree with this interpretation.

End of Roman Britain

Various dates of the end of Roman Britain

Roman Britain

have been advanced, from the end of Roman currency

Roman currency

The Roman currency during most of the Roman Republic and the western half of the Roman Empire consisted of coins including the aureus , the denarius , the sestertius , the dupondius , and the as...

coinage importation in 402, to Constantine III

Constantine III (usurper)

Flavius Claudius Constantinus, known in English as Constantine III was a Roman general who declared himself Western Roman Emperor in Britannia in 407 and established himself in Gaul. Recognised by the Emperor Honorius in 409, collapsing support and military setbacks saw him abdicate in 411...

's rebellion in 407, to the rebellion mentioned by Zosimus

Zosimus

in 409, and the Rescript of Honorius

Honorius (emperor)

Honorius , was Western Roman Emperor from 395 to 423. He was the younger son of emperor Theodosius I and his first wife Aelia Flaccilla, and brother of the eastern emperor Arcadius....

in 410. It is perhaps better not to think of this in terms of modern decolonisation. The dating of the end of Roman Britain is complex, and the exact process of it is probably unknowable.

There is some controversy as to why Roman rule ended in Britain. The view first advocated by Mommsen

Mommsen

Mommsen is a surname, and may refer to one of a family of German historians, see Mommsen family:* Theodor Mommsen , great classical scholar, and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature* Tycho Mommsen...

was that Rome left Britain. This argument was substantiated over time, most recently by A.S. Esmonde-Cleary. According to this argument, internal turmoil in the Roman Empire

Roman Empire

and the need to withdraw troops to fight off barbarian

Barbarian

Barbarian and savage are terms used to refer to a person who is perceived to be uncivilized. The word is often used either in a general reference to a member of a nation or ethnos, typically a tribal society as seen by an urban civilization either viewed as inferior, or admired as a noble savage...

armies led Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

to abandon Britain. It was the collapse of the imperial system that led to the end of imperial rule in Britain. However, Michael Jones has advanced an alternative thesis that argues that Rome did not leave Britain, but that Britain left Rome. He highlights the numerous usurper

Usurper

Usurper is a derogatory term used to describe either an illegitimate or controversial claimant to the power; often, but not always in a monarchy, or a person who succeeds in establishing himself as a monarch without inheriting the throne, or any other person exercising authority unconstitutionally...

s who came from Britain in the late fourth and early fifth century, and that a supply of coin

Coin

A coin is a piece of hard material that is standardized in weight, is produced in large quantities in order to facilitate trade, and primarily can be used as a legal tender token for commerce in the designated country, region, or territory....

age to Britain had dried up by the early fifth century, meaning administrators and troops were not getting paid. All of this, he argues, led the British people to rebel against Rome. Both of these arguments are open to criticism, though as yet no further developments have been made in understanding why the end of Roman Britain occurred.

However, the violent nature of the period should not be overlooked, and it is likely that this period was a time of endemic tension, alluded to in all of the written sources. This may have led to the deaths of a substantial number of the British population. There are also references to plagues. Laycock (Britannia the Failed State 2008) suggests tribal conflict, possibly even starting before 410, may have sliced up much of Britain and helped destroy the economy. The evidence from land use suggests a decline in production, which might be a sign of population decline.

It is clear that some British people migrated to the continent

Europe

, which resulted in the region of Armorica

Armorica

in northwest Gaul

Gaul

Gaul was a region of Western Europe during the Iron Age and Roman era, encompassing present day France, Luxembourg and Belgium, most of Switzerland, the western part of Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the left bank of the Rhine. The Gauls were the speakers of...

becoming known as Brittany

Brittany

. There is also evidence of British migration to Gallaecia

Gallaecia

Gallaecia or Callaecia, also known as Hispania Gallaecia, was the name of a Roman province and an early Mediaeval kingdom that comprised a territory in the north-west of Hispania...

, in Hispania

Hispania

Another theory holds that the name derives from Ezpanna, the Basque word for "border" or "edge", thus meaning the farthest area or place. Isidore of Sevilla considered Hispania derived from Hispalis....

. The dating of these migrations is uncertain, but recent studies suggest that the migration from southwestern Britain to Brittany may have begun as early as AD 300 and was largely ended by 500. These settlers, unlikely to be refugees if the date was this early, made their presence felt in the naming of the westernmost, Atlantic-facing provinces of Armorica, Kerne/Cornouaille ("Kernow/Cornwall

Cornwall

") and Domnonea ("Devon

Devon

Devon is a large county in southwestern England. The county is sometimes referred to as Devonshire, although the term is rarely used inside the county itself as the county has never been officially "shired", it often indicates a traditional or historical context.The county shares borders with...

"). However, there is clear linguistic evidence for close contacts between the southwest of Britain and Brittany across the sub-Roman period.

In Galicia, in the northwest corner of the Iberian peninsula

Iberian Peninsula

The Iberian Peninsula , sometimes called Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes the modern-day sovereign states of Spain, Portugal and Andorra, as well as the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar...

, another region of traditional Celtic culture, the Suebian Parochiale, drawn up about 580, includes a list of the principal churches of each diocese in the metropolitanate of Braga

Braga

Braga , a city in the Braga Municipality in northwestern Portugal, is the capital of the Braga District, the oldest archdiocese and the third major city of the country. Braga is the oldest Portuguese city and one of the oldest Christian cities in the World...

(the ecclesia Britonensis, now Bretoña), which was the seat of a bishop who ministered to the spiritual needs of the British immigrants to northwestern Spain: in 572 its bishop, Mailoc, had a Celtic name. The settlers had brought their Celtic Christianity

Celtic Christianity

Celtic Christianity or Insular Christianity refers broadly to certain features of Christianity that were common, or held to be common, across the Celtic-speaking world during the Early Middle Ages...

with them but finally accepted the Latin Rite at the Council of Toledo in 633. The diocese stretched from Ferrol

Ferrol, A Coruña

Ferrol , sometimes in Spanish El Ferrol, is a city in the province of A Coruña in Galicia, located on the Atlantic coast in north-western Spain...

to the Eo River

Eo River

The Eo is a river in northwestern Spain. Some 91 km in length, its estuary forms the boundary between the regions of Galicia and Asturias. The river is known for its salmon fishing.-External links:*...

. In Spain, the area has sometimes been dubbed "the third Britain" or "the last Britain".

Non-Anglo-Saxon kingdoms began appearing in western Britain, which are first referred to in Gildas's De Excidio. To an extent these kingdoms may have derived from Roman structures. However, it is also clear that they drew on a strong influence from Hibernia

Hibernia

Hibernia is the Classical Latin name for the island of Ireland. The name Hibernia was taken from Greek geographical accounts. During his exploration of northwest Europe , Pytheas of Massilia called the island Ierne . In his book Geographia Hibernia is the Classical Latin name for the island of...

, which was never part of the Roman Empire. Archaeology has helped further the study of these kingdoms, notably at sites like Tintagel

Tintagel

Tintagel is a civil parish and village situated on the Atlantic coast of Cornwall, United Kingdom. The population of the parish is 1,820 people, and the area of the parish is ....

or the South Cadbury

South Cadbury

South Cadbury is a village and civil parish in the South Somerset council area of the English county of Somerset. The parish includes the village of Sutton Montis...

hill-fort.

In the north there developed the British kingdoms of the Hen Ogledd

Hen Ogledd

Yr Hen Ogledd is a Welsh term used by scholars to refer to those parts of what is now northern England and southern Scotland in the years between 500 and the Viking invasions of c. 800, with particular interest in the Brythonic-speaking peoples who lived there.The term is derived from heroic...

, the "Old North", comprising Ebrauc (probable name), Bryneich

Bernicia

Bernicia was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom established by Anglian settlers of the 6th century in what is now southeastern Scotland and North East England....

, Rheged

Rheged

Rheged is described in poetic sources as one of the kingdoms of the Hen Ogledd , the Brythonic-speaking region of what is now northern England and southern Scotland, during the Early Middle Ages...

, Strathclyde

Strathclyde

, Elmet

Elmet

Elmet was an independent Brythonic kingdom covering a broad area of what later became the West Riding of Yorkshire during the Early Middle Ages, between approximately the 5th century and early 7th century. Although its precise boundaries are unclear, it appears to have been bordered by the River...

and Gododdin

Gododdin

The Gododdin were a Brittonic people of north-eastern Britain in the sub-Roman period, the area known as the Hen Ogledd or Old North...

. Fifth and sixth century repairs along Hadrian's Wall

Hadrian's Wall

have been uncovered, and at Whithorn

Whithorn

in southwestern Scotland

Scotland

(possibly the site of St Ninian

Ninian

Saint Ninian was a medieval Christian bishop who evangelized the Picts.Ninian may also refer to:* Ninian Edwards , former Governor of Illinois* Ninian Stephen , former Governor-General of Australia...

's monastery). Chance discoveries have helped document the continuing urban occupation of some Roman towns such as Wroxeter

Wroxeter

Wroxeter is a village in Shropshire, England. It forms part of the civil parish of Wroxeter and Uppington and is located in the Severn Valley about south-east of Shrewsbury.-History:...

and Caerwent

Caerwent

Caerwent is a village and community in Monmouthshire, Wales. It is located about five miles west of Chepstow and eleven miles east of Newport, and was founded by the Romans as the market town of Venta Silurum, an important settlement of the Brythonic Silures tribe. The modern village is built...

. Continued urban use might be associated with an ecclesiastical

Christianity

Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...

structure.

Western Britain has attracted those archaeologists who wish to place King Arthur

King Arthur

as a historical figure. Though there is little contemporary written evidence for this, archaeological evidence does suggest a possibility that a Romano-British

Romano-British

Romano-British culture describes the culture that arose in Britain under the Roman Empire following the Roman conquest of AD 43 and the creation of the province of Britannia. It arose as a fusion of the imported Roman culture with that of the indigenous Britons, a people of Celtic language and...

king might have wielded considerable power during the sub-Roman period, as demonstrated by the creation of sites such as Tintagel

Tintagel

Tintagel is a civil parish and village situated on the Atlantic coast of Cornwall, United Kingdom. The population of the parish is 1,820 people, and the area of the parish is ....

and earthworks such as the Wansdyke

Wansdyke (earthwork)

Wansdyke is a series of early medieval defensive linear earthworks in the West Country of England, consisting of a ditch and a running embankment from the ditch spoil, with the ditching facing north. It runs at least from Maes Knoll in historic Somerset, a hillfort at the east end of Dundry Hill...

. Such interpretations continue to attract the popular imagination and the scepticism of academics.

While pushed back politically and linguistically, British scholars and ecclesiastics had a significant impact on the Anglo-Saxon

Anglo-Saxon

newcomers through literacy, ecclesiastical social constructs and historical memory of the Roman period in Britain, particularly after the Christianizing of the Anglo-Saxons by Augustine

Augustine of Canterbury

Augustine of Canterbury was a Benedictine monk who became the first Archbishop of Canterbury in the year 597...

. Coming from a fully oral cultural background the Anglo-Saxons were heavily influenced by the more developed Christianized and literate culture of the Britons. British scholars were often employed at Anglo-Saxon courts to assist in the management of the kingdoms. Through this process, British culture was re-introduced to those parts of Britain lost to the British politically. The epitome of this process is the adoption of the legendary British war leader, King Arthur

King Arthur

, as the national hero of the English, due to the literary work of Welsh historians.

Environmental change effects

There is evidence for climate change

Climate change

Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...

in the fifth century, with conditions turning cooler and wetter. This shortened the growing season and made uplands unsuited to growing grain

GRAIN

GRAIN is a small international non-profit organisation that works to support small farmers and social movements in their struggles for community-controlled and biodiversity-based food systems. Our support takes the form of independent research and analysis, networking at local, regional and...

. Dendrochronology

Dendrochronology

reveals a particular climatic event in 540

Climate changes of 535–536

The extreme weather events of 535–536 were the most severe and protracted short-term episodes of cooling in the Northern Hemisphere in the last 2,000 years. The event is thought to have been caused by an extensive atmospheric dust veil, possibly resulting from a large volcanic eruption in the...

. Michael Jones suggests that declining agricultural production from land that was already fully exploited had considerable demographic consequences.

Background

Slaves were the engine of both the economy and the army in the Roman Empire. Estimates for the prevalence of slavery in the Roman Empire vary, with some estimating that approximately 30% of the population of the Empire in the 1st century was enslaved. The Germanic region was one of the main sources of slaves. The business of selling slaves was mostly carried out by wholesale dealers, who followed the Roman armies. There was a reduction of sources for procurement of slaves after the expansion phase, and afterwards (around 210 AD) there was a significant increase of piracy

Piracy

Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence at sea. The term can include acts committed on land, in the air, or in other major bodies of water or on a shore. It does not normally include crimes committed against persons traveling on the same vessel as the perpetrator...

in the North Sea region that helped the Empire partially resolve the problem. Pirates often attacked villages in that area, capturing people for ransom or to sell as slaves.

Under Diocletian, the Ius Colonatus was a reform of the slavery system introduced around 286 AD (similar to later Serfdom

Serfdom

Serfdom is the status of peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to Manorialism. It was a condition of bondage or modified slavery which developed primarily during the High Middle Ages in Europe and lasted to the mid-19th century...

). This provided a set of rights for slaves and improved their living conditions. The owners of slaves paid a tax to prevent the recruitment of slaves in the army. This led to a germanisation and barbarisation

Barbarian

of the army, as the tax was used to recruit mercenaries. The island was hardly defensible, so the Romans were forced to keep 3 or 4 legions in place to defend it. After the Battle of Adrianople

Battle of Adrianople

The Battle of Adrianople , sometimes known as the Battle of Hadrianopolis, was fought between a Roman army led by the Roman Emperor Valens and Gothic rebels led by Fritigern...

the Foederati

Foederati

Foederatus is a Latin term whose definition and usage drifted in the time between the early Roman Republic and the end of the Western Roman Empire...

reforms extended the practice of subsidizing entire barbarian tribes in exchange for them providing warriors to fight in the Roman armies. The Hospitalitas reform involved the granting of a third of the land (or fees) of a region to barbarians who had invaded those lands. In return, these people declared loyalty to the Emperor and provided military support, whilst retaining their independence. If the theory is correct Germanic peoples may have been resident in Britain before and after these reforms.

Between the third and fifth century many people living around the borders of the empire were displaced by raids by the Huns

Huns

The Huns were a group of nomadic people who, appearing from east of the Volga River, migrated into Europe c. AD 370 and established the vast Hunnic Empire there. Since de Guignes linked them with the Xiongnu, who had been northern neighbours of China 300 years prior to the emergence of the Huns,...

; this was the period of highest movement of Germanic populations towards the island.

Plague of Justinian
Plague of Justinian
The Plague of Justinian was a pandemic that afflicted the Eastern Roman Empire , including its capital Constantinople, in 541–542 AD. It was one of the greatest plagues in history. The most commonly accepted cause of the pandemic is bubonic plague, which later became infamous for either causing or...

The population

Population

A population is all the organisms that both belong to the same group or species and live in the same geographical area. The area that is used to define a sexual population is such that inter-breeding is possible between any pair within the area and more probable than cross-breeding with individuals...

of Britain may have decreased after the Roman

Roman Britain

period by between 1.5 and 3 million. This reduction may have been caused by environmental changes or by plague and smallpox

Smallpox

Smallpox was an infectious disease unique to humans, caused by either of two virus variants, Variola major and Variola minor. The disease is also known by the Latin names Variola or Variola vera, which is a derivative of the Latin varius, meaning "spotted", or varus, meaning "pimple"...

(around 600 AD, the smallpox spread from India into Europe). It is known that the Plague of Justinian

Plague of Justinian

The Plague of Justinian was a pandemic that afflicted the Eastern Roman Empire , including its capital Constantinople, in 541–542 AD. It was one of the greatest plagues in history. The most commonly accepted cause of the pandemic is bubonic plague, which later became infamous for either causing or...

entered the Mediterranean world in the 6th century and first arrived in the British Isles in 544 or 545, when it reached Ireland. It is estimated that the Plague of Justinian

Plague of Justinian

killed as many as 100 million people across the world. It caused Europe's population

Medieval demography

This article discusses human demography in Europe during the Middle Ages, including population trends and movements. Demographic changes helped to shape and define the Middle Ages...

to drop by around 50% between 550 and 700.

Anglo-Saxon settlement

According to research led by University College London

University College London

University College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and the oldest and largest constituent college of the federal University of London...

, Anglo-Saxon

Anglo-Saxon

settlers could have enjoyed a substantial social and economic advantage over the native Celtic Britons

Celt

The Celts were a diverse group of tribal societies in Iron Age and Roman-era Europe who spoke Celtic languages.The earliest archaeological culture commonly accepted as Celtic, or rather Proto-Celtic, was the central European Hallstatt culture , named for the rich grave finds in Hallstatt, Austria....

who lived in what is now England

England

, for more than 300 years from the middle of the 5th century. However, this scenario, assuming that the Anglo-Saxons were just Germanic Ingaevones

Ingaevones

The Ingaevones or, as Pliny has it, apparently more accurately, Ingvaeones , as described in Tacitus's Germania, written c. 98 AD, were a West Germanic cultural group living along the North Sea coast in the areas of Jutland, Holstein, Frisia and the Danish islands, where they had by the 1st...

, has been questioned.

Archaeologists have uncovered Celtic artifacts in England dating from later times than the supposed Anglo-Saxon 'apartheid' of Britons was believed to take place . Areas around the Pennines

Pennines

The Pennines are a low-rising mountain range, separating the North West of England from Yorkshire and the North East.Often described as the "backbone of England", they form a more-or-less continuous range stretching from the Peak District in Derbyshire, around the northern and eastern edges of...

still retained a strong Celtic culture, a prime example being the speaking of the Cumbric language

Cumbric language

Cumbric was a variety of the Celtic British language spoken during the Early Middle Ages in the Hen Ogledd or "Old North", or what is now northern England and southern Lowland Scotland, the area anciently known as Cumbria. It was closely related to Old Welsh and the other Brythonic languages...

until late into the 12th century, and the Cornish language

Cornish language

Cornish is a Brythonic Celtic language and a recognised minority language of the United Kingdom. Along with Welsh and Breton, it is directly descended from the ancient British language spoken throughout much of Britain before the English language came to dominate...

even longer, until the 18th century. Celtic traditions and words have survived even until today, such as Cornish, Cumbrian and Lancashire wrestling and many placenames (such as Pen-y-Ghent

Pen-y-ghent

Pen-y-ghent is a fell in the Yorkshire Dales. It is one of the Yorkshire Three Peaks, the other two being Ingleborough and Whernside. It lies some 3 km east of Horton in Ribblesdale...

in Yorkshire).

Minor migrations theories

The traditional view about the numbers of Anglo-Saxons arriving in Britain during this period has been deconstructed. Incoming people uniting with the existing population could explain why the island conquest was as slow and incomplete as it was, and why the island was exposed to external attacks by Danish pirates

Danelaw

The Danelaw, as recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle , is a historical name given to the part of England in which the laws of the "Danes" held sway and dominated those of the Anglo-Saxons. It is contrasted with "West Saxon law" and "Mercian law". The term has been extended by modern historians to...

and Normans

Normans

The Normans were the people who gave their name to Normandy, a region in northern France. They were descended from Norse Viking conquerors of the territory and the native population of Frankish and Gallo-Roman stock...

, as well as other issues about the population composition .

Stephen Oppenheimer theories

Stephen Oppenheimer

Stephen Oppenheimer is a British paediatrician, geneticist, and writer. He is a member of Green Templeton College, Oxford and an honorary fellow of Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, and carries out and publishes research in the fields of genetics and human prehistory.-Career:Oppenheimer...

, basing his research on the Weale and Capelli studies, maintains that all invasions since the Romans have had very little impact upon the gene pool of the British Isles, and that its inhabitants from prehistoric times belong to an Iberian

Iberians

The Iberians were a set of peoples that Greek and Roman sources identified with that name in the eastern and southern coasts of the Iberian peninsula at least from the 6th century BC...

genetic grouping. He says that most people on the Isles are genetically similar to the Basque

Basque people

The Basques as an ethnic group, primarily inhabit an area traditionally known as the Basque Country , a region that is located around the western end of the Pyrenees on the coast of the Bay of Biscay and straddles parts of north-central Spain and south-western France.The Basques are known in the...

peoples of northern Spain, from 90% in Wales

Wales

to 66% in East Anglia (named after the Germanic Anglo-Saxons

Anglo-Saxons

), in England

England

. Oppenheimer suggests that the division between the West and the East of England does not begin with the Anglo-Saxon invasion but originates with two main routes of genetic flow — one up the Atlantic coast, the other from neighbouring areas of Continental Europe - which happened just after the Last Glacial Maximum. He reports work on linguistics by Forster and Toth which suggests that Indo-European languages

Indo-European languages

The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...

began to fragment some 10,000 years ago, at the end of the last Ice Age. He claims that the Celtic languages

Celtic languages

The Celtic languages are descended from Proto-Celtic, or "Common Celtic"; a branch of the greater Indo-European language family...

split from the Indo-European earlier than previously suspected, some 6000 years ago. He claims that the English language split from the Germanic

Germanic languages

The Germanic languages constitute a sub-branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all of the languages in this branch is called Proto-Germanic , which was spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe...

before the Roman period, and became the English that was spoken by the tribes of what is now England, long before the arrival of the Anglo-Saxon.

In its summary of their article 'Who were the Celts?' the National Museum of Wales

National Museum Cardiff

National Museum Cardiff is a museum and art gallery in Cardiff, Wales. The museum is part of the wider network of Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales...

note "It is possible that future genetic studies of ancient and modern human DNA may help to inform our understanding of the subject. However, early studies have, so far, tended to produce implausible conclusions from very small numbers of people and using outdated assumptions about linguistics and archaeology."

External links

Vortigern Studies website - while Vortigern-focused, it is an in-depth resource for navigating the issues in sub-Roman British history.
The History Files - An extensive collection of information covering all historical states, including comprehensive features, highly detailed maps, and lists of rulers for each state.
Ethnic and cultural consequences of the war between Saxons and romanised Britons

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Meaning of terms

Written accounts

Archaeological evidence

Narrative

Kingdoms

Religion

Anglo-Saxon migration

Linguistic evidence

Extent of the migrations

End of Roman Britain

Environmental change effects

Background

Anglo-Saxon settlement

Minor migrations theories

Stephen Oppenheimer theories

Further reading

External links