the Saxons

Extent of the migration

It was long 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, although making considerable allowance for British survival, essentially sums up this view, arguing "that the greater part of southern England was overrun in the first phase of the war".[15] This interpretation was based on the written sources, particularly Gildas, but also the later sources, that cast the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons as a violent event. The place-name and linguistic evidence was also considered to support this interpretation, as very few British place-names survived in eastern Britain, and few British Celtic words entered the Old English language. This interpretation particularly appealed to earlier English historians, who wanted to further their view that England had developed differently to Europe with a limited monarchy and love of liberty. This, it was argued, came from the mass Anglo-Saxon invasions. Though few would now utilise this argument, the traditional view is still held by some historians, Lawrence James recently writing that England was 'submerged by an Anglo-Saxon current which swept away the Romano-British.'[16]

The traditional view has been deconstructed to a considerable extent 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 now generally accepted, making it highly unlikely that the existing British population was substantially displaced by the Anglo-Saxons.