Message #10856

[Europa]

Saxons in Britain

A number of Saxons, along with Angles, Jutes, Frisians and possibly Franks, invaded or migrated to the island of Great Britain (Britannia) around the time of the collapse of Roman authority in the west. Saxon raiders had been harassing the eastern and southern shores of Britannia, for centuries before - prompting the construction of a string of coastal forts called the litora Saxonica or Saxon Shore and many Saxons and other folk had been permitted to settle in these areas as farmers long before the end of Roman rule in Britannia. However, in 449 A.D., following a particularly devastating raid in the north from the Picts and their allies, the Romano-British administration invited two Jutish warlords - namely Hengist and Horsa - to occupy the island of Thanet in north Kent and act as mercenaries against the Picts at sea. After the Jutes had executed this mission and defeated the Picts, they returned with demands for more lands. When this was rejected they rose in revolt and provoked an insurrection amongst all the settled farming folk of Germanic stock with them.

Three separate Saxon Kingdoms emerged

1. The East Saxons: Settled around Colchester, creating the area of Essex.
2. The South Saxons: led by Aelle, created the area of Sussex
3. The West Saxons: led by Cerdic, ruled the Kingdom of Wessex from their capital Winchester.

During the period of Ecbert to Alfred, the kings of Wessex emerged as Bretwalda, unifying the country, with the shorter-lived Middlesex eventually became part of the kingdom of England in the face of Danish Viking invasions.
Historians are divided about what followed. Some argue that the takeover of lowland Great Britain by the Anglo-Saxons was peaceful. However, there is only one known account from a native Briton who lived at this time (Gildas) and his description is anything but:

"For the fire...spread from sea to sea, fed by the hands of our foes in the east, and did not cease, until, destroying the neighboring towns and lands, it reached the other side of the island, and dipped its red and savage tongue in the western ocean. In these assaults...all the columns were leveled with the ground by the frequent strokes of the battering-ram, all the husbandmen routed, together with their bishops, priests, and people, whilst the sword gleamed, and the flames crackled around them on every side. Lamentable to behold, in the midst of the streets lay the tops of lofty towers, tumbled to the ground, stones of high walls, holy altars, fragments of human bodies, covered with livid clots of coagulated blood, looking as if they had been squeezed together in a press; and with no chance of being buried, save in the ruins of the houses, or in the ravening bellies of wild beasts and birds; with reverence be it spoken for their blessed souls, if, indeed, there were many found who were carried, at that time, into the high heaven by the holy angels...Some, therefore, of the miserable remnant, being taken in the mountains, were murdered in great numbers; others, constrained by famine, came and yielded themselves to be slaves for ever to their foes, running the risk of being instantly slain, which truly was the greatest favour that could be offered them: some others passed beyond the seas with loud lamentations instead of the voice of exhortation...Others, committing the safeguard of their lives, which were in continual jeopardy, to the mountains, precipices, thickly wooded forests, and to the rocks of the seas (albeit with trembling hearts), remained still in their country."

Wars between the native Romano-Britons and the invading Jutes, Saxons and Angles continued for over 400 years. The Britons of England either fled westwards or northwards or were progressively immersed into the new English culture, as the territory that they controlled gradually shrunk in size to contain only Wales, Cornwall, north-westernmost England (Cumbria), and Strathclyde. Some fled over the sea to Brittany.

Collectively the Germanic settlers of Great Britain, mostly Saxons, Angles and Jutes, came to be called the Anglo-Saxons. Both Old English and modern Low Saxon are derived from Old Saxon.