Angle-Saxish England

An overbringing from Wikipedia

Anglo-Saxon England

Anglo-Saxon England's eretide takes in the going-ons from Romish Britain's end to the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms' setting-up in the H5th until the takeover by the Normans in 1066.AJ. From the H5th and H6th, known as the “Dark Eldth”, bigger, self-standing kingdoms were coming into being, among them the Seven Kingdoms (the Heptarchy). Later the Viking incomings at the H8th end brought many shifts in Britian's mootish framework, and its dealings with other europish kingdoms took on weighty bearing right up Anglo-Saxon England's end and the Norman coming and take-over.

From Written Works There are sundry written deeds from Anglo-Saxon time still with us. The main tales are Bede’s English's Church Eretide and the Anglo-Saxon Tale. Law deeds going back to Kentish Aethelbert's time and kingdom are still to be had, though they become much greater in reckoning after Alfred the Great's kingship. Deeds bestowing land rights also give us another window to look back at the times. Other deeds are about holy men, writings (often between churchmen, but sometimes between mootish leaders, such as Charlemagne and Offa) and scopcraft.

Adding to these deeds are also sundry threads and thrums of unwritten witness. Yorish kithlore has given us much more food for thought into early Middle Eldth learning over the past 50 years. More well known ways such as finding the steadname's root meaning have been used to show kithish and mootish trends in settling, while speechlore, most tellingly, show the input from Old English, Old Norse and Celtic tongues to the English we now speak, giving clews to wider kithish and folkway trends.

Incomings and the setting-up of kingdoms (400-600)

It is hard to build a true timeline for betidings from the time the Romans are leaving Britain, to the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms' setting-up. The Romans afaring, as told by Geoffrey of Monmouth in his Historia regum Brittaniae, is somewhat untrustworthy, besides as a Middle Eldth folktale

Unearthed findings tell a tale of the end-times of Roman wielding with a marked falling away, and waning of town and field life. Fee-tokens minted after 402AJ are few. So in 407AJ when Constantine 111 was made Kaiser by his fighting men, and left Britian along with his men, the days of Roman Britain had truly come to an end. Britain was left without shield, and Constantine was shortly after was slained in fighting. In 410AJ Kaiser Honorius told the Romano-British that they themselves had to find their own ways and means of warding off foes, yet in the mid H5th the Romano-British still felt that they could look to Rome for help against unwanted incomers.

Many tales and writings about the Anglo-Saxon's coming staddle themselves upon written deeds, others far less so. Four main written deeds give witness. Gildas’ “ The Downfall of Britain ” (written sometime in the 540AJs) is a long-drawn-out down-mouthing, a wordy flay, chiding the British kings, more than a true tale rining upon what had played out. Bede’s Church Eretide of the English Folk” though taken somewhat from Gildas‘ writing, nevertheless brings in other understandings. However it was not written in H5th, but some three hundred years later, in the H8th. Later still the writer of the Anglo-Saxon Tale, goes to Bede’s Eretide for input, but also brings in some folklore when writing about Wessex's coming-into-being.

Knowledge can be taken also from other fields, such as learned nibbings. It is worthwhile to bear in mind also that the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, Kent, Bernicia, Deira and Linsey all kept their Celtic names, which would seems to show a mootish ongoing. On the other hand, the more westerly kingdoms Wessex and Mercia seem not to have followed or kept their earlier bounds. Unearthed findings, following burial layouts and land handling lets us follow Anglo-Saxon settling, although is not unlikely that the British were taking up Anglo-Saxon ways. From bodies unearthed from an olden graveyard near Abington in England, it seems to show that Saxon incomers and homegrown Britons lived side by side. There is much learned mooting as to whether the Anglo-Saxon incomers took over from, or melded with, the Romano-British who lived in southern or eastern Britain.

Already from the H4thAJ, Britons had fled across the "The Narrows" and began to settle in the western landship Armorica, Gaul (France), setting up the shire Brittany. Others may have gone to northern Spain. The British afarings to the Europish mainland, and the Angles and Saxons to Britain, should be seen in an anentness more wider than first thought, that being through the folk wanderings and folk spreadings throughout Europe. However some misgivings, founded upon breakthroughs in kindlore has, however, makes one think further upon the Anglo-Saxon-into-Britain inflow sizewise.

Though one has no way knowing fully about the times, steads or folks therein, it does seem that in 495AJ, at the fight at Badon Fell (maybe at Badbury rings, Latin Mons badonicus, Welsh Myndd Baddon), the Britons wreaked a bloody loss on the Anglo-Saxons. Unearthed finds, together with the less-than-trustworthy  writings by Gildas, would lead us to believe that the Anglo-Saxons inflow into Britain was stemmed for a while.

The Seven kingdoms and the Spread of Christendom

The spread of Christendom throughout Anglo-Saxon England, began around 500 AJ, shaped and wielded by Celtic Christendom from the north-west and the Romish Church from the south-east. The first Canterbury Head-Bishop, Augustine started his soul-sowing and reaping in 597AJ. In 601AJ, he christened Kent's Aethelbert, the first Anglo-Saxon King to become a Christ-follower. The last heathen Anglo-Saxon king, Mercia's Penda died in 655AJ. The undertaking by Anglo-Saxon Church's to spreading Christendom's gospel on the Europish mainland began in the H8th, leading to the Healand's word spreading throughout almost all the greater Frankish rikedoms by 800AJ

Throughout the H7th and H8th might flowed to and fro between the bigger kingdoms. Bede writes of Kent, lead by Aethelbert, as being the mightest kingdom at the end of the H6th, but afterwards leadership seems to have shifted northwards to the kingdom of Northumbria, which was a melding of Bernica and Deira. King Edwin most likely held wield over most of Britain, though Bede’s Northumbrish leanings should here be kept in mind. Breakaway upheavals meant that lordship was not always long-standing, though Mercia seems to have held wield as a strong kingdom under Penda’s leadership. Setbacks in war, all but ended the lordship of Northumbria: firstly the great fight at Trent in 679 AJ against the Mercians, and then at Nechtanemere in 685AJ against the Picts.

The so-called ”Mercian Overlordship” stood foremost amongst the kingdoms during the H8th, though again it was not always abiding. Aethelbald and Offa were the two kings held in highest rank; indeed Offa was deemed the overlord of south Britian by Charlemagne. That Offa could find the ways and means to build Offa’s Dyke is witness to his might. However a rising Wessex, and stands taken by smaller kingdoms, kept Mercia in hand, and by the end of the eight hundreds the “Mercian Overlordship”, if there ever was one, was over

This time has been called in English “The Heptarchy“, though this name has fallen out of learned writing and speech. The word arose on the belief that the seven kingdoms of Northumbria, Mercia, Kent, East Anglia, Essex, Sussex, and Wessex were the main mootish steering bodies of south Britian. More latterly learning has shown that more than a few other kingdoms also had mootish bearing throughout this time, namely Hwicce, Magosaete, Lindsey, and Middle Anglia. As well as the Celtic kingdoms of Strathclyde and Rheged.

The Viking Coming and the Rise of Wessex

793AJ is the date given by the Anglo-Saxon Tale for the first Viking raids in Britian at Lindisfarne monkhouse. However, by then the Vikings were well set up in Orkney and Shetland, and it is more than likely that many other raids unwritten of had happened before this. Deeds show the first Viking strike on Iona happening in 794AJ. The coming of the Vikings, moreso their Great Heathen Warband, was to gravely upset the mootish and folkish make-up of Britain and Ireland. Alfred the Great’s overcoming of the Vikings at Edington in 878AJ stemmed their strikes; however, by this time Northumbria had become Bernicia, and a Viking kingdom, Mercia had been asundered down the middle, and East Anglia no longer was mootishly Anglo-Saxon. The Viking raids brought about almost the same outcome upon the sundry kingdoms of the Irish, Scots, Picts and (a little lesser so) the Welsh. Indeed in North Britian the Viking’s foehood was one of the grounds behind the setting up of the kingdom of Alba, which in time grew into Scotland.

After a time of plunder and raids, the Vikings began to settle in England. A thriving Viking nub was York, called Yorvik by the Vikings. Sundry, friendly ties between the Viking kingdoms of York and Dublin waxed and waned. The folks from the Danish and Norwegish settlings had enough bearing to leave a meaningful lastingness on the English language; many words that make up the bedrock of today’s English come from Old Norse, though of the first hundred words heard daily in English by far greater are Old English words. Much the same, many stead-names of Britain, Ireland and English speaking lands throughout the world are Scandinavish, and come to us from those early Danish and Norwegian settlings in England. One such town-name being Sunderland.

A weighty unfolding in the H9th was the rise of the Kingdom of Wessex. Though it was somewhat of an up-and-down ride, by the end of Alfred’s lordship (899AJ) the West Saxon kings came to lead what had been Wessex, Sussex, Kent. Cornwall (Kernow) bowed to West Saxon lordship and few kings of the more southerly Welsh kingdoms acknowledged Alfred as their overlord, as did Mercia under Alfred’s son -in-law Aethelred.

Make-up of England (H10th)

Alfred of Wessex died in 899AJ and was followed by his son Edward the Elder. Edward, and his brother-in-law Aethelred of (what was left of) Mercia, began steps towards widespread growth, amongst other things building strongholds for warding off foes, and towns in the way Alfred had done. On Aethelred’s death his wife (Edward’s sister) Aethelflaed ruled as “Lady of the Mercians”, and went on building the kingdom. It seems Edward had his son Aethelstan brought up in the Mercian king’s-hall, and on Edward’s death Aethelstan took over the Mercian kingdom and, after some unstableness, Wessex.

Aethelstan went on in the way of his father and aunt building up the framework of his kingdom, and was the first to be king of what we now think of as “England” Indeed the names of worth bestowed upon him in deeds and fee-tokens brings to mind thought of widespread overlordship. The growth of his kingdom bestirred ill-feeling amongst the folk of other kingdoms of Britain and he stood before a fellowship of Scots and Vikings at the fight-out of Brunanburh. His win there, written down by scops in the Anglo-Saxon Tale, was one of the telling steps on the road to England, under one kingdom, coming into being.

However, “England” was not a kingdom fixed and fast, and indeed under Aethelstan’s afterbears Edmund, Eadred and Edwy the kingdom broke up and came back together many times. Nonetheless, Edgar, who in the end overlorded the same landstretch as Aethelstan, seems to have made the kingdom sounder and stronger, and, by the time of the lordship of his son Aethelred, the Unready, England seems to (almost) truly set itself up as a kingdom.

The H10th saw meaningful mootish wends in Western Europe, Carolingish might was waning and by the mid C10th in West Francia (France), fell and in its stead came the weakly House of Capet. In East Francia a Saxon kindred took over leadership, and its kings began bestowing upon themselves the name of Holy Roman Kaiser. It is worthwhile to keep in mind that at this time Anglo-Saxon England was the most thriving of the europish kingdoms; one only has to look at fee-token handling in the timespan to know that C10th Anglo-Saxon kings wielded far greater kingly might than their fellow europish kings

England under the Danes and the Norman Takeover(978-1066)

The end of the H0th saw an ednewed look by Vikings towards England. Aethelred for long held wield, but in the end lost his kingdom to Sweyn of Denmark, though he won it back following the latter’s death. However, Aethelred’s son Edmund 11 Ironside died shortly afterwards, leaving the way open for Canute, Sweyn’s son, to become king of England, one landbit of a mighty kyserdom stretching across the North Sea. It was most likely in this time that the viking wield on English kithship became inbedded

Lordship over England flowed between the afterbears of Aethelred and Canute for the first half of the C11th. In the end the outcome was the well-known setting of 1066AJ, where indeed a few men had a right to the English throne. Harold Godwinson became king, in all likelihood at the behest of Edward the Confessor on his deathbed. However William of Normandy, an afterbear of Aethelred and Canute’s wife Emma, and Harald of Norway, (helped by Harald Godwinson’s unfriendly brother Tostig) all had a right. Although, maybe the strongest right to the throne belonged to Edgar the Atheling, whose youth hindered him from being a greater player in the unfoldings of 1066AJ, though he was made king for a short time by the English Witan.

Inslaught was the outcome of this setting. Harald Godwinson overcame Harald of Norway and Tostig at the fight-out of Stanford Bridge, but fell in the fighting against William of Normanby at Hastings. Being crowned king on Christmas Day, 1066AJ, William began a set of steps in strengthen his hold on England. However, his leadership was always under threat in England, and the lack of knowledge about Northumbria in the Domesday’s Book is witness to the unrest there during William’s kingship.

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Further Reading

Anne Savage, "The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles" ISBN 1-85833-478-0, pub CLB, 1997 David Howarth, "1066 The Year of the Conquest", ISBN 0-14-005850-8, pub1981 F.M. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, 3rd edition, (Oxford, 1971) J. Campbell et al, The Anglo-Saxons, (Penguin, 1991) R. Lacey & D. Danziger, "The Year 1000: What Life Was Like at the Turn of the First Millennium" (Little Brown & Company, 1999) For a full reading list, see Simon Keynes' bibliography [1]

See also

Anglo-Saxons for Anglo-Saxon culture and society.

Timeline of Anglo-Saxon England

Anglo-Saxon architecture

Anglo-Saxon monarchs

Anglo-Saxon warfare

Anglo-Saxon polytheism

Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England

States in Medieval Britain

Britain in the Middle Ages

Outside Ties

Medievalists.net -extensive resources on the medieval period