History of Anglo-Saxon England

The history of Anglo-Saxon England began in the early fifth century CE with the arrival of Germanic migrants from mainland Europe. These migrants—the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes—took advantage of the retreating Roman forces to begin settling on the island of Britain. After a few conflicts with the Celtic Britons, the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes established numerous tribal kingdoms in central and southern Britain. By the seventh century, these kingdoms had been consolidated into seven: the Jutish kingdom of Kent; the Anglic kingdoms of Northumbria, Mercia, and East Anglia; and the Saxon kingdoms of Essex, Sussex, and Wessex.

Beginning in the late eighth century, the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were threatened by the invading Vikings who began as raiders and soon turned into conquerors. As the invaders advanced, King Alfred the Great of Wessex rallied the Anglo-Saxons and stemmed the Viking tide in 878. About half a century later, Alfred’s grandson King Æthelstan united the remaining Anglo-Saxon kingdoms under his rule to form the kingdom of England.

The Anglo-Saxon era came to a sudden end with the Battle of Hastings in 1066. The battle was sparked by a contentious fight for the English throne between Harold, the Earl of Wessex, and William, the French Duke of Normandy. William emerged victorious at Hastings and, with his coronation, the Norman era in England began.

Background

After the retreat of the glaciers about 12,000 years ago during the last ice age, humans returned to the region of Britain, which was then attached to mainland Europe by a land bridge. About 6000 BCE, the melting ice caused the seas to rise, cutting Britain off from mainland Europe. Over the next few millennia, farming and metalwork made their way to the island as new groups continued to migrate there from the mainland. By about the sixth century BCE, the Celts, a group of linguistically connected tribes in central and western Europe, had begun to arrive in Britain. They were a warlike group that established farming settlements across the island.

Britain at that time was known as Albion, a name that originated from the Greeks. About 55 BCE, Roman general Julius Caesar was waging his campaign against the Celtic Gauls in modern-day France and Belgium. Looking to cut off trade between the mainland and the island he called Britannia, Caesar invaded the island, but was forced to retreat when he met fierce resistance.

In 43 CE, Roman emperor Claudius set his sights on conquering Britain and sent four legions of soldiers to conquer the island. Roman forces soon controlled much of Britain, although they had to put down several revolts. For much of the first century CE, Roman governors of Britain expanded their hold on the island.

Britain remained under Roman control until the early fifth century. By that time, the Roman Empire had been split into two halves, with Britain under the control of the Western Empire. The Western Empire was facing tremendous pressure to defend its borders from barbarian attacks. By the late fourth and early fifth centuries, the empire had lost considerable territory along its frontiers.

Roman troops had been leaving Britain for decades, but about 409, Rome’s emperor ordered the remaining British legions back to Rome to help shore up defenses closer to home. The emperor bluntly informed Britain’s population that they were to fend for themselves.

Overview

About that same time, low-lying areas near modern-day northern Germany and the Netherlands were experiencing severe flooding. The flooding caused widespread displacement and forced several Germanic groups to migrate westward. These groups included the Angles, who originally lived in an area near the border of Denmark and Germany; the Saxons, who lived in northern Germany; and the Jutes, who lived in Denmark. Saxon mercenaries had been hired by the Romans in Britain to help defend the island, so they were familiar with the area. Some Germanic peoples had migrated to Britain before the fifth century, but with the Romans now gone, no one was left to stop a mass migration.

Historians typically mark the beginning of the Anglo-Saxon era in England as starting in 410, although the migration was a continuous process that lasted into the seventh century. The Angles settled in the north and east-central regions of England. The Saxons settled along the island’s southeastern coast, and the Jutes settled in an area southeast of modern-day London.

The term Anglo-Saxon originated in the eighth century and was used to differentiate the Saxons of England—the English Saxons, or Angul-Seaxans in Old English—from their Germanic counterparts on the European mainland. The new arrivals were not a unified group and likely referred to themselves by their tribal names. When they first arrived, they met no serious resistance from the Celtic Britons and often competed with each other for territory.

However, a monk and author named Gildas, who was writing in the mid-sixth century, says that a force of Britons led by a Romanized British Christian named Ambrosius Aurelianus took on the Anglo-Saxon invaders about the year 500. Gildas writes that Ambrosius defeated the newcomers at the Battle of Mount Badon, which led to a period of relative peace on the island. Oral tales of Ambrosius were passed down throughout the generations, and may have been used by future writers as an inspiration for the character of King Arthur. Twelfth-century British author Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote a history of Britain that claims Ambrosius was the uncle of King Arthur. Another author from the period wrote that he was the wizard Merlin’s father. Modern historians doubt these connections and note that much of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s work was embellished or made up.

Anglo-Saxon Christianity

Christianity was introduced to Britain during the Roman occupation, and many Christianized Britons lived in the island's western region. However, the newly arrived Anglo-Saxons were pagans who worshiped the Germanic gods. In the late sixth century, Pope Gregory I decided to send missionaries to Britain and bring Christianity to the “edge of the world.” The mission was headed by a monk named Augustine who arrived in the Jutish kingdom of Kent in 597. The missionaries likely chose the kingdom because its queen, Bertha, was already a Christian, which, they hoped, would make her husband, King Æthelberht, more receptive to their cause.

Æthelberht accepted Augustine and his fellow monks and eventually converted to Christianity. Augustine became the Archbishop of Canterbury, the capital of Kent, and was later canonized as a saint. Since that time, Canterbury has been an important center of English Christianity. The Archbishop of Canterbury has also traditionally been the leader of the Church of England.

During the seventh century, Irish missionaries also came to Britain to convert the Anglo-Saxons. By mid-century, the rulers of all but one Anglo-Saxon kingdom had embraced the religion. King Penda of Mercia was the last major Anglo-Saxon pagan king.

In 635, King Oswald of Northumbria wanted to promote Christianity among the population, and invited an Irish monk named Aidan to establish a monastery in his kingdom. Aidan built his monastery at Lindisfarne, an island off the northeastern English coast. Lindisfarne would become known as the Holy Island and was a prominent religious center during the Anglo-Saxon period. In the eighth century, a Lindisfarne bishop named Eadfrith created a highly detailed and artistically intricate work known as the Lindisfarne Gospels. The gospels are an example of an illuminated manuscript, so-called because of their brightly colored illustrations, which often included gold or silver in the paint. The Lindisfarne Gospels are widely considered the most important work of art from the Anglo-Saxon era.

Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms

For more than two centuries, the various Anglo-Saxon tribes competed with one another for land and power. Warfare was common between the numerous small kingdoms, with victorious leaders consolidating their gains and defeated rulers and their peoples being absorbed by the winning side. By about 660, the Anglo-Saxons had coalesced into seven kingdoms—Kent, Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Essex, Sussex, and Wessex. In Old English, the leaders of these kingdoms were known as cyning, a name which later evolved into the modern word, king.

Kent had been settled by the Jutes and was formed from the merger of several smaller kingdoms. Kent was located on a peninsula on the southeastern coast of England, near the Strait of Dover. In addition to being the first Anglo-Saxon kingdom to embrace Christianity, Kent is also considered the birthplace of Anglo-Saxon law. A law code written by King Æthelberht about the year 600 contains the oldest-known written laws in Britain. It is also the oldest surviving manuscript written in Old English. Kent is one of three Anglo-Saxon kingdoms whose names are still used in the twenty-first century as the names of English counties.

Northumbria was formed in the early seventh century when the smaller kingdoms of Bernicia and Deira joined together. Northumbria, along with Mercia and East Anglia, was one of three kingdoms founded by the Angles. It was located north of the other six kingdoms and consisted of northern England and parts of southern Scotland. Its name means “north of the Humber,” referring to the Humber River. Northumbria reached its height about the year 700 when it was the most powerful Anglo-Saxon kingdom.

The name Mercia means “men of the marches,” or “men of the borderlands.” It was located in south-central England and was one of the largest Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. During the eighth century, Mercia succeeded Northumbria as the most powerful of the seven kingdoms. During the reign of Mercian King Æthelbald (716–757), he claimed the title of “King of the South English” and “King of Britain.” His successor, King Offa, captured London—which was part of the kingdom of Essex—and attempted to gain control of East Anglia and Kent.

East Anglia, the “Land of the East Angles,” was created from territory surrendered in the late sixth century by the king of Mercia. It was located on the central-eastern coast of England, just north of Essex and Kent and east of Mercia, on land that juts out into the North Sea. Today, the area is home to the modern-day counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. East Anglia’s rulers and nobles were converted to Christianity in the early seventh century on the insistence of King Æthelberht of Kent.

The kingdoms of Essex, Sussex, and Wessex were all Saxon kingdoms named for their geographical locations—Essex was home to the East Saxons, Sussex to the South Saxons, and Wessex to the West Saxons. Historians know little about Essex as the kingdom was not mentioned much in written records from the time. Essex was located between Kent and East Anglia and stretched from the River Thames to the coast of the North Sea. The county of Essex still exists near the same region today. Its largest city was London, which had been a capital under the Romans. According to legend, the kingdom’s first ruler was Æscwine, who supposedly founded Essex in the sixth century.

Sussex was located in a narrow region along the southern coast of England. According to written accounts, the area was first settled by a Saxon warrior named Aelle about 477. The eighth-century monk and scholar, the Venerable Bede, wrote that Aelle controlled most of southern England during his reign. Archaeological evidence supports that the region was home to Saxon settlers in the late fifth century. Today, the region of Sussex contains the English counties West Sussex and East Sussex.

Wessex was the primary Saxon kingdom, stretching across most of southern England. It was said to have been founded about 519 by a Saxon chief named Cerdic. As the most powerful Saxon kingdom, Wessex was often in conflict with Mercia to the north. In 825, King Ecgberht of Wessex defeated the forces of Mercia at the Battle of Ellendun, near the modern-day town of Swindon. The victory marked a shift in power among the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. Mercia’s superiority was broken and Wessex became the most powerful of the kingdoms. After the battle, Wessex took control of some of Mercia’s lands as well as absorbing Kent, Essex, and Sussex.

The Viking Age

In 793, a fleet of seafaring raiders from what was probably Norway landed at the Holy Island of Lindisfarne, ransacked the monastery, and killed those they found there. The attack shocked Anglo-Saxon England, not only for its brutality, but because the raiders had dared attack an undefended holy site. Accounts from the time say the “woeful inroads of heathen men destroyed god’s church in Lindisfarne island by fierce robbery and slaughter.” The attackers, and those that followed, were called Vikings by later historians. The Anglo-Saxons called them Norsemen, or the “Northmen,” referring to their homelands of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark.

The attack on Lindisfarne was not the first Viking raid on England, but it attracted the most attention. It started a period of lightning-quick raids on coastal areas across England and mainland Europe. Fear of Viking attacks was ever-present as stories of their brutality traveled among the population.

By the mid-ninth century, the Vikings had changed their tactics. Instead of hit-and-run attacks, the Vikings turned to conquering and settlement. By about 864, the Vikings had landed in East Anglia where the locals granted them land to prevent them from attacking. The Vikings used the area as a base of operations from which to launch attacks on the rest of England. According to legend, Edmund, the king of East Anglia, met the Viking forces in battle about 869. Edmund was defeated and was ordered to share his land with the Vikings and renounce Christianity. He refused and was executed by being bound to a tree and shot full of arrows.

The Vikings eventually captured Northumbria and East Anglia and seized parts of Mercia. In 866, they captured the Northumbrian city of York and established their capital there. By the 870s, the Vikings were in control of much of England and the remaining kingdoms seemed powerless to stop their advance.

However, in 878, Alfred the Great, the king of Wessex, met the Danish leader Guthrum at the Battle of Edington and defeated the Viking forces. Alfred had been fighting against the invaders since he was nineteen, and had suffered several defeats at their hands. In 878, he rallied together a group of local militias and, using guerilla-style tactics, harassed the Viking army for weeks. At the same time, he amassed a larger army which was the main force that won the day at Edington. Alfred forced Guthrum to convert to Christianity and agreed to grant the Vikings a large swath of land in parts of East Anglia, Mercia, and Northumbria. This territory, known as Danelaw, was to be ruled by the Vikings from their capital at York.

Alfred’s victory not only stopped the Viking advances, but it brought a period of relative calm between the two sides. More importantly, it created for the first time a true sense of English nationalism, as people joined together to fight the common enemy. While the Vikings had Danelaw, Alfred ruled Wessex, Kent, and the western half of Mercia as a united kingdom.

Alfred’s peace deal with Guthrum may have stopped all-out wars between the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings, but skirmishes and smaller attacks remained common into the tenth century. Alfred’s successor, Edward, had managed to win back some territory in Mercia and East Anglia. Edward died in 925, and his son, Æthelstan, became king. Æthelstan had entered into an agreement with the Viking ruler in York not to invade his territory, but after the leader’s death, Æthelstan led an attack on the Danelaw in 927. Æthelstan emerged victorious, subduing the Viking forces, and claiming kingship over a united Anglo-Saxon England.

The End of the Anglo-Saxon Era

Although now members of a unified kingdom, the people of England did not initially use that term to describe their land. Bede had used the term Angli to describe the Anglo-Saxon people as a whole, and the name Anglia to describe the country. The term England was first used about the year 1000 and was spelled Engla Lond, which was Old English for the “Land of the Angles.”

Anglo-Saxon kings ruled England until 991, when a Danish king named Swein Forkbeard began a series of invasions. After more than twenty years of fighting, Swein conquered England in 1013 and became its first Viking king. The Anglo-Saxon king, Æthelred the Unready, fled with his family to Normandy in France, where he died in 1016. That same year, Swein’s son, Cnut, became king of England and made an effort to improve relations between the Danes and the Anglo-Saxons. He attempted to secure his legitimacy with the Anglo-Saxons by marrying Æthelred’s widow, Emma of Normandy. Cnut later became king of Norway and Denmark as well, giving him control over three kingdoms.

After Cnut died in 1035, a seven-year battle for the English throne erupted between the heirs of Cnut and Æthelred. The battle was won in 1042 by Edward the Confessor, son of Æthelred and Emma. To take the throne, Edward needed the support of several English nobles, the most powerful of whom was Godwin, Earl of Wessex. Edward granted land and titles to Godwin’s sons, Swein and Harold, and married his daughter, Edith.

When Edward died on January 5, 1066, he and Edith had not had any children, and therefore had no heir. Godwin’s son Harold, now the Earl of Wessex, said that Edward had named him as his successor and claimed the crown. At the same time, William, the French Duke of Normandy, claimed that Edward had promised him the throne. Edward’s mother, Emma, was also sister to William’s grandfather, making them cousins. William labeled Harold a usurper and began gathering an army to invade England.

In addition, the Viking king of Norway, Harald Hardrada, also claimed he was promised the English throne. His claim was based on his lineage and a promise from Cnut’s son Harthacnut, who briefly ruled England during Edward’s seven-year battle for the throne.

In September 1066, Harald arrived in northern England with a force of about ten thousand soldiers. His army was caught off guard by a much larger force led by Harold at the Battle of Stamford Bridge. Harold’s army routed the Vikings, killing Harald and ending the Viking age in Europe.

Just as Harold defeated the Viking army, William and his troops arrived in southern England. Harold was forced to quickly march his army south where he engaged William on October 14 in the Battle of Hastings. Harold’s forces had taken up a defensive position on the top of a hill and formed a shield wall. The English army held fast against the Normans and seemed to be in control until the Norman army abruptly turned and fled. Historians speculate that the troops may have heard a rumor William was killed, or the tactic may have been an intentional maneuver. In any case, the English pursued the retreating Normans, only to have the Normans turn around and surround the English. In the ensuing fighting, Harold was killed, and the English army was destroyed.

William, who would become known as William the Conqueror, was crowned king of England on Christmas Day, 1066. His reign ended the Anglo-Saxon era in England and ushered in the start of the Norman era. French-Norman influences would merge with Anglo-Saxon traditions to profoundly change English culture and language in ways that are still apparent in the modern era.

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