The Angles

The Angles is a modern English word for a Germanic-speaking people who took their name from the cultural ancestor of Angeln, a modern district located in Schleswig, Germany. Ancient Angeln preceded all modern national distinctions and was probably not coterminous with the modern.

The ethnic name has had various spellings. The earliest attested is Anglii, a Germanic tribe mentioned in the Germania of Tacitus. It is an adjectival form. One individual of this identity would be an Anglius (male) or an Anglia (female), which in the plural is Anglii or Angliae. The masculine is used for the generic form.

Pope Gregory the Great is the first known to have simplified Anglii to Angli, the preferred form for the Anglii in Britain, which he did in an epistle. The country remained Anglia in Latin. Meanwhile, English had changed its vowels. Alfred's Orosius uses Angelcynn (kin) for England or the English people; Bede, Angelfolc (folk); however, we also find Engel, Englan (the people), Englaland and Englisch.

Angles is used as root in French (and Anglo-Norman) words Angleterre (Angleland, i.e. England) and Anglais (English).

The famous Sutton Hoo helmet

The picture on the right is a reconstruction made from the surviving fragments of a helmet found at Sutton Hoo. The smooth brown parts are a base to support the actual fragments which are the rough parts. This is one of only four known Anglo-Saxon helmets. The original helmet was made from iron with tinned-bronze decorative plates and is the most exquisitely crafted of all the known early medieval helmets from anywhere in Northern Europe as shown in the replica below. The decorative figures include flying dragon and boar heads. Similar designs have been found on objects from Sweden and Germany and scholars still argue over their meaning.

Sutton Hoo near Woodbridge, Suffolk, is the site of two Anglo-Saxon cemeteries of the 6th and early 7th centuries, one of which contained an undisturbed ship burial including a wealth of artefacts of outstanding art-historical and archaeological significance.

Sutton Hoo is of primary importance to early medieval historians because it sheds light on a period of English history which is on the margin between myth, legend and historical documentation. Use of the site culminated at a time when the ruler (Raedwald) of East Anglia held senior power among the English, and played a dynamic (if ambiguous) part in the establishment of Christian rulership in England. It is central to understanding of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of East Anglia and of the period in a wider perspective.

The ship-burial, excavated in 1939, is one of the most magnificent archaeological finds in England for its size and completeness, the far-reaching connections, quality and beauty of its contents, and for the profound interest of the burial ritual.

image: Reconstructed model of the burial-chamber.

The Saxons

The Saxons or Saxon people are a confederation of Old Germanic tribes whose modern-day descendants in Northern Germany are considered ethnic Germans while those in the Eastern Netherlands are considered Netherlanders (or “Dutch,” though not “Hollanders"). They are first mentioned in the 2d cent. by Ptolemy as inhabiting the southern part of the Cimbric Peninsula (S Jutland). Holding the area at the mouth of the Elbe River and some of the nearby islands, they gradually extended their territory southward across the Weser River.

Their earliest known area of settlement is Northern Albingia, roughly that of today’s Holstein in Hesse and the northeastern part of the Netherlands (Drenthe, Groningen, Twente, Achterhoek). Saxon participation of the Germanic settlement of Britain was very strong and at times dominant, and especially the population of today’s Southern England descended essentially from a mixture of Celtic and Saxon people.

A politically unified people, the Saxons were ruled by princes or chieftains. Their assemblies, in which all classes except slaves were represented, were consulted on all issues of war and peace.

In the 3d and 4th cent. the Saxons were active in raiding expeditions along the coasts of the North Sea. The European coast from the Loire to the Scheldt rivers and the southeastern coast of Britain, where defenses were erected against their piratical raids, were known to the Romans as litora Saxonica [Saxon shores].

By the 5th cent. Saxons had established settlements along the north shore of Gaul, especially at the mouth of the Loire, and eventually these Saxons came under Frankish domination. As the Roman occupation of Britain weakened, the Saxons increased their marauding attacks and also began (c.450) to make settlements there, resisting all efforts to drive them off. ]

By the end of the 6th cent. they and their neighbors the Angles were firmly established in the island, laying the foundations of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms (see Anglo-Saxons). Wessex, the kingdom of the West Saxons, became dominant. After the migration to Britain, the Saxons on the Continent came to be identified by historians as the Old Saxons. By virtue of their conquest (531) of Thuringia, they occupied NW Germany. In 566 they were subjugated by the Franks and forced to pay tribute. The Old Saxons waged intermittent war with the Franks until the end of the 8th cent., when they were conquered by Charlemagne and absorbed into his empire. After this conquest they were forcibly converted to Christianity. In the division of the empire by the Treaty of Verdun (843), the lands of the Saxons were included in the section that formed the basis for modern Germany.

During the past two centuries or so, many continental Saxons emigrated to other parts of the world, especially to the Americas, to Australia, to Southern Africa and to areas of the former Soviet Union, where some communities still maintain parts of their cultural and linguistic heritage, often under the umbrella categories “German” and “Dutch”. Due to international Hanseatic trading and migration during the Middle Ages, Saxons mixed with and strongly influenced the languages and cultures of the Scandinavian and Baltic peoples, also the Polabian and Pomeranian West Slavic peoples.

First mentioned by the Ancient Greek geographer Ptolemy, the pre-Christian settlement of the Saxon people originally covered an area a little more to the Northwest, with parts of the southern Jutland peninsula, Old Saxony and small sections of the eastern Netherlands. During the 5th century AD, the Saxons were part of the people invading the Romano-British province of Britannia, thus forming the Anglo-Saxons.

Prior to Christianization, the Saxons had an extensive indigenous pre-Christian Germanic paganism. After Christianization, elements of this religion have remained to present day in Saxon-descending cultures.

Modern day state Schleswig-Holstein, bordered on the Angles, in the day of the early Saxons.The word 'Saxon' is believed to be derived from the word seax, meaning a variety of single-edged knives. The Saxons were considered by Charlemagne's historian Einhard (Vita Caroli c.7), to be especially war-like and ferocious.

The great gold buckle - almost certainly made in East Anglia in the 7th century. The stepped interlocking patterns have been built up with geometric precision and balance.

The Anglo-Saxons

The term "Anglo-Saxon" is from Latin writings going back to the time of King Alfred the Great, who seems to have frequently used the title rex Anglorum Saxonum or rex Angul-Saxonum."The Anglo-Saxons" is the general name given to the Germanic peoples who inhabited Britain between the fifth and the eleventh centuries, between the Romans and the Normans. The name isn't a modern invention: it was first used in England at the court of Alfred the Great (871-899), who came to the throne as King of the West Saxons, but redefined his title as King of the Anglo-Saxons (rex Angolsaxonum) in the 890s, to mark his rulership over all free English people. It was used abroad even earlier, in the time of Charlemagne (768-814), but there it seems to have been to distinguish the "English" Saxons from those who stayed behind on the Continent. (Later on, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle sometimes makes the same distinction, using "Old Saxons" to refer to the people of Germany.)

"Old English" is the name modern scholars give to the language of the Anglo-Saxons, though some scholars use "Anglo-Saxon" to refer to the language as well as the people. The Saxons themselves called their language Englisc (Old English -sc is pronounced like modern -sh, so they would have pronounced it "English"), and a lot of the low-level structure and vocabulary of our modern English goes back to their Englisc. The main effect of the Norman conquest in the long run was to add an extra layer of vocabulary

Origins

They probably originated from all up and down the North Sea coast, from Denmark and from the northern coasts (in modern terms) of Germany, the Netherlands, and France. According to the eighth-century Northumbrian monk Bede ( who wrote an Ecclesiastical History of the English People in 731) and put it like this:

They came from three most powerful Germanic tribes, the Saxons, the Angles, and the Jutes. Of Jutish origin are the people of Kent and of the Isle of Wight, and the part of the kingdom of Wessex opposite the Isle of Wight, still called the nation of the Jutes. From the Saxon land, that is the place which is now called Old Saxony, came the East Saxons, the South Saxons, and the West Saxons. From the Anglian land, that is the place between the realms of the Jutes and the Saxons which is called Angulus, and remains deserted to this day, came the East Angles, the Middle Angles, the Mercians, and all the Northumbrian peoples, that is, those who dwell north of the river Humber, as well as other Anglian peoples.

He knew that there were many nations in Germania from whom the Angles and Saxons, who now live in Britain, get their origin ... There are the Frisians, Rugians, Danes, Huns, Old Saxons, and Boructuari."Germania" here means not just modern Germany, but (from a Roman point of view) all of northern Europe, settled by barbarian Germanic tribes. The Boructuari were Franks, and we have other evidence for earlier Frankish interest in Anglo-Saxon affairs; the Byzantine historian Procopius writing in the sixth century had heard that Britain was divided between Angles, Frisians, and Britons.

To sum up, the Saxons (from Saxony) and the Angles (from between Saxony and Denmark) were probably the main force behind the invasion -- at any rate, they ended up in charge in Britain. The Jutes, Frisians and Franks were also clearly involved, and there were probably lots of other tribes long since lost to history.

Arrival in Britain

They actually arrived earlier than 449. The Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus records the Saxones among the barbarians (along with Picts and Scots) who were harrassing the Britons in about AD 365, and the mid-fifth-century Gallic Chronicle mentions another severe raid in 410, and the fall of Britain to the Saxons "after many troubles" in 441. The date "449" comes at the end of a long history of confusion.

The confusion starts with Gildas in the sixth century, who wrote the first British account of the Anglo-Saxon invasions, without including a single date. He did however mention that just before the British invited the Anglo-Saxons, they sent an appeal to one Agitius, who was three times appointed a Roman consul. This is probably Aetius, whose third consulship began in AD 446.

Today, Anglo-Saxon is a collective term usually used to describe the Germanic-speaking peoples who settled in England after the decline of Roman rule there. They were invited by the Celtic King Vortigern [5th cent., tribal king of Britons in Wales and S England. Tradition transmitted by Bede says that Vortigern invited the Germanic leaders Hengist and Horsa to Kent to help withstand the Picts and Scots. Later he quarreled and fought with Hengist and Horsa.], who needed help fighting the Picts and Scots. The Angles (Lat. Angli), who are mentioned in Tacitus’ Germania, seem to have come from what is now Schleswig in the later decades of the 5th cent. Their settlements in the eastern, central, and northern portions of the country were the foundations for the later kingdoms known as East Anglia, Mercia, and Northumbria. The Saxons, a Germanic tribe who had been continental neighbors of the Angles, also settled in England in the late 5th cent. after earlier marauding forays there. The later kingdoms of Sussex, Wessex, and Essex were the outgrowths of their settlements. The Jutes, a tribe about whom very little is known except that they probably came from the area around the mouths of the Rhine, settled in Kent and the Isle of Wight. The Anglo-Saxons eventually formed seven separate kingdoms known as the heptarchy. The term “Anglo-Saxons” was first used in Continental Latin sources to distinguish the Saxons in England from those on the Continent, but it soon came to mean simply the “English.” The more specific use of the term to denote the non-Celtic settlers of England prior to the Norman Conquest dates from the 16th cent. In more modern times it has also been used to denote any of the people (or their descendants) of the British Isles.

It is known, however, that Germanic auxiliary troops had been used for centuries by Rome. If Germanic garrison soldiers had retained their language and culture, this may have facilitated any migration. Over time the different peoples coalesced into a more unified cultural and political group. Perhaps under Offa of Mercia (reigned 757-796), and certainly under Alfred the Great (reigned 871-899) and his successors, a kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons existed, which developed into the kingdom of England in the 10th century, one of the main developments of Anglo-Saxon history..

Heptarchy

[image: The main Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms circa A.D. 600]

The Heptarchy (AD 600-800) is the name traditionally applied to the kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England in the period prior to the Danish conquests of the 9th cent. The term was probably first used by 16th-century writers who believed that in those early years England was divided into seven kingdoms—Northumbria, East Anglia, Mercia, Essex, Sussex, Wessex, and Kent. Actually the political and geographical divisions were neither so orderly nor permanent. At one time (c.600) there appear to have been as many as 12 independent states, but the number of kingdoms, their boundaries, and their political status shifted constantly throughout this period.

Genetic Evidence

Recent work analyzing the Y chromosome and mitochondrial DNA of people now living in Britain and on the continent has provided some insight into how population movements might have occurred during the sub-Roman period. A 2002 study from UCL indicated that there may have indeed been large scale Anglo-Saxon migration to central and eastern England (accounting for 50%-100% of the population at the time in Central England). A more complete study in 2003 indicates that this result is regional to Central England, and that there may have been substantially less Anglo-Saxon migration to other regions of England, the study also provides evidence that all areas of the British Isles have a pre-Anglo-Saxon genetic component.

Fresh interpretation of the above genetic evidence by Stephen Oppenheimer in his book The Origins of British, and new DNA sampling by Bryan Sykes for his book Blood of the Isles (Y-chromosome and mtDNA) suggest that the contribution of Anglo-Saxons and other late invaders to the British gene pool was very limited, and that the majority of English people (about 2/3) and British people (about 3/4) descend from paleolithic settlers that migrated from the western European Ice Age refuge, this observation may support the idea of an ancient relationship between the populations of the Atlantic facade of Europe, though the eastern and south eastern coasts of Great Britain do not belong to this zone. Sykes and Oppenheimer indicate than even in the east of England, where there is the best evidence for migration, no more that 10% of paternal lines can be designated as coming from an “Anglo-Saxon” migration event and that in the same English regions 69% of male lines are still of aboriginal British origin. It should be noted, however that Stephen Oppenheimer provides evidence for a pre-Anglo-Saxon genetic relationship between the modern populations of south and east England and the people living on the opposing North Sea regions, indicating a much older pre-Roman Germanic influence in south and east England.

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.'

The traditional view has been deconstructed to a considerable extent since the 1990s. At the center 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.

The end of Roman Britain

A strong thread in the historiography of the end of Roman Britain is an attempt to place a firm date on it. Various dates have been advanced, from the end of coinage in 402, to Constantine III's rebellion in 407, to the rebellion mentioned by Zosimus in 409, and the Rescript of Honorius in 410. Though much ink has been spilt over trying to place a date on when the flag went down and the troops went home, 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 just why Roman rule ended in Britain. The view first advocated by 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 empire and the need to withdraw troops to fight off barbarian armies led Rome 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 usurpers who came from Britain in the late fourth and early fifth century, and that a supply of coinage 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.

Christianization

Christianization of Anglo-Saxon England began around AD 600, and was essentially complete in the mid 8th century. Throughout the 7th and 8th century power fluctuated between the larger kingdoms. Bede records Aethelbert of Kent as being dominant at the close of the 6th century, but power seems to have shifted northwards to the kingdom of Northumbria. The so-called 'Mercian Supremacy' dominated the 8th century, though again it was not constant. Aethelbald and Offa, the two most powerful kings, achieved high status. This period has been described as the Heptarchy, though this term has now fallen out of academic use. The word arose on the basis that the seven kingdoms of Northumbria, Mercia, Kent, East Anglia, Essex, Sussex and Wessex were the main polities of south Britain. More recent scholarship has shown that a number of other kingdoms were politically important across this period: Hwicce, Magonsaete, Lindsey and Middle Anglia.

Anglo-Saxon England

An Anglo-Saxon parade helmet from Sutton Hoo (7th century AD).
In the mid-5th century several tribes from modern Germany, Holland, and Denmark began sporadic and marginally successful invasions of Britain, at that point a neglected Roman province. Traditionally, two Jutish chieftains named Hengest and Horsa were promised land by the powerful British king Vortigern in exchange for routing the warlike Pict tribe. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, after they defeated the Picts, "They sent to Angeln and called on them to send more forces, and to tell people about the worthlessness of the Britons and the merits of their land." This marked the beginning of decades of invasion and conquest of southern and central Britain from the Celts by such Germanic peoples as the Jutes, Angles, and Saxons. At least 50 percent of England's original Celtic inhabitants were killed off in the process. The Anglo-Saxons eventually established several kingdoms of differing longevity and significance. King Alfred the Great (871-899) of Wessex led Anglo-Saxon resistance to the invading Danish.

Anglo Saxon Treasure Found in Mercia

Viking Age (AD 800-1066)

In the 9th century, the Viking challenge grew to serious proportions. Alfred the Great's victory at Edington in 878 brought intermittent peace, but the Norsemen with the foundation of Jorvik gained a permanent foothold in Britain.

An important development of the 9th century was the rise of the Kingdom of Wessex, and Alfred by the end of his reign (899) was recognized as overlord by several southern kingdoms. Æthelstan was the first king to achieve direct rulership of what we would now consider 'England'.

The end of the 10th century saw renewed Scandinavian interest in England, with the conquests of Sweyn of Denmark and his son Canute. After various fluctuations, by 1066, there where several people with a claim to the English throne, resulting in two invasions and the battles of Stamford Bridge and Hastings, giving rise to the High Medieval Anglo-Norman rule of Britain.

The fate of the Romano-Britons

Some clearly adopted Anglo-Saxon culture and identified themselves as Anglo-Saxons. Others may have lived in separate communities under Anglo-Saxon rule. The laws of king Ethelbert of Kent, probably written in the early seventh century, make reference to a legal underclass known as laets who might represent British communities. There definitely is a British (wealh) underclass referred to in Ine of Wessex’s law code, written in the late seventh or early eighth centuries.

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. The evidence from land use suggests a slight decline in production, which might be a sign of population decline.

It is clear that some British people migrated to the continent, which resulted in the region of Armorica in north-west Gaul becoming known as Brittany. There is also evidence of British migration to Gallaecia, in Hispania. The dating of these migrations is uncertain, but recent studies suggest that the migration from south-western Britain to Brittany began as early as AD 300 and was largely ended by 500. There is clear linguistic evidence for close contacts between the south-west of Britain and Brittany across the sub-Roman period.

In Galicia, in the northwest corner of the Iberian peninsula, another region of traditional Celtic culture, the Suevic Parochiale, drawn up about 580, includes a list of the principal churches of each diocese in the metropolitanate of Braga (the ecclesia Britonensis, now Bretoña), which was the seat of a bishop who ministered to the spiritual needs of the British immigrants to north-western Spain: in 572 its bishop, Mailoc, had a Celtic name.

In the west of Britain the period saw the creation of non-Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, which are first referred to in Gildas' De Excidio Britanniae. To an extent these kingdoms may have derived from Roman structures.[26] However, it is also clear that they drew on a strong influence from Ireland, which was never part of the Roman Empire. Archaeology has helped further our study of these kingdoms, notably at sites like Tintagel or the South Cadbury hill-fort.

In the North this period saw the development of the British kingdoms of the Hen Ogledd, the "Old North", comprising Ebrauc (probable name), Bryneich, Rheged, Strathclyde, Elmet and Gododdin. Fifth and sixth century repairs along Hadrian's Wall have been uncovered, and at Whithorn in south-western Scotland (possibly the site of St Ninian's monastery). Chance discoveries have helped document the continuing urban occupation of some Roman towns such as Wroxeter and Caerwent. Continued urban use might be associated with an ecclesiastical structure.

The west of Britain in this period has attracted those who wish to place 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 king might have wielded considerable power during the sub-Roman period, as demonstrated by the creation of sites such as Tintagel and earthworks such as the Wansdyke. It is unlikely that any firm evidence will be produced for this, however, and such interpretations may continue to attract the popular imagination and the scepticism of the majority of academics.

Environmental Factors

There is evidence for climate change in the fifth century, with conditions turning cooler and wetter. This shortened the growing season and made uplands unsuited to growing grain. Dendrochronology reveals a particular climatic event in the year AD 540. Michael Jones suggests that declining agricultural production from land that was already fully exploited had considerable demographic consequences.

Anglo-Saxon culture

Early Anglo-Saxon buildings in Britain were generally simple, constructed mainly using timber with thatch for roofing. Generally preferring not to settle in the old Roman cities, the Anglo-Saxons built small towns near their centres of agriculture. In each town, a main hall was in the centre, and other forms of building of the townspeople.

There are few remains of Anglo-Saxon architecture, with no secular work remaining above ground. At least fifty churches are of Anglo-Saxon origin, with many more claiming to be, although in some cases the Anglo-Saxon part is small and much-altered. All surviving churches, except one timber church, are built of stone or brick, and in some cases show evidence of re-used Roman work.

The architectural character of Anglo-Saxon ecclesiastical buildings range from Coptic influenced architecture in the early period; basilica influenced Romanesque architecture; and in the later Anglo-Saxon period, an architecture characterised by pilaster-strips, blank arcading, baluster shafts and triangular headed openings.

Anglo-Saxon art

The Alfred JewelAnglo-Saxon art covers the period from the time of King Alfred (871-899), with the revival of English culture after the end of the Viking raids, to the early 12th century, when Romanesque art became the new movement. Prior to King Alfred there had been the Hiberno-Saxon culture (the fusion of Anglo-Saxon and Celtic techniques and motifs) which had ceased with the Vikings.

Anglo-Saxon art is mainly known today through illuminated manuscripts. It includes the Benedictional of St. Æthelwold manuscript, which drew on Hiberno-Saxon art, Carolingian art and Byzantine art for style and iconography. A "Winchester style" developed that combined both northern ornamental traditions with Mediterranean figural traditions, and can be seen in the Leofric Missal (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodl, 579). The Harley Psalter was a knockoff of the Carolingian Utrecht Psalter —all of which underscore the larger trend of an Anglo-Saxon culture coming into increasing contact with, and under the influence of, a wider Latin Mediæval Europe.

Manuscripts were not the only Anglo-Saxon art form, although they are the most well known to have survived. Perhaps the best known piece of Anglo-Saxon art is the Bayeux Tapestry which was commissioned by a Norman patron from English artists working in the traditional Anglo-Saxon style. The most common example of Anglo-Saxon art is coins, with thousands of examples extant and more being found every year. Anglo-Saxon artists also worked in fresco, ivory, stone carving, metalwork (see Fuller brooch for example) and enamel, but few of these pieces have survived.

Anglo-Saxon language

Anglo-Saxon, also called Old English, was the language spoken under Alfred the Great and continued to be the common language of England (non-Danelaw) until after the Norman Conquest of 1066 when, under the influence of the Anglo-Norman language spoken by the Norman ruling class, it changed into Middle English roughly between 1150-1500.

Anglo-Saxon is far closer to early Germanic than Middle English. It is less latinized and retains many morphological features (nominal and verbal inflection) that were lost during the 12th to 14th centuries. The language today which is closest to Old English is Frisian, which is spoken by a few hundred thousand people in the northern part of the Netherlands and Germany.

Before literacy in the vernacular "Old English" or Latin became widespread, the Runic alphabet, called the futhorc (also known as futhark) was used for inscriptions. When literacy became more prevalent, a form of Latin script was used with a few letters derived from the futhork: 'Eth,' 'Wynn,' and 'Thorn.'

The letters regularly used in printed and edited texts of Old English are the following:

a æ b c d ð e f g h i l m n o p r s t þ u w x y
with only rare occurrences of j, k, q, v, and z.

Anglo-Saxon law

Very few law codes exist from the Anglo-Saxon period, giving us an insight into legal culture beyond the influence of Roman law. How this legal culture developed over the course of the Anglo-Saxon period is not important for the understanding of contemporary developments, except how law developed following the Norman Conquest.

Anglo-Saxon literature

Anglo-Saxon literature (or Old English literature) encompasses literature written in Old English during the 600-year Anglo-Saxon period of Britain, from the mid-5th century to the Norman Conquest of 1066. These works include genres such as epic poetry, hagiography, sermons, Bible translations, legal works, chronicles, riddles, and others. In all there are about 400 surviving manuscripts from the period, a significant corpus of both popular interest and specialist research.

The most famous works from this period include the poem Beowulf, which has achieved national epic status in Britain. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is a collection of important early English history. Cædmon's Hymn from the 7th century is the oldest surviving written text in English.

Anglo-Saxon religion

The indigenous pre-Christian belief system of the Anglo-Saxons was a form of Germanic paganism and therefore closely related to the Old Norse religion, as well as other Germanic pre-Christian cultures.

Christianity (particularly the Roman) gradually replaced the indigenous religion of the Saxons in England around the 8th and 9th centuries AD. Celtic Christianity was introduced into Northumbria and Mercia by monks from Ireland, but the the Synod of Whitby settled the choice for Roman Christianity. As the new clerics became the chroniclers, the old religion was partially lost before it was recorded and today historians' knowledge of it is largely based on surviving customs and lore, texts, etymological links and archaeological finds.

One of the few recorded references is that a Kentish King would only meet the missionary St. Augustine in the open air, where he would be under the protection of the sky god, Woden. Written Christian prohibitions on acts of paganism are one of historians' main sources of information on pre-Christian beliefs.

Despite these prohibitions, numerous elements of the pre-Christian culture of the Anglo-Saxon people survived the Christianization process. Examples include the English language names for days of the week:

Tiw, the Anglo-Saxon equivalent of Tyr: Tuesday
Woden, the Anglo-Saxon equivalent of Odin: Wednesday
Þunor, the Anglo-Saxon equivalent of Thor: Thursday
Fréo, the Anglo-Saxon equivalent of Freyja: Friday

KINGDOMS

East Anglia
A kingdom of Anglo-Saxon England, comprising the modern counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. It was settled in the late 5th cent. by so-called Angles from northern Germany and Scandinavia. Little is known of its early history, but its large size and the fact that it was protected by fens probably made it one of the most powerful English kingdoms in the late 6th cent. Raedwald of East Anglia (d. 627?) followed Æthelbert of Kent as king of S England. He helped Edwin defeat Æthelfrith of Northumbria and seize the Northumbrian throne. This brief ascendancy was eclipsed by the rise of the kingdom of Mercia, of which East Anglia was a dependency for long periods after 650. In 825 the East Anglians rebelled against Mercia, with the help of Egbert of Wessex, but thereafter their kingdom was a dependency of Wessex. The great Danish invading army was quartered (865–66) in East Anglia and returned (869) to conquer the kingdom completely, to destroy its monasteries, and to murder its young ruler, St. Edmund. When King Alfred of Wessex first defeated the Danes in the 870s, they retired under Guthrum to an area that included East Anglia, and the treaty of 886 confirmed the region as part of the Danelaw. Its Danes gave aid to later Viking invaders and continued to harass Wessex until Edward the Elder finally defeated their army in 917. After that time, East Anglia was an earldom of England.

Mercia
One of the kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England, consisting generally of the region of the Midlands. It was settled by Angles c.500, probably first along the Trent valley. Its history emerges from obscurity with the reign of Penda, who extended his power over Wessex (645) and East Anglia (650) to gain overlordship of England S of the Humber River. After his death Mercia suffered a three-year loss of ascendancy during which it was converted to Christianity by a Northumbrian mission. Penda’s son, Wulfhere, then reestablished a Greater Mercia that finally, under Æthelbald in the 8th cent., extended over all S England. This hegemony was strengthened by Offa (reigned 757–96), who controlled East Anglia, Kent, and Sussex and maintained superiority of a sort over Wessex and Northumbria. He had the great Offa’s Dyke built to protect W Mercia from the Welsh. After his death, Mercian power gradually gave way before that of Wessex. The victories of Egbert of Wessex in Mercia established him briefly as overlord. In 874, Mercia weakly succumbed to the invading Danish army, and ultimately the eastern part became (886) a portion of the Danelaw, while the western part was controlled by Alfred of Wessex. Thereafter Mercia had no independent history, although it had one more distinguished ruler in Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians.

Northumbria
It was originally composed of two independent kingdoms divided by the Tees River, Bernicia (including modern E Scotland, Berwick, Roxburgh, E Northumberland, and Durham) and Deira (including the North and East Ridings of Yorkshire), both settled by invading Angles c.500. Sparse records tell of a King Ida of Bernicia and a King Ælli or Ælle of Deira in the middle of the 6th cent. Æthelfrith of Bernicia (593–616) united the kingdoms to form Northumbria and added Scottish and Welsh territory. He was defeated by Edwin of Deira (616–32), who accepted (627) Roman Christianity and established Northumbrian supremacy in England. Edwin was killed by Cadwallon of the Welsh kingdom of Gwynned, an ally of Penda of Mercia. After a year of anarchy he was succeeded by Oswald of Bernicia (633–41), who brought in St. Aidan to introduce Celtic Christianity. Oswald was killed by Penda. Under Oswald’s successors, Osiu (641–70) and Ecgfrith (670–85), Northumbria’s power gradually declined as that of Mercia increased. Osiu, however, established the Roman Church over the Celtic Church at the Synod of Whitby (663). The late 7th and 8th cent. saw almost constant political discord during the golden age of the Church, arts, scholarship, and literature in Northumbria. The Danes invaded with their victory at York in 867. They occupied S Northumbria, and the Angles were able to keep only a small kingdom stretching from the Tees N to the Firth of Forth. The conquering Canute (1015) and his successors installed Danish earls, of whom Siward (d. 1055) was the last and most powerful. The Northumbrians expelled his successor, Tostig, in 1065. He was replaced by Morcar, the brother of Edwin, earl of Mercia. The next year Tostig returned with Harold Hardrada of Norway and defeated Morcar and Edwin at Fulford. Harold II of England, however, soon came north to defeat the Danes.

Wessex
It may have been settled as early as 495 by Saxons under Cerdic, who is reputed to have landed in Hampshire. Cerdic’s grandson, Ceawlin (560–93), annexed scattered Saxon settlements in the Chiltern Hills and drove the Celts from the region between the upper Thames valley and the lower Severn. But Ceawlin himself was finally expelled from Wessex, and until the end of the 8th cent. the country was overshadowed successively by Kent, Northumbria, and Mercia. King Cædwalla (reigned 685–88) conducted several successful campaigns; and his successor Ine consolidated the western expansion through Somerset and exacted tribute from Kent. After Ine’s death, however, the kingdom relapsed into anarchy. Egbert (802–39) became overlord of all England, but his successors were forced to relinquish many of his gains and to concentrate on defending their lands against the invading Danes. With the reign of Alfred (871–99) and the halting of the Danes, the history of Wessex becomes that of England. In the 10th cent., Edward the Elder, Athelstan, Edmund, and Edred gradually acquired firm control over all England, including the Danelaw. This unity ended, however, after the quiet reign of Edgar (959–75), for Æthelred (978–1016) could offer no effective resistance to the invading Vikings. Canute established Danish rule in 1016. The end of his line caused the recall of Edward the Confessor (1042–66), last of the Wessex line of Alfred. In the novels of Thomas Hardy, Wessex is used to mean the SW counties of England, mainly Dorsetshire.

Sussex
One of the Anglo-Saxon heptarchy (seven kingdoms) in England, located S of the Weald. It was settled in the late 5th cent. (according to tradition in 477) by Saxons under Ælle, who defeated the Celts in several battles and established a brief military supremacy. Little is known of the kingdom’s history for almost two centuries. The South Saxons remained heathen until St. Wilfrid, bishop of York, led (681–86) the Christian conversion of the people. Conquered (685–88) by Cædwalla of Wessex, Sussex remained subject to his successor, Ine (688–726). By 771, Offa of Mercia had conquered all the marginal kingdoms (including Sussex) into which the South Saxons were divided. They remained under Mercia until joined with other eastern states in submitting to Egbert of Wessex in 825.

Essex
One of the early kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England. It was settled probably in the early 6th cent. by Saxons who traced their royal line back to a continental Saxon god instead of to Woden, as did the rulers of other early kingdoms. Essex eventually included the modern counties of Essex and Middlesex, most of Hertfordshire, and London. Under the influence of his uncle, Æthelbert of Kent, King Sæbert of Essex accepted (c.604) Christianity, but the kingdom lapsed into heathenism when his successors expelled (617) Mellitus, bishop of London. In c.653, however, at the request of King Sigbert, Oswy of Northumbria sent Cedd to convert the East Saxons and to build churches. The submission of Essex to the overlordship of Wulfhere of Mercia marked the beginning of a long domination by the larger state. In 825, Essex joined other eastern kingdoms in submitting to Egbert of Wessex and became an earldom. Heavily settled by the Danes, it became part of the Danelaw by the treaty of 886, but was retaken by Edward the Elder of Wessex in 917. Its most famous later earl was Byrhtnoth, who was killed in the battle of Maldon in 991

Kent
It was settled in the mid-5th cent. by aggressive bands of people called Jutes. They soon overcame the British inhabitants and established a kingdom that comprised essentially the same area as the modern county of Kent. Æthelbert of Kent established his hegemony over England S of the Humber River, received St. Augustine of Canterbury’s first mission to England in 597, and became a Christian. During the following century, Kent was periodically subjugated and divided by Wessex and Mercia and finally became a Mercian province under Offa. A Kentish revolt after Offa’s death in 796 was put down. Conquered by Egbert of Wessex in 825, Kent was forced to acknowledge the overlordship of Wessex and became part of that kingdom. Although it suffered heavily from Danish raids, it remained one of the most advanced areas in pre-Norman England because of the archbishopric of Canterbury and because of its steady intercourse with the Continent. The metalwork and jewelry of Kent were distinctive and beautiful.

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