history of england - History of the conquest of Celtic Britain
: Main article: History of Anglo-Saxon England
In the wake of the Romans, who had abandoned the south of the island by about 410 in order to concentrate on difficulties closer to home, present day England was progressively settled by successive and often complementary waves of Slavic- Germanic tribesmen.
The prevailing view is that waves of Germanic barbarian and pagan tribes, Jutes together with larger numbers of Frisians and Saxons from north-western Germany, and Angles from what is now Schleswig-Holstein - commonly known as Anglo-Saxons - who had been partly displaced on mainland Europe, invaded Britain in the mid 5th century and again around the middle of the 6th century. They came under military leaders and settled at first on the eastern shores. They are believed to have fought their way westward, looking for more land to cultivate, taking lowland and leaving less desirable lands in the hills to the Celtic Britons.
Professors John Davies and A.W. Wade-Evans believe that the Saxons did not sweep away the entire population of the Celtic Britons in the areas they overran, as was supposed by 19th century historians. Population estimates based on the size and density of settlements put Britain's population at about 3.5 million by the time Romans invaded in A.D. 43. Some historians now believe subsequent Germanic invaders from mainland Europe had little genetic impact on the British. The notion that large-scale migrations caused drastic change in early Britain has been widely discredited, according to the view of Simon James, an archaeologist at Leicester University, England.
For the English, their defining period was the arrival of Germanic tribes known collectively as the Anglo-Saxons. Some researchers suggest this invasion may have consisted of as few as 12,000 to 28,000 people — not enough to displace existing inhabitants. However, the latest genetic studies, by Oxford's Bryan Sykes, of the modern British population suggests an intermediate situation, with around 60% or more of Britons remaining in England, the figure increasing from east to west http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/07/0719_050719_britishgene_2.html
. The reason for this relatively high ratio of Saxons in the modern population may be due to Viking age immigrants, a higher reproductive rate (Proc Royal Soc B 2006).
Analysis of human remains unearthed at an ancient cemetery near Abingdon, England, indicates that Saxon immigrants and native Britons lived side-by-side. David Miles, research fellow at the Institute of Archaeology has said: "Probably what we're dealing with is a majority of British people who were dominated politically by a new elite. ... They were swamped culturally but not genetically". Simon James writes: "It is actually quite common to observe important cultural change, including adoption of wholly new identities, with little or no biological change to a population".http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/07/0719_050719_britishgene_2.html
Increasingly, the British-Roman population (the Britons) was assimilated, a process enabled by a lack of clear unity amongst the British people against a unified armed foe, and the culture pushed westwards and northwards. The settlement (or invasion) of what was later to become known as England is known as the Saxon Conquest or the Anglo-Saxon (sometimes "English") Conquest.
In approximately 495, at the Battle of Mount Badon (Latin Mons Badonicus , Welsh Mynydd Baddon ) possibly at Badbury Rings near the Roman Porchester-Poole road, Britons inflicted a severe defeat on an invading Anglo-Saxon army which halted the westward Anglo-Saxon advance for a long period. While it was a major political and military event of the 5th and 7th centuries in Britain, there is no certainty about who commanded the opposing forces. This victory made it possible to halt the Saxon invasion and secured a long period of peace for Celtic Britain.
The earliest source does not name the commanders of the opposing forces, but by the 9th century the victory was attributed to King Arthur. The 8th century Historia Brittonum records traditions that name the Romano-British / Celtic leader as Arthur. An old Welsh poem ascribed to Taliesin (who lived in the last half of the 6th century), refers to "the battle of Badon with Arthur, chief giver of feasts… the battle which all men remember". In that sort of society, "chief giver of feasts" implies supreme leader. Gildas writes "ad annum obsessionis Badonici montis ... quique quadragesimus quartus ut novi orditur annus mense iam uno emenso qui et meae nativitatis est", which has been translated in more than one way. It may mean "at/to the year of the siege of Mount Badon ... which happened 44 years and one month ago, and which is year
of my birth".
King Maelgwn of Gwynedd was still living when Gildas wrote this, therefore Gildas wrote this on or before 547. This suggests the date 503 or shortly before for the battle. Bede treated this passage as saying that the battle was 44 years after the Anglo-Saxons came to Britain (which he said was in 449). Adding 44 years to 449 gives the date 493 for the battle. Adding 43 years to 43 (when Thanet was conceded to Hengist) gives the date 491 for the battle. Some would argue that Bede's copy of Gildas was much closer to Gildas's time than any extant; however, the age of a manuscript (especially one no longer existing) is no guide to its accuracy. However uncertain the place, date, or participants of this battle may be, it clearly halted the Anglo-Saxon advance for some years.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is silent about this battle, but documents a gap of almost 70 years between two major Anglo-Saxon leaders (Bretweldas) in the fifth and sixth centuries. Procoppius records a story, told to him by a member of a diplomatic delegation from the Franks, including a group of Angles, which included that some Anglo-Saxons and British found their island so crowded that they migrated into northern Gaul to find lands to live on. There are other tales from the mid-6th century about groups of Anglo-Saxons leaving Britain to settle across the English Channel. All of these point to some kind of reversal in the fortunes of the invading Anglo-Saxons.
Archaeological evidence collected from the cemeteries of the pagan Anglo-Saxons suggests that some of their settlements were abandoned and the frontier between the invaders and the native inhabitants pushed back some time around 500. The Anglo-Saxons held the present counties of Kent, Sussex, Norfolk, Suffolk, and around the Humber; it is clear that the native British controlled everything west of a line drawn from the mouth of the Wiltshire Avon at Christchurch north to the river Trent, then along the Trent to where it joined the Humber, and north along the river Derwent and then east to the North Sea, and an enclave to the north and west of London, and south of Verulamium (near St. Albans), that stretched west to join with the main frontier. The Britons defending this pocket could securely move their troops along Watling Street to bring reinforcements to London or Verulamium, and thus keep the invaders divided into pockets south of the Weald, in eastern Kent, and in the lands around the Wash.
In the decisive Battle of Deorham, in 577 between the West Saxons and the Britons, the British people of Southern Britain were separated into the West Welsh (Cornwall, Devon Dorset and Somerset) and the Welsh by the advancing Saxons. Deorham is usually taken to refer to Dyrham in Gloucestershire. The battle was promptly followed by the Saxon occupation of three cities: Cirencester (Corinium), probably a provincial capital in the Roman period; Gloucester (Glevum), a former legionary fortress and a colonia; and Bath (Aquae Sulis), a renowned pagan religious centre and spa city. However, their advance southwestward was held up for about a hundred years, until the battle of Peonnam, and was not complete until the 10th century. Though there were some gains towards Wales, it remained largely independent from the Saxons.
The remains of many villas are found in the vicinity of these cities, implying that the area was wealthy as well as relatively sophisticated: it must be inferred that this Saxon advance was a significant blow to the Britons. The battle is also considered by some to be decisive since it drove a land wedge between the Britons of what was to become Wales and those in the southwest peninsula. It has however been objected that, though the battle may have had an impact on large-scale movements, the passage of Welsh-speaking individuals was evidently not impossible: a Welsh genealogy appears to record that, in the 7th century, the descendants of kings of Pengwern founded a dynasty in the Glastonbury region. It would not have been difficult to make such a journey by boat. In fact, archaeology suggests that, although the Anglo-Saxons quickly took over the Cirencester region after the battle, it took some time for them to colonise Bath and Gloucester.
From the 4th century AD, many Britons had migrated across the English Channel from Wales, Cornwall and southern Britain, with their chiefs, soldiers, families, monks and priests, and started to settle and colonise the western part (Armorica) of Gaul (France) where they founded a new nation: Brittany. The immigrant Britons gave their new country its current name and contributed to the Breton language, Brezhoneg, a sister language to Welsh and Cornish. The name "Brittany" (from "Little Britain") arose at this time to distinguish the new Britain from "Great Britain". Brezhoneg (the British language) is still spoken in Brittany in 2006.
Beginning with the raid in 793 on the monastery at Lindisfarne, Vikings made many raids on England.
At Dore (now a suburb of the City of Sheffield) Egbert of Wessex received the submission of Eanred of Northumbria in 829 and so became the first Saxon overlord of all England.
Picture of England in 878
After a time of plunder and raids, the Vikings began to settle in England and trade, eventually ruling the Danelaw from the late 9th century. One Viking settlement was in York, called Jorvik by the Vikings. Viking rule left significant traces in the English language; the similarity of Old English and Old Norse led to much borrowing.
The principal legacy left behind in those territories where it is agreed that significant numbers of Britons remained is that of toponyms. Most of the place-names in Cornwall, and some in Cumberland and Westmorland, and in other pockets, are Brythonic in origin, as are the names of most former Romano-British cities, including London, Dorchester, Dover, and Colchester. A few place-name elements, referring to physical features, are thought to be Brythonic in origin, such as * _bre* _ - and * _tor* _ for hills, * _carr* _ for a high rocky place, and * _coombe* _ for a small deep valley (a rare example of a Brythonic word that had been borrowed into Old English).
Until recently it has been believed that those areas settled by the Anglo-Saxons were uninhabited at the time or the Britons had fled before them. However, genetic studies suggest that the British were not pushed out to the Celtic fringes but many tribes remained in what was to become England (see C. Capelli et al. 'A Y chromosome census of the British Isles. Current Biology 13, 979–984, (2003)). Capelli's findings strengthen the research of Steven Bassett of Birmingham University; his work during the 1990s suggests that much of the west
Midlands was only very lightly colonised with Anglian and Saxon settlements (though this is not supported by the place-names of the region).
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