ANGLO-SAXONS. - From the name "Saxones," given to the Germanic invaders of Britain, and from "Angli," later predominantly used, Paul the Deacon derived the term Angli Saxones to distinguish the A. from the Saxons who remained on the mainland. The compound form was used, between the 9th and 10th centuries, to indicate the union of the various peoples. But it fell into disuse, until, in the late Renaissance, Camden revived it in a work of his in 1586.
First mentioned by Tacitus in the Germania, the A. constituted, according to the most important source, Bede, one of the three tribes of Germany that invaded Britain. The other two were the Saxons and the Jutes. The three tribes spread through the regions of the Celtic island and colonized it: the A. (coming from present-day Schleswig) East Anglia, Mercia and Northumbria; the Saxons (coming from the area between Hanover and the sea) Essex, Sussex and Wessex; the Jutes (coming from Jutland) Kent, Hampshire and the facing island of Wight.
As for the Angles and the Saxons, modern scholarship, having long labored over the historical origins of England, has done nothing but confirm the opinions expressed by the Venerable Bede; not so for the Jutes, whose substantial differences from the other two peoples have been emphasized, but who perhaps reached the British coasts first.
Around the middle of the 5th century A.D. the settlements took shape: and the first Anglo-Saxon kingdom arose in Kent. From there, moving up the course of the rivers or with new landings, the invaders spread throughout the island, still permeated with Roman civilization, and subjugated its populations. Nevertheless, elements of Roman civilization remained, especially where, owing to the system followed by the newcomers (of creating isolated strongholds, a short distance from the Roman roads), the previous order was able to undergo no innovations.
Between the middle of the 5th and the middle of the 6th century the foundations of the English kingdoms were laid: on the western side of the island and particularly in the region of Wales the Celtic populations maintained a defensive posture and offered strenuous resistance; but the battle of Deorham, in 577, and the struggles of the following century exhausted the forces of the natives and made possible the expansion of the A. To these struggles is linked the legendary cycle of King Arthur, a Celt and Christian opponent of the pagan barbarians. Protected more by nature than by men, Scotland remained outside Saxon influence, which could have extended there from the nearer kingdom of Northumbria.
First, but of very limited extent, was the kingdom of Kent; whose fame was due to the relations established with Gregory the Great, through the mission of the monk Augustine (v. AGOSTINO di CANTERBURY, saint), the initial step toward the conversion of the A. Toward the end of the 6th century, however, a much greater kingdom had arisen - that of Northumbria - which for a century represented the power of the new settlers of the extreme West. To the king of Northumbria, Aethelfrith, were due the successes which, by expanding the settlement area of the Saxons, permitted their further affirmation. To his successor and former enemy, Edwin, of the princes of Deira, were due the determining influence of the Roman Church and the mass conversion of the A.
No Christian people during the Middle Ages felt as much attraction toward Rome as the A., who with Benedict Biscop (v.) and Wilfrid of York (v.) inaugurated that movement which, from the 7th to the 9th century, led thousands of pilgrims from the British Isles to Rome.
When, in 633, Penda, king of Mercia, defeated and killed Edwin at Hatfield, the fortunes of Northumbria passed to the kingdom of Mercia, which established itself. Then through various vicissitudes, with Northumbria first revived and, under King Ecgfrith, a strong impetus given to contacts with the civilization of the Latin countries, which was to be represented in the following century - the 8th - by the glorious school of York and its head, Alcuin, having been defeated
Ecgfrith by the Scots in 685, the kingdom was conquered by the new invaders, the Danes. But supremacy had already passed to the kingdom of Mercia, in the time of the kings Aethelbald and Offa. For a brief time: at the death of Offa, the rival kingdom of Wessex absorbed the kingdoms divided by bitter disputes and assumed the political representation of the island. King Egbert (802-29) conquered Kent, annexed the kingdom of Mercia and then that of Northumbria.
But by the middle of the 9th century the effects of the Danish incursions and first settlements in the British Isles were ripening. And the history of the early kingdoms becomes the history of England.
Bibliography5 works
Studies: For the history of the A. v., besides the old, always useful, work of Winkelmann, trans. also into Italian, Milan 1888; E. A. Freeman, History of the Norman Conquest, Oxford 1876; M. Lappenberg, History of England under the Anglo-Saxonings, 2nd ed., London 1881; C. Oman, England before the Norman Conquest, 5th ed., Oxford 1891; W. Ramsay, The foundations of England, London 1898; H. M. Chadwick, Studies on Anglo-Saxon Institutions, Cambridge 1907; F. Cabrol, L'Angleterre Chrétienne avant les Normands, Paris 1909; T. Hodgkin, Political History of England from the earliest Times to the Norman Conquest, 2nd ed., London 1914; E. Wingfield-Stratford, History of English Civilization, ibid. 1928; E. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, 2nd ed., Oxford 1947.
Pier Fausto Palumbo