ANGLOSASSONI. — From the name “Saxones,” given to the Germanic invaders of Britain, and from “Angli,” which later came predominantly into use, 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 tribes. But it fell into disuse until, in the late Renaissance, Camden revived it in one of his works, in 1586.
First mentioned by Tacitus in the Germania, the A., according to the most important source, Bede, constituted one of the three tribes of Germania 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 neighboring island of Wight.
As regards the Angles and the Saxons, modern criticism, long engaged in investigating the historical origins of England, has merely confirmed the views expressed by the venerable Bede; not so in the case of the Jutes, whose substantial differences from the other two peoples have been emphasized, but who perhaps reached the British shores first.
Around the middle of the 5th century A.D., the settlements began to take shape, and the first Anglo-Saxon kingdom arose in Kent. From there, ascending the courses of the rivers or through new landings, the invaders spread throughout the island, still permeated by Roman civilization, and subjugated its populations. Nevertheless, elements of Roman civilization remained, especially where, owing to the system followed by the newcomers—creating isolated strongholds a short distance from the Roman roads—the preceding organization could remain without alteration.
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 fierce resistance; but the battle of Deorham, in 577, and the struggles of the following century exhausted the strength of the indigenous peoples and made possible the expansion of the A. The legendary cycle of King Arthur, the Celtic and Christian opponent of the pagan barbarians, is connected with these struggles. Protected more by nature than by men, Scotland remained outside Saxon influence, which could have extended there from the nearer kingdom of Northumbria.
The first, though very limited in extent, was the kingdom of Kent; its fame was due to the relations established with Gregory the Great through the mission of the monk Augustine (v. santo), the initial step toward the conversion of the A. At the end of the 6th century, however, a much larger kingdom had arisen—that of Northumbria—which for a century represented the power of the new colonists in the far West. To the king of Northumbria, Ethelfrid, were due the successes which, by enlarging the Saxon area of settlement, permitted its further consolidation. To his successor and former enemy, Edwin, of the princes of Deira, was due the decisive influence of the Roman Church and the mass conversion of the A.
No Christian people in the Middle Ages felt so strong an attraction toward Rome as the A., who, BISARCIO (v.) York (v.), inaugurated the movement that, from the 7th to the 9th century, brought 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 rose to prominence. Then, through various vicissitudes, Northumbria first recovered, and under King Ecgfrith gave a strong impetus to contacts with the civilization of the Latin countries, which in the following century—the 8th—was to be represented by the glorious school of York and its head, Alcuin, defeated
After Ecgfrith was defeated 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, under the kings Æthelbald and Offa. This lasted only briefly: upon Offa’s death, the rival kingdom of Wessex absorbed the kingdoms divided by bitter conflicts and assumed the political leadership of the island. King Egbert (802–29) conquered Kent, annexed the kingdom of Mercia, and then that of Northumbria.
By the middle of the 9th century, however, the effects of the raids and first Danish settlements in the British valleys were already maturing. And the history of the primitive kingdoms became the history of England.
Studies: For the history of the A. v., besides the old but still useful work by Winkelmann, also translated 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, there 1928; E. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, 2nd ed., Oxford 1947. Pier Fausto Palumbo