Editing Anglo-Saxons (section)

=== Anglo-Saxon origins (4th–6th centuries)===
{{Main|Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain}}
[[File:Anglo.Saxon.migration.5th.cen.jpg|thumb|upright=1.25|right|The migrations according to Bede, who wrote some 300 years after the arrival of Anglo-Saxon fashions in Britain. Archaeological and genetic evidence confirms that settlers in England came from these areas]]
Although it involved immigrant communities from northern Europe, the culture of the Anglo-Saxons was not transplanted from there, but rather developed in Britain.<ref>In the abstract for: Härke, Heinrich. "Anglo-Saxon Immigration and Ethnogenesis." ''Medieval Archaeology'' 55.1 (2011): 1–28.</ref> In 400, the [[Roman province]] of ''[[Roman Britain|Britannia]]'' had long been part of the [[Roman Empire]]. Although the empire had been dismembered several times during the previous centuries, often because of usurpations beginning in Britain (such as those of [[Magnus Maximus]], and [[Constantine III (Western Roman emperor)|Constantine III]]), there was an overall continuity and interconnectedness. Already before 400 Roman sources used the term Saxons to refer to coastal raiders who had been causing problems especially on the coasts of the [[North Sea]]. In what is now south-eastern England the Romans established a military commander who was assigned to oversee a chain of coastal forts which they called the [[Saxon shore]].<ref>{{citation|last=Drinkwater |first=John F. |title=The 'Saxon Shore' Reconsidered |journal= Britannia| year=2023| volume=54 |pages=275–303 | doi=10.1017/S0068113X23000193}}</ref> The homeland of these Saxon raiders was not clearly described in surviving sources but they were apparently the northerly neighbours of the [[Franks]] on the [[Lower Rhine]].<ref>{{citation|first=Matthias |last=Springer| title=Die Sachsen|year=2004}}</ref> At the same time, the Roman administration in Britain (and other parts of the empire) was recruiting ''[[foederati]]'' soldiers from the same general regions in what is now Germany, and these are likely to have become more important after the withdrawal of field armies during internal Roman power struggles.{{sfn|Halsall|2013|page=218}}

According to the ''[[Chronica Gallica of 452]]'' Britain was ravaged by Saxon invaders in 409 or 410. This was only a few years after Constantine III was declared Roman emperor in Britain, and during the period that he was still leading British Roman forces in rebellion on the continent. The rebellion was soon quashed, the Romano-British citizens reportedly expelled Constantine's imperial officials during this period, but they never again received new Roman officials or military forces.{{sfn|Halsall |2013|page=13}} Writing in the mid-sixth century, Procopius states that after the death of [[Constantine III (Western Roman Emperor)|Constantine III]] in 411, "the Romans never succeeded in recovering Britain, but it remained from that time under tyrants."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Dewing |first1=H B |title=Procopius: History of the Wars Books VII and VIII with an English Translation |date=1962 |publisher=Harvard University Press |pages=252–255 |url=https://eclass.uoa.gr/modules/document/file.php/SLAVSTUD182/Procopius%20Wars%20Books%20VII.36-VIII.pdf |access-date=1 March 2020 |archive-date=3 March 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200303224542/https://eclass.uoa.gr/modules/document/file.php/SLAVSTUD182/Procopius%20Wars%20Books%20VII.36-VIII.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref>

The Romano-Britons nevertheless called upon the empire to help them fend off attacks from not only the [[Saxons]], but also the [[Picts]] and [[Scoti]]. A [[hagiography]] of [[Saint Germanus of Auxerre]] claims that he helped command a defence against an invasion of Picts and Saxons in 429. By about 430 the archaeological record in Britain begins to indicate a relatively rapid melt-down of Roman material culture, and its replacement by Anglo-Saxon material culture. At some time between 445 and 454 [[Gildas]], one of the only writers in this period, reported that the Britons also wrote to the Roman military leader [[Flavius Aetius|Aëtius]] in Gaul, begging for assistance, with no success. In desperation, an unnamed "proud tyrant" at some point invited Saxons as ''foederati'' soldiers to Britain to help defend it from the Picts and Scots. Gildas did not report the year, and later writers (and modern historians) developed different estimates of when this occurred. Possibly referring to this same event, the ''[[Chronica Gallica of 452]]'' records for the year 441: "The British provinces, which to this time had suffered various defeats and misfortunes, are reduced to Saxon rule". Bede, writing centuries later, reasoned that this happened in 450–455, and he named the "proud tyrant" as [[Vortigern]]. However, the date could have been significantly earlier, and Bede's understanding of these events has been questioned.{{sfn|Halsall|2013|pages=13-15,185-186, 246}} The ''[[Historia Brittonum]]'', written in the 9th century, gives two different years, but the writer apparently believed it happened in 428.{{sfn|Halsall|2013|pages=194, 203}} Another 9th century source, the ''[[Anglo-Saxon Chronicle]]'' is largely based on Bede but says this Saxon arrival happened in 449.{{sfn|Halsall|2013|page=169}} The archaeological evidence suggests  an earlier timescale. In particular, the work of Catherine Hills and Sam Lucy on the evidence of [[Spong Hill]] has moved the chronology for the settlement earlier than 450, with a significant number of items now in phases before Bede's date.<ref name="Hills. C, & Lucy, S.">{{cite book|author1=Hills, C. |author2=Lucy, S.|title=Spong Hill IX: Chronology and Synthesis|year=2013|publisher=McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research|location=Cambridge|isbn=978-1-902937-62-5|url=http://www.mcdonald.cam.ac.uk/publications/publication-images/table%20of%20contents/spong-hill-toc}}</ref> Historian [[Guy Halsall]] has even speculated that Gildas was badly misread by Bede and all subsequent historians, and that the invitation of the foederati was part of a military reorganization in the time of [[Magnus Maximus]] in the late 4th century.

Bede, whose report of this period is partly based on Gildas, believed that the call was answered by kings from three powerful tribes from Germania, Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. The Saxons came from [[Old Saxony]] on the [[North Sea]] coast of Germany, and settled in [[Wessex]], [[Sussex]] and [[Essex]]. [[Jutland]], the peninsula containing part of Denmark, was the homeland of the Jutes who settled in [[Kent]] and the [[Isle of Wight]]. The Angles (or English) were from 'Anglia', a country which Bede understood to have now been emptied, and which lay between the homelands of the Saxons and Jutes.<ref>{{Harvcolnb|Giles|1843a|pp=72–73}}, Bede's ''Ecclesiastical History'', Bk I, Ch 15.</ref> Anglia is usually interpreted as the old [[Schleswig-Holstein Province]] (straddling the modern [[Denmark|Danish]]-[[Germany|German]] border), and containing the modern [[Angeln]]. Although this represents a turning point the continental ancestors of the Anglo-Saxons were probably quite diverse, and they arrived over a longer period. In another passage, Bede named pagan peoples still living in Germany (''Germania'') in the eighth century "from whom the Angles or Saxons, who now inhabit Britain, are known to have derived their origin; for which reason they are still corruptly called Garmans by the neighbouring nation of the Britons": the Frisians, the ''Rugini'', the [[Danes]], the "[[Huns]]" ([[Pannonian Avars|Avars]] in this period), the "old Saxons", and the "''Boructuari''" who are presumed to be inhabitants of the old lands of the [[Bructeri]], near the [[Lippe]] river.<ref>{{Harvcolnb|Giles|1843b|pp=188–189}}, Bede's ''Ecclesiastical History'', Bk V, Ch 9.</ref><ref name=":9">{{Cite book|title=Essays in Anglo-Saxon history|last=Campbell|first=James|date=1986|publisher=Hambledon Press|isbn=978-0-907628-32-3|location=London|oclc=458534293}}</ref>{{rp|123–124}} 
[[File:Britain peoples circa 600.svg|thumb|The approximate extent of Anglo-Saxon expansion into the former Roman province of ''Britannia'', by c.600]]

Gildas reported that a war broke out between the Saxons and the local population, who joined forces under a person named [[Ambrosius Aurelianus]]. Historian Nick Higham calls it the "War of the Saxon Federates". Unlike Bede and later writers who followed him, for whom this war turned into a very long war between two nations which was eventually won by the descendants of the Saxons, Gildas reported that by the time he was born this war ended successfully for the Britons after the [[Battle of Badon|siege at 'Mons Badonicus']]. (The price of peace, Higham argues, must have been a better treaty for the Saxons, giving them the ability to receive tribute from people across the lowlands of Britain.<ref name="Higham, Nick 1995">{{cite book |last=Higham |first=Nicholas |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jv68AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA2 |title=An English Empire: Bede and the Early Anglo-Saxon Kings |date=1995 |publisher=[[Manchester University Press]] |isbn=978-0-7190-4424-3 |page=2 |author-link=N. J. Higham}}</ref>) Gildas himself did not mention the defeated Saxons as an ongoing problem, but instead he noted that the Britons had become divided into many small "tyrannies". His interest was in criticizing the Romano-British ruling class, whereas archaeological evidence shows that Anglo-Saxon culture had long become dominant over much of Britain. Historians who accept Bede's understanding interpret Gildas as ignoring a large part of Britain, and writing about Romano-British kingdoms which had been limited to the north and west. Other historians have argued that in the 5th century many Romano-British people must have adopted the new culture which we now call Anglo-Saxon, even when they did not have Germanic ancestry or rulers.

Unfortunately, there are very few written sources apart from Gildas until the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity which began in the late 6th century. One eastern contemporary of Gildas, [[Procopius]], reported a story which was apparently relayed to him by Frankish diplomats, that an island called Brittia which faced the Rhine was divided, between three peoples, the Britons, Anglii, and Frisians. Bede and later sources portrayed the royal family of Kent as a direct descendants of the original group of "Saxons" mentioned by Gildas, although they apparently believed they were actually Jutish. Unfortunately the king lists and genealogies produced by Bede and later writers are not considered reliable for these early centuries.

A 2022 genetic study used modern and [[ancient DNA]] samples from England and neighbouring countries to study the question of physical Anglo-Saxon migration and concluded that there was large-scale immigration of both men and women into Eastern England, from a "north continental" population matching early medieval people from the area stretching from northern Netherlands through northern Germany to Denmark. This began already in the Roman era, and then increased rapidly in the 5th century. The burial evidence showed that the locals and immigrants were being buried together using the same new customs, and that they were having mixed children. The authors estimate the effective contributions to modern English ancestry are between 25% and 47% "north continental", 11% and 57% from British Iron Age ancestors, and 14% and 43% was attributed to a more stretched-out migration into southern England, from nearby populations such as modern Belgium and France. There were significant regional variations in north continental ancestry ― lower in the west, and highest in Sussex, the East Midlands and East Anglia.<ref>{{citation|last1=Gretzinger |first1=J |last2= Sayer| first2= D|last3= Justeau| first3= P| title=The Anglo-Saxon migration and the formation of the early English gene pool |journal= Nature| year=2022|volume=610 |issue=7930 |pages=112–119 | doi=10.1038/s41586-022-05247-2|pmid=36131019 |pmc=9534755 |bibcode=2022Natur.610..112G |doi-access=free}}</ref>