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England versus Saxland?
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Message 1.
Posted by Mick_mac (U2874010) on Wednesday, 4th April 2007
Why did the Angles give their name to England? Surely they were not as influential as their southern neighbours the Saxons? Why do we use the term Anglo-Saxon and not Saxo-Anglian? The Jutes, Geats and Frisians leave no obvious or apparent mark on history. In this respect the Jutes, for example, seem to have faded from the pages of history with the fall of their royal family.
The south of Britain, which was overwhelmingly Saxon, has generally been more culturally and politically influential than the north of the island. This was true in the pre-Roman, Roman and Norman periods of history. Britain’s major centres of influence (London, Canterbury, Winchester, etc.) were in the Saxon sphere of operations and their name should have dominated.
In Ireland the Saxon name predominated over the English one. Before the ‘adventus Saxonum’ Britain was known by the Irish as Alba. By Norman times the name Alba was being used to designate Scotland only. By then the Irish were calling England by the name ‘Sax, Saxain’ after the Saxons. Hence, the later forms: Sagsain, Sassana, etc. For example, the Annals of Inisfallen say:
434 : Prima praeda Saxanorum ab Hibernia (meaning ‘the first prey of the Saxons from Ireland’)
471 : Secunda praeda Saxanorum ab Hibernia (meaning ‘the second prey …’)
644 : Quies Ósuailt Regis Anglicorum (meaning ‘the death of Oswald, king of the Angles’) [the following glossary to this entry is provided on the manuscript by a 12th century hand: ‘Anglicus Sax interpretatur’ (meaning ‘Anglicus means Sax’)
Later still Irish annals were designating even the Northumbrians as Saxons:
706 : Flann Fíne mc Gossa, rex Saxanorum quievit (‘Aldfrid, son of Oswy, king of the Saxons, rested’) [Note Aldfrid was called Flann Fíne in Irish].
If the domination and influence of a royal line is anything to go by then one would expect the Saxon name to predominate in later times and not the English. Cerdic through to Alfred the Great were Saxon kings of Wessex whose line continued to produce the later kings of ‘England’.
Why isn’t England known as Saxland, or some such variation?! Any ideas? Or should the answer to this be obvious to me? -
Message 2
Posted by Stoggler (U1647829) on Wednesday, 4th April 2007
Overall I cannot fault your post Mick, except for one thing. You stated:
"The south of Britain, which was overwhelmingly Saxon, has generally been more culturally and politically influential than the north of the island."
However, I always thought that the northern part of England was more dominant in the early Anglo-Saxon centuries, with Northumbria and then Mercia being in the acendant. Is this not the case? -
Message 3
Posted by TonyG (U1830405) on Wednesday, 4th April 2007
Wessex only really came to prominence when Alfred repelled the Danish invasion. His grandson Athelstan then extended "Saxon" control over pretty much the whole of England. Bede referred to the "English speaking people" a century before Alfred, so the term "England" was known by then, and there was obviously a sense of a common heritage as "English".
Athelstan may have been a power-mad empire builder, but he was no fool and, politically, calling his enlarged kingdom "England" would help get Anglians, Mercians, and Northumbrians on his side, despite his Saxon background.
I am not sure what the ratio of Bretwaldas was in terms of which kingdom produced the most, but I suspect Mercia and Northumbria would both be near the top of the list and ahead of Wessex. All that changed after Athelstan, of course and Wessex was, politically, the most important region within England from then until 1066. Having said that, the earldom of Northumbria was still a powerful post and Edward the Confessor had a lot of problems with unrest there.
As for Anglo-Saxon rather than Saxo-Anglian, that is, I think just down to the fact that it is naturally easier to say, just as we say "cup and saucer" rather than "saucer and cup". -
Message 4
Posted by Mick_mac (U2874010) on Thursday, 5th April 2007
Stoggler and TonyG,
While I accept what you both say I have never really been convinced by these arguments. The cultural and political influence of northern England/Britain was overhauled by the south long before the 11th century when ‘England’ first began to be used as the name for the land of the ‘Anglo-Saxons’. In addition, the north had by then experienced the widespread disruption and depredation of the Viking incursions. If the name England was not being applied to the whole country until a hundred years after the re-conquest of the Danelaw by the Saxons of the south it remains strange that the north gave its name to the whole country, including the Saxon south.
Peter Hunter Blair has addressed this issue but not very convincingly. He says ‘Englaland’ (a bit of a mouthful) first came into use as a TERRITORIAL name in the 11th century. Before that the name ‘Angelcynn’ was used but only to distinguish the people, not their territory. Blair notes that the Saxon Alfred the Great also used this latter word to denote only the people. The earlier vernacular word used in Bede’s day to indicate the territory or land of England is not known (if there was one) because of the lack of native records. Bede himself only used the name Brittania. The adjective ‘Englisc’ was commonly used from the 9th century to indicate either Englishmen or the English language – again, not the land.
As to the term Anglo-Saxon he says that it was first used on the Continent by Latin writers to distinguish between Saxons in Britain and those remaining on the European mainland.
The notion that the country named England first emerged in embryonic form as a consequence of the northern 'Englisc' willingly submitting to Alfred in common cause against the Danes is not relevant to the naming of England. Did the country called England exist in name under Aethelstsan? Aethelstan was styled 'King of the English, Saxons and Danes', not the 'King of England'.
Christopher Brooke states that true unity was not established until the reign of Cnut in 1016, but he is referring to political unity. However, is it possible that the Danish influence in forging this political unity in the early 11th century caused the Saxon name to be eclipsed in favour of that of the northern English in the ultimate naming of England? -
Message 5
Posted by TonyG (U1830405) on Friday, 6th April 2007
Mick mac,
Thanks for that informative post. Interesting that the modern perspective is often focused on the territory while the ancient perspective was more on the people. Di ou think that could have anything to do with mass movements of population being more common then? -
Message 6
Posted by ElistanOnVacation (U3933150) on Friday, 13th April 2007
Considering Wessex and Sussex, surely it should have been Sexland? Imagine the tourism boom!
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Message 7
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Saturday, 14th April 2007
Elistan,
welcome back. As an aside: if you would do me the favour of commenting my thread on the History Hub: "Positivism and Historism in history: a debate"? Please...
I have loads of that stuff: See my other thread: "Historical writing what way? Rant!" One of my last messages.
I hope I didn't frighten you that much with that "dry" stuff, that you part immediately again in vacation. But you are one of the few, who can handle in my opinion this, for me, difficult material.
Warm regards and with esteem,
Paul. -
Message 8
Posted by Mick_mac (U2874010) on Sunday, 15th April 2007
TonyG said
Interesting that the modern perspective is often focused on the territory while the ancient perspective was more on the people. Do you think that could have anything to do with mass movements of population being more common then?
Sorry for the long delay in replying to your query - I have been away from work and home for over a week.
Yes, I do, although it has less to do with ‘mass movement’ and more to do with the fluid nature of society. In early medieval Ireland and Britain (even the Anglo-Saxon parts of it) people put greatest store in family and tribal group relationships than in any sense of belonging to a state that was contiguous with a well defined territory. The sense of national statehood or territory came much, much later.
What was important was the symbiotic nature of the relationship between the king and his people. Asser, for example, began his life of King Alfred with a recitation of the king’s genealogy going back 43 generations to Adam. The older parts of this genealogy were obviously fabricated but the generations nearer to Alfred’s own time are more accurate and serve to legitimize Alfred as the rightful ruler of his people.
Kings at this time ruled a people, not a territory. The relationship was somewhat symbiotic. The territory they ruled depended upon the de facto land their people occupied – not the other way round.
I think we see a change in emphasis with the compilation of the Domesday Book. The Normans represent a dislocation in the personal relationship between ruler and people, and in such circumstances the Norman dominion was primarily a domination of the land first and the people second.
This still does not explain why England was called after the Angles. The name Angleland was not applied until the eleventh century, well after the heyday of influence of the Angles and northern England. Why should this be so when the Saxon parts of Britain had long held sway over the country? -
Message 9
Posted by Alaric the Goth (U1826823) on Monday, 16th April 2007
I think you are forgetting the major role played by the long-reigning Offa in bringing a huge amount of 'Englalond' under one rule: that of a powerful 'Anglian' king. The boundary he set between 'English' and 'Welsh' is still very close to that 'national' boundary today. Mercia had much of the agriculturally most productive land under its control, and some major ecclesiastical and commercial centres.
Also, it was West Saxons allied to (West) Mercians that triumphed when Alfred and his successors did bring back 'Anglo-Saxon' control over what was, in the late 9th and early 10th centuries, fast becoming something like the 'England' we know (at least in territorial terms). -
Message 10
Posted by TrailApe (U1701496) on Tuesday, 17th April 2007
The name Angleland was not applied until the eleventh century, well after the heyday of influence of the Angles and northern England. Why should this be so when the Saxon parts of Britain had long held sway over the country
Could it be that whilst Wessex and the Saxons where politically in the ascendant, the other parts of what is now England were still influential militarily - ie bodies behind shields.
Harold Godwinson defeated Haradra at Stamford Bridge in 1066, but how many of his troops were actual Saxons? Yes he would have his household troops, but the bulk of the army must have come from the midlands (Danes/Angles). Would these politically astute leaders not have recognised this fact?
And did the saxons actually ever really have 'long held sway over the country'? From Alfred onwards they may have claimed to be 'King of the English' but as a considerable portion of England was either under Danish rule or subdued by the Danes it was always a pointless title, although I must admit, 'King Of the English - apart from the bits than the Danes & Norse don't claim' does not sound so snappy.
And the final throes of 'Saxon' England - was Harold a Saxon? - his mother was Danish, his dad had connived to a great extent with Canute and his ilk, I bet little Harold was brought up to cheer for the Danes in the local football league during his early upbringing, so I wonder if he considered himself as 'Saxon'.
It's an intersting question though isn't it, why Angleland? Given the evidence available it would seem likely that we should have been called Saxland, Saxony, Wessex or something similair. However, considering the fact that we ARE called English, perhaps a lot of the evidence to support the Anglinisation of England have been obscured/destroyed by those who felt that the Saxons should be seen as the true founders of England. -
Message 11
Posted by Mick_mac (U2874010) on Tuesday, 17th April 2007
Offa died in 796 over 200 years before the name ‘Englaland’ began to be applied in the 11th century to the country we know as England. He was styled ‘king of all of the land of the Angles’ (’rex totius Anglorum patriae’). King Alfred reigned 871 – 899; he was dead over 100 years when England began to be called ‘Englaland’.
Alfred was never king of ‘England’ in the modern sense, or even in the 11th century sense. He was first styled king of the Saxons (‘rex Saxonum’ or ‘rex Saxoniorum’) and later king of the Angles and Saxons (‘rex Anglorum et Saxonum’).
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle refers on occasion to ‘Angel cynnes lande’ (AD 787, 836 and 866), that is, the ‘land of the Angles’. It is apparent that the chronicler is not using this phrase in the modern geographic sense of ‘England’ or in the 11th century sense in which the name ‘Englaland’ was used. For example, the phrase would not have been applied to any location in southern England.
I can accept the evolution of the term Anglo-Saxon which was first coined by continental chroniclers and writers, all of whom were churchmen who would have influenced the spread of this usage through the literate clerics of southern Britain. Even by Alfred’s reign the ‘Anglo’ element had precedence over the ‘Saxon’ and Alfred is never recorded as ‘rex Saxonorum et Anglorum’.
I think it would make an interesting study to attempt to trace the manner in which the northern (Northhumbrian, Mercian) English managed to impose their name on the England that emerged under the political and cultural dominance of the Saxon south. -
Message 12
Posted by Stoggler (U1647829) on Tuesday, 17th April 2007
Ok, so the term Englaland may not have been coined (or first written at least) until the 11th century (not a mouth-full if you ask me - I can manage it ok). Prior to that the term 'angelcynn’ was used but only to distinguish the people, not their territory. The adjective 'englisc' was also used from the 9th century to refer to an englishman or the language - again not the land.
But if the concept of language and people are tied to one word, surely the later concept of land belonging to those people will have a term using those already existing words? Isn't it logical to name the land after the people? First they were called Anglecynn, and described themselves as englisc and spoke a language they called englisc. To me, it makes sense that they would call the land they occupy after those existing labels. -
Message 13
Posted by TrailApe (U1701496) on Tuesday, 17th April 2007
Mic Mac,
I would accept 'political dominance', but would question 'cultural dominance'.
I wonder how the demographics stacked up in those days? The commercial success of the court based London was far in the future, so it may be possible that the lands usually considered as Angle Kingdoms, Mercia and Northumbria, were as densly populated as the Saxon lands. Granted a good portion of the North is considered 'uplands' now, but there is evidence to suggest that it was quite densley populated (for the times)and not just the land of wind swept grouse moors that people consider it today.
There are areas that were farmed in the medieval period that are now just (very bleak) sheep pasture now, so it would suggest that the uplands of Yorkshire and Northumberland were a more benign environment than they are now. And of course the area covered by Mercia has some unsurpassed agricultural land, so would have supported a large population.
I would go as far as to say that the 'Saxon' supremacy was very much more apparent than real, based on the PR of the House of Wessex, which to be fair, outlasted the other 'royal' lines, but that's more an accident of geography than anything else - which of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms was the furtherst away from those rascally rascals - the Norse? -
Message 14
Posted by Alaric the Goth (U1826823) on Thursday, 19th April 2007
The ‘Angle Kingdoms, Mercia and Northumbria’, had a lot of resources. They had long coastlines (well Northumbria did), so there would be a lot of fishing and sea-borne trade (and of course this later made them vulnerable to sea-borne pillaging/invasion!). Mercia had some of the richest agricultural land: Cheshire, Lincolnshire for example.
Although Northumbria had a lot of 'uplands', the Vales of York and of Pickering, and the coastlands and Tyne Valley of what is now ‘Northumberland’ were very good for cattle-rearing or cropping, and swine could be kept in the woodlands. The best wool-producing parts of later Mediaeval England included the Yorkshire Dales, and it would be reasonable to assume that Northumbrian sheep farmers were grazing their flocks there in the 7th/8th/9th centuries.
Northumbria was not much more wooded in the pre-Viking period than it was in say 1500. In fact it has, thanks to recent man-made forests like Kielder, probably more tree-cover now than it had in say 800 AD. -
Message 15
Posted by Tim of Acleah (U1736633) on Saturday, 21st April 2007
I believe that in the laws of Ine, a West Saxon king, the laws distinguish between English and Welsh, not Saxons and Welsh.
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Message 16
Posted by Tim of Acleah (U1736633) on Saturday, 21st April 2007
Pope Gregory addressed Aethelberht, king of Kent as king of the Angles.
Pope Vitalian addressed Oswiu, king of Northumbria as king of the Saxons.
C700 Adomnan, abbot of Iona, refers to the Northumbrian king Oswald as ‘emperor of the whole of Britain’.
Early 8th C life of Wilfred, bishop of York, describes him as bishop of the Saxons.
Boniface describes himself as of the race of the Angles but called his homeland Saxonia. He came from Wessex.
Aldhelm of Malmesbury refers to Centwine as king of the Saxons, c690 AD.
The kingdom of Kent is referred to in the late 6th C AD, Geoffrey of Tours twice refers to Kent and once to the kingdom.
West Saxon appears in the text of a letter dated 704-5.
South Saxon is referred to from a charter of the period 688 to 705 AD.
The Whitby life of Pope Gregory 704 to 713 refers to East Angles. -
Message 17
Posted by TonyG (U1830405) on Sunday, 22nd April 2007
Stoggler,
"But if the concept of language and people are tied to one word, surely the later concept of land belonging to those people will have a term using those already existing words? Isn't it logical to name the land after the people? First they were called Anglecynn, and described themselves as englisc and spoke a language they called englisc. To me, it makes sense that they would call the land they occupy after those existing labels."
That sounds an eminently sensible suggestion. Bede referred to the "English speaking people", so if they all recogniesed their language as "English", the later concept of the land being named after the people who lived there would make sense. I suppose, though, it raises the question of why the Saxons spoke English and not Saxonish.
Tim's posts have shown that the terms English and Saxon do seem to have been interchangeable in some eyes. Smacks of modern day usage of the term "English" to mean "British", still frequently observed in comments emanating from the South East of England (or is that Saxland?). -
Message 18
Posted by AilithAC (U8183163) on Tuesday, 24th April 2007
But the Saxons did give their name to this country - hence the term Sassenach for people south of Hadrian's Wall.
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Message 19
Posted by Stoggler (U1647829) on Wednesday, 25th April 2007
And the Welsh use the word Sais for an Englishman, Saesnes for a woman, and Saesneg for the language - all orginally meaning Saxon
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Message 20
Posted by Alaric the Goth (U1826823) on Wednesday, 25th April 2007
I think you will find, AilithAC, that 'Sassenach' is traditionally used for Lowland Scots as well as ‘English’. (Perhaps in remembrance of the number of Northumbrian Angles in the South and South-East.) And that quite a few English, including my Charlton ancestors (on my mother’s side) lived, and still live in that rather large county, Northumberland, that is mainly north of the Wall
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Message 21
Posted by TrailApe (U1701496) on Wednesday, 25th April 2007
Alaric the Goth,
Charltons eh? - if you ever go to a cattle mart, do you get the urge to round them up and head off, killing all in your path? Don't worry, therapy will help
yes a valid point re the Wall and Northumberland. I have lived and worked nearly all of my live a few miles north of the Wall and I do not consider the good people of Durham, Cumbria and all points south as Sassesnachs.
It is a bit worrying on a history board when people start to allude to the Wall as any sort of deliniation for the native people of the time or for that matter any period in our history. The Romans did as we have done in our days of Empire, drew a line with little regard to the people that lived on either side of it. It is not now, nor ever has been, a border between England and Scotland or the entities that existed before these countries where established.(soap box dimounted)
A few of the posts prior to this have mentioned what the Irish, Welsh and Scots called the Germanic invaders. Whilst interesting, I don't think this has any bearing on the matter. Accurate nomenclature for your enemies have never been one of humanities good points. -
Message 22
Posted by Mick_mac (U2874010) on Wednesday, 25th April 2007
A few of the posts prior to this have mentioned what the Irish, Welsh and Scots called the Germanic invaders.
In addition, in the Cornish language:-
England = pow sous
English = sousnek
So, it would appear that the entire Celtic fringe used names derived from the Saxons, not the Angles. But the Saxon themselves do not seem to have had the cultursal or political clout to impose their own name on the country they forged in the late Saxon period. -
Message 23
Posted by TrailApe (U1701496) on Thursday, 26th April 2007
Mic_Mac,
any idea what the Cumbrians called us? - they had a language similair to Welsh and the people they would have come up against would have solely been the Angles of Northumbria or Mercia. The Cornish were probably right as the would have scuffled with the Saxons, so I cannot argue with that.
Of course the pivotal point of this whole discussion is
their own name on the country they forged in the late Saxon period.
I would point out that a lot of what is now considered 'England' had been forged prior to the pre-eminance of Wessex and that the Angle kingdoms of Northumbria and Mercia had probably contributed enough to this process to get their 'brand name' on it.
Yes, the incursions of the Norsemen unseated the royal lines of the Mercians and Northumbrians, which ultimatly let the Saxon instal their own candidates once the Danes had been accepted (or beaten down)and had become considered 'English'.
I know it's currently popular to 'saxonise' everything nowadays (I was disgusted that the RFU decided to call England A 'The Saxons') but is that not just a reflection of the current pre-eminance of the SE of England combined with a re-awaking of English self identity?
Even your average charva (wearing his baseball cap with the three ingerlish leopards of Acquataine) knows that the Saxons had a rumble with the Normans in 1066, so like, we must all be saxons like, innit? -
Message 24
Posted by Teresa gardel (U7049329) on Sunday, 29th April 2007
I´m glad to have read your question,you know? Last week we were learning some Irish toast and I was thrilled about this one : IF YOU´RE SAXON AND YOU KNOW IT, CLAP YOUR HANDS!
Well, I didn´t get it because in my ignorance I thought that saxons had nothing to do with Ireland and I guess by your comments that I was wrong. -
Message 25
Posted by Teresa gardel (U7049329) on Sunday, 29th April 2007
Very funny indeed!
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Message 26
Posted by Alaric the Goth (U1826823) on Monday, 30th April 2007
It's worse than that, TrailApe. My surname testifies to an ancestral Reiving past from the other side of the Border: we went from Liddesdale with our friends the Armstrongs and devastaed my maternal ancestors & their friends in Northumberland with fire and the sword. So if I steal a sheep from myself and later steal it back, don't be surprised! Where is that therapist?
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Message 27
Posted by TrailApe (U1701496) on Monday, 30th April 2007
Alaric,
yes, sounds like you could do with some therapy.
Unfortunatly the trickcyclist is an Elliot, so whilst your ensconed on his couch, his relatives burn your car, steal your horse and mug your grandma.
Then he overcharges you. -
Message 28
Posted by marduk-slayer of tiamat (U2258525) on Friday, 4th May 2007
i would assume that england is england because perhaps angl-ish was teh predominant language-i seem to remember from some book of other that all the various saxon kingdoms also used the anglish-and went so far as to refer to the southern part of britain (i.e south and west of bernicia, yet east of wales) as "englaland"
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Message 29
Posted by Gerda (U7592975) on Tuesday, 8th May 2007
Tue, 08 May 2007 13:55 GMT, in reply to Teresagardel in message 24
IF YOU´RE SAXON AND YOU KNOW IT, CLAP YOUR HANDS!
(clap) i thought 'saxon' was a generic term for all the 'barbarian'(ha! we knew how to make steel!) tribes of the nw european coast. all the gingers basically. -
Message 30
Posted by TrailApe (U1701496) on Wednesday, 9th May 2007
I have heard a few explanations for 'Saxon' - the most possible one being due to the type of sword they carried.
Saxon is now becoming a generic term (especially in the media) for the period leading up to the Norman Conquest.
The Angles are forgotten
The Jutes are disregaded
and the Friesians are left out in the cold
(I'll get me coat) -
Message 31
Posted by Mick_mac (U2874010) on Wednesday, 9th May 2007
Hi TrailApe,
Just remembered you asked if I knew what the Cumbrians called England.
I don't. I tried to find out but got nowhere.
Maybe some other kind poster can answer the question?
Mick -
Message 32
Posted by TrailApe (U1701496) on Wednesday, 9th May 2007
no probs Mic_Mac!
I know their version of celtic (or British or whatever) died out, but I had heard there was interest in if not bringing it back to life, at least building up more awareness of it.
Mind you,in my 'green and salad days' I used to troop across the country and play the likes of Cockermouth at rugby (not by myself of course) - listening to the banter from the home crowd you would be hard pressed to swear, hand on heart, that they were really speaking the same language as us Northumberlanders. -
Message 33
Posted by RainbowFfolly (U3345048) on Wednesday, 9th May 2007
Hi TrailApe,
I know pretty much nothing about Cumbric, but did find this article which you might find of interest:
One quote from it says:
...Glanville Price, following a lecture of Kenneth Jackson from 1955, says that there are only three Cumbric words in the documentary records, but a closer look at the evidence shows the situation to be more complicated. Could there be more Cumbric words, and are the three known words really Cumbric themselves?
The three words in question, from Price’s Languages in Britain and Ireland (2000), are “galnes or galnys, which corresponds to Middle Welsh galanas ‘blood-fine’, and mercheta and kelchyn, connected with Welsh merch ‘daughter’ and cylch ‘circuit’ respectively”. They all come from a roughly 11th century Latin text called the Leges inter Brettos et Scotos, and they’re all kinds of fines or taxes, for which there were apparently no equivalent Latin words. The kelchyn was a “fine paid to the kinsmen of a person killed” (DOST), and the mercheta was a “fine paid by a tenant or bondsman to his overlord for the right to give his daughter in marriage” (OED), so essentially a tax.
Just one question - before the Battle of Chester in 616 (or whenever they got split from Wales) would they have been speaking essentially the same language as the Welsh?
Cheers,
RF -
Message 34
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Thursday, 10th May 2007
In addition, in the Cornish language:-
England = pow sous
English = sousnek
So, it would appear that the entire Celtic fringe used names derived from the Saxons, not the Angles. But the Saxon themselves do not seem to have had the cultursal or political clout to impose their own name on the country they forged in the late Saxon period.
Just as with the origins of the term 'Anglo-Saxon' it is possible that there was also a 'continental dimension' in the choice of England over 'Saxland'. The reason being that there was already a Saxony in continental Europe and it was becoming established as a significant duchy in European affairs during the 5 centuries in question (c. 600 - 1100).
Continental 'Angeln' on the other hand was only a constituent part of Schleswig which was itself nominally under Danish lordship. In other words Angeln was a generally an unknown name in Europe.
Unlike with Saxland, Saxonland or Saxony, therefore, there was no such possibility of confusion with the word 'England'. -
Message 35
Posted by Tim of Acleah (U1736633) on Sunday, 13th May 2007
"Just one question - before the Battle of Chester in 616 (or whenever they got split from Wales) would they have been speaking essentially the same language as the Welsh?"
The simple answer is yes, I believe there is a signifiscnt amount of literature from North Briton in this period in what could be described as 'Old Welsh'. -
Message 36
Posted by ronk (U8636096) on Tuesday, 19th June 2007
I've just come across this thread, so apologies if this has been covered before. My linguistic view is that "saxon" is not a geographic description at all but is a general term used by the Romans for pirates (as in Saxon Shore). The people living here who thought of themselves akin to those across the North Sea, called themselves anglisc (apart from the jutes in Kent). So it was natural for them to call the country angle land. The distribution of the word "seaxon" in Old English is extremley limited. The Welsh and the Scottish of course continued to use their perjorative versions of "saxon". The term "Anglo-Saxon" seems to come about through monastic Latin influence not vernacular Old English.
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Message 37
Posted by Docdogsbody (U6435748) on Wednesday, 20th June 2007
Hello All,As i was in the school, good over fifty
years ago we were told by our history teacher that that the names of the Counties and land parts were named after the tribes had taken over
the areas.
Essex= East Saxon.
Wessex= West Saxon.
Sussex= South Saxon.
Norfolk after the Norsmen.
East Anglia after the anglians.Which also had the
Jutes and Danes who settled there.I see the main Topic or discussion about early times are
always about the Mercians and Northumbrians Why?
911 the Vikings landed at Mouldon Essex with 3000
men fought the Battle of Mouldon,and went on to
Wessex and Kent to press 5Tons Silver "Danegeld" with
the promise never to come back,they did twenty years later. -
Message 38
Posted by TrailApe (U1701496) on Wednesday, 20th June 2007
Docsbody
a case in point over the 'saxonisation' of Angle (sorry English) history.
You mention
Essex= East Saxon.
Wessex= West Saxon.
Sussex= South Saxon.
Norfolk after the Norsmen.
East Anglia after the anglia
Are these the only counties that are in England?
You can see how somebody that is not from the South East of England may view your statement as a tad insular.
re the theory, ok I can see Northumberland=Northumbrians, Cumberland=Welsh (Cymri) Cornwall also has a celtic link, but what about the rest?
Did the Ruttles come from Rutland? was Devon inhabited solely by geological strata at one point?
As for the discussions about the Mercians and Northumbrians, well until they had their backsides kicked by the Norsemen, both kingdoms had a considerable input in the creation of England, which sometimes is at odds with the current trend of focussing on the 'Saxon' side of the picture.
Imagine what it must be like to be a young schoolkid in the the area of what was once the Danelaw. According to the Saxon version of history that used to be taught - not sure what they teach now, but if the 鶹Լ is anything to go by nothing much has changed - your ancestors (assuming your family have lived in the area for centuries) were the bad guys! Not easy for a young kid to take on board. -
Message 39
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Wednesday, 20th June 2007
Wessex= West Saxon.
As far as I'm aware Wessex has never been a county as such. The Earldom of Wessex, however, was 'revived' or more accurately said, was re-invented in 1999 after 932 years when Prince Edward was created the first Earl of Wessex since Harold Godwinson in 1066.
The size and boundaries of Wessex have never been a settled matter. At one time (as a kingdom) greater Wessex stretched from Cornwall to Surrey with its capital located at Winchester in Hampshire. It's kernal, however, is essentially believed to be based around the counties of Dorset and Wiltshire. This concept of the location of little Wessex was a notion which was particularly popularised by the Victorian novelist Thomas Hardy.
Norfolk after the Norsmen.
Norfolk was named after the North East-Angle folk in the same way as Suffolk was named after the South East-Angle folk.
The term 'Norsemen' usually refers to the Norse vikings i.e. the Norwegian vikings. Strictly speaking this does not include the Danish vikings and certainly does not include the Angles (who were related to the Danes) but who came to Britain 2 to 3 hundred years before them. -
Message 40
Posted by Docdogsbody (U6435748) on Wednesday, 20th June 2007
Message38,TA This is not a statement from me,but
a quotation of what we were taught in school as a kidd.The school was in Essex. -
Message 41
Posted by TrailApe (U1701496) on Wednesday, 20th June 2007
oh yeah I understand - my early history lessons were very similair, everything 'just so' and dovetailing together to justify the current establishment.
I can see why - you want to keep primary school history as straightforward as possible.
Anglo Saxons good
Danes Bad
Normans good - Anglo-Saxons (now just Saxons) gallant losers.
We are now English
Welsh overunn (well they asked for it)
Scots Bad
Irish Bad
We are now British
(Irish still bad)
We rule the world.
We are GOOD.
The French/US/Spain/Germany bad (delete were applicable)
Unfortunatly, it seems that the Eezzy-Historee-Is-Us still manages to get onto national media.
If we take this particular period as a good example. There should be a more in depth study of the whole of the country on the 鶹Լ site, not just England was Wessex, the rest was Danelaw Why ignore the Danelaw? - what was going on inside it? What was going on further North, the Danelaw must have ended somewhere - what happened where it finished? What alliances were going on in what is now called Scotland? What were the dynamics between the Scots and what is now the North of England.
Another thing, our mini reconquista - how did the Wessex dynasty turn the tables around in a military sense. What did they do that the previous lot didn't - and additionally, suddenly the Danes start getting whupped - what happened there - did they all suddenly turn to couch potatoes and crumble before the sturdy saxon peasantry, who a decade ago were running like rabbits?
I do understand that a great majority of what is written is based on a few of the records that came from around that time, and the Danes did not go in much for written records, it just seems such a shame that we get the same history from the same viewpoint time and time again.
Rant over. -
Message 42
Posted by Docdogsbody (U6435748) on Wednesday, 20th June 2007
Message41,Ta,you are perfectly right about the history we had in the early 50s,but from your ranting about the current establishment,i seem to get the feeling you are from the Left wing
establishment,"I can see why-you want".I just asked a question thats all,I never stated anything.In Germany there is a place where the germans celibrate where "Herman the Cherusker" beat the Romans and drove them out of the land,
A few years ago a British officier(a hobby Archealogist)found the exact place where the fight took place in the near from Osnabruck,about 100kms from where the historians always said it was.They also found out that Herman was a Roman Centurion and his soldiers were in the Roman Army and not a heap of Barbaric
farmers,and that they used their knowledge of the Swamps to lead the Romans into a Trap.
Now the Germans can rewrite their history books new.
As they say History repeats its-self.
Could this not have happend with the Saxon peasantry in thr same way? -
Message 43
Posted by Stoggler (U1647829) on Wednesday, 20th June 2007
TrailApe
From what I can tell, the reconquista (as you called it, which I like!!) came about after King Alfred reorganised the defences in Wessex after a number of years of Norse invasions.
There had been a number of invasions by the Danes over the 870s and Wessex was the last AS kingdom left that had not been beaten or subdued by the Danes. The Danes were great at being very mobile, striking quickly and causing damage and then disappearing just as quickly. The English could not deal with this to begin with and often by the time the fyrd (English army) had been called up (it was made up of every able-bodied man in that county) the Danes would have long gone. Also, another weakness of the fyrd system was that come harvest time men had to get back to their land to farm it, otherwise there'd be no food for the up-and-coming winter and for next year, so you often had the situation of men in the army leaving the army while the Danes were still present on Wessex territory.
After 878 (the Battle of Ethandun/Edington) Alfred reorganised the defences of his realm. He introduced the burh system, a network of fortified towns and forts around the kingdom (most either near or on the coast or on major rivers - great thoroughfares for Danes to use in their shallow-draft longships). These burh fortifications were all within 20 miles or so of another one so that if the Danes took one of them the Wessex army would have a fortified base to attach from and would only be at most one day's march away from it. Essentially, the Danes could take one burh at a time but could not take the whole kingdom.
Additionally, Alfred changed the way the fyrd was called up. He split the force into two, so that there was always armed men in the field while the other half were at home tending the fields. They then swapped at some point in the year to reverse their roles. THat way the Wessex army could always attack the Danes much more quickly than before, and this was the experience of the Danes in the 890s - they found it very difficult to take land in Wessex and were constantly being harried by Alfred's forces.
Alfred's reforms were taken on by his children and grandchildren who over the years took back the Danelaw from the Danish rulers.
The English were willing to fight previously, but structural weaknesses in their set-up played against them; reforms meant that the English were now in a better place to carry the fight to the Danes -
Message 44
Posted by TrailApe (U1701496) on Wednesday, 20th June 2007
Stoggler,
that sounds a reasonable set of measures, which explains it from one point of view, and I have heard similair explanations. However that's just one side of the coin, what were the Danes doing? We all have seen how defensive measures can be manouvered around - and I grant that the fortified burhs were not just merely defensive, they were there as 'firebases', however the very fluid warfare previously practiced by the Danes would have negated some of their effectiveness.
So I don't think it was all down to the Saxons pulling their socks up. How about this as a hypothesis - the Danes were settling down, they were not the warbands they used to be, but starting to turn into farmers and other 'civilian' occupations.
Now it wasn't just Erik pulling on his helmet (with the horns and with the braids attached) and going round to call on his mates, leap onto ponies and go and devistate some shire, he first had to get his wife to allow him to go, and what's worse, when he gets round to Big Olaf's, he finds the big lad can't come out because he's promised to stay in and look after the bairns (Helga is over at her mothers). He finds Mad Dog Erik won't come along either as he's got to mow the bottom paddock and Bjork the Reckless has promised his wife that he's 'changed' so no chance.
And what then happened to the newly occupied territories, did the Danes all just leg it over the hill, or did they stay and contribute to what was to become England?
I'd love to know more from the other side of the line, but unless we can get Dr Who to do his stuff it's unlikely we'll ever know. -
Message 45
Posted by Alaric the Goth (U1826823) on Thursday, 21st June 2007
Posted by TrailApe: 'Now it wasn't just Erik pulling on his helmet (with the horns and with the braids attached) and going round to call on his mates, leap onto ponies and go and devistate some shire, he first had to get his wife to allow him to go, and what's worse, when he gets round to Big Olaf's, he finds the big lad can't come out because he's promised to stay in and look after the bairns (Helga is over at her mothers). He finds Mad Dog Erik won't come along either as he's got to mow the bottom paddock and Bjork the Reckless has promised his wife that he's 'changed' so no chance.'
Brilliant!
I think that a lot of Danes would have stayed when the West Saxon/Mercian advance had re-taken their territories. The dialect of the South Midlands that was the ancestor of 'standard English' had taken into it (by the Middle English period) words like 'sister' 'take ', 'they' and 'up' from Scandinavian speech. Go further North (e.g. Licolnshire, Yorkshire) and you find even more Norse influence on dialects. -
Message 46
Posted by Stoggler (U1647829) on Thursday, 21st June 2007
Hi TrailApe
Good question about the Viking side of the coin. Initially they were involved in just raiding and carrying off as much loot as possible (that is when they were not involved in "legitimate" trading), and due to their mobility and the poorly defended areas they were attacking it was easy pickings. If things got a little hot for the Vikings in say England they could just jump on their ships and go over to Frankia or Ireland and give them a hard time.
The Danes then started to settle in some of the places they were attacking, especially once they'd seen the fertile land and the poorly defended countries. Many started to settle down and become less predatory and peripatetic in their lifestyles, but even those who were still up for a bit of raiding or conquest were finding it increasing diffcult to find soft targets. The Vikings were ferocious warriers but they also usually picked on weak targets and if things got too hairy for them then they'd often move on elsewhere. First Frankia, then Wessex and England developed strategies and tactics to combat the Norse problem, thus making life more and more difficult for anyone wishing to raid for their living. The ability to find a safe haven to be based and use it to go out and attack the rich and weak Christians was drying up.
On top of this, Norsemen were being converted to Christianity. Not a huge wholesale conversion all in one go, but some were taking to the new faith, so there must have been some conflict within some individual's minds about attacking "fellow Christians". This is on top of more and more of the Norsemen settling down (being pushed to it by the drying up of opportunities, and also being pulled to it by the good lands now available in Danish-held land).
Of course, there were opportunities for Norsemen/Danes/Vikings to find adventure elsewhere and their influence on England did not end there - their presence continued, as mentioned in the last post by Alaric about the language. The Norsemen continued to pester and raid and influence all over Europe, and beyond (North America), and of course there would be new Danes coming to England and to rule over it later on in the Anglo-Saxon period (and not least the Normans too...) -
Message 47
Posted by Stoggler (U1647829) on Friday, 22nd June 2007
We've discussed how the Welsh use the term Sais to mean English (originally meaning Saxon), and that the word Sassanach also means Saxon, but where on earth does the Irish and Gaelic words for the English language come from (Béarla/Beurla)?
-
Message 48
Posted by ronk (U8636096) on Friday, 22nd June 2007
As I understand it bearla meaning English is short for Sacs-bearla. Bearla historically has been a general word for language or dialect (as in the five ancient dialects of Ireland), maybe with connection to the Old Irish for mouth. What's interesting is that the word is now used just to mean English - there's cultural hegemony for you!
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