Unit 1: The Anglo-Saxon Period and the Middle Ages
... their tribal organization, values, and beliefs—as well as their poetry—reflected that reality. Tribes consisted of warrior families led by a nobleman who, in turn, served a chief or overlord. An Anglo-Saxon ruler was primarily a warlord who protected his people from attacks and led his followers on ...
... their tribal organization, values, and beliefs—as well as their poetry—reflected that reality. Tribes consisted of warrior families led by a nobleman who, in turn, served a chief or overlord. An Anglo-Saxon ruler was primarily a warlord who protected his people from attacks and led his followers on ...
Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain
The Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain was the process, from the mid 5th to early 7th centuries, by which the coastal lowlands of Britain developed from a Romano-British to a Germanic culture following the Roman withdrawal in the early 5th century. The traditional view of the process has assumed an invasion of several Germanic peoples, later collectively referred to as Anglo-Saxons, from the western coasts of continental Europe, followed by the establishment of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms across most of what is now England and parts of lowland Scotland. The arrival of a Germanic element in the history of Britain is also called the Advent of the Saxons (Latin: Adventus Saxonum), a term first used by Bede in about 731.The assumption that the Anglo-Saxon settlement developed from the invasion or migration of people from the Germanic coastlands, largely displacing the native people, has been challenged by those suggesting that the changes in material culture and language were caused primarily by a process of acculturation that followed the movement of a relatively small number of people. Some writers have also argued that the influence of Germanic peoples and culture was already present in eastern regions of pre-Roman Britain. The view that the Anglo-Saxons arose from insular changes and developments, rather than as a result of mass migration and displacement, is now widely accepted. However, the extent to which incomers displaced or supplanted the existing inhabitants and the extent to which mutual acculturation occurred is still the subject of ongoing debate. At the centre of this debate is the creation of an acceptable model for cultural and linguistic change, as there are few historical or contemporary sources relating to the anglicisation of lowland Britain. The sources that do exist are open to a variety of interpretations, as is the more recently available evidence largely derived from archaeology and genetic research.