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Dictionary:
An·glo-Sax·on (ăng'glō-săk'sən) |
Of, relating to, or characteristic of Anglo-Saxons, their descendants, or their language or culture; English.
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| British History: Anglo-Saxons |
Anglo-Saxons is the name collectively applied to the descendants of the Germanic people who settled in Britain between the late 4th and early 7th cents. Their backgrounds varied. Some came as mercenaries, others as invaders. They included, besides Angles and Saxons, Jutes and other groups. The eventual use of the name ‘English’ and ‘England’ for people and territory probably owes something to Bede, whose History of the English People dealt with the whole. He followed Pope Gregory I, who knew the people as Angles.
Much about the invasion and settlement is obscure, but for most of its history Anglo-Saxon England is one of the best-documented early medieval European societies. Besides Bede's History, historical sources include a number of saints' lives, and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Many letters survive, those of the Anglo-Saxon missionary to the continent, Boniface, of particular importance. A great body of evidence relates to royal ideology, government, and administration: vernacular law codes (beginning with that of Æthelbert of Kent), charters, writs, and wills. Historians also benefit from the study of the language of vernacular texts, from that of place-names, of art (including sculpture), and of architecture. Archaeology, of burials, settlements, towns, kings' halls (Yeavering, Cheddar), monasteries, and churches, is critically important. Yet there are still uncertainties. Gaps in the evidence, problems of its interpretation and of reconciling different types, generate lively debate. Some may never be solved: it is salutary to realize how important subjects depend on chance survivals or discoveries—the ship-burial at Sutton Hoo (mound 1) and the poem Beowulf for example.
From obscure beginnings the Anglo-Saxons formed a number of kingdoms. The 7th-cent. trend was a shift in the balance of power from south and east (Kent and East Anglia) to north and west (Northumbria, Mercia, Wessex), and the take-over of smaller kingdoms by larger ones, the so-called heptarchy. The 8th cent. was a period of Mercian dominance and Northumbrian independence, the 9th of the rise of Wessex, and of the threat of the Vikings. They established their own kingdoms (of East Anglia and Northumbria). In the 10th cent. Wessex united England.
To the forging of one people Alfred, Athelstan, and Edgar made significant contributions. Encouragement was to be found in the pages of Bede and in the needs of the church. But the England of 1066 was not inevitable. Quite different borders could have been established. In the late 7th cent. one kingdom south of the Humber and another north, including southern Scotland, was a possibility; in the 10th a kingdom pushing into Wales rather than the Scandinavian-held north.
Society and culture changed over time. Anglo-Saxon paganism is not fully known. The great period of conversion was the 7th cent., an age of saints, especially in Northumbria (the missionary Aidan, the home-grown Wilfrid, Cuthbert, and others) and monastic foundations (including Lindisfarne, Whitby, Ripon, Hexham, and Monkwearmouth-Jarrow). A stratified society, in which ceorls and gesiths (royal companions) had different wergelds, its political life was dominated by the aristocracy. Historical development brought a growth in royal power and authority in a society wherein the participation in government of free men had a long history. On some issues—marriage and war, for example—the new religion might conflict with traditional values. Some features of Anglo-Saxon society seem alien, even incomprehensible, to modern eyes at first sight: the practice of blood-feud, the institution of the retinue (war-band), both of which contributed to a high level of violence in élite society, the combination of genuine piety with ferocity in warfare, and its condoning by clerics. Yet others seem modern: the status of women has been seen as comparatively high, some queens and royal ladies, particularly Æthelfleda, lady of the Mercians, and abbesses, notably Hilda and Ælfflæd of Whitby, playing an important part in political and religious life.
The Anglo-Saxon arrival had ended Britain's involvement with Roman culture and institutions, but this was recreated in the late 6th cent. Christianity, purveyed to theAnglo-Saxons almost entirely by non-British teachers, from the Irish, from Frankish Gaul, and from Rome (beginning with the mission of Augustine), brought England into the Mediterranean, Christian, Roman world. Missionaries worked amongst the Anglo-Saxons' still pagan continental kin. Boniface was prominent in Frankish church reform and functioned as representative of the pope to the Franks. Anglo-Saxon veneration of the papacy was strong and contributed to the growth of papal authority. Alcuin of York was adviser to Charlemagne and a leading figure in the Carolingian Renaissance.
But England owed much to Europe. The books collected on the continent by Benedict Biscop, and the school of Canterbury, established by Archbishop Theodore, himself from Tarsus, brought her Christian culture and scholarship. From an early period Frankish support and influence were factors in English dynastic politics, most clearly visible in Charlemagne's support for some of Offa of Mercia's enemies. Carolingian ideas concerning church reform and kingship, Carolingian administrative and governmental institutions and practices, Carolingian coinage, and Carolingian art all had an impact in the 8th cent. Alfred learned much from Carolingian example. Government in the 10th and 11th cents. has much about it that seems Carolingian. Involvement with Normandy came in the late 10th cent. Trade, especially in slaves in the early period and wool in the later, brought great wealth, probably the main attraction for Cnut and William the Conqueror.
The Anglo-Saxon achievement was cultural, religious, economic, and political. Art, architecture, vernacular and Anglo-Latin writing, and scholarship are all remarkable. Not, originally, an urban people, Scandinavian activity and the development of Alfred's burhs lay behind their 10th- and 11th-cent. towns. Coinage was firmly under royal control. Prosperity sustained the frequent collection of large Danegelds. By the 11th cent., with its hundreds, shires, ealdormen and reeves, law courts, and tax-collecting, Anglo-Saxon England was, by European standards, remarkably sophisticated and advanced. There was no capital, but Winchester was almost a capital city. The country was united, though it was not uniform in every particular. The compilation of William I's Domesday Book would not have been possible without Anglo-Saxon administrative genius. This genius, largely West Saxon, is visible elsewhere, in the rational distribution of mints in the 10th cent., and in the shire system, almost unchanged until 1974.
| Archaeology Dictionary: Anglo-Saxons |
1. A compound name used to describe amalgamated groups of Angles, Saxons, and others who from the 5th century ad were living away from their homelands, and to distinguish them from their kindred still on the continent.
2. The period in early English history between the collapse of British power c.ad 550 and the Norman conquest of ad 1066 when the eastern part of the country was dominated by migrant Angles and Saxons. The period is generally divided into three chronological subdivisions: the early Saxon period up to about ad 650, the middle Saxon period from about ad 650 to ad 850, and the late Saxon period from 850 down to ad 1066. The first of these broadly equates with what is also sometimes referred to as the pagan Saxons period. The Anglo-Saxon period saw the emergence of a series of seven kingdoms in England (the Heptarchy), the most important of which were Mercia, Northumbria, and Wessex. The Anglo-Saxons were also responsible for the establishment of the English language and a pattern of settlement that became characteristic of the medieval period and in part still survives today.
| Columbia Encyclopedia: Anglo-Saxons |
Bibliography
See P. H. Blair, An Introduction to Anglo-Saxon England (1954, repr. 1962); F. M. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England (3d ed. 1971); D. M. Wilson, The Anglo-Saxons (rev. ed. 1971); D. J. V. Fisher, The Anglo-Saxon Age, 400-1042 (1973); G. R. Owen, Rites and Religions of the Anglo-Saxons (1985); M. J. Whittock, The Origins of England, 410-600 (1986).
| Wikipedia: Anglo-Saxons |
Anglo-Saxons (or Anglo-Saxon) is the term usually used to describe the invading Germanic tribes in the south and east of Great Britain from the early 5th century AD, and their creation of the English nation, to the Norman conquest of 1066.[1] The Benedictine monk, Bede, identified them as the descendants of three Germanic tribes:[2]
Their language (Old English) derives from "Ingvaeonic" West Germanic dialects and transforms into Middle English from the 11th century. Old English was divided into four main dialects: West Saxon, Mercian, Northumbrian and Kentish.
Place names seem to show that smaller numbers of some other Germanic tribes came over: Frisians at Fresham, Freston, and Friston; Flemings at Flempton and Flimby; Swabians at Swaffham; perhaps Franks at Frankton and Frankley.
In modern usage, Anglo-Saxon can be used in various contexts to mean people predominantly descended from the English ethnic group, in England as well as other Anglophone countries. This usage is restricted to certain contexts in Anglophone cultures, but this term and its direct translations are commonly used in other languages.
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The term "Anglo-Saxon" is from writings going back to the time of King Alfred the Great, who seems to have frequently used the title rex Anglorum Saxonum or rex Angul-Saxonum (king of the English Saxons).[5]
The Old English terms ænglisc and Angelcynn ("Angle-kin", gens Anglorum) when they are first attested had already lost their original sense of referring to the Angles to the exclusion of the Saxons, and in their earliest recorded sense refers to the nation of Germanic peoples who settled England in and after the 5th century.[6]
The indigenous British people, who wrote in both Latin and Welsh, referred to these invaders as Saxones or Saeson - the latter is still used today in the Welsh word for 'English' people.[7]
The term Angli Saxones seems to have first been used in continental writing nearly a century before Alfred's time by Paul the Deacon, historian of the Lombards, probably to distinguish the English Saxons from the continental Saxons.[citation needed]
There is a theory that the name of the Angles came from the Germanic and Indo-European root ang- = "narrow", i.e. "the people who live by the Narrow Water (i.e. the Schlei inlet)".[citation needed]
The history of Anglo-Saxon England broadly covers early medieval England from the end of Roman rule and the establishment of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in the 5th century until the Conquest by the Normans in 1066.
Migration of Germanic peoples to Britain from what is now northern Germany and southern Scandinavia is attested from the 5th century (e.g. Undley bracteate).[8] Based on Bede's Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, the intruding population is traditionally divided into Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, but their composition was likely less clear-cut and may also have included Frisians and Franks. The Parker Library holds the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle which contains text that may be the first recorded indications of the movement of these Germanic Tribes to Britain.
Main article: The Heptarchy
Christianisation of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms began around 600 and was essentially complete by the mid 8th century. Throughout the 7th and 8th centuries, power fluctuated between the larger kingdoms. Bede records Aethelbert of Kent as being dominant at the close of the 6th century, but power seems to have shifted northwards to the kingdoms of Mercia and Northumbria.
Aethelbert and some of the later kings of the other kingdoms were recognised by their fellow kings as Bretwalda (=ruler of Britain). The so-called 'Mercian Supremacy' dominated the 8th century, though again it was not constant. Aethelbald and Offa, the two most powerful kings, achieved high status. This period has been described as the Heptarchy, though this term has now fallen out of academic use.
The word arose on the basis that the seven kingdoms of Northumbria, Mercia, Kent, East Anglia, Essex, Sussex and Wessex were the main polities of south Britain. More recent scholarship has shown that several other kingdoms were politically important across this period: Hwicce, Magonsaete, Kingdom of Lindsey and Middle Anglia.
In the 9th century, the Viking challenge grew to serious proportions. Alfred the Great's victory at Edington, Wiltshire, in 878 brought intermittent peace, but with their possession of Jorvik the Danes gained a solid foothold in England.
An important development in the 9th century was the rise of the Kingdom of Wessex; by the end of his reign Alfred was recognised as overlord by several southern kingdoms. Æthelstan was the first king to achieve direct rule over what is considered "England".
Near the end of the 10th century, there was renewed Scandinavian interest in England, with the conquests of Sweyn of Denmark and his son Canute. By 1066 there were three lords with claims to the English throne, resulting in two invasions and the battles of Stamford Bridge and Hastings, the results of which established Anglo-Norman rule in England.
Early Anglo-Saxon buildings in Britain were generally simple, constructed mainly using timber with thatch for roofing. Generally preferring not to settle in the old Roman cities, the Anglo-Saxons built small towns near their centres of agriculture. In each town, a main hall was in the centre.
There are few remains of Anglo-Saxon architecture, with no secular work remaining above ground. At least fifty churches are of Anglo-Saxon origin, with many more claimed to be, although in some cases the Anglo-Saxon part is small and much-altered. All surviving churches, except one timber church, are built of stone or brick and in some cases show evidence of re-used Roman work.
The architectural character of Anglo-Saxon ecclesiastical buildings ranges from Coptic influenced architecture in the early period; basilica influenced Romanesque architecture; to in the later Anglo-Saxon period, an architecture characterised by pilaster-strips, blank arcading, baluster shafts and triangular headed openings.
Anglo-Saxon art before roughly the time of Alfred (ruled 871–899) is mostly in varieties of the Hiberno-Saxon or Insular style, a fusion of Anglo-Saxon and Celtic techniques and motifs. The Sutton Hoo treasure is an exceptional survival of very early Anglo-Saxon metalwork and jewellery, from a royal grave of the early 7th century. The period between Alfred and the Norman Conquest, with the revival of the English economy and culture after the end of the Viking raids, saw a distinct Anglo-Saxon style in art, though one in touch with trends on the Continent.
Anglo-Saxon art is mainly known today through illuminated manuscripts, including the Benedictional of St. Æthelwold (British Library) and Leofric Missal (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodl, 579), masterpieces of the late "Winchester style", which drew on Hiberno-Saxon art, Carolingian art and Byzantine art for style and iconography, and combined both northern ornamental traditions with Mediterranean figural traditions. The Harley Psalter was a copy of the Carolingian Utrecht Psalter — which was a particular influence in creating an Anglo-Saxon style of very lively pen drawings.
Manuscripts were far from the only Anglo-Saxon art form, but they have survived in much greater numbers than other types of object. Contemporaries in Europe regarded Anglo-Saxon goldsmithing and embroidery (Opus Anglicanum) as especially fine. Perhaps the best known piece of Anglo-Saxon art is the Bayeux Tapestry which was commissioned by a Norman patron from English artists working in the traditional Anglo-Saxon style. The most common example of Anglo-Saxon art is coins, with thousands of examples extant. Anglo-Saxon artists also worked in fresco, ivory, stone carving, metalwork (see Fuller brooch for example) and enamel, but few of these pieces have survived.
Old English, sometimes called Anglo-Saxon, was the language spoken under Alfred the Great and continued to be the common language of England (non-Danelaw) until after the Norman Conquest of 1066 when, under the influence of the Anglo-Norman language spoken by the Norman ruling class, it changed into Middle English roughly between 1150–1500.
Old English is far closer to early Germanic than Middle English. It is less Latinised and retains many morphological features (nominal and verbal inflection) that were lost during the 12th to 14th centuries. The languages today which are closest to Old English are the Frisian languages, which are spoken by a few hundred thousand people in the northern part of Germany and the Netherlands.
Before literacy in the vernacular Old English or Latin became widespread, the Runic alphabet, called the futhorc (also known as futhark) was used for inscriptions. When literacy became more prevalent, a form of Latin script was used with a few letters derived from the futhork: 'Eth,' 'Wynn,' and 'Thorn.'
The letters regularly used in printed and edited texts of Old English are the following:
with only rare occurrences of j, k, q, v, and z.
Very few law codes exist from the Anglo-Saxon period to provide an insight into legal culture beyond the influence of Roman law and how this legal culture developed over the course of time. The Saxons chopped off hands and noses for punishment (if the offender stole something or committed another crime). If someone killed a Saxon, he had to pay money called wergild, the amount varying according to the social rank of the victim.
Old English literary works include genres such as epic poetry, hagiography, sermons, Bible translations, legal works, chronicles, riddles, and others. In all there are about 400 surviving manuscripts from the period, a significant corpus of both popular interest and specialist research.
The most famous works from this period include the poem Beowulf, which has achieved national epic status in Britain. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is a collection of important early English history. Cædmon's Hymn from the 7th century is the earliest attested literary text in English.
The indigenous pre-Christian belief system of the Anglo-Saxons was a form of Germanic paganism and therefore closely related to the Old Norse religion, as well as other Germanic pre-Christian cultures.
Roman Catholic Christianity gradually replaced the indigenous religion of the English around the 7th and 8th centuries. Christianity was introduced into Northumbria and Mercia by monks from Ireland, but the Synod of Whitby settled the choice for Roman Christianity. As the new clerics became the chroniclers, the old religion was partially lost before it was recorded, and today historians' knowledge of it is largely based on surviving customs and lore, texts, etymological links and archaeological finds.
One of the few recorded references is that a Kentish King would only meet the missionary St. Augustine in the open air, where he would be under the protection of the sky god, Woden. Written Christian prohibitions on acts of paganism are one of historians' main sources of information on pre-Christian beliefs.
Despite these prohibitions, numerous elements of the pre-Christian culture of the Anglo-Saxon people survived the Christianisation process. Examples include the English language names for days of the week:
"Anglo-Saxon" in linguistics is still used as a term for the original West Germanic component of the modern English language, which was later expanded and developed through the influence of Old Norse and Norman French, though linguists now more often refer to it as Old English. In the 19th century the term "Anglo-Saxon" was broadly used in philology, and is sometimes so used at present. In Victorian Britain, some writers such as Robert Knox, James Anthony Froude, Charles Kingsley[9] and Edward A. Freeman [10] used the term "Anglo-Saxon" to justify racism and imperialism, claiming that the "Anglo-Saxon" ancestry of the English made them racially superior to the colonised peoples.Similar racist ideas were advocated in the 19th Century United States by Samuel George Morton and George Fitzhugh.[11]
"Anglo-Saxon" is sometimes used to refer to peoples descended or associated in some way with the English ethnic group. The definition has varied from time to time and varies from place to place. In contemporary Anglophone cultures outside the United Kingdom, the term is most commonly found in certain contexts, such as the term "White Anglo-Saxon Protestant" or "WASP". Such terms are often politicised, and bear little connection to the precise ethnological or historical definition of the term "Anglo-Saxon". It often encapsulates socio-economic identifiers more than ethnic ones.
Outside Anglophone countries, both in Europe and in the rest of the world, the term "Anglo-Saxon" and its direct translations are used to refer to the Anglophone peoples and societies of Britain, the United States, and other countries such as Australia, Canada and New Zealand. The term can be used in a variety of contexts, often to identify the English-speaking world's distinctive language, culture, technology, wealth, markets, economy, and legal systems. Local variations include the French "Anglo-Saxon" and the Spanish "anglosajón".
As with the English language use of the term, what constitutes the "Anglo-Saxon" varies from speaker to speaker. For example, in Spain, the term can also include Ireland and its peoples and cultures.
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
| Translations: Anglo-Saxon |
Dansk (Danish)
adj. - angelsaksisk, oldengelsk
n. - angelsakser
Nederlands (Dutch)
Angelsaksisch, van Engelse afkomst, Angelsaksische, Oud-Engels, platvloers Engels, modern Engels
Français (French)
adj. - anglo-saxon
n. - Anglo-saxon
Deutsch (German)
adj. - angelsächsisch
n. - Angelsächsisch
Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - Αγγλοσάξονας
adj. - αγγλοσαξονικός, Αγγλοσάξονας
Italiano (Italian)
anglosassone
Português (Portuguese)
n. - anglo-saxão (m)
adj. - anglo-saxão
Русский (Russian)
англосакс, англосаксонский
Español (Spanish)
adj. - anglosajón
n. - anglosajón
Svenska (Swedish)
n. - anglosaxare
adj. - anglosaxisk
中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
盎格鲁-撒克逊人的, 盎格鲁-撒克逊语的, 盎格鲁-撒克逊人, 盎格鲁-撒克逊语
中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
adj. - 盎格魯-撒克遜人的, 盎格魯-撒克遜語的
n. - 盎格魯-撒克遜人, 盎格魯-撒克遜語
한국어 (Korean)
adj. - 앵글로색슨인[족, 어]의
n. - 앵글로색슨인[어]
日本語 (Japanese)
n. - アングロサクソン人, アングロサクソン語
adj. - アングロサクソン人の, アングロサクソン語の, 英国系の
العربيه (Arabic)
(الاسم) أنجلوساكسوني : سكان انجلترا الجرمان قبل الفتح النورماني عام 1066 (صفه) لغه الأنجلوسكسون, اللغه النجليزيه, انجلوسكسوني, انجليزي
עברית (Hebrew)
adj. - אנגלו-סקסוני, אנגלו-סקסי
n. - אנגלית מודרנית (ארה"ב), אנגלית עתיקה, העם האנגלי עד לפלישה הנורמנית (6601), אדם אנגלו-סקסי, אנגלית לא מתורבתת (מדוברת)
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 | Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| British History. A Dictionary of British History. Copyright © 2001, 2004 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Archaeology Dictionary. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology. Copyright © 2002, 2003 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/. Read more |
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