Anglo-Saxon Thread

Mercia = Wessex > Northumbria = Kent > Essex = East Anglia > Sussex

IIRC Vortigern hired the Anglosaxon/Jute tribes to help him fight the picts but the germanics stayed and settled most of England, dominating English politics and culture.

I dont know why the Great Heathen army was so successful but I know Alfred the Great turned things around in Devon where his men engaged in gorilla warfare in the marsh and moors and managed to get the heathens in a rout. Theres an old folktale about King Alfred where, whilst hiding from the heathens, he stayed in an old woman's house. Whilst she went out to do some errands she told him to make sure the cakes she had on the fire didn't get burnt but Alfred fell asleep. When she got back her cakes were burnt and she gave Alfred a bollocking. Pretty funny story about a peasant woman telling a king off for being lazy.

Harold Godwinson lost the battle of Hastings because William's army pulled a feint and pretended to rout, and when the English broke formation to chase them the Normans turned around and wrecked the English. IMO if the formations stayed strong then the English could have beaten the Normans there and then.

England's history would be completely different, they wouldn't have had a massive castle-building project that the Normans set up as well as would be lacking the proper feudal system that the Normans introduced. I reckon they would have ended up like Scotland but a bit richer.

But user, YOU were cucked by the normans

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Ireland_(1169–1536)

Old English names need to come back. The Anglo-saxon kings had some cool names. Æthelwulf, Æthelred, Cynric, Beornwulf, Osric, Rædwulf, and so on...

important to add while they weren't fully feudal, they still had social/political structure.

"The social structure of Anglo-Saxon England has six parts. The king alone is the head of society. Beneath the king are the Æthelings, the princes of the blood who are eligible to rule. The third category is eorls or nobles. They are the influential rulers of the shires who served as councilmen, warriors, and advisors. After them came the thegns who were the “knights” of the era, although the true idea of a knight had not evolved yet. The thegns owned large portions of land and served the nobles as warriors. The fifth category is the churls. These are the free wealthy land-owning peasants who were the moneybags of England. Eventually city life would dominate and take over the lending business of the churls. Finally, the villeins were the un-free peasants. Although they were tied to the land, the land could not be taken from them under any circumstances."

1/2

"The political structure is divided into three parts with a class for townships by themselves. First, the kingdom is ruled by the king and consists of all his land. He is advised by the Witan and his officers: the Chancellor, the Count of the Stables, and the Treasurer. The Witan is comprised of mostly nobles and churchmen. Second, England is divided into forty shires. Each shire is governed by an eorl, but eventually eorls had several shires to oversee so shire reeves (sheriffs) were appointed. Each shire has its own system of courts and government. Third, the hundred is a political unit of one hundred hides. A hide is enough land to support a thegn, his horse, and his family. Hides vary in sizes so hundreds did also. Each hide has a local court and a local official. Finally, the township has its own class. While the town paid rent to the person who owned the land, the town was fairly independent once it received its charter. Merchant guilds run the towns and are often the money lenders for the local nobles. London banks for the king."

2/2

You are right, although the Normans undoubtedly did bring in a stronger feudal social/political structure

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrying_of_the_North
This is a good example in my view of the sort of power the Norman kings of England had brought with them.

The Vikings tended to exploit political rifts in the societies of the nations they raided/conquered. In the case of places like Northumbria, confusion over the line of succession allowed the Vikings to manipulate their own puppet king into power, avoiding the need for bloody and costly warfare.

I think people are forgetting that they too - along with the Normans - are a part of our history (in a big way) and heritage (in a smaller way)

I agree that they were a fascinating people, and I'm really intrigued by Anglo-Saxon paganism and Old English. It's a shame that patriotism is considered so contemptible in England that even this significant aspect of our history is ignored in schools. After all, Rosa Parks is a far more important figure in British history than Alfred the Great, Alcuin and Bede...

>But user, YOU were cucked by the normans

>But user, YOU were cucked by the normans
I know, and that was the start of our enmity. They ruined everything.

Post more underrated kingdoms

historyfiles.co.uk/KingListsBritain/EnglandWight.htm

I have an ancestor named Ethelbert.

Mississippi politician. Died in the 1890s.

It's from the Anglo-Saxon Aethelbrecth.

Sounds dorky as hell but for a Veeky Forums nerd it's quite bad-ass.

I think it's more a problem with shitty pre-A-level history education than anything.

I did cover the battle of Hastings, and I did a unit on legal punishment in England (which covered the Anglos), but it was only ever small topics, rather than learning anglo-saxon history as a whole.

Q. What board game did they play the most in Dark Ages England?

A. Jutes and Ladders

Adelbert or just Delbert is a really common redneck name

Great shitpost fuckface.

Here's some actually useful information about Anglo-Saxons and a historical Ethelbert.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Æthelberht_of_Kent

>Why did the major Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms of the Heptarchy have so much trouble against the invading Vikings of the Great Heathen Army? Why did every Kingdom other than Wessex fall and why did the Vikings seem to come out on top in most of their battles against the Anglo-Saxons?

The Great Heathen Army was destroyed and Guthrum was baptized with Alfred as his godfather. Also, /r/ing the screencap showing all battles where the Vikings lost when they actually faced organized resistance as opposed to defenseless monks.

Vikingboos are truly the worst I swear.

I don't know, anti-vikingboos are as bad as vikingboos to me.

Oh gosh user pls

Why did Brytenwalda have to be so bloated

Ya left out the most important part of the Alfred burning the cakes story baka

The reason the story was told is because he let her tell him off. Its propaganda saying he was patient and understood his mistakes.

OP here, not a Vikingboo, much more interested in the Anglo-Saxons. It was a legitimate question. While they might be overrated by some, the Vikings did, for a time, conquer all of England aside from Wessex and part of Mercia that was under Wessex control.

I'm just curious about how they successfully defeated Mercia proper, Northumbria and even the smaller Kingdoms of the Heptarchy, like Kent or East Anglia.

I think you misunderstand the meaning of the word "conquered." Holding territory while conflict is still ongoing is not conquering, or would you say Germany conquered Russia in WWII?

The only part of England that could be said to be conquered by the Vikings would be the Danelaw which was constrained to the Eastern Midlands.

As far as how the Vikings were able to accomplish this, my understanding is that they used the Humber river and its tributaries to stage amphibious assaults. Access to inland England through the Humber combined with their prowess as seamen allowed them to strike quickly before the English could muster fyrds strong enough to resist them.

The Danelaw covered East Anglia, Northumbria and the large part of eastern Mercia. Wessex controlled the western (smaller) portion of Mercia, as well as Sussex, Essex and Kent, which they had more or less absorbed before the Danelaw was established.

Why do Anglo-Saxons just look like cooler Vikings? Those full-face helmets are cool as fuck.

only 1 and 2 are actually anglo-saxon. numbers 3 and 4 are from valsgärde burial site from sweden. they were prob just put there because the overall style was fairly identical for every germanic peoples of that time.

and to answer your question: that was before viking age. helmets were luxury and they were just as much art as they were practical gear. later they became more common and thus far simpler of design. that happened in england too.

I don't get how people can love Anglo-Saxons but hate the vikings. They were almost exactly the same as the 5/6th century Anglo-Saxon invasions. I just see them as a second wave of Germanic settlement of Britain.

this. i don't even understand why people see "viking age" as it's own thing when it was just the last of the barbarian migrations.

Anglo-Saxon culture became pretty distinct from their pagan ancestors. It was in fact fairly distinct from other Christianized Germanic groups in mainland Europe too to an extent. Personally, I just find the Anglo-Saxon culture, art (including a old English illuminated manuscripts) and such fascinating. I think Vikings are cool too, for the record.

Not trying to shitpost you butthurt faggot.

Adelbert is a common name in the Southern United States, especially among the older generation. If it triggers you that I used the word redneck I'm sorry. It is the same name as Ethelbert, I was building on what you said, that anglo-saxon names are still in use in the southern US.

>It was in fact fairly distinct from other Christianized Germanic groups in mainland Europe too to an extent
I think that would be the lack of Roman influence on their culture. They were probably closer to their pagan ancestors than the Franks and Germans. Insular art is basically just the barbarian animal style transfered to paper. Their tradition of epic poetry is also strikingly similar to the Viking's style, particularly their heavy use of kennings which are almost absent from continental Germanic poetry.

They're interesting because they're kind if a middle ground of sorts between the pagan Vikings and the Christian Franks and such of the time. Rome's influence is definitely a part of it, but the fact that they're neither completely like the Christianized mainland Franks/Germanic people's OR like the pagan Northmen is fascinating in itself.

>tfw you will never be an Earl and lead your fyrd into battle to defend your home

>How and why did the Angles, Saxons and Jutes migrate to Britain and either integrate with or conquer the Romano-Celts that lived there after Rome's withdrawal from Brittania?

Well the saxons were invited there by the late romans as a bunch of mercenaries, when the romans left the saxons remained and started grabbing land for themselves. Jutes and Angles dont appear to show up till after they've had some eastern pressure on their territories from the Goths, Visigoths and the Alans.

Of course the saxon story is that they were invited by the southern brits (or the welsh depending on the story) to help defend from the invading picts. This overlooks the slight issue that the southern UK is a hell of a long way from any known pictish conflicts, and while northern wales has what is suspected to be the pictish established kingdom of Gwynedd, there have yet to be finds indicating a significant saxon presence in the area.

>Could the Anglo-Saxons have defeated the Normans if they more fully integrated and used dedicated cavalry in their armies instead of mostly just mounted infantry? If not, is there any way that they could have won against the Normans and remained the dominant culture in England?
No, they lacked widespread access to the better breeds of horses that were found on the mainland so attempting to compete on that issue would be both expensive and futile. They could have won if they'd simply brought more men to the battle.

>How would modern England be different today if the Anglo-Saxons had defeated the Normans and/or the Heptarchy survived longer due to successful resistance of the Norse?
The main difference would be the legal system

You are wrong:

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danelaw

?

They were devoutly Christian though and this is important to emphasize because of neo-pagan historical revisionists who want to claim Anglo-Saxon cultural achievements as a product of paganism. In reality, it was the Celtic Christian influence of men like Aidan and Cuthbert which laid the foundation for the blossoming of Anglo culture in places like Lindisfarne.

>Northumberland
>English territory

This place used to be the school of hard knocks. Pretty much everyone who had migrants coming from this place had a bad time.

Cold will do that.

>They were devoutly Christian though
Doesn't change the fact that the style of art predates Christianity

If you're referring to knot-work then you are correct but if you're referring to illuminated manuscripts you are completely daft.

Northumberland isn't Northumbria. Not completely anyway. Much of Northumbria was absorbed into the Danelaw.

Oh, I'm not doubting that. They were definite devoutly Christian. But they were still closer in culture to the Pagan Northmen than any of the mainland European Germanic tribes/Kingdoms such as the Franks. Though they were still different from the Danes, Swedes and Norwegians too. They had a distinct and interesting culture.

Since the Heptarchy and Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms existed before the adoption of heraldry, do we have any idea what kind of flags or banners they would have flown in battle?

And another question, what are some notable battles in which the Anglo-Saxons were victorious that are worth reading about? Aside from Wessex defeat of the Vikings at Edington, it seems like they lost most battles against the Norse and, later, the Normans.

Virtually every depiction/art of Anglo-Saxon warriors that I see shows them armed with a spear and shield (the most common combination, which makes sense) often with a small axe as a sidearm or with a larger axe as their main weapon along with their shield, both types also often carry some kind of knife, dagger or shorter, knife-like sword which I assume is a seax. Occassionally a few of what I assume are the more wealthy warriors or noblemen will also have a dedicated sword as a sidearm, but spears and axes seem to be by far the most prevalent weapons of the Anglo-Saxon warriors... which makes sense given the time.

But notably it seems they didn't have archers at all. Or if they did, they didn't have very many or make much use of them. Is this accurate? Did the Anglo-Saxons not make use of archers in wartime or were they just such a small portion of the fighting men that they're not depicted often in artwork or modern depictions?

youtube.com/watch?v=pc0_SYZJfzU

Don't use osprey illustrations for history. They're generally not accurate.

That still didn't really answer the question. Did they make use of archers much? From what I could find, they found very few bows in Anglo-Saxon graves while they found remnants of spears, axes, swords and helms pretty commonly.

Bows were very much a peasant weapon on the battlefield. You'd bring a bow (almost exclusively a hunting bow) because it's all you had to fight with except for your knif or seax, or maybe an axe.
Archers were useful, but only as a very light skirmishing force, with not much place in the fight other than to annoy and harass.

Actually the Norse were often repulsed when they met organized resistance; the Vikings were most effective when they exploited the rivers and attacked before the English could mobilize.

As far as specific battles, Stamford Bridge is a good one because it occurred only weeks before Hastings and was against one of the greatest Viking leaders Harald Hardrada.

One can only imagine how differently Hastings might have played out if Godwinson did not have to march from Yorkshire to Sussex after having lost several thousand men.

>do we have any idea what kind of flags or banners they would have flown in battle?

A wyvern is depicted in the death scene of Harald Godwinson on the Bayeux tapestry and Welsh tradition framed the conflict between the Celts and Saxons as a battle between a red and white dragon respectively. Thus the dragon was likely the national symbol of the Anglo-Saxons and was probably featured in their battle standards.

tfw no Norsex

Is there evidence of a Jutish substrate in Kentish OE? How different was the speech of Angles, Jutes and Saxons before the migrations? Did there exist any subtribal divisions within them? Why doesn't English have a celtic substrate evident in words relating to basic geography and animal herding, like is the case in many continental European languages that were brought over during the Age of Migrations? Especially strange because you can find sheep counting systems with numerals derived from Celtic across the whole of Britain.

Was there any significant difference between the armies of the different Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms or were they all pretty much organized the same way and use the same tactics (shield walls and such)? Would a nobleman-warrior from, say Saxon Wessex be much different than one from Mercia or Northumbria? Were there differences between how the predominantly Saxon Kingdoms fought vs the Angle or Jute Kingdoms?

>invade Britain and turn it into a shithole
>French Normans give them their culture, language, state, etc.
>invade Africa, India, and parts of Asia, forcing many onto a system that will turn them into a shithole after colonialism
>complain that immigrants (fleeing chaos caused by anglos) will turn "their" country into a shithole

Angl*s are pathetic

>>French Normans give them their culture, language, state, etc.
Lol no

t. frog

youtube.com/watch?v=iejwIpAKPyg

You people need to read your Simon Keynes. The Heptarchy is a meme, a gross oversimplification of what was an extremely complex network of lord-man relationships.

Best period in Anglo-Saxon history is the Mercian Supremacy - based Aethelbald and Offa dominating all, developing the first burhs and a static kingship model. Probably a turning point in the development of rulership in Britain

This is correct, everyone knows that Mercia is the best kingdom.