Is The Anglo-Saxon Invasion Of England A Myth? | King Arthur's Britain | Chronicle

The Anglo-Saxons have been long thought to have invaded Britain after the fall of the Roman Empire in 410 AD. Francis Pryor argues that the huge political changes that took place in Britain at the time were caused by a shifting of allegiances within this country rather than a violent invasion from elsewhere. Finding new and previously unexplained evidence Francis overturns the idea that Britain was crushed under Roman rule, then reverted to a state of anarchy and disorder after the Romans left in 410 AD. Instead of doom and gloom Francis discovers a continuous culture that assimilated influences from as far a field as the Middle East and Constantinople.
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[@ChronicleMedieval]

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[@bethbartlett5692]

My 1st reaction to this Title, (even though, I am Conscious in Thought and Reaching for my Higher Mind): ▶ *What kind of Title is this?* In an era where DNA exists? When the original English Male DNA is 98% replaced by Germanic aka Anglo Saxon? News Media has affected the Ethics of even the Academic interests. Presumes all living through their: Lower Mind, aka Ego Mind aka Adolescent Mind ... There was an expectation of greater Maturity, and now, there's no confidence in the content. *A shared honesty, absent in Judging.*

[@f1s2hg3]

When the Romans moved out of Britain and the AngloSaxons moved into Britain the British people knew that AngloSaxon people were coming and they were welcomed into Britain by the British people because of religion! These people were all the same religion and then after the AngloSaxon settled in Britain ALFRED THE GREAT WAS THE KING THAT MADE CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND THE RELIGION! It’s very easy to understand because my family was there and we are happy the AngloSaxon people moved to Britain!

[@johnpatrick5307]

@@f1s2hg3 The "Anglo-Saxons" would have been pagan - but they were a very diverse people, as a dig in Kent found. See: Daily Mail Updown.

[@mickvonbornemann3824]

@@f1s2hg3 WTF Germanic paganism quite different to both P-Celtic & Q-Celtic Pagans & christians

[@LillaTarkis]

@@bethbartlett5692 Thanks. That's why I clicked on this. I'm thoroughly sick of reinventing history.

[@danidejaneiro8378]

Waited 35 minutes for you to get to the most glaring evidence: language. And what a complete let down. You said native Britons just started to decide to speak Anglo-Saxon because it was trendy? You mean, these people were literally dominated by Latin-speaking Romans for centuries without giving up their language. But then a few Frisians show up in their village and the whole country immediately adopts their language? But only as far as the borders of Scotland, Wales and Cornwall. Yeah. Right.

[@lockk132]

I remember reading a Roman account of Caesars invasion.mentioning there was essentially no difference between the languages of the southern british tribes and that of the Belgae.But no mention of a similarity with the Celts of Northern France.

[@MrRomero00]

Tbf modern welsh is heavily influenced by latin. Many words are latin in origin, as is the case in irish. But there was not a complete erasure of the brythonic language and culture like there was in england. I'm surprised they didn't dive further into the genetics. The genetics clearly shows the average Englishman is around a 1/3rd Germanic, either Anglo Saxon or possibly danish viking which Is almost indistinguishable from A/S. So while there wasnt a total replacement of britons in england they were very much dominated by Anglo saxons. Not only is this evidence in the language and cultural shifts but the contemporary Anglo saxons writers at the Time generally didn't have much nice to say about their british neighbors.

[@MrRomero00]

@@lockk132 they were very closely linked, both the belgae and the gauls had strong ties to Briton. There were a couple tribes that supposedly had territory both on the continent and in the British isles. It's likely why the cornish fled to brittany, they already had ties there. Then consider the fact that the same north germanic ppl that invaded britain also settled in the Netherlands and belgium etc. Its no wonder why english dna Is so hard to differentiate from other NW euros. They are essentially made up of the same stock.

[@sharenerobertson5574]

@@MrRomero00 Seriously pissing me off with this Britain!! U keep screaming about. THERE WAS NO COUNTRIES BRITAIN DID NOT EXIST IN AINCENT TIMES. IT WAS TRIBES IT WAS KINGDOMS

[@sokar_rostau]

@@MrRomero00 Don't forget the Norman influence. We tend to think of them as French because that's the language they spoke but the Normans (Norsemen) were really just Vikings given land to end the raids. From the Anglo-Saxons to the Normans we end up with almost a thousand years of genetic influence from essentially the same source.

[@nikbear]

I'm sorry, but the idea that the native Early Britons just said to the Saxons "Yeah, sure,you take what you want, we'll just bugger off to Wales and the north, help yourselves" is rubbish. Knowing how warlike these early people were,and how precious territory was, I'm sure they would have fought tooth and nail for it! Absence of evidence does not mean evidence of absence, just because we haven't found those battlefields, doesn't mean they aren't there,and let's not forget, those early post Roman battlefields would be small, sometimes less than fifty men a side,not the great armies of old,so a lot harder to find. ⚔ But no less important.

[@noorur]

Naw, the population of England at the time definately wasn't more than 7 million or so, and lots of available land, as the first Saxon mercenary must have saw, told his mates in Angle & Saxony, and they all came in huge numbers without the Romans trying to stop em. What were the native celts to do ? They already been subjugated by the Romans for 400 years and taxed, u think they give a shit about a new group of people coming over and not taxing them ?? Let alone the vast empty spaces available? Or maybe the natives just surrendered or wanted to carry on with their lives.

[@spencersanderson1894]

Exactly!! Like the Britons put out huge armies to fight against the Roman invasion, then when a load of Saxons came the idea is that the Britons just let their land go freely and live under Saxon rule, adopting their language and customs. It just doesn’t make any sense

[@user-qi6tp1te1y]

@@noorur would a Breton king give up his crown because there were a bunch of them with their own little kingdoms and lands

[@vercingetorix3414]

Absence of evidence IS evidence of absence! If we have found no evidence for life on the Moon, it is evidence for no life on the Moon. It is not proof that there is no life on the Moon. What you mean is that absence of PROOF is not PROOF of absence.

[@markorollo.]

"Knowing how warlike these early people were," knowing? can i borrow your Tardis doctor? fact is we 'know' things based on whats been written down in the past, & from some archaeological remains, they even say in this with Bede he used some artistic license based on his own views. everyone does it, even now. Im sure there were some big battles, but the only way we can ever really know what happened in the past is by travelling back in the aforementioned Tardis & seeing it for ourselves..

[@oilslick7010]

I think the problem in this case is also a semantic one. When people see the word 'invasion' they tend to picture D-Day in their minds: millions of invaders met by millions of defenders on the beach in an epic decisive clash for the future of the continent.....Invasion in this particular context could well be a much more gradual process of peaceful yet sizeable migration over a longer period of time, punctuated here and there by conflict and flaring tempers over who gets what, resulting in small scale bouts of violence. If D-Day is what you imagine the Anglo-Saxon invasion to be, then indeed there wasn't an invasion. If you however see the gradual-but-not-quite-voluntary displacement of Celtic Britons as an invasion, then there was......

[@sublicense18a13]

Very good points.

[@turquoisepink8033]

Exactly. If the situation was as 'gentle' as all these theorists suggest- why did the Saxons not learn to speak Brythonic and the country remain Brythonic culture? The language and cultural change is evidence enough. As is the fact that the Brython/ Welsh were pushed out of their own land and into the West, by the Saxons. The Welsh had been fighting for centuries with the Saxons to retain their land. However they want to downplay it, an invasion happened. Whether it was slow and steady over time- which is likely. It still had a hugely negative effect on the Brythonic population.

[@vonp588]

Look at the illegal immigration to the United States as a current modern-day invasion which might mirror the Anglo-Saxon invasion. It’s not particularly violent, but there is definitely a cultural change.

[@daejavue69]

The Anglo Saxons took the opportunity to settle in the East of Britain after the Romans left , leaving empty builds that the bare arsed brits wouldn't use due to them being afraid of the old owners spirits in them . It left no standing army , or defences so the invaders mearly intigrated with these very similar natives . After all they had been crossing the north Sea to regularly trade with the fresians .

[@theotherside8258]

The standard picture is of raids quickly growing in size to withstand defences and then staying over, living off the land by conquest. Even the romans had trouble defending the shore from the saxons, by time they left the AG's were coming in large numbers forming territories they would defend from the british counter attacks.

[@andrewolgado6018]

You don't just adopt a new language out of fashion. Changing language is a dramatic change. Not many people would want to adopt a foreign language just for fashion's sake. It's not like an exotic food you can just pickup. From observing other places in the world, dramatic linguistic changes happen from either conquest/colonisation or mass migration. This is why different flavours of vulgar Latin developed in different areas of Europe. I would expect Brittonic language influence to be a lot more dominant in Britain.

[@danidejaneiro8378]

If they didn't abandon their language after centuries of Latin-speaking Roman domination of all areas of their society, I find it really hard to believe an entire country just started speaking Anglo-Saxon because a handful of handsome Frisians showed up in one or two villages here and there.

[@Bjowolf2]

Precisely, thank you 🤗 It's simply not true what he is preaching - he just wants it to be true based on no evidence whatsoever, only his feelings 🙄 Hav(e) en god dag [daygh] 🤗 ( Danish ).

[@neilfranklin5644]

Blame it on the teenagers they always reject the words of their parents and adopt foreign words ,

[@neilfranklin5644]

@@Bjowolf2 tak

[@danidejaneiro8378]

@@neilfranklin5644 - hahah peppering your language with a few foreign loanwords that you picked up from online games and movies is not quite the same as an entire society abandoning their language and culture for a foreign one brought by a few stray travellers.

[@maxfan1591]

Like a few other posters, I find the language aspect the most troubling part of Pryor's theory. People are going to keep speaking the language of the people around them unless they have a very strong incentive to change, and I don't think Pryor provided anywhere a strong enough explanation for why the native British adopted English. If you look at the old Western Roman Empire today, there are three places where locals don't speak a Latin-descended language: North Africa (conquered by the Arabs in the 7th century), the Rhineland (occupied by Germanic-speaking tribes in the 5th century) and Britain. The rest of the Western Roman Empire was conquered by Germanic-speaking tribes, yet within a couple of centuries the invaders had ditched their own language and spoke the local version of Latin. That's a pretty good example of language inertia. The fact that this didn't happen in post-Roman Britain must be in some way significant. The sort of linguistic shift that happened in Britain from the 5th to the 10th centuries only happens where a large but leaderless native population is conquered by an invading population which becomes the new ruling class. The ruling class have no incentive to change their language, while the only hope of advancement in the native population is to adopt the invaders' language. Thus the invaders' language gradually replaces the native language, slowly spreading down through the remaining social classes. Post-Roman Britain had organised kingdoms, but they appear to have been defeated by the Germanic invaders in the late 6th century within the space of a generation (see the Battles of Catraeth and Dyrham). Whatever exactly happened in those battles, the nobility of the British kingdoms disappeared within a very short period of time, in a way that the post-Roman nobility of Gaul, Spain and Italy didn't. This would then set up the scenario described above - the Germanic invaders keep speaking their language, and any native British who want to advance are going to have to learn to speak the invaders' language.

[@markglanville2641]

Probably they were already speaking it!

[@damonroberts7372]

Trade with a people who have more economic reach can be a powerful incentive to adopt their language. For example, the English language started displacing Irish Gaelic from the 12thC onward, beginning with Dublin and spreading from there. That was centuries before the Plantation. Lots of people in continental Europe use English as a _lingua franca_ in the absence of any sort of invasion or colonial displacement. If post-Roman Britain was a patchwork of Celtic dialects and vulgar Latin, a trade language would have a lot of advantages.

[@maxfan1591]

@@damonroberts7372 Thank you for informing me of Yola English in Ireland - something I was completely unaware of before now. However I'd humbly suggest that neither this example or the English-in-Europe example are suitable alternatives for the situation in post-Roman Britain. For example, sure, the Romano-British traded, but my understanding is that most of this trade was with southern Europe and the Byzantines rather than with English speakers either in Britain or back on the Continent. Plus, assuming the trade was two-way, there's the question of why the language shift wasn't in the opposite direction. In any case, my understanding is that Yola English in Ireland was on the way out within a few centuries, as the local English were gradually absorbed by Irish culture and language - in much the same way as the German invaders of the Roman Empire adopted the local form of Latin. And regarding English-in-Europe, while it's the European lingua franca ATM, it isn't displacing native languages in those countries - any more than French did when it was Europe's lingua franca a few centuries ago. However I'm happy to discuss this further.

[@turquoisepink8033]

@@maxfan1591 When England conquered Wales in the 1200s, anti-Welsh language laws were brought in. For example, all official proceedings were to be held in English. Adopting an English identity and language enabled social mobility. So the Welsh essentially became second-class citizens in their own country. What followed, was a form of forced assimilation and a huge effort to stamp out any kind of 'Welshness' and Welsh identity. There has been a long history of trying to eradicate the Welsh language. Up until around 150 years ago, there were a high number of Welsh speakers in Wales. Events such as the Blue Books report (that declared the Welsh language to be 'evil') contributed to it's decline and also mass migration from England with English people refusing to speak Welsh. (Although there were English incomers who did try and learn, but most didn't) The Welsh language only gained equal status in Wales (their own country!) in the 90s, when they repealed most of the anti-Welsh language laws. I don't think it's a stretch to think that something similar happened after the AS colonisation of Britain. Forced assimilation and outright banning of the Brythonic language. The theory the Brythonic people just stopped speaking their language willingly, is absurd and goes against human nature.

[@danmcshain]

@@turquoisepink8033 And yet the Scots language became the dominant language in Scotland over Scottish Gaelic long before the union of the crowns. Scots is a Germanic language closely related to Anglo-Saxon. This appears to have occurred because the population found it beneficial to switch and not as a result of conquest or force. The Welsh example shows that it isn't easy to suppress a language forcefully, but the Scots example shows that populations adapt and can switch to a new language without any kind of force at all.

[@kernowpolski]

There is some great research and data here, BUT ironically (as this attempts to deconstruct the English identity myth) is it ignores the indigenous Celtic data ENTIRELY - the only contemporary writer who has survived is the Welsh monk Gildas who describes a massive Celtic-Saxon conflict. What follows is a rich Celtic written tradition - none of which gets a mention here. Why does Pryor not mention this? I urge him to get rid of his ignorance of the Celts and move beyond his Anglo-centric focus. Kernow bys vyken!

[@bruceironside1105]

The Welsh annuals, Irish annuals and even Romans record that barbarian germanic tribes attacked and took over parts of Britain. Not in 1 large 'invasion' to be fair. But several staggered small invasions just as the vikings did 300 years later. Nenius, Gildas, Geoffrey, and the bardic traditions also comfirm it was NOT a peaceful migration by invitation. However they do admit that the mercenary army they hired were given land to settle - so there was some peaceful settlement by arrangement - but as always that wasn't enough. And because they were the hired muscle for the island, they knew there was little to stop them taking whatever they wanted.

[@sercastamere9853]

@@the_rachel_sam - It's an island, dude. Do we really have to go over the reason why they definitely travelled to Britain, however long ago, isntead of "originating" there?

[@davidbenyehuda7618]

@@the_rachel_sam Shalom, that's because it would destroy the lies that Europe is a white land. The British isles are not white lands. They were populated by indigenous so-called black people who were really Israelites and other ethnic groups.

[@sercastamere9853]

@@davidbenyehuda7618 - Humans evolved in different pockets once we travelled across Eurasia. The Northern groups got lighter in skin colour. That's all that "white" is besides a caucasoid skull shape . Keep your racialistic bullshit in 30's Germany where it belongs

[@quentinquentin6752]

@@davidbenyehuda7618 there is no evidence to support your comment. None. Nada.

[@vercingetorix3414]

He says that the Germanic DNA could be from the Vikings. But the Vikings didn't leave their language and the Anglo-Saxons did, as well as their DNA. I have also seen evidence of extensive defensive earthworks throughout southern and eastern England. There is also documentary evidence for invasion. Although this hypothesis is conceivably accurate, it seems this presenter has reached his conclusions first, and then selects evidence in support of that hypothesis. That is not the way to do proper research.

[@carolesmith4864]

This bothered me also.

[@markmorris7123]

But d0 not documentaries that support the invasiot do the same thing.

[@vercingetorix3414]

@@markmorris7123 Documentaries should present unbiased facts. "But what about the other guy" is not an argument.

[@jonnylumberjack6223]

@@vercingetorix3414 Nonsense. They are going to present the facts according to the documentary maker. These are not scientific papers that need to be peer reviewed, they are documentaries to entertain first, educate second.

[@dylanlandry4996]

@@jonnylumberjack6223 you have a point archaeology can support anyone's thesis

[@mikewellwood1412]

FWIW, this is quite an old documentary. One clue is that Robin Cook died in 2005. I slowed down the credits to try to read the copyright date. Either 2004 or 2005 (it was hard to see whether it was MMIV or MMV). So, there has probably been a lot more research done since then, especially on the genetics side. FWIW**2 I think that most of us who are not of relatively recent incomer stock, are some sort of mixture of Celtic ("Ancient British"), "Anglo-Saxon" (probably "German", "Dutch", "Belgian", "Dane"), "Viking" ("Norwegian", "Swedish", and "Danish" again), with a trace of Norman, and some remnants of "Roman" (could have come from any part of the Empire, so not necessarily "Italian" Roman). Those whose ancestors come from the north are probably more Viking influenced, and those from the south & south-east, more "Anglo-Saxon", with those from the west & west-midlands more "Celtic".

[@brovold72]

I was actually wondering that -- archaeological evidence, even much more of it, would paint an incomplete picture.

[@DrivermanO]

Definitely MMIV - 2004!

[@johnpatrick5307]

Since that time its been found that Britain was colonised by Middle-Eastern farmers, about 1000BC. So Britain is NOT ethnically Celtic - although it got a Celtic language! (See: Mass Migrations into Britain in the Late Bronze Age). I think the people are darker the further west you go - which would fit in with the newcomers idea. Ancestry DNA has some interesting results for Britains DNA: something like 10% Norse, 22% Irish, 38% Great Britain, 24% NORTHWEST Europe, 4% Iberian.

[@MrChickennugget360]

this documentary is garbage. don't believe everything you hear.

[@SOP83]

After watching documentaries on the roman invasion of Gaul, I find it unthinkable what I heard. Some of the estimates i've seen suggest that over 1/2 of all celts were killed and another 1/3 enslaved(over the entire geography of modern day France). If this was the case, the thought that something similar happened in the UK wouldn't be so unbelievable. Essentially mass genocide with whatever percentage, that wasn't killed or couldn't migrate away, integrated and their genetic % small or diluted over time. This documentary didn't even mention Celts untill over 32min in.

[@mizofan]

bias, impure and simple.

[@Sarmatae1]

@@mizofan It's not bias. Other than what Celts were already there, they don't factor into the very early equations. Ireland, Wales, and Caledonia (Scotland) were all independent nations at odds with "Britannia" in this time period. Everyone was trying to get a foothold. You're right about everything else, but those Celtic origins you're defending didn't come into place until much later.

[@aaronb2779]

The point is that there is no archaeological evidence for such an event taking place.

[@Sarmatae1]

@@aaronb2779 The same could be said for every single event in the Bible. The difference here is that we DO have historical references, AND we have evidence that it happened. They just didn't mention any of it here.

[@histguy101]

@@aaronb2779 it's not an event. It's a 200 year period of history.

[@alex1507er]

From the Norman invasion a lot of Latin words remain in the language but the core did not change. It it must have been an extraordinary, overwhelming invasion to change the language completely as it happened in the 5-8 centuries.

[@RobBCactive]

Observing that invasion doesn't change a language fundamentally, doesn't justify assuming a greater invasion would. France & Spain were invaded by germanic tribes too and Spain had a long Arab occupation with similar word additions. There archaeological evidence of small saxon/viking conflicts, so if there were Romano-briton/Saxon ones there should also be finds.

[@laurencefox5884]

There are two forms of English. Onshore English is the language that is spoken in day to day life. It has a very low frequency of latinate words derived from Norman French. Offshore English is the 'posh' language that is written and used in formal situations..and crucially taught overseas. When I work with people who were not brought up in England, even if there accent is perfect, this difference gives them away immediately.

[@akulkis]

Additionally, "Old English" isn't Angle-ish at all, it's Brythonic, just like Welsh, Manx, and the Irish and Scottish dialects of Celtic (That's pronounced with a "k" at both ends, as "keltik", NBA fan, as witnessed by a famous Irish book from around 1000 AD, "The book of Kells"

[@mickvonbornemann3824]

@@akulkis your wrong, Old English is definitly Germanic that’s why Icelandic people can understand it without much issue, whereas they can’t understand Celtic languages at all

[@RobBCactive]

@@akulkis If you check respectable sources, you'll find old English is a germanic language.

[@timhorn3829]

I believe there was a little bit of both I believe they were early Anglo-Saxon immigrants who came peacefully to trade and find a place to live to get away from all the violence in their homelands but we’re also people who chose to take it vantage of the fact that the Romans were gone and chose to invading claim lands for their own

[@jayturner3397]

Exactly also some brought over as mercenaries for protection...

[@Thunor93]

Agreed, but the fact this guy actually thought there wasn't a Saxon invasion is bollocks , there were invasions but there were some peaceful immigrations.

[@Judge_Magister]

All of the western Roman empire was conquered by Germanic tribes, but Germanic foederati were also present in large numbers within the Roman army itself.

[@0harris0]

@@Judge_Magister have you read any of Gunnar Heinsohn's research into stratigraphy?! The "Saxon" Lundenwic (wic=vic=VICUS) was built next to, and in the same stratigraphic layer as the "ruined", walled Roman settlement of "Londinium"! Fascinating!

[@AtheisticAtheist]

Another 'i believe' You can't know what happened.

[@hardlyworking1351]

This is a perfect example of bad history, take a pre-determined view and try to make the evidence fit. Nothing wrong with the production quality etc. but its just really not worth sitting through

[@andrewchilds2704]

“Probably they just murdered and fought their way to the top, but they wanted this origin story of always being royal, or descended from the gods” - Helen THAT is a iconic statement that explains a lot of government

[@jasonpenn5476]

That statement by Helen was completely ludicrous and is no different than saying "I wanted to appear important, so I made up a story of being conquered by a group of gangsters".

[@TesterAnimal1]

@@jasonpenn5476 no. That’s how people end up at the top.

[@kevinmcneeley879]

I had thought Angle and Saxon mercenaries had been invited in. Accustomed to having the Romans to protect them the Britons found the Scots and Picts to be troublesome. So they hired mercs to help out. Have others heard this idea? HAs it gone out of fashion?

[@Linoran85]

This is my understanding as well.

[@savvageorge]

This theory makes perfect sense. The same thing happened to Romans in mainland Europe. They hired mercenaries like Attila the Hun who then used his knowledge to conquer large parts of the empire. Saxons probably did something similar.

[@baldingbee5403]

@@savvageorge Same thing happened in France a few hundred years later. The French king got fed up with raids on his coast and on Paris, so he allowed some Northmen to settle in what is now Normandy in exchange for protecting his coast and the Seine.

[@CETGale]

It does not fit the multicultral narritive..... They need more African Doctors and Engineers to come across the channel..........

[@swerve1960]

@@CETGale lol! 🤣

[@taivo55]

As a linguist, I found this explanation to be without linguistic foundation. The language of the British (Celtic) was completely replaced by the language of the English (Germanic) in the 5th and 6th centuries. If the transition was a peaceful intermixing, then one would expect to find abundant evidence in English vocabulary and grammar of Celtic influence, as there is clear and indisputable evidence in Zulu and Xhosa of the earlier Khoisan languages in terms of click consonants and other features as mothers (presumably Khoisan women captured by Zulu warriors) taught their children Zulu with imperfect Khoisan-influenced accents and as surviving Khoisan villages used their languages in trade with their Zulu neighbors. However, in English there is virtually no evidence of a Celtic substrate. That means that the Celtic British suddenly decided en masse to switch entirely to speaking the Germanic English language if this video's thesis were true. The linguistic situation is crystal clear--there was a mass replacement of a Celtic-speaking population with a fluent Germanic-speaking population over a relatively short period of time. When the video finally comes to linguistics, the argument for Celtic influence on the language is seriously flawed. The argument is made that Celtic influenced Middle and Modern English, but in order to support the video's argument, then the influence must have been on Old English and not lain like some dormant seed for hundreds of years before suddenly emerging in Late Middle and Early Modern English. It's a linguistically untenable argument. Also, the linguistic comment that Modern English word order has nothing to do with "the other Germanic languages" is seriously flawed since every aspect of Old English and Middle English word order has a clear and indisputable origin in common Germanic. Indeed, the linguistic argument highlights case endings in Modern German and their absence in Modern English, but ignores the fact that the Germanic languages were losing case endings (eight in Proto-Indo-European to six in Proto-Germanic to four in Old English) from their first separation from Proto-Indo-European and that the Scandinavian languages have lost even more case marking than English has. Indeed, the full range of Germanic case endings are only present in the Germanic languages in the most common masculine nouns and feminine and neuter nouns have only about half the number of masculine cases. So using case reduction in English as an argument for the influence of Celtic has no real basis in historical fact.

[@MusikCassette]

I also don't like, how they gloss over the DNA evidence.

[@kinnish5267]

Agree the idea that a people would suddenly give up their language with few native speakers to teach them and no formal methods of training seems absurd.

[@mikewellwood1412]

I agree completely. In addition, modern Welsh has masculine and feminine genders which are grammatically significant, while in modern English, gender is almost totally grammatically insignificant ("he" and "she" being the only difference I can think of). Modern Welsh still has well defined verb conjugations (although one can get round knowing most of them using the so called periphrastic construction) which English has almost totally lost, and of course a different word order (VSO, as opposed to English SVO).

[@mikewellwood1412]

@@user-gq2iw1xj5e That's a good point, and I don't think anybody knows for sure. Happy to be corrected though. There are theories that a form of proto (Germanic) English was spoken (by some, at least) on this side of the channel prior to the Roman invasion, and of course well prior to the "Anglo-Saxon Invasion", but I don't think they are well-supported.

[@markiec8914]

This is not a new phenomenon at all. When the Abassid Arabs conquered the Levant, Sassanid Mesopotamia, Egypt, Berber Libya and Maghreb most of the local population adopted Arabic and Islam within a hundred years. The same can be said of many Finno-Ugric, Baltic, Sarmatians and Turkic people who lost their tribal identities by becoming Slavicized in the area that became known today as Russia.

[@polmatthiasson9564]

It may not have been a violent takeover but it was a takeover nonetheless. We cannot ignore the arrival of 6 varieties of a Germanic language not native to the island (and their closest relative being Friesian and not Brythonic), nor the creation of kingdoms based upon either a “Saxon” or Angle hegemony, nor Roman sources stating regions of the island were deeded to Germanic tribes as the Romans pulled out.

[@lawrencevincent1]

The Germanic Huns actually drove the Roman empire into extinction.

[@tonescape1]

@polmatthiasson9564 : Wow, I never knew about Roman sources stating that Roman landowners transferred the deeds to Germanic people. So then this must have simply been politics, the Romans wanting to forge good alliances with Germanic tribes which on the continent were a constant hassle.

[@TerryD15]

In the West midlands there is ample evidence of Anglo Saxon dominance. For example Birmingham is known to have developed from a smal Anglo Saxon village (Beormond's ham[let]), we also have Wednesbury and Wednesfield (named after Woden the Anglo Saxon name for the Viking Odin). Several days of the week also derive from Teutonic names of gods (ie. Tiw, Woden, Thunor and Frig aka Fria) If the main influence was Viking we would have had say Odin's day and not Wodens day. They had a huge influence on place names all across the country. The use of suffixes such as '-ham' , '-ford' (Oxford), '-ley' (Dudley), '-wick (Warwick, Berwick), '-worth' (i.e. protective enclosure, 'Handsworth') and so on are Amglo Saxon in origin. If there had een relatively few Anglo Saxons here as seems to be suggested how could they have had such a huge influence on place names. Further it is now accepted generally that King Arthur was mythical. Tne Breton's also have Arthurian legends with Merlin etc.

[@malcolmstead272]

In that case using place names, look up Proto- English, this suggests English was spoken before the Roman invasion, it's here on KZbin but also papers on the net.

[@markdavids2511]

Woden & Odin are similar names for the same god.

[@TerryD15]

@@markdavids2511 That's exactly what I said if you read the whole posting. I was emphsising that the anglo Saxons used the anglicised nme of Woden rather than Odin so it was anglo SAxons rather than Vikings who influenced place names. If it were the other way around Wednesbury would have been more like Odinsburgh

[@alal-yy7jg]

Not very often I hear my hometown of Dudley mentioned on youtube haha.

[@user-yk1cf8qb7q]

@@alal-yy7jg My hometown as well, actually Coseley not far from Swan Village and I went to school in Dudley.

[@philipphackenberg1234]

So if there was no measurable immigration from modern day Germany before the arrival of the Vikings, then how the hell did a Germanic language become dominant in what is now England? If the population remained Celtic throughout all this time, why did they call their Kingdoms „Wessex“ or „Sussex“?

[@ajrwilde14]

watch the video it explains it

[@shawnv123]

@@ajrwilde14 no it doesn’t

[@DuDe3810]

Absolutely LOVE how this video included a segment where the narrator spoke with an expert who DISAGREED with his opinion and they had a civil discussion about it!!

[@eryximaque6310]

History as it is told , says more about the historian than about the history itself.

[@ivodebruijn]

In school I got taught that Old English and Old Dutch/Frisian were mutually intelligible until about 700 or 800 AD. This would only be possible if there was a strong connection between the two regions/peoples at some point. Basically the North Sea is "our" mediterranean and off course these peoples were in contact with each other. Sometimes they were at war and out for conquest, sometimes at peace and trading goods. Funny thing is a did one of those DNA-tests and it's 55% Western European and 45% English. This kind of fits in the narrative of the Anglo-Saxons migrating into England (as "English" DNA isn't really a thing as it is always a mix). Basically they're both the same thing. Found this text about the Christening of the Frisians by order of the Franks, which recruited Ango-Saxons because of their similar language: "The Anglo-Saxon mission to the Frisians began in 678. It is possible that the Franks commissioned Anglo-Saxon clerics, who had already played an important role in converting the Franks themselves and their newly conquered territories in central and southern Germany, to lead the Frisian mission because of their linguistic affinity to the Frisians. Both English and Frisian being Ingwaeonic dialects of Germanic (see p. 128), it is possible that the two were still mutually intelligible at that time or that the missionaries could at least learn Frisian with little difficulty." Anyway, interesting stuff.

[@kamion53]

I find it curious that the area's the Anglo Saxons are supposed to come from overlap the area's that were involved in the Frisian trade. Also that the start of the Frisian trade started in about the same period as the Anglo-Saxon "invasion" is supposed to have happened.

[@andrecostermans7109]

Even Tacitus wrote down about the family-links between Gaelic and British tribes

[@ekaski1]

It's interesting - If you only know German, Frisian will be quite difficult for you to learn, but if you know both English and German, Frisian will be very easy to pick up.

[@Thunor93]

Makes sense since the place where the Saxons originate from is actually part of what is now France , but back then during the Roman period would be a Germanic tribe, the area where the saxons come from would then become Francia Wich would split with the Western half becoming France and the Eastern half Germany. The middle half become other kingdoms. Francis was split in 3 by 3 rulers, Charles the fat being one of the 3 brothers. Funny how Charlemagne's empire he built barely lasted a over a century.

[@hrfnwarian6473]

@@Thunor93 The Anglo-Saxon homeland was likely Schleswig Germany north of Holstein, which is far from France, however their were Anglo-Saxon settlements between the Weser and Elbe river in Germany.

[@user-wv6nh1ek3g]

My understanding is that Anglo-Saxons were already present in Britain prior to the Roman exodus, albeit in smaller numbers. DNA studies support the idea that they intermarried with, rather than replaced, the existing population. Later waves of AS were invited over to help fend off the threat of the picts, but then they sort of just stuck around. Furthermore, the Welsh and the Scots also have some Anglo-Saxon ancestry, and a large percentage of England's genes - particularly in central and southern England - are from a pre-Celtic population that arrived in Britain between 16,000 and 7,500 years ago. I think this video is quite old so a lot of this information wouldn't have been available then.

[@richardpeel6056]

Britain and Northern France as parts of the Roman Empire were subject to raids by Saxons from the sea, hence the construction of the shore forts. After the Roman Governor left with the army to claim his title as Roman Emperor a Romano Celtic culture emerged combining the energies of the Celts, the remaining Romans and anyone else that was left in the country including some Saxons and Jutes, the Pendragon family are remembered for leading the Romano Celts through the King Arthur myths against the raids of the Saxons. They used the pre-Roman capital of Britain Colchester as their base, it's Roman name was Camelobdinum, which may be the origin of the name Camelot. They operated a light cavalry legion as a rapid reaction force against Saxon landings. They tried to gain the support of the Celtic population with Merlin a druid and making connections with the pre-Roman High King Caracatus and reviving the Goddess Britannia myth. In 535-536AD the Krakatoa eruption caused a volcanic winter causing many horses to starve to death or become unrideable and for the plague to spread from the Atlas Mountains to Constantinople and hence via trade routes to Britain. Having already lost their warriors and horses and a large part of the Romano Celtic population due to plague and crop failure (the mythical Waste Land) the Saxons moved in almost without a fight. I suggest this fits in with the archeological facts as have been discovered.

[@user-if9cq8wt9q]

I am from Bulgaria. In the 7th century lands in modern northern Bulgaria were occupied by slavic tribes.About 675-680 in these lands crossing river Danube have come the protoBulgarians.They were tribe from the lands of modern Ukraine. And the slavic tribes and protoBulgarians made an alliance without single fight.They together fought with Byzantium and found country called Bulgaria. This is an evidence that is not necessary invaders and local people to fight each other. Not to forget that in the 6th century there was a plague all over Europe which decreased dramatically population. And probably the Anglo-Saxon invaded England after the plague.The local population was small and there were no battles between invaders and locals.

[@fwcolb]

This lecture left out the effect of the Anglo-Saxon plough with coulter that allowed the newcomers to plough the heavier clay soil in the bottom-lands that the locals could not farm. Thus, the newcomers used land that was not occupied. And co-existed with the locals.

[@malcolmstead272]

Good point.

[@Tsigano]

Riothamus is definitely the most fitting candidate for Arthur. Riothamus being a term meaning High King. Riothamus even has the same connections to Avalon (Avallon in France). Taking all sources into the equation, it looks as though Riothamus ruled a Celtic kingdom spread across Britain and Brittany. He was the first and last true Great Celtic king before Germanic kings took over. He is also the only king to ever have united the Britons. Prior to Roman rule, the Brits were never united under a single king and after the Roman legions left Britain, the locals were used a unified land. It is likely that Riothamus was successful in uniting the Celtic people of the British Isles and was able to hold off invading Saxon armies from the north and northeast. In the time after Roman Britain, it was the southwest of England that was the wealthiest and most populous region due to costal trade with the Roman Mediterranean. It makes sense that a mighty Celtic kingdom that has Roman trade alliances be ruled from this area. A kingdom stretching across to western France. The later additions to the legend about Guinevere & Lancelot has no place in the true origins as they were added 100s of years later through romantic writers, but the battles with Saxons (& Goths, who as Germanic tribes, were likely seen as expanded Saxons) are true if taking Riothamus as the real King Arthur of the Brits. The recent suggestions that Arthur was a Roman from lands not in Britain are also unlikely. Riothamus however was a true British King. Born with Brythonic ancestry.

[@stevenlynaugh974]

i like this theory too but all the continentals seem to think he was a breton!

[@Tsigano]

@@stevenlynaugh974 But continentals trying to say Riothamus was a Breton miss the major fact that it records that he crossed the sea in a boat to get to Gaul.

[@petrovonoccymro9063]

Nonsense. The most fitting person to be King Arthur is the King Arthur of Gwent named and thanked in the Llandaff Cathedral Charters several times for his land grants to the Church in Wales. How much evidence can you lot ignore?

[@Tsigano]

@@petrovonoccymro9063 source please?

[@petrovonoccymro9063]

@@Tsigano find the sources yourself. Search the Llandaff Charters, or, as I have, go to the Bodlian Library in Oxford where the Bruts of England state plainly that King Arthur was crowned in south Wales or look at the works of Wilson and Blackett over the past forty years……

[@marshalllyon6454]

I find the language changes quite interesting. There are two well documented and complete invasions of England - the Romans and the Normans. In both cases the ruling class used the language of the invaders - Latin and French. However, neither of these languages actually became what the common people spoke. I think the introduction of Germanic English likely resulted from a mass migration rather than a military invasion. I see the development of English likely as a way for the new settlers to be understood by the natives, or vice versa. Almost like Spanglish is in modern times, a hybrid of two languages but with one dominating. Similarly we see the later Viking invasions contribute to language, mainly in place names but also in some words. However, it was not nearly to the same extend of the Anglo-Saxon migration. Again, Vikings were invaders/raiders and did become rulers in some Medieval English kingdoms, but English as a language persisted. I also find it strange that archeologist talk about the 5th century (or 6th or 1st) the same way we speak about the 60s. When in reality the difference between the 5th and 6th centuries is akin to how we think about the Victorian or Edwardian ages. Sure the pace of change is hectic now but 100 years is a long time and and the change over those 100 years need not be drastic.

[@a.westenholz4032]

Actually the Vikings may have contributed more than that linguistically. Despite what this program may have said, structurally English is more akin to Danish than Celtic in its grammar in that both share some unique features. Since it is much more difficult to change language structure, the Danish impact on English, may be said to be enormous. Also when the Vikings "invaded" (a slightly exaggerated account since while some raided, others did come and peacefully settle like ASs) the linguistic differences between Scandinavian and AS English would have been slight and mutually intelligible. Rather the same way the various Scandinavian languages today are different yet mutually intelligible to native speakers, especially with a little practice.

[@bruceironside1105]

Actually in each invasion - roman, saxon, viking, Norman - the language of the common people evolved and took in words and phrases that remain to this day. The language we speak today is nothing like like the language even 400 years ago. Even in relatively unscathed areas of Britain the language has evolved to be almost unrecognisable to 1400 years ago (cornish, Bretton, Irish and Scots). Time, dominance and education are what gets the biggest changes in one language over another. But integration and intermarriage plays a huge part too. The Norman's tried not to intermarry and hence we don't speak French. But the saxons and vikings did intermarry and were closer in status to the common people of Britain and now we have mostly a language based on germanic and viking.

[@djhalling]

"a hybrid of two languages" But English does not seem to be a hybrid of the two languages, as far as I can tell. I'm not a linguist, so I may have missed it, but I don't see that there is any significant influence of Brythonic on English. The word order in English may be different from other Germanic languages, but it is different from Welsh too, and there seems to be very little of Brythonic in the vocabulary either.

[@a.westenholz4032]

@@djhalling Indeed, it is more a hybrid of various Germanic languages and Norman French / bastardized Latin, with a smattering of Celtic vocabulary here and there. English at the core remains Germanic, in structure and basic vocabulary. But over time it incorporated a rather large vocabulary from French and Medieval Latin, just the same way many languages today might be incorporating many English words and common tech phrases into their language.

[@Judge_Magister]

@@a.westenholz4032 the vikings already spoke a language closely related to Anglo Saxon Frisian etc, some even came from the same regions so i presume they could easily understand each other.

[@marcantoniosavelli1710]

The thesis of this - by the way interesting and absolutely respectable - documentary sounds unconvincing to me. Basically, to minimize the impact of the Roman, Anglo Saxon, and even Celtic components, they made up this chimera that is "the britons". What language did these phantomatic britons speak? "Britons" is just a definition that Roman sources used to describe the people that they found in the island, which were of Celtic root. Ceasar's De Bello Gallico is the first to mention them, as Caesar's was the first Roman expedition to the island. The Anglo Saxons, then, spoke a completely different language, and they were completely different people. Invasion or not, they arrived sometime between the 4th and 7th century (nobody can tell for certain, maybe even called in as foederati of the Romans in the second half of 4th century, as has been suggested by many) and had nothing to do with the Celtic people, and they never completely integrated, as still nowadays, centuries after, we can distinguish Celtic speaking regions and not, in the UK. Peaceful integration? Very unlikely. The suggestion that the conquered celts "unlearn" their language to adapt to the Anglo Saxons stands against every evidence of analogue situations in other european regions in the same period. To better understand the mechanism of gradual integration - after an invasion - of germanic tribes in a romanized substratus, should be useful, rather than speculating on insufficient sources, comparing the situation of England with similar processes in other areas of Europe where the sources are way more abundant - the Italian peninsula for example. Last but not least, the only idea of talking of "English people" that exist as an entity impermeable to the Roman domination, and continue to persist "as if nothing happened" after the Romans leave, is lacking in understanding of what the Roman domination - and integration - meant for the civilization of the conquered regions. But that said, well done documentary and absolutely respectable scientific research.

[@turquoisepink8033]

The Welsh spoke their language right up until the English government brought in anti- Welsh language policies, and there was a massive backlash and people fought for the right to be able to speak their own language. Up until 150 years ago, everyone in Wales spoke Welsh as a first language. The idea that the Brythonic people just happily changed language is absurd. It goes against human nature, people naturally want to speak their own language. This 'peaceful integration' theory is ridiculous. There is no denying that the Saxons drove the Welsh out of their own land and into what we now call Wales. If they had 'integrated' they would all be speaking Brythonic and not English. What this documentary is proposing- and also other newer books and articles proposing the same theory. Is it not only goes against human nature- but also as you say, we can look at other counties who went through similar changes and see that this 'gentle integration' theory would never have happened.

[@leehaseley2164]

History is not a static point in time, but rather an ever evolving and dynamic story.

[@karlp8484]

The Germanic cultural and linguistic predominance in Britain is unmistakable and beyond question.

[@elliskaranikolaou2550]

Yet their language script is Latin (Italic) rather than Runic (Germanic).

[@d.parker4328]

@@elliskaranikolaou2550 They had no written language. That's why it's so hard to trace the history. But I once read, that the word England comes from Angelland, where the Anglos came from.

[@saadabbas8976]

Fun fact: “The decline of the gentry largely stemmed from the 1870s agricultural depression; however, there are still many hereditary gentry in the UK to this day.”

[@user-tj9bg6tz2p]

decline doesnt mean end

[@Odonanmarg]

Another difficulty I had was accepting Augustine’s mission to Britain as the birth of Christianity there. Constantine legalized the religion in the empire in the early 4th century, so it would have been present in Britain long before Augustine arrived at the end of the 6th century.

[@hrfnwarian6473]

Theodosius made Christianity the official religion of Britain around 386 after he wiped out the last of the Druids.

[@mikeparker444]

Constantine the Great was made emperor in York after his Dad died, which I guess means he grew up here. It makes me wonder whether Christianity was already here, he had some experiences with it growing up, and that inspired him to make the Roman Empire Christian. Apparently there was a Christian Bishop in York in his time.

[@allanp5]

The traditional view of church history sees Christianity reintroduced into England from Ireland and then Scotland. This is covered by Bede who argues that the Roman practice replaces the Celtic practice. Pryor conveniently does not address why Angle slaves from Britain would have been found in Rome.

[@Irene-im8xi]

​@@allanp5 the Anglo-Saxons didn't invent slavery but got the idea from the Romans. Rather than destroy an enemy completely they can be enslaved and set to do all the hard manual labour - with optional castration for difficult males. After enslaving the defeated Britons and enjoying the benefits of a slave owning culture it would have been easy to transition toward enslavement of defeated enemies who were also Angli-Saxon. Profits could be made from selling them on to other slave-owning cultures rather than just burying an enemy with no profit apart from the land you stole. Arguably Britain's wealth all comes from slavery through exploiting the native population, past colonialism and through corporations who are the modern face of slave-ownership/wealth-accumulation and natural resources theft all over the world.

[@lockk132]

Didnt the Romans comment on the similarity of tongue between the southern tribes and those of the Belgae( Belgium area),some 500 years before the supposed Anglo Saxon invasion

[@andrewwhelan7311]

Why is it so hard for historians to use use the term ancient indigenous Britons?

[@steadyeddie639]

Exactly,spot on

[@mikeparker444]

I think academics see the Romans, and later the Saxons, as bringing culture to Britain.. so in their minds they like to see themselves as European not British. In contrast they see the Britons as angry welshman. If you could see which way most academic historians voted in the referendum, I bet it was 90% remain.

[@steadyeddie639]

@@mikeparker444 Arest waron buend pisses landes Brettas The Britons are the first inhabitants of this land

[@steadyeddie639]

@@mikeparker444 her pu hafst pat pin is {here thou hast that which is thine}

[@roboparks]

The word "Briton" itself is a Latin word that's why. Most of the Brythonic Tribal names are Latin words . We have no idea what the Brythonic peoples actual called themselves. Since most of if not all of those languages were not in written form . Even the man-X language of the Welsh is a later language and not the original language of those lands.

[@TheLincolnrailsplitt]

It wasn't a massive military invasion, but it certainly wasn't an orderly and peaceful migration either. Colonisation is arguably the best description.

[@mikeparker444]

The ladder settlement is fascinating, but it's probably unwise to draw conclusions about changes to the whole of the UK, based on observations at one forgotten village in Yorkshire.

[@flowermeerkat6827]

Whatever happened, I always felt sorry for the Romano-British when the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes came over. It must have been a dramatic change for the existing inhabitants.

[@kc3718]

they'd been comming over for thousands of years before that, some of the tribes in what is now England were Belgae and had arrived on the Island only a few hundred years before before Caesar crossed the Channel. The Iron Age Parisii near the Humber, guess where they came from....the Paris basin the list goes on. There were Irish in what is now Wales and England. The idea that the people in what is now the UK were a homogenous bunch of 'Celts' ( whatever one thinks they are ) is ridiculous.

[@chevinbarghest8453]

@@kc3718 Indeed to English are mongrels and mongels are the strongest of dogs. My great grandad was an Anglo Saxon from Hereford on the Welsh border. His wife was a Celtic Bevan from Wales. They emigrated to Yorkshire in the 1872 agricultural recession. My other granddad was the statutory Irish fugitive sheep thief from Dublin. My grandmother was from a Norwegian area of the Yorkshire dales and her family name of Summersgill means 'sommer scali' which is Norwegian for the summer shepherds huts.. Her husband had a Norman French name. I have lived in the USA for 14 years and have adopted nothing of the local accent or language, (eg "I should of went"), so the idea doesn't ring true for all the Yorkshire farmers imitating Friesian coz it's trendy......

[@carolgebert7833]

The Angles were already living among the Brits. They were already there when the Romans arrived.

[@pekkahalonen6684]

An old legend says that there was a populist party in Roman-British society. They wanted to isolate themselves from the outside world. Jutes, Angles and others were not welcome.

[@whitecrossredground8820]

The adoption of an entirely different language involves adopting a new culture. Human beings don't do this unless compelled.

[@roboparks]

language is the 1st step to a new culture. The Old-English is a combination of Germanic(Germanic grammar Rule set and alphabet) and even Brythonic Celtic (Most Brythonic Languages were never in written a form ) . To be to able streamline words for 2 languages.

[@danmcshain]

Compelled doesn't work, the Welsh were compelled to stop speaking Welsh but the Welsh language persisted. But the Scots language (A Germanic language related to Anglo-Saxon) became the dominant language of Scotland without any compulsion. Scotland conquered a small part of the Northumbrian Kingdom, yet rather than impose Scots Gaelic on that population, the Northumbrian language evolved to Scots and became the dominant language of the country, long before the union of the Crowns. Humans also frequently adopt new cultures willingly if not completely. For example Rock and Roll was originally American (and within America specifically African American Culture). yet within a decade it spread and influenced Europe and became the dominant music style in short order. In 1964 America saw the 'British invasion' where bands from Britain, such as the Beatles dominated the American music culture; and doing so playing a musical style that they had taken from American culture originally but adding a British style to it. To this day its hard to tell if a singer is American or British as so many sing in the transatlantic accent that was created by Americans trying to sound like a British band who were trying to sound American. Thus we can see that the adoption of a culture does not rely on compulsion; it simple relies on cultural contact. Cultures that persisted did so because of isolation.

[@williammkydde]

@@danmcshain One could argue that Northumbria was a relatively wealthy region, densely populated, as opposed to the maily cattle-herding and valley-rading Gaelic regions. Then too, there may have been tensions between the Stuarts and the Highlands clans. And there was perhaps some prestige in speaking English, given the large neighbour to the South. What was the prestige of the "Anglo-Saxon" language for the Britons? Culturally, the colonizers were not superior, nor were they richer. All I see is force and better organization on the part of the "Germans".

[@danmcshain]

@@williammkydde Northumbria was a relatively wealthy region, but my emphasis is on the word was. This prosperity occurred centuries prior to the Scots language emerging. In the 9th century Northumbria fell to the Vikings save a small rump in Lothian and the Borders, which then fell under the control the Gaelic speaking King of the Scots. By the time the Scots language emerged in Scotland Northumbria was no longer an independent Kingdom. the Scots language is not English do not confuse the two. Whilst Scots like English is a Germanic language and closely related to English, it is a separate language of Scotland, spoken by around a third of the Scottish population today (to various extents). Scots should not be confused with Scottish English which is a dialect of English spoken in Scotland rather than a separate but related language. The Stuarts did not speak Scots originally; they spoke French (and presumably Breton before this when they arrived in Scotland from Brittany). French was the court language of Scotland from the 12th to 14th centuries and was thus spoken by the nobility during this period. Somehow, despite having no political power and a tiny proportion of the population speaking the language initially, Scots became the primary language in much of Scotland (but not the Highlands) and then somehow influenced the elite and then the King to switch to speaking Scots. I find this fascinating. The prestige of speaking English came latter. Both literally as Scot speakers shifted to English following the act of Union, but also because English was not a prestige language when Scots became the courtly language of Scotland. The prestige of the English kings and their cultural impact on the initially Gaelic speaking King David is what lead to the Scottish court speaking French not English. This is because the English court spoke French in the 12th century. The English court continued to speak French until the 15th century, which means the Scottish court switched to Scots before the English court switched to English. I don't know why Brythonic speakers switched to Anglo-Saxon languages. We have almost no primary sources for the period. What we know from the development of the Scots language is that language changes can occur without population replacement, initial political dominance or even a significant population settlement. Thus we must conclude that a change of language on its own proves nothing beyond cultural contact and must look for other evidence.

[@williammkydde]

@@danmcshain Very interesting, Dan. I was not aware of these nuances. Notoriously, in linguistics, "why" remains most often an unanswered question. Thank you very much. Is there a significant literary heritage written in Scots? Any newspapers? Did Robert Burns write in Scots? I know that the answer can vary from poem to poem, but, e.g., are "Scots Wha Hae" and "Auld Lang Syne" Scots or the dialect?

[@sabineb.5616]

When new facts resurface, history needs to be revised. That is how science works. However, the opinions promoted in this video are just that - a minority voice which cherry picks a few fact and then declares blithely that certain well established genetic studies should simply be disregarded without giving a good reason, why. This is not very useful for developing a completely new theory. I am German - and I can tell you that German and English are really very similar languages. Learning English is fairly easy for us, while Romanic languages like French, Italian and Spanish are far more difficult for us. Since these languages have either developed from Latin, or are heavily influenced by Latin, it helps to have learned Latin. If the Anglo-Saxons had never entered the British isles in great numbers, it is very hard to explain why the English language hasn't a much more pronounced Romanic structure and vocabulary. Maybe, the Anglo-Saxons were not so much violent invaders, but a population which mass migrated into the English realm - although there are a number of contemporary reports which tell about violent raids. There is no sound reason to ignore these eyewitness accounts.

[@101Mant]

I'm aware of eyewitness accounts of viking raids but Anglo-Saxon? I thought of the problems is little to know contemporary accounts.

[@benjaminhulme6103]

@@101Mant Gildas. A guy literally writing about it at the time, a Welsh man too so he had no bizarre need to lie. Bede was heavily influenced by Gildas's accounts also wrote heavily on the subject, with thanks to oral tradition

[@virochanaasura8521]

@@benjaminhulme6103 Imagine that, someone familiar with primary texts rather than Postmodern sliding definitions.

[@macjuk]

You claim to be a proponent of the scientific method but your post is one long swing of baseless claims and logical fallacies. You say that the Saxons "...mass migrated into the English realm" - you really need to do your research before posting. What the hell is/was the "English realm" in this context? Further, you assume that the Romano British spoke some kind of "Romanic" (sic) language before adopting proto-german. I'd have a look at Welsh, Cornish, Gaelic etc before drawing such conclusions. You really shouldn't criticise others and then commit the same "cherry picking" error that you accuse the film makers of.

[@macjuk]

@@benjaminhulme6103 Three questions...How can you claim to know Gildas' motives? Why do you describe him a Welsh man when he was almost certainly from present-day Scotland? Why would Bede rely on oral tradition when he clearly used Gildas' written or copied texts?

[@tamasmarcuis4455]

Some academic who use English and British interchangeably and talks about "a nation" for Britain while completely ignoring the other nations. There is of course NO British nation unless you are talking about the Welsh. The UK is merely a government that covers various nations and territories.

[@williammkydde]

The whole film (2005?) is an attempt to prepare the ground for the acceptance of the current wave of immigration as sth benign: "the English nation does not exist", "we don't really know what happened", "it was an economic immigration". Right, in 500 AD, people move in in droves, occupy your land and impose their language. Looks like benign, doesn't it?

[@Steven-D-Allan]

I watched this documentary "From late 535 AD to 536, written records from across the world suggest a mysterious climate catastrophe. Dubbed the year "without a summer", the sun was completely dimmed and shadows were invisible..." It appears this volcanic eruption led to the starvation of millions of people, followed by disease, all over the known world. Maybe this is what happened around this time?

[@thenewkhan4781]

I mean, at the same time the Slavs (Sclaveni, Venethi/Wends, and Antes) enter Central Europe and Balkans from the East, replacing populations that lived there for centuries (including some Germanic tribes). We know that this huge migration in the Eastern Europe happened after some kind of depopulation event, there's a lot of archeological and linguistical evidence suggesting almost a 100% replacement in a matter of 2-3 centuries after this event. I thing it all has to be connected.

[@olivermoore7020]

Worth considering that this documentary was made in 2004. Channels like this give off the impression that these documentaries are new. It should really state the date of first broadcast in the description. I'm not an archaeologist, historian, linguist or geneticist - but I would wager that significant advances have been made in these fields in the last eighteen years with regard to early medieval (i.e. post-Roman/pre-Norman) Britain.

[@there-sis-stanceiscoming8230]

Honestly, they probably haven't. Pretentiusness and preciousness about unspoken dogma rules much of academia. Unless rich parasites see opportunities (like techno-freakery), funding does not flow towards new challenging ideas. See how the astronomers dismissed Velikovsky, and how rapidly historians dismissed Morosov. Archaeology is highly interprtative - anything they find in Britain, they automatically label as Roman or Anglo-Saxon, based on the flakiest stretches of 'evidence', especially in the latter case. It hasn't changed. With Saxon Thing Charles, inflating the anglo-saxon past theory is a trend they have no motivation to change. The geneticist on this programme was honest, it makes logical sense that they cant date migrations with genetics. Maybe they can suggest migrations, possibly a sequence, but not with dates. Carbon-dating cant date either lol. And, come to think of it, Geology has no test-retest reliability either (see how 'Lake Conibus' in the USA, from lake-bed analysis, was dated to tens of millions of years ago, by idiots unaware that it appeared on all pre-1800s maps) Historical 'sciences' in general, have no test-retest reliability. They are just theory. Maybe this guy is wrong, maybe he is partly right, but the conventional stories from the mists of time, are built on very little at all ...

[@avatarion]

@@there-sis-stanceiscoming8230 The geneticist was completely right. He just couldn't believe the implications that there was a genocide on a mass scale that happened so quick. But now we have even more DNA evidence, with betters tools and data, and the evidence for an Anglo-Saxon invasion is damning.

[@dus10dnd]

There was certainly Northern European migration to Great Britain. We have genetic and linguistic evidence. Knowing the means by which is occurred is something we probably will have great difficulty in learning. I think that it is probably pretty unlikely to think a large group Celts that lived a Roman lifestyle picked up a Germanic language and DNA for no reason. The linguistic connections and the mutual intelligibility means it had to fit into the conventional timeline, as well. This idea simply doesn't make sense. Not only is the language similar, but the worship of the Germanic gods prior to Christianity. Nope. Every bit of evidence that we have does indeed support that Northern Europeans migrated. In terms of Christianity, other Germanic groups were Christian, like the Visigoths. Although, that was isolated from England. These folks have some agenda.

[@curiousworld7912]

History is a lot more complex than we generally think - particularly, when there is little evidence to support a long-held theory. We have to be open to new interpretations, which is why I'm enjoying this series so.

[@bruceironside1105]

Why aren't the long held traditions more trustworthy than modern interpretations of scattered archeology. They were compiled and rewritten from various separate earlier sources (Bede 700s, Nennius late 700s early 800s and Gildas in the 500s.), A hell of a lot closer to the events than Francis Pryor is and so there was less time for oral tradition to be forgotten and distorted than 1500 years later. Once Francis has dug up every bone and dna tested every sample of that era and finds an ancient written account saying that it was a peaceful migration made at the request of the British Kings, then it is just a weak theory based on a picked small selection of evidence that suits his narrative. He's a publicity sl-t losing his relevance, and looking for a way to get in the limelight again.

[@bruceironside1105]

@Not Robot yes a robot. Your English and grammar are awful.

[@puffin51]

@@bruceironside1105 I completely agree with you. Every literary source we have from Gildas to Bede, without exception, testifies to invasion and conquest. The archeological evidence is capable of quite different interpretations to those preferred by Pryor. But above all, the proof is in the outcome. Beyond a very general outline, we have no real idea of events in Britain/England from about 410 until nearly 800, but at the end of that period, there is nothing left of the Romano-Britons east of the Severn. Only a few place-names survive. All law, custom, art, authority, society, field systems - everything - is Anglo-Saxon. This was not immigration. There was no integration. This was the erasure of an entire people.

[@mikebarrow157]

@@bruceironside1105 there are no reasons why long-held traditional interpretations of the past need to be considered wrong or flawed. Nevertheless, there is no reason why they shouldn't be challenged. Francis Pryor is an accomplished archaeologist and academic, and it's his job to do this. If his ideas are flawed the academic community will say so. Frankly, however, IMO his argument carries some weight. In my university education in History there was little mention, if any at all, of an invasion, and a peaceful migration and integration seems perfectly feasible. The fact that your id bears that of a legendary Saxon implies your pending disagreement. As a DNA-proven Brit with no English in me whatsoever, you will understand that whatever you think I won't give a shit.

[@bruceironside1105]

@@mikebarrow157 Sorry Mike I have never communicated with you before. So know nothing of your opinions or views until now. Don’t actually know why you are jumping in now, ages after the fact. I’ve only communicated with 1 other person on this topic, so it’s refreshing to get other insights. I actually agree with more or less what you say. The issue I have is that some people are taking this video as gospel (a matter of almost religious faith) and what is being postulated as FACT, when it has yet to be PROVEN, beyond rough theory. Just because it is said by my lord god Francis Pryor. Francis Pryor was a great hero to me for years, and he and the rest of Time Team got me into archeology. I understand that he wishes to maintain the level of lifestyle he had become accustomed to after many years on Time Team. I don’t begrudge him that, I just expect more balance from someone of his stature in the Archeological Field of study. Actually my surname is from Danish Viking heritage, that is why it is Ironside, not Ironsides. And almost half of my genealogy is Scottish from the Fraser clan and the other half Danish. I also have no English of significance. But that does not make any difference to the larger body of evidence currently available supporting an initial migration by mercenary troops at the behest of the British people to protect them from raiding Picts and Irish (small war bands, not Roman sized armies), followed by staggered small take overs of territory over probably around 150 years, until dominance over the indigenous peoples was achieved. Whether you choose to call it an “invasion” or not, it has not yet been proven as a 100% peaceful migration. It just seems odd to me that anyone would think that the British were so used (after 350 years) to being under the control of a foreign power, that when said foreign power left, they felt the best option was to get another foreign power in to dominate them. Perhaps a few tribes did feel that way, but impossible to think the whole of the island felt the same way. Therefore if any of the tribes who didn’t approve of the takeover resisted, then it was an “invasion”. If anyone can prove that every tribe in Britain welcomed the Angles, Saxon’s and Jutes as their new overlords without hesitation and without regret. Then I’ll believe it. Until then logic rules supreme.

[@SpaceInvader414]

If this was the case that England back then was accepting other cultures it clearly does not correlate with England when they colonised other parts of the world.

[@jeremyromero2000]

That was most likely what the propaganda was for, especially when they were victimized by Vikings

[@johnnypickles5256]

What a ridiculous comment

[@heliosdeus3066]

I love how these professionals can have a civil disagreement, address and point out each others valid points and continue on with the conversation. Such a rarity these days

[@2msvalkyrie529]

Irrespective of historical debate ; stunning footage of the English countryside in high Summer . Glorious trees !!

[@Thatdudemantell]

"Were these forts used as defense? Maybe not, they may have been used for trade. There is no evidence that they were for defense. The evidence they were used for trade is.............coastal?"

[@louisacapell]

And they were FORTS........ LOL

[@Bjowolf2]

Why on earth would you go through all the huge and very costly efforts of building these sea forts, if they weren't needed? 🙄

[@johnmacleod2487]

'Both' would seem to be the most sensible alternative. When they weren't needed for defense (which would have been most of the time), they would have been used for trade. And, in times they were needed for defense, a fort is a pretty good place to secure trade goods

[@Horseflesh89]

"Absolutely no evidence..." he says in English

[@kcbarbo78]

Yup.

[@hachwarwickshire292]

Normans speak French All of classical Europe spoke Latin to some extent The story of Arthur is British but told in English and French The Irish speak English The Britons in Brittany speak French Scotland has an Irish language but British place names The Dutch were the same as the British pre-Roman times

[@hachwarwickshire292]

Language can change quicker then culture !

[@Horseflesh89]

@@hachwarwickshire292 Norman French has had a huge influence on Modern English, largely through the more abstract concepts used in law and governance, evidence for a large replacement of the noble class by the Normans and their allies. The Lingua Franca of classical Europe was Greek, only after classical times did Latin become the common language of the educated because of the church. Those remaining Greek speakers in Magna Graecia I'd guess have Greek heritage. Romance speakers are an interesting case of how a second language could become the native language, but I haven't heard much about how that may have occurred and it doesn't seem analogous to the case of English. The Bretons of Brittany spoke and still speak Breton, and just like Welsh has happened to persist longer than Cornish. The mix of Gaelic and Scots in Scotland reflected the early middle-age division between Celtic highland and English lowland Scotland. A similarly complex history of languages, culture and peoples led to Gaelic and English being the languages of Ireland. As for English, its earliest form in Britain seems to have no input from Celtic or Latin. From the little I grasp of how languages and peoples changed historically, I find it hard to see how Old English could become the language of lowland Britain without a large degree of population change. I think for the most part culture changes faster than people's first language, though use of a second language no doubt faster than that.

[@TMTFT]

@@hachwarwickshire292 It's not called the Dutch but the Frisians around that time (Dutch are just 'Frankified' Frisians but don't tell them cause they don't want to know, lol). Also Brittanys cultures were dominantly Celtic while Frisian culture was/is Germanic so there's still quite a question to be answered, this vid doesn't do it btw.

[@somayyamughal8313]

History is totally a mystery to us. We may never find the real answers

[@bruceironside1105]

After you have watched this, see the Anglo Saxon Invasion video by History with Hilbert for a more balanced and logical assessment.

[@AncestralReflections]

Eh, he's too mainstream.

[@lonewolftech]

@Ready For Anything. no thank you

[@Chmurrayjr]

Read the Welsh account of the invasion if you want the real story. This video is horse manure. The idea it pushes is that the Britons (who were Celts with Celtic language, architecture, religion, art etc.) were conquered by the Romans, became Roman subjects, Romanized (culturally), but when the Romans left they became culturally and ethnically Germanic without a German invasion. What people keep forgetting is that for most of history the majority of populations were slaves/serfs/tenants. Genocide was very rare. After a war the conquered land's surviving people were subjugated. The ruling class was replaced, but the locations (villages and towns), and laborers stayed.

[@charliet1175]

@@Chmurrayjr yes, Wilson and Blacket have a good understanding on this.

[@horseradishpower9947]

Am going to do that now.

[@dutchman7623]

Very interesting! So when the British decided to adapt a totally different language, culture, religion and all ways of doing things, they did not pick the Frankian one of mainland Europe, nor that of the expanding Scandinavians, but the one of nations squeezed in between the two, Frisians, Anglos and Saxons. The language is copied fully with all typical and complex structures, but after speaking that language perfectly, they slowly started to change and simplify it, well that makes no sense, does it? Seems more logical to me that the three nations squeezed between North and South like toothpaste had no other option than to go West, and maybe it was not a violent invasion, maybe they were only looking for a place to live, willing to cooperate with the locals, but because of sheer numbers replaced the local culture.

[@harrymills2770]

Depends on how you look at it. I see it as a tension between competing cultures and world views giving rise to something uniquely British! But then I'm more of a David Starkey kind of guy. I think he gives a good take on the complexities of the situation. Certain Frankian notions came from Roman traditions, and were eventually seized upon by those who Would Rule. The notion of a Church-Approved Anointed King was a huge deal for obtaining at least the perception of legitimacy. The idea of absolute rule by the monarch and absolute authority of Lords and Ladies over tenants on land that was parceled out by kings to lords and ladies.... That's more of a Frankian/Roman thing. The Danes, Swedes, Norse, etc., brought a nice infusion of "Yeah, you're the top dog, but you're only 1st among equals, and you only lead on the sufferance of those who agree to be led." It made it harder for them to organize, which is why Alfred eventually beat them off by building a system of fortified boroughs. To accomplish that, Alfred and his descendants very much used the church as an arm of the government. But at the same time, the pagans from the continent brought a lot of concepts and attitudes towards lords and ladies that eventually led to Magna Carta. Thank the Germanic and Nordic tribes for a lot of that. In many ways they were more tolerant people than Christians of that day. And remember, virtually everything Christian was the direct result and under the direct guidance of the Pope in Rome. Christianity took over from paganism because it was very much in the interest of kings to have a strong church backing them. The Romans were masters at weaponizing religion, and when Christianity started getting traction in spite of all efforts to crush it, the Romans switched to Christianity and pushed it the same way they pushed the previous religion, whose name escapes me. But active "evangelizing" was a big part of the Roman model. Burn the temples, send in your own priests and build NEW temples. Or just hijack the temples already built. Just stick a cross up on the steeple and call it good. In North America, it's fascinating how many Native American principles and ideals have percolated into the larger culture. There's a brand of stoicism there that would put Marcus Aurelius to shame. We exaggerate the regret of things lost, but in the larger scheme, we recognize and celebrate the mingling of genes and cultures, mostly for the benefit of all involved. Not entirely. Nothing's all one thing. But I'm not going to be mad at Asia because that tall, blonde Swedish woman has a deep tan and beautiful cat eyes from Asia.

[@aaronb2779]

Its unlikely that the Anglo-Saxon migration would have been large enough to entirely replace an entire population.

[@dutchman7623]

@@aaronb2779 Nowhere I stated that they replaced the entire population. They replaced the spoken language and a part of the culture by numbers. From all the groups living in the South and East of England they probably were the largest and after they had settled their language and culture spread over the rest of England to the North and West.

[@dutchman7623]

@Yung Blood Even with the first two words you are wrong. They have their roots in the Indo European languages, from which Latin and Greek also derived. Furthermore in Indo Germanic languages, and West Germanic languages. Seems you do not have any linguistic knowledge at all.

[@roboparks]

The Romo-british population had more of a population (The Active army was sent back to Continental Europe) , but the Germanics had a tactual edge because they had been employed by the Romans as border Guards and had more trainable warriors than the Brits.

[@Odonanmarg]

Someone on KZbin presented the idea that Anglo-Saxons were present in Britain while the Romans were still there (3rd-4th centuries). If Saxons wanted to trade peacefully, the Romans would not have objected. The blending of Celt and Saxon had already begun by the time of the Roman exodus. Pax Romana.

[@a.westenholz4032]

IDK- this seems a rather biased program, with a selective choice of evidence in support of a chosen theory. In some places it really defies common sense. People do not just switch the language they are using just because they like buying stuff of a foreign culture- they do that due to domestic reasons- because for some reason a new language becomes more useful locally. So there must have enough Germanic speaking people in England for the language to change. Further the grammar of English is actually closer to Danish (and perhaps also other Scandinavian languages, but not sure as the linguistic comparison I saw only specifically mentioned Danish), which is not the same as German, and has some very unique features, not found in Celtic or other Germanic languages. I couldn't help but feel that this was less about the facts but more about trying to make Britain by and for the British. Take that first village, while what they find is interesting, can one really extrapolate that to being the case throughout the country? I never thought the "Anglo-Saxons" invaded as such, but rather immigrated and settled where there was space, integrating with the local population. And probably doing so over a period time. Who knows, maybe there was equally a wave of immigration from Britain to the mainland during the same period, but because they adopted the local culture it has never been visible. Anyway, the truth is probably a nuanced point somewhere betwixt these two extremes. No invaders, but there were AS immigrants over time, no significant decline in local population, but a shift in settlement patterns. And there probably was more space to settle in available than people think.

[@bruceironside1105]

I find your comments balanced, logical and willing to accept other ideas given enough strong evidence from more than 1 source. That is the basis of scientific enquiry. Pryor has not followed the same standards.

[@chrislusk3497]

Agreed, I won't bother watching to the end. Why is it called "England" if the "Angles" didn't invade, and why do the English speak a Germanic language? (admittedly a mixed-up mutant sort of Germanic language). I've heard an equally improbably theory about the earlier arrival of Celtic culture in Britain - cultural and linguistic change without invasion.

[@marinusvisser]

Yes, my first impression is the same. Kinda chauvinistic

[@sommmeguy]

Have you ever heard old Friesian? Compared that to old English or even Shakespeare.

[@davidpaterson2309]

There is also a lot of evidence, in the U.K., for whole peoples (both invaders and invaded) disappearing over time as they merged with the local population. The clearest examples of this were in Scotland at around the same time in the early medieval period. At one point there were 5 quite distinct cultural and linguistic groups vying for control of various parts of Scotland - Gaels, Picts, Britons, Angles and Norse (with the later addition of imported Anglo-Normans) and it really isn’t very clear how, over a period of about 500 years, that was reduced down to 2. “Somehow” the ruling Norse of the western islands integrated with the Gaels to produce the “Norse Gaels” (and eventually left the “Norse” bit behind to become the major clans of the west). “Somehow” the Gaels of the western mainland integrated with the Picts of the Eastern mainland and Pictish language and culture disappeared. “Somehow” the Britons of the south west were squeezed between the Norse-Gaels of the west and the Angles of the south east - but not before the Angles themselves had been influenced by the Britons and the Norse-Gaels. Yet by the 12th c only variations of Gaelic and Scots (derived from the language of the Angles) survived with only pockets of Norse and Brythonic. No doubt there was warfare and enslavement between the groups, but there really isn’t, as far as I know, any evidence at all of massacre let alone genocide. What’s certain is that 500 years is more than 40 generations and that a great deal can happen in that time among comparatively small numbers of people, however culturally different they might have been to start with.

[@camilobautista46]

You guys told me to keep my eyes open on Wednesday for a Saxon video..... and guess what ?? Here it is and here i am ! Thank you guys, love this history. More Saxons pleasee

[@ChronicleMedieval]

😉

[@mauriziocosta8416]

Populations of Germanic language were already present in southern Great Britain and in Kent (Cantus) starting from at least the first century BC, coming from Belgica. They largely provided support for the Roman conquest.

[@roboparks]

They miss that in the Documentary LOL that Germanic Tribes work for the Romans and acted has Border Guards on the frontier. This is an extremely important point they omitted from the documentary.

[@colinclark7023]

I agree with what you are saying, the Celtic and germanic languages were established in Britain before the arrival of the Romans. The primary mode of transportation and trade was by boat. Celtic language and culture spread up the western side of the British Isles from Europe via southern France and Spain, while the Frisian language influenced the eastern side of Britain. If there was an Anglo-Saxon invasion and population replacement in 500AD, was there also a Celtic invasion sometime in the past too? Other than the ramblings of a couple of monks, written centuries after the event, there is no evidence of an Anglo-Saxon invasion and population replacement. The narrative relating to an invasion of Jutes, Angles, and Saxons from northern Germany, is vague, inconsistent, and quite frankly not all that believable. For example, the Romans established Christianity in Britain, the Anglo Saxons replaced monotheism with paganism, and then miraculously a monk from Rome re-establishes Christianity and saves everyone from the heathens....again. Frisian has the closest lexical relationship with English and not German, - funny how that's never written into the Anglo-Saxon invasion storyline. We may never know the real reason why the Frisian language made its way into becoming the most dominant language in England, but the clergy had a good crack at filling in the knowledge gaps, which unfortunately have carried on through to today.

[@Colin-Fenix]

"The real story will reshape our future and rewrite our past." Sounds poetic, but far from true... Sure, it might rewrite our past, but I don't think changing theories (yes, even he is spouting theory) could necessarily change the future.

[@randlebrowne2048]

He sounds to me (especially at the end) like someone who is in favor of globalism, and not of Brexit.

[@rickmorgan3930]

How about William the Conqueror? Most certainly an invader, and a few well-known battlefields, but otherwise the landscape of the countryside was unchanged. Just to say that a village survived through a given period with no obvious signs of warfare does not mean there was no invasion. Sorry, but this refutation of the Anglo-Saxon invasion absolutely fails in my opinion.

[@kevwhufc8640]

The Normans did change the landscape, they dug ditches and piled it into a mound and built a wooden fort , before eventually enlarging the ditches and the castles using stone . But the Norman invasion didn't affect the ordinary population, they didn't displace the local Celtic Germanic peoples with French or Norman people. Bbut Only the top end lived here, the lords barons who were given land for fighting for William. The Germanic peoples definitely came to Britain/England and settled here, It just didn't happen in the way old history books used to claim. But because of archaeology we know it wasn't a simple invasion like when the Vikings came, and they returned for easy pickings as well as good farmland. The Saxons didn't come with the big army killing everyone in their way burning churches raping and pillaging. The Saxons came over more subtlety, some were paid mercenaries and others came to take advantage of a leaderless country, after 400 years of Roman rule when they left everything changed, the monetary system reverted back to bartering, and most places excepted the rule of the new local chieftain / kings . But with much less violence compared to the Vikings. Take any English town with Celtic settlement then Roman and then Saxon, the archaeology shows the same story , the people carried on farming etc and with little or no violence new leaders are accepted, obviously there are a few exceptions, that wernt so peaceful, but generally speaking most towns like mine passed from old leaders to new ones , and work, farming etc continued as usual. .

[@gregmattson2238]

yeah I tend to agree. absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. To me it was a bit disingenuous of him to completely disregard the genetic study in question. To me, larger studies on that front are the way to get at the real truth. Likewise, him saying without any real evidence that the collapse of the roman empire didn't imply a collapse of the local population. It really depends on how self-sustaining the locals are - If the boats that carried excess food stopped arriving and the technical know-how wasn't there, you BET there was a population collapse in the cities. That's why the guy he was talking to looked so incredulous when he made such a statement, and the most charitable he could be was 'well that's a farmers way of looking at it alright'

[@kevwhufc8640]

@@gregmattson2238 your absolutely right, it depended on how self sufficient , how adaptable , the people from other towns were after the Roman's left. Some adapted and remained unaffected by the administration and supply chain under Roman rule , and continued farming etc Others didn't or couldn't change and they were abandoned and their ruins are in the middle of nowhere. Towns like verulamium changed and adapted to survive and they did, and peacefully, no signs of attack or violence, , the people from the old Roman city at some point accepted the new king of the region & carried on farming etc , and eventually moved to the new Saxon town the church built on top of the hill , and the same thing, era after era the town adapted until the modern time & city it is today . I hate the generalisation that so many historians give , The Romans left and the Saxons invaded and took over England and wiped out anyone in their way... It was nothing like as simple as that, its more complex and interesting, and not as violent as historians try making it seem.

[@hypppo]

@@kevwhufc8640 Have you heard about the harrowing of the north? William killed between 1/6 and 1/4 of the population of north east England.

[@kevwhufc8640]

@@hypppo yes I know about that , as I do most things that happened in my country's history. The north, east and west has always been a troublesome part of England, from Roman times & Saxon times and of course against the Norman barons & then the pheasants revolt.. Its been called the wild west of England.

[@sa25-svredemption98]

The ideas might have been plausible, except we do have many battle sites that associate with times of legend (the dark ages) rather than explicitly recorded historic events (ie, the Battle of Bannockburn). This is largely associated with the fact that post-Roman Britain reverted to an oral society, rather than a written society - a point that was well documented by late Dark Age historians like Bede. Most of the records of the Dark Ages are in fact from religious locations - churches, monasteries, abbeys, etc. In the archeological side, there are remains of battles and conflicts, but ones that cannot be definitively linked with one battle or another. We see Dark Age kingdoms like Gwynedd and Strathclyde with definitive archeological sites of conflict, but the records of those kingdoms are scarce and mostly oral history that was recorded sometimes centuries after the fact. That is why legends like King Arthur are legend, as opposed to definable history. That's different from myth, where there is no link. A legend is truth, but the story we get is largely embellished and not necessarily entirely accurate. However, there is historical truth in the story. Mythology is the other side of that coin - things like the Giants and Gods of Celtic traditions. That isn't legend, but mythology. Whereas the history of Edward I is definitive history - the written record and the archeological record are one and the same, the places are identifiable. What this program seems to do is mix legend with mythology. That is wrong. The legends of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table may well contain mostly fictious stories, but the fact that certain battles took place, the prominence of certain Celtic kings and leaders, and their Anglo-Saxon and Jute counterparts, are largely factual. As a result, I feel this documentary is ignoring a lot of historical and archeological evidence and source material in making it's conclusions - as evidenced by the interviewees with whom there is disagreement. I know that places like the University of St Andrews have gone considerably into the archeological and written history of kingdoms like Cumbria and Strathclyde, looking at this conflict between the Celtic nations and the Anglo-Saxon nations. Indeed, the wider evidence of widespread conflict across Eurasia at the time, along with records of plagues and famines, indicate that there is more than just a sliver of truth in the Celtic-Anglo wars of the Dark Ages. Indeed, unless the hypothesis is to dismiss the widespread disorder of the period from the late 400's until the late 1000's, it is inconceivable that the conflicts of the mainland would avoid some sort of equal period of disturbance on the British Isles.

[@there-sis-stanceiscoming8230]

I will re-read when not tired ... I skipped from the point at the start about oral tradition (absolutely) ... to the end ... although I spotted 'mythology' ... and I can waffle a while how there are mythology words in english that sort of 'shouldn't be there' ... echos of an oral tradition time when people appreciated the very famous myths of a land far far away ... the myths aint real but the cultures with myths were real ... In case I 4-get, the best phatom-time hypothesis around (although Fomenko's highlighting of Joseph Scalliger is worth checking-out), in my semi-humble estimation ... is Gunaar Heinsonn (thankfully a nonsense club of you-tube rubbish hasn't started from his little known hypothesis, focussing on archaology, although the nonsense-club often refer to stuff that would add to his hypothesis (bizarrely buried old world stuff - they weave it into nonsense, but it adds to the Heinsonn theory)) Heinsonn explains his version of the King Arthur story, and it kinda makes more sense, since he removes the contradiction of Arthur v Romans and Arthur v later invaders. The Welsh claim there were two Arthurs instead. Phantom-time hypothesis dont have to necessarily delete 'dark ages' ... for example ... the jesuit chronicle-collators and editor-'translators' of the holy roman empire (Scalliger and co, funded by the Medici family and others), where western and meditteranean history-writing was briefly centralised ... well, they could have stretched some chronicles here and there ... to fit their agenda (stretching catholic imperialism and such back hundreds of years to glorify the dynasties and 'benevolence', and banish cultural memories of the old world, for the furthering of their power of the 'reborn' world they controlled) ... but stretching the dark ages (necessary if their agenda was anything like what I speculate) doesn't mean there weren't any, necessarily ... Anyway, such a possibility kind of renders pre-renaissance cross-referencing a bit futile (between stories of the lands concerned), since the chronicles could have been embellished and stretched and the cross-referencing already thought of by falsifiers ... at the very least the possibility casts a shadow of doubt ... Which would leave archaelogy as the main remaining jigsaw pieces we have of the old world ...

[@sa25-svredemption98]

@@there-sis-stanceiscoming8230 there are greater sources than just the written record of structured civilisation - when you get a chance to reread my comment, you'll see what I mean. But you are correct that largely our knowledge of that era does come from archeology. However, as I raise in my earlier comment, that archeology is largely void of defining narratives - rather, it gives us a sense of the turmoil and the actors in play at the time. What the legends do is give us greater depth with which to view the archeology. Not verbatim, of course, but to see that they come from a source of truth that, in turn, has been embellished and distorted for one reason or another.

[@iparipaitegianiparipaitegi4643]

How to explain that the Celtic culture disappeared in England after the arrival of the Anglo Saxons? The Anglo Saxons wiped out the romano-britons in the regions they conquered, either killing and looting or enslaving the locals. Otherwise, in the case of pacific settlements, the Celtic culture would have survived.

[@sokar_rostau]

That's simply not true. For all the places it's invaded, America's influence is most strongly apparent in the countries it hasn't attacked. Sure, wearing jeans doesn't make you an American any more than driving a German car makes you German but when most of your movies, TV shows, books, and songs, are American, when a hamburger and Coke is available everywhere (not just at the American fast-food restaurant on just about every corner), when the local language changes to the point that the alphabet itself switches to the American version, people use American spellings, American pronunciations, American idioms, and even the numerical system changes, what do you call that? All of this has happened in barely more than half a century, what would two or three hundred years look like?

[@williammkydde]

@@sokar_rostau Saxons were not America. They didn't bring any cars or electronics or chewing gum, and they didn't bring any books. The Romans had books - but Latin hasn't survived in Britain.

[@varrjames186]

If only history lessons were as interesting as this at school.

[@ninaelsbethgustavsen2131]

Classroom teaching is beyond boring. Teachers all sounds like the one in "Peanuts". Going ; Wha wha wha...😄 I read through my history curriculum book in a few evenings, and spent the rest of history classes in the school library. Reading encyclopedias. This was before Google ! I'm sure a lot of students today would learn more and faster on their own, given the chance.

[@varrjames186]

@@ninaelsbethgustavsen2131 The company that I work for booked me in for a one week occupation health and safety course a few year ago...things haven't changed Nina, it felt like the longest week of my life!

[@PaulWhite-br9wi]

I doubt the Celts just 'learnt a new language', there had to be a reason they adopted this new language, I don't think any language is just cast off.

[@gameburn178]

If you offer education, trade and the legal system -- together with a key conquest or 2 -- you can get people to learn another language, originally perhaps as a second language. Indians still speak English, and India is hardly inundated by British DNA.

[@nuttall47]

I'm sure you would have built a great big fort to ship goods. Makes so much sense.

[@paulmcclung9383]

Actually that's not entirely unreasonable. Ascelon in Isreal (a trade port) had an associated fort. Several early trading post in colonial America had forts. I think that piracy in the English channel might go back this far. You may be right about them being defense against invasion, but they could be simply to protect all that stuff waiting to be picked up by customers.

[@Crispvs1]

Yes and no. A strongly defended fort provides good protection for valuable goods, just as it does for people. What the man in the programme failed to notice though was that the shore forts all have projecting towers and bastions which allow for wide fields of defensive projectile fire which also cover all areas of wall between the various bastions and towers. If they were only intended as storehouses, the builders would not have gone to the extra work and expense of building such obviously military features which were purposely designed to keep attackers away from the walls.

[@mattzoozb1385]

14:20 "these forts..had a supply role rather than a defensive function" he says, _standing right in front of a turret_

[@kevwhufc8640]

Backfilled ditches contain more moisture than the land around that hasn't been dug up , so the crops grow taller than the others either side of a ditch . If a solid Roman floor is under the ground, concrete or flagstone The opposite happens, the crops are stunted, shorter than those around the outside of the ancient building remains. Sunset or sunrise is the best time to look for signs of habitation For those who don't have access to expensive geo-phys equipment ..

[@Exiledk]

I have a theory. The land was available due to the falling population and they heard about it on the continent. They moved to vacant land. Peacefully and unhindered.

[@RuneRelic]

"This theory fell out of favour among modern scholars as successive inscriptions of IX Hispana were found in the site of the legionary base at Nijmegen (Netherlands), suggesting the Ninth may have been based there from c. 120 AD, later than the legion's supposed annihilation in Britain."

[@Boglim]

Leave it to a history documentary where people in the comments go nuts

[@savagecub]

One only needs to watch the soccer fan hooligans to get an accurate glimpse of those ancient Britons !

[@ninaelsbethgustavsen2131]

That's why fotball is best watched on tv. 😉 No hooligans.... (Unless you're married to one, that is). 🤣 [⚽️🏃‍♂️] 🍺🙆‍♂️🛋

[@MH3GL]

"The 'real' story will reshape our future and rewrite our past." Yeah... They've been trying to do that for a minute. At least they're being up front an honest about it now.

[@carolesmith4864]

Yeah, when he said that, I thought, "uh-oh".

[@soccerchamp0511]

Y'all do realize that history is being rewritten all the time because historians and archaeologists are always finding new information and new things? What exactly do you think historians do all the time, just sit on their arses and write the same things over and over again? No, it's called research. There's no need to do research if we already know everything, which we definitely do not. History is not set in stone because we don't have all the information yet, so our view and understanding of it is always being updated. It's kind of like putting together a puzzle where we don't have all the pieces to the puzzle yet. We can guess and make theories about how they fit together, and sometimes it might seem like we are on the right track. But we'll never be able to fully solve the puzzle without all the pieces.

[@Bjowolf2]

@@soccerchamp0511 Except that he is just making far fetched PC claims without any evidence whatsoever to back them up that are in complete contradiction to all sources and all common sense - why would lots of indigenous British ( Celtic) peoples all of a sudden start speaking a foreign, "unrelated" ( only true linguistic experts can see these links between Celtic tongues and the Old English / Anglo-Saxon of the migrants / invaders ) and very different language and then even completely forget their own Celtic languages - almost without any traces of them! - in many large parts of England, unless they were forced to do so or being pushed out of their lands by the armed and warlike newcomers? And isn't it bit hard to imagine that the arrival of 10.000s of new settlers over 100 - 200 years with a very different culture and incomprehensible languages really would have gone down peacefully and quietly without any strong conflicts or even local wars everywhere?

[@MrRomero00]

@@Bjowolf2 the Romano british were basically cucked by the Roman's and when they pulled out they were sitting ducks for pictish and irish raiders who were ravaging them, so they called a bunch of germanic warriors over to help them secure the island, only for them to essentially be like "this is mine now" and slowly overtook the island and replaced the britons culturally. Genetically they are still mostly "celtic" but culturally it was a complete shift.

[@Bjowolf2]

@@MrRomero00Well, yes - but that depends very much on where you look in Britain. Otherwise the language wouldn't have been replaced so completely that there is hardly any traces left of the Celtic languages in English - neither in vocabularies nor in grammar - except for some place names and a few words in some dialects. ( The peculiar novelty use of the word "do" in late Middle English - compared to all other Germanic languages! - is probably an influence from Welsh speakers with "imperfect" English skills ). English is a very Germanic language at its core - with large layers of Norman French / French & Latin added on top of it later on ( the Latin in English did not come directly from the Roman occupation ) - albeit now in a much simplified and completely restructured form compared to the West Germanic Old English, probably due to the later intensive contact with the Viking settlers and their closely related, but grammatically different North Germanic Old Norse language. Modern English ( & Middle English ) has a much more North Germanic grammatical structure in many respects as well as more similarities & closeness in many basic words to the Scandinavian languages ( descended from Old Norse ) - like the result of some sort of simplistic creole mix between OE & ON along the lines of the lowest common denominator - to such a degree that learning English is still fairly easy for us Scandinavians ( three very similar languages ), whereas most of us are close to hopeless at learning and speaking German ( West Germanic ) above the most basic level, simply give up before very long or don't even bother at all 🙄😅. Hav en god dag [daygh], min frænd(e) 🤗

[@johnmoore9404]

GREAT VIDEO - I am not sure I agree with all the statements but it certainly makes one think. I wish we could go back and see what really happened.

[@capcompass9298]

The way I heard it was the "Barbarian" Jutes, Angles and Saxons were employed by the Romans as auxilaries and when the main Roman army left (380s AD) they left the auxilaries and more and more Anglo-Saxon relatives immigrated to be with families already here (with Friesian sailors). No need for the Tartan Army to invade Wembley every year. "History video scan be dangerous things, especially when they're brilliantly presented".

[@andyjarman4958]

We are conditioned to think of nation states. Without nation states there are just people, families, groups of families with kinship ties. Half my family speak Spanish, half English, we live in Australia. We're from Argentina and the UK, and we hold Australian passports. Before the 1700s it was much much easier to trade goods via waterways. The people of the Mediterranean will readily accept their classical common heritage. Why are we so resistant to accepting an idea we have common cause with the other people's who are united by the North Sea's coast? Doggerland enabled people to walk from Norfolk to Denmark until about 5,000BC, about the time Celtic culture arrived from mainland Europe. Why people suppose English is not an indigenous language beats me. Nothing was written down before the Romans. Even today their are six indigenous languages. If half your family are from the Rhineland you are bound to pick up the lingo, it's good for business. A lot of brittle ideas about culture make this documentary contentious, not the ideas it is airing.

[@paulmcclung9383]

Explain Bosnia and Rwanda

[@bruceironside1105]

Another/better video that looks at the written and archeological evidence, and discusses both without a preconceived outcome, is on Kings and General channel.

[@keboonplumeria5266]

Thanks for this eye-opening insights

[@grahvis]

To me, it seems a big problem is when thinking about the times back then, they think in terms of the existence of separate clearly defined kingdoms which wasn't the case. It was more likely to have been a matter of slow migration, with intermarriage and local people adopting new cultures. Whilst in later times, the Welsh language was suppressed, it was also killed off to some extent by those aspiring to be middle class having the attitude that speaking Welsh was for the working class and not for them. Fashion and snobbery can be very powerful.

[@juliejanesmith57]

That one guy put it right when he talked about people not wanting to change their understanding of history, but he himself finding it “far more interesting to find out it was all wrong.” I feel this was completely, its why I live learning about history because if you go into enough detail or deep enough you always find something that completely shifts your idea of the mental image you had about the people at that time.

[@0harris0]

they are looking at the evidence of a post-"roman"/"saxon"/"celt" cataclysm, and completely ignoring it! :P

[@mithrasinvictus4291]

A major point of evidence is the language. How is that being overlooked? There is clearly a distinct connection between the English language and that of the Saxons of Germany. The language factor is the single most clear point that Saxons and Angles did in fact invade. Second is the fact that the language and invasion conquest only made across the lowlands. The Britons were able to hold out within the mountains of Scotland and Wales. Along with this comes the DNA evidence and the burials of Saxon kings in kurgans within England. Along with this we must compare conquest to other events elsewhere, like with the Battle of Hastings and Stamford Bridge which had small armies that contested a vast country. Thirdly is the fact that the Norse themselves have sagas which mention fighting the Saxons in England. The evidence therefore can also be backed up by third party accounts. This also goes for the fact that the Welsh in their own language refer to the English as Saxons (Saesneg). Why would native Britons starts calling other so called native Britons "Saxons" if they were also Britons. Lastly we have the Battle of Badon, in which the Britons managed to defeat and check the Saxon advance. This was recorded by Gildas a Briton monk, Bede, and in the Welsh Annals. If England had not been conquered by a foreign force then they would be speaking Welsh today, or otherwise Latin. There would not have abandoned Latin or Welsh to speak the language of a people who live in Northern Germany and Denmark for no reason, that makes absolutely no sense. It would be like the Japanese abandoning their language to speak Mongolian by choice. That kind of thing simply doesn't happen. The Saxons and Angles in fact settled and became the population, absorbing whoever didn't run for the highlands, otherwise their language would not have stuck.

[@paperflowers-ks6vv]

Great comment! There are also accounts from Constantinus of Lyon, Zosimus and Gallic Chronicles that the Britons were conquered by the Saxons.

[@gogogeedus]

I totally agree with the closing statement but I would go further to include Coffee and the legacy it has imparted to English culture to the extent that the elite Coffee culture was adopted into Law and Authority having influence in the courts and parliament, a member of the Coffee houses or a member of the Bar could make decisions relating to law the legacy of which still exists today in our judicial system.

[@jrjubach]

I could listen to Francis talk for hours and hours and hours.

[@rogeriopenna9014]

The last theory I had heard is that the Saxons (germanics, whoever they were) had been mercenaries hired by Rome, as was already pretty usual all around the Empire at this period. So they were the military power and there was already a growing germanic influence before Rome left. They did bring families and probably, as they ALREADY dominated the Island even before Rome left, there was no opposition. Even before they OCCUPIED the land, they simply had replaced Roman legions (they became the legions) and thus held military power. In the power vaccuum, leaders became new kings. And then invited more immigrants from Germanic lands. Not much the local population could do, since the old Roman military structure had already been replaced by the germanics and the Roman power by leaders of these armies becoming kings. That would explain the easiness to bring more people, to replace the language and the lack of battles. ps: maybe before the germanic legions, there was already some depopulation caused by a plague? ps2: the whole "romans went away, and with them the taxes... so there should be MORE PEOPLE, happy with not taxes" is just so nonsensical argument. People are happy with the lack of taxes until the structure, roads, all government systems around them crumble. Rome fell all around western Europe and there WAS depopulation. Did continental Europeans of the time missed the Roman taxes while Britons alone decided to multiply while partying the end of taxation?

[@williammkydde]

Very interesting, and explains almost everything. The argument about the taxes made me laugh too. The state means security and roads. To hell with your farming, if an armed gang can raid your homestead and steal your good and your children. Some archeologists should learn history.

[@huntergray3985]

I watched this for almost 45 minutes trying to work out just what Francis Pryor's alternative theory of Anglo-Saxon history is. But in the last few minutes we discover that he doesn't really have a workable alternative history and the whole point of the programme is simply to assert that England has always been a multi-cultural country (I'm very surprised that he failed to insert any African or Asian content to the pre-Norman landscape,) that diversity and immigration are good, and there is no such thing as being English. To prove his illiberal-left credentials he even manages to introduce, _apropos_ nothing, Robin Cook. This is not history or archeology it is polemic.

[@PNETriffid]

Your comment is also polemic (you do use the cliché 'illiberal left'), though I concede your point that there isn't much meat on his theory. Personally I think the idea of an organised large-scale 'Anglo-Saxon' invasion of 'England' is deeply misleading. With the collapse of the Roman Empire came the collapse of urban life in 'England' (the 'Celtic Fringes at least had some society due to the survival of organised Christianity), almost all trade, roads, education etc. disappeared in the space of a few years. There was basically no government in southern Britain at this time, anarchy in the truest sense of the word prevailed, and it was not until the end of the sixth century that petty kingships (bandits and warlords essentially) appeared on the scene. For a century or more, there was enough land to comfortably sustain piecemeal immigration. There is not a shred of evidence to suggest that King Arthur ever existed, or that there was a violent clash of cultures between the 'English' and 'British' peoples. That, in a nutshell, is the 'alternative theory' to Vortigern, Arthur and an organised Germanic invasion of Britain. Hope that helps.

[@TheStarBlack]

I think Pryor's 'theory' here is just a flight of fancy built on shaky to non-existent evidence. But its nothing to do with the left.

[@OmenfromNature]

To understand history we need to keep in mind that it has always been written to suit the narrative of Rulers.

[@tempesttree8839]

There's a lot to be said, that's typically under spoken of, about the ancient pre-existing pictish and celtic peoples and cultures of the British isles that existed for centuries before mainland European visitors arrived. That history interests me far more than what came along to disrupt and dismantle it and ultimately replace it.

[@williammkydde]

France, Italy, Spain sustained significant Germanic invasions and periods of domination. A part of France was also conquered by Scandinavians (Normandy). Yet, all those peoples kept the Latin language as their vernacular. They did not adopt the Ostro- or Wisigothic, or Frankish, or Norse languages. Instead, the conquerors ended up speaking respective post-Latin languages. Something very different happened in England. Either the Latinization of the Britonic population was short-lived and perhaps not very profound, or something big happened with demographics and society. It is hard to imagine that a literate, civilized people of Britain/Lloegr, with their "established church" (what language did that church use?) would voluntarily switch to barbaric languages of illiterate colonizers. People don't easily switch languages. And I am still waiting to be shown the Celtic atavisms in the English language: the verb "to be"? What else?

[@robertmarks8701]

I think Francis Prior's concluding remarks are both absurd and politically tainted. The only way the Saxon language could have become the dominant language in the former Roman province of Britannia was if they conquered it and became it's new rulers. If there is no evidence for a "big bang" or series of big bang conquest events like battles, then I cannot argue with the archaeology. But become the rulers they must have done otherwise the native population would never have had any incentive to learn the new language that ultimately displaced their own. He sounds like an Englishman to me. The people whose language was subordinated and eventually displaced are now called "Welsh". That term is not their name for themselves. It originated as the Saxon term "wealh" meaning a foreigner or stranger. Later on it acquired connotations of slavery. The name for England in modern Welsh transliterates as "the lost land". To my mind, that says it all - those b******s took our country from us. None of this fits with Dr Prior's picture of the natives saying "gosh, these new people have another language! Lets go and learn it!" It might also be worth mentioning that there is scarcely a single Welsh loanword in English. That is a sure sign of the master and servant relation between the Saxon newcomers and the Welsh natives. In addition to these considerations, the conclusions are used to support the relatively recent immigration of large numbers of people from across the globe into the UK. While some people see that immigration as beneficial, others do not. That matter is one of political judgement. I do not think the events of the distant past are relevant to modern immigration, but if they are the case is definitely against it and to that extent Dr Prior's conclusions are tainted by his own prejudices.

[@turquoisepink8033]

It's clearly very biased. As others have pointed out, the language change is enough evidence that this invasion happened. Yes, it was likely slow and steady (and not some type of D Day landing scenario) but it still had a negative impact on the Brythonic population. So, why didn't the Saxons learn Brythonic and the Brythonic culture remain dominant? How did the Welsh end up being pushed out of their own land and into Wales? How do they explain these changes? The fact that the Welsh fought to retain their language, even after the English government brought in anti-Welsh language policies just shows that people do not want to give up their language. It goes against human nature. Not just in Wales/ Britain but in all other societies. It's an uncomfortable truth for many English which is why they are now trying to downplay and re-write the past. Trying to re-brand themselves as 'immigrants/ migrants' other than invaders is absurd. Immigration does not displace the original culture and language, it integrates. Which is not what the Saxons did. Had Britain never been invaded by the Saxons, Anglos, Normans etc the British/ Welsh would have been much better off. Would still be living all over Britain, have own las, all be speaking the same language. And also likely be very rich from all the natural resources (not just in Wales but all over England as that was originally Brythonic land).

[@robertmarks8701]

@@turquoisepink8033 Agreed. Before history makes any real sense you have to look at the detailed "micro" circumstances applying in each case and also try to place it in a wider context. Ever wondered why there is no such thing as a Scottish language? There is English, Welsh (Cymraeg is more proper, I think) and Irish/Gaelic. All these languages were/ still are spoken in the territory of modern Scotland. Welsh has been extinct here since the early middle ages. That extinction was started when the Strathclyde Welsh were extinguished as an independent kingdom (around 1050) by the Scots of Dalriada that were Gaelic speakers. Once the Welsh speaking rulers were gone their language disappeared within 200-300 years. There certainly were Welsh speakers in the (Scottish) army of David I when he invaded England in1138. When William Wallace was active in the independence struggle around 1300, any mention of Welsh speech was over. Wallace came from the heartland of Welsh speaking and his name is English/Saxon for a Welshman. It might be worth mentioning that Pictish speech was also displaced by the Dalriadic Scots and their Gaelic. There is no doubt that displacement of one language by another is a sure sign of a political conquest of one language/ethnic group by another. Dr Prior can kid himself as much as he likes. The AngloSaxons were conquerors that displaced the Welsh ruling class and forced the lower levels of Welsh society to learn English whether they wanted to or not. That is no doubt difficult for many modern English people to accept.

[@turquoisepink8033]

@@robertmarks8701 Yes! I am now just discovering the history of Scotland and the Dalriada! I know it's an uncomfortable truth for the 'Celtic nations' but technically the Scots behaved like colonists in Britain too. They too 'kicked' the Welsh from their own land, as well as the Pictish population. As you say, there are Brythonic/ Welsh names in Scotland- Strathclyde and Lothian used be part of Yr Hen Ogeldd, which means The Old North in Welsh. Dumbarton Castle was originally Brythonic. The fact the nobody speaks Pictish any more shows that there was colonisation. Scots Gaelic is as much of an 'invader' language as English. Had the Saxons not invaded, the Welsh/ Brythonic would have still been in a war with the invading Irish/ Scots. Likely would have done a better job at fighting them off, because the Welsh were busy trying to defend themselves from the Saxons too. It must have been really hard having to be fighting off so many enemies! The Scots were no friends to the Welsh. This part of British history is overlooked, it's always framed as Welsh vs England and Scotland vs England. When it was actually Welsh vs Scots and English. And the country boundaries and nationalities hadn't been established yet. So it was the Brythonic/ Welsh trying to defend their own land. Your last paragraph is spot on. This 'peaceful Saxon invasion theory' is still going, and anyone who understands history and human behaviour can see that it makes no sense at all. I'm glad that people can see through it. It's hugely insulting to the Brythonic people and what they must have gone through at that time.

[@turquoisepink8033]

@@robertmarks8701 And just to add. Welsh history tends to focus on the time after Wales was 'established' and how the English behaved Owain Glyndwr to the the anti-Welsh language laws etc. Not enough focus is put on this period of time- when the Saxons/ English literally kicked the Welsh off their own land. Do people even realise that the Welsh lived all over England at one point? I think this is why they are trying to downplay it.

[@robertmarks8701]

@@turquoisepink8033 Don't get the idea that there are "good guys" and "bad guys" in history. The difference between the various ethnic and language groups in the past are not so different from today. Strength, power, fighting ability, economic activity counted then just as they do now. The "strong" took from the "weak" then as they do now. Ethics counted for nothing - or almost nothing. Dark age and medieval Christians genuinely believed that they had the right and duty to defeat, conquer and convert pagans, Jews and Muslims at the boundaries of Christendom. The muslim armies of the prophet didn't come to convert by peaceful persuasion. Victory by one group over another was seen as God's support for the victor and his disapprobation of the defeated. Going back to the Scots of Dalriada - they had already defeated the Picts around 843 AD. The Pictish language vanished over the next 200 years or so and was replaced by Gaelic, the language of the new ruling class. Same old story! Why can't Dr Prior see it?

[@Greg-yu4ij]

I was mesmerized just watching Dr. Sam talk. Her face looks like it could come off one of those King Arthur paintings. 😂

[@tiredgardener]

I thought this was a bit dated, then seeing Robin Cook at the end confirmed that this is quite old.

[@mikewellwood1412]

Yes, I looked for the copyright date and it's either 2004 or 2005 (MMIV or MMV - it was hard to see which). There must have been loads more research done since.

[@ADobbin1]

Why did saxon german become the main language instead of the latin or celtic they probably all grew up with? Whole populations don't just suddenly start speaking foreign languages without being forced to by invasion or some other cause. Rich people often do but the poor farmers and such don't have time for such frivolities. Even the Norman invasion of england which should have made french the dominant language didn't wipe out local saxon english. It remained the basis of modern english.

[@IosuamacaMhadaidh]

I watched this yesterday, yet says it was posted 5 hours ago? Just weird.

[@Melanie220]

It's been around for quite awhile, I saw it ages ago. Francis Pryor's docs get uploaded to a lot of different channels.

[@shopsshire9282]

Saw this documentary before. It's most likely a re-upload.

[@maxfan1591]

On top of my comment about linguistics a few days ago, I'd like to take on Pryor's belief that the departure of the Roman army and the removal of Roman taxes led to an overall increase in prosperity, at 7:00. Very simply, I don't see why the departure of the Roman army would have led to taxes not being collected. Military and civil administration were quite separate in the late Roman Empire, and archaeological and written evidence suggests civil administration survived in some form for at least 20 years after the departure of the Roman army. In a fairly non-urbanised place like Britain I figure that most tax collection would have been in kind. And as civil administration declined it would have been easy for the wealthy (that is, land owners) to step in to do their own tax collection. The remaining limitanei (second-line garrison) military forces would have gravitated to whoever could pay them - which would again be the wealthy land owners - and gradually added armed tax gathering to their garrison duties.

[@toddmcdaniels1567]

Welsh word order was VSO. How would influence from that create English dependence on SVO word order? Far more likely, SVO resulted from the verb second rule already in English.

[@andylyon3867]

We know that the Danes took over without one he'll of a fight...why not these German boat people(basically Vikings) also.

[@FritsGerlich07]

It wasn't just one hell of a fight, it was a long-term invasion which happened in different stages spread out over a longer period of time. And just like the Danes it wasn't exactly peaceful. Both used violence to establish and expand their newly conquered dominions in Britain.

[@davidbenyehuda7618]

Shalom, the Danes are our cousins, they are Danites.

[@chrisscott6500]

You only have to look at language, culture, religion to know that the English are a germanic people. It is so glaringly obvious that it's painful. Both Angles and Saxons are from northern Germany, and we have archaeological evidence of angles and saxons being the ruling class in England after the 5th century. That along with historical writings confirming that as being true. Don't need a doctorate to figure out it's based in fact.

[@hrfnwarian6473]

Right, did they just forget about Edwin, Oswald, Offa, Ethelbert, Cedric, Æthelwülf and many other Anglo-Saxon kings? The whole Anglo-Saxon chronicles tome is a record of all the Anglo-Saxon rulers from the 5th century on.

[@aaronb2779]

Thats not whats being asked here. Did you watch the documentary?

[@chrisscott6500]

@@aaronb2779 yep

[@markiec8914]

@@hrfnwarian6473 Cerdic was an Anglo-Saxon chieftain with a Celtic name. Caedmon ( the father of Old English poetry) was an Anglo-Saxon but his name definitely was not. This means that language/ethnic identity distinction between the Britons and the Saxons gradually overlapped.

[@ajrwilde14]

Genetic evidence: Average English person is 60% Celtic

[@victorcano1289]

Doubt that a pre roman language like Cymraeg (welsh) suddenly came up with the word Saeson (the word they use to call the english people today) to refer to the same saxons that history mentions, which is also very similar to the current word Sachsen (saxony) in german, the same saxons (the ones who stayed) who have a complex history in the overrall history of Germany, today 3 german states still have saxony in their name (Sachsen, Sachsen-Anhalt, Niedersachsen). In the oldest written book in welsh, the black book of Caermarthen (Llyfr du Caerfyrddin) it mentions Hen ogedd (the old north, when Scotland and Wales were connected by land) why would they romanticize an old brittonic connection that was cut by non-brittonic kingdoms, also the legend of King Arthur, Y brenin arthur, its an old myth of fighting the Anglo-Saxon invaders. Though both books were written in the 13th century, they romanticize past events of what it points a clear cultural distinction between what they consider them and invaders, to be clear we are talking way before ideologies like nationalism and ethno states existed.

[@RuneRelic]

On the question of Forts, where are the vaults and safes to store gold/silver/coins etc, that an economy can not function, without protecting things of value ? Considering the focus on trade and supply line management, were the Romans much different from the later templars...for a fee ?

[@dariusanderton3760]

Some people just like to be contrary for the sake of being contrary.

[@hoWa3920]

Often Redheads :)

[@MH3GL]

"Kings just, sort of, arose in the 6th century..." Yes, because no kings existed before the 6th century; that was a completely new invention. Is this sht for real????

[@richardfinlayson1524]

She is talking about the British Isles, I guess they had to start at some point...what you have a better idea?

[@noorur]

What about Boudica ?

[@bruceironside1105]

@@richardfinlayson1524 small time regional chieftains were King's then and before. The term king came in much letter. and they had superiors over them (high Kings). Only later did they get titles like Duke, earl, marquis, baron and King. But the concepts and roles were always in place.

[@mango2005]

I think it did happen (why would Bede or Gildas make it up?). But I do think its debatable to what extent the invaders self-identified as one people, rather than as followers of a warlord like Hengist or Horsa. After all the Anglo-Saxons didn't unite into one kingdom until Athelstan in the 924. Another point on the language-shift from Brittonic to Old English. I think in some cases the shift was from Latin to Old English, especially in the Lowland zone (eastern England) which was more Romanised.

[@williammkydde]

Then why did they shift from Latin to English, and not the other way out - like in France and Spain? I would think that the literate Celto-Roman elite was erased physically and replaced by Germanic warlords. And the illiterate or less literate Celtic populace was partly decimated, partly pushed out or enslaved.

[@prahalb]

​@@williammkydde they fled to Armorica now called Bretagne (Bretons vs Britons)