Why did The Anglo Saxons Migrate to Britain?

[@Knowledgia]

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[@jaixzz]

In my opinion ~ You'd be right about 'anglicisation' & 'anglicised' ~ maybe not 'anglicization' nor 'anglicized' ?

[@jaixzz]

Liked the 'pict'orial narrative style 'thanx'🎉

[@ScreamingManiac]

English is what you get when you shove celts, britons, scots, picts, latin romans, saxons, angles, jutes, swedish, norweigians, danes, normans, dutch and more germans into a country and say "now you all get along". Might be why we are so good at hating each other while still getting along at a tea party and also saying the most horrible words to each others faces over drinks.

[@death-istic9586]

Love your videos!💚

[@ajc5479]

The best way to describe this video is - Complete BS.

[@Xristoforos41493]

Denmark tiny, has little room. Britain not as tiny, has some more room.

[@abukafiralalmani]

Most of them were Germans

[@SiPakRubah]

Thanks for the TLDW version

[@ScreamingManiac]

I think the Danish also understand the value of being on an island. I'm English and anytime i see an island i have an inner instinct to find a boat, sail over, put a British flag up and build a house there. Can't be a coincidence. The love of Islands is in the blood.

[@SiPakRubah]

@@ScreamingManiac Calm down mate, you gonna bring back your ancestors behaviour again on ruling the world

[@ScreamingManiac]

@@SiPakRubah No islands left to stick flags on unfortunately, we already took most of the good ones. Just wait till humans start going into space. Us English will have a new lease on life once we figure out a way to get to those floating islands in the sky.

[@cornelkittell9926]

I believe that the Frisians also came, but in smaller numbers and did not totally abandon their continental homeland. Very hard to tell apart genetically. And Frisian is still the closest language to English.

[@macwinter7101]

Frisian is the closest language to Old English, but not modern English, given modern English has more words of Latin and French origin than of Germanic origin. If you were to compare the vocabulary of modern English to all other living languages, French would have the highest percentage of cognate words.

[@cornelkittell9926]

@@macwinter7101 Good point! I'm no linguist and some actual linguist said Frisian was the closest to English. But your info certainly rings true. I just wish my grandfather had passed on our native language. My father never heard his father speak either Dutch or Frisian. That leaves me pretty much mono-lingual.

[@tml5940]

I am a frisian and have been in britain many times.......

[@cornelkittell9926]

@@tml5940 The only thing that is still on my bucket list is to visit my ancestral village of Opende in Groningen. The name I had at birth was Hiemstra, not Kittell.

[@andrewwalsh6790]

​By number of words, yes, French, but 80% of words used are Germanic (note - Germanic, not German)

[@adrianlouw2499]

I heard the theory where after the Roman power vacuum the native British kings took to hiring Saxon mercenaries and soon the practice became so prevalent that Angles and Saxons were facing each other in the battlefield and realised they could simply unite and take the lands for themselves.

[@northboy7996]

Probably something to this. Like all history it seems cause & effect is a mixed bag. We like simple answers to complex questions but seems that its always a mix once you get into the details… Seems very likely that your point is apart of this story!

[@adrianlouw2499]

@@northboy7996 Well said.

[@Stevie-L-n8g]

Yeah, that’s probably true, but I heard that the British king reneged on paying them for work done.

[@blackfalcon1610]

Like the Norman’s took southern Italy and Sicily

[@erik5374]

Or the Roman rulers? For example, the Germanic tribes, such as the Franks, took over a significant part of the shrinking Roman Empire: they were invited to populate the terrain, cultivate the soil and defend the empire against other invading tribes.

[@ndie8075]

love my cousins in England.....I am from westfalia in northwest Germany.....and have been many times in England....they are our closest relatives....🇩🇪🇯🇪❤

[@sakkra93]

Greetings from an Anglo-Saxon, kinsman!

[@notmenotme614]

I was talking to somebody from Holland / Netherlands, recently. She was saying how we (British, Dutch, Danish, German) all have a similar culture. We are more like each other than other parts of Europe 🇪🇺 ❤️

[@ndie8075]

@@notmenotme614 yes we have....🇱🇺🇩🇪🇬🇧🇩🇰northwest germanic

[@gazza2933]

I live in Eastern England and I have Anglo - Scandinavian ancestry. Can we come back over please? Nothing for the English on this island anymore. 👍 🇩🇪 🇩🇰 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

[@ndie8075]

@@gazza2933 I know....so it is high time to preserve England against wokeness and leftwing politicians.... It's your proud country your legacy....your english soil...your rules.....🙌✌

[@ChrisJohannsen]

My family ancestry is from Angles but we never went to England. But ironically still ended up in Anglo colonies. (Australia, USA and Canada)

[@THINKincessantly]

Spread the seed

[@ScreamingManiac]

You colonizer lol :P

[@robertlee4172]

My British born friend is half Scottish by his mother's family. English by his father's family. But I said he is Scandinavian, from his family name. He gave me a dirty look. That was over 30 years ago, before the internet age. His name...Anderson. Son of Anders. The name traces back thousands of years to northern Europe, meaning "brave". But he insists it's British.

[@robertlee4172]

@@ScreamingManiac If you follow the history of England, the ancient Britons were colonized by the groups depicted in this video. With the addition of Normans, Gauls , Celts, and Romans.

[@--legion]

So you can trace your ancestry back 1500 years to a Germanic tribe, can you? Angles is not a place.

[@HamishGardiner-ru7xg]

One very important point that you are missing is that the romans used Germanic mercenaries in their army particularly in the UK. Hadrian’s wall was garrisoned almost exclusively by Germanic auxiliaries for hundreds of years and there were well established ‘Saxon’ communities on the east coast of the UK for generations during Roman rule, because the angles, Saxons and Jutes like the Scandinavians were excellent sailors and members of the group now regarded as ‘proto-Viking’s’ with similar ship building skills. The romans used them as a naval force to stave off raids by the Irish. It’s a simple extension of logic to reason that when the Romans departed from the UK the remaining military forces being principally Germanic, noticed a power vacuum and called for their cousins across the channel to join them.

[@Darrenski]

I've heard that most of the Roman troops, or a good deal of them came from the modern day Netherlands. No idea if that's true but would make sense, especially to an unemployed 4th C Dutchman.

[@elimalinsky7069]

Saxons also settled in the Zeeland region of the Netherlands, the coast of Belgium and the region of Picary in northwestern France. They were not employed by the Roman Empire but by local Romano-British, Gallo-Roman and Frankish rulers on both sides of the English channel to guard the coast after their seafaring skills were proven when they were previously those same pirates who plundered and ravaged the same regions they were now guarding.

[@trilithon108]

Brothers Hengist and Horsa invited in by Britain King Vortigen to fight off the Picts from Scotland. 🎉

[@BETOETE]

@@Darrenski later settlers from Netherlands and Friesland (Frisia) came to East Anglia as they were used to that kind of terrain of moors and marshes.

[@alexandermartens192]

Makes total sense

[@joedoe783]

It's funny that the Irish were the Scots before the Scots.

[@christopherlangford2907]

Picts mixed with Gael’s would be the Scots right?

[@fannybawsgotmarethanme6469]

Gaels 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🤝🇮🇪

[@binxbolling]

2 different tribes.

[@binxbolling]

​@@christopherlangford2907No. Scots and Picts were different tribes.

[@christopherlangford2907]

@@binxbolling that doesn’t answer my question though cause picts never left Scotland and accepted the Gael tribes coming in they didn’t have the scotia identity till later on

[@perlefisker]

It's often depicted that the Vikings leaving their homelands were the adventurous, brave, entrepreneurs of Scandinavia. They might as well have been outcasts and misfits, whether traders, farmers or pirates, pushed out of Denmark, Norway and Sweden.

[@ihavenojawandimustscream4681]

Just like any other migrants in any other period of history. Less brave heroic voyagers, more desperate outcasts and misfits

[@DeutschlandDenDeutschen1848]

I wouldn't say that the vikings are known as entrepreneurs. They are known as sea raiders. The exact same was the case for the saxons. And keep in mind that this was 300 years before the viking age. For the settlement of Iceland and Greenland by the norse it is known that some of them were outcasts. The sagas tell the story of Erik the Red who was born in Norway but ended up in Greenland through a bunch of feuds, being among the first settlers there. His son Leif would be the first European known to step onto american soil.

[@w.e.b.8719]

@@DeutschlandDenDeutschen1848 I have always been interested as to when the Saxons, Angles and not so much the Jutes gave up their seafaring ways. Leaving the seafaring to the Norse. In the United States there is no information on this matter. I asked a coworker who is German this question. He did not know the answer. Is there any written information on this matter? Vielen Dank.

[@DeutschlandDenDeutschen1848]

@@w.e.b.8719 I have no written information about this but I can give you my guess and some terms to look up. Sea raiding is dangerous so it was probably mostly done by poor people and settling was probably done by a lot of people who had no land (given to them by their lord. Only the lords actually owned land). I assume that with better agriculture and more civilization the need for it was greatly reduced. They didn't really give up their sea seafaring ways though. You know "britania rules the waves" and you can look up the düdesche Hanse. They just did more trading and fishing, wich they had already done as vikings too.

[@w.e.b.8719]

@@DeutschlandDenDeutschen1848 Thank you for your reply. I have always been intrigued by this portion of European history.

[@fandf888]

One big reason for inviting the Anglo-Saxons in was a great plague that hit the island in the seventh century. A lot of land became empty which also coincided with increasingly devastating attacks from Ireland. Hence a need for fighting men who could also farm the land. That’s why we see warriors arriving with their families.

[@danielferguson3784]

This plague was about 535 AD, not in the 7th century, but could account for a great change soon after, through dislocation & loss of population. It's only into the 7th century that 'kingdoms' arise in Britain, some are ' Anglo/Saxon's, while others are 'British'.

[@MistaHexHash]

Interesting theory.. what sort of plague?

[@danielferguson3784]

@@MistaHexHash Who would invite these in after a plague, which however happened in the 530's not the 7th century ? A hundred years after the coming of the A-Saxons.

[@Darrenski]

​@MistaHexHash a bs plague with a media pushed clot shot that came with it. Legend has it the entire ppl went crazy and wouldn't leave home unless dressed like surgeons. Just what i heard anyway.

[@Crispvs1]

@@MistaHexHash There were probably two plagues. Gildas mentions a plague and seems to put it in the decades following Britain kicking the Romans out, although he was writing for an audience who already knew what he was talking about, so does not necessarily put the facts he alludes to chronologically. It is clear though from the way he says it that is was some in the past. In all probability Gildas was writing in the 530s, and his work was intended as a warning to five British princes whose immoral behaviour he clearly believed was likely to bring down God's vengeance upon Britain. The Justinianic plague was in the 540s but it is clear that Gildas was not writing during a plague as he is trying to warn them to correct their behaviour before something dire happens. There are two things which rise as possibilities - firstly the recent reconquest of Italy by Belesarius on behalf of Justinian and the so called Dust Veil Disaster of AD536. Of these the most likely is the reconquest of Italy as the dust veil which blotted out sunlight for three years would seem like the punishment he warned against and in any case could not have been expected. With Justinian apparently keen to reconquer the whole of the former western empire, the people of Britain may well have been thinking it would be them next and this is the axe he is holding over the princes' heads to encourage them to correct their ways. With this being the case, he was almost certainly writing before the Justinianic plague of the 540s, which is otherwise well documented, so the plague he mentions must be an earlier one which had struck Britain before the later Justinianic one. Ergo - two plagues, one possibly in the 440s and another worse one a century later.

[@gobbotits1686]

I always figured that The Angles and Saxons were just one of the many Germanic tribes that pillaged Roman provinces during a great famine in the 6th century. It was common all across Europe at the time, and many of these Germans would settle in the regions where they plundered. I don't see how this would be any different for England.

[@aurelije]

The problem is that after they settled they started plundering whole world

[@jukkakivi9269]

And the famine was caused by the ever changing climate. It was the cold period between warm Roman period and Middle Age warm period.

[@GusthoffBurgerberg]

@@jukkakivi9269 Actually the centuries long decline in agricultural output was due to judeo-christian genocide, enslavement of pagans, and monopolization of commerce.

[@99EKjohn]

@@GusthoffBurgerberg no evidence for any of your claims.

[@GusthoffBurgerberg]

@@99EKjohn Documentation isn't evidence? The laws from the time are on the books

[@randombutuseful1254]

The English weren’t anglicised, because the angles were the 1st to be “English” There were no English people on Britain until the Angles and Saxons arrived and became English

[@danielferguson3784]

@@randombutuseful1254 But there were many thousands of German descent, who eased the creation of the 'English' language & people.

[@LobotimirMerkanski]

Not the English but the people they found there.

[@danielferguson3784]

@@randombutuseful1254 Wrong, the Angles at least were 'English' before coming into Britain. The very word means Angle, from them & their language. They didn't need a new language once here, they already spoke a Germanic dialect, the base for English to from.

[@Albanach-je1nk]

The Truth is that the bulk of theese settlers were Saxons so the name England I would think should be Saxonia. In Scotland our name in Gaelic is Saccanach ( of the Saxons)

[@danielferguson3784]

@@Albanach-je1nk Wrong. The Angles took over the bulk of the country, all the north & east. Strange how a Saxon King, Alfred acknowledged this. He could have called the country after the Saxons, as could the other Kings etc, but it became England for a reason. The same goes for the language. It is English, not Saxon, so that tells you who the majority were.

[@andreleers9457]

The English language is based on an old Germanic dialect. As the Dutch language does by the way. Ancient Angeln and Sachsen are situated in the northern part of Germany. If you visit Kappeln an der Schlei in Angeln, you might think you are in the UK. Sussex: Südsachsen. Essex: Eastsachsen. They migrated to fight as soldiers and because of living a poor life in deserted areas.

[@sakkra93]

We are Germans, for all intents and purposes. It saddens me to see many of my countrymen deny their heritage. An English patriot and nationalist should be proud of his German and Nordic heritage, not be ashamed for it!

[@GL-iv4rw]

What Germanic dialect was that?

[@andreleers9457]

@@GL-iv4rw Old English developed from a set of Anglo-Frisian or Ingvaeonic dialects originally spoken by Germanic tribes traditionally known as the Angles, Saxons and Jutes. As the Germanic settlers became dominant in England, their language replaced the languages of Roman Britain: Common Brittonic, a Celtic language; and Latin, brought to Britain by the Roman invasion.

[@lawbringer9857]

​@@sakkra93 Listen up, you clown. After what we endured at the hands of the Germans in WW1 and WW2, it's laughable to even suggest we buddy up with them now. They, along with the French, are not just our enemies; they're the thorns in our side, particularly in the EU circus. It's high time we recognize who our real friends are and steer clear of those who've tried to drag us down - not once, but twice.

[@jrgennielsen9465]

"The English language is based on an old German-ic dialect" There. Fixed it for you

[@TorvusVae]

I'm a little frustrated by the narration's use of the word "England" to describe post-Roman Britain. England and the English people as a concept didn't exist until the end of the 9th and beginning of the 10th century. Otherwise a great summary of what we know of early Anglo-Saxon (Anglo being a reference to the tribe of the Angles, not the English) presence in Britain, just weird to call the land England before the the English even exist.

[@tisFrancesfault]

Indeed, under that perspective half of scotland )and its most populated areas) would be "english". The idea of Northumbrian is preferred in that respect, as it predates English, but represents period rule and cultural and linguistic influence.

[@TorvusVae]

Wouldn't that be after the scope of this video, though? My understanding is that Northumbria as a kingdom was originally established by Angles. At the time period we're talking about, the initial migrations of Germanic settlers from modern day Denmark into Britain, Scotland would've been mainly Pictish, wouldn't it? Like, the simple solution is just to call the whole island "Britain" instead of using weird anachronistic terminology.

[@ironfist7789]

Well England literally meant land of the Angles who were originally from Anglia, but yeah, that couldn't happen before they got there

[@TorvusVae]

@@ironfist7789 if you look into it, it would be more precisely translated as "land of the Angles kin" (or Angelcynn if you wanna get really authentic about it) meaning all the Germanic people who migrated into Britain from southern Scandinavia. But that terminology wasn't even used until the time of Alfred and his son Edward in the 9th and 10th centuries. It's a super minor nitpick overall, it was just really jarring to me because post Roman Britain is one of my favorite historical time periods.

[@pennybunny]

I've found when Americans try and narrate our history they get everything wrong

[@leehallam9365]

I think it is foolish to dismiss Gildas and Bede, and much of the motivation for doing that has come from archaeologists who because they couldn't find evidence for battles, have dismissed the idea of conquest or mass migration in favour of the voluntary adoption of Anglo Saxan language and culture by celts from a small group of high status migrants. That never really stacked up with the evidence of language, religion and culture, and DNA has now shown that there was a mass migration. I don't think there was a mass conquest, but I do think there were armed invasions, a degree of local rulers using them as mercenaries who wouldn't go away followed by more peaceful migration into areas under germanic control. Bit by bit the country was taken over and within each area celts either were enslaved, intermarried or conformed to new rulers, though many moved ahead of the slow invasion, which is why Brittany exists. The video didn't try to hard to explain why they left their homelands, is their evidence of flooding at that time? What we do know for example is the Jutes were under pressure from Scandinavians as the Jutes are not the same people as the later Danes.

[@subhodipbanerjee6699]

So you are saying that most settlers were males.

[@tremondial]

I don't think historians entirely dismiss Gildas and Bede, but if we want historical research that is based on the scientific method, then we must work with what we know, not what could be. Historical assumptions constantly change with every new discovery and it is perfectly possible that someday we find something which changes the current understanding. But until that is the case we are best advise to base our assumptions on secured findings.

[@leehallam9365]

@subhodipbanerjee6699 No, I suspect men arrived first, that is usual in modern migration after all, but I don't think there is any reason to think women didn't follow.

[@subhodipbanerjee6699]

@@leehallam9365 Hmm, that's a possibility.

[@travellerstoryteller]

The migration was with romans!! When they let lots of germanic tribes in their territory as friends and auxiliaries troops!! 😂😂

[@ChrisLawson-h3q]

What’s really cool when you think about it is that the Vikings basically were just trying to do what the Anglo-Saxons had done before them. Only difference is the Anglo-Saxons actually did it.

[@michaeldpa1333]

Amen!

[@nnonotnow]

The Viking Son of Sweyn, Canute (or Cnut) became undisputed King of England in 1016, and his rivals (Ethelred's surviving sons and Edmund's son) fled abroad.

[@JakartaMick]

@@nnonotnowI was taught that Ethelred’s youngest son was taken under the wing of the Duke of Wessex and that Harold was descended from the younger son and William from the elder son

[@Notpoop906]

yeah bro violent suppression and conquering an indigenous population... Real cool...

[@therandom.cowboy5526]

@@nnonotnowCanute was not the *viking* son of sweyn. He was the *danish* son of sweyn. Viking meant pirate, it’s better if you forget the word existed entirely.

[@KeelanLoach]

England doesnt exist as a concept until the Anglo Saxons made it. So there were no English for the Anglo Saxons to Anglicise. You even summarise this early on by pointing out that the English anglicised a lot of the world. Therefore, the Anglo Saxons would have anglicised the Britons and other such native peoples?

[@TheMrgoodmanners]

There were welsh though

[@AudieHolland]

The Angles gave their name to England, as well as to the word Englisc, used even by Saxon writers to denote their vernacular tongue. Encyclopedia Brittanica

[@KeelanLoach]

@@TheMrgoodmanners there were, however it wouldn't be quantifiable as Welsh due to the fact that there was a number of languages spoken throughout the region. One of those surviving languages became known as Welsh. The only others I am aware of would be Irish and Cornish from the isles. Aside from that there's Brittany in France that would have shared a similar history and surviving language. I'm not 100% on this however as it falls outside of my direct knowledge so I could be wrong or missing elements

[@KeelanLoach]

@@AudieHolland correct, hence why you can't Anglicise the English, as they are the ones that would Anglicise. Sidenote; it's funny to think that it's the result of Germanic elements that allow us to refer to a spread of English ideals. But only after Roman influence, and before the Scandinavian and French elements wreak their respective havoc to indeed create English as we know it today

[@colemanstarr5404]

@@KeelanLoach The Bretons migrated towhee is now Brittany from Cornwall as Britain became "Anglicized."

[@franckr6159]

"The Anglo Saxons Migrate to Britain" : OMG.... Stop the boats !!

[@McConnachy]

😂 cheeky, but true, they didn’t go to Scotland though 😊

[@faithlesshound5621]

The Britons hadn't discovered the Rwandan solution yet!

[@AthelstansSuccessor]

​@@McConnachythey did, southern Scotland is anglo Saxon

[@McConnachy]

@@AthelstansSuccessor Good luck going to Dumfries, Gala, Dunbar or Annan and telling them that. All these names are Gaelic btw. You have a black and white view, south eastern Scotland, is where you see the Celtic Germanic mix

[@neilog747]

Brilliant! Self-interest has no principles nor ethics.

[@lorenzbroll101]

I lived in a part of northern England where villages only a few miles apart were named after the various settler 'tribes. So 'Bretton' is traceable to original indigenous pre-Roman peoples, 'Skelmanthorp' being Scandinavians and 'Denby Dale'. to Danes etc. There are many other examples. It's very unlikely - in my opinion - that such a patchwork of people living so close to one another were aggressive.

[@danielferguson3784]

Villages named after individual owners at some time, doesn't mean they were new at the time, nor what people lived there. The vast majority would be natives.

[@lorenzbroll101]

@@danielferguson3784 Sorry, but I don't understand what you point is?

[@thebenevolentsun6575]

​@@lorenzbroll101That the rulers may have been danish etc but the actual villagers would be native celts. It's a bit of a moot point because both are equally possible. Also names of towns don't tell you very much. They can be named for many different regions. Skelmanthorp could have been a village of Norsemen or a village of celts ruled by Norsemen. It's like the "Macedonian" dynasty of Byzantium originating in Armenia. Skelmanthorp could have been founded by someone who looked Scandinavian, or traded alot with Scandinavians etc.

[@neilferguson5940]

​@thebenevolentsun6575 Aye I'm from Northern England and most of our genetic makeup is Celtic, so I don't believe this theory that most of us are made up of Anglo-Saxons. Most of my own genetic makeup is of indigenous people of these isles with the only exception of my mother's side who came from Norway which we already knew.

[@lorenzbroll101]

@@neilferguson5940 So you will quite well aware the place names reflected the original and diverse settlers.

[@megapangolin1093]

Very interesting and well-discussed examination of my ancestors, amazing how Sussex became sandwiched between two Jute areas and remained intact.

[@bgl9935]

I'm Japanese. I love Anglo Saxons.

[@plasebox]

you know they are the ones nuked you right?

[@pamelariley6694]

​@@plasebox 2024.

[@Soulvex]

@@plasebox lame

[@jeddaniels2283]

little England nuked Japan. You fool!@@plasebox

[@jackfruit1]

​@@plaseboxJapanese brutally persecuted Christians and even today Christians suffer persecution in Japan. Japanese love Anglo Saxons because Anglo Saxons are anti Christianity today.

[@Inucroft]

I feel "Kings and Generals" did a better summary of this period. And highlighted that it was both a combination of military conquest and semi-peaceful assimilation. This video also overlooks Bythonic/Welsh sources

[@akhripasta2670]

Because he is Angl0 Saxon, spreading Propaganda

[@sarosp9330]

It happened because king arthur made things just that good

[@KangaKucha]

Lol

[@robertdragoff6909]

And Merlin helped out too!

[@chetyubetcha7150]

Lmaooooo yes king slay

[@Apollo1989V]

Arthur, if he did exist, fought the Anglo Saxons.

[@RandomNonsense1985]

How could he make things good when he was routinely bested by French knights with outrageous accents, anarcho-syndicalists, and Knights Who Say Ni right inside his own country?

[@89tonstar]

People don't tend to abandon their culture and heritage purely for the sake of doing it. There is always a reason. I think we underestimate just how impactful the roman withdrawal was from Briton. It wasn't just a military withdrawal that had already occurred when magnus maximus and constantinus withdrew the roman field comitatinses/limates from Britain for their bids for the imperial purple in the west. Not to mention recruitment from the male latin/britano population following the defeat at adrianople and others! Stilco pulled what remained of organized roman military out as well. So what we have left Is a population already on the decline who picked up and left with all the roman administration. Those who stayed would have been a minority still roman or romanized Britons. They had no choice but to adopt germanic culture and language over time as social and religious pressure probably made them change. The opposite happened in almost every other part of the empire. The kingdoms in Briton never claimed to be under imperial rule after the withdrawal where all the germanic kingdoms in Europe did claim to be nominally subject to the emperor in Constantinople or Rome. I think if we had a window into that time. It would have been extremely scary for the populace. By the time of significant migration there were Noone alive to keep the tradition of roman/brittonic culture alive who saw it during its last years under imperial administration. The change was effective but nessecary.

[@pfzt]

Whole western Europe is abandoning its culture and heritage right now, seemingly just for the sake of it, so that can happen too.

[@intmartpract]

I really love "The Lantern bearers" from Rosemary Sutcliff. Her series of 3 books about Roman Britain are great. Only the first is really known, but the other two are good too.

[@ohNojames]

@@pfztwhat culture are we adopting?

[@pfzt]

@@ohNojames The void that Christianity left must be filled, so for several years now we adopted global postmodern corporation bullsh*t and at some point in the future Europe has to deal with Islam, because in 30-50 years they will be the majority of people in France, Germany, UK. I can't say if they will force us to convert or if Europeans will be dumb enough to do it by themselves. Time will tell.

[@mvegetaxachilles7211]

⁠@@pfztNo. It’s been instigated by a specific group of outsiders.

[@astralblurz8162]

Danish Anglo Saxon’s arriving only to get invaded by the same people danish vikings 300 years later is crazy same people

[@mortenstergaardandersen613]

The Anglo Saxons weren't Danish. The Danes were a distinct tribe, who spoke a different but related language. Probably it was the Danes invading Jutland from the east in the 5th century that lead to the Jutes and Angles migrating westward to Britain.

[@tessjuel]

@@mortenstergaardandersen613 Yes, that's a plausible theory but the timing doesn't quite seem to match. There is no evidence of settlements of the Danish tribe on mainland Denmark until after the Angles and the Jutes had moved to England and at least one historical source mentions that Southern Jutland - the part the Angles used to live in - was empty of people when the Danes moved there. We still know very little about pre-viking age Northern Europe though. There is even some evidence the Danes and Angles were originally a single tribe and it is possible, although unlikely, that the only real difference between them in the 5th Century was that the Angles were the ones who moved to Britain and the Danes the ones who stayed at home.

[@mortenstergaardandersen613]

​@@tessjuel The timing actually fits very well. Bede wrote that in his time Anglia (a part of southern Jutland) had been empty of people since the Angles migrated from there to Britain. Nowhere did he suggest that this occured either before or after the Danes arrived in Jutland. However, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle dates the arrival of the Jutish brothers Hengest and Horsa to 449 and tells that the Angles soon followed them, which coincides with the archeological evidence that Anglia was severely depopulated in the 5th and 6th centuries, likely in part because of climate change and in part because of attacks from sea raiders. Venantius Fortunatus already in the 6th century mentions Danes and Saxons making such raids together. As I suggested in an earlier post, Hengest and Horsa were merely leaders of a Jutish mercenary band hired to help the Romanized Britons fight the Picts, but who took the opportunity to carve out a kingdom for themselves. That seems to have spurred Angles and Saxons to eventually do likewise - so the timeline matches up quite well.

[@DeutschlandDenDeutschen1848]

@@tessjuel Either way, they were not the same people.

[@thekurdishtapes8317]

@@tessjuel it's hard for me to believe since Angles were a West Germanic tribe and Danes a North Germanic tribe. Different language, although related.

[@meh2972]

Nobody ever stops to think why all the North Sea tribes were migrating to Britain except for the people that were actually nearest. Many Frisians did in fact also move across the pond. It is _their_ language that is at the origin of English. It is still spoken in a large part of the Netherlands and smaller regions in Denmark and Germany.

[@mortenstergaardandersen613]

It is true that Frisians today are nearer to England than any other continental people, but the fact that none of the historical sources mention them among the Anglo Saxon migrants suggests, that they actually didn't settle in Britain in great numbers. The Angles, Saxons and Jutes all formed kingdoms in Britain. No Frisians ever did. The similarity between the Frisian and English languages today is more likely down to the Angles and Saxons being closely related - linguistically too - to the Frisians, and there even seems to be some evidence, that at the time Northern Frisia was inhabited by Jutes.

[@meh2972]

You're wrong that they aren't mentioned by historical sources. Bede mentions them too, even if it's not by the general name Frisian. My comment was referring to people making videos, not historians who are well aware of the Frisian presence. Not only by written sources but also genetics and archeology (the names of towns for example). They were obviously not the dominant force militarily among the peoples that migrated. Even though the Romans had previously hired them to defend Hadrian's wall. Theirs has likely been the longest and slowest of trickles. I don't think any part of Frisia was inhabited by Jutes specifically although some of the more northern tribes may not have completed the trip to England and stuck around on the main continent after the coastal areas starting becoming less flooded again.

[@meh2972]

Bede did in fact mention the Frisians specifically. Your response was therefore rather silly saying there are no historical sources. "There were very many peoples in Germany from whom the Angles and the Saxons, who now live in Britain, derive their origin; hence even to this day they are by a corruption called Garmani by their neighbours the Britons. Now these peoples are the Frisians, the Rugians, the Danes, the Huns, the Old Saxons, and the Boruhtware."

[@mortenstergaardandersen613]

@@meh2972 From Wikipedia: "There is no consensus amongst historians on the origins of the Jutes. One hypothesis is that they originated from the Jutland Peninsula but after a Danish invasion of that area, migrated to the Frisian coast. From the Frisian coast they went on to settle southern Britain in the later fifth century during the Migration Period, as part of a larger wave of Germanic migration into Britain."

[@meh2972]

The only reason I can see that you keep on yapping about Jutes is that you live in northern Denmark. Because it's all completely irrelevant to the point I was making.

[@garymc4978]

Worth mentioning that the Angles, specifically the Bernician kingdom, stretched into modern day Scotland too (Scottish Borders and Lothian).

[@surfsands]

Many of the Celtic Britons left Britain with the coming of the Angles and Saxons and migrated to Brittany, now part of France, and Galicia in Spain making 2 new Celtic nations on the continent. Also the Slavs moving from Russia into modern day Poland were pushing the Germanic peoples further westward which may have played a part in the anglo saxon migrations according to some historians.

[@darraghwilliamson3689]

Did the celts not go to Ireland and Scotland mainly?

[@caicymru2090]

@@darraghwilliamson3689 they went west to Wales, Cornwall and Cumbria.

[@quarkybill]

Actually the Celts in Galicia as well as Asturias and Cantabria date back to the 1st millennia BC. During the period of "great migrations" following the disintegration of the western Roman Empire, the Suebi, a Germanic tribe loosely from the area of Germany known today as Swabia, and the Visigoths from further east moved to Galicia and Asturias-Cantabria respectively. Even so they did not replace but appear to have come to rule the native inhabitants of those areas of Spain. Spain had Visigoth rulers for a couple hundred years before the coming of the Moors.

[@audreyroche9490]

Lol the English were French all brits come from Europe saxons mostly German dna who are the English now irish are spainish and Portuguese dna still strong dna in irish ti this day Ireland was never invaded by Romans only Britain and vikings invaded Ireland

[@audreyroche9490]

Celts weren't a tace they came from Middle East and landes in anatolia Turkey and travelled across the world was a culture a

[@Mellow_man2001]

As an Englishman, I love my Anglo-Saxon heritage.. I don't care if I have more Celtic blood. The Anglo-Saxons created England!❤🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

[@pennybunny]

I'm also a proud Anglo-Saxon 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

[@ndie8075]

​@@pennybunnyyes brother I am from Westfalia North West Germany....the old home of the Saxons.....we are very much connected by our bloodline.....i've meet many Anglo Saxon cousins in England during my several trips...🇯🇪🇩🇪❤

[@Buydaa.M]

Anglo Saxons also found USA,AUS,NZ and CAN

[@davidmaddy1447]

Sasanach ! ( joking)

[@ctwentysevenj6531]

Similar what happened when the Romans left the Alps area, where that area were repopulated by Germanic peoples like the Alemannic, Bavarii, Ostrogoths ,replaced the original Celtic people.

[@KrisHughes]

The opening seems to be confusing "England" with Britain, and "the English" with "the Britons"

[@truthseeker-nv6ny]

England went through a great replacement in the past and now their descendants are going through a great replacement at present. The island is never yours its just your turn

[@piked261]

That's so funny 🤣 the great replacement is just bollox 🤣

[@thomasspicer4130]

True what we don’t fight for we loose the great replacement all over America and Europe is absolutely undeniable you just have to look at the census returns over the last few decades.

[@truthseeker-nv6ny]

@thomasspicer4130 those people will also be replaced in the future by some other people that's just how it is

[@thomasspicer4130]

@@truthseeker-nv6ny there is a marked difference between the Anglo-saxon replacement and what is happening today though we are enacting in Europe what happened to the Americas and Australia in the past century’s repeating that is pretty indefensible when we know the result for the pre conquest peoples and culture.

[@kipkipper-lg9vl]

@@piked261 you have to be practically braindead not to understand that if your population does not grow you will be swamped

[@rajus3011]

I really like your videos. They are very high quality and the topics are always very interesting.

[@michaelhalsall5684]

It should be noted that these migrations and invasions had a "knock on" effect with the peoples around the newcomers being forced to move on. It happened all through post Roman western Europe, not just Britain. I believe the Germanic newcomers were seeking new farmlands perhaps due to overcrowding and invasions in their homelands. They seem to have focused their efforts on the southern parts of the British Isles where the farmland is the most fertile. There is evidence that Wales survived because the Saxons had little interest in its hilly landscape and rocky soils. There is evidence that the Anglo-Saxons pushed the indigenous Celts out of southern Britain. The Bretons of Brittany ("Little Britain') are descendants of Celts who fled from Cornwell and Devon to western France to escape the Anglo-Saxons. Devon is good farmland.

[@mweskamppp]

The romans had great influence in the land east of their border up to the river Elbe at least. Many people there wanted to have a part in the good roman life and civilization. Lots of pressure to live in the roman empire. First as mercenaries for decades with the option to become roman citizen and get own land. later all people in the roman empire got the roman citizenship just so. People did not see a reason to become soldier anymore. One reason for the end of the roman empire together with constant infighting between local lords or senators or competing emperors.For briton i think the romans negotiated with the germanic tribes to move to briton to protect the land from the picts. They even offered regular payments in natural produce mainly. After some time in briton they were not happy with the payment and started a long war which they lost. After that there was a long period of peaceful mingling.

[@lajos-berenyi]

But the question, that why the Celtic-Latin British turned to Germanic English, while for example The Germanic Frank turned to the Latin French language?

[@macwinter7101]

@@lajos-berenyi Chances are the Anglos forced their language and culture on the remaining individuals of Celtic origin. After rise and fall of Roman occupation in Britain, the Celtic tribes likely did not have the strength or resources to defend their land, so most probably left, and the few that stayed had to adopt Anglo culture and language. People are assuming that the Celtic tribes willingly adopted Anglo culture because they found remains of humans of Celtic origins that seemed to practice Anglo culture, but that doesn't mean the conversion was willing or peaceful. To answer your question directly: when two cultures encounter each other and one culture adopts the language and culture of the the other, it is usually the culture with more resources and power that passes their culture onto the other. There is usually conflict and resistance from the culture who is having to adopt the new culture, but in the end, they do not have the ability to fight off the invading culture and must adopt the customs of the invading culture. The anglos likely had better fighting abilities and resources, so they were able to make the Celtic tribes adopt their culture or flee. The Germanic Franks, on the other hand, were outmatched and thus lost their language.

[@lajos-berenyi]

@@macwinter7101 "The Germanic Franks, on the other hand, were outmatched and thus lost their language" But their elite remain the Franks. This is similar, like after the Norman conquest, the Norman became the elite of England, even they spoke 1-2 centuries still French, but after this period they became English, and also adopted the English language. So it means, that during/after the Anglo Saxon conquest not only the conqueror elite had to be English, but also the very significant part of the population (together with women and children) had to be English as well. This maybe also strengthens the theory, that not only a conquest, but migration and conquest together happened.

[@freneticness6927]

Its way easier to control a flat country than a hilly country. Thats why the romans had trouble in scotland and wales.

[@GathKingLeppbertI]

I'm Texan. My blood is Saxon from Witten ca 800 via England thence to Maryland with the the Calvert contract. First white man to settle in Tazewell county Virginia.

[@revinhatol]

This history somehow repeated itself with the Glucksburgs inheriting the House of Windsor in the UK by the ascension of King Charles III.

[@tommyvictorbuch6960]

I'm surprised Danelagen isn't mentioned. That was a massive part of the old Britain, and the reason for many of the Old Norse rooted words in modern English.

[@Nabium]

that came centuries afterwards it's like thinking it's important to talk about current political affairs in a video about Napoleon. centuries are a very long time, it's absolutely pointless going on about the vikings in a video about the fifth and sixth century.

[@rachelnise2473]

​@@Nabiumtry explaining that to Putin

[@Nabium]

@@rachelnise2473 What's the even suppose to mean?

[@rachelnise2473]

@@Nabium you didn't hear his rambling with Tucker Carlson. Though I guess it was answering current affairs by going through many centuries of history as if it was relevant, not the other way round

[@Nabium]

​@@rachelnise2473Yeah okay. Putin has been doing these historical false ramblings for years now, Tucker just gave him a bigger audience, but I'm well aware. I just didn't see the relevance to this discussion. Danelagen happened centuries after the events which this video addresses, so there's no need to even mention it, which is what I was trying to express to the original poster. The current affairs example was to illustrate to someone(the original poster) with a weak sense of time in history - where centuries seems like about the same time because they were all just times with swords and stuff or I donno how he was thinking - how long a century really is. It's a very long time. And thus I compared it with how long ago Napoleon is to us, and why most videos today which talks about Napoleon's life doesn't have to mention Macron or something else that is a current event. Putin's use of history to justify present actions is something else completely. His talking about the legitimacy of Ukraine as a nation, and in that context it makes more sense to mention ancient times. Putin's understanding of history is absurd, but, it's not absurd to talk about history in the discussion of Ukraine's formation as a nation.

[@niccoarcadia4179]

Geological studies have theorized that climate in North Germany was often changing from warm trend to cool trend playing havoc on crops causing floods including surge flooding especially along the coast and turning the fields to mud, then ice, and back to mud often. Some cold trends called mini-ice ages finally contributed to the collapse (in some areas) of agriculture including loss of livestock production.

[@RandomNorwegianGuy.]

I suspect a Viking age before the Viking age, considering that the Anglo-Saxons are literally long distance cousins to us Scandinavians

[@mercianthane2503]

It was a viking age, or Wicing Eld. The Germanic migrations of the angles and saxons started somewhere after 410 and stopped around 530's, since after that date, the kingdoms of Deira and Bernicia would be united and form Northumbria. And then, Athelfrith, king of Northumbria would begin an aggressive expansion and conquer many british realms after 600

[@fwhitey7686]

Absolutely. To a native Brit, a long haired, woden worshiping,, axe wielding Saxon would have looked and sounded very similar to the Danes that came years later.

[@willvangaal8412]

Yep we are all germanics .

[@ndie8075]

Indeed brother...🇩🇪

[@benfisher5531]

Both the Saxon invasion then the Viking age and Norman conquest were merely three phases of the same drawn out event-namely 3 waves of Danish conquest

[@Camilla_Kudrin]

It's weird but true. Danish and Germans from Hamburg have a strong DNA connection to British Isles.

[@Mellow_man2001]

"Weird"? The Anglo-Saxons came from Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands, and they created England

[@cambs0181]

Not really weird, when that was where they came from.

[@gr637]

Yes. They’re all great cooks.

[@vincent412l7]

I suspect it might be similar to the vikings. When Rome left, England was open to plunder. As they kept returning t England, they realised how feetile the lands were, and started settling.

[@adrianlouw2499]

I heard the theory where after the Roman power vacuum the native British kings took to hiring Saxon mercenaries and soon the practice became so prevalent that Angles and Saxons were facing each other in the battlefield and realised they could simply unite and take the lands for themselves.

[@petrovonoccymro9063]

When Rome left, there was no such thing as England. Just Britain, populated by the ancestors of the modern Welsh and Cornish.

[@sirrathersplendid4825]

Before the arrival of the Romans, ancient Britain was a mass of small rival states, often at war with eachother. When the Romans left in c. 410, it seems these states splintered again along tribal lines. Would’ve been only natural for the ‘kings’ of each of these states to seek mercenaries from the continent, especially from the homelands of troops formerly stationed in Britain.

[@Peizxcv]

Why would the locals adapt the language and customs of a bunch of poor farmers arrived on their shore? The only explanation is conquest, not migration.

[@عليياسر-ذ5ب]

Because they are weak slaves who have no value except for kings and nobles

[@padredemishijos12]

Why did the Visigoths not establish a Germanic language in Spain or the Franks do the same in France whereas the Anglosaxona did? The Visigoths had been a Roman soldiers and already spoke Latin and were Romanized. The Anglos did not speak any Latin, and were barbarians.

[@RichardEdwards40]

for the Visigoths, there was simply too little of them. they were only 1% or 2% of the population and were already heavily romanized culturally before migrating to iberia

[@RichardEdwards40]

Anglosaxons came in the hundreds of thousands and occupied the best farmlands in Britain so had more children and a bigger population boom.

[@padredemishijos12]

@@RichardEdwards40 In British DNA, very little German DNA, just like in Spain very little Arab/Berber DNA. They came and assimilated. Just like the Spanish assimilated the autochthonous peoples of the Americas.

[@RichardEdwards40]

@@padredemishijos12 nope. There is significant Anglo Saxon admxture in Modern english people. The Anglo Saxons came in the Hundreds of thousands. Genetic research proves this. Even my own DNA shows over 70% (74% to be exact) Anglo-Saxon with the rest being Brythonic Celtic. My ancestors come from east Anglia so I probably have more Germanic than the average Englishman.

[@padredemishijos12]

@@RichardEdwards40 The Celts populated the British Islands from Galicia and Brittany. The Celtiberians went to Ireland. They have some Iberian DNA. In Asturias where most of my DNA comes from, the Asturs were Celtic I have same DNA of Irish King Niall of the Eight Hostages.

[@kubhlaikhan2015]

This makes no sense. The "withdrawal of the Romans" (ie Constantine's decision to enter the civil war for Rome) does not leave a literal "hole" in the population of the British isles. There was no "vacant landscape". Nor was the country left impoverished and weak (if it was, why would immigrants think it a better place to live?). Another huge anomaly is the longuistic evidence: if England was suddenly occupied by anglosaxons you would expect to find the anglosaxon language(s) everywhere. In fact it now appears that Old English was restricted to east coast fringes for centuries (notably Edinburgh because it was the largest trading port on the east coast). In reality, the indigenous population of the east coast switches to North Sea customs and language because the region needs new trading partners after the roads to Rome are blocked by centuries of civil war. That's all that happened. The rest is modern misinformation.

[@ssrmy1782]

Born and raised in London, but my family's roots are in Surrey. According to MyHeritage, my ancestry is mostly Scandinavian, then Continental Germanic, then Celtic, then Italian. The story of this Island, and our ancestors is quite fascinating.

[@janeslater8004]

I did my heritage as english person with 1 irish grandmother so i came back as 58 per cent celtic. 26 per cent scandinavian and then 8 english 6 baltic and 6 balkan

[@Wolf-hh4rv]

The omission of Frisians from the list of immigrants is important. Anglo-Saxon (old English) is much closer to Frisian than any other lower German dialect or Danish. The people of Friesland play a prominent role in Beowulf. Your map of early medieval Saxony is inaccurate, the lands of the Saxons encompassed a much larger swathe of north western Germany.

[@A-C100]

The Dutch are genetically our closest cousins, however the Frisians likely mixed with the Saxons in the Netherlands and adopted their culture.

[@redwaldcuthberting7195]

@@A-C100 The current day Frisians are from Angles and Saxons becoming Frisian during the migration era.

[@macwinter7101]

The reason Old English was so similar to Frisian is because the languages of the Anglos, Saxons and Jutes were very closely related to Frisian. They were likely in a continuum of dialects that were more or less mutually intelligible to some degree. Old English did not, however, come from Frisian. There probably were Frisians who migrated to Britain, but they would've been a minority. The reason Frisian is the closest language to Old English is because the languages of the Anglos, Saxons and Jutes no longer exist, other than in their contributions to English. There are videos where Frisian speakers try to understand Old English, and the languages are not mutually intelligible.

[@Wolf-hh4rv]

@@macwinter7101 Yes I see your point about not being able to compare today with the dialects spoken by the Angles Jutes and Saxons. However these dialects have only moved toward modern day Dutch, Hoch Deutsch and Danish in the last 200 years or so . There will be ample written evidence of these Germanic dialects to get closer to the truth (someone should do a video on that) I see that 3 generations ago the people on both sides of the Netherlands/Germany border spoke the same dialect. It is only in the last 40 years or so that all Germans have moved to speaking Hoch Deutsch as an every day vernacular. A video I watched with a Frisian conversing with someone speaking old English, yes they struggled a bit but they were almost there. But my brain maybe interpreting different to others as I grew up speaking both English and Afrikaans.

[@jacobwwarner]

Welsh History Podcast said something along the lines that the Roman's used to hire settled "barbarians" as federati and that the local romanized Britain's may have been inviting the anglo-saxons to do much the same after the withdrawal of the Roman legions.

[@alessiorenzoni5586]

Unfortunately little is known about the period of the Anglo-Saxon conquest, because there are very few historical documents that tell us the facts in detail. After the withdrawal of the Roman Legions from Britain, in 410 AD, the island fell into a situation of chaos: Roman Britain shattered into small kingdoms fighting among themselves and without the Roman army to defend the borders, the Pictish tribes from Scotland they spread to the north and the coasts were repeatedly raided by Irish pirates. From what little the British chroniclers have handed down, it seems that the first contingents of Anglo-Saxons arrived in Britain from Germany as mercenaries in the pay of one of these small British kings, around 443 AD. These mercenaries, however, saw the weakness of the Britons and chose to rebel, calling for reinforcements from their homeland and starting the conquest of the island. In reality it should be noted that the term "Anglo-Saxons" is a simplification: they were various Germanic peoples (the Angles, the Saxons, the Jutes, etc...) who were internally divided into tribes. Therefore we must not imagine a single Anglo-Saxon army led by a single leader, but an alliance of many Germanic tribes who simultaneously, each on its own behalf, conquered its own territory. The Anglo-Saxons therefore did not found a single kingdom, but at least seven. In fact we speak of the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy: Wessex, Essex, Mercia, Northumbria, Sussex, Kent and East Anglia. To tell the truth, not much is known about this period, so it seems that in reality, in addition to the 7 kingdoms already mentioned, there were also smaller kingdoms that were subjugated by the larger ones. England as a unified kingdom was born in 927, as an enlargement of the kingdom of Wessex, which had been the only kingdom capable of resisting the invasion of the Vikings in the 9th century and liberating the other territories. (google translate)

[@johnnyhoops3991]

Basic history that reconciles with Gildas, Bede, Asser, Nennius, Geoffrey of Monmouth, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and The Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales. And the "archaeology" and the "DNA"... If you choose to look at the whole record, and not just cherry pick, and complain that two guys had a slightly different version of basically the same events...

[@bri_____]

People talk about the saxons a lot, However, I'm far more interested in the indigenous british people, who surely went on to overwhelmingly become the english

[@Lingist081]

No they didn’t. The overwhelming majority of the English are Germanic. Mostly West Germanic with some North Germanic from the Norse. The Anglo-Saxons vastly outnumbered the natives and we can tell because not only did the English language replace the native celtic ones in most of britain but also there’s almost no celtic influence on English

[@elvinbi1367]

That’s just flat out wrong. Most people in England have at most around 20% Germanic ancestry, and the fact they speak a Germanic language doesn’t change their genetics magically. This can be seen in the fact that Turks have either 80% Greek ancestry, 80% Anatolian ancestry (hittites) or Armenian and Kurdish etc. etc. Another thing you said is “no Celtic influence” is something that just happens in these cases. The saxons were greatly outnumbered and often times ruled over the majority Britons, and when culture and language comes with Top to down it typically takes little influence from the previous culture. When the Rulers adopt the local language and culture, the culture either remains the same or greatly changed, rather than being replaced (ex: England)

[@elvinbi1367]

@@krim7 thanks for summing it up

[@krim7]

@@elvinbi1367 Ooops, I quoted the wrong person. I meant @Lingist081​

[@RichardEdwards40]

​@@elvinbi1367 no I have 74% Anglo saxon. most english have 30-40% Anglo Saxon ancestry. East Anglians like myself have the most Anglo Saxon blood.

[@poulprstgaard8132]

Very interesting historical description. Boats with sails are shown, but the migrants came in boats without sails, as the sail had not yet been invented by the Jutes, Angles or Saxons. The boats were rowed in the traditional way, with the rowers sitting with their backs to the direction of the boat's movement. Sails were first introduced 600 to 700 AD.

[@christianx8494]

A good surviving evidence is the Saxon boat that must have been left behind when invading Saxons got defeated by local people in the area that is now a little north of the German-Danish border. The people in those days were afraid of souls that may come back to take revenge. A precaution was to sink the bodies in swamps and to sacrifice their weapons as well after destroying them. Swords were bent an twisted. In the early 1860s lots of artefacts were found in Nydam Bog, among them a complete boat. Those finds are now on display in the Schleswig-Holstein State Museum „Castle Gottorf“ in the town of Schleswig.

[@7ate9nyc]

I noticed some anachronistic imagery in the video too, specifically the dwellings around minute 8:30, which appear to be 19th century. But overall a reasonable, informative overview of possible emmigration patterns.

[@skinnydogkew]

The video is discussing migration from ad 400 to ad 7-800

[@thekurdishtapes8317]

it's hard for me to believe that they rowed across the North Sea. Sails have been in use for Millenia, the Romans definitely had Sails, so why would the Saxons never have heard of them? Makes no sense at all.

[@dewangrajkakati132]

Towards The four kingdoms era the Anglo Saxons were indeed the majority in Wessex, East Anglia, Mercia and Northumbria

[@paulpeterson4216]

This is a very questionable take. Roman Britain was fully occupied. Tens of thousands of "immigrants" would not have just been able to walk or sail in and set up farms on previously unused lands. The Angles, Saxons and Jutes showed up. There may or may not have been murder, mayhem and conquest, but they certainly had enough military might and organization to "encourage" many of the local Celts to either move away, or to take "jobs" as servants or slaves to the "migrants." Me and my friends might "peacefully" move into your house, and not attack anyone, but only if you decide that being subjugated is better than being killed. BTW; "I'll take the master bedroom, but, I'll let your eldest daughter share it with me. Now, go make me some dinner."

[@leighfoulkes7297]

Some Welsh kings hired them as mercenaries and they then turned on them to take over their lands. There is a lot more to than that but this whole video ignores the Welsh perspective.

[@tigerland4328]

I think the Angles and Saxons were Roman auxiliaries sent to garrison Britannia in the later days of the Roman empire(there is Roman records of Frisians on Hadrian's wall and Angles in eberacum or modern day York). Once the Imperial administration left britain these Germanic mercenaries filled the vacuum and set up their own kingdoms . I think the local Britons would have adopted the culture/language of the Angles and integrated with them just as they had done with Latin culture. I believe the Angles were in Britain a lot earlier than is accepted.

[@ac1646]

@@tigerland4328 Interesting point.

[@Socrates-b9n]

the mingling continues - I was born near Liverpool and I'm tow haired and blue eyed. My husband is 1/4 Danish - his grandfather was from Copenhagen who married an English wife. My daughter is now working in the British Embassy in Denmark and has a Danish boyfriend! In Canada, my brother's children have Indigenous and African partners, and several children between them. It's awesome to have such a genetic mix in one family and we are the better for it, both culturally and genetically.

[@SpaceDad42]

Mixing weakens genetics and poisons pure cultures.

[@PrometheanKitchen96]

It's funny how nowadays the peninsula in Germany that used to be home to the Anglo Saxons is now mostly a part of Denmark but the closest large German city to the Angle Saxons back in the day was probably Hamburg

[@frans8160]

That part Was almost going to become german because the people living in it voted for german control but prussians we’re to nice with the danes i guess lol

[@Dishfire101]

After the Romans left Britain in the 5th century, suddenly the door was open in Hadrian's Wall, and the Picts (today's Scotland) attacked as far south as Kent, these warriors (not Scots at this stage) ransacked and harried these Britain's, these Britain's asked and pleaded for the Anglo and Saxons to come and help, the Picts totally destroyed the Anglo Saxons and departed over the Wall, the Anglo Saxons said we don't like these Picts so decided to stay south of the Wall.

[@Neil-yh8uu]

You are the first I've come across who puts scotties in what's now Ireland 👍

[@butterfacemcgillicutty]

So according to 'God', He punished the Britons because they weren't faithful - by sending pagans over to their lands? The Bible also explicitly states no one can know the will of God yet Bede claims this very specific knowledge of God's will. And this kind of bullshit goes on to this day with modern pastors.

[@DeutschlandDenDeutschen1848]

Modern pastors? I remember the saying "Gods wills it" was chanted by catholics around 1000 years ago.

[@ScreamingManiac]

People like to think past migrations and colonisations were always violent. But more often people saw some free land and were like "I like this spot, no ones claimed it, so might as well build a house here"

[@mercianthane2503]

Yes and no. Some did settled peacefully, others did not. To think migrations are wholely peaceful should look at the drama and warfare happening in Continental Europe during the last years of the WRE

[@ScreamingManiac]

@@mercianthane2503 I don't see how thats contrary to what i said.

[@mercianthane2503]

@@ScreamingManiac Well, it means that the germanic tribes that settled in Britain would behave the same: "Got a sword, you got land, imma take it as mine".

[@paulpeterson4216]

Your assumption that there existed "free land" is rather naïve. There is much more "free land" today, in the form of parks and public spaces than there was in the age of migration.

[@ScreamingManiac]

@@paulpeterson4216 I think you're assuming all land is occupied. Someone might have claimed it but if you start building there and you defend it as your own, its yours. Thats how it works you can't claim land if you aren't living there and you can't defend it. When the vikings founded settlements along the English coast. Some Anglo-saxons were able to kick them out, some weren't and in the end, a lot of major english cities are viking settlements because they couldn't defend it. I never said that there was never any hostility to migration there always will be because of cultural differences. But new land is not always acquired through conquest. There was also a lot of unclaimed land especially in nomadic regions or regions where it was hard to grow food. Because they were not settled by farming nations there were no permanent settlements built and therefore undefended and unclaimed. Saying all land was claimed i think is the naive assumption considering throughout most of human history most land wasn't even explored.

[@VelkyAl]

Given that the Romans employed Saxons as mercenaries long before they left Britannia, it is not that wild a stretch of the imagination that many of them were stationed there and rather than leave with the legions they stayed on as the power in Rome's absence, then calling to their relatives back on the continent to come over. The British had already adopted a foreign culture and language as part of the Roman Empire, so it's perfectly within the realm of possibility that they repeated the trick with the new "Anglo-Saxon" warrior class forming the majority of the elite. It usually only takes a couple of generations for a economically lower group to adopt the language and customs of the upper echelons within a society, and so wanting to align themselves with the powerful "Anglo-Saxon" nobility, the once Romano-British adopted the language, fashions, and customs of their new overlords.

[@iVenge]

The Danes are such an interesting group of people. The way they speak their language is utterly baffling, but they themselves are very interesting.

[@TheBarser]

Thats the nicest thing anyone has said about me this year

[@sashrill]

good job as always, i also love how we pronounce burial now. "burryul"

[@jamesbyrne9312]

I know what a joker he is. Total fool

[@Nortrix87]

From wiki: "The Danes first appear in written history in the 6th century with references in Jordanes' Getica (551 AD), by Procopius, and by Gregory of Tours. They spoke Old Norse (dǫnsk tunga), which the Danes shared with the people in Norway and Sweden and later in Iceland and the Faroe Islands. In his description of Scandza, Jordanes says that the Dani were of the same stock as the Suetidi ("Swedes") and expelled the Heruli and took their lands." "In the Nordic Iron Age, the Danes were based in present-day Zealand and Scania (and neighbouring parts of present-day Sweden). Until around the 6th century, Jutland was the homeland of two other Germanic tribes: the Jutes in what is now North Jutland, and the Angles in South Jutland (especially the Anglia peninsula). The Widsith mentions two semi-mythical kings in relation to the Danes of the Iron Age. Sigar who ruled the "Sea-Danes" and Offa who ruled both Danes and Angles. Centuries later, Saxo lists for the first time the Danes entire lineage of semi-mythical kings, starting from King Dan. As Saxo's texts are the first written accounts of Denmark's history, and hence the Danes, his sources are largely surviving legends, folk lore and word of mouth. The royal seat and capital of the Danes was located on Zealand near Lejre and constituted what has later been dubbed the Lejre Kingdom, ruled by the Skjöldung dynasty. Some time around the middle of the First Millennium, both Jutland and Anglia became part of Danish kingdom or kingdoms. So was southern Schleswig (now the northernmost part of Germany) - the site of Danevirke, a large set of fortifications reportedly built by Danes to mark the southern border of their realm. It was extended several times in later centuries." Seems to me there was a strong pressure from the Danes at the same time the Jutes and Anglosaxons migrated to Britain. And the gradually took control of Jutland. Later they also followed and invaded Britain. Danelaw etc.

[@AnatolianHittite]

I wish you continued success.When will the second part of the Turkish liberation struggle be broadcast?

[@Knowledgia]

1-2 months

[@AnatolianHittite]

@@Knowledgia Ahh! Thanks for answer.I'll be looking forward to it.Again, I wish you continued success, gentlemen.

[@ObamAmerican48]

I've done extensive (and exhausting!) geneological research on 8 main branches of my family tree (starting point, 2nd ggparents). One of those branches went as far back as the 1st decade of the first millenium (I was stunned by the validity of the paper trail). Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Romans, Hungarians, Serbians, Italian, Spanish, French, German, etc, so many wound up in Ireland, Scotland, England, and Wales. BTW, Vikings landed in southern Scotland around the 5th century, too.

[@jackperson3626]

Thanks!

[@Danny-ux1il]

A very lightweight presentation of history. I have always known that the Angles, Saxons and Jutes migrated to England and took over after the Romans went back to Italy. Now Knowledgia presents the idea that the idea that they conquered was maybe exagerated and maybe they even were invited and astonishingly, maybe a little of both? So what is he saying? Some graves and genetic material and some imaginings about some little linguistic evidence. And if you ignore the likely presence of Germanic mercenaries left behind by the Romans then you see a theory emerges.. Right. I don't know any more history now than I did before watching the video.

[@MatthewMcVeagh]

This is generally a good video with a lot of important points mentioned and reasonable conclusions. This is one of my favourite topics however and I have to nit-pick, with a mind to possibly informing your viewers even better, so here are my critiques. :) 1. Gildas wasn't Spanish, so there's no need to pronounce the G as a voiceless fricative /x/ - it's /g/ as you might expect. 2. Ogham and Futhorc are the names of alphabets, not languages - they shouldn't really be used as markers of what was being spoken on maps like this. It's also particularly wrong to show "FUTHORC" expanding through Europe, since not all those Germanic migrants necessarily used runes, and if they did they would not have use Futhorc as that is a specifically Anglo-Saxon variant (the C indicates that, it would be transcribed with a K in other Germanic languages). 3. The degree to which the Britons' adoption of Anglo-Saxon culture was 'voluntary' is questionable, and not really the point. The point is it will have been practically necessary for many people at many times. I am not suggesting it was forced, although it will have been occasionally. It is more a case of people throwing in their lot together in order to pool resources and labour and have greater strength against potentially aggressive neighbours. That this process led to the gradual Anglo-Saxonisation of a lot of Britain rather than the assimilation of Anglo-Saxons to the native Romano-British culture shows that the incoming Germanic culture was the more robust one. 4. Following on from that, the adoption of the Anglo-Saxon language was not a 'choice'. People in such situations make choices day by day and conversation by conversation, but the large-scale patterns again show convenience and necessity not choice. The situation on the continent was that proportionally small armies of Germanic peoples conquered large areas and subject populations, and then kept aloof from them (most notably the Visigoths in Spain for instance); this is a great recipe for their distinctive culture dwindling and dying out while the incumbent mass culture persists and merely adopts some personal names and words for warfare. In England equally small numbers, if not smaller, of Anglo-Saxons migrated to tiny coastal toeholds where they were in much greater proportion to the natives, who they eventually ruled over, then that Anglo-Saxonised polity conquered other small native polities inland, which they Anglo-Saxonised, until 'Anglo-Saxons' (those with a culture whatever their mix of ancestry) had a foothold, then those polities conquered Brittonic areas further inland and so on. The gradualness and more balanced populations are crucial to enabling a cumulative effect of the survival and dominance of the incoming culture rather than the incumbent native one. In a way the continental Germanic tribes like the Franks, Goths, Burgundians, Vandals and Lombards were victims of their greater and easier success, as none of their languages survive today, while the Anglo-Saxons were beneficiaries of their much smaller successes and greater challenges. 5. Another part of this picture is that a long, slow migration process is not needed to explain the result any more than a short large-scale invasion. The presence of ever more 'Anglo-Saxons' in ever further inland areas of Britain over time doesn't require more ancestral Angles and Saxons from the continent to be migrating in, it just requires people brought up in communities and polities with mixed ancestry (Anglo-Saxon/Brittonic) to be identifying with their Anglo-Saxon cultural heritage including language, and to be then perceived as that by Britons outside the Anglo-Saxonised areas. This explains why the proportion of Germanic DNA is greatest in coastal areas, and trails off considerably in inland ones. Areas like Mercia came to dominate the later Anglo-Saxon world, but the majority of the ancestry and DNA of its rulers would have been Brittonic. 6. There are some other points not covered in the video, such as: those coastal continental Germanic peoples already knew Britain before the Roman armies left, as they were often employed as foederati troops in its coastal defence. And the late Romans report attacks on the British coast by Frankish, Frisian, Saxon and other raiders. The southern British shore was called the 'Saxon Shore' (litus Saxonicum), either for the first reason, or the second, or both. 7. Another point is that the English language is closer to the Frisian languages than it is to the German dialects of (Lower) Saxony or Angeln. This can partly be explained by subsequent migration to those areas from further south in Germany, bringing different dialects, but only partly, and it does seem reasonable that there is actually some role for Frisian-speakers in the 'Anglo-Saxon' migration to Britain. There are several possible scenarios, including the idea that the Angleness or Saxonness of peoples in England was based on ancestral tribal allegiance due to conquests on the continent rather than linguistic reality. In other words the people who came over were linguistically Frisian but lived in (coastal) areas that had been overruled/dominated by chiefs further inland who identified as Saxon or Angle, and those 'official' people names are what stuck. Alternatively the language of the coastal areas from Flanders to Jutland may have been very similar, due to people constantly moving about around the coasts having a very mobile, sea-based culture, while retaining different tribal identities which were preserved after migrating to Britain, but then the later migrations to the coasts from inland Germany erased this commonality. Yet a third possibility is that Saxon and Angle rulers *led* the migrations, or at least later came to dominate them, but that it was Frisians who provided the bulk of the manpower, leading to their dialects being the surviving English ones.

[@Nizzet]

Sorry but you're dead wrong on points 4 and 5. What you describe is the recipe for the emergence of a mixed creole language. Old English was no such language, it didn't mix with the native tongues, it replaced them, which means there was indeed a very large influx of invaders (yes invaders, read the records) from the continent. It's the only explanation that is in accord with the actual evidence.

[@sebe2255]

@@NizzetNot only linguistsic but also modern genetic evidence. A small group of elites and warriors (akin to the Franks in Gaul) wouldn’t have led to 30% of the English dna being Anglo-Saxon on average

[@KrisHughes]

Thanks for taking the time to write all this. I noticed a lot of these things before I stopped watching due to annoyance.

[@MatthewMcVeagh]

@@KrisHughes Thanks.

[@MatthewMcVeagh]

@@Nizzet Actually there are some key points about Old English that show influence from Brittonic, in pronunciation and grammar, even writing. A pidgin or creole is not needed just because there will have been contact between Brittonic and Anglo-Saxon speakers. In fact it's possible there was some simplification of Anglo-Saxon but that it was de-creolised later. There is also an argument that late Old English works like Beowulf that show full inflection and vocabulary that disappeared after the Norman Conquest were actually in a formal conservative form of English and the everyday language had already changed considerably due to influences on it (Brittonic, Latin, Norse). I'm not sure what 'records' you mean me to read.

[@macwinter7101]

Just because a group of people show signs of adopting the culture of newcomers does not mean they willingly and peacefully adopted that culture. There are many people of indigenous ancestry in the Americas that now speak European languages who have largely adopted European cultures brought by immigrants, but that does not mean these people peacefully adopted European culture. We know for a fact that the relations between Europeans and indigenous populations in the Americas were violent. I also must point out that most Europeans coming to the Americas were also families coming to start a new life, but that does not mean their relations with indigenous peoples were peaceful. Also, just a good rule of thumb, people rarely willingly give up their culture and adopt the culture of newcomers. We really don't see many instances of that happening in recorded history. It seems a bit naive and hopeful to think that the incoming Germanic tribes and indigenous Celtic tribes would've had peaceful interactions, especially since the Celtic languages and genetic admixture almost completely disappeared in the region. Again, just because there is evidence that Celtic tribes were practicing Anglo culture and mixing with Anglos does not mean it was peaceful. We have seen this same process happen dozens of times in recent history, and we know it was not peaceful.

[@nickvinsable3798]

🤔 . . . I have TWO questions: what was happening in & around what is today Denmark at the time (the homelands of the Anglo-Saxons)? And could this move be due to the Ancient Roman power vacuum, i.e. hearing the news that their Germanic neighbors to the south have successfully toppled the empire & now they want a piece of the shrinking Pie that was once the Ancient Roman Empire?

[@mortenstergaardandersen613]

Very good question. In fact, in the very same time period, present-day Denmark was being invaded from the east, by the originally Swedish tribe called the Danes. Very likely the Jutes, Angles and Saxons fled from the Danish invaders, and found refuge in Britain where they were invited to help fight the Picts.

[@nickvinsable3798]

🤔 . . . And what were the Danes [running from], @@mortenstergaardandersen613?

[@macwinter7101]

There likely was a lot of conflict and overpopulation in Jutland at the time and there would be many different Germanic tribes fighting over land. People who were displaced by this conflict or who wanted to escape it probably heard tales of the recent retreat of Romans in Britain, and they probably also heard tales of the fertile land and defenseless people who couldn't fight to keep it (Celtic tribes probably lost their warfare abilities after Roman occupation), so they headed west in hopes of finding a better life. One thing people don't discuss enough in history is that the human population in certain areas would become so high that the land could no longer support all the people, which would result in conflict, migration and displacement. So much of human conflict can be traced to the struggle to acquire land to support growing populations. We have excellent agricultural technology now, which enables us to support a massive population, but it wasn't always like that.

[@RangaTurk]

Finno-Ugric? The same people that migrated to the Bavarian Plain. They are questionably called Magyars in Hungary but theoretically, if this was the case area would not be of slight Ottoman origin i.e. Hittite, Assyrian, Armenian, Hunnic and Avar/Bulgar DNA from the direct east. That is why I suspect Czechoslovakia is different from Poland and is closer to Hungary in language although Poland had Ottoman, Bulgar and Cuman demographic minorities in its now Ukrainian southeastern extremities. I could be wrong but I have a strong feeling Finnish people migrated in a U-Shape to the British Isles via the Alps and roughly along the line of the Rhine and crossed through Doggerland and became commonly known as Celts (temporarily of Alpine-Rhineland origin) and became of respective Cornish, Welsh or Irish origin later. Some of these I suspect became mixed with non-Gaulic (ancient) people in the Southern half of France (centered around the Tarn Valley roughly) and ended up in North West Ireland I suspect but that is just a personal theory.@@mortenstergaardandersen613

[@mortenstergaardandersen613]

@@RangaTurk There are a number of problems with that theory, though. I'll mention just a few. Firstly, Doggerland was submerged some 8,000 years ago, and the Finnic and Celtic peoples didn't arrive in Europe until some 5,000 years later. When they did, they arrived from two very different areas - the Finns from Russia, and the Celts from Anatolia (later to become the Ottoman heartland btw). Already at that time they were clearly distinct peoples with vastly different cultures and languages. There is really no historical relation between them.

[@joujoujiji7572]

After watching this ancient history documentary, I’m ready to start a petition for a reboot of the Bronze Age!

[@eksbocks9438]

It's really hard to say. It might be easier to compare the two cultures side-by-side. Something about the Anglo-Saxons convinced the Bretons to stay close with them. My guess is: There was more opportunity for them. And protection from their not-so friendly neighbors. Which would be important. Considering that they couldn't rely on the Romans at that point.

[@nozmulm]

Real answer: The Anglo saxons fled to Britain from the Hunnic horde invasion, Europe was ravaged which led to the fall of western Roman empire

[@mortenstergaardandersen613]

It wasn't the Huns the fled from, as they never got that far north. However, at the very time of the Anglo Saxon migration, Jutland was invaded by another people from the east - the originally Swedish tribe called the Danes.

[@erikrahbekstergaard1402]

The danes were known as a group in the migration periode. With assumed origin in southern Sweden they migrated west and fought with the judes, angles and the saxons too. Because of this pressure from the danes I have heard that 90% of the angles migrated to England. Also the Franks fought the saxons.

[@jrgennielsen9465]

Oh you have documentation for this? It contradicts the danish historical magazine skalk about the anglians and how they were pushed back to their areas of orign around eckernförde and flensburg...by jutes and probably people from Fyn. Nobody knows where the danes came from or how denmark was formed. But the first cities are in the southern part of jutland and so are the first signs of kingship.

[@Perspectiveon]

@@jrgennielsen9465 Dan was the person (mythical king ?) unifying germanic tribes and forming Denmark (Land/fields of Dan) 5th century ad. according to Saxo Grammaticus' "Gesta Danorum" and "Chronicles of Denmark" by Sven Aggesen c. 1180 ad. First mention of danes by Jordanes "Getica" 551 ad. and Greek Procobius mid 6th century describes a people dani (danes) - inhabiting Jutland, Scania and the islands in between - expelling the Heruli, a tribe or people of eastern goth origin who had settled on Zealand but didn't belong to the same people as surrounding tribes. The Heruli then founded a kingdom at the Danube/Donau river until disappearing from records 6th century. The Milanese Bobbio Orobius early 7th century refer to South danes (Jutland) and North danes (Isles and Scania). Frankish annals of the 8th century often refer to danish kings most notably Godfred who fought against Charlemagnes exspansion and forced christianization of Saxony and Frisia 770s - 800s and sacked the baltic coast settlement Rerik 808 ad. of the obotrites allied with the Franks. Godfred also reinforced Dannevirke fortifications in Angeln. My guess is Dan originally founded Denmark as a nation comprising tribes from Jutland, Fyen, Zealand and Scania and built Dannevirke c. 500 but a later dispute caused a divide. The marriage between Thyra (South danes) and Gorm (North danes) likely ended the disputes and unified the nation mid 9th century. The many ring-fortresses in Denmark and Scania built to cement unification serving as refuges ao in case of uprisings or attacks from outside forces. Thanks to Harald Bluetooth's conversion to christianity and quite succesful attempt to erase pagan history the modern perception is he and not Dan was the one giving birth to Denmark as a nation. It also ended the "ideological war" against the Holy Roman Empires repeated attempts to expand through forced christianization, secured his sovereignty and eventually ended the viking era when his grandson Canute became king of England 1016 and Norway 1018. The battle of Hastings 1066 being end of the era a later adoptation.

[@erikrahbekstergaard1402]

@@jrgennielsen9465 Why contradiction? Jutes and angles fighting for centures and the boarder between them in Jutland moving north and south as a consequence, and danes arriving from the east resulting in a pressure on both jutes and angles. But, - there are many tribes in play and not much safe documentation, this is giving place for a lot of assumptions/guessing. As example: the people dani mentioned by Jordanes, where they a single tribe danes og a mixture of tribes inhabiting a certain area. We probable have a problem with correctly defining who was who.

[@Perspectiveon]

@@erikrahbekstergaard1402 I'd say Dani (Danes) are very likely an umbrella term covering several tribes. Not that different from today - Jute and Dane, Zealander and Dane. Romans (and Franks) made somewhat ambiguous terms, ie. Saxons being a term covering various tribes named for their weaponry - a "Seax" and not a specific tribe or area.

[@TheBarser]

​@jrgennielsen9465 no the danes as a tribe originated from scania and zealand. Southern sweden was the original homeland of the danes. The swedes are just renting it

[@antondavidoff150]

The Saxons were also being pushed West from the Slavic people in North Germany... it is also well known fact that the Saxons had 0 chance with the people of Arkona from Ruhen when fighting

[@DoN-xh3pd]

Also The franks from the south under Charlemagne done alot of damage to the saxons

[@Jeudaos]

And you know this... how?

[@Jeudaos]

That's odd when archological evidence says that the saxons were some of the most fit, and talented fighters in known history.

[@JohnHoulgate]

​@@DoN-xh3pd Saxons had migrated to the British Isle at least 400 hundred years before Charlemagne. Charlemagne carried out military campaigns against the Saxons who were still living in Northern Europe. I also wondered about the Franks having something to do with the Saxon migrations. That would have been a response to the Merovingians, who lead the Franks across the Rhine during the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The Merovingians set their ambitions of conquest to the lands South of their territory, not North or Northeast. That would be Gaul, mainly. The suggestion of Slavs pushing from the East seems more plausible to me.

[@Anglo-Saxon_familie]

The sheer numbers impacted Saxon migration. But don't underestimate just how powerfully effective the Saxons were

[@Funeeman]

The Anglo-Saxons are the greatest people to walk this earth.

[@scofair5551]

Although the Norman Conquest had an impact on our language, it's said only a few thousand Normans settled in England. They also kept the Anglo Saxon legal system.

[@franceshorton918]

My thoughts go further back. In pre-history, England was joined to France, the low-lying land has been named Doggerland. Yes, at some time, there was a huge tsunami following an undersea upheaval, and Doggerland destroyed, and forever underwater. However, the tribes people knew of each other 'across the Channel' . They could take their craft across the waters when the weather allowed. It's possible that their culture and languages were similar enough to allow for trade, inter-marriage, and cultural exchange over time. Knowing the Warrior Kings of that time, there would also have been regional wars. But overall, the peoples of early England/Britain were not so different from their similar tribes and cultures on the Continent.

[@Rookblunder]

Well if Celts were all over Europe before settling in Briton and Ireland then it would make sense that travel was going on for awhile.

[@Leo-so9rj]

The story is very similar to the situation England is experiencing now.

[@neilog747]

England is not governed by the English. Like Scotland and Wales, it is governed by some thing called 'The British Establishment' and 'The Free Press'.

[@someopinion922]

The effects of the Hun invasion of Europe on migration to England is overlooked.

[@عليياسر-ذ5ب]

The Saxons: My British brother, they asked me to intervene in their wars

[@sirrathersplendid4825]

The Hun invasion was followed by an Avar invasion in around 558, and later by Bulgar and Magyar invasions. These human waves came regularly from Central Asia every few centuries, though some had greater repercussions than others.

[@mysteriousDSF]

If you keep recruiting mercenaries and rely on their military power to keep your political power, you will have to relinquish your political power to the military eventually. Same happened in Japan where the Shogun was the de facto ruler and the emperor was just a figurehead.

[@ohNojames]

What if the mercenaries who were asked to come aid them realized they could set themselves up as a ruling class and the locals adopted their culture as a way for political advantage and advancement after the Anglo Saxon families came over giving them parity in population.

[@MC-gj8fg]

Do we even know what the demographics of Britain were at the time of the Anglo/Saxon migration? Was there a large degree of cross breeding between Romans and original Celts, or were the two populations largely separate? Was the majority of England descendants of Roman migrants at that point?

[@Inucroft]

The urban areas were heavily intermixed while the rural areas would hardly be indistinguishable before Roman rule

[@Belisarius1967]

Rural Roman Britain shows no evidence of genetic or linguistic influence from Rome. This shows that the Anglo-Saxon migration must have been on a significant scale. Celtic Britain survived 400 years of Roman rule virtually intact.

[@Grenadier311]

Roman migration comprises a tiny, negligible percentage of British DNA.

[@sonneh86]

What about the migration of Celtic Britons to Brittany and Galicia? That could be interpreted as people fleeing the Germanic invasion

[@noahtylerpritchett2682]

That's correct critical thinking.

[@xConoooR1]

Celts we’re all over France, Spain and the uk and at its biggest all of Europe was Celtic.

[@noahtylerpritchett2682]

@@xConoooR1 yes but Bretons and Galicians spoke a Insular Celtic language not a continental Celtic language.

[@King_Cova]

Guess what? That's exactly what that was, no need to interpret anything.

[@wires-sl7gs]

Yeah, Knowledgia seems to have a much more peaceful and idealistic interpretation of it, while he's not entirely round, there was probably more war and violence than he implies.

[@sakkra93]

"There is no use in denying it. It is now clear the nation which most dislikes the Germans were once Krauts themselves." - Der Spiegel

[@kennethstreet5734]

Our family heritage is Treuel from Wedel in what was then Denmark and Street from Salisbury England, but we are Australian🇦🇺 Definately Anglo-Saxon

[@Buydaa.M]

Hi from USA ❤ Australia 🎉

[@ottosaxo]

Yes, Wedel like all of Holstein was ruled by Denmark then, but people didn't speak Danish, and families and towns had no Danish names. The language of the native people was Low German until today's Standard German was introduced in church and school, with the intention to spread one common language all over Germany.

[@theodoresmith5272]

Farm land with less destructive weather more so then in the low countries.

[@Sam_Green____4114]

The Eastern part of England is still called East ANGLIA !

[@redwaldcuthberting7195]

Previously called East Engle in old English meaning East Angles due to their kingdom being there.

[@JackChurchill101]

The southern part of England is still called SUSSEX, as in South Saxons. And is chavy bit of England is still called Essex, because of its natural minerals used in fake tan.

[@ndie8075]

Yes❤🇩🇪

[@momo8200]

Why would a majority celtic speaking Britons adopt a foreign germanic language? What incentive would there be, especially if the anglo-saxon migration took place slowly over 100-200 years.

[@عليياسر-ذ5ب]

They like new rulers ❤❤❤

[@gwyn2]

After four centuries of Roman rule most of the lowland British natives were possibly speaking a form of pig-latin and had little identity as being 'British'.

[@jonvought700]

Economic? (Especially if it was the Anglo-Saxons who held power.)

[@liamfoley9215]

I think this is the first time I have seen Ireland described as being inhabited by Scots.

[@liamfoley9215]

I think it’s interesting that the Angles and Saxons got in the name and The Jutes didn’t.

[@TeutonicEmperor1198]

So let me get this straight. The native Britons of the countryside were under Roman occupation for 400 years adapting next to nothing from the vastly superior Roman civilization, no language, no customs, no religion even though that would have given them wealth and power and after a couple of centuries of coexistanse(!) with their Germanic invaders(?), colonizers(?), friends(???) the Britons through their own identity out of the window like it was nothing? Am I the only one who consider this idea a little bit unrealistic ,naive and just lightly political? Sure, maybe the Saxons were a little bit better to the natives than the Romans but that doesn't change the fact that the Saxons were invaders who were pushing their own culture to the Britons.

[@gwyn2]

The native lowland British would have had to speak a basic Latin being that most of them would be employed on Roman estates, local manufacturing, trade, or military duties. Their original tribal identity would have been severely weakened or even lost. The lowland native British did accept Christianity prior to the Romans leaving. In recent grave excavations native Britons (dna tested) were buried along side AS (dna tested), found to be wearing the same clothes, weapons, and of the same economic status. One grave in Yorkshire found that the two (presumed) female slaves came from Scandinavia whilst the 'Saxons' were migrants from the west of Briton.

[@TeutonicEmperor1198]

@@gwyn2 the native lowland British around Londinium, Camuladonum etc would spoken some Latin to help the conquerors yet they didn't abandon their language. The vast majority of the Britons were far away from Roman settlements. If me and my family move to a foreign country to work we may learn some of the natives' basic speech but we won't forget our language. Christianity was by no means Roman's state religion until the very last years of Roman occupation. So the majority of the Britons who would have been converted to Christianity would have considered this act as an act of defiance to the Romans and not as an act of assimilation. If both AS and native Britons were Christians then a common burial ground could make sense, though I wonder when did that happen and how frequent was the practise. We mustn't also forget than marrying the wife, sister, daughter etc of your defeated enemy could force the 2 civilization to unify. But we must also not forget that the gender of the conqueror and that of the conquered has a lot of significance.

[@gwyn2]

@@TeutonicEmperor1198 As presumably the bulk of the rural peasantry was employed as serfs on Romanised estates or as craftsmen or transporters within a Roman economy the majority of the lowland Britons would have been versed in basic Latin in order to be employable. "we won't forget our language" - after 400 hundred years you may well. "as an act of defiance to the Romans and not as an act of assimilation" - but they were already assimilated being they then considered themselves to be Roman. "I wonder when did that happen and how frequent was the practise" - read the research on the thousands of graves excavated.

[@WalesTheTrueBritons]

Britons! Britons! British, the term directly comes from the native name of the island, which was Prydain. These Britons didn’t disappear, the Anglo Saxon call them Welsh now.

[@neilog747]

Thats basically it, although the British (Prydain folk) were non-native invaders too. They just invaded centuries earlier.

[@corriemooney9812]

Yeah, no there's no real debate. They invaded. The adoption theory is utter nonsense.

[@zoli7251]

People are the best creatures.

[@BrambleWood]

i tend to view all early history and pre history migrations from the colonisation of america . The Promise of a better life, is a great incentive, some previous populations will be friends , some will become enemies, but the need to do your best for your family, is a trait that all humans from modern to Neanderthal probably even Homo erectus, cannot ignore.

[@andrewmogg591]

The North Sea and its major estuaries being the super-highway of the day, where a suitable vessel could sail across from Demark or Norway to England faster than someone could ride across the country by horse.

[@MuggyMeasures]

Proud Anglo 💪🏻

[@benfisher5531]

Better to be a humble Anglo 👍🏻

[@andyjay729]

The history of the North Sea shore from the present-day Netherlands to Denmark is marked by major floods, some of which killed thousands of people and wiped out entire cities, since winter storms occasionally send up storm surges from the north to south, to where the North Sea tapers into a funnel shape. There was one flood in 1362 that killed about 25,000 people and is still known in Low German as the Grote Mandrenke (Great Man-Drowning). Some of the most prominent geographic features of that part of the world, the Frisian Islands and the Dutch lake IJsselmeer (which was originally a bay called the Zuider Zee until the Dutch dammed it up) didn't exist at the time of the Anglo-Saxon migration; they were created by huge storm floods in a flat, marshy area. So I have to wonder if catastrophic floods along the North Sea coast were one of the main drivers of the Anglo-Saxon migration, and some of them may also have been pushed along by other peoples fleeing the Hun invasions which also drove other Germanic tribes like the Goths and Vandals into Roman territory. In a similar vein, one wonders if some of the Polynesian migrations may also have been triggered by volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and/or tsunamis, or if other human migrations may also have been triggered by natural disasters.

[@Daimo83]

Looking forward to the sequel: "Why did the Pakistanis migrate to Britain"

[@Cal-Valhalla]

And did they destroy the decadent culture?*

[@hansmeier3287]

Well, half of Britain was taken by Saxons ("Wessex, Sussex, Essex"). Keep in mind, your folks came from Germany, too. 😊🇩🇪

[@sebe2255]

Wasn’t Germany back then, they left before German identify became a thing

[@kipkipper-lg9vl]

@@sebe2255 germania was already a concept at that time, actually german as an identity is extremely old even though it was more lose back then as a word for any Germanic speaking group, so yes we left germany/germania lol

[@sebe2255]

@@kipkipper-lg9vl Germania and Germany are not remotely the same concept. Germania was a geographical term used by the Romans. German is a medieval identity that was eventually adopted by almost all continental west Germanic people (with the exception in of the Dutch and much later Luxemburgish people). Just because the names are similar in English doesn’t mean they are the same concept. In German or Dutch for example the distinction is far more clear. Germaan/Germanen and Deutsch are two very different things. And the German/Deutsche identity didn’t exist before the 11th century. The Angles Saxons and Jutes they left the region of Germania, and they are now classified as Germanic peoples (though they also knew they were closely related back then) but they weren’t German. In fact the English identity is older than the German one

[@kipkipper-lg9vl]

@@sebe2255 you are being pedantic, it is totally valid to say they left Germany, your just being autistic lol

[@sakkra93]

Anglo-Saxons, Dutch, Scandinavians, one thing unites us - we are all children of mother Germany. 😊