The Anglo-Saxons
In the Dark Ages during the fifth and sixth centuries, communities of
peoples in Britain inhabited homelands with ill-defined borders. Such
communities were organized and led by chieftains or kings. Following the
final withdrawal of the Roman legions from the provinces of Britannia in
around 408 AD these small kingdoms were left to preserve their own order and
to deal with invaders and waves of migrant peoples such as the Picts from
beyond Hadrian's Wall, the Scots from Ireland and Germanic tribes from the
continent. (King Arthur, a larger-than-life figure, has often been cited as
a leader of one or more of these kingdoms during this period, although his
name now tends to be used as a symbol of British resistance against
invasion.)
The invading communities overwhelmed or adapted existing kingdoms and
created new ones - for example, the Angles in Mercia and Northumbria. Some
British kingdoms initially survived the onslaught, such as Strathclyde,
which was wedged in the north between Pictland and the new Anglo-Saxon
kingdom of Northumbria.
By 650 AD, the British Isles were a patchwork of many kingdoms founded from
native or immigrant communities and led by powerful chieftains or kings. In
their personal feuds and struggles between communities for control and
supremacy, a small number of kingdoms became dominant: Bernicia and Deira
(which merged to form Northumbria in 651 AD), Lindsey, East Anglia, Mercia,
Wessex and Kent. Until the late seventh century, a series of warrior-kings
in turn established their own personal authority over other kings, usually
won by force or through alliances and often cemented by dynastic marriages.
According to the later chronicler Bede, the most famous of these kings was
Ethelberht, king of Kent (reigned c.560-616), who married Bertha, the
Christian daughter of the king of Paris, and who became the first English
king to be converted to Christianity (St Augustine's mission from the Pope
to Britain in 597 during Ethelberht's reign prompted thousands of such
conversions). Ethelberht's law code was the first to be written in any
Germanic language and included 90 laws. His influence extended both north
and south of the river Humber: his nephew became king of the East Saxons and
his daughter married king Edwin of Northumbria (died 633).
In the eighth century, smaller kingdoms in the British Isles continued to
fall to more powerful kingdoms, which claimed rights over whole areas and
established temporary primacies: Dalriada in Scotland, Munster and Ulster in
Ireland. In England, Mercia and later Wessex came to dominate, giving rise
to the start of the monarchy.
Throughout the Anglo-Saxon period the succession was frequently contested,
by both the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy and leaders of the settling Scandinavian
communities. The Scandinavian influence was to prove strong in the early
years. It was the threat of invading Vikings which galvanized English
leaders into unifying their forces, and, centuries later, the Normans who
successfully invaded in 1066 were themselves the descendants of Scandinavian
'Northmen'
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