The Anglo Saxons
If you’re anything like me, when you think about England in the Middle Ages, your mental timeline starts with the Norman conquest in 1066. Ever since I read Canadian journalist William Costain’s series of books on William the Conqueror and his descendants through the War of the Roses, I’ve always been fascinated by that era of English history.
Who exactly they conquered, by contrast, has always been a little more hazy in my mind. My vague mental picture remembered Hengist and Horsa, the memorably named but probably apocryphal mercenaries brought in to aid the local populace only to instead lead a full-on Anglo-Saxon-Jutish invasions, pushing the native population into Wales and dividing most of the island into many tiny kingdoms. Those tiny kingdoms then spent centuries at war with each other until the Vikings came along and ravaged the island for the next several centuries until finally being conquered by the Normans.
An Introduction to the Anglo Saxons
Marc Morris’ book “The Anglo Saxons” offers a well-written and coherent general history perfect for those like me who knew very little about this subject to begin with. He offers a sympathetic look at a civilization that achieved much more than being the serial victims of foreign invaders. As Morris tells it, the ruling of Britain by the various Germanic groups wasn’t so much an invasion, but more like a flood filling a void. Civil society had already collapsed, towns had already depopulated, and consequently organized Christianity, based on urban bishoprics, had been severely weakened.
This for him answers the question: why did Christianity and Latin survive the Germanic invasion in most of the rest of the Western empire, but disappear in Britain?
The population wasn’t wiped out, or flee into Wales, but was absorbed into a more dynamic culture.
The First Century
The first century of the Anglo Saxon era lacks the kind of detailed contemporaneous histories that can add details to a larger story, so Morris turns to literature to illuminate the era. He uses The poem Beowulf to describe the type of Hall-based society, the drinking, gift-giving, and storytelling that would have been familiar to the Anglo Saxons’ homeland. He dismisses later historians like the twelfth-century Henry of Huntingdon who had established the idea of seven Anglo Saxon kingdoms as an anachronism, and questions the earliest entries in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle which repeat Bede’s tale of the famous Hengist and Horsa. He declares that the archaeology instead suggests that there were no Anglo Saxon kings in the fifth century, or even obviously rich elites. Instead, the various groups lived as independent farmers. I’m not sure I’m convinced by this. Egalitarian societies without some sort of sovereign authority are rare, Though I suppose the early years of Icelandic society might be a relevant comparison. According to him, kings and elites appeared sometime in the late sixth century. How and why aren’t very clear. States like Wessex, Essex, Mercia, and Northumbria then began to compete with each other and whose fortunes were tied to the personal rule of charismatic kings.
One mystery Morris isn’t able to solve is why the Anglo-Saxons, with the 8th century Mercian King Offa being the most notable, were so keen on building Dykes. These long man-made hills overlooking ditches could run for dozens of miles. But were they built to delineate political boundaries, to protect against invasion, to frustrate cattle raids, or to display the wealth and power of the kings who ordered their construction? Or some combination? Apparently, historians are still unsure. Offa himself, though a very powerful king, unfortunately, did not have a contemporary chronicler to provide details about his reign. Or at least not one that has survived. Better served by the written sources is the famous Alfred the Great, a central figure in the development of the English state.
The Vikings
The wars with the Viking raiders of course make for interesting reading. We leave behind the confusing rising and falling fortunes of the various Anglo Saxon kingdoms and begin to see the beginnings of a united English nation. As the raids became larger, and developed into great invading armies, they eventually destroyed almost all the Anglo Saxon kingdoms. Alfred managed to preserve his kingdom of Mercia, and his descendant Aethelstan was able to declare himself king of the English and all of Britain. Of course, the Danes returned and King Cnut ruled a North Sea empire that included England, but soon after his death, an Anglo Saxon, Edward the Confessor, once again ruled England.
The Rise and Fall of Christianity
The fall and rise of Christianity in England is a major theme of the book. While Christianity collapsed with the coming of the pagan Anglo Saxons, it managed to hold on in Ireland, which had never been a part of the Roman Empire. The Irish however preserved an idiosyncratic Christianity, cut off from the Bishop of Rome. The competition of the continental-minded St Wilfrid with the Irish church for the direction of the development of English Christianity included a dramatic synod deciding when to celebrate Easter. Wilfrid won out and the English church thereafter grew closer to Rome and the continent. Further developments in the church, the spread of monasteries, and the career of Saint Dunstan detail how intimately tied to politics and various royal families the church became, in contrast to the ostentatiously modest Irish church.
Conclusion
The Anglo Saxon era was a turbulent time in English history, with multiple kingdoms and a lack of historical sources for crucial stretches of time and in disparate regions. The north of England for instance fades in and out of the story as the sources allow. Morris writes well, however, and communicates clearly about what is and isn’t known. For those listening to the audiobook, I would recommend taking a good look at a map of medieval England beforehand, especially for non-Britons.
