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Who did the Anglo-Saxons think they were?
- adamjb 6y agoSo they either called themselves Angles or Saxons or not-Jutes until they started to call themselves English (Angelcynn)?
- darig 6y agoSPOILER ALERT! People who understood what Stanheng represented.
- keithwhor 6y agoMore of a reflection than a comment on the article itself: I have a sneaking suspicion the success of Assassin's Creed: Valhalla has had a positive impact on people's interest in this time period in England. Certainly got me to click. Gorgeous game, lots of educational tidbits, highly recommended if you're looking for a little bit of escapism during the pandemic. :)
- exmadscientist 6y agoFor me it was overhearing a few episodes of the British History Podcast [0] (not being a podcast person myself) which prompted a click. Highly recommended if you're into this time period; the podcast just reached Episode 365, in the mighty year 1050. If you ever believed that the Dark Ages were truly Dark, there are few better ways to disabuse yourself of that notion than listening to a few episodes.... [0] https://www.thebritishhistorypodcast.com/ https://www.thebritishhistorypodcast.com/
- edgyquant 6y agoI’m a history nerd in general but it was Tolkien describing how he wondered what the Anglo-Saxons would have thought of the Roman structures (and comparing it to the Hobbits viewing the First Age Elven structures) that originally piqued my interest in the Anglo-Saxons. But any game that sparks that interest in others is okay by me, even if I’ll likely never play it due to a low attention span when it comes to games other than the Legend of Zelda.
- twic 6y agoThere's a poem written by an Anglo-Saxon about a Roman ruin (which Tolkien was aware of, and perhaps you are too!): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ruin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ruin Someone here points out that there are a lot of significant ruins in The Lord of the Rings: https://feudalendeavor.pressbooks.com/chapter/meldingofanglosaxonthemes/ https://feudalendeavor.pressbooks.com/chapter/meldingofanglo...
- ycombinete 6y agoThe series Vikings, as well. Much of what's described in this article is represented in the series.
- kul 6y agoAnd “The Last Kingdom” on Netflix. Very interesting seeing the Saxon response to the Viking invasions.
- thisisnico 6y agoSuch an incredible series.
- Bayart 6y agoIt's just a fashionable theme these days. I'm not quite sure about the « educational content ». It seems to be beyond fantastical when it comes to ethnic interactions and religion. It's quite worrying seeing where people get their historical pointers from.
- stareatgoats 6y agoYes, many games, TV-series as well as films ('the Dig') seem to pop up signaling a renewed interest in this period. As a Scandinavian it is with mixed pride and horror that the savage war-loving nature of our past is uncovered, which at the same time contributed to the early formation of many of the most influential kingdoms in history after the fall of the Roman Empire. Such as England (the Anglo-Saxons, and later the Vikings), Russia (the Rus), and Spain (the Visigoths). Not to mention the mark that the Normans made in early Europe. This influence is a tribute to the power of war and plunder and the renewed interest in the time period is probably in part related to the current zeitgeist in which chauvinism and the rattling of swords is once more on the agenda. Given the immense firepower at our disposal currently we should perhaps better try and counter with stories about the benefits of peace, too.
- checkyoursudo 6y agoAs also a Scandinavian, I find that I have neither much pride nor horror. I guess I am fascinated by our history without wanting to emulate it. Similarly, I am an adamant pacifist, but I nevertheless love WWII histories, novels, and movies. I don't want there to be another world war, but I am still fascinated by the ones we've had. I do empathize with your feelings. I think they are natural of course. I do however wonder if there ever really was a time when chauvinism and sabre-rattling were not on the agenda? Maybe not to the same degree, perhaps. I do think the "better angels of our nature" trend will continue over the very long term. There are always rough periods. Ultimately, I agree fully with your prescription. Those of us who love peace should promote peace. I think we can do so while acknowledging and exploring the dark sides of history. You know, the learn from our mistakes adage and all that.
- Aloha 6y agoWar can be a necessary evil. But even when needed it's still evil. What often appeals about WWII is one side was clearly good, and one side clearly not, that moral clarity is often lacking today.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- matkoniecz 6y ago> lots of educational tidbits If you think that it is useful in this way you may be interested what was excluded. See https://acoup.blog/2020/11/20/miscellanea-my-thoughts-on-assassins-creed-valhalla/ https://acoup.blog/2020/11/20/miscellanea-my-thoughts-on-ass... > To say that the game sanitizes this history is a profound understatement. (...) > In short, your raiding doesn’t so much as inconvenience the civilian population. (...) > You are a viking (one thing they do right: viking is a job description, meaning ‘raider,’ not an ethnic identity) who does not kill non-combatants. This is akin to the famous joke about the pirates who don’t steal anything. > We should be clear about what is happening in England in c. 875 when the game takes place. After almost a century of repeated Norse and Danish viking raids on the English coast (which, to be clear, were not merely raids for physical goods; they were slave raids as trading in slaves (‘thralls’) was an important part of the Scandinavian economy), the arrival of what the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle calls the ‘Great Heathen Army’ (in 865) turned that into a war of conquest. The Norse and Danes overran the English kingdoms (save Wessex) and settled in the area, subjugating the population, taking the best farmland from its former owners and generally wrecking the place in the process. Our sources are very clear that this was not a particularly pleasant process for the existing population and the surviving English kingdom of Wessex responded to it with a series of reforms that radically militarized the kingdom.
- prox 6y agoThe Netflix series The Last Kingdom seems to portray what you describe pretty well.
- LilBytes 6y agoI was expecting to hate this show but I ended up enjoying it. Even more than what I my highest possible expectations gave me. There's an episode in the Last Kingdom and in Vikings when we see the great pyres lit to communicate a raid was occurring. There's quite a few on the coast of North Eastern England where I grew up still present to this day. Admittedly I some what doubt they're original .
- 6y ago
- DyslexicAtheist 6y agoI'm in the middle of Vikings season 5 so I naturally clicked.
- simonh 6y agoBasically we're the linguistic and genetic flotsam and jetsam of Europe that happened to wash up on these shores. Not so much the Bulldog Breed as the scrappy mongrels of the continent.
- fiftyacorn 6y agoIt's a pity some people in Britain can't accept the mongrel nature of Britain. Look at Boris Johnson, a mix of Turkish, french and old England
- gerdesj 6y ago... or me: A mixture of all the the four nations hereabouts, plus German (whatever that means) a dash of Spanish etc etc ... all the way back to somewhere in Africa, depending on what the archaeologists dig up tomorrow. I dare you to define what Turkish, French and old England actually means. For starters: where/when does French stop and German start and vice versa? "Turkish" is just as complicated.
- xwolfi 6y agoAnd the italians? I m french but I sure look a lot more like an Italian than a german. The mongrel nature of Britain is common for all multi border countries... and many are even Germany or Spain. I think we should really define countries by language, mountain and seas rather than blood, and frankly even those are shaky and changing. Maybe the best definition of a country is the largest geographical gradient that could sustain influence from a gigantic power centre without succumbing to another (for me, Paris, for the brits, London)?
- gerdesj 6y agoLondon is France's sixth largest city: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18234930 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18234930 or it was in 2012!
- lonelyasacloud 6y ago
- vlz 6y ago> Thus the history of the names emphatically reflects cross-cultural competition for power and control, but in a very complex way. In an informed view, it is hard to see ‘Anglo-Saxon’ as inappropriate to the contexts to which it has been attached. It‘s complicated, but „Anglo-Saxon“ can be used as it has been.
- fwn 6y agoAt first I thought: what a bland and narrow takeaway from such a nuanced and still surprisingly fun article. .. but then I realized that me not being in a country or position to need to care about being accused of insensitive language is a big privilege many users on HN might not share.
- pestatije 6y agoOff-topic: Is that question well written? I'm not English native but it kind of sounds wrong. Shouldn't it be: -What did the Anglo-Saxons think they were? -Who thought the Anglo-Saxons they were? -...?
- mewse-hn 6y agoIt's correct, there's a common phrase in English "who do you think you are?" and this headline is just past tense plural.
- stevula 6y ago> Who thought the Anglo-Saxons they were? This doesn’t sound correct to me as a native speaker.
- Talanes 6y agoSeconded, that doesn't quite parse as meaning anything.
- getlawgdon 6y agoWhat?
- chrisseaton 6y ago> Who thought the Anglo-Saxons they were? They mean this sentence is unintelligible.
- bregma 6y agoMaybe it's meant to be "Who thought they were the Anglo-Saxons?"?
- thaumasiotes 6y ago> -What did the Anglo-Saxons think they were? > -Who thought the Anglo-Saxons they were? These two questions are syntactically identical; one just uses the question word for non-people while the other uses the question word for people. In both cases, subject-auxiliary inversion is required, and in both cases, think is not an auxiliary verb and therefore requires do-support. So your what-question is correct and your who-question is wrong. What is the difference you see?
- Cthulhu_ 6y agoFor perhaps a bit of extra context, the right-wingers / racists / Euroscepticals / etc of the UK like to refer to themselves as "anglo-saxons", as if to enforce some kind of "we were here first" or "we are the true English" narrative. Which is many levels of ironic. It's like white Americans pretending they have any kind of American roots going way back.
- roel_v 6y agoI guess you're being downvoted for the political slant it brings to what most would prefer to be neutral, but I think this angle is actually very relevant to frame the OP in current popular discourse; and in fact the article itself reference this relationship, albeit in a somewhat disguised way ("Another constructive use of the total pause that the pandemic has imposed is to reflect on whether it is valid to include the term ‘Anglo-Saxon’ within the category of seriously contested heritage").
- marcus_holmes 6y agoThe original inhabitants are lost to history - it's invaders from the east all the way down.
- khrapkove 6y agoThe Last Kingdom by Netflix is a must watch for everyone who still have questions about Anglo-Saxons
- gerdesj 6y agoNo, go to the library or a bookshop. I'm an IT bod but I reckon I could give you a reading list that would warm a historian's heart. Let's start with "The King in the North" by Max Adams.
- johnnycerberus 6y agoIf you don't reference great sources like AC Origins, Valhalla, the Vikings TV series, etc. you will be disliked among HNers.
- Accacin 6y agoPlease do, I'm English and fascinated by this period of history, especially with the Anglo-Saxons I guess due to my ancestry.
- Tagbert 6y agoYou may like the British History Podcast. It is an excellent and detailed look at British history starting with prehistory and are currently covering the period just prior to the Norman invasion. They do a good job giving context and connecting events. https://www.thebritishhistorypodcast.com/ https://www.thebritishhistorypodcast.com/
- auxbuss 6y agoMarc Morris [0] has a new book out in May entitled: The Anglo-Saxons: The Making of England: 410-1066 [1] I'm not a history nerd, but his Norman Conquest book [2] almost turned me. It's more fun than most novels. For a non-academic approach, written by a academic, I wouldn't look anywhere else. And while you're waiting, read Norman Conquest. It's brilliant. [0] https://twitter.com/longshanks1307 https://twitter.com/longshanks1307 [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52025940-the-anglo-saxons https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52025940-the-anglo-saxon... [2] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13065400-the-norman-conquest https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13065400-the-norman-conq...
- sparsely 6y agoReally interesting article. The intro and conclusion suggest that there is some sort of debate going on about usage of "Anglo-Saxon", but I cannot work out what it actually is and what side the author is on.
- udp 6y agoSimilar debate has been going on about “Celts” for many years. Broadly labelling cultures is just a helpful method for making sense of a very messy and complex history. It doesn’t necessarily mean they were completely distinct groups of people.
- cmrdporcupine 6y agoThe article basically TLDRs as "Anglo-Saxon" is appropriate, is my take on it: "In an informed view, it is hard to see ‘Anglo-Saxon’ as inappropriate to the contexts to which it has been attached"
- koheripbal 6y agoWhich is what makes it objective. Authors should be reporting facts, not advocating a "side".
- rahoulb 6y agoInteresting article. I’m from an Indian family but I’ve lived almost my whole life in what was Danelaw so the Viking side of history is much more apparent to me. Nice to know that the football chant of “Ingerland” is historically correct though.
- arethuza 6y agoFife, where I live in Scotland, is often referred to as a Kingdom although if it ever was a kingdom it probably was at least 1200 years ago. I saw a sign at the weekend that made me smile: "The Kings have gone by the Kingdom remains" Amazing how long these things can persist.
- AdmiralGinge 6y agoI used to live in Ceredigion in Wales which despite being a mere county now almost perfectly maps to the 5^th century post-Roman kingdom. There's parts of Ceredigion which look pretty much the same as they've done for millennia, the mountain road between Rhayader and Aberystwyth has got to be one of Britain's best drives!
- JNRowe 6y agoIn last summer's heatwave I was walking home along the old roman routes in Anglia after having a problem with my bike, and with the full-on scorch we'd had all manner of encampments become visible in fields. I found the whole experience of walking in the shadows of people gone for thousands of years quite calming somehow, despite realising I was having to ration fluids and food given any shops you might have found were closed for lockdown. Just south of Cambridge is the intersection between Icknield Way¹ and Ermine Street², and you hardly seem to be able to stick a trowel in the ground without finding a coin hoard in these parts. You can still walk large parts of it on footpaths and bridleways. Not as pretty as Wales, but nice nonetheless. ¹ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icknield_Way https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icknield_Way ² https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ermine_Street https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ermine_Street
- johnnycerberus 6y agoThere is no such thing as Anglo-Saxon continuation. Somehow, with the invention of nation states, we picked this this concept of cherry-picking our history even if most of the times doesn't make any sense. So, you will have England which pushed the Anglo-Saxon agenda, Scandinavian countries with Viking (more like Norse, since Viking was a border security job) stuff, Romanians think they are the continuation of the Roman rule, without taking into consideration the many people that settled or migrated through the country like Dacians, Goths, Huns, Germanics, Pecenegs, Slavs, Avars, Mongols, Turks, Romani, etc. I would stay away from these, since mostly they are used by right-wingers to push xenophobic agendas. Even Greeks still believe they are the same people as the Ancient Greeks. The problem nowadays is that with popular media and games, we think about these ancient people like some form of Gods and we create an unrealistic image about what they actually were, we even replace the actual history with an alternative one. Most of them were uneducated, poor, malnourished and their only hope was to survive the next day. Less than 1% of the population of that period created the meaningful stuff that we enjoy today when reading about Roman, Greek, Norse, Celtic, etc cultures. There is no reason to attach yourself to a specific "history" when the world is wealthy in knowledge and culture as it is today. Please, use the library, not games or popular entertainment (documentaries, your avearage YouTube history video, etc).
- adrian_b 6y agoThere are 2 kinds of heritages from the ancient people from which one is supposed to descend. One is the genetic heritage, i.e. DNA. If you or your ancestors lived in some place, you may suppose that you might have inherited some of the genes of the ancient people who lived there one thousand years earlier or four thousand years earlier. It is true that most people who claim to be descendants of some ancient people believe that their relationship with the ancients is such a blood kinship. You are right that such a belief is mostly false, so many Greeks might share little genetic material with the Ancient Greeks and someone who considers himself/herself, e.g. Polish or Romanian, might happen to have more genetic heritage from some very different people, e.g. from Tatars or Germans. On the other hand, there is the cultural heritage, i.e. the maternal language and a myriad of customs transmitted from parents to children. If you consider yourself to belong to some nationality, you might not know that 10 generations earlier your ancestors were considered to belong to another nationality, possibly even to one that you now strongly dislike for some reason. Nevertheless, some of your ancestors have chosen at some point in time to be integrated into the nationality that you believe now as yours, for various reasons, e.g. marriage, immigration, being a prisoner of war and so on. From that point of time, all your ancestors transmitted to their descendants the language and customs of your current nationality, which is the result of their willing or unwilling choice. In my opinion it is correct to claim to be descendant of some people who lived thousands of years ago, when you speak a language derived from their language and you also practice various of their customs, even when (which is likely to be the most frequent case) you share little or no DNA with them. So it is right for the Modern Greeks to consider themselves descendants of the Ancient Greeks, or for the Romanians, who speak a language derived from Latin, and who, for example, have always cooked and eaten "placinta" with cheese made in the same way as the "placenta" described by Cato the Elder almost 2200 years ago, to consider themselves descendants of the Ancient Romans. Of course, any such shared cultural heritage with some ancient people should not be used as a basis for claims on a supposed material heritage, like in the case of Israel and other countries where there are territorial claims based on land ownership of supposed relatives from, e.g., 3000 years ago.
- einpoklum 6y agoThis map helped me understand who came from where: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angles#/media/File:Anglo-Saxon_Homelands_and_Settlements.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angles#/media/File:Anglo-Saxon... and it's part of the article on Angels: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angles
- macintux 6y agoThank you, that’s something I was hoping for as I read the article.
- AniseAbyss 6y agoCountries are based on culture not bloodline. The Netherlands is culturally very distinct from those humorless and dour Germans despite being in the same tribe a few millenia ago and any effort made to reunite by the Nazis was met with despair by both sides.
- Bakary 6y agoSemi-related fun fact: in French, the word "anglo-saxon" is commonly used to refer to the anglosphere, its people, or its way of doing things. It has a neutral connotation, although francophones will inevitably tend to use it in negative statements once in a while ;) This often creates amusing misunderstandings when French speakers drop that word in an English conversation without realizing that it sounds not only weirder but also loaded with extra baggage in that context.
- mancerayder 6y agoIt refers to Americans and Australians too, to make things worse. They should be saying Anglophones.
- cambalache 6y agoIt is used the same way in Spanish. A cultured native speaker is aware of the difference but as OP said it is sometimes used in a pejorative sense to indicate than in the Anglophone countries is usually the WASP (emphasis in WAS) portion who holds the power and in is those portion were many of the white supremacy ideology and policies arised.
- Bakary 6y agoThe word doesn't just refer to the language but to a certain way of thinking that is recognizable and common to all the anglosphere cultures and nations. Using "anglophone" would not work.
- mancerayder 6y agoI'm familiar with it and the context, a mix of political and cultural. But in France older people still call Indians 'Hindus' despite having the largest Muslim population in the world and other religious groups. Anglo-Saxon refers to a people that ruled England when they invaded Britain in the Middle Ages, and dominated politically up to the present. The Irish, Welsh, etc in Britain, the many immigrants there and in the US and Australia, would probably find it an outdated term. WASP is one we use in the US for something similar, referring to cultural and academic institutions and such, but I feel like it's fallen out of favor.
- vonnik 6y agoFor anyone interested in Anglo-Saxon writings from that period, this book: https://www.amazon.com/Word-Exchange-Anglo-Saxon-Poems-Translation/dp/0393342417 https://www.amazon.com/Word-Exchange-Anglo-Saxon-Poems-Trans... Is a great set of translations (with the original on the facing page). Powerful stuff calling out across the centuries. Two online translations of The Seafarer, as examples: http://www.anglo-saxons.net/hwaet/?do=get&type=text&id=Sfr http://www.anglo-saxons.net/hwaet/?do=get&type=text&id=Sfr http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/ezra_pound/poems/18800 http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/ezra_pound/poems/18800
- complianceowl 6y agoThe Seafarer was a fantastic read. Thank you for sharing!