The Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain and the settlement of what came to be called England was not a peaceful affair. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records many violent incidents, such as the storming of an old Roman fort at Pevensey in Sussex in 491, when the victorious Saxons massacred all the local Britons who had taken refuge there. Genocide, however, there certainly was not. The genetic characteristics of the population of eastern Britain (there is no Anglo-Scottish genetic border) are similar to those of the population of the North Sea coast of continental Europe, proving that there was a considerable influx of Anglo-Saxon settlers to Britain (later reinforced by Danish Viking settlers). But this Germanic imprint diminishes towards the west, where the genetic characteristics of the modern population show greater continuity with the prehistoric population. Therefore, if there was any genocide or large-scale ethnic cleansing of the native Britons, it could have taken place only during the earliest stages of the
Anglo-Saxon settlements: most modern English people must, it seems, have ancient Britons among their ancestors. This genetic pattern is mirrored in place names. Apart from the names of major rivers, few Celtic place names survive in the east, but they increase in numbers towards the west. What the place name and genetic evidence indicates is that though the initial Anglo-Saxon invasion was a folk movement, which overwhelmed the natives in parts of eastern Britain, the later stages were more in the nature of a political conquest of a settled British population, which then became assimilated to Anglo-Saxon ways. This is borne out by the early Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Bernicia (between the Tees and the Forth), which has a Celtic name and only limited evidence for pagan Anglo-Saxon settlement, most of which is concentrated around the royal centre at Yeavering. What probably happened is that relatively small numbers of Anglo-Saxons succeeded in displacing a native ruling dynasty and taking over its kingdom intact. The Britons transferred their loyalties to the new ruling elite and adopted its language, culture and identity. Elsewhere, British aristocrats may have successfully integrated with the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy. The evidence for this is especially good in Wessex, the kingdom that would eventually unify England. The early laws of Wessex prove that it had a mixed Anglo-Saxon and ‘Welsh’ population and its founder Cerdic (Caradoc) had a Celtic name. This integration may not have been as difficult as it seems. By the time Cerdic lived in the early sixth century, warrior aristocracies with very similar values ruled both the Britons and the Anglo-Saxons: there was only the language barrier to overcome. Anglo-Saxon warriors would certainly have understood the heroic sentiments expressed by Neirin in Y Gododdin, while British warriors would have appreciated Beowulf. However, the low status that most Britons must have had under Anglo-Saxon rule is starkly reflected in the English language. The victorious Anglo-Saxons adopted barely half-a-dozen British words into Old English.
Even in the south-east, where the Anglo-Saxons settled most thickly, there is considerable evidence for the survival of the native population. Fifth-century ‘Romano-Saxon’ pottery has Anglo-Saxon decorative motifs but it was made using Romano-British techniques, that is, British potters were working for Anglo-Saxon customers, adapting their craft to suit the tastes of the newcomers. British metalworkers did the same. At Dorchester-on-Thames a cemetery remained in use for Christian burials through the fifth and sixth centuries and, after he converted to Christianity in the seventh century, the Saxon king Cynegils allowed the Italian missionary St Birinus to found a monastery there. The likelihood is, therefore, that it had been occupied by a British Christian community throughout the period of Anglo-Saxon paganism, coexisting peacefully alongside the incoming pagan Anglo-Saxons. British communities survived for centuries even in areas which were conquered by the Anglo-Saxons in the fifth century. When the Anglo-Saxon St Guthlac travelled through the East Anglian Fenlands c. 700 he found them still populated by Celtic speakers. The survival into the twentieth century of traditional shepherds’ counting systems based on Welsh across western England from Wiltshire to the Lake District shows that Anglicisation was not necessarily a rapid process. But Anglic-isation was thorough. Cornwall alone has never been completely Anglicised and remains the only county of England where the inhabitants will not automatically identify themselves as English.
Despite the contribution of the Britons to the modern population of England, the English, unlike the French, have never really found a place for the Celts in their national mythology. Centuries of warfare have conditioned the English to see the Celts as historical enemies and as having nothing very much to do with them. The Anglo-Saxon homelands were distant from the Roman Empire, and they knew less about Roman civilisation than the Franks and respected it less. The Britons also were less Romanised than the Gauls had been, so the Anglo-Saxons may have seen less to admire in their culture. The fifth-century Britons were not really that different from the invaders, so it was they who were assimilated by the Anglo-Saxons. The one aspect of the Celtic heritage that the English did take to was the legend of King Arthur. As the supposed ruler of all of Britain and conqueror of Gaul, the legendary Arthur was a suitable role model for England’s expansionist post-Conquest Norman and Plantagenet kings. A greater understanding of the origins of the legends enabled the British Celts to reclaim Arthur in the twentieth century (though the Welsh, Cornish and Scots cannot agree on which of them he belongs to).
World History
