History of The Anglo-Saxons (410 – 939)

From the Doggerland migrants, to the Celts, to 
the Romans, successive waves of newcomers had transformed England each time. With Rome’s 
departure, England was left undefended from new waves of settlers and warriors who would be 
just as transformative as those who came before. In this video, the former Roman province of 
Britannia will be reforged by generations of invaders into a new nation of England. 
Angles, Saxons, Vikings and more will reshape the land and its people, giving 
rise to famous figures like Arthur, Alfred, and Aethelstan whose names would reverberate 
through English history forever after. The Arrival of the Anglo-Saxons The story of this new age must begin 
with the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons. While the Saxons first appeared on English 
soil as raiders during the Roman period, their permanent presence came at the 
invitation of the British. The kingdoms which emerged to fill the vacuum left by 
Rome were eager to protect themselves. The Saxons came as mercenaries for these 
kings, most famously King Vortigern, who invited a band of Saxon mercenaries led 
by Hengest and Horsa to defend his kingdom in the southeast from roaming bands of Picts and 
Scot around the 450s. They eventually fell out with Vortigern, rebelled, and established 
the first Saxon kingdom at Kent in 455. What followed was a steady waves of Germanic 
Anglo-Saxon settlers. Three groups made up the bulk of these newcomers: the Saxons, originally 
from the land around the Elbe River; the Angles, from the Anglen region of Denmark; and the Jutes 
from the Jutland Peninsula. Smaller groups such as the Frisians also settled, but these three 
predominated. The Angles typically settled farther north, the Saxons in the south, while the Jutes 
settled in Kent, Hampshire, and the Isle of Wight. The arrival of the Anglo-Saxons was a mix of 
peaceful settlement and violent removal of the indigenous Britons. For example, around 477 the 
Saxon warlord Aelle inflicted a terrible slaughter on the native Britons to clear the way for his new 
kingdom in Sussex. No trace of the Celtic language survives in the place names of many Anglo-Saxon 
dominated regions like Sussex, suggesting that all who spoke it were wiped away. The miniscule 
influence of Celtic languages upon modern English, compared to the significant legacy of Scandinavian 
and German languages, is further proof of this. In this early period of Anglo-Saxon England, 
society was based heavily around honour and battlefield prowess as seen in the Epic of 
Beowulf, where a man’s status was built on what he could boast of in his lord’s hall. They 
were not Christian, nor were they literate, and leadership was determined by whoever 
proved the best conqueror. Societies were lead by warrior chiefs, the greatest of which 
might presume to call themselves kings. A king or chief’s retinue of warriors was known as 
his thanes, and they formed the new elite class of Anglo-Saxon society. Beneath them were the 
native Britons who were reduced to servitude, in some cases slavery, to support the 
warrior lifestyle of their new rulers. It wasn’t just warriors though. Waves of these 
Anglo-Saxon settlers came across the sea and up the rivers in oar-drawn boats where they found new 
settlement sites. The Thames, Trent, and Humber rivers became the main focal points of settlement 
but in time they spread in-land as well. King Arthur? The Celtic kingdoms were long gone and 
the Romano-British aristocracy could not muster the same martial might 
that the Romans had once commanded, but the existing British did 
not roll over peacefully. The most famous resistance came at the 
Battle of Badon, located somewhere in Dorset, around the year 500. There, an army 
of Anglo-Saxons was defeated by a British army under the leadership of a 
Romano-British captain named Aurelius Ambrosius. Later historians conflated, related, 
or replaced him with another warrior: Arthur. The stories of King Arthur are mostly a 
medieval invention. The more fantastical elements like Merlin or the Lady in the 
Lake are inheritances from Celtic mythology, but even the more grounded aspects like 
the castle of Camelot or the Battle of Camlann are believed to be legendary. At 
best, they might have some vague grounding in real events that have since been twisted 
beyond all recognition. If Arthur did exist, he was probably a Romano-British captain under 
Aurelius Ambrosius, or a minor British king in the region of Cornwall or somewhere in 
Wales, whose brief resistance against the seemingly unstoppable tide of Anglo-Saxons 
enshrined his memory into the popular culture. Either way, Arthur and his fellow Britons were 
not able to prevent the Anglo-Saxon incursion, and by the 7th century 
Anglo-Saxons dominated England. An assortment of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms 
emerged. Known as the Heptarchy, this shifting tapestry of kingdoms included East 
Anglia, Essex, Kent, Mercia, Northumbria, Sussex, and Wessex, with many smaller kingdoms blinking 
in and out of existence through the years. The power and nature of these kings can be seen 
in the famous burial at Sutton Hoo. Believed to be the resting place of King Redwald of 
East Anglia, the burial contained a 90 foot boat and an assortment of treasures including 
weapons, armour, jewellery, coins, instruments, and more. These Anglo-Saxon kings were clearly 
rich and proud of their warrior status. The presence of dozens of other human 
remains, believed to be the King’s thanes, shows the importance of the relationship 
between a warrior and his lord in this society, that continued even unto death. But the goods 
show a mind for trade and an appreciation of the arts that challenge a simple view 
of them as mere battle-hungry warriors. Christianity The Anglo-Saxons reshaped England, but 
they’d be reshaped in turn by Christianity. Rome had converted most of Britain to Christianity 
already, but the Anglo-Saxon rulers were still pagan. In the 590s, Pope Gregory ordered 
the missionary Augustine to England to convert these pagan kings. Augustine arrived 
at the Kentish capital in Canterbury in 597, and quickly achieved the king’s conversion, 
probably thanks to his Christian Gaulish bride. Within a year, Augustine’s missionaries had 
made Christians out of the kings of East Anglia, Essex, and Northumberland too. Alas, 
these conversions were unstable, and the Anglo-Saxon elite often lapsed with the 
death of their kings. It took decades, but by the mid-7th century much of southern England’s 
Anglo-Saxon elite had been Christianised. So-called Celtic Christianity offered 
another avenue of Christianisation that was especially effective in the north. 
King Oswald of Northumbria subscribed to this strand of Christianity, and invited the 
monk Aidan to establish a famous monastery on the island of Lindisfarne. Monasticism was 
a defining trait of Celtic Christianity, and the monasteries of Anglo-Saxon England would 
be the chief producers of its literature and artistic works. For example, it was Northumbrian 
monasteries which produced the Venerable Bede, whose Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation 
is considered the first book on English history. Roman and Celtic Christianity differed in 
their relative emphasis on the bishop and diocese versus the abbot and the monastery 
respectively. The most relevant divergence though was over the dating of Easter, 
which differed by a few days between them. It was especially difficult for King Oswy 
of Northumbria, of Celtic persuasion, who had married a Kentish Roman Christian bride. 
The embarrassment of celebrating Christianity’s holiest festival on two separate days persuaded 
Oswy to call the Synod of Whitby in 664 to resolve the dispute. After being convinced that St Peter 
held to the Roman date, Oswy sided with them, “Lest, when I come to the gates of the Kingdom 
of Heaven, there should be none to open them.” By the second half of the 7th century, 
England was a Christian nation. The Pope dispatched Theodore of Tarsus to become 
Archbishop of Canterbury and entrusted him with the proper organisation of the 
English Church. Theodore spent almost 20 years drawing up the diocese structure of England, 
appointing its bishops, preaching to its people, and convening synods to iron out church 
matters. Thanks to his work, the church became the first institution since the Romans 
to unify all of England under one organisation. With its moral codes and spiritual justification 
for social hierarchy, Christianity was a much more useful religion for a changing England. It was a 
religion for settled social order, of marriage, law, and obedience to the king, that was fitting 
for the ever-growing Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. Northumbria, Mercia, and Wessex By the early 8th century, the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms 
consolidated through war and marriage into three dominant kingdoms: Northumbria in the north, 
Mercia in the west, and Wessex in the south. This middle period was one of growing 
royal authority. The Christian belief that the king was God’s representative 
on earth afforded them greater powers over their subjects. These were no mere warlords, but settled rulers who had begun passing 
laws and minting coins to signal their power. Northumbria enjoyed several decades 
of ascendancy thanks to the steady rule of Oswald and Oswy. It was they who 
first included the title of Bretwalda, Ruler of Britain, in their royal presentation. 
They could claim to control most of England, with their power stretching from Scotland 
in the north to Mercia in the south. This proved their undoing, since both the 
Scots and Mercia were formidable foes, and constant warfare with them demanded too 
much of the kingdom’s resources and manpower. In the 8th century, initiative moved to 
Mercia. Under its greatest king Offa, Mercia achieved dominance over 
lesser kingdoms in Kent, East Anglia, and Sussex. Offa was recognised in his day as 
Rex Angolorum, King of the English, a title that appeared in his correspondence with European 
rulers like Charlemagne, and upon his coins, with Mercia being the first kingdom since Rome 
to mint coins in Britain. Offa’s role in defining England can still be seen in the massive earthwork 
defence of Offa’s Dike, which runs for over 170 miles along the Welsh border, and has defined 
the border between England and Wales ever since. With Offa’s death, it was Wessex’s turn for glory. 
In 825, Egbert of Wessex defeated the Mercians at the Battle of Ellendum, and now Wessex’s kings 
could style themselves as Bretwalda. However, Wessex’s power would be forged in 
the fires of a very different threat. The Vikings On June 8th 793, the monks at the 
famous monastery at Lindisfarne, the sacred heart of Northumbria, awoke to ships 
on the horizon. From those ships came towering Danish warriors with fearsome iron axes, who 
slaughtered the monks, burned the monastery, and made off with its treasures. In the words of 
one chronicle, “Never before has such a terror appeared in Britain as we have now suffered 
from a pagan race.” The Vikings had arrived. The Vikings burst onto the European 
scene in the late 8th century, using their masterful boat building techniques 
to to raid the coasts from Russia to Ireland and beyond. Like the Anglo-Saxons, what began as 
raiding evolved into conquest and settlement. In 866, a massive Viking force known in 
English sources as the Great Heathen Army landed in East Anglia. Led by Halfdan 
Ragnarsson, Ivar the Boneless, and Ubba, they cut a bloody swath across England. 
Within months, they captured York and subjugated Northumbria, before moving on to 
Mercia. In 869, the East Anglian King Edmund fell in battle against them, leaving his 
kingdom to be absorbed by the Vikings too. By 871, only Wessex remained, and 
its hopes rested on a young king, fresh to the throne, named Alfred. Alfred the Great Alfred’s early reign was defined by 
battle. He fought at least 9 battles with the Vikings in 871 alone. He was 
able to save Wessex from conquest, but only by paying off the Vikings with 
a payment known as danegeld. This merely bought Wessex time until the Vikings 
under King Guthrum returned in 878. The Vikings swept through Wessex, taking 
multiple towns and forcing Alfred to retreat. Not to be deterred, Alfred set himself 
up in exile at Athelney. A famous story tells of Alfred being asked by a peasant 
woman to watch her cakes cook while she was away. Distracted by his kingdom’s 
affairs, Alfred forgot about the cakes and let them burn to a crisp. The peasant 
scolded her king for his inattentiveness, but given the scale of the Viking 
threat, his distraction can be forgiven. Alfred summoned his militia for a desperate 
gamble against the Vikings. That May, they met at the Battle of Edington. 
Miraculously, Alfred’s men prevailed. According to Alfred’s biographer Asser, the 
Vikings broke upon Alfred’s shield-wall and were swept away. The defeated King Guthrum agreed to 
be baptised before leading his army out of Wessex. Edington was the greatest victory the 
Anglo-Saxons ever won over the Vikings. It did not totally solve the problem – raids 
continued for some years afterwards – but in 885 Alfred met with Guthrum again to settle 
affairs. They drew a line across England: along the Thames to London, then up 
to Bedford, then diagonally across to Chester. Everything north and east 
belonged to Guthrum and the Vikings, a territory known as the Danelaw. The rest of 
England to the west and south was Alfred’s. Alfred’s England Alfred would prove to be far more than 
just a great warrior. During his reign, he transformed England and proved 
himself worthy of the epithet of ‘great.’ Wary that the Viking threat might come back, 
Alfred ordered the construction of numerous forts across England. Some were new forts, 
others repaired or expanded from Roman or older predecessors. These forts were manned by a 
standing army paid for by Alfred’s danegeld tax. Alfred wanted everyone in his kingdom 
to be no less than a day’s travel from one of these forts, so they could 
shelter there if the Vikings returned. Alfred reformed the law too, issuing a lengthy 
law code to simplify and publicise the laws of his kingdom, drawing from both unwritten 
Anglo-Saxon practices and the laws of other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms to produce an effective legal 
system. His great success here was the expansion of the weregild or ‘man price’ as an alternative 
to the Anglo-Saxon blood feud. Previously, families took it into their own hands to get 
revenge for crimes committed against them, which meant blood feuds and revenge killings. 
Having one’s subjects kill each other wasn’t good for social order. The weregild assigned a 
monetary value to any injury or insult instead, varying by the victim’s social status, 
so issues were resolved without violence. To apply this law, Alfred and 
his successors reformed the administration of their kingdoms. They 
divided it up into shires overseen by aldermen, later by sheriffs, who 
reported directly to the king. Each shire had a court known as a moot, which 
would meet twice a year to discuss issues in the shire and address any serious disputes. 
Below them were the hundreds, whose moot met monthly to resolve the typical disputes of daily 
lif,e like land disagreement or cattle theft. Alfred’s legacy further survived in matters 
of culture. He was an aggressive supporter of learning and the English language and 
took a direct hand in the translation of many works into English. The King personally 
translated some of the works of Pope Gregory, Boetihus, and Saint Augustine, and in the 
case of Orosius’ History Against the Pagans, he revised and expanded the work with 
his own research while translating it. He also ordered translations of 
Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation from Latin, and the 
creation of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, both of which provided the foundation of 
English history writing and historical identity. A scholar, a warrior, and a lawgiver, 
Alfred’s work to establish English law, define its administration, protect its land, and promote its language were a vital moment 
in the emergence of the English nation. Anglo-Saxon Society So what did life look like 
in late Anglo-Saxon England? Starting with the thanes, who had once been the 
king’s warrior retinue, the development of settled stable kingship shifted their role from warriors 
to landowners. Thanes acted as landlords to manors and their surrounding villages, and were entitled 
to a share of their people’s labour and product, in exchange for providing security and order. By 
the late Anglo-Saxon period, a typical peasant owed their lord at least 2 days of labour 
per week, and most could not leave their lord’s lands without permission. It should be 
noted that English people living in the Danelaw area had a different arrangement. Farmers were 
generally freer there and not bound to lords, but in turn they lacked the same 
security that such lordship brought. Life for the average English person 
was tough wherever they were. Men were expected to work the fields, care 
for livestock, hunt, gather wood, and provide other essentials. Women’s duties 
meanwhile included weaving, cooking, baking, and brewing, and lending a hand in the field when 
it was needed. Most people lived in one-room huts with their families, and their only solace from 
the relentless toil was the church holidays, which were usually just an excuse to drink 
and party rather than display religious piety. The Anglo-Saxon period saw the introduction 
of new farming techniques which, for a society built around the agricultural cycle, had 
a profound impact on how people lived. The introduction of heavier ploughs 
allowed people to farm in tougher ground, but they required multiple oxen to pull. Since 
individual farmers wouldn’t own enough oxen alone, they were encouraged to come together in villages 
to share resources. Villages would plough fields together and share the land around them, 
rather than living in their own isolated farms. These villages practised another new technique 
known as the three field farming method. Every year, farmers would plant one field 
with a spring crop like barley or oats, one with a fall crop like wheat, and leave one 
fallow to recover its nutrients. For the average farmer in Anglo-Saxon England, it was these 
changes to the rhythm of agricultural life that mattered much more than changes in kingship 
or the cultural output of the monasteries. These changes led to a steady rise in agricultural 
output that could support an increasing non-agricultural population that was emerging in 
the towns. After a decline following the departure of the Romans, towns were recovering in the 
later Anglo-Saxon period as political stability and improved agricultural yields made urban life 
more possible. These towns were still quite small, no more than a few thousand people at a time, 
but for the first time since the Roman period urban living was growing. Many English 
towns trace their origins back to this Anglo-Saxon period, including Birmingham, 
Oxford, Reading, Norwich, and Southampton. Alfred’s Successors Fortunately, Alfred’s successors proved 
to be capable and wise leaders as well. His son Edward switched from defensive 
to offensive actions towards the Danes and began capturing areas once 
under the Danelaw. The Danes had settled into agricultural life in 
the decades since they’d arrived, and his organised armies had a much easier time 
than previous rulers had against the Vikings. Alfred’s daughter Aethelflaed married the 
ruler of what little remained of Mercia, and upon her husband’s death she took power 
there and joined her brother in attacking the Danes. Aethelflaed personally led Mercian 
armies against the Danes before her death, after which Mercia passed into her 
brother’s hands. Edward went on to retake Nottingham and Stanford, and after 
his death his son Aethelstan captured the last Viking kingdom at York, making him 
the first monarch to rule all of England. Aethelstan’s reign from 929 to 939 showed 
how far England and the Anglo-Saxons had come since the departure of the Romans. What had 
been a chaotic vacuum after the Romans left, had been unified and tamed through centuries of 
work. Aethelstan was recognised as one of the great kings of his day, with marriage alliances 
connecting England into the more established monarchies of Europe and his court being 
respected as a centre of culture and learning. England now stood as a distinct and defined 
kingdom, with its own history, rulers, and laws. It faced many threats – the Vikings were not gone, 
and new powers were stirring in Europe that would again invade and transform it – but the story 
of England had completed its opening chapters.