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| Anglo-Saxon reenactment [PHOTO: brainxpress.com] |
Here
is a map that i’m going to be usingto show where the different tribes came
from, now a few points about thismap before we begin it’s not accurate, yes
it’s accurate forthe present day but for around 450 to 500 a.dit isn’t
accurate,first of all you see here in the netherlands that there is this big
body of water in the center of the netherlands which was called the zerg, it’s
now called isomer but it used to be called the zelda’s a which means the
southern seaand , it’s basically this big inland sea obviously salt water ,that
was in the middle of the Netherlands.
now in oh oh dear was it 19 in the 1920s I
believe there was, they built a massive dike across the top so that the the sea
became fresh water and then it was rema renamed, it isil mere mere meaning lake
now that’s obviously all well and good but back in the anglo-saxon era ,the the
zeldas they didn’t exist in that kind of form , it’s believed that it was more
uhsmall rivers, maybe some canals and lakes marshland rather than this big
expanse of water, you know that you could sail across in the ship, and it was actually
only in the 12th century that excessive
flooding created this inland sea because, as you all know probably the
netherlands is a large part of the Netherlands, is actually underneath sea
level and it’s all very flat so especially back in the early days, it was
incredibly prone to flooding as well as this where i’m going to place the
Saxons.
They
did come from there but in this era, we also see that the saxons actually move
westwards and they appear to mix with the friesians who lived in the northern well
in the northern the coastal areas of the Netherlands, so we see that this kind
of mixing goes on and because of this mixing it can become very hard to define,
and when something stops being freezing or stops being saxon and when something
becomes the other so that’s something that we need to keep in mind when we are
looking at this map, now the final thing about the map that i’m using in where
it might divulge from the truth is that the map will show the different
anglo-saxon tribes crossing over the sea to get to the specific places in
England.
But
a lot of scholars think that this isn’t likely to have happened like for
example the vikings just went straight across the north sea to raid northumbria
and linda’s farm that kind of thing but they think with the anglo-saxons that
actually what would have happened is that great groups of people would have
moved inland down the coast on foot, and then gathered in freesia and then from
there where the crossing is relatively um safe just across the the northern tip
of the can of the english channel that they then would have crossed over by
boat and then moved on to wherever they were going to settle in England.
So
these are the different tribes we obviously have the jutes the angles the
Saxons and the frisians ,now i’ve placed them as accurately as i can to where
they they would have lived on in the period now these tribes all have certain
things in common, for example they’re all germanic in culture and they’re all
seen as the north sea germanic that is their name that they are known as
collectively as well as the ingiavons ,they’re all pagan in this period there
wouldn’t have been any Christians, here back in the day because this was all
before they had been converted and as well as this they all spoke ingriavonic
languages, so they all would have been able to understand each other, perhaps
they would laugh at each other because they had funny accents to their minds,
but they would have been able to understand each other, and although this is
all well and good it’s it makes it more difficult for historians trying to and
linguists trying to see if someone was a Friesian or a saxon it’s not always as
clear it can be quite hard to see exactly how different they were, and where
and which aspectsnow the saxons they sailed down to the south of England.
The
angles obviously go as i said they probably would have gone through freesia and
then moved, but this is just a general indication of where they went so we see
that the saxons settle in the south in wessex, Sussex, middlesex and essex, and
in fact the name saxon comes from the type of knifethat, they would have used
which was called a sax and in fact wessex comes from west seaxe which means the
west Saxons, so the wessex is where the west saxons would have settled sursex,
the south Saxons, middle sex, the middle Saxons, and essex, the east Saxons fun
bit of trivia there and the angles they settled mostly along the eastern
seaboard, so northumbria mercier and east anglia which is all on the eastern
side of England, and the jutes are believed to have settled in the very
southeastern tip which was in kent now the friesians area bit harder to place
and whether they even crossed over with the other anglo-saxons is a much
debated topic.
Even
today you know the anglo-saxon scholarly tradition because with the other three
we all have clear sources naming each one and archaeological evidence, although
with the Friesians it’s more it’s rather more difficult to pinpoint and the
reason for this is that they didn’t develop any of their own kingdoms with the
jutes they developed kent the saxons developed wessex and Middlesex and essex,
for example and the anglians settled in northumbria mercier and east anglia and
they wrote this down afterwards but none of these kingdoms were formed solely
by friesians which might be why we don’t hear anything about them, now evidence
has been found .
However,
which is also debated by different archaeologists and historians, but there is
to my mind at least visible evidence that they were in Britain, in places such
as east anglia northumbria and mercia so a spread of the different kingdoms,
and there have also been other theories that other tribes actually got
involved, such as the franks which would have been slightly more south of the
friesians in the modern day normandy that kind of coastal areas possibly where
they would have crossed over for example in kent i believe you see a lot of
Frankish mayor of Indian, well you have then the franks and the batavians who
were also an old tribe living in the southern Netherlands, and in sort of the
belgian region and i believe also the huns because I believe that um there is a
historian named caitlyn green if i’m not mistaken and she has a whole theory
with evidence to support the fact that the huns might have taken part in the
migrations of the anglo-saxon era.
Now
um if we have a look at the modern day countries, we can see where they came
from now the jutes would have come from northern Denmark, and the angles from
the uh region of the dano german border and one of the ideas about why the
angles get their name is from i believe a roman emperor who thought they were
likened to angels, and therefore accidentally said oh they are angeles which is
latin for angel i believe but i’m rather skeptical of this theory, because i
think the name angle or angloi rather is around a lot a lot earlier than
this supposed happening and another theory about how they get their name is
that the region where they lived in the this southern area of denmark looked
rather a lot like a fisherman’s hook, and in english if you know the word
angler that is a fissure so it’s the same root word as angle which would have
been the fisherman’s hook in in all the germanic language.
Now
I see that the Saxons would have come from north western germany, there is
still a large province of germany called Saxony and the eastern Netherlands as
well, and for the friesians they basically came from the Netherlands, there is
also a province in the northern Netherlands called frieslandand, also one in
germany i believe called friesland which is east frisia, and there are also
friesian islands and uh north friesland which is off the Danish, and german
coast right in the north there, now it’s important to remember when looking at
this map this is a map of today and none of these countries would have existed
in the fifth century.
In
fact i don’t think any of the ideas for these countries even existed in the
fifth century, that’s a much later idea this of dutch german danish english and
people wouldn’t have thought of themselves, as that i’m not even sure if people
would have thought of themselves as Saxons, jutes or Friesians, back then it’s
it’s it’s a very different concept of who you were it’s more not where your
father came from but ,what he did that mattered back in these times now here we
see a map of where the different tribes would have settled in england and they
formed a number of kingdoms. now here on the chart i think i went through this
on the other one as well we see that the darker blue colour is of the jutes and
the jewish kingdom that we know of was kent which was right in the south east
of england in light blue, we have the angles who settled the eastern seaboard
which would have been the kingdom of northumbria which is where bead is from
he’s very pro angle, so that’s how we know about the angles we also have mercia
which was in sort of the midlands going right down to londonwhich is where i
think it boarded on kent east anglia and wessex and east anglia as well for the
angles and the Saxons.
We
see more in the south of the country in all those modern day counties ending in
sex, and these purple arrows are where there are possible examples of frisian
settlements now we’re not sure about all of these again and it is debatable but
i’d rather like to think that they did come across the channel, and they they
did help in the anglo-saxon invasions now a lot of the suspected freezing
settlements begin in freeze or frish so either with an i or a y because this is
indicating that something belong to the Friesian, so for example we see here
friston there’s one in east anglia which is spelt with an i and then another on
in i believe that will be Yorkshire spelt with a y and this ton at the end
indicates village so this suggests that friston.
No matter how it’s spelt like that would mean something along the lines of village of the friesian or village of the Friesians which to my mind is good evidence for why there could be frisians in this time and we also see evidence for them in other places as well all right guys so this has been another video with history with with hilbert in this one i was looking at the anglo-saxons where they came from where they settled in England.