The Social Context

Abstract

The origins of the Anglo-Saxons cannot be precisely identified, but a number of the tribes from which they were formed came from northern Germany and part of present-day Denmark. The Venerable Bede, the great eighth-century historian of the English, describes the first settlers as Angles, Saxons and Jutes. The Angles, he understood, settled in Britain north of the River Thames far into what is now Scotland, the Saxons took land south of the Thames and also on the north side of the river Estuary (whence the county name ‘Essex’, i.e.‘East Saxons’), and the Jutes, he claimed, occupied Kent, the Isle of Wight and the mainland opposite the island. The evidence of place names and archaeology shows that this is an oversimplification, for there were others, such as Frisians and Swedes. This complex mix of peoples developed a distinctive and homogeneous language and culture, which none the less reflected strong links with the rest of the Germanic world.