Tag: Invaders

Who Were the Saxons, Jutes, Angles and Vikings? Know Your Dark Age Germanic Peoples

Fellow residents of our Early-Medieval Britannia! Many of you will have become aware of strange men coming from oversees to our green and pleasant island home.

You may be wondering who these people are, what they have come for and how long they plan to stay. To we Britons, their barbarian and guttural languages all sound very much the same… but let me inform you that in fact these visitors actually come from different places and each have different cultures- though they share many traits, they will be offended if you should accidentally confuse them for one another. So how do you tell your Jute from your Angle, for example?

This ye olde Heritage-key guide should clarify all for you.

Angles – Jutes – Saxons – Vikings

If you should see them around, BEWARE, early indications are that they are not just here for a spot of sightseeing and may be dangerous!

The Angles

When might they arrive?

The Angles are scheduled to arrive in the 5^thcentury AD.

We can expect them to be very powerful, until someone else comes to knock them from their perch… perhaps the Vikings in around 867 AD, for example… (a wild stab in the dark).

Where are they from?

The Roman historian Tacitus mentioned the Anglii in his Germania, a book about Germany (obviously) written back in around 98 AD and their name is believed to derived from their homeland of Angeln, as it is called in Old English. It is situated on the narrow peninsula between the North and Baltic seas, in the central part of the peninsula which will later be called ‘Schleswig-Holstein’. This territory is so littered by marshes, rivers and inlets that even the Romans never could get to grips with it. It all sounds a bit bleak over there, so it’s not surprising they want a look at our verdant and foresty pastures.

Where are they headed?

The Angles are coming in large numbers! So many in fact that it seems they may be abandoning their homeland and all but a few of them will be turning up on our eastern and southern coasts. There’ll be so many we may as well start calling our homeland ‘Angleland’ if we aren’t careful (but that would be a ridiculous name)! We forecast particularly strong presences in the North and East, in places they call ‘Northumberland’ and ‘East Anglia’ in their language. We may also see them as far inland as ‘Mercia’, slap bang in the middle of our fine Celtic land.

Do they worship a god?

Tacitus had them down as one of several peoples who venerated the goddess Nerthus, along with other pagan gods. Pope Gregory may have other plans for them… it is said after seeing some sweet little slave children of this people he asked Where are they from?.

When told they were from Angeln he punned Well that is well, for they have angel faces, and such people should share with the angels in heaven.

At that moment it is said he swore to convert them from their pagan ways.

Until that happens the Angles will retain their pantheon of gods, which they share with all the Germanic peoples. Most prominent among these is Woden, the leader of ‘the wild hunt‘. Secondary to him is Thunor, the thunder god. Some others from the pantheon include Ingui, Tiw and Helith (fertility, war, and marriage gods). They use these gods to identify their weekdays: Tiw’s day, Woden’s day, Thunor’s day, Frige’s day (Frige is believed to be Woden’s wife).

See Angles – Jutes – Saxons – Vikings

The Jutes

When might they arrive?

Expect them in around the 5^th and 6^th centuries AD – much like theAngles.

Where are they from?

The Jutes (or Iuti or Iutae) come from a land that will one day be called Jutland in their honour, and the venerable Bede tells me they are from the northern part of that peninsula, to be specific, further north than the Saxons or Angles.

Where are they headed?

The Jutes are headed a bit more southwards than the Angles. Their proverbial towels have been thrown in reservation over the Southern areas of our island. So get prepared if you are in Kent, Hampshire or the Isle of Wight and of Celtic descent, as we don’t expect them to leave any time soon – there is a moderate to high risk that you will be absorbed, displaced or – worse – destroyed! So pack an umbrella! (whatever an umbrella is.)

Take comfort from the fact that the same thing may well happen to them one day, once the West Saxons arrive.

Anything else?

The Jutes are a bit more suave and debonair than their Germanic cousins. They’ll probably try and adopt some aspects of Roman and Christian culture, knowing them. They will also be ahead of their peers in adopting funerary burial, instead of cremation. They use ‘Partible Inheritance’ (dividing between heirs as opposed to primogeniture), which should be helpful for people in the future to set them apart from the other German peoples whilst digging around into history.

See Angles – Jutes – Saxons – Vikings

The Saxons

When might they arrive?

It’s going to busy in the North Sea for a while – the Saxons will, like the Jutes and Angles, be heading over for much of the 5th and 6th centuries AD. East coast fishermen look out, you won’t be able to move for boat loads of colonisers. The name of this lot may be related to a type of distinctive knife they use, the Seax. Look out for those in future on the emblems of Essex and Middlesex.

Where are they from?

They are from Southern Jutland, on the Baltic coast, and as such have plenty of room to expand further southwards and westwards into Europe, though in doing so they’ll be treading on the toes of Charlemagne and his Franks, so there’s likely to be a clash there one day.

Where are they headed?

Expansive is their middle name. The Saxons are expected to lay claim to lands all along the East Coast. They’re a bit sex mad this lot, they like the word ‘Sex’ so much that they are liable to set up kingdoms with names like West Sex, East Sex, and South Sex (or Wessex, Essex and Sussex for short).

Any distinguishing features?

The languages of the Jutes, Angles and Saxons are very similar, as is that of the Fresians on the coast of the lowland European countries, so there’s not much to separate them there. You may be able to tell a Saxon from his brooch; whilst the Angles and Jutes prefer cross shaped brooches, the Saxon will often wear a round one. Look for his pottery too – the Saxons are fans of curvilinearly decorated pottery.

See Angles – Jutes – Saxons – Vikings

The Vikings

When might they arrive?

Sensibly the Vikings are going to avoid the rush in the 5^th and 6^th centuries and join us between the 9^th and 11^th centuries, by which time the other Germanic peoples will have been able to establish themselves on our shores. The Vikings have a reputation for being more warlike than the others and they will come here with no good intentions! By raiding the by then established and flourishing Anglo-Saxons they will be be able to acquire tremendous wealth to take back to Scandinavia.

Where are they from?

They’re frrom the Danish Peninsula and the coastal areas of Sweden and Norway. The word ‘Viking‘ is from the word ‘wicing’, our own Old English word meaning pirate. In their homelands the Vikings use primogeniture to determine inheritance (the eldest son is bequeathed everything), and when birth rates are high that means there are many men who do not inherit. Those men must choose between working on their brothers’ land or joining one of the many raiding parties which set off across the known world and even into the unknown world. When they see the riches with which their countrymen return from such expeditions, it is not surprising they find so many men to join their raiding parties, if only on a season-on, season-off basis for many.

What do they look like?

There is no particularly obvious look to set them apart from the other northern Germanic peoples. When raiding they may wear round leather skull caps and the successful soldier may even have a round metal helmet with a nose guard, but this is rare. Leather body armour is a possibility, but many raiders are just on expeditions during the summer – they are not career raiders who have acquired all the most modern accoutrements of armour. Look out for their distinctive large round shields. These Vikings have a curious custom: they bathe as often as once a week and comb their hair regularly; most unusual behaviour and most unhealthy!

Where are they headed?

Everywhere. If it has a coast, the Vikings will raid it eventually, from Scandinavia, round Europe, to as far as Constantinople, to the interior of the black sea and even down the rivers of Russia to the Caspian, they have no limits to their range. It is even said they have stumbled across a whole new landmass far, far away across the Western Ocean. Nowhere in Britain is to be safe from their raiding, though settlement will be confined to some extent. Northumbria can expect settlement from the ninth century onwards, but it will come as late as the 11^th for much of southern and central zones. If you live in those areas then you’d best lock up your daughters.

Given half a chance they’ll try and establish their own settlements, with names ending in things like ‘-by’ (homestead), -thorpe (an outlying settlement), ‘-borg’ (castle) or ‘-wick’ (bay). Once these settlements are in place, they will instate their laws and create a separate Scandinavian territory. The ‘Danelaw’ would be a nice name for this Viking state on our island. If this should happen, it would take a great leader to unite the Saxons and rid us of the Vikings!

See Angles – Jutes – Saxons – Vikings

Now you know how to differentiate these newcomers, find out who were London’s most influential invaders (you might be surprised!) or follow us following the Vikings in our ‘Ancient World in London‘ video series. Feel like dressing up as a Viking? Take up one of the challenges to join us at the live event and win the Grand Prize:a lovely one-week break in Turkey.

London Invaders – The Scandinavians

They came. They saw. They brought affordable self-assembly flat-pack furniture.

Okay, so the Scandinavian contribution to the fabric of modern London might not be any more obvious than a few IKEA stores and a scattering of ubiquitous blonde-haired tourists, students, au pairs and bar workers. But without both the influence and menace of outlanders from Denmark, Norway and Sweden in the Anglo-Saxon period, Britains iconic capital wouldnt be the city it is today. Thats why I reckon theyre the invaders that had the biggest influence on London.

The Vikings burned, raped, pillaged, ransacked and generally terrorised London frequently between 842 and 1042 not the most constructive of contributions, true. But their unwitting role as an external threat was absolutely critical in defining the physical, emotional and political makeup of what would become contemporary London and England.

The Romans before them might have brought useful things like straight roads, drains and sturdy defences to the city. But had the Vikings not driven the Anglo-Saxons to retreat to walled Roman Londinium (roughly speaking, the foundations of the modern City of London), which was lying abandoned in the 9th century, its remarkable remains might have been left to crumble into dust. Heck, thats more than you can say for Londons pigeons, at least.

If its a more positive Scandinavian influence on London that youre looking for, then consider that a Danish King, Cnut, ruled England and London between 1016 and 1042, and is considered one of the most successful monarchs of the era. His 25-year reign was an oasis of stability and peace in an age of invasions, and allowed the city fuelled in no small part by waves of Danish traders sailing up the Thames to become the countrys biggest and most powerful metropolis.

Meet the Vikings

They were a nasty, smelly, foul-mannered bunch of bloodthirsty heathen pirates from Denmark, Norway and Sweden, armed with huge axes and even bigger beards and that was just the women. They had names like Eirik Ale-Lover, Ogmund the Evil, Ulf the Unwashed and the particularly charming Gunnstein Berserk-Killer. The Vikings definitely werent the sort of guys you invite round for tea.

They had names like Eirik Ale-Lover, Ogmund the Evil, Ulf the Unwashed and the particularly charming Gunnstein Berserk-Killer.

Their incursions into Anglo-Saxon Lundenwic began with the so-called Great Slaughter, which as youve probably figured out already wasnt a social call. The Vikings liked London so much that they even parked their longboats on the Thames and set up camp in the city in the winter of 871-72. Did they pay the congestion charge? Did they hell.

Nothing promotes unity and action quite like an external threat. King Alfred the Great knew that. In the wake of kicking the Danes out of London and most of England after victory at Ethandun in 878, he was able to use the looming menace of the Scandinavian raiders to unify the hitherto fractious Anglo-Saxon kingdoms into something resembling an English nation a nation which, from the 10th century, increasingly began to rotate upon an axis that was London.

After 886, London had shifted from the modern Covent Garden area back to the safety of the walls of the old Roman city, and hastily re-fortified. As part of that process, Southwark was founded Londons so-called first suburb. Situated on the lower bank of the Thames, it was one of many defensive burhs established across Britain. Between Southwark and the City of London, from at least 1000, stretched the all-new London Bridge a sturdy wooden structure which was built as much a crossing as it was a physical barrier to prevent Viking raiders from sailing up the Thames to outflank Londons defences and attack further inland.

Thanks or, more precisely, no thanks to Scandinavian invaders, London had repositioned, restablished and secured itself permanently, on both banks of the Thames, in a location that we today call the heart of Britains capital city.

Scandinavians on the Throne

The Scandinavians werent all Viking raiders, and they werent all enemies. English king thelred the Unready counted among his allies Olaf II of Norway. Its from Norse sagas, penned on the basis of oral history passed down through the centuries, that we get some of our very first documentary evidence on early London. One tale gives a vivid account of the English and their Norwegian chums daringly recapturing London from the Danes and hauling London Bridge down in the process. Oops.

thelreds son and successor Edmund Ironside was eventually succeeded on the throne by a Scandinavian Cnut (youve always got to be careful when it comes to spelling that name), who later also became king of Denmark, Norway and parts of Sweden. He most likely took the English throne by devious and bloody means, after having Ironside with whom he had originally agreed to share power murdered. Ironsides Viking assassin is said to have bumped-off the English king in a particularly cruel, gruesome and imaginative fashion by sticking a knife up his bottom. Brings a whole new meaning to the term back-stabbing.

Pierced regal posteriors aside theres no doubting that Cnut was a positive force for England and London. After a ruthless start, he attempted to ensure as much continuity as possible, by marrying thelreds widow, granting earldoms to Englishmen and restoring the church to a high place in English society. He also codified English law. Most importantly, as ruler of much of Scandinavia, he was able to bring a halt once and for all to Viking raids in England. London could breathe easy at last.

After Cnuts death and the short-lived reigns of two of his sons, the Saxon line was restored with the reign of Edward the Confessor from 1042-1066, but there was Scandinavian blood in the dynastys veins right to the bitter end Harold Godwinson, the last Anglo-Saxon king of England, was Cnuts nephew.

When Harold and the Saxons were finally overthrown by William the Conqueror and the Normans in 1066, the official seat of power still lay at Winchester. But London had by then after centuries of turmoil become the biggest and most prosperous city in England, as it would remain until the 21st century. Thanks, in no small part, to a Scandinavian king, and a Scandinavian regal lineage. Think about that next time youre assembling a Billy bookcase.

London’s Best Invaders – The Roman Traders

When it comes to invading marauders, who had more influence in shaping London? To my mind, the Romans will win this hands down. They came, they saw, and they started building drains, underfloor heating and fancy mosaics. They also had awesome military organisation and ferocious fighting techniques, but I think the Romans should be remembered as the invaders to beat all other invaders for a slightly different reason.

There’s no doubt they completely transformed the landscape of London. If it wasn’t for the Romans, Southwark would still be flooded by salt water twice a day. If Julius Caesar hadn’t landed in 55 BC, the thousands of Londoners that commute into the City would to this day be paddling across the Thames in boats instead of walking over London Bridge (fact based on the sound logic that the Romans built the first bridge across the Thames near the site of today’s London Bridge). This may not be a strict fact, but I liked the image of people in smart suits rowing across a bridge-less Thames to get to work. See, life without the Romans just wouldn’t be much fun.

London Transformed From Marshland

What is a fact, though, is that when Claudius’s armies conquered Brythonic tribes in 43 AD, the Romans arrived on the

They came, they saw, and they started building drains, underfloor heating and fancy mosaics

banks of the river Thames and found… well, not that much really. At the most, there may have been a smattering of Iron Age dwellings dotted around the area, but nothing resembling a village let alone a town. There may have been quite a good reason for the lack of Celtic settlers in the area namely the fact that Southwark was marshland while much of the north side of the river was threaded with watery areas and tributaries. While the Celtic tribes had built their oppidums in places such as Camulodunum (Colchester), they hadn’t much fancied setting up home on the water-logged banks of the Thames. Who can blame them?

The Roman Business Brain

But this didn’t stop the Romans, mainly because they had a sharp eye for one thing in particular. Yes, they liked their mosaics, their hot baths and pagan temples but more than all those things, the Romans were canny businessmen. By the first century AD they had become the supreme traders of the Mediterranean and had the organisational skills, methodical planning and sophisticated knowledge of mechanics, construction and industry to enable them to make money almost anywhere.

They saw their chance to set up a colony that had good sea access, while being sheltered, and also positioned at a certain distance inland, within reach of various Celtic tribes. In short, the Romans spotted a business opportunity.

So although it was the Roman legions who first set up camp and found a good place for Londinium’s first bridge across the Thames, it wasn’t long before the traders and merchants moved in. They, in my opinion are the true Roman invaders of London. Although they initially came to provide services to the military camp, industry and long-distance trade soon followed and enabled the town of Londinium to grow and flourish.

Whether the merchants and traders would all have been Roman citizens, I’m not sure. It might be more likely that some were traders who moved to Londinium from other parts of Britain, or other parts of the empire, creating the very first cosmopolitan multi-race centre on the Thames.

Anyway, the traders were tenacious and resilient, building the town up from scratch. They probably had to endure uncomfortable conditions, and probably lived in a town that must have looked more like a muddy, swampy building site during the first century at least. It would have been a far cry from the marble-clad monuments of imperial Rome (although living conditions in Rome’s insulae weren’t great either).

When Boudica’s army sacked and burned Londinium in around 60 AD, some of the town’s inhabitants fled while thousands who couldn’t leave were killed. Nevertheless, within a decade or two, the town was rebuilt and was once again thriving.

Without the tenacity of the traders who populated, built and rebuilt early Londinium, the town might never have been much more than a Roman military camp. In my opinion, the town’s Roman traders are the real invaders who put Londinium on the map and created the blueprint for what the city was to become over the next two millennia.

Invaders of London – Roman War Pigeons

Thanks to the Ancient World in London (and currently the books from Neal Stephenson) I’m quickly catching up on my history of London and neighbouring areas. I’m still far from an expert, or even seriously knowledgeable – hence I’ve decided to judge who the best invaders of London were on looks. Instantly the Silures – quite sexy in King Arthur, 2004 – spring to mind. Quite neglected when talking and writing about history, they would make the perfect entry… were it not that, unlike Boadicea, they never made it to London, and spent their days in Wales making sure the Romans had one hell of a time. Figuring that the Vikings are quite the clich (and Mel Gibson is covering that one already anyway), this leaves me with just the Romans – a bunch of wusses that eventually got kicked out, and had quite some problems getting in in the first place. They and J. Caesar (pronounced ‘YOO-lee-us KYE-sahr’ for those in doubt/the office!) bored me to death, or at least sleep, during that particular chapter of De Bello Gallico.

Thank God (and maybe the Romans?) for lunch breaks, though. A quick stroll outside offered the solution; the only ‘invaders’ London never got rid of (disregarding all immigrants, Belgae included) are pigeons. So if we combine the well organized but eventually unsuccessful Romans with these quite persistent birds, you get a new breed of super-invaders.

Thus behold:
Roman War Pigeons
(which are quite handy,
and beat
Greek War Elephants,
as they can multi-task,
delivering mail without having the urge to go on strike!)

Somewhere halfway through messing up the shadows on this entry, I realized Pixar (and various armed forces) quite got the idea before me. So definitely check out their (World) War (II) pigeons.

I admit, Valiant would would kick my Roman attack pigeon’s bird-ass any time! 😉

You have a better take on London’s Greatest Invaders?
It is not to late yet to join our Bloggers Challenge!
(and you don’t really need to worry about having my splendid Roman War Pigeon entry as competition,
as I can’t win anyway. ;))

A semi-random fact to prove I am not totally insane: Atotal of 32 ‘war pigeons’ were rewarded with the Dickin Medal, honouring the work of animals in war during World War II. Congratulations to Commando, GIJoe, Paddy and William of Orange (and Kaiser, also pronounced ‘KYE-sahr’)!