Read Ebook: The Saxons in England Volume 1 (of 2) A history of the English commonwealth till the period of the Norman conquest by Kemble John Mitchell Birch Walter De Gray Editor

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THE ORIGINAL SETTLEMENT OF THE ANGLOSAXON COMMONWEALTH.

A. Marks 449

B. The H?d 487

C. Manumission of Serfs 496

D. Orcy's Guild at Abbotsbury 511

E. L?nland 517

F. Heathendom 523

THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND.

Eleven centuries ago, an industrious and conscientious historian, desiring to give a record of the establishment of his forefathers in this island, could find no fuller or better account than this: "About the year of Grace 445-446, the British inhabitants of England, deserted by the Roman masters who had enervated while they protected them, and exposed to the ravages of Picts and Scots from the extreme and barbarous portions of the island, called in the assistance of heathen Saxons from the continent of Europe. The strangers faithfully performed their task, and chastised the Northern invaders; then, in scorn of the weakness of their employers, subjected them in turn to the yoke, and after various vicissitudes of fortune, established their own power upon the ruins of Roman and British civilization." The few details which had reached the historian taught that the strangers were under the guidance of two brothers, Hengest and Hors: that their armament was conveyed in three ships or keels: that it consisted of Jutes, Saxons and Angles: that their successes stimulated similar adventurers among their countrymen: and that in process of time their continued migrations were so large and numerous, as to have reduced Anglia, their original home, to a desert.

Footnote 3:

Beda, Hist. Eccl. i. 14, 15. Gildas, Hist. ? 14. Nennius, Hist. ? 38.

Such was the tale of the victorious Saxons in the eighth century: at a later period, the vanquished Britons found a melancholy satisfaction in adding details which might brand the career of their conquerors with the stain of disloyalty. According to these hostile authorities, treachery and fraud prepared and consolidated the Saxon triumph. The wiles of Hengest's beautiful daughter subdued the mind of the British ruler; a murderous violation of the rights of hospitality, which cut off the chieftains of the Britons at the very table of their hosts, delivered over the defenceless land to the barbarous invader; and the miraculous intervention of Germanus, the spells of Merlin and the prowess of Arthur, or the victorious career of Aurelius Ambrosius, although they delayed and in part avenged, yet could not prevent the downfall of their people. Meagre indeed are the accounts which thus satisfied the most enquiring of our forefathers; yet such as they are, they were received as the undoubted truth, and appealed to in later periods as the earliest authentic record of our race. The acuter criticism of an age less prone to believe, more skilful in the appreciation of evidence, and familiar with the fleeting forms of mythical and epical thought, sees in them only a confused mass of traditions borrowed from the most heterogeneous sources, compacted rudely and with little ingenuity, and in which the smallest possible amount of historical truth is involved in a great deal of fable. Yet the truth which such traditions do nevertheless contain, yields to the alchemy of our days a golden harvest: if we cannot undoubtingly accept the details of such legends, they still point out to us at least the course we must pursue to discover the elements of fact upon which the Mythus and Epos rest, and guide us to the period and the locality where these took root and flourished.

Footnote 4:

Footnote 5:

The story of the treacherous murder perpetrated upon the Welsh chieftains does not claim an English origin. It is related of the Oldsaxons upon the continent, in connexion with the conquest of the Thuringians. See Widukind.

Footnote 6:

Footnote 7:

Possessing no written annals, and trusting to the poet the task of the historian, our forefathers have left but scanty records of their early condition. Nor did the supercilious or unsuspecting ignorance of Italy care to enquire into the mode of life and habits of the barbarians until their strong arms threatened the civilization and the very existence of the empire itself. Then first, dimly through the twilight in which the sun of Rome was to set for ever, loomed the Colossus of the German race, gigantic, terrible, inexplicable; and the vague attempt to define its awful features came too late to be fully successful. In Tacitus, the city possessed indeed a thinker worthy of the exalted theme; but his sketch, though vigorous beyond expectation, is incomplete in many of the most material points: yet this is the most detailed and fullest account which we possess, and nearly the only certain source of information till we arrive at the moment when the invading tribes in every portion of the empire entered upon their great task of reconstructing society from its foundations. Slowly, from point to point, and from time to time, traces are recognized of powerful struggles, of national movements, of destructive revolutions: but the definite facts which emerge from the darkness of the first three centuries are rare and fragmentary.

Footnote 8:

"Celebrant carminibus antiquis, quod unum apud illos memoriae et annalium genus est." Tac. Mor. Germ. cap. ii.

Let us confine our attention to that portion of the race which settled on our own shores.

The testimony of contemporaneous history assures us that about the middle of the fifth century, a considerable movement took place among the tribes that inhabited the western coasts of Germany and the islands of the Baltic sea. Pressed at home by the incursions of restless neighbours, and the urgency of increasing population, or yielding to the universal spirit of adventure, Angles, Saxons and Frisians crossed a little-known and dangerous ocean to seek new settlements in adjacent lands. Familiar as we are with daring deeds of maritime enterprise, who have seen our flag float over every sea, and flutter in every breeze that sweeps over the surface of the earth, we cannot contemplate without astonishment and admiration, these hardy sailors, swarming on every point, traversing every ocean, sweeping every aestuary and bay, and landing on every shore which promised plunder or a temporary rest from their fatigues. The wealth of Gaul had already attracted fearful visitations, and the spoils of Roman cultivation had been displayed before the wondering borderers of the Elbe and Eyder, the prize of past, and incentive to future activity. Britain, fertile and defenceless, abounding in the accumulations of a long career of peace, deserted by its ancient lords, unaccustomed to arms, and accustomed to the yoke, at once invited attack and held out the prospect of a rich reward: and it is certain that at that period, there took place some extensive migration of Germans to the shores of England. The expeditions known to tradition as those of Hengest, AElli, Cissa, Cerdic and Port, may therefore have some foundation in fact; and around this meagre nucleus of truth were grouped the legends which afterwards served to conceal the poverty and eke out the scanty stock of early history. But I do not think it at all probable that this was the earliest period at which the Germans formed settlements in England.

Footnote 9:

This is asserted both by Gildas and Nennius, and it is not in itself improbable. The Romans did sometimes attempt to disarm the nations they subdued: thus Probus with the Alamanni. Vopisc. cap. 14. Malmsbury's account of the defenceless state of Britain was probably not exaggerated. He says: "Ita cum tyranni nullum in agris praeter semibarbaros, nullum in urbibus praeter ventri deditos reliquissent, Britannia omni patrocinio iuvenilis vigoris viduata, omni exercitio artium exinanita, conterminarum gentium inhiationi diu obnoxia fuit." Gest. Reg. lib. i. ? 2.

Footnote 10:

Prosper Tyro, a.d. 441, says, "Theodosii xviii. Britanniae usque ad hoc tempus variis cladibus eventibusque latae in ditionem Saxonum rediguntur." See also Procop. Bel. Got. iv. 20. The former of these passages might however be understood without the assumption of an immigration, which the movements of Attila render probable.

It is natural to believe that for many centuries a considerable and active intercourse had prevailed between the southern and eastern shores of this island, and the western districts of Gaul. The first landing of Julius Caesar was caused or justified by the assurance that his Gallic enemies recruited their armies and repaired their losses, by the aid of their British kinsmen and allies; and the merchants of the coast, who found a market in Britain, reluctantly furnished him with the information upon which the plan of his invasion was founded. When the fortune and the arms of Rome had prevailed over her ill-disciplined antagonists, and both continent and island were subject to the same all-embracing rule, it is highly probable that the ancient bonds were renewed, and that the most familiar intercourse continued to prevail. In the time of Strabo the products of the island, corn, cattle, gold, silver and iron, skins, slaves, and a large description of dog, were exported by the natives, no doubt principally to the neighbouring coasts, and their commerce with these was sufficient to justify the imposition of an export and import duty. As early as the time of Nero, London, though not a colony, was remarkable as a mercantile station, and in all human probability was the great mart of the Gauls. There cannot be the least doubt that an active communication was maintained throughout by the Keltic nations on the different sides of the channel; and similarly, as German tribes gradually advanced along the lines of the Elbe, the Weser, the Maes and the Rhine, occupying the countries which lie upon the banks of those rivers, and between them and the sea, it is reasonable to suppose that some offsets of their great migrations reached the opposite shores of England. As early as the second century, Chauci are mentioned among the inhabitants of the south-east of Ireland, and although we have only the name whereby to identify them with the great Saxon tribe, yet this deserves consideration when compared with the indisputably Keltic names of the surrounding races. The Coritavi, who occupied the present counties of Lincoln, Leicester, Rutland, Northampton, Nottingham and Derby, were Germans, according to the Welsh tradition itself, and the next following name ????????????, though not certainly German, bears a strong resemblance to many German formations.

Footnote 11:

Bell. Gal. iii. 8. 9; iv. 20.

Footnote 12:

Especially the Veneti: h??????? ??? ???? ??????? ??? ??? ??? ??????????? ?????, ???????? ?? ???????. Strabo, bk. iv. p. 271. Conf. Bell. Gall. iv. 20.

Footnote 13:

Book iv. p. 278.

Footnote 14:

Tacit. Ann. xiv. 33.

Footnote 15:

Caesar notices the migrations of continental tribes to Britain: he says, "Britanniae pars interior ab iis incolitur, quos natos in insula ipsa memoria proditum dicunt; maritima pars ab iis qui praedae ac belli inferendi causa ex Belgis transierant; qui omnes fere iis nominibus civitatum adpellantur, quibus orti ex civitatibus eo pervenerunt, et bello inlato ibi remanserunt, atque agros colere coeperunt." Bell. Gall. v. 12.

Footnote 16:

Ptolemy, bk. ii. c. 2. It is true that Ptolemy calls them ??????, but this mode of spelling is not unexampled, and is found in even so correct a writer as Strabo. The proper form is ??????. Latin authors occasionally write Cauci for Chauci, and sometimes even Cauchi: see Zeuss, Die Deutschen und die Nachbarst?mme, p. 138. It is right to add that Zeuss, whose opinion on such a point is entitled to the highest consideration, hesitates to include these ?????? among Germanic tribes . The ????????, placed also by Ptolemy in Ireland, can hardly be Germans.

Footnote 17:

Footnote 18:

Chatuarii, Hea?obeardan, Hea?oraemes. However Catu is a genuine British prefix.

The fertile fields which long before had merited the praises of the first Roman victor, must have offered attractions enough to induce wandering Saxons and Angles to desert the marshes and islands of the Elbe, and to call Frisian adventurers over from the sands and salt-pools of their home. If in the middle of the fifth century Saxons had established regular settlements at Bayeux; if even before this time the country about Grannona bore the name of Littus Saxonicum, we may easily believe that at still earlier periods other Saxons had found over the intervening ocean a way less dangerous and tedious than a march through the territories of jealous or hostile neighbours, or even than a coasting voyage along barbarous shores defended by a yet more barbarous population. A north-east wind would, almost without effort of their own, have carried their ships from H?lgoland and the islands of the Elbe, or from Silt and Romsey, to the Wash and the coast of Norfolk. There seems then every probability that bodies more or less numerous, of coast-Germans, perhaps actually of Saxons and Angles, had colonized the eastern shores of England long before the time generally assumed for their advent. The very exigencies of military service had rendered this island familiar to the nations of the continent: Batavi, under their own national chieftains, had earned a share of the Roman glory, and why not of the Roman land, in Britain? The policy of the Emperor Marcus Antoninus, at the successful close of the Marcomannic war, had transplanted to Britain multitudes of Germans, to serve at once as instruments of Roman power and as hostages for their countrymen on the frontier of the empire. The remnants of this once powerful confederation cannot but have left long and lasting traces of their settlement among us; nor can it be considered at all improbable that Carausius, when in the year 287, he raised the standard of revolt in Britain, calculated upon the assistance of the Germans in this country, as well as that of their allies and brethren on the continent. Nineteen years later the death of Constantius delivered the dignity of Caesar to his son Constantine: he was solemnly elected to that dignity in Britain, and among his supporters was Crocus, or as some read Erocus, an Alamannic king who had accompanied his father from Germany. Still later, under Valentinian, we find an auxiliary force of Alamanni serving with the Roman legions here.

Footnote 19:

Saxones Baiocassini. Greg. Turon. v. 27; x. 9.

Footnote 20:

Footnote 21:

Ptolemy calls the islands at the mouth of the Elbe, ??????? ????? ?????. Zeuss considers these to be F?hr, Silt and Nordstrand. Die Deutschen, p. 150. Lappenberg sees in them, North Friesland, Eiderstedt, Nordstrand, Wickingharde and B?cingharde. Thorpe, Lap. i. 87. It seems hardly conceivable that Frisians, who occupied the coast as early as the time of Caesar, should not have found their way by sea to Britain, especially when pressed by Roman power: see Tac. Ann. xiii. 54.

Footnote 22:

Hengest defeated the Picts and Scots at Stamford in Lincolnshire, not far from the Nene, the Witham and the Welland, upon whose banks it is nearly certain that there were German settlements. Widukind's story of an embassy from the Britons to the Saxons, to entreat aid, is thus rendered not altogether improbable: but then it must be understood of Saxons already established in England, and on the very line of march of the Northern invaders, whom they thus took most effectually in flank. Compare Geoffry's story of Vortigern giving Hengest lands in Lincolnshire, etc.

Footnote 23:

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