Origin of the Anglo-Saxon Race/Chapter 2

by Thomas William Shore

CHAPTER II.

THE SAXONS AND THEIR TRIBES.

WE have so long been accustomed to call some of the English settlers Saxons that it is with some surprise we learn none of them called themselves by this name. As far as England was concerned, this was the name by which they were commonly called by the Britons, and it was not generally used by the people themselves until some centuries later. Nations and tribes, as well as individuals, must always be known either by their native names or by the names which other people give them. They may, consequently, have more than one name. The name Saxon, although not used by the tribes that invaded England in the fifth and sixth centuries as their own designation for themselves, is more ancient than this invasion. Before the end of the Roman rule in Britain it was used to denote the part of the English coast from the Wash to the Solent and the Continental coast of North-Eastern France and Belgium, both of which were known as the Saxon Shore. This name apparently arose from the descent of pirates who were called Saxons. On the other hand, there is evidence leading to the conclusion that there were early settlements of people known as Saxons on these coasts. Both these views may be right. for the piratical Saxons, like the Northmen of later centuries, may first have plundered the coasts and subsequently settled along them. In any case, a Roman official or admiral, known as Comes litoris Saxonici,^[1] Count of the Saxon Shore, was appointed to look after these shores. After the departure of the Roman legions the partly Rornanized Britons naturally gave the name Saxon to invaders from Germany, as this name had come down to them from the Roman period. for after the time of Constantine the Great all the inhabitants of the coasts of Germany who practised piracy were included under the Saxon name.^[2] It is a curious circumstance that the parts of England in which the Saxon place-names. such as Sexebi and Sextone, survived at the time of Domesday survey are not in those counties which were comprised within either of the Saxon kingdoms of England. In considering the settlement, the name Saxons comes before us in a wider sense than that of a tribe, as denoting tribes acting together, practically a confederacy. In this sense it was used by the early British writers, Angles, Jutes, and people of other tribes. all being Saxons to them, and the settlers in all parts of England were known as Saxons by them, as well as the people of Sussex, Essex, and Wessex. In this wider sense the name Saxonia was used by Bede, for though an Anglian, he described himself as an office-bearer in Saxonia. The settlers in Hampshire, who after a time were known in common with those in neighbouring counties as West Saxons, did not call themselves Saxons, but Gewissas, and the most probable meaning of that name is confederates, or those acting together in some assured bond of union.^[3] Their later name of West Saxons was apparently a geographical one.

The name Saxon was no doubt found a convenient one to describe the tribal people who migrated to England from the north coasts of Germany, extending from the mouth of the Rhine to that of the Vistula, but among themselves these Saxons were certainly known by their tribal names. Saxons from older Saxony were no doubt largely represented among them, but the singular fact remains that in England the name Saxon was used, at first, only by the British chroniclers as a general designation for their enemies, while the incoming people were clearly known among themselves by their tribal names. At various periods people called Saxons in Germany colonized other lands besides England. Some migrated eastward across the Elbe into the country of the Wends, and began that process of gradual absorption under which the Wendish people and their language have now been completely merged into the German. Others migrated to the south.

The early reference by Cæsar to a German nation he calls the Cherusci probably refers to the people afterwards called Saxons. Some German scholars identify the god of these people, called Heru or Cheru, as identical with the eponymous god of the Saxons, called Saxnot, who corresponded to the northern Tyr, or Tius, after whom our Tuesday has been named.^[4] The Saxon name was at one time applied to the islands off the west coast of Schleswig, now known as the North Frisian Islands, and the country called by the later name Saxland extended from the lower course of the Elbe to the Baltic coast near Rugen. The earlier Saxony, however, from which settlers in England came was both westward and northward of the Elbe. There were some Saxons who at an early period migrated as far west as the country near the mouth of the Rhine, and it was probably from this colony that some of their descendants migrated centuries later into Transylvania, where their posterity still preserve the ancient name among the Hungarians or Magyars.

As regards the Saxons in England, it is also a singular circumstance that they were not known to the Northmen by that name, for throughout the Sagas no instance occurs in which the Northmen are said to have come into contact in England with people called Saxons.^[5] One of the names by which they were known to the Scandinavians appears to have been Swæfas.

The Saxons are not mentioned by Tacitus, who wrote about the end of the first century, but are mentioned by Ptolemy in the second century as inhabiting the country north of the Lower Elbe.^[6] Wherever they may have been at first located in Germany, it is certain that people of this nation migrated to other districts from that occupied by the main body. We know of the Saxon migration to the coast of Belgium and North-Eastern France. and of the special official appointed by the Romans to protect these coasts and the south-eastern coasts of Britain. On the Continental side of the Channel there certainly were early settlements of Saxons, and it is probable there were some on the British side. These historical references show that the name is a very old one, which was used in ancient Germany for a race of people, while in England it was used both in reference to the Old Saxons and also in a wider sense by both Welsh and English chroniclers. In Germany the name was probably applied to the inhabitants of the sea-coast and water systems of the Lower Rhine, Weser, Lower Elbe and Eyder, to Low Germans on the Rhine, to Frisians and Saxons on the Elbe, and to North Frisians on the Ryder.^[7]

In considering the subject of the alliances of various nations and tribes in the Anglo-Saxon conquests, it is desirable to remember how great a part confederacies played in the wanderings and conquests of the northern races of Europe during and after the decline of the Roman Empire. The name Frank supplies a good example. This was the name of a great confederation, all the members of it agreeing in calling themselves free.^[8] Hence, instead of assuming migrations (some historically improbable) to account for the Franks of France, the Franks of Franche-comte, and the Franks of Franconia, we may simply suppose them to be Franks of different divisions of the Frank confederation—i.e., people of various great tribes united under a common designation. Again, the Angli are grouped with the Varini, not only as neighbouring nations on the east coast of Schleswig, but in the matter of laws under their later names, Angles and Warings. Similarly, we read of Goths and Vandals,^[9] of Frisians and Chaucians, of Goths and Burgundians, of Engles and Swæfas, of Franks and Batavians, of Wends and Saxons, of Frisians and Hunsings; and as we read of a Frank confederation, there was practically a Saxon one. In later centuries, under the general name of Danes, we are told by Henry of Huntingdon of Danes and Goths, Norwegians and Swedes, Vandals and Frisians, as the names of those people who desolated England for 230 years.^[10] The later Saxon confederation is that which was opposed to Charlemagne but there was certainly an earlier alliance, or there were common expeditions of Saxons and people of other tribes acting together in the invasion of England under the Saxon name.

In view of a supposed Saxon alliance during the invasion and settlement of England, the question arises, with which nations the Saxon people who took part in the attacks on Britain could have formed a confederacy. Northward, their territory joined that of the Angles; on the north and west it touched that of the Frisians, and on the east the country of the Wendish people known as the Wilte or Wilzi. Not far from them on the west the German tribe known as the Boructarii were located, and these are the people from whom Bede tells us that some of the English in his time were known to have been derived.

During the folk-wanderings some of the Suevi migrated to Swabia, in South Germany, and these people, called by the Scandian nations the Swæfas, were practically of the same race as the Saxons, and their name is sometimes used for Saxon. The Angarians, or Men of Engern, also were a tribe of the Old Saxons. Later on, we find the name Ostphalia used for the Saxon country lying east of Engern, now called Hanover, and Westphalia for the country lying west of this district. Among the Saxons there were tribal divisions or clans, such as that of the people known as the Ymbre, or Ambrones, and the pagus of the Bucki among the Engern people.^[11]

This pagus of the Old Saxons has probably left its name not only in that of Buccingaham, now Buckingham, but also in other English counties. In Norfolk we find the Anglo-Saxon names Buchestuna, Buckenham. and others. In Northampton the Domesday names Buchebi, Buchenho, Buchestone, and others, occur. In Huntingdonshire, similarly,we find Buchesunorth, Buchesworth, and Buchelone; in Yorkshire Bucktorp, in Nottinghamshire Buchetone, in Devon Buchesworth and Bucheside, all apparently named after settlers called Buche. If a settler was of the Bucki tribe, it is easy to see how he could be known to his neighbours by this name.

The Buccinobantes, mentioned by Ammianus,^[12] were a German tribe, from which settlers were introduced into Britain as Roman colonists before the end of Roman rule in Britain.^[13] The results of research render it more and more probable that Teutonic people under the Saxon name were gradually gaining a footing in the island before the period at which the chief invasions are said to have commenced. In the intestine wars that went on in the fifth century the presence of people of Teutonic descent among the Britons might naturally have led to Teutonic allies having been called in, or to have facilitated their conquests.^[14]

Ptolemy is the first writer who mentions the Saxons, and he states that they occupied the country which is now Holstein; but between his time and the invasion of Britain they probably shifted more to the south-west. to the region of Hanover and Westphalia, some probably remaining on the north bank of the Elbe. He tells us of a people called the Pharadini, a name resembling Varini or Warings, allies of the Angles, who lay next to the Saxons. He mentions also the three islands of the Saxons, which are probably those known now as the North Frisian Islands, north of the coast where the Saxons he mentioned are said to have lived. This is the country that within historic time has been, and still is in part, occupied by the North Frisians. The origin of the name Saxon has been a puzzle to philologists, and Latham has summed up the evidence in favour of its being a native name as indecisive. There was certainly a god known in Teutonic mythology as Saxnote or Saxneat, but whether the name Saxon was derived from the god, or the god derived his name from the people who reverenced him, is uncertain. We find this Saxnote mentioned in the pedigree of the early Kings of Essex. Thunar, Woden, and Saxnote are also mentioned as the gods whom the early Christians in Germany had to declare publicly that they would forsake,^[15] and the identity of Saxnote with Tiu, Tius, or Tyr, is apparent from this as well as from other evidence.

During the Roman period a large number of Germans, fleeing from the southeast, arrived in the plains of Belgium, and the names Flamand, Flemish, and Flanders were derived from these refugees, who in some accounts are described as Saxons, and the coast they occupied as the well-known litus Saxonicum, or Saxon shore.^[16] This is an important consideration in reference to the subsequent settlement of England, for it shows that there were people called Saxons before the actual invasion occurred, located on a coast much nearer to this country than that along the Elbe. In the time of Charlemagne the lower course of the Elbe divided the Saxons into two chief branches, and those to the north of it were called Nordalbingians, or people north of the Elbe, which is the position where the Saxons of Ptolemy’s time are said to have been located. One of the neighbouring races to the Saxons in the first half of the sixth century in North Germany was the Longobards or Lombards. Their great migration to the south under their King Alboin, and their subsequent invasion of Italy, occurred about the middle of the sixth century. This was about the time when the Saxons were defeated with great slaughter near the Weser. by Hlothaire, King of the Franks. Some of the survivors are said to have accompanied the Lombards, and others in all probability helped to swell the number of emigrants into England. It is probable that after this time they became more or less scattered to the south and across the sea, and in Germany the modern name Saxony along the upper course of the Elbe is a surviving name of a larger Saxony. The Germans have an ancient proverb which is still in use: ‘There are Saxons wherever pretty girls grow out of trees’^[17]—perhaps a reference to the fair complexion of the old Saxon race, and to its wide dispersion.

The circumstance that the maritime inhabitants of the German coasts were known as Saxons before the fall of the Roman Empire shows that the name was applied to a seafaring people, and under it at that time the early Frislans were probably included, The later information we obtain concerning the identity of the wergelds, or payments for injuries, that prevailed among both of these nations supports this view. The Saxon as well as the Frisian wergeld to be paid to the kindred in the case of a man being killed was 160 solidi, or shillings.^[18]

There are two sources, so far as our own island is concerned, whence we may derive historical information concerning the conquest and settlement of Eng1and—viz., from the earliest English writers and from the earliest Welsh writers. Bede is the earliest author of English birth, and Nennius, to whom the ‘Historia Britonum’ is ascribed, is the earliest Welsh author. The veracity of the ‘Historia Britonum’ is not seriously doubted—at least, the book under that name of which Nennius is the reputed author. Its date is probably about the middle of the eighth century, and we have no reason to suppose that the learning to be found at that time in the English monasteries was superior to that in the Welsh. Nennius lived in the same century as Bede. but wrote about half a century later. His information is of value as pointing to a large number of German tribes under the general name of Saxons, rather than people of one nationality only, having taken part in the invasion and settlement of England. Nennius tells us of the struggles which went on between the Britons and the invaders. He says: ‘The more the Saxons were vanquished, the more they sought for new supplies of Saxons from Germany, so that Kings, commanders, and military bands were invited over from almost every province. And this practice they continued till the reign of Inda, who was the son of Eoppa; he of the Saxon race was the first King in Bernicia, and in Cær Ebranc (York).’^[19]

In reference to Cæsar’s account of German tribes, it is significant that he mentions a tribe or nation called the Cherusci as the head of a great confederation. It is of interest to note also that, as long as we find the name Cherusci used, Saxons are not mentioned, but as soon as the Cherusci disappear by name the Saxons appear, and these in a later time also formed a great confederacy. The name Gewissas, which was that by which the West Saxons were known, included Jutes—i.e.., in all probability, Goths, Frisians, Wends, and possibly people of other tribes, as well as those from the Saxon fatherland.

The Saxons of England were converted to Christianity before those of the Continent, and we derive some indirect information of the racial affinities between these peoples from the accounts of the early missionary zeal of priests from England among the old Saxons. Two of these, who are said to have been Anglians, went into Saxony to convert the people, and were murdered there; but in after-centuries their names were held in high reverence, and are still honoured in Westphalia. We can scarcely think that they would have set forth on such a missionary expedition unless their dialect or language had so much in common as to enable them as Anglians from England to make themselves easily understood to these old Saxons.

The question who were the true Saxons—i.e., the Saxons specifically so called in Germany—has been much discussed. The name may not have been a native one, but have been fixed on them by others, in which case, as Beddoe says, it is easier to believe that the Frisians were often included under it.^[20] They may have been, and probably were, a great martial and aggressive tribe, which spread from the country along the Elbe over the country of the Weser, after conquering its previous inhabitants, the Boructarii, or Bructers. Such a migration best accounts for the later appearance of Saxons in the region which the Old English called Old Saxony, and erroneously looked upon as their old home, because their kindred had come to occupy it since their separation. The Saxonia of the ninth century included Hanover, Westphalia, and Holstein, as opposed to Friesland, Schleswig. the Middle Rhine provinces, and the parts east of the Elbe, which were Frisian, Danish, Frank, and Slavonic respectively.^[21] Among the Saxons of the country north of the Elbe were the people of Stormaria, whose name survived in that of the river Stoer, a boundary of it, and perhaps also in one or more of the rivers Stour, where some of the Stormarii settled in England.

William of Malmesbury, who wrote early in the twelfth century, tells us that the ancient country called Germany was divided into many provinces, and took its name from germinating so many men. This may be a fanciful derivation, but he goes on to say that, ‘as the pruner cuts off the more luxuriant branches of the tree to impart a livelier vigour to the remainder, so the inhabitants of this country assist their common parent by the expulsion of a part of their members, lest she should perish by giving sustenance to too numerous an offspring; but in order to obviate the discontent, they cast lots who shall be compelled to migrate. Hence the men of this country made a virtue of necessity, and when driven from their native soil have gained foreign settlements by force of arms’^[22] He gives as instances of this the Vandals, Goths, Lombards. and Normans. There is other evidence of the prevalence of this custom. The story of Hengist and Horsa is one of the same kind, The custom appears to have been common to many different nations or tribes in the northern parts of Europe, and points, consequently, to the pressure of an increasing population and to diversity of origin among the settlers known as Saxons, Angles, and Jutes in England.

The invasions of England at different periods between the fifth and tenth centuries, and the settlement of the country as it was until the end of the Anglo-Saxon period, were invasions and settlements of different tribes. It is necessary to emphasize this. Bede’s list of nations, among others, from whom the Anglo-Saxon people in his day were known to have descended is considerably longer and more varied than that of Jutes, Saxons, and Angles. During the centuries that followed his time people of other races found new homes here, some by conquest, as in the case of Norse and Danes, and others by peaceful means, as in the time of King Alfred, when, as Asser tells us, Franks, Frisians, Gauls, Pagans, Britons, Scots, and Armoricans placed themselves under his government.^[23] As Alfred made no Continental conquests, the Franks, Gauls, and Frisians must have become peaceful settlers in England, and as the only pagans in his time in Europe were the northern nations—Danes, Norse, Swedes, and Wends—some of these must also have peacefully settled in his country, as we know that Danes and Norse did largely during this as well as a later period. Men of many different races must have been among the ancestors of both the earlier and later Anglo-Saxon people.

In the eighth and ninth centuries three kingdoms in England bore the Saxon name, as mentioned by Bede and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle—viz., Essex, Sussex, and Wessex—and one province, Middlesex. As will be seen when considering the evidence relating to the settlers in various parts of England, it does not follow that these several parts of our country which were called after the Saxon name were colonized by people known as Saxons in Germany. The customs that prevailed in these parts of England were different in many localities. The relics of the Anglo-Saxon period that have been discovered in these districts present also some distinctive features. It is certain from the customs that prevailed, some of which have survived, from the remains found, from the old place-names, and from the variations in the shape of the skulls discovered, that the people of the Saxon kingdoms of England could not have been people of one race. The anthropological evidence which has been collected by Beddoe^[24] and others confirms this, for the skulls taken from Saxon cemeteries in England exhibit differences in the shape of the head which could not have resulted from accidental variations in the head-form of people all of one uniform race or descent.^[25] The typical Saxon skull was dolichocephalic, or long, the breadth not exceeding four-fifths of the length, like those of all the nations of the Gothic stock. Goths, Norwegians, Swedes, Danes, Angles, and Saxons among the ancient nations all had this general head-form, as shown by the remains of these several races which have been found, and from the head-form of the modern nations descended from them; but among these long-headed people there were some with variations in the skull and a few with broad skulls.

The Saxons must have been nearly allied to some of the Angles. This is shown by the probability that the so-called Saxons are located by Ptolemy in the country north of the Elbe, which by other early writers is assigned mainly to the Angles. His references to the tribe or nation known as the Suevi point to the same conclusion, the Suevi-Angli mentioned by him^[26] being apparently another name for the people of the country which, according to others, was occupied by Saxons, and these Suevi or Suabi are mentioned as at Saxon pagus in early German records.^[27] The Scandian peninsula, so remarkable for early emigration, was probably the original home at some very remote period of the ancestors of the nations known in later centuries as Saxons, Suevi, and Angles. The racial characters of all the Teutonic tribes of North Germany, as of their modern representatives, were fair hair and eyes. and heads of the dolichocephalic shape. These characters differentiated the northern tribes of Germany from the more ancient occupants of Central Europe, as at the present time they distinguish them from the darker-haired South Germans of Bavaria and Austria, who have broader skulls than those of the north. The skulls which are found in ancient burial-places in Germany of the same age as the Anglo-Saxon period are of two main types—viz., the dolichocephalic or long, and the brachycephalic or broad. In the old burial-places at Bremen, from which 103 examples were obtained, only 5 typical broad skulls were found, against 72 typical long skulls and 26 which were classed by Gildemeister as intermediate in form.^[28] These 26 he regarded as Frisian, and gave them the name Batavian. In the South of Germany graves of the same age yield a majority of broad skulls, which closely correspond to those of the peasantry of the present time in the same parts of the country. From this it may be inferred that during the period of the English settlement people with long skulls were in a great majority in North Germany, and people with broad skulls in a majority in the southern parts of that country, certainly in these districts south of Thuringia. Bede tells us that the people of England were descended from many tribes, and Nennius says that Saxons came into England from almost every province in Germany. Unless we are to entirely discredit such statements, the probability that some of the settlers whom Nennius calls Saxons may have been broad-headed is great. That various tribal people under the Saxon name took part in the invasion and settlement of England is probable from many circumstances, and, among others, the minor variations in the skulls found in Anglo-Saxon graves corresponding to the minor variations found to exist also among the skulls discovered at Bremen. Of these latter Beddoe says: ‘There are small differences which may have been tribal.’^[29] The same author remarks also of these Bremen skulls, that there are differences in the degree of development of the superciliary ridges which may have been more tribal than individual.^[30]

Of 100 skulls of the Anglo—Saxon period actually found in England, and whose dimensions were tabulated by Beddoe, the following variations were found, the percentage of the breadth in comparison with the length being expressed by the indices:^[31]

Indices					Number of Skulls.
65-66	..	..	..	..	1
67-68	..	..	..	..	1
69-70	..	..	..	..	8
71-72	..	..	..	..	14
73-74	..	..	..	..	33
75-76	..	..	..	..	21
77-78	..	..	..	..	14
79-80	..	..	..	..	6
81-82	..	..	..	..	2
					100

From this table it will be seen that 8 of the 100 have a breadth very nearly or quite equal to four-fifths of their 1ength—i.e., they are the remains of people of a different race from the typical Anglo-Saxon.

The typical Saxon skull is believed to have been similar to that known as the ‘grave-row’ skull on the Continent, from the manner in which the bones were found laid in rows. Thcse occur numerously in Saxon burial-places in the Old Saxon and Frisian country, their mean index being about 75—i.e., they are long skulls.

The variation in the skulls from Anglo-Saxon graves in England, as will be seen from the table, is very considerable, but the majority have an index from 73 to 78–i.e., they resemble in this respect those commonly found in the old burial—places of North Germany. The variations have been attributed by some writers to the racial mixture of Saxons with the conquered Britons.^[32] Since, however, similar variations are seen in skulls obtained from the graves at Bremen and other parts of North Germany, it is probable that the so-called Saxons were not a people of a homogeneous race, but comprised tribal people who had variations in head-form, a small percentage being even broad-headed. The migration of such people into England among other Saxons would explain the variations found in the Anglo-Saxon head-form, and, moreover, help us to explain variations in custom that are known to have existed within the so-called Saxon kingdoms of England.

1. ‘Notitia Utriusquo Imperii.,’ ‘Mon. Hist. Brit.’ xxiv.
2. Camden, W., ‘Britannia.’ i., ci.
3. Stevenson, W. H., English Hist. Review, xiv. 36.
4. Wagner, W., ‘Asgard and the Gods,’ translated by Anson, 9, 10.
5. du Chaillu, ‘The Viking Age,’ i. 20.
6. Ptolemy, ‘Geography,’ lib, ii., chap. x.
7. Latham, R. G., ‘Germania of Tacitus,’ cxv.
8. Latham, R. G., ‘Germania of Tacitus,’ Epilogomena, lix.
9. Paulus Diaconus.
10. Huntingdon’s Chron., Bohn’s ed, 148.
11. ‘Monumenta Germaniæ,’ edited by Pertz, Scriptures i., 154.
12. Latham, R. G., loc cit., Epilegomena, lxxxii.
13. Stephens, G., ‘Old Northern Runic Monuments,’ i. 61.
14. Stephens, G., ‘Old Northern Runic Monuments,’ i. 62.
15. ‘Monumenta Germaniæ,’ edited by Pertz, i. 19.
16. Réclus, E., ‘Nouvelle Géographie Universelle,’ iv. 81, 82.
17. Manzel, W., ‘History of Germany,’ Bohn’s ed., i. 117.
18. Seebohm, F., ‘Tribal Custom in Anglo-Saxon Law,’ 213.
19. Nennius, ‘Historia Britonum,’ Bohn’s ed., p. 409.
20. Beddoe, J., ‘Races in Britain,’ 41.
21. Latham, R. G., ‘Handbook of the English Language,’ 23.
22. William of Malmesbury’s Chronicle, ed. by Giles, Book I., cl.
23. Asser’s ‘Life of Alfred,’ edited by Camden in ‘Anglica Scripta,’ p. 13.
24. Loc. cit.
25. Haddon, A. C., ‘The Study of Man,’ quoting Beddoe, ‘Histoire de l’Indice céphalique.’
26. Latham, ‘Germania of Tacitus,’ 27. quoting Ptolemy.
27. ‘Monumenta Germaniæ,’ edited by Pertz, i. 368.
28. Beddoe, J., ‘Races of Britain,’ 43, quoting Gildemeister, Archiv für Anthropologie, 1878.
29. Beddoe, J., ‘Races of Britain,’ 46.
30. Ibid.
31. Haddon, A, C., loc. cit., 85.
32. Haddon, A. C., loc. cit., 85.