THE ANGLO-SAXONS ~ A History of the Beginnings of England: 410 to 1066 by Marc Morris

In 400 CE, the Roman Empire was coming to an end in Britain. It was pulling back its military. Coins were not being minted. And ships stopped sailing across the channel.

In around 430 CE, the Anglo-Saxons began coming to England. As author Marc Morris points out, the term Anglo-Saxon does not mean that Britain was just invaded by people from Saxony and Angeln in Germany. Nor does it mean that it was just the Jutes from Jutland in Denmark who came. No. It means that people from Scandinavia and Germany flooded into England from around 430 on, taking advantage of the chaos surrounding the sudden collapse of the Roman Empire in England. 

That was bad enough, but in the mid-sixth century, things became even worse. Apparently, a volcano in Iceland erupted three times in 536, 540 and 547, creating massive dust veils that swept over England. The effect of this was to create the coldest decade Britain has ever seen in two thousand years. Because the rays of the sun were so much weaker during this decade, there was massive crop failure leading to large-scale starvation. 

What must it have been like for the people of England in around 550 CE, shortly after this horrendous decade? I imagine they were thrown into complete panic. As they wouldn’t have known anything about volcanoes in Iceland or the resultant dust veils that occur when a volcano goes off, they probably told themselves that the gods were angry with them. If they had nothing, or very little, and were completely ruined, they probably left their homes and took to the road.

If, on the other hand, you were one of those lucky people who had a farm that actually functioned, and enough acreage so it was easier for you to deal with bad harvests, your biggest problem would have been the spike in robberies. For the people on the road (the have-nots) would be breaking into the properties and holdings of people who had something. I imagine there must have been pitched battles going on between these two sets of people, with the property holders going to the local strong-man, askiing for protection in the form or armed guards around their properties.

In my mind, this was a protection racket, not unlike the mafia. The reason why I say that is because the payment for this protection was extortionate. It would have been one thing if the local strong man had asked for only a few things, or “whatever you can afford.” But they did not. They basically asked for a pound of flesh. 

Here is a list of what the owner of one hide had to give the local strong man as a yearly payment. (A hide is enough land to feed one family.)

1 vat of honey

30 loaves of bread

1 container of Welsh ale

3 containers of clear ale

1 goat

1 goose

1 hen

1 wheel of cheese

1 container of butter

1 salmon

2 pounds of fodder

10 eels

If you were literally hanging on by your fingernails, one step away from total ruin, starvation, and disease, would you have been able to afford all this? I can imagine the local strongman coming up with this deliberately extortionate list, because if the person failed to pay, that meant they had to give up both their liberty and their land. Sure, the King agreed to protect them from armed robbers. But, in return, they faced a life of indentured servitude. 

Historians now believe that this is how the Kings of England emerged in this period from around 550 to 600 CE. In the beginning, there were probably a score of kingdoms, that finally became whittled down to just seven ~ Northumbria, Mercia, Wessex, Essex, East Anglia, Sussex, and Kent.

If you have always wondered how England emerged from the collapse of the Roman Empire, this book is for you. It provides a fascinating account of Anglo-Saxon Society from its formation in around 430 CE to the Norman Conquest of 1066 CE. 

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