History questions not worth their own thread III
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Chukchi Husky
Lone Wolf
So trying to prove that the population changed in Britain because of the Anglo-Saxon invasion using genetics doesn't work?
Yes.
Now, we know that some people migrated to Britain from the Continent in the fifth century, and that many of these people probably spoke a Germanic language, which eventually became Old English. So much is clear. For lack of a better term, we usually refer to them as the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. But we do not know in what numbers they came, or why; nor do we know what they did when they got to Britain. We do not know what happened to the speakers of Latin and Brythonic in the English lowlands, who numbered in the (very low) millions at the beginning of the fourth century. There is an enormous gap in the historical narrative for Britain from 410 to the early seventh century. By 600, there were several large polities in control of most of what is now England, which are usually classed together as "Anglo-Saxon" kingdoms. Explaining how they got there is the tough part.
Now, we know that the population of late Roman Britain was, for lack of a better term, too big to kill. The Angles, Saxons, and Jutes cannot have numbered even into the tens of thousands, due to the agricultural limitations of their supposed homeland; it would be essentially impossible for them to have massacred the Romano-British wholesale. It would be an instance of genocide on a scale unparalleled until literally the Holocaust - but it took a great deal more than a few thousand Nazis to slaughter the Jews et al. We can safely dismiss the idea of genocide and resettlement.
All the same, the fact remains that, two centuries after the revolt against Constantinus "III", there were several kingdoms well entrenched in Britain dominated by people that spoke a language unknown in that island during Roman times. So some sort of migration had to have happened. But the method by which these Angles, Saxons, and Jutes seized control of most of the island is completely unknown to us.
ParkCungHee
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Some of them certainly did. We have records of this as early as the 3rd century, before the breakdown of Roman Authority. But any singular explanation is extremely unlikely to be the cause of all Germanic immigration to Britain.
Incidently those "other invaders" are another problem for the extermination thesis is if the Romano-Celts of Britain were destroyed, then why is there so little impact of the Gaelic invasions in Britain?
There's certainly enough Ogham stones to provide evidence of Gaelic Invasions and raids, certainly more then there's evidence of Germanic Invasions. It's almost certain that the Native Britons chose to adopt Proto-English because it was useful to them, not because of any early Germanic military supremacy over the whole of Britain.
Incidently those "other invaders" are another problem for the extermination thesis is if the Romano-Celts of Britain were destroyed, then why is there so little impact of the Gaelic invasions in Britain?
There's certainly enough Ogham stones to provide evidence of Gaelic Invasions and raids, certainly more then there's evidence of Germanic Invasions. It's almost certain that the Native Britons chose to adopt Proto-English because it was useful to them, not because of any early Germanic military supremacy over the whole of Britain.
According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a history of this time, two Saxon mercenaries - their names both began with 'H', but they escape me now, I think Hengist and Hausa - came to Brittania with their armies to defend a Romano-British kingdom from an invasion, presumably from either Gaels or another Brythonic kingdom. They fought off the invasion, then turned on their paymaster when he tried to stiff them. Thus began the invasions of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes.
Of course, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle seems to be almost entirely fictional, and written well after the fact. But many of its more general features - such as the proximate origin of the three groups, where they settled, that they came as mercenaries - all seem to be borne out by recent evidence. Archaeological digs last decade, for example, found coins minted with both Latin and a language related to Old English coexisting in the same village. The proto-English coins had a man's face on them, which the archaeologist in charge of the dig excitedly named Hengist, in typical overly romantic archaeological fashion. But it seems obvious that this area - in Kent, I believe it was - had recently come under the rule of, or begun trading regularly with, a Germanic kingdom in the area.
I really wish I could remember the name of the documentary, the village, or the archaeologist to help direct you guys to sources, but it was about 2005 that I watched it. But some reading I did on my own seemed to confirm similar sites popping up in Southern England lately.
Hengist and Horsa. I can always remember them because there used to be two ferries named after them that operated out of Folkestone - back when there were still ferries - until the great storm of 1987, when the Hengist was washed up onto the beach like an enormous beached whale.
Of course the "original" Hengist and Horsa are legendary.
Of course the "original" Hengist and Horsa are legendary.
privatehudson
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Call me a heathen but everytime you say Horsa all I can think of is the glider*
*which apprarently is named after the bloke so I guess I've learnt something today...
*which apprarently is named after the bloke so I guess I've learnt something today...
So apparently I was pronouncing both names correctly, I'd just forgotten how to spell "Horsa." Not bad, for something I haven't looked up in at least five years.
privatehudson
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It does seem curious to name glider planes after two figures noted for invading England from the continent.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
The English have always had a complicated relationship with that particular aspect of their history, so you shouldn't be surprised if it produces the occasional absurdity. (There's actually a long-running dispute among British neo-fascists as to whether they're proud Teutons who cleansed the island of subhuman Britons, or proud Britons who have been too long oppressed by the Teutonic dogs. Nutters.)
privatehudson
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In peactime that's fair enough, you'd think someone would have pointed out that in a time of war we can come up with a better name though.
The myth is that they led the Angles and Saxons (and Jutes, but nobody really cares about them) who would go on to lay the foundations than England and the United Kingdom would be built upon.
The English seem quite happy to embrace the legends of the Britons as well as the Germanic histories and legends and the Normans. They can be an odd people.
More interesting is the Hotspur glider that was relegated to a training role, named after a leader of a failed rebellion against the crown.
I can see no reason for the Hamilcar, but no reason against either.
The English seem quite happy to embrace the legends of the Britons as well as the Germanic histories and legends and the Normans. They can be an odd people.
More interesting is the Hotspur glider that was relegated to a training role, named after a leader of a failed rebellion against the crown.
I can see no reason for the Hamilcar, but no reason against either.
I think I remember watching that BBC documentary on British genetics (or was it something I read?), and it said that, despite all this conquests and stuff, more than 50% of British genome still was of pre-Celtic Basque-related people of so called "Old Europe", only about 30% Celtic and about 10% Germanic. Or something like that. How can you measure such things, anyway.
Chukchi Husky
Lone Wolf
I was told it was from a BBC documentary, but I was told that England was entirely Germanic, identical to the Dutch and Danish genetically and completely different from the Welsh and Cornish.
Pangur Bán
Deconstructed
Both these names mean "horse", highlighting its mythological nature.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle actually comes from the later 9th century, and is way beyond having any reliable independent information of the period.
A bit later in fact. We have Gildas, it is true, but Gildas tells us little. There is a spurt of evidence production in the early 8th century, influenced by Ionan traditions, then not until the late 9th century do you get more. It's scary how little we do know and how dependent we are on the ideologies of two eras, the Northumbrian-dominated one and the West Saxon dominated one. The genealogies give lots of the early Wessex kings Welsh names, but since you don't here from them until the 9th century you don't know what to make of it. It is possible that the English state, in origins, is a Welsh kingdom become anglicized.
Pangur Bán
Deconstructed
Here's a good article on the early English and the fate of the Britons:
"Apartheid and Economics in Anglo-Saxon England" by Alex Woolf of St Andrews
"Apartheid and Economics in Anglo-Saxon England" by Alex Woolf of St Andrews
SeekTruthFromFacts
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They chose it themselves.
I listened to Radio Prague quite a lot around the time of the split, and then the new Slovak Radio English service. They basically moved seamlessly from talking about the Czech Republic and Slovak Republic as constituents of the shortlived "Czech and Slovak Federal Republic" to using the same terms for the independent states. I wouldn't trust my memory much on this, but I seem to remember that the term "Slovakia" wasn't firmly established until well into 1993, and at the time the Czechs explicitly discouraged use of Czechia.
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