Anglo-Saxons and Scots settle in Britain
History · Key Stage 2 · The School
When Rome let go
Around AD 410 the Roman army left Britain to defend the empire's centre, and it never came back. Towns emptied, coinage stopped being used, and villas fell down. Into that space came the SCOTS from Ireland into what is now Scotland, and the ANGLES, SAXONS and JUTES from across the North Sea — sometimes invited as soldiers, sometimes arriving as settlers, sometimes fighting their way in.
Village names on today’s map
Anglo-Saxon England was rural: timber halls, farming, small kingdoms. Their language became English, and their place names are still on road signs. A place ending in -ham was a homestead, -ton an enclosure or farm, -ley a woodland clearing, -ing the people of someone. Birmingham, Brighton and Leigh are Anglo-Saxon words that never stopped being used.
The conversion
Christianity had come with Rome and receded. It returned along two routes: Irish missionaries reaching Iona and then LINDISFARNE in the north, and a mission sent from Rome landing in Kent, where CANTERBURY became its centre. Both routes met and eventually agreed a single practice. The great works of Anglo-Saxon art — the Lindisfarne Gospels, the Sutton Hoo treasures — come from this world.
Sutton Hoo, excavated 1939: a ship 27 metres long buried under a mound, containing a helmet, gold shoulder-clasps, silver bowls from the eastern Mediterranean, and coins from Frankish Gaul. No body survived the acid soil. What can you conclude? That this was an extremely wealthy ruler, that East Anglia traded across Europe, and that Anglo-Saxon metalwork was superb. What you cannot conclude: exactly who it was.