06/13/2023
After almost four centuries of relative peace and prosperity under Rome, Britain faced an unprecedented onslaught from pagan aggressors. Age-old ways of life were obliterated, and beliefs, culture, and language were marginalized. Only Ireland was spared. Historians dispute the invaders’ intent but agree on their identity—the Angles, the Saxons, and the Jutes—and that they came to stay.
By the end of the fifth century, the newcomers had either assimilated many indigenous Britons or forced them west and north to join the Celtic tribes that had avoided Roman rule. In time the incomers, along with their subjugated hosts, formed a more or less single people who became known as the Saxons or the Anglo- Saxons. While artifacts survive from this period, written records are few and often unreliable.
By the late fifth century, Celtic strongholds in the British Isles comprised Ireland, Wales, much of Scotland, and parts of northwest and southwest England. Saxon Britain embraced most of southern and eastern England. The two regions were separated by ethnicity and culture, and Celtic Britain and Ireland developed distinct political identities. In Wales, kingdoms were more cohesive and owed much to the pre-Roman character of earlier Celtic tribes, while Ireland had as many as 150 clan fiefdoms. Anglo-Saxon Britain, by contrast, consisted of just seven kingdoms around a.d. 600, culminating in the rule of the man who many historians regard as the first king of all the “English,” Egbert of Wessex (died 839). It was not long, however, before Egbert and the rest of Britain and Ireland faced a powerful threat from overseas.
From the National Geographic Atlas of the British Empire Special Publication - https://on.natgeo.com/42ALja4
