Source Material for The Myth of 'Saxon' England, continued Myres, J. N. L., The English settlements, (Oxford, 1986). An excellent book. The author writes: "This general use of the word 'Saxon' to cover Germanic folk of all kinds has been extraordinarily long-lived. It has led to many difficulties experienced by historians intent on distinguishing the various independent strains of Teutonic people which eventually merged to form the English nation. Thus the Celtic peoples, following in this respect the usage of their Latin-speaking ancestors, continued for centuries to label all the Germanic inhabitants of Britain as Saxons. Even Penda of Mercia, sprung from the purest of Angle stock in England, the old family of Angeln itself, appears in the Welsh annals as 'Panta the Saxon'. To this day it is rather the Sassanach than the Angle or the Jute whose name is used in Celtic circles to contrast the English unfavourably with the native inhabitants of Wales or Scotland......it cannot be assumed that every reference to Saxons in the literary sources for that time should be taken only in that restricted sense. It does not necessarily imply that the folk in question came solely from the coastlands between the Elbe and the Wesser, which in Bede's time were known as the home of the Old Saxons. Indeed a writer who used the term may have had no idea where they came from, beyond a general notion that it was far away along the little known and treacherous shores that extended indefinitely east and north into the misty distances beyond the Rhine mouths. For all he knew or cared, they might come from Jutland or from the Baltic lands beyond the Cimbric peninsula. To Roman and Celtic writers alike the word Saxon soon came to lose any precise geographical or ethnic significance; it became not much more than a term of abuse detached from tribal implications, much as Vandal or Hun have become in English usage of more recent times......The fact remains however that in the long run Roman Britain, in spite of its extensive Saxon Shore, came to be called England and not Saxony." In all fairness to Myres, however, he did spend many years attempting to prove that there was an early and extensive settlement of 'Saxons' in England. Smyth, Alfred P., King Alfred The Great, (Oxford, 1995). Smyth takes no prisoners! If you really love the story of Alfred don't read Smyth's biography of this "great" (but mostly mythological?) king. Abels, Richard, Alfred the Great, (London and New York, 1998). Abels believes Smyth's book to be too harsh a treatment of its subject, calling it "idiosyncratic". Other critics have called Smyth's work "naive, amateurish, and fatally flawed." Yet, Abels himself writes: "It is from Asser and Alfred's own writings that we know him best. But what they teach us is less about the man as he actually was than about what he aspired to be and how he wished others to see him." Abels also writes: "Asser included a brief notice on the ancestry of Alfred's mother, Osburh, 'a most religious woman, noble by temperament and noble by birth.'" Osburh's father, Oslac, had a Scandinavian name. "Asser, indeed, takes pains to connect Oslac to the West Saxon royal house itself: 'Oslac was a Goth by stock, for he was descended from the Goths and the Jutes,...". Asser may have stressed Alfred's Scandinavian roots as an attempt to establish Alfred's ancestral authority over the invading Danes. Myres, J. N. L., Anglo-Saxon Pottery and the settlement of England, (Oxford, 1969). The author writes: "Another reason for caution in associating stamped ornament with the Saxons arises from the reluctance of German scholars to identify a single cultural complex to which the term Saxon can properly be given. The state of tribal confusion which seems to have prevailed in the traditional Saxon homelands at the time when the movement to Britain began has already been mentioned." Myres then briefly mentions the attitude of many Englishmen that I call 'Saxoncentric': "... it is perhaps natural for us in this country rather to seek the features which can be attributed to a common Saxon culture...". What is so natural about it? British archaeologists are always rubber-stamping artifacts as 'Saxon', eventhough they show influences from other tribes such as the Suebis, Chaucies, and Frisians. German archaeologists know that the Saxons did not form a distinctive tribe of their own at this time and refused to perpetuate this 'Saxon Myth'. Myres also believes that masted sailing ships, rather than simple row boats, were used by Scandinavians to visit and settle in England hundreds of years before the Viking Age began. Another interesting point he makes is to define Anglian culture as "south Scandinavian" in nature. Somehow, many scholars seem oblivious to this simple fact. Thousands of exclusively Scandinavian pre-Viking Age artifacts are found throughout England. For example, some of the earliest Germanic artifacts in Sussex (carinated bowels, both with and without facetted carination, and pieces with elaborate line-and-dot decoration) are Norwegian. Hollow-necked urns originating in Norway and exceedingly common there, are also common in Norfolk and occur in Lincolnshire and east Yorkshire. Yet another artifact commonly found in Norway, the small accessory vessel, is also found in Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, and Berkshire. Fifth-century winged or horned urns that carry zoomorphic bosses are found in Sussex, Kent, London, and Essex. The only one of these found outside of England is in Rogaland, Norway. Corrugated pots, called Kannellierung by the Germans, are Danish and Norwegian artifacts that were found in Norfolk, east Yorkshire, and Lincolnshire and have been dated to 400 AD. Stamped pottery, so characteristic of sixth-century English ceramics, have been found in eastern Norway and on the Swedish island of Gotland. Warner, Peter, The Origins of Suffolk, (Manchester and New York, 1996). Warner writes: "The Sutton Hoo material from Mound 1 contains a vast array of princely material from many different sources, but among them are vital clues pointing towards a Swedish connection." "Several objects show evidence of Swedish-style craftsmanship, principally the helmet and shield, and the great gold belt-buckle, but more importantly the funerary assemblage of ship-burial appears as an outlyer of the Vendal traditions, centred in Old Uppsala, Sweden. At the very least it would seem to suggest that there was some kinship relationship if not Swedish royal blood in the Wuffings' veins." "The Swedish connection is highly significant but needs to be set against a long-standing tradition of contacts with Scandinavia which are evident in Anglian cemeteries in eastern England from the time of the migrations." "...from the time of the migration there had been cultural links with Scandinavia which are evident in art-style, metalwork and national dress." Although propagators of the 'Saxon Myth' have suggested that Sutton Hoo belonged to a Saxon king, Warner brushes such nonsense aside and writes: "Sutton Hoo sits in a Scandinavian, Anglian, English background and very firmly among the South Folk in the kingdom of East Anglia. Nothing more need be said on the matter." Suzuki, Seiichi, The Quoit Brooch Style and Anglo-Saxon Settlement, A casting and recasting of cultural identity symbols, (Oxford, 2000). The Quoit Brooch, one of the most intriguing artifacts to be discovered so far, has been variously identified as Frankish, Frisian and 'Anglo-Saxon'. Now an English-trained Japanese archaeologist, Seiichi Suzuki, gives us the latest thinking on this challenging artifact. His verdict? Although the brooch was derived from an earlier Romano-British design, the Quoit Brooch was worn by Danes and Jutes that had settled in southern England in the 400's (this was supposed to be in Saxon territory). Scandinavian craftsmen refined it further giving the brooch its distinctive style. It was eventually replaced by the Style I Brooch which a new wave of settlers brought with them from southern Scandinavia. Hodges, Richard, The Anglo-Saxon Achievement, (Ithaca, New York, 1989). After hailing the achievements of the 'Anglo-Saxons' for 200 pages, the author devotes 2 whole sentences in recognition of England's Scandinavian heritage: "Nevertheless the Anglo-Scandinavian kings merit an important place in history. Bearing in mind the material with which they had to work, their achievements were, if anything, more impressive than those of the West Saxons." So there you have it, Scandinavians! If you expect any greater accolades from British and American scholars, you will have to wait until, like Grendel, the 'Saxon Myth' is finally slain! Previous Page......Next Page |