| The Real Anglian Homelands |
 |
The map below gives some idea of exactly how much territory the Angles dominated while they were on the Continent. Anglian influence was so pervasive that Jutes, Saxons, Geats, Danes, Rugians, Varni, and Frisians all eventually became a part of the great Anglian confederation during its conquest of southern Britain. R. W. Chambers, the great English scholar, wrote: "...the old Anglian home extended two days-sail (i.e. between one and two hundred miles) from its centre in Schleswig, and embraced 'many islands'." It "...included the greater part of the present Denmark, as well as Schleswig." King Alfred the Great listened with interest when the Norwegian chieftain Ohthere described the homelands of the English people: "And then, two days before he came to Haddeby, was Jutland to his right, and Sillende (the island of Zealand), and many islands. In those lands dwelt the Angles before they came hither to this land." Chambers goes on: "The importance of this passage can hardly be exaggerated. King Alfred, as we have seen, was deeply versed in Old English poetry, and must have known dozens of lays, lost to us, dealing with the old kings of Angel, their tributary kings, their feuds and alliances with other Baltic-Sea folk." In 1889, the German scholar Weiland wrote in his Die Angeln that King Alfred's writing had made "...not merely Jutland, but also many islands part of the original Anglian home." Sir Frank Stenton wrote: "But the strongest evidence for the northern origin of the Angles is the narrative of a voyage from Oslo Fjord to Slesvig which King Alfred prefixed to his translation of the history of Orosius. After the narrator has described how Jutland and many islands lay on the starboard for the last two days of the voyage, Alfred interpolates the remark that the Angles dwelt in those islands before they came hither to this land. On a point like this, Alfred, who was saturated in English traditions, is an authority of the first order. Even if it stood alone, his evidence would establish a strong probability that the Angles had lived in Jutland and the neighboring islands before the migration to Britain." In Origin of the Anglo-Saxon Race, Thomas William Shore writes: "This extract makes it quite clear that at the time he wrote it was understood in England that the Angles came partly from Old Denmark and Gothland, and the Scandinavian coast, and partly from Sealand and the Danish islands, as well as from Sleswig. This identification of Gothland and the part of Old Denmark in Scandinavia, also the Danish islands, as lands from which the Anglian settlers in England partly came is of much importance. It helps us to understand the circumstance that a greater extent of England was occupied by Angles than by Saxons; that the predominant people gave their name to the country; and shows that there was a Scandinavian immigration before the eighth century. Our chroniclers have assigned a large territory in North Germany as the fatherland of the Saxons, but only Schleswig as the fatherland of the Angles. In this they certainly overlooked the statement of King Alfred, who had no doubt the best traditions, derived from the Northern countries themselves, of the origin of the race in assigning Gothland, Scandinavian Denmark, and the Danish isles as their homes, as well as the small territory of Anglen. Ancient Gothland occupied a larger part of Sweden than the limits of the modern province of the same name, and Scandian Denmark comprised Holland and Scania, now in Sweden. This great extent of country, with the Danish islands and mainland coasts, would be sufficient to afford a reasonable explanation of the numerical superiority of the Angles among the English settlers...Anglen, on the east coast of Denmark, could have been only a small part of the country inhabited by the people called by the Anglian name at the time of the English settlement...the names Engelholm and Engeltoft, on the Scandinavian coast or mainland, still remind us of the ancient Angles." Previous Page......Next Page |