Why?

The aim of this web site is to provide a resource of information on Anglo-Saxon history, and Anglo-Saxon culture, from the Migration Period of the Germanic peoples, until the Norman invasion and conquest of England. A secondary aim is to provide information on how various groups are keeping that history and culture alive, whether by academic research, discussion, or reviving the old heathen practices of the Anglo-Saxon people.

It is a sad fact that the majority of people in England know very little about their cultural heritage, or the history of their people. Those who know only what they were taught about the Angles and Saxons in primary school often have a very distorted, inaccurate view of the period of history that immediately followed the departure of the Roman Legions from these shores, until the Norman conquest.
The common view is that the Anglo-Saxons were fierce barbarians, who knew nothing of civilisation. They are portrayed as ignorant savages, who raped, pillaged, and murdered in the name of their demonic, bloodthirsty gods. This view, however, is inaccurate. The period of history commonly referred to as the Dark Ages weren’t so dark that we can’t look back in time and see the truth.
It is also sad that it seems that English culture has been suppressed by history. Instead of one being ‘English’, one is ‘British’ – even though it is fine to be Welsh, or Scottish, rather than British. There is nothing wrong with having a sense of pride in one’s nation – so long as that pride does not become nationalism! It is unfair that these nations now have their own elected bodies, and to some extent can manage their own affairs, but England has none - only the British Parliament, where Welsh, Scottish, and Northern Irish also members sit. Why are the English deprived the right to an elected body that has only English members? It is good that these people now have their own voice, and that the Celtic peoples are reasserting themselves. It is time that the Anglo-Saxons, did the same.
In the articles that will become available at anglo-saxon.org at least the first of these problems will be addressed. Hopefully the reader will come to understand that rather than the view of the Anglo-Saxons that has been handed on in ignorance, they will see that they were an advanced culture in their own right, part of a greater Northern European civilisation. That is not to say that they weren’t warlike, or that the world they lived in wasn’t harsh. They were, as nearly all tribes were in that era, and the world they lived in was very harsh.
This is not to say that everyone living in England must be an Anglo-Saxon, and that the history of the Anglo-Saxon people is relevant to them. There have been many peoples who have lived in this land over the ages, and I’m sure they remained when another culture moved and in took over. The current population of England is certainly cosmopolitan, reflecting the greater ‘Global Village’ in which we now live.
How many people in England truly comprehend that King Arthur was a British hero, not an English hero – he (if he existed) fought the English? ‘It doesn’t matter’, you might say. I would disagree. I think it demonstrates the marginalisation of the people for which England is named.
Sigbert.

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