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Porthos

Recently, many scholars have adopted the theory that there was no mass-invasion by Anglo-Saxons, or a brutal conquest, but merely, a slow, gradual, culturalization of the native Britons, by a very small Anglo-Saxon immigrant elite. They site the lack of archeological evidence of mass graves and destruction as evidence of their theory. But, this is why I have a problem with that theory.

(1) If there was no invasion, slaughter, and mass genocide, then why would tens of thousands of refugees flee the island, and escape to Gaul, to settle in Brittany?

(2) How would a small, peaceful, immigrant elite, effectively eradicate all traces of Celtic language, and transfer a perfect adoption of Anglo-Saxon to the native Britons, who numbered 3-4 million?

(3) You know what? Enough with the formal number format, I'm just going to ramble from hear on. I'll try to keep it as coherent as possible.

This is my take on the matter. They had several tactical advantages that would more than compensate for their inferior numbers.

"This position is open to question, I know, but to suggest that the Saxons mixed in equally with the locals, or anything like it, and absorbed no more than about 10 words into a language of about half a million is stretching credulity much too far, in my opinion. On the face of it, one of the sciences has got to be wrong, and it certainly can't be linguistics!"

"The mechanics of ethnic cleansing aren't difficult to understand. The British had depended on Roman military power - when that was withdrawn in 410AD they were at something of a loss. They had actually, as far as we know, sub-contracted various military functions to the Saxon mercenaries, and the start of the takeover is associated with their revolt against their employers.

Even a small group of armed men is terrifying to a population ill-equipped and unprepared for war. So it must have been like Bosnia with people fleeing in panic when they saw columns of smoke on the horizon and heard the atrocity stories from refugees. The A/S Chronicle tells us that the Britons fled from the Germanics as though "from fire".

Having established themselves more and more migrants came over from North Germany. One of the sources tells us that one Germany kingdom was virtually denuded of population, as they crossed the North Sea in search of land."

Here's an English poem from 937
"No slaughter yet
was greater made
e'er in this island,
of people slain,
before this same,
with the edge of the sword;
as the books inform us
of the old historians;
since hither came
from the eastern shores
the Angles and Saxons,
over the broad sea,
and Britain sought,
fierce battle-smiths,
o'ercame the Welsh,
most valiant earls,
and gained the land."

"It just seems to me to be wrong to ignore stuff(in favour of flimsy archaelogical findings) like the 7th century laws of Ine, king of Wessex - whose laws codes placed a lesser value on the life of a Briton in his domain as compared to an Englishman(the blood price - wergild). I think the Briton's word counted less in court as well. That's subjection and you can only do that by force....and you can only do it if you've got enough muscle to impose your will."

" agree with that, cottar, and the only area our opinions may differ is in the number of Britons left in what we now call England after the invasions.

We know that killing took place, we know there were battles, and we know that it went on over a long period. We also know that Continentals (as we may call the early English) were not above massacring people, as witnessed by the beheading of 4,500 Saxons on a single day by Charlemagne in 783.

We know that there is a general paucity of Celtic archaeological finds post-dating the year 600 generally.

We know that when the Kingdom of Kent was created, the Britons fled to London. We know many of them fled later to the western parts of Britain. We know that many fled to Brittany.

As you point out, they were mentioned in the laws of Ine, and were evidently numerous enough to merit such mention. But, they had a miserable status, which I think is possibly comparable with the Native Americans and Australian Aborigines.

It has been argued with some logic - mainly on the basis that it would have been very hard for very large numbers of Continentals to migrate - that the British were comparatively numerous, and may even have outnumbered the Continentals (before finally becoming English themselves).

But anyone subscribing to this theory has a very major problem when it comes to language, and it is one he MUST address for his theory to be taken seriously.

It would be completely unprecedented for two peoples to live among each other in large numbers without lexical borrowing. It does not and can not happen. So we can rule out large numbers of Britons and Continentals living side-by-side.

The only explanation I can find for the linguistic invisibility of Brittonic language in English is a) there were not enough Britons left to have made even a minor footprint in the English language, and b) they had no identifiable culture, because they were slaves."

"What evidence is there for integration? Obviously it occured eventually but we are talking a very long time. The Brits were a defeated, subjugated people. They must have hated the English. There is the story of how British and English bishops in Rome, I think in the 8th century, wouldn't eat at the same table. There is another tale told in Morris about the profound shock experienced by a Welshman on hearing English voices calling for their hunting dogs on the banks of the Severn.

Some Welsh poetry sums it it up pretty evocatively

"Cynddylan's hall. It pierces me
To see it roofless, fireless.
Dead is my lord, and I am yet alive

Cynddylan's hall is desolate to-night
Where once I sat in honour
Gone are the men who held it, gone aare the women.

Cynddylan's hall. Dark is its roof
Since the English destroyed
Cynddlan, and Elvan of Powys.

........

And

"Gone are my brethern from the lands of the Severn
Around the banks of Dwyryw
Sad I am, my God, that I am yet alive.

Says it all really. Beyond that Offa's Dyke is a pretty clear cut statement of "apartheid". The laws of Ine of Wessex were "institutionally discrimminatory" if not "racist", as they specified lower blood-prices(wergilds) for Brits as opposed to Englishmen. Morris gives some examples of discrimminatory practice that were even carried over into Norman England."

These were quotes from another discussion on a different forum. What is your take on the matter?

One factor which might persuade me to believe one way or another, is the phenotype of the modern English people. If the English generally speaking, have lower frequencies of physical features which are common to Germanic speaking peoples of northern Europe, like high rates of blond hair, then perhaps, I would believe that the English mainly descend from native Britons, and that there was no ethnic cleansing by the Anglo-Saxons.

For those of you who have been to England, would you say that the English, generally speaking, look more like their British cousins, the Welsh, Scottish, etc.? Or would you say that generally speaking, most Englishmen look more like Dutchmen and Danes?

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Porthos · Posted: Mon Oct 16, 2006 6:01 pm Post subject:

Here is the link to the original discussion: http://community.channel4.com/eve.../tpc/f/4476000511/m/801605747/p/1
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Porthos · Posted: Tue Oct 17, 2006 12:07 am Post subject:

Here's a piece of one of my posts on the matter:

But you see, whether the English are primarily of Anglo-Saxon origin or indigenous origin is up to debate. Both sides of the argument are rather convincing, and genetic studies from both sides contradict each other.

But the fact is, nearly all traces of ancient British languages in modern day English are non-existent. If the Anglo-Saxons co-existed with a much larger native British population, then surely there would have been more inter-lingual lexical adoptions. But instead, less than a dozen Celtic words remain in English. I find it highly unlikely that a small minority's influence could be that overwhelmingly dominant, that the native majority's language is completely eradicated.

For me, the only way to truly discover the origins of the English, is to know and compare their physical appearance with other Celtic and Germanic peoples of the present day. The Anglo-Saxons were from northern Holland, northern Germany, and parts of Denmark. Modern people of these regions (like Friesland, whose language is very similar to English) have high frequencies of the blond hair, blue eyed, Tuetonic stereotype, and the average height here is very tall. Celtic people of the British Isles on the other hand, are historically typically shorter than the Tuetonic peoples of northern Europe and Scandanavia, and blondism is much rarer among these peoples, while dark hair is rather common, and red hair is proportionately common as well. The question is, which do the English look more like? I've never been to England myself, but from what I've seen on TV, I get the impression that Englishmen have lower frequencies of those stereotypical Tuetonic features, the way Dutchmen and Danes do, while at the same time, I know that they are historically, slightly taller than the Celts like the Welsh, and that the Welsh were thought of as being dark featured compared to the English.

If you guys could provide your input as to who they look more alike, it would be greatly appreciated in my research.

And as long as we're talking about the Anglo-Saxons, and we're on a language forum, could somebody please provide that beta modern English, without Latinate vocabulary that Brennus was working on before? But who is to say to what extent Norman French influenced the orthogrophy and phonology of modern English as well?
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Benjamin [inactive] · Posted: Tue Oct 17, 2006 12:23 am Post subject:

Pauline · Guest

Dutch people are *very* tall !!!! I've heard, that in Limburg, the poeple often are shorter and a bit darker than the people of the other parts of the Netherlands.

Porthos · Posted: Tue Oct 17, 2006 12:44 am Post subject:

Pauline, thanks for your input. I know that *generally speaking*, the Dutch are very tall. In fact, all of the Dutch people I know, even first generation Dutch-Americans, are very tall. Even the girls and women are about as tall as me, if not taller, and I am definitely not short for a male! I encounterd hundreds of Dutch people at my stay and work in the hotel, and they were on average, "huge"! It was not unusual for me to see a Dutchmen well over 6ft. A couple of them I would say were about 6'6, while most of them seemed to be about 6'2 (188 cm). I myself am of average height for an American, and I'm only 177.8 cm.

Benjamin,

Come on man! I'm sure you can notice a difference if you really thought about it. Think about what is common. Britain for instance has the highest rate of red/ginger hair in the world. Most Welshmen and Irishmen have dark hair, etc., versus the higher frequency of blond hair among the Dutch, or say, northern Germans. You haven't been to Holland, so compare the English to the Germans you saw in Germany then.
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Benjamin [inactive] · Posted: Tue Oct 17, 2006 12:51 am Post subject:

Pauline · Guest

fab · Posted: Tue Oct 17, 2006 1:16 am Post subject:

We recognise you here Josh !!

Since I just come back from Netherland, and since it seems to be the subject I'll give you my two euro cents:

In Netherlands (I visited Amsterdam and Utrecht), I saw a lot of very tall people, that would be very rare to see in France (or would be tourists). Most are blond or light haired.

But not all Dutch share these characters : you also can find some more short Dutch people, and, since the population of the netherlands is very mixed since a long time (like Britain's population)
The other thing is that when you walk in Amsterdam (or in any other European major coty), most people you met are not locals... I crossed Spaniards, Italians, Chineses, a lot of Americans, etc...
Not to forget the immigrant : mainly Indonesians, Turks, North Africans, Chinese, and some latin-americans. Most of them are integrated and speak Dutch. There is alos since about 500 years a big jew community from portuguese and Spanish origins (who have been expulsed for inquisition reasons) - their descendants have often mix with locals more or less... So nowadays the Dutch population is quite mixed and present different kind of peoples.

I think it should be not so different in England.
as for I remember the English population doesn't seem much different from Dutch one, maybe the average height is lower.

Benjamin [inactive] · Posted: Tue Oct 17, 2006 1:22 am Post subject:

Porthos · Posted: Tue Oct 17, 2006 5:28 pm Post subject:

So, Fab, when you say that the Dutch look pretty similar to the English, that would imply that the English have high rates of blond hair, blue eyes, and other light features, right? I'm sorry I'm rehashing this issue. It's just that my investigation is still unresolved. :( Of course, I realize these are all generalities, as physical characteristics vary from location to location. Some "Celtic" people can look "Tuetonic" as well. For example, my father was mainly of Welsh and English extraction, and he has a broad forehead, blond hair, and blue eyes. On the other hand, my mother is lighter complected than my father, so, so much for the swarthy Spanish stereotype. I came out with the same color eyes that our friend Fab has, and with his same skin tone, only that my hair is a much lighter shade of brown.

And I invented the question mark. :shock: :?:
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Sander · Expert Joined: 24 Aug 2006 Posts: 186

What's all this talk of an invasion? I thought the Anglo-Saxons were invited by the Celtic warlords themselves after the Romans left ...

Porthos · Posted: Tue Oct 17, 2006 5:53 pm Post subject:

Yeah, and then the mercanaries turned on their employers! I think it is safe to say that they overstepped their welcome when they started looting, raping, and killing the Britons.
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Sander · Expert Joined: 24 Aug 2006 Posts: 186

Porthos · Posted: Tue Oct 17, 2006 8:53 pm Post subject:

No, I haven't seen the Frisian coast. I've never been to the Netherlands. Why do you ask?
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Sander · Expert Joined: 24 Aug 2006 Posts: 186

Benjamin [inactive] · Posted: Tue Oct 17, 2006 10:13 pm Post subject:

Friesland:

Hmmm. It looks exactly like East Anglia. Well, I'm sure that they must've felt very at home when they arrived!

Sander · Expert Joined: 24 Aug 2006 Posts: 186

very nice pictures, no imaging them with the sea tides (flooding virtually everything every 8 hours, nothing grows there because of the salt) and without the nice mills and straw buildings (and replace them with straw sheds). A bit like this:

Elaine · Posted: Tue Oct 17, 2006 10:58 pm Post subject:

:? Scratch Frisian Coast off my list of places to visit...
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Porthos · Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2006 1:12 am Post subject:

Yep, I was just going to say that myself. It reminded me a lot of the English landscape.
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