Modern Anglo-Saxons are accustomed to the fact that they are spoken about only in a lisping tone: they are glorified, they are admired, their language is considered international... Even those who hate and fear them speak about them, mentally bowing their heads in respectful bow before them. Without at all denying that the Anglo-Saxons are a phenomenal phenomenon, I offer readers a slightly different view of the native speakers of the English language, the English mentality and the racial type to which most of these people belong. People whom I, the author of these lines, consider to be one of the oldest primordially fascist nations in the world.
They talk a lot about fascism these days and with knowledge of the matter: these are, they say, fascists, but these are not fascists at all, but some kind of fiery fighters for a just cause dear to our hearts.
I believe that there are only three criteria for fascism:
1) A public statement by a certain ethnic group that it, this same group, has some kind of exclusive rights, which rights it does not recognize for any other ethnic group. Simply put, it is a brazen statement of one's own superiority.
2) Real, not fictitious power: intellectual, economic, military. What is a boastful statement about one's own superiority worth if it is not backed up by anything?
3) Long-term (over many generations and even centuries!) successful functioning of just such a system of views and just such a system of actions.
And it's all. No more points are needed. Neither the skin color of the bearers of this ideology, nor the system of symbols (banners, coats of arms, clothing), nor the musical or verbal design have any significance. Everything is pushed aside before the greatness of these three points.
So: the Anglo-Saxons fit completely into these three points.
Perhaps some other inhabitants of the globe have these same three characteristics, and I can even name ethnic groups that fall under them.
First of all, it's the fans. Old Testament and the instructions of Moses on how to enslave nations. These are ideal fascists.
Secondly, this is the great Chinese nation - ancient, powerful and merciless; Where the Chinese live, no one else survives there. The Chinese are absorbing everyone.
And thirdly, this is the great Japanese civilization - powerful, cunning and cruel.
Perhaps the Arabic version of fascism or the Turkish one could be added to this list, but now I do not set myself such a goal - to delve into all these details and propose to return to the topic of this article, which is dedicated to the Anglo-Saxons.
So, from what moment did the Anglo-Saxons clearly become drawn to fascist ideology?
The 5th century AD is, as it were, the official and well-known date of the birth of English fascism. But, I think, such a turn in the consciousness of the ancestors of this people happened even earlier, because it was necessary to thoroughly prepare for it, and such preparation could not happen in one day, it had to have its own long prehistory.
Everyone knows that the Romans held the island of Great Britain under their rule until the 5th century AD. And then they voluntarily (due to their internal reasons) left it. And then the tribes of Angles, Saxons and Jutes poured onto the island.
Question: why did they pour in? Why didn't they live in Central Europe, where they lived before? Why did they leave huge empty areas on the European mainland? Why was it necessary to abandon their homes - villages, fields, forests, rivers? But the island of Great Britain was by no means deserted, and the Celts already lived there! So why did the Angles and Saxons abandon everything in the world (even though no one was chasing them) and rushed to an island that had long been occupied by someone else?
There will be several answers.
While Roman legionaries stood on the island, the Germanic tribes were afraid of them and did not dare to go there. They would have received a powerful rebuff, and they understood this perfectly well. The Germans were strong, but fear of superior forces was what stopped them. The Germans respected strength.
But the Romans, for their own reasons, left the island, and for the Germanic tribes this meant that the way to it was open. You can occupy the island and, having comfortably settled on it, make from there forays into Europe and the rest of the world, while remaining invulnerable to foreign armies. This was a very smart and far-sighted idea.
But why weren’t the aliens afraid of the Celts living there?
Yes, because from previous long-term experience they knew: the Celts are those who can be defeated. The Celts have less organization and poorer cohesion. The Celts are prone to internal discord; there are fewer Celts than Germans; The Celts are worse warriors than the Germans.
For reference. The Celts are typical Indo-Europeans, the closest linguistic relatives of the Italic tribes, the very ones among whom the Latins, the founders of the Roman Empire, stood out at a certain historical stage. For a long time, the Celts were not inferior in power and unity to the Germans, and in an intellectual sense they were even significantly superior to them, but, having moved from the continent to the islands, they met people from the Mediterranean there - people of non-Indo-European origin with racial characteristics not characteristic of other Indo-Europeans. According to the terminology of G.F.K. Gunther is the so-called “Western” or “Mediterranean” race. Today's Spaniards, Portuguese, southern Italians and North Africans have signs of the same racial type. In the same place, on the British Isles, from ancient times there lived tribes of completely unknown origin - linguistic and racial. After mixing with people of these races, the Celts largely lost their former power and became more vulnerable. Only a few of them (mainly the northern Scots) retained the former Nordic racial appearance.
It was this vulnerability that the new newcomers relied on - the Angles, Saxons and Jutes, who themselves, at the time of the invasion of the island, almost entirely belonged to the Nordic racial type.
Let's say. But why was it necessary to forever leave that land from which no one drove them away?
Another thing is characteristic: for all time European history after the birth of Christ - this is practically the ONLY case when Europeans treated other Europeans in this way. It may be objected to me that there were bloodthirsty Poles who committed atrocities against the Ukrainians; there were Germans who were violent in the occupied territories, but this is not on the same scale. The Anglo-Saxons are talking about many centuries!
The situation with the seizure of land and centuries-old torture of the local population - this was only the case in Europe with the Arabs, who temporarily seized the Iberian Peninsula, among the Mongols in Russia and among the Turks in the Balkans. But in all three of these episodes the aliens were not of Indo-European origin. Something like aliens. And in any case it did not last as long as it does in the British Isles.
Other explanations: the Angles and Saxons are South Germanic tribes, the Jutes are a North Germanic (Scandinavian) tribe from which the current Danes descended. The Angles moved to the island - almost in full force. Jutes and Saxons - only partially. Today's Germans descended from the Saxons. Modern Estonians still call the Germans Saxons, and Germany the country of the Saxons (saksa, Saksamaa). It is quite possible that among the tribes that flocked to the island there were also a small number of Slavs. Quite tiny. Modern English contains words of ancient Slavic origin. Of all the Germanic peoples at present, the closest to the English are the Frisians, who live on the islands belonging to Germany and Holland. Frisians speak several dialects (4-6), among which none claims to be the main one. In fact, these are several languages. And they are the ones that are most similar to the English language. More precisely - in Old English.
This is how the English nation came into being. At its origins was the idea that you could first enslave someone weaker (because their natural cowardice did not allow them to get involved with the stronger ones!), and then live well at the expense of the enslaved people.
How this idea was implemented over the next fifteen centuries is well known. All these centuries were a continuous massacre of the Celtic peoples, which continues to this day. The Celts turned out to be not such a malleable material as expected, but on the whole the plan was a success: with the help of continuous wars, with the help of economic and political measures, with the help of artificial famine, with the help of religious instruments of influence, it was finally possible to break all these peoples .
As a fait accompli we see: the Irish and Scots almost completely forgot their own languages and switched to the language of their enslavers. Much the same can be said about the Welsh, although to a lesser extent. Some Celtic peoples disappeared without a trace. The fact that the English themselves were attacked by alien conquerors in the 10th and 11th centuries does not change anything in the history of this people. The Normans turned out to be molded from the same material as the Anglo-Saxons, and, in the end, disappeared into the mass of the English, only strengthening their tendencies towards conquest and arrogance.
The English strangely did not like Catholicism, which imposed excessive moral restrictions on them. They always wanted to live for their own pleasure and impose as few difficult obligations on themselves as possible. Therefore, they created a version of Christianity that brought them closer to the followers of Judaism. The love of luxury and profit, framed in religious justifications, is a specific feature of English hypocrisy.
The British also showed striking similarities with the Chinese already mentioned above. And here we need to make a small linguistic digression and talk about the special properties of the Chinese language.
The fact is that the Chinese are very, very rational people. Just like the British, for whom this trait is one of the most important. So, in the Chinese language there is nothing superfluous: cases, declensions, conjugations, tenses, numbers, degrees of comparison. Chinese words are not divided into roots, suffixes, endings and prefixes. They are not divided into anything at all. In fact, the Chinese do not know parts of speech. Some linguists believe that the Chinese rarely differentiate between a noun and an adjective, but one can argue with this opinion.
A Chinese word is a single syllable. At the beginning of this syllable there can be no more than one consonant, in the middle - one vowel or diphthong, and at the end - either nothing at all, or one of two valid consonants. The concepts of “syllable”, “word” and “root” in Chinese are completely the same. The average Chinese is unable to pronounce a foreign word (someone's foreign surname or the name of a foreign city) if it, that word, consists of syllables that do not exist in the Chinese language. For example, they can say “Lenin”, both of these syllables are possible for them (LE and NIN), but they are not able to say “Stockholm” or “Bratislava” without distorting these words beyond recognition. The stress in the Chinese language falls on each syllable individually, and hence the extremely specific features of Chinese poetry and Chinese music. It may be objected that in the Chinese language there are constructions consisting of two syllables that give the impression of a two-syllable word. The word “Beijing” is not one word consisting of two syllables, it is actually two words with the meanings “northern” and “capital”, and we write them together so as not to fool ourselves with the peculiarities of the Chinese language. It’s easier for us to write Chinese phrases in Russian letters. With stress, the Chinese are also not as simple as, say, in the Russian language, where there are only two concepts: a stressed syllable and an unstressed one.
But all this does not change what I said about this language: it is a language that expresses super-simple thoughts in super-simple ways. The Indo-Europeans once had exactly the same linguistic thinking, but that was many, many millennia ago, long before the emergence of the Egyptian pyramids. Since then, the thinking of the Indo-Europeans has changed beyond recognition, and now they are no longer capable of thinking like that.
The Angles, Saxons and Jutes were typically Indo-European peoples, whose languages contained all the features characteristic of the Indo-Europeans: cases, numbers, tenses, suffixes, endings and other things that, from the point of view of the Chinese, seem pure madness. The Chinese’s task is to express a thought as quickly as possible, as briefly as possible and as simply as possible. The Chinese are a man of action. He is not interested in emotions and details, only the end result is important to him: to populate the Earth with as many similar creatures as possible, which need to be born and fed. And there is no time for jokes, and no time for talking. Reproduction is not a joke, it is very serious.
So, during the time that the Anglo-Saxons lived on their island, they performed such operations with their language that after that it began to be as close as possible in its structure to Chinese.
Modern English is the most non-Indo-European language in its structure, unless, of course, you count Armenian, which has very good reasons for such dissimilarity with other Indo-European languages. The English language has lost most of its case and other endings, the words in it have been simplified and many fit into only one single syllable - just like in the Chinese language. Because of this, a huge number of coincidences arose that did not exist before: write - right, eye - I, no - know, main - mane. Homonymy has always been a shameful phenomenon in any language. It is no coincidence that among the ancient Indo-Europeans it was generally prohibited - there was not a single homonymous pair in the early Indo-European language described by Nikolai Dmitrievich Andreev (1920-1997)! In modern Russian, words like onion (weapon) and onion (vegetable), key (tool) and key (spring) are very few. Russians, like most other Indo-Europeans, do not like homonyms. And the British treat them completely calmly. Just like the Chinese, where this phenomenon (what is true is true) is developed many times more strongly than among the British.
Many grammatical forms that were in ancient times English language, have now disappeared without a trace. In fact, the British carried out a complete destruction of everything that they received as a gift from their great Indo-European ancestors. And the purpose of this beating was the triumph of rationalism. In this sense, they have not yet caught up with the Chinese language, but there is no doubt that the movement is going in this direction.
Hemingway, out of the simplicity of his soul, tried to return the lost case and verbal endings to the English language. In his novel “For Whom the Bell Tolls” he decided to revive all this through the effort of his will, and even began to use the long-forgotten English pronoun thou with the meaning “you”. Needless to say, no one supported his initiative!
The British like to claim that they are the direct heirs of the Ancient Roman Civilization. I will tell you why this is a lie only from a linguistic point of view. There are a lot of words of Latin origin in English. But the way they are pronounced in English cannot be explained by excessive rationalism. This is simply a mockery of the Great Latin language. In fact, the English word nation and the Latin natio are spelled very similarly. But how are they pronounced? In the English version, only the very first consonant remains from the Latin word, and everything else disappears and is replaced by something else that has nothing in common with Latin. Likewise: the English word future and the Latin word futurum. Examples could be continued. The English have words in their language that claim to be Latin or Greek, but which in fact are not. These are some new words, some different sound. The inability of the British to treat words of foreign origin with any respect brings this people very close to the Chinese. Moreover, the Chinese show much more decency. They depict a foreign word with their own hieroglyphs and pronounce it as best they can. At the same time, the Chinese do not impose themselves as relatives and ideological heirs on these foreigners, as if saying: but we ourselves are worth something even without any relatives.
By the way, regarding hieroglyphs: writing Latin letters that are not readable at all or something completely different is read instead, this means simply drawing. A hieroglyph is drawn, and someone else looks at it and then remembers what the pattern is supposed to mean. The hieroglyph does not contain any phonetic features; it only reminds by its appearance of what the person who drew this conventional sign wanted to express. For this reason, the same characters with the same meaning are found in three completely different and unrelated languages - Chinese, Japanese and Korean. A Chinese, Japanese or Korean looks at this drawing, remembers what it means and thus receives the same information, despite the fact that in each of these languages this word is pronounced completely differently. It’s the same in the English language: letters are drawn in such a way that they resemble some words from other languages. These words are understandable to a German, a Frenchman, an Italian, but they are pronounced completely differently, because for an Englishman the letters are not really needed. He just needs the right drawing. If the letters form the word “Manchester”, but it is generally accepted that it is actually written “Liverpool”, the Englishman will calmly read: “Liverpool”! In fact, the British are reducing alphabetic writing to hieroglyphic writing, again becoming like the Chinese, and not the ancient Romans and Greeks, who wrote as they heard!
So I’m trying to imagine that I’m an Englishman writing the word “knew”. How should I feel about this? So I wrote the letter “k”, which is not pronounced at all in this word. Why did I do this? There is a reasonable explanation: in order not to confuse this word with another, namely “new”; let these two words – knew and new – be different at least on paper, if in life they begin to sound the same. Then, with a clear conscience, I write the letter “n” - the only one that actually sounds in this word. Then I write the vowel letter “e” instead of the consonant letter “j”, which is actually pronounced here. Then I write the consonant letter “w”, although I should have made the long vowel “u”. And finally, I wrote this word in full. I drew a hieroglyph instead of a monument to alphabetic writing. Why did I do this? What did I prove with this? The fact that I value the memory of my ancestors who wrote this word the way I have depicted it now? But I don’t actually pronounce it that way and, therefore, I haven’t preserved the heritage of my ancestors...
Even if we admit some kind of mystical component in this ritual, then even then this is some kind of very formal explanation of love and devotion to the ancestors. Formal and insincere. False even. It is done in the expectation that the spirits of the ancestors, watching the current generations from their distant places, do not understand a damn thing, and these ancestors can be deceived...
And then a suspicion arises: maybe the British communicate with God in the same way - they tell him one thing, but do something else? In the hope that God doesn’t understand anything and can be fooled.
The situation when one thing is written, but something completely different is said, is a real deception. This is absolutely immoral! Such people are capable of proclaiming one thing and doing something completely different; they will write a law or a constitution, and then they themselves will not implement them. Deception and scams are part of the mentality of these people.
There are similarities with the Japanese, but not linguistic.
Firstly, both the Japanese and the British are island peoples, which gave them extraordinary advantages compared to continental peoples.
And secondly, both the Japanese and the British came to their islands when they were already populated. Great Britain by the Celts, and the Japanese archipelago by the Ainami. I have already spoken about how the British treated and continue to treat the Celts. But about the Ainu - this is a special topic.
It is not known exactly where the Japanese came to these islands, no matter what they say. There is an opinion that at first it was not one tribe, but two different ones (one Siberian, and the other some kind of tropical), which merged together and formed a new nation. In any case, it has not yet been possible to establish the relationship of the Japanese language to any other language on Earth. The Japanese language has nothing in common with either Chinese or Korean. This is some kind of completely special language.
The Ainu, who lived on the archipelago before the arrival of the Japanese, are also of special origin. If one can at least say for sure about the Japanese that they are Mongoloids, then nothing at all can be said about the Ainu in this sense. Their racial identity, like their language, is a mystery shrouded in darkness.
At first, the warlike Ainu fiercely resisted the newcomers, and the Japanese only moved from south to north with great difficulty. But later this resistance weakened, and the Ainu were almost completely destroyed.
The main moral lesson that the Japanese learned from the brutal extermination of the indigenous inhabitants of their archipelago: there is no shame in destroying the weaker. And one more thing: this can be repeated in the future with other nations. At the very first collision with the Russians, who had broken through many thousands of kilometers from their main habitat, the sedentary Japanese made a conclusion for themselves: this is just a variety of Ainu, which can be slaughtered as mercilessly and with impunity as the morally broken aborigines of the Japanese archipelago. The basis for such a comparison was some racial characteristics of the Russians, who, like the Ainu, grow beards and mustaches on their faces, which are so unusual for the Mongoloids. I won’t talk about how relations between Russians and Japanese developed further, because my topic is the British. And here it is appropriate to draw a parallel between the attitude of the Japanese towards the Ainu and the attitude of the British towards the Celts.
So, the British, during their stay on the island, received a valuable moral lesson: it is necessary and possible to exterminate the weaker. And this is not a shame.
And with this knowledge they moved to the vastness of the globe, when the development of shipbuilding and other technology allowed them to do this. I’m also not going to talk about how the British Empire expanded and who entered it. Everyone already knows this.
But only a few know that only once did the British encounter unusually strong resistance on the conquered land, which plunged them into amazement. Some will say that they were Chinese or Afghans, but I’m not talking about them. When large nations or nations with geographical advantages resist aliens, it is not so interesting. It is much more interesting when those who seem to have no chance of winning resist.
Such a people turned out to be the New Zealand Polynesians, who are usually called “Maori”. Some Polynesians have very noticeable Caucasian features, which they got from somewhere unknown and, apparently, in ancient times. Their languages contain many words of ancient Indo-European origin, but it is quite obvious that they are not Indo-Europeans. European sailors, when they saw the first Polynesians, noted with amazement that many had Blue eyes and red hair. The same goes for Maori people. In appearance, they looked like Europeans, covered in exotic tattoos.
And these savages suddenly turned out to be unexpectedly worthy and noble opponents. When the British withstood a siege from the Maori in their forts, they were surprised to note that the besiegers threw them some food at night. In Maori ideas about morality, it was considered impossible to starve someone. Which, of course, seemed surprising to the British, who successfully used mass artificial famine as a weapon against the Irish, and other peoples too.
But let's continue!
The Australian Aborigines were unable to resist and were almost completely exterminated.
The American Indians resisted as best they could. But they were also finished when it became clear that they were of no use. For some unknown reason, the American Indians are completely incapable of slave labor. In slavery they simply die, but they do not want and cannot work in chains. This is their property.
Along the way, it turned out that blacks living in Africa are quite capable of working in chains. It was then that blacks from Africa were transported to the American continent, and the Indians were killed as unnecessary.
The main thing in this story is this: the British acted on the basis of a unique experience for Europeans, acquired on their island called Great Britain. If you can destroy and enslave the Celts with impunity, then you can do the same with other peoples, regardless of skin color.
Things somehow settled down with the blacks, and more or less the same with the Indians. But the experience remains. And even replenished.
And now absolutely white people - Boers (or Afrikaners) living in Southern Africa are considered by the British to be just a variant of the Celts, blacks, Indians or Australian aborigines. And so: the Boers are people whiter than the British themselves. They are all completely blue-eyed blonds, unlike the English, among whom there are often black-haired ones. Everyone knows how the British committed atrocities against the Boers. They set local blacks against them and, in alliance with them, exterminated their brothers in European civilization.
About Yugoslavia, everyone with a conscience has long understood everything. We don’t know and don’t want to know where this country is and what it has done so bad to us, but we need to bomb it - that’s the motto of the average American bastard.
Everyone has long known about the tender love of the Anglo-Saxons for Chechen terrorists and other Muslim fanatics... Still, the Anglo-Saxons are very smart people, but why are they so surprised when someone crushes their skyscrapers with planes or blows up something in the center of London? This is a kind of naivety: only we have the right to do nasty things to others, but who gave the right to do nasty things to us? After all, we are the best and most correct!
The overwhelming majority of modern Americans quite sincerely think that their way of life is the only correct one and that all those who live differently are wrong. And if they make mistakes, then they can be taught. For their own good.
The Anglo-Saxons have always had a special penchant for conspiracies, deliberate disinformation, incitement, murder from around the corner and all kinds of betrayal. I do not mean individuals, but the public policy of England and the USA. This is very ancient custom, and it is regarded by the Anglo-Saxons as something sacred, as part of the treasured Anglo-Saxon mentality. Jonathan Swift also pointed out this: if you want to win a case in court, then you must somehow hint to the judge that you are a swindler and a scoundrel, and your opponent is an honest person, and then the judge will certainly be on your side. It is not my task to list who was betrayed and how, who was artificially pitted against whom, or who was set up by the Anglo-Saxons. And the topic is too grandiose for a separate article. The Turks, Crimea, the writer Griboedov, Pearl Harbor, the extradition of our Cossacks to death in Yugoslavia after the Second World War, Allen Dulles's will to future American descendants, the assassination of President Kennedy, secret assistance to Muslim fanatics - you can't list everything.
They did this to their blacks: they brought them from Africa in chains, built their well-being on their labor, and then freed them. And now, when white and black Americans have some kind of mutual awkwardness about who owes what to whom, the American Anglo-Saxons are once again showing the meanest traits of their character. They make all the white people of the Earth pay for their sins. Love for blacks, fawning over them, mandatory cohabitation with them, mandatory co-education of children - white and black, and then the inevitable racial mixing of whites and blacks - this is an indispensable condition not only for all white Americans, but in general for all whites in general Globe. This has long been decided for them by the same Anglo-Saxons and without the knowledge of the white people themselves.
For example, a Russian person whose ancestors never used the labor of black slaves - why should he feel embarrassed in front of blacks? What does he have to pay for? But a sense of responsibility is imposed on him with the help of the bribed media.
Why, in front of the palace of the Swedish king, as part of the guard of honor, can you see a black man in a Swedish uniform among the blond Swedish guys? Yes, because this is an order from overseas, and the Swedish king will not dare not fulfill it. All white people have a duty to express their love for the Negro...
They set up and betray not only strangers, but also their own. The famous Scott (which means Scotsman!) and his team died during the assault on the South Pole not because he was a coward or lacked skill, but because he was framed. Little Norway found the means to prepare the expedition of its Amundsen, but the powerful British Empire, which does not hold real beautiful feats in high esteem, did not. Result: Amundsen was the first to reach the South Pole, and he returned home safe and sound. Scott reached the South Pole second and died soon after due to the fact that his expedition was poorly financed. And what? The British then declared that they were the first to discover the South Pole, and English schoolchildren read exactly this information in their textbooks!
Not a hero, but a scoundrel is held in high esteem by the Anglo-Saxons. While they understood that Scott was a heroic person, they harmed him as best they could, and as soon as Scott died and it became clear that they could profit from his death, they turn him into a scoundrel and an impostor, although, of course, he is not to blame for anything .
A favorite pastime of the Anglo-Saxons is to attribute to themselves scientific and technical inventions that were made earlier by other peoples - more talented than them. The same applies to military, political and cultural exploits. Attributing to oneself something else and completely sincerely believing that the stolen glory is their own is an integral part of the Anglo-Saxon mentality.
This is exactly what we see with the assessment of the results of the Second World War. The official version of the Anglo-Saxons: they alone fought in it, and the honor of victory belongs to them alone. The Anglo-Saxons do not like to perform real feats; it is much easier for them to falsify history. This is actually much simpler. The reasoning of typical traders and swindlers.
When it becomes profitable for the Anglo-Saxons to oppose themselves to the Chechens, they will certainly have films in which the heroic Pskov paratroopers fight off Chechen bandits ten times superior to them. And almost everyone dies. But among these heroes there will certainly be an American Negro, leading everyone and several Americans subordinate to him, one of whom will certainly be a Jew, and the other a homosexual. In the same way, they will tell about the heroic defense of Donkey Ear Mountain: American blacks with their white subordinates received smart orders from Washington, and the Russians fought under their leadership.
Amazingly, many types of art were never given to the Anglo-Saxons. Among them there was not a single composer of the level of Beethoven or Tchaikovsky, not a single artist of the level of Dürer, Rembrandt or Botticelli. They also never had anything remotely similar to Dostoevsky, Turgenev or Tolstoy. Although among the writers they had very great talents - however, very, very specific, which is associated with the peculiarities of the English language, which is poorly suited for artistic speech. It is characteristic that many of the great American writers eked out the most miserable existence during their lifetime and died in complete oblivion. If the Americans had not been told from the outside that Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, O'Henry or, say, Jack London were great people, they would never have thought of it themselves. On the other hand, the Englishman Dickens is a producer of mass literature for the average consumer and that madam who writes whole volumes about Harry Potter is the same thing that is wildly successful among the Anglo-Saxons and is very well paid even during the lifetime of the authors.
It is characteristic that many of the famous English literary figures had Scottish (Celtic!) roots. And yet this does not detract from the talents of the English people themselves. From time to time, this nation produces great people - especially in those fields where science and technology are concerned: the brilliant 18th-century linguist Monboddo, ridiculed by the British during his lifetime and even after his death; Fenimore Cooper, cursed during his lifetime for his anti-Americanism; Charles Darwin (also ridiculed!); Herbert Wells, Ernst Rutherford and many others are the adornment of the Anglo-Saxon nation. I would especially like to mention famous travelers: Slocum, Fawcett, the same Scott, Chichester, and that’s just for recent years one hundred! How many of them were there even before?
Among the Anglo-Saxons there are honest journalists, incorruptible police officers and judges, and real thinkers of a pan-European level. I hope these people will still have their say.
It is amazing how persistently Anglo-Saxon men strive to marry Russian women. This can be explained as follows: damned traders - they want to buy a good product, that’s all. I readily admit that this is partly true. But this phenomenon can be given a completely different explanation: the Anglo-Saxons feel that they are missing something, and in this way they want to improve their breed. For some reason, there are Englishmen who respect Russia, or convert to Orthodoxy, or move to live in the Russian hinterland. Leskov also wrote about one such thing... No one is surprised when the Germans behave this way, when a Frenchman founded the Russian ballet, and a Dane writes an explanatory dictionary of his language to the Russian people, but when the arrogant English treat something Russian with kindness and interest - this is something incredible!.. This means that they are not all the same.
In conclusion, I would like to talk about the racial type of modern Anglo-Saxons. Of course, among the English, Anglo-Canadians, Anglo-Americans, Anglo-Australians and Anglo-New Zealanders there are different types- almost all the same as in the rest of Europe. Anglo-Saxons can be Dinaric, Alpine, False, Nordic and East Baltic. They can be brunettes, blondes and redheads. Yet one feature is very typical of most Anglo-Saxons. This is a palpably noticeable admixture of the Mediterranean race. In the rest of Europe this racial type is common among the Spaniards, Portuguese, southern Italians and some other southern peoples. And also for the European Jews, who received a very strong Spanish admixture during their famous stay in this country. But in all these cases, these are, as a rule, short brunettes with specific facial features. For the Anglo-Saxons, these are tall brunettes and blondes with all the transitions between them, but with the same features in their faces. This is the result of a mixture of the Mediterranean racial type with the Nordic. There is practically no such option anywhere else in all of Europe.
Narrow, oblong faces that do not widen upward, as is the case with most other Europeans. And the backs of their heads are exactly the same – very narrow and high. Exactly this characteristic shape American soldiers have shaved heads, by which they can be unmistakably recognized. They are now, unfortunately, becoming a symbol of Anglo-Saxon rule throughout the world.
Conquest of Britain
Migrations of tribes in the 2nd-5th centuries
The Anglo-Saxon conquest of Britain was a long and complex process, lasting over 180 years and ending mainly at the beginning of the 5th century. The war between the Britons and Anglo-Saxons in the 5th century was a struggle between the Roman Empire and the barbarians who conquered it. However, in the 6th century, the nature of the confrontation transformed into fights between independent British kingdoms and the same kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxons, which emerged as a result of the collapse of post-Roman Britain into numerous specific independent states in which the Anglo-Saxon invaders founded their own kingdoms.
In the process of conquest, the Anglo-Saxons exterminated large numbers of the Celtic population. Some of the Celts were driven out of Britain to the continent (where they settled on the Armorica peninsula in Gaul, which later received the name Brittany), and some were turned into slaves and dependent people, obliged to pay tribute to the conquerors.
Only the mountainous Celtic regions in the west of Britain (Wales and Cornwall) and in the north (Scotland) defended independence, where tribal associations continued to exist, which later turned into independent Celtic principalities and kingdoms. Ireland, inhabited by the Celts, also retained complete independence from the Anglo-Saxons.
England during the Anglo-Saxon period
Archaeological finds
The largest Anglo-Saxon treasure in history was found in Staffordshire in the summer of 2009. The treasure dates back to approximately the 7th century.
Literature
- Anglo-Saxon race: States of the peoples of the Anglo-Saxon race in the present and future / Aem A. - M.: Typ. A.I. Mamontova, 1906. - 390 p. - reprint copy
- //
- // Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron: In 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional ones). - St. Petersburg. , 1890-1907.:
- about Anglo-Saxon. Soames Church, “The Anglo-Saxon church” (London, )
- “The Latin church during Anglo-Saxon times” (Lond.,);
- Lingard, “The antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon church” (Newcastle,; German translation in Breslau,).
- The history of the Anglo-Saxons and their social structure is best presented in Turner, “History of the Anglo-Saxons” (6th ed., 3 vols., London); Pelgrava, " The rise and progress of the English Commonwealth" (2 vols., Lond., ) and his "History of the Anglo-Saxons" (Lond., ); Lappenberg, “Geschichte von England” (Hamburg, ); Kemble, “The Anglo-Saxons” (2 vols., London; German translation by Brandes, 2 vols., Leipzig, 1 852-54) and in Stebb, “The constitutional history of England” (3 ed., London, ) .
- Shore T.W. Origin of the Anglo-Saxon Race = Origin of the Anglo-Saxon Race: A Study of the Settlement of England and the Tribal Origin of the Old English People. - London, 1906.
- Sharon Turner. History of the Anglo-Saxons from ancient times to the Norman Conquest. (Russian)
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
See what "Anglo-Saxons" are in other dictionaries:
Anglo-Saxons... Spelling dictionary-reference book
The general name of the Germanic tribes of the Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians, who conquered in the 5th and 6th centuries. Britain. In the 7th 10th centuries. An Anglo-Saxon nation emerged, which also absorbed Celtic elements. Later the Anglo-Saxons, mixed with the Danes, Norwegians and (after... ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary
ANGLO-SAXONS, ANGLO-SAXONS are English by their origin from the Angles and Saxons. A complete dictionary of foreign words that have come into use in the Russian language. Popov M., 1907 ... Dictionary of foreign words of the Russian language
Anglo-Saxons- (Anglo Saxons), common name. north Herm, tribes of Angles, Saxons and Jutes who invaded Britain (c. 450,600) after the departure of Rome. legions. They were probably joined by the Frisians, Swabians (Shva Biya) and the inhabitants of the South. Sweden. Origin arisen here... ... The World History
Ov; pl. [English] Anglo Saxon]. 1. East. The general name of the West Germanic tribes, which in the 5th century. conquered and colonized Britain. 2. In England, the USA and some other countries: about white Protestants. 3. About any white person whose native language is... encyclopedic Dictionary
Anglo-Saxons- the general name of the Germanic tribes of the Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians, who conquered in the 5th–6th centuries. Britain. Anglo-Saxon raids on the island in the middle of the 5th century. were replaced by their relocation to coastal areas and further advance into the interior of the country in the fight against... ... Encyclopedic Dictionary of World History
Historians give this name to the German tribe of Angles and Saxons, to which the Jutes also joined. These tribes, who lived along the lower reaches of the Elbe (Laba) and Weser rivers, for the first time in 449 under the leadership of Gengist and Gorza, and then for the second time in V... Encyclopedic Dictionary F.A. Brockhaus and I.A. Efron
Mn. 1. The general name of the Germanic tribes of the Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians, who laid the foundation for the English people. 2. Name of the British and Americans. 3. Representatives of these tribes. Ephraim's explanatory dictionary. T. F. Efremova. 2000... Modern explanatory dictionary of the Russian language by Efremova
Anglo-Saxons- Anglos Aksy, ov, units. h. with ax, and ... Russian spelling dictionary
Anglo-Saxons- plural, R. Anglos/ksov; units Anglosa/ks (2 m) ... Spelling dictionary of the Russian language
Before starting to analyze the prehistoric history of the Saxons, I want to say a few words to my friends and readers about the reasons for my long silence on the blog. The reason for this was the events in Ukraine. They deprived me of peace of mind for a long time.
Representatives of the two Slavic peoples are full of hatred towards each other. How can I be Russian in my mind and soul, in which the blood of the ancient Volynians flows - a tribe that in our era forms part of the Ukrainian nation? I confess that I was partly consoled by the history of the Saxons that I was studying today.
In the 8th century AD, the Saxons, who lived in northern Germany, and their relatives, the Franks, fought fiercely among themselves. But at the end of the war, both peoples merged into one state on equal rights, as the Saxon historian of that era, Widukind of Corvey, tells about this in his book “The Acts of the Saxons.”
In the 18th-19th centuries, Britain and the United States fought among themselves. But with the beginning of the twentieth century, strong friendly relations were established between these countries.
In the 20th century, the Anglo-Saxons and Germans fought with each other twice with huge losses. And, by the way, the Saxons or Saxons make up a significant part of the German nation. It seems that in this case we can say that mutual hatred disappears.
I hope that it will disappear in the relationship between Russians and Ukrainians. Not much blood has been shed today, although it may be somewhat cynical to talk about it out loud. And yet, what are several thousand lives for many millions of people to wish the death of thousands and thousands more half-blooded “enemies”. Let me remind you that in 1945 Anglo-Saxon aviation wiped out the capital of German Saxony, Dresden, destroying perhaps hundreds of thousands of their blood brothers, the German Saxons. (I think that, despite the destruction of Lugansk by Ukrainian artillery, a similar fate will not befall Kyiv, the mother of Russian cities). However, such a catastrophe, as we see from the history of the Saxons, cannot be a reason for eternal enmity.
In the coming decades, the development of Russia and Ukraine will take several different paths. Time will tell who will be more successful. It will be ideal if both peoples achieve success in the competition, each in their own way. But in any case, I believe that we will still extend our hand to each other in a brotherly handshake.
The first mention of the Saxons occurs in the 2nd century. AD in the work of the ancient geographer Claudius Ptolemy. In the fairly authoritative Cyril and Methodius Encyclopedia the following is written about them:
“The Saxons originally lived north of the Elbe, in modern Schleswig. Gradually, neighboring tribes joined the Saxons - the Cherusci, Angrivari, part of the Lombards, part of the Suevi and Thuringians. It is believed that the Saxons got their name from the name of the saxa - a short sword with a blade 22-33 cm long.
The Saxons became famous thanks to pirate raids on the shores of Gaul. From the middle of the 4th century. The raids become intense, the Saxons begin to make campaigns overland. They managed to gain a foothold for some time on the northern coast of Gaul, from where they made forays into the interior of the country. It is known that the Saxons lived near modern Bayeux in Normandy. A significant part of the Saxons after the departure of Roman troops from Britain in the 5th century. moved there along with the Angles and Jutes. A group of Saxons in the 6th century. AD participated together with the Lombards in the conquest of Italy. Yet most of this vast association remained in Northern Germany."
Personally, I was interested in where the Saxons lived before they arrived in Schleswig. And the fact that Schleswig was only a temporary habitat for them does not give rise to any doubts. All or almost all Germanic tribes in different time passed through the territory of modern Denmark - the Zealand Islands and Jutland - on the way from Scandinavia to central Europe. And all of them could not ignore Schleswig, which changed hands many times.
In accordance with my theory of the transfer of place names in the process of migration of peoples, I began to look for Saxon place names on the map of Europe. But here the first question arose before me: which toponyms should actually be considered to belong specifically to the Saxons?
Of course, toponyms containing the tribal name “Saxon” should come first. With the exception of German Saxony and England, place names like “Sax”, “sex” and “Sas” (as the Western Slavs and Celto-Roman peoples call the Saxons in the latter case) can be found in almost all European countries. They definitely exist in Poland, Lithuania, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia and even Macedonia.
And this is not surprising. Where the Saxons did not manage to visit as conquerors during the Great Migration of Peoples in the first centuries of our era, they often settled as peaceful colonists. Saxon colonists settled even in distant Russia, invited there by the Russian Empress Catherine II, who, by the way, herself also belonged to the Saxon princely family of Anhalt-Zerbst.
And what can we say about Saxon place names in Scandinavia - this “womb of nations” (in the words of the early medieval Gothic historian Jordan)? They are there too. But we, as in other cases, cannot confidently say without proper analysis whether they appeared there as a result of the resettlement of peaceful colonists in historical times or whether the ancestral home of the Saxons was once located there.
The assumption that the Saxons could have come to Germany from Scandinavia was expressed by the above-mentioned Saxon historian of the 10th century, Widukind of Corvey. But he did not dare say for sure. Some modern researchers believe that the Saxons, unlike most other Germanic tribes, never lived on the Scandinavian Peninsula. But I have a different opinion on this matter.
On the western shore of Skåne (a historical province of Sweden, which belonged to Denmark until the 18th century), directly opposite Copenhagen, the town of Saxtorp is located. Let me clarify that torp is the Scandinavian pronunciation of the German Dorf (village). That is, Saxtorp means “Village of the Saxons.” Of course, both Denmark and Sweden have long been willing to accept German colonists, but there are two circumstances that incline us to believe that in this case we are not talking about a relatively recent settlement of German Saxons.
Firstly, Saxtorp is located near the mouth of a river whose name is Saxon. That is, in this case we are dealing with a hydronym, and the antiquity of hydronyms is usually much greater than in the case of populated areas. Of course, the Saxon River is not very large, and such small rivers changed names more often than large bodies of water. One might assume that the river was renamed only relatively recently, because only Saxons began to live on it. But there are many others in Saxony, including larger towns, where purebred Scandinavian Swedes live. Therefore, it is more likely that the name of the river is still ancient.
Secondly, on a more detailed computer map you can find that in addition to Saxtorp itself, next to it, closer to the sea, there is another settlement called Saxtorpkogen. Kogami in medieval Northern Europe were small sailing ships. We can interpret the name "Saxtorpkogen" as "Ships of the Saxon Village" or simply as "Ships of the Saxons".
By the way, in my article “The Sea of Venets” it is proved that the Western European “kog” comes from the Vendian (Slavic) “koch” (Actually, this is not my opinion, but the opinion of the most authoritative German philologist Vasmer).
The vast bay with sandy shores on which Saxtorpkogen lies is very convenient for mooring small wooden ships (such ships are usually then pulled onto sandy beaches). Considering the position of this bay, we can confidently say that it was in this place that the Saxons, if they once lived in Scania, at one time, like many other Germanic tribes, crossed over to the island of Zealand or Sjaland.
On Sjaland, almost opposite Saxtorpkogen, there is also an extensive bay, convenient for mooring cogs. It is, however, called that - Köge-bukt. But most importantly! One of the cities that have now become suburbs of Copenhagen is called Gladsachs.
The name of the town can be interpreted as “Happy Saxon”. The Saxons must indeed have felt happy after the difficult mass crossing of the Sound. However, not everything is so smooth with this toponym. There is another Gladsax on the eastern bank of Skåne. Therefore, we can assume with some confidence that the toponym was simply transferred to Sjaland from Skåne.
I have a serious assumption that the name of the capital of Denmark, Copenhagen, is of purely Saki origin.
In Danish, Copenhagen is called København. The current interpretation is that København is a corruption of the Old Danish Køpmannæhafn, that is, “harbour of traders.” I am sure that it is based on the Anglo-Saxon word cabin (hut). “Köbenhavn” means “Harbor of Huts”, that is, an inhabited harbor, which was by no means common in ancient times. Agree that Køben and cabin are more similar than Køben and Køpmann. However, cabin is a specifically Anglo-Saxon word, related, I think, to the German Haben (estate).
Confirmation of my theory is another undoubtedly Saki toponym of Denmark. This is the name of the town of Sakskøbing on the island of Låland south of Sjaland. “Saxköbing” is interpreted by me as “Saxon Huts.” The toponym is again based on the English cabin. And in this case it is in no way possible to interpret købing as a distorted køpmann. There are too many equally distorted “köpmann”, because to the east of Sakskøbing there is also Nykøbing (New Huts), the main city of the Danish island of Falster.
By the way, it is possible that it was during their stay on the so-called Small Danish islands of Loland and Falster that the division of the previously united tribe of Saxons into Western and Eastern arose. The West Saxons, in my opinion, lived on Lolann, and the East Saxons on Falster, the name of which could be interpreted as “fal estre” (people of the east). The presence of the second Falster - Falsterby - at the southernmost tip of Skåne, I am inclined to explain by the creation of a colony of Falsterians (perhaps no longer Saxons, but Danes) in later times.
It's not far from Loland to Schleswig. This is where the already written history of the Saxons begins. And here we must resolve one confusion. Widukind of Corvey claims that the landing of the Saxons in northern Germany took place in an area that was called Gadela both earlier and in his time. In modern comments to this statement it is written that “this refers to the area located in the lowlands, to the left of the river. Elbe, extending from the confluence of the river. Stay to Ritzebütel." However, if, as appears from our analysis, the Saxons landed on the eastern bank of Schleswig, then the commentator's opinion regarding the position of Gadela was erroneous.
Let us pay attention to the fact that the initial occupation of the Saxons who landed in Gadel was exclusively trade. And the most important trading point in Schleswig in ancient times was the city of Hedeby. Let us first note that the roots of the toponyms “Gadela” and “Hedebi” have some phonetic similarity. From the Scandinavian names one could, to a first approximation, interpret as “Hede-bi” (Hede harbor), Gade-la (Gade waves).
But the currently accepted interpretation of the toponym “Hedeby” (see Wikipedia) from the Scandinavian languages as a whole is clearly unsatisfactory: from heiðr = “wasteland”. Hedebi was a populous and rich city for that time.
It would be much more accurate to interpret the name from the Anglo-Saxon head (head). Firstly, Hedebi was the main trading center in these parts. Secondly, it was located in the very depths of the Schleswigfjord, and this point in all fairness could be called the “head of the bay,” just as they say “at the head of the corner.” So "Hedebi" could be understood as "Main Harbour". It was Hedeby who was on the territory of Schleswig.
Hedeby's epithet could well be the expression “ a good place" In English there are words good (good). Not too far from the ruins of Hedeby you can find Gottorp Castle, the main residence of the Schleswick dukes. The name of this castle is interpreted from the Scandinavian languages as “Good Village”, which confidently confirms our hypothesis.
A synonym for good in English is the word well. Both have the meaning "good." Both of them have additional meanings: good (goods), well (storehouse). The phrase good+well thus means “a storehouse (warehouse) of goods.” Well, Goodwell is consonant with the toponym “Gadela,” isn’t it?
However, if my last reasoning seems somewhat strained to someone, then here is one more circumstance. Schleswig has a number of settlements, whose names contain the suffix “el”: Borgwedel, Kozel, Nübel, Hamel, Brebel and many others. The combination of the words good or head with this suffix again gives us a convincing etymology of the undoubtedly Latinized toponym "Gadela", given in Widukind's Latin original of the "Acts of the Saxons".
And one last thing. For the Saxons, the place where they landed, having found a new homeland, of course, had to become sacred - God's. In English, the word god is pronounced "bad". Hence "Gadela" = "God's". The toponym "Gottorp" can also be interpreted as "God's Village".
url="/uploads/images/default/dan.jpg"]
Already when this article was published, one of my friends pointed out to me that I had not somehow tried to find a mention of the Saxons in the work of the Gothic historian of the 6th century Jordanes. Indeed, in the Getica there is a listing of a number of Scandinavian tribes, most of which have not yet been identified by historians. In my article “Vandals are not Wends,” I tried to do this, and classified a number of tribes listed by Jordan as Slavic-speaking.
I think I can point out among the tribes listed by Jordan the Saxons. Apparently the Saxons are named in the Getica in paragraph 21 as "Suehans". It is known that the sound conveyed in the Cyrillic alphabet by the letter “x” often turns into the sound conveyed by the Latin letter “x” (x). Thus, "Suehans" can also sound like "Suexans" (Saxons).
During the time of Jordan, the Saxons already lived on the territory of continental Germany side by side with the Turing tribe, who later even merged with the Saxons. Among Jordanes, Suehans are also mentioned in connection with the Turings. Here is a quote: “Another tribe living in the same place is the Suehans; they, like the Turings, keep excellent horses. It is they [Suehans?] who send sappherine (22) skins through trade through countless other tribes for the consumption of the Romans and are therefore famous for their magnificent "The blackness of these furs. This tribe, living in poverty, wears the richest clothes."
The passage, in my opinion, suggests that the Suehans carried on an extensive trade in furs. This is quite consistent with the information of Widukind of Corvey that initially the Saxons were engaged exclusively in trade in the land of the Turings.
***
Let's return from Schleswig back to the Scandinavian Peninsula. The previous analysis of place names clearly indicates that the Saxons moved into northern Germany from Skåne. Could it be that the oikonym “Skone” itself is associated with the tribal name “Saxons”?
Indeed. Here is a possible series of phonetic transformations: Skone - Sakkone - Saxon. The sound “k” (single or double) easily turns into the sound combination “ks” or “sk” even in Russian. So, for example, “Greek” - “Gretzky”. In Western European (particularly Germanic) languages this is even more common. For example, the Dutch zakke (bags) becomes the Dutch zakjes or the English sacs (both are bags).
In my article “Vandals are not Wends” on this blog, I proposed a hypothesis about the origin of the oikonym “Scandinavia”. Let's repeat it.
“Among the etymologies of the name “Scandinavia,” attention was drawn to the connection of this toponym with the word skan (sand). We just disagree that they mean the shallows around the peninsula, making it a “Dangerous Land” (this is one of the etymologies of the name Scandinavia). According to our idea, which does not disagree with the opinion of most professional historians, the ancestors of the Scandinavians came to the peninsula from the east not by land, but by sea. The Germans landed on it. Landing on land in Scandinavian languages is called landning from the word lan (country, land). But we must take into account that wooden boats were easier to moor on sandy beaches. Thus, in our opinion, there could be a synonym for the word landning using the word skan – skandning instead of lan. Therefore, "Scandinavia" means "Landing Land".
However, it cannot be denied that the toponyms “Scandinavia” and “Skåne” must be related. Both of them are also associated with the oldest name for Scandinavia known to us from ancient literary sources, “Skanza”. Does this mean that the name of the Skåne peninsula is also associated with the concept of “sand” (skan)? And is the ethnonym “Saxons” also related?
Of course, there is an ancient (known from the Bible) comparison of many people with sand. But I think that in this case everything is much more complicated.
Look for the end of the article in the section “Prehistoric history of the Slavs” on page 4.
(area of settlement of the Angles and Jutes), in the middle of the 5th century, like many tribes of Northern Europe, most likely as a result climate change, began to move to Britain.
Conquest of Britain[ | ]
Migrations of tribes in the 2nd-5th centuries
England during the Anglo-Saxon period
England at the end of the 5th century was divided into three significant barbarian kingdoms - the kingdom of the Angles, the kingdom of the Saxons and Kent (the kingdom of the Jutes), each of which was founded by chiefs who initially led the pioneers or tribes and established themselves as kings. Later, the states of the Angles and Saxons were fragmented into smaller kingdoms. England from the 6th to the 9th centuries was divided into seven main kingdoms (Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy). These were the kingdoms:
There were also several small kingdoms, such as Lindsay, Surrey and Hwisse, however, they did not play any significant role. These kingdoms initially competed and fought among themselves. Internecine wars were fought even before the complete conquest of the Britons, for example, among the West Saxons in the lands adjacent to the Severn River valley. This allowed the Britons to gain a foothold in some lands and form their own kingdoms there, which resisted the conquerors for a long time. There were even two British kingdoms formed on the Cornwall peninsula - Dumnonia and Cornubia. In the north-west the kingdoms of Strathclood and Cumbria were formed, which for a long time successfully fought both Northumbria and the Picts in the north. The Welsh and the Britons who were pushed back here, although they were divided into many warring principalities, also defended their freedom.
From the north, the Saxons were constantly threatened by raids from the Scots and Picts from the territories of Ulster and modern Scotland. The conquerors, however, often neglected the existence of the Britons and enthusiastically sorted out relations among themselves. Mutual struggle was accompanied by various alliances and associations, members of royal families and high nobility entered into cross-marriages, and cultural, linguistic and legal differences between the kingdoms were leveled out. Over time, all the inhabitants of these kingdoms began to be called Saxons or Angles, and by the 8th century the name “Angles” had already become widely used for all the inhabitants of these kingdoms, and their language also began to be called English. At the same time, Christianity was spreading among the conquerors, as well as the establishment and strengthening of the institution of royal power.
In the beginning, it was not necessarily the eldest son who inherited the crown. Any of the sons of the late king, as well as his brother or nephew (even if there were sons) could become the new king. Often, during his lifetime, the king appointed an heir for himself. By the 10th century, the eldest son's right to the throne was basically established.
The highest body of government in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms was the witena gemot (Old English witena gemot - “assembly of the wise”) - the council of the nobility under the king. It included members of the royal family, bishops, ealdormen, and royal thegns. The main body of local government was the shire council, headed first by ealdormen and later by sheriffs.
The ruler of the kingdom, who achieved a dominant position on the island, received the title of Bretwald (Bretwald - “ruler of Britain”). This title gave the right to tribute from individual kingdoms (thus their rulers recognized their dependence on the Bretwald), the right to large land grants. Kings from time to time gathered at the court of the “ruler of Britain”, and during wars they provided him with armed assistance. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle under 829 records eight rulers who were powerful enough to win the title.
King Egbert of Wessex in 825 united most of the kingdoms of the Heptarchy into one kingdom, which received the name of England ( Englaland, that is, “Land of the Angles”).
Social structure[ | ]
After the Danish pogrom of the 870s, Alfred the Great rebuilt the kingdom on similar grounds to the Germanic tribes living on the continent. The king (Cyning, Cyng) was established at the head of the state, instead of the German duke (Heretoga), and exclusively the sons and immediate relatives of whom formed the clan nobility (Etelings). Queens (Cwen) also enjoyed significant privileges. The king was surrounded by his entourage, the squad (Geferescipe), from which the service and fief nobility was little by little formed. The squad consisted of two classes: the aldermans (Ealdormann, then Earl under Danish influence), to whom the king distributed court positions and placed them at the head of the provinces, and the rest of the servants (Gesith), who, together with the upper class, bore the common name of tens, or thanes and, possessing lands, they were obliged to show up for war. Ordinary free people, among whom the last place was occupied by the remaining free Britons, were called curls and basically remained dependent on a noble person who was called Hlaford (that is, “lord of grain”, whence the word lord). Number unfree(Theow) was small. All these classes differed in their rights and especially in the size of the penalty for their murder. The latter was measured against the person’s belonging to a higher or lower class.
Large counties Shires(Sciras) or counties split into smaller ones tens(Teothung), consisting of the union of ten free heads of the family with mutual guarantee before the court in each; ten tens formed a hundred, over whose court only the county court had authority, and at the head of the last court was the alderman. In the most important cases, the latter decided the matter only with the participation of an assembly (Gemôte) of the “wisest,” that is, thanes or representatives of local communities in the relevant county. This meeting was convened every six months instead of the previously convened national assemblies. The king also convened bishops and noble secular people for a similar Witenagemôte or Micelgemôte (that is, a large meeting).
Clothes and runes of the Anglo-Saxons[ | ]
Women wore long, loose dresses that were fastened at the shoulders with large buckles. Jewelry was also discovered - brooches, necklaces, pins and bracelets. Men usually wore short tunics over tight trousers and warm cloaks.
The Anglo-Saxons used an alphabet consisting of 33 runes. With their help, inscriptions were made on dishes, metal jewelry and objects made of bones. With the spread of Christianity, the Latin alphabet also spread; some handwritten books (manuscripts) have survived to this day. Sometimes manuscripts were decorated with drawings indicating the lifestyle of the Anglo-Saxons.
Spread of Christianity[ | ]
Pope Gregory I sent St. Augustine to Britain, the first Archbishop of Canterbury, who at the end of the 6th century preached Christianity to Ethelbert, the Kentish king and husband of Bertha, the previously baptized daughter of the Frankish king. In 664, at the synod of Whitby, assembled by King Oswain, the unity of the British Church with the Roman Church was proclaimed. In 668, Theodore of Canterbury introduced worship according to the Roman rite everywhere and was the first to be elevated to the dignity of primate of England. Subordinate to him were the Archbishop of York and 15 other bishops, who at councils in the presence of the king and nobles until the 8th century laid the foundations of government Anglo-Saxon Church without direct orders from the Pope. Despite the attempts of the popes to subordinate the Anglo-Saxon church to their power at every favorable circumstance, it was only in the 10th century that St. Dunstan managed to expand the influence of the popes in England. The Anglo-Saxon clergy, no less than the Irish, was distinguished by their education and love of science. Most famous in this regard
The Anglo-Saxons are the predecessors of modern Englishmen who lived in the 5th-11th centuries. Initially they were a conglomerate of various Germanic tribes. It gradually became a new nation. A sharp evolutionary leap occurred after the Norman conquest of England in 1066.
Origin of the term
Angles and Saxons - North Germanic tribes of Jutland and Lower Saxony who conquered and settled most England in the early Middle Ages. The people were barbarians, but over time they were able to successfully integrate into the Orthodox Christian civilization.
The Anglo-Saxon conquest of Britain was a long process that lasted more than 180 years. The war was between the Britons and the Anglo-Saxons. But in the 6th century the struggle became more pronounced, so the consequence was the disintegration of post-Roman Britain into small independent states. In the process of military and aggressive activities, a huge number of the Celtic population were exterminated. Some of the Celts were forced out of Britain onto the continent. The other part was turned into slaves who were forced to pay tribute to their conquerors.
Only the mountainous Celtic regions in the west and north remained independent. Tribal associations continued to exist there, which later turned into independent Celtic principalities and kingdoms.
As a result of such actions, England was divided into three significant segments. These were the kingdoms:
- English;
- Saxons;
- Yutov.
They were led by chiefs or tribes who established themselves as kings. In the 9th century, England was divided into eight kingdoms. In fact, there were more of them, but the small kingdoms did not play any significant role, so they were not given much attention. Such small kingdoms initially competed and fought among themselves.
How did the Anglo-Saxons live?
Until the 9th century, the bulk were represented by communal peasants who owned large tracts of land. Kerls had full rights, could take part in public meetings, and carry weapons.
After the Danish pogrom of the 870s, Alfred the Great restored the kingdom in much the same way as the Germanic tribes living on the continent. The head of state is the king. The clan nobility consisted of immediate relatives. Queens also had good privileges. The king himself was surrounded by his entourage and retinue. From the latter, the service and fief nobility were gradually formed.
In literature, a lot of attention is paid to the clothes that people wore. Women wore long, loose dresses that were fastened at the shoulders with large buckles. Typical jewelry in those days was brooches, necklaces, pins and bracelets. Men usually wore short tunics, tight-fitting trousers and warm cloaks.
The Anglo-Saxons used an alphabet consisting of 33 runes. With their help, all kinds of signatures were made on jewelry, dishes, or bone elements. The Latin alphabet was adopted with the advent of Christianity, and some handwritten books from that time have survived to this day.
By nature, the Anglo-Saxons were fearless and cruel. Such traits formed a tendency towards indiscriminate robbery. It was because of this that other tribes feared them. People despised danger. They launched their robber ships into the water and allowed the wind to carry them to any overseas shore.
Spread of Christianity
Pope Gregory Dvoeslov tasked Augustine with spreading Christianity among the Anglo-Saxons. The fight against superstition was successful. Beginning in the mid-5th century, the Anglo-Saxons, during a century and a half of struggle with the local population, took possession of the eastern part of the island. The division into kingdoms was convenient for the rapid spread of Christianity.
The church society took a very active part in the destinies of the country. During the years of war, Celtic Christianity was torn away from its Roman roots. Therefore, restoring the lost connection became an important part. By the 7th century, the new religion was preached throughout almost the entire territory.
From the late 12th century to the early 19th century, Britain became one of the strongest maritime powers. Due to some unique features of the islands, a gigantic British Empire was built. To raise its status, it repeatedly pitted the continental countries of Europe against each other in destructive wars. The winners were mainly the British, who received overseas colonies and wealth taken from their competitors.
