Talk:Anglo-Saxons

So many myths

Only perhaps 10,000 to 25,000 Angles and Saxons crossed over during the centuries of migration. These migrants settled in among the millions of people who were already there, ruling over parts of the island until the eleventh century Norman invasion.

The Anglo-Saxon cultural influence declined with the 1066 conquest by Normandy, today a region of France. The new Norman rulers transformed England and ejected the old Anglo-Saxon elite, many of whom fled the country entirely. And so the Anglo-Saxon era ended, four or five centuries of rule that ended a thousand years ago and did not appear to make a lasting or substantial impact on British genes.

At their height, the Anglo-Saxons made up less than 1% of the British population. It may have left a cultural heritage, but no genetic heritage to speak of. 89.253.73.146 (talk) 20:22, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

To quote Queen Bess: I have the body of a week and feeble Western European; but I have the brains and expertise of a historian and linguist, and one specialised in this period, too, and think foul scorn that anyone should write "at their height, the Anglo-Saxons made up less than 1% of the British population" and think it holds water in any sort of way. Where did you read that? And 10-25,000 settlers over centuries? We simply do not have any sort of reliable source to estimate absolute numbers, so let's do away with flinging those about. What we can tell from our few written sources and from archaeology should make us wary of minimalist migration scenarios.

Funnily enough, this minimalist position you've endorsed is the one that dominated most of the later 20th century, as a sort of pendulum counter swing to the "völkisch" and "racial" obsession of earlier research which had stressed a direct correlation between archaeological culture and genetic descent. In other words: "People travelled! (I'm a filthy little fascist at heart.)" - "No, pots travelled! (I'm an enlightened pot-loving Hippie.)"

Over the past ten, fifteen years or so we've experienced a more nuanced levelling out of these extreme models, mainly thanks to the relatively hard evidence of Y and mtDNA research originally, and palaeogenetics more recently. Palaeogenetics regarding Anglo-Saxon migration is still very much in its infancy. Even with the facts we can hope for from that field in future, the blur of which genetic markers we identify as "Anglo-Saxon" enough to qualify will remain significant. There are a few hints that we can see, however: At the present state of error, research does not seem to agree with your position especially well, with Northern England showing up at about 3/4 "Continental North Sea" ancestry (mumbled: whatever that means) after the Migration Period. You can look up that recent study here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05247-2. So, off of that high horse, and down into the research rabbit hole with you. It's great fun! We all float down here. Trigaranus (talk) 09:23, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

I was going to reply, but Trigaranus put it better than I ever could. Saying less than one percent of the British Population was Anglo Saxon is a curious position to take, disavowed by all modern research, and a position that only really exists as a VERY unscientific way to try to refute any connotations of people taking pride in Anglo Saxon ancestry (because admittedly, a lot of racist groups do use its imagery, but that absolutely doesn't make it OK to lie and pretend they had minimal impact).

As was said, off the high horse. There is a LOT of Anglo-Saxon DNA in the English. I honestly do not know where you deign to get those figures anon. Alooulla (talk) 17:34, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

Yes clearly arguing against the weakest and most extreme types of statements won't help us much. I think that no one seriously doubts there was one or more movements of people from the other side of the north sea. The devil is in the detail. Some of the first Saxons probably came as Roman recruits for example, very early. Their language, and something of their culture, might have been established quite early within the Roman military. That barbarians ran the military and kept (and modified) their barbarian style to their position is known from other countries. But other groups apparently came to England later, if we believe the few medieval sources. None of these things disagree with each other. The genetics confirms things in a rough way only for now. People came from northern Europe. Extreme positions which claim that there was a genocide, or that there were hardly any immigrants, are both pretty unpopular but that does not mean we have a clear vision of what happened yet.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:48, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

"Arguing against the weakest and most extreme types of statements won't help us much".

What Alooulla is arguing against is not an "extreme" position, but was considered mainstream less than a decade ago. It was only in retrospect, and with hard genetic evidence, that the field realized that they had fallen into a political ideology, sometimes explicitly stated, to downplay or deny the existence of an AS people.

From a synopsis: "Historian Wolf Liebeschuetz and archaeologist Sebastian Brather, to pick on just two, have both firmly insisted that archaeology must not, and cannot, be used to trace migrations or identify different ethnic groups in prehistory." DenverCoder19 (talk) 16:34, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

That is massively incorrect. Much of the Anglo Saxon elite were killed, fled or suppressed but the vast majority of England remained populated by Anglo Saxons.

if anything, the Norman elite were eventually subsumed into the English race 81.98.111.131 (talk) 20:43, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

"Two medieval scholars tackle the misuse of a phrase that was rarely used by its supposed namesakes"

[1] One of the authors is Mary Rambaran-Olm, the other looks like someone as notable. So this is a reliable source for anyone interested. Doug Weller talk 08:29, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

Related discussions

• Talk:Anglo-Saxons/Archive 5#Removing the term “Anglo-Saxon?” in 2020
• Talk:Anglo-Saxons/Archive 6#International Society of Anglo-Saxonists name change in 2021. TSventon (talk) 08:49, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure there's a very stringent argument to be had there: "ethnic" naming conventions are and always have been nothing more than that, and our modern ones very rarely reflect historic usage. If you had asked a Greek scholar of the Early Middle Ages, he would have divided all northern peoples into Scythians and Galatians, regardless of their ethnic affiliations, and would have called himself a Roman, even if he spoke not a shred of Latin. There is nothing to suggest that there ever was an idea of "Celts" in the heads of the historic Celts, nor one of "Germans" in the minds of the historic Germanic peoples. So no surprise there. Not even the modern Germans in the sense of Germany had a concept to describe themselves, and the association of the term "Teutonic" with the HRE (and its conflation with thuidisc) was originally negative propaganda by the popes during the time of their rivalry with the emperors. So it's absolutely no skin off anyone's rosy nose that nowadays we have both a historic and a modern convention for using Anglo-Saxon in a more or less blurry sense. Anglo-Saxons back in the day: people who spoke Old English. Anglo-Saxons around now: white-ish "English" and "American" people (give or take) who speak Modern English. It's not scientific taxonomy but conventional usage. Trigaranus (talk) 11:40, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

It's the "conventional usage" as a racialist concept that's being pushed back against. That's the main motivator for these and other scholars to shift to using other terminology.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 11:37, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

A purely American issue; I notice no solution is offered. Resist American cultural imperialism! Johnbod (talk) 14:14, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

I agree there is not much we can do with it here. The way the article presents it, this is not one issue at all but several different ones anyway:

• Should we avoid using a term for an historic cultural group, because it is sometimes seen as a race? This question implies that when we refer to the whole Old English speaking culture we can better call them English, ignoring the other term Saxon, and potentially confusing them with the later English. I suppose anyone interested in avoiding misconceptions about cultures being continuous races, might also need to consider whether this is a good solution. In any case I think that the term Anglo-Saxon is not particularly common as a racial concept in modern contexts. I think Winston Churchill is the main inspiration for recent use and despite what the authors make out he was connecting the term to a common cultural tradition, and he was doing it in order to inspire an alliance during a war. So when people use the term these days they tend to be referring to things like "legal traditions".
• Should we avoid modern terms for historical peoples if they were not widely used by the historical people involved? I think the main reason to be concerned about such cases would be because of some other factor, for example a question about whether the ancient people involved actually existed as a cultural group that anyone at the time would have recognized. That's not a problem here, but see the next point.
• The article seems to imply that the term is also bad because it represses understanding of the different nations who had their own names for themselves. It sounds like they dispute whether there should be a generic term at all, but then in other places they seem to accept that there should be. Apart from being an unclear point, I think it also doesn't make much sense. I think the simple idea of the English having been several clearly defined peoples who transferred over from different homelands is questionable, whereas it is very clear that there was an overall group. The only term we can connect easily to a homeland on the continent is "English". We don't really know the origin of the term Saxon. The idea that the Saxons appear on Ptolemy's map is widespread but experts can't really agree about it. And this implies that the term initially came into a use in coastal France and England, apparently meaning something like viking. The term did not start being used for North Germans until much later. There was no Frisian kingdom in England, and no Mercian kingdom on the continent.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:59, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

I think the biggest issue is that it's not yet a scholarly consensus, although things might be moving to that point. It's also the term most entrenched among the populous. Wikipedia still uses "Genghis Khan" even though most scholars now use the more accurate Anglicization "Chinggis Khan".--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 11:37, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

I'd suggest the trend is going in the other direction in this case. I'd also say that beyond the consensus problem another problem here is just working out what the point being made is when you try to boil it down to its essence.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:43, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

generally used in a racist context per the linked article is quite a Ameri-centric perspective, as discussed before. That statement wouldn't be true for (at least) the UK. The whole thing is reminiscent of the Byzantine Empire nomenclature obsession of some. It's just a useful short-hand for something. DeCausa (talk) 11:56, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

The problem for me that for me the term Anglo-Saxon, in England is not elitist, it tends to be disparaging. For example if someone swears they would apologise for using "the Anglo-Saxon ". In 1066 England was conquered by the Normans, if you read Kevin Cahill's book "Who Owns Britain" you will see that a large percentage of land in England is still owned by people who's ancestors came over with William the Conqueror. They would be insulted if you accused them of being Anglo-Saxon!! The top private schools and universities were set up by people who's ancestry were largely from Norman or Plantagenet backgrounds. We still have a higher house of Parliament full of aristocrats. Check out our hereditary peers, you will see that the majority of them have Norman/ French names hidden behind their titles eg: Duke of Norfolk. That is not to say that Anglo-Saxons have not moved in the upper circles of society. There is a whole range of different terms for such folk. Example, "he made it to the top even though he was a commoner" (ie: Anglo-Saxon). "He is no blue blood!" in other words not an aristocrat (ie:Anglo-Saxon). In the last hundred years or so progress has been made. You don't have to be a major land owner or male to vote for example. So I am not sure the "Genghis Khan" / "Chinggis Khan" analogy is a good one. Outside England the Anglo-Saxon term has a bit of an elitist ring to it however in England the attitude is somewhat different. I think that most people in multi-ethnic England would not identify with being Anglo-Saxon these days. It is just regarded as a reference to people who settled these islands in medieval times (How many and for what reason is a much more interesting discussion). As long as Wikipedia includes a nomenclature in their articles, clarifying the term, I see no reason to change the terminology. Wilfridselsey (talk) 14:01, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

Hmm, I think you considerably overstating the case there. Much-diluted Norman bloodlines may own a lot of grouse moors, but only a lucky few, like Hugh Grosvenor, 7th Duke of Westminster (whose ancestor snapped up a commoner heiress to a farm that is now Mayfair and Belgravia) have really valuable urban land. On being "insulted if you accused them of being Anglo-Saxon", I remember a hilarious tv episode (probably Who Do You Think You Are? (British TV series)) with the late Robert Shirley, 13th Earl Ferrers, who treasured the idea of being properly Anglo-Saxon, based on an 11th-century female ancestor. They wheeled on a historian who told him very bluntly that her name was as Norman as they come (rather implying he ought to go around wearing a beret with onions around his neck). He was visibly discomforted. I suspect this is a more typical attitude. Johnbod (talk) 14:23, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

@Johnbod Thanks for that!! I was making a general point. I think that DNA testing has unraveled a lot of misconceptions. The Normans tended to intermarry with the Anglo-Saxon women anyway, and I think that over the centuries it wasn't just the men of the house that were sleeping with servants etc! I didn't include the Scandinavian settlement in large parts of Northern England either. My point was that the use of Anglo-Saxon is much more nuanced in England then the US. I guess where it works is where it belongs, namely as a term of convenience for all the Germanic tribes who arrived in England after Rome(possibly some during) and before the Norman Conquest. BTW - We used to get a Breton onion seller round regularly here on his bike. They seem to have disappeared. Wilfridselsey (talk) 14:46, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

Yes, in the UK "Anglo-Saxon" in a contemporary context used to mainly mean "four-letter words", but I think this is less common now. Our charming onion seller, straight out of Central Casting, stopped in the late 1960s I think. Johnbod (talk) 15:03, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

Wilfridselsey I think you make a small-seeming jump of logic that is also apparently in the article when you say "all the Germanic tribes who arrived in England". I'd say that a quite early stage pretty much everyone in the rolling hills and flat country of SE England was "Anglo Saxon", no matter what their ancestry (Frisian, Italian, French, Welsh etc). Once again I'd like to point out that the old idea of identifiable tribes from different parts of Europe, who continued to see themselves as distinct in England, is not really based upon much. The only clear case of a name which had staying power was the one which also became generic, the Angles. (I think the evidence is against the term Saxon originally referring to a small Germanic people.)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:20, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

Andrew Lancaster I also said that Anglo-Saxon is a "term of convenience" for all the tribes. I don't believe it to be particularly representative or accurate. But we at least know or think we know what it means when use it in the Medieval England context. You say that the name Angles has staying power however in the Welsh language and Scottish Gaelic they call the English "Saxons" ( Saesneg/ Sassenach). Anyway I thought this discussion was more about the historic term Anglo Saxon vs. modern (mis)use? Wilfridselsey (talk) 16:50, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

Sure, but as I said, I don't think that we can be confident that "Saxon" was originally a term for a "Germanic tribe who arrived in England". Angle and Frisian were, but there was no part of England which was seen as a Frisian kingdom.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:31, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

Andrew Lancaster There is a body of evidence that suggest that the Jutes came from Frisia, whether they were Frisian or originated in Jutland and travelled via Frisia, is a point of debate. The Jutes set up several kingdoms in SE England. Also, Saxon was a loan word from Latin and the annals were written in Latin, so it is understandable how its use leaked into English. As far as I know the earliest use was by George (bishop of Ostia and Amiens) in 786, when after a visit to England he wrote a report to the pope describing his trip to Angul Saxnia. Wilfridselsey (talk) 09:04, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

I think you should double check that body of evidence. The question here is whether there is any strong academic consensus about these things. There isn't. There is was a much later claim that Kent was settled first by Jutes, but modern historians treat that with caution and in any case there is no evidence that people there saw themselves as Jutes. The etymology of Saxon is uncertain and they were first definitely mentioned as raiders in the 4th century. The term Angles was given for later settlers on different coasts, and it clearly does imply a connection to a specific region.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:20, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

I think that you are out of date, there has been a lot of recent scholarship on this. They have linked the archaeology of Frisia with the so called Jutish areas in England, but not to Jutland. Have a look at these books "The Land of the English Kin. Studies in Wessex and Anglo-Saxon England in Honour of Professor Barbara Yorke (2020) - this is open source, "The Archaeology of Kent to AD 600 (2007)", "The Early Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms of Southern Britain AD 450-650 (2014)" or this paper "Saxons in the Meon Valley: A Place-Name Survey (2014)".Wilfridselsey (talk) 11:32, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

I think you are changing subject, or maybe you've forgotten what my original remark was. I pointed out that there is very little evidence for there having been multiple Germanic tribes who arrived in England and continued to be seen as members of those specific continental "arrived" groups, and distinct from other Old English speakers. Archaeology can only give vague hints about such things. Anyway, I certainly don't see anything justifying your implied claim that there is an academic consensus for the existence of a Frisian kingdom in England. No one denies that there was movement of people and material goods though, and that is not what I was talking about.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:04, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

Yes we have moved off subject but I was just addressing your point about no Frisian kingdoms? Anyway, we can agree on one thing there is very little consensus when talking about Anglo-Saxon history. I did not mean that the Jutes were Frisian I said there is a growing body of evidence to support a link. In other words there is evidence to support the hypothesis. Not that it is a fact.Wilfridselsey (talk) 12:45, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

No problem. Sometimes worth having a side discussion to see where we all are. (I think so anyway.) If you are interested in reports of Frisians I suppose you know about the strange report of Procopius. Sorry to Mr Sunak but I don't think anyone has ever succeeded in closing the English channel. There were Bretons and Saxons on both sides of the Romanised channel for a long times, but further north there is no doubt of contact with Frisians, Angles and Jutes (and later Flemings). My point was that the Angles are a little special in the sense that we can connect a specific sub-group in England with a specific sub-group in Europe.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:44, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

Folks, this entire discussion frankly boggles my continental European mind. I'm a historian (and Anglicist) specialised in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, and I've yet to meet a scholar who took any form of umbrage at the term "Anglo-Saxons" in historical contexts. Historians constantly use terms of convenience and convention. As do humans in general: A large part of the "English" are more Saxon than Anglish, most of the "French" are decidedly un-Frankish, and the "Russians" tend no longer to arrive in Eastern Europe in Scandinavian boats. Hell, even my own country's name is silly (I'm Swiss, but I'm definitely not "from Schwyz" -- that place is a shitshow.).

When readers *not* from the US see the term "Anglo-Saxons", they will -- provided they have some interest in history -- immediately think of stuff like Beowulf, King Arthur's wars, Alfred and his burnt cookies, guys unironically named Offa offing people, and a rather odd type of Phrygian hat. Jokes aside: if you're not American, "Anglo-Saxon" is a conventional name for a historical cultural complex. It has the benefit of having been used by contemporary scholars (Paul the Deacon) and even as a self-descriptive ethnonym in a king's titles (Aethelstan)! So what if people with idiotic mindsets also use it? The notion that we should give up its use because modern-day doofuses eat at the same lexical buffet as everyone else is, frankly or frenchly, daft. Trigaranus (talk) 18:09, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

Trigaranus, I'm a bit late seeing this; please let me note that--well, if you'd like to meet a scholar who took any form of umbrage etc., here I am. Pleased to meet you. Surely you are familiar with the organization formerly known as ISAS, now called ISSEME; this is five years old already. Johnbod, I'm surprised this rather important name change wasn't discussed here at all, only mentioned. And yes, Trigaranus, this A-S shit hit the fan just as I was making the next-to-final copy edits on a book I was editing, with Brill, and my co-editor and I acted on it. So please don't think that this is not an important matter to many of us in the field. I think that in a few years someone in our business (my business) will look at this discussion and laugh. Drmies (talk) 21:39, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

Well, as you say, it's been 5 years, & I see no signs at all of UK usage shifting. I suspect UK academics see this as something their American colleagues have to do, but they don't. The case of "Celtic" is perhaps similar - academics all understandably dislike the term for a whole range of reasons, but recognise that it has an unshakeable grip on public awareness, as well as a political dimension, and are not attempting to dislodge it. British Museum books and display texts over recent decades show this pretty clearly. Johnbod (talk) 13:42, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

Just to note, as an American, when I hear "Anglo-Saxon" I also think of Beowulf, Arthur, Alfred, and Sutton Hoo. But I'm a history buff. 3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 13:33, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

The whole, 'Let's look for words that people might find offensive and insist that they are not used' approach is futile; because the people who want to use words in an offensive way will just convert the new replacements into being offensive. Urselius (talk) 11:03, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Urselius, your characterization of the (justified) move to shift the name of the field to an a. more appropriate and b. less racially charged one is silly and insulting. No one was "looking for words". Drmies (talk) 21:39, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

Drmies For a sub-continent sized country the USA is incredibly insular and parochial. Your reply is "silly and insulting". There is nothing racially charged about the term 'Anglo-Saxon' outside the USA, so for US citizens to impose their local concerns on international scholarship is unforgivable. I am old enough to remember when the term 'coloured' was polite usage and 'black' was insulting, when used as descriptors of people, so I think that my comment on the mutability of the offensive use of words was entirely accurate. Urselius (talk) 21:57, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

Urselius, what a remarkably shortsighted set of comments. I'm surprised you didn't pull the old "woke leftist" on me. In short, "There is nothing racially charged about the term 'Anglo-Saxon' outside the USA" is just totally wrong (but then, this field is not your specialty, is it--it is mine), and whether it was US citizens who proposed these name changes is pretty immaterial. Who the hell knows, maybe there were Canadians among them. You could look at ISSEME's program for their 2025 conference in Dusseldorf, which as you may know is in Germany. The present conversation could fall under the second bullet point, but this is already old news. Oh, I don't know if you think that I am a US citizen: I am not. Drmies (talk) 22:12, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

Drmies I happen to be clinically myopic, but I can recognise bullshit when I see or smell it. From your 'woke' comment you seem to be under the misapprehension that I am some flavour of Right Winger. Nothing could be further from the truth, I am a Socialist and Trades Unionist, I have been on many a picket line in the wind and snow, and, indeed, been on anti-racism marches. I even possess a small bust of Lenin, which sits next to my small bust of Charles Darwin. As a Socialist, I resent this expression of American imperialism. You being, or not being, American is irrelevant, the whole 'Anglo-Saxon' is a racist term farrago had its origins in the US and it is solely a reflection of US mores and society. Outside of the USA 'Anglo-Saxon' does not possess any racist or elitist, or 'you can't join this golf club', connotations. In the UK 'Anglo-Saxon' has quite the opposite meaning, with connotations of things that are basic, of the common people, down to earth, even boorish. I suspect that American sentiment has strong-armed some academic opinion outside of the US, but it has also engendered fierce opposition in the same circles. The sensibilities of people from a country that relatively recently officially considered the Portuguese and Spanish people from Spain to be of different races should rightly be ignored with some contempt. BTW I have drunk altbier in Düsseldorf. Urselius (talk) 22:23, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

I also resent your condescending tone. I have an interest in Late Antiquity and Early Medieval history dating back many decades, I have an extensive library of books on these periods. A cursory look at my editing history will confirm my expertise. I am also not a professional historian of the Napoleonic era, but that did not prevent me getting 6 articles on Napoleonic topics published, one of which won an international prize, the judges for which were professional Napoleonic scholars. I have also provided technical expertise for an ancient DNA project, so have some professional knowledge that is quite applicable. Urselius (talk) 09:29, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

I suggest we focus on this group of articles. I don't see how any of this leads to any practical proposal we can use. Historians and other academics, American or non-American are welcome to express concerns about confusions caused by current word usage, but that does not mean they have given us a new term to use in the period which is relevant here. I see no concrete move proposal above? I presume we can't just switch to "English". That would surely be worse. (There is hardly any term for topics like this which can not be used in a controversial way.) "Anglo-Saxon" still seems to be the only clear available term, and it is still a commonly used term for academics studying this period. I can of course see that we should write our articles about this period using clear explanations about the terminology, good disambiguations etc. Honestly I think that can cover most potential confusions? --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:03, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

An American student recently, without discussion, tried to convert an article (I forget which) to use "Old English" instead of AS - I suppose that could work, if it were generally accepted, but I've never seen it elsewhere. Johnbod (talk) 13:42, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

I may have to chime in by opening with the compulsory listing of my leftist credentials (can supply pictures of my party donations, of my alienation from the fruits of my labour, or of guilloutines for extra credit). With that out of the way: What annoys me almost the most about this is how in PC language cosmetics, people always fiddle around with the signifiant, as if the undesirable notions weren't attached to the signifié. And it's as if some scholars (and Brill) were now shifting around to argue that "Anglo-Saxon" only had one signifié, with no acknowledgement of the fact that it took quite a while to get to the 19th century from the 9th.

From where I stand, this is just becoming ever more pointless. We're literally engaging in a nontroversy, regardless of the editorial virtue signalling done by publishing houses like Brill. We're having a debate about an established name with fairly clear semantics for the mediaeval period. The term is useful for the first millennium because it contrasts with "Roman", "Celtic", "British", "Scandinavian", and to some much lesser degree even the later "English". As historians, we use it for the people who established the heptarchy, not for those who did Cape Cod. It frankly doesn't matter in the least whether in the modern day it touches on modern-day sensibilities due to modern-day post-colonial issues or some bullshit pseudo-ethnic narrative trumpeted about by the KKK.

There is a fairly simple comparison to be made to illustrate what lies at the heart of the issue:

Let's take a geographically adjacent example. There is unquestionably a tremendous amount of modern-day controversy as to who should be regarded as "Celtic" these days and by what standards. There is clearly a good helping of strident anti-English and post-colonial political sentiments thrown into the bargain. (I'm neither English nor "Celtic", whatever that means today, so again, this is no skin off my rosy nose.) In the case of "Celts", there was entirely no usage of the term whasoever by any populations in the British Isles, so the term is even less of an endonym for anyone in Antiquity or the Early Middle Ages. If I remember correctly, it was only ever first applied to Insular Celts in the 16th century. But nevertheless, there is (a) absolutely no doubt that the Celtic-speaking peoples of Ireland and Great Britain were Celts by conventional usage of the term (with increasing consensus even regarding the Picts), and (b) absolutely no impetus to retcon an established linguistic and cultural label due to modern-day touchiness or misplaced political correctness.

If we're behing honest, we can probably agree that there is no inherent difference between the two examples -- except for this: "Celtic" even today still describes an "underdog" cultural complex that had long suffered from English colonialism, while "Anglo-Saxon" in modern times is connected to 19th and 20th century English colonialism, imperialism, and racism. This is the whole extent of the difference. It allows for displays of public pride in "Celtic" culture, and casts the mark of jingo on any pride in "Anglo-Saxon" culture. This difference in the prestige of modern-day "Celtic" vs. "Anglo-Saxon" identities has absolutely nothing to do with what Nad Froich mac Cuirc or Coel Hen did or did not do back in the day; nothing to do with what Ælfric or Leofgifu were up to in the Anglo-Saxon period. But everything to do with what Charles Parnell didn't but Nathan Bedford Forrest or Cecil Rhodes did do (i.e. oppress people). Thanks to this, in a weird projection of these modern virtues and vices into the past, the term "Celtic" is still deemed acceptable usage for Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, but "Anglo-Saxon" is supposed to be taboo for the same period -- because some readers today might "be offended" by it? Although these terms describe different entities separated by more than a millennium? I'm sorry, but what does one have to do with the other besides the name? Names can mean two things. I'm literally holding a mouse, and you know which kind. This type of defensive rebranding is pandering to those with the least capacity for contrast and the least interest in context. And in that, it is only marginally less of a non sequitur than accusing a professor of Sinology of racism for teaching his students to say "nèi ge" because it sounds like the N-word. But acting as if "the A-S word" was anywhere on a par with a justifiedly suppressed racist slur, and therefore needed to be retired from usage due to the pain and suffering it allegedly causes poor widows and orphans, is peak performative actionism. Trigaranus (talk) 22:55, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

We can’t switch to English because English and England were derived from the Anglo in Anglo Saxon 81.98.111.131 (talk) 20:41, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

"Anglo-Saxons aren’t real"

In other news, "Anglo-Saxons aren’t real, Cambridge tells students" according to a Telegraph article (archived copy here). TSventon (talk) 20:27, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

Clearly a bit twisted in that story but reading between the lines it seems to be about the Anglo-Saxon race idea (not their existence as such) and that idea does exist, and did get a bit of a boost in the early days of genetic studies, when there were claims that genetics could prove that there had been Apartheid and genocide. These things were much discussed among American genealogists for example. But as more data came in things settled down.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:31, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

Yes, reading between the lines is necessary. It is interesting, but not surprising, that Cambridge is trying to "address recent concerns over use of the term ‘Anglo-Saxon’ and its perceived connection to ethnic/racial English identity". There is some criticism of the article at https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/142k7ed/anglosaxons_arent_real_is_this_true/ . TSventon (talk) 08:27, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

"Were"? Are we Anglo-Saxons/Saxons/English being denied our identity? We still exist. We are. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:C7C:B008:2500:C86B:8A8B:F283:333A (talk) 21:10, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

Anglo-Saxon tribe

Only once is the word "tribe" mentioned in this article, and then not even linked. Is there some sort of woke filter being applied? Clearly the Angles and Saxons were each "tribes"? Thus surely the combination was also a "tribe"? This contrasts with the article Bantu peoples which starts: "The Bantu peoples are an ethnolinguistic grouping of approximately 400 distinct native African ethnic groups who speak Bantu languages". Why are people living today in the UK who identify as "Anglo-Saxon" by "ethnolinguistic grouping" not afforded the same courtesy of being recognised as such by Wikipedia? According to this article "Anglo-Saxon" is merely a culture, not a tribe nor an "ethnolinguistic grouping". Assuming that everyone living today belongs to some "ethnolinguistic grouping", maybe to several, to which one would belong a white English person today? It appears that by Wikipedia's definition he would have none at all. Is that a form of intellectual genocide? 2A00:23C6:C42F:3701:F50B:D120:E52B:F0DE (talk) 12:21, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Oh, you again! The general view among scholars in recent decades is that both the Angles and Saxons were very mixed groups, with members originating from many continental groups that could be called tribes, with the titles Angles and Saxons essentially taken from the tribes of the ruling families. Thus Anglo-Saxons and Bantu peoples are somewhat similar terms, but the AS tribes pretty much got put through the blender in the migration and settlement process. Johnbod (talk) 14:38, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

And nobody ever calls the Bantu peoples a single "tribe" - "Thus surely the combination was also a "tribe"?" is not how that term (increasingly regarded as unhelpful anyway) is used. Johnbod (talk) 18:05, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

We've recently gone back to using the term "tribe" on Germanic peoples, but there is and should be some care about the word, and every context is different. First reason is that we are supposed to reflect what experts publish, and they tend to avoid it. Second reason, which probably also explains the first, is that the word is easy to misunderstand. It conjures up many different types of thing, and is not really a term with any single clear definition. The context is important. I think in Germanic peoples the meaning of tribes in such a Roman context was clear enough. (Note that the term tends to always get its meaning from what it is being contrasted with.) But when we talk about Angles and Saxons the context is different, and a lot of what we think we know about the social structures in that period are just guesses which academics don't fully agree about. The contrast being implied between tribal and non-tribal is presumably between Anglo-Saxons and Romano-Britons. Both were cut off from the empire which had once given their society direction, but both had lived within that complex structure for many generations. Both were presumably aiming to build something Roman-like back up again, and they probably worked together on that project to a large extent. Coming back to your rhetorical question, I do not think that people either today or in the past all see themselves as belonging to one, or even several "ethnolinguistic groupings". It seems possible to discuss whether this would be a better term than "cultural group" in this particular case, given that this particular group was eventually apparently defined to some extent by language. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:15, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Genetics and Primary Sources

We seem to be rapidly acquiring multiple paragraphs about genetics where we had no such mention before. The first edit was by Andrew Lancaster, here [2], and today a further two paragraphs were added from the same primary source here [3]. I am concerned on a couple of fronts:

1. Information is being duplicated in Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, and there are questions if this page is really the right place for these population genetics. Why do we have two pages if we are putting the same information on both?
2. All three paragraphs use the same single source. The citations don't make this clear as they duplicate rather than reference the first, but they are all the same source. That would not be such in issue, except that this is a primary source, a single study. We should not be doing that.
3. A secondary source on population genetics has been removed for being out of date.

I note, however, that Andrew Lancaster quite rightly removed some summary of genetics in the lead sourced to a newspaper, so what we have is an improvement on that. However, we should really be using secondary sources and not primary studies where we do talk about genetics. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 20:07, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

All reasonable questions. This is just a first thoughtless answer.

• Overlap is a challenge on our Anglo-Saxon articles IMHO. I think anyone who tries to work a bit on them will quickly see what I mean. It feels a bit like we have too many articles sometimes, but I also understand the history and was involved in discussions to get to where we are on that. Perhaps it will get easier as we get the articles more truly separated. In any case this is not just a DNA question, but also involves other sub-sections. See previous discussions on talk pages. In any case of course I agree that there should be one article where the main discussion is, and that would presumably be the settlement one, meaning that this article should get only a short version.
• My fuzzy memory is that summaries of the Gretzinger article involved were starting to populate WP articles and at first we resisted that. Once I spent time on it though I felt that this was one of those articles which is objectively a breakthrough, and is going to keep coming back. It is definitely better than having discussions about Y DNA and so on, and just because of the nature of the study this one is unlikely to be found wrong any time soon. So it seemed better to try using a controlled approach, with short careful summaries of the attributed conclusions which are most obviously relevant. I think we have to do that some times with DNA articles. The field seems to hardly publish anything truly secondary.

Anyway, in practice any big expansions of that material remains a concern to me also. I think that needs to be looked at carefully. Whether I went to far already is also something which can be discussed. I was hesitant and I tried to be careful.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:42, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

I have reverted the edit for now. To explain my reasoning a little more concerning the short summary: If you look above that paragraph you will see a quick summarizing of the obviously important debate over the last generation or so about how many people actually moved. One thing we can say about this article is that the most extreme positions are wrong (which is not unexpected I think). Some aspects of that debate are now superseded speculation, and only interesting in order to see the background. So to hold these simplest conclusions out of WP would therefore feel quite odd, because they so obviously changed the state of the art. OTOH I tried not to go beyond that -at least in this article. The settlement article OTOH probably should have some more DNA discussion but at the moment I feel it still needs more pruning in many sections -not just DNA- in order to make it more clearly focussed, and easier to read and edit.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:01, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

I did think of reverting as it replaces an overall view with one aspect, but I decided against it. I found the statement about unadmixed immigrants on p. 118 of the Gretzinger paper, but I could not find the percentages in the original version. If the original version is to be retained, then it needs thorough checking against the source. Dudley Miles (talk) 21:39, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

That rings a bell. I think there was already a discussion and adjustment on the settlement article.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:47, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. I agree secondary sources are hard to find on subjects like this. Also yes, way better than all those Y DNA studies on small numbers of individuals. I'm happy with a very cautious approach. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 08:38, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

Modification?

Re:

” The term Anglo-Saxon is becoming increasingly controversial among some scholars, especially those in America, for its modern politicised nature and adoption by the far-right. In 2019, the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists changed their name to the International Society for the Study of Early Medieval England, in recognition of this controversy.”

could I suggest modification or even deletion of this paragraph. For a start, it’s just an extraction from the International Society report. More importantly, there is no evidence of it being “increasingly controversial”.

A line saying “the term has attracted some controversy” would be more accurate. Worth noting the “controversy “ has attracted plenty of mockery in the UK 81.98.111.131 (talk) 20:48, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Controversy seems to be ongoing, for example Anglo-Saxon England (journal) was relaunched as Early Medieval England and its Neighbours this year and according to the Telegraph the "University [of Nottingham] cancels Anglo-Saxon to decolonise the curriculum", also this year . TSventon (talk) 17:39, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

The new journal says at [4] that the new name reflects its expanded scope and that authors are not discouraged from using the term Anglo-Saxon. Dudley Miles (talk) 20:44, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Saxons link

@Johnbod: you have removed a link to Saxons in the "Related ethnic groups" section of the infobox with the summary "not the right link - probably". Can you explain the problem? I think it is a useful link and it is linked in the body of the article. The meaning of the term Saxons before 800 isn't always clear, but the Saxons article discusses this. TSventon (talk) 09:29, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

Yes I am not a big fan of this type of infobox information but given that it is there for now I think a link is ok to make. Even the "Old Saxons" seem to have had some kind of coastal connection near the mouth of the Elbe, in Northalbingia, and that is even if we doubt the Ptolemy mention.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:19, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

Well, exactly "some kind of coastal connection near the mouth of the Elbe" is very much peripheral to the main subject of Saxons, but if you put it in the infobox people can't see this. I left the same link in the text, deliberately. It is "useful" if you actually read most of the article, but the vast majority won't. Do we actually need or want this infobox at all? There's not much in it, but as always problems arise. Johnbod (talk) 14:27, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

On the one hand I also don't see what this infobox is for, and would have no problem with deleting it. On the other hand, I don't see a problem with saying all Saxons, according to all normal usages, were in some sense or another related to Anglo Saxons. (Then again I'd have problem with Franks either.) By the way, I suppose based on the current logic we should also include Frisii and Frisians (currently two articles on WP). The idea of including modern English people is also OK by me but it does probably demonstrate some problems, because logically it should also include Scottish people, Dutch people, Flemish people, Danish people, Northern German people..., and probably the Welsh?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:52, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

I am a fan of infoboxes, but not in this case. The information is duplicated in the template below, apart from "Related ethnic groups", which as Andrew points out is problematic. I would delete. Dudley Miles (talk) 19:14, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

Should this new article exist?

See Anglo-Saxon migration debate, and talk page. I think it should be merged back to the existing articles? Please give feedback, because I notice editing of all related articles is pushing ahead. Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:06, 22 February 2025 (UTC)

To be clear, please post comments at the new article so they are all in one place.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:33, 22 February 2025 (UTC)

UPDATE. I have proposed a merge on the new article's talk page [5]. Please discuss there.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:31, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

UPDATE. The new article still exists, although effective discussion about what it is for is IMHO not sufficient. Feedback is lacking there from regular editors on these topics. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:25, 27 February 2025 (UTC)

length of this article (update)

We've discussed before that this article is very long, and one obvious way to shorten it is to reduce the size of the history section, and focus it more to be about the culture and society of the Anglo-Saxons. There is a separate article for History of Anglo-Saxon England, and ironically that article is in many ways shorter than the history section here. However, for the time being I've avoided shortening this article, because obviously some of the material here could be useful for improving the history article. In my draftspace there is a comparison of the two articles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Andrew_Lancaster/Anglo-Saxon_drafting . Dudley Miles also made a sort of synthesis quite some time back in a sandbox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Dudley_Miles/sandbox2 But there is work to be done still. I'll probably try to make a bit more progress in merging materials over into the history article in coming weeks. Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:39, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

I started on a rewrite of the history of AS England in a sandbox, but I got diverted to a major off-Wiki project, which is now finished, and a minor Wiki one, which is nearly finished. The sandbox is currently a series of notes on the very early period and removal of unreliable sources from the current version of the rest of the article. I was intending to return to the draft in the next few days. It would of course take a long time, and I would ask for feedback before going live. If Andrew Lancaster thinks it is better to merge from the Anglo-Saxons article I am happy to drop the rewrite and go on to my next project, rewriting Æthelred the Unready. What do people think? Dudley Miles (talk) 10:26, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

To be clear, my original idea was to merge from this article (and then later reduce it). Because your efforts are not completed, both your sandbox and this article can be helpful now. What I also did back around the same time was improve (hopefully) the chronologically earliest sections of this article. So those sections might be different from the ones you improved when you started. I don't remember all the details to be honest. Anyway, in the end anyone working on this (including you and I) would be recommended to look at everything critically.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:50, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

Fine. As there are several people working in this area, I will concentrate on Æthelred. Dudley Miles (talk) 11:55, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

I don't think there are many editors if any who are likely to work on this. I'll start from the earliest sections anyway, and try for a little while. Perhaps while working on Æthelred you could also have a glance at the sections for his in both these articles? --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:39, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

UPDATE. I've done a crude transfer of bits and pieces over to the history article, and I think we should declare open season on shortening this article, but perhaps it would be best to throw some ideas around first:

• An obvious section to shorten is the chronological history section, which has its own article. This section is big enough to be called a long article.
• First the devil's advocate question. Do we need an chronological history? I mean that we need a few bits of one, but do they need to form a complete chronology.
• Sections I think we can't do without: the origins of the Anglo Saxons and their culture; discussion of the formation of the heptarchy kingdoms; discussion of religion can contain discussion of key events and trends in different periods etc.
• If we do need a chronological section should it perhaps be a simple bullet point chronology of key events?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:17, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

Reference errors

Hi @Andrew Lancaster:, please could you check a couple of reference errors from today:

• 12 [[#CITEREF|]].
• 15 Springer 2004, p. 36. , error message Harv error: this link doesn't point to any citation. Presumably this is Springer, Matthias (2004), Die Sachsen.

TSventon (talk) 20:54, 24 June 2025 (UTC)

thanks, done--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:11, 24 June 2025 (UTC)

Thank you, do you have page details for ref 12? TSventon (talk) 21:26, 24 June 2025 (UTC)

I made some adjustments. Hopefully ok? Feedback welcome.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:29, 27 June 2025 (UTC)

"Cultural group" vs. "people"

The article employs the term "cultural group", when the Anglo-Saxons were quite plainly a people, an ethnicity if you'd like. My edit applying the latter was reverted. I welcome further comment from more editors. AddMore-III (talk) 19:55, 2 July 2025 (UTC)

There's a vast amount of scholarly discussion on this, much reflected in earlier discussions here. At least in the earlier periods, "quite plainly a people" is just wrong. Johnbod (talk) 00:13, 3 July 2025 (UTC)

It is far from clear that the Anglo-Saxons saw themselves as a single people in the early period. They had mixed origins that included Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Britons, Frisians and others. If you believe Bede, even Huns were in the mix, which could be supported by Caitlin Green's work on the origin of the place name Tealby in Lincolnshire. These groups coalesced in different ratios and in different ways in different places, and their elites created origin legends that used ethnic markers to differentiate them from other groups, so calling them an ethnicity is a bit of a stretch at this point. From the 9th century it's all a little clearer, as an English/Anglo-Saxon identity starts to be opposed to the Norse "gentiles" who were settling in England, and the Welsh speakers in Anglo-Saxon controlled regions had mostly adopted English.Boynamedsue (talk) 06:29, 16 July 2025 (UTC)

"even Huns were in the mix" Not surprising. The short-lived nomadic empire of the Huns is thought to have consisted of a "Hunnic ruling body" and a large number of "vassalized Germanic peoples". Per the main article, the empire (and probably its army) included Goths, Gepids, Sarmatians, Heruli, Alans, Rugii, Suevi, and Sciri", alongside groups with only temporary affiliation to the Hunnic leaders. The Roman sources of the era had trouble telling them apart. Dimadick (talk) 16:18, 16 July 2025 (UTC)