Anglo-Saxons

The Anglo-Saxons were the dominant people living in England from the mid-5th century AD until the Norman conquest in 1066. They spoke Germanic languages and are identified by Bede as the descendants of three powerful tribes.^[1] These were the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes.^[1] Their language, Anglo-Saxon or Old English, came from West Germanic dialects. It changed into Middle English from about the 11th century. Old English was divided into four main dialects: West Saxon, Mercian, Northumbrian and Kentish.

The Anglo-Saxon culture replaced the Celtic culture in the area that is now England. Modern historians do not think that the Anglo-Saxons drove the Celts away, but instead that they became an upper class to the Celts in England, and the Celts then became part of the Anglo-Saxon culture.^[2] They created seven kingdoms in England. They never conquered Wales but Anglo-Saxon kings did claim overlordship from time to time.^[3] Some Anglo-Saxons came to Britain as warriors, but others came peacefully to become farmers or to raise families.^[4]

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1} Emma Mason (January 22, 2016). "10 things you (probably) didn't know about the Anglo-Saxons". HIstoryExtra/BBC History Magazine. Immediate Media Company Ltd. Retrieved December 15, 2016.
2. ↑ Härke, Heinrich (2011). "Anglo-Saxon Immigration and Ethnogenesis". Medieval Archaeology. 55 (1): 1–28. doi:10.1179/174581711X13103897378311. S2CID 162331501.
3. ↑ Nicholas Hooper; Matthew Bennett, The Cambridge Illustrated Atlas of Warfare: The Middle Ages, 768-1487 (Cambridge; New Yori: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 70
4. ↑ "Anglo-Saxons: Invasion and settlement". BBC Bitesize. BBC. Retrieved 14 April 2016.