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In modern times, the term "Anglo-Saxons" is used by scholars to refer collectively to the Old English speaking groups in Britain. As a compound term, it has the advantage of covering the various English-speaking groups on the one hand, and to avoid possible misunderstandings from using the terms "Saxons" or "Angles" (English), both of which terms could be used either as collectives referring ...
The four main kingdoms in Anglo-Saxon England were East Anglia, Mercia, Northumbria (originally two kingdoms, Bernicia and Deira), and Wessex. Minor kingdoms included Essex, Kent, and Sussex. Other minor kingdoms and territories are mentioned in sources such as the Tribal Hideage: Haestingas; Hwicce; Kingdom of the Iclingas, a precursor state ...
The Anglo-Saxons, uniquely among the early Germanic peoples, preserved royal genealogies. [1] The earliest source for these genealogies is Bede, who in his Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (completed in or before 731 [2]) said of the founders of the Kingdom of Kent:
By around 500, communities of Anglo-Saxons were established in southern and eastern Britain. [200] Härke and Michael Wood estimate that the British population in the area that eventually became Anglo-Saxon England was around one million by the start of the fifth century; [127] [201] however, what happened to the Britons has been debated.
A 12th-century list of kings gives him a reign length of four weeks, though one manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says he died only 16 days after his father. [7] However, the fact that he ruled is not accepted by all historians. Also, it is unclear whether—if Ælfweard was declared king—it was over the whole kingdom or of Wessex only.
The tree is largely based on the late 9th-century Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the West Saxon Genealogical Regnal List (reproduced in several forms, including as a preface to the [B] manuscript of the Chronicle), [1] and Asser's Life of King Alfred. These sources are all closely related and were compiled at a similar date, and incorporate a desire in ...
Anglo-Saxon societies were based on Germanic law and custom. Germanic tribes such as the Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Franks, and Lombards became Romanized to varying degrees by the 5th century. Nevertheless, this was not true of the Anglo-Saxons, who originated from northern Germany and Denmark and had no direct contact with the Roman Empire.
The Christianisation of Anglo-Saxon England was the process starting in the late 6th century by which population of England formerly adhering to the Anglo-Saxon, and later Nordic, forms of Germanic paganism converted to Christianity and adopted Christian worldviews.