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The Anglo-Saxon Church

I. ANGLO-SAXON OCCUPATION OF BRITAIN

The word Anglo-Saxon is used as a collective name for those Teutonic settlers --

the foundation stock of the English race -- who after dispossessing the Celtic

inhabitants of Britain in the middle of the fifth century, remained masters of the

country until a new order of things was created in 1066 by the coming of the

Normans.

Though etymologically open to some objection (cf. Stevenson's "Asser", 149) the

term Anglo-Saxon is convenient in practice, the more so because we do not

know very much concerning the provenance of the Low German tribes who about

the year 449 began to invade Britain.

The Jutes, who came first and occupied Kent and the Isle of Wight, have been

supposed to be identical with the inhabitants of Jutland, but it has been recently

shown that this is probably an error (Stevenson, ibid., 167). They were, however,

a Frisian tribe.

The Saxons of the fifth century were better known and more widely spread,

occupying the present Westphalia, Hanover and Brunswick. The Angles in

Tacitus's day were settled on the right bank of the Elbe close to its mouth. They

seem to have been nearly akin to their then neighbors, the Lombards, who after

long wanderings eventually became the masters of Italy. It is curious to find the

great historian of the Lombards, Paul the Deacon, describing their dress as

resembling that "which the Anglo-Saxons are wont to wear."

In England the Saxons, after establishing themselves in the south and east, in

the localities now represented by Sussex and Essex, founded a great kingdom in

the West which gradually absorbed almost the whole country south of the

Thames. In fact, the King of Wessex ultimately became the lord of the entire land

of Britain.

The Angles, who followed close upon the heels of the Saxons, founded the

kingdoms of East Anglia (Norfolk and Suffolk), Mercia (the Midlands), Deira

(Yorkshire), and Bernicia (the country farther north). The extermination of the

native Inhabitants was probably not so complete as was at one time supposed,

and a recent authority (Hodgkin) has declared that "Anglo-Celt rather than

Anglo-Saxon is the fitting designation of our race."

But, although the Britons were Christians, the survivors were in any case too

insignificant a body to convert their conquerors. Only in the extreme west and

north, where the Teutonic invaders could not penetrate, did the Celtic Church still

maintain its succession of priests and bishops. No effort seems to have been

made by them to preach to the Saxons, and later on, when St. Augustine and

St. Lawrence tried to open up friendly relations, the British Church held severely

aloof.