| 1500 Years Ago |
The birth of ENGLAND
- 500 years of culture and religion destroyed or nearly so.
-Invasion , Invasion, Invasion.
The birth of England.
Prior to this time the land we call England was called Britain by the Romans. It was only after the Romans left and the barbaric Angles from northern Germany arrived that the word England was coined out of Angleland or as the French now say Angleterre.
The start of the so called DARK AGES.
Perhaps a better title would be THE AGE OF DESTRUCTION
Just before the beginning of this period the Roman Empire was still ruling lands from their Western Atlantic out posts in England, France and Portugal to their furthest Eastern base in present day Middle East. To the south the Romans ruled across the whole of Mediterranean coast of North Africa with their biggest bases in Alexandria (Egypt) and in present day Tunisia in the town of Carthage. Their northern boarders were the problem. The Romans had never held much land north of the Rhine river in Germany (or the Danube in Eastern Europe).
Then one by one these apparently brutal and warlike peoples living in all of the present day countries north of the Rhine attacked and eventually destroyed the Roman Empire. The rulers had become decadent and their armies were largely manned by mercenaries. (Non Romans)
The order of events was as follows;
- A Germanic tribe (the Vandals) attacked and destroyed the mighty Roman empire.
- In England the Romans who had ruled for 400 years had to leave in a hurry to defend Rome. Alas, perhaps, in vain.
- England was left defenceless against every warmongering tribe in Northern Europe and Scandinavia.
Saxons were the first to arrive in England. The Saxons came from the coastal areas of present day Germany in the fertile land between the rivers Rhine and Elbe. (AD 440- 650). Saxons settled across the south of England. The Angles came from the present day boarders of Germany and Denmark north of the river Elbe. The Angles settled in present day East “Anglia” and northward across the Pennines towards Manchester (West Anglia). Jutes from present day Denmark (Jutland peninsular) settled in Kent.
Cultural collapse and rebirth
These fighters from the north of the Rhine had never been ruled by the educated Romans who in turn had taken much from Greek culture and the new Christian faith of Jesus. Books and public records were burnt as being no use to people who can’t read. Amongst all this chaos one Romanised Britain stands out and rescues much of the Roman classical learning (which included the Roman official religion Christianity) available to him. This is Patricus, or as he is now better known St Patrick. Patrick who loved the Irish fortunately set up home there and preached Christianity and Roman culture to the Irish through a network of monasteries set up for the purpose.
Some 100 years after St Patrick, his followers sailed to the west coast of Scotland and continued to expand these teaching missions. The inhabitants of what we now call Scotland at this time were the tough barbaric Picts that the Romans had kept out of England with the help of Hadrian’s Wall. These new Irish settlers were called Scoties,(another word for Ireland) hence Scotland. Inspite of the new barbaric occupants of England from northern Germany, the St Patrick movement moved south into northern England where in Jarrow St Bede (or the Venerable Bede as he is better known) has provided the best written evidence of the time in his “Ecclesiastical History of the English people” (He wrote in Latin, King Alfred translated into English)
Invasion - Vikings
Then 1200 years ago, (that is about 800 AD) the “infamous” Viking invasions commenced. The reason for this particular time in history is perhaps because the Scandinavian territories were under threat from the successful Frankish territorial expansion, economic and cultural advances. A Frankish King of note at this time was of course Charlemagne, headquartered in modern day Aachen in Belgium. The Vikings retaliated with a viciousness perhaps exaggerated by story tellers of that time into both France and England. The Franks eventually solved the problem by giving modern day Normandy to the Vikings from the north (Normandy for “Northmen”).
Viking ships were good enough to reach North America via Iceland and Greenland so they had no trouble in also reaching the west coast of France and round Spain and into the Mediterranean. Norwegian Vikings landed and colonised Jarrow in the north east of England and Dublin and Sligo in the west of Ireland. From Dublin they sailed and settled into modern day Liverpool. Danish Vikings settled into many areas of England from London to York. During the latter part of this period the Vikings had brought the whole of England under Viking rule. King Canute (Cnut) ruled England, Norway and Denmark at the same time.
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