"Anglo-Saxon genocide" contested again

[Peter Graham]

Hi J-Wo

I'm absolutley no expert on this period, so forgive me barging in, but isn't possible these 'genocides' were merely the toppling of one ruling class and the foundation of another, albeit a recently arrived one?

It certainly is. In fact, this argument puts you in very distingushed company.

The toppling gets more complex still when one realises that Saxon toppled Saxon as readily as they toppled Briton. The Britons did likewise. We like our history neat - and never more so than when dealing with an obscure period such as the Dark Ages. We also like to see history through our own eyes - and, at the moment, we seem obsessed with the primacy of nation states. This causes many to view the period as essentially an ethnic struggle between Briton and Saxon - an approach which I believe is fundamentally flawed.

I mean, if I was a Saxon Lord or whatever, I'd leave the peasantry alone to get on with the already existant farming infrastructure etc- if in ain't broke why fix it?

So would I.

Regards,

Peter

 

[svalbard]

Hi Peter,

http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/19/7/1008.long

http://www.gnxp.com/MT2/archives/000648.html

The above articles tackle the gene pool question and like many studies of these kind can be looked at in a number of ways. The first one is heavy on the science with the analaysis about two thirds of the way through. The authors make no claims. However their findings about how many migrant Saxon's it would take to change the gene pool is interesting. More importantly how long it would have taken if it was not a mass migration.

The second article is more biased in it's outlook.

Regards,

'Dog with a Bone' Svalbard.

 

[Peter Graham]

Hi Svalbard,

Interesting links - thanks for that.

I'm no geneticist and I've always got a bit of an aversion to posting links to sources which I can't really comment on, but I am aware that there are other studies which show much smaller migration levels.

But even if we take the Oxford Journal study at face value, I still don't see that it supports the notion of replacement of one population with another one. Nor does it specifically or exclusively support an adventus in 440 or thereabouts. The authors are at pains to point out that whilst they have assumed a single migration event, the data does not preclude other conclusions. They also cannot say when the incomers came or whether the incomers lived alongside - or in place of - the earlier inhabitants. We know that the counties which are traditionally reported to have seen greatest English immigration are also those with the largest contemporary populations - perhaps suggesting (but no more than that) co-existence rather than replacement. The finds for Lincolnshire (one of those counties) also points heavily at co-existence.

I can't see that the evidence clarifies the issue of whether intermarriage would leave the same genetic markers.

However, if well-founded, I'd agree that the results do point at something more than the replacement of warrior aristocracies alone. There is other evidence of this (the size of the early English cemeteries and cryptic hints about the early Mercian king list in Beowulf, to name but two pieces).

The real question is whether the English won by conquest or assimilation. I think it depended. To see it as an ethnic struggle of Saxon-vs-Briton or even as some sort of analogy for modern day relations between the English and their "Celtic" neighbours (as Beresford Ellis does, although I note in more recent comments he made that he appears to be distancing himself from some of his earlier conclusions) is to misunderstand what I think was a far more complex and fluid situation.

I don't accuse Gildas of lying, but I do accuse him of serious exaggeration. I accept that the Saxons were a warlike people (as were the Celts) and I find it very hard to accept that a model of kingship which is based around the martial prowess of the warband would not seek out, and engage in, conflict. I think this is what happened in the south at least. Elsewhere, the model much less certain.

I suspect we agree that Dark Age armies were small - measured in hundreds rather than thousands. If this is indeed common ground, how is is that such huge tracts of land can change hands on the outcome of one battle such as Bedford or Chester? If indeed they did, I'd argue that the answer is simple - the winning side has effectively lopped off the opposing king and his warband. The way is clear for the victors to take the top table in whatever networks of patronage and tribute exist in that area. They are not having to deal with a nation under arms. For most people, life goes on.

Regards,

Peter

 

[J-WO]

'I, for one, welcome our new Saxon overlords.'

 

[svalbard]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/the-anglo-saxon-invasion-britain-is-more-germanic-than-it-thinks-a-768706-2.html

Here is an interesting article which again shows that this debate is still very much open with new studies offering new information. I will look for some of Prof. Harke's material to study it more closely. I would like to know how he arrives at his estimate of 200,000 Anglo-Saxon settlers. If his figures are anywhere near that number then it throws a question mark over the theory of just a transfer of power to a ruling elite.

 

[paranoid marvin]

'I, for one, welcome our new Saxon overlords.'

Haha, all hail Cameron the Unready!

 

[Dave]

The London geneticist Mark Thomas is convinced that the conquerors from the continent maintained "social structures similar to apartheid," a view supported by the laws of King Ine of Wessex (around 695). They specify six social levels for the Britons, five of which refer to slaves.

To be fair to the Anglo-Saxons, the Britons would already be possessed of a 'slave mentality' from life under the Roman occupation. All the Anglo-Saxons did was to replace the Romans. The Picts and Northern Britons were never tamed.

I said earlier in this thread that Genetic Genealogy would transform this kind of research. This is only skimming the surface of the pool of what will ultimately be possible.

As a result of the brutal subjugation, the reproduction rate of the losing Britons was apparently curbed, while the winners had many children. The consequences are still evident today in the British gene pool. "People from rural England are more closely related to the northern Germans than to their countrymen from Wales or Scotland," Härke explains.

His studies were on the y-Chromosome (passed from father to son) and that conclusion is hardly a new one. I suspect strongly that if he did a similar study using the mitochondrial X-chromosome (passed from mother to child) then he would find a different story. Historically, the men folk were killed in battle, subjugated, or just massacred; but the women were more likely taken as brides.

In other words, on average, for the rural English person his most distant male ancestor was probably an Anglo-Saxon, but his most distant female ancestor was possibly a Briton. That is a gross generalisation though. (There were plenty of Romans legionnaires who stayed behind, just for starters, particularly around Hadrian's Wall.)

 

[Peter Graham]

The article isn't at all academic and is riddled with errors, but it would certainly be good to see Harke's research. I see that Michael Wood recently put the opposing view on his slightly-more-academic recent TV show, which pointed to DNA results which showed that nearly all of us in England had "Celtic" blood.

One must be careful with Ine. His law code was issued nearly three hundred years after the "adventus" - the same difference in time between us and the Old Pretender's Jacobite uprising. Ine was a king of Wessex, which abutted strong and extant Brythonic (Celtic) kingdoms. We don't know as much as we think about the nature of slavery and bonded servitude in that period, but unquestionably the top rank of Ine's subject Welshmen were relatively large landowners. Nonetheless, Ine's laws tell us very little about the political situation in the early fifth century, just as Anglo-Scottish relations today tell us very little about the 1715 uprising.

What we do know is that by Ine's time, the English kingdoms were developing into political structures stronger than the warband. We also know - or can reasonably surmise from the names of the early kings - that Ine's Wessex was originally a Brythonic rather than an English kingdom, a fact that appeared to be lost on the men who compiled the Anglo Saxon Chronicle many centuries after the kingdom had been created.

By the time of Nennius, the Annales and the Chronicle, the revolving succession of petty kingdoms of the fifth and sixth had been replaced by larger, more stable kingdoms which were starting to look and behave like nation states - Mercia, Wessex, Northumbria, Powys, Gwynedd, Dumnonia, Strathclyde, Dal Riada etc. I believe that the older history was shoehorned to fit this later model, which is where this rather simplistic notion of "Celt v Saxon" arose.

200,000 immigrants seems like a lot and there is little or no evidence of such large scale migration in the early to mid fifth - although I accept the old adage that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

As you might have guessed, my particular interest is Dark Age Lincolnshire. Lincolnshire was one of the major destinations for the Germanic immigrants, but as can be implied from the work of historians/archaelogists such as Leahy, Sawyer and Green, the evidence that exists for the fifth and sixth points at integration rather than violent and sudden displacement. If finds in the early English cemeteries are reliable, we are looking at a pastoral rather than a warrior people (in marked contrast to Kent).

Regards,

Peter

 

[svalbard]

I quite enjoy Michael Wood's shows, his In the Footsteps of Alexander is one of my all time favourite documentary series. Although I must admit to falling foul of the TV critics who panned his latest series, A.A Gill in particular. Not something I normally give in to, but I do feel Wood's of recent times is starting to present his history shows with a heavy dose of saccharine.

I am somewhat torn on this subject. My feeling is that there is an element of both peaceful settlement in certain areas and slaughter in others. I imagine there were even alliances of 'Saxon' and Brythonic, the foundation of Wessex could very well be the product of such an alliance.

The 200,000 does seem like a lot, but Stephan Oppenheimer, a geneticist(need to check that) and one of the proponents of the assimilation theory does not dismiss this figure out of hand. Large migrations does not necessarily mean genocide for the native populations, but it does increase the likelihood of conflict.

On Gildas and Bede. Interestingly Roman historians tend be taken at their word for the accounts they write about, but we cast doubt on Gildas and Bede our only concrete written window into this time.

 

[Brian G Turner]

"People from rural England are more closely related to the northern Germans than to their countrymen from Wales or Scotland," Härke explains.

It's worth noting with this comment that Britain saw repeated invasions from central and northern Europe - heck, even the Celts were supposedly Germanic in origin, coming from the area above the Alps, and this was but one wave of invasion - the Celts supplanted the people who built Stonehenge, who themselves were supposed to be migrants from northern Europe.

The curious thing about the Scots is that they originated from Ireland - so it's worth postulating that Irish ancestory might primarily be based on an earlier invasion genepool. As the Welsh retained their language, along with Cornwall, a similar argument might be made to those being last outposts of that prior gene pool.

In other words, the "British" that the Roman's found were a people dominated by Germanic migrations/invasions that were not able to properly penetrate into Wales and Ireland. They may not have penetrated into the Scottish highlands, either, as the Picts appear to be a culture into themselves - until conquered and left to history by the Irish Scots.

In which case, any Anglo-Saxon displacement of the resident English was in fact simply displacing the latest previous Germanic migration/invasion. And neither of which gene pool as having a very significant impact on Wales, Ireland, or therefore Scotland.

That would make it no surprise that the rural English were still genetically tied to the continent, and that Ireland, Scotland, and Wales might retain a more distinguishable prior gene pool.

(An additional note is that in Roman times, the Parisi of East Yorkshire had a culture held to be distinct from the rest of England, yet more closely related to that of northern Europe. That suggests there had been an even more recent migration of peoples from the Zeider Zee to the Humber.)

 

[Peter Graham]

The curious thing about the Scots is that they originated from Ireland - so it's worth postulating that Irish ancestory might primarily be based on an earlier invasion genepool.

This is certainly a popular hypothesis - a strong one, too.

There is, however, an alternative hypothesis, although I've only seen it argued by one chap.

The theory goes that the language which became Old Irish was originally spoken across all of the British Isles. At some point in the late Iron Age, a new wave of Celtic incomers/invaders came to the country. They spoke a slightly different language, which ultimately became Old Welsh. When the Romans turned up, OI was being pushed north and west by OW. The Romans had a habit of Latinising existing place and personal names, so one can find Irish roots by looking at what the Romans called things. Examples include:

1. York. The Roman name was Eboracum, which is a Latinisation of Eboracon. The "ebor" comes from OI "yew trees". The OW would be "ywen".

2. Boudicca. From an OI root meaning "destroyer".

3. Cartimandua. From OI "Great Queen".

4. Venutius. From OI "skinner".

And so on - there are masses of them (towns, tribal names, personal names etc). But by the time Rome left (insofar as it did), OW dominated the speech of most of what is now the British mainland.

In subsequent ages, it is noteworthy that there was a Dal Riada in both Argyll and Ulster. It is assumed that the Irish one colonised the Argyll one, thus explaining the existence of apparently Irish place names on the British mainland. However, if we accept that the fossilised Latin names show that OI was originally spoken across the British mainland, a rather different picture emerges.

As the Welsh retained their language, along with Cornwall, a similar argument might be made to those being last outposts of that prior gene pool.

Possibly - but language is not always a good indicator of the ethnic origins of those who speak it.

In other words, the "British" that the Roman's found were a people dominated by Germanic migrations/invasions that were not able to properly penetrate into Wales and Ireland.

Good point. The notion that Germanic peoples lived in Britain throughout the Roman period is also gaining credibility at the moment - it's been argued for the Parisi, but also for the Iceni (though see the comment re Boudicca's name, above).

In which case, any Anglo-Saxon displacement of the resident English was in fact simply displacing the latest previous Germanic migration/invasion. And neither of which gene pool as having a very significant impact on Wales, Ireland, or therefore Scotland.

A linguistic displacement is not the same as a genetic one, as I'm sure you'd agree. English Northumbria stretched to Edinburgh for a time, whereas Welsh Strathclyde stretched to Morecambe Bay on a good day (incidentally, Morecambe itself is a Celtic survival despite sounding quintessentially English - "crooked sea").

The speed with which petty kingdoms - English or Celtic - could rise and fall suggests to me that nation building was the preserve of small numbers of aristocrats and that for most people, it mattered not a jot who was in control. If it had mattered - had the loss of the warband meant that extermination or displacement was on the cards - one would expect to see "nations under arms" - everyone turning out to defend their lives, their families and their property from the invader. But nothing in the texts, the poems, the cemeteries or the archaeology even hints that this happened.

Regards,

Peter

 

[Venusian Broon]

In other words, the "British" that the Roman's found were a people dominated by Germanic migrations/invasions that were not able to properly penetrate into Wales and Ireland. They may not have penetrated into the Scottish highlands, either, as the Picts appear to be a culture into themselves - until conquered and left to history by the Irish Scots.

Taking it slightly off a tangent here, but still on the theme of displacement of people, could it not be that the Picts just peaceably melded with the Irish Scots, rather than were conquered? By all accounts the Picts were far more numerous and more than capable of defeating strong foes if needed. There was, I believe, a great deal of interaction between Pictish and Irish Scottish nobility. (As there was no doubt plenty of to-ing and fro-ing with practically all kingdoms within striking distance and further afield.)

So perhaps it was more of an 'upper management issue' where the overall king of Alba traced his descent through the Irish Scottish side. It's interesting that the Scottish king's coronation stone, clearly was from Ireland, but was kept in Scone in the heart of Pict territory.

Hence the Picts were never defeated, it's just that we just brand them as Scottish by the 10th Century or thereabouts.

The speed with which petty kingdoms - English or Celtic - could rise and fall suggests to me that nation building was the preserve of small numbers of aristocrats and that for most people, it mattered not a jot who was in control. If it had mattered - had the loss of the warband meant that extermination or displacement was on the cards - one would expect to see "nations under arms" - everyone turning out to defend their lives, their families and their property from the invader. But nothing in the texts, the poems, the cemeteries or the archaeology even hints that this happened.

That's a very good point Peter, it was a turbulent period, not helped by the fact that alot of what happened just was not reported on very well, or not at all.

I'll state the obvious and point to the big external threat of the viking invaders that galvanised the loose confederations, alliances and petty and not so petty kingdoms into the nations we see today, most obviously for the English but I'm sure this helped the proto-Scottish nation to band together as well. (I'm not sure why this didn't occur in Ireland. Possibly the impact of the Vikings on Ireland was less?)

---

Finally getting a bit more firmly on topic, (I haven't read the first 3-4 pages of this thread so apolgies if I'm just re-treading old ground). Is the explanation of genocide to explain why cultures dissappear not just a 20th Century artefact foremost in our minds because of the horrors discovered in 1945? It certainly reads bolder, hence perhaps why it's routinely suggested for why things are missing (on broader terms even: Homo Sapians causing genocide/deliberate extinction of Neandertals, North American major fauna, Mammoths, etc...) Personally I think it's too much of a simplistic answer (and where are the piles of thousands & thousands of captives heads or other evidence of genocide?!?)

That's not to say there were not bloody times - William the conquerer subduing the Saxon north after it rebelled did kill a very significant proportion (majority?) of the population, so horrors must have occurred. And clearly a little later in history and slightly further afield you can point to the Mongols who did indeed practice genocide on all those farmers/city dwellers who were spoiling their vision of glorious steppe and priarie land.

 

[Peter Graham]

Hence the Picts were never defeated, it's just that we just brand them as Scottish by the 10th Century or thereabouts.

I think this is probably true. We know that the Picts did fight the Dal Riadans (and everyone else), but ultimately they were most likely absorbed by their Scottish neighbours. Interestingly, one of the great pro-extermination arguments is the lack of Brythonic words in the English language. I'm not aware of any survival of the Pictish language either, yet this is never really argued as evidence that the Dal Riadans exterminated them all.

We have to watch the timelines here. Looking back on this age 1,000 odd years down the line, it's easy to forget that we are making comment on nearly 600 years of our collective history. 70 years ago, we were at war with Germany. Now we are close allies. For most of the last 900 years, we have been cheerfully bashing lumps out of the French. Now we are close allies. I see no reason why the sands could not have shifted as readily back then as they do now. In fact, I'd be surprised if they didn't.

I'll state the obvious and point to the big external threat of the viking invaders that galvanised the loose confederations, alliances and petty and not so petty kingdoms into the nations we see today

I'm not sure that is so obvious, in all fairness. Like "Saxon", "Viking" is a convenient term to describe a large number of different folk groups. By the time the Great Army rolled up, Mercia, Northumbria, Wessex, Strathclyde etc were already well established kingdoms. We all know about the sacking of Lindisfarne and Alfred with his cakes, but not all Norse incursions were violent. In Cumbria, there are relatively few English place names, but masses of Norse ones - beck, *thwaite, *by, dale, fell, force, scale, scar, *ness etc. There is little or no evidence of violent incursion or settlement.

(I'm not sure why this didn't occur in Ireland. Possibly the impact of the Vikings on Ireland was less?)

It was massive. The northwest of England was largely settled by Vikings from Ireland. Dublin was a hugely important Viking city and one could even argue that the ginger half of Ireland have their roots in Scandinavia.

Is the explanation of genocide to explain why cultures dissappear not just a 20th Century artefact foremost in our minds because of the horrors discovered in 1945?

It's also convenient. Norman supplants Viking supplants Saxon supplants Celt/Roman supplants other Celt supplants proto-Celt supplants Beaker Person etc is nice and easy to understand. In addition, it can play well to tub-thumping nationalist sentiment (Saxons=English=wicked, drunken, violent oppressors, Celts=not English=splendid, peaceloving, artistic people not unlike Tolkien's High Elves).

That's not to say there were not bloody times - William the conquerer subduing the Saxon north after it rebelled did kill a very significant proportion (majority?) of the population, so horrors must have occurred.

Absolutely agreed. Everyone, be they Saxon, Viking, Celt or Pict, relied on the warband. Warbands are all made up of young fighting men bound by ties of honour to their lord. The ties went both ways - which Svalbard catches beautifully in his fiction - and the lords were under a duty to keep their warriors in a manner which would not have disgraced today's rappers or premiership footballers. War was therefore endemic in the system.

Regards,

Peter

 

[Nerds_feather]

I
In other words, the "British" that the Roman's found were a people dominated by Germanic migrations/invasions that were not able to properly penetrate into Wales and Ireland. They may not have penetrated into the Scottish highlands, either, as the Picts appear to be a culture into themselves - until conquered and left to history by the Irish Scots.

just a little pedantic aside, but it's generally thought the germanic invasions/migrations didn't occur until well after the romans arrived in britain, and didn't really hit full scale until after the romans had pretty much abandoned their outposts in britain.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxon_settlement_of_Britain

there are obviously a lot of open questions concerning that period in history, for example how many angles/saxons/jutes, to what degree did they supplant vs. dominate vs. assimilate into "british" society, etc.

 

[Venusian Broon]

just a little pedantic aside, but it's generally thought the germanic invasions/migrations didn't occur until well after the romans arrived in britain, and didn't really hit full scale until after the romans had pretty much abandoned their outposts in britain.

I think I_Brian's point was that the Celts themselves were a migration that (possibly) originated from the general area of 'Germania' or modern Germany/Switzerland, so in that respect were just like one of many waves immigration that flooded the early British isle and were all quite similar in this geographical respect.

They were of course not German or even of the stock of people that we'd consider German.

 

[svalbard]

VB,

The Vikings had a massive effect on Ireland. As Peter points out Dublin was a major trading centre for them and kingdom in its own right. One of the most significant battles in the Viking era occurred at Clontarf, just outside Dublin, on 1014. The Viking army that day included the Earl of Orkney and contingents from as far a field as Iceland. Happy to report that the Irish won a resounding victory although Brian Boru and his heir were killed in fighting. Brian's grandson, all of 14 years old was also killed in the battle. He was found, so the story goes, with his hands clasped around the head of a dead Norseman.

Thanks for the kind comments, Peter.

 

[Venusian Broon]

Hi svalbard,

I apologise for my lack of knowledge of Irish history, I had punted a huge speculation and meandered into a different area of thought . My first thirty years of learning and inquiry were definitely science focused, so I have been catching up on history and other areas a little bit at a time. I just hadn't got round to the Emerald Isle. I did know a long time ago that Dublin was a Viking settlement, so there may be some hope.

As an aside, svalbard (So more apologies to those reading the thread - meandering off a bit), I'm interested in why the Irish never seemed to form a unified strong nation state, like an England or Scotland - I'm sure there are many reasons over the centuries so it'll be a complex answer. Is this a mystery, have I completely mis-read the history (or not read it at all )?

On a second aside, I'd be very grateful if you could recommend a good history/s of Ireland. I'd be interested in all eras, from the first inhabitants to modern day, but I suppose my (slightly more) specific areas of interest gravitate from first inhabitants to up to ~18th Century at the moment. I'd guess that there may be a range of books that tackle specific areas individually. If you know of any great books offhand I'd really appreciate it.

The problem I've found with Irish history books is, a bit like books of Chinese history, is that they are definitely much more focused on the modern era.

Right, I will stop hijacking the thread about unrelated issues.

Cheers,

VB

 

[Peter Graham]

As an aside, svalbard (So more apologies to those reading the thread - meandering off a bit), I'm interested in why the Irish never seemed to form a unified strong nation state, like an England or Scotland

I may be wrong, but I'd guess a lack of feudalism. Until 1066, England, Scotland and Ireland were all made up of shifting and competing petty kingdoms. The Norman Conquest brought with it a far more organised and rigid social structure which was imposed on England and adopted in southern Scotland. The same Norman French lords who held England also held the valuable bits of Scotland (the Stewarts were originally stewards to the Dapifers of Dol in Normandy).

The system relied on strong central government and completely replaced the rather more fluid and inclusive (if you were rich enough) earlier structures, such as the English Witan. There were very many bad things about feudalism - especially if you were English - but it allowed for greater royal control. In any event, England is much easier to hold geographically than much of Scotland - it's flatter, had a road network and is nearer to the recognised centre of government.

I don't think that Ireland really embraced feudalism, meaning that it clung to the old ways. The Highlands of Scotland too - the hideously re-invented clan system was effectively an Iron Age throwback. The problem with the earlier, non-feudal systems were that they were prone to internecine conflict. Feudalism was not without its rebellions, but I think there was a subtle difference. If you want to topple Henry I (or whoever), you must take London and effectively replace him. The feudal civil service (for want of a better description) now works for you. The power is always based in London. By contrast, if you want to dominate Ireland, you can do so from wherever you happen to be based. The Irish system (repeated in England throughout the Saxon period as power shifted from Northumbria to Mercia and ultimately to Wessex) thereby allowed any warrior with a following to be overking - but did not necessarily provide for a strong enough administration to establish a line after death.

That's my view, although like I say - it's a guess!

Regards

Peter

 

[Venusian Broon]

That's my view, although like I say - it's a guess!

Cheers Peter much appreciated,

I love this style of, how should I put it, 'analytical' history of group and society dynamics (?). Speculation of course and impossible to prove one way or another.

History today seems much more about the personal experiences, which is also good in its own way and I can understand given the advances in archeological techniques that gives much more insight to individual lives, but I suppose the inner scientist in me yearns for broader and more generalisable dynamics.

(or of course it might be the effect of reading about Hari Seldon's psychohistory from Asimov's Foundation series)

 

[Nerds_feather]

Feudalism doesn't entail a strong state, look at Germany during that period. It was the "most" feudal area of Europe, and was divided into small principalities loosely assembled into the confederal Holy Roman Empire.

I suspect the answer as to why England developed different from Ireland may have to do with the specific way in which the Normans consolidated power after 1066, replacing the Saxon nobility with loyalists from France, etc.