Anglo-Saxons? Non! Non! Non! Nous sommes Franglo-Saxons

[Beorn]

I recently bought a very well written and illustrated new book - The Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Bracknall Field, Pewsey, Wiltshire, by Ken Annable and Bruce Eagles.
As it says on the label, it is about the excavation of over 100 graves near Pewsey dated to AD475-550.
One of the remarkable finds listed was a francisca or iron throwing axe (p. 109). These are typically Frankish, indeed are probably named after the Franks in the same way that the seaxe is said to be named after the Saxons.

Neck rings were also found in the Blacknall Field graves. These appear to derive from the Chamavi and other sub-tribes of the Franks (ibid 20). The form of burial of another grave was also in the Frankish mode (ibid 89). It went on to say that evidence for the Franks is not common this far north in Wiltshire, whereas in "more southerly parts of the Avon valley, including the area around Old Sarum, there is a strong Frankish influence".

Now the Franks don't get much press in the history of post-Roman Britain, yet research across a range of issues all points to the same fact, that a surprising amount of what we think of as being typically Saxon/English has its origins in France, in the early Frankish Empire. It is probably fair to say that without the Franks there would be no England, we could still possibly be speaking Welsh/Cymraeg, or Danish if the Vikings had not been defeated by Alfred. Amazed? Don't believe it? Read on!!

Too often we see history through present day realities, not those that pertained at the time. It has to be remembered that in the Late Roman Empire Britannia was part of the province of Galliae; during the Roman occupation there were many times when Britain and Gaul acted as one, siding with one imperial upstart or another e.g. Carausius. To treat Britain as an island cut off from the Continent is to falsify the early mediæval reality. Equally there was no homogenous people called Anglo-Saxons; they were part of a wider Germanic world. England did not develop in isolation nor could we escape being caught up with continental politics. And that political reality starts with the Franks - only the Salian Franks succeeded in setting up a political power in AD357 within the borders of the Roman Empire which survived the final dissolution of Roman administration (Todd 1980, 22).

The concept of kingship and kingdoms

It is generally thought that early Anglo-Saxon leaders were "kinglets", leading small-scale polities based on family connections. These groups would have operated on a very localised scale. Power was decentralised, witnessed by the apparent low degree of social differentiation in early Germanic burials in Britain. By contrast the Franks had developed a highly stratified centralised power structure (Henson 2006, 147-150).

The first reliably recorded "King" with a defined realm in England was Æthelberht of Kent (c.AD590-616), also listed as the first Bretwalda, the Anglo-Saxon king that all other kings acknowledged as the first amongst equals. Until Æthelberht, the area around Canterbury seems to have been the territory of a kin-group called the Oiscingas, one of several such groups in Kent. Æthelberht's father is named as Eormenric (King Eormen), a name that is rare in England but common amongst the contemporary Frankish royal house and aristocracy (Yorke 1990, 28). Æthelberht also married Bertha, a Frankish princess, daughter of King Chilperic, in c.588 (Yorke 1990, 35). There appears to be a strong French hand working behind the move from kinglets of kin-groups to real Kings in Kent. Why?

One theory is that the development of strong kings and kingdoms in Britain suited the Franks. They were trying to assert sovereignty over all Germanic peoples of the Continent and in the late 6th century were waging war against the Varnii and the continental Saxons. By creating strong English kings over whom they had powerful influence, they kept the English Germans from assisting their continental "family" groups. It is even possible that the new kingdoms in Britain were actually founded by elite families fleeing Frankish power in Old Saxony and Angeln (Henson 2006, 169).

With the concept of Kings came kingly power. Æthelberht created a court on the Frankish model, setting the pattern that others subsequently followed. Æthelberht married off his sister to Sledd of the East Saxons, the first named king of that folk. In all probability Æthelberht "created" the East Saxon royal family and exercised considerable influence over the new kingdom, drawing Essex into the Frankish sphere of influence.

There is evidence to suggest that this Frankish influence in southern England was considerable in the 6th century and they may have taken tribute from the southern kingdoms. The Merovingian royal house actually claimed overlordship of parts of Britain in the 6th century (Yorke 1990). Byzantine sources, e.g. Procopius, record that the Frankish king, sending some of his people on an embassy to the Emperor Justinian (AD527-565) at Byzantium, included some English with them to show that this island was also ruled by him (Sawyer 1998, 82). The Salian (early Frankish) law-code allowed Frankish kings to plead in courts in Britain for the return of slaves. As late as the 630's slaves were still being taken across the seas to Francia (Henson 2006, 89).

The idea that only those who were the sons of kings succeeded to the throne was also pioneered by Æthelberht, importing the Merovingian model (Yorke 1990, 35). Until that time there seem to have been many branches of claimants, any one of whom could take on the kingship, usually the one who was strongest and most able given the circumstances prevailing at the time. The early king lists of Wessex seem to include at least three different branches of the royal line if not three totally unrelated families. Civilisation (as we know it)

Christianity and Church administration was firmly implanted in 4th century Gaul; each town had its bishop and the diocese followed civitas boundaries. This administration survived intact into the Frankish period (Cleary 1989, 35); indeed it was this administration that the Germanic Franks relied upon to rule over their new subjects, communicating in the base Latin of the clerics, which accounts for why France speaks a Romance language and not a Germanic one.

As a condition of being allowed to marry a Frankish princess, King Æthelberht seems to have had to accept conversion to Christianity. Bertha brought a Neustrian Frankish bishop, Liudhard, with her as part of her entourage. For Æthelberht, to receive conversion, becoming the first Christian king in England, but via the Frankish court was an explicit recognition that he was politically subordinate to Francia (Yorke 1990, 29). The main conversion of the people of Kent was probably in 597. Æthelberht exploited his Frankish connections to claim supremacy over Essex and East Anglia bringing Christianity to them (Henson 2006, 131). By sending clerics and bishops like Augustine and Theodore to convert and then organise the Anglo-Saxon Church, the Franks saw to it that England remained safely within the control of the Roman rather than the British Church (Hooke 1998, 207). The English Church, even after Augustine was made an archbishop in 601, was still considered to be an extension of the Church in Gaul. The great reform council held in Paris in 614 brought together all the leading bishops of the Church in Gaul/Francia including the bishop of Rochester and the abbot of Canterbury (Sawyer 1998, 93).

With Christianity came literate clerics. There is little but still some evidence that Saxons had a degree of literacy before this time, but the few surviving fragments are in runic futhorc. It was, however, the imported Roman alphabet that the English adopted for their written vernacular, although with some transfer of runic signs for sounds that had no equivalent in the Roman, e.g. þ for th. The main purpose of the clerics was to produce material to instruct the new English clergy in order to promote the Church (Williams 1999, 60).

Writing provided the means to record vital facts necessary for an ordered society. Two forms are of particular note; law-codes and charters. The first law-code in England and the model for all later versions was, yet again, that of Æthelberht, and, of course, was based on Frankish practice (Griffiths 1998, 32). An interesting element came with these codes - genealogy tables - and even those of early England made claims of descent from lands in what is now France (Hooke 1998, 207).

Charters were first written to record the Church's claim and right to lands given to it by grateful monarchs. The form was probably introduced by Augustine although the only surviving tracts are later and, by then, show adaptation to local needs including elements imported from Celtic and Roman influences (Williams 1999, 61).

But it is clear that we imported more than just a new alphabet. With it came the Frankish world of literacy. This is shown by two of the oldest English poems - Deor and Widsith - recorded in the 10th century ?xeter Book, but possibly based on 6th century originals, which both mention the Frankish king Theuderic (þeodric) (AD511-534), probably relics of a copied tradition.

Christianity also brought churches and Bede makes it clear that when stone churches were called for, masons and glassmakers had to be brought over from Francia, the first stone-built structures since Roman times (Holdsworth 2003, 33). A money economy

Contact with Francia brought more than just religion and literacy; it brought something that all kings needed to maintain their position - wealth. The Franks controlled the trade links between island Europe and mainland Europe. Trade gave access to prestige items; whoever had access to the trade links had access to new found wealth. New emporia sprang up with direct links across the Channel - Sarre and Dover in Kent, Ipswich in East Anglia and London in Essex - all subject to Kentish power and all with direct links to Quentovic and Dorestad in Francia. Within England, Kent acted as the funnel to the trade routes with the Continent, altering the balance of power in Britain further in its favour.

Early English kings did not issue coins. The first coins struck by the English were gold thrymsas, modelled on Frankish tremisses. By the end of the 7th century, coins were being made from silver, not gold, and known as sceattas in England (Yorke 1990, 40); a change of metal directly following the Neustrian Frankish example repeated again at the end of the 8th century when King Pepin's monetary reforms brought in thinner coins (called pennies in England), now with the name of the king appearing (Sawyer 1998, 183). Even Mercia copied the new pennies from Kent and East Anglian mints (Yorke 1990, 115).

But it is clear that the Franks did more than just provide a powerful influence and stimulus over the way Anglo-Saxon England developed; they also provided people. It might even be that they controlled the movement of people from the Continent to the island.

Maps of the approximate positions of the Germanic peoples at the end of the Roman Empire and over the next 100 years show that the coastline of North West Europe remained under the control of the Franks and the Frisians in exactly the same places where the descendents of those people live today. Access to the North Sea for Angeln and Saxon could only be achieved through those territories. It is recorded that the Barbarian Conspiracy of AD367 was a co-ordinated attack by the Franks and Anglo-Saxons from the Continent, Picts and Attacotti from Scotland and Scotti from Ireland (Cleary 1989, 44); it doesn't take a lot to work out who might have been the co-ordinators. Evison (1965) has argued that the early stages of settlement were organised under Frankish leadership. Other archæologists believe that the Franks were themselves prominent in the 5th century settlement of southern England (Blair 1994, 9: Henson 2006, 90) and in particular south of the Thames (Yorke 1990, 6). Studies of artefacts from burials in southern England showed that they represented a more mixed Germanic migrant population from amongst Saxons and Franks (Henson 2006, 63).

Interestingly, although Kent, southern Hampshire and the Isle of Wight all have placenames that have been identified as Jutish, the only reference to the people being Jutes is in the work of Bede - a monk who lived all his life in Jarrow and relied on snippets of information fed to him from outside on which to construct his view of England. When Kent emerges as a kingdom everything about it is Frankish. Until very recently the word of Bede was accepted at face value and all Frankish elements were regarded as mere "influence" from Francia. However, looking more closely we see that Æthelberht's father was probably a Frank, his wife was a Frankish princess, making his children Franks and members of the Merovingian royal family. Why have we always assumed that all the evidence of laws, religion, dress styles, jewellery, modes of burial, etc., etc., could only be due to influence? Is it not more likely that the Frankish sources are correct and that Kent was indeed part of Francia? Recent excavations are also throwing up more doubts about the level of Jutish migration. The pottery style in Kent which Myres (1948) claimed to be Jutish has been found to have no similarities with pottery in Jutland. Further recent work indicates that "there is no evidence for large scale Jutlandic migration to Kent" (Hills 2003, 104).

This means that the first Bretwalda, a role that created the idea of an all-embracing English identity, was French; the concept of unified kingdoms was Frankish - they had progressed from being from the kin-groups/tribes of the Ampsivarii, Battavi, Bructeri, Chamavi, Chatti, Chattuarii, Salii, Sicambri, Tencteri and Ubii to the two states of the Neustrian Franks and the Austrasian Franks and ultimately into France. The same process seems to have forged the English kingdoms of Kent, Wessex, Essex, Mercia, etc out of the -inga/folc groups on the path to creating England.

Even Alfred, the founder of the English nation, relied on more than just military success to shape England. It was through drawing on the very substantial advances in royal government made in Carolingian Francia that he and later West Saxon rulers became the kings of England (Yorke 1990, 156).

And back to weapons

Returning to where we started, with the francisca and the seaxe, adds a little twist. The francisca is recorded from the 4th century in continental Europe and remained the weapon of choice for the Franks for two centuries, being instrumental in their victory over the Visigoths at the battle of Vouillé in AD507. From the 5th to the 6th centuries the Franks also used the seaxe which was adopted by the Saxons at the same time (Todd 1980, 114). Sacre bleu!!

So what did the Franks/French do for us? Well besides bringing us civilisation, religion, an alphabet, literacy, land charters, the rule of law, a money economy, currency, the concept of kings and kingdoms, and a significant chunk of our population; what else? And in comparison to what the Saxons gave us - possibly restricted to brute force and ignorance - the influence of France on the development of England deserves to be forgotten. Or does it?

It seems that whatever was truly Saxon in England died with Conversion (Sawyer 1998, 179).©

Source

[Nglund]

So what did the Franks/French do for us? Well besides bringing us civilisation, religion, an alphabet, literacy, land charters, the rule of law, a money economy, currency, the concept of kings and kingdoms, and a significant chunk of our population; what else? And in comparison to what the Saxons gave us - possibly restricted to brute force and ignorance - the influence of France on the development of England deserves to be forgotten. Or does it?

It seems that whatever was truly Saxon in England died with Conversion

Hum, seems that this conclusion was made in a hurry.
Franks, Jutes, Angles and Saxons were close allies at the time; they didn't "frenchify" Anglo-Saxon England, both were pretty similar anyway. They only pushed forward the process of christianization in England. Anglo-Saxon culture survived under Christian faith. And for what concerns Frankish influence in England, it is no surprise that the Franks influenced such a close neighbour as all the West's legacy was relegated to them after their conversion. Frankish influence in Kent and other parts South of the Humber was primarily made possible by trade, settlement was secondary.
It is too early to mention anything close to "French" or "France" when talking about this period. Franks were a German elite, their power resting on Gaul essentially. What we today know as "France" was born after the breakup of the Carolingian Empire at the treaty of Verdun in 843. "Francia" split up and became "Francia Occidentalis" (and grew out to become France), "Middle Francia", and "Francia Orientalis"(HRE/Germany).
Frankish legacy in French population is nearly inexistent. They were more of a ruling minority by the time their empire divided.
The Norman conquest, however, is full-blown frenchification.

[Osweo]

Now the Franks don't get much press in the history of post-Roman Britain, yet research across a range of issues all points to the same fact, that a surprising amount of what we think of as being typically Saxon/English has its origins in France, in the early Frankish Empire.

An exaggeration, but with something in it which is worth discussing.

It is probably fair to say that without the Franks there would be no England, we could still possibly be speaking Welsh/Cymraeg, or Danish if the Vikings had not been defeated by Alfred.

But here the idiocy begins...

the Late Roman Empire Britannia was part of the province of Galliae;

Downright wrong. As time went on, Provincia Britanniae was divided into smaller units. About four or five at the end, in fact.
We were part of a super-provincial division that included Gallia. But this was a 'Diocese' if memory serves.

Equally there was no homogenous people called Anglo-Saxons; they were part of a wider Germanic world.

The English were forged by their common destiny as Germanics who had come to Britain. They would absorb similar substrates to distinguish themselves from their Continental kin, and our island home DID play an important role in narrowing our identity.

There appears to be a strong French hand working behind the move from kinglets of kin-groups to real Kings in Kent. Why?

Unfounded. Anglian tradition goes back to Kings on the mainland. Offa of ancient fame, and so on...

In all probability Æthelberht "created" the East Saxon royal family

Their distinct tradition speaks against it, being among the few who didn't draw their line from Woden but Seaxnoth.

With Christianity came literate clerics. There is little but still some evidence that Saxons had a degree of literacy before this time, but the few surviving fragments are in runic futhorc. It was, however, the imported Roman alphabet that the English adopted for their written vernacular, although with some transfer of runic signs for sounds that had no equivalent in the Roman, e.g. þ for th.

This section forgets that IRISH Christianity was most successful in most of England. Kent may have been in its prime in Aethelbeorht's day, but it was rapidly downhill from thereon in. This is probably the main fault in the whole article; that the far South East was not the main agent in the forming of an English identity.

Indeed, we could question whether a vernacular literature in English would have developed at all, under purely Frankish influence. I believe that the Irish accommodation of the old bardic class with Christianity is of most relevance here as a precedent. We have NO Frankish literature in Frankish as such.

But it is clear that we imported more than just a new alphabet. With it came the Frankish world of literacy. This is shown by two of the oldest English poems - Deor and Widsith - recorded in the 10th century ?xeter Book, but possibly based on 6th century originals, which both mention the Frankish king Theuderic (þeodric) (AD511-534), probably relics of a copied tradition.

Notice he gives no source for this part. I find it unlikely. THe very idea of those poems was to evoke wide travels and distant contacts.

It is recorded that the Barbarian Conspiracy of AD367 was a co-ordinated attack by the Franks and Anglo-Saxons from the Continent, Picts and Attacotti from Scotland and Scotti from Ireland (Cleary 1989, 44); it doesn't take a lot to work out who might have been the co-ordinators.

Indeed, and wouldn't the PICTS have been the ones best placed to do so?

Studies of artefacts from burials in southern England showed that they represented a more mixed Germanic migrant population from amongst Saxons and Franks (Henson 2006, 63).

This is no revelation. We've been talking about this for a century and more. I can point out Swabian and even Gothic traces in toponymy, indeed.

Interestingly, although Kent, southern Hampshire and the Isle of Wight all have placenames that have been identified as Jutish, the only reference to the people being Jutes is in the work of Bede - a monk who lived all his life in Jarrow and relied on snippets of information fed to him from outside on which to construct his view of England.

The tendency to look upon Bede as a fool and isolated one at that is very dismaying. He was the leading light of his age. He was in intimate and regular contact with Canterbury. And he doesn't limit matters to just 'Angles, Saxons and Jutes' at all. That's a willfull misreading, or poor comprehension. He names these three peoples as the MAIN stocks, that is all.

When Kent emerges as a kingdom everything about it is Frankish.

Several BRITISH things can be pointed out, however.

I'd be a fool to deny the Frankish links of Kent, though. Look at my thread on the English toponymy in Nord and Pas de Calais. I reckon that the Jutes and co. were resident in Francia for a period. But this wasn't the united realm of Charlemagne's day - and this is another basic error made by the author. Gallia was much messier in these centuries. Far more than he's letting on.

Æthelberht's father was probably a Frank,

Utterly unfounded. Such a lineage would have been boasted of, not swept under the carpet.

So what did the Franks/French do for us? Well besides bringing us civilisation, religion, an alphabet, literacy, land charters, the rule of law, a money economy, currency, the concept of kings and kingdoms, and a significant chunk of our population; what else? And in comparison to what the Saxons gave us - possibly restricted to brute force and ignorance - the influence of France on the development of England deserves to be forgotten. Or does it?

It seems that whatever was truly Saxon in England died with Conversion (Sawyer 1998, 179).©

Sawyer should be ashamed of himself.