Англосаксы: Культура и история раннесредневежной Англии

Early medieval cultural group in England speaking Old English
Anglo Saxon culture and society

The Anglo Saxons were a cultural group that inhabited much of what is now England in the Early Middle Ages, and spoke Old English. They traced their origins to Germanic settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. Although the details are not clear, their cultural identity developed out of the interaction of these settlers with the pre existing Romano British culture. Over time, most of the people of what is now southern, central, northern and eastern England came to identify as Anglo Saxon and speak Old English. Danish and Norman invasions later changed the situation significantly, but their language and political structures are the direct predecessors of the medieval Kingdom of England, and the Middle English language. Although the modern English language owes somewhat less than 26% of its words to Old English, this includes the vast majority of words used in everyday speech. Historically, the Anglo Saxon period denotes the period in Britain between about 450 and 1066, after their initial settlement and up until the Norman Conquest. The history of the Anglo Saxons is the history of a cultural identity. It developed from divergent groups in association with the people's adoption of Christianity and was integral to the founding of various kingdoms. Threatened by extended Danish Viking invasions and military occupation of eastern England, this identity was re established; it dominated until after the Norman Conquest. Anglo Saxon material culture can still be seen in architecture, dress styles, illuminated texts, metalwork and other art. Behind the symbolic nature of these cultural emblems, there are strong elements of tribal and lordship ties. The elite declared themselves kings who developed burhs (fortifications and fortified settlements), and identified their roles and peoples in Biblical terms. Above all, as archaeologist Helena Hamerow has observed, "local and extended kin groups remained the essential unit of production throughout the Anglo Saxon period." The effects persist, as a 2015 study found the genetic makeup of British populations today shows divisions of the tribal political units of the early Anglo Saxon period. The term Anglo Saxon began to be used in the 8th century (in Latin and on the continent) to distinguish Germanic language speaking groups in Britain from those on the continent (Old Saxony and
Anglia in Northern Germany). In 2003, Catherine Hills summarised the views of many modern scholars in her observation that attitudes towards Anglo Saxons, and hence the interpretation of their culture and history, have been "more contingent on contemporary political and religious theology as on any kind of evidence."

The Old English ethnonym Angul Seaxan comes from the Latin Angli Saxones and became the name of the peoples the English monk Bede called Angli around 730 and the British monk Gildas called Saxones around 530. Anglo Saxon is a term that was rarely used by Anglo Saxons themselves. It is likely they identified as ængli, Seaxe or, more probably, a local or tribal name such as Mierce, Cantie, Gewisse, Westseaxe, or Norþanhymbre. After the Viking Age, an Anglo Scandinavian identity developed in the Danelaw. The term Angli Saxones seems to have first been used in mainland writing of the 8th century; Paul the Deacon uses it to distinguish the English Saxons from the mainland Saxons (Ealdseaxe, literally, 'old Saxons'). The name, therefore, seemed to mean "English" Saxons. The Christian church seems to have used the word Angli; for example in the story of Pope Gregory I and his remark, "Non Angli sed angeli" (not English but angels). The terms ænglisc (the language) and Angelcynn (the people) were also used by West Saxon King Alfred to refer to the people; in doing so he was following established practice. Bede and Alcuin used gens Anglorum to refer to all the Anglo Saxons: Bede referred to the people of the pre Christian period as 'Saxons', but all becoming 'Angles' after accepting Christianity (in accordance with Pope Gregory I's use of the word Anglorum for the entire mission); Alcuin contrasted 'Saxons' with 'Angles', the former referring only to continental Saxons and the latter being associated with Britain. Bede's choice of terminology contrasted with the norm among his contemporaries, both Angle and Saxon, who collectively identified as 'Saxons' and their country as Saxonia. Aethelweard also followed Bede's usage, systematically editing all mentions of the word 'Saxon' to 'English'. The first use of the term Anglo Saxon amongst the insular sources is in the titles for Æthelstan around 924: Angelsaxonum Denorumque gloriosissimus rex (most glorious king of the Anglo Saxons and of the Danes) and rex Angulsexna and Norþhymbra imperator paganorum gubernator Brittanorumque propugnator (king of the Anglo Saxons and emperor of the Northumbrians, governor of the pagans, and defender of the Britons). At other times he uses the term rex Anglorum (king of the English), which presumably meant both Anglo Saxons and Danes. Alfred used Anglosaxonum Rex. The term Engla cyningc (King of the English) is used by Æthelred. Cnut the Great, King of Denmark, England, and Norway, in 1021 was the first to refer to the land and not the people with this term: ealles Englalandes cyningc (King of all England). These titles express the sense that the Anglo Saxons were a Christian people with a king anointed by God. The indigenous Common Brittonic speakers referred to Anglo Saxons as Saxones or possibly Saeson (the word Saeson is the modern Welsh word for 'English people'); the equivalent word in Scottish Gaelic is Sasannach and in the Irish language, Sasanach. Catherine Hills suggests that it is no accident "that the English call themselves by the name sanctified by the Church, as that of a people chosen by God, whereas their enemies use the name originally applied to piratical raiders".

The early Anglo Saxon period covers the history of medieval Britain that starts from the end of Roman rule. It is a period widely known in European history as the Migration Period, also the Völkerwanderung ("migration of peoples" in German). This was a period of intensified human migration in Europe from about 375 to 800. The migrants were Germanic tribes such as the Goths, Vandals, Angles, Saxons, Lombards, Suebi, Frisii, and Franks; they were later pushed westwards by the Huns, Avars, Slavs, Bulgars, and Alans. The migrants to Britain might also have included the Huns and Rugini. Until AD 400, Roman Britain, the province of Britannia, was an integral, flourishing part of the Western Roman Empire, occasionally disturbed by internal rebellions or barbarian attacks, which were subdued or repelled by the large contingent of imperial troops stationed in the province. By 410, however, the imperial forces had been withdrawn to deal with crises in other parts of the empire, and the Romano Britons were left to fend for themselves in what is called the post Roman or "sub Roman" period of the 5th century.

It is now widely accepted that the Anglo Saxons were not just transplanted Germanic invaders and settlers from the Continent, but the outcome of insular interactions and changes. Writing c. 540, Gildas mentions that sometime in the 5th century, a council of leaders in Britain agreed that some land in the east of southern Britain would be given to the Saxons on the basis of a treaty, a foedus, by which the Saxons would defend the Britons against attacks from the Picts and Scoti in exchange for food supplies. The most contemporaneous textual evidence is the Chronica Gallica of 452, which records for the year 441: "The British provinces, which to this time had suffered various defeats and misfortunes, are reduced to Saxon rule." This is an earlier date than that of 451 for the "coming of the Saxons" used by Bede in his Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, written around 731. It has been argued that Bede misinterpreted his (scanty) sources and that the chronological references in the Historia Britonnum yield a plausible date of around 428. Gildas recounts how a war broke out between the Saxons and the local population – historian Nick Higham calls it the "War of the Saxon Federates" – which ended shortly after the siege at 'Mons Badonicus'. The Saxons went back to "their eastern home". Gildas calls the peace a "grievous divorce with the barbarians". The price of peace, Higham argues, was a better treaty for the Saxons, giving them the ability to receive tribute from people across the lowlands of Britain. The archaeological evidence agrees with this earlier timescale. In particular, the work of Catherine Hills and Sam Lucy on the evidence of Spong Hill has moved the chronology for the settlement earlier than 450, with a significant number of items now in phases before Bede's date. This vision of the Anglo Saxons exercising extensive political and military power at an early date remains contested. The most developed vision of a continuation in sub Roman Britain, with control over its own political and military destiny for well over a century, is that of Kenneth Dark, who suggests that the sub Roman elite survived in culture, politics and military power up to c. 570. Bede, however, identifies three phases of settlement: an exploration phase, when mercenaries came to protect the resident population; a migration phase, which was substantial as implied by the statement that Anglus was deserted; and an establishment phase, in which Anglo Saxons started to control areas, implied in Bede's statement about the origins of the tribes. Scholars have not reached a consensus on the number of migrants who entered Britain in this period. Härke argues that the figure is around 100,000 to 200,000. Bryan Ward Perkins also argues for up to 200,000 incomers. Catherine Hills suggests the number is nearer to 20,000. A computer simulation showed that a migration of 250,000 people from mainland Europe could have been accomplished in 38 years. possibly allowing for significantly more new arrivals than has been previously thought. By around 500, communities of Anglo Saxons were established in southern and eastern Britain. 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; however, what happened to the Britons has been debated. The traditional explanation for their archaeological and linguistic invisibility is that the Anglo Saxons either killed them or drove them to the mountainous fringes of Britain, a view broadly supported by the few available sources from the period. However, there is evidence of continuity in the systems of landscape and local governance, decreasing the likelihood of such a cataclysmic event, at least in parts of England. Thus, scholars have suggested other, less violent explanations by which the culture of the Anglo Saxons, whose core area of large scale settlement was likely restricted to what is now southeastern England, East Anglia and Lincolnshire, could have come to be ubiquitous across lowland Britain. Härke has posited a scenario in which the Anglo Saxons, in expanding westward, outbred the Britons, eventually reaching a point where their descendants made up a larger share of the population of what was to become England. could have substantially decreased their numbers. Even so, there is general agreement that the kingdoms of Wessex, Mercia and Northumbria housed significant numbers of Britons. Härke states that "it is widely accepted that in the north of England, the native population survived to a greater extent than in the south," and that in Bernicia, "a small group of immigrants may have replaced the native British elite and took over the kingdom as a going concern." This might have provided an incentive for Britons in the kingdom to adopt Anglo Saxon culture. Higham points out that "in circumstances where freedom at law, acceptance with the kindred, access to patronage, and the use and possession of weapons were all exclusive to those who could claim Germanic descent, then speaking Old English without Latin or Brittonic inflection had considerable value." There is evidence for a British influence on the emerging Anglo Saxon elite classes. The Wessex royal line was traditionally founded by a man named Cerdic, an undoubtedly Celtic name cognate to Ceretic (the name of two British kings, ultimately derived from *Corotīcos). This may indicate that Cerdic was a native Briton and that his dynasty became anglicised over time. A number of Cerdic's alleged descendants also possessed Celtic names, including the 'Bretwalda' Ceawlin. The last man in this dynasty to have a Brittonic name was King Caedwalla, who died as late as 689. In Mercia, too, several kings bear seemingly Celtic names, most notably Penda. As far east as Lindsey, the Celtic name Caedbaed appears in the list of kings. Recent genetic studies, based on data collected from skeletons found in Iron Age, Roman and Anglo Saxon era burials, have concluded that the ancestry of the modern English population contains large contributions from both Anglo Saxon migrants and Romano British natives.

In 565, Columba, a monk from Ireland who studied at the monastic school of Moville under St. Finnian, reached Iona as a self imposed exile. The influence of the monastery of Iona would grow into what Peter Brown has described as an "unusually extensive spiritual empire," which "stretched from western Scotland deep to the southwest into the heart of Ireland and, to the southeast, it reached down throughout northern Britain, through the influence of its sister monastery Lindisfarne." In June 597 Columba died. At this time, Augustine landed on the Isle of Thanet and proceeded to King Æthelberht's main town of Canterbury. He had been the prior of a monastery in Rome when Pope Gregory the Great chose him in 595 to lead the Gregorian mission to Britain to Christianise the Kingdom of Kent from their native Anglo Saxon paganism. Kent was probably chosen because Æthelberht had married a Christian princess, Bertha, daughter of Charibert I the king of Paris, who was expected to exert some influence over her husband. Æthelberht was converted to Christianity, churches were established, and wider scale conversion to Christianity began in the kingdom. Æthelberht's law for Kent, the earliest written code in any Germanic language, instituted a complex system of fines. Kent was rich, with strong trade ties to the continent, and Æthelberht may have instituted royal control over trade. For the first time following the Anglo Saxon invasion, coins began circulating in Kent during his reign. In 635 Aidan, an Irish monk from Iona, chose the Isle of Lindisfarne to establish a monastery which was close to King Oswald's main fortress of Bamburgh. He had been at the monastery in Iona when Oswald asked to be sent a mission to Christianise the Kingdom of Northumbria from their native Anglo Saxon paganism. Oswald had probably chosen Iona because after his father had been killed he had fled into south west Scotland and had encountered Christianity, and had returned determined to make Northumbria Christian. Aidan achieved great success in spreading the Christian faith, and since Aidan could not speak English and Oswald had learned Irish during his exile, Oswald acted as Aidan's interpreter when the latter was preaching. Later, Northumberland's patron saint, Saint Cuthbert, was an abbot of the monastery, and then Bishop of Lindisfarne. An anonymous life of Cuthbert written at Lindisfarne is the oldest extant piece of English historical writing, and in his memory a gospel (known as the St Cuthbert Gospel) was placed in his coffin. The decorated leather bookbinding is the oldest intact European binding. In 664, the Synod of Whitby was convened and established Roman practice as opposed to Irish practice (in style of tonsure and dates of Easter) as the norm in Northumbria, and thus "brought the Northumbrian church into the mainstream of Roman culture." The episcopal seat of Northumbria was transferred from Lindisfarne to York. Wilfrid, chief advocate for the Roman position, later became Bishop of Northumbria, while Colmán and the Ionan supporters, who did not change their practices, withdrew to Iona.

By 660, the political map of Lowland Britain had developed with smaller territories coalescing into kingdoms, and from this time larger kingdoms started dominating the smaller kingdoms. The development of kingdoms, with a particular king being recognised as an overlord, developed out of an early loose structure that, Higham believes, is linked back to the original feodus. The traditional name for this period is the Heptarchy, which has not been used by scholars since the early 20th century Simon Keynes suggests that the 8th and 9th century was a period of economic and social flourishing which created stability both below the Thames and above the Humber. Although Penda does not appear in Bede's list of great overlords, it would appear from what Bede says elsewhere that he was dominant over the southern kingdoms. At the time of the battle of the river Winwæd, thirty duces regii (royal generals) fought on his behalf. Although there are many gaps in the evidence, it is clear that the seventh century Mercian kings were formidable rulers who were able to exercise a wide ranging overlordship from their Midland base. Mercian military success was the basis of their power; it succeeded against not only 106 kings and kingdoms by winning set piece battles, but by ruthlessly ravaging any area foolish enough to withhold tribute. There are a number of casual references scattered throughout the Bede's history to this aspect of Mercian military policy. Penda is found ravaging Northumbria as far north as Bamburgh and only a miraculous intervention from Aidan prevents the complete destruction of the settlement. In 676 Æthelred conducted a similar ravaging in Kent and caused such damage in the Rochester diocese that two successive bishops gave up their position because of lack of funds. In these accounts there is a rare glimpse of the realities of early Anglo Saxon overlordship and how a widespread overlordship could be established in a relatively short period. By the middle of the 8th century, other kingdoms of southern Britain were also affected by Mercian expansionism. The East Saxons seem to have lost control of London, Middlesex and Hertfordshire to Æthelbald, although the East Saxon homelands do not seem to have been affected, and the East Saxon dynasty continued into the ninth century. The Mercian influence and reputation reached its peak when, in the late 8th century, the most powerful European ruler of the age, the Frankish king Charlemagne, recognised the Mercian King Offa's power and accordingly treated him with respect, even if this could have been just flattery.

Michael Drout calls this period the "Golden Age", when learning flourished with a renaissance in classical knowledge. The growth and popularity of monasticism was not an entirely internal development, with influence from the continent shaping Anglo Saxon monastic life. In 669 Theodore, a Greek speaking monk originally from Tarsus in Asia Minor, arrived in Britain to become the eighth Archbishop of Canterbury. He was joined the following year by his colleague Hadrian, a Latin speaking African by origin and former abbot of a monastery in Campania (near Naples). One of their first tasks at Canterbury was the establishment of a school; and according to Bede (writing some sixty years later), they soon "attracted a crowd of students into whose minds they daily poured the streams of wholesome learning". As evidence of their teaching, Bede reports that some of their students, who survived to his own day, were as fluent in Greek and Latin as in their native language. Bede does not mention Aldhelm in this connection; but we know from a letter addressed by Aldhelm to Hadrian that he too must be numbered among their students. Aldhelm wrote in elaborate and grandiloquent and very difficult Latin, which became the dominant style for centuries. Michael Drout states "Aldhelm wrote Latin hexameters better than anyone before in England (and possibly better than anyone since, or at least up until John Milton). His work showed that scholars in England, at the very edge of Europe, could be as learned and sophisticated as any writers in Europe." During this period, the wealth and power of the monasteries increased as elite families, possibly out of power, turned to monastic life. Anglo Saxon monasticism developed the unusual institution of the "double monastery", a house of monks and a house of nuns, living next to each other, sharing a church but never mixing, and living separate lives of celibacy. These double monasteries were presided over by abbesses, who became some of the most powerful and influential women in Europe. Double monasteries which were built on strategic sites near rivers and coasts, accumulated immense wealth and power over multiple generations (their inheritances were not divided) and became centers of art and learning. While Aldhelm was doing his work in Malmesbury, far from him, up in the North of England, Bede was writing a large quantity of books, gaining a reputation in Europe and showing that the English could write history and theology, and do astronomical computation (for the dates of Easter, among other things).

Following the Norman conquest, many of the Anglo Saxon nobility were either exiled or had joined the ranks of the peasantry. It has been estimated that only about 8% of the land was under Anglo Saxon control by 1087. In 1086, only four major Anglo Saxon landholders still held their lands. However, the survival of Anglo Saxon heiresses was significantly greater. Many of the next generation of the nobility had English mothers and learnt to speak English at home. Some Anglo Saxon nobles fled to Scotland, Ireland, and Scandinavia. The Byzantine Empire became a popular destination for many Anglo Saxon soldiers, as it was in need of mercenaries. The Anglo Saxons became the predominant element in the elite Varangian Guard, hitherto a largely North Germanic unit, from which the emperor's bodyguard was drawn and continued to serve the empire until the early 15th century. However, the population of England at home remained largely Anglo Saxon; for them, little changed immediately except that their Anglo Saxon lord was replaced by a Norman lord. The chronicler Orderic Vitalis, who was the product of an Anglo Norman marriage, writes: "And so the English groaned aloud for their lost liberty and plotted ceaselessly to find some way of shaking off a yoke that was so intolerable and unaccustomed". The inhabitants of the North and Scotland never warmed to the Normans following the Harrying of the North (1069–1070), where William, according to the Anglo Saxon Chronicle utterly "ravaged and laid waste that shire". Many Anglo Saxon people needed to learn Norman French to communicate with their rulers, but it is clear that among themselves they kept speaking Old English, which meant that England was in an interesting tri lingual situation: Anglo Saxon for the common people, Latin for the Church, and Norman French for the administrators, the nobility, and the law courts. In this time, and because of the cultural shock of the Conquest, Anglo Saxon began to change very rapidly, and by 1200 or so, it was no longer Anglo Saxon English, but early Middle English. But this language had deep roots in Anglo Saxon, which was being spoken much later than 1066. Research has shown that a form of Anglo Saxon was still being spoken, and not merely among uneducated peasants, into the thirteenth century in the West Midlands. This was J. R. R. Tolkien's major scholarly discovery when he studied a group of texts written in early Middle English called the Katherine Group. Tolkien noticed that a subtle distinction preserved in these texts indicated that Old English had continued to be spoken far longer than anyone had supposed. After 1066, it took more than three centuries for English to replace French as the language of government. The 1362 parliament opened with a speech in English and in the early 15th century, Henry V became the first monarch, since before the 1066 conquest, to use English in his written instructions.

The larger narrative, seen in the history of Anglo Saxon England, is the continued mixing and integration of various disparate elements into one Anglo Saxon people. The outcome of this mixing and integration was a continuous re interpretation by the Anglo Saxons of their society and worldview, which Heinreich Härke calls a "complex and ethnically mixed society".

Soldiers throughout the country were summoned, for both offensive and defensive war; early armies consisted essentially of household bands, while later on men were recruited on a territorial basis. The mustering of an army, annually at times, occupied an important place in Frankish history, both military and constitutional. The English kingdoms appear to have known no institution similar to this. The earliest reference is Bede's account of the overthrow of the Northumbrian Æthelfrith by Rædwald overlord of the southern English. Rædwald raised a large army, presumably from among the kings who accepted his overlordship, and "not giving him time to summon and assemble his whole army, Rædwald met him with a much greater force and slew him on the Mercian border on the east bank of the river Idle." At the Battle of Edington in 878, when the Danes made a surprise attack on Alfred at Chippenham after Twelfth Night, Alfred retreated to Athelney after Easter and then seven weeks after Easter mustered an army at "Egbert's stone". It is not difficult to imagine that Alfred sent out word to the ealdormen to call his men to arms. This may explain the delay, and it is probably no more than coincidence that the army mustered at the beginning of May, a time when there would have been sufficient grass for the horses. There is also information about the mustering of fleets in the eleventh century. From 992 to 1066 fleets were assembled at London, or returned to the city at the end of their service, on several occasions. Where they took up station depended on the quarter from which a threat was expected: Sandwich if invasion was expected from the north, or the Isle of Wight if it was from Normandy. Once they left home, these armies and fleets had to be supplied with food and clothing for the men as well as forage for the horses. Yet if armies of the seventh and eighth centuries were accompanied by servants and a supply train of lesser free men, Alfred found these arrangements insufficient to defeat the Vikings. One of his reforms was to divide his military resources into thirds. One part manned the burhs and found the permanent garrisons which would make it impossible for the Danes to overrun Wessex, although they would also take to the field when extra soldiers were needed. The remaining two would take it in turns to serve. They were allocated a fixed term of service and brought the necessary provisions with them. This arrangement did not always function well. On one occasion a division on service went home in the middle of blockading a Danish army on Thorney Island; its provisions were consumed and its term had expired before the king came to relieve them. This method of division and rotation remained in force up to 1066. In 917, when armies from Wessex and Mercia were in the field from early April until November, one division went home and another took over. Again, in 1052 when Edward's fleet was waiting at Sandwich to intercept Godwine's return, the ships returned to London to take on new earls and crews. Military training and strategy are two important matters on which the sources are typically silent. There are no references in literature or laws to men training, and so it is necessary to fall back on inference. For the noble warrior, his childhood was of first importance in learning both individual military skills and the teamwork essential for success in battle. Perhaps the games the youthful Cuthbert played ('wrestling, jumping, running, and every other exercise') had some military significance. Turning to strategy, of the period before Alfred the evidence gives the impression that Anglo Saxon armies fought battles frequently. Battle was risky and best avoided unless all the factors were on your side. But if you were in a position so advantageous that you were willing to take the chance, it is likely that your enemy would be in such a weak position that he would avoid battle and pay tribute. Battles put the princes' lives at risk, as is demonstrated by the Northumbrian and Mercian overlordships brought to an end by a defeat in the field. Gillingham has shown how few pitched battles Charlemagne and Richard I chose to fight. A defensive strategy becomes more apparent in the later part of Alfred's reign. It was built around the possession of fortified places and the close pursuit of the Danes to harass them and impede their preferred occupation of plundering. Alfred and his lieutenants were able to fight the Danes to a standstill by their repeated ability to pursue and closely besiege them in fortified camps throughout the country. The fortification of sites at Witham, Buckingham, Towcester and Colchester persuaded the Danes of the surrounding regions to submit. The key to this warfare was sieges and the control of fortified places. It is clear that the new fortresses had permanent garrisons, and that they were supported by the inhabitants of the existing burhs when danger threatened. This is brought out most clearly in the description of the campaigns of 917 in the Chronicle, but throughout the conquest of the Danelaw by Edward and Æthelflæd it is clear that a sophisticated and coordinated strategy was being applied. In 973, a single currency was introduced into England in order to bring about political unification, but by concentrating bullion production at many coastal mints, the new rulers of England created an obvious target which attracted a new wave of Viking invasions, which came close to breaking up the kingdom of the English. From 980 onwards, the Anglo Saxon Chronicle records renewed raiding against England. At first, the raids were probing ventures by small numbers of ships' crews, but soon grew in size and effect, until the only way of dealing with the Vikings appeared to be to pay protection money to buy them off: "And in that year [991] it was determined that tribute should first be paid to the Danish men because of the great terror they were causing along the coast. The first payment was 10,000 pounds." The payment of Danegeld had to be underwritten by a huge balance of payments surplus; this could only be achieved by stimulating exports and cutting imports, itself accomplished through currency devaluation. This affected everyone in the kingdom.

Helena Hamerow suggests that the prevailing model of working life and settlement, particularly for the early period, was one of shifting settlement and building tribal kinship. The mid Saxon period saw diversification, the development of enclosures, the beginning of the toft system, closer management of livestock, the gradual spread of the mould board plough, 'informally regular plots' and a greater permanence, with further settlement consolidation thereafter foreshadowing post Norman Conquest villages. The later periods saw a proliferation of service features including barns, mills and latrines, most markedly on high status sites. Throughout the Anglo Saxon period as Hamerow suggests, "local and extended kin groups remained the essential unit of production". This is very noticeable in the early period. However, by the tenth and eleventh centuries, the rise of the manor and its significance in terms of both settlement and the management of land, which becomes very evident in the Domesday Book of 1086. The collection of buildings discovered at Yeavering formed part of an Anglo Saxon royal vill or king's tun. These 'tun' consisted of a series of buildings designed to provide short term accommodation for the king and his household. It is thought that the king would have travelled throughout his land dispensing justice and authority and collecting rents from his various estates. Such visits would be periodic, and it is likely that he would visit each royal villa only once or twice per year. The Latin term villa regia which Bede uses of the site suggests an estate centre as the functional heart of a territory held in the king's demesne. The territory is the land whose surplus production is taken into the centre as food render to support the king and his retinue on their periodic visits as part of a progress around the kingdom. This territorial model, known as a multiple estate or shire, has been developed in a range of studies. Colm O'Brien, in applying this to Yeavering, proposes a geographical definition of the wider shire of Yeavering and also a geographical definition of the principal estate whose structures Hope Taylor excavated. One characteristic that the king's tun shared with some other groups of places is that it was a point of public assembly. People came together not only to give the king and his entourage board and lodging; but they attended upon the king in order to have disputes settled, cases appealed, lands granted, gifts given, appointments made, laws promulgated, policy debated, and ambassadors heard. People also assembled for other reasons, such as to hold fairs and to trade. The first creations of towns are linked to a system of specialism at individual settlements, which is evidenced in studying place names. Sutterton, "shoe makers' tun" (in the area of the Danelaw such places are Sutterby) was so named because local circumstances allowed the growth of a craft recognised by the people of surrounding places. Similarly with Sapperton, the "soap makers' tun". While Boultham, the "meadow with burdock plants", may well have developed a specialism in the production of burrs for wool carding, since meadows with burdock merely growing in them must have been relatively numerous. From places named for their services or location within a single district, a category of which the most obvious perhaps are the Eastons and Westons, it is possible to move outwards to glimpse component settlements within larger economic units. Names betray some role within a system of seasonal pasture, Winderton in Warwickshire is the winter tun and various Somertons are self explanatory. Hardwicks are dairy farms and Swinhopes the valleys where pigs were pastured. Settlement patterns as well as village plans in England fall into two great categories: scattered farms and homesteads in upland and woodland Britain, nucleated villages across a swathe of central England. The chronology of nucleated villages is much debated and not yet clear. Yet there is strong evidence to support the view that nucleation occurred in the tenth century or perhaps the ninth, and was a development parallel to the growth of towns.

Alfred's reference to 'praying men, fighting men and working men' is far from a complete description of his society. Women in the Anglo Saxon kingdoms appear to have enjoyed considerable independence, whether as abbesses of the great 'double monasteries' of monks and nuns founded during the seventh and eighth centuries, as major land holders recorded in Domesday Book (1086), or as ordinary members of society. They could act as principals in legal transactions, were entitled to the same weregild as men of the same class, and were considered 'oath worthy', with the right to defend themselves on oath against false accusations or claims. Sexual and other offences against them were penalised heavily. There is evidence that even married women could own property independently, and some surviving wills are in the joint names of husband and wife. Marriage comprised a contract between the woman's family and the prospective bridegroom, who was required to pay a 'bride price' in advance of the wedding and a 'morning gift' following its consummation. The latter became the woman's personal property, but the former may have been paid to her relatives, at least during the early period. Widows were in a particularly favourable position, with inheritance rights, custody of their children and authority over dependents. However, a degree of vulnerability may be reflected in laws stating that they should not be forced into nunneries or second marriages against their will. The system of primogeniture (inheritance by the first born male) was not introduced to England until after the Norman Conquest, so Anglo Saxon siblings – girls as well as boys – were more equal in terms of status. The age of majority was usually either ten or twelve, when a child could legally take charge of inherited property, or be held responsible for a crime. It was common for children to be fostered, either in other households or in monasteries, perhaps as a means of extending the circle of protection beyond the kin group. Laws also make provision for orphaned children and foundlings. The traditional distinction in society, amongst free men, was expressed as eorl and ceorl ('earl and churl') though the term 'Earl' took on a more restricted meaning after the Viking period. The noble rank is designated in early centuries as gesiþas ('companions') or þegnas ('thegns'), the latter coming to predominate. After the Norman Conquest the title 'thegn' was equated to the Norman 'baron'. A certain amount of social mobility is implied by regulations detailing the conditions under which a ceorl could become a thegn. Again these would have been subject to local variation, but one text refers to the possession of five hides of land (around 600 acres), a bell and a castle gate, a seat and a special office in the king's hall. In the context of the control of boroughs, Frank Stenton notes that according to an 11th century source, "a merchant who had carried out three voyages at his own charge [had also been] regarded as of thegnly status." Loss of status could also occur, as with penal slavery, which could be imposed not only on the perpetrator of a crime but on his wife and family. A further division in Anglo Saxon society was between slave and free. Slavery was not as common as in other societies, but appears to have been present throughout the period. Both the freemen and slaves were hierarchically structured, with several classes of freemen and many types of slaves. These varied at different times and in different areas, but the most prominent ranks within free society were the king, the nobleman or thegn, and the ordinary freeman or ceorl. They were differentiated primarily by the value of their weregild or 'man price', which was not only the amount payable in compensation for homicide, but was also used as the basis for other legal formulations such as the value of the oath that they could swear in a court of law. Slaves had no weregild, as offences against them were taken to be offences against their owners, but the earliest laws set out a detailed scale of penalties depending both on the type of slave and the rank of owner. Some slaves may have been members of the native British population conquered by the Anglo Saxons when they arrived from the continent; others may have been captured in wars between the early kingdoms, or have sold themselves for food in times of famine. However, slavery was not always permanent, and slaves who had gained their freedom would become part of an underclass of freedmen below the rank of ceorl.

Early Anglo Saxon buildings in Britain were generally simple, not using masonry except in foundations but constructed mainly using timber with thatch roofing. Generally preferring not to settle within the old Roman cities, the Anglo Saxons built small towns near their centres of agriculture, at fords in rivers, or near natural ports. In each town, a main hall was in the centre, provided with a central hearth. Only ten of the hundreds of settlement sites that have been excavated in England from this period have revealed masonry domestic structures and confined to a few specific contexts. Timber was the natural building medium of the age: the Anglo Saxon word for "building" is timbe. Unlike in the Carolingian Empire, late Anglo Saxon royal halls continued to be of timber in the manner of Yeavering centuries before, even though the king could clearly have mustered the resources to build in stone. Their preference must have been a conscious choice, perhaps an expression of deeply–embedded Germanic identity on the part of the Anglo Saxon royalty. Even the elite had simple buildings, with a central fire and a hole in the roof to let the smoke escape; the largest homes rarely had more than one floor and one room. Buildings varied widely in size, most were square or rectangular, though some round houses have been found. Frequently these buildings have sunken floors, with a shallow pit over which a plank floor was suspended. The pit may have been used for storage, but more likely was filled with straw for insulation. A variation on the sunken floor design has been found in towns, where the "basement" may be as deep as 9 feet, suggesting a storage or work area below a suspended floor. Another common design was simple post framing, with heavy posts set directly into the ground, supporting the roof. The space between the posts was filled in with wattle and daub, or occasionally, planks. The floors were generally packed earth, though planks were sometimes used. Roofing materials varied, with thatch being the most common, though turf and even wooden shingles were also used. Stone was sometimes used to build churches. Bede makes it clear that the masonry construction of churches, including his own at Jarrow, was undertaken morem Romanorum, 'in the manner of the Romans,' in explicit contrast to existing traditions of timber construction. Even at Canterbury, Bede believed that St Augustine's first cathedral had been 'repaired' or 'recovered' (recuperavit) from an existing Roman church, when in fact it had been newly constructed from Roman materials. The belief was "the Christian Church was Roman therefore a masonry church was a Roman building". The building of churches in Anglo Saxon England essentially began with Augustine of Canterbury in Kent following 597; for this he probably imported workmen from Frankish Gaul. The cathedral and abbey in Canterbury, together with churches in Kent at Minster in Sheppey (c. 664) and Reculver (669), and in Essex at the Chapel of St Peter on the Wall at Bradwell on Sea, define the earliest type in southeast England. A simple nave without aisles provided the setting for the main altar; east of this a chancel arch separated the apse for use by the clergy. Flanking the apse and east end of the nave were side chambers serving as sacristies; further porticus might continue along the nave to provide for burials and other purposes. In Northumbria the early development of Christianity was influenced by the Irish mission, important churches being built in timber. Masonry churches became prominent from the late 7th century with the foundations of Wilfrid at Ripon and Hexham, and of Benedict Biscop at Monkwearmouth Jarrow. These buildings had long naves and small rectangular chancels; porticus sometimes surrounded the naves. Elaborate crypts are a feature of Wilfrid's buildings. The best preserved early Northumbrian church is Escomb Church. From the mid 8th century to the mid 10th century, several important buildings survive. One group comprises the first known churches utilizing aisles: Brixworth, the most ambitious Anglo Saxon church to survive largely intact; Wareham St Mary's; Cirencester; and the rebuilding of Canterbury Cathedral. These buildings may be compared with churches in the Carolingian Empire. Other lesser churches may be dated to the late eighth and early ninth centuries on the basis of their elaborate sculptured decoration and have simple naves with side porticus. The tower of Barnack hearkens to the West Saxon reconquest in the early 10th century, when decorative features that were to be characteristic of Late Anglo Saxon architecture were already developed, such as narrow raised bands of stone (pilaster strips) to surround archways and to articulate wall surfaces, as at Barton upon Humber and Earls Barton. In plan, however, the churches remained essentially conservative. From the monastic revival of the second half of the tenth century, only a few documented buildings survive or have been excavated. Examples include the abbeys of Glastonbury; Old Minster, Winchester; Romsey; Cholsey; and Peterborough Cathedral. The majority of churches that have been described as Anglo Saxon fall into the period between the late 10th century and the early 12th century. During this period, many settlements were first provided with stone churches, but timber also continued to be used; the best wood framed church to survive is Greensted Church in Essex, no earlier than the 9th century, and no doubt typical of many parish churches. On the continent during the eleventh century, a group of interrelated Romanesque styles developed, associated with the rebuilding of many churches on a grand scale, made possible by a general advance in architectural technology and mason craft. including wall paintings, some stained glass, metalwork and statues.

Early Anglo Saxon art is seen mostly in decorated jewellery, like brooches, buckles, beads and wrist clasps, some of outstanding quality. Characteristic of the 5th century is the quoit brooch with motifs based on crouching animals, as seen on the silver quoit brooch from Sarre, Kent. While the origins of this style are disputed, it is either an offshoot of provincial Roman, Frankish, or Jutish art. One style flourished from the late 5th century and continued throughout the 6th and is on many square headed brooches, it is characterised by chip carved patterns based on animals and masks. A different style, which gradually superseded it, is dominated by serpentine beasts with interlacing bodies. By the later 6th century, the best works from the south east are distinguished by greater use of expensive materials, above all gold and garnets, reflecting the growing prosperity of a more organised society which had greater access to imported precious materials, as seen in the buckle from the Taplow burial and the jewellery from Sutton Hoo, c. 600 and c. 625 respectively. The possible symbolism of the decorative elements like interlace and beast forms that were used in these early works remains unclear. These objects were the products of a society that invested its modest surpluses in personal display, who fostered craftsmen and jewellers of a high standard, and in which the possession of a fine brooch or buckle was a valuable status symbol. The Staffordshire Hoard is the largest hoard of Anglo Saxon gold and silver metalwork Discovered in a field near the village of Hammerwich, it consists of over 3,500 items that are nearly all martial in character and contains no objects specific to female uses. It demonstrates that considerable quantities of high grade goldsmiths' work were in circulation among the elite during the 7th century. It also shows that the value of such items as currency and their potential roles as tribute or the spoils of war could, in a warrior society, outweigh appreciation of their integrity and artistry. In addition to fostering metalworking skills, Christianity stimulated stone sculpture and manuscript illumination. In these Germanic motifs, such as interlace and animal ornament along with Celtic spiral patterns, are juxtaposed with Christian imagery and Mediterranean decoration, notably vine scroll. The Ruthwell Cross, Bewcastle Cross and Easby Cross are leading Northumbrian examples of the Anglo Saxon version of the Celtic high cross, generally with a slimmer shaft. The jamb of the doorway at Monkwearmouth, carved with a pair of lacertine beasts, probably dates from the 680s; the golden, garnet adorned pectoral cross of St Cuthbert was presumably made before 687; while his wooden inner coffin (incised with Christ and the Evangelists' symbols, the Virgin and Child, archangels and apostles), the Lindisfarne Gospels, and the Codex Amiatinus all date from c. 700. The fact that these works are all from Northumbria might be held to reflect the particular strength of the church in that kingdom. Works from the south were more restrained in their ornamentation than are those from Northumbria. Lindisfarne was an important centre of book production, along with Ripon and Monkwearmouth Jarrow. The Lindisfarne Gospels might be the single most beautiful book produced in the Middle Ages, and the Echternach Gospels and (probably) the Book of Durrow are other products of Lindisfarne. A Latin gospel book, the Lindisfarne Gospels are richly illuminated and decorated in an Insular style that blends Irish and Western Mediterranean elements and incorporates imagery from the Eastern Mediterranean, including Coptic Christianity. The Codex Amiatinus was produced in the north of England at the same time and has been called the finest book in the world. It is certainly one of the largest, weighing 34 kilograms. It is a pandect, which was rare in the Middle Ages, and included all the books of the Bible in one volume. The Codex Amiatinus was produced at Monkwearmouth Jarrow in 692 under the direction of Abbot Ceolfrith. Bede probably had something to do with it. The production of the Codex shows the riches of the north of England at this time. We have records of the monastery needing a new grant of land to raise 2,000 more cattle to get the calf skins to make the vellum for the manuscript. The Codex Amiatinus was meant to be a gift to the pope, and Ceolfrith was taking it to Rome when he died on the way. The copy ended up in Florence, where it still is today – a ninth century copy of this book is in the possession of the pope. In the 8th century, Anglo Saxon Christian art flourished with grand decorated manuscripts and sculptures, along with secular works which bear comparable ornament, like the Witham pins and the Coppergate helmet. The flourishing of sculpture in Mercia occurred slightly later than in Northumbria and is dated to the second half of the 8th century. The Book of Cerne is an early 9th century Insular or Anglo Saxon Latin personal prayer book with Old English components. This manuscript was decorated and embellished with four painted full page miniatures, major and minor letters, and continuing panels. Further decorated motifs used in these manuscripts, such as hunched, triangular beasts, also appear on objects from the Trewhiddle hoard (buried in the 870s) and on the rings which bear the names of King Æthelwulf and Queen Æthelswith, which are the centre of a small corpus of fine ninth century metalwork. There was demonstrable continuity in the south, even though the Danish settlement represented a watershed in England's artistic tradition. Wars and pillaging removed or destroyed much Anglo Saxon art, while the settlement introduced new Scandinavian craftsmen and patrons. The result was to accentuate the pre existing distinction between the art of the north and that of the south. In the 10th and 11th centuries, the Viking dominated areas were characterised by stone sculpture in which the Anglo Saxon tradition of cross shafts took on new forms, and a distinctive Anglo Scandinavian monument, the 'hogback' tomb, was produced. The decorative motifs used on these northern carvings (as on items of personal adornment or everyday use) echo Scandinavian styles. The Wessexan hegemony and the monastic reform movement appear to have been the catalysts for the rebirth of art in southern England from the end of the 9th century. Here artists responded primarily to continental art; foliage supplanting interlace as the preferred decorative motif. Key early works are the Alfred Jewel, which has fleshy leaves engraved on the back plate; and the stole and maniples of Bishop Frithestan of Winchester, which are ornamented with acanthus leaves, alongside figures that bear the stamp of Byzantine art. The surviving evidence points to Winchester and Canterbury as the leading centres of manuscript art in the second half of the 10th century: they developed colourful paintings with lavish foliate borders, and coloured line drawings. By the early 11th century, these two traditions had fused and had spread to other centres. Although manuscripts dominate the corpus, sufficient architectural sculpture, ivory carving and metalwork survives to show that the same styles were current in secular art and became widespread in the south at parochial level. The wealth of England in the later tenth and eleventh century is clearly reflected in the lavish use of gold in manuscript art as well as for vessels, textiles and statues (now known only from descriptions). Widely admired, southern English art was highly influential in Normandy, France and Flanders from c. 1000. Indeed, keen to possess it or recover its materials, the Normans appropriated it in large quantities in the wake of the Conquest. The Bayeux Tapestry, probably designed by a Canterbury artist for Bishop Odo of Bayeux, is arguably the apex of Anglo Saxon art. Surveying nearly 600 years of continuous change, three common strands stand out: lavish colour and rich materials; an interplay between abstract ornament and representational subject matter; and a fusion of art styles reflecting English links to other parts of Europe.

Old English (Ænglisċ, Anglisċ, Englisċ) is the earliest form of the English language. It was brought to Britain by Anglo Saxon settlers, and was spoken and written in parts of what are now England and southeastern Scotland until the mid 12th century, by which time it had evolved into Middle English. Old English was a West Germanic language, closely related to Old Frisian and Old Saxon (Old Low German). The language was fully inflected, with five grammatical cases, three grammatical numbers and three grammatical genders. Over time, Old English developed into four major dialects: Northumbrian, spoken north of the Humber; Mercian, spoken in the Midlands; Kentish, spoken in Kent; and West Saxon, spoken across the south and southwest. All of these dialects have direct descendants in modern England. Standard English developed from the Mercian dialect, as it was predominant in London. It is generally held that Old English received little influence from the Common Brittonic and British Latin spoken in southern Britain prior to the arrival of the Anglo Saxons, as it took in very few loan words from these languages. Though some scholars have claimed that Brittonic could have exerted an influence on English syntax and grammar, these ideas have not become consensus views, and have been criticized by other historical linguists. Richard Coates has concluded that the strongest candidates for substratal Brittonic features in English are grammatical elements occurring in regional dialects in the north and west of England, such as the Northern Subject Rule. Old English was more clearly influenced by Old Norse. Scandinavian loan words in English include place names, items of basic vocabulary such as sky, leg and they, and words concerned with particular administrative aspects of the Danelaw (that is, the area of land under Viking control, including the East Midlands and Northumbria south of the Tees). Old Norse was related to Old English, as both originated from Proto Germanic, and many linguists believe that the loss of inflectional endings in Old English was accelerated by contact with Norse.

Local and extended kin groups were a key aspect of Anglo Saxon culture. Kinship fueled societal advantages, freedom and the relationships to an elite, that allowed the Anglo Saxons' culture and language to flourish. The ties of loyalty to a lord were to the person of a lord and not to his station; there was no real concept of patriotism or loyalty to a cause. This explains why dynasties waxed and waned so quickly, since a kingdom was only as strong as its leader king. There was no underlying administration or bureaucracy to maintain any gains beyond the lifetime of a leader. An example of this was the leadership of Rædwald of East Anglia and how the East Anglian primacy did not survive his death. Kings could not make new laws barring exceptional circumstances. Their role instead was to uphold and clarify previous custom and to assure his subjects that he would uphold their ancient privileges, laws, and customs. Although the person of the king as a leader could be exalted, the office of kingship was not in any sense as powerful or as invested with authority as it was to become. One of the tools kings used was to tie themselves closely to the new Christian church, through the practice of having a church leader anoint and crown the king; God and king were then joined in peoples' minds. The ties of kinship meant that the relatives of a murdered person were obliged to exact vengeance for his or her death. This led to bloody and extensive feuds. As a way out of this deadly and futile custom the system of weregilds was instituted. The weregild set a monetary value on each person's life according to their wealth and social status. This value could also be used to set the fine payable if a person was injured or offended against. Robbing a thane called for a higher penalty than robbing a ceorl. On the other hand, a thane who thieved could pay a higher fine than a ceorl who did likewise. Men were willing to die for the lord and to support their comitatus (their warrior band). Evidence of this behavior (though it may be more a literary ideal than an actual social practice) can be observed in the story, made famous in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle entry for 755, of Cynewulf and Cyneheard, in which the followers of a defeated king decided to fight to the death rather than be reconciled after the death of their lord. This emphasis on social standing affected all parts of the Anglo Saxon world. The courts, for example, did not attempt to discover the facts in a case; instead, in any dispute it was up to each party to get as many people as possible to swear to the rightness of their case, which became known as oath swearing. The word of a thane counted for that of six ceorls. It was assumed that any person of good character would be able to find enough people to swear to his innocence that his case would prosper. Anglo Saxon society was also decidedly patriarchal, but women were in some ways better off than they would be in later times. A woman could own property in her own right. She could and did rule a kingdom if her husband died. She could not be married without her consent, and any personal goods, including lands, that she brought into a marriage remained her own property. If she were injured or abused in her marriage, her relatives were expected to look after her interests.

The most noticeable feature of the Anglo Saxon legal system is the apparent prevalence of legislation in the form of law codes. The early Anglo Saxons were organised in various small kingdoms often corresponding to later shires or counties. The kings of these small kingdoms issued written laws, one of the earliest of which is attributed to Ethelbert, king of Kent, ca.560–616. The Anglo Saxon law codes follow a pattern found in mainland Europe where other groups of the former Roman Empire encountered government dependent upon written sources of law and hastened to display the claims of their own native traditions by reducing them to writing. These legal systems should not be thought of as operating like modern legislation, rather they are educational and political tools designed to demonstrate standards of good conduct rather than act as criteria for subsequent legal judgment. Although not themselves sources of law, Anglo Saxon charters are a most valuable historical source for tracing the actual legal practices of the various Anglo Saxon communities. A charter was a written document from a king or other authority confirming a grant either of land or some other valuable right. Their prevalence in the Anglo Saxon state is a sign of sophistication. They were frequently appealed to and relied upon in litigation. Making grants and confirming those made by others was a major way in which Anglo Saxon kings demonstrated their authority. The royal council or witan played a central but limited role in the Anglo Saxon period. The main feature of the system was its high degree of decentralisation. The interference by the king through his granting of charters and the activity of his witan in litigation are exceptions rather than the rule in Anglo Saxon times. The most important court in the later Anglo Saxon period was the shire court. Many shires (such as Kent and Sussex) were in the early days of the Anglo Saxon settlement the centre of small independent kingdoms. As the kings first of Mercia and then of Wessex slowly extended their authority over the whole of England, they left the shire courts with overall responsibility for the administration of law. The shire met in one or more traditional places, earlier in the open air and then later in a moot or meeting hall. The meeting of the shire court was presided over by an officer, the shire reeve or sheriff, whose appointment came in later Anglo Saxon times into the hands of the king but had in earlier times been elective. The sheriff was not the judge of the court, merely its president. The judges of the court were all those who had the right and duty of attending the court, the suitors. These were originally all free male inhabitants of the neighbourhood, but over time suit of court became an obligation attached to particular holdings of land. The sessions of a shire court resembled more closely those of a modern local administrative body than a modern court. It could and did act judicially, but this was not its prime function. In the shire court, charters and writs would be read out for all to hear. Below the level of the shire, each county was divided into areas known as hundreds (or wapentakes in the north of England). These were originally groups of families rather than geographical areas. The hundred court was a smaller version of the shire court, presided over by the hundred bailiff, formerly a sheriff's appointment, but over the years many hundreds fell into the private hands of a local large landowner. Little is known about hundred court business, which was likely a mix of the administrative and judicial, but they remained in some areas an important forum for the settlement of local disputes well into the post Conquest period. The Anglo Saxon system put an emphasis upon compromise and arbitration: litigating parties were enjoined to settle their differences if possible. If they persisted in bringing a case for decision before a shire court, then it could be determined there. The suitors of the court would pronounce a judgment which fixed how the case would be decided: legal problems were considered to be too complex and difficult for mere human decision, and so proof or demonstration of the right would depend upon some irrational, non human criterion. The normal methods of proof were oath helping or the ordeal. Oath helping involved the party undergoing proof swearing to the truth of his claim or denial and having that oath reinforced by five or more others, chosen either by the party or by the court. The number of helpers required and the form of their oath differed from place to place and upon the nature of the dispute. If either the party or any of the helpers failed in the oath, either refusing to take it or sometimes even making an error in the required formula, the proof failed and the case was adjudged to the other side. As "wager of law," it remained a way of determining cases in the common law until its abolition in the 19th century. The ordeal offered an alternative for those unable or unwilling to swear an oath. The two most common methods were the ordeal by hot iron and by cold water. The former consisted in carrying a red hot iron for five paces: the wound was immediately bound up, and if on unbinding, it was found to be festering, the case was lost. In the ordeal by water, the victim, usually an accused person, was cast bound into water: if he sunk he was innocent, if he floated he was guilty. Although for perhaps understandable reasons, the ordeals became associated with trials in criminal matters. They were in essence tests of the truth of a claim or denial of a party and appropriate for trying any
legal issue. The allocation of a mode of proof and who should bear it was the substance of the shire court's judgment. First, cows or sheep had to be slaughtered and their skins tanned. The leather was then scraped, stretched, and cut into sheets, which were sewn into books. Then inks had to be made from oak galls and other ingredients, and the books had to be hand written by monks using quill pens. Every manuscript is slightly different from another, even if they are copies of each other, because every scribe had different handwriting and made different errors. Individual scribes can sometimes be identified from their handwriting, and different styles of hand were used in specific scriptoria (centres of manuscript production), so the location of the manuscript production can often be identified. There are four great poetic codices of Old English poetry (a codex is a book in modern format, as opposed to a scroll): the Junius Manuscript, the Vercelli Book, the Exeter Book, and the Nowell Codex or Beowulf Manuscript; most of the well known lyric poems such as The Wanderer, The Seafarer, Deor and The Ruin are found in the Exeter Book, while the Vercelli Book has the Dream of the Rood, some of which is also carved on the Ruthwell Cross. The Franks Casket also has carved riddles, a popular form with the Anglo Saxons. Old English secular poetry is mostly characterized by a somewhat gloomy and introspective cast of mind, and the grim determination found in The Battle of Maldon, recounting an action against the Vikings in 991. This is from a book that was lost in the Cotton Library fire of 1731, but it had been transcribed previously. Rather than being organized around rhyme, the poetic line in Anglo Saxon is organised around alliteration, the repetition of stressed sounds; any repeated stressed sound, vowel or consonant, could be used. Anglo Saxon lines are made up of two half lines (in old fashioned scholarship, these are called hemistiches) divided by a breath pause or caesura. There must be at least one of the alliterating sounds on each side of the caesura. The line above illustrates the principle: note that there is a natural pause after 'hondum' and that the first stressed syllable after that pause begins with the same sound as a stressed line from the first half line (the first halfline is called the a verse and the second is the b verse). There is very strong evidence that Anglo Saxon poetry has deep roots in oral tradition, but keeping with the cultural practices seen elsewhere in Anglo Saxon culture, there was a blending between tradition and new learning. Thus while all Old English poetry has common features, three strands can be identified: religious poetry, which includes poems about specifically Christian topics, such as the cross and the saints; Heroic or epic poetry, such as Beowulf, which is about heroes, warfare, monsters, and the Germanic past; and poetry about "smaller" topics, including introspective poems (the so called elegies), "wisdom" poems (which communicate both traditional and Christian wisdom), and riddles. For a long time all Anglo Saxon poetry was divided into three groups: Cædmonian (the biblical paraphrase poems), heroic, and "Cynewulfian," named after Cynewulf, one of the only named poets in Anglo Saxon. The most famous works from this period include the epic poem Beowulf, which has achieved national epic status in Britain. There are about 30,000 surviving lines of Old English poetry and about ten times that much prose, and the majority of both is religious. The prose was influential and obviously very important to the Anglo Saxons and more important than the poetry to those who came after the Anglo Saxons. Homilies are sermons, lessons to be given on moral and doctrinal matters, and the two most prolific and respected writers of Anglo Saxon prose, Ælfric and Wulfstan, were both homilists. Almost all surviving poetry is found in only one manuscript copy, but there are several versions of some prose works, especially the Anglo Saxon Chronicle, which was apparently promulgated to monasteries by the royal court. Anglo Saxon clergy also continued to write in Latin, the language of Bede's works, monastic chronicles, and theological writing, although Bede's biographer records that he was familiar with Old English poetry and gives a five line lyric which he either wrote or liked to quote – the sense is unclear.

Symbolism was an essential element in Anglo Saxon culture. Julian D. Richards suggests that in societies with strong oral traditions, material culture is used to store and pass on information and stand instead of literature in those cultures. This symbolism is less logical than literature and more difficult to read. Anglo Saxons used symbolism to communicate as well as to aid their thinking about the world. Anglo Saxons used symbols to differentiate between groups and people, status and role in society. Conventional interpretations of the symbolism of grave goods revolved around religion (equipment for the hereafter), legal concepts (inalienable possessions) and social structure (status display, ostentatious destruction of wealth). There was multiplicity of messages and variability of meanings characterised the deposition of objects in Anglo Saxon graves. In Early Anglo Saxon cemeteries, 47% of male adults and 9% of all juveniles were buried with weapons. The proportion of adult weapon burials is much too high to suggest that they all represent a social elite. The usual assumption is that these are 'warrior burials', and this term is used throughout the archaeological and historical literature. However, a systematic comparison of burials with and without weapons, using archaeological and skeletal data, suggests that this assumption is much too simplistic and even misleading. Anglo Saxon weapon burial rite involved a complex ritual symbolism: it was multi dimensional, displaying ethnic affiliation, descent, wealth, élite status, and age groups. This symbol continued until c.700 when it ceased to have the symbolic power that it had before. Heinrich Härke suggests this change was the result of the changing structure of society and especially in ethnicity and assimilation, implying the lowering of ethnic boundaries in the Anglo Saxon settlement areas of England towards a common culture. These beads are usually considered to have a social or ritual function. Anglo Saxon glass beads show a wide variety of bead manufacturing techniques, sizes, shapes, colours and decorations. Various studies have been carried out investigating the distribution and chronological change of bead types. The crystal beads which appear on bead strings in the pagan Anglo Saxon period seems to have gone through various changes in meaning in the Christian period, which Gale Owen Crocker suggests was linked to symbolism of the Virgin Mary, and hence to intercession. John Hines has suggested that the over 2,000 different types of beads found at Lakenheath show that the beads symbolise identity, roles, status and micro cultures within the tribal landscape of the early Anglo Saxon world. Symbolism continued to have a hold on the minds of Anglo Saxon people into the Christian eras. The interiors of churches would have glowed with colour, and the walls of the halls were painted with decorative scenes from the imagination telling stories of monsters and heroes like those in the poem Beowulf. Although nothing much is left of the wall paintings, evidence of their pictorial art is found in Bibles and Psalters, in illuminated manuscripts. The poem The Dream of the Rood is an example how symbolism of trees was fused into Christian symbolism. Richard North suggests that the sacrifice of the tree was in accordance with pagan virtues and "the image of Christ's death was constructed in this poem with reference to an Anglian ideology of the world tree". North suggests that the author of The Dream of the Rood "uses the language of the myth of Ingui in order to present the Passion to his newly Christianized countrymen as a story from their native tradition".

The food eaten by Anglo Saxons was long presumed to differ between elites and commoners. However, a 2022 study by the University of Cambridge found that Anglo Saxon elites and royalty both ate a primarily vegetarian diet based on cereal grains as did peasants. The discovery came after bioarchaeologist Sam Leggett analysed chemical dietary signatures from the bones of 2,023 people buried in England between the 5th to 11th Centuries and cross referenced the analysis with markers of social status. Rather than elites eating regular banquets with huge quantities of meat, the researchers concluded these were occasional grand feasts hosted by the peasants for their rulers rather than regular occurrences.

Anglo Saxon is still used as a term for the original Old English derived vocabulary within the modern English language, in contrast to vocabulary derived from Old Norse and French. Throughout the history of Anglo Saxon studies, different narratives of the people have been used to justify contemporary ideologies. In the early Middle Ages, the views of Geoffrey of Monmouth produced a personally inspired (and largely fictitious) history that was not challenged for some 500 years. In the Reformation, Christians looking to establish an independent English church reinterpreted Anglo Saxon Christianity. In the 19th century, the term Anglo Saxon was broadly used in philology, and is sometimes so used at present, though the term 'Old English' is more commonly used. During the Victorian era, writers such as Robert Knox, James Anthony Froude, Charles Kingsley and Edward A. Freeman used the term Anglo Saxon to justify colonialistic imperialism, claiming that Anglo Saxon heritage was superior to those held by colonised peoples, which justified efforts to "civilise" them. Similar racist ideas were advocated in 19th century United States by Samuel George Morton and George Fitzhugh. The historian Catherine Hills contends that these views have influenced how versions of early English history are embedded in the sub conscious of certain people and are "re emerging in school textbooks and television programmes and still very congenial to some strands of political thinking." The term Anglo Saxon is sometimes used to refer to peoples descended or associated in some way with the English ethnic group, but there is no universal definition for the term. In contemporary Anglophone cultures outside Britain, "Anglo Saxon" may be contrasted with "Celtic" as a socioeconomic identifier, invoking or reinforcing historical prejudices against non English British and Irish immigrants. "White Anglo Saxon Protestant" (WASP) is a term especially popular in the United States that refers chiefly to long established wealthy families with mostly English ancestors. As such, WASP is not a historical label or a precise ethnological term but rather a reference to contemporary family based political, financial and cultural power, e. g. The Boston Brahmin. The term Anglo Saxon is becoming increasingly controversial among some scholars, especially those in America, for its modern politicised nature and adoption by the far right. In 2019, the International Society of Anglo Saxonists changed their name to the International Society for the Study of Early Medieval England, in recognition of this controversy. Outside Anglophone countries, the term Anglo Saxon and its direct translations are used to refer to the Anglophone peoples and societies of Britain, the United States, and other countries such as Australia, Canada and New Zealand – areas which are sometimes referred to as the Anglosphere. The term Anglo Saxon can be used in a variety of contexts, often to identify the English speaking world's distinctive language, culture, technology, wealth, markets, economy, and legal systems. Variations include the German "Angelsachsen", French "Anglo Saxon", Spanish "anglosajón", Portuguese "Anglo saxão", Russian "англосаксы", Polish "anglosaksoński", Italian "anglosassone", Catalan "anglosaxó" and Japanese "Angurosakuson".