Talk:Anglo-Saxons

The article employs the term "cultural group", when the Anglo-Saxons were quite plainly a people, an ethnicity if you'd like. My edit applying the latter was reverted. I welcome further comment from more editors. AddMore-III (talk) 19:55, 2 July 2025 (UTC)

There's a vast amount of scholarly discussion on this, much reflected in earlier discussions here. At least in the earlier periods, "quite plainly a people" is just wrong. Johnbod (talk) 00:13, 3 July 2025 (UTC)

It is far from clear that the Anglo-Saxons saw themselves as a single people in the early period. They had mixed origins that included Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Britons, Frisians and others. If you believe Bede, even Huns were in the mix, which could be supported by Caitlin Green's work on the origin of the place name Tealby in Lincolnshire. These groups coalesced in different ratios and in different ways in different places, and their elites created origin legends that used ethnic markers to differentiate them from other groups, so calling them an ethnicity is a bit of a stretch at this point. From the 9th century it's all a little clearer, as an English/Anglo-Saxon identity starts to be opposed to the Norse "gentiles" who were settling in England, and the Welsh speakers in Anglo-Saxon controlled regions had mostly adopted English.Boynamedsue (talk) 06:29, 16 July 2025 (UTC)

"even Huns were in the mix" Not surprising. The short-lived nomadic empire of the Huns is thought to have consisted of a "Hunnic ruling body" and a large number of "vassalized Germanic peoples". Per the main article, the empire (and probably its army) included Goths, Gepids, Sarmatians, Heruli, Alans, Rugii, Suevi, and Sciri", alongside groups with only temporary affiliation to the Hunnic leaders. ^[1] The Roman sources of the era had trouble telling them apart. Dimadick (talk) 16:18, 16 July 2025 (UTC)

I have done a DNA test. I am, as my known genealogy suggests, an English-Irish mix, and, while my ancient DNA matches are mostly to Viking Age Scandinavians (9 Swedes, 2 Icelanders and a probable Dane) and include a Neolithic man buried in Ireland and an Iron Age Briton buried in Dorset, I am, surprisingly, very distantly related to a woman buried in Central Asia in the 4th century, in a Hunnic cultural context. Urselius (talk) 13:59, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

Whatever they saw themselves as in the 'early period', Alfred the Great was King 'of the Anglo-Saxons'. Noting that Anglo-Saxon ethnogenesis involved the mixing of various Germanic and Celtic peoples is not proof of their non-existence as an ethnicity, elsewise the Somali should be classed a Cushitic 'cultural group' rather than 'ethnicity' DakiniSlayer (talk) 03:20, 10 August 2025 (UTC)

It should be a pretty trivial point we're not proving the non-existence of ethnicity or anything else, but rather questioning why sterling evidence for its existence emerging from a notoriously poorly documented period should be assumed to exist. Remsense 🌈 论 03:32, 10 August 2025 (UTC)

Because all the evidence commonly used in place of official documentation (e.g., mythology, archaeology, linguistic clues, genetic studies) aligns with our assumption, inference based on this is the accepted standard of proof; any instance of comprehensive, reliable, written documentation from the distant past is the exception, not the norm. DakiniSlayer (talk) 04:59, 10 August 2025 (UTC)

I agree with everyone above! I have struggled to find the best term. "Cultural group" is a cautious term which seems appropriate for describing the early period before Bede, which many of us are interested in. However, we also have the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain article, which covers this earlier phase. As I understand it, while we should be cautious with terms like "nation" or "ethnic group," this article ultimately focuses on the period when the Anglo-Saxons clearly identified as a "people"? It’s true that terms like "ethnic group" or "nation" can be problematic, as the internet (including Wikipedia) sometimes push simplistic, 19th-century ideas about overimportant, mutually-exclusive ethnic/national identities. We don't want to be dragged into that. Practically speaking, the word "people" feels awkward and flat, while "nation" could imply more than it should. "Germanic people" is a term to be cautious about in some cases, as it's mostly a linguistic category in modern scholarship, but not always seen that way. However, in this particular case that misunderstanding is not too worrying. At least by Bede's time there does seem to have been not only a national feeling and a language, which distinguished itself routinely (sometimes violently) from neighbouring ones, and even a narrative of ancestry in "Germania". So should we use "Germanic people"? There is a part of me which still worries that this term (but perhaps nearly any clear term) might be taken too easily to mean that being English or British was like a category on an ID card, which could be filled in only two ways. But this is arguably a problem we can't fix. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:21, 10 August 2025 (UTC)

The Legacy subheading touches solely on uses (and controversies about uses) of the term 'Anglo-Saxon' rather than the 'legacy' of the 'cultural group [that] spoke Old English', which is what the article is about. Most all of it is superfluous and divorced from the content of the topic at hand. It should be jettisoned or edited to reflect what the actual legacy of the group in question is. DakiniSlayer (talk) 04:06, 10 August 2025 (UTC)

I agree with you to a considerable extent, but the question strikes me— what would actually go here? Isn't the "material" legacy just... English people? More or less? Remsense 🌈 论 04:09, 10 August 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, I thought as much. DakiniSlayer (talk) 05:00, 10 August 2025 (UTC)

I think this word legacy gets overused on WP, and not everyone is happy about that. For better or worse it tends to get used in history articles when there is some kind of non-obvious sequel to the story, as opposed to the more important knock-on effects. I think this fashion is a bit like the fashion we had of people creating trivia sections, but maybe not quite as bad. These sections are often about ways in which a topic has affected popular culture. If the material itself is ok, it is easy for us to change the heading, but we can also reconsider whether the actual topic is trivia or not. My two cents: we could try renaming it something like "modern controversy"? I tend to avoid thinking too much about these sections as long as they are reasonably notable and verifiable. One reason is that they often represent related topics which less specialized readers editors constantly come looking for, so including a short explanation helps them find what they are looking for.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:05, 10 August 2025 (UTC)

There is no separate article on Anglo-Saxon, which redirects to this article, so at present the article covers both the cultural group and the term. I suggest changing the heading to 'Use of the term Anglo-Saxon'. Dudley Miles (talk) 08:48, 10 August 2025 (UTC)

That also seems ok - or "modern use..."?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:57, 10 August 2025 (UTC)

The section does refer briefly to medieval use, so I would leave out "modern". Dudley Miles (talk) 11:52, 10 August 2025 (UTC)

This is fascinating, but why do you keep referring to 'Anglo Saxon people' when they didn't call themselves that, and there is plenty of evidence of the newcomers marrying into and mixing with the existing population, such as at Oakington? Modern DNA evidence has revealed much we did not know - and still do not know. But this rigid 'Anglo Saxon' adherence seems very misleading. we also know that 'Celtic' is a linguistic term in the UK, not an ethnicity, created by Edward Lhuyd in 1707. ~2025-41608-80 (talk) 19:40, 20 December 2025 (UTC)

Do you have any concrete proposals for improving the article?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:04, 20 December 2025 (UTC)

Scholars often use terms for convenience for peoples who did not call themselves that, but "Anglo-Saxon" was used at the time. Alfred the Great used the title "King of the Anglo-Saxons". The term Celtic is as you say controversial except in a linguistic context. Dudley Miles (talk) 20:58, 20 December 2025 (UTC)

The article begins "The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited..." - stick with that and don't worry about DNA/ethnicity etc. Johnbod (talk) 04:52, 21 December 2025 (UTC)

As another commenter pointed out, the term Anglo-Saxon is very old (although the average commoner at the time called themselves "English" rather than "Anglo-Saxon"). However, the term Celtic is more analogous to Germanic than it is to English as historically there was never really a unified Celtic identity, but rather Welsh, Scottish, Irish, etc. identities. However, I saw your other comments and I disagree with your implications that because there was mixing between these local tribes that it somehow justifies mass migration of people from far-off lands who have no historical, genetic or cultural connection to Europe (and in many cases are actively hostile towards European/Christian culture, though I acknowledge this doesn't apply to all individuals).

In conclusion, I think the Anglo-Saxon label is appropriate both as a synonym for English in modern times and to refer to the population of pre-Norman England, even though this wasn't a label universally used by the people of the region at the time. Also I think that labels like Celtic and Germanic are appropriate since even though historically there were never unified groups that used these labels, there are still clear historical, linguistic and genetic connections between the nations/ethnicities in these groups (which deserve to be acknowledged and celebrated).

(As an aside, there are far more egregious examples of questionable/inaccurate labels being applied by early scholars that survived purely through inertia and a lack of a better term. An example is the Tocharians, who have absolutely no connection to the ancient Tokharoi but were named after them in the 20th century.) ~2025-31340-95 (talk) 05:28, 21 December 2025 (UTC)

I agree with most of that but I am not really sure that we know what everyday people called themselves. We know that Bede had switched to using the word English. But in certain contexts he called the language and the earliest settlers Saxons. In short he used several terms, but he was of course also a scholar who made thoughtful remarks on terminology.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:29, 21 December 2025 (UTC)

Yes you're right that the label "Saxon" was also commonly used (especially in the earliest period), I wanted to include that but my comment was already getting pretty long as it is and I was worried it would be a burden to read if I continued adding details. ~2025-31340-95 (talk) 18:13, 21 December 2025 (UTC)

There's no doubt that the term is already a misnomer, even before we talk about the current use of the term in the context of white supremacy. Where's the Frisians and the Jutes? Drmies (talk) 15:01, 21 December 2025 (UTC)

That seems to be stretching things a bit, and not very constructive. We have to call them something, and what we've done so far is very much based on using the most common and clear term. The only other alternative is to call them English. I don't think this was done thoughtlessly (and I don't think it was done by White Supremists). But how can we use your remark in any way? For example, Bede gave a whole list of peoples he thought were likely ancestors . But what do any of those have to do with the common name that was used to describe the whole people in the new culture in Britain, either in the languages of that time, or now? Does anyone ever call them all Frisians or Jutes (or Danes or Huns)? Where are we going with this?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:35, 21 December 2025 (UTC)

There's quite a few editors here who like to describe churches etc in the North as built by the Angles, and a bit of similar using Jutes for the appropriate area. What Drmies calls "the current use of the term in the context of white supremacy" is I think 100% an American phenomenon (mainly I think because of the term WASP), leading to American pressure to call the people, not just the language. "Old English". Johnbod (talk) 17:48, 21 December 2025 (UTC)

It is an unwanted exportation of US parochialism. The American default is to imagine that the rest of the world is like the US, and if it isn't it should be. Not very long ago the US officially classified the Portuguese and Spanish as different races, just because they had invented a 'race' called 'Hispanic', which spoke Spanish as a defining feature. Just because some US scholars have confused a peculiar and local usage of 'Anglo-Saxon' in their own vernacular culture with the well-established and innocuous primary meaning, it does not mean that the rest of the world has to, or should, kowtow to their wishes. It is a form of cultural imperialism. Urselius (talk) 21:47, 21 December 2025 (UTC)

I agree, but I think the pressure mainly comes to the scholars from "below". Because of WASP, it is firmly entrenched in the American student & liberal mind that 'Anglo-Saxon' = BAAAD, and they find courses harder to fill & are uncomfortable at parties explaining what their speciality is. Johnbod (talk) 03:41, 22 December 2025 (UTC)

I think that DrMies' question about the Frisians and the Jutes is humorous. TSventon (talk) 15:51, 21 December 2025 (UTC)

That may be, but OTOH WP editors don't always ignore such "local" political sensitivities, and I think on this article the editors have really thought about it. Sometimes we can dodge terms easily, by using an alternative term, but sometimes we really don't have any other term to use. Calling these people the "Old English people", for example, or just the English, would be a bit weird to say the least. We could for example call them English (pre-1066) but that seems silly. So I think it is important that we don't just come to a talk page to say that a term has baggage, but as usual we should have constructive proposals about better options. I don't think we have any? So any concerns we have are a bit moot.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:31, 21 December 2025 (UTC)

JRR Tolkien was a professor of Anglo-Saxon. Scholarship has used the term for several hundred years, in a precise way, for an identifiable people, living in a defined historical era. It is the scholarly use that trumps everything else in any encyclopaedic article. It really does not matter what the people we call Anglo-Saxon called themselves. Indeed, the first recorded use of the term was by Continental scholars describing some of the people living in Britain, and they consciously used it to distinguish these islanders from similarly named people still living in the European mainland. Urselius (talk) 17:24, 21 December 2025 (UTC)

Whether true or not, "they didn't call themselves that" is irrelevant; what matters is how the word is used and understood in modern English. German people don't call themselves "German", nor do Chines people call themselves "Chinese", but English speaking people do, which is why the English language Wikipedia calls them that; there's no good reason to apply different principles to "Anglo-Saxons". JBW (talk) 00:22, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Hengist and Horsa chronicles

Hengist and Horsa are commonly attributed to be the legendary Anglo-Saxon brothers said to have led the first Germanic settlers to Britain in the 5th century AD.

Accounts state

After the Romans left Britain, a king named Vortigern invited them to help defend the land from invaders. The brothers arrived with warriors, defeated the enemies, and were given land in Kent as payment.

Later, conflict broke out between the Britons and the Saxons. Horsa was killed in battle, but Hengest survived and became ruler of Kent, helping establish one of the first Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in England.

Historical sources which mention the story of Hengist and Horsa include Historia Brittonum and accounts by the Venerable Bede. Haroldvilla1 (talk) 10:50, 1 March 2026 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want made. Please detail the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. The article already mentions "Hengist and Horsa" and links to the relevant article on Hengist and Horsa with more details. – NJD-DE (talk) 11:41, 1 March 2026 (UTC)